"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of your talk to boys on Sexual Hygiene. I listened with the greatest of interest to your presentation before the Boys' Conference at Lake Geneva the past summer and it seemed to me that both in substance and in form of presentation you hit the nail on the head in a way I had never before seen it done. I believe that your contribution to boys in this direction is to be even greater than that which you have ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... ready to signify his good will and interest in his neighbors' advancing fortunes, by driving a nail at a ship-building or a pin at a house-raising, by laying a stone in a wall or a foundation of a house, the latter, apparently, in the case of some very humble homes. He, the Judge of the Supreme Court, served on the watch, walking and guarding ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... art is as dead as the proverbial door-nail; whether or not it ever regains its position as a craft is a matter of conjecture. Personally, I incline to the belief that it is absolutely extinct. The death-knell rang for all time when the sewing-machine was invented. The machine has been a very doubtful blessing, ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... importance of the step that his Majesty had taken—that this is, in fact, the Conservatives' last cast—and that he (the King) is resolved neither to flinch nor falter, but having embarked with them, to nail his flag to the mast and put forth all the constitutional authority of the Crown in support of the Government he is about to form. I am strongly inclined to think that this determination, when properly ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... it as he passed, a fond admiring glance. He knew every grey stone in its walls, and every pane of glass in its narrow windows. He had not built it with his own hands but his heart had been in the laying of every stone and the driving of every nail in it. And that was true of the house as well. He had only time for a glance. For through the close there came a shout, and ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... one of 'God Bless our Sunday School,'" cried Tom. "Oh, look, there are three of them. If we nail them upside down they will look all right. ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... which are always associated with widowhood in low life. It is only in higher circles that women can lose their husbands and yet remain bewitching. The late Mr. Drabdump had scratched the base of his thumb with a rusty nail, and Mrs. Drabdump's foreboding that he would die of lockjaw had not prevented her wrestling day and night with the shadow of Death, as she had wrestled with it vainly twice before, when Katie died of diphtheria and little Johnny of scarlet fever. Perhaps it is from ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... known as carbuncles, and if they occur on the fingers or toes they are described as whitlows. It is often the friction of a frayed-out collar or cuff, of tight waist clothing, or, in the case of whitlows, the introduction of some irritant or poison between the nail and the skin that determines the precise site at which they ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... the lameness in the same foot what we said were lame, sir, and he took off the shoe, but he said as how it were all right, and no fault of the shoeing. He didn't know but a nail might have gone too deep, sir, but he ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence. As one drew near it and could make out the remains of the square tower, half in ruins, which still stood by its side, though ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he had continued his work as long as his rude spade was adequate to a disturbance of the soil. The boy looked up as the gate latch clicked, and stood surveying Lyman with his feet far apart and his hands in his pockets. Lyman spoke to him, and bringing a nail out of his pocket he held it out to the visitor as an offering of his hospitality. Lyman tossed him a piece of money; he caught it up and with a shout he disappeared in the shrubbery. The visitor's knock ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... them for use against the French. The carpenter of the ship was endeavouring to get the fuses out of the loaded shells with an auger, and a middy undertook to assist him, in characteristic middy fashion, with a mallet and a spike-nail. A huge shell under his treatment suddenly exploded on the quarter-deck of the Theseus, and the other sixty-nine shells followed suit. The too ingenious middy disappeared into space; forty seamen, with Captain Miller himself, were killed; and forty-seven, including ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... trust my own taste," I said. I got a brass-headed nail and a hammer, and began. Eliza said afterward that she had known the chair would break before ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... heads, and bosses of foliage, ornament the junction of these mouldings. Above these the cornice and parapet rest upon blocks bearing the nail-head ornament. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... nail square on the head!" he exclaimed admiringly. "Them's my own opinions to a T. I've told the boys so a hunderd times, but they can't git it. Wasn't Ol' Swal-lertail hand-in-glove wi' that slick Mister Joselyn, who they ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... old woman, a ragged, grey-haired and dirty figure, walked slowly up the rickety wooden stair and entered a bare room behind and below the shop and to the immediate left of the den of the opium-smoker. This room, which was windowless, was lighted by a tin paraffin lamp hung upon a nail in the dirty plaster wall. The floor presented a litter of straw, paper and broken packing-cases. Two steps led up to a second door, a square heavy door of great strength. The old woman, by means of a key which she carried, was about to open this door when it was opened from ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... poh! That is just one of Tim's large stories. I do assure you it was not, at first, bigger than my thumb nail, and I am certain it has ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... next you drink, Do me the gentleness to think That every drop of drink accursed Makes Christ within you die of thirst; That every dirty word you say Is one more flint upon His way, Another thorn about His head, Another mock by where He tread; Another nail another cross; All that you ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... an old Impala ram from behind a mimosa thorn. He ran straight for the waggon, and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine. Over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into rather a better humour, especially as the buck had rolled right against the after-part of the waggon, so I had only to gut him, fix a reim round his legs, and haul him up. By ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... 'n out flat like an' nail un down to bottom, 'long wi' oakum an' drop o' white lead—what ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... woman who is struck by a ruffian to strike him again; or if she cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be beaten by a woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even if, instead of possessing the stately height and athletic proportions of the aforesaid Isopel, she were as diminutive ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... nothin' to a time I had in a brig off Hatteras," observed Teddy, who had somewhat recovered his composure; "we had to cut away both masts, you persave, and to scud under a scupper nail driv into the deck, wid a man ready to drive it ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... the region about Treves, a malady known as night-grip (Nachtgriff) is ascertained to be present by the following procedure: "Draw the sick man's belt about his naked body lengthwise and breadthwise, then take it off and hang it on a nail with the words 'O God, I pray thee, by the three virgins, Margarita, Maria Magdalena, and Ursula, be pleased to vouchsafe a sign upon the sick man, if he have the nightgrip or no'; then measure again, and if the belt be shorter than before, it is a sign of the said sickness." In the Liegnitz ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... nail, clavo nainsook, nansu name, nombre, fama nankeen, nanquin nation, nacion, pais native, indigena near (adj.), cercano near to, junto a, cerca de necessary, necesario to be necessary, ser menester to need, haber menester, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... said no word, and she simply screamed. I dragged her over the floor, sometimes in the water and sometimes out of it. I got the dining-room door open and set her on the stairs. They were in a topsy-turvy condition, but they were dry. I found a lantern which hung on a nail, with a match-box under it, and I struck a light. Then I scrambled back and ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... close odour which had always been present when the room was occupied by the immaculate Ellen and her predecessors. Now there was only the fresh feeling of salt air, mingled with a very faint fragrance of violets which came either from the soap or from the powder on the toilet table. A nail-polisher lay on the looking-glass, hastily thrown down; and that also witnessed to that bodily self-respect which Caroline shared with nearly all those other girls in Thorhaven who would have been in domestic service ten years ago, but now ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... could have Conversation with such Shadows often. I think you have hit the Nail on the Head: But here is one that has lived a Batchelor, and not of the Number of Saints, who have made themselves Eunuchs for the Sake of the Kingdom of God but was made so by force, to gratify our Bellies, till God shall ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty nail, or a crooked pin, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... glass door to the kitchen, wherein I hear the drip of water. I see a room whose curtains invest it with broidered light. There is a bed in it, with a cover of sky-blue satinette shining like the blue of a chromo. It is Marie's room! Her gray silk hat, rose-trimmed, hangs from a nail on the flowery paper. She has not worn it since my aunt's death; and alongside hang black dresses. I enter this bright blue sanctuary, inhabited only by a cold and snow-like light, and orderly and chaste as ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... falls short of the speaker's idea. Dacier has given an account of the laticlave, which has been well received by the learned. He tells us, that whatever was made to be put on another thing, was called clavus, not because it had any resemblance to a nail, but because it was made an adjunct to another subject. In fact, the clavi were purple galloons, with which the Romans bordered the fore part of the tunic, on both sides, and when drawn close together, they formed an ornament in the middle of the vestment. It was, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... or—my tongue faltered—two years; whereupon the Moldavian clerk made more signs than before, and yet more unintelligible; as I persisted, however, he flung down his pen, and, putting his thumb into his mouth, moved it rapidly, causing the nail to sound against the lower jaw; whereupon I saw that he was dumb, and hurried away, for I had always entertained a horror of dumb people, having once heard my another say, when I was a child, that dumb people were half ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Seffy,"—and the happy father turned to the happy son and hugged him, "don't you efer forgit that she's a feather-head and got a bright red temper like her daddy! And they both work mighty bad together sometimes. When you get her at the right place onct—well, nail her down—hand and feet—so's she can't git away. When she gits mad her little brain evaporates, and if she had a knife she'd go round stabbing her best friends—that's the only sing that safes her—yas, and us!—no knife. If she had a knife it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... "See." And she showed them nail-marks on her naked flesh. "Last night my father's ghostly hands dragged me from ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... staining the paper with the blood which flows from his wounds, not yet healed: he uses arquebus powder for ink, and the earth for a table." This particular early American writer, besides having his hand split and now one finger-nail or joint burned off and now another, his hair and beard pulled out, his flesh burned with live coals and red-hot stones, was hung up by the feet, had food for dogs placed upon his body that they might lacerate him as they ate, but finally escaped death itself through sale ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... there was eagerness in her tone. Remarking this, I decided to give another and closer look at the floor and the nails. I found the latter had not been properly inserted; or rather that there were two indentations for every nail, a deep one and one quite shallow. This caused me to make some examination of the others, those which had not been drawn from the floor, and I found that one or two of them were equally insecure, but not all; only those about ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... their vicinity, and a casual inspection of the records of the Auxiliary Patrol probably locked up somewhere in Whitehall. Some day these records may be made public, and then we shall read of happenings which will cause us to hold our breath, and our hair to bristle like a nail-brush. Who has not heard the story of the unarmed fishing boat which attacked a hostile periscope with nothing more formidable than a coal hammer, or the ex-fisherman who attempted to cloud Fritz's vision with a ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... square document came, Cousin Dempster said at once that he would accept, and I, who had done honors with Mrs. President, made up my mind there, right on the nail, to do just as much for the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... set eyes on this, I said to myself 'What ho!' or words to that effect, I rather think this will add a touch of distinction to the home, yes, no? I'll hang it up, shall I? 'Phone down to the office, light of my soul, and tell them to send up a nail, a bit of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... out. Grace came flying back to the front, and drew the bolt softly. But as she did so she heard a hammering, and found the door was fast. Unluckily, Hope's tool-basket was on the window-ledge, and Monckton drove a heavy nail obliquely through the bottom of the door, and it was immovable. Then Mary slipped with cat-like step to the window, and had her hand on the sill to vault clean out into the road; she was perfectly ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... one of his manuscript Diaries, there is the following entry, which marks his curious minute attention: 'July 26, 1768. I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five eighths of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... to her. "You shouldn't, I say, go and bang your head against a nail!" she then vehemently exclaimed. "Were our old ancestor separated from Yan Yang, she wouldn't even touch her rice! How ever could she reconcile herself to part from her? Besides, our worthy senior has time and again said, in the course of a chat, 'that she can't see the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... levied by roving commanders, and even by respectable generals of all nations. A hamlet, cluster of farm-houses, country district, or wealthy city, in order to escape being burned and ravaged, as the penalty of having fallen into a conqueror's hands, paid a heavy sum of ready money on the nail at command of the conqueror. The free companions of the sixteenth century drove a lucrative business in this particular branch of industry; and when to this was added the more direct profits derived from actual plunder, sack, and ransoming, it was natural that a large ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the back wall and hung it over a nail. The nail was straight, and the pail flaring. The pail fell. Jimmy kicked it across the room, and then gathered it up, and drove a dent in it with his heel that would hold over the nail. Then he went back to the Thread Man. "Theresh ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... recorded as examples for our imitation. The prophet who hewed in pieces a captive king, the rebel general who gave the blood of a queen to the dogs, the matron who, in defiance of plighted faith, and of the laws of eastern hospitality, drove the nail into the brain of the fugitive ally who had just fed at her board, and who was sleeping under the shadow of her tent, were proposed as models to Christians suffering under the tyranny of princes and prelates. Morals and manners were subjected to a code resembling that of the synagogue, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dey a white man. He had a gif'. I don't care what kind of animal, a dog or a hoss, dat man he work on it and it never leave you or you house. If anybody have toothache or earache he take a brand new nail what ain't never work befo' and work dat round you tooth or ear. Dat break up de toothache or earache right away. He have li'l prayer he say. I don't know what ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... got the personality, all right! He'll do! But what's his idea in being so reluctant? Didn't the offer strike him as big enough, or what's the matter? I must say I don't like to wait. When I find a man I like to nail him. What's the idea, Thomas? Has he got something else up ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... house for the night. The work was a simple one: she set her knee against the door to shut it more firmly, and worked an old nail into the latch. Then she shook down the scant cotton curtains that were twisted aside from the windows. There were three windows, two in the living-room (which was also kitchen and beer-saloon) and one in the bedroom; that was the whole of the house. There was not an article ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate betwixt ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... open, fer he's crazy as a loon, an' he'll kill anny one that crosses his trail. An' didn't I notice just this marnin' that his rifle was gone wit' him—me dom eyes bein' so near blind thot I c'uldn't see in the corner where it was, an' only fer wantin' a belt that hung on a nail there, I w'uldn't av been feelin' around at all where the gun sh'uld be standin'. An' it's gone, an' I mind me now the talk he was makin' about sphies in the woods, an' thot the gurrl had betther look out, an' the feller up on the peak had betther look out, an' me thinkin' he was talkin' ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... me for several hours past) that I had caught a tremendous cold, and should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn, a fit subject for a hospital. The night proved a feverish one. During the greater part of it, I was in that vilest of states when a fixed idea remains in the mind, like the nail in Sisera's brain, while innumerable other ideas go and come, and flutter to and fro, combining constant transition with intolerable sameness. Had I made a record of that night's half-waking dreams, it is my belief that ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Human health—how transparent is its economy under ordinary circumstances! abstinence and cleanliness, labor and rest, these simple laws, observed in just proportions, laws that may be engrossed upon a finger nail, are sufficient, on the whole, to maintain the equilibrium of pleasurable existence. Yet, if once that equilibrium is disturbed, where is the science oftentimes deep enough to rectify the unfathomable watch-work? Even the simplicities ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... his sword, his chest heaving with his panting breaths. He was naturally as fleet as the swift-footed Achilles, but the winter had told upon him, and the haste with which he had rushed to the rescue left him breathless and speechless, while he seemed as it were to nail the two lads to the spot by his steady gaze of mingled ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... They exist nearly every place and carry a particularly malicious germ that gives one "tick fever." It is not a deadly fever, but it is recurrent and weakening. There are all kinds of ticks, from little red ones no bigger than a grain of pepper to big fat ones the size of a finger-nail, that are exactly the color of the ground. They seem to have immortal life, for they can exist for a long time without food. Doctor Ward told us of some that he had put in a box, where they lived four years without ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... sickened me at first, for after all, I could not look upon them as other than men, even though they were only the length of my thumb-nail. I walked a few steps forward, and in all directions I could see swarms of the little creatures running. Then the memory of my coming departure from this world with Lylda, and my promise to the king to rid his land once for ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... the figurehead of the old sloop Faith and Prudence. It is the image of a man, with a nose not unlike the one Master Lillie carries on his face. Let us saw the head off, nail it to a pole, and set it up in front of his shop with a notice attached warning all honest citizens against ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... 2d. The statue of Paris, presenting the apple to Venus. 3d. An immense bronze pyramid, crowned by a female figure, which turned with the wind. 4th. The colossal statue of Bellerophon, in bronze, which was broken down and cast into the furnace. Under the inner nail of the horse's hind foot on the left side, was found a seal wrapped in a woollen cloth. 5th. A figure of Hercules, by Lysimachus, of such vast dimensions that the thumb was equal in circumference to the waist of a man. 6th. The Ass and his Driver, cast by order of Augustus after the battle ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... came back to wed the princess. Alas for the poor suitors! The beetle whizzed off to a house near by through the paper windows of which light glimmered. So full was he of his passion that thinking nothing of wood or iron, he dashed his head against a nail, and fell dead ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... blacksmith captured a hind foot of the white mare's and held it between his knees. Then he began to nail ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... been called upon to condense those vague meditations and emotions into a sentence, I would have borrowed what Vohrenlorf had said to me when we were with the Bartensteins. He did not often hit the nail exactly on the head, but just now I could give no better summary of all I felt than his soberly optimistic reminder: "Ah, well, even if it should be ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... exactly the right degree. Such thermometers are made of wood, brass, or copper, and the degrees on them should mark not less than 350 deg.. A thermometer always should be gently lowered into the boiling sugar. When not in use, it should be kept hanging on a nail or hook. When required for candy making, place thermometer in pitcher of warm water, so that it may rise gradually, and return it to the warm water on removing it from the hot candy. This dissolves the clinging candy and ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... thing human nature is!" she commented, when he had made an end. "My better judgment says you were all kinds of a somebody for not clinching the nail when you had it so well driven home. And yet I can't help admiring your exalted fanaticism. I do love consistency, and the courage of it. But tell me, if you can, how far these fair-fighting scruples of yours ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 219, says:—'Johnson would have made an excellent Spanish inquisitor. To his shame be it said, he always was tooth and nail ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... help of the LORD, To the help of the LORD against the mighty. Blessed above women Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, Blessed shall she be above women in the tent! He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, When she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: At her ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... came paddling after a chicken-bone, put to rout by a satanic sculpin, whereat an eel swiftly snaked the prize away, and the frost-fish, collecting at a chance of civil war, mingled in the melee, tooth and nail, or rather fin and tail. Then the vapors would darken round them again, till, with the stray rays caught and refracted in their fleece, it seemed like living in an opal full of cloudy color and fire. Far off they heard the great ground-swell of the surf upon the beach, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... arrers shot from a bow. The boys used to collect by the side o' that there flume to see me ride a log down, an' I've watched 'em drop in a dead faint when I spun by the crowd; but land! you can't drownd some folks, not without you tie nail-kags to their head an' feet an' drop 'em in the falls; I've rid logs down the b'ilin'est rapids o' the Kennebec an' never lost my head. I remember well the year o' the gre't freshet, ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the way in which such legends grow, that it is only the latest of these authorities, Hsuean Tsang, who says that, though ostensibly approaching the Buddha with a view to reconciliation, Devadatta had concealed poison in his nail with the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... part of that dwelling had been planned with a direct reference to her and her tastes; that not a curtain, or a carpet, or a picture had been purchased without Melinda's having said she believed Ethie would approve it. Every stone, and plank and tack, and nail had in it a thought of the Ethie whose coming back had been speculated upon and planned in so many different ways, but never in this way—never just as it had finally occurred, with Richard gone, and no one there to welcome her, save the servants in the kitchen, who, while she ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... oversee, and stops short at his man. It is a rare pleasure to serve him, which all laborers know. I am not a little pained by the other kind of treatment. It is as if, after the friendliest and most ennobling intercourse, your Friend should use you as a hammer, and drive a nail with your head, all in good faith; notwithstanding that you are a tolerable carpenter, as well as his good Friend, and would use a hammer cheerfully in his service. This want of perception is a defect which all the virtues of the heart ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... with a contribution from the first impecunious painter in payment of an overdue board-bill, his painting being hung on a nail beside the clock. Now; all over the walls—above the sideboard with its pewter plates and queer mugs; over the mantel holding the Delft, and between the squat windows—are pinned, tacked, pasted and hung—singly and in groups—sketches in oil, pastel, ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... divested themselves sufficiently he led Priam forwards into another great chamber evidently meant to recall the baths of Carcalla. In gigantic basins chiselled out of solid granite, Priam scrubbed his finger-nails with a nail-brush larger than he had previously encountered, even in nightmares, and an attendant brushed his coat with a utensil that resembled a weapon of offence ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn't let him 'cause of his sore throat. Throat!—no, it wasn't his throat as was rare sore—it was—no, it wasn't—yes, it was—it was his toe as was sore. His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I told him he'd be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn't go to church more regular, but he wouldn't listen; and so my words come'd true. But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn't let him light me with the lantern by reason ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... hit the nail on the head, friend Valentine," said Van Stingey. "I will take charge on them, and take them to that gentleman's house, in W—— county, who was here last week looking for a boy and a girl to raise; and mebbee ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... dangerous "if Dr. Taylor should be provoked to prove in print what he only dropped in conversation." How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and stratagems of logomachy, or book-wars! The proof would not have altered the cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... rejoinders to Lois's remarks were more or less at random. Vital questions were pounding through his brain and demanding an answer. Who knew but that with regard to Rosie she was right—and yet wrong? Women, with their remarkable powers of divination, didn't always hit the nail directly on the head. It might be the case with Lois now. She might be right in her surmise that Rosie was in love, and mistaken in those light and cruel words: "Oh, not with you!" He didn't suppose it was with him. And yet ... ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Great-Heart? "To lift Today above the Past; To make Tomorrow sure and fast; To nail God's colors to the mast." Then God go ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... on for a couple of hours, when Ebenezer threw down his pick, seated himself with his back against a pillar of coal, one of those left to support the roof, and took from his trousers pocket a steel tobacco-box, a black short pipe, and a nail. ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... over on that nail," said Grandpa Brown, pointing to one behind the stove. "And you can wash at the sink to-night. Now you two tots had better go to bed!" grandpa went on, as he saw Bunny and Sue standing with their backs against the ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... astern, and the ARLA was sliding along through a summer sea toward the wooded ranges of Malaita. The helmsman who so attracted Bertie's eyes sported a ten penny nail, stuck skewerwise through his nose. About his neck was a string of pants buttons. Thrust through holes in his ears were a can opener, the broken handle of a toothbrush, a clay pipe, the brass wheel of an alarm clock, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... him, screaming, and in a moment they were at it, tooth and nail, heaping up old scores, producing fact after fact to prove, the one to the other, false friendship, lying manners, deceitful promises, perjured records. Vera tried to interrupt, Markovitch said something, I began a remonstrance—in a moment we were all ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... I'll go. If you can stand for me, I'll stand for the full- dress suits of clothes and the finger-nail women. Anyhow, it won't ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... daintily through the crowd, and Mr. Lessing, who was seated at the end of one of the desks, stood up to let her pass. May's skirt caught against a nail, as she followed, and Paul bent to set it free; but as May turned smiling to thank him, it gave her a faint shock of surprise to read the dislike that found expression in his eyes. Her smile faded, and she passed on her way with ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... more. The man stood at my side, staring at the ground and fidgeting, and biting his finger-nail in that disagreeable way he has. Then he said, 'Lady Pinkerton, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... English shall we leuie, Whose armes were moulded in their Mothers wombe, To chace these Pagans in those holy Fields, Ouer whose Acres walk'd those blessed feete Which fourteene hundred yeares ago were nail'd For our aduantage on the bitter Crosse. But this our purpose is a tweluemonth old, And bootlesse 'tis to tell you we will go: Therefore we meete not now. Then let me heare Of you my gentle Cousin Westmerland, What yesternight our Councell ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... flowers and leaves to the inside edges of the diamonds in long twisted stitches, rows of button-hole stitches, or any kind of lace-work. After being washed and starched, the collar ought to be pressed on the wrong side with the head of a round nail warmed ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... the infliction of pain upon animals. I do not remember how I first discovered that they could be evoked in this way, but I can clearly recollect many of my efforts to arouse this pleasurable excitement by abusing the dog or the cats, or by prodding the calves with a nail set in the end of a broom handle. I seldom manipulated my genitals at this time, and when I did it was for the purpose of causing sexual excitement ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... administered a fatherly rebuke in the shape of a boxed ear, which had no other effect than the eliciting from the child the outcry, "Let me be, old doctor, you!" if, indeed, we except the long scratch made upon his hand by the little sharp nail of his stepdaughter. ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... retainers and lackeys, of busy stables and a hundred windows lighted after dark. His round eyes did not meet the direct glance fixed on his face, but wandered from one object to another in the room, finally lighting on the great key of the chateau gate, which hung on a nail ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... abundant opportunities to do so," suggested the doctor. "A couple of them up in the maintop, or even in the cross-trees, could shake props, 'odd or even,' and play other games of chance, without being seen. I don't think you have hit the nail on the head yet, ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... let it not be without, nor within the hollow of the side of the Wheel; nor above, nor below the hollow at the bottom of the Wheel. Now the bigger a Wheel is, if the Frame will permit, the bell will go the better; when the wheel is new, nail Stays from the Stock to each Spoke, ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... you can use any natural leaf, forming the creases in wax with thumb nail or needle. To put the flowers together, or the leaves on the stem, hold in the hand until warm enough to stick. If the sheeted wax is to be used in summer, put in a little Balsam of Fir to make it hard. If for winter, none will ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... nervures proceeds the species of puffing sound which I have compared to the hissing of an adder in a posture of defence. To imitate this curious sound it is enough rapidly to stroke the upper face of an outstretched wing with the tip of the finger-nail. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... and entered, Garth following in stony silence. It was dark within the long, narrow room, although the starlight gleamed feebly through the dirty window panes. Wayne found the lantern upon the nail where it had hung when he was a boy, lighted it, and turned the wick low so that there was only a wan light ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... At length the last nail was driven, and seated on the box he put his hand into an inner pocket to find his note-book, then incontinently fainted. I struggled to my feet and sprinkled water over his face till he revived and rolled on to the floor, where presently he sank into sleep or torpor. ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... editor of the Express, "had a Crown grant of the whole of Moneida Reservation at one time. Government actually bought it back from him to settle the Indians there. He was a well-known Family Compact man, and fought tooth and nail for ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... there, in its place: We opened it by the tapers' shine: The gems were all unchanged: the face Was—neither his nor mine. "One nail drives out another, at least! The face of the portrait there," I cried, "Is our friend's, the Raphael-faced young Priest, Who confessed ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... ill-faur'd enew to scare Satan himsel', for that matter; though it's true what you say. Ay, ye're reet tul a trippet, thar; for Beelzebub dar'n't show his snout inside the church, not the length o' the black o' my nail." ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... across one of these continually-occurring streams, he would throw a hastily-felled tree, over which, glazed as it was by a night's rain or by the humidity of the forest, he would invite the travelers to pass. Sometimes, to a couple of logs rotting on the banks he would nail cross-strips like the rungs of a ladder, and, while the torrent boiled at a distance below, pass jauntily with his Indians, more sure-footed than goats. The wider the abyss the more insecure the causeway; and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... speaking the language of Otaheite. As the Englishmen proceeded, other canoes appeared, bringing with them roasted pigs and very fine potatoes. The Captain says: "Several small pigs were purchased for a six-penny nail, so that we again found ourselves in a land of plenty. The natives were gentle and polite, asking whether they might sit down, whether they might spit on the deck, and the like. An order restricting the men going ashore was issued that I might do everything ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... his myrmidons! The abandoned and wandering mother never clasped her child more fondly to her bosom, nor gazed upon his features with more passionate visions for the future. And what had so enchanted the poor prisoner, so deluded the poor maniac? A large nail! He had found it accidentally in the garden; he had hoarded it for weeks,—it had inspired him with the hope of liberty. Often, in the days far gone, he had read of the wonders that had been effected, of the stones removed, and the bars filed, by the self-same kind of implement. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... your past failures, and acknowledge them; look at your present and future difficulties, count them up and face them every one, and admit that they are more than you can hope to conquer; but then look at the dying Son of God, your Saviour—the Man with the seamless robe, the crown of thorns, and the nail-prints; look at the fountain of His Blood; look at His word; look at the Almighty Holy Ghost, who will dwell within you, if you but trust and obey, and cry out: "It shall be done! The mountain shall ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... purple kimono, resplendent with green roses and bands, caused her to look like a great rag-doll with most of the sawdust missing. The others of the party arranged themselves on cushions and chairs about her, ready to fall, tooth and nail, upon the remains of the roast chicken. Azzie would not eat, but kept her hand hidden in the folds of ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... all the deliberate coolness of a parade: halting at every favourable spot, and renewing their cannonade. "What," exclaimed Napoleon, "no results! not a gun! not a prisoner!—these people will not leave me so much as a nail." During the whole day he urged the pursuit with impetuous rage, reproaching even his chosen generals as "creeping scoundrels," and exposing his own person in the very hottest of the fire. By his side was Duroc, the grand master of the palace, his dearest—many said, ere now, his ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... celestial and terrestrial things, produced both by nature and art, are so given that I was astonished when I saw a fish which was like a bishop, one like a chain, another like a garment, a fourth like a nail, a fifth like a star, and others like images of those things existing among us, the relation in each case being completely manifest. There are sea-urchins to be seen, and the purple shell-fish and mussels; and whatever the watery world possesses worthy of being known is there fully shown in ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... the moment its later organ, the Sentinel, began advocating the general regulation of prices. With ruin staring them in the face, these devotees of tradition could only reiterate their ancient formulas, nail their colors to the mast, end go down, satisfied that, if they failed with these principles, they would have failed still more terribly without them. Confronting the practical question how to prevent speculators from charging 400 per cent profit, these men turned grim ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... discovered that the beauty of the foot was spoilt, in this case, by a singular defect. The two toes were bound together by a flexible web, or membrane, which held them to each other as high as the insertion of the nail on either side. ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... hob," said the Thin Woman. "You can get it for yourself. I would not move the breadth of my nail if you were dying of hunger. I hope there's lumps in it. A Leprecaun from Gort na Cloca Mora was here to-day. They'll give it to you for robbing their pot of gold. You old thief, you! you lobeared, ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... his fingers. "What have you to do here? By your dress you should be one of those cursed clerks who overrun the land like vile rats, poking and prying into other men's concerns, too caitiff to fight and too lazy to work. By the rood! if I had my will upon ye, I should nail you upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their holes. Art neither man nor woman, young shaveling. Get thee back to thy fellows ere I lay hands upon you: for your foot is on my land, and I may slay ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wealth was any reason why he should hold aloof or consider himself above his neighbours, whose patronage had been the foundation of his fortune. He was given an old arm-chair while the others sat upon soap-boxes and nail-kegs. Cobb's Twins, William and James, were there, Emmanuel Howe, the minister's son, and Bob Wood who still sang bass ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and a heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends," and Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, bestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, "a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... spread at the heels, nor rasped about the nail holes; use the liquid, and apply it according to directions. For hoof bound or tender feet, apply it all around the top of the hoof down one inch every day. First have a stiff shoe on the foot, and cleanse the cut or cork. Never cut ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... his chair again, and I was satisfied that I had hit the nail on the head. He gasped and trembled, but, fortunately for him, we were alone in ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... revenues justified a diminution of taxation; war, which was imminent at the moment of the duke's fall, seemed to be escaped; the Bishop of Frejus became Cardinal Fleury; the court of Rome paid on the nail for the service rendered it by the new minister in freeing the clergy from the tax of the fiftieth (impot du cinquantieme). "Consecrated to God, and kept aloof from the commerce of men," had been Fleury's expression, "the dues of the church are irrevocable, and cannot be subject to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to a toilet counter, and she bought the proper hair soap, also a nail file, and cold cream, for use after windy days. Then they left her with the experienced clerk, and when at last Wesley found her she was loaded with bundles and the light of other days was in her beautiful eyes. Wesley ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... thy way, With well-timed oars before the royal barge, Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge; 40 And big with hymn, commander of an host, The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd. Methinks I see the new Arion sail, The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. At thy well-sharpen'd thumb, from shore to shore The trebles squeak for fear, the basses roar: Echoes from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call, And Shadwell they resound from Aston-Hall. About thy boat the little fishes throng, As at the morning toast that floats along. 50 Sometimes, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... cheerful of countenance at his pleasure, ready of speech, fiery in spirit, and as resolute in every bodily action as he was in mind; he felt towards others as he did towards Domenico, and, if he saw some error in the works of other craftsmen, he was wont to mark it secretly with his nail. And in his youth, when his works were criticized in any respect, he would give the critics to know by means of blows and insults that he was ever able and willing to take revenge in one way or another ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... from this germ of purity how numerous the progeny of errors and superstitions! Men, in their admiration of the great, and of all that appertained to them, have forgotten that goodness is a component part of true greatness, and have made fools of themselves for the jaw-bone of a saint, the toe-nail of an apostle, the handkerchief a king blew his nose in, or the rope that hanged a criminal. Desiring to rescue some slight token from the graves of their predecessors, they have confounded the famous and the infamous, the renowned and the notorious. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... prehistoric man. That part of their adventures is a record that exceeds the wildest darings of fiction. Their boats were called kotches. They were some sixty feet long, flat bottomed, planked with green timber. Not a nail was used. Where were nails to come from six thousand miles across the frozen tundras? Indeed, iron was so scarce that at a later day when ships with nails ventured on {296} these seas natives were detected diving below to pull ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... him!" said the gambler, catching the last word. "But some one was bound to try this dodge sooner or later. Why, as far back as I can remember, people said he kept his money hidden away at the bottom of nail kegs and under heaps of scrap-iron." He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, and struck a match. "Well, I wouldn't want to be the other fellow, Colonel; I'd be in all kinds of a panic; it takes nerve for a job ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... upon as still existing, and he may be affected by the conduct shown towards it. This applies with special force to such objects as articles of clothing, and still more to footprints and to spittle, hair, nail-parings and excrement. Injury to these with malicious intent will hurt him from whom they are derived. In the same way a personal name is looked upon as inseparable from its owner; and savages are frequently careful to guard the knowledge of their true names ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... rather genius, in whose hand a jews-harp is the lyre of Orpheus, a fiddle the harp of David, a chisel a hewer of heroic forms, a brush or a pen the scepter of souls, and, alas! a nail ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... into town. Here Marina entered a co-operative grocery store, where she was going to give an order for a quarter's supplies. She was her mother's housekeeper, and had an incredible knowledge of groceries, as well as a severely practical mind: she stuck her finger-nail into butter, tasted cheeses off the blade of a knife, ran her hands through currants, nibbled biscuits, discussed brands of burgundy and desiccated soups—Laura meanwhile looking on, from a high, uncomfortable ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... ones that I anticipated would go against it tooth and nail. And Mr. Glentworth—surely he ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... spoke he snapped the card with his thumb-nail and it fluttered with quivering hues like a humming-bird hovering over a flower. He seemed to await a ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... there to the god. There was a man then of Halicarnassos, whose name was Agasicles, who being a victor paid no regard to this rule, but carried away the tripod to his own house and hung it up there upon a nail. On this ground the other five cities, Lindos, Ialysos and Cameiros, Cos and Cnidos, excluded the sixth city Halicarnassos from sharing in ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... difficulty between you boys about a nail to hang your hats upon. I suppose each of you think it ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... are still in existence, for quite other appellations are sounding in my ears, each one of which, to the number of some hundred, signifies at least twenty yards in width, to say nothing of the length. For my part, I have already, notwithstanding the approach of winter, put up a big nail in the garret, on which to hang my bands and surplice. Listen, then, to the conclusion of your father. Give all possible care to your affairs in Munich, put them in perfect order, leave nothing to be done, and leave nothing behind ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... they would not take him among them till he had made a leap over a stick the height of himself, and till he had stooped under one the height of his knee, and till he had taken a thorn out from his foot with his nail, and he running his fastest. But if he had done all these things, he was ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Everybody I knowed was in debt, and had been in debt for some time, and was getting further in every week. The shopkeepers up at Merthyr were getting uneasy about their money, and besides saying plump out to some of us that we couldn't have any more bread, or that, without money down on the nail, they served out all round summonses to what was called the Court of Requests. That was all very well, but as we couldn't get enough to eat from day to day upon our wages, it was pretty certain we couldn't go and pay up arrears. ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... The dishonest valet was apprehended, and the property recovered. Then he complained, the tale goes on to say, of pain in one of his feet; his boot was found to be full of blood. The servant had placed a nail in his master's boot, which had been driven into the flesh. He fainted from loss of blood, fell into a violent fever, and died in a few days. This, at least, is believed to be certain: that he perished in early manhood—almost before time was given him to repent of the follies ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hold hard. Tear holes big enough for the man with the ball to get through. Don't be afraid. Ends, you want to get down like lightning on kicks. Nail in his tracks the man who catches the ball, but don't, for the love of the pigskin, touch him until he has it, or you'll be offside. Watch out for fake kicks, forward passes, double passes—watch out for all tricks. If there's a fumble, fall on the ball and stay there, unless you ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... trinitatis," thus declaring to whom the building should be dedicated; and the roof, which, though prepared for a distant edifice, felt that it would be best at Fecamp, and actually, of its own accord, undertook a voyage by sea, and landed, without the displacing of a single nail, upon the sea-coast near the town. All these contes devots, and many others, you will find recorded in the Neustria Pia[31]. I will only detain you with a few words more upon the subject of the precious blood, a matter too important to be thus hastily dismissed. ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... their nest in a stable belonging to a lady of his acquaintance. The female laid her eggs, and was about to brood them: some days elapsed, and the people saw the female still sitting on the eggs, but the male, flying about the nest, and sometimes settling on a nail, was herd to utter a very plaintive note, which betrayed his uneasiness. On a nearer examination the female was found dead on the nest, and, on her being removed, the male took his seat upon the eggs; ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... only recently been discovered. There are remains of two Norman doors, the lower, with enriched mouldings and shaft, being considerably later in date than the round arch above it. This latter has the nail-head ornament. The northern end of the arch is concealed, as well as the eastern end of the adjoining door into the south aisle, by a mass of masonry ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... thinkin'," the little man replied. "Gin ye haud Shep's the guilty one I wad, by all manner o' means—or shootin'd be aiblins better. If not, why"—he shrugged his shoulders significantly; and having shown his hand and driven the nail well home, the ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... entered the library, for, after smashing the pane in the assumption that the bolt was shot, he had had no difficulty in pushing up the window. Hartley Parrish had opened the window himself, for on the nail of the middle finger of his left hand Robin had seen, with the aid of the magnifying-glass, a tiny fragment ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... The hunters led the way, with a lamp; the Count and St. Foix, who wished to please their hosts by some instances of familiarity, carried each a seat, and Blanche followed, with faltering steps. As she passed on, part of her dress caught on a nail in the wall, and, while she stopped, somewhat too scrupulously, to disengage it, the Count, who was talking to St. Foix, and neither of whom observed the circumstance, followed their conductor round an abrupt angle of the passage, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... had his soldiers all in trim and was about to leave Fort Union, Kit Carson, who had been watching him from a nail keg upon which he was sitting, came up to him and slapped Willis' horse on the hip, saying: "Willis, I guess I had better go with you; if you go down there alone, them red devils will never let you return." ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... lower lip, and bending a little, began to scratch with her nail the patterns of ice that covered the window-pane. I went hastily into the next room, and sending my servant away, came back at once and lighted another candle. I had no clear idea why I was doing all this.... I was greatly ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of the other side. In this way the load is started from the woodshed toward the parlor. Going through the door, the head of the family will carefully swing his side of the stove around and jam his thumb nail against the door post. This part of the ceremony is never omitted. Having got the family comfort in place, the next thing is to find the legs. Two of these are left inside the stove since the spring ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... and merely nodded to her, Eleanore's eyes fell on the mask of Zingarella. She stepped up, took it down from the nail on the wall, and examined it in ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep. And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storm The lightning and ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... troublesome and often painful affection. The edges or sides of the nail are disposed to turn down and grow into the flesh, giving rise to inflammation, ulceration, and often great pain and suffering. The best remedy I have ever known in this difficulty is to scrape with some sharp-pointed instrument, as the point of a penknife, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... got a great head on you, old chap," he said, affectionately. "It certainly seems as though you have hit the nail on the head this time. I understand, now, why their leader was so anxious to have us move away. They expect to encounter the Indians somewhere in this neighborhood and they do not want any witnesses. What shall we ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... can be crumbled between the fingers, and the bean within is too hard to be dented by finger nail or teeth. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... got on to a piece of bottom where the trees were small and scarce—now, thinks I, old fellow, I'll have you. So I trotted off at a pace sufficient to let my follower gain on me, and when he had got just about near enough, I wheeled and fired, and down I brought him, dead as a door nail, at ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... angels fear to tread." It was Mrs. O'Shaughnessy who was the real help. She is a woman of great courage and decision and of splendid sense and judgment. A few days ago a man she had working for her got his finger-nail mashed off and neglected to care for it. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy examined it and found that gangrene had set in. She didn't tell him, but made various preparations and then told him she had heard that if there was danger of blood-poisoning ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... first pail on the right hand side. But be careful, sir; there's a nail sticking out of the post there. The wind tore off a ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... with a yell, and seized him, and threw him suddenly on his back. And he knelt on his throat, like a very mountain, and taking from his waist a knife, he plunged it, with blows like those of a carpenter that hammers in a nail, over and over ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... better be a goal-keeper," advised Ella, wisely; "you have no running to do until the ball comes your way, and then at it you go, tooth and nail! Stop it somehow—anyhow—with your hands, your feet, your skirt, your stick. I believe there is an etiquette about it, don't you know, as there is about all those things, and that it's more swagger to stop it one way than another, but the main thing is to stop it ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nail had been driven home, and he was on the point of leaving the attic, for he knew he had not much time and hoped that downstairs he would be able to make some discoveries of importance, when it occurred to him that it might be wise to see what was in this ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... where everything was sold, from a nail or a spool of 'slack' to a keg of spirits or an almanac: sold for money when it could be had, for flour or wool or potash when it couldn't; likewise a post-office, whither a stage came once a week with an odd passenger, or an odd dozen of newspapers and letters; likewise the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... his head and taking a cap that matched his plaid coat from a nail on the wall, he winked at Sam. "Come on, Old Top. I've got to get ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... the aspen leaves are no bigger than your nail, Is the time to look out for truff ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... all, for his gentleness of manner, general neatness and capacity, and the good taste which he gave to his dishes. In fact, she confessed one day to Lionel, privately in a moment of confidence, that rather than lose him, she would herself carve a joss stick and nail it up in the kitchen; which concession proves the liberalizing and widening effect of necessity upon the human mind. But this ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... on its nail; the recorder is covered with dust; no one bothers about either Europe or Asia. What chiefly concerns the few white men who are able to live in Central Australia are the price of stock, the best place to ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... opened his desk, took off his coat and hung it on a nail, after his custom, thereafter seating himself at his desk, with the official cough which signified that the campaign of the day had begun. He turned over the papers for a moment, and remarked absent-mindedly, and more to be polite than because the ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... Waghorn, more comfortable than could have been hoped for from its exterior. The greatest annoyance we sustained was from the dust, which was brought in by a very strong wind through the lattices. I endeavoured to remedy this evil, in some degree, by directing the servants of the house to nail a sheet across the upper portion of the perforated wood-work. The windows of our chamber commanded as good a view of Suez as the place afforded; one at the side overlooked an irregular open space, which stretched between the house and the sea. At some distance opposite, there were one or two ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... gestures, Dona Rita was heard again. "It may have been as near coming to pass as this." She showed me the breadth of her little finger nail. "Yes, as near as that. Why? How? Just like that, for nothing. Because it had come up. Because a wild notion had entered a practical old woman's head. Yes. And the best of it is that I have nothing to complain of. Had I surrendered I would have been perfectly safe with these two. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... chorus of praise. This fierce invective stands upon an altar at Rome:[31] "Here for all time has been set down in writing the shameful record of the freedwoman Acte, of poisoned mind, and treacherous, cunning, and hard-hearted. Oh! for a nail, and a hempen rope to choke her, and flaming pitch to burn ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott |
