"Rag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea—not my own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... struck him even more than the car was the fur coat, and the haughty and fastidious manner in which Miss Ingram accepted it from the chauffeur, and the disdainful, accustomed way in which she wore it—as though it were a cheap rag—when once it was on her back. In her gestures he glimpsed a new world. He had been secretly scorning the affairs of the luncheon and all that it implied, and he had been secretly scorning himself for his pitiful lack of brilliancy at the luncheon. These two somewhat ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... and footsteps returning on the gravel. Then the door opened again, and my father entered, and behind him a crouching figure that felt its way with its hands as it crept along, as a blind man might. The figure stood up when it reached the middle of the hall, and mopped its eyes with a dirty rag that it carried in its hand; after which it held the rag over the umbrella-stand and wrung it out, as washerwomen wring out clothes, and the dark drippings fell into the tray with a dull, ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... staying here, Bob, amongst the rats!" cried the terrified little one, attempting to pull his brother towards the entrance by the sleeve of his jacket. The wretched rag gave way even under his weak pull, and another rent was added to the many by which the cold crept in through the poor boy's tattered dress. "I won't stay here; let ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... distracted from his desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling shroud, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head the rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly, turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might, when ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... washable clothes—so it is necessary to dress the sick room in garments that are suitable, convenient, and capable of being thoroughly disinfected, fumigated, or even burned if the occasion demands. Hence, expensive rugs should be replaced by rag carpets or no rug at all, while unnecessary articles and garments should be removed ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... stock-taking." With that, from every pocket he produced French notes of all denominations, in all stages of decay, and heaped them upon the table. "Now, this one," he added, gingerly extracting a filthy and dilapidated rag, "is a particularly interesting specimen. Apparently, upon close inspection, merely a valuable security, worth, to be exact, a shade under twopence-half-penny, it is in reality a talisman. Whosoever touches it, cannot fail to contract ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... A dirty rag was thrust out of a window at the end of a rifle-barrel. "That you, Ben?" called a ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Helen stepped into a hall, whose sole furnishing consisted of a rag rug on the floor and a cheap hall-tree with a cracked mirror. Evidently it was the chief wardrobe of the house, for upon the twenty or more nails driven into the walls in fairly regular order were articles of both men's and women's wear, most of them bearing evidence of contact ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... or more against my door They lie, and look, in form and tint, Like piles of lint, When war's alarum roused the land, Wrought out by woman's loyal hand From linen rag, and robe, and band— From garments cast aside— In hospital, on battle-field The shattered limb that bound and healed, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... "I have had the warden of the Minorites and the provincial of the Dominicans here this morning," he said, "about that accursed business of the rag-picker's wife. It is another example of what I told you just now, that these people attribute what they cannot understand to persons they can only dream about. They put down the whole of your miracles to a special reward for their zeal in ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... sacrifice, The sons this mother flings like dice, To face the odds and brave the Fates; As in those days of starry dates, When cannon cannon's counterblast Awakened, muzzle muzzle bowled, And high in swathe of smoke the mast Its fighting rag outrolled. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tippet, and handing it to Kolmagorof, he resumed his search for the missing piece. This also he presently found, in a worse state of preservation, if possible, than the other. They looked as if they had been discovered in the bag of some poor rag-picker who had fished them up out of a gutter in the Five Points. Kolmagorof tied the two pieces together, wrapped them up carefully in an old newspaper, thanked Viushin for his trouble, and, with an air of great ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Warren went to the Toft, obtained the clean linen rag, but refused to have his wound dressed, and went off again; while the squire knit his brow when he returned soon after, and, taking Dick with him, poled across in the punt to see Dave and make him promise to keep a ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... homewards. It was surely time to go, for the biggest wolf had already stretched himself and was licking his paws, while the two cubs with full stomachs were rolling over and over and biting each other playfully in the snow. Silently they stole away, stopping only to tie a rag to a pointed stick, which they thrust between their own caribou's ribs to make the wolves suspicious and keep them from tearing the game and eating the tidbits while the little hunters hurried away to bring the men with ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... laugh," said Stella with a little wry smile of her own, "when I tell you what it was. It was a gramophone. I got Harry to set it going, whilst I lay in bed—to set it playing rag-time. While it was playing, I stopped thinking. For I had to keep time in my brain with the beat of the tune. And so, at last, since I couldn't think, or remember, I fell asleep. The gramophone saved me"; ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... expected it of you," he told her coolly. "You would sooner die than admit it, simply because it would be infinitely easier for you to die. You will be false to yourself, false to Grange, false to me, rather than lower that miserable little rag of pride that made you jilt me at Simla. I didn't blame you so much then. You were only a child. You didn't understand. But that excuse won't serve you now. You are a woman, and you know what Love is. You don't call it by its name, but none the less ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... dying must come over the plant before the new leaves can grow and thrive. There must be a deliberate choice between the former growth and the new; one must give way to the other; the acorn has to come to the point where it ceases to keep its rag of former existence, and lets everything go to the fresh shoot: the twig must withdraw its sap from last year's leaf, and let it flow into this ...
— Parables of the Cross • I. Lilias Trotter
... they are in our street—and for other reasons. There are four houses, but seldom more than two of them occupied at one time—often only one. Tenants never shift in, or at least are never seen to, but they get there. The sign is a furtive candle light behind an old table cloth, a skirt, or any rag of dark stuff tacked across the front bedroom window, upstairs, and a shadow suggestive of a woman making up a bed on ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... of Edonian Phyllis, Amphipolis, yet there remain left to thee the traces of the temple of her of Aethopion and Brauron, and the water of the river so often fought around; but thee, once the high strife of the sons of Aegeus, we see like a torn rag of sea-purple ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... of the deep window recesses Roberta had set up her entire doll family to housekeeping. She was very fond of her dolls. The mother instinct in her was developed very early. She had wax dolls and china dolls and rag dolls. Mrs. Marsden painted features on the rag dolls, and they looked very natural. There was Miss Prim and Miss Slim, Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Folly, Miss Snappy and Miss Happy, named from their different expressions. Roberta had the quaintest ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... right hand, knew that at exactly ten minutes to four Mr. Uhl would issue that order—so he was on the spot to receive the fireman as the latter came leisurely up the greasy steel stairway. As the fellow emerged on deck he paused to wipe his heated brow with a sweat rag and draw in a welcome breath of cool fresh air. He did not succeed in getting his lungs quite full, however, for Michael J. Murphy, lurking beside the door, thrust the barrel of his gun in the fireman's ribs, effectually curtailing the process of respiration practically ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... up and showed it to the machine gunners in the Snout. Turning back, he ran into Hicks, stripped to his shirt and trousers, as wet as if he had come out of the river, and splashed with blood. His hand was wrapped up in a rag. He put his mouth to Claude's ear and shouted: "We found them. They were lost. They're coming. Send word ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... crushing mass which swiftly closed them in. They struggled like cats against numbers, and held the wall until the sound of battle brought the negligent guard running, and the muzzle of a carbine peeped through the grating. Burr and Ellis came out with scarce a rag and with many bruises, but with the new-born lust of battle hot within them. Ellis glowered at the enemy, and having of the two the more breath, fired the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... my companions had meant to have me on toast from the first. I mean to say, they had started a rag with me—a bit of chaff—and I now found myself rather preposterously enjoying the manner in which they had chivied me. I mean to say, I felt myself taking it as one gentleman would take a rag from other gentlemen—not as a bit ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... motives, and the stirrers up Of humours in the blood. It may be so, When as the work is done, the stone is made, This heat of his may turn into a zeal, And stand up for the beauteous discipline, Against the menstruous cloth and rag of Rome. We must await his calling, and the coming Of the good spirit. You did fault, t' upbraid him With the brethren's blessing of Heidelberg, weighing What need we have to hasten on the work, For the restoring of the ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... college," said Philip, "he talked so much of his beautiful cousin, and the rest of us were wild to see her. We used to rag him a lot, but you held aloof and we told him we didn't believe he had a cousin. We discovered after a while that he was sensitive because you didn't come when he asked you, and we quit ragging him about it. You didn't even come when he ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... change of days; for the sea was dark and tumbling mountain-high, and the white-horses were running down the valleys thereof, and the clouds drave low over all, and bore a scud of rain along with them; and though there was but a rag of sail on her, the ship flew before the wind, rolling a great wash of water ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... half oftener than once in a hundred and fifty times. Hawkins fitted out his house with "store" furniture from St. Louis, and the fame of its magnificence went abroad in the land. Even the parlor carpet was from St. Louis—though the other rooms were clothed in the "rag" carpeting of the country. Hawkins put up the first "paling" fence that had ever adorned the village; and he did not stop there, but whitewashed it. His oil-cloth window-curtains had noble pictures on them ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... all the rags and old linen of Europe," the printer concluded, "and buy any kind of tissue. The rags are sorted and warehoused by the wholesale rag merchants, who supply the paper-mills. To give you some idea of the extent of the trade, you must know, mademoiselle, that in 1814 Cardon the banker, owner of the pulping troughs of Bruges and Langlee (where Leorier de l'Isle endeavored in 1776 to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... ever see such a client!" Villemot cried indignantly, turning upon Schmucke. "You are as limp as a rag—" ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... people and makes temperate action doubly difficult, but thus, by a private letter to the proper persons, very plain, very unmistakable, but which remains private, a sufficient word to the wise, and not a red rag to the mob. "To have the affair settled peacefully and with due regard to England's honor." Thus Roosevelt. England desired no war with us this time, any more than at the other time. The Commission went to work, ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... New Jersey were of heavy timbers covered with unpainted clapboards, usually one story and a half high, with immense fireplaces, which, with candles, supplied the light. The floors were scrubbed hard and sprinkled with the plentiful white sand. Carpets, except the famous old rag carpets, were very rare. The old wooden houses have now almost entirely disappeared; but many of the brick houses which succeeded them are still preserved. They are of simple well-proportioned architecture, of a distinctive type, less luxuriant, massive, ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... office to save your rag of a sheet. I shot down a poor crazy devil in your defense. And this is how ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... you couldn't read and write, I could have told you what would happen. But, don't be cast down, Ned. Little more than three years ago, I couldn't read nor write, and hadn't shoes to my feet, and scarce a rag on my back. I was a poor outcast boy, without father or mother—no shelter for my head, and often no food to eat. I picked up a living as I could, holding horses, running errands, when anybody would trust me. I didn't steal, but ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... hunters poured volley after volley of lead into the forest. Suddenly a white rag tied to a stick was thrust out from behind ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "Slice up thinly three or four Apples without peeling them, and boil them in a very clean saucepan, with a quart of water and a little sugar until the slices of apple become soft; the apple water must then be strained through a piece of muslin, or clean rag, into a jug, and drank when cold." If desired, a small piece of the yellow rind of a lemon may be added, just enough to give ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the battle stood a Vandal bunting rag, Proudly to the breeze 'twas floating in defiance to our flag; And our Southern boys knew well that, to bring that bunting down, They would meet the angel death in his sternest, maddest frown; But ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the garb of poverty, in the spots where beggars were wont to congregate and the rich to bestow alms, they took their stand, and gratefully received the broken bits that fell from the tables of the wealthy. Each remnant of food, each rag of clothing, they brought home with joy; and the mouldiest piece of bread out of their bag was set aside for their own nourishment, while the best was bestowed ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... for the innumerable army of anaemic and tailorish persons who occupy the face of this planet with so much propriety, it is palpably absurd to imagine them in any such situation as a love-affair. A wet rag goes safely by the fire; and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery. Apart from all this, many lovable people miss each other in the world, or meet under some unfavourable star. There is the nice and critical moment of declaration to be got ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rifle with an oily rag, and scowled. "Got both hosses saddled, and lots of ca'tridges—and Dorry ain't here yet! She promised to be ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Cedric," she exclaimed, "how could you be so foolish? What made you encourage all these people in the absurdity of wishing to attend that Easter ball?—a mob of tag, rag, and bobtail, tradespeople and people from Heaven knows where: very good fun, no doubt, for the officers from Rockcliffe, Jim, or any other young men, but no place for ladies and their ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... of this procession, an old pair of breeches [culottes] borne on a pike with this motto: Vivent les Sans-Culottes! and, on a pitch-fork, the heart of a calf with this inscription: Coeur d'aristocrate, both significant emblems of the grim humor the imaginations of rag-dealers or butchers might come up with for a political carnival.—This, indeed, it is, they have been drinking and many are drunk.[2541] A parade is not enough, they want also to amuse themselves: traversing the hall they sing ca ira and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... rooms and board in a hotel in Covington, she went to the trunk that contained her clothes and the children's, and to her great disappointment her hundred dollars, that she had so securely tied in a little rag and rolled in her garments, was taken out by her mistress, who never pretended to go to her trunk for any thing, having no care whatever of her children's wardrobe. But she must hide her feelings by putting on a cheerful face, though she felt ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... sacred thing whilst it was hidden away in his own breast; but, held out to the inspection of others, it had a gawky, unfledged sort of look. It lost dignity. The dove that cooed in his bosom was a live bird; but once under Darco's eyes, and it was a moulted rag—a ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... takes at least one tub a day, and that, as may be inferred from the previous remarks, when he arises. If the tub is in the bedroom, have a rubber cloth placed under, and fill it only half full. The sponge is used for the bath, the wash rag for the washstand. The body should have a thorough soaping. The soap should be either Castile or a pure unscented glycerin. Sweet-scented soaps, perfumery, and sweet waters of all kinds should be eschewed. The Turkish towel is the best for drying, and it should be vigorously but not roughly ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... a very reasonable, not to say a necessary precaution. A man has to be young and innocent sometime or what would become of the Devil. I did not see that the stove-pipe hat was the red rag of insurrection and, when I did see it' I was up to my neck ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... professors, their good clergymen, their good political speakers, their good, earnest women—all the time he felt his soul was grinning, grinning at the sight of them. So many performing puppets, all wood and rag for the performance! ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... dirty, stained ceiling, with a hole in it, through which stuck skeleton ribs of lath; around him were bare, dirty-white walls, that seemed to grow out of the gray light of a wet morning as the natural deposit from such a solution. Two slender poles, meant to support curtains, but without a rag of drapery upon them, rose at his feet, like the masts of a Charon's boat. Was he indeed in the workhouse he had pre—ferred to Cairncarque? It could hardly be, for there was the plaster fallen in great patches from the walls as well as the ceiling, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... easier remedy of poisoning the colonies by means of cyanide of potassium. Dissolve one ounce of the drug in a quarter of a pint of water. This will be sufficient to destroy several nests, but it is a deadly poison, and must be kept in a place of safety. Soak a piece of rag in the fluid, and lay it over the entrance to the nest. There is no occasion to run away; not a Wasp will venture out, and those which return from foraging will not lose their tempers and find yours, but at each successive attempt to enter ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... chilling, on the chairs of yellow wood with varnished cane seats that seemed to have more than the usual four angles, on the open night-table capacious enough to hold a small sergeant-at-arms, on the meagre bit of rag-carpet beside the bed, on the tester whose cloth valance shook as if, devoured by moths, it was about to fall, he turned gravely to la Grande ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... gods! Simwa believe that by singing and dancing and waving of arms, with a rag of buckskin and a hair of your head and three leaves of a seldom-flowering plant, you can turn the fortunes of war? This will be news for the ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... was as fierce a contention of claimants about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see many men, to whom I had been accustomed to look up with awe and reverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with half a score of authors in full cry after him. They were close upon his haunches; in a twinkling off went his wig; ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... The rag and bone men go from door to door filling an old bag with scraps of linen, and so innumerable agents of bankers and financiers, vampires that suck gold, are for ever prowling about collecting every golden coin they can scent out and shipping it over sea. And what ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... windows, and she covered them with greased paper to let in the light. He made a wooden door that could be shut against the cold winter winds. Abe and Dennis gave the walls and low ceiling a coat of whitewash, and Sarah spread her bright rag rugs on ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... roared "Bellenden!" the Buchanans cried "Clare Innis," a rag of a hairy Highlander from the Lennox blew a wild skirl on the war- pipes, and hearing the Border slogan shouted in a strange country, nom Dieu! my blood burned, as that of any Scotsman would. Contrary to the Maid's desire, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... a rag from my pocket and wiped blood from my mouth. I'd figured out, in Shainsa, why the mistake was logical. And here in Charin I'd been hanging around in Rakhal's old haunts, covering his old trails. Once again, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... might be seen going from house to house asking alms for him, who had been for two months the arbiter of civil war and assassination. Then came a day when she ceased her quest, and was seen sitting, her head covered by a black rag: Pointu was dead, but it was never known where or how. In some corner, probably, in the crevice of a rock or in the heart of the forest, like an old tiger whose talons have been clipped and his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated companions. So I took thought, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... exposure to the gaze of the Judge, without defence. The godless soul will 'be found naked' and ashamed. All 'works of darkness,' laden with rich blossom or juicy fruit though they have seemed to be, will then be seen to be in tragic truth 'fruitless.' A life's spinning and weaving, and not a rag to cover the toiler after all! Is that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... young daughter had grown of a still more exceeding prettiness. Poor Mrs. Day often longed for a sympathetic ear into which to breathe her maternal admiration. With Bessie the subject of Deleah's beauty was like a red rag to a bull. Emily, the general and confidential friend of the family, was not an altogether satisfactory confidante on that matter, because in her eyes, blinded by affection, the whole family was ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... told David to go to the helm. "And you other young master take my oar and pull with all your might, while I sets the sails," he added. A sprit-mainsail, much the worse for wear, and a little rag of a foresail were soon set. It was as much sail as the boat in the rising gale could carry, and away she flew seaward. The old man took the helm, and the boy, who had not spoken, laid in his oar, ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... she said savagely, springing up, and growing even angrier when she found the rain had really stopped, so that her indignation sounded only like acquiescence. She strode ahead of him, silent, through the wet bracken, her frock growing a limp rag as it ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... harder, Joe, and yawp less," said I, interrupting him. "Between you and Jane I shan't have a rag ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... on, "Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our talents will come home some day, and will demand from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... himself. For the first time America was posing as the champion of legitimacy and order. Her representatives should know how to play their role; they should wear the costume; but, in the mission attached to Mr. Adams in 1861, the only rag of legitimacy or order was the private secretary, whose stature was not sufficient to impose awe on the Court and Parliament of ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... made no reply. He was not wholly in his chief's confidence. He merely knew that the name of Lou Chada to Kerry was like a red rag to a bull. The handsome, cultured young Eurasian, fresh from a distinguished university career and pampered by a certain section of smart society, did not conform to Detective Sergeant Durham's idea of a suspect. He knew that Lou was the son of Zani Chada, and he knew that Zani Chada was one of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... on the rusted skates and allow it to remain until the rust becomes softened, after which it can be easily removed by rubbing with fine sand paper or emery cloth. After using, they should be wiped dry and then rubbed with an oily rag before being placed in ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... broadest merriment was excited by a group of figures ridiculously dressed in old regimentals which seemed to have been purchased at a military rag-fair or pilfered from some receptacle of the cast-off clothes of both the French and British armies. Portions of their attire had probably been worn at the siege of Louisburg, and the coats of most recent cut might have been ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the party made a notable discovery, that the surplice was a kind of garment used by the priests of Isis. The king observed that he had no notion of this antiquity, since he had always heard from them that it was "a rag of popery." "Dr. Reynolds," said the king, with an air of pleasantry, "they used to wear hose and shoes in times of popery; have you therefore a mind to go bare-foot?" Reynolds objected to the words used in matrimony, "with my body I thee worship." The king said the phrase ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... through the general gaiety. The first subject clatters in, the second is even more jubilant. In the development a dance misterioso is used with faithful screaming repetitions, and the work ends regularly and brilliantly. There is much syncopation, though nothing that is strictly in "rag-time;" banjo-figurations are freely and ingeniously employed, and the whole is a splendid fiction in local color. Schoenefeld's negroes do not ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... 'coon-dogs, but of no particular breed or pedigree. A local pack will consist of Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, with all of Bobtail's friends and connections. One of them is known to be best and takes the lead. They call him the trailer. The rest rush yelping after, and as fast as possible follow ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... headlong chaos Murmurs within me, which I must digest, And not drowne her in my confusions, 165 That was my lives joy, being best inform'd. Sweet, you must needs forgive me, that my love (Like to a fire disdaining his suppression) Rag'd being discouraged; my whole heart is wounded When any least thought in you is but touch't, 170 And shall be till I know your former merits, Your name and memory, altogether crave In just oblivion their eternall grave; And then, you must heare from ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Southern inhabitants; for the bohea tea used by a Northern freeman, will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rag that covers his nakedness. On the other side the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack, and the difficulty of defence; nay they are to be encouraged to it by an assurance of having their votes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... are very thick she rolls the cream over like a pancake with her fingers, and lifts it out in sections. The thick milk is poured into a slop-bucket, for the pigs and calves, the dishes are "cleaned"—by the aid of a dipper full of warm water and a rag—and the wife proceeds to set the morning's milk. Tom holds up the doubtful-looking rag that serves as a strainer while his mother pours in the milk. Sometimes the boy's hands get tired and he lets ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... August weather; the mountain-tops, white with snow, were wrapped about with purple mist which twisted and shifted as if never satisfied with their draping. The sheer rocks in the mountain-sides, washed by a recent rain, were streaked with dull reds and blues and yellows, like the old-fashioned rag carpet. The rivers whose banks we followed ran blue and green, and icy cold, darting sometimes so sharply under the track that it jerked one's neck to follow them; and then the stately evergreens marched always with us, like endless companies of soldiers ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... the stove, Ellen burnt her fingers so as to make her hop. She did not cry; for she remembered her promise. Patience wet a cloth with cold water, and put it on the burn; then she remembered that common brown soap was the best thing for a burn, so she spread some soap on a cotton rag and put that on. Soon the pain was gone, and Ellen ran and told her mother what ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... going behindhand, for he didn't know how to keep what he had. He was always buying, and living large; but that can't last for ever. I saw him first at a muster. I was then just eighteen, and went out with the rest, for the first time. Maybe, 'squire, I didn't take the rag off the bush that day. I belonged to Captain Williams's troop, called the 'Bush-Whackers.' We were all fine-looking fellows, though I say it myself. I was no chicken, I tell you. From that day, Mark Forrester wrote himself down 'man' And well he ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the shekel, and his eyes falling upon a bush in whose stems he knew he should find plenty of sap, he cut some six or seven inches off, and, having forced out the sap, showed it to the villager, and asked him for a rag to tie round the end of it. I hardly know yet what purpose thou'lt put this stem to, the shepherd said, but he gave Jesus the rag he asked for, and Jesus answered: I've a good supply of ewe's milk drawn from the udder scarce an hour ago. Thou hast ewe's milk in thy bottle! the villager said. Then ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... where Kitchener's army was in possession after having freed Egypt from the power of the Madhi's wild Sudanese. French and British both claimed the same place; and for some years Fashoda was like a red rag to a bull when mentioned to Frenchmen; for Kitchener had got there first. Luckily he had fought for France in 1870, spoke French like a Frenchman, and soon made friends with the French on the spot. More luckily still, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... invigorated, don't you? Well, I will tell you a splendid way to begin. You see that Bee-man has put down his hive and his coat with the bees in it. Just wait till he gets out of sight, and then catch a lot of those bees, and squeeze them flat. If you spread them on a sticky rag, and make a plaster, and put it on the small of your back, it will invigorate you like everything, especially if some of the bees are ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... said Mr. Alexander evasively, "I'll see. Anyhow, don't say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is like a red rag ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... away quickly from this pandemonium of Civilisation. Even now, as I sit on this trunk waiting for the hour of departure, I have a foretaste of the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children, the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars, the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating, smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A musician ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... of Prince Karl Albert gesturing aside the dead body of the Vaterland sailor. Hitherto he had rather liked the idea of war as being a jolly, smashing, exciting affair, something like a Bank Holiday rag on a large scale, and on the whole agreeable and exhilarating. Now he ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... you mean," Theron responded. "I'm not particularly surprised myself that Octavius doesn't love us, or look to us for intellectual stimulation. I myself leave that pulpit more often than otherwise feeling like a wet rag—utterly limp and discouraged. But, if you don't mind my speaking of it, YOU don't ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... had done for him that she hadn't been obliged to do. Going without a new winter coat to get him an overcoat. His old one was warm, but his arms were out of it too far and he wouldn't wear it. Sitting up nights the time he drank swamp water and had the fever! That was fierce! How he did rag her! And how patiently she bore it! The scare she had when the dog bit him! As if a little dog bite was anything! Doggone it, why were women ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... her pupils dilated, lolled her head back over her shoulders, then jerked it brusquely erect and belaboured herself, tearing her breast with her nails. Another, sprawling on her back, undid her skirts, drew forth a rag, enormous, meteorized; then her face twisted into a horrible grimace, and her tongue, which she could not control, stuck out, bitten at the edges, harrowed by red teeth, from a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... accent of Clairon; none could tell a story better. And there where others could vie with her in coquetry, she carried off the honors by her genius of toilette, by the graceful turn she gave to a mere rag, by the air she imparted to a mere nothing which ornamented her, by the characteristic signature which her taste gave to everything ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... were short of flocks, gave Fred a basket, took another himself, and both boys started for a fresh supply. They went up stairs, passed through the "gig room," and across a long hall which opened into a little room by itself, where the rag grinders were humming away. This was their destination. Carl filled one of the baskets with flocks and the other with ground rags; then turning to ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... The headsmen wrench the rag from the shattered jaw; a shriek, and the crowd laugh, and the axe descends amidst the shout of the countless thousands, and blackness rushes on thy soul, Maximilien Robespierre! So ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... handful of letters. He caught sight of his revolver. An impulse, no sooner realised than set aside, to put a bullet through his head and so escape from the intolerable bondage of life flashed through his mind. He noticed that in the damp air the revolver was slightly rusted, and he got an oil rag and began to clean it. It was while he was thus occupied that he grew aware of someone slinking round the door. He ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... foliage—a touch of flamboyant for some tastes, but Granpa's and Gramma's eyes were failing, and they liked strong colors. Also, crafty questioning had elicited the fact that "pinies" were Gramma's favorite flower. The kitchen had turkey-red curtains with a cheerful strip of rag carpet and two comfortable easy chairs before the hearth. The cellar was generously stocked from the school farm—Miss Sallie's contribution—with potatoes and cabbages and carrots and onions, enough to make ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Several years after, the agent called at his law office, and presented a claim of about seventeen dollars in the settlement of the New Salem affairs. Mr. Lincoln took out a little trunk, and produced the exact sum, wrapped in a linen rag. It had lain there untouched through years of the greatest hardship and self-denial. He said, "I never use any one's money ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... Roy's artificial feeding began. Peggy raised his head while Mammy opened his mouth by inserting a skilful finger where later the bit would rest, then slipped in the milk-sopped woolen rag. After a few minutes the small beastie which had never known fear, understood and sucked away vigorously, for he had not fed for hours and the poor inner- colt was grumbling sorely at the long fast. The bowlful of milk soon ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the East side bounded by Houston, Stanton, Pitt, and Willett streets. It contains a group of three front and seven rear houses, and is known as "Rag-pickers' Row." These ten houses contain a total of 106 families, or 452 persons. All these persons are rag-pickers, or more properly chiffonniers, for their business is to pick up every thing saleable they can find in the streets. Formerly they brought their gatherings to this place ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... "Then you ain't as much of a tenderfoot as you look to be. Shake!" and he held out a hand as huge as a bear's paw. Following the hand-grip he grew confidential. "'Long in the afternoon I stuck my head in at the door and saw you chewin' the rag with a thin-faced old nester that couldn't set still in his chair while he talked. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... day he did not leave his room, save at meal times; for he wished to be alone and hug his exultation. To the four flat walls he repeated snatches of the things he had done the night before; up and down the rag carpet he smirked and grimaced and laughed and jigged. He sang the songs that had "taken" so well. He went through certain gestures and then deliberately exaggerated them, in a high good-humor. He was as young again ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... never a foeman showed Till they came in sight of the harbour, and the very first thing they see Was this mite of a one-horse gunboat a-lying against the quay, And there as they watched they noticed a flutter of crimson rag, And under their eyes he hoisted old Balmaceda's flag. Well, I tell you it fairly knocked 'em — it just took away their breath, For he must ha' known if they caught him, 'twas nothin' but sudden death. An' he'd got no fire in his furnace, no chance to put ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... five minutes,' says Mrs. Trotter, 'to get my powder rag and leave the front door key with a neighbor and you can let ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we took that village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat and says, ‘Occupy till I come’: which was scriptural. By way of a reminder, when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet near him standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on their faces. Then I sends ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... put his hands up to something round his head. He was now lying out in the light, with a cold bandage round his forehead, and a moist rag on ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... and you too!' cried Bill Bates, addressing Crass. 'You're only a dirty toe-rag! That's all you are—a bloody rotter! That's the only reason you gets put in charge of jobs—'cos you're a good nigger-driver! You're a bloody sight worse than Rushton or Misery either! Who was it started the one-man, one-room dodge, eh? Why, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... it, sir. I have instructions to place each day's papers in a pile by itself in case they should be wanted again. There is always one week's supply in the cellar, and we sell the papers of the week before to the rag men.' ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... juvenile beggars whose miserable appearance is made an instrument of gain by their worthless masters; those vagrants who disguise their vagabondage under the pretext of imaginary professions, collecting cigar stumps and rag picking; those little girls who sell flowers at the doors of houses of bad repute, often concealing under this ostensible occupation infamous transactions with panders who keep them in their pay. A determined warfare was declared against the Italian padroni, who thrive upon the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... faith. For certes, what so any woman saith, We all desiren, if it mighte be, To have husbandes hardy, wise, and free, And secret,* and no niggard nor no fool, *discreet Nor him that is aghast* of every tool,** *afraid **rag, trifle Nor no avantour,* by that God above! *braggart How durste ye for shame say to your love That anything might make you afear'd? Have ye no manne's heart, and have a beard? Alas! and can ye be aghast of swevenes?* *dreams Nothing ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the window and groped for her tinder-box. The glow, as she blew the spark upon the dry rag, lit up a very pretty but tear-stained pair of cheeks; and when she touched off the brimstone match, and, looking up, saw her face confronting her, blue and tragical, from the dark-framed mirror, it reminded ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are through with these ideas that are now about us like the plague; that every child imbibes from our abominable press!—that our fools of clergy—our bishops even—are not ashamed to preach. There is precious little sense of property, and not a single rag of loyalty or respect left in this country! But when you think of the creatures that rule us—and the fanatics who preach to us—and the fools who bring up our children, what else can you expect! The whole state is rotten! The men in our great towns are ripe for any revolutionary ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... discussion with a philosophic, "Aside from the question of brutality, this marriage by capture isn't a sporting proposition. It's like jacking deer. I'm not for it. And, O Lord, what's the use of chewing the rag so much about it? Wait a while. We'll ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... and evil fortune? It reminds me of that centaur's tunic which could not be torn off without carrying away the flesh and blood of its wearer. I am unwilling to give it up; whatever gratitude for the past, and whatever piety toward my vanished youth is in me, seem to forbid it. The warp of this rag is woven out of Alpine joys, and its woof out of human affections. It also says to ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the doctor as a red rag to a bull. "Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "I know what I shall do with you. You are going right over to the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... cruise we had a fishing-line hanging out, but it hung for a whole month without there being a sign of a fish, in spite of the most delicate little white rag that was attached to the hook. One morning the keenest of our fishermen came up as usual and felt the line. Yes, by Jove! at last there was one, and a big one, too, as he could hardly haul in the line ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... played in old times with me, In the corner down by the smoke-house, These wonderful dolls could see! Rachel's doll had a round head whittled From a bit of soft pine wood; And Polly's was only a corn-cob, With a calico slip and hood. My doll was a lovely rag-baby, With badly-inked eyes and nose; Her cheeks were painted with cherry-juice; And I made every stitch ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... with fresh 'white man's boxes' (query, ammunition?) and professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag-tag as the devil himself could ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and, seeing this handy resting place, are then quickly caught as they alight upon it. Another method was explained to Sam by an old Indian hunter, and with some help in securing the material they had a great deal of fun in trying it. The first thing they did was to make a great black rag mouse about as big as a beaver. To this was added a tail about five feet long. Then to the nose of this great bogus mouse was attached one end of a large ball of twine. This was the whole outfit, except, ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... rag, anyway," said the showy lady, who was still showy in spite of a wart-like knot of dried mud on the end of her nose. And she glanced at her spattered but graceful and expensive white linen ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... catch a fish," Bunny said. To the bent pin hook, on the end of the string, he tied a piece of rag. He had brought all these things with him, hoping he might get a chance to fish ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... me—says I!—But this here pebble o' Paradise!—What's to be done wi' the cherub? I can't tell her a lie about it, an' who'll break it up for a cove like me, lookin' jes' as if I'd been an' tarred myself and crep' through a rag-bag! They'd jug me. An' what 'ud Mattie say then? I wish I 'adn't 'a' touched it. I'm blowed if I don't toss it over a bridge!—Then the gent 'ain't got the weight on his dunop out o' me. O Lord! what shall I do with it? I wish I'd skied it in his face! I don't ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... was beginning to recover, though his breath still came with a catch. His rag of a handkerchief was dabbing tears out of his eyes. O'Connor noticed how soft his hands and ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... down to half and then a quarter speed, but she was rolling so badly that Ben Stubbs was considering the advisability of putting a rag of sail on her to steady her. She wallowed in the big seas like an empty bottle, and every lurch threatened to ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... house, her uncle sitting within it, his pipe and his newspaper on his knee, sunning himself in the April morning. She passes behind him, looks into the stiff leaf-scented parlour—at the framed Declaration of Independence on the walls, the fresh boughs in the fire-place, the Bible on its table, the rag-carpet before the hearth. She breathes the atmosphere of the house; its stern independence and simplicities; the scorns and the denials, the sturdy freedoms both of body and soul that it implies—conscience the only master—vice-master for God, in this His house of the World. And beyond—as ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Satan, "I was only fooling you. It is mirth for me to see you suffer. I have been for thirty years plotting to get you just where you are. It is hard for you now—it will be worse for you after awhile. It pleases me. Lie still, sir. Don't flinch or shudder. Come now, I will tear off from you the last rag of expectation. I will rend away from your soul the last hope. I will leave you bare for the beating of the storm. It is my business to ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... of the mania when, shortly before the siege, 188,000 Germans were expelled from Paris, leaving behind them only some 700 old folk, invalids, and children, who were unable to obey the Government's decree. But the disease soon revived, and we heard of rag-pickers having their baskets ransacked by zealous National Guards, who imagined that these receptacles might contain secret despatches or contraband ammunition. On another occasion Le Figaro wickedly suggested that all the blind beggars in Paris ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... sort of party, Mr Pillson?' and he couldn't do other than reply, for we all received notice that it was Hightum—mine came about twelve—he couldn't do other than reply, 'Yes, Miss Bracely, it is.' 'Good gracious me,' she would say, 'and I've only got this old rag on. I must go back to the Ambermere Arms, and tell my maid—for she brought a maid in that second motor—and tell my maid to put me out something tidy.' 'But that will be a great bother for you,' he would say, or something ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... he knows all right who he is," mused Dave. "No worrying about his father and mother or about his future. As for me, I don't know whether I'm a rag-picker's son, or whether I came ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... possibility, recognize the blue silk of those cushion covers? Georgiana wondered. Jeannette, who never wore a frock long enough really to become familiar with its pattern, would only know that the cushions were soft to her comfort-accustomed body. The woven rag rugs of blue and white upon the floor were of Georgiana's own making. An ancient desk, which had belonged to Mr. Warne's mother, was carefully fitted with all the small articles one could desire ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... that I raised from nothing! Begone, begone, begone, go, go; that I took from washing of old gauze and weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chafing-dish of starved embers, and dining behind a traver's rag, in a shop no bigger than a bird-cage. Go, go, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... themselves looking down into an attic, which was also a lumber-room. It had boxes and broken chairs, old fenders and picture-frames, and rag-bags hanging from nails. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... of course. A fellow like you would be sure to be able to pick up a wife with money. My thoughts don't incline that way. I look forward to the Rag as the conclusion of my career. There you meet fellows you know, lie against each other about past campaigns, eat capital dinners, and have your rub of whist, regularly, ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... room, a game of solo in another; yonder, seen through an open door, six men were shaking dice and wagering little and bigger sums recklessly; a little fellow with a wooden leg and a terribly scarred face was drawing shrieking rag time from an old and asthmatic accordion while four men, their big boots clumping noisily upon the bare floor, danced like awkward trained bears when the outer door, closed against the chill of the evening, was flung open and a stranger ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... having the canker. Another cause of a sore nipple is from the mother, after the babe has been sucking, putting up the nipple wet. She, therefore, ought always to dry the nipple, not by rubbing, but by dabbing it with a soft cambric or lawn handkerchief, or with a piece of soft linen rag one or the other of which ought always to be at hand every time directly after the child has done sucking, and just before applying any of the following powders or lotions ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... your jolly old play yet," said Geoff. "I suppose I can count on you for a box? If you'll give us dinner first, I might collect a few bright lads and give the thing a bit of a fillip. I should think it must be rather a rag, being famous." ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... was interrupted by a person who appeared in the background and resembled a judicial official. Voltaire saw who it was, and became furious: "Your Majesty, how can you allow this rag-tag and bob-tail to enter the castle-park? Why do you not enclose it with iron gates ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... little Anthony girls were lent to the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their mother, while she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She thought these were good enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except of home manufacture, but her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded just as much happiness as children nowadays get from ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... hoping. A lifetime went in those hours, and the sun was slanting down before the road yielded, far and far away, a speck that grew into a cart going slowly. By and by she was able to see her husband driving, but nobody with him—only a rag or a garment that fluttered from the side. Her mind snatched at it; was it—God! what ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... a nigger was to Worcester as a red rag to a bull. "St. Amory's for niggers!" Dick ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... tore up the rag carpet and threw it out of the window, sneezing violently. "There's considerable less dirt here already than there was when we come," she continued, "though we ain't done any real cleaning yet. She can't never put that ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... stolen his knife: He solemnly and steadily denied that he knew any thing of it; upon which Mr Banks made him understand, that whoever had taken it, he was determined to have it returned: Upon this resolute declaration, one of the natives who was present produced a rag in which three knives were very carefully tied up. One was that which Dr Solander had lent to the woman, another was a table knife belonging to me, and the owner of the third was not known. With these the chief immediately ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... first by the collar and crutch, and flung him head foremost through the air. Then, taking the other as swiftly, he lifted him high overhead, and threw him down like a crumpled rag. ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... and a sharp little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which looked like a hen's leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar expression, for a gleam of mistrust ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pillars on each side were loaded to the most outrageous extent with carving and gilding, and the ceiling was to match; below that was another room, a little smaller, and rather less gaudy; both were crowded with the most tag-rag and bob-tail ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... life and treat everyone as an old pal, seemed to be the order of the day, and in that atmosphere it was impossible to feel anything but quite at home. Before tea was over we new arrivals were infected with the same spirit of joviality, and were ready for the first 'rag.' ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... deserted. When the party had landed and gone up to the place where the fort had been built they found no fort there; only the blackened and charred remains of a fort. The whole thing had been burned level with the ground, and amid the blackened ruins they found pieces of rag and clothing. The natives, instead of coming to greet them, lurked guiltily behind trees, and when they were seen fled away into the woods. All this was very disquieting indeed, and in significant contrast to their behaviour of the year before. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... quality, the softer it will be; be sure they are exactly square. Nothing is more trying, in a small way, than to get a diaper that cannot be folded true. These should be made double and the edges turned in and sewed around. By the time the baby has outgrown them they will be fit only for the rag- bag, and may be thrown aside. The second size diaper, also the third should be many times washed to make them soft enough for use. These may be used at first folded eight times and put under the baby next the damask diaper, between ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... after this, Moses was half sick with a "run-round" on his finger, and consented to go up in the spinning-chamber and play with Patty: he never played with girls when he was well. Dorcas was at the little flax-wheel spinning linen, and Patty was in a corner under the eaves, with her rag babies spread out before her,—quite a family of them. The oldest granddaughter was down with brain fever, and she wanted Moses to bleed her. Moses did it with great skill. When he practiced medicine, he pursued the same course Dr. Potter did, their family physician; he bled and "cupped" Patty's ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... off to the handiest J. P. on a charge of attempted suicide. Mrs. M'Bean vehemently repelled the accusation. She explained that she had said her heart was broke only "because she had lost her ould hat, and every thread of a rag on her had been dhrenched and ruinated with the salt water. How could she go for to do such a sin as destroy herself, she urged, and she wid a houseful of little childer waitin' for her at home, the crathurs?" Her arguments proved convincing, and the charge ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... the dresses in insane haste and hides them carefully in the table drawer and elsewhere.] Paul, don' do that! You c'n do anythin' else! It's like tearin' the last rag offa my naked body! ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the necessity of accepting drapery, and the very drapery of the day, if he will keep his art alive. It is his business to idealize the tailor's actual work. But he seems to be especially fond of nudity, none of his ideal statues, so far as I know them, having so much as a rag of clothes. His statue of California, lately finished, and as naked as Venus, seemed to me a very good work; not an actual woman, capable of exciting passion, but evidently a little out of the category of human nature. In one hand she holds ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said himself. He says he can do nothing—you should have seen him walking up and down the room, dressed in a suit of clothes out of a rag shop, yellow-grey things two sizes too big for him; he has to roll up the ends of the trousers. He had no collar on, and to keep his neck warm he had tied an old pink scarf round his throat. He couldn't walk either ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... pretty, pretty well; enough, in a great measure, richly; to a large extent, to a great extent, to a gigantic extent; on a large scale; so; never so, ever so; ever so dole; scrap, shred, tag, splinter, rag, much; by wholesale; mighty, powerfully; with a witness, ultra[Lat], in the extreme, extremely, exceedingly, intensely, exquisitely, acutely, indefinitely, immeasurably; beyond compare, beyond comparison, beyond measure, beyond ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... of the house, handsome chapel, and seven or eight distinct apartments, besides closets and conveniences without end. Then it is covered with portraits, crammed with old china, furnished richly, and not a rag in it under forty, fifty, or a thousand years old; but not a bed or chair that has lost a tooth, or got a gray hair, so well are they preserved. I rummaged it from head to foot, examined every spangled bed, and enamelled pair ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... last fluttering rag vanished from sight, our lads, who had watched the latter part of this performance in silent wrath, turned to each ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... trunks full of beautiful things I took away with me, Cornelia," she complained; "Well I have not a rag left. I have nothing ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... his four stout sons set off on an autumn night for the meeting of patriots at a house on the Wissahickon,—a meeting that bodes no good to the British encamped in Philadelphia, let the red-coats laugh as they will at the rag-tag and bob-tail that are joining the army of Mr. Washington in the wilds of the Skippack. The farmer sighs as he thinks that his younger son alone should be missing from the company, and wonders for the thousandth time ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... rag hanging out of the window: shall it be red or blue? If it be red, the piece of warm color will contrast strongly with the atmosphere; will render its blueness and chilliness immensely more apparent; will increase the degree of both, and, therefore, the abstract impression of the existence ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... worried expression and how persistently she applied a slate rag, asked Susie, who sat near the table, to change places with him, and moving the chair near Mary's took the slate and by a few suggestions gave just the needed assistance; and in such a concise way that the quick though untrained ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... out to start a row. And, being full of what I saw up there, I spilled him the yarn. And I wish you could have had a look into that man's face! He's no albino to speak on, and yet when I got half-way through he looked it. His face was as white as a rag and his eyes bulged out like he was scared, and the sweat come out on his head and all over, I guess, and he kept looking over his shoulder all the time like the devil was after him. And when I showed him what I found on the rock by the dead calf, he just ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory |
