"Polishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bicycle chain, it is worth more; as diamond it has been sold for $500,000 for less than an ounce, and that was regarded as less than half its value. Such a stone is so valuable that $15,000 has been spent in grinding and polishing its surface. The glazier pays $5.00 for a bit of carbon so small that it would take about ten thousand of them to make ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... have been at the time. It is squad drill and hazing that so successfully mould the coarser characters who come to West Point into officers and gentlemen. They teach him how to govern and be governed. They are more effectual in polishing his asperities of disposition and forming his character than any amount of regulations could be. They tame him, so ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... gess he knows, we carried up 2 paper bags of flour and Pewt made 2 buckits of paist. we paisted a picture of Flora Temple the fastest trotting horse in the wirld on a mahoginy buro that Pewts father is polishing for Doctor Goram Potters grandfather and i bet it will taik a weak to get it off. so i gess Pewts paist is good paist. we are going to meat at Beanys at haff past 12 oh clock. father is going to wake me at 12 oh clock. i hoap he wont forget to wake up. ennyway ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... required for the more considerable business at the northern end of the desert; in other words, that we should shortly be on the move again. And for once the prophets were right, for suddenly there was a great to-do in the camp; such a polishing of guns and a burnishing of stirrup-irons and bits and chains, such a cleaning of harness and saddlery as had never ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... hand of the operator. It is used in removing decayed structure and for shaping the cavity for inserting the filling. From time to time its usefulness has been extended, so that it is now used for finishing fillings and polishing them, for polishing the teeth, removing deposits from them and changing their shapes. Its latest development, the dento-surgical engine, is of heavier construction and is adapted to operations ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... twice daily prevails, regular dental examination is often not required. Doctors and dentists themselves have not been trained to realize that the teeth are a most dangerous source of infection when unclean. Does your dentist insist upon removing tartar and food particles beyond your reach, upon polishing and cleansing, or does he regard these as vanity touches, to be omitted if you are in ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... from the husks that are apt to remain in it; then it should be washed in hot water. The water in which rice is washed will have a milky appearance, which is due to the coating that is put on in polishing rice. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... United States private has nothing to keep clean excepting his rifle and bayonet. He carries no contrivances for polishing buttons, boots, or the dozen of bits of accouterment deemed essential to a good soldier in Europe. In Spain, for instance, the private, though he may have nothing in his haversack, will, nevertheless, carry a clumsy outfit of tools for making ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... been down there for two years," I said one night when he dropped in upon us, as was his occasional custom. "I require a polishing in New York about every six months. Besides I want to begin disciplining myself in leaving that little rascal of mine upstairs, just to prove that he won't swallow a safety-pin or develop pneumonia the moment my back's turned. Don't ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... young people would revel in such a place—and how they would worship him for having given it to them for a home! His heart warmed within him as he thought of this. He smiled affectionately at the picture Julia made, polishing the glass with vehement circular movements of her slight arm, and then grimacing in comic vexation at the deadly absence of landscape outside. Was there ever a sweeter or more lovable girl in this world? Would there have to be some ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... related this story, partly to show what a savage man would be without that softening, polishing ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... window at another time. Paul was engaged in polishing a number of lenses, which were ranged along the sill. Suddenly, after a pause in the conversation, he said, "Oh! I've dropped a lens. Stick your head out, old man, and see where ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... usually, but sometimes as high as ten or twelve. Eagerly they come, and that fat Prairie-dog lasts perhaps three minutes, at the end of which time nothing is left but the larger bones with a little Coyote busy polishing each of them. Strewn about the door of the den are many other kindred souvenirs, the bones of Ground-squirrels, Chipmunks, Rabbits, Grouse, Sheep, and Fawns, with many kinds of feathers, fur, and hair, to show the ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... tempting you with "fossiliferous specimens of the oolite formation," "tertiary," "silurian," "saurian," "stratification," "carboniferous." It was quite wonderful to hear such a stream of learning, and to see, at the same time, the vigour of these terrene philosophers in polishing their specimens upon a whetstone, laid upon their knees. A few shillings put us all in possession of memorials of Clifton, in the shape of little slabs of different strata, polished on both sides, and ingeniously moulded to resemble a book. A little further ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... course, was a half-holiday, and though I took another look at some of my books, and noted one or two other little things that would have to be got up, I determined that the grand "go in" at, and "polishing off" of, these subjects should ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... answered Balbilla quickly. "Some were polishing damaged pieces, others were laying new bits of mosaic in the empty places from which it had formerly been removed, and skilled artists were painting colored figures on smooth surfaces of plaster. Every pillar and every statue was built round with a scaffolding reaching to the ceiling ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... do the usual scrubbing and shampooing. This, it seems, is the general practice in Finland, and is but another example of the unembarrassed habits of the people in this part of the world. The poorer families go into their bathing-rooms together—father, mother, and children—and take turns in polishing each other's backs. It would have been ridiculous to have shown any hesitation under the circumstances—in fact, an indignity to the honest simple-hearted, virtuous girl—and so we deliberately undressed also. When at last we stood, like our first parents in Paradise, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... qualities. "We cannot but repeat our conviction," he says, "that poetry, being, in its higher classes, an art which has for its elements sublimity and unaffected beauty, is more liable than any other to suffer from the labour of polishing.... It must be remembered that we speak of the higher tones of composition; there are others of a subordinate character where extreme art and labour are not bestowed in vain. But we cannot consider over-anxious correction as likely to be employed with advantage upon ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... passably well. But his friend, Patrick Henry, suave, tactful and popular, exerted himself to improve Jefferson's manners and fit him for general society, attaining at last very pleasing results, although there was a certain roughness in his nature, shown in his correspondence, which no amount of polishing seemed able to overcome. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... builder of electrical stone cutting and polishing machines and for a long time he had maintained his business in the little two-story structure. But four years previous he had erected a fine new concrete building just across the way, and abandoned the machine shop, intending ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... Haussa slaves, attending on his four wives; they were all polished, and apparently clean, lying about on the floors of the huts, and in the court-yards, in the most strenuous idleness—one cleaning, polishing, and decorating another. One was bolder than the rest, and beckoned me to ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... inquired Mike, without the slightest perturbation, polishing the antique opal buttons of his attila with his ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... up in the ash-bucket fainting from the stifling heat of the foul-smelling stoke-hold. We were all supplied with fishing-lines and hooks of three different sizes, and extra grog when getting steam up. The method of cleaning and polishing the engines and all bright work was very effectual, and did the stokers great credit; after having scoured and polished the steel and bright ironwork they were frosted, in imitation of hoar frost. A pot of hot tallow and white lead in which a clean piece of cotton waste ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... knowing that the great force of the barbarians lay chiefly in their swords, with which they laid about them in a rude and inartificial manner, hacking and hewing the head and shoulders, he caused head-pieces entire of iron to be made for most of his men, smoothing and polishing the outside, that the enemy's swords, lighting upon them, might either slide off or be broken; and fitted also their shields with a little rim of brass, the wood itself not being sufficient to bear off ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... go in spite of Mildred's uncertainty, so R. S. V. P.'s were sent P. D. Q. and old Billy got busy greasing harness and polishing the coach so that his equipage might be fit for the first lady of the land to go to ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... whether those modern lexicographers had done their work in a way to merit his approval, and that he thought their book might be useful to me. He had some knowledge of astronomy, and was building a reflecting telescope which he never completed; but I remember that he was often occupied in polishing the reflectors whilst I was reading, and that his hand went on rubbing with a bit of soft leather, and a red powder, when he would deliver the clearest disquisitions on the employment of words by Greek authors, most of which I was not sufficiently advanced ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... say that for ye, young shore-loafer, that you've learnt that the best part of polishing-paste is elbow-grease. It wasn't all parley-voo and the pianner ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... from the well to pour on their thirsty roots, and load after load of fertilizer she dragged in Allee's little cart to spread over the ground in her eager desire to increase their size. But when Gail found her with soap and scrub-brush polishing off each precious ball, she was forced to curb her zealous gardening. However, the vines throve through all this heroic treatment, and it seemed to Peace that she could almost see the fruit grow in circumference. Each night she consulted Mike, convinced that they had ripened sufficiently during ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... to-night, too. Things are all piled up on me." Sandford applies a fresh layer of pumice to the swiftly moving polishing wheel, with practised accuracy. "Tell Harry I'm sorry; but business ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... last, "I cannot absolutely promise you; but I think I can get you five hundred pounds." Conolly stopped polishing the cylinder, and stared at her. "If I have not enough, I am sure we could make the rest by a bazaar or something. I should like to begin to invest my money; and if you make some great invention, like the telegraph or steam engine, you will be able to pay it back to me, and ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... (otherwise known as their Square Push Suits). The buttons of their working tunics had of course been burnished before parade. The correct employment of button-sticks and of the magic cleaner called Soldier's Friend; the polishing of one's out-of-use boots and their placing, on the floor, with tied laces, and with their toes in line with the bed's legs; the substitution of lost braces' buttons by "bulldogs"; the furbishing of one's belt; the propping-up of the front of one's cap with wads ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... without starch. We can also thrive on it if we do not abuse it. The two chief starch-bearing staples, rice and wheat, contain considerable protein and salts in their natural state. In fact, the natural wheat will sustain life for a long time. Man has improved on nature by polishing the rice and making finely bolted, bleached wheat flour, deprived of nearly all the salts in the wheat berry. The result is that both of them have become very poor foods. The more we eat of these refined products ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... could not take another car. I eventually came to one of the largest, where by considerable shifting they managed to accommodate my car. But with all this rush of business, it seemed to me that the owners were in no danger of becoming plutocrats, for the charge for a day's garage, cleaning the car, polishing the brass and making a ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... to the palace, where, refusing all refreshment, he goes in quest of Paris, whom he finds in the company of Helen and her maids, idly polishing his armor. Indignantly Hector informs his brother the Trojans are perishing without the walls in defence of the quarrel he kindled, but which he is too cowardly to uphold! Although admitting he deserves reproaches, Paris declares he ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... got a cloth and brushed away the cobwebs. The key was covered thickly with rust, but even so I could see that something was written upon it. For about a minute I stood polishing it, and then carried it forward to ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the annotations on the Arabic work." [602] Thus Burton really translated only Chapters i. to xx., or one-half of the work. But it is evident from his remarks on the last day of his life that he considered the work finished with the exception of the pumice-polishing; and from this, one judges that he was never able to obtain a copy of the 21st Chapter. Lady Burton's statement and this assumption are corroborated by a conversation which the writer had with Mr. John Payne in the autumn of 1904. "Burton," said Mr. Payne, "told ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Wesley Marrs, Sam Hollis, Tommie Ohlsen, and the rest of them had been out in the Bay tuning up their vessels like a lot of cup defenders. Never before had fishermen given so much attention to the little details before a race. The same day that we got home they were up on the ways for a final polishing and primping up. They were smooth as porcelain when they came off. And coming off their skippers thought they had better take some of the ballast out of them. "'Tisn't as if it was winter weather"—it was the middle of September then—"with big seas and driving gales," was the way ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... sleigh-bells sounded enticing. It was the first sleighing of the season. Mabel and Ben had been off for a ride, and Arna and Hazen, too. How Peggy longed to be skimming over the snow instead of polishing knives all alone in the kitchen. Sue Cummings came that afternoon to invite Peggy to her party, given in Esther's honour. Sue enumerated six other gatherings that were being given that week in honour of Esther's visit home. Sue seemed to ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... arrival at the post, Wentworth made out two reports, one to McNabb and the other to Orcutt, which he dispatched to the railway by a Company Indian. Late in the afternoon, as he was polishing his instruments in the little cabin, the figure of Sven Larson appeared in the doorway. The engineer motioned him to enter and close the door behind him. "Where is Murchison?" he asked, glancing through the ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... processing, diamond cutting and polishing, textiles and apparel, chemicals, metal products, military equipment, transport equipment, electrical equipment, potash mining, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... her on a shoot before me, and guarded her while I arranged a camera. She was the most complacent subject I ever handled outdoors, and did not make even an attempt to fly. Raymond was supposed to be watching while I worked, but our confidence in her was so great, that I paid all my attention to polishing my lenses, and getting good light, while Raymond gathered berries with one hand, and promiscuously waved the net over the bushes with ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... afternoon from the press gallery of the House. He had instructions from his managing editor to cover the story at length. At ten o'clock he had finished what would make two columns in type and was polishing off his opening paragraphs before putting the manuscript on the wire when the door of his room opened and a man came in—a shabby, tremulous figure. ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... helping of potatoes and gravy and fourth cup of coffee, the senior scientist contentedly shoved back from the table. Hetty was polishing the last dabs of gravy from her plate with a scrap of bread. The scientist pulled a pipe and tobacco pouch from ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... were standing, looked more like the stump of a cotton-wood, dressed in dirt-coloured buckskin, than the body of a human being. On getting nearer, and round to the front of it, it was seen to be a man, though a very curious one, holding a long rib of deer-meat in both hands, which he was polishing with a ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... workers in metal, and the smelters (?) of gold, and the sculptors in stone, "and the ore-crushers, and the furnace-men (?), and handicraftsmen of every kind whatsoever, who work in hewing, and cutting, and polishing these stones, and in gold, and silver, and copper, and lead, and every worker in wood who shall cut down any tree, or carry on a trade of any kind, or work which is connected with the wood trade, to "pay tithe upon all the natural products (?), and also upon the ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... have known better, if Mademoiselle did not. Mademoiselle has very little taste in such matters, as you are well aware. Do my feet now; I think that the nails need a little polishing; but very little; I do not wish you to make them look as though they had been varnished; it is a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... spoke she emerged from a recess in the room, a kind of dark alcove, where she had been amusing herself with what I took to be some sort of puzzle, but which I found afterwards to be the bit and curb-chain of her pony's bridle which she was polishing up to her own bright mind, because the stable-boy had not pleased her in the matter, and she wanted both to get them brilliant and to shame the lad for the future. I followed her to the window, where I was indeed as much surprised and pleased as she could ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... horse-dealer, now as a sepoy, now as a Pathan money-lender, again as a gold-braided, velvet waistcoated, swaggering swashbuckler from the Border)—his experiences were disquieting, were such as to make him push on preparations, perfect plans, and work feverishly at the "polishing" ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... quondam friend and prospective murderer. To his horror he observed that there was a light behind the blind of the Major's bedroom, and pictured him writing to his seconds—he wondered who the "seconds" were going to be—or polishing up his pistols. All the rumours and hints of the Major's duels and affairs of honour, which he had rather scorned before, not wholly believing them, poured like a red torrent into his mind, and he found that now he believed them with a passionate ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... that such rhetoric is always bad, and always scatters, in places where they have no right to grow, the flowers with which it embellishes and enlivens history. But we shall, on the present occasion, carefully avoid polishing the antithesis in question, but shall proceed to draw another picture as minutely as possible, to serve as foil and counterfoil to the one in the preceding chapter. The young prince alighted from Aramis's room, in the same way the king had descended from the apartment dedicated ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... heterogeneous coal cannot have the polished surface of the pure bituminous body; for, the earthy matter that is interposed among the bituminous particles must affect the fracture in preventing its surface from being perfectly smooth. This imperfect plane of the fracture may be improved by polishing; in which case the body might be sufficiently smooth to have an agreeable polish; but it cannot have a perfect polish like a homogeneous body, or appear with that glassy surface which is naturally in the fracture of ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... more experienced workers earn as much as ten and twelve shillings per diem—higher pay being given to the best polishers. Flat polishing can be done by machinery, but one of the four pedestals intended to support the great Alexander monument was being polished round the crevices by three men, who had spent twenty-two days doing those few square feet, and on which, when we left, they ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... she is the equal of the best in the nineteenth, it is at the very most a bare equality. But in the twelfth and thirteenth France, if not Paris, was in reality the eye and brain of Europe, the place of origin of almost every literary form, the place of finishing and polishing, even for those forms which she did not originate. She not merely taught, she wrought—and wrought consummately. She revived and transformed the fable; perfected, if she did not invent, the beast-epic; brought the short prose tale to an exquisite completeness; enlarged, suppled, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and in the evening went trudging back, the level sun flashing on their empty dinner-cans. The eight souls left behind had one common gospel— Cleanliness. Very little dust found its way thither; but the salt, spray-laden air kept them constantly polishing window-panes and brass-work. To wash, to scour, to polish, grew into the one absorbing business of life. They had no gossip; even in their own dwellings they spoke but little; their speech shrank and dwindled away in the continuous roar of the sea. But from morning to night, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Arthurian legends as they are given in the old books, are more poetic, more stimulating to the imagination, than they are after they have gone through the verbal upholstering and polishing of such a poet as Swinburne or even Tennyson. These poets add little but words and flowers of fancy, and the heroic simplicity of ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... chair in the house, by the way—had, in his less distinguished days, been his throne. In it he would sit all day long, cutting and whittling, filing and polishing curious trinkets of tortoise-shell for watch-guards and tiny baskets made of cherry-stones, cunningly wrought and finished. He was an expert, too, in corn-cob pipes, which he carved for all his friends; and pin-wheels for everybody's children. When it came, however, to such matters ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and many only half done. Above this was a workshop, with a turning-lathe, and all necessary instruments for working in wood. Here, while no one knew where the king was, did he spend hours with a footman, named Duret, in cleaning and polishing his tools. Higher up was a library, containing the books the king valued most, and some private papers relating to the history of the royal families of Hanover, England, Austria, and Russia. In the room ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... said the eunuch, polishing his carbuncle, with a visage radiant as the gem. "I never repented patronizing men of science. The prince waits without. Come along!" He took Iskander by the arm. "Where is your boy? What are you doing there, sir?" inquired the eunuch, sharply, of Nicaeus, who, was tarrying ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... not hesitate to speak of his "imperious temper and that savage manner which was too haughty for a republic." "Indeed," he adds, "there is no other advantage to be had from a liberal education equal to that of polishing and softening our nature by reason and discipline." He also tells us that Coriolanus indulged his "irascible passions on a supposition that they have something great and exalted in them," and that he wanted "a due mixture of gravity ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... into common knowledge through the medium of his poetry. It is true that he wrote his plays and poems at lightning speed, and that if he was at pains to correct some obvious blunders, he expended but little labour on picking his phrases or polishing his lines; but it is also true that he read widely and studied diligently, in order to prepare himself for an outpouring of verse, and that so far from being a superficial observer or inaccurate recorder, his authority ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... pattered the keyboard like rain, and their letters were exquisitely neat. They had studied for a long time, and had acquired proficiency. And it is no easy thing to acquire proficiency in any task, from cobbling shoes to polishing sonnets or moving armies. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... lunch in the middle of the attack of inspiration. Inspiration is of course very useful, but it has a way of suggesting words that won't rhyme, and luring you off into all sorts of false tracks. Moreover, it affords no help whatever in polishing. After lunch I set to work with renewed zeal, licking the lines into their present perfection. At last they were finished, and as I lit the gas to enable me to see to make a fair copy, I realised that the beautiful ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... hadst but sat at home, polishing thy spy-glasses instead of faring to Utrecht! Customarily thou art so cloistered in that the goodwife declares thou forgettest to eat for three days together—and certes there is little thou canst eat when thou goest not abroad to buy provision! ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... there was no help for it, since they were virtually prisoners. The day passed slowly, and toward noon storm drew down on the harbor and snow eddied in their casement. With that, they fell to polishing their weapons; Brian procured a razor and a much-needed shave, and Cathbarr furbished up his huge ax until ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... ago a firm at Sioux Falls undertook to manufacture table tops, mantels, pedestals, and various decorative articles out of sections of this agatized wood by cutting them into the desired forms and polishing them. Tiffany and Company, the famous jewellers, also used this material for the base of the beautiful silver testimonial presented to the French ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... profound mystery. In very recent years it has been learned that the real cause of beri-beri and scurvy is the lack of vitamines which are associated with the bran of cereals and so are removed in the process of polishing rice and in the bolting of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the Divine by reason of the excellence of his wisdom, defrayed his traveling expenses in Egypt by the profits derived from the oil which he sold during his journey. Spinoza maintained himself by polishing glasses while he pursued his philosophical investigations. Linnaeus, the great botanist, prosecuted his studies while hammering leather and making shoes. Shakespeare was the successful manager of a theatre—perhaps priding himself more upon his practical qualities in that capacity than ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... the tombs, may be arranged in the following classes: Pictured rocks, sculptured columns, images, mealing stones, stools, celts, arrowpoints, spearpoints (?), polishing ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... a low fellow," Ieremia declared, pausing in the polishing of his spectacles. "He is a scoundrel and a blackguard. He should be struck by a dead pig, by a particularly ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... an angle formed by the armour of the turret and the Wardroom bulkhead, was a small cupboard. It was used by the flat-sweeper and messengers for the stowage of brooms, polishing paste, caustic soda and other appliances of their craft, and was just large enough to hold ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... class on that voyage, the young men resentfully pointed out to each other, except these two kids who were too much under it, and a young lady of thirty who sat manicuring her nails most of the day with her back supported by a life-boat, and polishing them with red stuff till they flashed rosily in the sun. This young lady was avoided for the first two days, while the young men still remembered their mothers, because of what she looked like; but was greatly loved for the rest of the voyage precisely ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... the dwarf decided to satisfy himself upon the matter. All around him lay slabs of rock, some of which were worn perfectly smooth and to the thinness of a tombstone, by centuries of polishing in the iron jaws of glaciers. Selecting one of these of convenient size, Otter approached the edge of the bridge, pushing the stone before him over the frozen snow. Here the ice was perfect, except for a slight hoar-frost that covered it, for the action of the wind prevented the snow from ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... really make you uneasy, Mrs. Becker, I give it up," said Willis, polishing with his arm the ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... found in plenty, it lies at a considerable depth, never less than three feet. Both the rock-stone and the coral could be squared only by tools made of the same substance, which must have been a work of incredible labour; but the polishing was more easily effected by means of the sharp coral sand, which is found every-where upon the seashore in great abundance. In the middle of the top stood the image of a bird, carved in wood; and near it lay the broken one of a fish, carved in stone. The ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the cratur alane," said Macleod, as he busied himself polishing up some dim parts of his rifle. "It's no muckle pleesure we're like to hae in this het place. Let the puir thing enjoy his ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... "let me give you a piece of advice. When you are a captain, as I am very sure you will be, do not worry your men into mutiny by making what is called a smart ship. Cleanliness and good order are what seamen like; but niggling, polishing, scraping iron bars, and ring-bolts, and the like of that, a sailor dislikes more than a flogging at the gangway. If, in reefing topsails, you happen to be a minute later than another ship, never mind it, so long as your sails are well reefed, and fit to stand blowing weather. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... splendid indolence. He had been in Europe for the last few years, wandering amid the ruins of Italy, studying the grand old masters, summering in the valleys of Switzerland, beneath the shadow of its mountain heights, and polishing his bold, masterly sketches among ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "He's all right! Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... Jude was polishing the gun which John Gaston had given him a year before, and had trained him to use until he was second only to Gaston himself for marksmanship. "Him and her—who?" he asked, raising his dull eyes ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... unjustifiably curious to know if Mr. Graves has given much labour and polishing to these fresh impetuous things. It is against all my experiences if he has not!—but then it would be an addition to my experiences to ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... Cryptic. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every one who could get within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... those enormous piers, roofed over, dim and cool inside, I stood one day looking out on the deck of an East Indian freighter, where two half-naked Malays were polishing the brasswork. One of them was a boy of ten. His small face was uncouth and primitive almost as some little ape's, but I saw him look up again and again with a sudden gleaming expectancy. I grew curious and waited. Now the looks came oftener, his every move was restless. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... exhibiting only a benighted intelligence, represent Aztecs and Toltecs who are supposed to have possessed a liberal share of art and culture; a people, whose astronomers were able to determine for themselves the apparent motion of the sun and the length of the solar year: who had the art of polishing the hardest of precious stones; who cast choice and perfect figures of silver and gold in one piece; and who made delicate filigree ornaments without solder? These are achievements belonging to quite a high state of civilization. The cabins consist mostly ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... in the captain's charge. Father wanted us to have a year's schooling in England; and we were coming to Devonshire to live with Aunt Sabina, and get a little polishing ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... let the brush fall, with which he was polishing his finger-nails; but he mastered his confusion so promptly, that ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... is," agreed Fanny with that joyous, bubbling, luxurious note that Grandma knew so well. "I saw Mary Hagley polishing her very knuckles off on that second-hand stove Mert bought from that watery-eyed man from Spring Road who drives through here with the lame buckskin horse and pieced-out harness. Lutie Barlow's got her ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... pick up the crumbs themselves—small blame to thim in that matther. No; a bright Irish nag, with lots of heart, like Brien Boru, is the hoss to stand on for the Derby; where all run fair and fair alike, the best wins;—but I won't say but he'll be the betther for a little polishing ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... silver, it is best to wash it first in hot water and white soap and then use the polishing cloths. The cloths can be used until they are worn to shreds. Do not wash them. Knives, forks, spoons and other small pieces of silver will keep bright and free from tarnish if they are slipped into cases made from the gray outing flannel ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... their lives, and at times she repined, but on the whole she was happier, and every day seemed to arouse her more and more to a better sense of the duties that lay round her in life, While seated on her old settle she watched Mrs. Kane sweeping and washing the floor, polishing up the windows and bits of furniture, and making the humble home shine. Hetty longed to be able to take broom and scrubbing-brush from her hands and help her with the troublesome work. When she found that by learning to hold her needle she could help to darn and ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... was still. The solid little building looked so quiet and well cared for in the bright sunshine, which shone on the polished window-panes and on the bright red top of the lantern, where he could see the lamp-trimmer going round on his little gallery, polishing the prisms. ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... slowly opened and closed. Then he fell to polishing the nails of one hand on the palm of the other. At last he answered, "If ye'd asked me that this time last year, I'd have said 'it's the drink,' at a jump. But times this summer, this morning, for instance, when he hadna a drop in three weeks, and dinna want ane, when he could have come wi' me ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... only thing we can enjoy. The fact is, if we thought about it we would never eat at all. I happened to walk round the tent to-day, and found the dish-washer washing our dishes in water that was positively thick, and drying them with a cloth that had begun life polishing our brown boots. I stormed at him in English, and later Boggley stormed at him in Hindustani, and he vowed it would never happen again; but I dare say if I were to look round at this minute, I should find him doing exactly the same thing; ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... very numerous group of minute organisms, some of which are used as test objects for microscopes. They contain in their outer coat or case a relatively large portion of silex, and their remains here and there form deposits—vast beds many feet in thickness—known as "tripoli," and used for polishing. The minute particle of their protoplasm is contained within the siliceous case. They may be entirely free, or cohere in aggregations, or be attached to a supporting surface by a slender stalk, which may ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... do that, you'll see," cried the girl, cheerfully, and while uncle Nathan was polishing his broad face with the towel, she seized a heavy iron tea-kettle, and carried it to the well, which, surrounded by plantain and dock leaves, was near a corner of the house. She had some little difficulty in managing the windlass, and when the old mossy bucket fell with a dash into the water ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... mineral Veins. Ordinary metalliferous Veins or Lodes. Their frequent Coincidence with Faults. Proofs that they originated in Fissures in solid Rock. Veins shifting other Veins. Polishing of their Walls or "Slicken sides." Shells and Pebbles in Lodes. Evidence of the successive Enlargement and Reopening of veins. Examples in Cornwall and in Auvergne. Dimensions of Veins. Why some alternately swell ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... door, and from that together they went into their father's study. Ellen was left alone on the lawn. Something was the matter, for she stood with swimming eyes and a trembling lip rubbing her stirrup, which really needed no polishing, and forgetting the tired horses, which would have had her sympathy at any other time. What was the matter? Only—that Mr. John had forgotten the kiss he always gave her on going or coming. Ellen was jealous of it as a pledge of sistership, and could not want it; and though she tried as hard ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... in the Black Nunnery are not such as some of my readers may suppose. They are not employed in studying the higher branches of education; they are not offered any advantages for storing their mind, or polishing their manners; they are not taught even reading, writing, or arithmetic; much less any of the more advanced branches of knowledge. My time was chiefly employed, at first, in work and prayers. It is true, during the last year I studied ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... Launcelot would ride just now, would wave to her as he rode by, his scarlet cloak passing behind the dark yew trees and between the open space: whilst she, ah, she, would remain the lonely maid high up and isolated in the tower, polishing the terrible shield, weaving it a covering with a true device, and waiting, waiting, always ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... I have seen a good many more men than you. There is not a man you know whom he could not throw across the canal down there. Sir Keith Macleod a beauty man!—I think he could take on a good deal more polishing, and curling, and smoothing without any great harm. If I was in any danger, I know which of all the men I have seen I would rather have in front of me—with his arms free; and I don't suppose he would be thinking of any looking-glass! ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... ago Newman was cutting and polishing his diamond scheme of legislative decentralization till its facets flashed to the lighted intellects of the world a thousand messages—a thousand clear-cut suggestions for the welfare of his country and the betterment of its legislation, as he firmly believed. He was never tired of urging it ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... iron. (2) The surface of the screwhead is coated with a very thin coating of shellac dissolved in alcohol and thoroughly dried, or a thin coating of collodion, which is also dried. The screw is placed in the ordinary polishing triangle and the flat face at a polished on a tin lap with diamantine and oil. In polishing such surfaces the thinnest possible coating of diamantine and oil is smeared on the lap—in fact, only enough to dim the surface of the tin. It is, of course, understood that ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... London, in all England. There were not cleaner windows, or whiter floors, or brighter Stoves, or more highly shining articles of furniture in old mahogany; there was not more rubbing, scrubbing, burnishing and polishing, in the whole street put together. Nor was this excellence attained without some cost and trouble and great expenditure of voice, as the neighbours were frequently reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... The lavender young man reached the button, and a bell tinkled in the little buffet at the far end of the car. The negro lazily polishing a glass put it down, glanced at the indicator, and hastened to put glasses ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... It should, however, be recognized that much of the depth of colour of old oak panelling is really nothing but dirt, though the true dark brown tint of old age can be found underneath, and right to the centre of each piece. Spring-cleaning of the past consisted very much in polishing with beeswax and turpentine, without removing the dirt produced by smoky fires and constant handling, so that extraneous matter became coated with the polish and preserved beneath it. I have had occasion, when restoring old woodwork, to wash off ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... said. He finished polishing one glass and set to work on another one. "Look at the place," he went on. "Half full. You been here two weeks now, and you know how business was ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... regretted he hadn't gone when he saw how close it had come in. We felt we had perhaps lost an opportunity of a passage to the Cape we might not get again, but really there was not time to dress and be off. Graham worked off his disappointment by polishing away at the boots and shoes. The men were soon back. The captain said he could only wait half-an-hour, but stayed an hour. He let them have 300 lbs. of flour and some other goods. Repetto was able to get some of the things we asked him to try for, ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... They're strangely alike, those two—each so tense, so strong, so demanding, each broken on the wheel, and each with that something firm and fine in the grain to which the wheel can do no more than impart a higher patina of polishing. They seem to me to bring down into our rather sugary life some of the old, narrow, splendidly austere New England qualities that have almost passed away and to make them bloom—bloom, that is, as the portulacca blooms, in a ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... staying with Miss Tracy, and to find out, if possible, if it was Alice, and whether she was still in Salisbury; but I felt ashamed of questioning on, and, during the pause that ensued, my informant gave one more general polishing to the table, pushed one or two chairs out of their places, poked the fire, which did not want poking, and with a side bow left the room. My curiosity was so strongly excited, that I could not ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... would be effectively sterilized, no matter what its contamination and no matter how much matter it held in suspension. But in order to insure such results the copper must be kept thoroughly clean. This polishing is not, as was popularly supposed, to protect the consumer from "copper poisoning," but to prevent the metal from becoming so coated with foreign substances that there is no contact of the copper with the water, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... needless verbiage, and told as nearly as possible in the words and actions of the characters themselves; and it possesses a strong climax. Therefore it demands the most careful and skillful workmanship, from its conception to its final polishing. It is the most modern ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... he's been buried too long in the soil; he needs polishing." She rolled over on the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... his polishing. "Should think you'd be more interested in these," he observed, giving a nod of the ragged hat toward a shallow dish at his elbow. "Little ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... face in a state of transparency; after the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned. When he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching collation would be ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... detected in strata of great age; and in spite of their microscopic dimensions, they have not uncommonly accumulated to form deposits of great thickness, and of considerable superficial extent. Thus the celebrated deposit of "tripoli" ("Polir-schiefer") of Bohemia, largely worked as polishing-powder, is composed wholly, or almost wholly, of the flinty cases of Diatoms, of which it is calculated that no less than forty-one thousand millions go to make up a single cubic inch of the stone. Another celebrated deposit is the so-called "Infusorial ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... concluded Marvin, taking off his spectacles and polishing them with a silk handkerchief. Loo turned and looked at him, for the action so characteristic of a mere onlooker indicated that the momentary concentration of a mind so stored with knowledge that confusion reigned there ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... expression and manner when Miss Bateman, as Queen Mary (she was very good, by the way), was pouring out her heart to him. The horrid, dead look, the cruel unresponsiveness, the indifference of the creature! While the poor woman protested and wept, he went on polishing up his ring! Then the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... marriage, threatening to declare war against her in case of a refusal: the ambassadors being afraid to deliver the message of Iarbas, told her, (with Punic honesty,) "that he wanted to have some person sent him, who was capable of civilizing and polishing himself and his Africans; but that there was no possibility of finding any Carthaginian, who would be willing to quit his native place and kindred, for the conversation of Barbarians, who were as savage as the wildest beasts." Here the queen, with indignation, interrupting them, and asking, "if ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... had corn, Bennington," Jim Shirley observed. "I was polishing my crown for a Corn King Festival this fall. I don't believe I'll harvest fifteen ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and rapid writer, scarcely ever correcting or polishing up anything that he had put on paper. This was a defect, but it was the natural outcome of his temperament, which was a curious combination of lightness ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... earliest elaborations of the Small Catechism was the Catechism of Justus Menius, 1532, and the Nuernberg Children's Sermons of 1533. Both exploit Luther's explanations without mentioning his name. At the same time some changing, abbreviating, polishing, etc., was done, as Luther's text was considered difficult to memorize. Albrecht says of Menius's emendations: "Some of his formal changes are not bad; most of them, however are unnecessary. The entire ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... intelligence, and literary ability ever assembled from motives other than those of politics or intrigue; here was a gathering purely social and for purposes of mutual refinement. The nobility went through a process of polishing, and the men of letters sharpened their intelligence and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... have expended in the composition of the Georgics, and they could all be printed in about seven columns of an ordinary newspaper. Tradition reports that he was in the habit of composing a few lines in the morning and spending the rest of the day in polishing them. Campbell used to say that if a poet made one good line a week, he did very well indeed; but Moore thought that if a poet did his duty, he could get a line ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... roar of laughter; and in spite of her vexation the mother was obliged to follow my example. The poor woman, hardened by the life she led, took the child's simplicity for stupidity, but I saw in her a rough diamond which only wanted polishing. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... shoots until he had both hands full, my guide now bent down, and rubbed the resin over both the soles and upper surface of his coarse brogans. He then advanced to where I stood, stooped down again, and treated my boots to a similar polishing! ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... this way and that, preening her neck, biting her scarlet lips to deepen their crimson, opening her eyes wide and half closing them languorously. Julia, down on her knees in combat with the trickiest of the hooks, glanced up and saw. Two-eighteen caught the glance in the mirror. She stopped her idle polishing and preening to study the glowing and lovely little face that looked up at her. A certain queer expression grew in her eyes—a ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Mrs. Hawtry and the twins were by this time settled in their country home in Westchester, and Debrett, driving up from the station in the evening with Mr. Hawtry, found it difficult to accept the freckled, barelegged, blue-jumpered form which he saw in the garden, polishing the spokes of a bicycle, as the ward who had lived all these months in his memory: a fragile little figure in funeral black. Never had he seen so altered a child, he assured Mrs. Hawtry with many congratulations. She seemed taller, heavier, more self-assured. But the smile with which she put ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... the nurses led me to a large room on the second floor. As we neared the door a young interne, so the nurse told me, came out. He was thoughtfully polishing his glasses. ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... was sitting with his back to the door, busily engaged in polishing the horns of the deer. Whatever scruples Harmony had had about the horns, Peter had none whatever, save to get them safely out of the place and to the hospital. So Peter was polishing the horns. Harmony had not expected to find him home, and ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... give me additional cultivation, I shall thankfully receive it, for Barilli has taught me all of which he is master, and there is no one else in town in whom I have more confidence. It was my desire and determination that the work of my hands should pay for polishing my voice, but embroidery-fees would not suffice to defray the expenses of the professor to whom you allude; and, if Dr. Grey pays for his services, I must in advance assure you and him that I shall decline them, and rely upon ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... occasional domesticity and the practical good sense that marked her home economies. She rose now, basin in hand. Her sleeves were rolled up, her bushy hair, a troublesome half-length now, was bound up in a towel. She had been scrubbing and polishing the zinc under the stove, and she was as happy as she was executive. She flew about trilling "The Zingara," with a smudge on her chin and a big kitchen-apron tied about her waist, looking like a dirty little slavey; yet putting ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing brasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door. She stopped for an interchange ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... hand, some clean sand may be ground in an agate mortar, and if possible sieved. Only material which passes the 100-mesh sieve should be used. It will be ground still finer in the process. For the final polishing, a little infusorial earth ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary
... and ushered forth the chief, carefully dressed in his uniform of state, while at his side merrily clanked Gideon, resplendent, though none but he and his master knew it, in such a furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... reached home, he stalked around the apartment for an hour, smoking half a dozen cigarettes, chain fashion, and polishing off three glasses of Bristol Cream without even ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Lutherans by aiming to refine their pleasures. The elegance which she wished to introduce was termed lasciviousness; yet I do not find that the absence of gallantry renders the wives more chaste, or the husbands more constant. Love here seems to corrupt the morals without polishing the manners, by banishing confidence and truth, the charm as well as cement of domestic life. A gentleman, who has resided in this city some time, assures me that he could not find language to give me an idea of the gross debaucheries into which the lower order of ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... his month in polishing his pistols and sharpening his sword. It is true that he had to persuade Jenny to bear them company, but that was the work of an afternoon. He told her the story of the rich Austrian heiress, promised her a hundred guineas and a damask gown, gave ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... the basket of linen prepared by Gervaise, and Augustine was ironing her towels, with her nose in the air, deeply interested in a fly that was buzzing about. As to Clemence, she was polishing off her thirty-fifth shirt; as she boasted of this great ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola |
