"Needlework" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vigorous; there was too much malice in her passionately-restrained gestures. The memory of her faded, and there came to his mind Jeanne's overworked little hands, with callous places, and the tips of the fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the smell of hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like a sponge wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet smell in the damp air made him feel languid ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... evening in his library, in dressing-gown and slippers, his wife nearby engaged in some needlework. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... brother would else have compelled him to share. Now that the days were longer, she had plenty of time to read; for although her so-called guardians made cutting remarks upon her idleness, they had not yet compelled her to nursing or needlework. If she had shown the least inclination to either, her liberty would have been gone from that moment; but, with the fear of James Dow before their eyes, they let her alone. As to her doing anything in the shop, she was far too much of an alien to be allowed to minister in the lowliest office of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... sofa, over which a large piece of needlework hung, in a splendid gold frame. "That is Maren's name-sampler," said the mistress of the house. "It is very pretty. See! there stand all our names! Can Mr. Thostrup guess who this is? Here are all the figures worked in open stitch. That ship, there, is the Mariane, which ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... into the room his sister jumped up with a terrified, eager look. She had been sitting near the low window, through whose curtained panes there hardly came a gleam of light. Some needlework had been lying on her lap, but it had slipped down and lay on the floor, and there was a [Pg 283] flushed, expectant look on her ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... affection, and, therefore, unspoilt, while writing was her delight, she kept it in complete subordination to the duties of life, which she performed with exemplary conscientiousness in the house of mourning as well as in the house of feasting. Even her needlework was superfine. We doubt not that, if the truth was known, she ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, "What's a convict?" Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... an arcade with seven openings, divided into three panels, with much elaborate carving. It was given by those who had received confirmation at the hands of Bishop Hamilton. The altar cloths, worked and given by Mrs. Sidney Lear, are highly finished examples of modern ecclesiastical needlework. The credence table, of somewhat elaborate design, is of carved oak with a marble top. The altar rails are of brass, the grills of wrought iron, at each side of the reredos screen the choir partially from ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... quiet sympathy and kindness soothed the girl's aching and anxious heart; she told him her experiences; and though he was not very much surprised at the result, he felt keenly for her disappointment. She had brought a little piece of needlework to fill up vacant hours, and after dinner she took it out, and soothed her excited feelings by the quiet feminine employment. There was an hour or more to be passed before the carriage came for them, and Francis sat on the other side of the fire cutting the leaves of a new book, and occasionally ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... warmth of life, being thus inseparably connected with those of graphic beauty and the brightness of life. I have told you that no art could be recovered among us without perfectness in dress, nor without the elementary graphic art of women, in divers colours of needlework. There has been no nation of any art-energy, but has strenuously occupied and interested itself in this household picturing, from the web of Penelope to the tapestry of Queen Matilda, and the meshes of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... few words of Tennyson's are enough, if one thinks of them: only I see, in correcting press, that I've partly misapplied the idea of 'gathering' in the leaf edge. It would be more accurate to say it was gathered at the central rib; but there is nothing in needlework that will represent the actual excess by lateral growth at the edge, giving three or four inches of edge for one of centre. But the stiffening of the fold by the thorn which holds it out is very like the action ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... his misery, and had come to a determination as to the line of conduct which he should pursue towards his wife. He went now to Lady Eversleigh's apartments, in order to inform her of his decision; but, to his surprise, he found the rooms empty. His wife's maid was sitting at needlework by one of the windows ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... evening meal to be prepared, countless household duties waiting to be done, and work enough in Jack's wardrobe alone to keep an ordinary woman busy for a week. Poor Jack! He was not a great hand at needlework. She had been shocked at the state in which she had found him. But she had not shirked her responsibilities. And more than ever was she glad now that she had come to him. For he needed her in a moral sense as well. She was too much of a "new chum" to help ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... THE MANUAL ACTIVITIES. Froebel not only introduced constructive work—paper-folding, weaving, needlework, and work with sand and clay and color—into the kindergarten, but he also proposed to extend and develop such work for the upper years of schooling in a school for hand training which he outlined, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... the ladies were doing fancy work with gay colored silks. Mrs. Harcourt always brought her embroidery frame to the piazza. Not that she did much needlework, but she thought it looked well to have it with her, even if she talked for hours, while the frame lay idle in ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... bed and to sleep. The next day she was a perfect model of a young housewife. She helped the children with their little lessons, filled all the vases, trained some vines, and then with some needlework went out on the veranda. At the table she listened and responded interestedly to Mrs. Merlin's bromidic remarks, was gentle with the children and most flatteringly deferential to Kurt. Of her former banter and coquetry toward him there was no trace. After the children had gone to bed, ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... this good archbishop knew that the late Sieur de Poissy had left a daughter, without a sou or a rag, after having eaten, drunk, and gambled away her inheritance. This poor young lady lived in a hovel, without fire in winter or cherries in spring; and did needlework, not wishing either to marry beneath her or sell her virtue. Awaiting the time when he should be able to find a young husband for her, the prelate took it into his head to send her the outside case ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... little fellows, ranging apparently from eight to twelve in age. They had good play-ground set off for them, and shady galleries to walk up and down in. Coming from their quarter, the girls' department seemed quiet enough. Here was going on the eternal task of needlework, to which the sex has been condemned ever since Adam's discovery of his want of wardrobe. Oh, ye wretched, foolish women! why will ye forever sew? "We must not only sew, but be thankful to sew; that little needle being, as the sentimental ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... have no idea of the incredible amount of slippers sent (thousands of them); church vetements by the hundreds, embroidered by millions of women who must have worked themselves blind; the most exquisite articles of needlework, incrusted with pearls and precious stones which have probably cost ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... lay in her clothes all that night, and next day, not a word she said, and I was at my needlework all that day, in my own room, except when I went ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... thrust the faggots nearer, while one hides from the heat of the fire behind his shield, and another, already dead, is consumed by the flames. Above in a gallery of marble, decked with beautiful rugs and hangings of needlework, the sultan looks on astonished amid his courtiers. Or it is the story of our Lord he tells us: how in the evening Mary set out from Nazareth mounted on a mule, her little son in her arms, Joseph following afoot, with a pipkin for the fire in the wilderness, and a fiasco of wine lest ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... him, and bade him tell her of his voyages; but he said he would not gainsay her a talk. Then they sat them down and talked. She was so clad that she had on a red kirtle, and had thrown over her a scarlet cloak trimmed with needlework down to the waist. Her hair came down to her bosom, and was both fair and full. Gunnar was clad in the scarlet clothes which King Harold Gorm's son had given him; he had also the gold ring on his arm which Earl Hacon had ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her Vindication of the Rights of Women, and in France George Sand was prominent and emancipated enough while the poet wrote. But, the question of love apart, George Sand was "very, very woman," shining as a domestic character and fond of needlework. England was not excited about the question which has since produced so many disputants, inevitably shrill, and has not been greatly meddled with by women of genius, George Eliot or Mrs Oliphant. The poem, in the public indifference as to feminine education, came rather prematurely. ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... Harrison, rented for the winter months from "my Lord Dingwall," where she was born, her education was carried on "with all the advantages the time afforded." She learnt French, singing to the lute, the virginals, and the art of needlework, and confesses that though she was quick at learning she was very wild and loved "riding, running and ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... dark shining table that supported the large Bible in its green baize cover; the Concordance, and the last Sunday's sermon, in its jetty case. There by the fireplace stood the bachelor's round elbow-chair, with a needlework cushion at the back; a walnut-tree bureau, another table or two, half a dozen plain chairs, constituted the rest of the furniture, saving some two or three hundred volumes, ranged in neat shelves on the clean wainscoted walls. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his having any brother. So with Mrs. Wheelwright—Mr. Syntax was equally a stranger to her. But she had seen some coarse pieces of embroidery from the rustic pupils of country boarding schools, and knew that they were needlework, of some sort. She therefore set herself to teaching that elegant branch of the fine arts. The first group attempted, was a family picture—a mother and her six children at the tomb of their deceased husband and father, under what was meant for a willow ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... pin-cushions, watch-holders and other needlework trifles, a plump young woman with smooth hair sat sewing bows of ribbon on a scrap basket. The little shop was about the size of the one on which Ann Eliza had just closed the door; and it looked as fresh and gay and thriving as she and Evelina had once dreamed of making Bunner Sisters. The friendly ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... to his little room, she stayed thinking for a longer time than usual before resuming her needlework. So, it became decidedly his trade, this night work in which one risks receiving the bullets of Spain's carbineers!—He had begun for amusement, in bravado, like most of them, and as his friend Arrochkoa was beginning, in the same band as he; then, little by little, he had made a necessity ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... tongue, and she sang English songs and ballads. The passing Indian ceremonials she knew, and the perishing traditions. The tribal dress of the daughter of a chief she knew how to wear upon occasion. But for the most part she dressed as white women dress. Not for nothing was her needlework at the Mission and her innate artistry. She carried her clothes like a white woman, and she made clothes ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... with fond faith, and then, dropping her eyes to her needlework, said, "That wasn't all ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... inquiries about the packing of luggage which was then proceeding, with a view to the carriage that had been ordered for eleven o'clock. Mrs. Quiggin betrayed only the most languid interest in these hurrying operations, and settled herself with her needlework in a chair near to Jenny Crow. Jenny watched her, and thought, "Now, wouldn't she jump at a good excuse ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... that there would probably be a great waste of material if voluntary effort was not wisely guided. So she called at Buckingham Palace a committee of women to consider the position and Queen Mary's Needlework Guild was the outcome of it. The following official statement, issued on August 21, 1914, intimated the ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... was soon nodding over a book close to the fire, while Helen Brabazon and Blanche Farrow had brought down their work. This consisted, as far as Helen was concerned, of a complicated baby's garment destined for the Queen's Needlework Guild. Blanche, sitting close to Helen, was bending over a frame containing the intricate commencement of a fruit and bird petit-point picture, which, when finished, she intended should form a banner screen for ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... Look at that accursed Madame de Stael! Look at the Salons of the Quartier St. Germain! Their eternal clack, clack, clack give me more trouble than the fleet of England. Why cannot they look after their babies and their needlework? I suppose you think that these are very ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lace veils and scarfs. Miss Susan Hayes Ward has resuscitated from these old embroideries a curious stitch used to great effect on many of them, and employed also on ancient Persian embroideries, and she points out that the designs are Persian also. This stitch was not known in the modern English needlework schools; but just as good old Elizabethan words and phrases are still used in New England, though obsolete in England, so this curious old stitch has lived in the colony when lost in the mother country; or, it may be possible, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... further ceremony, not letting go of the hand even to close the door, but patting it and making much of her, smiling the welcome that they had no words in common to express. The little outer hall in which they stood was shut off by curtains six yards high, all smothered in a needlework of peacocks that generations of patient fingers must have toiled at. Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes; for never had ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... tolerable figure in the next age, though the complexion of the family was obscure till the fourth generation from that marriage. From which time, till the reign of William the Conqueror, the females of our house were famous for their needlework and fine skins. In the male line there happened an unlucky accident in the reign of Richard III., the eldest son of Philip, then chief of the family, being born with a hump-back and very high nose. This was the more astonishing, ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... clear that the training of a girl's brain troubled no Hollander's head. "It was at this time very difficult to procure the means of instruction in those inland districts; female education, of consequence, was conducted on a very limited scale; girls learned needlework (in which they were indeed both skilful and ingenious) from their mothers and aunts; they were taught too at that period to read, in Dutch, the Bible, and a few Calvinist tracts of the devotional kind. But in the infancy of the settlement few girls read English; when they did, they were thought accomplished; ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... and singing of songs, dancing and doing fine needlework. Anabella Morris was to come in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... not seen those small hands in motion—shaping garments, darning rents, repairing furniture, exploring the inner economy of clocks. "I make a sort of rag-carpet of the odd minutes," she had once explained to a friend who wondered at her turning to her needlework in the moment's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... box under the attic skylight, with her head out, straining her eyes to seaward, was seized with a sudden impulse which answered to her mother's expectation. That first day she ought to have stayed in, unpacked her box, exhibited her beautiful needlework, got ready for dinner in good time, and proved her affection for her mother and sister by making herself agreeable to them; but instead of that, she stole downstairs, slipped out by the back-gate, and did not return until long after ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... think that you were in a monk's cell or in some great dame's bower? Hunt under the table, man; sure, you will find her lute and needlework. Whose portrait is that, think you?" and he pointed to ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... everything—for the fire broke out in the next house to his—cost his father his life; and while his mother, who for six years had been stretched an a bed of pain, where horrible convulsions held her fast, supported her three little girls by the needlework that she did in the intervals of suffering, he went as a mere clerk into one of the leading mercantile houses of Augsburg, where his lively and yet even temper made him welcome; there he learned a calling, for which, however, he was not naturally adapted, and came back to the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Pennie needed improvement. Her sewing was disgraceful! Now was the moment to take it in hand, for she had no lessons to learn and a great deal of spare time which could not be better employed; so it was arranged that one hour should be spent in "plain needlework" ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... baptize her. It was such a small, poor house, but so very nice inside. Mother and grown daughters and little girl, with father and grown son, all sleep on a little brick platform, hardly big enough for me—one man. She and the grown daughter support the family by needlework—making horsehair women's head fittings, which the father sells, when he ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... he often told himself, "a real comfortable sort of person." In return for Martha's kindness to him Arthur brought her books and magazines when he found that Martha now spent most of her time reading instead of working at the never-ending needlework. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... lady for many years, and was indeed, I have been told, some kind of relation to her. Mrs. Medlicott's parents had lived in Germany, and the consequence was, she spoke English with a very foreign accent. Another consequence was, that she excelled in all manner of needlework, such as is not known even by name in these days. She could darn either lace, table-linen, India muslin, or stockings, so that no one could tell where the hole or rent had been. Though a good Protestant, and never missing Guy Faux day at church, she was as skilful at fine work ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... bedrooms were four-posters and the things of four-poster days. Wing-cheek chairs of cozy depths told of old-time fireside dreams; a work-table with attenuated legs called to mind the wearisome needlework of our foremothers; and a brass warming-pan carried us back to the times when only such devices could make tolerable the frigid winter beds ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... burning on the hearth, and a man sat by it. A woman was engaged at needlework by the light of a ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... bench close behind her in the pilot-house a lady with needlework, a gentleman with De Bow's Review (the squire's sister and brother-in-law), had begun to talk with the Gilmores and presently mentioned the twins, speaking in such a tone of doom as to give Ramsey a ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... once possessed); for I shall never be a proficient in it, and I already have as much of it at my command as answers my need of it as a recreation. Any of these occupations is more agreeable to me than letter-writing; so is needlework, so is walking out, so is—almost anything else I could do. Now, as Shylock says, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... replied, "are nothing to what I shall yet do in needlework, O mother, when I am of age to be trusted with my first needle, and knighted by thy hands, and enrolled amongst the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... settee and bed in the camp were a number of balsam pillows. A large and particularly fine one came from the Higby camp on Big Moose lake in the Adirondacks. It was made by Miss Lila Daisy Higby, a little lady only seven years of age, whose needlework decorating the cover showed artistic ability of great merit for one so young. Many visitors admired it, and some of them have written her in ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... file, were at the same time soothsayers and poetesses, and there are other evidences of the high esteem in which women were held. There can be no doubt, to judge by the elaborate descriptions of garments in the saga-texts, that the women were very skilful in weaving and needlework. The Irish peasant girls of today inherit from them not a little of their gift for lace-making and linen-embroidery. Ladies of the highest rank practiced needlework as an accomplishment and a recreation. Some of the scissors and shears they used ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the arts by which decayed gentlewomen keep the wolf from the door; no little holiday accomplishments, which, in the day of need turn to useful trade; no water-colour drawings, no paintings on velvet, no fabrications of pretty gewgaws, no embroidery and fine needlework. She was helpless—utterly helpless; if she had resigned herself to the thought of service, she would not have had the physical strength for a place of drudgery, and where could she have found the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which he kept his store of guttah. The cover was off, with no one near by, and the whole of my crew just missed going heels over head into that beastly hole. Jurumudi Itam, our best quartermaster, deft at fine needlework, he who mended the ship's flags and sewed buttons on our coats, was disabled by a kick ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... took to her broidering again, and fell to doing a goodly pair of shoon for Atra, since she had worn those borrowed ones somewhat hardly. And the women wondered at her needlework, so marvellous fine as it was, and how that in little space of time were come flowers and trees, and birds and beasts, all lovely; and they said that the faery must have learned her that craft. But she laughed and reddened, and thought of the wood-mother; and, sitting there within ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... fantastical apparel that I was much put to it to guess what the issue would be. It was of a woman, tall and majestical, with a red turbaund round her head, and over her shoulders a shawl much bedizened with needlework. Her gown was of green cloth, and I was made aware by the sound, as she passed along the floor, that the heels of her shoes were more than commonly high. With this apparition, of which I took only a very rapid observation through my half-closed eyelids, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of his chariots? Her wise ladies answered her, Yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; To every man a damsel or two; To Sisera a prey of divers colors, A prey of divers colors of needlework on both sides, Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD! But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... bad for a beginner," said Kate, taking it and putting it in a drawer. She took some needlework from another drawer, and, sitting down, ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... room surrounded by a dozen chattering girls. The floor beneath the feet of the Californian heiress was bare, and the heavy furniture was of uncarved mahogany. But a satin quilt covered the bed, lavish Spanish needlework draped chest and tables, and through the open window came the June sunshine and the ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... to Viamede, after she had attained her majority. That visit was the dawn of brighter days to them. I will tell you the whole story, Eva, some time when we are sitting quietly together at our needlework, if you ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... not help wondering what possible "fancy stuff" he had learned at Buckleigh in nineteen-eleven. An irrepressible idea that it was some sort of needlework recurred to him throughout the rest of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was at Caerlleon upon Usk; and one day he sat in his chamber; and with him were Owain the son of Urien, and Kynon the son of Clydno, and Kai the son of Kyner; and Gwenhwyvar and her hand-maidens at needlework by the window. And if it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur's palace, there was none. Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr was there, acting as porter, to welcome guests and strangers, and to receive them with ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... to London. A person whom we knew in the village had a son who, was employed in one of the great linen warehouses, and he promised to try to get us needlework. So we came to London, took a small lodging, and furnished it with the remnant of our furniture. Here we worked fourteen hours a day apiece, and we could only gain between three and four shillings each. At ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... brows, turned his dark eyes, full of smouldering fire, upon Lord Wrotham and his friend, both of whom had succeeded in getting up a little conversation with the hostess's younger daughter, the girl named Grace. Her sister, Elizabeth, put down her needlework, and watched Tom with sudden solicitude. An instinctive dislike of Lord Wrotham and his companion caused her to avoid looking their way, though she heard every word they were saying,—and her interest became centred on the handsome gypsy, whose ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... was sitting with her ladies at needlework, was not so scared as they were. Like the nymphs of the hunting Maid they all clustered about her, showing the Queen-Mother how tall she was and how nobly figured. She flushed a little and breathed a little faster; but making her ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the Liberals out, what could the others do? Our trade in English goods comes to us mainly through France or Germany; and our own return trade is chiefly limited to our native crockery, toys, wood-carving, and needlework, supposed survivals of our peasant industries, which, as a matter of fact, are nearly all of them manufactured for us in Birmingham, the home of Tariff Reform. In that matter, by the taxing of articles which are only ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... in hand. In the afternoon a sister in the Lord from Bath called, and gave me a sovereign, when I had not one penny in hand towards the need of today. This morning came in still further 18s. 10 1/2 d, by needlework done by the Orphan-Girls. Also 4d. by sale of a Report. Thus we were ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... Leicester Square, the very extraordinary production of female genius, Miss Linwood's Gallery of Needlework promised a gratification to the Squire exceeding in novelty any thing which he had hitherto witnessed in the Metropolis. The two friends accordingly entered, and the anticipations ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... secrecy. I then walked on to Anglebury, lingering about the outskirts of the town till the morning train came in, when I proceeded by it to London, and then took these lodgings, where I have been supporting myself ever since by needlework, endeavouring to save enough money to pay my passage home to America, but making melancholy progress in my attempt. However, all that is changed—can I be otherwise than happy at it? Of course not. I am happy. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... admiration of her beauty she was not ill pleased to humour at this small cost of having him climb into her little parlour and gossip of summer nights? With her decent and sombre dress, her simple gravity, and that fine piece of priestly needlework, she looked like some pious lay-member of a sisterhood, living by special permission outside her convent walls. Or was she maintained here aloft by her friend in comfortable leisure, so that he might have before him the perfect, eternal type, uncorrupted and untarnished by the struggle for ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... was busy over some needlework, and the Squire deep in a book, so the boys slipped out of the room without any notice being taken, and perhaps half an hour passed away, when all of a sudden Mrs Inglis dropped her work and jumped out ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... the bench by his sister, and, taking up her needlework, exclaimed "Give us some light, child. I want to see your pretty face. I want to be sure that Diodorus did not perjure himself when, at the 'Crane,' the other day, he swore that it had not its match in Alexandria. Besides, I hate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white." (Revelation 19:8) "The king's daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework." (Psalm 45:13,14) Thus in symbolic phrase the Prophet describes her inherent beauty when she is presented faultless before the glorious presence of Jehovah. It will be impossible for human words to ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... not . . . in a fashion. Still"—Miss Oliver brightened—"she proposed me on the Needlework Committee, and we're to meet at the Vicarage every Wednesday. She looked up at me a moment before mentioning my name, and smiled as nice as possible; you might almost say she read what ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of the district, not alone because she was a good cook, but because she was a sort of foster mother to the entire community. The young ladies of the community brought to Aunt Jane their old hats and dresses, along with their love affairs, petty quarrels, and youthful longings. A clever woman at needlework, she was often able to remodel the hats and "turn" the dresses so that they would serve a second season ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... lady's industry of needlework, plain or fancy, she got through an amazing quantity; but she was also, in her early years, of great use to her father, whose companion she had been in a literary life of great loneliness, by relieving him of much ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... man shall hear or read of. Many of the gentlewomen have sound knowledge of Greek and Latin, and are skillful in Spanish, Italian, and French; and the noblemen even surpass them. The old ladies of the court avoid idleness by needlework, spinning of silk, or continual reading of the Holy Scriptures or of histories, and writing diverse volumes of their own, or translating foreign works into English or Latin; and the young ladies, when they are not waiting on her majesty, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to be occupied in reading books, papers, letter writing, needlework, etc. Loafing or wasting time ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... labor; and they chatted meanwhile of books, studies, embroidery, discussed the last new poem, or some historical topic started by graver reading, or perhaps a rural ball that was to come off the next week. They spun with the book tied to the distaff; they wove; they did all manner of fine needlework; they made lace, painted flowers, and, in short, in the boundless consciousness of activity, invention, and perfect health, set themselves to any work they had ever read or thought of. A bride in those ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sitting-room, always attached to the bedchamber, and known as the "bower," to which strangers were rarely admitted. Here they sat and sang, gossiped, and worked their endless embroidery. The days were scarcely yet over when English needlework bore the palm in Europe and even in the East, while the first illuminators were the monks of Ireland. Ladies were the spinners, weavers, surgeons, and readers of the day; they were great at interpreting dreams, and dearly loved ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... not really looking at that needlework—it's QUEEN ELIZABETH'S own work, JOHN. Only look how wonderfully fine the stitches are. Ah, she was a truly great woman! I could spend hours over this case alone. What, closing are they, already? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... taken to needlework, and sat like many another young woman of that time by the window with the sunlight streaming in upon the coloured stitches of her work, or she might perhaps more strictly have taken to miniature painting, the quality of which style is so ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... sent to a strict, old-fashioned school every morning, where she learned to work samplers as well as to read and spell. They used to tell that, at the age of seven, she came home one day with two prizes which she had taken. One was for scholarship, and one was for neatness in her needlework. When she brought them home, her grandmother (that is your great-great-grandmother, you know) praised her for the first; but her grandfather (the one whose portrait Stuart shot) said: 'Nay, it is for the neatness that the little lass ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Caterina was a servant in the Da Vinci family, but a later and seemingly more authentic writer informs us that she was a governess and a teacher of needlework. That her kinsmen hastened her marriage with the peasant, Vacca Accattabriga, seems quite certain: they sought to establish her in a respectable position. And so she acquiesced, and avoided society's displeasure, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... to sleep for a moment, then started into wakefulness again; Rose had ceased to repeat her Psalms aloud, but was still at her needlework; another doze, another waking. There was some hope of Rose now, for she was kneeling down to say her prayers. Lucy thought they lasted very long, and at her next waking she was just in time to hear the latch of the door closing, and find herself left in darkness. ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady's possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needlework—near the window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps, and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street-door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... her bicycle. Across the handle bars was tied a bundle, her towel and scarlet bathing dress. From the back of the saddle, wobbling perilously, hung a much larger bundle, a new lug sail, the fruit of hours and hours of toilsome needlework on the wet days ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... been there, old chap? A year or more? It's a rotten big place where gentlemen aspire to sell gloves and handkerchiefs and needlework over the shop counters. At any rate, that's what every one said every one else was doing, and advised me to—to get a situation doing the same. You know, Tazzy, I couldn't well afford to starve and I wouldn't sell things, so I came ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... "you can't get away from that. My husband's country ... my country ... is at war and the wives must play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me to come back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accord because I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework parties and sewing bees and Red Cross matinees and try to be civil to the German women and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, their hypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddy and I ever had, you English! But doing ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... nonsense.—Now, Miss Horatia, come and see my greatest treasure of all; and he took her into an adjoining room, without asking Sarah to accompany them at all. By the time they had seen his greatest treasure, which was some wonderful needlework, the motor was announced, and the two girls got ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... in geography, and exercised him in colouring the maps. The Queen, on her part, was employed in the education of her daughter, and these different lessons lasted till eleven o'clock. The remaining time till noon was passed in needlework, knitting, or making tapestry. At one o'clock, when the weather was fine, the royal family were conducted to the garden by four municipal officers and the commander of a legion of the National Guard. As there were a number of workmen in the Temple employed in pulling down houses ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... teaching the trades to young men and women, four schools of engineering in different parts of the country, nine industrial schools for women only, where they can be trained to earn their living by sewing, dressmaking, weaving, millinery, embroidery, and other needlework, bookkeeping, typesetting, stenography, typewriting, photography, and other lines of industry, and an art school especially patronized by the king in connection with the art gallery at Christiania, where painting, drawing, and designing, modeling, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... her hand between it and her eyes. The young fisherman slightly motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a little garden, engaged in needlework, with a young child sleeping on her bosom. The silence continued until the captain asked ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... but he took to growin' that spring, and I chanced to ask him to supply me with a couple o' good holders, but I found I'd touched dignity. He was dreadful put out. I suppose he was mos' too manly for me to refer to his needlework. Poor Marthy! how she laughed! I only said that about the holders for the sake o' sayin' somethin', but he remembered it against ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... She was exquisitely neat in her dress, and dainty about her gloves and shoes. She had a keen and delicate touch, and could do any difficult work with her hands, which were the smallest perhaps ever seen upon a grown woman. Her needlework was marvellous, and she was an exquisite housekeeper, attending to the minutest details herself. Her circle of friends and acquaintances was a very narrow one all her life, though after the publication of "Jane Eyre" it of ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... art-needlework and frills had fallen to the floor—even it could not remain comfortably on the hard seat! There was nothing between us on ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... they knew not what to do. In the midst of all this noise and tumult, there came two other damsels riding to the hall on two Spanish mules. Very richly arrayed were these damsels in raiment of fine needlework, and their kirtles were covered by fresh fair mantles, embroidered with gold. Great joy had Launfal's comrades when they marked these ladies. They said between themselves that doubtless they came for the succour of the ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... Frances Neville—used to drop in to see Granny, and she used to say what a good girl I was, always busy with my needle and my book. And our Rector's wife, Mrs. Farmiloe, she gave me a silver thimble when I was nine—a prize for needlework. Lady Frances used to say, 'Don't you keep her too close to work, Mrs. Horridge. A child must play with other children.' But my Granny she'd up and say: 'She's all I have, and I'd rather bury her than see her trapesin' about with ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... equal surprise and satisfaction, an Athenian school, which contained seven hundred pupils, taken from every class of society. The poorer classes were gratuitously instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the girls in needlework likewise. The progress which the children had made was very remarkable; but what particularly pleased me was that air of bright alertness and good-humored energy which belonged to them, and which made every task appear a pleasure, not a toil. The greatest punishment ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... school duties to occupy my time, my knowledge of amusements, needlework, or any other of the softer feminine accomplishments, exceedingly limited, I was suddenly confronted with the problem how I was to fill up the days and years with any degree of satisfaction. Hitherto every thought had been strained eagerly ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... for accepting her aunt's invitation: the pleasure of the sea-side trip, the change, the novelty of living in a town, of having Julia for a companion and many school-fellows of her own age; of exchanging Miss Green's school, with its catechisms and needlework, for a young ladies' college, with its modern plans of study, its classes and professors. And all these inducements had the charm of being new and untried, so that only their agreeable side appeared to view, ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... himself she would be his obedient and grateful servant. Meantime Mary sat down opposite to the curate, and listened to him as he unfolded his errand awkwardly enough. An execution was threatened in the house of a poor struggling widow, whom Mrs. Porter had employed to do needlework occasionally, and who was behind with her rent through sickness. He was afraid that her things would be taken and sold in the morning, unless she could borrow two sovereigns. He had so many claims on him, that he could not lend her the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... her to get away from such undesirable surroundings, and to withdraw her children from these evil influences. For four years she endeavoured to discover an employment by which she could gain her livelihood. A milliner's business was out of the question without capital to begin with; by needlework no more than ten sous a day could be earned; she was too conscientious to make translation pay; her crayon and water-colour portraits were pretty good likenesses, but lacked originality; and in the painting of flowers and birds on cigar-cases, work-boxes, fans, &c., which ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... their time. They will follow the most intricate design which may be given to them as a pattern, reproducing it with Chinese fidelity, and with as much apparent ease as though it were their own conception. It seemed to us, as we examined this delicate product, that art needlework could hardly go further as to perfection of detail. This work is not that of dainty fingers and delicate hands, educated and taught embroidery in some convent school, but the outcome of very humble adobe cabins, and the instinctive artistic taste of hands accustomed to the severe drudgery of a semi-barbarous ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY.—There have always been women in industry, but of recent years the proportion of women so engaged has increased so rapidly as to create a serious social problem. From needlework, domestic service, and teaching, women have spread rapidly into trade, commerce, and the professions. A few years ago transportation and police work were monopolized by men, but to-day women are entering these fields rapidly. Though they outnumber men only in ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... these spiritual eyes of contemplation, we might perceive some resemblance of his beauty, the love between his church and him. And so in the xlv. Psalm this beauty of his church is compared to a "queen in a vesture of gold of Ophir, embroidered raiment of needlework, that the king might take pleasure in her beauty." To incense us further yet, [6319]John, in his apocalypse, makes a description of that heavenly Jerusalem, the beauty, of it, and in it the maker of it; "Likening it to a city of pure gold, like unto clear glass, shining and garnished with ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... humiliation, even though 'court tailor' should be written upon it! This title will never enable us to appear at court, and the noble cavaliers will never think of marrying the daughter of a tailor, though many would seek to do so if our father would give up his needlework, buy a country seat, and live, as rich and distinguished men do, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... since she passed behind me—showed that she was dressed in black, that she wore a beaded veil and hat, and in addition to the glass of milk and the bun that she carried, she was encumbered by an umbrella and a small basket, apparently containing some kind of needlework. I must confess that I gave her very little attention at the time, being occupied in anxious speculation as to how long it would be before the fact of my presence would impinge on the consciousness of ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... father often referred to her as an example of the affection and love of a wife to her husband, and of a mother to her children. The only relic I possess of her handiwork is a sampler, dated 1743, the needlework of which is so delicate and neat, that to me it seems to excel everything of the kind ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... of their voyage. Here many choice curiosities were bought, such as "the picture of a man's voice," an "echo drawn to life," "Plato's ideas," some of "Epicurus's atoms," a sample of "Philome'la's needlework," and other objects of vertu to be obtained nowhere else.—Rabelais, Pantagruel, iv. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer |
