"Shear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gaunt adjutant stands conspicuous as he stalks with measured steps through the high rushes, now plunging his immense bill into the tangled sedges, then triumphantly throwing back his head with a large snake writhing helplessly in his horny beak; open fly the shear-like hinges of his bill—one or two sharp jerks and down goes one half of an incredibly large snake; another jerk and a convulsive struggle of the snake; one more jerk—snap, snap goes the bill and the snake has disappeared, while the adjutant again stalks quietly ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... you. Allow me to thank you for the complimentary manner in which you have mentioned my work. Since the notice appeared, we have done a deal of heavy work in this mill; and a plate large enough to shear 11' 0" and 10' 2" and 1/2" thick has been rolled in five minutes. The slab went through the roll 17 times before being rolled to the width and turned round, and 18 times after turning and of the full width; making a total of 35 passes—the turning occupying 20 seconds. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... into her love for Ansdore.... It was like the sun shining on a fire and putting it out—now that the sun had gone she saw that her hearth was cold. It was for Martin she had sown her spring wheat, for Martin she had broken up twelve acres of pasture by the Kent Ditch, for Martin she would shear her sheep ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... become a Queen! True defender of the only true faith, the armoury of heaven is open to thee! Faithful daughter of the Church, take the keys of St. Peter, to bind and to loose!—Royal Princess of the land, take the sword of St. Paul, to smite and to shear! There is darkness in thy destiny;—but not in these towers, not under the rule of their haughty mistress, shall that destiny be closed—In other lands the lioness may crouch to the power of the tigress, but not in her own—not in Scotland shall the Queen ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones and sceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots." A man may milk a beast till ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... prominence within a decade and it is one of the greatest problems in the pathology of the chestnut. That has turned out to be a Chinese parasite. It was found last summer by the agricultural explorer, Mr. Myers, but the fungus was studied out by Dr. Shear. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... cried. "Why, ye be well met; nay, gossip, ye be right well met, upon the rood! And is that the Good Hope? Ay, I would know her among ten thousand!—a sweet shear, a sweet boat! But marry, come up, my gossip, will ye drink? I have come into mine estate, which doubtless ye remember to have heard on. I am now rich; I have left to sail upon the sea; I do sail now, for the most part, upon spiced ale. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hire, then redoubtable Laomedon robbed us of all hire, and sent us off with threats. He threatened that he would bind together our feet and hands and sell us into far-off isles, and the ears of both of us he vowed to shear off with the sword. So we went home with angry hearts, wroth for the hire he promised and gave us not. To his folk not thou showest favour, nor essayest with us how the proud Trojans may be brought low and perish miserably with their ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... for they are men skilled not in propagating the vine, nor in grafting trees, nor in tilling the ground. They know not how to cultivate the fields, nor to wash gold, or to break horses, or to shear or feed sheep ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... of pall,[4] thy fingers small, That wont on harp to stray, A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer, To ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... Shagpat awoke in Shibli Bagarag fierce desire to shear him, and it was scarce in his power to restrain himself from flying at the clothier, he saying, 'What obstacle now? what protecteth him? Nay, why not trust to the old woman? Said she not I should first essay on Shagpat? and 'twas my folly in appealing to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fidelity, and he has further succeeded in communicating to us the feelings by which he was animated. As we look at his pictures a strange primitive instinct of a rural life is gradually roused in us—an innocent desire to milk, to shear, to drive these gentle patient animals that delight the eye and heart. In this art Paul Potter is unsurpassed. Berghem is more refined, but Potter is more natural; Van de Velde is more graceful, but Potter ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... ran back to the tent, and presently returned to shear poor Annie's beautiful hair in truly ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... use'er al'ays put woolen on de little chillun to keep em from getting burnt up. Peoples wuz easy to cotch uh fire in dat time. Dey hab plenty uv sheep den en dis jes 'bout de time uv de year dat dey shear de sheep. Al'ays'ud shear de sheep in de month uv May. Dey is make aw kinder nice cloth den. I c'n charge en spin en make any kinder streak yuh wan'. Coase my mudder use'er weave de jeanes ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... (1 and 2 combined) shear, sheer, shred, share, shard, scar, score, (sea)shore, shorn, shroud, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... much, But art not able to keep touch. Mira de lente, as 'tis i' th' adage, Id est, to make a leek a cabbage; 850 Thou'lt be at best but such a bull, Or shear-swine, all cry, and no wool; For what can synods have at all With bear that's analogical? Or what relation has debating 855 Of church-affairs with bear-baiting? A just comparison still is Of things ejusdem generis; And then what genus rightly ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... absolutely set going an old turret-clock in the tower that had stood at 2 p.m. since the memory of man. I loved to think, each time the hour sounded, that those who heard its deep chime would remember me. But the flocks were my main care. The sheep that I tended and helped to shear, and the lamb that I hooked out of the great marsh, and the three venerable ewes that I nursed through a mysterious sort of murrain which puzzled all the neighborhood,—are they not written in thy loving chronicles, O ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and all the people returned home, and the Fair Nancy was towed to the "shear-hulk" to have her masts put in. The shear-hulk is a large ship in which is placed machinery for lifting masts into other ships. Every one who has looked at the thick masts of a large vessel, must see at a glance that ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... great depths the thickness of bed increased, as it usually does in quarries. With beds from 10 to 20 ft. deep, all of solid and valuable brownstone, it became a matter of importance that some device should be applied which would shear the stone from its bed without loss of stock and without the necessity of making artificial beds at short distances. A system was adopted and used successfully for a number of years which comprised the drilling of deep holes from 10 to 12 in. in diameter, and charging them ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... fully aroused—firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, and threw themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were drowned, and but a very few effected their escape. Justinus de Nassau. sprang ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... through and through, Piercing with flawless shaft what heart soe'er Of all men living is most dear to Her. Yea, and to thee, for this sore travail's sake, Honours most high in Trozen will I make; For yokeless maids before their bridal night Shall shear for thee their tresses; and a rite Of honouring tears be thine in ceaseless store; And virgin's thoughts in music evermore Turn toward thee, and praise thee in the Song Of Phaedra's far-famed love ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... is a shear or a diagonal tension in the beam, and the diagonal portion of the rod is apparently in a position to take this tension. This is just such a force as the truss-rod in a queen-post truss must take. Is this reinforcing rod equipped to perform this office? The beam is apt to fail in the line, A ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... which ne'er again Will need the barber's shear, Wilt thou present in Charles his train Some long-locked Cavalier? A sober Don for all to see Who once didst walk abroad, Wilt now an Ancient Briton be ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... her more and more, half a knot at a time, until we were actually making appreciable headway against it. I never thought any ship could stand the bludgeoning she got. It seemed as if every rivet must shear, every frame and stanchion crush, under the impact of the Juggernaut seas that hurtled into her. As a thoroughbred horse starts and trembles under the touch of the whip, so she reared and trembled, only to bury herself again in the roaring Niagara of water. Oh, you thoroughbred high-tensile ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Beagle passed through the west channel, the shear or first beacon on the west reefs was on with a round-topped hill some distance up the river. Although there is very apparent difficulty in navigating the Tamar, still the first glance shows it to be a stream of importance. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... cramp; dwarf, bedwarf^; shorten &c 201; circumscribe &c 229; restrain &c 751. [reduce in size by abrasion or paring. ] (subtraction) 38 abrade, pare, reduce, attenuate, rub down, scrape, file, file down, grind, grind down, chip, shave, shear, wear down. Adj. contracting &c v.; astringent; shrunk, contracted &c v.; strangulated, tabid^, wizened, stunted; waning &c v.; neap, compact. unexpanded &c (expand) &c 194 [Obs.]; contractile; compressible; smaller ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... waited until the black line of the hull was visible whenever the raft lifted on the back of a wave. This was enough for Joe. He recognized the graceful shear of the flush deck which had been extended fore and aft to make room for a heavier main battery. Even at a distance, a sailor's eye could read other signs that marked this ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Shear off the first year's growth (a) within three inches of the ground (b). Cut the vigorous shoots that will rise from this shearing, four inches higher, about the middle of July, and similar and ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... tools for digging, and go down to Titcomb's meadow for the poke," suggested Addison. "If you can get the arch-kettle hot while we are gone, we can have the poke put to stew and simmer, so as to be good and strong by day after to-morrow. I suppose you will shear the sheep that day; and by the next morning the lambs will need attending to, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... single foot-note: "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust"; and Mr. Bluphocks shows himself amusingly familiar with Bible facts and phrases. Mr. Sludge, "the Medium," thinks the Bible says the stars are "set for signs when we should shear sheep, sow corn, prune trees," and describes the skeptic in the magic circle of spiritual "investigators" as the "guest without the wedding-garb, the doubting Thomas." Some one has taken the trouble to count five hundred Biblical phrases or allusions in "The Ring ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... a Letter to J.C., directed for Dr H. More from Mr Thomas Alcock, of Shear-Hampton; of which in a Letter to the said Doctor, he gives this Account. I am, said he, very confident of the truth of the Story; for I had it from a very good Lady, the eldest daughter of the said John Mallet (whose Trustee Mr Bourne was) and ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... serious work ahead of us could be undertaken, it was necessary to shear off an awkward little bulge in the enemy's line, which included the ruined hamlet of Moyenneville. The corps on our right were to take part in an assault two days previous to the commencement of ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... did Juturna turn the horses about and flee. And as he sped Messapus cast a spear at him. But AEneas saw it coming, and put his shield over him, resting on his knee. Yet did the spear smite him on the helmet-top and shear off the crest. Then indeed was his wrath kindled, and he rushed into the army of the enemy, ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... the dripping branches were enough to strip even the most prolific of the fruit-bearers. Most destructive of all were the flocks of parrots; they wasted more than they ate. They plucked the choicest morsels, took one bite and dropped them or, snipping the stems with their shear-like mandibles permitted the nuts or berries to rattle down to the ground. Later, when there were no more to eat, let alone destroy, they complained with raucous screams as they were compelled to satisfy their hunger on ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... king of the earth might scorn Such noble bidding, Siggeir; and surely will I come To look upon thy glory and the Goths' abundant home. But let two months wear over, for I have many a thing To shape and shear in the Woodland, as befits a people's king: And thou meanwhile here abiding of all my goods shalt be free, And then shall we twain together roof over the glass-green sea With the sides of our golden dragons; and our war-hosts' blended shields Shall fright the sea-abiders ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... turning of his tongue from the slander of men to the praise of God. And of the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray. Sundays and every Wednesday evening he wore a stove-pipe hat and a long frock coat of antique and rusty aspect. On his way to church—with hospitality even for the like of him, thank God!—he ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... and volumes heap, Our dullness we no more betray; To know the stars, or shear a sheep— To live on air, or polo play; The trick is ours, or we may stray Beneath the seas, with science cooks, And sprint by some reflected ray The easy road of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... said, parading my own knowledge, "but what about injury to the masses of nerve cells? And you'd have to shear off the nerves growing ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... be) the body of a lord to its grave. Item, women shall not do their textile works, nor cut out clothes, nor stitch them together with the needle, nor card wool, nor beat hemp, nor wash clothes in public, nor shear sheep: so that there may be rest on the Lord's day. But let them come together from all sides to Mass in the Church and praise God for all the good things He did ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... was so unexpected that I stood gaping. But only for an instant. I saw the deadly whirling knife-disc sailing for Elza.... It would strike her ... shear her white throat.... ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... been found in America, owing probably to their subterranean habit, where they are not readily observed, and to the necessity of special search to find them. In California, however, Dr. Harkness (Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci.) has collected a large number of species and genera. Recently (Shear. Asa Gray Bull. 7: 118, 1899) reports finding a "truffle" (Terfezia oligosperma Tul.) in Maryland, and ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... that obeyed not The voice of the Lord,(68) That would not accept correction; Lost(69) is truth from their mouth. Shear and scatter thy locks, Raise a dirge on the heights, The Lord hath refused and forsaken The ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... the Place de la Revolution, what other August Statue may this be; veiled in canvas,—which swiftly we shear off by pulley and cord? The Statue of Liberty! She too is of plaster, hoping to become of metal; stands where a Tyrant Louis Quinze once stood. 'Three thousand birds' are let loose, into the whole world, with labels ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... rather a good farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. Some of our friends have tried it—and you know where it landed them. I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear him." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... and tillers without plow or spade. They show how much development life was capable of in the time before metals."[170] The palometa is a fish which weighs two or three pounds. It has fourteen teeth in each jaw so sharp that the Abipones shear sheep with the jaw.[171] Such cases might be pursued into great detail. They show acute observation, great ingenuity, clever adaptation, and teachableness. The lasso, bola, boomerang, and throw knife, as well as the throw stick, are products of persistent and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... as you did those upstairs," ordered the Harvester. "We don't want any fol-de-rols. Put the bottom even with the sill and shear them ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... chastisement for apostasy; but a remnant of them shall return. They had not utterly forgotten God, therefore a part of the nation shall be rescued from captivity. So full of hope is Isaiah that the nation shall not utterly be destroyed, that he names his son Shear-jashub,—"a remnant shall return." This is his watchword. Certain is it that the Lord will have mercy on Jacob whom he hath chosen; his promises will not fail. Judah shall be chastised; but a part of Judah shall return to Jerusalem, purified, wiser, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... Blondel sung? O! born Time's ravage to repair, And make the dying muse thy care; Who, when his scythe her hoary foe Was poising for the final blow, The weapon from his hand could wring, And break his glass, and shear his wing, And bid, reviving in his strain, The gentle poet live again; Thou, who canst give to lightest lay An unpedantic moral gay, Nor less the dullest theme bid flit On wings of unexpected wit; In letters as in life approved, Example honoured and beloved - Dear Ellis! to the bard ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... slaughters them, she chokes The very stalls with carrion-heaps that rot In hideous corruption, till men learn With earth to cover them, in pits to hide. For e'en the fells are useless; nor the flesh With water may they purge, or tame with fire, Nor shear the fleeces even, gnawed through and through With foul disease, nor touch the putrid webs; But, had one dared the loathly weeds to try, Red blisters and an unclean sweat o'erran His noisome limbs, till, no long tarriance made, The fiery curse ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... Charlie Wood, "O tarry, master mine! It's ill to shear a yearling hog, Or twist the wool ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... hours in the snug hollow of the rock, where he seemed to pause like a bee on the sweets of existence itself that he might taste them fully, were there for Jerome. Very few chances he had for outspeeding his comrades in any but the stern and sober race of life, for this little Mercury had to shear the wings from his heels of youthful sport and take to the gait of labor. Very seldom he could have one of his old treasure hunts in swamps and woods, unless, indeed, he could perchance make a labor and a gain of it. Jerome found ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... thee east ease keep beef near plea heed greet year freed dean team weed ream tease deed treat wean teach sheet yeast meet spree plead sheaf mead steep sheer eaves greed creak creek shear spear breed agree sneer bleed speed beach sheen green preen cheap sweep sheep reach street freeze dream tweed fleece cream weave screen peach gleam wheat streak bream leaves cleans crease teapot beams please greedy Easter spleen breeze gleans squeak beaver season grease sneeze wheeze ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... through a smooth rifle bore; it did, upon my soul. Heavens! what a take in! what a splendid sleight-of-hand! I never did nothin' better in all my born days. I hope I may be shot, if I did. Ha! ha! ha! ain't it rich? Don't it cut six inches on the rib of clear shear, that. Oh! it's hansum, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the light ships of Agrippa and Octavius could adopt only skirmishing tactics. They rushed in where they could shear away the oar blades of an enemy without getting caught by the great grappling irons swung out from his decks. They kept clear of the heavy stones from the catapults through superior speed and ability to maneuver quickly, but they were unable to strike their ponderous adversaries ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... a persistent desire among workmen to shear and to trim: it displays their industry. It is a great thing to be able to allow the freedom of nature to remain. The artist often builds his structures into a native planting (as in Fig. 18) rather than to trust himself to produce a good result ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... child may rue that is unborn, it was the more pitie. The drivers thorough the wood-es went for to raise the deer; Bowmen bickered upon the bent with their broad arrows clear, Then the wild thorough the wood-es went on every sid-e shear; Greyhounds thorough the grov-es glent for to kill their deer. This began in Cheviot, the hills abone, early on a Monnynday; By that it drew to the hour of noon a hundred fat harts dead there lay. They blew a mort upon the bent; they sembled on sidis shear, To the quarry then the Percy ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... are worth double the amount.—Such is the use of the great in relation to the central power; instead of constituting themselves representatives of the people, they aimed to be the favorites of the Sovereign, and they shear the flock which they ought ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to feel the boat rise to the roller, or forced through by the sail to shear the foam aside like a share; splendid to undulate as the chest lies on the wave, swimming, the brimming ocean round: then I know and feel its deep strong tide, its immense fulness, and the sun glowing over; splendid to climb the steep green hill: in these I feel ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... such as to permit its use, the elevating grader is employed in grade reduction to load the earth into dump wagons in which it is hauled to the fill or waste bank. The elevating grader consists essentially of a heavy shear plow or disc plow which loosens the earth and deposits it on a moving canvas apron. The apron carries the material up an incline and deposits it into a wagon which is driven along under the end of the apron. When the wagon is loaded, the grader ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... almost as well have gone to St. Jo by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was some "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of the only power which at that moment could interfere with his seizing Alsace and Lorraine and invading Flanders. The pretty Louise de Keroualle Duchess of Portsmouth, with her innocent baby face and heart as cold as any reptile's, was the French Delilah chosen to shear the locks of the British Samson. By such means and from such motives a secret treaty was made in February, 1681, by which Louis agreed to pay Charles 2,000,000 livres down, and 500,000 more in each of the next two years, on condition that ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... like others. Another says, I will have my son placed at court, and have many honourable dignities. To succeed well, both employ the mediation of women; unhappily the church and the law are entirely at their disposal. We have artful Dalilahs who shear us close. For twelve crowns and an ell of velvet given to a woman, you gain the worst ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... lamb," retorted Mrs. Nesbit. "The shorn tom-cat! I'd like to shear him." Wherewith she rose and putting out the light led the Doctor to ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... power of enforcing it, was not nugatory in the copyhold of rival states? He compared the reasonings of ministers to a man, who, full of his prerogative of dominion over a few beasts of the field, should assert his right to shear a wolf, because it had wool upon its back, without considering whether he had the power of using the shears, or whether the animal would submit to the operation of shearing. He remarked:—"Are we yet ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... had to handle only the separate parts of each form and not the forms assembled. The derrick shown in Fig. 232 was a 33-ft. A-frame, with wheels at the bottom of each leg. It had a friction crab hoist driven by an electric motor, both of which were fastened to the derrick frame between the shear legs. ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... myself. Besides," said he a little bitterly, "I haven't a grain of luck. If I am to do any good I must be twice as prudent and thrice as industrious as my neighbors or I shall fall behind them. Now, Abner, we'll shear them close." ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... to his antagonists, man or beast, from the cutting power of his fearful snap. His molar teeth shear through flesh and small bones like the gash of a butcher's cleaver; and his wide gape and lightning-quick movements render him a very dangerous antagonist. The bite of a wolf is the most dangerous to man ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... risen Rive rived riven Run ran run Saw sawed sawn, R. Say said said See saw seen Seek sought sought Sell sold sold Send sent sent Set set set Shake shook shaken Shape shaped shaped, shapen Shave shaved shaven, R. Shear sheared shorn Shed shed shed Shine shone, R. shone, R. Show showed shown Shoe shod shod Shoot shot shot Shrink shrunk shrunk Shred shred shred Shut shut shut Sing sung, sang[9] sung Sink sunk, sank[9] sunk Sit sat set Slay slew slain Sleep slept slept Slide slid slidden ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... the gentleman With our naked sword, Wherewith we shear meadows and fields. We shear princes and lords. Labourers are often athirst; If the gentleman will stand beer and brandy The joke will soon be over. But, if our prayer he does not like, The sword has ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of this fuse involves the curious question of the physical conditions now existing in the discharge of our projectiles by slow burning powder. The forward movement of the shell is now so gradual that the inertia of a pellet is only sufficient to shear a wire of one-tenth the strength of that which might formerly have been sheared by a similar pellet in an old type gun with quick burning powder. Consequently, in many cases, it is found better not to depend on a suspending wire ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... sheep-gray cloke, Which was of the finest loke That could be cut with shear; His mittens were of bauzon's skin, {94h} His cockers were of cordiwin, {94i} {94j} ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... peculiar characteristics are the perforated and striated scutiform area on the front of the cell and the perforated, or apparently perforated pyramidal lateral processes above each avicularium; these processes are much developed, and give the cell the form of a broad inverted shear-head. It seems to be an abundant species in Bass Strait, and it occurs also in New Zealand. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... tell you these counterfeits be not so hard; and also the points will break lightly, and men may easily polish them. But some workmen, for malice, will not polish them; to that intent, to make men believe that they may not be polished. But men may assay them in this manner. First shear with them or write with them in sapphires, in crystal or in other precious stones. After that, men take the adamant, that is the shipman's stone, that draweth the needle to him, and men lay the diamond upon the adamant, ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... Shear sheep that have them, cry we still, But see that no man 'scape To drink of the sherry, That makes us so merry, And plump ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... death-wounds!" In men of such a temper, strong with the strength of manhood and full of the vigour and the love of life, the sense of its shortness and of the mystery of it all woke chords of a pathetic poetry. "Soon will it be," ran the warning rime, "that sickness or sword-blade shear thy strength from thee, or the fire ring thee, or the flood whelm thee, or the sword grip thee, or arrow hit thee, or age o'ertake thee, and thine eye's brightness sink down in darkness." Strong as he might be, man ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... straining his manhood for strength to shore up a resolution, and here was a sharpening of scissors to shear him well! ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... in 1831 the process in use was that of cementation, producing blistered steel, which was either piled and welded to make shear steel, or was broken into small pieces, melted in pots, and run into an ingot weighing only some 50 lb. or 60 lb. At that time steel was dealt in by the pound; nobody thought of steel in tons. In 1881, we are all aware that, by Sir Henry Bessemer's well-known ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... Clement for you both, but I doubt me whether you and your Eve will get justice from him, being English. England and Englishmen find little favour at Avignon just now, and mayhap Philip has already written on behalf of de Noyon. At the best His Holiness will shear you close and keep you waiting while he weighs the wool. No, Red Eve is right: this is a knot soonest severed by the sword. If you should find him, de Noyon could scarce refuse to meet you, for you shall fight ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... strength of the land, like Three-Legs; who had the strength of the fish-trap, like Little-Belly; who had the strength of all the goat-meat, like Pig-Jaw. The thing to do, Split-Nose said, was to shear these men of their evil strength; to make them go to work, all of them, and to let no man eat who did ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... (dropping the bow and seizing his bill) Ay, Thorbrand, is it thou? That's a rare blade, To shear through hemp and gut.... Let your wife have it For snipping needle-yarn; or try ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... cam' our gate, And made me, when it cam', A bird without a mate, A ewe without a lamb. Our hay was yet to maw, And our corn was yet to shear; When they a' dwined awa', In ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... learner tries to shear, But comes right little speed, I fear; 'The corn lies ill,' and aye we hear 'The sickle's bad:' The byeword says, 'Ill shearer ne'er A gude ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... animals that live solely on flesh, have only the cutting, or shear-like movement of the jaws. Those that use vegetables for food, have the grinding motion; while man has both the cutting and ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... with the dimpled chin, That never has known the Barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin,— Wait till ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Richelieu, famous blackguard man, gallops up to the Marechal, gallops rapidly from Marechal to King; suggesting, 'were cannon brought AHEAD of this close deep Column, might not they shear it into beautiful destruction; and then a general charge be made?' So counselled Richelieu: it is said, the Jacobite Irishman, Count Lally of the Irish Brigade, was prime author of this notion,—a man of tragic notoriety in time coming. ["Thomas ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... conqueror's, if with breast advanced Ye meet your destined doom. None know how long The life that waits them. Summon your own fate, And equal is your praise, whether the hand Quench the last flicker of departing light, Or shear the hope of years. But choice to die Is thrust not on the mind — we cannot flee; See at our throats, e'en now, our kinsmen's swords. Then choose for death; desire what fate decrees. At least in war's blind cloud we shall not fall; Nor when the flying weapons hide the day, And slaughtered ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... says little Bo-peep, Co' dea', co' dea', I'll shear my sheep; Their wool so fine will make my coat, My blankets and ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... Show the game that Sunday morn. The Throndhjem girls so fair Their jeers, I think, will spare, For the king's force was but small That emptied Throndhjem's hall. But if they will have their jeer, They may ask their sweethearts dear, Why they have returned shorn Who went to shear that Sunday morn." ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... Spring, thou darling of the year! Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear: Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear Shoots up its head, Thy gay, green, flow'ry tresses shear, For him ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... of the sort,' said I. My father did but teach me to strike an honest downright blow. This sword can shear through a square inch of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... always was a poor creature; no mind, soft as papier-mache, he'd let anybody shear the wool from his back; incapable of anything, no matter what. He was born ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... way, or in a spirit, that does not sanctify the wagon, but debases the star. Emerson is perhaps too exceptional to take his place among the small band of the really first-class writers of the world. Shear him of his paradoxes, of his surprises, of his sudden inversions, of his taking sallies in the face of the common reason, and appraise him for his real mastery over the elements of life and of the mind, as we do Bacon, or Shakespeare, or Carlyle, and he will ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... with the dimpled chin, That never has known the barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin,— Wait till you come to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... under this new cloud, did at last reach London the archbishop had no counsel to give, except that he should shear his clergy rather tight and send their golden fleeces to appease the king. "Do not you know that the king thirsts for money as a dropsical man does for water, my lord bishop?" To this the answer was, "Yes. He is a dropsical man, but I ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... go into the field and cut the corn that we may have some bread." "Yes, dear Hans, I will do that." After Hans had gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field with her. When she came to the field she said to herself, "What shall I do; shall I shear first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first." Then she emptied her basin of broth, and when she was fully satisfied, she once more said, "What shall I do? Shall I shear first, or shall I sleep first? I will sleep first." Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. Hans had been at home ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... him thwart the hawse, on the bowe, midships, or rather than faile, on the quarter [where the high poop made it difficult to climb on board] or make fast your graplings [iron hooks] if you can to his close fights and shear off [so as to tear them to pieces]. Captain, we are fowl on each other, and the Ship is on fire, cut anything to get clear and smother the fire with wet clothes. In such a case they will presently be such friends, as to helpe one the other all they can to get clear, lest they should both burn ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... him to shear't with a sickle of leather, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme), And bind it up with a peacock feather, And he shall be a ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... last, merely because our skins are not so white as the whites', and we know of no scriptures that justify him in so doing. (The writer would here observe, that he wonders any person guilty of a dark skin will submit to such unchristian usage, especially as the minister is as willing to shear his black sheep as his white ones. This being the case, ought he not to pay as much regard to them? Should he turn them loose to shift for themselves, at the ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... gather," said Charles, waving his hands. "The more they gather to the fold, the more we'll shear." He laughed as if pleased with the prospect, and ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... a wretched wearish Elf, With hollow Eyes and raw-bone Cheeks forspent, As if he had in Prison long been pent. Full black and griesly did his Face appear, Besmear'd with Smoke that nigh his Eye-sight blent, With rugged Beard and Hoary shaggy Heare, The which he never wont to comb, or comely shear.' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... great, docile creatures, with shaggy, clumsy legs, hoofs as big as dinner plates, and fetlocks six inches long. Later we had to shear their legs, because the long hair loaded up so badly with snow. Several of them were light red in color, and had crinkly manes and tails; and three or four weighed as much as sixteen hundred pounds apiece. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... each congregation should carry a 'competent number of pieces, fixed and complete with powder and shot and swords, every Lord's-day at the meeting-house?' And, right well equipped 'with psalm-book, shot and powder-horn' sat that doughty man, Shear Yashub Millard along with Hezekiah Bristol and four others whose issue I have known pleasantly in the flesh here; and those of us who had no pieces wore 'coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows.' Yet it bethought me that there ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... month of June the men came, as they came every year, to shear the sheep. They brought bad news with them. All over the country the sheep were falling ill as soon as they had been shorn, and numbers of them were dying. Master Silvain took his precautions, but in spite of all he ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... Bobber? Does that mean that I should have to shear my wife's silken tresses? Cousin Phyllis has appeared with a tomboy's shock of hair, and she says it "has only been bobbed." By a "bobber"? I would like to wring his neck. But if Bobber has something ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... soapy blanket. This most valuable means of stimulating the healthy action of the skin (as prescribed in many articles in this volume) is prepared and applied as follows:—Have a good blanket, and plenty of M'Clinton's soap (see Lather and Soap). Shear down a tablet or two into boiling water—as much water as the blanket will absorb. The blanket may be prepared as directed in article Fomentation, using these boiling suds instead of water. Have the patient's bed ready, and spread on it a double dry sheet. Soak in the suds a piece of thick ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... you keep account of them, my Lord, that you may pay me their value when we come to settle our score, seeing that I never gave you leave to shear my sheep and ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... I suppose you are going to say," remarked Billy. "We'll name the new firm of horse-buyers Sampson and Sampson; for if you are not mindful this gentle young Delilah will shear you." ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... the society of ladies, at ease with his own sex only when cattle and horses were the subject of conversation, ignorant of music, and unable to tell Millais from Tenniel, he 'could pick you out any bullock in a herd ... shear a hundred sheep a day ... and drive four horses down a sidling in a Gippsland range with any man in Australia,'—to say all this by way of preliminary, to add that Calverley was no fool, and yet to show him in scarcely ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... should have remembered it can cost thee nothing. Young gentlemen, this pious pattern of primitive simplicity will teach thee the right way to the Shepherd's Bush—aye, and will himself shear thee like a sheep, if you come to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... speaking to himself, but at the musician, "for one of your eyes turned this way; but you won't speak till you've got to the end of that bit of noise. Oh, how I should like to shear off those long greasy curls! They make you look worse even than you do when they're all twisted up in pieces of paper. It doesn't suit your round, fat face. You don't look a bit like a cavalier, Master P.P.; but I suppose you're a very good ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... him. When Margaret re-entered the room Jasper was walking up and down with his hands behind him. The old man began to tell a story: "Feller down in the bottoms owned a calf that had wool on him like a sheep; uster ter shear him every spring, and ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... up in this kind of talk, because for the last two or three years, since we had begun to shear pretty well, we had always shorn at his shed. He was one of those gentlemen—and he was a gentleman, if ever there was one—that takes a deal of notice of his working hands, particularly if they were young. Jim he took a great fancy ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... marine boilers. Boilers, constructive details of: riveting and caulking of land boilers, proving of; seams payed with mixture of whiting and linseed oil; setting of wagon boilers; riveting of marine boilers; precautions respecting angle iron; how to punch the rivet holes and shear edges of plates; setting of marine boilers in wooden vessels; mastic cement for setting marine boilers; composition of mastic cement; best length of furnace; configuration of furnace bars; advantages and construction of furnace bridges; various forms of dampers; precautions against injury ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... great Roll in splendour and state, I envy them not, I declare it. I eat my own lamb, My own chicken and ham, I shear my own sheep ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... is known, then to divide the times; So many hours must I tend my flock; So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate; So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young; So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece. So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, Pass'd over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! Gives ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... frozen get got got [gotten] give gave given go went gone grind ground ground grow grew grown hang hung (hanged) hung (hanged) hold held held know knew known lie lay lain ride rode ridden ring rang rung run ran run see saw seen shake shook shaken shear shore (sheared) shorn (sheared) shine shone shone shoot shot shot shrink shrank or shrunk shrunk shrive shrove shriven sing sang or sung sung sink sank or sunk sunk [adj. sunken] sit sat [sate] sat slay ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... learned well, as he said, the jarl tempered the axe head, heating and cooling it many times, until it would take an edge that would shear through iron without turning. And he also wrought runes on it, hammering gold wire into clefts ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... "Never shear their sheep till they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the management of things, the good-for-nothing brutes ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the darkness, heading straight for the Yahiko, as though to run her down! Would they dare? I wondered. Surely not. But if they did not, there was no reason why the Yahiko should not; she was a stout-built, merchant steamer, and, old as she was, would shear through the destroyer's thin plating as though it were brown paper. If I had been in charge of the Yahiko, I would not have hesitated an instant, indeed I would have jumped at the chance, and ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... to pairs, All bodin in feir of weir;[122] In jacks, and scryppis, and bonnets of steel, Their legs were chainit to the heel,[123] Frawart was their affeir:[124] Some upon other with brands beft,[125] Some jaggit others to the heft, With knives that sharp could shear. ...
— English Satires • Various
... Fluttered her wings; and mighty praise all round about was heard. Then stood forth Mnestheus keen, and drew his bow unto the head, Aiming aloft; and shaft and eyes alike therewith he sped; But, worthy of all pitying, the very bird he missed, But had the hap to shear the knots and lines of hempen twist 510 Whereby, all knitted to her foot, she to the mast was tied: But flying toward the winds of heaven and mirky mist she hied. Then swift Eurytion, who for long had held his arrow laid On ready bow-string, vowed, and called his brother unto aid, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... of a incindery sittin in the ows, for he not only first burnt the Corn but sold it after to the pure Peeple—but is Blackin his good—Our new lord Canceller Brewem gives us Hops that he will put a end to all the Old Suits without making any New Breeches wich wrong incisions wold show Shear hignoranc—but hes no Goos!—Mr. Grant wants to Mancypate the Jews— Porkreetchers! my next Nabor Levy says they are a Pursycutish Race thogh they hav Numbers of Genesis among them fit for Trusts ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... took, says Trelawney, "two tons of iron ballast to bring her down to her bearings, and then she was very crank in a breeze, though not deficient in beam." Truly Shelley was no seaman. "You will do no good with Shelley," Trelawney told Williams, "until you heave his books and papers overboard, shear the wisps of hair that hang over his eyes, and plunge his arms up to the elbows in a tar bucket." But he said, "I can read and steer at the same time." Read and steer! But indeed it was on this very bay, and almost certainly in the Ariel, that he wrote those perfect lines: ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... province, and, doubtless, with the view of making his court to the emperor, remitted to him a much larger sum than was customary; that prince, who, in the beginning of his reign, thought, or at least spoke justly, answered, "that it was his design not to flay, but to shear his sheep."(381) ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear; It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year. Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,— At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober, And the willowy ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... before the matter was cleared up. To-day we know that the peculiar behaviour of the hybrid Hieraciums is due to the fact that they normally produce seed by a peculiar process of parthenogenesis. It is possible to take an unopened flower and to shear off with a {134} razor all the male organs together with the stigmata through which the pollen reaches the ovules. The flower, nevertheless, sets perfectly good seed. But the cells from which the seeds develop are not of the same ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... mutton twenty-eight, and poultry thirty cents a pound, because, as he pretends, the farmers exhausted their supply of cattle in feeding the army for so long a time, and now find it more profitable to raise their lambs, and keep and shear their sheep, than to kill them. To which he adds a note in the minor key concerning the price of gold, and the increased expenses of living, which he has himself to meet, and drives us in despair to the pitiless merchant of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... calls for a free fight and no favor, while the Protectionist was the man who, seeing himself overmatched, called for the police. The Free Trader held that the natural, God-given right of the capitalist to shear the people anywhere he found them was superior to considerations of race, nationality, or boundary lines. The Protectionist, on the contrary, maintained the patriotic right of the capitalist to the exclusive shearing of his own fellow-countrymen ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... excursion, whilst they, as lords of creation, waited quietly at their club till dinner should be announced. They got very little from me, as I had no surplus food to spare. Nicholls told me they had some tin billies and shear-blades in the camp, and I noticed that one of the first batch we saw had a small piece of coarse cloth on; another had a piece of horse's girth webbing. On questioning the most civilised, and inquiring about some places, whose native ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... had subsided, it was impossible to find laborers enough to till the soil and shear the sheep. Those who were free now demanded higher wages, while the villeins, or serfs (S113), and slaves left their masters and roamed about the country asking for pay for their ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... its home estate twenty-five hundred acres of land, and owns besides about two thousand acres in the same state, and thirty thousand acres in Kentucky. Its chief industry is farming, and the families keep a large number of sheep and cattle. They shear wool enough to supply all their own needs in cloth and flannel, but have these woven by an outside mill; they raise large crops of broom-corn and sweet corn: the first they make into brooms, and the other they put ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Dan," vetoed Dingwell. "We'll shear the wolves. Each of you help yourself to chips equal to the amount you have lost. . . . Now, Mr. Smith, you and your partner will dig up one hundred and ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... be a lamb, but she isn't going to let us shear her, if she can help it," said Phil, looking ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Shear or Shire Lane formerly ran from the east end of Carey Street to the Strand, and formed the parish boundary. This was a narrow, dirty lane of the vilest reputation before its demolition, but it had known better days. A very famous tavern stood in the lane, first called the Cat and Fiddle, later the ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... starting point. Having removed these carefully so as not to knock off spurs from other branches, study the tree as it is thus somewhat opened up and see where remaining branches can be shortened to overcome the tendency to run too high. Do not shear off branches leaving a lot of stubs in the upper part of the tree, but always cut back a main branch to a lateral and shorten the lateral higher up if desirable. This will keep away from having a lot of brush in the ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... annoys her, and bears herself as equal to the biggest and strongest fellow of her acquaintance. In general she does it all by sheer pluck, and is not notorious for subtlety or craft. Had Delilah been a little woman she would never have taken the trouble to shear Samson's locks. She would have defied him with all his strength untouched on his head, and she would have overcome him too. Judith and Jael were both probably large women. The work they went about demanded a certain ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... from the chin they shear'd, And managed to stuff that sanctified hair, With a good deal of pushing, all into the cushion That filled up the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... private one of ascertaining whether Dick or Jack was to do it, have amply filled the capabilities of Government for several generations now. Hard tasks both, it would appear. In accomplishing the first, for example, have not heaven-born Chancellors of the Exchequer had to shear us very bare; and to leave an overplus of Debt, or of fleeces shorn before they are grown, justly esteemed among the wonders of the world? Not a first-rate keeping of the peace, this, we begin to surmise! At least it seems strange ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... holds in regard to everyday life. Every man has to give up a great many things if he means to succeed in one, and has to be a man of one pursuit if anything worth doing is to be done. Christian men especially have to adopt that principle, and shear off a great deal that is perfectly legitimate, in order that they may keep a reserve of strength for the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren |
