"Ready to hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... granite slabs of British cromlechs thrown down and carted away, stone circles destroyed to make way for farming improvements, and ancient huts and caves broken up to build new houses and stables, with the stones thus ready to hand. It is high time, indeed, that something should be done; and nothing will avail but to place every truly historical monument under national protection. Individual efforts may answer here and there, and a right spirit may be awakened from time to time by local societies; but ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... was drawn in two opposite directions. Haydn and Mozart, though they were spared this dual influence, had, however, to face a difficulty. They found a form ready to hand, yet one which, as we have attempted to show, required modifications of various kinds. The former had to make the old fit in with the new; but the latter, the new with the old. Hence their inspiration was handicapped. They were to ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... futile to attempt to deny that we have ready to hand in the politics of the British Empire—that Empire which is swept along in "the too vast orb of her fate"—an ideal political training-ground in which we might put woman to school. The woman voter would there be able to make any experiment ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... would be easier than usual to-day, for a topic was ready to hand—most of the ladies on whom she called taking a lively interest in the Temple-Wilson wedding, anxious to know if Miss Ethel had seen the bride lately, and if it were true that the trousseau surpassed all previous ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... crowds we saw that it is particularly open to the impressions produced by images. These images do not always lie ready to hand, but it is possible to evoke them by the judicious employment of words and formulas. Handled with art, they possess in sober truth the mysterious power formerly attributed to them by the adepts of magic. They cause the birth in the minds of crowds of the most formidable tempests, ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... plantation house at Meringe, always the several white men had looked askance at the many blacks who toiled for them and belonged to them. In the living-room, where were the eating-table, the billiard-table, and the phonograph, stood stands of rifles, and in each bedroom, beside each bed, ready to hand, had been revolvers and rifles. As well, Mister Haggin and Derby and Bob had always carried revolvers in their belts when they left the house ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... have thought that success might lie in extending and refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... together for deliberation, it is evident that some sort of an internal police is necessary; first of all, some code of accepted usage, some written precedents, by which its acts may be prepared and defined, considered in detail, and properly passed. The best of these codes it ready to hand: at the request of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over the standing orders of the English House of Commons.[2103] But with the presumption of novices, they pay no attention to this code; they imagine it is needless for them; they will borrow nothing from foreigners; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... glad to hear of her mother's place being taken, but she did not repine but did her father's bidding. And at the appointed day came down to the castle gate with the keys all ready to hand over to her stepmother. Soon the procession drew near, and the new queen came towards Princess Margaret who bowed low and handed her the keys of the castle. She stood there with blushing cheeks and eye on ground, and said: ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... preparations. It meant so much, this operating at a country house, she explained to Ellen. It meant the working out of all manner of difficult details, that the final conditions might as closely as possible resemble those which were to be had, ready to hand, in ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... Ambermere Arms at five. He had brought up with him a pair of opera-glasses, with the intention of taking them to bits, so he had informed Foljambe, and washing their lenses, but he did not at once proceed about this, merely holding them ready to hand for use. Hermy and Ursy had gone back to their golf again after lunch, and so callers would be told that they were all out. Thus he could wash the lenses, when he chose to do ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... that the terms of the enlistment were interpreted literally, and that wherever the minute men went, to the field, the shop, or to church, gun and powder-horn and bullet-pouch were ready to hand. It is scarcely an exaggeration to suppose that, as represented by French's statue, the farmers actually left the plough in the furrow and snatched up ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... its birth in Germany. These kill-joys got the upper hand. The recognition of the Christ-Mass, Christmas and the Michael-Mass, Michaelmas, was put down by law. Dissent has never hesitated to use compulsion when it lay ready to hand to enforce materialism. So belief in angels well nigh ceased to exist. To-day the revival comes from actual experience rather than from church teaching. The antagonism to such belief amounts to unreasonable heights of folly. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied elsewhere. There's our clew and if the man you've got up from New York is worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand." ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... to guide us pointed to where the native boat had been placed, and into it we leapt, eager to see the treasure taken from the lost galleon. Although there were two pairs of oars of peeled wood ready to hand, we had no occasion to use them, for the underground river carried us along with its steady current. We each held aloft a blazing torch, which the female warrior had thrust into our hands before she took her seat in the prow of the boat, where she ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... existing teaching personnel in the army, and would be indirectly detrimental to it as well. Nor would any strengthening of the field army be possible under this scheme, since the cadres to contain the mass of these special reservists are not ready to hand. This mass would therefore only fill up the recruiting depots, and facilitate to some degree the task ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... frost upon the hall, all encumbered with the goods of the wandering family. Perhaps it was with a certain unconscious symbolism that Nettie buried her own personal wardrobe deep in the lowest depths, making that the foundation for all the after superstructure. Smith stood by, ready to hand her anything she might want, gazing at her with doubtful amazement. The idea of setting off to Australia at a few days' notice filled ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... conservative when handling the money of the railroad company than his own, but the prize offered was too great to be missed. Even if the six hundred thousand dollars had been lost, it would not have been a losing investment for his company, and there was little danger of this because we were ready to hand over to him the securities which we obtained in return for the loan to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... life. Past history is of little assistance in interpreting the social and industrial development, in which we ourselves are atoms. Much information is to be obtained, though piecemeal and with difficulty, but especially as relates to women, it has not yet been classified and ordered and placed ready to hand. ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... tell them what I know concerning you. Indeed, I wrote out a full statement while I was staying with Paul. And I have it ready to hand for the authorities." ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... her cosy housekeeper's room and sighed regretfully; she was alone, and upon the table ready to hand lay her neat bonnet, her umbrella, and a pair of white cotton gloves, beholding which articles her lips set more resolutely, her bony arms folded themselves more tightly, and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... they'd hoot us along the streets. It ain't the regular line of business, Bozzle; and there ain't no good to be got, never, by going off the regular line." Whereupon Bozzle scratched his head and again read the letter. A distinct promise of a hundred pounds was made to him, if he would have the child ready to hand over to Trevelyan ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... to talk to these people," reflected he, "or what sort of trouble they've got ready to hand out to us. But, once I get my right hand free—I'm ready for ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... asking for collateral. I'm ready to hand you over the money on any terms you like or ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... allegiance, yet its supremacy, though thus disavowed, cannot be overthrown. The Conference at The Hague has facilitated future recourse to arbitration, by providing means through which, a case arising, a court is more easily constituted, and rules governing its procedure are ready to hand; but it has refrained from any engagements binding states to have recourse to the tribunal thus created. The responsibility of the state to its own conscience remains unimpeached and independent. The progress thus ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... there, to wait just outside, but made his way quickly back into the lobby, where he stood, ready to hand Mark his large Inverness cloak and hat, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... provisions one may take advantage of all the light to be had in an ordinary window. Occasionally a better place may be found ready to hand, such as the bay-window illustrated facing page 8 or such as that described in the preceding chapter, or those mentioned in the first chapter of Part II (page 146). The effort demanded will always be repaid many times by greater ease and greater success in ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... brought out by the use of the plural. Themistes, Themises, the plural of Themis, are the awards themselves, divinely dictated to the judge. Kings are spoken of as if they had a store of "Themistes" ready to hand for use; but it must be distinctly understood that they are not laws, but judgments. "Zeus, or the human king on earth," says Mr. Grote, in his History of Greece, "is not a law-maker, but a judge." He is provided with Themistes, but, consistently ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... what is asked, grumbling, and there will be no loss to our folk. As for this talk of taking the horses—well, a sailor always wants a ride when he first comes ashore, if it is only on an ass. Then if there is not enough meat ready to hand in the town, no doubt they would say they would find it for themselves. Well, come ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... his jaded anatomy by taking a bath, in which he would lie for a whole hour, plunged in meditation. After his voluntary seclusions, he suddenly reappeared in his usual haunts, active and feverish as ever, note-book ready to hand, in which he jotted down his thoughts, discoveries, and observations for future use. On its pages were primitively outlined the features of most of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... separated from the nave by four Roman columns, and Mr. W.H. St. John Hope, of the Society of Antiquaries, who carried out the operations with Canon Routledge, has suggested that this may be the first church built by Augustine out of Roman materials ready to hand, while the larger one, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, a little to the west, was slowly being constructed. It was not finished when, in 605, Augustine died, and eventually the dedication included the canonized first archbishop of the English Church, who was buried in ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... reliable information is of a very scanty and generally erroneous description. The inherited knowledge which enables a modern schoolboy to start life with what would have been an outfit to an ancient philosopher, had yet to be created. Instead of finding, as we find, tools ready to hand, replies prepared to questions that may arise, primitive mankind must create its own tools and prepare its own answers. And in consequence of this the social environment, which at all times determines the form of man's mental output, is with primitive man radically ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... their India ink themselves; but, besides the difficulty of always ensuring the proper consistency, it was a cumbersome method, and is now little resorted to, especially as numerous excellent prepared inks are ready to hand. The better known of these prepared inks are, "Higgins' American" (general and waterproof), Bourgeois' "Encre de Chine Liquide," "Carter's," "Winsor & Newton's," and "Rowney's." Higgins' and Carter's have the extrinsic advantages of being put up in bottles which do not tip over on the ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... was gone, she takes the city lady aside, and talking softly, the mercer and his partner, seeing them talk together, withdrew, but waited at a distance to be ready to hand them to the coach. So they began a ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... sequence is largely locked up in complex word formations, it becomes transformed into a kind of potential energy that may not be released for millennia. In its more analytic forms (Chinese, English) this energy is mobile, ready to hand for such service ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... theories, are as independent as feudal princes. But the more I consider the period the more this strange and restless alliance of doctrine with temperament appears to be of its essence; wherefore, I shall not hesitate to make of it a light wherewith to take a hasty look about me. Here are two labels ready to hand—"temperamental" and "doctrinaire." I am under no illusion as to the inadequacy and fallibility of both; neither shall I imagine that, once applied, they are bound to stick. On the contrary, you will see, in a later chapter, how, having dubbed Matisse "temperamental" and Picasso "theorist," ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... all the devices which a year of experience has suggested to the quick brains of our Allies. It is ground upon which one cannot talk with freedom. Every form of bomb, catapult, and trench mortar was ready to hand. Every method of cross-fire had been thought out to an exact degree. There was something, however, about their disposition of a machine gun which disturbed the Commandant. He called for the officer of the gun. His thin lips got thinner and his grey eyes more austere as ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him steadily. He sat surrounded by his mysterious electric machines under shining glass domes, among costly leather-bound volumes whose very titles questioned the foundation of reason; telephones and telegrams ready to hand upon his orderly desk. And it seemed to me that he smiled mockingly at me behind ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... I mean that also English must be available, that everywhere there must be English teaching. And everyone who wants to read science or history or philosophy, to come out of the village life into wider thoughts and broader horizons, to gain appreciation in art, must find ready to hand, easily attainable in English, all there is to know and all that has been said thereon. It is worth a hundred Dreadnoughts and a million soldiers to the Empire, that wherever the imperial posts reach, wherever there is a curious or receptive mind, there in English and by the imperial ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the lead in legislation, and partly because an ideal site is ready to hand under its jurisdiction, I would venture to suggest the immediate establishment of an absolute sanctuary for all wild birds and mammals along as much of the coast as possible on either side of cape Whittle. The best place of all to keep is from cape Whittle eastward ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... wanted to marry her, he, Guffey, was for it. There was nothing like the influence of a good woman, and Guffey much preferred his operatives should be married men, living a settled and respectable life. They could be trusted then, and sometimes when a woman operative was needed, they had a partner ready to hand. If Peter had got married long ago, he might have had a good sum of money ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... ingloriously flee the field, but his donkey is too heavily laden to accompany him: he looks apprehensively at my rapidly approaching figure, and then, as if a happy thought suddenly occurs to him, he quickly takes the finest bunch of grapes ready to hand and holds them, out toward me while I am yet a good fifty yards away. The grapes are luscious, and the bunch weighs fully an oke, but I should feel uncomfortably like a highwayman, guilty of intimidating ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the spirit of Asbjornson's "Huldre-Eventyr." There is in them a community of feeling, of fancy, of ideas. And whereas Madhus had difficulty with the sunny romance of Italy, Eggen in the story of Puck found material ready to hand. The passage translated begins Act II, Sc. 1, and runs through Act II to Oberon's words immediately before the entrance ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... Merthyr, was the worst offender against the Standing Order which forbids a Member to read his speech, though it allows him to "refresh his memory with notes"; and once, being called to order for his offence, he palliated it by saying that he was ready to hand his manuscript to his censor, and challenged him to read ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... down by one of the fires till it got time to lie down for the night; but we had both been a-thinking. We saw, when we lay down, that the Injuns lay pretty well around us, while two on 'em, with their rifles ready to hand, sat down by a fire close by and threw on some logs, as if they intended to watch ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... they hewed with their sharp scimitars, frequently severing the steel top from the ashpole, and then breaking through and engaging in hand-to-hand conflict with the knights. Behind the latter sat their squires, with extra spears and arms ready to hand to their masters; and in close combat, the heavy maces with their spike ends were weapons before which the light clad horsemen went down like reeds ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Vicarage garden in a soutane, buckled shoes, and beaver hat, and he could not understand why Mr. Ogilvie, who had often laughed about Dorward's eccentricity, should now that he had an opportunity of enjoying it once more be so cross about his friend's arrival and so ready to hand him over ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... pocket for the pistol, and it was ready to hand. Then he buttoned his coat round him and swung himself out of the window. He held his body away from the wall with one knee and went down hand under hand. It was so quietly done that it did not even rouse the birds in the near-by trees. Before he realized ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... we are concerned it only remains for Number One, who has a brother in the Air Force, to cancel his winter order with Breezes, the naval tailors, and we shall all go below and pack our trunks and get ready to hand the ship over to Spooner. If the Navy of the future must be under water there is no particular reason why we should be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... what he wanted me to do, if the plan was still to be carried out. On this point he seemed uncertain, but thought I had shown a great lack of fellow-feeling in having not only ignored him, but Reissiger as well. I answered that I was perfectly ready to hand over my composition and the conducting of the piece to Reissiger. But he could not swallow this, as he really had an exceedingly poor opinion of Reissiger, of which I was very well aware. His real grievance was that I had arranged the whole business with the Lord Chamberlain, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... appointed to examine into the cost of establishing government armor works is to be ready to hand in its report ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 42, August 26, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... above it. Under her bows lay all the material for use the next day. The spare pieces of timber that were to be put under her, and the wedges which were to be driven in to raise her forward, were ready to hand, as were the jacks and levers. Everything, in fact, down to the long-handled mauls was in ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... both of 'em while they was fumblin' to draw, if he had to. But the chances is there won't be a shot fired one way or another. He'll jest naturally out-guess 'em an' ease 'em along, painless an' onsuspectin' until he turns 'em over to me, with the evidence all done up in a package, you might say, ready to hand to ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... odour in a box that had evidently travelled across the Atlantic close to the ship's boilers was traced to the pocket of a boy's suit, which contained the hardly-distinguishable remains of a ham sandwich, meant to be ready to hand for the hungry Belgian boy who got that suit. Broken pots of jam were quite frequent. But no matter. Soap and water and Belgian industry saved the suit, if not the sandwich. Sweaters and underclothes and overcoats almost new, and shiny old morning coats and trousers with holes ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... hat in his hand, he stood under the great gateway of the hotel, ready to hand Mrs. Thompson into the carriage. This would have been nothing if the landlord and landlady had not been there also, as well as the man-cook, and the four waiters, and the fille de chambre. Two or three other pair of eyes Mrs. Thompson also saw, as she glanced ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... scratched in a dozen places, with a bad cut over one eye and several splinters in his left hand. Feeling in his pocket, he found several matches which Leroy had given him on leaving the prison cave, and he lit one of these and set fire to a few dried leaves which happened to be ready to hand. ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... entered the heavily-curtained, softly carpeted room. Their footsteps made no sound as they crossed the floor. The nurses withdrew and they approached the bedside. Bertha had ink and paper ready to hand. The lawyer held out his hand to ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... up the task with renewed zest. Since my clothing day I had received abundant lights on religious perfection, chiefly concerning the vow of poverty. Whilst I was a postulant I liked to have nice things to use and to find everything needful ready to hand. Jesus bore with me patiently, for He gives His light little by little. At the beginning of my spiritual life, about the age of fourteen, I used to ask myself how, in days to come, I should more clearly understand the true meaning of perfection. I imagined I then understood ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... that the little town would be more full than usual of visitors, made it less likely that either the departure of Mark by the 4.20, or the arrival of Robert by the 2.10 earlier in the afternoon, would have been particularly noticed. As Antony had said to Cayley, there would always be somebody ready to hand the police a circumstantial story of the movements of any man in ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... have the very clothes ready to hand," Jacques said. "When we joined you, we left ours with a friend in the town, to hold for us. There is no saying how long military service may last and, as our clothes were serviceable, we laid them by. We can go round ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... Regin the guileful: "The deed is ready to hand, Yet holding my peace is the best, for well thou lovest the land; And thou lovest thy life moreover, and the peace of thy youthful days, And why should the full-fed feaster his hand to the rye-bread raise? Yet they say that ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... as a receiver until such time as the Commission might make its report, and until I, as President, might issue further orders in view of this report. I had to find a man who possessed the necessary good sense, judgment, and nerve to act in such event. He was ready to hand in the person of Major-General Schofield. I sent for him, telling him that if I had to make use of him it would be because the crisis was only less serious than that of the Civil War, that the action taken would ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... bound to know and establish the truth. But not being made of theologians, it could not follow the truth into its minuter shadings, and must proceed upon broad lines. Fortunately these lines were ready to hand. There was a religious system which, taken in the rough, was truth. This was known as protestantism: and to its varieties it was not the business of the legislature to have regard. On the other side lay a system which, taken again in the rough, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... education and parentage are such that I can reward you as I should wish. I give you a discharge now from your regiment and appoint you ensign. You will at present form one of my staff; and glad am I to have so dashing and able a young officer ready to hand for any perilous service I ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... therefore, they have no notion of the danger they run, seeing that they are wholly untroubled by the death that is scattered about them, and they have not the slightest sense of solidarity or pity. As regards the danger, the explanation lies ready to hand; the bees know not the meaning of fear, and, with the exception only of smoke, are afraid of nothing in the world. Outside the hive, they display extreme condescension and forbearance. They will avoid whatever disturbs them, and affect to ignore its existence, so long as it come not too close; ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... crises the Buddha received warnings somewhat similar to those delivered by the daemon of Socrates[328]. The appearance of Brahma Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse, which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he found ready to hand, but on the whole I am inclined to believe that in this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many generations and going back to those who had themselves heard him describe his wrestling to obtain the Truth ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... at the threshold of a large wayside hostelry, fronting a slope of forest and a plunging brook. Whitecoats in all attitudes leaned about the door; she beheld the inner court full of them. Herr Johannes was ready to hand her to the ground. He said: 'You have nothing to fear. These fellows are on the march to Cremona. Perhaps it will be better if you are served up in your chamber. You will be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down at the head of the table with the Comtesse on his right. Jellyband was bustling round, filling glasses and putting chairs straight. Sally waited, ready to hand round the soup. Mr. Harry Waite's friends had at last succeeded in taking him out of the room, for his temper was growing more and more violent under the Vicomte's obvious admiration ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... which we are directing our Word; and as a consequence, we shall have no need to trouble about forcing particular conditions into existence—they will grow spontaneously out of the seed we have planted. All we have to do now, or at any time, is to take the conditions that are ready to hand and use them on the lines of the sort of "being" towards which we are directing our Thought—use them just as far as they go at the time, without trying to press them further—and we shall find by experience that out of the present ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... of these words, and another bright bow and look which dazzled my senses, the wonderful creature swept past me to where the chamberlain stood ready to hand ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... besides," said the happy clerk, producing from his pocket a bottle of a squat shape, like a pumpkin, and ribbed on the sides. "I have found ten thousand bottles like that, all made ready to hand, at four ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... a wish to give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzu said: "With heaven and earth for my coffin and my shell; with the sun, moon and stars as my burial regalia; and with all creation to escort me to my grave,—are not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?" "We fear," argued the disciples, "lest the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;" to which Chuang Tzu replied: "Above ground I shall be food for kites; below ground for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... sitting in the high-backed chairs, spread white doilies over their laps, and then took their small glasses of wine and delicate little cakes, but the gentlemen ate and drank standing, and they all discussed the last game very earnestly. Only Lois, waiting by the tray, ready to hand the cake, was silent. It was a peculiarity of Ashurst that even after childhood had passed young people were still expected to be seen, and not heard; so her silence would only have been thought decorous, had any one noticed it. By and by, when she saw she was not needed, she slipped out ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... because we have it in us to be rational beings. Again, culture, with the intelligence and choice it involves, counts for something too. It is easy to argue that, since there were the Asiatic steppes with the wild horses ready to hand in them, man was bound sooner or later to tame the horse and develop the characteristic culture of the nomad type. Yes, but why did man tame the horse later rather than sooner? And why did the American redskins never tame the bison, and adopt a pastoral life in their vast prairies? Or ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... was an important ingredient of the herring pie; Keziah was stoning the dates, grating the manchet, and preparing the numerous other ingredients—currants, gooseberries, barberries—which, being preserved in bottles in the spring and summer, were always ready to hand in Mistress Susan's cookery. From the open door of the kitchen proceeded a villainous smell of herrings, which caused Cherry to turn up her pretty nose in a grimace that set Keziah laughing. Both these ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... who knew his men. Always to go after what he wanted was the basic characteristic of Guynemer. And now various details concerning the combat came one by one to light. Guerder had been half out of the machine to have the machine-gun ready to hand. When the gun jammed, Georges yelled to his comrade how to release it. Guerder, who had picked up his rifle, laid it down, executed the maneuver indicated by Guynemer, and resumed his machine-gun fire. ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... steady, yielding little to the motion of the water, yet she is under steam, the aim of her guns is altered every moment, some oscillation is unavoidable, and she can only estimate the range of her adversary. Great skill is required, and not only required, I am glad to say, but ready to hand, on the part of the seamen gunners; and low trajectory guns must be provided to aid ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... life, the intensely democratic temper of the pioneers and above all the military necessities of their existence. They had certain theories of liberty and justice; but they were too shrewd and hard-headed to try to build up a government on an entirely new foundation, when they had ready to hand materials with which they were familiar. They knew by experience the workings of the county system; all they did was to alter the immediate channel from which the court drew its powers, and to adapt the representation to the needs ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... activity: Sicily, Italy, Constantinople, even Antioch, and the Holy Land itself, showed in time Norman states, Norman laws, Norman civilisation, and all alike felt the impulse of Norman energy and inspiration. England lay ready to hand for Norman invasion—the hope of peaceable succession to the saintly Edward the Confessor had to be abandoned by William; the gradual permeation of sluggish England with Norman earls, churchmen, courtiers, had been comprehended and checked ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... 1900, iv. 226-230). A writer of satires is of necessity satirical, and Sotheby, like "Wordswords and Co.," made excellent "copy." If he had not written the "anonymous note," he was, from Byron's point of view, ridiculous and a bore, and "ready to hand" to be tossed up in rhyme as Botherby. (For a brief account of Sotheby, see Poetical Works, i. 362, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... you think that's fair, do you?" said his brother eagerly. "A nice bit of ground—and there's all the clay you'll need ready to hand. But it'll cost a deal of hard work to drain and clear it—I've thought over that many a time. As for the building timber—you shall have all you want, and help for the carting. But all the same, we must fix a price for Koskela as a whole, and ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... to pick his way through thickets all but untrodden? More than once I have been tempted to give up the quest and turn aside to paths where pioneers have cleared the way. There, at least, the whereabouts of that fabulous well is known and the plummet is ready to hand. Nevertheless, I resolved to struggle through with my task, in the consciousness that the work of a pioneer may be helpful, provided that he carefully notches the track and thereby enables those who come after him to know what to seek and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... was bound to overtake me. You may be sure I took no steps to prevent it, and so in a very short time we were both standing before the same picture, a portrait of Holbein the younger. A subject of conversation was ready to hand. ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... the Protestant Reformation had something very much more than a purely speculative basis to work upon. Religious reformers there had been in Germany throughout the Middle Ages, but their preachings had taken no deep root. The powerful personality of the Monk of Wittenberg found an economic soil ready to hand in which his teachings could fructify, and hence the world-historic result. The peasant revolts, sporadic the Middle Ages through, had for the half-century preceding the Reformation been growing in frequency and importance, but it needed nevertheless the sudden impulse, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... doubts or jealousies—we seemed to perfectly understand each other. I never looked forward to our future—I was too quietly happy in the present. I only dated from one meeting to another—from the dinner to the party, when he would be ready to hand us from our carriage, to take me off my father's arm in compliance with my mother's constant inquiry and request of, 'Where's Harry Morton? Here, Harry, do take charge of Mary,' a request which he always seemed delighted to obey. Then, after the happy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... and capacity. The Spider now abandons the stalactites of sand, which were used to keep the original pocket stretched, and confines herself to dumping down on her abode any more or less heavy object, mainly corpses of insects, because she need not look for these and finds them ready to hand after each meal. They are weights, not trophies; they take the place of materials that must otherwise be collected from a distance and hoisted to the top. In this way, a breastwork is obtained that strengthens and steadies ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the packet of sandwiches which lay ready to hand, and as she put on the cap she saw the lawyer, a middle-aged, but stout gentleman, conferring with the detective and smiling triumphantly and rubbing his hands at the news of her presence in the house. She smiled too—a smile of pleasant anticipation. But then, as the lawyer walked to the ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... something of the joy of achievement. It was fairly dazzling to feel oneself slowly creeping up from the foot of the class, and she found a strange exhilaration in setting herself against a rival and striving to outspell her in a match. Here was glory right ready to hand. She was Joan of Arc herself, riding through the arithmetic and slaying every complex fraction ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... if he were conferring a favour on me, instead of only doing his own work; but I didn't answer him, going on to make a good fire with some wood and shavings, which Sam used to get from the carpenter and kept handy in the corner of the galley, ready to hand when wanted. I knew by this time, from practical experience, that words on board ship, where cabin boys are concerned at all events, generally lead to 'more kicks than ha'pence,' as ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... metropolitan splendour, and others whose robust and homely geniality is, at times, and by way of contrast, not less cheering and acceptable. Tired of the parlours and drawing-rooms of our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the clash of wits or the small talk of the day amid the solemn beauties of our venerable minster, whose silvern chimes daily 'knoll us to prayer,' and in the shady walks of whose tranquil ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... pure, and to-day one seeth more of the world than ever."—"Yea, mine animals," answered he, "ye counsel admirably and according to my heart: I will to-day ascend a high mountain! But see that honey is there ready to hand, yellow, white, good, ice-cool, golden-comb-honey. For know that when aloft I will make ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... afternoon he was doing something to his wheel, getting it in order for a long ride which he had planned for the next day. Edna stood watching him, ready to hand a tool or run for a piece of rag to be used in cleaning, or to fill the oil can from the bottle ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... Late in the eighteenth century two things happened; the discovery of the potential inherent in coal and its derivative, steam, with electricity yet unexploited but ready to hand, and the application of this to industrial purposes, together with the initiating of a long and astounding series of discoveries and inventions all applicable to industrial purposes. With a sort of vertiginous rapidity the whole industrial ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... drawing-room, roses and sweet-peas, cut by Christine—her fairy daughter—lay ready to hand. Between them they filled the lofty room with fragrance and harmonies of delicate colour. Then Christine flew to her beloved piano; and Lilamani wandered away to her no less beloved rose-garden. Body and mind were restless. She could settle to nothing till she knew what had passed between Nevil ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a young white moon, trailed a wavering ghost of smoke, and at the end of it I came upon the Pocket Hunter making a dry camp in the friendly scrub. He sat tailor-wise in the sand, with his coffee-pot on the coals, his supper ready to hand in the frying-pan, and himself in a mood for talk. His pack burros in hobbles strayed off to hunt for a wetter mouthful than the sage afforded, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... all converging," he said. "When the time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides." I got out my revolver ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... then, that! Willoughby bristled up with startled eagerness to hear the rest, and even Telson found no joke ready to hand. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... several more from the crystalline formations in the Lake district. Several boulders of these rocks have also been found in our own neighbourhood; and doubtless more remain to reward the explorer. {91b} I have dwelt at some length on this particular formation—the boulder clay—because it is the most ready to hand; it lies on the surface, in many parts around us, within the ken of the ordinary visitor to Woodhall Spa. It may give an additional interest to his rambles in search of health, to know that he may, at ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... whose fury we can regulate. There are plenty of vapors ready to hand, and subterranean fires ready to issue forth. We can have an ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... been taken care of. Among them were a party of Gallas, mostly women, habited in silk and gauze dresses, with their hair prettily ornamented to increase their personal attractions, which were far superior to those of the negroes. Close to the group stood a man who acted as auctioneer, ready to hand his goods over to the highest bidder. The purchasers were chiefly Arabs, who walked about surveying the hapless slaves, and ordering those to whom they took a fancy to be paraded out before them, after which they examined the mouths and limbs of any they thought ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... give thee boldness to come to God. Shall Jesus Christ be interceding in heaven? Oh, then, be thou a praying man on earth; yea, take courage to pray. Think thus with thyself—I go to God, to God, before whose throne the Lord Jesus is ready to hand my petitions to him; yea, 'he ever lives to make intercession for me.' This is a great encouragement to come to God by prayers and supplications for ourselves, and by intercessions for our families, our neighbours, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... for a halt," he said, "for here is wood ready to hand. This tree has been lying here for years, I can feel that ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... although Buddhism recognizes gods many and lords many, they are products of the cosmic process; and transitory, however long enduring, manifestations of its eternal activity. In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahminical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand[Note 4] the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man. If this world is full of pain and sorrow; if grief and evil fall, like the rain, upon both the just and the unjust; it is because, like the rain, they are links in the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Vergilius calmly answered, laying off his robe and seizing a lance. He entered the arena and closed its gate behind him. "Drive the beast in upon me, son of Herod; and you, Gracus, be ready to hand me another lance." ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... extinguished, the murder must have been committed. The very presence of that light had been guardianship to the helpless old man below. When it was quenched, nothing remained astir, the way from without was open, the weapon stood only too ready to hand, the memorandum-book gave promise of booty and was secured, though nothing else was apparently touched. It was this very book that contained the signature that would have exonerated the prisoner, and to which he fearlessly appealed upon his arrest at the Paddington Station, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Princes, and the citizens in the residence cities aped the nobility. If the daughter of a citizen's family had the luck to please a gentleman high at court, perchance the Serenissimus himself, in nineteen cases out of twenty she felt highly blessed by such favor, and her family was ready to hand her over for a mistress to the nobleman or the Prince. The same was the case with most of the noble families if one of their daughters found favor with the Prince. Characterlessness and shamelessness ruled over wide circles. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... hundred yards, before a change of the ice revealed a small flock of seven geese, quietly feeding along the border of a low piece of field ice. Cocking his gun and laying it ready to hand, La Salle drifted nearer and nearer, keeping barely enough headway to steer her, bow on. The gander, a noble bird, suddenly raised his head to gaze at the advancing boat. All the rest instantly raised theirs ready for immediate flight. ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... an opportunity for active and useful service not to be lost. Dave immediately cast about to scrape up and collect such mud as came ready to hand, and with it began to build up an intercepting embankment to stop the foremost current, that was winding slowly, like Vesuvian lava, on the line of least resistance. Dolly followed his example, filling a garment she called her pinafore with whatever mould or debris ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... away from the rough hut which had been built in a niche for the colonel, Roby was limping along with the aid of a stick and Lennox's arm, while Dickenson was rolling up a cigarette composed of the very last dust of his tobacco, ready to hand it to the captain, who suffered a good deal still from the bullet wound, the missile having passed right through his thigh. They had to pass two of their men, seated upon a rock in a shady corner, one of them being minus his right leg, which had been removed half-way between knee and hip; ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... presently does, ripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil's warwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels—and straightway you are back in this world, and with one of its frets ready to hand for your entertainment: for you remember that this is the very road whose stock always goes down after you buy it, and always goes up again as soon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to this day, to remember that I once came near not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "I have facts ready to hand," he went on, summing up his argument. "I have an acquaintance here, an employee of one of the best-known men in the gold-mining industry." Here Kovroff mentioned a well- known name. "He is now in St. Petersburg. Well, a few days ago he suddenly came to me as if he had something weighing ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... nay, you are so sensitive and alert that the touch of a passing leaflet on the hook produces some sort of excitement. Every cast goes out with a cluster of hopes in pursuit, and dreams as to possibilities; you keep looking round to be satisfied that the gaff is ready to hand, and everything in the boat shipshape for action. As it was after luncheon to-day, you think of anything but a fish taking hold; you swish on monotonously and mechanically; you muse of friends at home and abroad, of the sport you enjoyed yesterday or the day before, of ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... we'd nine of them, that's with the five I found ready to hand; and the elder ones getting up and needing to be set out in the world, and what prospect was there for them? What could I do for them? Me always with an infant in my arms! Yet 'twas me and no other that gave them the bit and sup ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... gold thread of all kinds, but likewise beads and spangles of all sorts and sizes as well as bright and dead gold and silver purl, or bullion, as it is also called. For the pieces of purl alone, which should be cut ready to hand, you should have several divisions, in order that the different lengths ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... these elaborate provisions Papacy might be useless. The Papacy needed a champion in the flesh, who should have nothing to gain and everything to lose by attempting to become its master. Such a protector was ready to hand in the Normans, who, recently settled in Southern Italy, felt themselves insecure in the title by which they held their possessions. Southern Italy was divided between the three Lombard duchies of Benevento, Capua and Salerno, and the ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... the door were waiting for him. He went straight to his carver's chair, and instantly the women were alert, galvanised into vigilant life. Leonora, opposite to her husband, began to pour out the tea; the impassive parlourmaid stood consummately ready to hand the cups; Ethel and Millicent took their seats along one side of the table, with an air of nonchalance which was far from sincere; a chair on the ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... fire-sticks than anything else. The somewhat suggestive name of Frogmore was inscribed on the small gate, and I remembered that I quite shivered as I walked up the sloppy path, with my usual inquiry ready to hand. This time, though, I was right, and when, a few minutes later, I was sitting before a roaring fire, imbibing hot tea, and listening to my Aunt's account of her latest complaint (did I tell you she was hypochondriacal?) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... the converted idolater is dead against complexity in worship, and for simplicity. He does not want something as like his own old religion as possible, but as different as possible from it; and so we have good building material ready to hand, and a foundation ready laid. "But let every man take ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... many small opportunities of service which lie ready to hand. She was quite content, since the larger field was not yet open to her, to occupy a smaller one. In a letter to her aunt she wrote very characteristically:—"I am trying and succeeding more and more in fixing my eyes on all the little things we shall ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... epileptics; and for a dozen other enterprises which occupy that borderland between charitable effort and legislation. In this borderland we cooperate in many civic enterprises for I think we may claim that Hull-House has always held its activities lightly, ready to hand them over to whosoever ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... "they are coming up." We ran for our weapons, concealing them as well as we could, and then stood on the defensive, Schillie on one side of the path and I on the other, the rest all ready to hand us the guns. "Shoot, Schillie, shoot," I said, "hit the foremost man, and he'll tumble over ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... without cutting them. Fig. 46. It is done by taking a length of pipe, and, just where you require the bend, lay it (with the seam at the side) upon a pillow, made by tightly filling a sack with sand, wood shavings, or sawdust; have some shavings ready to hand and a good lath, also a short length of mandrel about 3 ft. long and about 1/2 in. smaller than the pipe, and a dummy as shown at A B, Fig. 56. Now, all being ready, put a few burning shavings into the throat of the bend, just to get heat enough to make it fizz, which you can judge by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... the London solicitors were ready to hand over the money, and Mavis was talking to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... destroyed with the Capitol itself during the civil war in 69.[2] It was restored, it is true, during the reign of Vespasian, and it is not impossible that the old decrees were saved. But Josephus might have collected from the Jewish communities those documents which he did not find ready to hand in Nicholas, if they formed part of an apology for the Jews of Antioch in 70 C.E. At least there is no good reason to doubt their authenticity, and they are in quite a different class from the letters and decrees attributed to the Hellenistic sovereigns, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... fair and sweet land so bright and sun-litten, and he now rested and fed, the horror and fear ran off from him, and he wandered on merrily, neither did aught befall him save the coming of night, when he laid him down under a great spreading oak with his drawn sword ready to hand, and fell asleep at once, and woke not ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... Nanak, and Chaitanya long before the advent of European ideas. Whatever the origin or original advantages of the caste system, it has long operated to repress individuality.[9] It is a vast boycotting agency ready to hand to crush social non-conformity.[10] One can easily understand that if society is rigidly organised for certain social necessities (marriage for example) into a number of mutually exclusive sets ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... might ask so personal a question, do you think you could be ready to hand over the house to the new tenant?" he at last ventured ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... dollars, with the four hundred and eight statues which adorn them. Marco Compioni was the architect who designed the wonderful structure more than five hundred years ago, and it took him forty-six years to work out the plan and get it ready to hand over to the builders. He is dead now. The building was begun a little less than five hundred years ago, and the third generation hence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the rousing of the public conscience, the strengthening of the nation's moral purpose, and the erecting of a new standard of public service in the management of the nation's affairs. It was no little thing that when Roosevelt was ready to hand over to another the responsibilities of his high office, James Bryce, America's best friend and keenest student from across the seas, was able to say that in a long life, during which he had studied intimately ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... at this juncture, then, that Charles Green conceived the happy idea of substituting for hydrogen gas the ordinary household gas, which at this time was to be found ready to hand and in sufficient quantity in all towns of any consequence; and by the day of the coronation all was in readiness for a public exhibition of this method of inflation, which was carried out with complete success, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... with the body of the cart, leaving the axle and wheels behind. He didn't go far, however. The farmer came down and released the weary animal. The survivor then "toted" the wood, stick by stick, to the house, and learned thereby the value of cord-wood ready to hand. People who are raised in the country have simple ways, but they can do some things much better than town-people can. They are useful people. They are not afraid of cattle or horses. The next day this awful animal was yoked to a plow and placed ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... O'Rourke, and the McWilliams or Burkes of Connaught—dwellers in the parts furthest from the Pale—were in active defiance of the Government. Tyrone was engaged in officially placating or repressing or remonstrating with them, ostensibly doing his best to serve the Queen; ready to hand over hostages, to present himself in person to the Deputy Fitzwilliam and demonstrate his loyalty, or to take the field against the rebels with the royal forces. The Deputy, and the President of Connaught, had information that he was in fact in collusion with the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... miles all the heights along the Loire have been more or less excavated for stone for building purposes, so that every one hereabouts who grows wine or deals in it has any amount of cellar accommodation ready to hand. It was the vast extent of the galleries which M. Ackerman pre discovered already excavated at Saint-Florent that induced him to settle there in preference to Saumur. Extensive, however, as the original vaults were, considerable ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... into contact with some of the thousands of young women whose lives are passed in uncongenial toil and who are eating out their hearts in their anxiety for a home and a husband of their own. Until the I.F.E.M. becomes fact, here is splendid work ready to hand for a philanthropist of infinite tact, and large, sympathetic heart. What a chance to add to the sum of human joy! What a rich reward for the expenditure of but a little time ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... "Bob, you're crazier than I'd have thought. Where's the difference? I mean between handin' these folks over to justice for justice sake, and taking the reward the folks who're most to benefit by it are ready to hand out to me? Say, you can't talk that way, Bob. You can't just do it. Aren't the folks who carry out the justice in the land paid for it—from the biggest judge to the fellow who handles the levers of the electric ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... there be nothing ready to hand that you call work, there is always preparation for work to be done," Mrs. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... been trained so as to compose its principal covering. It might have been accident, that gave each his particular situation; but it is certain they were so placed as not to be in sight of each other, and so placed that the colonel was ready to hand Jane her scissors, or any other little implement that she occasionally dropped, and that Denbigh could read every lineament of the animated countenance of Emily as she listened to his description of ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... returned; "the name was ready to hand, and so I took it. I don't imagine it will make any difference to him. It's only a whim of mine, and with me there's no accounting for a whim. I make it a point to gratify every one that strikes me. I confess to being eccentric, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... jury-room door! It opens—the jury enter the box. A murmur, swelling to almost a roar, from the crowded audience, is instantly followed by a deathlike stillness. The judges are called; but by this time it is noticed that the foreman has not the "issue-paper" ready to hand down; and a buzz goes round—"a question; a question!" It is even so. The ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... diffusion for blurred and vicious perversions of our speech. They must read and recite aloud in their qualifying examinations, it is true, but under no specific prohibition of provincial intonations. In the pulpit and the stage, moreover, we have ready to hand most potent instruments of dissemination, that need nothing but a little sharpening to help greatly towards this end. At the entrance of almost all professions nowadays stands an examination that includes English, and there would be nothing ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... collected in Ireland at the present day for fuel, without the laborious process of mining for it, so those people living in coal-bearing districts found their needs satisfied by the quantity of coal, small as it was, which appeared ready to hand on the sides of the carboniferous mountains. Till then, and for a long time afterwards, the principal source of fuel consisted of vast forests, amidst which the charcoal-burners, or "colliers" as they were even then called, lived out their ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... attempt to deprive men of the fruit of their endeavor and reduce everyone to a regimented, miserable level. It is hardly necessary to say that I spared no effort to combat the insidious agents of the Fourth International. Fortunately for the preservation of the free enterprise system, I had tools ready to hand. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... together now. Me and her own that farm in partnership, and I've had enough of it. I've made a fair give-or-take offer, and nothing is to prevent her from closing out and paying you what she owes you. I've got eight hundred dollars in cash ready to hand ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... books open at the right place and her writing materials ready to hand. In a very few minutes her outer garments and simple ornaments were put away, and clothed in a clean but shrunk and faded blue dressing-gown, she sat down to work. The work was Aristotle's Ethics, and she was going through it for the second ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... his poetical remains. She had even arranged her room as she thought he might have liked it, in severe yet perfect taste. It was now her study as it had been his,—the heavy oak table had a great pewter inkstand upon it and a few loose sheets of paper with two or three quill pens ready to hand,—some quaint old vellum-bound volumes and a brown earthenware bowl full of "Glory" roses were set just where they could catch the morning sunshine through the lattice window. One side of the room was lined with loaded bookshelves, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... and only pope. Nevertheless, Alphonso of Aragon, highly incensed because Martin V supported against him the rights of Louis d'Anjou to the Kingdom of Naples, determined to oppose to the Pope of Rome a pontiff of his own making. And just ready to hand he had a canon who called himself pope, and on the following grounds: the Anti-pope, Benedict XIII, having fled to Peniscola, had on his death-bed nominated four cardinals, three of whom appointed to succeed him a canon of Barcelona, one Gil ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... nor have gateways straight Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad. But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front Ready to hand. Lastly those images Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, In water, or in any shining surface, Must be, since furnished with like look of things, Fashioned from images of things sent out. There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, Like unto them, which no one can divine When taken singly, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank, and pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timber-yards of the Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants, stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men who are thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run, and the municipal guard, the carabineers ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... undertakings that failed with truly extraordinary unanimity. About 1870, a physician from Valencia by the name of Marti, who had visited Vienna, gave him an account of the bread they make there, and of the yeast they use to raise it, enlarging upon the profits which lay ready to hand in that line. ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... hard. With our chairs drawn in close to the fire, a glass of something to keep the cold out ready to hand, and pipes going strong, we felt sorry for the general and his escort who, probably with chilled lips and numbed fingers, jogged resoundingly through ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... winter. But do not rest at that. Begin to plan now for your next year's garden. Put a pile of dirt where it will not be frozen, or dried out, when you want to use it next February for your early seeds. If you have no hotbed, fix the frames and get the sashes for one now, so it will be ready to hand when the ground is frozen solid and covered with snow next spring. If you have made garden mistakes this year, be planning now to rectify them next—without progress there is no fun in the game. Let ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... got ready to hand things that might be wanted in the night, she settled herself in a chair by the head of the bed in order to snatch what sleep she might. Before she dozed, she wondered if that day week, which she would be spending at Mrs Gowler's, would find her ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... flash into memory that half amused and half shamed her. Some of her escapades she would describe with whimsical zest, and trivial as they were they served to show that, even then, her native wit and resource were always ready to hand. But very early the Change came. An old widow, living in a room in the back lands, used to watch the children running about the doors, and in her anxiety for their welfare sought to gather some of the girls together and talk to them, young as they were, about the matters that ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Polly, who gave promise of some day growing into the goodly proportions of her mother. Mr Deane, with full wig, lace coat, and sword by his side, stood in the old oak hall, accompanied by his son Jasper, ready to hand the ladies from their sedan-chairs as they were brought into the hall. The last to arrive, who was received with all due honour, was a Dr Nathaniel Deane, a cousin of Mr Deane's, the only physician, and one of the greatest men, in Nottingham. Jack was the last to enter the house, ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the tiger this way, Tim. Now, sit quiet and keep a sharp lookout, and be ready to hand me a rifle, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... defences had been built in former times it would be impossible to do without them now; but this does not touch the argument, which is not that demonstration is unwise but that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, and therefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not yet securely known. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse; and unless a matter can hold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual demonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not lose much ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... expected! Have the wits left both of you? Even now Gilli of Trondhjem is coming up the lane. It is the command of Thorhild that you be dressed and ready to hand him his ale the moment he has taken off his outer garments. If you have ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Huxley felt himself in ignorance. To all of which one may say that Huxley appears to have given himself a lot of needless trouble. In philosophy there was the term "Sceptic," and in relation to religion the term "Atheist" was ready to hand. The latter term certainly covered all that Huxley meant by Agnosticism as applied to the god-idea. The plain, and perhaps brutal truth, is that Huxley was just illustrating the fatal tendency of English public men to seek for ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... taken in and, following the professor's example, Colin dropped his line over the stern. The shining copper and nickel spoon sank slowly, and the boy paid out about a hundred feet of line. Taking up the oars and with the rod ready to hand, Colin rowed slowly, parallel with the shore. Two or three times the boy had a sensation that the boat was being followed by some mysterious denizen of the sea, but though in the distance there seemed a strange ripple on the water, nothing definite appeared, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... on Salonika, and depending upon the Salonika-Belgrade railway for its food, for its munitions, and for its own means of transit from the Mediterranean to its launching place. Besides, there were no reserves of troops ready to hand for projecting into the Balkans at this juncture. Only a very few weeks had passed since those days of peril when Sir J. French and the "Old Contemptibles" had, thanks to resolute leadership and to a splendid heroism on the part of regimental officers and rank-and-file, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... chloral hydrate to the shelf, and took down another bottle labelled quin. sulph. sol. From this she poured out a certain quantity, and by the time the glass had shed its last drop, Bob was ready to hand another and larger bottle, which he had taken down with eager haste, as if fearing ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... lies ready to hand. There is a written language, which for difficulty is unrivalled, polished and perfected by centuries of the minutest scholarship, until it is impossible to conceive anything more subtly artistic as a vehicle of human thought. ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... mind in the first heavy cloak ready to hand, so that all the sunbeams of the world cannot persuade us to throw it off, much less to assume another! The man who is exclusively a nationalist is a snail forever chained to his house. Psyche had wings given her for a never-ending, eternal ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... case of any army corps being sent down there to quell possible and probable revolt, the money would have been there to hand: also, if you remember, there was talk at the time of the King of Naples proving troublesome. There, too, in case of a campaign on the frontier, the money lying ready to hand at Grenoble could prove very useful. But of course I cannot possibly pretend to give you all the reasons which actuated M. de Talleyrand when he caused five and twenty millions of stolen money to be conveyed secretly to Grenoble rather than ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... phrases ([Greek: ho Christos, phonae boontos]) in question. To refer the passage to an unknown source such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews—all we know of which shows its affinities to have been rather on the side of the Synoptics—when we have a known source in the fourth Gospel ready to hand, ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... notion of love. As if you have proven that love is incompatible with civilisation! We make over life with each successive step, but we do not give over living. In developing new forms and in establishing more and more subtle social relations we are only building upon what we find ready to hand. The paradox of creature and creator does not exist. When your sociologist speaks of arbitrary alterations, he has reference to polities and governments and criteria, to the material and ideal forces which a progressive society may wield for itself. He cannot include under ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London |
