"Tacking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farthest pillar of Diego Cam, he reached a headland where he set up his first new pillar at what is still known as Diaz Point. Still coasting southwards and tacking frequently, he passed the Orange River, the northern limit of the present Cape Colony. Then putting well out to sea Diaz ran thirteen days before the wind due south, hoping by this wide sweep to round the southern ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... discussed Burke's Bill for Economical Reform, and passed it, though it was a money-bill, "containing extraneous enactments," and as such contravened one of their own standing orders which had been passed in the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, when the system of "tacking," as it was called, had excited great discontent, which was not confined to themselves. The propriety of rejecting the bill on that ground was vigorously urged by the only two lawyers who took part in the debate, the Chancellor, Lord ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... of the use of the sprit and heel tackle, the conventional method of reefing was not possible. The reef bands of the sails were parallel to the masts, and reefing was accomplished by lowering a sail and tying the reef points while rehoisting. The mast revolved in tacking in order to prevent binding of the sprit under the tension of the heel tackle. The tenon at the foot of the mast was round, and to the shoulder of the tenon a brass ring was nailed or screwed. Another brass ring was fastened around the mast ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... of surprise. Margot, with her good eyes, swore that she no longer saw a soul in the bark; neither Rouget, nor Fouasse, nor any one! The "Baleine," as if abandoned, ran before the wind, tacking about every minute, rocking ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... plate was a bouquet holder with napkin ring attached; there were after-dinner speeches by Governor Taft, Judge Wright, and others; then we were ushered into the large drawing-room where coffee and cigars were served. The room had been especially prepared by the labor of many days spent on tacking flags on the ceiling and side walls, making a very beautiful effect. There were huge bunches of artificial flowers. For the entertainment at this house, all the Filipino bands from the surrounding towns were massed together. Governor Taft complimented his hosts upon their very delightful ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... matinee and a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering if these ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... about thicky wreck. Likely as not 'twas the one I seed all yesterday tacking about: and if so be as I be right, a pretty lot of lubbers she must have had aboard. Jonathan, the coast-guard, came down to Lizard Town this morning, and said he seed a big vessel nigh under the cliffs toward midnight, or fancied he seed her: but fustly Jonathan's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Genoese and Venetians set the models of these vessels, and the Italian terms were generally used in all European navigation till the northern nations took the lead in sailing ships. These sails are often clewed up, however, for the mariner of the sixteenth century was ill-practised in the art of tacking, and very fearful of losing sight of land for long, so that unless he had a wind fair astern he preferred to trust to his oars. A short deck at the prow and poop serve, the one to carry the fighting-men and trumpeters and yardsmen, and to provide cover for ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... southward, where had been open water; but by and by found that even here were drifting bergs. He therefore put his helm down and felt his way through the weather by short boards, and so, with the most of his men stationed forward to keep a look-out, fenced, as it were, with the danger, steering and tacking, until by God's grace the fog lifted, and the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The general did not dare to go ashore, as many crowds of people were seen on the beach, who appeared to be hostile; as well as because he had yet no news of the army, without which he had orders not to do anything, and he had no forces for that. On that account the fleet kept tacking to windward on one tack and another for the space of three days. But at the end of that time, a felucca was seen to cross the bar of Lingayen headed toward the flagship. The father vicar of the said village came aboard and informed the general ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... the difference in the make between these ships and the English frigates; that these, for strength to endure an assault and make defence, were very good, but that the English frigates had much advantage in their nimble tacking about, their fleet sailing to fetch up another ship, and the lying of their guns for use of fighting; with which discourse Wrangel seemed much pleased, and he preferred their brass cannon before ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... great interest by agreeing generally with those formerly obtained at Brierly Island, while the numerals were quite different and corresponded somewhat with those of my Brumer Island vocabulary. Two of the canoes—one of which carried sixteen people—were large and heavy and came off under sail, tacking outside of us and fetching under the ship's stern. In these large canoes the paddles are of proportionate size and very clumsy—they are worked as oars with the aid of cane grommets—the sail is of the large oblong shape formerly described. One of the canoes was furnished with a small stage ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... the Fresh Air Fund, box and all. You know I'm not much for the bat cave, and to avoid such after-complications as patrol wagons and things, I blew the bunch and started up street. I guess the wind must have been against me, as I was tacking. ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... gathered on the jetty on the day of the excursion. They were waiting for the Paulsbergs, who were late. Irgens was growing impatient and sarcastic: Would it not be better to send the yacht up for them? When finally Paulsberg and his wife arrived, they all went aboard and were soon tacking out ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Royal Horse Guards of Lutha, set out toward the Old Forest, which lies beyond the mountains that are visible upon the other side of the plain stretching out before Lustadt. At the same time other troopers rode in many directions along the highways and byways of Lutha, tacking placards upon trees and fence posts and beside the doors of every little ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shouted the master-pilot, who was standing at the helm. "We'll have a job in this sea, but we must try and get hold of her in tacking, and you, Victor, throw yourself into her rigging as soon as you get the chance ... bring the ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... minutes 32 seconds; and by the morning and evening sights for the chronometers a current had set us to the North 81 degrees West at nearly one mile and a quarter per hour. The wind, hanging between South-East and South-South-East, prevented our tacking to the southward to get out of the current, which, on our first experiencing it, was thought to have been occasioned by a set through the strait of Rottee; it was however afterwards found that we were on the southern edge of the current that sets to the westward, down the north coast ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... Seamew, tacking for the channel into Big Wreck Cove, wings full-spread, skimming the heaving blue of the summer sea, looked like a huge member of the tern family. From Wreckers' Head and the other sand bluffs guarding ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... in the dim light her dark, slim figure was undistinguishable behind them. Longingly and anxiously she looked up and down the water-way. A mist was gathering over it; and there were no boats in the channel except two pleasure-shallops, already tacking to their proper piers. "The Dauntless" had been out of sight for hours. There was not the splash of an oar, and no other river sound at that point, but the low, peculiar "wish-h-h" ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... But there is a long leg and a short leg on the course, and I fancy Superintendent Snyder does the tacking on the long leg. Mr. Snyder builds New York's schools, and he does that which no other architect before his time ever did or tried; he "builds them beautiful." In him New York has one of those rare men who open windows ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... stopped, so near to her tree that Raymonde could see the flap of a coat through the opening; then they turned, and went in the direction of the voice. Raymonde drew a long breath of intense relief, and peeped out. The man was tacking down a little incline towards the brook, guided by a ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... westward, to see what service the late disruption had done us, we found that a considerable floe had separated, exactly in a line between the island off which we lay and a second to the westward of it, subsequently named in honour of LORD AMHERST. Tacking at the newly-formed margin of the fixed ice, we observed, not only that it was still firmly attached to the shores, but that it was now almost entirely "hummocky," and heavier than any we had seen since making Igloolik; some of the hummocks, as we afterward found, measuring from eight to ten ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... yacht, and started. Bill was pretty full, so I told him to go below and lay down for a while, and I would look after the boat. The wind was shifting about, and I was afraid the boom would knock him overboard. I was sailing along at a fine rate, tacking about with the wind, and did not notice that Bill had come up on deck until I heard him yell out to me. I looked around and saw the big fat fellow floundering in the water about 100 feet away. I gave her ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... followed him calling to the boy as they ran. But Loll, evidently deeply interested in his own small adventures, did not hear their shouts. Kobuk was now hobbling on ahead and despite his bandaged leg, was tacking hither and thither woofing in the manner of the huskie when he wishes to bark. As Loll neared the tree they saw him branch off the trail and a few minutes ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... a moral. At least grown-up people have a habit of tacking a little lesson on to the end of the stories they tell to children. And as a rule the children will listen to the moral for the sake of the story. And so even the stories which words tell us have their lessons for us too, and, let us hope, the stories ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... crew seemed ever Wider-visioned, graver, More distinct of purpose, more sustained of will; With heads erect and proud, And voices sometimes loud; With endless tacking, counter-tacking, All things grasping, all things lacking, It would seem; Ever shifting helm, or sail, or shroud, Drifting on as in a dream. Hoarding to their utmost bent, Feasting to their fill, Yet gnawed by discontent, Envy, hatred, malice, on their ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... what was left over we threw on the floor like gentlemen. And then one day, as we saw San Huegedos, and wanted to sail in to spend our money, the wind changed round from behind us and beat us out to sea. There was no tacking against it, and no getting into the harbour, though other ships sailed by us and anchored there. Sometimes a dead calm would fall on us, while fishing boats all around us flew before half a gale, and sometimes the wind would ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... morning wore away he went out into the hills to look about him. The men were all busily enough engaged in chipping out the shallow troughs of their "discoveries," piling supporting rocks about their corner and side stakes, or tacking up laboriously composed mining "notices." They paid scant attention to the man who passed them a hundred yards away. Peter visited his own four claims. On one he found a small group anxiously examining ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... under sail, and Admiral Balchen shewed himself truly solicitous to have proceeded to sea; but the wind soon returned to its old quarter, and obliged us to put back to St Helens, not without considerable hazard, and some damage received by two of the transports, which ran foul of each other when tacking. We made two or three other attempts to sail, but without any better success; and, on the 6th September, being returned to anchor at St Helens, after one of those fruitless attempts, the wind blew so fresh that the whole fleet had to strike yards ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... over the shirt she was making for some charitable society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... must have been aroused. They were soon convinced that we had hostile intentions, when the Tiger, standing across the bows of the flag-ship, ordered her to strike and heave to. A shot which struck us was the answer, when tacking so as to bring our other broadside to bear, we commenced firing away as fast as our guns could ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... the tacking!" she cried, and for five minutes on end there was silence, until— "Dear me!" quoth Miss Peggy in a tone of dismay, and peaked solemn brows over ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... like a grown man; coming towards you he looked more natural. Wherever there appeared a bunch or angle that seemed out of place, Lacy endeavored to modify the over abundance by tacking on one of the ornaments taken from the old uniform of which a great number were used. The shoulders of the jacket seemed to fit to suit Lacy, therefore she used the epaulets from the shoulders of the old soldier's uniform elsewhere. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... retired farther and farther down until their ultimate passage becomes hopeless. If the bill of the independent member reaches a second reading, it may be killed by striking out the enacting clause or by tacking on an obnoxious amendment that makes it repulsive to its former friends. ... To carry out the will of the organization, the speaker declares amendments carried or the contrary by a viva voce vote. Demands for roll-calls are ignored by him in ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... because a seaman has a pride in keeping on the honourable side of every thing he encounters but chiefly because, from the position of the stranger, it would be the means of preventing the necessity of tacking before the "Caroline" should reach a point more advantageous for such a manoeuvre. The reader will, however, readily understand that the interest of hear new Commander took its rise in far different feelings from those of professional pride, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Fasten a becket or loop of rope at a suitable position on the mast, to set the heel of the sprit into. Rig main-sheet over two sheaves, as shown; it brings less strain on the boom, and clears the skipper's head in tacking. Make a good, large wooden cleat to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... from taking his own horses. He would kill them both, high-spirited horses like those, they said, if he took them over that road. It was a cruel road. They pointed out to him the line where it wound, doubling and tacking on the sides of precipices, like a path for a goat or chamois. Aunt Ri shuddered at the sight, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... 5 A.M. Shifty breeze. Tacking all day. Busy unpacking and repacking, and trying to get things straight. Towards evening the invalids began to pick up a little and to ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... occupied in getting his furniture and traps into Number 12, and Almira—pretty as a picture, and eagerly assisted by her now intimate friends, Mesdames Flight and Darling—was tacking up curtains, brackets, and knickknacks. Army women have a gift of making even a burrow look cheery and attractive, though they do accumulate an amount of truck that becomes embarrassing in the inevitable event of a move. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the mourning takes place after an interval which may be anything between one and six months. This is a special ceremony, and will not be postponed for the purpose of tacking it on to some other ceremony, as in the case of an ordinary person's mourning removal; but other ceremonies will often be tacked on to it. The guests invited are from only one other community. Here again the person actually dealt with is the chief ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... pulling the proper line, brought the masts to their upright position. He then inserted the iron keys which kept them in their place, and hoisted the sails. By this time the boat had drifted to the lower extremity of the island; so, bracing her sharp up, he stood away across the river. Tacking before he reached the swift channel, which flowed close in shore, he laid the boat's course up the stream. The wind was blowing fresh, and, notwithstanding the contending force of the current, the boat careened ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... management at her fingers' ends, and supervised everything that went forward. Laurie Flagg coming to call upon her, on Wednesday afternoon, to remonstrate upon her sudden defection, found her in the act of tacking up a curtain ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... acid nicely, make a sieve by tacking and gluing four pieces of thin wood together, to make a rectangular box without a bottom. Four pieces of cigar-box wood, 8" long by 11/2" wide, answer first rate. We show at A A A A, Fig. 37, such a box as if seen from ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... been tacking all the time, back and forth, much to Hilda's amazement, who could not understand how that crab-like motion would ever bring them home. They were now ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... marching two and two, began from the other side of the market-place, and advanced in an irregular zig-zag fashion towards the Palace, wildly tacking from side to side, like a sailing vessel making way against an unfavourable wind so that the head of the procession was often further from us at the end of one tack than it had been at the end of ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... dislike to them. In a small community, the master who dares kick against the parental goads soon finds the town too hot to hold him. He has but one choice, either to sail with the parental wind, or to lower his canvas altogether; and though a man of tact may make some progress by trawling and tacking, at the best he must feel disappointed at heart and his interest in ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... balanced about anywhere and doubled into nothing when desired, was drawing-room,—that is, it was drawing-room wherever the chair was drawn. In this apartment everything was handy. One could sit in the centre thereof, and, by a little dexterous tacking to north or south, reach every article in it. But when a lad whose occasional infirmity was fainting was proposed to build the fire, it became necessary to decline, on the ground that there really was not room enough, unless he were so kind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and chairs covered the long bench, and round it sat the neat-handed little maidens gluing, tacking and trimming, while they sang and chatted at their work as busy and happy ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... tumour is to be diagnosed from a cold abscess and from a cyst. The distinguishing features of the lipoma are the tacking down and dimpling of the overlying skin, the lobulation of the tumour, which is recognised when it is pressed upon with the flat of the hand, and, more reliable than either of these, the mobility, the tumour slipping away when pressed upon at ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... among the many others near, all similar in appearance? It cannot tell exactly save by the sign-board of certain details known to itself alone. Therefore, still on the wing, tacking from side to side, it examines the locality. The home is found at last: the Halictus alights on the threshold of her abode and dives ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... alarmed to see visitors. Pugsy undertook to do the honours. Pugsy as interpreter was energetic but not wholly successful. He appeared to have a fixed idea that the Italian language was one easily mastered by the simple method of saying "da" instead of "the," and tacking on a final "a" to any word that seemed to ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... stoppage will be decreased, and in the next place, if a stoppage does occur in the pipe, it can be cleaned out better if the pipe is straight than if it is laid with numerous bends. Such a pipe should have a grade of at least one quarter inch to a foot, and this is conveniently given by tacking a little piece of wood one half inch thick on one end of a two-foot carpenter's level and then setting the pipe so that with this piece of wood resting on the pipe at one end and the end of the level itself on the pipe at ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... may be called his "Last Blast," there is as sharp speaking as any in the "First Blast" itself. He is of the same opinion to the end, you see, although he has been obliged to cloak and garble that opinion for political ends. He has been tacking indeed, and he has indeed been seeking the favour of a queen; but what man ever sought a queen's favour with a more virtuous purpose, or with as little courtly policy? The question of consistency is delicate, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... topographically charming province, the main island had to be crossed at its widest, and, owing to lofty mountain chains, much tacking to be done to boot. Atmospherically the distance is even greater than afoot. Indeed, the change in climate is like a change in zone; for the trend of the main island at this point, being nearly east and west, gives ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... explain everything on his return. Her relief was only partial; she was already experienced enough in his vocation to know that the excuse was a feeble one. He could easily have "fetched" the bluff in tacking out of the Gate and have signaled to her to board him in her own boat. The next day she locked up her house, rowed round the Point to the Embarcadero, where the Bay steamboats occasionally touched and took up passengers to San Francisco. Captain Simmons had not seen ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was prone on the floor, tacking down a bedroom carpet, hammered away without an answer. After waiting a minute, she dropped down on the floor beside him, upsetting a saucer full of tacks as she did so. "Say, Alec," she began, in a confidential ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... see no soul in sight, no glimmer in the windows. But Raffles had my arm, and on we went without talking about it. Sharp to the left on the Notting Hill side, sharper still up Silver Street, a little tacking west and south, a plunge across High Street, and presently ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... sea. The men got the cargo of mussels, and at four in the afternoon prepared to beat their way northward. It was then blowing half a gale, but the wind had shifted round from the shore, so that very little tacking was required. As the shades fell lower and lower, the wind rose higher and higher. The blasts galloped down through the hollows, and struck the brown sail of the coble like the sound of musketry. The boat lay hard over, and the water leaped in spurts over her lee gunwale. They reached the point ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Our titles are respectable, but theirs absurd. Mr. Jones, of London, a Chancellor's son, and a tailor's grandson, is justly Honorable, and entitled to be Lord Jones at his noble father's decease: but Mr. Brown, the senator from New York, is a silly upstart for tacking Honorable to his name, and our sturdy British good sense laughs at him. Who has not laughed (I have myself) at Honorable Nahum Dodge, Honorable Zeno Scudder, Honorable Hiram Boake, and the rest? A score of such queer names and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... only be made by introducing a large number of short pieces of the contrasting colour which is to be used in the design and tacking them in place as the weaving proceeds. Of course, in this case thin cloth should be used for the colour-blocks, as otherwise the doubling of texture would make an uneven surface. If the rug is a woolen one, not liable to be washed, this variation of color in pattern can be ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... the bank, tacking, and dodging, and all the time laughing softly to himself; and sometimes winking with a horrid, wily grimace at Stanley, who fervently wished him at ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I'm thinking it won't be long till he's here now, for the tide's turning at the green head, and the hooker's tacking ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... bad weather, the first wind of the cruise. All hands were required for tacking, and I was stationed on the forecastle-head with one other man. Williams, the butler, succumbed to the weather, and at five o'clock Miss Lee made her way forward through the driving rain, and asked me if I ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... right," I heard the master say to Mr Stormcock when the captain had disappeared. "The corvette was on the right of our line when we bombarded Odessa; and I recollect she missed stays when tacking, and pretty nearly ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to gain for him any considerable national distinction. But that he made a good impression on the House appears from an extract of a letter I lately received from my classmate, Rev. Walter Mitchell, the author of the spirited and famous poem, "Tacking Ship off Fire Island." He says: "I heard your uncle, Mr. Eliot, say that when your father went to Congress the Southern members said, 'Where has this man been all his life, and why have we never heard of him? With us a man of his ability would be ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... liable to failure, so on this occasion he followed his usual plan of making diagonal movements, crossing the road repeatedly from right to left and left to right, after the fashion of a sailing ship tacking against the wind, and halting about every twenty yards to rest and take breath. The distance he was to go was regulated, not so much by his powers of endurance as by the various objects by the wayside—the lamp-posts, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye; At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland, At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking, At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch, Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving their big proportions,) Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat, A learner ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... when, after an hour's tacking against the land breeze, the goleta got inside the estuary of the stream, and working up, brought to by ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... vessel, with the wind dead ahead, was tacking between the Chateau d'If and the tower of Planier. For an instant he feared lest, instead of keeping in shore, she should stand out to sea; but he soon saw that she would pass, like most vessels bound for Italy, between the islands of Jaros and Calaseraigne. However, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I see by the greater size and browner color that it is the female), moves very slowly and deliberately on level, flexible wing, now over the meadow, now over the oat or millet field, then above the pasture and the swamp, tacking and turning, her eye bent upon the ground, and no doubt sending fear or panic through the heart of many a nibbling mouse or sitting bird. She occasionally hesitates or stops in her flight and drops upon the ground, as if seeking insects or frogs or snakes. I have never ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... fine Woolen Cloth saturated with ink, makes an excellent pad, but it is customary to place sheet cotton underneath and muslin over the cloth, bringing the muslin down around the edges and fasten by tacking on a binding of ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... and the two schooners were abreast, tacking together on the long leeward reaches and the short windward ones, as they made across the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... general laugh all round. But the wind had set dead in the south-east again. There was no room for tacking in the narrow inlet. To get out we should have to tow the schooner a mile against the wind,—among ice too. Clearly we must lay here till the wind favored. We concluded, however, to change our position for one a little lower ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... tacking slowly down the bay, I met the Marquis. He was pulling himself in a small skiff, and when he saw me he made haste to come alongside and hitch on. At first I wondered whether it would not be against his father's wishes that he should enter into conversation ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... feathers in the warm sunshine. Masses of jagged rocks stretched far out from land, making a wide sweep necessary in order to get round the Point. Steering was Marjorie's special duty, and long practice had made her very skilful in avoiding dangerous spots, and tacking against cross-currents. She it was, too, who begged Estelle not to jump about in the boat, and so imperil the lives of the party by her delight in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... last remark, his quick eye saw that the wind had hauled so far round to the westward, as to supersede the necessity of tacking, and that they were actually going eight knots in a direct line from Portsmouth. Casting an eye behind him, he perceived that the cutter had given up the chase, and was returning towards the distant ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... decided to do it in her own time and way. Galloping to the grass plot on which we were standing she suddenly stopped short and deposited Lapworth ignominiously at our feet. The other animal followed suit, but did not succeed in clearing itself, and after some tacking Bob and the boatswain got under weigh again and steered for the "White Hart," where they ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... honour about town.' Merely say, 'written to be spoken at Drury Lane.' To-morrow I dine at Copet. Saturday I strike tents for Italy. This evening, on the lake in my boat with Mr. Hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs (the worst, luckily) as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to faint—a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost Mr. Hobhouse ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to Mrs Jane's room, where she occupied herself by tacking clean white ruffles into some of her mistress's gowns. She had not progressed far when that young lady came up, with ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... the Captain, being desirous to get rid of his visitors, took an effectual method by tacking from the shore; our friends then departed apparently in high glee at the harvest they had reaped. They paddled away very swiftly, and would, doubtless, soon reach the shore though it was distant ten or ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... tangles of rags and blood and tumbled hair. Then they would rest awhile and pant and swear. While they were affectionate they always spoke of each other as "ladies," but while they were fighting "strumpet" was the mildest name they could think of—and they could only make that do by tacking some sounding profanity to it. In their last fight, which was toward midnight, one of them bit off the other's finger, and then the officer interfered and put the "Greaser" into the "dark cell" to answer for it because the woman that did it laid it on him, and the other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... letter should be divided into as many paragraphs as there are distinct subjects in the letter, or a new paragraph should be commenced at every change of the subject. The habit which some persons have of tacking one subject to the end of another, and thus making a letter one continuous paragraph of mixed up information, instructions and requests, is extremely objectionable. It destroys the force of what is said, instead of fixing each thought clearly on the mind of the reader; it ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... the night, for the next hours were passed in a monotonous tacking to and fro, making longer and longer reaches as they got farther out to sea; but they looked shoreward in vain for the flashes of guns and the deep thunderous roar of the big breech-loading cannon. But the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... our most favoured spots was at Tacking Point, a curious steep-to bluff, clothed on its sides with a dense thicket scrub, the haunt of hundreds of black wallabies and wonga pigeons, and also a large variety, of brown and black snakes, with an occasional death adder. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... savage isolation. I thought myself strong enough to live alone and think alone, but I am not. What writes itself in me is too intense for the light weight American magazines. My last story took me months to write and I had to ruin it by tacking on to it a happy ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into the open Kara Sea, past the north point of Yalmal and Bieloi-Ostrov (White Island). There was no ice to be seen in any direction. During the days that followed we had constant strong east winds, often increasing to half a gale. We kept on tacking to make our way eastward, but the broad and keelless Fram can hardly be called a good "beater"; we made too much leeway, and our progress was correspondingly slow. In the journal there is a constantly recurring entry of "Head-wind," ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... course had now turned, and we were setting in our first direction. In this manner, after tacking to the right and left and putting backwards and forwards during the greater part of two hours, we at length reached the little landing, on which the assembled party stood ready ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... will do; then there is no necessity for tacking, you have only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may, in that way, run four thousand leagues ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... out, the wind drew ahead, and we had to beat up the coast; so that, in tacking ship, I could see the regulations of the vessel. Instead of going wherever was most convenient, and running from place to place, wherever work was to be done, each man had his station. A regular tacking and wearing bill was made out. The chief mate commanded on the forecastle, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... to look for the frigate. Had the crew seen me go overboard? Was the Abraham Lincoln tacking about? Would Commander Farragut put a longboat to sea? Could I hope to ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... be so if you will only cease tacking that 'yes' on to the end of every question that you ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... Assembly's acknowledgment of the royal prerogative, in recognizing the right of the Crown to name the capital, he pointed out that, prerogative or no prerogative, the possessor of the purse had the final voice. He rebuked his new minister, Baldwin, for tacking on question-begging constitutional phrases to a legal opinion, but he told Stanley, quite frankly, that, "whether the doctrine of responsible government is openly acknowledged, or is only tacitly acquiesced in, virtually it exists."[26] During the remainder ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... together, and though father had his tools beside him, not a tint did he work, but kept travishing back and forth, one time shading his eyes and gazing out to sea, and then looking far along the Plymouth road for minutes at a time. Out by Bradden Point there stood a little dandy-rigged craft, tacking lazily to and fro, with her mains'le all shiny-yellow in the sunset. Though I didn't know it then, she was the Preventive boat, and her business was to watch the Hauen: for there had been a brush between her and the Unity ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Tacking from corner to corner, now and then hitching up his trousers, to give freer play to his feet, he at length comes out upon the street which fronts upon the bay. In his week's cruising about the town he has acquired some knowledge ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... entrance of the Cove, but a sudden shifting of the wind landed her on the opposite side, and I had to make my way all round to get her off again. Aleck remained on his side of the Cove, and we amused ourselves for some time in contriving to get the little boat to sail backwards and forwards, tacking ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... and places in Guiana where emigrating butterflies turn to the north or the south; sometimes for days at a time, but sooner or later the eddies straighten out, their little flotillas cease tacking, and ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... and every mother's child of us, that Dorothy is approaching this room with her dust-pan and brush. Dorothy, I have a nice little sum for you to do. How many snippets of green and black silk go to a dust-pan? Count them, and subtract all the tacking-thread, and Dulce's pins." ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... well until the morning of the 27th, when about three o'clock in the morning watch, as I was lying awake in my apartment, heard the officer of the deck give the order for tacking ship—"Ready about"—and after the boatswain's pipe to "Stations." "Ready, ready," when she received a shock, as from the concussion of a heavy sea, then another, and another, which soon convinced me that the ship was ashore. This was certainly unpleasant, as I had no doubt but that ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... mostly from the ways of ordinary civil life, selecting his metaphors, now from the trader's shop or the merchant's counting-house, as "ratio constat" (An. I. 6), used when the debtor and creditor sides of an account balance one another; now from seamen steering and tacking vessels, or coachmen driving horses, as "verbis moderans" (An. VI. 2), which Nipperdey says ought to be rendered, "touching-up and reining-in his words, and ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... would not hear of posing before the camera, but Sandy explained matters to them, and told them they could easily do it. Mr. Pertell promised to pay well, and this finally won them over. The sheriff and his deputy good-naturedly agreed to do their tacking up of the notices in front of the camera, and so an unexpected film was obtained. It is often that way in making moving pictures. The least germ of an idea often leads to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... happy, rapidly visited door after door, shouted, "Hey, Billy!" and proceeded to the next one. He was getting pugnacious at his lack of success when he espied Mr. Billy Williams tacking along the accidental street as if he owned it. Mr. Williams was executing fancy steps and was trying to sing many songs ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... they had not reached Genoa, the lads had tasted the salt of adventure. Giuseppe's father boarded the Red Dragon, and, treating the whole matter as a summer's lark, helped the young sailors to bring their boat about, and tacking across toward Monaco and then out to the deeper sea, gave them a lesson in sailing that made them quickly forget that they were going back ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... thing into your head?" inquired Mr. Eldridge. "You were in full sail for party this morning, liquor and all; this sudden tacking for a new course is a little ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... It would be an easy enough matter for carpenters and plasterers to put a room in the attic, but we lacked the money necessary for such a venture. And so we puzzled. At first we thought of curtains, but the high winds which visit us made curtains impracticable. Then we thought of tacking the curtains top and bottom, and from this the idea evolved. The carpenter whom we consulted proved to be amenable to suggestion and agreed to put us up a framework in a day. We helped. We outlined the room on the floor. This ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... worthy employment, however, I had nearly lost my life. Returning from carrying corn, the wind rose, and drove the boat to sea. I not understanding the management of the helm, and the servants awkwardly handling the sails, the boat in tacking was overset. The benefit of learning to swim, I again experienced, and my faithful servant, who had gained the rock, aided me when almost spent. The good people who had seen the shallop overset, came off in their boats to my assistance. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... the Lord give me such an insight into what is truly good that I may not rest contented with making Christianity a mere addendum to my pursuits, or with tacking it as a mere fringe to my garments! May I seek to ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... Elsinore, the sight of which brought me into immediate touch with my youthful impressions of Hamlet. We were sailing all unsuspecting through the Cattegat to the Skagerack, when the wind, which had at first been merely unfavourable, and had forced us to a process of weary tacking, changed on the second day to a violent storm. For twenty-four hours we had to struggle against it under disadvantages which were quite new to us. In the captain's painfully narrow cabin, in which one of us was without a proper berth, we ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... saw a sloop. Gave chase, but, the weather being calm, was forced to get out our oars. Fired our bow chase to bring her to; but as the people were in confusion, the ship tacking about, and the night coming on very foggy, we were unable to speak to her. By her course she was bound to the North'd. Lost sight of our prize. The two Englishmen, who were taken prisoners by the Spanish privateer, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... a reason additional to its economy why this practice should not die out. The tearing up into strips of old garments, and the tacking of their ends together with needle and thread is work eminently suited for children, and one in which they take great pride, as it gives them a share in the creation of a useful ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... phrase, as I have taught in the second rule above, should be needlessly converted into a compound word, either by tacking its parts together with the hyphen, or by uniting them without a hyphen; for, in general, a phrase is one thing, and a word is an other: and they ought to be kept as distinct as possible.[113] But, when a whole phrase ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... contrary winds that necessitated his giving most of his attention to the management of his vessel, so that he could not permit himself to yield to the love of gossip that was inherent in him. The weather was perfect, and notwithstanding our constant shifting and tacking about to catch the erratic breeze, the gay little brig made merry and rapid way over the sparkling Mediterranean, at a rate that promised our arrival at Palermo by the sunset of the following day. As the evening came on the wind ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... as Mrs. Vansittart had foreseen, and they galloped along the hard, flat sands towards Scheveningen, where a few clumsy fishing-boats lay stranded. Far out at sea, others plied their trade, tacking to and fro over the banks, where the fish congregate. The sky was clear, and the deep-coloured sea flashed here and there beneath the sun. Objects near and far stood out in the clear air with a startling distinctness. It was a fresh May morning, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... This can be purchased from any dealer in entomological supplies or it may be made by the pupils in the Manual Training Class. See Manual on Manual Training. A very satisfactory cage may be made, by the teacher or larger pupils, from a soap box, by tacking wire gauze over the open surface of the box, removing the nails from one of the boards of the bottom, and converting this board into a door by attaching it in its former position by light hinges and a hook and staple. The box, if now placed on end with two inches of loose soil in the bottom, will ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... moralizing in making an application?" or "What is the difference between an application and moralizing?" Genuine and natural application ought to be inherent in the material presented. A good story ought to drive home its message without further comment. Moralizing consists of "tacking on" some generalized exhortation relative to conduct. Moralizing is either an unnecessary and unwelcome injunction to be or to do good, or it is an apology for a lesson that in and of itself drives home no message. The school boy's definition of moralizing ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... sleepy little village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan—we make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him meant progress. Success is a question of temperament—it is all a matter of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll was a success; happy, exuberant, joying ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... island Tahua. I see with regret the lofty Taumo, where dwells Tangiteruru. If I were there, the shark's tooth would hang from my ear. How fine, how beautiful, should I look. But see whose ship is that tacking? Is it yours? O Hu! you husband of Pohiwa, sailing away on ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... knew to be an island, sometimes standing N.E., at others N.N.E., until sunrise, when they tacked to the south to reach the island, which was now concealed by a great mist. Another island was in sight from the poop, at a distance of eight leagues. Afterwards, from sunrise until dark, they were tacking to reach the land against a strong wind and head-sea. At the time of repeating the Salve, which is just before dark, some of the men saw a light to leeward, and it seemed that it must be on the island they first saw yesterday. All night they were ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... what you have said, Stranger; and I particularly like your manner of tacking on the beginning of your new discourse to the end ...
— Laws • Plato
... had supper, thank you. Did you say there was goose? Thanks... yes. I've remembered the old days.... It's pleasant, young man! You sail on the sea, you have no worries, and [In an excited tone of voice] do you remember the joy of tacking? Is there a sailor who doesn't glow at the memory of that manoeuvre? As soon as the word is given and the whistle blown and the crew begins to go up—it's as if an electric spark has run through them all. From the captain to the ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... rose in the morning, he found that the wind, had shifted contrary during the night, and that the frigate was close hauled, darting through the smooth water with her royals set. At ten o'clock the master proposed tacking the ship, and the first-lieutenant went down to report his wish ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a busy time for the girls, too. They finally decided to convert the Gem, as nearly as possible under the circumstances, into a Venetian gondola. By building a light wooden framework about it, and tacking on muslin, this could be done without too much labor. Betty engaged the help of a man and boy, and with the girls to aid the work ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... direction to be given to his canoe to effect it, he sharply bid Claud be on his guard, and sent the light craft like an arrow into the boiling eddies before him. And now, by sudden and powerful shoves, he was seen shooting obliquely up one rapid; tacking with the quickness of light, and darting off zigzag among the rocks and eddies towards another, which was in turn surmounted; while the boat was forced, surging and bounding forward, with increasing ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... odd character, and one of his peculiarities was, that he never walked directly towards any place or object he wished to reach, but went in a 'criss-cross,' zigzag way, like a ship beating and tacking before a head-wind. He was a hard drinker, and was almost continually under the influence of liquor, and perhaps that was the cause of his singular habit. He was a terribly ugly fellow, when he was mad, and the boys used to tease him ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... for the start home. The wind was against us, and we had to pull. At 7.30 we went ashore for breakfast. We were very chilly, our things still being wet, and we lighted a large fire and got everything dry. After breakfast we managed to sail a little, tacking against the wind, and by 12.30 p.m. we had made Sugar Island. Here was the American channel, and we resolved to get dinner, and wait for a tow. In this we were very fortunate, for just as we were finishing dinner a propeller came along. We ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... would have you. It's all the Baroness's doing, and if she says a thing, it must be done; so you must just get up and come." Mr. Esmond delivered these words with the most amiable rapidity and indistinctness, running them into one another, and tacking about the room as he spoke. But the young Virginian was in great wrath. "I tell you what, cousin," he cried, "I won't move for the Countess, or for the Baroness, or for all the cousins in Castlewood." And when the landlord ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray |
