"Brass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... draw himself up, and raise a smiling and invincible head toward heaven, like that of the honest and valiant friend, the strongest of the four, and yet the first dead. Strange destiny of these men of brass! The most simple of heart allied to the most crafty; strength of body guided by subtlety of mind; and in the decisive moment, when vigor alone could save mind and body, a stone, a rock, a vile and material weight, triumphed over vigor, and falling upon the body, drove ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... he said, 'has put the matter with his usual admirable clearness. That is the thing in a nutshell. Has Comrade Rossiter any hobby that you know of? Spillikins, brass-rubbing, the Near Eastern Question, or anything like that? I have tried him with postage-stamps (which you'd think, as head of a postage department, he ought to be interested in), and dried seaweed, Hall Caine, but I have the honour to report total failure. The man seems to have ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... away, as if he were a statue, not of earth, but of snow. We see his own envy melts him, he grows lean with that; he will say, another's beauty melts him; but he feels that a fever doth not melt him like snow, but pour him out like lead, like iron, like brass melted in a furnace; it doth not only melt him, but calcine him, reduce him to atoms, and to ashes; not to water, but to lime. And how quickly? Sooner than thou canst receive an answer, sooner than thou canst conceive the question; earth is the centre of my body, heaven is the centre of my ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... primer of information about composing sticks, galleys, leads, brass rules, cutting and mitering machines, etc. 47 pp.; illustrated; ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... eyes was a gallant figure in a glittering steel corselet crossed by a silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length, headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant. "Is not Crichton victorious?" asked Ogilvy of Captain Larchant, for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the breakers of movement and sound struck and broke around them. It meant too much to Hannah and "little sister" for them to laugh and shout. Bud was with Company "A," and so the whole programme was more like a religious ceremonial to them. The blare of the brass to them might have been the trumpet call to battle in old Judea, and the far-thrown tones of the megaphone the voice of a prophet proclaiming ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... writer to whom I could turn for advice; and though I devoured scores of books about writing, they were chiefly concerned either with the newspaper business or with the technique of fiction, and they all failed to get down to brass tacks about my own pressing problem, which was how to write and sell magazine articles. I was not seeking any more ABC advice about newspaper "stories," nor did I feel the least urge toward producing ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... was dark and tightly shut when Peter let himself in at the gate and walked to the door. He stood a moment listening, and then gently pressed open the shutter. A faint light burned on the inside, a night-lamp with an old-fashioned brass bowl. It sat on the floor, turned low, at the foot of his mother's bed. The mean room was mainly in shadow. The old-style four-poster in which Caroline slept was an indistinct mound. The air was close and foul ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... a house-agent's in John Street, Adelphi. Her sitting-room was low-ceilinged with little diamond-paned windows. The place was let furnished, and the green and red vases on the mantelpiece, the brass clock and the bright yellow wallpaper were properties of the landlord. To the atmosphere of the place Miss Avies, although she lived there for a number of ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... visitors would throng to a much more imposing front door. He announced, with an air of state, that his master and young mistress were "receivin'," and took ceremonious charge of the callers. He had brushed his threadbare coat and polished each brass button singly until it shone. An African imagination aided him to feel the dignity ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Solomon. And as men lived longer in those primeval times than subsequently, and were larger and stronger, "for there were giants in those days," and early invented tents, the harp, the organ, and were artificers in brass and iron, and built cities—as they were full of inventions as well as imaginations, it is not unreasonable to infer, though we can not know with certainty, that the antediluvian world was more splendid and luxurious than the world ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... artistic decoration that is now the fashion. There are rich Persian rugs over the polished oak floor; a high oak chimney-piece, with blue tiles inserted into it in every direction, and decorated with old Nankin china bowls and jars; a wide grate below, where logs of wood are blazing between brass bars; quantities of spindle-legged Chippendale furniture all over the room, and a profusion of rich gold embroidery and "textile fabrics" of all descriptions lighting up the carved oak "dado" and the sombre ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... notion seems a useful protest against the prematurely artistic beings who fill their studies with photographs of Greek fragments, vases, etchings by the newest etcher, bits of China, Oriental rugs, and very curious old brass candlesticks. The "challenge cup" soon passes away from the keeping of any house in a public school where Bunthorne is a popular and imitated character. But when we reach aesthetic boys, we pass out of the savage stage ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... pampers man's appetite and on the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin and the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... tones like the sighing of the wind among tombs. With regard to his dress, it is in admirable keeping with his countenance. He wears a black coat, fashioned in the mould of other times, with large cloth buttons and flowing skirts; drab inexpressibles, fastened at the knee with brass buckles; gaiters, which, reaching no higher than the calf of the leg, set up independent claims to eccentricity and exact consideration on their own account; creaking, square-toed shoes; and a hat, broad in front, pinched up at the sides, verging to an angle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... was played like a mandolin, with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger-sized harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a curved ram's horn blown with the lips like our cornets; there was also another form made out of brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion instruments—the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... smashed chairs and wrecked bandstand in fierce protest against bourgeois tyranny. Immaculate in every detail of their uniform as though each man had his own servant, these soldiers who spent half their so-called leisure in scrubbing clothes, polishing steel and brass, and varnishing leather, had nevertheless a piteously dejected bearing whenever they passed pretty, well-dressed young women. They knew that, whatever they might once have been, as Foreign Legion men on pay of five centimes a day they were in the eyes of Bel-Abbes girls hopeless ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... almost irresistibly tempted to talk with Susan about her charge, but he felt the impropriety of such a proceeding, and refrained. Not so Gillie White. That sapient blue spider, sitting in his wonted chair, resplendent with brass buttons and brazen impudence, availed himself of every opportunity to perform an operation which he styled "pumping;" but Susan, although ready enough to converse freely on things in general, was judicious in regard to things particular. Whatever might have passed in the sick-room, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... which the Druids might have held their weird ritual. Directly ahead you see a battlement of boulders projected by some immemorial upheaval. Intrenched between them is the spot where Rhodes rests and which is marked by a brass plate bearing the words: "Here Lie the Remains of Cecil John Rhodes." In his will he directed that the site be chosen and even wrote the simple inscription for ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... doors—that is, doors which were cut in two half-way up so that you might open the top or bottom half or both halves to suit your fancy. The upper panels of these doors had two drop-lights of glass set in on the bias, and between them, half-way down the upper half, was a great brass knocker with a grip big enough to accommodate both hands in case you really ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... he dashed up the already burning steps. Heimbert hesitated a moment; he saw the staircase already tottering, and he thought to give a warning cry to his companion; but at the same moment the light ornamental ascent gave way and burst into flames. He could just see Fadrique clinging above to a brass grating and swinging himself up to it, but all means of following him were destroyed. Quickly recollecting himself, Heimbert lost no time in idly gazing, but hastened through the adjacent halls in search of ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... took a tremendous fancy to it. But it seems it wasn't gold, it was brass, and somebody told me so; I think it was Miss Ellen herself. I was so disappointed, I didn't want to live—queer! I can remember now just how I felt; a sort of sinking, here;" Sam laid his hand on his breast, "So I decided to throw myself out of the ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... his work was marked by a midnight Church Army procession, which, with brass band and torches, perambulated the most squalid quarters of Westminster and Pimlico. For an hour and a quarter, the Church Army workers, headed by the bishop, marched slowly in the rain through the muddy streets, halting before the public houses (saloons), where addresses were given by ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... course!" replied the fool, and felt in his coat. "But what a handsome weapon you have; the staff all covered with velvet and studded with brass tacks!" ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... oriel window of stained glass, over which the ivy and clematis had been allowed to fall; there was that faint odour which emanates from old wood and leather and damask; the furniture was antique and of the neutral tint which comes from age; the weapons and the ornaments of brass, the gilding of the great pictures, were all dim and lack-lustre for want of the cleaning and polishing which require many servants. In the huge fire-place some big logs were burning, and Donald and Bess threw themselves down before it with a sigh of satisfaction. The girl ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... dourest Scot fra Esk tae Tees! For only such, I'll answer for 't, Are rightly built for Hielan' sport, Can stalk Ben Ledi's antlered stag Frae scaur to scaur and crag tae crag, Cra'ing like serrpents through the grass On waumies bound wi' triple brass; Can find themselves at set o' sun, Wi' sandwiches and whusky gone, And twenty miles o' scaur and fell Fra Miss McOstrich's hotel, Yet utter no revilin' word Against the undiminished herd Of antlered monarchs of the glen That never crossed their eagle ken: But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... the walls, and suspended from the pillars of the original King's Chapel, were coats-of-arms of the king, the successive governors, and other distinguished men. In the pulpit there was an hour-glass on a large and elaborate brass stand. The organ was surmounted by a gilt crown in the centre, supported by a gilt mitre on each side. The governor's pew had Corinthian pillars, and crimson damask tapestry. In 1727 it was lined ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... disobedience and idleness, and who now watched him riding downward to the ships, did not recognize his former bondslave in the handsome and gaily attired young warrior. The people spoke among themselves of Olaf's beautiful fair hair, of his crested helmet of burnished brass, of his red silk cloak that fluttered in the breeze, and his glittering battleaxe that hung pendant from his saddle. They admired his easy seat upon horseback, and, when he spoke, they marvelled at the full richness ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... his glory of a dark-blue suit, with a gay shirt of pink-and-white striped cotton, fastened at the throat with long, pink strings that had tasselled ends, a scarlet bow-tie with a brass anchor and the Italian flag thrust through it, yellow shoes, and a black hat, placed well over the left ear. Upon the forefinger of his left hand he displayed a thick snake-ring of tarnished metal, and he had a large, overblown rose in his button-hole. His mustaches had been ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... gone, and there were no more pleasant rambles for Dangerfield and Irons along the flowery banks of the devious Liffey. Their rods and nets hung up, awaiting the return of genial spring; and the churlish stream, abandoned to its wintry mood, darkled and roared savagely under the windows of the Brass Castle. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... savors of an all too humble spirit. The easily abashed may starve in a garret, or go die on the highways. There is no chance for them in the jostle of life. The gilded circus chariot, with a full brass band and a plump goddess distributing posters, is what takes the popular heart by storm. Your silent entry into town, depending upon the merits of your wares to work up a trade, is chimerical and obsolete. ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... ceremonious part of the reception was over; and casting a glance, half admiring, half critical, at the appearance of things on deck—"What has Nelson sent us down here about this fine morning, and—ha!—how long have you had those brass ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that he himself knew the cause of the coming to those lands. And they took counsel together to discourse {111} on the matter otherwise than thus, in order that the wind might not catch their words, nor the Coranians know what they might say. Then Llevelys caused a long horn to be made of brass, and through this horn they discoursed. But whatsoever words they spoke through this horn, one to the other, neither of them could hear any other but harsh and hostile words. And when Llevelys saw this, and that there was a demon thwarting them and ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... more suited to your own taste, sir. But your grandfather would not have them. Old brass and copper were specialties with him, and he had a particular taste, Mr. Glenarm had, in glass candlesticks. He held that the crystal was most effective of all. I’ll go and let in the baggageman and ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... trim that lamp," said Harper angrily. "Look here, my lad, you just keep your tongue lashed amidships, and don't go gassing about things that don't concern you in the least, or you and I 'll part brass rags." ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... flag—which, for a hundred years, had been the terror of Christendom,—drove it from the Mediterranean, and put an end to the infamous tribute it had been accustomed to extort? It was the American sailor, and the name of Decatur and his gallant companions will be as lasting as monumental brass. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... enlightenment. We have but to glance around us to see how many of our daily comforts are dependent on the use of metals. Should we, by any mischance, become deprived of the use of iron, or of the useful alloys, bronze and brass, our civilization would be in great danger of reverting to Savagism. Man, destitute of metals, can do but little to improve his surroundings; but grant him these, and victory ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... fray. He has, like the rest in these days of modern chivalry, to be his own herald and blow his own preliminary blast. It is a tolerably sonorous one. Let the event show that he speaks not through brass alone. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... distinguished gentleman," indicating Popova, "is well known on account of being a high guy up at the palace. Sure as you live, if he trails around with you, you will be spotted. You don't want to hunt this fellow with a brass band. Besides, you don't need any help, do you?"—to the ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... years, heavy wire must be used. Wire such as I have indicated is satisfactory. I print the necessary information on each tag with a small, steel awl, and such labels are still legible after twenty-five years. Copper, brass or aluminum would also make good tags, but these metals are more expensive. Of course, these tags may be used for small trees as well as grafts and scionwood and it is always well to do a good job ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... masterless man without a domicile. He was unkempt and travel-stained; his moleskin trousers, held up by a strap buckled round his waist, were trodden down at the heels; under the hem of his coat, a thing of rents and patches, protruded the brass end of a knife-sheath. His back was bent under the weight of his neat, compact swag, which contained his six-by-eight tent and the blankets and gear necessary to a bushman. He helped his weary steps with a long manuka stick, to which still clung the rough red bark, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... reason at sight of them. He greeted Allan as if he had been away years instead of days; and tapping his own breast, he exclaimed, looking from one to another, "I am Morgan, the magician!" Then pointing to the nail where the children had hung the brass ring, he added, "I have broken the spell!" With this he disappeared for a moment into the back room, but he was with them again before they had recovered from their surprise at his strange manner; and now he held something in his hand which he waved ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... to the width of a thread of a spider's web if a barrel is straight. Here, too, is another barrel test going on. You see this man is pushing a soft lead slug which fits the barrel snugly through the barrel by means of a brass rod. It takes a certain amount of pressure to push the lead slug through the barrel. Such slight variations in diameter of the bore as one-tenth of a thousandth can be readily detected, for if the barrel is smaller at any point than where it entered, ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... between King and Prince Streets. George Washington is credited with having founded the first fire company and giving to the city what was then the finest of modern hand pumpers—a magnificent affair of red paint, brass trimmings, and leather buckets. A law of the town made it mandatory for each householder or proprietor of a dwelling or storehouse to furnish leather buckets of at least two-and-one-half-gallon capacity at "his or her expense"—in quantity equal ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... looking out over the garden where the foliage, as I have said, had none of the mournful sables worn by the trees in London. The room was beautifully furnished. Even one who knew more of saddles than of Buhl and Empire could see that at a glance. Moreover, I noted that every ornament or handle of brass shone like gold. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... muttered a curse. What did that chairborne brass hat know about space cafard? About the depthless blackness, the wretchedness of free fall, the tides of primitive terror that swept you when the animal realization hit that you were away, away, away from the environment that gave you birth. ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... wrong in her life. She has no idea but that everything she says, and thinks, and does is right. And no doubt she never did rob a church: and was a faithful wife to Sir Thomas, and pays her tradesmen. Confound her virtue! It is that which makes her so wonderful—that brass armor in which she walks impenetrable—not knowing what pity is, or charity; crying sometimes when she is vexed, or thwarted, but laughing never; cringing, and domineering by the same natural instinct—never ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... combat man to man with him, Who such prodigious force of limb Display'd. Like to a weaver's beam The pond'rous spear he held did seem. In height six cubits he did pass, And he was arm'd all o'er in brass. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... from the river's bank had been made as follows: The engineers and guides and six light-horsemen proceeded immediately before the advanced detachment under Gage, and the working-party under St. Clair, who had with them two brass six-pounders and as many tumbrils or tool-carts. On either flank, parties to the number of eight were thrown out to guard against surprises. At some distance behind Gage followed the line, preceded by the light horse, four squads of whom also acted as extreme ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... eyes, filled the Cohasset's cabin. Martin's upward ranging gaze, as he clambered out of the lazaret, saw, through the open cabin skylights, the blue sky and the sunshine sparkling upon brass fixtures. So he knew the fog had lifted ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... yellow; bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; waterways, lead color, etc., etc. The anchors and ring-bolts, and other iron work, were blackened with coal-tar; and the steward kept at work, polishing the brass of the wheel, bell, capstan, etc. The cabin, too, was scraped, varnished, and painted; and the forecastle scraped and scrubbed; there being no need of paint and varnish for Jack's quarters. The decks were then scraped and varnished, and everything useless thrown overboard; among ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... birth illustrious, he is said to have been the son of Jupiter, by Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. The king, being forewarned by an oracle that his daughter should bear a son, by whose hand her father should be deprived of life, thought proper to shut her up in a tower of brass. Jupiter, having metamorphosed himself into a shower of gold, found his way into her place of confinement, and became the father of Perseus. On the discovery of this circumstance, Acrisius caused both mother and child to be inclosed in a chest, and committed to the waves. The chest however drifted ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... beautiful purple blossom, something like mezereon. From a marble fountain bareheaded women, with exquisitely arranged dark tresses and bright handkerchiefs folded shawl-wise round their shoulders, were drawing water in brass pitchers, and chattering the soft southern dialect with the pretty tuneful Neapolitan voices that speak like singing and sing like opera. An equestrian statue of Garibaldi stood on a pedestal in the midst of a flowerbed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... hair, pieces of wood, pigeon's dung, parchment, goose dung, coals; and after them two pounds of pure blood, and then again coals and stones, or which some had inscriptions bigger than a walnut, some of them pieces of glass, brass, &c. besides paroxysms of laughing, weeping and ecstasies, &c. Et hoc (inquit) cum horore vidi, this I saw with horror. They could do no good on her by physic, but left her to the clergy. Marcellus Donatus, lib. 2. c. 1. de med. mirab. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... of the horses, the creaking of the war-chariots armed with formidable scythes, the cries of the elephants and the sound of warlike instruments reaching the ears of the spectators, and the glitter of the brass and gold of the weapons, irradiated by the sun, striking their eyes—only at that moment, I repeat, and not before, does Xenophon appear in his own person; then he emerges from the ranks to speak with Cyrus, and explains to him the cry that ran ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... ponies, bound hand and foot, were wretched, terror-stricken women. The smiling Plains lay swathed in the August sunshine, and the richness of purple twilights, and of rose-hued day dawns, and the pitiless noontime skies of brass only mocked them in their misery. Did a merciful God forget the Plains in those days of prairie conquest? No force rose up to turn Black Kettle and his murderous horde back from the imperilled settlements ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Chancellor numerous communications, and that one of his letters to the secretary of the Universal Association reads, "The things sent to Bismarck should go in an envelope" marked "Personal."[21] Liebknecht later exposed August Brass as in the employ of Bismarck, although he was a "red republican," who had started a journal and had obtained Liebknecht's cooeperation. Furthermore, when he was tried for high treason in 1872, Liebknecht declared that Bismarck's agents ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... castle-gates to show the people their equestrian skill; then came a mass of cavalry, about fifty, with a drum beating, and in the midst of these was the sultan. There was nothing very striking in this cavalcade; a few cavaliers had on a curious sort of helmet, made of brass, with a kind of horn standing out from the crown; others wore a wadding of woollen stuff, a sort of thin mattrass, in imitation of a coat of mail. Its object is to turn the points of the poisoned arrows. The cavaliers thus dressed form the body-guard of the Sarkee. Amongst these troops ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank Inherited prejudices in favor of hoary ignorances It is easier to stay out than get out Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to Meddling philanthropists Melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy Moral sense, and there is an Immoral Sense Most satisfactory pet—never coming when he is called Natural desire to have more of a good thing than he ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... trunk!" I burst out, for the familiar labels, ay, the very dints in the brass lock, carried only ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... a being, as singular in his manners and dress as the equipage which conveyed him to the door of the house. The latter consisted of a high-backed, old-fashioned sulky, loaded with leather and large-headed brass nails; wheels at least a quarter larger in circumference than those of the present day, and wings on each side large enough to have supported a full grown roc in the highest regions of the upper ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... time we had tidied up our places and done a special Christmas shave and wash, we were called upon to go down to the cookhouse and sign for Princess Mary's Christmas gift—a good pipe, and in a pleasant little brass box lay a Christmas card, a photograph, a packet of cigarettes, and another of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... Annetta entered from a door leading to the staircase. Her eyes were fixed on Dalrymple's face as she came forward, carrying a polished brass lamp, with three burning wicks, which she placed upon the table. Dalrymple looked up at her, and seeing her expression of inquiry, slowly nodded. With a laugh which drew her long red-brown lips back from her short white teeth, the girl ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... fast." Peter Tounley walked close to him and scanned him imperturbably, but with care. " What's up, Phidias ? " The man made no articulate reply. He continued to grin and gesture. "Pain in oo tummy? Mother dead? Caught the cholera? Found out that you've swallowed a pair of hammered brass and irons in your beer? Say, who are you, anyhow? " But he could not shake this invincible ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... The brass name plates on the bedroom doors—Washington, Lafayette, Howe, and so on—have no significance, but were put on by the present proprietor simply as reminders that those great men were once beneath the roof; but in what ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... as good as a beach anyway," said Nate. "Just as good for picnics and the like of that. When there's anything going on, they get out the brass band and have fireworks and bring chairs and benches and sit round here. I ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... a powerful magnifier, betrays no trace of ever having been plated and has all the marks by which numismatists determine the genuineness of a coin. The absence of S.C., I must remind Mr. W., is not uncommon on third brass, though of course it always appears on the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... housemaid in the correct evening uniform admitted Blair, and in the drawing-room he found Mr. Kent sitting by a shining fire. Points of light twinkled in the polished balls of the brass andirons. As soon as he entered, Blair felt the comely atmosphere of a charming and well-ordered home. Books lined the walls; a French window opened on to the lawn at the far end of the room; a large bowl of blue ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... puzzles, and glass marbles and old-fashioned toys, that the children's mother and aunts and uncles, and their great-aunts and uncles before that, had loved and played with years and years ago. On the wall hung a great many pictures, some of them of funny little stiff boys in blue coats with brass buttons, and some of them of little girls with mob-caps and mittens, and these little boys and girls were all either dead now, or elderly men and women, for they were the great-aunts and uncles; and over the mantelpiece hung a picture of a lovely old lady, ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sort of larder which we are spared the sight of. The staircase, painted to imitate black marble with yellow veins, turns upon itself like those you see in cafes leading from the ground-floor to the entresol. The balustrade, of walnut with brass ornaments and dangerously slight, was pointed out to us as one of the seven wonders of the world. The cellar stairs run under it. On the other side of the corridor is the dining-room, which communicates by folding-doors with a salon of equal size, ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... of Archipiela, king of Candaya, and his wife Maguncia. She married don Clavijo, but the giant Malambru'no, by enchantment, changed the bride into a brass monkey, and her spouse into a crocodile of some unknown metal. Don Quixote mounted the wooden horse Clavileno the Winged, to disenchant the lady and her husband, and this he effected "simply by making the attempt."—Cervantes, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... but the young oarsman evaded him and placed the flat-top desk between them. When the man ran around the desk, Jerry picked up a heavy brass-bound ruler. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... exactly what had occurred. The humanitarian crowd were induced to go away on his giving them a small sum of money, and as soon as the coast was clear he left. As he passed out, the name on the brass door-plate of the surgery caught his eye. It was 'Jekyll.' At least it should have been.—The ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... where all the houses were alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers made the same heavy sound, and on still days—and nearly all the days were still—seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock was knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was a brass plate. On the brass plate there was ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... now encountered the wall of brass for which he had been seeking up and down the earth. He went impetuously to Seraphita, meaning to express the whole force and bearing of a passion under which he bounded like the fabled horse beneath the iron horseman, firm in his saddle, whom nothing moves while the efforts of the fiery ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... processes which will occupy the minds set free from grosser labour. Say, for example, that all the scavengers work of London were done, so far as human attention is concerned, by the occasional pressure of a brass button (as in the ringing of an electric bell), you will then have a multitude of brains set free for the exquisite enjoyment of dealing with the exact sequences and high speculations supplied and prompted by the delicate machines which ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... with painted walls of flowers and birds; we sit upon chairs covered with silks. We sleep on high beds that cost a hundred rupees each. There is glass in all the doors and windows; the abundance of iron and brass, pottery, and copper kitchen-utensils is not to be estimated. Every house is a palace of entertainment filled with clocks, lamps, candlesticks, gildings, ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... left. I sent Lieutenant Stewart, of Company A, to see if these guns which the enemy had abandoned could not be turned upon them. He returned and reported them to be four ten-pound Parrotts and two brass Napoleons; also that it would require a number of men to place them in position. I ordered him to report the same to General Wagner, and ask permission, but before receiving a reply was ordered by you to move forward my regiment on the left of the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... will read the book will find it impossible to believe that it is an imposture. If any book of the ages bears in itself the witness to the truth it is the Fourth Gospel. It shines by its own light. Any of us could tell the difference between the sun in the heavens and a brass disk suspended in the sky reflecting the sun's rays; and in much the same way the fact is apparent that the book is not ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... greased. As early as the month of January an English workman employed in the factory of Dumdum, near Calcutta, where the cartridges were made, happened one day to ask a sepoy soldier belonging to the 2nd Grenadiers to give him some water from his brass pot. This the sepoy refused, saying that he did not know what caste the man was of, and his pot might be defiled if he drank from it. 'That is all very fine,' answered the workman, 'but you will soon have no caste left yourself, as you will be made to bite off the ends of ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... more than an hour at a time, that I know of, for weeks past. Since the day we came here he hasn't spoken to another living soul, and he's lain there on the floor at night with his head on that brass box, and sat watching over ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... either preventive or positive. The extreme measure to restrict marriage is found among the wretched Budumas who inhabit the small, marshy islands of Lake Chad. Tribal custom allows only the chiefs and headmen to have wives. A brass crescent inserted in the ear of a boy indicates the favored one among a chief's sons destined to carry on his race. For his brothers this is made physically impossible; they become big, dull, timid creatures contributing by their fishing to the support of the thinly ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... had long been among the most thriving and popular in the neighborhood: the Miss Lambs were the belles of Little Britain, and everybody was pleased when Old Lamb had made money enough to shut up shop and put his name on a brass plate on his door. In an evil hour, however, one of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being a lady in attendance on the Lady Mayoress at her grand annual ball, on which occasion she wore three towering ostrich feathers ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men—digging ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... waiting for them. Just at that period the Dutch had formed a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, where the Indian fleets used to water and obtain cattle from the Hottentot tribes who lived on the coast, and who for a brass button or a large nail would willingly offer a fat bullock. A few days were occupied in completing the water of the squadron, and then the ships, having received from the Admiral their instructions as to the rendezvous in case of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... them!" she replied, and running to a corner of the room where her father's chests and trunks had been placed, she produced a small drum and a brass toy cannon. "He used to play with these from morning till night," she continued, placing them on the floor. She had not taken her hand away from them, before the young chief sprang to her ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... he had precipitated himself from the door, as above said, to contemplate the fellow with his low hat on one side and far down on his nose, his swelling shirt-front, striped breeches, and mighty brass chain, leading the trooping crowd like ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... morning they will every one of them have to be in their places at Durham's or Brown's or Jones's, each in his working clothes. If one of them be a minute late, he will be docked an hour's pay, and if he be many minutes late, he will be apt to find his brass check turned to the wall, which will send him out to join the hungry mob that waits every morning at the gates of the packing houses, from six o'clock until nearly half-past eight. There is no exception to ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... waters. As they glided gently over the rippling waves, like phantoms, to the middle of the lake, a long and deafening shout from the shore saluted their ears. The white handkerchiefs of the ladies waved them a cheerful greeting, and the Rippleton Brass Band, which had volunteered for the occasion, ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... opened the door, an involuntary desire to escape seized him. He had come from his own airy room, bright with the twilight afterglow. Here it was dark and stuffy. Two tallow candles in brass candlesticks threw some light on the table and the reading-desk, but out in the room nothing was visible, save a row of faces ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... have a brasier of brass or iron with fire in it and sprinkle on it two pints of aqua vitae, a little at a time, so that it may be converted into smoke. Then make some one come in with a light and suddenly you will see the room in a blaze like ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... that it would not do to call on such a celebrated person with a dog. We tied him up in the inn stables. When we reached the house which our landlady indicated was the professor's, we thought that we must have made a mistake, for before the house two little brass plaques were swinging, which was certainly not the sign of a music professor. The place bore every appearance of a barber's shop. Turning to a man, who was passing, we asked him if he could direct us to ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... last administration of Cleveland. A bands-man at thirteen, I became a master puddler at sixteen. At that time there were but five boys of that age who had become full-fledged puddlers. Of these young iron workers, I suppose there were few that "doubled in brass." But why should not an iron worker be a musician? The anvil, symbol of his trade, is a musical instrument and is heard in the anvil chorus from Trovatore. In our rolling mill we did not have an anvil on which the "bloom" was beaten by a trip-hammer as is done in the Old Country. The ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... the clock struck the hour Bridgie paid a flying visit to the little sitting-room to see that the tea-table was set, the kettle on the hob, the dish of hot scones on the brass stand in the fender, and everything ready to hand, so that no one need enter unless specially summoned. She found Pixie standing gazing into the fire, and started with surprise ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the truth otherwise than as a performance of a duty! If he has counted upon the applause of the crowd; if he has supposed that avarice and self-interest would forget themselves in admiration of him; if he has neglected to encase himself within three thicknesses of brass,—he will fail, as he ought, in his selfish undertaking. The unjust criticisms, the sad disappointments, the despair of his mistaken ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... the Academy, whose belfry crowned The hill of Science with its vane of brass, Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round, Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, And all absorbed in reveries profound Of fair Almira in the upper class, Who was, as in a sonnet he had said, As pure as water, and as ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... gape inwardly. Even the trumpet and shawm of her winds, the stately march of her clouds, and the torrent-rush of her waters, were to them poor facts, no vaguest embodiment of truths eternal. It was small wonder then that verse of any worth should be to them but sounding brass and clanging cymbals. What they called society, its ways and judgments, its decrees and condemnations, its fashions and pomps and shows, false, unjust, ugly, was nearly all they cared for. The truth of things, without care for which man ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... forty-seven industries employed more than a million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products, iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum, boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line, from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... inverted in a bason containing either quicksilver, or any other fluid substance by which I chuse to have the air confined. I then, by the help of the air pump, drive out as much of the air as I think convenient, admitting the quicksilver, &c. to it, as at a, and putting a brass ball on the end of the wire, I take the sparks or shocks upon it, and thereby transmit them through the air to the ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... recognized her. "How comes ye kin leave the mainland? I thought every one who could, stuck there t' see the show. By gracious! Billy, ye jest oughter see how things is altered." The two men exchanged the brass checks, then, before returning to their ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... put the juice on to boil in a brass or bell-metal kettle; skim it well, and to each gallon of juice put three pounds of sugar and a quart of spirits; bruise some cloves and put in. This is valuable as a medicine for children ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... shepherdess, they descend upon the town. One rubs one's eyes and stares after them as they pass. They seem to have stepped from the pictured pages of one of those old story-books that we learnt to love, sitting beside the high brass guard that kept ourselves and the nursery-fire from doing each other any serious injury, in the days when the world was much bigger than it is now, and ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... Rouge no longer turns. The strains of sounding brass and tinkling cymbal which once issued incessantly from every open cafe, and together with the street cries, the tram bells and the motor horns of the Boulevards Exterieurs, formed a gigantic characteristic medley, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... The outer gate Was iron, loaded down with arms, and held By demons and by Ethiopians. These were the keepers of the gates, with steeds Untamed. With swords unsheathed they stood alert And waited for the King's commands. Of brass All chiselled was the second gate, supplied With cannons and with powder, guarded safe By beings supernatural. The third Was silver, such as may be seen in far Eirak. The beauty of the castle was Beyond compare! From far it seemed to be As double, like an elephant with ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... eminent divine were made acquainted. The latter said he would call as soon as he could snatch a moment, and Sir Robert, his hands folded behind his back, holding his hat and gloves, made the rounds of the church, inspecting every bit of carving, frescoing, glass, and brass, and making the most intelligent criticisms upon what he saw to Miss Noel in a whisper. Mrs. Sykes sat still in the pew, fuming at being "let in for a charity sermon," for some inexplicable reason, seeing she had given nothing to the charity. Miss Noel was stopped at the door by no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... to a small shaft extending through the top of the chamber. Around the breaker-arm shaft is a small coil spring (originally a spiral spring, according to the letter of Charles Duryea shown in fig. 17), anchored below to a thin brass finger extending toward the right side of the car, and above to a nut screwed tightly onto the shaft. This nut is also the terminal for the other ignition wire. The action of the spring keeps the breaker arm and the electrode in constant contact until ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... looked around the room. Twilight had fallen, and only the glint of firelight touched here and there familiar objects, rested a moment lovingly on bit of brass, or flirted hastily away from picture or chair; and as she watched its gleams dart in and out she smiled ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... at her wonderful porcelain gas range. Now, everything, from bed to dining-room table, was painted in dull colors pricked by gorgeous designs; the hangings at the windows screamed with color; electric stoves were coming in. The day of polished surfaces and shining brass was over—antiques were no ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... cheprasses are servants of the English government. They wear red cloth scarfs, and a brass plate on the shoulders, with the name of the town to which they belong engraved upon it. Each of the higher English officials are allowed to have one or more of these people in their service. The people consider them much superior ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... big brass dinner-bell, Mavis set forth, and going by a path above the farm, got out on to the cliffs. She knew the way very well, for she had often been before, and had not the slightest fear of getting lost, ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil |
