"Whittle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heightened ever and anon by a broad laugh, the eldritch shout of which first announced itself to the ear of the pilgrim. Matted and shaggy, the twisted locks hung wildly about his brow, whilst a short and frizzled beard served as a scanty covering to his chin. A "Sheffield whittle" stuck in his baldric; and in a pouch was deposited the remnant of a magnificent pasty. From oft and over replenishment this receptacle gaped in a most unseemly manner, showing the shattered remains, the crumbling fragments, of many ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg, We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart; But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... successful. Johnnie, who loved to "whittle" above all things, dried her tears, and ran for her shade hat; and by the time the tiny brown seeds were sprinkled into the brown earth of the borders, both the girls were themselves again. Dr. Carr appeared from his retirement half an hour later. A note had come for ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... summer last, I came to Sir George Trenchard's in the afternoon, accompanied with a fellow-minister and friend of mine, Mr. Whittle, vicar of Forthington. There were then with the knight Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Ralph Horsey, Mr. Carew Raleigh, Mr. John Fitzjames, etc. Towards the end of supper, some loose speeches of Mr. Carew Raleigh's being gently reproved by Sir Ralph Horsey with the words ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the road, watching the auto round the hill where it presently disappeared from view. The station owner picked up a sliver of wood and began to whittle industriously. The horseman remained with his bridle reins in hand, amusedly looking at his captive. The maid sat down upon the suitcase, dropped her skirt in a modest little manner, and cast her gaze ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... first week in April—when the men left in the stores of Common, Gravier, Poydras, or Tchoupitoulas street could do nothing but buy the same goods back and forth in speculation; loathed by all who did not do it, or whittle their chairs on the shedded sidewalks and swap and swallow flaming rumors and imprecate the universal inaction and mis-management—there ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum goes on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle Dene and the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton, where the old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After Matfen Piers, where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful little village of Matfen, and one to the southward to ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... on the log, Tayoga, show that there was some indecision, at first, and much talking. Two or three of the French officers had their hunting knives in their hands, and they carved nervously at the log, just as a man will often whittle ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... into their coat-pockets, where they had deposited it, that it could not be made to catch the sparks of the smitten steel. They then tried the flashing of their guns; but they had no paper, and could find no dry leaves or fleecy bark of the birch, and the finest splinters or shavings they could whittle, in the dark, from the clefts of the imperfectly dry pine, would not take fire from the light, evanescent flash of the powder in their pans. Again and again did they renew the doubtful experiment; but every succeeding trial, from the dampness of their material in ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... |under par, leaving only two holes at which both | |players were really ragged. | | | |Sawyer shot remarkably fine golf in the out round of| |the morning and at the tenth hole was 4 up, but from| |this point Evans began to whittle down the lead. | |Although Chick got on even terms four times, it was | |not until the sixteenth hole in the afternoon that | |he led, and the next hole saw him winner. | | | |The score by holes follows: | | | | Scores by Holes | | | |Hole 1 (385 yds., par 4). Sawyer pulled his drive ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... shook his head as though sorrowful over her pertinacity. Then he got up and got a piece of wood, a stick of pitch pine, which he began to whittle carefully into fine slivers. These he collected carefully into a bundle while the ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... been happy in their security. The children could safely play inside the stockade even if they did squabble with the neighbors' children. Rebecca must have sung a ballad betimes as she cooked venison or wild turkey at the hearth, or swept the floor with her rived oak broom. For Daniel could whittle a broom for her while he sat meditating aloud on his past adventures. Daniel was satisfied. Rebecca could see that. Now with the colony established in the wilderness Daniel Boone had realized ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... of that school of philosophy which divided the ego from the non ego. The protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away at the ego, till they have reduced it to a little jelly in certain parts of the body, and they will whittle away this too presently, if they go on as they are ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... like the honest nappy. * * * * * I've seen me daist upon a time I scarce could wink or see a styme; Just ae half mutchkin does me prime; Aught less is little, Then back I rattle with the rhyme As gleg's a whittle. [Footnote: The First Epistle ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... affliction, and one not easily borne. The government realizes this fact, and its program for the blinded soldier includes many forms of handcraft, to be taught in the hospitals. Netting is taught, and the soldiers are encouraged to whittle. I was glad to see this latter occupation included in the "first aid" program, as I have recommended it for many years. When a man whittles, he whistles, maybe not just at first, but some day, almost before he realizes it, he finds himself whistling, and he is then ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... but he continued to whittle and to sing until the cavalcade drew up before him. Then the little girl leaned over the neck of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... unceremoniously made use of, and succeeded in making my peace with her, though, I believe, in her own secret breast, she considered Miss Saville's safety dearly purchased at the expense of her favourite whittle. As I approached the sofa again, the following words, in the harsh tones of Mr. Vernor's voice, met ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... at him gravely. "I think not," said he. "Put another pound or two into her, and I'll pay you on your invoice for the last lot you sent me. Otherwise I'm going to whittle down that bill considerably. You see Townshead is too shaky to come down, and he can't live ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... quit prevalent was a cancer of the lower one corner of the mouth, and it finally ate the whole side of the face out. Of course the sufferer had the greatest trouble in eating and drinking. For the latter it was customary to whittle out a little wooden tube, and fasten it in a tin cup, through which he could suck up the water. As this mouth cancer seemed contagious, none of us would allow any one afflicted with it to use any of our cooking utensils. The Rebel doctors at the hospital resorted to wholesale amputations ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... says that St. George's Church is situated between Fishergate and Friargate—rather a wide definition applicable to about 500 other places ranging from billiard rooms to foundries, from brewing yards to bedstead warehouses in the same region. That brightest of all our historical blades, "P. Whittle, F.A.S.," states that it is located on the south-west side of Friargate—a better, but still very mystical, exposition to all not actually acquainted with the place; whilst Hardwicke comes up to the rescue in the panoply of modern exactness, and tells us that ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... much more important than scaring away crows from corn. Why, if they found the Pole, there wouldn't be a piece an inch long left in a week's time, and the earth would cave in like an apple without a core! They would whittle it all to pieces, and carry it away in their pockets for souvenirs. Come along; I am ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... good, large apple or turnip, and cut from it a piece of the shape to resemble the butt-end of a tallow candle; then from a nut of some kind—an almond is the best—whittle out a small peg of about the size and shape of a wick end. Stick the peg in the apple and you have a very fair representation of a candle. The wick you can light, and it will burn for at least a minute. In performing you should have your candle in a clean ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... mysel',' said he; 'and I've heerd tell as whalers wear knives, and I'd ha' gi'en t' gang a taste o' my whittle, if I'd been cotched up just as ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Kadlu threw a rolled bundle of leather dog-harnesses into a tiny little room that opened from one side of the house, slipped off his heavy deerskin hunting-suit, put it into a whalebone-net that hung above another lamp, and dropped down on the sleeping-bench to whittle at a piece of frozen seal-meat till Amoraq, his wife, should bring the regular dinner of boiled meat and blood-soup. He had been out since early dawn at the seal-holes, eight miles away, and had come home with ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... if Congress can do it under, say, the necessary and proper clause, then the President, lacking authority from Congress, cannot do it on the justification that an emergency requires it. Although four Justices are recorded as concurring in the opinion, their accompanying opinions whittle their concurrence in some instances to the vanishing point. Justice Douglas's supplementary argument on the basis of Amendment V logically confines the doctrine of the opinion to executive seizures of property. Justices Frankfurter and Burton and, less ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... hate ye and ye know it. 'F I'd a been 'lowed ter stay home an' whittle like I wanted ter, I wouldn't a lost my cap. I scratched my fingers gittin' it, an' that makes ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... remains supreme through all the changing suits of time and fortune? He does not sport the garb of those elder knaves, it is true, though he is knavish enough when occasion offers,—he is at this moment inspecting a new jack-knife, and will, I fear, whittle off one of his dear, chubby fingers,—but he outranks all the crowned monarchs in the world. Whom do I mean? Whom, but Thomas the First, Thomas the Only, my first-born, royal son? When that king of your own heart was taken from you,—when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... legs as indicated in Fig. 182. Cut the legs from the "trunk,'" and whittle them to the shape of Fig. 183. The arms, made out of any thin wood, are 2-1/4 inches long between centres of ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... This is the idea of teaching with which they begin, and they make no progress towards anything better. They acquire no skill. They make no growth. They are "grown-up" bodily. But in all that pertains to teaching, they are still babes. They whittle as awkwardly and unskilfully as when the delicate instrument was first put into their clumsy fingers. They go on from year to ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... spring they fished the free water of the Whittle, the little trout-stream that runs through the estate of the Morgans of Muttle Deeping Grange. The free water runs for rather more than half a mile on the Little Deeping side of Muttle Deeping; and the Twins fished it with an assiduity ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... allow men to make money of other people's misfortunes; and then to prison with you; and your miserable helplessness in the narrow cell, and the feeling as if you must be stifled; and not even a pencil to write with, or knife to whittle with, or even a pocket to put anything in. I don't say anything about the starvation diet, because other people besides prisoners were starved or half-starved. Oh, Nupkins, Nupkins! it's a pity you couldn't have thought ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... our backs on Cuneo we realized why it had been given a name signifying "wedge," because of the two river torrents, the Stura and Gesso, that whittle the town to a point, one on either side. For a while we ran smoothly along a road on a high embankment, which reminded Sir Ralph and the Chauffeulier of the Loire; less beautiful though, they thought, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and can whittle it away; and perhaps we can make some chisels, from the ramrods of your guards' guns. A lot can be done, with patience and plenty ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... go on the same way. Mix up some plaster of paris in water and run the foot full and place the ink well or other fitting in place and allow the plaster to "set" and the foot is finished. If you wish a pen rest you can now place it in position. In setting up thermometers remove bone to hoof and whittle out a stick shape of bones removed. Coat inside of skin with arsenic and alum and place stick in position and sew up skin. Put on metal cap at top and tack on thermometer. For hooks on racks, work up a stick with crook into the approximate size and ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... prayer by Major D.W. Whittle, and then Rev C.W. Shelton of New York City, who is connected with the American Missionary Association, spoke about the work among the Indians. He said that two years ago the people of Northfield gave money enough to establish five mission stations; and he ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... on my right has consumption—smells of cod-liver oil, and coughs all night. The man on my left is a down-easter with a liver which has struck work; looks like a human pumpkin; and how he contrives to whittle jackstraws all day, and eat as he does, I can't understand. I have tried reading and tried whittling, but they don't either of them satisfy me, so that yesterday I concluded to ask the doctor if he ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... movement occurred to Abel, the child began to share the uneasiness of all conspiracy and feel a weakness inherent in the Band. Seen from that modest standard of evil-doing which belonged to Tommy and Billy Keep, Amos Whittle and Jacky Gale, the Red Handers appeared a futile organisation even in Abel's eyes. He felt, as greater than he have felt, that an ideal society should embrace one member only: himself. There were far too many brothers of the Red Hand, and before ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... his pocket for his knife, and mechanically looked down for a stick to whittle. In default of any, he scratched his head. "I guess she'll make it warm for him. She's had her mind set on his studyin' law so long, 't she won't give up in a hurry. She can't see that Jackson ain't fit to help her run ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wood and wet wood won't do, but yonder is some birch bark and there's a pine root." He took his axe and cut a few sticks from the root, then used his knife to make a sliver-fuzz of each; one piece, so resinous that it would not whittle, he smashed with the back of the axe into a lot of matchwood. With a handful of finely shredded birch bark he was now quite ready. A crack of the flint a blowing of the spark caught on the tinder from ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... gate, and sat upon the topmost bar, with my feet on the third. Then, having pulled the broad brim of my hat down over my eyes, I took out my clasp knife (it had been given me a few days before by Roger as a memento) and began to whittle the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... night with Lily Whittle, and she will go from there. Of course Victoria has given up dancing since she came home from France, and poor Janet stopped going to parties the year ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... would converse as freely as did George Francis Train with the children in Madison Square. The children recognized in him something very much akin to themselves—he would play upon his flute for them and whittle out toy boats, regardless ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... general texts and the special volumes mentioned in chapter V; G.F. Parker, Recollections of Grover Cleveland (1909); and Political Science Quarterly (June, 1918), "Official Characteristics of President Cleveland," give something on the personal side; J.L. Whittle, Grover Cleveland (1896), is by an English admirer; Cleveland's own side of one of his controversies is in Grover Cleveland, Presidential Problems (1904); on Blaine, Edward Stanwood, James G. Blaine (1905). The Annual ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... among the boys was immense. A jackknife in his expert hand was a whole chest of tools. He could whittle out anything from a wooden chain to a Chinese pagoda, or a full-rigged seventy-four a foot long. To own a ship of Sailor Ben's building was to be exalted above your fellow-creatures. He didn't carve many, and those he refused to sell, choosing to present them to his young friends, of whom ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... made a bow, Well indeed he loved to whittle, Shaped it like the half of O— How he could I scarcely know, For his fingers were so little. As he whittled came a sigh: "If I only had an arrow; Something light enough to fly To the tree-tops or the sky! Then I'd have such ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... ordered to report to Commodore Whittle, commanding the naval station at New Orleans, for duty afloat. A powerful fleet of ships of war and bomb vessels, under the command of Commodore (afterwards Admiral) Farragut, was then assembling at the mouth of the Mississippi, for an attack upon New ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... over this rather unsatisfactory line of reasoning for some minutes. His companion fitted a wooden chimney on the doll house, found it a trifle out of plumb, and proceeded to whittle a shaving off the lower edge. Then Asaph sighed, as one who gives up a perplexing riddle, put his hand in his pocket, and ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and began with his knife to whittle it down to proper size and shape, but Sam said, "I can do better than that," then took the lot to the workbench and set to work with a smoothing plane. Yan looked ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... born at Cannon Hall the 4th of September 1802, 1/2 before seven in the Morning & was christened at Cannon Hall by the Rev. Goodair on 22nd of October following. The Sponsors were the Rev. D. Marriott, Mrs Henry Pulleine of Carlton & Mrs Morland of Court Lodge, Kent. Inoculated with the Cow-pox by Mr Whittle in Grosvenor Square the Spring ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... much finer than before. There had been a chilly look about Walter Rinehart's eyes before his first Retread. Not now. A fine man, like somebody's dear old grandfather. Just give him a chunk of wood to whittle and a jack-blade ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... engine. Then he slipped out, dripping perspiration, glanced toward the cabin, and ran into the work room. The first object he saw was a willow cup half full of red paint, stuck and dried as if to remain forever. He took his knife and tried to whittle it off, but noticing that he was scratching the cup he filled it with turpentine, set it under a work bench, turned a tin pan over it, and covered it with shavings. A few steps farther brought one in sight, filled with carpet tacks. He searched everywhere, but could find ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... as I tell you, I don't care to be critical. I don't want to whittle away the few pleasures that this dull life can provide me with by this perpetual discontent with what's set before one. Why can't you eat and be thankful? To look at that girl is a liberal education; she has a fine voice too, and her beauty, her ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he goeth. Yet, how to trust Will—for sure all men are alike and will give the other countenance in Deceit. So what way to surety, for if a man regard not his wife where shall she look for good? And truly I do believe that in such Trafficking men do chip and whittle away their heart till none be left and they cannot love if they would, and no anchorage in so rotten a Holding ground. And thus have I learned that a woman may be young and yet aweary of her life, which I did not ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... graphically describing the 'Expedition from Torbay to Whitehall' was written by another clergyman, John Whittle by name, a 'Minister Chaplain in the Army,' and from this pamphlet long extracts are given in a paper on this subject by the late Mr Windeatt. Some of these quotations I am now venturing to repeat: 'The morning was very obscure with the Fog and Mist, and withal it was so ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... little Randall girl down on the stage from Maplewood to-day, mother. She's kin to the Sawyer girls an' is goin' to live with 'em," he said, as he sat down and began to whittle. "She's that Aurelia's child, the one that ran away with Susan Randall's son just before we come here ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... stones. And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea, And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily. And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze, And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees. Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you're fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... deck. The captain coming up to have a little conversation, and to introduce a friend, seated himself astride of one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of private life; and pulling a great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to 'whittle' it as he talked, by paring thin slices off the edges. And he whittled with such industry and hearty good will, that but for his being called away very soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing in its place but grist ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... around at the end of the meeting until he saw Martha and Jake go down the road together, Martha shy and conscious and Jake the conquering daredevil that he was known to be among women. Lum went back to his cabin, cooked his dinner, and sat down in his doorway to whittle and dream. ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... years older," answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a stare of perplexity. "Don't cut into the leather with your new knife, dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if——No. I wouldn't scrape the paint off, either—nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put it up until we ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... children are all precocious little men and women would have been surprised to see the door boisterously thrown open by a little blooming boy, who scrambled mirthfully upon his father's knee, as though used to be there, and asked him to whittle a stick for him. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of the more worldly-minded ones will perhaps stroll over to a neighbor's barnyard, and take a look at his young stock, and talk of prices, and whittle a little; and very likely some two of them will make a conditional "swop" of "three likely ye'rlings" for ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell |
