"Thresh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the country in this fashion we passed a spot on the highroad where a man was getting ready to thresh his wheat. He had prepared the place by spreading over it a layer of cow-dung, and levelling it with his bare feet until it was quite smooth and hard. It is in this way that ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... what Helen and Peter once heard, and even more; for they would hear the tale of those lovers' journeys over the changing waters, and their return time and again to the unchanging plot of earth that kept their secrets. Until in the end they were together delivered up to the millstones which thresh the immortal grain from its mortal husk. But this was after long years of gladness and a life kept young by the child which each was always re-discovering ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Youth. It is not egotism; it is unfathomable ignorance. The youth knows neither himself, the world nor his adversaries. He is unafraid because he does not know the strength of the forces he would conquer. But society learns from the threshings about of its individuals. And it is the young who thresh about. Mailed in their own ignorance, and propelled by their own marvelous energy, the young go forth to conquer. And so the world ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias
... side, or beating. I'll trim his jacket; I'll thresh him. To be trimmed; to be shaved; I'll just step ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... says there are some men in this world too mean to bother the law about. He says he knows one he would like to thresh only he is sure the sneak would not hit him back, but would have him arrested. Physical punishment is the kind for such, father declares. And that's just the way I feel about Lady Sarah. I would not tell teacher on her, for that would give her a chance to 'crawl,' ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... any ideas we'll thresh them out. Emperor will be willing. He'll say yes to anything ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... rule with a rod pickled in their apparent helplessness, which is stronger than a whip of steel, and who are quite closely related to the barnacle and mollusc to which the tide regularly brings tit-bits out of the ocean, whilst the more mercurial eel has to go out and thresh about in the mud for what it requires to keep it going in its ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... saintly lights attended, happier made At each new minist'ring. Then silence brake, Amid th' accordant sons of Deity, That luminary, in which the wondrous life Of the meek man of God was told to me; And thus it spake: "One ear o' th' harvest thresh'd, And its grain safely stor'd, sweet charity Invites me with ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... because our army needs bread. But your corn and buckwheat and pumpkins and apples can be left for a week or two until we see how this thing is going to end. Be sensible; stack what you can, but don't wait to thresh or grind. Bury your apples; let the cider go; harness up; gather your cattle and sheep; pack up the clock and feather bed, and move to Johnstown with your families. In a week or two you will know whether ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... look as one looks on a vision; I see it pulsating by; I glimpse joy-radiant faces; I hear the thresh of the wheel. Hoof-like my heart beats a moment; then silence swoops from the sky. Darkness is piled upon darkness. God ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... to discuss the matter with Horace; he might be quite justified in his fears. He was sorry he had let them lead to words with his eldest son. There were aspects of the case, as it presented itself to his mind, which he could hardly thresh out with Lettice, and her mother must not know of his anxiety on any account. Horace, however, had gone off earlier ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... appear to expect them. They kept on, and did as the blacksmith told them, and soon enough they got to a two-story log-cabin, with a man in front of it working at a wheat-fan, for it was nearly time to thresh the wheat. The man said he was Dave Black's father; he did not act as if he was very glad to see them, but he told them to put their horses in the barn, and he said that Dave was out in ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said; And he, by friar's lantern led. Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend, And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength; And crop-full out of door he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... was but a feeble echo of the majestic reverberations from the glacier across the lake, but it was impressive enough to send Curtis Gordon scurrying to a place of safety. He wheeled in his tracks, doubling himself over, and his long legs began to thresh wildly. Reaching the shelter of a rock crevice, he hurled himself into it, while over his place of refuge descended a shower of dirt and rocks and debris. When the rain of missiles had subsided he stepped forth, his face white ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... age, and weaponless, and yet you venture to make such a commotion." Said Sun Wu Kung: "I am not too small for you; and I can make myself large at will. You scorn me because I am without a weapon, but my two fists can thresh to the very skies." With that he stooped, clenched his fists and began to give the devil a beating. The devil was large and clumsy, but Sun Wu Kung leaped about nimbly. He struck him between the ribs and between ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... bringing salvation to Israel because he was a good son. His old father feared to thresh his grain on account of the Midianites, and Gideon once went out to him in the field and said: "Father, thou art too old to do this work; go thou home, and I shall finish thy task for thee. If the Midianites should surprise me out here, I can run away, which thou canst ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... heard the tale. The Theologian said: "Indeed, To praise you there is little need; One almost hears the farmers flail Thresh out your wheat, nor does there fail A certain freshness, as you said, And sweetness as of home-made bread. But not less sweet and not less fresh Are many legends that I know, Writ by the monks of long-ago, Who loved to mortify the flesh, So that the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... willingly do the man a good turn if I could. If, now, he had some land, I could plough, and sow, and reap, and carry, and thresh by the week together for him. I should like to pay him attention in such a way that he might know there was at least one who cared for him. But his profession is one in which I can't be of any ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... one, it forced him to divide his capital into two parts, of which one only could be employed in cultivation. But if he had been at liberty to sell his whole crop to a corn merchant as fast as he could thresh it out, his whole capital might have returned immediately to the land, and have been employed in buying more cattle, and hiring more servants, in order to improve and cultivate it better. But by being obliged ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... is held in the autumn, after the fruits of the field have been garnered in the storehouses, according to the words of the Bible, "The Feast of Tabernacles shalt thou hold for thyself seven days when thou hast gathered in the produce of thy thresh-floor and ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... them started to yell the effect was weird, and must have given poor, unsuspicious Josh the scare of his life; for he rolled out of bed and commenced to thresh wildly about him, perhaps under the impression that dreams were realities and his clothes actually ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... wildcats. Dinky-Dunk's nose bled and his lip was cut. But he knocked the other man flat, and when he tried to get up he knocked him again. It seemed cruel; it was revolting. But something in me rejoiced and exulted as I saw that hulk of an animal thresh and stagger about the hay-stubble. I tried to wipe the blood away from Dinky-Dunk's nose. But he pushed me back and said this was no place for a woman. I had no place in his universe, at that particular time. But Dinky-Dunk ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... ever did that powerful tail thresh the water, until the foam seemed like soap bubbles. Bellow after bellow made the air tremble, or at least pulsate. And amid all this racket the shrill screams of delight on the part of the excited and pleased swamp lad could be heard pealing forth like the notes of ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... life; that, meanwhile, the great serious past or present world is plodding in its chambers, toiling at its humdrum looms, or jogging on its accustomed labours, and we are only seeing our characters away from their work. Corydon has to cart the litter and thresh the barley, as well as to make love to Phillis; Ancillula has to dress and wash the nursery, to wait at breakfast and on her misses, to take the children out, etc., before she can have her brief sweet interview ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for my brothers in the lumber woods of Wisconsin down among the yellow pines of the Arizona Desert. All that was back in the decrepit and languid and hopesick nineties. It was then you could see the skies of Southern Manitoba luridly aflame at night with wheat stacks it didn't pay to thresh. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... that cut and thresh the wheat are drawn by a traction-engine instead of horses. In running a fifty-horse-power engine high-priced coal had to be burnt but now the coal grates are replaced by petroleum burners, and crude coal-oil is the cheap fuel. This does not make sparks to set the fields on fire like burning coal ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... scale, only two, three, or four horses being used. But improvements and enlargements came step by step, until the ten and twelve horse power machine was achieved, resulting in the large separator that would thresh out several hundred bushels of wheat in a day. The separator had also attached to it what was called the "straw carrier," which conveyed both the straw and the chaff to quite a distance from the machine. But even ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... to bring with it lessons of humility and of profit, that, duly improved, would both chasten the heart and strengthen the feeble-minded man in his course. It is a blessed consolation to be able to lay the misdoubtings of our arrogant nature at the thresh old of the dwelling-place of the Deity, from whence they shall be swept away, at the great opening of the portal, like the mists of the morning before the rising sun. It teaches us a lesson of humility, by impressing us with the imperfection of human powers, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... well the influence of prejudice and idiosyncrasy, even on those who desire most earnestly to be impartial, can wish for nothing more urgently than that the scientific theologian should not only be at perfect liberty to thresh out the matter in his own fashion; but that he should, if he can, find flaws in the Agnostic position; and, even if demonstration is not to be had, that he should put, in their full force, the grounds of the conclusions ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the truth! If you don't think you can stand it, go out into the hail while I thresh this matter out with Taylor!" But Evelyn did not leave ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... letting her father thresh the matter out in his slow, thorough way. Finally her young impatience conquered her restraint. "Well—what do you ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... out a thread with little din, And beeking my cauld limbs afore the sun. What brings my bairn this gate sae air at morn? Is there nae muck to lead? to thresh nae corn? ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Jane. "You can thresh all that out some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't see what we can do. We'll have to let ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... balls in quick succession were fired through the door, then followed a tremendous punching with a log, the door gave way, and with a fiendish yell an Indian was about to spring in, when the unerring rifle fired by the old lady stretched his lifeless body across the thresh-hold of the door. The remaining, or more properly the surviving Indian fired at random and ran, doing no injury. "Now" said the old heroine to her undaunted daughter "we must leave." Accordingly with the rifle and the axe, they went to the river, took the canoe, and without ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... and marble-heads my deeds unfurl To multitudes that knew me not in flesh? Not when I'm gone care I for Renown's dawn, Now, whilst I labour at Fame's lowest rung, Let me reap dame Approval's brightest pearl And sip its olpe as I my battles thresh. ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... "Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I make thine horn iron, and thy claws brass; and thou crushest in pieces many people, and I consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their strength to the Ruler of the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... not mine. My curiosity sees in a stage accomplished no more than the preparation for a new stage towards the retreating unknown. My partner, therefore, leaves me. Henceforth, I am alone, alone and wretched. There is no one left with whom I can sit up and thresh the subject out in exhilarating discussion. There is no one near me to understand me, no one who can even passively oppose his ideas to mine and take part in the conflict whence the light will spring, even as a spark is born of the concussion of two flints. When a difficulty arises, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... moose Barber Kid hangs on and drags backward. Over the man goes, and down under the heap. Barber Kid changes the position of his own body, but never lets go. While some of the kids are "going through" the victim, others are holding his legs so that he cannot kick and thresh about. They improve the opportunity by taking off the man's shoes. As for him, he has given in. He is beaten. Also, what of the strong arm at his throat, he is short of wind. He is making ugly choking noises, and the kids hurry. They really don't want to kill him. All is done. ...
— The Road • Jack London
... came. For their place is already filled, and the new husbandmen, their children, have in their turn come into the field, to eat of the fruit they sowed, to sow in turn a seed of which they themselves shall not see the harvest, whose sheaves others shall bind, whose ears others shall thresh, and of whose corn others shall make bread after them. With our eyes we may yet see the graves of two hundred generations of men, whose tombs serve but to mark that boundary more clearly, whose fierce warfare, when they fought against the master, could not drive back that ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... roared down in thunder-thresh, And roared itself away, And left the earth as sweet and fresh As though 'twas only May; And from outside came stock and clove And half-a-dozen more; And then up steps a piping cove, A-piping at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... sirrah blow wind upon us while we wash, and bid your fellow get him up betimes in the morning, be it fair or foul, he shall run fifty miles afoot tomorrow, to carry me a letter to my mistress, Socia ad pistrinam, Socia shall tarry at home and grind malt all day long, Tristan thresh. Thus are they commanded, being indeed some of them as so many footstools for rich men to tread on, blocks for them to get on horseback, or as [2252]"walls for them to piss on." They are commonly such people, rude, silly, superstitious idiots, nasty, unclean, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior |
