"Smear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... black smear was on Baby Akbar's forehead, and despite the smudge, he looked a very fine little fellow indeed. So much so that quite a murmur of delighted admiration ran round the assemblage when Askurry appeared, leading him by the hand; for he ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... the next morning, and the vessel grew day by day till at length a skeleton ship rose to view. Weeks passed on and the ship made rapid progress till the whole hulk stood ready. Then a great cauldron was heated, and the bubbling tar within was used to smear over the planks ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... a sitting position, stared around, clapped a hand to his right shoulder, looked at the red smear his palm brought away, reeled up, and scrambled back to his rifle. Schwandorf's bullet had drilled clear through the shoulder, and in falling his head had struck one of the upright poles. Without a word he got his gun into action once more, ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... point of view, his writing about gold, not very intelligible in itself, and now become undecipherable, was but a smear, and gave no handle to the enemy. Even after the time of James II., and under the "respectable" reign of William and Mary, his caravan might have been seen peacefully going its rounds of the little English country towns. He travelled freely from one end of Great Britain to the other, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... pockets. "I think I've got some of my chemicals; and after that we'll go up to the house." And he stooped again over the target, putting something with his finger over each of the shot-holes, so far as March could see merely a dull-gray smear. Then they went through the gathering twilight up the long green avenues to the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... caress, and acknowledge it with a perfunctory purr. She will manifest a patronizing interest in my work, stepping sedately among my papers, and now and then putting her paw with infinite deliberation on the page I am writing, as though the smear thus contributed spelt, "Lux, her mark," and was a reward of merit. But she never curls herself upon my desk, never usurps the place sacred to the memory of a far dearer cat. Some invisible influence restrains her. When her tour of inspection ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... impressed Ellen, for she stopped at once. Her sister had wiped the grit and the little smear of blood off her chin, and stood in the doorway holding her hand while one by one the other carriages drew up and the occupants alighted. Not a word was spoken till they had all assembled, then the young woman said: "Please come in and have a cup of tea," and turning on her heel led ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... reduced almost any life-form which moved into its field to a rather thin smear, but there wasn't even that left of the yellow demon-shape. Something, presumably something it was carrying, had turned it into a small blaze of incandescent energy as the mine flattened it out. Which explained the sound ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... the Waterloo Road can only write a single word, and that I taught him, and it's MULTIPLICATION—which you may see him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way. The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a rubber—if very hard put upon making a show—but he could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... worn them on my breast To wilt in the long day... I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase And watched each petal sallowing... I might have held them so—mechanically— Till the wind winnowed all the leaves And left upon my hands A little smear ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... kind of food and drink. Indeed, many excellent viands had been kept ready. As soon as I was asked, I caused hot frumenty to be brought and offered to the ascetic. Having eaten some, he quickly said unto me, 'Do thou, O Krishna, take some of this frumenty and smear all thy limbs with it!' Without any scruple I did as directed. Indeed, with the remnant of that frumenty I smeared my body and head. The ascetic at that time saw thy mother of sweet face standing near. Laughing the while, he smeared her body also with that frumenty. The ascetic ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... accompaniment of the usual low-hummed chantings. We had with us a small boy of ten or twelve years whose job it was to take care of the dogs and to remove ticks. In fact he was known as the Tick Toto. As this was his first expedition afield, his father took especial pains to smear him with fat from the lioness. This was to make him brave. I am bound to confess the effect ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... do you think those old Italians were such fools as to make fiddles that would be only fit to be heard when tried by their descendants two hundred years after they died?" James collapses, and getting a basin with some warm water, a cloth and a piece of sponge, proceeds to smear the latter up and down and round the sides of the instrument. The sponge and water soon show signs of the work in hand. "Very dirty, sir, hasn't been washed for a hundred years, I should think! There's a ticket, too, but ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... toward the last, as he fought (the inside of his head feeling like a smear of opened arteries), Skag had seen Carlin over the hood of the cobra. She had seemed utterly tall, utterly enfolding; his relation to her, one of the inevitables of creation. Nothing could ever happen to take her away ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... "should you regard me as more lovable or less did I present myself, my one endeavour and my sole care being that my body should be hale and strong and thereby well complexioned, or would you have me first anoint myself with pigments, [8] smear my eyes with patches [9] of 'true flesh colour,' [10] and so seek your embrace, like a cheating consort presenting to his mistress's sight and touch vermillion paste instead ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... faces when they went outside, and the glare of the fire above the fall emphasized the obscurity. Now the flames flung an evanescent flash of radiance across the whirling pool and the dark rock's side, and then sank again to a dim smear of yellow brightness while a haze of vapour whirled amidst the snow, for a high wind swept through the canyon. Sometimes they could see the boulders among which they stumbled, and the river frothing at their feet, but for the ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... sense, as you think. I'm not such a base creature. I'm capable of gratitude, I'm capable of affection. One may live in paint and tinsel, but one isn't absolutely without a soul. Yes, I've got one," the girl went on, "though I do smear my face and grin at myself in the glass and practise my intonations. If what you're going to do is good for you I'm very glad. If it leads to good things, to honour and fortune and greatness, I'm ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... beautiful Sin, Let thy stinging red kisses pour down fiery red wine into our blood. Sound the trumpet of imperious evil And cross our forehead with the wreath of exulting lawlessness, O Deity of Desecration, Smear our breasts with the blackest mud of disrepute, ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... stench which had come to me in the valley, and before then from the thing that came to the side of the boat. And, suddenly, I knew that Job had fallen prey of those foul things, and, knowing this, I called out to the bo'sun that they had taken the boy, and then my eyes caught the smear of slime upon the sand, and I had proof that ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... business, that is all." And he pointed his finger at the wall. Then I saw what I had not noticed before. The walls were hung with at least five score Of swords and daggers of every size Which nations of militant men could devise. Poisoned spears from tropic seas, That natives, under banana trees, Smear with the juice of some deadly snake. Blood-dipped arrows, which savages make And tip with feathers, orange and green, A quivering death, in harlequin sheen. High up, a fan of glancing steel Was formed of claymores ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... an age of trumpery romance?" demanded a heavy gentleman in dull disdain. "William Dean has erased all romance from modern life with one smear of his honest thumb!" ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... shouts; But the temple was full "inside and out," And a buzz kept buzzing all round about Like bees when the day is sunny— A buzz universal that interfered With the right that ought to have been revered, As if the couple already were smear'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... rigging, the captain of the Vrow Katerina arrived, and, stepping on board of her by the plank which communicated with the quay, the first thing that he did was to run to the mainmast and embrace it with both arms, although there was no small portion of tallow on it to smear the cloth of his coat. "Oh; my dear Vrow, my Katerina!" cried he, as if he were speaking to a female. "How do you do? I'm glad to see you again; you have been quite well, I hope? You do not like being laid up ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... shearing done, And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams, While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell, The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide. Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum And native sulphur and Idaean pitch, Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black. Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune crown his toil, Than if with blade of iron ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... balm which the Krzyzaks will send, you had better smear a dog than a knight whom you love. I will ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... figured so conspicuously in all the rumors, it appeared that suspicion had monstrously exaggerated the facts. Instead of a waistcoat plashed with blood—as popular imagination pictured it—it was a gray waistcoat, with one spot and a slight smear of blood, which admitted of a very simple explanation. Three days before, Franz had cut his left hand in cutting some bread; and to this the maid testified, because she was present when the accident occurred. He had not noticed ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... threatening to meet, which you know is quite contrary to Euclid [here Lamb has ruled lines grossly unparallel]. Her very blots are not bold like this [here a bold blot], but poor smears [here a poor smear] half left in and half scratched out with another smear left in their place. I like a clean letter. A bold free hand, and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go thro' them (a second operation) to dot her i s, and cross her t s. I don't think she can make a cork screw, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the shore Of the fierce stream, and cows them all with dread: Their flesh yet living sets he up to sale, Then like an aged beast to slaughter dooms. Many of life he reaves, himself of worth And goodly estimation. Smear'd with gore Mark how he issues from the rueful wood, Leaving such havoc, that in thousand years It spreads not to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... was not understood. Revelation came to George that the British Empire, which he had always suspected to be an invention of those intolerable persons the Imperialists, was after all something more than a crude pink smear across ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... is best of eatin', though not very much fer style! Shuck an arm-full fer yer dinner, sot 'em on en let 'em bile; Salt 'em well, en smear some butter on the juicy cobs ez sweet Ez the lips of maple-suger thet yer sweet-heart has to eat! Talk about ole Mount Olympus en the stuff them roosters spread On theyr tables when they feasted,—nectar drink, ambrosia bread,— Why, I tell ye, fellers, never would I swop the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... marvellous, and the mountain passes were beyond words picturesque. We passed a string of 150 camels pacing along in the moonlight and the snow. All of them wore bells which jingled softly. Around us were the weird white hills, with a smear of mist over them. The radiant moon, the snow, and the chiming camels ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... Holbein, died—constitute one of those periods which rightly deserve the much-abused name of an Epoch. The Christian era of itself had known many: the Yellow-Danger of the fifth century making one hideous smear across Europe; the Hic Jacet with which this same century entombed an Empire three continents could not content; the new impulse which Charlemagne and Alfred had given to Progress in the ninth century; the triumphant establishment of Papal Supremacy, that Napoleonic idea ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... was dead. They led us into the shell of the place, the stone walls being still staunchly erect; but the roof was gone, and in the cinders and dust on the planks of an inner room they showed us a big dull-brown smear. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... and tarred, and then bound together side by side after Cossack fashion, with long strands of reeds, so that the swell of the waves might not sink them. Far along the shore they built fires and heated tar in copper cauldrons to smear the boats. The old and the experienced instructed the young. The blows and shouts of the workers rose all over the neighbourhood; the bank ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... he comes to aid, The wretched father they invade And twine in giant folds: twice round His stalwart waist their spires are wound, Twice round his neck, while over all Their heads and crests tower high and tall. He strains his strength their knots to tear,* While gore and slime his fillets smear, And to the unregardful skies Sends up his agonizing cries: A wounded bull such moaning makes, When from his neck the axe he shakes, Ill-aimed, and from the altar breaks. The twin destroyers take their flight To Pallas' temple on the height; There by the goddess' feet concealed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... charge. She grew blind and demented toward the end, and was given a room in the west wing, over the counting-house. Nicholas removed the door-handle on the inside, and the wainscot there still showed a dull smear, rubbed by the poor creature's shoulder as she trotted round and round; also marks upon the door, where her fingers had grabbled for the missing handle. There were dreadful legends of this Nicholas—one in particular of a dark foreigner who had been landed, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his continuing firm, they attributed all sorts of base motives to him. He was often sorely provoked, but he acted upon the advice of that holy man who tells us that, when people throw mud at us, our wisdom is to leave it to dry, when it will fall off of itself, and not to smear our clothes by trying of ourselves to wipe it off. He had hearty helpers in Ned Brierley and his family; Ned himself being a special support, for the persecutors were all afraid of him. But his ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... and over all Her rival's face and form she smear'd A deadly drug. The head grew small, And ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... knowing what they aim at. Their women have virtuous instincts, but turn wanton rather than not be like the maids of honour; and because we have our duels their men murder each other for a shrugged shoulder or a casual word. No, I'll not chalk my face or smear myself with phosphorus to amuse such trumpery. It was worth my pains to disguise myself as a German Nostradamus, in order to fool the lovely Jennings and her friend Price—who won't easily forget their adventures as orange-girls in the heart of the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... them? Of course I did! But, mind ye, there come a time when I as good as forgot them altogether. They seemed to get smeared out of my head—like we used to smear old sums ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... made quite a desperate little attempt 'to be good', as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity—they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and I think that was ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... in the palm of the left hand were safe from detection, only to be met by the objection that they had to be written in ink, and if one's hand perspired, "and it was sure as hell to," nothing was left but an inky smear. Another held that a fellow could fasten a rubber band on his forearm and attach the notes to those, pulling them down when needed and then letting them snap back out of sight into safety. "But," one of the conspirators was sure to object, "what th' hell are you going to do if the band breaks?" ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... up the salmon and flung them one by one after the man, with no great haste, but with little care where they fell, for one or two spattered against the fellow's face as he clawed up out of his own hold. There was a smear of ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... joined them; the shabby hat was gone, and there was a smear of blood upon his cheek, also he laboured in his breathing, but ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... from Carpet—Do not attempt to sweep the carpet until it has been covered with dry salt. Then sweep it and no smear will be left. ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... "Behold I die. But first I would give thee a gift. Take of the blood that cometh from this wound, and it shall come to pass that if the love of thy husband fail thee, thou shalt take of this blood and smear it on a garment, and give him the garment to wear, and he shall love thee ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... of the desert lies on your hair and your feet are scratched with thorns and your body is scorched by the sun. Come with me, Honorius, and I will clothe you in a tunic of silk. I will smear your body with myrrh and pour spikenard on your hair. I will clothe you in hyacinth and put honey ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... huge bundles Of itself in warm motion Through the barrack windows; It rattles a sheet of flypaper Tacked in a smear of sunshine on the sill. A voice and other voices squirt A slow path among the room's tumbled sounds. A ukelele somewhere clanks In accidental jets ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... directed to the prisoner, on Tuesday afternoon last, by some boys in Fourteenth Street. Prisoner was standing on the side-walk, on the side of the street opposite Tammany Hall. He was armed with a small pewter squirt, with which he was trying to smear the front of that building by drawing up dirty water from the gutter. The range of the squirt did not appear to reach more than half-way across the street. The water used was very foul, leaving ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... eyes away from her child. Flora had smear on her face; her hands were grimed with the floor. One of her stockings was down: her little white knee was going to scrape on the floor, be black before it was bloody. So—A long shining table under a cold gas spurt. A store with clothes and a stove: no place for herself. A row of suits, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... few, it's a pity not to take more care of those we have," grumbled Audrey, "this really is not fit to use, but I suppose I must." When she began to collect the china, the cup, as usual, had a smear on it, and the plate was not clean. "I had better wash it all, I suppose, as usual!" she thought impatiently, and banged open the tea-towel drawer with such force that Joan ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... spectator's fancy by its gay intention and design, none but worms can be familiar with. A hundred and ten years have passed, since any play was acted here. The sky shines in through the gashes in the roof; the boxes are dropping down, wasting away, and only tenanted by rats; damp and mildew smear the faded colours, and make spectral maps upon the panels; lean rags are dangling down where there were gay festoons on the Proscenium; the stage has rotted so, that a narrow wooden gallery is thrown across it, or it would sink beneath ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... see to it that you've something to bawl for, but as I started to say, it was my thrift that brought me to my fortune. I was just as tall as that candlestick when I came over from Asia; every day I used to measure myself by it, and I would smear my lips with oil so my beard would sprout all the sooner. I was my master's 'mistress' for fourteen years, for there's nothing wrong in doing what your master orders, and I satisfied my mistress, too, during that time, you know what I mean, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... of that?" cried the detective, with the air of a showman exhibiting his show. "This was overlooked because it was in the darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was lit this corner would ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bad!' The hand clung desperately, and Jim peered into Canty's face, and saw a smear of blood about his mouth. He was shot through the breast. 'Mate,' he said eagerly, 'kill wan fer me! Kill wan—if it's ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Yeri beauties no longer shelter their skins from the burning rays of the sun, and are become as brown as the rest. All the graces have departed from them; their fascinating smiles have vanished; and the rancid cocoa-oil with which they smear themselves may be smelt at many paces distance. In short, either the picture drawn of them by the early travellers was a monstrous flattery, or they are altogether different from what they were. I saw but one handsome girl at Tahaiti; she was ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... of dirty cud ... Eh!" she suddenly made a gesture of despair. 'Let's better drink some cognac, Jennechka,'" she addressed herself, "'and let's suck the lemon a little! ...' Brr ... what nasty stuff! ... And where does Annushka always get such abominable stuff? If you smear a dog's wool with it, it will fall off ... And always, the low-down thing, she'll take an extra half. Once I somehow ask her—'What are you hoarding money for?' 'Well, I,' she says, 'am saving it up for a wedding. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... power of springing and hurling itself upon its prey. The Patagonians are a barbarous people in the main and, like all barbarous people, are vengeful, cunning, and subtle. A favourite revenge of theirs upon unsuspecting enemies is to get within touch of them and secretly to smear a mixture of coriander and oil of sassafras upon some part of their bodies, and then either to lure or drive them into the forest. By a peculiar arrangement of Mother Nature this mixture has a fascination, a maddening effect upon the Mynga Worm, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the castle-door, Aghast the chieftain stood; The hound was smear'd with gouts of gore— His lips and fangs ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Dreyer was one of those who go on in advance, and smear the stones on the road with their hearts' blood, so that the rest of us may find our way. But you've no right to compare yourselves with him. He sank under the weight of a tremendous responsibility; and what are you doing? If you want ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... admirably phrased in his books, works that seem to me to found one of their chief claims to distinction on this, that at last we have a writer who can treat intimately of human love without leaving one smear of the onion ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... fright and I thought it was a most important thing,[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... I, "is to trap several dozen crows, smear their feet with glue, tie a ball of Indian twine to the ankle of every bird, then liberate them. Some are certain to fly into the crater and try to scrape the glue off in the sand. Then," I added, triumphantly, "all we have to do is to haul in our birds and detach the wealth of Midas from ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... sat there in the dark, the moon through the skylight above laying a pale smear which lengthened slowly towards him down the stairway. He tried to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... against the trestles and stood there, groping in his pocket. A dirty handkerchief, dragged up by his fumbling, hung out by its corner. All along the sharp crease there was a slender smear of blood. He looked down at it and pushed it back out ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... hear for the thousandth time that As You Like It would be one of those works which prove, as Landor said long since, the falsehood of the stale axiom that no work of man's can be perfect, were it not for that one unlucky slip of the brush which has left so ugly a little smear in one corner of the canvas as the betrothal of Oliver to Celia; though, with all reverence for a great name and a noble memory, I can hardly think that matters were much mended in George Sand's adaptation of the play by the transference ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... parts closely together, bind them with cotton yarn (see Fig. 65) that has been coated with grafting wax. This wax is made of equal parts of tallow, beeswax, and linseed oil. Smear the wax thoroughly over the whole joint, and make sure that the ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... intending to observe his habits and development. Seeing Dr. Bandinel near, I asked him to look at my curiosity. Hardly, however, had I turned the wriggling little victim out upon the leather-covered table, when down came the doctor's great thumb-nail upon him, and an inch-long smear proved the tomb of all my hopes, while the great bibliographer, wiping his thumb on his coat sleeve, passed on with the remark, "Oh, yes! they have black heads sometimes." That was something to know—another ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... will burst with hate! He will curse and he will cry. He will wait and wait and wait, Till again she passes by. Then like tiger from its lair He will leap from out his place, Down her, clutch her by the hair, Smear the vitriol on ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Anna Pavlovna. She never interfered in anything, welcomed guests cordially, and readily paid visits herself, though being powdered, she used to declare, would be the death of her. "They put," she used to say in her old age, "a fox's brush on your head, comb all the hair up over it, smear it with grease, and dust it over with flour, and stick it up with iron pins,—there's no washing it off afterwards; but to pay visits without powder was quite impossible—people would be offended. Ah, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... purple in the gills, and prepares to smear me on the spot; but I gives her the straight look between the eyes and ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... arms, as I kneeled on the stones, lay Dolly, her head fallen back and out of her hood, as white as a lily, dead too in an instant, for she was stabbed through her heart, with her life-blood in a great smear down her side, and all over my ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... simple, not very strong mill-contrivance downstairs. A shelf had been fixed up inside the pipe. On the shelf (as I could see by looking in) was a tallow candle in a sconce. Two oval bits of red glass, let into the wood, made the eyes of this lantern-devil. The mouth was a smear of some gleaming stuff, evidently some chemical. This was all the monster which had frightened me. The clacking noise was made by the machine which moved it round. As for the owl, that was probably painted with the same chemical. People were more superstitious then than now. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... heard voices, and a scuffle, with the sound of blows. A moment later there came, to my horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud breathing of a running man. I turned my lantern down the long, straight passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind, with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels, bounding like a tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife flashing in his hand. I have never seen a man run so fast as that little merchant. He was gaining on the Sikh, and ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in snaring birds; one of the most common is to smear pieces of bamboo with the gum of the jack-tree, the former being tied to the branches of some wild fruit tree, upon which, when the fruit is ripe, the birds light and are caught by the bird lime. This is called ka riam thit. Another is a kind of spring bow made of bamboo which is laid ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... it in a letter to the editor, Who thank'd me duly by return of post— I'm for a handsome article his creditor; Yet if my gentle Muse he please to roast, And break a promise after having made it her, Denying the receipt of what it cost, And smear his page with gall instead of honey, All I can say is—that he had ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... only there in the mind of the press agent. It's a kind of a religion with 'em. I was goin' to build a house on mine that was goin' to be a cross between a California bungalow and the Horticultural Building at the World's Fair. Say, I ain't the worst, kid. There's others outside of my smear, understand, that I wouldn't change ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... only too pleased to crumple up a crape frill and to smear a black dress with sticky little fingers for the sake of the sugar which Hetty ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... say to him, "because the duties of a comedian exhaust you. Why not give it up?" "Alas!" replied Moliere, with a sigh, "it is a point of honor that prevents me." "A what?" rejoined Boileau; "what! to smear your face with a mustache as Sganarelle, and come on the stage to be thrashed with a stick? That is a pretty point of honor for a ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of arnatto on the hair above the brow; while the forehead and cheeks are painted in various patterns with the same vermilion colour, which adds extreme ferocity to their appearance. Some of the men also smear their bodies with arnatto, as do the women. They are generally well-proportioned, and more elegant in figure than the other races. The women are noted for weaving excellent and durable hammocks of cotton—a plant which they cultivate for ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... expect trouble from it. The weapon was always cleaned with water so boiling hot that the heat of the barrel dried it. When occasionally flakes of metal fouling became visible a Marble brush always sufficed to remove enough of it. It was my habit to smear the bullets with mobilubricant before placing them in the magazine. This was not as much of a nuisance as it sounds. A small tin box about the size of a pill box lasted me the whole trip; and only once did I completely empty the magazine at one time. On my return I tested the rifle very ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... five o'clock to tea, and found himself alone next a group of women, mostly Swedes or Danish or Dutch, drinking a peculiar brown herb-brew which tasted like nothing else on earth, and eating two thick bits of darkish bread smeared with a brown smear which hoped it was jam, but hoped in vain. Unhappily he sat in the gilt and red, massively ornate room, while the foreign women eyed him. Oh, bitter to be a ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... immediately depends; or he may give the latter, viz. the proportions and arrangement of the larger parts and the general masses of light and shade, and leave all the minuter parts of which those parts are composed a mere blotch, one general smear, like the first crude and hasty getting in of the groundwork of a picture: he may do either of these, or he may combine both, that is, finish the parts, but put them in their right places, and keep them in due subordination to the general effect and massing ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... pole, performed some imitations. But, unable long to preserve it upright from its weight, the sooty end fell on Master Snapper's book, who was reading a little work upon 'Affability.' The blow fairly knocked it out of his hand, and made a great smear on his frilled shirt, at which a loud laugh ensued. Now Master Snapper could not bear to be laughed at, and was so much out of humour all the evening that he would ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... remedy is applied to any eczematous surface it is necessary to apply it on a cloth. Simply to smear it on ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... though he observed them last, small brass pieces of cannon, shining with polish. Shot was piled in pyramids beneath their mouths. He examined the guns admiringly. There were rows of daggers along shelves; some in sheath, others bare; one that had been hastily wiped showed a smear of ropy blood. He stood debating whether he should seize a sword for his protection. In the act of trying its temper on the floor, the sword-hilt was knocked from his hand, and he felt a coil of arms around him. He was in the imprisoning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the drorin'-room an' 'e ses, "Oh, you're in 'ere are yer, Easton," 'e ses—just like that, quite affable like. So I ses, "Yes, sir." "Well," 'e ses, "get it slobbered over as quick as you can," 'e ses, "'cos we ain't got much for this job: don't spend a lot of time puttying up. Just smear it over an' let ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... may be sufficient to answer, that the antient Grecians oiled themselves all over; that some nations have painted themselves all over, as the Picts of this island; that the Hottentots smear themselves all over with grease. And lastly, that many of our own heads at this day are covered with the flour of wheat and the fat of hogs, according to the tyranny of a filthy and wasteful fashion, and all this without inconvenience. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... terror we teach our babies, and also shame. The child is pure, innocent, natural. One of the first efforts of nursery culture is to smear that white page with our self-made foulness. We labor conscientiously and with patience, to teach our babies shame. We degrade the human body, we befoul the habits of nature, we desecrate life, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the natives would be intolerable to civilized noses. They are the filthiest people in the whole world. Words cannot convey an idea of their disgusting nature. They have long hair matted together with red clay and palm oil. This composition has a most outrageous smell, and with it they smear their faces and bodies. They are, generally speaking, a stout, athletic, well made race of people, and particularly harmless in their dispositions, though from their appearance you would not imagine that to be the case, as each individual is always armed with a spear about eight feet in length, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... after their manner they appear very fine. They have long deer's hair which is dyed red, and of which they make rings for the head, and other fine hair of the same color, to hang from the neck like tresses, of which they are very proud. They frequently smear their skin and hair with difference kinds of grease. They can almost all swim. They themselves make the boats they use, which are of two kinds, some of entire trees, which they hollow out with fire, hatchets and adzes, and which the Christians call ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... little baron's prison in Trutz-Drachen. Fastened to a bolt and hanging against the walls, hung a pair of heavy chains with gaping fetters at the ends. They were thick with rust, and the red stain of the rust streaked the wall below where they hung like a smear of blood. Little Otto shuddered as he looked at them; can those be ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... the marsh-born leech, Cling to my flesh, and drain my dark veins dry? Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. From a crushed eft tomorrow he shall drink Death! But now, Thestylis, take these herbs and smear That threshold o'er, whereto at heart I cling Still, still—albeit he thinks scorn of me— And spit, and say, ''Tis Delphis' bones I smear.' Turn, magic wheel, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... leader of the Apaches was horrible to look at. He was naked save for a breechcloth and boot moccasins and his face was daubed with ocher and vermilion. Across his lean chest, too, was a smear of paint just under the necklace of bear claws that gave him his name. He was armed with a .50-caliber Sharps single-shot rifle and with the only revolver in the tribe—an old-fashioned cap-and-ball six-shooter, taken from ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... course of the day that she spoke several times out loud, as if conversing with some invisible being. Evening arrived, and the waggons carried off their ripe and luscious loads, leaving the young men and girls racing up and down the pathways, and amongst the vines, endeavouring to smear each other's faces ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... According to her testimony, the Jews are in the habit of using Christian blood to smear the eyes of their new-born babies, since "the Jews are always born blind," also to mix it with the flour in preparing the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... lifting it, found the flags inside neatly rolled and stowed in order. On the table lay my father's Bible and his pocket Virgil, the latter open and laid face downwards. I picked it up, and the next moment came near to dropping it again with a shiver, for a dry smear of blood ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... leather. It will be found, if the finger is passed down the tool and over its edge, that the stoning has turned up a burr. This must be removed by stropping on both sides alternately. A paste composed of emery and crocus powders mixed with grease is used to smear the leather before stropping; this can either be procured at the tool shop, or made by the carver. When the tool has been sufficiently stropped, and all burr removed, it is ready for use, but it is as well to try it on a piece of wood first, and test it for burr, and ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... Then he deliberately stood up on the pine root, with his back to the tree, and put his mark away up, a head at least above that of Wahb. He rubbed his back long and hard, and he sought some mud to smear his head and shoulders, then came back and made the mark so big, so strong, and so high, and emphasized it with such claw-gashes in the bark, that it could be read only in one way—a challenge to ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Yankee rascal," said the captain, when I told him I never drank ... "I think it would do you good if you got a little smear of beer-froth on your mouth once in a while ... you'd stop looking leathery like a mummy ... you've already got some wrinkles on your face ... a few good drinks would plump you out, make ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... it rushing at her, she saw the end of the patch of gravel. The road ahead was a wet black smear, criss-crossed with ruts. The car shot into a morass of prairie gumbo—which is mud mixed with tar, fly-paper, fish glue, and well-chewed, chocolate-covered caramels. When cattle get into gumbo, the farmers send for the stump-dynamite ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... allowing the pointed corner of a sheet to touch the surface of a drop of ink. Repeat with each sheet to be tested, and compare the height in each to which the ink has been absorbed. A well-made blotting paper should have little or no free fibre dust to fill with ink and smear the paper. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho |
