"Reel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that thread is very fond of tying itself into a bow; but this can be prevented by threading the cotton into the needle before you cut it off the reel, making your knot at the end ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... letter to the firm of Nucingen," answered du Tillet, perceiving that he could make his victim dance all the figures in the reel of bankruptcy. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... slenderest gossamer chance. He tried to think that the knowledge of her love would soothe him even in his dying hours; but the phantoms of what life with her might be would obtrude, and made him almost gasp and reel under the uncertainty he was enduring. Will's appearance had only added to the intensity ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you wear it is." I couldn't keep back my grattyfycashun, so I thanked him three or four times. You bet I was mad, wen I fownd out there warnt no cherry or mince pie, not even dryed appel, but only a lot of type wot had got mixed up. I think its reel mene to make a littel boy like me think hes goin to get a big feed, and then not give him enything but a lot of led wot nobodie ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... are tired after the rehearsal?" enquired Mr Pilkington in his precise voice. He always spoke as if he were weighing each word and clipping it off a reel. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the two-step in the back room of the post-office when the other clerk was out for lunch; he tried elaborate and ornate bows upon Aunt Melvy, who considered even the mildest "reel chune" a direct communication from the devil. The moment the post-office closed he hastened to Dr. Fenton's, where Annette was taking him through a course of ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... "Reel-ing and Writh-ing, of course, at first," the Mock Tur-tle said. "An old eel used to come once a week. He taught us to drawl, to stretch and to ...
— Alice in Wonderland - Retold in Words of One Syllable • J.C. Gorham
... heavenward, with this generation of men and women. I claim no clear Uriel vision, now and then I stumble and grope; but at least I try to keep my little lamp trimmed, and I am not so blind as some, who reel and stagger in the Maremme of crime and fashionable vice. As a pilgrim toiling through a world of sinful temptation, and the night of time where the stars are often shrouded, I cry to those beyond and above me, 'Hold high your lights, that I may see my way!' and to those ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... quote would read these pages, if she could constrain herself to do so, with a genuine shudder. Abandon Christianity! She would volubly reel off the eloquent forecasts of the doom of society which she has heard from a hundred pulpits. Meantime she is one of the gravest obstacles (as a type of her class) to the removal from society of one of its ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... station. There a new baggage car was put on, and another engine. Russ took advantage of the delay to send back, by express, the film he had made of the collision, at the same time telegraphing the manager of the film studio to expect the reel. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... glen, through wood and wild, Far from his lordly home, to be Lord of the forest's fairest child." It was as when a thunder peal Bursts, crashing from a cloudless sky, It caused my brain and heart to reel And throb, with speechless agony: Yet, when wild Passion's trance was o'er, And Thought resumed her sway once more, I breathed a prayer that she might be Saved from the pangs that tortured me; That her young heart might ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... you know, in Mrs. Taylor's back chamber, making tops for the children. In a few days he was able to go down stairs. The first use he made of his liberty was to make a reel for Mrs. Taylor to wind her ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... and thrill his pulses, he could not endure the pain of watching the exquisite face that haunted him day and night; and when he computed the chances of her conviction, a maddening perception of her danger made his brain reel. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... machinery, until 1870, there was, if we may except some grain cleaning or smut machines, no very strongly marked advance in milling machinery or in the methods of manufacturing flour. It is true that the reel covered with finely-woven silk bolting cloth had taken the place of the muslin or woolen covered hand sieve, and that the old granite millstones have given place to the French burr; but these did ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... see, he wouldn't send me two quid off the reel without wanting to know all about it, and why I couldn't get on to the holidays with five bob, and I'd either have to fake up a lot of lies, which I'm not going ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... fell to her side and the note slipped from her fingers, the daily tragedy of her married life seemed to pass before her eyes. She saw Captain Pember reel into the house, she shuddered at his blasphemy, she felt the sting of the first blow he had given her, she cowered as he roughly shook Mellony's little frame ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... like that, you'll make my brain reel," said Zora laughing. "Do tell me something about yourself. What ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... most of the difficult and all the thankless jobs; minding their own business, above all, and expecting others to mind theirs?" So he let her "have" the stout sound truth, as it were—and so the direct force of it clearly might, by his view, have made her reel. "You and I, my lady, and your two decent brothers, God be thanked for them, and mine into the bargain, and all the rest, the jolly lot of us, take us together—make us numerous enough without any foreign aid or mixture: if that's what ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... REEL. When the ship by her rapidity pulls the line off the log-reel, without its being assisted. Also, upright conduct. Also, any performance without ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... off the reel, Wildwood," he said. "I believe you're honest. Go on with your little arrangement, and let's see how it pans out. I shan't make any move until after ten o'clock ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... the dispersed riflemen. Shot after shot flew past the undaunted officer, carrying death into the close ranks that followed noiselessly in his rear, yet without harming him. At length he was seen by his Aides-de-Camps, both of whom had kept their eyes upon him, to reel in his saddle. An instant brought the young men to his side, De Courcy on his right and Grantham on his left hand. They looked up into his face. It was suffused with the hues of death. A moment afterwards and he fell from his horse, with his head reclining ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... vestibule, warm with summer odors, and into the presence-chamber beyond, where my wife awaits me. But castle, and wife, and odorous woods, and pictures, and statues, and all the bright substance of my household, seem to reel and glimmer in the splendor, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... hard work," Joe went on, "but I don't mind. I like it. And I'm not so foolish as to think that I'm going to go in, right off the reel, and become the star pitcher of the team. I guess I'll have to sit back, and warm the bench for quite a considerable time before I'm called on to pull the game out ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... liana ran down again to the ground the difficulty of picking it out under the mass of lycopods, large-leaved heliconias, rosy-tasseled calliandras, rhipsalas encircling it like the thread on an electric reel, between the knots of the large white ipomas, under the fleshy stems of the vanilla, and in the midst of the shoots and branchlets of the grenadilla and ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... I dwell in quiet, Tho' without the tempests rave; And while all things reel and totter, Will seek me an oaken stave, Plucked from a tree that has weathered The storms against it hurled, While into the dust are crumbling The props that ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... in Fig. 78 differs from the preceding in the spacing and pairing of the warp cords. It was obtained from a fragment of ancient pottery recently collected at Reel Foot Lake, Tennessee. ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... dens of iniquity and drunkenness and sin. I have seen men with not a semblance of humanity in their form or in their face, and not a sentiment of manhood in their souls. I have seen these men made absolute masters of wives and children; men who reel to their homes night after night to beat some helpless child; to beat some helpless woman. A woman was beaten here in Chicago the other day until there was scarcely a trace of the woman's face left, and scarcely a trace of the woman's form remaining. Mr. Collier tells me, then, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... The first ae straik that Forbes strack, He garrt Macdonell reel, An' the neist ae straik that Forbes strack, The great ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... got a bully picture of our anxious friend laying out Harrison. Nothing phony about that, Threewit. Won't go in this reel, but she'll make a humdinger in some other. Say, didn't Harrison hit the dust fine! Funny you lads can't ever pull off ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... worketh lies. They would heal the breach of My people, 14 As though it were trifling, Saying, "It is well, it is well"— When—where(249) is it well? Were they shamed of their loathsome deeds? 15 Nay, not at all ashamed! They know not even to blush! So they with the fallen shall fall, And shall reel in the time that I visit, Rede of ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... absorbed in the stirring drama of the Alaskan gold fields, and for the time being almost forgot their surroundings. In the midst of the last reel, however, Jack felt the girl ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... him, and his hands trembled with anxiety and trepidation as they felt in vain for it along the smooth and lofty wall. Richard's brain began to reel. He leaned his trembling brow against the cold iron of the spout, and endeavored to think the matter out. He was sure of Balfour; he felt certain that nothing but sudden and dangerous illness would have prevented him from keeping ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... article ne nous ota rien de reel, et ne donna non plus rien aux Anglais, parceque les cantons renouvellerent les protestations, qu'ils avoient deja faites plus d'une fois contre les pretentions reciproques de leurs voisins et ont tres bien scu se maintenir dans la possession de leur liberte ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... apologist for the worm. His apparatus is most singular. It consists of a very long, cheap rod, stout enough to smash through bushes, and with the stiffest tip obtainable. The lower end of the butt, below the reel, fits into the socket of a huge extra butt of bamboo, which R. carries unconcernedly. To reach a distant hole, or to fish the lower end of a ripple, R. simply locks his reel, slips on the extra butt, and there is a fourteen-foot rod ready for action. He fishes with a line ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... side of the water or the north shore of Melville Bay. They pounded in solemnly, the waves breaking white round them, and advanced on the floe like an old-time fleet under full sail. A berg that seemed ready to carry the world before it would ground helplessly in deep water, reel over, and wallow in a lather of foam and mud and flying frozen spray, while a much smaller and lower one would rip and ride into the flat floe, flinging tons of ice on either side, and cutting a track half a mile long ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... the town became dark and silent. A drunken man would reel from one side to the other until he fell down a cellar trap-door, into the gutter, or into the sea. If by chance he stumbled upon the watch, he soon ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... why, the sun's a star, too close to be seen properly; the earth's a star, too close to be seen at all... too many pebbles on the beach; ought all to be put in rings; too many blades of grass to study... feathers on a bird make the brain reel; wait till the big bag is unpacked... may all be put in our right ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the dance, let j'y be unconfined!'" yelled O'Dwyer, as he combined an Irish jig and a Red River reel. He had not noticed Me-Casto, but Latimer and Danvers exchanged glances. Just then Pine Coulee looked wistfully toward the opening door. Burroughs, ever watchful, caught a glimpse of Me-Casto as his lips gave ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... and solemn mystery of the latter, and from the clear serenity of the former—a leisure time which is associated from youth to age with a host of happy, tender associations; the pipes playing in one of the fishing-boats; the reel danced on board an attendant steamer; the bonfires on the coast—nothing was too trivial to escape the interested watcher, or was lost upon ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... most reluctant, when you lay yourself beside me All the planets reel around me—fade away, And the sands grow dim, uncertain,—I stretch out my hands towards you While I try to speak but know not ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... is pretty sure to come to all bisons, sooner or later. In due season their great bodies reel and fall, and the wolves and buzzards are fed. But for such things the wolves would all die, and they have an unerring judgment as to the condition of an ailing bison. They never attack a healthy bull or cow unless they are in great force and the ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... in the dark (for the dense smoke now obscures the moon); the intolerable noise of the thirty; and the hoarse roaring of the mountain; make it a scene of such confusion, at the same time, that we reel again. But, dragging the ladies through it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot of the present Volcano, we approach close to it on the windy side, and then sit down among the hot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence; faintly estimating the action that ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... goes on around them: they collect anecdotes and generalize events without the fumes of evil, among which they seek for materials in the dark places of national or local history, ever going to their imagination, ever making their heart sicken and faint, and their fancy stagger and reel. The life of these righteous, or at least, not actively sinning men, may be hampered, worried, embittered, or even broken by the villainy of their fellow-men; but, except in some visionary monk, life can never be poisoned by the mere knowledge of evil. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... was wound onto the pillar as much as he possibly could be, and as tight—like cotton on a reel—the Princess stopped running, and though she had very little breath left, she managed to say, "Yah—who's ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... spirits quickly rebounded, and she flew away to find some of the sophs and reel off a graphic report of what had just occurred in the ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... period were surprisingly brilliant. The spacious halls of the mansions afforded ample room for a large company and frequently scores of guests would be present to take part in the stately minuet or the gay Virginia reel. The visitors were expected to remain often several days in the home of their host resuming the dance at frequent intervals, and indulging in other forms of amusement. Fithian thus describes a ball given by Richard Lee, of Lee Hall, Westmoreland ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... slowly, gathered his robes about him, and left the chamber. He sought Sallust for a moment, whose eyes began to reel with the vigils of the cup: 'He is still unconscious, or still obstinate; there is ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Abana, River of Damascus. How Life is dim, unreal, vain, like scenes that round the drunkard reel; How Being meaneth not to be; to see and hear, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Crash the muskets, gash the swords; Shoes grow red in a thousand fords; Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite; Darkly gathers the breath of the fight, Salt to the palate and stinging to sight; Muskets are pointed they scarce know where, No matter: Murder is cluttering there. Reel the hollows: close up! close up! Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup. Down go bodies, snap burst eyes; Trod on the ground are tender cries; Brains are dash'd against plashing ears; Hah! no time has battle for tears; ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... Blake lay back in the cushions of her invalid chair in the sun parlor of the great Blake mansion on Riverside Drive, facing the Hudson with its continuous reel of maritime life framed against the green-hilled background ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... family wash with ANY soap," answered Rebecca; "but it must be true or they would never dare to print it, so don't let's bother. Oh! won't it be the greatest fun, Emma Jane? At some of the houses—where they can't possibly know me—I shan't be frightened, and I shall reel off the whole rigmarole, invalid, babe, and all. Perhaps I shall say even the last sentence, if I can remember it: 'We sound every chord in the great ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cried Captain Oughton; "well done! that broadside was a staggerer—right into his ribs. Hurrah now, my hearts of oak! this fellow's worth fighting. Aim at his foremast—another broadside will floor it. It's on the reel. Newton, jump forward, and—" ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... beside the body and I caught the dead man's hand. It was fat and soft and still warm. The touch of it made me reel with horror. I turned my face away from his so as not to see ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... rocking-stone, vibroscope[obs3]. V. oscillate; vibrate, librate[obs3]; alternate, undulate, wave; rock, swing; pulsate, beat; wag, waggle; nod, bob, courtesy, curtsy; tick; play; wamble[obs3], wabble[obs3]; dangle, swag. fluctuate, dance, curvet, reel, quake; quiver, quaver; shake, flicker; wriggle; roll, toss, pitch; flounder, stagger, totter; move up and down, bob up and down &c. Adv.; pass and repass, ebb and flow, come and go; vacillate &c. 605; teeter [U.S.]. brandish, shake, flourish. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... himself, because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore. To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking. Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship Delight, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger." Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned the reefs of Sable Island. Breakers were sighted. The Delight signaled that her captain wanted to shift southwest ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... reel, but it assuredly felt like reeling, and it is quite certain that his eyes blazed down on the half-hysterical girl with an intensity that magnetized her ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... of the reel, Drusilla decided that they should be leaving, as supper would be ready at the home. One of ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... imported from England; kettles were placed in some of the working-rooms, in which it was clarified by heat over coal fires, and when prepared, the process of dipping commenced. The wicks which were quite long, were placed hanging upon a reel, taken up and dipped in succession, until, after many slow revolutions of the reel, the candles were of the proper size. They were then taken to a part of the room where tables were prepared for rolling them smooth. This is done by passing a roller over them, until they became even and polished, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... in sheets, but in a long web like a web of cloth. It passes between felt-covered rollers to press out all the water possible, then over steam-heated cylinders to be dried, finally going between cold iron rollers to be made smooth, and is wound on a reel, trimmed and cut into sheets of whatever size is desired. The finest note papers are not finished in this way, but are partly dried, passed through a vat of thin glue, any excess being squeezed off by rollers, ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... the discomfort of Mr. Sercombe's English ears—began his invitation to the dance, and in a few moments the floor was, in a tumult of reels. The girls, unacquainted with their own country's dances, preferred looking on, and after watching reel and strathspey for some time, altogether declined attempting either. But by and by it was the turn of the clanspeople to look on while the lady of the house and her sons danced a quadrille or two with their visitors; after which the chief and his ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... what the next move would be. The answer came almost at once. A rap on the door disclosed a messenger with a package for him. On opening it, after the man had gone, Hanlon found the sleep-instructor and reels. On top was a smaller reel marked, "No. 1. ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... fifteen years. During all these fifty—perhaps sixty—years, I shall have to do without Barbara. I have not yet arrived at the pain of this thought: that will come, quick enough, I suppose, by-and-by!—it is the astonishment of it that is making my mind reel and stagger! ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... and a smile broke over her face. 'I think I ought to tell you now,' she continued, 'that Meg's no more ill of dropsy than I am; she could walk twenty miles off the reel; there ain't a bullock in England half as strong as ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... since he left the doctor's office to reel and stagger drunkenly through the slush and the sleet, and the icy blasts, which bit ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... I saw her reel against the side of the window, every trace of color deserting her face, her eyes staring down into the darkness. She gasped for breath, yet answered, before a ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... Lennox Sanderson, and the sight of him, so suddenly, in this out-of-the-way place, made her reel, almost fainting against ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... sudden lounge is made—sometimes scarcely visible by outward signs—as often accompanied by a watery heave, and a flash like that of an aurora borealis,—and downwards, upwards, onwards, a twenty-pounder darts away with lightning speed, while the rapid reel gives out that heart-stirring sound so musical to an angler's ear, and than which none accords so well with the hoarser murmur of the brawling stream; till at last, after many an alternate hope and fear, the glittering prize ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... anything that one wants to do, and to feel that the matters themselves will be handled amiss and bungled. But if one can only keep the mind off, or distract it by work, or beguile it by a book, a walk, a talk, how easily the thread spins off the reel, how quietly one comes to harbour on the Saturday evening, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... effort. The ball was seven inches in circumference, and covered with mucus, but otherwise unchanged. Breisky is accredited with the report of a case of a woman suffering with dysmenorrhea, in whose vagina was found a cotton reel which had been introduced seven years before. The woman made a good recovery. Pearse mentions a woman of thirty-six who had suffered menorrhagia for ten days, and was in a state of great prostration and suffering from strong colicky ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... in tentative accord were beginning to be heard. The musicians were some of Mr. Jefferson's slaves who had shown marked ability and whom he himself had instructed in the art. They had proved themselves apt pupils and could play excellently airs for the minuet and Virginia reel. Mr. Jefferson was never happier than when Monticello was thronged with gay dancers, nor was he an indifferent votary of Terpsichore himself. Indeed, many were the balls and assemblies he attended during his student days in Williamsburg, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... The reel was finished, and he was off. I repented as soon as the words passed my lips—the first angry words I had spoken to him. But then, thought I, sitting down on a bench by myself, why is he so foolishly provoking and unreasonably jealous of my poor cousin. He to be so unkind, he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... from the deep wood clearer and nigher, The gray lines roll, and the blue lines reel Back on the river—their dead are piled higher Than the muzzle of muskets thund'ring ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... not make her senses reel, This mystery, or dim her zeal, Till by degrees she seems to feel Her broken lot; She roams aloof, she grows depressed; And then, her broody sorrow guessed, Men lure her to a well-filled nest And bid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... introductions. "You-all tuk me clar off my feet, Mr. Brewster. Yes, Ah did think some of goin' in a reel good fam'ly to wuk, but nawthin' come up fer me, so Ah'm visitin' the neighbors. Do you-all want ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... held on till life was gone. Nothing should have shaken him off. In fancy he could see himself swaying, writhing, reeling, battered about by those heavy fists, but always with his hands on the thick neck, squeezing out its life. He could feel, absolutely feel, the last reel and stagger of that great bulk crashing down, dragging him with it, till it lay upturned, still. He covered his eyes with his hands. . . . Thank God! The fellow had not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... larger; the band was to be noisier; the speeches were to be longer and more tiresome; the firemen's races and the ball games, and the fat men's race, and the frog race, and the grand ball with its quadrilles and Virginia reels and "Hull's Victory" and "Lady Washington's Reel" and its "Portland Fancy," were all to be just a little superior to anything of the sort ever attempted in the state. Numerous septuagenarians were resorting to St. Jacob's oil and surreptitious prancing in the barn, to "soople" up their legs for the dance. It was to be one of ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... one to another." Having read it with a return of the former trembling, and paused, his brain suddenly seemed for a moment to reel under a wave of extinction that struck it, then to float away upon it, and then to dissolve in it, as it interpenetrated its whole mass, annihilating thought and utterance together. But with a mighty effort of the will, in which ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... filament to the thread as required, while watching the unwinding from the cocoon of many miles of filament in order to produce a single pound of the raw silk thread, making up the thread unaided by any mechanical device beyond a simple reel on which the thread is wound as finished, and a basin of heated water in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... two torpedoes left Commander Tovey then made for the German battle line with the last ounce of steam the Onslow's engines could work off. He fired them both, and probably hit the dreadnought that was seen to reel out of line about three minutes later. The Defender, though herself half wrecked by several hits, then limped up and took the Onslow in tow till one o'clock the next afternoon, when tugs had ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... example, there was a gentleman down here from Lunnon, and he used to go out in my boat off to Spithead, and sometimes across to the Wight. One day I thought I would try one of my yarns on him, so I spun it off the reel. He said, when I had finished, that it was a very good one, though it was very short, and when he stepped out of the boat he tipped me half-a-crown. The next day I took him out again, and spun him another yarn rather tougher than the first, and he gave me three shillings. ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... certainly drive away all kinds of woe. Desire is, indeed, ignorance and darkness and hell in respect of all creatures, for swayed by it they lose their senses. As intoxicated persons in walking along a street reel towards ruts and holes, so men under the influence of desire, misled by deluding joys, run towards destruction. What can death do to a person whose soul hath not been confounded or misled by desire? To him, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... horseback—breaking ground, and advancing by signal; and, as I never miss aim, I had the misadventure to kill the Honourable Master Crofts at the first shot. I would not wish my worst foe the pain which I felt, when I saw him reel on his saddle, and so fall down to the earth!—and, when I perceived that the life-blood was pouring fast, I could not but wish to Heaven that it had been my own instead of his. Thus fell youth, hopes, and bravery, a sacrifice to a silly and thoughtless jest; yet, alas! ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... is a dangerous topic. It makes me reel. Give me a glass of water, Malcolm, and let us talk of something else," ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... of eating human flesh that makes you squeamish, you must try to overcome your aversion, with all your heart, so that you may come into the immense legacies I have put you down for!" So carelessly did Eumolpus reel off these extravagances that the fortune-hunters began to lose faith in the validity of his promises and subjected our words and actions to a closer scrutiny immediately; their suspicions grew with their ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... reel was a marvel of supple, exaggerated grace and the quadrille looked like a free-for-all for unbroken colts. The honor of prompter was conferred upon the sheriff, and he gravely called the changes as they were usually called in that section of ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... no objection. In a little while they entered the cottage. Every thing was homely, but neat and clean. Jennet was busy at her reel when they entered. She knew the lady of Castle Holbein, and arose up quickly and in some confusion. But she soon recovered herself, and welcomed, with a low courtesy, the visitors who had come to grace her humble abode. When the object of this visit was made known, Jennet replied that the condition ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile; 75 And fair ARACHNE with her rival loom Found undeserved a melancholy doom.— Five Sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line; Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel, 80 Or whirl with beaten foot the dizzy wheel. —Charm'd round the busy Fair five shepherds press, Praise the nice texture of their snowy dress, Admire the Artists, and the art approve, And tell with honey'd words ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock! David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and all their wisdom is swallowed up. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... their left for a hundred yards, and beyond it they see white tents gleaming. They are half-way past the forest, when, sharp and loud, a volley of musketry bursts upon the head of the column; horses stagger, riders reel and fall, but the troop presses forward undismayed. The farther corner of the wood is reached, and Zagonyi beholds the terrible array. Amazed, he involuntarily cheeks his horse. The Rebels are not surprised. There to his left they stand crowning the height, foot and horse ready to ingulf him, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... was eout in the woods together, consid'able. He used to set eoutside the camp, bright, starlight nights, and sing songs, and sech. He had a powerful, sweet v'ice, and it allers 'peared to me as ef every kind of a livin' thing hushed up and listened, when he sung o' nights. He could reel off most anything you can think on. There was one kind of a mournful ditty he sung, and once in a while he brung in a chorus,—cawcawee! cawcawee,—jest like what them ducks say, only, the way he made it seound, was soft and meller and doleful-like. ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... Now I shall pull a long face—make up a story—take him by his soft bit—tell him I can't get on without him, and patter old lang syne to him. Then we'll get a fiddle and lots of whisky; and when we have had a reel and he has shaken his foot on the floor and drank a gill or two, you will see him thaw, and then you leave him to me and don't put in your jaw to spoil it. If we get him it will be all right—he is No. 1; his little finger has seen ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and insolent, He still degrades me to myself, and turns Thy glorious gifts to nothing, with a breath. He in my bosom with malicious zeal For that fair image fans a raging fire; From craving to enjoyment thus I reel, And ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... get 'rattled' in the recitation-room? Those who think of the possibilities of failure and feel the great importance of the act. Who are those who do recite well? Often those who are most indifferent. Their ideas reel themselves out of their memory of their own accord. Why do we hear the complaint so often that social life in New England is either less rich and expressive or more fatiguing than it is in some other parts of the world? To what is the fact, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... adventures and tragedies of a wild, free life. The Negro songs, those that he has remembered best, are religious and other worldly. "It is a singular fact," says Krehbiel, "that very few secular songs—those which are referred to as 'reel tunes,' 'fiddle songs,' 'corn songs' and 'devil songs,' for which slaves generally expressed a deep abhorrence, though many of them no doubt were used to stimulate them while in the fields—have been preserved while 'shout songs' and other 'speritchils' have been ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... split bamboo rod, a good silk line and a fair assortment of flies. Mr. McGrath had a common bamboo cane, a battered old reel, and the value of his outfit might be generously estimated at half a dollar. In his live-bait bucket were about a hundred fish, varying in length from two to six inches. He did not prepare to fish himself, but was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... doctor lazily. "I'll warrant Winnie can tell you right off the reel, Mrs. Hildreth. She's proud of her success—I heard her ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... keel, And smoking torch on high, When winds are loud and billows reel, She thunders foaming by; When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in the reel he touched Vesty's hand, or swung with her, and he stared at her consistently and immoderately throughout; but always for him the holy lids were low ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... which of them possessed the greatest physical powers. If one boasted he had ridden fifty miles without stopping, the other had always gone ten miles farther. If one had leaped over a wide ditch, the other had leaped over one five feet wider, or if one said he had kept up a Scotch reel for an hour, the other had danced one for a ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... I s'pose the guvernment would say the' wa'n't any reel need for a light here. And I don't s'pose the' is, myself—not any reel need. But it's a comfort. The boys like to see it, comin' in at night. They've sailed by it a good many year now, and I reckon they'd miss it. It's cur'us how you do miss a thing that's a comfort—more'n ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... progress with an intense interest. She had seemed to us like an old-time knight in armor, battling against fearful odds, but still holding his ground. We who watched, when the blow came which made the strong man reel and the life-blood spout, felt our hearts faint within us; then again ground was gained, and the fight went on, the water lowering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... 1832 in Frederick County, Maryland. His first master, Michael Reel, had a farm and a flour mill about four miles from Frederick City. Reel owned sixteen slaves, among whom were Fred's mother and her eight children. Fred's father belonged to a man named Doyle, who had an adjoining ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... away of this flood. O debauchery, debauchery, what hast thou done in England! Thou hast corrupted our young men, and hast made our old men beasts; thou hast deflowered our virgins, and hast made matrons bawds. Thou hast made our earth 'to reel to and fro like a drunkard'; it is in danger to 'be removed like a cottage,' yea, it is, because transgression is so heavy upon it, like to fall and rise no more (Isa 24:20). O! that I could mourn for England, and for the sins that are committed therein, even while ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said, "you are perfectly unbearable," and I tried to snatch from him my reel of sewing cotton which he had pulled away just as I was going to take a new thread. But he jumped up on a chair and stretched his hand out of my reach. I climbed up after him—I was crying with vexation—and had nearly succeeded in pulling ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... an old-fashioned "hevar," or Tahitian reel, was one of the inducements which brought us here; and so, finding Rartoo rather liberal in his religious ideas, we disclosed our desire. At first he demurred; and shrugging his shoulders like a Frenchman, declared it could not be brought about—was a dangerous matter to attempt, and might ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... a single room to the house, and a storm raging without, the outraged and indignant minister was the unwilling witness to the ebb and flow of this tide of ungodliness. At length, as partners were being chosen for the Virginia Reel, a beautiful girl approached the solitary guest and requested his hand for the set just forming. The minister arose and intimated a ready compliance with her request, at the same time assuring her that he never entered upon any important undertaking without first ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... struggle? We look to see if the sign of a white flag can be seen. At this instant it seems to gleam in the sun-light, and sends a pang to our hearts. But no; it is the white smoke of their guns, while cannoneers and infantry simultaneously fire on the confident assaulters, who stagger, reel under their death-dealing volley, and in a moment the Federal lines are broken and they retreat in masses under cover. A loud and wild cheer succeeds the breathless stillness that prevailed amongst us, and is answered exultingly by the heroic little garrison ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman
... of those Who with our laws supply us - In wig and silken gown and hose, As if at Nisi Prius. But he'd just given, off the reel, A famous judgment on Appeal: It scarce became his heightened fame To ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... himself together, sprang straight at Morella as springs a starving wolf. The blue steel flickered in the sunlight, then down it fell, and lo! half the Spaniard's helm lay on the sand, while it was Morella's turn to reel backward—and more, as he did so, he let ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... under!" as lustily as any one, put his shoulder to the crowbar, and puffed as if nine-tenths of the weight fell upon him. Valentine liked to see his little boy employed. He would tell him to wind the twine on the reel, to carry the tools where they were wanted, or to rake the chips into a heap. Ivo obeyed all these directions with the zeal and devotion of a self-sacrificing patriot. Once, when he perched upon the end of a plank for the purpose of weighing it down, the motion of the saw shook his every limb, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley had the curiosity to clamber up and look in upon him in his den, as the lurking-place might well be termed. Upon the whole, he looked not unlike that ingenious puzzle called 'a reel in a bottle,' the marvel of children (and of some grown people too, myself for one), who can neither comprehend the mysteryhowit has got in or how it is to be taken out. The cave was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almost of his sitting ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the loose coil of ropes they carried on the water, along with the inflated skins. These made it soon evident by their motion that the Mugger had seized the kid. He was dashing across, in a zig-zag direction, down the stream. I ran after him as fast as I could; and paying out the cord from the reel, when I found it impossible to keep up with him. On reaching a place where the banks were steeper than usual, he came to a stand still. I got on the top of the bank, and commenced hauling in the rope. I did not, however, venture to lift the skin out of the water, for fear of disturbing ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Kate. "You won't go out of this house till you've danced a reel with me, and now sit down at the table next to me; and, Peter, you sit on the other side of him, so that he won't run away ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... gauntleted hands, and "drank the red wine through the helmet barred," as though he had been one of the famous knights of Branksome Tower. It was soon apparent that the man in brass was intoxicated. He became obstreperous; he began to reel and stumble, accoutred as he was, to the hazard of his own bones and to the great dismay of bystanders. It was felt that his fall might entail disaster upon many. Attempts were made to remove him, when he assumed a pugilistic attitude, and resolutely declined to quit the hall. Nor was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Will hit the town on the three o'clock boat. Get seats for the best show going—my treat—and arrange to assimilate nutriment at the Poodle Dog—also mine. I've got miles of talk in me that I've got to reel off ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... oak; Through the naked battalions the cuirassiers go;— But the man, not the dress, makes the soldier, I trow Upon them with grapple, with bay'net, and ball, Like wolves upon gaze-hounds, the Irishmen fall— Black Friedberg is slain by O'Mahony's steel, And back from the bullets the cuirassiers reel. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... stand, Petted him with her able hand; Then sprung again to the saddle bow, And shouted, "One more trial now!" As if ashamed of the heedless fall, He gathered his strength once more for all, And, galloping down a hillside steep, Gained on the troopers at every leap; No more the high-bred steed did reel, But ran his best ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... which swarmed in the depths. Rarely did such an evening pass without a long fight with a leaping pampano or a sea bass: with thirty or forty pounds of desperate muscle at the other end of a hundred-yard line, the song of reel was sweet. One night he brought in an eighty-pound barracuda but usually the larger fish cost him ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... prepossessions and prejudices of the multitude, they shouted unanimously as the knight rode into the tiltyard, The second glance, however, served to destroy the hope that his timely arrival had excited. His horse, urged for many miles to its utmost speed, appeared to reel from fatigue, and the rider, however undauntedly he presented himself in the lists, either from weakness, weariness, or both, seemed scarce able to support ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Some stolid German will discover these cells somewhere in the occipital lobes, another German will agree with him, a third will disagree, and a Russian will glance through the article about the cells and reel off an essay about it to the Syeverny Vyestnik. The Vyestnik Evropi will criticize the essay, and for three years there will be in Russia an epidemic of nonsense which will give money and popularity to blockheads and do ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... scent of the blossom began to make her head reel. How they clung to him! She tore at the tough ropes, and he and the white inflorescence swam about her. She felt she was fainting, knew she must not. She left him and hastily opened the nearest door, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... thought of common things as he left her, beyond those common things was the miracle that Gertie had grown into the one perfect, divinely ordained woman, and that he would talk to her again. He danced the Virginia reel. Instead of clumping sulkily through the steps, as at other parties, he heeded Adelaide Benner's lessons, and watched Gertie in the hope that she would see how well he was dancing. He shouted a demand that they play "Skip ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... workmanship, though we know that Comacines from Cividale were employed in Croatia. They have the characteristic Lombard furrows and interweavings, and other details met with in different parts of Italy. There are no mouldings, but a slight bead and reel along the interior edge of the arches. One slab shows two birds drinking from a vase in the upper part, and, below, two others apparently going to divide a fish—at each side vine scrolls springing from vases; another is carved with figures of griffins. There are two window-slabs with pierced ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... on huge reels good for about four hours of recording. It would only be necessary to watch the volume control and to see that all was running smoothly. Changing tapes was only a matter of slapping a new reel into place, dropping the tape into the recording head, and threading it ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... How untrue it was! He had not commenced this term as usual; how differently he had tried to commence it, only he and God knew. And now to fail thus early in the day! His head seemed to spin and his brain reel; he bowed himself on the seat again, but Bob's head went down promptly, ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... — Letter from Abigail Bush, president of first convention — Greetings from Lucinda H. Stone, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and many individuals and associations — Addresses by Mrs. Cannon, a woman State Senator from Utah, Mrs. Conine, a woman State Representative from Colorado, Miss Reel, State Superintendent of Instruction from Wyoming, U. S. Senators Teller and Cannon, and others — Senate Hearing — Wm. Lloyd Garrison on The Nature of a Republican Form of Government — May Wright Sewall on Fitness of Women to Become Citizens from the Standpoint ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... stations, great galleries blasted out of the rock, with corridors leading to openings from which one has marvelous views.[31] Eismeer looks directly upon the huge sea of snow and ice, with immense masses of dazzling white so close as to make one reel with awe and astonishment. In fact, this view is really oppressive in its wild magnificence, so near and so grand is it. The Jungfraujoch is different. One is out in the open, so to speak; one walks over that vast plateau of snow over ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... that he reported himself to General Gregory?' His voice was hoarse, and I saw him reel as though some one had ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... turned scarlet. "No," she answered, "it's two of them and I can't decide. One is rich and homely as a hedge fence and always says 'drawring' and 'reel,' but has lots of money and a fair enough family back of him. The other is handsome and oh, my! gay as a lark, but he had about run through with a fortune, and I'm afraid he will flirt now that the restraint of my serious and ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... your hand hath held the wheel Of the lurching ship, on tempest waves no keel Hath ever sailed. A grim smile held your lips when strong men quailed. You strove alone with chaos and prevailed; You felt the grinding shock and did not reel, And, ah, your hand that cut the battle's path Wide with the devastating plague of wrath, Your bleeding hand, gentle with pity yet, Did not forget To bless, to ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... wisest books can teach The wind and water said; whose words did reach My soul, addressing their magnificent speech,— Raucous and rushing,—from the old mill-wheel, That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, Like some old ogre in a faerytale Nodding above his meat ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... the carabao was tied to a stake in a small swale and I nerved myself to look on. I saw the first cuts, the poor beast look up from his grass in astonishment, totter, reel, and fall as blows rained on him from all sides. The crowd, closing in, mercifully hid the rest from view; the victim dying game without a sound. In this respect, as well as in many others, the carabao is a very different animal from the pig. But, while looking ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... beaten down by wind and rain. In 1831, he produced his first practicable machine, making every part of it himself by hand. Its three essential features have never been changed—a vibrating cutting-blade, a reel to bring the grain within reach of the blade, and a platform to receive the falling grain. The problem ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... distant parts. "I mean every word of it, I tell you, Dev." Dev, like Dunny, is a misnomer; my name is Devereux—Devereux Bayne. "Don't you risk your bones enough with the confounded games you play? What's the use of hunting shells and shrapnel like a hero in a movie reel? We're not in this war yet, though we soon will be, praise the Lord! And till we are, I believe in neutrality—upon ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... time to see Billy Lusk climb its front with callow, enterprising shouts. That was child's play; and the universal yell now raised by the horsemen was their child's play too; but the whole thing could so precipitately reel into the fatal that my thoughts stopped. I could only look when I saw that they had somehow recognized the man on the engine for a sheriff. Two had sprung from their horses and were making boisterously toward the cab, while Lin McLean, neither boisterous nor joking, ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... 'Rural Beauty' done it," Mr. Morton broke in peevishly. "Wish't I'd never let them film people camp up there on my paster lot and take them picters on my farm. Sallie was jest carried away with it. She acted in that five-reel film, 'A Rural Beauty.' And I must say she looked as purty ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... Kynnersley, was Dale infatuated. He scorched himself morning, noon, and night in her devastating presence. Had cut himself adrift from home, from society. Had left trailing about on his study table a jeweller's bill for a diamond bracelet. Was committing follies that made my brain reel to hear. Had threatened, if worried much longer, to marry the Scarlet One incontinently. Heaven knew, cried Lady Kynnersley, how many husbands she had already—scattered along the track between Dublin and Yokohama. There was no doubt about it. Dale was hurtling ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke |
