"Stave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meeting, and were informed, that a footman was then holding forth to the congregation within. Curious to see this phoenomenon, we squeezed into the place with much difficulty; and who should this preacher be, but the identical Humphry Clinker. He had finished his sermon, and given out a psalm, the first stave of which he sung with peculiar graces — But if we were astonished to see Clinker in the pulpit, we were altogether confounded at finding all the females of our family among the audience — There was lady ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... folk, with sword and stave, Set on me, weening to have found rich prey. And now my bones lie weltering on the wave, Now on strange shores winds blow them far away. O! by the memory of thy sire, I pray, By young Iulus, and his hope so fair, By heaven's sweet breath and light of gladsome day, Relieve my misery, assuage my ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... contentedly going over the mistakes he had made—a little surprised, however, that the remembrance of them did not cause him more pain. At last he fell asleep, and when his housekeeper knocked at his door and he heard her saying that it was past eight, he leaped out of bed cheerily, and sang a stave of song as he shaved himself, gashing his chin, however, for he could not keep his attention fixed on his chin, but must peep over the top of the glass, whence he could see his garden, and think how next year he would contrive a better arrangement ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... man ten inches tall, keeping perpetual lookout up the lane. For this flower bed is planted in an old dory filled with earth. She had outlived her usefulness down there in the Salt Pond, or even, it may be, out on the blue sea itself, but no vandal hands were laid upon her to stave her up for kindling wood. Instead, the Captain himself painted her a bright yellow, set her down in front of his dwelling, and filled her full of flowers. She is disintegrating slowly; already, after a rain, the muddy water trickles through her side and stains the yellow paint. But what ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... off the top yeast, then fill the casks quite full, bung them down, and leave an aperture for the yeast to work through. If the casks stand on one end, the better way is to make a hole with a tap-borer near the summit of the stave, at the same distance from the top as the lower tap-hole is from the bottom. This prevents the slovenliness of working the beer over the head of the barrel; and the opening being much smaller than the bung-hole, the beer by being ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... seemed that the former were running with twice the speed of the latter, but the long, rolling gallop of the bays ate up the ground, and bore them down on the leaders in a bright hurricane. The cowpunchers, hearing that volleying of hoofbeats, went to spur and quirt to stave off the inevitable, but at five furlongs Lady Mary left her sisters and streaked around the tiring range horses into the lead. Marianne cried out in delight. She had forgotten her hope that the mares might not win. All she desired now was that blood might ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... without my apprehensions on this head, yet I do not see that the measure could have been decently avoided, most certainly not, consistent with the letter and spirit of my instructions. I have endeavored to adapt the mode to the main end I have in view, that is, to stave off any question touching the expediency of the voyage at this time, or prior to my obtaining permission to make it; for the reasons mentioned in my letter of the 24th instant, as well as for others, which it may not be prudent to mention just now. Perhaps they are not well founded. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... fifteen, when the stave was concluded with a shrill "Spell, oh!" and the gang relieved streaming with perspiration. When the saltpetre was well mashed, they rolled ton waterbutts on it, till the floor was like a billiard table. A fleet of chop boats then began to arrive, so many per day, with the tea chests. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the strete like she was tredin on air. And Mr. Gilley acts like he'd unloded a hull team full of pig led oflfen his mind, cos he knoes Samanthy'll have the noose of the fortune all over town 'fore nite, and then he'll be abel to stave off his bills, and run his cheek for wotever he warnts, for a hull yare to cum. He told me, wen I was cummin home, that I was a born diplermatist, & ort to hire myself out to King Alfonso, of Spain, in case he'd get ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... task to get the dory aboard, even with the aid of the Bolo's stern davits. The sea was rising every minute and even when they had the "falls," as they are called, secured to the little dinghy, she threatened to stave either herself or the Bolo while she was being hoisted and lashed. At last, however, even that task was accomplished and the boys began to anticipate a rest. But the indefatigable Ben would not ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... as if she had been dealing in lumber for ever so long, that the most important and essential thing in life was lumber. There was something touching and endearing in the way she pronounced the words, "beam," "joist," "plank," "stave," "lath," "gun-carriage," "clamp." At night she dreamed of whole mountains of boards and planks, long, endless rows of wagons conveying the wood somewhere, far, far from the city. She dreamed that a whole regiment of beams, 36 ft. x 5 in., were advancing in an upright position to ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... sir? Some promising opportunity might come up, and I don't see what could stop us from taking advantage of it. If there are only about twenty men on board this machine, I don't think they can stave off ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... then? They say—and perhaps you will say—that friendships and affections can do more; but I assure you, where there are not the means to stave off grinding toil or crushing poverty, affections wither; or if they do not quite wither, they bear no golden fruit of happiness. On the contrary, they offer vulnerable spots to the ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... apparently secured their attention, I have been sorry to see a Mussulman coming up, as past experience had prepared me for the immediate introduction of such questions as the Trinity, the Sonship of Christ, His propitiatory sacrifice, and not infrequently the eating of pork. I have done my best to stave off such untimely discussion, and to keep to the subject I was teaching, but in not a few instances my audience has been broken up by the new-comer insisting on being heard. During my long missionary career I have had many ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... von der Lancken who had agreed to attend to the matter. He received me most graciously, told me how delighted he was to see me, how it pleased him to see that we came to him with our little troubles, etc. He kept off the subject of the laisser-passer as long as he could, but when he could stave it off no longer he said that he must ask me to see von Herwarth, who had been placed in charge of all matters regarding passports, etc. I made a blue streak over to Herwarth's office, and saw him after a little delay. ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... up and removed The dead trunks and the fallen trees. He dressed and regulated The bushy clumps and the (tangled) rows. He opened up and cleared The tamarisk trees and the stave trees. He hewed and thinned The mountain mulberry trees. God having brought about the removal thither of this intelligent ruler, The Kwan hordes fled away[2]. Heaven had raised up a helpmeet for him, And the appointment he had received was ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... the empire was infested by Turks on the one hand and Normans on the other, while the crusaders who passed through his territory proved more troublesome than either. He managed to hold the empire together in spite of these troubles, and to stave off the doom that impended all through his reign of thirty-seven ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Australia; see Dacelo. To an Australian who has heard the ludicrous note of the bird and seen its comical, half-stupid appearance, the origin of the name seems obvious. It utters a prolonged rollicking laugh, often preceded by an introductory stave resembling the opening ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... ballast at a merely nominal rate, owing to the difficulty they experience in procuring return freights from England. The short crops in Canada and the great scarcity of money, forced an unusual number of laborers in that country into the stave and lumber business. Under advices that heavy shipments were in prospect, coupled with the general check upon business on account of the war, prices became depressed. Notwithstanding all this, the shipments hence, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... book-keeper, and as he was of religious turn, although attached to no particular denomination, the meeting-houses on every side, hardly excepting the Quakers themselves, delighted to see him drive up on Sundays and tell an anecdote to the children and sing a little air, half-hymn sort, half stave, but always given with a good countenance, which apologized for the worldly notes of it. If any severe interpreter of Christian amusements took the people to task for tolerating such a universal and desultory character, there ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Smoke Prohibition. It is exactly a matter for the interference of the state. The Athenian in the comedy, wearied of war, concludes a separate peace with the enemy for himself, his wife, his children, and his servant; and forthwith raises a jovial stave to Bacchus. Now all sensible people would not only be glad to enter into amicable relations with Smoke, but would even be content to pay a good sum for protection against the incursions from factory chimnies and other nuisances in their neighbourhood. But there is no possibility of making ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... the sheds, or at least have got upon the earth again, with the roadway running to the gates. Angry at my own folly for lingering so long about the ships, I continued cautiously forward, trying each step of the way. Presently I heard a sound of footsteps before me, and then a voice raised in a stave of song. There followed a loud oath and the splash of a ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... this explosive was originally in the form of powder or dust. The primitive formula burned slowly and gave low pressures—fortunate characteristics in view of the barrel-stave construction of the early cannon. About 1450, however, powder makers began to "corn" the powder. That is, they formed it into larger grains, with a resulting increase in the velocity of the shot. It was "corned" in fine grains for small ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... monopolists of Quebec would oppose Radisson's plans for a trip to Hudson Bay; but the prospects were alluring. La Chesnaye was deeply involved in the fur trade and snatched at the chance of profits to stave off the bankruptcy that reduced him to beggary a few years later. In defiance of the rival companies and independent of those with which he was connected, he offered to furnish ships and share profits with Radisson and Groseillers for a voyage to ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... philosophy,—namely, that the attraction depends upon an inherited individual susceptibility to special qualities of feminine influence, and subjectively represents a kind of superindividual recognition,'" the man smiled gravely and repeated the last stave with questioning care, "'and subjectively represents a kind of superindividual recognition?—a sudden wakening of that inherited composite memory which is more commonly called passional affinity.'—I have a notion that that may mean ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... chapter in history or a demagogic claptrap, is now a possibility so imminent that hardly by trying to suppress it in other countries by arms and defamation, and calling the process anti-Bolshevism, can our Government stave it ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... he saw her so offended, Fixed himself firmly in his arms and seat, He rests his lance, but holds the stave suspended, So that it shall not harm her when they meet, She that to smite and pierce the Child intended, Pitiless, and inflamed with furious heat, Has not the courage, when she sees him near, To fling, or do him outrage with ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... take him something wherewith to stave off the pangs of hunger," says the younger Miss Beresford, with that grandeur of style she usually affects in moments of strong excitement, and with the vigor that distinguishes her. "I see; certainly." She grows abstracted. "There's a leg of mutton hanging in the larder, with some fowl, and ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... and unadvisedly as regards the dismissals, he was right in saying that it was impossible for him to stave off the catholic claims, and that no measures would secure the loyalty of the catholics or the peace of Ireland unless they were satisfied. As Pitt desired to defer emancipation to an uncertain date, the end of the war, he should not have excited the expectation ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... resolve, which, in its mere animal estate, we may name courage. Booth found that a tragedy in real life could no more be enacted without greasy-faced and knock-kneed supernumeraries than upon the mimic stage. Your "First Citizen," who swings a stave for Marc Antony, and drinks hard porter behind the flies is very like the bravo of real life, who murders between his cocktails at the nearest bar. Wilkes Booth had passed the ordeal of a garlicky green-room, and did not shrink from the broader and ranker ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... "so perhaps that has given it a flavour. Oh, you needn't distress yourself! Ants are quite wholesome, I assure you. There are a frightful lot of them crawling about here, though. I think we shall have to move on a stave." ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... the Bishop of Groswardein. Of late years there have been a number of theatrical representations of Mendelssohn's "Elijah." I have witnessed as well as heard a performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with the spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis with a stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly, thou massy ruin, fly" to the bludgeon which was playing ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... caper to it, and purr and pray, and chant a hymn to Hecate while it melts, entreating and imploring her that I may melt as easily—and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle him at the first stave of his psalmody. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... of miracle, accomplished by his great desire to help the right thing to happen, to stave off any shadow of the wrong thing. Whatsoever the reason, Strangeways waited only a moment before turning to his book again. It seemed to be a link in some chain slowly forming itself to drag him back from ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... knew no more—change, with inscrutable veiled face, approaching noiseless. With the feeling, came the vision of a concert room, the rich hues of instruments, the silent audience, and the loud voice of the symphony. 'Destiny knocking at the door,' he thought; drew a stave on the plaster, and wrote in the famous phrase from the Fifth Symphony. 'So,' thought he, 'they will know that I loved music and had classical tastes. They? He, I suppose: the unknown, kindred spirit that shall come some day and read my memor querela. Ha, he shall have Latin too!' And he added: ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was eyed askance by his brethren. No one deigned to call him "Reb" Zelig, nor to prefix to his name the American equivalent—"Mr." "The old one is a barrel with a stave missing," knowingly declared his neighbors. "He never spends a cent; and he belongs nowheres." For "to belong," on New York's East Side, is of no slight importance. It means being a member in one of the numberless congregations. Every decent Jew must join "A Society for Burying Its Members," ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... precipitate the calamity rather than ward it off. A less shameful peccadillo might have been confessed, but this low-lived gambling, this association with a fellow like Josiah Slam, how could it be spoken of? Impossible! Well, but what was to be done? Anything, anything to stave off the immediate peril; but what? That thought haunted each of them all day and during a sleepless night, and when they met on the following morning each looked at the other to see if he could detect any gleam of ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... people looked at each other with laughter in their eyes. This was Lesley's way of trying to stave off the inevitable. If Maurice's declaration could only be construed into idle compliment, she would be rid of the necessity of giving him a plain answer. And what had been begun as a proposal of marriage seemed likely to degenerate into a ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... you, man," said Murphy; "but my darling fellow, Ned here, will gladden our hearts and ears with a stave." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... up like a fort, and if we reach 'em in time we may stave off our pursuers. They're coming fast, and they're spreading out in a long line now. That helps 'em, because it's impossible for fugitives to run exactly straight, and every time we deviate from the true course some part of their line ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... copied the Rabelaisian fay ce que vous voudras of the Franciscans of Medmenham Abbey with Sandwich, Wilkes, and others. At any rate, as their self-constituted laureate, he produced the following extraordinary song, which can be paralleled for inanity only by the stave he sang before Pitt in the Guildhall of London, as a means of attracting the notice of the Premier with a view to Parliament. The song is ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... having no regular or no irregular forms. (1.) The following twenty-nine are omitted by this author, as if they were always regular; belay, bet, betide, blend, bless, curse, dive, dress, geld, lean, leap, learn, mulet, pass, pen, plead, prove, rap, reave, roast, seethe, smell, spoil, stave, stay, wake, wed, whet, wont. (2.) The following thirty-four are given by him as being always irregular; abide, bend, beseech, blow, burst, catch, chide, creep, deal, freeze, grind, hang, knit, lade, lay, mean, pay, shake, sleep, slide, speed, spell, spill, split, string, strive, sweat, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... changes. After their horse will come the little devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops of the hills, and, for aught I know, to the clouds when we crown the hills. If the tribe-council thinks good, I will go to Tallantire Sahib—who loves me—and see if I can stave off at least the blockade. Do ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... "Can't you do something to stave off King Ptush? In making up my passenger-list I can't get hold of enough mammals to fill an inside room. I have been through the country with a fine-tooth comb, and as far as I can find out there isn't a prehistoric beast left in creation. If this ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... is another important consideration. Work is at a standstill. Mobiles and Nationaux who apply forma pauperis receive one franc and a half per diem. Now, at present prices, it is materially impossible for a single man to buy sufficient food to stave off hunger for this sum, how then those who depend upon it for their sustenance, and have wives and families to support out of it, are able to live, it is difficult to understand. Sooner or later the population will have to be rationed like ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... down through the valley, and by Stockbridge and Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan's tryst to lie every night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east of Silvermills, and by south the south mill-lade." This I found easy enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... towards cars and ferry. It was time we were on board again. Often there would be a crowd of us bound for the wharves. It was a custom to tramp through 'sailor-town' together. On the way we would cheer the 'crimps' up by a stave or ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... emperor to have done with slaying, the poet to rise from his unfinished rhyme, the tender and gracious lady to cease from nice denying words (mixed though they be with pitiful sighs that break their sequence like an amorous ditty heard through the strains of a martial stave), and all men, gentle or base, to follow Death's gaunt standard into unmapped realms, something of majesty enshrines the paltriest knave on whom the weight of Death's chill finger hath fallen. I doubt not that Cain's children wept about ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... She would stave off as long as possible the principal question—that of marriage. Sudden proposals, too, emanating from others, always nettled her; it ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... The stave was instantly raised from the horizontal, and he passed and went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At the top, on the threshold of the chamber, he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... that they fired upon him, and one bullet nicked his glove, but he was hopeful that after his long rest he might again stave them off. He sent back no defiant cry, but, settling into determined silence, ran at his utmost speed. The forest here was of large trees, with no undergrowth, and he noticed that the two parties did not join, but kept on as they had come, one on the right and the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... kegs, threw the powder into a pile, tore the blankets into strips, made a train of powder a considerable distance from the pile, and then Major James White fired a pistol into the train, which produced a tremendous explosion. A stave from the pile struck White on the forehead, and cut him severely. As soon as this bold exploit became known to Colonel Moses Alexander, he put his whole ingenuity to work to find out the perpetrators of so foul a deed against his Majesty. The transaction remained ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... sudden thought. With the rear rockets, I rolled us over. For a moment we were hull-down to the passing discs. From our hull gravity-plates I flung a full repulsion. Would it stave them off, bend their orbit outward? It did not. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... unbearably stupid. "Nobody could get back! I told you the tunnel caved in, till it was solid between us and the others. Collins saw I had to follow you. In two more minutes Dick would have come to hunt Thompson's stope for me, and we had no guns to stave him off. You and Collins left them in the tunnel!" It was just what we had done, and I wasted good time in remembering it, guiltily. Paulette stood up and twisted back her streaming cloud of hair. "So, as I had to come with you," she resumed without looking at me, "don't ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... fretfully. "You won't have him; that's enough. The only road there was to extrication from my difficulties is shut up. The sheriff's officers can come to-morrow. I'll write no more humbugging letters to those attorneys, trying to stave off the crisis. The sooner the crash comes the better; I can drag out the rest of my existence somehow, in Bruges or Louvain. It is only a question of a year or ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... stave, a bar of elm four feet long and as thick as a man's wrist, and came round to the mule again on the side away from Clare and Johnstone. He lifted the weapon high in air, and almost before they realised what horror he was perpetrating ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... Statesman politikisto. Station (of life) situacio, stato. Station, railway stacidomo. Stationary senmova. Stationary senprogresa. Stationer papervendisto. Stationery paperajxo. Statistics statistiko. Statue statuo. Stature kresko. Statute regulo. Statutes regularo. Stave, in krevi. Stay (to remain) resti. Stay (to stop) haltigi. Stay (a support) subteno. Steadfast konstanta. Steady nesxancelebla. Steak steko, bifsteko. Steal sxteli. Stealth, by kasxe, sekrete. Stealthy kasxa, sekreta. Steam vaporo. Steamboat vaporsxipo. Steam-engine ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... west side of the iceberg. She listed to starboard with her stern raised and her bow lowered. We could not help thinking that the slightest shake would cause her to slide along the slope of the iceberg into the sea. The collision had been so violent as to stave in some of the planks of her hull. After the first collision, the galley situated before the fore-mast had broken its fastenings. The door between Captain Len Guy's and the mate's cabins was torn away from the hinges. The topmast and the topgallant-mast had come down after the back-stays ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... answered with a curse and lifted his axe to stave in the door. Before the weapon could descend a report rang out in the twilight, and with a scream the attacker sprang from the ground, and then fell to rubbing ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with his companion, who looked up and down the shaded cave ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... said the Queen lightly;—"But, surely, Sir Walter, if you see ruin and disaster threatening so great an Empire in the far distance, you and other wise men of your land are able to stave it off?" ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... of air, Out of all summer, from wave to wave, He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, And take his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... care not to be seen by any Indian or half-breed Spaniard who might go loitering by; but as I stood in the vine-covered arbour in the centre of the garden I heard a man's voice from the direction of the gate, humming a stave of a maritime air that I had heard sung oft and again by the sailors on the sloop, in which some unknown fair one is ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... they chucked over to stave the bottom," growled Dick Bannock, beginning to row. "If I hadn't shoved her off, they'd ha' ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... duchesses, on satin; others artistes on the boards. One trade was as good as another; but dangerous practicings, bruised flesh, seamed skins: no, he didn't approve of that. He had seen the Laurences, mad with ambition, beginning all over again, in spite of falls calculated to stave in the stage; had seen girls who "do knots" lying in the dressing-rooms, gasping, exhausted. Even when professional vanity alone prompted such excesses, Jimmy protested within himself; and then there were so many abuses.... Besides, the stage so often ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... fires assumed a whiter heat. In the Convention the Union men no longer utter denunciations against the disunionists. They merely resort to pretexts and quibbles to stave off the inevitable ordinance. They had sent a deputation to Washington to make a final appeal to Seward and Lincoln to vouchsafe them such guarantees as would enable them to keep Virginia to her moorings. But in vain. They could not obtain even a promise of concession. And now the Union ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... taken to a barren desert, in the hope that they would die of starvation there. Solomon and his wife wandered through the desert until they came to a city situated by the sea-shore. They purchased a fish to stave off death. When Naamah prepared the fish, she found in its belly the magic ring belonging to her husband, which he had given to Asmodeus, and which, thrown into the sea by the demon, had been swallowed by a fish. Solomon recognized his ring, put it on his ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... coming? His letter said nothing about such an intention, and took for granted that all the materials for a decision would be before Felix. Lysias could tell no more. The excuse was transparent, but it served to stave off a decision, and to-morrow would bring some other excuse. Prompt carrying out of all plain duty is the only safety. The indulgence given to Paul, in his light confinement, only showed how clearly Felix knew himself to be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... bain't so many of 'em," said the dairyman. "Howsomever, these gam'sters do certainly keep back their milk to-day. Folks, we must lift up a stave or ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... rose wearily and began to get tea ready. Nina was coming to tea that afternoon. It was something to look forward to, something that would stave off the pressure and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... serves to haul the boat in and out, and the stanchions serve to keep her fast, so that she cannot swing to either side when the rope is hauled tight: for the sea would else fill her, or toss her ashore and stave her. The better to prevent her staving and to keep her the tighter together there are two sets of ropes more: the first going athwart from gunwale to gunwale, which, when the rowers benches are laid, bind the boats sides so hard against ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... The Spaniard was firing her guns as she came on, the Nashville was replying. Captain Long was working to stave off the impending disaster. Hastily the engineer got up steam. The gun-boat was ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... the camp, which was about three hundred yards away. 'That's mischief,' says I. I had scarce spoken when there was a yelling fit to make your har stand on end, and I heard pistol-shots. 'Quick,' lads, says I, 'catch up a hatchet and stave a hole in the other boats, and push ours a little way out from the bank.' We warn't long in doing that, and then we ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... said, "the waist, since one has to make use of that hideous word, should be a gradual, imperceptible, gentle transition from one to another of woman's two glories, her bosom and her womb, and you stupidly strangle it, you stave in the thorax, which involves the breasts in its ruin, you flatten your lower ribs, and you plough a horrible furrow above the navel. The negresses, who file their teeth down to a point, and split their lips, in order to insert a wooden disc, disfigure themselves ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Ocean Wave was unfortunate enough to stave a hole in her bottom by running on a stump, and sunk in three feet of water. She can be raised with but little trouble. Her guns have been taken off, as well as the crew, coal, provisions, etc., and she will soon be afloat. What effect this had on Gen. Foster's fortunes has not yet been ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... of the search was quickly done, not so quickly that it did not give time to Waller to whistle the stave of the old Hampshire ditty three ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... humbled him. His was a simple soul, and took its responsibilities seriously. He sought not to inquire for what high purpose Providence had so signally intervened to stave off from the East and West Looe Artillery the doom of common men. He only prayed to be equal to it. The Doctor's statistics had, in fact, scared him a little. I am positive that he ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... basso at the Palermitan opera. He was now twenty, and his voice had become developed into that suave and richly toned organ, such as was never bestowed on another man, ranging two octaves from E flat below to E flat above the bass stave. An offer from the manager of La Scala, Milan, gratified his ambition, and he made his debut in 1817 as Dandini in "La Cenerentola." His splendid singing and acting made him brilliantly successful; ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... Justina, I have long Kept this secret from your ears, Fearing from your tender years That the telling might be wrong; But now seeing you are strong, Firm in thought, in action brave, Seeing too, that with this stave, I go creeping o'er the ground, Rapping with a hollow sound At the portals of the grave, Knowing that my time is brief, I would not here leave you, no, In your ignorance; I owe My own peace, too, this relief: Then attentive to my grief ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... deadly hurt to the other: "Friend, when I am dead, bury me in my native France, with my cross of honor on my breast, and my musket in my hand, and lay my good sword by my side." Until this time the melody has been a slow and dirge-like stave in the minor key. The old soldier declares his belief that he will rise again from the clods when he hears the victorious tramp of his Emperor's squadrons passing over his grave, and the minor breaks into a weird setting of the "Marseillaise" in the major key. Suddenly it closes with ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... what was become of their comrades and of the boat, would certainly come on shore in their other boat to look for them, and that then, perhaps, they might come armed, and be too strong for us; this he allowed to be rational. Upon this, I told him the first thing we had to do was to stave the boat, which lay upon the beach, so that they might not carry her off; and taking everything out of her, leave her so far useless as not to be fit to swim; accordingly, we went on board, took the arms which were left on board out of her, and whatever else we found there, which was a bottle ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of the soul does make strongly for the recovery of the patient, through inspiring him with hope and confidence. But it cannot always stave off death. If, in spite of the operations of one soul-catcher, the patient's strength still sinks, some other practitioner is usually called in for consultation. In the case of a chief the help of three or even four may be invoked successively or together; and the ceremony ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... to see how the next affair would turn out. I legged it back where I'd come from, and by nine o'clock I was behind our own lines, trying to find out what sort of campaign this was that left one machine gun to stave off the whole Turkish army. Of course no one knew anything very definite. The best guess was that our advance had been swung off for a flank movement, and that this particular one-man battery had been overlooked. I don't even know whether he was picked up again, or whether ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... debts of her own; she will have to disavow her protege, which is a fact not unthought of by the house of Auersperg. By constant machination and intrigue the king's revenues have been so depleted that ordinary debts are troublesome. The archbishop, to stave off the probable end, brought about the alliance between the houses of Carnavia and Osia. My business here is to arrange for a ten years' renewal of the loan, and that is what the duchess wishes to prevent, mon ami. What's to become ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... at least, it could be made the vehicle of the most pensive and tender feeling. In an interesting note to the Centenary Burns, edited by Henley and Henderson, it is pointed out that 'the six-line stave in rime couee built on two rhymes,' was used by the Troubadours in their Chansons de Gestes, and that it dates at the very latest from the eleventh century. Burns's happiest use of it was in those epistles which about this time he began to dash off to some of his friends; and it is with these ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... gun, firing the bomb directly down the great livid cavern of a throat fronting him. Down went that mountainous head not six inches from us, but with a perfectly indescribable motion, a tremendous writhe, in fact; up flew the broad tail in air, and a blow which might have sufficed to stave in the side of the ship struck the second mate's boat fairly amidships. It was right before my eyes, not sixty feet away, and the sight will haunt me to my death. The tub oarsman was the poor German baker, about whom I have hitherto said nothing, except to ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... he expressed his willingness to take them on and from the 1st of February. And on the 3rd of February he found himself in the old quarters, Mrs. Bunce having contrived, with much conjugal adroitness, both to keep Miss Pouncefoot and to stave off the Equity draftsman's wife and baby. Bunce, however, received Phineas very coldly, and told his wife the same evening that as far as he could see their lodger would never turn up to be a trump in the matter of the ballot. "If he means well, why did he go and stay ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... fierce circumstances which dictate to him what he must do. Often he is compelled to move as his food supply moves. The Cliff-Dweller Indian of the arid regions of the Southwest was forced to cliff- dwell, in order to stave off extermination by his enemies. Under that spur he became a wonderful architect ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Aye, doubtless they have echoed o'er the arsenal, Keeping due time with every hammer's clink, As a good jest to jolly artisans; Or making chorus to the creaking oar, In the vile tune of every galley-slave, Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted He was not a shamed ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... with him, or for him, or to him, had been the disturbing element in our political system ever since the African slave trade expired by limitation of the Constitution in 1808. The devices of human ingenuity (inspired, as we fervently believe, by the purest patriotism) to stave off the inevitable final settlement of this account, innumerable as they were, and only limited by the predestined decree of Supreme Benevolence (which is Supreme Justice), were, at last, exhausted. The statesmanship of '50 had been outgrown. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to undeceive her, but stopped in time. As a drowning man catches at a straw, so did he catch at this suggestion in his hopeless despair; and he suffered her to remain in it. Anything to stave ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... fearful stave was concluded, Adrian, sensible that in such orgies there was no chance of prosecuting his inquiries, left the desecrated chamber and fled, scarcely drawing breath, so great was the terror that seized him, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... measured swing, they pass, The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, Their nooning take, while one begins to sing A stave that droops and dies 'neath the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... dealing with the problem, the government temporized and resolved to stave off the difficulty. A commission was appointed to visit every parish in Ireland and report the state of affairs to Parliament, when everybody already knew what this state was,—one of glaring inequality ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... inflation-which fell in 1997 to 38%. The macroeconomic adjustments, bolstered by strong oil prices, resulted in strong growth in 1997. However, the East Asian financial crisis and the decline of international oil prices toward the end of 1997 brought pressure on the currency, which Caracas was able to stave off. Caracas readjusted its exchange rate bands and began to allow quicker depreciation of the Bolivar; the government also tightened monetary policy. Concerned over potential revenue shortfalls from soft ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of all these Provinces, and which are rather of a social, or, strictly speaking, political than of a financial kind. In the first place, I echo what was stated in the speech last night of my hon. friend, the President of the Council—that we cannot stand still; we cannot stave off some great change; we cannot stand alone—Province apart from Province—if we would; and that we are in a state of political transition. All, even honorable gentlemen who are opposed to this description ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Christianity, I was neither a Saint nor a Devil. The Pains I felt were very Sharp, and hindred my Rest; my Blood was heated and boiling up to a Fever, which being agitated with daily dressing my Wounds, it requir'd a skillful Physician and a good Regimen in the Patient, to stave off a Fit of Sickness. My Brother prov'd an excellent Nurse, and had he not us'd a great deal of Reason in keeping me from improper Nourishment, the Game would quickly have been up with me. I was also waited ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... with a daily capacity of 6,800 sugar barrels, is located about a mile away, where barrel staves and heads are received from the firm's own stave mill in Virginia, made from logs cut on their own timber lands in Virginia and North Carolina. A more self-contained plant would be hard to imagine, and so we find that even the last activity in its operations—that ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... in the clouds" has been long voted "law;" whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out of date. In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king's evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—how, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... question our devotion to this cause is to us amazing. The treatment of us by Abolitionists also is enough to try the souls of better saints than we. The secret of all this furor is Republican spite. They want to stave off our question until after the presidential campaign. They can keep all the women still but Susan and me. They can't control us, therefore the united effort of Republicans, Abolitionists and certain women to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... to carry him first past the post, and Bernard Hallam was sure of winning. Bandmaster, however, would not be denied, the horse divined there was danger of losing; being full of courage he resented this and put forth his strength and speed to stave off defeat. How he did it Colley could not tell, but by some almost magical power he drew level with Rainstorm again and the desperate ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... forget the first time I happened to roar out a stave in the presence of noble Mehevi. It was a stanza from the 'Bavarian broom-seller'. His Typeean majesty, with all his court, gazed upon me in amazement, as if I had displayed some preternatural faculty which Heaven had denied to them. The King was delighted ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Innisfield that would dare refuse Theophilus Clamp. When she knows—that I know—what she knows, she'll do pretty much what I tell her. I wonder if she hasn't set on foot a marriage between her scapegrace son and Mildred? That would be a mishap, truly! But, as guardian, I can stave that off until the estate is settled, my wedding over, and myself comfortably in possession. Then, perhaps, we'll let the young folks marry,—at least we'll think of it. If my son George, now, had not that unlucky hare-lip, who knows? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... singer, though I can troll a stave or two," replied the young man. "But I fear that my minstrelsy would be rude and uncouth to the cultivated ears of one who, like you, Sir Christopher, hath listened to the lays of many lands, and so, refined and perfected ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... payment for the poems delivered to Mr. Drury, as well as for others contributed to the 'London Magazine,' When these sources failed, and the succeeding schemes to acquire 'Bachelors' Hall' broke down one after another, there was bitter want staring him in the face, to stave off which he resolved to make an application to one of his first and best friends, Mr. Gilchrist. It seemed impossible that help, and, what was almost as precious under the circumstances, good advice, should be wanting ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... Mag Trega and they unyoke there and prepare their food. It is said that it is there that Dubthach recited this stave:— ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... that instant a horse neighed outside; then I heard the sound of hoofs pounding on soft soil. Whoever the fellow was, he was almost there—coming up at a trot, just back of the stables. My brain worked in a flash—there was but once chance to stave off discovery. With a bound I was beside the boy, and had jerked off his hat, jamming it down on my own head, as I muttered in his ear, "One word from you now, and you'll never speak again—don't take ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... to crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay, hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves upon their haunches at a little distance and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... of the men upon the wharf slyly thrust it out with the end of his foot. It hung for a moment and then fell into the boat below with a crash. "What d'ye mean by that?" roared the man in charge of the boat. "What d'ye mean, ye villains? D'ye mean to stave a hole in us?" ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the next morning's papers, for effect. While I was talking with Captain Folsom, Height came into the room to listen. I admitted that the effect of such a publication would surely be good, and would probably stave off immediate demand till their assets could be in part converted or realized; but I naturally inquired of Folsom, "Have you personally examined the accounts, as herein recited, and the assets, enough to warrant your signature to this paper?" for, "thereby you in effect ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... following day. The brief English summer, dying under the intolerable doom of evanescence for all things beautiful, presented the spectacle of creeping decay in a hectic flare of russet and crimson, like a withered woman striving to stave off the inevitable with pitiful ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... here the lion, when the bad news came: 'I had asked for my recall after Ticonderoga. But since the affairs of Canada are getting worse, it is my duty to help in setting them right again, or at least to stave off ruin so ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... and prevailed on them to raise a psalm. But the superstitious among them observed, as an ill omen, that their song of praise and triumph sunk into "a quaver of consternation," and resembled rather a penitentiary stave sung on the scaffold of a condemned criminal, than the bold strain which had resounded along the wild heath of Loudon-hill, in anticipation of that day's victory. The melancholy melody soon received a rough accompaniment; the royal soldiers shouted, the Highlanders ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of the men in the Eastfirth Quarter, and thou must always find something to say against them. At last your talk will come to Rangrivervale, and then thou must say, there is small choice of men left in those parts since Fiddle Mord died. At the same time sing some stave to please Hrut, for I know thou art a skald. Hrut will ask what makes thee say there is never a man to come in Mord's place; and then thou must answer, that he was so wise a man and so good a taker up of suits, that he never made a false step in upholding ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... you say, nor sing, Nor troll a lilting stave; And when the rest are cracking jokes He's silent ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... destructive force which, to the ignorant minds of the braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing more than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put in motion was an incentive to present resistance to stave off the day of trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and the murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the foolish replies of the Hudson's Bay Company's man to their demand for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you." And therewith he turned away; but of those others who heard the tale there were more than one or two who praised it much, and deemed it marvellous as might well be that a child should have faced and slain those three monsters who had put two stout men to flight. And one man made up this stave, which was presently sung all about the Eastern Mote, and went over the water with the tale ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... stichomythia. The maiden modestly seeks to restrain the amorous impatience of her lover, and the scene ends with a song between the two composed in 'Asclepiades.'[228] Of this literary curiosity Amyntas' opening stave may be quoted: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... house-Servants—male and female—all negroes or mulattoes. There are shrieks, intermingled with speeches, the last in accent of piteous appealing; there is moaning and groaning. But where are the shouts of the assailants? Where the Indian yell—the dread slogan of the savage? Not a stave of it is heard—nought that resembles a warwhoop ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... did not, at the time, tie up with views about the Colorado trip. That was still the guiding star of all her hopes. She must study harder during the spring term and stave off the threatened and unspeakable calamity. It was a hard resolution to put through, especially when she conceived a marvellous idea-a "farce" like one Polly Currier told her about when she was home for her Easter vacation. Missy wrestled with temptation like some ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain. Backache he. Bright's bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile. Sings too: Down among the dead men. Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... well, dropping prices and the loss of foreign markets have devastated too many family farmers. Last year, the Congress provided substantial assistance to help stave off a disaster in American agriculture, and I am ready to work with lawmakers of both parties to create a farm safety net that will include crop insurance reform and farm ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it—oh, I've got to do it," he told himself, aloud. "If I had a quart of rum I believe I could stave it off yet—for a little while. But there's no more rum for—'Beelzebub,' as they call me. By the flames of Tartarus! if I'm to sit at the right hand of Satan somebody has got to pay the court expenses. You'll ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... Bigot, leaning over to his angry guest, at the same time winking good-humoredly to Varin. "Come, now, De Beauce, friends all, amantium irae, you know—which is Latin for love—and I will sing you a stave in praise of this good wine, which is better than Bacchus ever drank." The Intendant rose up, and holding a brimming glass in his hand, chanted in full, musical voice a favorite ditty of the day, as a ready mode of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a barrel stave perpendicularly in his hands, with one edge close to his side, while one of his comrades, at the same distance, and in the manner before mentioned, shot several bullets through it, without any apprehension of ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... ship, the waves, the winds, all play with it, hence its frightful animation. What is to be done with this apparatus? How fetter this stupendous engine of destruction? How anticipate its comings and goings, its returns, its stops, its shocks? Any one of its blows on the side of the ship may stave it in. How foretell its frightful meanderings? It is dealing with a projectile, which alters its mind, which seems to have ideas, and changes its direction every instant. How check the course of what must be avoided? ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... a case of impalement in a woman of forty-five who, while attempting to obtain water from a hogshead, fell with one limb inside the cistern, striking a projecting stave three inches wide and 1/2 inch thick. The external labia were divided, the left crus of the clitoris separated, the nymphae lacerated, and the vaginal wall penetrated to the extent of five inches; the patient ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Three helpless by nature—two equally helpless who ought in nature to have been the support of the whole—nothing but one bright ready little spirit between them all and destitution; and what could Nettie do to stave that wolf from the door? Once more Dr Rider's countenance fell. If the household broke down in its attempt at independence, who had they to turn to but himself?—such a prospect was not comfortable. When a man works himself to death for his own family, he takes ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... good to be seen talkin' to me, for both men an' boys hate what are called bosses' pets; but we'll stave off this row till you get used to the ropes, when it's a case of taking ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... cask that has been just emptied, with part of a stave or two knocked out at the head, and into the others drive hooks to hang your fowls, but not so as to touch one another, covering the open places with the staves or boards already knocked out, but leaving the bung-hole open as an air vent. Let ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... the hard gravel, both Ab and Oak were easily at home. The cave dwellers, haunting the river side for centuries, had learned how to deal with gravel, and when Ab returned to the scene the next day he brought with him a sturdy oaken stave some six feet in length, sharpened to a point and hardened in the fire until it was almost iron-like in its quality. Plunged into the gravel as far as the force of a blow could drive it, and pulled backward with the leverage obtained, the gravel was loosened ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... this is my trade. That's a bit o' 'Wanderin' Willie.' I've had it before me in precognitions; that same stave has been used for a signal by some o' ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... grim; his admonitions to the horses were a trifle more emphatic; once he whistled a fragment of a minor stave, but spoke not a word till the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... own sake. So, in place of a life for a life, compensation—"pacation," as it is technically termed—comes to be recognized as a reasonable quid pro quo. Constantly we find custom at the half-way stage. If the murderer is caught soon, he is killed; but if he can stave off the day of justice, he escapes with a fine. When private property has developed, the system of blood-fines becomes most elaborate. Amongst the Iroquois the manslayer must redeem himself from death by means of no less than sixty presents to the injured kin; ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... not what came o'er me, Nor who the counsel gave; But I must hasten downward, All with my pilgrim-stave; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... bow as he spoke, and the string twanged with a rich deep musical note. Aylward leaned upon his bow-stave as he keenly watched the long swift flight of his shaft, skimming smoothly down ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said the elder, closely scanning the fragment he held in his hand, "is evidently oak, and looks mightily as if it was once the stave of an oak keg or half-barrel. Yes, and here is another that will settle the question," he continued, pulling from its concealment a larger and sounder fragment. "There! can't you trace the chine ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... saw through their purpose, and had no sooner shut the door than he drew his hunting knife. Then the old beldame gripped him by the throat and clawed him tooth and nail; one of the ruffians beat him with a stave torn from the bedstead till he weened he had broken or bruised all his limbs, while the other, whose hands were yet bound, pressed between him and the door. In truth he would have come to a bad end, but that the younger woman saved him at the risk of her own life. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... these three conditions would stave off recognition by foreign powers, until we had ourselves abandoned the attempt to reduce the South ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... execution of the design. Against these falsehoods the English ambassador found it difficult to make headway, although he assured the queen of the immediate punishment of the perpetrators, and the arrest and recall of the Governor of Jamaica. Only by the greatest tact and prudence was he able to stave off, until an official disavowal of the expedition came from England, an immediate embargo on all the goods of English merchants in Spain. The Spanish government decided to send a fleet of 10,000 men with all speed to the Indies; and the Dukes of Albuquerque ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring |
