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Sponge   /spəndʒ/   Listen
Sponge

verb
(past & past part. sponged; pres. part. sponging)
1.
Wipe with a sponge, so as to clean or moisten.
2.
Ask for and get free; be a parasite.  Synonyms: bum, cadge, grub, mooch.
3.
Erase with a sponge; as of words on a blackboard.
4.
Soak up with a sponge.
5.
Gather sponges, in the ocean.



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"Sponge" Quotes from Famous Books



... feeling of dread, there passed before him the terrible life of the Trappists; the body ill-nourished, exhausted from want of sleep, prostrate for hours on the pavement; the soul trembling, squeezed like a sponge in the hand, drilled, examined, ransacked even to its smallest folds; and at the end of its failure of an existence, thrown like a wreck against this rude rock, into the silence of a prison, and the dreadful stillness ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... field is Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State. The others are, strictly speaking, the chief personages of the pontifical household, as we should say. But their offices are not sinecures. The Pope's restless energy extracts work from the men about him as one squeezes water from a sponge. In the days of Pius the Ninth, after the fall of the temporal power, the Vatican was overrun and overcrowded with useless but well-paid officials, officers and functionaries great and small, who took refuge there against ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... folks can get yourselves to bed without me?" asked Marise. "If one of you big children will unbutton Mark in the back, he can manage the rest. I must set a bread-sponge before ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... to describe the lava beds. That is beyond the power of language. In a letter to the Army and Navy journal, written at the suggestion of General Wheaton, I compared the Indians in the lava beds to "ants in a sponge." In the language of another it is a "black ocean tumbled into a thousand fantastic shapes, a wild chaos of ruin, desolation, barrenness—a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature mountains rent ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... but the murky, mist-laden atmosphere was rendered like a damp, choking, heavy pall of gloom by the dense volumes of pitch and tar-smoke with which it seemed to be perfectly soaked, as a sponge is with water. It caused Agnes to cough violently and continuously until she arrived at her new destination, which was a private dwelling-house, apparently the abode of some one belonging to ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw

... he said, trying to draw his head away from the sponge that was dripping water down ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... knows; but 'pears to me marster's never been right in his headpiece since Hollow-eve night, when he took that ride to the Witch's Hut," replied Wool, who, with brush and sponge, was engaged in ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... infallibly causes the decay, as well as the intolerable pain of the teeth, and it is very offensive to his acquaintance, for it will most inevitably stink. I insist, therefore, that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a soft sponge and swarm water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your mouth five or six times. Mouton, whom I desire you will send for upon your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used sometimes. Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... poor Benjamin, who profited by his mother's death to get into the Orphan Asylum, was asked to write a piece of composition on "The Methods of Travelling," he excited the hilarity of the class-room by writing that there were numerous ways of travelling, for you could travel with sponge, lemons, rhubarb, old clothes, jewelry, and so on, for a page of a copy book. Benjamin was a brilliant boy, yet he never shook off some of the misleading associations engendered by the parental jargon. For Mrs. Ansell had diversified her corrupt ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... circulation in the skin is sluggish. The bowels are generally constipated, or there is diarrhea of the fermentative type. The amount of urine excreted is generally insufficient and likely to be concentrated and show various signs of imperfect kidney elimination. Therefore hot sponge baths, with perhaps warm alcohol rubs, are daily necessary. Gentle massage, generally in the direction to aid the circulation, will benefit the skin. If the skin is dry or in places scaly, oil rubs ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... half a mile out to sea, till he came to a place where he hoped to find something. Here he immersed a plummet in the sea to sound its depth, and on finding that some thing was to be gained here, he dived downwards armed with a knife to cut the sponge he expected to find from the rocks; and after remaining below the surface for two or three minutes, reappeared with his booty, When first loosened from the rocks, these sponges are usually full of shells and small stones, which give them a very strong and disagreeable smell. They require to be ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... pocket a small phial of English salts, held it to her nose, and rubbed her temples with a small sponge. "Ah, she moves," he said, resting for a moment from his work, and looking coldly and curiously upon the poor woman, who, with a shudder of newly-awakened life, now turned her head, and whose convulsed lips uttered short ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... object once belonged. It seems therefore almost certain that the strange virtue is contained solely in the object itself, which is somehow galvanized by a complementary virtue in the medium. This being so, we must presume that the object, having absorbed like a sponge a portion of the spirit of the person who touched it, remains in constant communication with him, or, more probably, that it serves to track out, among the prodigious throng of human beings, the one who impregnated it with his fluid, even as the dogs employed by the police—at least so we ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... tumbleweed, green when growing and gray when tumbling, had long been familiar to us, but the red variety was new. The old kind which we knew seldom grew more than two feet in diameter; it was usually almost exactly round, and with its finely branched limbs was almost as solid as a big sponge, and when its short stem broke off at the top of the ground in the fall it would go bounding away across the prairie for miles. The red sort seemed to be much the same, except for its color and size. We saw ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... as the van rolled along. The queen had been mixing some kind of a lotion in a bowl. Now with a sponge she anointed Ruth's face and neck, far below the collar of any gown she would wear; likewise her arms and hands, and her limbs from the knees down. Then Zelaya threw some earth on Ruth's feet and streaked her limbs with the same. She gave her a torn and not over-clean frock to put on ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... spots, pour upon the article to be cleaned a sufficient quantity of the Magic Annihilator rubbing well with a clean sponge, and applying to both sides of the article you are cleaning. Upon carpets and coarse goods, where the grease is hard and dry, use a stiff brush and wash out with clear cold water. Apply again if necessary. One application is all that is needed for any fresh grease spots, but for old or dried ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... sponge can hold only so much, and I fell back—or shall I say forward—in the path of progress to rest in the dimness of agnosticism. Is it strange, Leo, that I am desperately tired; and willing to plant my feet on the rock of matrimony, which will neither dissolve ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... "wise saw," in the case of a certain Philadelphia millionaire, who was in the habit of carting himself out, in a very ancient and excessively shabby gig; which, in consequence of its utter ignorance of the stable-boy's brush, sponge or broom, and the hospitalities the old concern nightly offered the hens—was not exactly the kind of equipage calculated to win attention or marked respect, for the owner and driver. The old millionaire, one day in early October, took it into his head to ride ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... and my bonnet was disposed of, Mrs. Tabor gave me a huge piece of delicious sponge-cake, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... practises this method of shelter. It seizes a large sponge and maintains it firmly over its carapace with the help of the posterior pair of limbs. The sponge continues to prosper and to spread over the Crustacean who has adopted it. (Fig. 23.) The two beings do not seem to be definitely fixed to each other; the contact of a sudden ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... announced himself as a suitor. He was as well received as the others, and royal garments were put upon him. He was conducted that evening at bed-time into the ante-chamber, and as he was about to go to bed, the eldest came and brought him a cup of wine, but he had tied a sponge under his chin, and let the wine run down into it, without drinking a drop. Then he lay down and when he had lain a while, he began to snore, as if in the deepest sleep. The twelve princesses heard that, and laughed, and the eldest said, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... wet sponge, Dad—quick!" she cried, "a sponge,—and, if you've got such a thing, a drop o' brandy. I'll see after her!" And then, after he had got the little medicine flask, "I can't think what's wrong with Ellen," said Daisy wonderingly. "She seemed quite all right when I first ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... had some water,' sighed Marjorie. 'I am sure a little cold water would make her wake, and refresh her. I know it always woke me when Alan put the cold sponge on my face, on those horrid winter mornings when he would go ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... every guest Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press'd, By minist'ring slaves, upon his hands and feet, And fragrant oils with ceremony meet Pour'd on his hair, they all mov'd to the feast In white robes, and themselves in order placed Around the silken couches, wondering Whence all this mighty ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... your misdemeanour. I will not insist upon your doing penance, your face humbled to the ground; but I will condemn you to love me to-day more than yesterday, to-morrow more than to-day. Upon these conditions, I will pass a sponge across your grave error, and we shall speak of it ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... lighting the fire in his blood with the same straw. Like a vital fire it was left in him at last, a red and white of flame; the two flames forever hostile, and seeking each to burn the other out. And while it stayed in him thus as a fire, it had also filled all tissues of his being as water fills a sponge—not dead water a dead sponge—but as a living sap runs through the living sponges of a young oak on the edge of its summer. So that never should he be able to forget it; never henceforth be the same in knowledge or heart or conscience; and nevermore was the ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... out my embossed committee-man; his fate (for I know you would fain see an end of him) is either a whipping audit, when he is wrung in the withers by a committee of examinations, and so the sponge weeps out the moisture which he had soaked before; or else he meets his passing peal in the clamorous mutiny of a gut-foundered garrison, for the hedge-sparrow will be feeding the cuckoo till he mistake his commons and bites off her head. Whatever it ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... cream 1/4 pound of almond macaroons 4 kisses 1/2 pound of sugar 1 slice of stale sponge cake or 2 stale lady fingers 1 teaspoonful of caramel 1 teaspoonful of vanilla If you use it, ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... ever sinking in slow fall upon the slippery peat and the heather and the gray old stones. By and by the pools would be filled, and the hidden caves; their sides would give way; the waters would rush from the one into the other, and from all down the hill-sides, and the earth-sponge would be ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... she isn't quarrelsome in this room, that's all!" said a third speaker, who had hitherto been silent, "because if she is, I shall feel it my duty to give her a taste of Home Rule that she may not appreciate. And if she snores I shall squeeze my sponge over her, so you may tell her what she has to expect. There's nothing like training these youngsters ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... thunder by shaking one of the lower corners of a large thin sheet of copper suspended by a chain; the distant firing of signals of distress he imitated by striking, suddenly, a large tambourine with a sponge affixed to a whalebone spring—- the reverberations of the sponge producing a curious echo, as from cloud to cloud, dying away in the distance. The rushing sound of the waves was effected by turning round ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... cross, and, in the growing light, began to regain their confidence, tried to make ridicule of this plaintive ejaculation; but one who noticed His pale and parched lips was touched with pity, and took a stalk of hyssop, which was just long enough to reach the mouth of the Sufferer, and elevating a sponge dipped in vinegar, fulfilled thus unwittingly the ancient prediction, "They gave Me also gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... have kissed the honest trusty face of the man, for he had lifted me out of a bog of unease. I might be bound by honour, but Captain Macdonald was free as air to dictate terms. Volney looked long at him, weighed the man, and in the end flung up the sponge. He rose to his feet and sauntered over ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... Out chemists make a medicinal tincture of Feverfew, the dose of which is from ten to twenty drops, with a spoonful of water, three times a day. This tincture, if dabbed oil the parts with a small sponge, will immediately relieve the pain and swelling caused by bites of insects or vermin. In the official guide to Switzerland directions are given to take "a little powder of the plant called Pyrethrum roseum and make it into a paste with a few drops ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... greeted, and many inquiries for Mollie's ankle to be answered. Fresh crusty loaves were brought out by the baker, loosely wrapped in soft paper, and packed away under the seats. A large box, containing a peculiarly delicious make of sponge cake, was set on Mollie's lap, and a blue paper bag of sifted sugar was entrusted to Jerry's special care by a misguided grocer. Dick had a golf-club needing attention, which entailed a long and intimate conversation with the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... we carry the law of the Lord. If it only rests in the memory, any vagrant care may snatch it away. The business of the day may wipe it out as a sponge erases a record from a slate. A thought is never secure until it has passed from the mind into the heart, and has become a desire, an aspiration, a passion. When the law of God is taken into the heart, it is no longer ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... that we could get some picture of it. We have sat under a big brown umbrella, to have our shoes shined, when we had nothing more important to do than go to the doughnut foundry on Park Row and try some of those delectable combinations of foods they have there, such as sponge cake with whipped cream and chocolate fudge. And in a few seconds we have found ourself getting all stirred up and crying loudly to the artist that we only wanted a once-over, as we had an important appointment. You have to put ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... cut a sponge cake in slices, place it in the dish, mix the yolk of an egg with a teacupful of milk, pour it over the cake, then strew two ounces of grated cocoanut over it; next beat the white of the egg to a froth, add a teaspoonful ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... shape, the Hebrew mirrors were always either circular or oval, and cast indifferently flat or concave. They were framed in superb settings, often of pearls and jewels; and, when tarnished, were cleaned with a sponge of hyssop, the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... for a doctor, though there was no hope. Tatiana bathed Nejdanov's head with cold water and vinegar and laid a cold sponge on the small, dark wound, now free from blood. Suddenly the rattling in Nejdanov's throat ceased and he ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... out of the room without a so much as 'by your leave' to Elijah, but I'd be afraid of tearin' the sheet if I did that way. An' then Gran'ma Mullins came an' her view was as I'd best sit an' sop Elijah with a sponge, which just shows why Hiram is so tore in two between such a mother an' such ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner

... sighed, some stopped to question, many dropped pennies and some put nickels, and even a dime or two into Joey's cap, while one stout and good-humored woman opened the paper bag she carried and put a sponge cake in each hand. But at this point, seeing that the policeman in charge of the crossing had more than once cast a questioning eye upon them, Joey decided to move on. "We'll have ter hurry anyhow," he observed, "ter get to ther speakin' in time. If you'll come on, Angel, 'thout restin', ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin

... completely hiding the soil. But the strangest thing is that, although the rain is still falling, we can discover no rivulets. What, then, becomes of the water? The soft, decaying vegetation on which we are walking and the rotting stumps and logs act like a great sponge. As long as this sponge can take up the falling drops, none have a chance to run away. If it rains a very long time and the sponge becomes saturated, the drops that creep away and finally unite in rivulets in the hollows do no ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks

... nursery, where the raft that had rocked beneath so many hopes and fears still occupied the ocean-floor. To the dull eye, that merely tarries upon the outsides of things, it might have appeared unromantic and even unraftlike, consisting only as it did of a round sponge-bath on a bald deal towel-horse placed flat on the floor. Even to myself much of the recent raft-glamour seemed to have departed as I half-mechanically stepped inside and curled myself up in it for a solitary voyage. Once I was ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... cities, rivers, hills, and seas: From east to west the world we roam, And in all climates are at home; With care provide you as we go With sunshine, rain, and hail, or snow. You, when it rains, like fools, believe Jove pisses on you through a sieve: An idle tale, 'tis no such matter; We only dip a sponge in water, Then squeeze it close between our thumbs, And shake it well, and down it comes; As you shall to your sorrow know; We'll watch your steps where'er you go; And, since we find you walk a-foot, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... some ambrosia—that's sliced oranges with grated cocoanut on top. And in this establishment I doubt if you know anything about boiled custard, with egg kisses bobbing round it and sunken reefs of sponge cake underneath. So I guess I'd better compromise on some plum pudding; but mind you, not the imported English plum pudding. English plum pudding is not a food, it's a missile, and when eaten it is a concealed deadly weapon. I want an American ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... troop to which Gunner Conolly belonged, under command of Lieutenant Cooks, having advanced at daybreak at a gallop, and engaged the enemy within easy musket range, the sponge-men of one of the guns having been shot, Conolly assumed the duties of second sponge-man; and he had barely assisted at two discharges of his gun, when a musket-ball through the left thigh felled him to the ground. Nothing ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... gall-nuts and vinegar will give to ebony which has been discoloured an intense black, after brushing over once or twice. Walnut or poor-coloured rosewood can be improved by boiling half an ounce of walnut-shell extract and the same quantity of catechu in a quart of soft-water, and applying with a sponge. Half a pound of walnut husks and a like quantity of oak bark boiled in half a gallon of water will produce much the same result. Common mahogany can be improved by rubbing it with powdered red-chalk (ruddle) and a woollen rag, or by first wiping the surface with liquid ammonia, and ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... books aloud to Sally, who had a child's passion for stories, and who could not have spelled them out for herself. He read badly, but to her it was the flower of scholastic accomplishment, and her untrained brain, sponge-like in its acquisitiveness, soaked up many new words and phrases which fell again quaintly from her lips in talk. Lescott had spent a week picking out those books. He had wanted them to argue for him; to feed the boy's hunger for education, and give him some forecast of the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... Look on the cross, stained red! The nails, the sponge, that, all, thy soul shall guide To love on earth where flesh thrones in its pride, My Body and Blood alone, ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine

... a little weary o' the battle—it is so awful hard. Better almost to die an' be done with it, he sometimes thinks. Then comes a day when his temptation is ten times more than he is able to bear. He throws up the sponge; he has done his best an' failed, so away he goes like the sow that was washed to his wallowing in the mire. But he has not done his best. He has not gone to his Maker; an' surely the maker of a machine is the best judge o' how to mend it. Now, ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... Stirring, I found that the wound in my body had been bound and cared for. A loosely tied scarf round my arm showed that some one had lately left me, and would return to finish the bandaging. I raised myself with difficulty, and saw a basin of water, a sponge, bits of cloth, and a pocket-knife. Stupid and dazed though I was, the instinct of self-preservation lived, and I picked up the knife and hid it in my coat. I did it, I believe, mechanically, for a hundred things were going through my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle of port and a great sponge cake and you needn't tell him to go to heaven, for he 'll be there already. Why, Mrs Courthope, the fellow isn't a gentleman! And yet all he cares for the cloth is, that he thinks it makes a gentleman of him—as if anything in heaven, earth, or hell ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... hydraulic lime, imported from France. I suppose the latter is something like the cement used in New York in building sewers and drains, or other works in wet places. This concrete was mixed by machinery, then put into immense wooden moulds, just as you make a loaf of sponge cake, Mrs. Blossom, where it was kept for several weeks. These blocks ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... degraded, oppressed, and impoverished by despotism. The exports from the European part of Turkey are carpets, fruit, saffron, silk, drugs, &c.: the principal port is Constantinople. From Asiatic Turkey there are exported rhubarb and other drugs, leather, silk, dye stuffs, wax, sponge, barilla, and hides: nearly the whole foreign trade is centered in Smyrna, and is in the hands of the English and French, and Italians. The imports are coffee, sugar, liqueurs, woollen and cotton goods, lead, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... the following morning, with Merton, Winnie, and Bobsey, I started out to see if any damage had been done. The sky was still clouded, but the rain had ceased. Our rubber boots served us well, for the earth was like an over-full sponge, while down every little incline and ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... advertisement, it proved more effective than anything devised for pills and patent soaps. Hundreds who went to Bayreuth to pass the time, or at most in a spirit of intelligent curiosity, came away converted to the new faith; many who went to sponge remained to pay; and all preached the doctrine of Wagnerism wherever they went. Well they might. As I was an infant at the time, my recollections of the first performances and of Wagner's speech are not so vivid as those of some ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... allegation. Upward of two thousand years rolled away ere this question was satisfactorily answered. Nay, we believe that the vegetable theory has, even at the present time, its advocates; while some are still disposed to consider that the sponge is at one period of its existence a vegetable, and at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... put into a pudding or vegetable dish, spread a little butter over the top and bake a golden brown. The quality depends upon very thoroughly beating the eggs before adding them, so that the potato will remain light and porous after baking, similar to sponge cake. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... fronds worked like the cocoa-nut fibre which forms the now well-known Indian "coir." This "lif" is also called "filfil" or "fulfil" which Dr. Jonathan Scott renders "pepper" (Lane i. 8) and it forms a clean succedaneum for one of the uncleanest articles of civilisation, the sponge. It is used in every Hammam and is (or should ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... in a tub containing a little warm water, and a large bath sponge filled with cold water should be squeezed two or three times over the body. This should be followed by a vigorous rubbing with a towel until the skin is quite red. This may be used at three years, and often at two years. For infants ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... was a moment's suspense while Conscience and Sheer Wickedness fought the matter out inside him, and then Conscience, which had started on the encounter without enthusiasm, being obviously flabby and out of condition, threw up the sponge. ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... greed to spoil the poor man of his goods, to wrest the weapon from the strong. He is fearful in the midst of his state — fearful of those he calls his vassals — those he would crush with his iron glove, and wring dry even as a sponge is wrung. Ay, the hour is come. The loyal patriots have looked upon your faces, my sons, and see in you their liberators. Go now, when the traitor whose life you saved is gloating over his spoil in his castle walls. ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... her breath to listen, Mr. Stanford, going past her door, whistling a tune of Kate's. Of Kate's, of course! He was happy and could whistle, and she was miserable and couldn't. If she had not wept herself as dry as a wrung sponge, she must have relapsed into hysterics once more; but as she couldn't, with a long-drawn sigh, she resolved to ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... idea of the extent to which Colonel Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a year; and many a family contrived to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had they spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas,—just met, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the water jug and wetting a sponge applied it to her white face, and by this and the aid of ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... gone last autumn," confided Peachy, "but the fact is I got into a little fix with Miss Rodgers, and she started on the rampage and canceled my exeat. I cried till I was simply a sopping sponge, but she was a perfect crab that day. Lorna, weren't you to have gone ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... new value, the old gossip is taken up with a comfortable zest; the old rooms are the best, after all; the homely language is better than the outlandish tongue; it is a comfort to have done with squeezing the sponge and cramming the trunk: it is ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... rather inconsistent with the common-place ne'er-to-well of the earlier? Not only does it require no unusual genius to waste money, when you have it, in the channels of the drinking-shop, the gaming table, and elsewhere, to sponge for more on your mother and brother, to embezzle when they are squeezed dry, and to take to downright robbery when nothing else is left; but a person who, in the various circumstances and opportunities of Bridau, finds nothing better to do than ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... their fires withal; many and great fires, without stint or hindrance; and presently there was no more any forest upon the hills to cover them. Then the moist breath of the cloud-building forest was dried away; and the thick wet sponge about the roots of the forest was dried away; and the snow slid down the hills as it slides down steep roof gables; and the rain ran down the narrow valleys as it runs down gutter pipes; and the village was swept by floods in flood time, and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... individual exertions. Several minutes elapsed in the particular mess of the dead man, before a word was spoken; all eating with appetites that were of proof, but no one breaking the silence. At length an old quarter-gunner, named Tom Sponge, who generally led the discourse, said in a ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... be opened, and its contents exposed to the air and sunlight, once every year. Beds long saturated with the night exhalations of their occupants are not wholesome. A number of ancient writers have alleged—and it has been reasserted by modern authorities—that sleeping on sponge is of service to those who desire to increase their families. The mattresses of compressed sponge recently introduced, therefore, commend themselves to married people thus situated. Hemlock boughs make a bed which has a well-established ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... ham, and there were several vegetables; and hot biscuits and hot corn bread; and it became necessary for Sylvia to decline an endless succession of preserves and jellies. For dessert there were the most fragrant red raspberries conceivable, with golden sponge cake. The colored man who served the table seemed to enjoy himself immensely. He condescended to make suggestions as he moved about. "A little mo' of the cold ham, Cap'n?" or, "I 'membah you like the sparrograss, Mis' Marian," he murmured. "The co'n bread's ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... she rather hoped this man was the Duke. It occurred to her—a vague memory of some play or picture—that she ought to be holding aloft a candelabra of lit tapers; no, that was only done indoors, and in the eighteenth century. Ought she to hold a sponge? Idle, these speculations of hers, and based on complete ignorance of the manners and customs of undergraduates. The Duke and The MacQuern would never have come to blows in the presence of a lady. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... sponge and water-bottle for me, won't you, Daly?" he asked, with an evident attempt ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... eating and drinking—one set Gives sponge-cake, a few kisses or so, And is cooled after dancing with classic sherbet "Sublimed" [see Lord ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... happily. Then, when the fields were desolate, the villages deserted, and the Indian population half dispersed, statesmen in Spain and Portugal saw fit to change their minds, to annul the treaty, and to pass a diplomatic sponge over the ruin and the misery they ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... beat the drum in the attic, and Mrs. Gillett secretly emptied Frank's haversack of its rations of pork and hard tack, and filled it again with excellent bread and butter, slices of cold lamb, and sponge cake. Moreover, a delightful repast was prepared for the visitors, at which Frank laughed at his own awkwardness, declaring that he had eaten from a tin plate so long, with his drumhead for a table, that he had almost forgotten the ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... had drawn a sponge and a vial of chloroform from his side pocket. He saturated the former from the vial, and then, turning quickly, seized Paul, too much taken by surprise to make immediate resistance, and applied the sponge to his nose. When he realized that foul play was meditated, he ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... and shoulder was a large open wound, which seemed to have been caused by a burn or scald, and must have been extremely painful. The doctor was bending over him, applying a cooling lotion to the injured place with a small piece of sponge. He turned sharply round on Daddy Tantaine's entrance; and so accustomed were these men to read each other's faces at a glance that Hortebise saw at once what had happened; for Tantaine's expression plainly said, "Is Flavia mad to be here?" while the ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... to himself, and laid hand to pommel. The heap shuddered and turned on itself. It swarmed. Finally, like a drop from a sponge, Master Porges exuded and stood out, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... accorded to but few. If Fenn could have known at this point that his adventures were only beginning, that what had taken place already was but as the overture to a drama, it is possible that he would have thrown up the sponge for good and all, entered Kay's by way of the front door—after knocking up the entire household—and remarked, in answer to his house-master's excited questions, "Enough! Enough! I am a victim of ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... measures there is a charming shadowy dialogue between kettle-drums (struck with sponge-headed sticks) and harps, in harmonics, carrying out Berlioz's stage directions—"Les esprits de l'air se balancent quelque temps autour de Faust endormi et disparaissent peu a peu." The piece ends with a chord barely whispered on the clarinets, pppp, which, as ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... instructive than the gift to a little girl, who will one day be a wife and a mother, of the miniature representation of a baby. There will be a bath provided, in which she may learn to wash it. Everything will be complete—soap, sponge, loofah, puff-box, and powder. The present will be accompanied by a layette, so that the child may learn to dress her infant and to change its clothes. Hair-brushes will teach her to keep the doll's ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... which he plundered and devastated? The great captain's famous missive might be inscribed as the motto of his 'Commentaries.' Veni! vidi! vici! sums up in brief the substance of what they contain. It was always Rome's way! Rome swept a sponge that was soaked in blood over all the past of the nations she subdued. She came to obliterate, never to preserve. Her chroniclers disdained to ask how these or those doughty antagonists had grown formidable, how their national life had developed; whether their progress had been ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... in a sponge. He would only struggle a moment, and then he would be much more really unconscious than if ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... ground and went off contragravity. The ports opened, and things began being floated off on lifter-skids: framework for the water tower, and curved titanium sheets for the tank. Anna de Jong said something about hot showers, and not having to take any more sponge-baths. Howell was watching the stuff come off the other landing craft. A dozen pairs of four-foot wagon wheels, with axles. Hoes, in bundles. Scythe blades. A hand forge, with a crank-driven fan blower, and ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper

... gave him infinitely more surprise and thrill than any woman he had met before. "Wisdom wanting absolute honesty," he told himself, "is only craft: I discover that a monstrous deal of cleverness I have seen in her sex is only another kind of cosmetic daubed on with a sponge." ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... thing certain," said Bob, triumphantly, as he stood upon the sponge-like bank which afforded him so much satisfaction to see. "Those who have laughed at me because I insisted that the oil belt extended in this direction would feel kind of foolish if they could ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... her back on Marjorie, in order to study her lesson without distraction, turned round suddenly and gave an exclamation of dismay. This startled Marjorie, and she dropped her sponge full of ink on her ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... is something like the mythical duchess in England who could not believe that the poor were starving when sponge-cakes were ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... of the incisions. This must have been excruciatingly painful. Arnold groaned, and his hands were moist and cold. Down sank the knife into the flesh from which the skin had been raised, and blood flowed freely; Dr. Rowell handled the sponge. The keen knife worked rapidly. Arnold's marvellous nerve was breaking down. He clutched my hand fiercely; his eyes danced; his mind was weakening. Almost in a moment the flesh had been cut away to ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... earl. But let all that be as it might, the girl was to keep her secret till the thing should be settled. Now, in these latter days, it had come to be believed by him, as by nearly everybody else, that the thing was well-nigh settled. The Solicitor-General had thrown up the sponge. So said the bystanders. And now there was beginning to be a rumour that everything was to be set right by a family marriage. The Solicitor-General would not have thrown up the sponge,—so said they who knew him best,—without seeing a reason for doing ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... the next he would succumb. Happily, Harris, who had eaten later than he, was snoring in a nook; but toward morning began to whine again, and sulk, and kept it up all the day. Not a soul now entered, and as the blackness of night once more filled the place, Harris threw up the sponge, with "Here goes for this child....!" Hogarth flew across the space which divided them, and a quarrel of cats ensued, both being under the influence of the fury called "hunger-madness". It was only when Harris felt the grip of Hogarth at his windpipe that he squealed submission, whereupon ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... cottage. It was exquisitely picturesque, but this very picturesqueness constituted its danger; for the place was a perfect death trap. The crumbling cob-walls that had taken on those wonderful patches of green colour, soaked in the damp like a sponge: the irregularity of the thatched roof that looked so well, admitted trickles of rain on wet nights; and the uneven mud floor of the kitchen revealed the fact that the cottage had been built without any proper foundation. The door did not fit, and in cold ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... elastic rod with a sponge at the end, to be introduced into the esophagus or larynx to remove ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... be cleaned with a little dry bread crumbled up and rubbed gently, but firmly, over with the open hand. Cloth covers may be washed with a sponge dipped in a mixture made from the white of an egg beaten to a stiff froth and afterwards allowed to settle. To clean grease marks from books, dampen the marks with a little benzine, place a piece of blotting-paper ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... gazed about the cheerless kitchen she noticed a muffled lump in the middle of the table. The sponge for the Saturday's baking had been warmly wrapped for the night. To-morrow would be bake day! Oh, joy! Elizabeth resolved to insist upon kneading the dough the next morning, and before starting up the ladder to the loft where she was to ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... stores to receive my kit and clothing. These consisted of a knapsack, two shirts, two towels, two pairs of socks, one pair of boots, knife, fork and spoon, one razor, one shaving brush, two shoe brushes, box of blacking, one comb, one sponge, one button brush, one button holder, one tunic, one shell jacket, two pairs trousers. The above were issued with instructions that they be kept in repair, and replaced if ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... a loafer or a sponge would do what I've done tonight," he persisted, "but I came here because I like you little chaps so well—and—because—I was so infernally hungry. I hadn't eaten since last night, you know, and when I heard about ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... up, and, just waving his fin, Requested permission a word to put in. "Though the beauties of plain and of forest you know, Yet who can describe all the wonders below? On a soft bed of sponge in the deep sea I lie, And watch the huge shark and the grampus glide by; Or amidst groves of coral I play at bo-peep, Or I float where the porpoise and flying-fish leap. I have seen the thin nautilus trimming her sail, And the Geyser-like waterspout ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.

... bent spoon on a long handle, a sponge tied to a stick, and one or two other instruments which use will suggest, are all that are needed for keeping the sides of the tank free from growth or removing obnoxious substances ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go, Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground, Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... Time is up! Master Hedgely, in my dry fly box thou wilt find a little sponge for moistening of my casting lines. Wilt thou, of thy courtesy, throw it up for my Scholar? And now, Scholar, trust me, thy guard is too low. I ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... strident. Banjoes strummed; the parade smelt of tar which stuck to the heels; goats suddenly cantered their carriages through crowds. It was observed how well the Corporation had laid out the flower-beds. Sometimes a straw hat was blown away. Tulips burnt in the sun. Numbers of sponge-bag trousers were stretched in rows. Purple bonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs. Triangular hoardings were wheeled along by men in white coats. Captain George Boase had caught a monster shark. One side of the triangular hoarding said so in red, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... you do, remember that this boy was only one of scores of pupils that had to suffer, substantially as he did, that the poor and proud Mrs. Heighten and her lazy daughter Amanda might continue to keep up appearances, and still have a chance to sponge a living off some man at the expense of a legal relation which it ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... look for an address, and found that the fragments formed a crucifix, the cross at each side to which the thieves were nailed, the block supporting the crucifix, the block on which the dice were thrown, the sponge and the reed, as if in imitation of a ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... uneatable bitter oranges which decks my tent-pole, I have to-day hung up a long bough of finger-sponge, which floated to the riverbank. As winter advances, butterflies gradually disappear: one species (a Vanessa) lingers; three others have vanished since I came. Mocking-birds are abundant, but rarely sing; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... are not the poor the first that sacrifice their lives to hunger? If war thunders in the trembling country's lap, are not the poor those that are exposed to the enemy's sword and outrage? If the plague, like a loaded sponge, flies, sprinkling poison through a populous kingdom, the poor are the fruit that are shaken from the burdened tree; while the rich, furnished with the helps of fortune, have means to wind out themselves, and turn these sad indurances on the poor, that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... 99 had just ridden up and Laura sent him at once for the doctor. She led the way into the house and swiftly gathered bandages, a sponge, and a basin of water. Together she and Curly bathed and wrapped the wound. Stone did not weaken, though he was pretty ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... the fact that K. has ignored my direct appeal to him shows he would not approve, etc., etc., etc. All this is just the line I myself would probably take—I admit it—if asked by another General to part with my troops. The arrangement whereby I have to sponge on Maxwell for men if I want them is a detestable arrangement. At the last he consented to cable K. direct on the point himself and then he is to let me know. Two things are quite certain; the Brigade are not wanted in Egypt. Old campaigners versed in Egyptian ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... with mischief at the joint as well probably. He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head. It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him. With his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened her heavy furs. Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria." She looked pathetically young and helpless lying there. Eloquent forgot her militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain. As he knelt down by the sofa to sponge her ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... defined as the only kind of gentleman permanently in temporary difficulties who is neither a sponge nor a cheat. He is a type that has existed in all ages and always will exist. He is a man who lacks certain elements necessary to success in this world, and who manages to keep fairly even with the world, by dint of ingenious shift and expedient; never fully ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... speech Bowers brought in a wonderful Christmas tree, made of split bamboos and a ski stick, with feathers tied to the end of each branch; candles, sweets, preserved fruits, and the most absurd toys of which Bill was the owner. Titus got three things which pleased him immensely, a sponge, a whistle, and a pop-gun which went off when he pressed in the butt. For the rest of the evening he went round asking whether you were sweating. "No." "Yes, you are," he said, and wiped your face with the sponge. "If you want to please me very much you will fall down when I shoot you," he ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... Enquiry Bureau on the C-Deck, striding along with bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous young man who looked ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... him. The statement about the sponges was obviously untrue. There is no sponge fishery in Rosnacree Bay. There never has been. Miss Rutherford, so to speak, ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... the machinery for heckling and spinning flax, which he very greatly improved. His heckling machine obtained for him the prize of the gold medal of the Society of Arts; and this as well as his machine for wet flax-spinning by means of sponge weights proved of the greatest practical value. At the time when these inventions were made the flax trade was on the point of expiring, the spinners being unable to produce yarn to a profit; and their almost immediate effect was to ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?—you propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the book, but you might wish to refer to some passage. I am particularly obliged for your photograph, for one likes to have a picture in one's mind of any one about whom one is interested. I have received and read with interest your paper on the sponge with horny spicula. (188/1. "Ueber Darwinella aurea, einen Schwamm mit sternformigen Hornnadeln."—"Archiv. Mikrosk. Anat." I., page 57, 1866.) Owing to ill-health, and being busy when formerly well, I have for some years neglected periodical scientific ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... has thrown up the sponge, Pynsent?" Charles Milton began, after a short pause in the conversation. "Had enough of the Radical ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Treasury and first president of the Cour des Comptes; Simeon, councilor of State and then minister of justice in Westphalia; Portalis is made minister of worship, and Fontanes grand-master of the University. The First Consul passes the sponge over all political antecedents: not only does he summon to his side the moderates and half-moderates of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, of the Convention and of the Directory, but again he seeks recruits ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... muz," continued Will, removing the big, wet sponge from his eyes to make the more potent appeal; "if Mr. Hand should come to see me when I'm out, do promise to be nice ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Tartarin would sponge his brow, smile on the ladies, wink to the sterner sex, and withdraw upon his triumph to go remark at the club with a ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... well as I am," said Mrs. Minto, obstinately. "I can keep myself. I'm not going to sponge on ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... Deleglise, our landlord—a man who for twenty years had made cooking his hobby—Dan would at intervals venture upon experiment. Pastry, it became evident, was a thing he should never have touched: his hand was heavy and his temperament too serious. There was a thing called lemon sponge, necessitating much beating of eggs. In the cookery-book—a remarkably fat volume, luscious with illustrations of highly-coloured food—it appeared an airy and graceful structure of dazzling whiteness. Served as Dan sent ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... men get their Christ? Was it from imagination? Was it from myth? Was it from the accidental confluence of a multitude of traditions? There is an old story about a painter who, in despair of producing a certain effect of storm upon the sea, at last flung his wet sponge at the canvas, and to his astonishment found that it had done the very thing he wanted. But wet sponges cannot draw likenesses; and to allege that these four men drew such a picture, in such compass, without anybody sitting for it, seems to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... sea. This seemed an immense simplification of the problem, until you discovered that the great wall of cliffs was honeycombed with fissures. The limestone rock of which the island was composed was porous as a sponge. You could stand on the edge of the cliffs and watch the green water slide in and out of unseen caverns at your feet, and hear the sullen thunder of the waves that broke far in ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... ran to a drawer, to return with a roll and scissors; then getting sponge, water, and basin, and proceeding deftly to bathe and strap up the bleeding wound, before turning to her assistant, who looked dim, as the fog seemed to have filtered into the room. "Now," she said sharply, "is there some one injured in ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... upon his duties with all the soldierly courage and confidence of his nature, declaring his purpose to regain the ground lost by General Sherman when, to use Sheridan's own expressive words, "Sherman threw up the sponge." He announced his interpretation of the President's order assigning him to the "command of the army" as necessarily including all the army, not excepting the chiefs of the staff departments; and he soon gave evidence of ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... on her knees packing a trunk, and her husband was telephoning to the drug-store for a sponge-bag and a cure ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something. Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself something to ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... He had had ten minutes with Sarah at her hotel, ten minutes reconquered, by irresistible pressure, from the time over which he had already described her to Miss Gostrey as having, at the end of their interview on his own premises, passed the great sponge of the future. He had caught her by not announcing himself, had found her in her sitting-room with a dressmaker and a lingere whose accounts she appeared to have been more or less ingenuously settling and who soon withdrew. Then he had ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... I studied soldiers, agents, missionaries, traders and squaw-men with insatiable interest. My mind was like a sponge, absorbing not facts, but impressions, pictures which were necessary to make my stories seem like the truth. While in camp and on the train, I took notes busily and actually formulated several tales while riding ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... Solomon. "What's the matter with you? I ain't sick. What you got in that tumbler? Water! What in time do I want of any more water? Don't I look as if I'd had water enough to last me one spell? I'm—consarn it all, I'm a reg'lar sponge! How far off is Kenelm's from here? How long will it take me to ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... being washed this morning. He does not sit so quiet as he ought to do, and so his sister has, quite by accident, put the sponge in his eye. No wonder he should be making a wry face over it, and crying. If he had been still this would probably not have happened, as his sister is very careful not to hurt him. I hope the next time he is washed he will ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch

... safety of the Tawtry House inmates. He was a simple-hearted fellow, of sterling honesty, and a keen intelligence, that enabled him to absorb information on all subjects that came within his range, as a sponge absorbs water. Although of slender build, his muscles were of iron, his eyesight was that of a hawk, and as a rifle-shot he had no superior among all the denizens of the forest, white or red. During ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... should come in the ironing where they ought not to be, dab them over lightly with a sponge moistened with water and a few drops of starch and pass ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... and, above them, their spears and halberds form a thin forest against the horizontal clouds. The three crosses are put on the extreme right of the picture, and its centre is occupied by the executioners, one of whom, standing on a ladder, receives from the other at once the sponge and the tablet with the letters INRI. The Madonna and St. John are on the extreme left, superbly painted, like all the rest, but quite subordinate. In fact, the whole mind of the painter seems to have been set upon making ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... it in Sardinia, where it is said to employ four hundred persons; but this belongs to the duc de St. Pierre. In the neighbourhood of Villa Franca, there are people always employed in fishing for coral and sponge, which grow adhering to the rocks under water. Their methods do not favour much of ingenuity. For the coral, they lower down a swab, composed of what is called spunyarn on board our ships of war, hanging ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... circle was traced by a small rod, tipped apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid, so that a pale lambent flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave guided it, burning up the herbage over which it played, and leaving a distinct ring, like that which, in our lovely native fable-talk, we ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... does; she is a very good old girl. I think a great deal of Mrs. Bondy; but when she asks me if I have enjoyed my dinner, I always make a point of telling her the truth; she respects me for it. This is her idea of sponge cake, you see." He held up admiringly a damp slab of some compact pale-yellow substance, with crumbs of bread adhering to one side. "It is a little mashed, but ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... was simply stunned for a moment, when the other companion, with that rare, straightforward brutality for which she became so deservedly infamous later on, snorted angrily: "No, you don't! Don't you touch anything of mine! You can't sponge on me as ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... its best, the lecture method, unless supplemented in the ways already indicated, runs the danger of making the student an intellectual sponge, a mere absorber of knowledge, or a kind of receptacle for professors to shoot ideas into. As was said before, the student must cultivate the art of reading books and of expressing his thoughts by means of the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... mortals!—what their power and pride? A little shadow sweeps it from the earth! And if they suffer—why, the fatal hour Comes o'er the record like a moistened sponge, And blots it out; methinks this latter lot Affects me ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton



Words linked to "Sponge" :   phylum Porifera, pass over, erase, scholar, wipe off, freeload, wipe, wipe up, collect, rub out, gather, obtain, mop up, absorbent material, mop, garner, pull together, invertebrate, learner, score out, follower, spongy, efface, absorbent, Porifera, assimilator



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