"Needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sally been a-keepin' of 'im ever since. 'Er needle been at it reg'lar, but 'ardly earnin' a livin' wage owin' to the meanness of them who 'as it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... request that no use should be made of it. An hour after the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department had left, the prisoner was found lying stark dead, suffering from a scratch on the wrist, inflicted with a short, hollow needle which he had carried concealed behind the lapel ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... holding the cloth is moved by an arrangement of levers under the control of the operator, who conducts a tracer point on the long end of the lever over the design, which is suspended before him. The frame moves in obedience to the action of the tracer, but in a minified degree, and each needle repeats on a scale of one-twentieth the design over which the tracer is moved step by step between each stitch. Thus two hundred and twelve embroideries according to a prescribed pattern are made by each needle; and, in fact, though it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... lower one, B, for winter. The indicator is pivoted by a large screw to the centre, C, of the face, so that it can be turned round like the hand of a clock. At the upper end of the indicator a little pointer is fastened directly over the scale of hours and minutes. A needle, or a pin with the head cut off, makes ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... holding her breath, Mary crept forward. Aunt Hannah, who was making a cotton garment, which from its dimensions could only have belonged to uncle Nathan, looked at her through her steel spectacles, while the needle glittered sharply between her fingers, as she held ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... women are displaying over there—you can't answer 'em in a word or in two words. This city is having a boom; every valve factory in the valley, every needle and pin factory, is makin' munitions today—valves and needles and pins all gone by the board for the time being. Money's never been so plenty in Whitewater County and this city is feelin' the benefits of it. People are buying things—clothes, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... course, there were other feats of intellectual and physical prowess in the Woermann competition, such as threading the needle, where you run across the deck, thread a needle held by a woman, and then drag her back to the starting point. The woman usually, in the excitement of the last spirited rush, falls over and is bodily dragged several yards, squealing wildly and waving a couple of much ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... enterprises were Melancthon Smith, John Bleecker, James Cogswell, Jacob Seaman, White Matlock, Matthew Clarkson, Nathaniel Lawrence, and John Murray, Jr.[4] The school opened in 1790 with Cornelius Davis as a teacher of forty pupils. In 1791 a lady was employed to instruct the girls in needle-work.[5] The expected advantage of this ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... her fixedly. Paying no attention to him, but bending in the sunshine over her sewing, her hand flying with the needle, her masses of brown hair sweeping back around her pink ears and curling in stray ringlets that the wind danced with while she worked, she inflamed her brawny cousin's ardor afresh. "You used to care for me, Nan. You can't deny that." ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... Mischief!" said Mary, good-humoredly, while she pricked his hand lightly with her needle. "Try and mould it yourself: you have seen me do it often enough. I must get this sewing done. It is for Rosamond Vincy: she is to be married next week, and she can't be married without this handkerchief." Mary ended merrily, amused with ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the tusks of the walrus; their drinking-cups of the horns of the musk-ox; and their spoons are of the same material. They also make marrow spoons out of long, narrow, hollowed pieces of bone, and every housewife has several of them tied together and attached to her needle-case. ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... OLDGARDE, while you made the pace, And flitted like a fairy borne on winglets From boy to boy, and flirted here and there With that unchanging smile of rouged enamel, I thought, "Since you are rich beyond compare, And since the needle's eye doth bar the camel, 'Tis right perhaps that wealth should purchase youth, And peaceful age become a ceaseless playtime; Still, if you'd wear two masks to hide the truth, Oh, wear this last ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... wouldn't come again," replied Susan, as sharp as a needle. Then instantly repenting a little, she explained: "You are welcome to me, Will, and you know that as well as I do, but I want you to come some other evening, if it is ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... country of united Christendom. I will drink the greatest bumper that can be found in our court of your Mumme at one draught, if you can take of our beer, even slowly, three beakers. He who a half hour afterward can stand on one leg and thread a needle shall win the wager, and receive from the other a mighty cask of ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... due to diffraction of light by the steel bars that support the small mirror in the tube of reflecting telescopes. In a word, the stars are so remote that the largest and most perfect telescopes show them only as extremely minute needle-points of light, without any trace of ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... not to be encouraged. Addison, in one of his Spectators, commends the judgement of a King, who, as a suitable reward to a man that by long perseverance had attained to the art of throwing a barleycorn through the eye of a needle, gave him a bushel of barley.' JOHNSON. 'He must have been a King of Scotland, where barley is scarce.' F. 'One of the most remarkable antique figures of an animal is the boar at Florence.' JOHNSON. 'The first boar that is well made in marble, should be preserved as a wonder. When ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... ranges of the hill country, which is kept damp by frequent showers, they are found in tormenting profusion. They are terrestrial, never visiting ponds or streams. In size they are about an inch in length, and as fine as a common knitting needle; but they are capable of distension till they equal a quill in thickness, and attain a length of nearly two inches. Their structure is so flexible that they can insinuate themselves through the meshes of the finest stocking, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... an interrogative sentence, for inquiring; an imperative sentence, for commanding."— Barrett cor. "In October, corn is gathered in the field by men, who go from hill to hill with baskets, into which they put the ears.—Susan labours with her needle for a livelihood.—Notwithstanding his poverty, he is a man ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... another, for which a top-stone is already prepared. The question of the leadership is complicated by the requirements of the two Houses, but there is not much doubt as to the direction in which the quivering needle will finally point. Notwithstanding the gibes which have been flung at the aristocrats of the party, an aristocratic chief is necessary to lead an aristocratic assembly, and the only possible selection is already made. Lord Cairns stands dangerously near the centre ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... the tremendous power of Weed's pen. In his later years, Weed mellowed and forgave and forgot, but when he went to Albany, and for years before, as well as after, he seemed to enjoy striking an adversary. An explosion followed every blow. His sarcasms had needle-points, and his wit, sometimes a little gross, smarted like the sting of wasps. Often his attacks were so severe and merciless that the distress of his opponents created sympathy ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... head I bring with me Up from the borders of the sea; Now may the needle-pliers weep, The red-haired outlaw lies asleep; Gold-bearer, cast adown thine eyes, And see how on the pavement lies, The peace-destroying head brought low, That but for salt had gone ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... looked about with wild, half-seeing eyes. Grover worked rapidly and silently, taking from time to time little shining instruments from a swinging table close at his hand. The nurse standing beside him looked up toward the light and began calmly threading a needle. And in a white basin on a little stand at the side of the room lay the last of Sue's tremendous efforts toward new life, the last of their dreams ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... her seat. She tried to resume her needle. It was useless; her eyes failed her; her hand failed her; she could ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... chair to the Reverend Saul, and then selecting another for himself in a convenient position, he ensconced himself in it as snugly as possible, and sat in silence for a few minutes. Lady Dalrymple took no notice of him whatever, but appeared to be engrossed with some trifle of needle-work. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command. The truth of this seemed evinced in the case of Mad Jack, during the gale, and especially at that perilous moment when he countermanded the Captain's ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the Marquis of Kildare be ever blessed with the tailor's thimble,' declaimed the portentous toast master. 'May the needle of distress be ever pointed at all mock patriots; and a hot needle and a burning thread to all sewers of sedition!' and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of Austria, "you build your pyramids on needle points; be careful. What harm, I ask you, can there be in a man giving to his countrywoman a recipe for a new essence? These strange ideas, I protest, painfully recall your father to me; he who so frequently and ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bound upon a wound occasioned by a needle, pin, or nail, prevents the lock-jaw. It should be always applied. Spirits of turpentine is good to prevent the lock-jaw. Strong soft-soap, mixed with pulverized chalk, about as thick as batter, put, in a thin cloth or bag, upon the wound, is said to be a preventive to this dangerous disorder. ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... to reform Society as an old lady might try to restore a broken down locomotive by prodding it with a knitting needle. And this is not at all because they are born fools, but because they have been educated, not into manhood and freedom, but into blindness and slavery by their parents and schoolmasters, themselves the victims of a similar misdirection, ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... true to the right, as the needle to the pole, in his learned and able speech in Congress, 1852, said:—"The true principles of our political system, the history of the National Convention, the natural interpretation of the Constitution, all teach that this Act is a usurpation by ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... bright light in a little brick cottage caught our attention—men can't run arm in arm anyway. We forgot our errand of mercy and stood still with open mouths looking in at the window at little Jenny Wren hard at work dressing her dolls and stopping now and then to stab the air with her needle. Bradley Headstone and Charlie and Lizzie Hexam came in, and we then passed on, not wishing to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Johann spoke, for the detective had already plunged his hand into the pail. The bottom of the bucket was easy to reach, as this one hung much lower than the others. Looking regretfully at the rent in his coat, Muller asked for needle and thread that he might repair ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... skill required of the workman in any one process of a manufacture, and the smaller the time during which it is employed, so much the greater will be the advantage of separating that process from the rest, and devoting one person's attention entirely to it. Had we selected the art of needle-making as our illustration, the economy arising from the division of labour would have been still more striking; for the process of tempering the needles requires great skill, attention, and experience, and although from three to ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... glimpses of the men and women engaged in their disposal. I watch laborers trudging home with the tired clink of their implements and pails. I gaze into cellarways where tailor and cobbler sit bent upon their work—needle and peg, their world—and through fouled windows into workrooms, to learn which livelihoods yield the truest happiness. For it is, on the whole, a whistling rather than a grieving world, and like little shouts among the hills is laughter echoed in ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... in the court of John II., of Portugal, first devised the application of the ancient astrolabe to navigation, thus affording to the mariner the essential advantages appertaining to the modern quadrant. The discovery of the polarity of the needle, which vulgar tradition assigned to the Amalfite Flavio Gioja, and which Robertson has sanctioned without scruple, is clearly proved to have occurred more than a century earlier. Tiraboschi, who investigates the matter with his usual erudition, passing by the doubtful reference of Guiot ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... ought to have been mezzo-tints. I think of giving 'em literature without words; and I believe if you were to try invisible illustration, it would enjoy a considerable vogue. So long as an artist is on his head, is painting with a flute, or writes with an etcher's needle, or conducts the orchestra with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along with roses. But any plain man who tries to follow the obtrusive canons of his art, is but a commonplace figure. To hell with him is the motto, or at least ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she stood shamed before them all, with no guarantee as to her skill and talents, though she knew something about the art of healing by rubbing unguents into the skin, could ply her needle and dress a lady's hair. Nor was a word said about her beauty, though her eyes were blue and her neck slender and white; and her hair, which was of a pretty shade of gold, could not even be seen under ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... time for the wedding having been set, the father and mother were in their little garden discussing ways and means, and Anita was indoors trimming the gown in which she was to walk to the altar. Her head was full of pretty fancies, and she hummed softly to herself as she plied her needle or gazed into the distance, smiling at the pictures created by her own fancy. She was rudely awakened from these pleasing reveries. The door was burst in by a tremendous blow with a fist and there stood ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... must understand as referring to one who actually has wealth, since He says that this is impossible for him who places his affection in riches, according to the explanation of Chrysostom (Hom. lxiii in Matth.), for He adds (Matt. 19:24): "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Hence it is not said simply that the "rich man" is blessed, but "the rich man that is found without blemish, and that hath not gone after gold," and this because he has done a difficult thing, wherefore the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... opaque appearance resembling the disease called cataract. He extended his observations to the effects of grape sugar, and obtained the same results. He found that he could induce the cataractic condition invariably by this experiment, or by injecting a solution of sugar with a fine needle, subcutaneously, into the dorsal sac of the frog. The discovery was one of singular importance in the history of medical science, and explained immediately a number of obscure phenomena. The co-existence ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... back to normal, and the operator went back to his magazine. The bulb at the end of the second row turned from a light pink to a soft rose, the needle on its dial finally flickered on to the scale. There were other lights on the board, but none called for action. It was still just a quiet night in ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... souls which was coming along by the bank, and each of them was looking at us, as at eve one is wont to look at another under the new moon, and they so sharpened their brows toward us as the old tailor does on the needle's eye. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... their conversation. She sat sewing near the lamp, giving all her attention to the piece of lace on which she was working. Her father made her a sign which meant "He consents," and then Marien saw that the needle in her fingers trembled, and a slight color rose in her face—but that was all. She did not say a word. He could not know that for a week past she had gone to church every time she took a walk, and had offered a prayer ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... make the most of her abilities for their own sake as much as hers. And Kate herself and her parents were nothing loath. So books were her constant companions and occupation in all her waking hours. The needle was very seldom in her fingers at the school, and the house- broom and the scrubbing-brush ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... They spring from the mind, the heart, the understanding, not from the manual labor of their fair authors. Too few of my sex have sufficiently informed themselves of these simple affairs of the garden: their inheritance has been the needle only. But it was nothing of this ornate description that I was about to undertake. I was to have neither arbor nor trellis,—no sweet-scented honeysuckle clustering over an elaborate framework,—no parterre of beautiful flowers, glorious to behold, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... happy masterhood! Each dawn he rose from dreamless sleep and leaped into the surf as into the embrace of a new existence. Every hour of day brought some unfretting task or hale pastime. With sheath-knife and sail-needle he made of his mainsail a handsome tent, using the mainboom for his ridge- pole, and finishing it just in time for the first night of rain—when, nevertheless, ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... Here they found the compass strangely affected: on placing it on a rock the card flew round with extreme velocity, and then suddenly settled at opposite points, the north point becoming the south. A short distance from the base of the hill the needle regained its proper position. This hill received the name of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... look at him, but appeared intent on the marks of the needle on the end of her forefinger, holding down ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lamps, the mahogany French furniture, the heavy carpets, and even the white-tiled bathroom. There was a marvellous arrangement in the walls with which Edith was never tired of playing, a circular plate covered with legends of every conceivable want, from a newspaper to a needle and thread and a Scotch ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it is pansies." In the garden children were watering pansies in bloom, and pansies were cut and dug for use in the house, where they were the materials for play and work. In one room the children had cards in their hands, in which they had pricked the outlines of pansies. Each had a needle threaded with a color selected by itself, with which to work this outline. In another room they were painting pansies. At Easter time the lesson was on eggs. We were shown eggs colored by the children in their ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... canoes upon the placid waters. The happiest of all, perhaps, were the young maidens, who were all day long in their canoes, in twos or threes, and when tired of gathering the wild cereal, would sit in the boats doing their needle-work. ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... think.' In describing the use of frogs as bait, he makes the famous, or infamous, remark, 'Use him as though you loved him . . . that he may live the longer.' A bait-fisher may be a good man, as Izaak was, but it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. As coarse fish are usually caught only with bait, I shall not follow Izaak on to this unholy and unfamiliar ground, wherein, none the less, grow flowers of Walton's fancy, and the songs of the old poets are heard. The Practical Angler, indeed, is a book to be marked with flowers, ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... intervals between files being especially intended to give room for a peculiar swinging gait, with which the men seemed to urge themselves over the ground with ease and rapidity. There was little or no straggling, and being strong, lusty young fellows, and lightly equipped—they carried only needle-guns, ammunition, a very small knapsack, a water-bottle, and a haversack —they strode by with an elastic step, covering at least ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... in the peritoneal cavity (chylous ascites). There are physical signs of fluid in one or other of these situations, but, as a rule, the nature of the lesion is only recognised when chyle is withdrawn by the exploring needle. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... some sort of needle ray as part of their armament—at any rate I was warned to watch out for "swinging lines in the haze, like straight strings of pink stars" and later told to aim at the sources of such lines. And naturally I guessed that the steel cubes must be some crucial weapon for Atla-Hi, or ammunition for ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... it, Felix,' said Wilmet, a little hurt: for indeed her mother's needle and her own were too well acquainted with the carpet for her to like ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... leather; but afterwards they found ships made with round keels, and canvas sails, and in all respects like our ships; and the seamen understood both astronomy and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favour, by showing them the use of the needle, of which till then they were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution, and only in summer-time, but now they count all seasons alike, trusting wholly to the loadstone, in which they are perhaps ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... (Schaudinn), but these are absent in the other form. The membrane is perforated by clearly defined and permanent holes for the exit of the pseudopodia. Reproduction occurs by division, by budding or by fragmentation, but the parts are invariably multinucleate. At the end of vegetative life the needle-bearing form fragments into numerous mononucleate parts; these develop into adults similar to the parent, but without the spines. At the end of its vegetative life this new individual fragments into biflagellated swarm-spores which may conjugate, reproducing ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... a long seam in one of the coats Mother Pepper was making for Mr. Atkins, and it bothered her dreadfully, for it wouldn't look like Mamsie's, try as she would. And she had picked it out three times, and was just threading her needle to begin again, ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... served," said Mousqueton. "Had you been in the army you would have been able to pick up a needle on the floor of a closed oven. But hark! I think ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the document on the table, relit his pipe, and went on cutting out a netting needle for to-morrow's use. I merely remarked it was an old paper I had had by me a long time, and as I wanted to know what it was about had kept it. With that I put it away in the trunk, and changed the subject by turning my attention to snooding a score or two of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... representative. There were aspiring black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronets of cones; there were balsamic firs, whose young buds breathe the scent of strawberries; there were cedars, black as midnight clouds, and white pines with their swaying plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the ground beneath with a golden, fragrant matting; and there were the gigantic, wide-winged hemlocks, hundreds of years old, and with long, swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of some stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and began sewing the two ends of the rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed outside when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread he had got ready long before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As for the noose, it was a very ingenious device of his own; the noose was intended for the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through the street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair fille de chambre, without saying a word, took out her little housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew'd it up.—I foresaw it would hazard the glory of the day; and, as she pass'd her hand in silence across and across my neck in the manoeuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... broken, a succession of proficients followed, bringing the produce of their talents; some, miniatures—some, sketches of French and Swiss scenery—some, illustrations of Racine and the French theatre; and, of course, many with embroidery, and the graceful works of the needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary, and was not a little surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French arts, as admirable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... through the second of the winters on the gray, needle-winded day when he stood on the crusted drift, heartening his men who were breaking the way for further rammings of the scrap-heap 206 and her box-plow. During the summer which lay behind the pitiless storms and the blockading snows he had explored ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... was seen sailing from the rich farms on the Wallabout, laden with provisions for the famished patriots. The Dutch farmers from their own diminished resources gave bountifully to the sufferers. The ladies of the household worked warm stockings with the busy knitting-needle; the spinning-wheel was never idle; the fair Dutch damsels, demure and prudent, blushing with the rich complexions of Amsterdam, were never weary of their charitable toil; and many a poor prisoner was saved and strengthened by the gifts of his unknown friends. As the war advanced, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... however, her work had fallen into her lap with an idle needle sticking in it. She had been resting her head upon her hand and her elbow on the table when Nan came in. But she spoke in her usual bright way to the girl as the latter first of all kissed her and then put away her books and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... the doctor Sahib in his hawa-ghari, himself at the wheel, and leaping out he knelt on the grass, and in a twinkling with strange gloves, and water in a gumla[15], he washed the coolie's intestines and restored them where they belonged, after which with a needle, even as a darzi sews garments, he stitched up the wound! Those watching turned sick of stomach, but not so the doctor Sahib. Even the Collector Sahib turned his back and called for a glass of spirits. Ai—Ma!—how ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... you how he explains it. These little pieces of steel, which I hope you can see lying on this white cardboard, have been rubbed along a magnet until they have become magnets themselves, and I can attract and lift up a needle with any one of them. But if I try to lift one bar with another, I can only do it by bringing certain ends together. I have tied a piece of red cotton (c, Fig. 21) round one end of each of the magnets, and if I bring two red ends together they will not cling ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... a needle, and, though only thirteen years of age, he proved to be a perfect "man" of business, rising early every day to go to the morning market and gardening with surprising energy ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... to help. At Nantes she had spent many a happy hour in fancy needle-work and embroidery. In Paris the work was followed for twelve hours a day that she might earn two francs and so help keep that terrible wolf from coming up the stairs. Aunt Caroline kept house and made the children's clothing go as far as possible. All ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... said the lieutenant, stepping up to him, "to press you." He did so, and had it not been that a writ of Habeas Corpus was immediately sworn out, the Deptford tailor would most certainly have exchanged his needle for a marlinespike. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1532—Lieut. Collett, 13 ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... manage all that too. Look you here, John, how many half-worked trifles there are. The needle or the pencil is the resource of all distressed heroines, you know; and I promise you, though I have been a little idle and unsettled of late, yet, when I do set about it, no Emmeline or Ethelinde of them all ever sent such loads ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... that he raised his voice at the end to a tone of harshness, such as none had ever used to Nancy Stair, and which she was the last woman to stand patient under. She did the thing by instinct which would enrage him most, putting a thread to her needle, squinting up one eye as she did so, in a composed and usual manner, and letting a silence fall before she said, in ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... tend the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the Pole; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's College, Should nail the conscious ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... having long felt that he must not enter the mosques of his country without putting off the shoes of freedom, but he read the Bible, considering it a very great poem. And the old words came haunting him: 'Verily I say unto you, It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.' And now, looking into the Night, whose darkness seemed to hold the answer to all secrets, he tried to read the riddle of this girl's future, with which ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. First there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and then a strip of emerald ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Ben to love learning all they could. She also proposed that they should drop patch-work, and help her make some blue shirts for Ben. Mrs. Barton had given her the materials, and she thought it would be an excellent lesson in needle-work as well as a useful gift to Ben,—who, boy-like, never troubled himself as to what he should wear when his one ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... complete splash had never been made by any descending mass, the "lights out" bells were ringing in all the corridors. Miss Woodhull had only to press a series of buttons arranged in the hall just outside her study door to produce the effect of the needle-prick in the fairy tale. Every inmate immediately dropped asleep. Every? Well, exceptions prove a rule, ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... carrying them off in his wife's box. The theft was found out. He was turned into a herdsman again, and Agafia fell into disgrace. She was not dismissed from the house, but she was degraded from the position of housekeeper to that of a needle-woman, and she was ordered to wear a handkerchief on her head instead of a cap. To every one's astonishment, Agafia bore the punishment inflicted on her with calm humility. By this time she was about thirty years old, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the pretentious and bald style of which seemed to her the very flower of poetry,—or the criminal reports illustrated in color in the Sunday papers which her stupid mother used to give her. She would perhaps do a little crochet-work, moving her lips, and paying less attention to her needle than to the conversation she would hold with some favorite saint or even with God Himself. For it is useless to pretend that it is necessary to be Joan of Are to have such visitations: every one of us has had them. Only, as a rule, our celestial visitors ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... other houses, a garden in front. In a room inside sat his parents round a cheerful fire. The spinning-wheel whizzed, and the cat purred in comfort in front of the fire. Softly there fell, now and again, a needle from the Christmas-tree. A resinous, pine-tree odor filled the room. From the next house a clear, maiden's voice was singing the old, old ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... be carried to any great degree of certainty without the compass, which was unknown to the ancients. The wonderful quality by which a needle or small bar of steel, touched with a loadstone or magnet, and turning freely by equilibration on a point, always preserves the meridian, and directs its two ends north and south, was discovered, according to the common opinion, in 1299, by John Gola of Amalfi, a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... busy fingers fly, the eyes may see Only the glancing needle which they hold, But all my life it, blossoming inwardly, And every breath is like a litany, While through each labor, like a thread of gold, Is woven the sweet ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... "I would put you into a sack, and I'd put the cat inside with you, and the dog aside you, and a needle and thread and a shears, and I'd hang you up upon the wall, and I'd go to the wood, and choose the thickest stick I could get, and I would come home, and take you down, and bang you till you ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... glowed gloriously before them; butternuts and chestnuts were tasted, and a large dish of rosy Spitzenbergs passed around; and while Fabens and Frisbie kept up a running talk, Mrs. Fabens and Fanny enjoyed the hour, as one sat knitting fringe-mittens in the corner, and the other plied her dexterous needle piecing a bed-quilt in snow-balls by the stand; and seeming to contend with the walnut fire, which should give forth the liveliest, warming smile, and fill up all the room with the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... book contained interesting stories as well as plain reading-and spelling-lessons. To me the best story of all was "Llewellyn's Dog," the first animal that comes to mind after the needle-voiced field mouse. It so deeply interested and touched me and some of my classmates that we read it over and over with aching hearts, both in and out of school and shed bitter tears over the brave faithful dog, Gelert, slain by his own master, who imagined that he had devoured his son because ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... play with some trinkets attached to his watch chain;—a very small gold compass especially impressed her fancy by the trembling and flashing of its tiny needle, and she ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... Woman about 20 Years of Age, born in this Country, possess'd of many good Qualifications, is a very good COOK, can handle her Needle well, and do every Kind of Business about House, and sold only for want of Employ. Enquire ...
— The Olden Time Series: Vol. 2: The Days of the Spinning-Wheel in New England • Various
... of enormous blocks and boulders of red granite, so riven and fissured that no water could possibly lodge upon it for an instant. I found it also to be highly magnetic, there being a great deal of ironstone about the rocks. It turned the compass needle from its true north point to 10 degrees south of west, but the attraction ceased when the compass was removed four feet from contact with the rocks. The view from this mount was of singular and almost ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... fingers, and taking it across to the fireplace, examined it in the strong light. The ivory was yellow and old, carved with the escutcheon bearing the three balls, the arms of the great House of Medici. The blade, about seven inches long, was keen, triangular, and, at the point, sharp as a needle. Into it the rust of centuries had eaten, though in parts it was quite bright, ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... doctor blankly; "well—I'll tell him in the morning." Then, smiling vaguely, he dropped down into his shabby old easy-chair, and watched Martha's darning-needle plod in and out. "Martha," he said after a while, "what shade would you call your hair if it ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... not sanction such little occupations for masculine hands. It would be interesting to speculate how many embarrassing or disastrous consequences might have been averted if at a critical point in a negotiation or controversy a needle had had to be threaded or a dropped stitch taken up before a reply was made, to say nothing of an excuse for averting features at times without confession ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... our house some time ago," Carrissima explained. "It was really quite entertaining. Those two seemed to draw together on the instant, as if one were the magnet and the other the needle. Besides, I have the advantage of Sybil's confidences. Poor Sybil! I can assure you she is in the most ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... I sprang from bed, As o'er the deadly brink The wretch, with courage of despair, Leaps from the slimy river-stair, By hopeless hope unthinking sped, Ere he can pause to think. Cold as the efforts of the dead, The needle-atom'd air, Impinged upon the limbs that shrink. On shivering shanks, and eyelids pink, And bound its bands about the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... did not sit alone before the crackling fire of logs, for the night being cool, a table was drawn near to one side of the fire-place, and by this sat Mistress Fryker and her daughter Joanna, both engaged in some sort of needle-work. The blacksmith sat between the corner of the fire-place and this table, so that when he had finished smoking his after-supper pipe, he might put on his spectacles and read the weekly paper ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Up! State Outlines. Prefixes. My Father Had A Rooster! Cross Questions And Crooked Answers. Magic Writing. Famous Numbers. Magic Answers. Modelling. Scissors Crossed Or Uncrossed. Capping Verses. Rabbit. Ghost. What Am I? Needle Threading. Confusions. Verbal Authors. Pin Doll Babies. Building Sentences. Geography. What Would You Do If—? Watch Trick. Find Your Better-half. Words Letters. Seeing And Remembering. Live Tit-tat-to. ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... "this sounds religious, perhaps, or like a book of poetry; but it does not sound like common sense. The enemy is just ready to strike; Jasper is anchored with his broadside to bear, and, no doubt, with springs on his cables; Pathfinder's eye and hand are as true as the needle; and we shall get prize-money, head-money, and honor in the bargain, if you will not interfere ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... mixed can be called a floor—was more or less covered with mats made of springbuck skins. In the centre of the room stood a table made of the pretty buckenhout wood, which has the appearance of having been industriously pricked all over with a darning-needle, and round it were chairs and couches of stinkwood, and seated with rimpis or ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... lower ground, thrust out into the river, between me and the eastern shore, which lay wholly in shadow, one shadow, one soft mass of dusky green, rounding out into a promontory. Above it, beyond it, at the foot of the hills, a white church spire rose as sharp as a needle. It is all before me, even the summer stillness in which my senses were wrapt. There was a clatter in the house behind me, but I ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... one thing was more generally hawked about the streets of China than the water chestnut. This is a small corm or fleshy bulb having the shape and size of a small onion. Boys pare them and sell a dozen spitted together on slender sticks the length of a knitting needle. Then there are the water caltropes, grown in the canals producing a fruit resembling a horny nut having a shape which suggests for them the name "buffalo-horn". Still another plant, known as water-grass ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid, staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him, body, brain and soul, ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... scowling from between their dirty hands at the world and the future; while in higher rooms sat solitary girls in hard wooden chairs, a pile of straw covered with a rug in the corner, and a box to put a change of linen in, driving the needle silently and ceaselessly through shirts or coats or trowsers, stooping over in the foul air during the heat of the day, straining their eyes when the day darkened to save a candle, hearing the roar and the rush and the murmur far away, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis |
