"Half-dozen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognized the impression which this evidence made. He saw that it weighed with the half-dozen solid and slow-thinking men who sat on one side or the other of Mallalieu on the magisterial bench; he felt the atmosphere of suspicion which it engendered in the court. But he did nothing: he had already learned sufficient from Avice in a consultation with her and Bent's solicitor ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... it? Gibes and jeers that, after all, break no bones. A few pinches, kicks and slaps; at worst a few hard knocks. But the dreading of it beforehand! Terror lived in every street, hid, waiting for me, round each corner. The half-dozen wrangling over their marbles—had they seen me? The boy whistling as he stood staring into the print shop, would I get past him without his noticing me; or would he, swinging round upon his heel, raise the shrill whoop that brought them from ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... one or two other men about, making their overcoats and opera hats into neat bundles preparatory to checking them; and instantly there was a flash of a half-dozen eyes in the direction of the two men. Evidently the collapse of the Helmick deal was in the air. All the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... cereal—an' runs up on a cow gent, spurs, gun-belt, big hat an' the full regalia, hangin' to the limb of a cottonwood, dead as George the Third, an' not a hundred foot from the ranch door. An' how inside I finds a half-dozen more cow folks, lookin' grave an' sayin' nothin'; an' the ranch manager has a bloody bandage about his for'ead, an' another holdin' up his left arm, half bandage an' half sling, the toot ensemble, as Colonel Sterett calls it, showin' sech recent war that the blood's still wet on the cloths an' drops ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... It wasn't easy, either. If my half-dozen aspirants for fame escaped shaking till their teeth chattered, it wasn't because I didn't ache to administer it. And Rose feared her hair would be white before the end of the term. You see, when there's a certain amount ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the Black Growler were at least a half-dozen men and it required no explanation to enable the boys to understand that they were a part of the noisy assembly which had made night hideous ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... face, cut by privation and anxiety and illness, had almost disappeared with the renewed elasticity of the flesh, and his blue eyes were wide open, and sparkling in sympathy with the pleasure of his guests and the success of his own strategy. These few insignificant Spaniards dislodged, a half-dozen forts in this harbor, and the combined navies of the world might be defied; while a great chain of hungry settlements fattened and prospered exceedingly on the beneficence of the most fertile ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... the prisoner to move on round the next traverse, at the same time shouting to the Germans there, and passing Macalister on at the bayonet point. This performance was repeated exactly in all its details through the next half-dozen traverses, the only exception being that in one an excitable German, making violent motions with a bayonet as he appeared round the corner, insisted on his holding his hands over ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... until 7.30 p.m. The last half-dozen birds, alert and anxious, dashed off upon a common impulse noisily. They roost in the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard leaves ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... consolidated and centralized school is the increased size of territorial unit, with more children to know one another and mingle together. Intervisiting of district schools—one school, teachers and pupils, playing host to a half-dozen other schools, with some regularity, using plays and games, children's readiest means of getting acquainted—is a successful means of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the saddle of her Spanish jennet; some of the other gentlemen assisted the Senora Agapida to the back of the sure-footed mule which she had elected as her mount; Alvarado saluted and sprang to the back of his mettlesome barb, and, followed by a half-dozen troopers who constituted the escort, the rear being brought up by servants with pack mules carrying the personal baggage of the two ladies, the little cavalcade moved off, the gentlemen in the Viceroy's suite standing bareheaded in the doorway as they disappeared ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... sudden realization of what meant to me a real catastrophe—Dian was gone, and with her a half-dozen other prisoners. The guards saw it too, and the ferocity of their rage was terrible to behold. Their awesome, bestial faces were contorted in the most diabolical expressions, as they accused each other of responsibility for the loss. ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I first saw the cake-walk. There was a contest for a gold watch, to be awarded to the hotel head-waiter receiving the greatest number of votes. There was some dancing while the votes were being counted. Then the floor was cleared for the cake-walk. A half-dozen guests from some of the hotels took seats on the stage to act as judges, and twelve or fourteen couples began to walk for a sure enough, highly decorated cake, which was in plain evidence. The spectators crowded about the space reserved for the contestants and watched them with ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... With her half-dozen shirts at seven cents, Mrs. Gaston returned home, feeling as if she must give up the struggle. The loss of Ella, after having striven so long and so hard for the sake of her children, made her feel more ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... However, I suffer from this Maccabee in good society together with Prof. Max Muller (pp. xxvi. and xxxiii.), Mr. Clouston (pp. xxxiii. and xxxv.), Byron (p. xlvi.), Theodor Benfey (p. xlvii.), Mr. W. G. Rutherford (p. xlviii.), and Bishop Lightfoot (p. xlix.). All this eminent half-dozen is glanced at, with distinct and several sneers, in a little volume which, rendered useless by lack of notes and index, must advertise itself by the reclame ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... only those designers who had had a solid course of training in engineering shops. By degrees engineers trained in shipyards and officers skilled in motor-car design were added to the staff of the drawing office until, by 1916, it had increased from some half-dozen ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... I would have sworn if there war a half-dozen of us in here, there was no show of our getting away wid our top-knots, for the raison that there is but one hole through which we could sneak, and there's twenty of 'em sitting round there, and watching for us; but I faal that there is some ground ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... driving the coach, with its superb team of horses, which had become by now so familiar an object in the division. He was to return in time to make the final speech in the concluding Liberal meeting of the campaign, which was to be held that night, with the help of some half-dozen other members of Parliament, in the Dunscombe ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... generator of more hearty, healthful, purely good-humored laughs than any other half-dozen men ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... are capable of writing admirable articles; but many of them owe their position in the House to some antecedent connection with the press, or have become, in some manner regularly "connected with the press;" and have acquired, by long practice, the capacity of article-writing. But take any half-dozen members indiscriminately out of the House, and set them down to write articles on any subject which they may have just heard debated, and see how grotesque will be their efforts? They may be very "clever fellows," but that they can write articles as well as men whose profession ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the door closed after the waiter and the tarts, "there are customers enough, I warrant, for you in that room, if you had but the luck to be called in. Pray, what would you have the conscience, I wonder now, to charge me for these here half-dozen little mats to put ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... launched. But this enterprise proved signally abortive. The catamarans sent exploded with an awful noise, and created a great alarm, not only in the French flotilla, but also in the shore batteries; but the explosion only wounded some half-dozen Frenchmen, while they blew up nothing but themselves. In the whole affair, which lasted till four o'clock in the morning, the French had only fourteen killed and seven wounded, while the English had not a single man hurt. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... future proceedings according to circumstances. This seeming the only feasible plan, I, with many internal maledictions upon the stupid mischance, accompanied the agent to an hotel or inn where he had already chartered quarters for his short stay in the place. There are some half-dozen of these establishments in Port Arthur. Three or four of them are wretched hovels, which existed in the squalid infancy of the town; the newer ones are larger and fairly commodious and comfortable. The one we occupied was near one of the gates of the approaches to the ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... necessary where oxygen is being consumed is evident from the data presented by authorities on hygiene. A standard candle when burning vitiates the air in a room almost as much as an adult person. An ordinary kerosene lamp vitiates the atmosphere as much as a half-dozen persons. An ordinary single mantle burner causes as much vitiation as two or ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... less after a few moments Wid Gardner did turn away. He passed out at the rail bars which fenced off the front yard from the willow-covered banks of a creek which ran nearby. A half-dozen head of mixed cattle followed him up to the gate, seeking a wider world. A mule thrust out his long head from a window of the log stable where it was imprisoned, and brayed at ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... strawberries were still hidden away. Further on was nearly half an acre of tall raspberry canes and thistles five feet high, growing together in a dense mass, where one could still pick raspberries enough to last a household for the season. Then, in a waste of hemlock, there were some half-dozen apple trees covered with lichen and moss, and against the northern walls a few dying plum trees hanging from their nails. Beyond them there was a dead pear tree, and just inside the gate, as one came back to it, a large fuchsia ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... industrial pursuits are carried on. A little farther on you observe a low structure where the oil is stored. On the ledge above the shop you see another pitchy building. This furnishes quarters for the half-dozen Danish employees,—fellows who, not having married native wives, hunt and fish for the glory of Denmark. Near the den of these worthies you observe another,—a duplicate of that in which lives the cook. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... expanse of champaign, large enough for an empire, remains to the present time not only uncolonised, but absolutely unexplored. For the half-dozen expeditions that have attempted its exploration, timidly entering and as hastily ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... his teeth tending to chatter, he gathered a half-dozen of his fellows and went tramping out the castle gate. Some of the half dozen had been involved in the rescue of the Lady Fani from Ghek. They were still in a happy mood because of the plunder they'd brought ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... willing to share bed and board, and otherwise admit a perfect equality that few Americans conceded. Jap was perfectly honest according to his lights, but he hadn't any lights; and it was well known that his chief revenue was derived from storing and restoring stolen Dogs and Cats. The half-dozen Canaries were mere blinds. Yet Jap believed in himself. "Hi tell you, Sammy, me boy, you'll see me with 'orses of my own yet," he would say, when some trifling success inflated his dirty little chest. He was not without ambition, in a weak, flabby, once-in-a-while way, ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... late evening we passed Washburn, the "steamboat center" of the upper river, fifty water miles from Bismarck. It made a very pretty appearance with its neat houses climbing the hillside. Along the water front, under the elevators, a half-dozen steamboats of the good old-fashioned type, lay waiting for their cargoes. Two more boats were building on ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... ever seen before. The fleets of Copenhagen, Trafalgar, and the Nile would have cut but a sorry figure beside them, and there was more of the materiel of war concentrated on that one siege of Sebastopol than on any half-dozen other sieges recorded in British history. In all that mechanical art could accomplish, the late war with Russia was by far the most considerable in which our country was ever engaged. It was, in respect ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... without the aid of time and gradual increase. But, this has been reversed in America. We cannot take it for granted that because the natural site of a town is now clothed with the forest, and remote from habitations, that it will not become a prosperous city, within a half-dozen years. For, we know that in the Northwest, cities have arisen on a substantial basis, to a numerous population, in a space so brief that history has no record of their existence, and the school maps no name for the ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... generality of the visitors. These are the father and mother, and old grandmother: a young man and woman, and an individual addressed by the euphonious title of 'Uncle Bill,' who is evidently the wit of the party. They have some half-dozen children with them, but it is scarcely necessary to notice the fact, for that is a matter of course here. Every woman in 'the gardens,' who has been married for any length of time, must have had twins on two or three occasions; it is impossible to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... other;—"a slap on the chaps"; "a coffer or case for holding any materials"; "seats in a theatre"; "a Christmas present"; "the case for the mariner's compass," and "the seat on a coach for the driver." The Roman word, too, "locus," has just the same half-dozen meanings for things as unconnected;—"a passage"; "a country"; "an argument"; "a place"; "a sentence," and "a seat." In five instances "box" is a primitive noun; when it means "a blow on the cheek with the palm of the hand," it is a verbal substantive. Exactly the same ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... rabbits come out from their holes on the edge of the wood, and birds sometimes flew in unheeded. The fireplace was at the other end, and was fed in winter with the sticks and peats brought by the scholars. On one side Domsie sat with the half-dozen lads he hoped to send to college, to whom he grudged no labour, and on the other gathered the very little ones, who used to warm their bare feet at the fire, while down the sides of the room the other scholars ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... captivation. That is Silvia Holland, one rich American girl who is determined to justify her existence, live a life that is worth while, and demonstrate the ability of women to be economically independent, for although her father has a half-dozen city, country and resort residences, she insists in maintaining at her own expense a modest apartment in the Whittier Studios, and keeps up her own country home on the Hudson at Nutwood. Just now her parents ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... there is a new variety which is destined, I think, to become the leader of the half-dozen other good sorts to be had. That is the Burpee Improved. The name is rather misleading, as it is not an improved strain of the Dreer's or Kumerle bush lima, but a mutation, now thoroughly fixed. The bushes are stronger-growing and much larger than those of ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... There were some half-dozen on the list, all told; and as soon as we were mustered, the doctor led the way to the hospital, and we followed after, like a fatigue-party, in single file. At the door he paused, told us "the fellow" would see each of us alone, and, as soon as I had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no sign of a black on board. Some half-dozen ordinary-looking sailors lounged about the deck, and save that it was such a smartly-built heavily-rigged craft, there was not a trace of her being anything but an ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... posts, and thus escaped the turmoil of the camp. My quarters were in one of the old Flemish country-houses, which had been the headquarters of the French general, and had thus escaped the usual ravage. The chateau was large, well furnished in the national fashion, and the half-dozen domestics who remained after the escape of their master, were charmed with the expenditure which always follows the presence of English troops. My companion, the captain of dragoons, was one of the finest specimens ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... done within the limits I have mentioned. This conclusion is well-nigh forced upon us when we consider what would mean the withdrawal of all that women have done in art. The world would certainly be the poorer by some half-dozen charming novels, by a few charming poems and sketches in oil and water-colour; but it cannot be maintained, at least not seriously, that if these charming triflings were withdrawn there would remain any gap in the world's art to be filled up. Women have created ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... them. Fredrika Bremer heard of secret schools for slaves during her visit to Charleston, but she had extreme difficulty in finding such an institution. When she finally located one and gained admission into its quiet chamber, she noticed in a wretched dark hole a "half-dozen poor children, some of whom had an aspect that testified great stupidity and mere animal life."[1] She was informed, too, that there were in Georgia and Florida planters who had established schools for the education of the children of their slaves with the intention of preparing them for living ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... taught, by the lives of the "wits," to consider aberration, eccentricity, and "devil-may-careism" as prime badges of genius, and he proceeded accordingly to astonish the natives, many of whom, in their turn, set themselves to copy his faults. But when we subtract some half-dozen pieces, either coarse in language or equivocal in purpose, the influence of his poetry may be considered good. (We of course say nothing here of the volume called the "Merry Muses," still extant to disgrace his memory.) It is doubtful if his "Willie brew'd a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... A half-dozen other shacks and lean-tos, seen here and there through the trees, completed the camp. Great fallen trees—they were taking only the full-grown timber—looking helpless and hopeless, lay this way and that like broken giants, majestically resigned ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... From the midst of the crowd, thrust out by its own vividness, appeared the face of a wild-eyed squaw from the remote regions of the Upper Tana-naw; a strayed Sitkan from the coast stood side by side with a Stick from Lake Le Barge, and, beyond, a half-dozen French-Canadian voyageurs, grouped by themselves. From afar came the faint cries of myriads of wild-fowl on the nesting-grounds. Swallows were skimming up overhead from the placid surface of the Yukon, and robins ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... There are some half-dozen classes of technical requirements which make the amending of many state constitutions wellnigh impossible. Some states have never been able to amend; others have had to submit the same amendment again and again before it passed, even in the case of measures which were not unpopular. ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... among some half-dozen ordinary knives and forks. It was of a kind quite familiar to Doctor Mary from her hospital experience, a fork on one side, a knife-blade on the other; an implement made for people who could command the use of ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... when I came out at the hotel door to pursue my journey, I found my friend waiting with one of those immense bottles in which the Italian peasants store their wine—a bottle holding some half-dozen gallons—bound round with basket-work for greater safety on the journey. I see him now, in the bright sunshine, tears of gratitude in his eyes, proudly inviting my attention to this corpulent bottle. (At the street-comer hard by, two high-flavoured, able-bodied monks—pretending ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... and grouped themselves about Petrak at the wheel with drawn weapons, and the next instant I saw a half-dozen forms emerge from the welter of steam and ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... and merchantmen which, trim and in good order, had lain in the bay the afternoon before, some half-dozen only had weathered the hurricane. The "City of London" alone had succeeded in steaming out to sea when the gale began. The "Jason" and a few others had ridden to their anchors through the night. The rest of the fleet had been destroyed, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... this point, he would merely lose his hold from sheer exhaustion and fall from the ladder. And when picked up by the crew at the bottom of the shaft, he was fit for nothing but to be thrown like carrion into the nearest unused pit, walled in with a half-dozen shovelfuls of earth, and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... feet, a sea of blood and flame. His father and Tennant were down, never to rise again; a few paces in front of him Guyder Touchett headed a little knot of the defenders, swearing furiously as he hewed and hacked. A half-dozen against ten times their number; the issue could not be doubtful. Even as he gazed, two of the six sunk to their knees and then fell face downward, a dreadful sign that even a ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... not be very pleasant for those who came in contact with it, but it was very effective for the purpose aimed at. In sea parlance Kettle had to "break up" some half-dozen of them before all hands acquiesced to his dictatorship; but they were quick to see there was a Man over them this time, and involuntarily they admired his virility even while they rubbed ruefully at their bumps; and during the times of stress that came afterward, ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... shouldn't care for telling; only, you were always a discreet boy, and it rather presses on my mind at times. The master won't be back for awhile; he'll have the roast to try, and the pudding to taste—not to talk of seeing the table laid out, for there are to be some half-dozen besides yourself to-day at dinner. That's his way, you see. And I'll tell you what took me from the toll-house—but mind, never mention it, as you would keep ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... literally and really believed it so. He would own nothing but the barest necessities—neither pictures, nor furniture, neither clothes nor books. Pictures, furniture? Why, he had no roof to shelter them! Clothes? Where was he to carry them, if not on his back? Books? He had half-dozen, which contained all the wisdom of the world. So he used to cry. Now, this might be as it was; but when he seemed to expect her to be of the same mind and behaviour, you will see that ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... to go, the stranger again touched his breast and raised his hand above his heart to reiterate his friendship. He took a half-dozen steps, then whirled on his heel. As he did so, he brought his rifle on a line with the Indian's back, which was toward him. Simultaneously with the report, the Indian fell on his back on the side of the gulch. He drew up his leg, and the ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... in the first row we had in the organization (which arose over a movement, that I backed, to stand by a non-partisan method of street-cleaning) Joe and all his friends stood stiffly with the machine, and my side, the reform side, was left with only some half-dozen votes out of three or four hundred. I had expected no other outcome and took it good-humoredly, but without ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... up at the Embarkation Station, quite close to the wharf to which some half-dozen steamers were moored. There was little or no delay. The Battalion fell straight into "massed formation," and began immediately to move on to one of the ships. The Colonel stood by the gangway talking to an Embarkation Officer. Everything was in perfect readiness, and the Subaltern was soon ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... locomotive power by taking snuff with great frequency, and waving energetically in the air a large and soiled pocket-handkerchief. This Pentland, indeed, appears to have been a curious example of the strolling manager of the old school. His company consisted but of some half-dozen performers, including himself, his wife, and his daughter. He journeyed from town to town on a donkey, the faithful companion of all his wanderings, with his gouty legs resting upon the panniers, into which were packed the wardrobe and scenic embellishments ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... later Louis de Camors, the Prince d'Errol, and a half-dozen guests of both sexes, took possession of an apartment, the closed doors of which ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... tucked her knitting-needles in her belt, and went up to the lodge to put the dinner over the fire, the caretaker went down toward Candlemakers Row to trim the grass about the martyrs' monument. Bobby dutifully trotted at his heels. Almost immediately a half-dozen laddies, led by Geordie Ross and Sandy McGregor, scaled the wall from Heriot's grounds and stepped down into the kirkyard, that lay piled within nearly to the top. They had a perfectly legitimate errand there, but no mission is to be ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... be their best, the Apaches had gone no farther any day than the slowest half-dozen of their plunder. Captain Grover was therefore almost justified in a firm conviction ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... "'Ere I was puzzlin' and whackin' away at the padlock, never noticing." It had been used apparently as an ice-chest, but it contained nothing now but the remains of half-dozen boiled chickens, some ambiguous substance that might once have been butter, and a singularly unappetising smell. He closed the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... when it was time to divide the spoil. Over Mrs. Dunne's second-best shawl it was that the difficulty arose. Mrs. Dunne, despite her husband's thrifty turn, owned many shawls, few of them inferior enough to be worn at all frequently, and she had pinned on this one three times only during the half-dozen years of her proprietresship. So it was certainly bitter bad luck that she should by chance have worn it to Confession on Friday, and got it soaked coming home, and hung it up in the passage by the back door ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... motionless upon the water, her yards swarming with men loosing the sails, which in a moment fell together with a precision that would have plainly told a sailor that the brig was a man-of-war, even without taking notice of the delicate white ribbon painted upon her side, pierced by a half-dozen ports, from which protruded as many saucy-looking guns, their red tompions contrasting prettily with the aforesaid white line and the black sides of the vessel. A flag hung negligently down from her gaff end, and, as a puff of wind stronger than the rest ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... improvised rope, my feet dangling, my arms aching from the weight. To hold on longer was seemingly impossible, yet I could neither see nor feel bottom. I let go, confident the distance could not be great, and came down without much shock a half-dozen feet below. I was in a large fire-place, apparently never utilized, the opening entirely covered by a screen of cast-iron. This fitted closely, but was unfastened, and, after feeling about cautiously in the darkness, I pushed it slightly to ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... he the very wildest of all that I have ever met in the woods—who showed me unwittingly many bits of his life, and with whom I grew to be very well acquainted after a few seasons' watching. All the hunters of the village knew him well; and a half-dozen boys, who owned guns and were eager to join the hunters' ranks, had a shooting acquaintance with him. He was known far and wide as "the ol' beech pa'tridge." That he was old no one could deny who knew his ways and his ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... the greater part of the talking. At any rate, if I should try to report all that I said during the first half-dozen walks we took together, I fear that I might receive a gentle hint from my friends the publishers that a separate volume, at my own risk and expense, would be the proper method of bringing them ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... stood loitering in the porch below, where an old gentleman in a sort of watch-box, rattled a tin canister, with a slit in the top, incessantly, to remind them that he took the money. The majority were country-people, male and female. There were four or five Jesuit priests, however, and some half-dozen well-dressed women. A whole school of boys, twenty at least, were about half-way up— evidently enjoying it very much. They were all wedged together, pretty closely; but the rest of the company gave the boys as wide a berth as possible, in consequence of their betraying some ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... satisfactory place of entertainment at the other extremity of the lake, and it had now been for many years closed. There were no dwellings of any kind in its vicinity, so that it reigned over a solitude of a half-dozen miles in every direction. Once in a while the gay visitors in the more prosperous regions stretched their sails and skimmed along till they saw its white porticos and piazzas gleaming faintly up among the trees; once in a while a belated traveller tied his horse at the gate, and sought ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... that I was quicker than the girl she had called Leah; but the Jew, with an air of parental majesty, told her to be silent, and then said that as I was an "improver" he could only take me "on piece," naming the price (a very small one) per half-dozen buttons and buttonholes, with the condition that I found my own twist and did the work in my ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... your servant; ladies, yours. I should have been here sooner, but I have been obliged, at their own requests, to wait upon some half-dozen persons of the first quality with tickets: upon my soul 1 have been chid for putting off my play so long. I hope you are all quite perfect, for the town will positively stay for it no longer. I think I may very well put upon the bills, At the particular desire of ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... to die, and yet lingered on; his wife had long been dead, and he had but one son, a boy of ten years old, Robert by name, who was brought up roughly and evilly enough; he played with the village boys, he lived with the half-dozen greedy and idle men-at-arms who loitered in the castle, grumbling at their lack of employment, and killing the time with drinking and foolish games and gross talk. There was an old chaplain in the house, a lazy and gluttonous priest, who knew enough of his ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cupboards, and tried the drawers which were locked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette appointments, while the old charwoman was saying her prayers. "I shouldn't like to sleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience, Miss," said the old woman. "There's room for us and a half-dozen of ghosts in it," says Rebecca. "Tell me all about Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt Crawley, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... His excitement was evidently dying away. At last Valentine shut the door, and they went back again to the tentroom, accompanied closely by the dog, who gradually regained his calmness, and who presently jumped of his own accord into his basket, and, after turning quickly round some half-dozen times, composed ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... half-dozen or dozen domestic animals in the same manner as I treat dogs, I intended to have a chapter of conclusions. But Heaven knows when I shall finish: I get on very slowly. You would be surprised how long it took me to pick out what seemed useful about ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... far away roar came to Rhoda's ears. There was a faint whistle repeated with increasing loudness. Off to the north appeared a light that grew till it threw a dazzling beam on the strange little waiting group. The train passed, a half-dozen dimly lighted Pullmans. The roaring decreased, the whistle sounded lower and lower and the night was silent. Rhoda sat following the last dim light with burning eyes. Kut-le led the way from the difficult going of ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... some half-dozen of the most charming young ladies in England would only begin coaxing, and coax to as good purpose! I would go out next summer and willingly end my days in work on the water, if I thought my adorable readers would only take Marion Dearsley's hint, and help to blot out a little ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... evident that the crisis had come. While the Etheling faced him with a defiance that in its utter abandon was a little mad, a sensation as of bracing muscles and setting teeth went around the group. Several of the thanes laid their hands upon their swords. And the half-dozen ealdormen present bent toward one another in hasty consultation. At an almost imperceptible sign from the old cniht, the henchmen made a noiseless step nearer their master. There were not more than a dozen of them, but behind them loomed some two-score yeomen-soldiers, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... satisfaction of an annual stare at them through an iron grating, and of reading a placard to the effect that nobody was allowed to enter an alcove or take down a volume. As it occurred to me that the generous donors could not object to add one more to the select half-dozen or so, who, by having the privilege of the shelves, could really use the library, I demanded this favor of the gentleman who desired to recompense me for what I had done for him. The Librarian, who valued books as things capable of being locked up in cells like criminals, there to figure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... considerably less than twenty thousand dollars, and the second trial not more than half that amount. To the defence, however, it was a costly matter, as the recent schedules in bankruptcy of the defendant show. Therein it appears that one of his half-dozen counsel still claims as owing to him for his services on the first trial the modest sum of thirty-five thousand dollars. The cost of the whole defence was probably ten times that sum. Most of the money goes to the lawyers, and the experts ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... in pursuit under all sail, rapidly nearing the enemy, who at this time was taken in tow by a frigate. But although in this position the French ship could not train her broadside guns upon her smaller opponent, she could still work freely the half-dozen stern guns, and did so with much effect. "So true did she fire," noted Nelson, "that not a shot missed some part of the ship, and latterly the masts were struck every shot, which obliged me to open our ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Why, you must have a half-dozen already. I come upon them everywhere about the house, in the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... The trail had now been cautiously followed by the huntsmen and their young charges, and the next moment the whole twenty stood at the head of the pathway, together with the Master Huntsman, and some half-dozen stout fellows all armed with murderous-looking hunting knives, and betraying by their looks the same eagerness for the fight as the band ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... unpractised eye could see at once the difference betwixt these statues and those of the Transalpine churches. The Italian sculptors seemed to possess some secret by which they could make the marble live. Some half-dozen of priests, with red copes (I presume it was a martyr's day, for on such days the Church's dress is red), ranged in a pew near the altar, were singing psalms. Whether the good men were thinking of their dinner, I knew not; but they yawned portentously, wrung their ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... long to wait. That hideous, mangled heap there, sweating blood in the noon sun, seemed to have some way of making its presence known. Crashing sounds arose in different parts of the forest, and presently some half-dozen of the leaping, kangaroo-like ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... not think any other picture, except the Madonna di San Sisto at Dresden, ever stirred within me. The memory of such a picture is like the memory of sublime and perfect music; it makes any one who fully feels it—silent. Fifty years hence it will be named among the half-dozen ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... had faced the steely-eyed man across the long table in the Directors Room—faced him and replied to questions from this man and the half-dozen others seated there. Skeptical questions, tricky questions; and now ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... which the "Battle of Life" is opened: the joyous dance of two girls, "quite unconstrained and careless", "in one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a honeysuckle porch", "while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... hardly an interval, there shot from the platform of the great tower of the castle in quick succession a flight of answering flame signals—one, two, three, a half-dozen; I counted them as they rose and drifted away on the light morning breeze. There flashed forth lights also below in the camp of the Orsini which ringed the town, for the sentries had sounded the alarm, and when we came up with their ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... stationary engines were banked; the concrete mixers did not revolve; the conveyers were still; the dam site wore an air of abandonment. In headquarters the engineers worked over tracings or notes; and in the commissary store the half-dozen white foremen gathered to smoke and yarn. That was the ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... to provincial authorities. Never mind what people say about you, nor what may be the maxims and ways of men around you. These are no guides for you. Public opinion (which only means for most of us the hasty judgments of the half-dozen people who happen to be nearest us), use and wont, the customs of our set, the notions of the world about duty, with all these we have nothing to do. The censures or the praise of men need not move us. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... her day. She well remembered that, and even boasted of it. Off-hand she could name a half-dozen men who once would have accepted the custody of her heart with alacrity, but she was too discerning. The Piper standard on the feminine side of the family was raised high, and he must be an immortal, ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... wife looked scarcely half her age. She could still wear rose-color, and her hair hanging loose upon her shoulders. Although their income did not exceed twelve thousand francs, they ranked among the half-dozen largest fortunes in the old city, merchants and officials excepted; for M. and Mme. de Bargeton were obliged to live in Angouleme until such time as Mme. de Bargeton's inheritance should fall in and they could go to Paris. Meanwhile they were bound to be attentive to old M. de Negrepelisse ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... is one of some half-dozen American writers who are doing the best that is being done for English literature at the present time. Her range of dialect is extraordinary; but, after all, it is not the dialect that constitutes the ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... she recovered her color and strength. The owner of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... been a peach!" said Isaac Porter, open-mouthed and eager for details. Whereupon Marshal Crow related the story of the crime which stupefied the world on the morning of July 31st. The express had been held up in an isolated spot by a half-dozen masked men. A safe had been shattered and the contents confiscated, the perpetrators vanishing as completely as if aided by Satan himself. The authorities were baffled. A huge reward was offered in the hope that it might induce some discontented ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... to the quiet glade which had been selected as the scene of this rural festivity, they found there a noisy and bustling crowd. A monstrous fire of logs, enough to roast not only a single ox, but a hecatomb of oxen, was blazing near the edge of the glade, while a half-dozen chattering negroes were busy digging a great pit close by. This pit, when entirely excavated, measured some ten or twelve feet in length, by five or six in width, and perhaps three in depth; and was lined with smooth flat stones. ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... sound of feet and voices in the anteroom. The door was flung violently open, and a half-dozen men with naked swords came blundering into the room, ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... many real persons possess, and I am continually thinking of her when I meet them. There are half a dozen books of Dickens which have, I think, furnished more characters which are the constant companions of the ordinary educated man around us, than is true of any other half-dozen volumes published within the ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... Mamasaki had been delegated by his coadjutors ceremoniously to accept, and Captain Adams was appointed by the Commodore to deliver, the gifts; and each performed his functions by an interchange of compliments and a half-dozen stately bows. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... intimately, should introduce the "White Hart" into his book as a setting for one of his most amusing scenes. After speaking of London's inns in general, he makes special mention of those in the Borough, where, he says, there still remained some half-dozen old inns, "which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the encroachments of private speculation." Since these words were written ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... was good to hear the horn and the cheer of the hunters as they drew the deep cover for the deer, and the half-dozen couple of hounds that were held back in leash while the rest were at their work strained and whimpered to be with them. And at last the great stag broke from the cover, in no haste, but in a sort of disdain of those who had disturbed him, and ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... publications was then but small. Indeed, on the austere principles of those who deny 'originality' to such things as reviews, or as the essays in the Minstrelsy, it must be limited to a mere handful, though of very pleasant delights, the half-dozen of ballads made up by 'Glenfinlas,' 'The Eve of St. John,' the rather inferior 'Fire King,' the beautiful 'Cadzow Castle' (not yet mentioned, but containing some of its author's most charming topic lines), the fragment of 'The Grey Brother,' and a ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... The first half-dozen couples Lane studied all danced more or less as Helen and Swann had, that day in Helen's studio. Then, by way of a remarkable contrast, there passed two young people who danced decently. Lane descried his sister Lorna in the throng, and when she and her partner came round in the giddy circle, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... sight of him that filled me with amazement. For that, Castelroux's information had prepared me, and I well understood in what capacity he was there. My surprise sprang rather from the fact that amongst the half-dozen gentlemen about him—and evidently in attendance—I beheld the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. Now, knowing as I did, the Chevalier's treasonable leanings, there was ample cause for my astonishment at finding him in such company. Apparently, too, he was on very intimate terms with the ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... man," said the General, "it is a group of men. I don't say that it's true, mind you. I wouldn't be at liberty to say it even if I knew it; but there are certain things that I have seen, and I have my suspicions of others. And you must realise that a half-dozen men now control about ninety per cent of the ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... Ancoats, I expect. He told me he had a committee there to-day after work, about those houses he's going to pull down. He's got Mr. Buller and Mr. Haycraft—and'—Lucy named some half-dozen more rich and well-known men—'to help him, and they're going to pull down one of the worst bits of James Street, David says, and build up new houses for working people. He's wild about it. Oh, I know we'll have no money at all ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be more futile or impertinent. The impression of the solidity and magnitude of Johnson's character which is to be gathered from Boswell is enforced from other sources; from his essays and his prayers and meditations, from the half-dozen or so lives and reminiscences which were published in the years following his death (their very number establishing the reverence with which he was regarded), from the homage of other men whose genius their books leave indisputable. Indeed ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... folks has been divided into groups and has sung the nonsensical rhymes until every boy and girl broke down in laughter. Do you poor modern people know how it was done? The school was divided into a half-dozen sections. The first section began to sing and when its members reached the end of the first line, the second section began; the third section began when the second reached the end of the first line, and so on till all sections were singing. When any ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... following morning we set forth in a rumbling, yellow post-coach, with three horses, and a shabby, gaudy postilion,—the wheels clattering, the bells on the horses' necks jingling, the cock's-plumes on their heads nodding, and a half-dozen sturdy beggar-brats running at our side and singing a dismal chorus of "Dateci qualche cosa." Two or three half-baiocchi, however, bought them off, and we had the road to ourselves. The day was charming, the sky cloudless, the air tender and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... lower regions of her ex-home than I would have thought. She opened a door in a corner and led the way through a narrow hall past the refrigerating room, to a huge, cemented cellar, with a furnace in the center, and a half-dozen electric lights ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... under the stare the Cap'n bent on him. The mariner flapped discrediting hand at the pathetic half-dozen castaways poking among the rocks for mussels with which ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... I have recently seen scientifically explained, the facility of composition was not due to the act of shaving but to the normal activity of the human mind at that time in the morning. Here, therefore, a man can refuse the offices of the barber. If he wishes to make one of a half-dozen apparently inanimate figures, their faces covered with soap, and their noses used as convenient handles to turn first one cheek and then the other—that is his own lookout. But human ingenuity has yet to invent a 'safety barber's shears.' It has ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... have dealt with this at length. Here let it suffice to say that it was not until nine months after the deed that the name of Cesare Borgia was first associated with it; that public opinion had in the mean time assigned the guilt to a half-dozen others in succession; that no motive for the crime is discoverable in the case of Cesare; that the motives advanced will not bear examination, and that they bear on the face of them the stamp of having ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... when un's up.' Sir Felix was little more than a child in the man's arms. John Crumb raised him, and catching him round the neck with his left arm,—getting his head into chancery as we used to say when we fought at school,—struck the poor wretch some half-dozen times violently in the face, not knowing or caring exactly where he hit him, but at every blow obliterating a feature. And he would have continued had not Ruby flown at him and rescued Sir Felix from his arms. 'He's about got enough of it,' said John Crumb as he gave ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Shakespeare's plays. Then there was a pile of magazines and beyond them a stack of books whose subjects varied from Balzac to strange, scientific-sounding names. At the other end of the shelf, within easy reach from one lying upon the bunk, was a cigar-box full of smoking tobacco, a half-dozen books of cigarette papers, and several blocks of the small, evil-smelling matches which men of the outdoors carry for their compact form ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... glowing testimonials which Josephus adduces are from forged books devised by Jews to their own glory. A passage of a less favorable tone, and of which the genuineness is therefore not open to suspicion, is quoted from Agatharchides, a Seleucid historian. Finally, with an incidental mention of a half-dozen Hellenistic writers that have made distinct reference to the Jewish people, and of three Jewish writers, Demetrius, the elder Philo, and Eupolemus, "who have not greatly missed the truth about our affairs," ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... nimbly laying hold of one of the lesser tufts of his beard, and, laughing the while, plucking it so hard that she tore it out of his chin. Which Nicostratus somewhat resenting:—"Now what cause hast thou," quoth she, "to make such a wry face? 'Tis but that I have plucked some half-dozen hairs from thy beard. Thou didst not feel it as much as did I but now thy tugging of my hair." And so they continued jesting and sporting with one another, the lady jealously guarding the tuft that she had torn from the beard, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... proceeded to develop the first two negatives of the Carroll housestead. They were both excellent, the first one being a trifle the better, so that I decided to finish from it. I intended also to develop the third, but just as I finished the others, a half-dozen city cousins swooped down upon us and I had to put away my paraphernalia, emerge from my dark retreat and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... part, likewise treated me as before, except that she did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games, a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard to be fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to wander about as ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Runaway calf!" called the boys. "Stop the runaway!" and instantly a half-dozen other boys appeared, and all started ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... spasmodically to their feet, and fled from the apartment. My boy, who had been awed and terrified, began to cry, and I too was startled. Again he uttered the harsh gutturals, and instantly, as with an electric shock, another half-dozen of the prostrate slaves sprang up and ran. Then he resumed his mysterious promenade, still carefully keeping an eye upon us, and smiling by way of conversation. It was long before I could imagine what we were to do. Boy, fairly tortured, cried "Come home, mamma! ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... hands the custody of Mr. Palliser's uncle, the duke, had now altogether fallen,—had a divided duty between Matching and London. When the members of Parliament went up to London, she went there also, leaving some half-dozen friends whom she could trust to amuse the duke; but she soon returned, knowing that there might be danger in a long absence. The duke, though old, was his own master; he much affected the company of Madame Goesler, and that lady's kindness to him was considerate ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... masters enormous power of wealth and command. I don't mean merely over the workmen; I mean over purchasers—over the whole world's market. Why, I may give you, as an instance, an advertisement, inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that so-and-so (one of the half-dozen calico-printers of the time) would close his warehouse at noon each day; therefore, that all purchasers must come before that hour. Fancy a man dictating in this manner the time when he would sell and when he would not sell. Now, I believe, if a good customer chose to come at midnight, I should ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... one little British fort to another with our huge fleet of waggons, doling out supplies. During this time we have been fighting more or less, I think, every day. Perhaps you would hardly call it fighting; long-range sniping the greater part of it. Out of our 250 mounted men we have had some half-dozen casualties only, and we have accounted for a dozen or so of the enemy and a few prisoners. They have the advantage of their intimate knowledge of the country. We have the advantage of a pompom and two 15-pounders. These are invaluable in keeping ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the wind to him. He lies down to sleep. The lights in all the houses are extinguished. No sentinel walks the street. In the darkness dusky forms glide noiselessly through the town. The doors of the houses open. The terrible war-whoop breaks the stillness of the summer night. A half-dozen Indians burst into the room where the brave old man is sleeping. He springs from the bed, seizes his sword, and single-handed drives them from his chamber into the large room. In the darkness one steals behind ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... other out, measuring one vessel against another, the fleet went down the coast. We passed a few and were passed by none, and that was something. Ahead of us somewhere were a half-dozen flyers. If we could have beaten some of them we should have had something to brag about; but no telling, we might get our ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... Hawke strode through the clubroom, a half-dozen half-dressed clubmen seized upon him. He waved off their inquiries, as an orderly dashed up ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... aside, do you, good reader, know good 'style' when you get it? Can you say, of half-a-dozen given lines taken anywhere out of a novel, or poem, or play, That is good, essentially, in style, or bad, essentially? and can you say why such half-dozen ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... opera, which will ever be Rossini's crown of glory as a composer, was written with his usual rapidity while visiting the chateau of M. Aguado, a country-seat some distance from Paris. This work, one of the half-dozen greatest ever written, was first produced at the Academie Royale on August 3, 1829. In its early form of libretto it had a run of fifty-six representations, and was then withdrawn from the stage; and the work of remodeling from five to three ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... one-flesh idea, the symbolism of Christ and the church, etc. Thus a sentimental-poetical-mystical conception of marriage was superimposed on the materialistic-sensual conception of it. The church affirmed that marriage was a "sacrament." A half-dozen different explanations of "sacrament" in this connection could be quoted. It is impossible to tell what it means. The church, however, by its policy, contributed greatly to the development of the nobler conception of marriage in modern ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... that he wrote you a constrained half-dozen lines by Mr. Henry Greenough, who asked for a letter of introduction to you, while the asker was sitting in the room, and the form of 'dear Mrs. Jameson' couldn't well be escaped from. He loves you as well as ever, you are to understand, through every complication of forms, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... boys," began the head master, very gravely, "I hadn't intended to examine you to-day; but, from something I heard one of you say, I felt rather anxious to know how some of you are doing in your studies. These half-dozen boys I was particularly anxious to know of, because I heard them talking to-day as if they were the most important boys in the whole school. They are the most important; for they are the most ignorant, and require, and in future will receive, the closest looking after. You, little ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... more time. There's Peter Alekseyef, a good fellow, and an honest; you may choose him." And the Assembly chose the peasant indicated; for Ivan, though a simple member of the Commune, had more influence in Communal affairs than any other half-dozen members put together. No grave matter was decided without his being consulted, and there was at least one instance on record of the Village Assembly postponing deliberations for a week because he happened to ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... sudden alarm of spies. Some men, reported to have been conversing in German, were said to have been peering into cracks in the ground and otherwise behaving in a most suspicious manner. The alarm was given, and almost instantly, springing as it were from the very bowels of the earth, came some half-dozen soldiers running with rifles and fixed bayonets. Amid the shouts of the children they spread about the heather in their hunt, but nothing came of it, for the "spies," though they were caught, turned out to be some Italians resident in Totland Bay and fervently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... they had disappeared; and among my new acquaintances I could not think of one that would do. None of the Straddlers would do, that was certain; I wanted some one that could be depended upon, and whose social position was above question. Among my old friends I could think of some half-dozen that would suit me perfectly, but where were they? Ten years' absence scatters friends as October scatters swallows. At last my thoughts fixed themselves on one man. I took a hansom and drove to his house. I found ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... hostelry the author therefore repairs, down the narrow declivity, in at the door whose brass handles are being vigorously polished by a youth in a green baize apron, and upstairs to a long low chamber furnished with small tables. Here one discovers some half-dozen strays from the millions of Londoners who breakfast in orthodox fashion—in the secrecy and sullen silence of their own homes. And the salient feature of the people in this upstairs room is the inexorable isolation of their souls. No one speaks. One or ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee |
