"Polishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believe was what regarded my dear A—— and the person into whose hands she is about to be committed. In proportion to the value of the gem is the dread one feels of the flaws and injuries it may receive in the process of cutting and polishing; and this, of course, not in this case alone, but that of every child who still is parent to the man (or woman). My mother said in one of her letters, "I have engaged a lady to be A——'s governess." Of course the have must make the expression ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the engineer is twofold—to design the work, and to see the work done. We have seen already something of the vociferous thoroughness of the man, upon the cleaning of lamps and the polishing of reflectors. In building, in road-making, in the construction of bridges, in every detail and byway of his employments, he pursued the same ideal. Perfection (with a capital P and violently under-scored) was his design. A crack ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... better part of a week with such tools as he could find or make—he had to forge a wrench for the largest nuts—"taking down" the dynamo, oiling, filing, polishing and repairing it, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... sewed, and put her garden in shape for the winter. In spite of her year's training at Mrs. Gray's capable hands, she made mistakes; she burnt the grape jelly, and forgot to put the brown sugar into the sweet pickle, and took the varnish off the dining-room table by polishing it with raw linseed oil, and boiled the color out of her sheerest chiffon blouse; and they laughed together over her blunders. Then, when evening came, she was all in white again, and there was the simple supper served by candle-light in the little dining-room, and ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... low fellow," Ieremia declared, pausing in the polishing of his spectacles. "He is a scoundrel and a blackguard. He should be struck by a dead pig, by a particularly ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... fellow-feeling for one in distress, being himself worn out, took the paw, discovered a nasty cut on the pad, washed it out with warm water, treated it with carbolic, bound it up, and gave the animal the pot to dean, which he did, polishing it out with his long ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he—that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... finished statue; giving the impression of the seal upon the soft wax; pouring water into an empty vessel;—all these comparisons lack one essential element of likeness. The mind is, indeed, in one sense, empty, and needs to be filled. It is yielding, and needs to be impressed. It is rude, and needs polishing. But it is not, like the marble, the wax, or the vessel, a passive recipient of external influences. It is itself a living power. It is acted upon only by stirring up its own activities. The operative upon mind, unlike the operative upon matter, must have the active, voluntary co-operation ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... had been by Bright Sun, he was impressed also by these warriors. Not one of them spoke to him or annoyed him in any manner. They went about their tasks, cleaning and polishing their weapons, or sitting on rough wooden benches, smoking pipes with a certain dignity that belonged to men of strength and courage. All around the lodge were rush mats, on which they slept, and near the door was a carved ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... be. Well; it's just the same in trade. If a man is born to a dukedom there, if he begins with a large capital, why, I for one would not thank him to be successful. Any fool could do as much as that. He has only to keep on polishing his own star and garter, and there are lots of people to swear that there is ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... Wednesday. To-morrow would be Thursday, and he could go away, his business done. The prospect was rich recompense for everything. It came to him, suddenly and for the first time, that he hated his mission in Hunston with a disheartening and sickening hatred. And formulating this thought, polishing it to aphorism and sharpening it to epigram, he slumbered and slept for the last time ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... cock!" muttered Joel, shaking his head. "'Tis 'witched he be! You'll mind what I told ye, Cap'n—the poor lady as died raving mad aboard the 'Delight,' how she died cursing him wi' life. And him standing by a-polishing o' that hook o' his—ah, Cap'n, I'll never forget the work o' that same hook ... many's the time ... Bartlemy's prisoners ... men and women ... aboard that cursed 'Ladies' Delight!' By cock, I dream on't sometimes and wake all of ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... do not pretend to say that such rhetoric is always bad, and always scatters, in places where they have no right to grow, the flowers with which it embellishes and enlivens history. But we shall, on the present occasion, carefully avoid polishing the antithesis in question, but shall proceed to draw another picture as minutely as possible, to serve as foil and counterfoil to the one in the preceding chapter. The young prince alighted from Aramis's room, in the same way the king had descended from the apartment dedicated to Morpheus. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... went back to her own dinner, she left Anne with something to think about. Washing the dishes in Aunt Susan's white sink, which was fitted to that very purpose, drying them upon a rack which held every dish apart from its neighbors, and, finally, polishing the quaintly shaped pieces upon Aunt Susan's checked towel, which remained dry and spotless; opening every drawer and cupboard to see that all was left in the dainty order she had found there, Anne had a clear vision of the blue and silver furnishings at the Kensington. ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... still polishing away with sand-paper at the elephant's tusks, and who evidently regarded the soldier with ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... of persuading Squire Headlong to put his romantic pleasure-grounds under a process of improvement, promising himself a signal triumph for his incomparable art in the difficult and, therefore, glorious achievement of polishing and trimming ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... the castle, and could see, too, that beyond the moat, on every side, the tents of the besieging party were pitched. Rather uncomfortable shivers ran down the children's backs as they saw that all the men were very busy cleaning or sharpening their arms, re-stringing their bows, and polishing their shields. A large party came along the road, with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree; and Cyril felt quite pale, because he knew this ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... flows into the Rhine, is the little town of Oberstein, whose inhabitants are nearly all employed in cutting and polishing agates, sardonyxes, and various other stones prized by ladies. Precipitous cliffs arise above the town, and contract the space on which houses could be raised, and these rocks are crowned by two ruined castles, the Older and the Newer Oberstein. About half-way up the face of the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... of sharks grow to an enormous size, often weighing from one to four thousand pounds each. The skin of the shark is rough, and is used for polishing wood, ivory, &c.; that of one species is manufactured into an article called agreen: spectacle-cases are made of it. The white shark is the sailor's worst enemy: he has five rows of wedge-shaped teeth, which are notched like a saw: ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... "took the stage," and at once there was life and animation among the minor characters. Then the main work was done, and there remained only the comparatively easy task of guiding the movement of the little drama, suggesting side issues and polishing the details, always keeping a careful eye on the Beetle, that he might "gang his ain gait" and preserve to the full ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... on the mat," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "and not be carrying all the mud of the streets into the house with you. Do you think the girls that does be here has nothing to do only to be sweeping carpets and polishing floors after the ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... ore (?), and the workers in metal, and the smelters (?) of gold, and the sculptors in stone, "and the ore-crushers, and the furnace-men (?), and handicraftsmen of every kind whatsoever, who work in hewing, and cutting, and polishing these stones, and in gold, and silver, and copper, and lead, and every worker in wood who shall cut down any tree, or carry on a trade of any kind, or work which is connected with the wood trade, to "pay tithe upon all the natural products (?), and also upon the hard ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... preparatory grade, under the direction of the indolent M. Tavernier, always busy polishing his nails, like a Chinese mandarin, the child had for a professor in the eighth grade Pere Montandeuil, a poor fellow stupefied by thirty years of teaching, who secretly employed all his spare hours in composing five-act tragedies, and who, by ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pancakes this last morning, and the boys did full justice. It was almost eight o'clock before anyone returned to the hangar with any intention of working. After barely half an hour there, chiefly spent in polishing and tightening up nuts and draw-buckles, Mr. Fulton drove them all outdoors. "Chase off and play," he insisted. "Tod and I will give her the finishing touches; then you can all come back and help us push her out into the sunlight ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... called away to lunch in the middle of the attack of inspiration. Inspiration is of course very useful, but it has a way of suggesting words that won't rhyme, and luring you off into all sorts of false tracks. Moreover, it affords no help whatever in polishing. After lunch I set to work with renewed zeal, licking the lines into their present perfection. At last they were finished, and as I lit the gas to enable me to see to make a fair copy, I realised that the beautiful blue ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... when father declares himself," observed Dorothy, quietly polishing her hatchet on ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Somewhere at the end of a ventilator shaft a man was polishing boots; he was swearing monotonously, between each rub of his brush, using a list of twelve words beginning with "blast" uttered very softly and increasing in volume of sound and violence of meaning at the twelfth word, when he would start pianissimo again. Marcella's eyes closed; she was not asleep, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... can. I want to keep on polishing till I have rubbed out that bruise in the side. It's coming better already. ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... these all? Not quite. The Meekness wheel So gently polishes. Then Temperance comes in To aid in handling gems with special care: Thus give the final touch of polishing. (The nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... truth and faith; and, he believes, should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller polishing a gem. Either of these, or of a myriad more, are equally good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms which others use. And the mystic ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... referred to as occurring in the Yangma valley.) Your not having found scored boulders and solid rocks is an objection both to glaciers and floating ice; for it is certain that both produce such. I believe no rocks escape scoring, polishing and mammillation in the Alps, though some lose it easily when exposed. Are you familiar with appearance of ice-action? If I understand rightly, you object to the great dam having been produced by a glacier, owing to the dryness ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... dusting and polishing his statues and other articles of taste and devotion, supplying the gaps in their ranks, and grouping a number of new ones which had come in from his workmen, Juba strutted into the shop, and indulged himself from time to time in an inward laugh or snigger at the various specimens of idolatry which ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical roof ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through the public gardens, and—attracted by the marble pillar—down the lane to the right of it, which at length brought us to the works of Monsieur Geruzet. The huge blocks of the rough stone were first inspected, then we saw the various processes of cutting, ornamenting and polishing, and finally were ushered into the showroom, where all kinds of articles from a sleeve-stud to a sideboard were on sale. The cigar-trays and letterweights were most reasonable, but it is not necessary to buy at all—and gratuities are ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... when Poll was hanging up at a back window, she saw Tom polishing the boots, and whistling a merry tune, never once thinking of his enemy near him. Squeezing herself, as she often did, through the wires of her cage, she crept silently along through an inner room into the shed, when she ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... state of the golden-brown ovals in the oven—and she could do it to a nicety—came out of the kitchen, followed by a delicious smell of crisping wheat, and sat down upon the step of the porch to watch Jed polishing the harness of Washington and Lincoln—the grave, reliable team upon whom ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... the first article of furniture which should be brought into the house is a well-equipped tool-chest, and the first room which should be fitted up is the workshop. A vast amount of labor will be saved thereby in unpacking, adjusting, repairing, and polishing the old and the new household articles, so that life in the new home be begun under the favorable auspices of the great household deity, the Goddess of Order. When it is further considered that often small repairs made by a carpenter cost more ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... governors of these provinces were invested with great dignity and splendor. The gubernatorial courts, if they may so be called, established centers of elegance and refinement, which it was hoped would exert a powerful influence in polishing a people exceedingly rude and uncultivated. There were also immense advantages derived from the uniform administration of justice thus established. This new division of the empire was the most comprehensive ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... of the beds, tidying up the room, and polishing of shoes was attended to after breakfast, of course without undue haste and with plenty of pauses for conversation. The manufacturer found it all much more sociable and pleasant in company than alone; he began to have very friendly ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... worked. He was the drudge of a literary man, who was probably not exempt from the constitutional irritability of those who carry a whirling grindstone within their brains for the sharpening and polishing of thought. The unremembered scribe may have done good service to literature while undergoing his purgatory ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... polishing the great black eyes of a pair of field glasses, would look up brightly to say, "Well, how's the Invention coming on?" Then he ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... carefully examined and freed from the husks that are apt to remain in it; then it should be washed in hot water. The water in which rice is washed will have a milky appearance, which is due to the coating that is put on in polishing rice. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in different masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing; many a time have I thought of giving it up.' Letters of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and its trading with peasants? Yet no; I believe that, even if you had received a fashionable education, and had mixed with society, and had lived in St. Petersburg, you would still have been just the kulak [26] that you are. The only difference is that circumstances, as they stand, permit of your polishing off a stuffed shoulder of mutton at a meal; whereas in St. Petersburg you would have been unable to do so. Also, as circumstances stand, you have under you a number of peasants, whom you treat well for the reason that they are your property; whereas, otherwise, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to himself, 'is it treason to carry the King's letters to a wench? Helping the King is no treason. I should be advanced, not threatened with a halter. Letters between the King and Kat Howard!' He even attempted to himself a clumsy joke, polishing it and repolishing it till it came out: 'A King may write to a Kat. A Kat may write to a King. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... he'll get something," said Kittie, polishing the slim, shining bannister with her handkerchief. "Let's hurry home; the train has just come in since we left, and I know Ralph has sent something; he said he was going ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... fine and instructive gorge is to be seen. The river from the Morteratsch glacier rushes through a deep and narrow chasm which is spanned at one place by a stone bridge. The rock is not of a character to preserve smooth polishing; but the larger features of water-action are perfectly evident from top to bottom. Those features are in part visible from the bridge, but still better from a point a little distance from the bridge in the direction of the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... took her hand, and, as she again turned to the window to hide her increasing emotion, shook his head sadly and doubtfully; then, returning to his stool, he took the gun-barrel between his knees with a movement of impatience, and continued his occupation of polishing it, although his eyes were constantly fixed askance upon the graceful form of the girl as she leant upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... and even now, when the city was threatened with siege, the merchant's wife never relaxed her vigilance over the doings of her maids, who seemed to the boys to be perpetually engaged in scrubbing, dusting, and polishing. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... road he met Major Brent and old Peter, the head-keeper. The latter stood polishing the barrels of his shot-gun with a red bandanna; the Major was ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... in Borneo is of the ordinary polished variety, almost exclusively from Rangoon, and it is generally supposed that the polishing of the rice is the cause of this illness. The Dutch army in the East seems to have obtained good results by providing the so-called silver-fleeced rice to the soldiers. However, I was told that, in some localities ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... stoves may be well cleaned in a few minutes, by using a piece of fine-corned emery stone, and afterwards polishing with flour of emery or rottenstone. If stoves or fire irons have acquired any rust, pound some glass to fine powder; and having nailed some strong woollen cloth upon a board, lay upon it a thick coat of gum water, and sift the powdered glass upon it, and let it dry. This may be repeated as often ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... and there a peasant woman could be seen sprinkling seed into the furrows. Across a field, cutting its way through a farmyard, a light railway carried its occasional wobbling, narrow-gauged traffic; and outside half-a-dozen huts soldiers were lolling in the warmth of early afternoon, polishing accoutrements and exchanging the lazy philosophy of men resting after herculean tasks. Elsewhere there was no sign of war. Cattle browsed about the meadows, and the villagers, long since grown used to the presence of foreign soldiers, pursued their ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... ware, show a smooth finish, and may perhaps, without violence to the term, be classed as lustrous. This is not the effect of a varnish or partial glazing, but is a polish, produced generally, if not always, by rubbing with a polishing stone. ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... of industry. It was no light task to complete the cleaning of so large a house in ten days' time, but many hands make light work; and while the servants scrubbed and scoured, the girls performed the lighter duties, washing ornaments, polishing pictures, turning faded draperies, sewing on new lengths of fringe, until old bottles were, if not exactly converted into new, at least assured a fresh lease of juvenility. There was always a rush to get the work finished a day or two before the parents' return, for the time that ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... enable their owners to distinguish them from the others. Boys were carrying buckets of water from a well in the court-yard to the troughs for the cattle and horses, and the men-at-arms were cleaning their armour and polishing ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... morning I got caught in another avalanche of telegrams and had to spend a couple of hours at the Consulate-General polishing off and finishing business. Stopped in at the palace on the way back and saw General Jungbluth, who showed me the latest telegrams. I gathered up what newspapers I could beg or buy and stuffed them into a military pouch to take back. Had an early lunch, ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... would go back to his work, polishing the brass on the railings of his boat, regardless of the watchful eyes that blinked at him from the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... microscopes. They contain in their outer coat or case a relatively large portion of silex, and their remains here and there form deposits—vast beds many feet in thickness—known as "tripoli," and used for polishing. The minute particle of their protoplasm is contained within the siliceous case. They may be entirely free, or cohere in aggregations, or be attached to a supporting surface by a slender stalk, which may ramify and bear a little ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... out of the aeroplane circling above much was visible which you or I would not see. To him there came the vision of an occasional move behind some mouldering wall: sometimes an upturned face, sometimes the glint of steel. In one garden by a broken cucumber frame a man was polishing his bayonet, and the flash from it caught the observer's eye. Just opposite—thirty yards away—two or three men were sitting round a fire from which the smoke curled slowly up. And the bayonet cleaner was clothed in khaki, while the cookers had on a dirty field grey; between them lay No ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... production of the image is effected upon plates of copper coated with silver. The silver employed should be as pure as possible; the thickness of the plate is of little consequence, provided there be sufficient silver to bear the cleaning and polishing—is free from copper spots, is susceptible of a high polish, an exquisitely sensitive coating and a pleasing tone. These qualities are possessed to an eminent degree by ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... well sharpened; they looked lovely. But when they were applied to the test of the work of war they broke and they bent, and proved more likely to hurt the hand of him that used them than to do any harm to the enemy. Let me apply that analogy to the effect of education, which is a sharpening and polishing of the mind. You may develop the intellectual side of people as far as you like, and you may confer upon them all the skill that training and instruction can give; but, if there is not, underneath all that outside form and superficial polish, the firm fibre ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... read the printed poem that very night, and before retiring to rest he would have Lorimer's verses complete and ready to be sent in for judgement to the examiner. But for the present he would dismiss the matter from his mind, and devote himself to polishing off the Charchester champions in the fifth and final test match. And in this he was successful, for just as the bell rang, summoning the players in to a well-earned tea, a sweet forward drive from his walking-stick crashed against the end wall, and ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... course, was somewhat of fear that even in the moment of its success failure might come and dash the gallant plan. And because of such dismal doubt, Tobalito's face at times was bereft of its accustomed cheeriness, and for minutes together he would sit silent, the while mechanically polishing the brass number that, as a cargador, he wore upon his breast, as was his wont on the rare occasions when his mind was beset by troublous thoughts. But these fears, in which, also, the others shared, had no endurance; for all had steady faith in the all-powerfulness ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... expense of a tin tube. The reflecting mirror which he ought to have had proved too dear for his still slender purse, and he thus had to forego it with much regret. But he found a man at Bath who had once been in the mirror-polishing line; and he bought from him for a bargain all his rubbish of patterns, tools, unfinished mirrors and so forth, with which he proceeded to experiment on the manufacture of a proper telescope. In the summer, when the season was over, and all the great people had left Bath, ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... girls was inalienably connected in his memory with unnecessary washing up; with boring parties; with stiff collars; with unending polishing of shoes; humiliating walks down the avenue, stammering, idiotic phrases, while from every window the eyes of malicious friends were set in mockery. Girls never slid down the banisters or fell out of apple trees, or snapped garter snakes, or ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... changed to polishing off profiteers and the high cost of living. The Jewish girl's brother knew we were headin' straight for civil war. "They'll be comin' right in folks' homes and killen 'em before a year's out. See if they don't." I asked her if she'd ever worked in a union shop. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... dusk when the Green Imp got away. Johnny Caruthers had the satisfaction of lighting up the car's lamps—always a joy to him, and particularly so to-night, for even the oil taillight bore witness to his trimming and polishing till its red eye could gleam no brighter. As for the front lamps and the searchlight the Imp's progress would be as down an avenue of brilliance if its driver allowed them all full ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... action, had already swung clear and was descending the tree with a lithe agility that seemed quite out of keeping with his quiet and self-possessed manner. The boy, despite his youth, came down more clumsily. On reaching ground, he found his companion sedately polishing his tan boots with a tiny bit of rag he had taken from a box not much bigger than a twenty-five cent piece. Stuart's clothes were torn in half-a-dozen places, ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was very silent. She did not look at Horace at all. She ate almost nothing. After dinner she persisted in assisting Sylvia in clearing away the table and washing the dishes. Rose took a childish delight in polishing the china with her dish-towel. New England traits seemed to awake within her in this New England home. Sylvia was using the willow ware now, Rose was so pleased with it. The Calkin's soap ware was packed away on the top ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... must not be taken as implying that he followed the Virgilian precedent of polishing and reducing the volume of his verses by an anxious exercise of calm reflection, or that he observed the Horatian maxim of deferring their publication till the ninth year. The contrary was notoriously the case with him. Yet it is none the less proved by the state of his manuscripts ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... other means of scientific observation assure us that the chalk-beds of England and of France, the coral reefs of marine waters in warm climates, vast calcareous and silicious deposits in the sea and in many fresh-water ponds, the common polishing earths and slates, and many species of apparently dense and solid rock, are the work of the humble organisms of which I speak, often, indeed, of animaculae so small as to become visible only by the aid of lenses magnifying thousands of times the linear measures. It is ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... told Jurgis that he had sharpened three thousand pieces of steel a day for thirteen years. In the next room were wonderful machines that ate up long steel rods by slow stages, cutting them off, seizing the pieces, stamping heads upon them, grinding them and polishing them, threading them, and finally dropping them into a basket, all ready to bolt the harvesters together. From yet another machine came tens of thousands of steel burs to fit upon these bolts. In other places all these various parts were dipped into troughs of paint ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... this occasion by thrusting the lighted candle into his mouth, and exhibiting his face in a state of transparency; after the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned. When he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching collation would be of 'rather a ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... "Francesca da Rimini" is done,—all but the polishing,—I have time to look around and see how I have been neglecting my friends during my state of "possession." Of course you wish to know my opinion of the bantling; I shall suppose you do, at all events. Well, then, I am better satisfied with "Francesca da Rimini" than with any ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... and Ursy did not appear, and had a great polishing of his knick-knacks afterwards, while waiting for them. No one ever felt anxious at the non-arrival of those sisters, for they always turned up from their otter-hunting or their golf sooner or later, chiefly later, in the highest spirits at the larks they had had, with amazingly ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... "The polishing takes something away, Auntie," he replied. "The bark is hard to get through; it's tough and prickly and not always lovely, but it's the sap that counts in every case, and that's what I used to tell you and Connie. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... family." But the enthusiasm of its first followers died down under the derision they encountered, and for nine years more Zamenhof worked in secret at his language, translating, composing, writing original articles, improving, polishing, till in 1887 he published his first book under the title of "An International Language by Dr. Esperanto." ("Esperanto" ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... morning on shipboard was spent scrubbing cabin floors, washing down the walls, washing dishes, waiting on the captain and mates' mess ... the afternoon, polishing brass on the poop and officers' bridge, under the supervision of Karl, the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... purposes. Then they must each take a change of wearing apparel in case of accident, and make the loads as light as possible. B. has made it a point to look well at his guns and cartridges, and has been for days cleaning, rubbing and polishing, while hunting knives have also received attention. The party may have, in some way, to depend upon these weapons for their lives ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... the subject of his occupation. He is an important personage, and generally has his own bell in the dining-room, surmounted by his name, to be called for any service coming within his department. And this is quite a wide one, including a great variety of errandry and porterage, as well as polishing boots and shoes. He is very helpful in a great many different ways, and often very intelligent, and knows all about the streets, the railway trains, the omnibuses, cabs, etc., and will assist you in such matters with good grace and activity. He may have ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... He came back, polishing his glasses, his face beaming, watching the water as if fascinated by it. It required no more exertion on Saxon's part to start him than had been required on his part to ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... reached the engine-room he said to Murgatroyd, who was indulging in his usual pastime of cleaning and polishing his beloved charges: ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... happily one may use the Figures of Cursing, Swearing, and Bawdy, which before were entirely exploded. Tho' we cannot well suppose the Writer of that Merry Tale is any way related to the Author of the Letter, yet out of my great Zeal to promote his Project of polishing Us, I must refer to some shining Passages in that incomparable Treatise, and let the World judge if any Man can be more fit to Preside in a Society for refining ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... miserable. But it is too late. The work is half-finished, and Strauss has to go through with it. Composition becomes more and more a mechanical thing, the brilliant orchestration of sloppy, undistinguished music, the polishing up of details, the play of superficial cleverness which makes a score like "Der Rosenkavalier," feeble as it is, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... battered faces—with material to make my tale sure—so sure that the world would hail it as an impudent and vamped fiction. And I—I alone would know that it was absolutely and literally true. I—I alone held this jewel to my hand for the cutting and polishing. Therefore I danced again among the gods till a policeman saw me and ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... parish of flat brick walls and brass door-knobs and brass plates. And the first commandment was to polish every brass door-knob and every brass plate every morning. What happened in the way of disfigurement by polishing paste to the surrounding brick or wood had no importance. The conventions of the parish had no eye save for brass door-knobs and brass plates, which were maintained daily in effulgence by a vast early-rising population. Recruiting offices, casualty lists, the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... night and I been entertaining company. Florrie and little Al got out here just after noon and I was in the barracks reading about the world serious game in Chi yesterday and Florrie says she asked 1 of the boys where I was at and he told her I was polishing the general's shoes and wouldn't he do just as well. How is that for a fresh bum Al and of course I don't have to polish the general's shoes or any shoes and if I could find out who it was that Florrie was talking to I would polish ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... polishing the gun which John Gaston had given him a year before, and had trained him to use until he was second only to Gaston himself for marksmanship. "Him and her—who?" he asked, raising his dull eyes ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Stains as Imitations. Good Taste in Staining. Great Contrasts Bad. Staining Contrasting Woods. Hard Wood Imitations. Natural Effects. Natural Wood Stains. Polishing Stained Surfaces. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... "The Sabine Farm." They profited by my advice, however, and postponed publication for two years, Field and his brother Roswell in the meantime working assiduously in making new paraphrases of Horace and in polishing the old ones. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... we are on Moriah. And yonder is Pilgrim Victory! He seems to be polishing or sharpening his sword. Why, it shines like ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... inn, is a Neapolitan, and is so vivaciously expert in panto-mimic action, that in the single moment of answering my request to have a pair of shoes cleaned which I have left up-stairs, she plies imaginary brushes, and goes completely through the motions of polishing the shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the brisk little woman in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; and the brisk little woman, amiably pleased with me because I am pleased with her, claps her hands and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... his mother offer Athena the finest robe she had; yet all in vain, for the goddess rejected it. Passing to the house of Paris, he found him polishing his armour, Helen at his side. Again rebuking him, he had from him a promise that he would be ready to re-enter the fight when Hector had been to his own house to see his wife Andromache. Hector's heart foreboded that it was ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... and yet again troops. And people still go on living their daily lives. I saw two men seated in a cafe playing draughts, and they quarrelled over a move as though they had never heard tell of the KAISER. Such is la guerre. I am rapidly polishing up my French which I learnt at ——, how many years ago I may ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... than he that his fellows should thrive; While you are abusing him thus, even now He would help either one of you out of a slough; 1310 You may say that he's smooth and all that till you're hoarse, But remember that elegance also is force; After polishing granite as much as you will, The heart keeps its tough old persistency still; Deduct all you can, that still keeps you at bay; Why, he'll live till men weary of Collins and Gray. I'm not over-fond of Greek metres ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... that was the case. The constant attention to detail in the army, the smartness of the men, and the good turn-out of the horses and limbers, have a great moral effect upon every department of the service. The men were always grumbling about polishing buttons and chains, but I told them that the impression of efficiency it gave one made it quite worth while. A Division that could turn out such a fine looking Train as we had could always be depended upon to do ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... if you'd had corn, Bennington," Jim Shirley observed. "I was polishing my crown for a Corn King Festival this fall. I don't believe I'll harvest fifteen bushels to ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... fifth night after the rescue of Long Jim, Henry and Shif'less Sol lay in the covert. It was nearly midnight, but the fires still burned in the Indian camp, warriors were polishing their weapons, and the women were cutting up or jerking meat. While they were watching they heard from a point to the north the sound of a voice rising and failing in ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a tremendously good fellow every man said. Just a natural animal creature, whom grooming and polishing in the family for some hundred or so of years had ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... with windows looking on the grass and flowers of the cortile on one side and over the sea on the other—very fresh and healthy. Some of his comrades, who had been on duty all night, were sleeping in their beds, other beds were empty, and their owners were blacking their boots and polishing their buttons. He told them to entertain me, which they did while he finished his dressing. He then returned and proposed ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... glacier were to disappear entirely. For ages it has been a gigantic ice-raft, receiving all sorts of materials on its surface as it traveled onward, and bearing them along with it; while the hard particles of rocks set in its lower surface have been polishing and fashioning the whole surface over which it extended. As it now melts it drops its various burdens to the ground; bowlders are the milestones marking the different stages of its journey; the terminal and lateral ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... interest to readers. They were extant in the time of Quintilian, who speaks of them with the highest praise.[146] Cicero himself selects certain passages out of these speeches as examples of eloquence or rhythm,[147] thus showing the labor with which he composed them, polishing them by the exercise of his ear as well as by that of his intellect. We know from Asconius that this trial was regarded at the time ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... inspected it again, even going to the length of taking off her glasses and polishing them, with a view to doing perfect justice to the subject. "Would you really?" she ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... It was the first sleighing of the season. Mabel and Ben had been off for a ride, and Arna and Hazen, too. How Peggy longed to be skimming over the snow instead of polishing knives all alone in the kitchen. Sue Cummings came that afternoon to invite Peggy to her party, given in Esther's honour. Sue enumerated six other gatherings that were being given that week in honour of Esther's visit ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the result of the grinding and polishing of an ancient, slow-moving glacier, but some other force had deposited them ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... dentists themselves have not been trained to realize that the teeth are a most dangerous source of infection when unclean. Does your dentist insist upon removing tartar and food particles beyond your reach, upon polishing and cleansing, or does he regard these as vanity touches, to be omitted if you are in ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen |
