"Needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her not to grieve so much; for though she has lost one mother she has gained another for herself, who will always love her; and besides she is so useful, and in so many ways, with her pen and her needle, in accounts, and everything that is wanted in a family or a shop; she can never want employment or friends in the worst times, and none can be worse than these, especially for such pretty girls as she is, who have all their heads turned, and are taught to consider nothing a sin that ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... no heed Of my power?" and she him answer'd this; "Your might," quoth she, "full little is to dread; For every mortal manne's power is But like a bladder full of wind, y-wis;* *certainly For with a needle's point, when it is blow', May all the boast of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... lead in color and certainly discolor in silver. The use of this is manifold. Supposing a certain time selected is assured, suppose it is even necessary, suppose no other extract is permitted and no more handling is needed, suppose the rest of the message is mixed with a very long slender needle and even if it could be any black border, supposing all this altogether made a dress and suppose it was actual, suppose the mean way to state it was occasional, if you suppose this in August and even more melodiously, if you suppose this even in the necessary incident of there certainly being ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... sight; but in vain. They had tasted this to them delicious fish, and were determined to dress and lay by a good store of it to carry with them. About noon Khamis, a merchant from Kasenge, bound for Ujiji, arrived, and kindly gave me a long needle to stir up the beetle in my ear; but the insect had gone in so far, and the swelling and suppuration of the wounds had so imbedded him, that no instrument could have done any good. Khamis, like myself, was very anxious to complete his journey, and tried every conceivable means to entice his ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... yard. This was kind of him, since the child was hateful to his sight. My task was to fit up the house for the reception of the bride. In the midst of sheets, tablecloths, towels, drapery, and carpeting, my head was as busy planning, as were my fingers with the needle. At noon I was allowed to go to Ellen. She had sobbed herself to sleep. I heard Mr. Flint say to a neighbor, "I've got her down here, and I'll soon take the town notions out of her head. My father is ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... her head over her work again, holding it up to the light from time to time and straining her eyes to catch the exact thread with her almost impalpably fine needle. Lydia sat and fanned herself, looking flushed and tired from the walk in the heat, and listening in silence to Mrs. Mortimer's account of the various happenings of her household: "And didn't I find that good-for-nothing ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... and wept, or sought to study With hopeless gaze the uninstructive stars, Hopeless because the very skies were muddy; I only saw a red malicious Mars; Or pulled my little compass out and pondered, And set it sadly on my shrapnel hat, Which, I suppose, was why the needle wandered, Only, of course, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... quick, and fetch as many dock leaves as possible. I will thread a needle so as to sew up the poor dead 'uns in their coffins. We must get through the pwivate funerals as quick as possible this morning, and then we'll be weady ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... I'll bet you a rump and dozen, captain: and then, sir,—count, you divide your wings with a needle." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... to bring your knitting-needle," said Margaret. "Look! it was in my tent, just the end of it sticking out of a crack in the floor. If I had not tidied up, in the way you reprobate, Bell, you might ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... could have joined us sometimes as we built our famous brick castles, or worked in Flurry's little garden, where she grew all sorts of wonderful things. When I was tired or lazy I used to bring out my needle-work to the seat under the cedar, and tell Flurry stories, or talk to her as she dressed her dolls; she was very good and tractable, and never teased me to play ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... reason additional to its economy why this practice should not die out. The tearing up into strips of old garments, and the tacking of their ends together with needle and thread is work eminently suited for children, and one in which they take great pride, as it gives them a share in the creation of a useful ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... the end of the ten miles was a Hudson's Bay Company's post and safety; and through ten hours had the two struggled towards it, going off at tangents, circling on their own tracks; but the Indian, by an instinct as sure as the needle to the pole, getting the direction to the post again, in the moments of direst peril and uncertainty. To Jim the world became a sea of maddening forces which buffeted him; a whirlpool of fire in which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... son." said the old Jew calmly, "and learn. Take this needle. Here is a scale of gold; take it up on the needle-point. You have done it. Why? Because gold is a soft metal. Now take up this scale from ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Scotch idiot, who lived in a cottage on the Maolbuie Common in the upper part of the Black Isle, and in whom a similar mechanical ability existed, abstracted from ability of almost every other kind, that, among other things, he fabricated, out of a piece of rude metal, a large sacking needle. Angus is attached to his patron, and mourns for the deceased lady; but he seems to have little general regard for the species—simply courting for the time those from whom he expects snuff. The Cromarty ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... for five years more, by the end of which time the anesthesia had turned into a hyperesthesia. A year later he began to eat. It was now found that he had an amnesia for his illness and former life, so that he did not even recognize a needle or pair of scissors. He knew that he was born in the month of February and retained some facility in calculation, in speech, walking and usual motions. Then he regained all his memories and resumed his trade ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... closed, which he did not open again in less than a fortnight, when it was discovered that he was blind. Two small eschars, one in each eye, were visible, which indicated pretty strongly that he had been made blind by some sharp instrument, most probably by a heated needle. The suspicion was very strong against the former keeper, of whom I never heard anything after. The elephant I frequently rode on, shooting, for many years after this, through heavy covers, intersected with ravines, rivers, ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers; The social hours, swift-winged, unnotic'd fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears: The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view; The mither, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... True Believers, an thou desire to hear my tale order me a cushion to be placed on my right hand, and deign lend unto me three things, to wit, thine ears and thine eyes and thy heart, for verily my adventure is wondrous and were it graven with needle-gravers on the eye-corners it would be a warning to whoso would be warned and a matter of thought to whoso would think. Learn, O Commander of the Faithful, that my father was a jeweller man, a connoisseur in gems, who owned no son save myself; but when I had increased in age and had ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... for me, while I was going off my nut looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense of humour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of wisdom to pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be backed to find a needle in any amount of hay-stacks it is the great Augustus.—That horse has moved itself after all, because here we are. Now, cabman, don't go driving further on,—you'll have to put a girdle round the earth if you do; because you'll have ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... foreigners." Then quoth she to one among them, "Wast thou born blind of one eye?"; and quoth he, "No, by Allah, 'twas a marvellous matter and a wondrous mischance which caused my eye to be torn out, and mine is a tale which, if it were written upon the eye corners with needle gravers, were a warner to whoso would be warned."[FN188] She questioned the second and third Kalandar; but all replied like the first, "By Allah, O our mistress, each one of us cometh from a different country, and we are all three the sons of Kings, sovereign Princes ruling over ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... pen shaped like a pencil, in which the flow of ink is regulated by pressure of a style or fine needle with blunt point upon the paper. It must be held in a vertical position. All marks made with one, both up and down strokes, are ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... look at the stars, warding off the rays (as may be done by looking through a small hole made by the extreme point of a fine needle placed so as almost to touch the eye), they will appear so small as to seem as though nothing could be smaller; it is owing to their great distance that they appear so small, for many of them are very ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... the bridal party was advancing. Slowly down the aisle came M'haley, in the pink chiffon gown from Paris. Mom Beck's quick needle had altered it considerably, for in some unaccountable way the slim bodice fashioned to fit Lloyd's slender figure, now fastened around M'haley's waist without undue strain. The skirt, though turned "hine side befo'," fell as skirts should fall, for the fulness had been shifted to the proper places, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... before them; butternuts and chestnuts were tasted, and a large dish of rosy Spitzenbergs passed around; and while Fabens and Frisbie kept up a running talk, Mrs. Fabens and Fanny enjoyed the hour, as one sat knitting fringe-mittens in the corner, and the other plied her dexterous needle piecing a bed-quilt in snow-balls by the stand; and seeming to contend with the walnut fire, which should give forth the liveliest, warming smile, and fill up all the room with the most comfort, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... over to a wall table and fumbled in a container among a pile of hypodermics. "There are other injections, too. Adrenalin, insulin. Others. The Blast turned me into a walking pin-cushion. But I'll pay it all back," he said. He plunged the needle into his arm. ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... up as if a needle had pricked him. "You are not alone!" a boding voice seemed to cry in his heart; and indeed the forger saw a man standing at the little grated window of the counting-house, a man whose breathing ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... laughed at him loudly; and, comparing the Catalonian knives they handled with the sailor's poniard, it appeared like a sewing-needle. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... spine; in some parts of the skin there is extreme hypersensitiveness (hyperesthesia), so that the least touch causes great pain; in others, there is complete anesthesia—that is, absence of sensation—so that when you stick the patient with a needle she will not feel it. A very frequent symptom is a choking sensation, as if a ball came up the throat and stuck there (globus hystericus). Then there may be spasms, convulsions, retention of urine, paralysis, aphonia (loss of voice), ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... the distance of a yard or two seemed hale and smooth, appeared, when closely examined, to be seamed with a million of wrinkles, crossing each other in every direction possible, but as fine as if drawn by the point of a very small needle." Thus did every little peculiarity remain treasured in his memory, to be used in due time for giving the air of minute ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... pillars of this place; Forbidden beasts here must not show their face. With grace like gold, as with fine painting, he Will have this house within enriched be; Fig-leaves nor rags, must here keep out no cold, This builder covers all with cloth of gold, Of needle-work prick'd more than once or twice (The oft'ner prick'd, still of the higher price) Wrought by his SON, put on her by his merit, Applied by faith, revealed by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... if correct, would have its needle point directly to the real or true North. But practically no compass with which you will become familiar will be correct. It will have an error in it due to the magnetism of the earth. This is called Variation. It will also have an error in it due to ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' So the word fytte has gained a technical appropriation to our narrative poetry when it takes the ballad form. Now, the Greek word rhapsody is derived from a tense of the verb rhapto, to sew as with a needle, to connect, and ode, a song, chant, or course of singing. If, therefore, you conceive of a rhapsodia, not as the opera, but as the opus of a singer, not as the form, but as the result of his official ministration, viz., ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... golden, delicious afternoon is blowing without there, wasting for ever; and never a glimpse of it. Delicate work this! Here's a needle might serve for a genuine stiletto! No matter,—it is the cause,—it is the cause that makes, as my mother says, each stitch in this clumsy fabric a grander thing than the flashing of the bravest lance that brave knight ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... it wants a real wind-warbler to make them see it in Lebanon. They've got the needle. They'll pray to-day with the taste of blood in their mouths. It's gone too far. Only a miracle can keep things right. The Mayor has wired for the mounted police—our own battalion of militia wouldn't serve, and there'd be no use ordering ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you noble?" he laughed. "Do you suppose, my dear, that Mrs. Creamer would ask you to receive with her if we lived two or three squares off Fifth Avenue? It is as hard for a poor man to enter Mrs. Creamer's house as for a camel to pass through the needle's eye. Her motions are sidereal and her orbit is as regulated as that of ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... hath its will through blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith that still forgives; A love that shall be new and fresh each hour, As is the sunset's golden mystery, Or the sweet coming of the evening-star, Alike, and yet most unlike, every day, And seeming ever best and fairest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... how nobly he is doing his kingly work, and that I have never wavered in my assurance that I was right when I bade him go. Tell him that I have no thought of entering a cloister; that I have my old servants and my garden and needle-work; that I spend much of my time in ministering to my poorer neighbours, and that I am getting to be loved by them. Say that my health is good, and that I have every comfort I need save his presence. Tell him that if I fall ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... Mary's sewing is not good enough," replied Mrs. Forcythe. "She isn't very skilful with her needle yet." ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... believe she does sigh at the end of every needle," mused Dotty; "I'm going to keep 'count. ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... had taken a hot iron, whereupon the holy name was engraven. I was very much afflicted that I could not do the same. I decided to write that sacred and adorable name, in large characters, on paper, then with ribbons and a needle I fastened it to my skin in four places. In that position it ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... candlesticks, at intervals, round this strange apartment. We could then see some small cells in the wall, which might once have been used as burial places for the dead, and on the walls themselves were hundreds of figures or letters cut in the rock, in very thin lines, as if engraved with a needle. We could not decipher any of them, as they appeared more like Egyptian hieroglyphics than letters of our alphabet, and the only figure we could distinguish was one which had the appearance of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... stitches, eight in whole, knit one plain round. Then, first row, raise, knit one, raise, knit one, and put on one bead at every knitted loop. Second row, you knit a plain round. Third row, raise, knit two plain, raise, two plain; the raising is at the beginning and middle of each needle; and you thus proceed, until you have fifty beads on a needle, for a bag, and eighteen for a purse. To take off the points, proceed as follows: first row, raise one, knit one, raise one, slip one off needle as in knitting, knit one, and draw ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... thinner than he had remembered. But a striking woman still—with wonderful eyes! Her dress—Felix had scanned many a crank in his day—was not so alarming as it had once seemed to Clara; its coarse-woven, deep-blue linen and needle-worked yoke were pleasing to him, and he could hardly take his gaze from the kingfisher-blue band or fillet that she wore round that silver-threaded ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and turned his attention to other affairs, thoughtfully. The little, beacon at the head of the pier had suddenly loomed out of the fog not fifty yards away—a very needle in a pottle of hay, which the cunning ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... with Dinah. Her gran'mam was plum mis'able over her shif'less ways, an' she set her to sew a seam befo' she could step outside the do'. The needle was dull, the thread fell in knots. Dinah's brow was mo' knotted up than the ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... family of six or eight can be supported on the weekly wages. The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished here, and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but it has so fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle unceasingly during the long, long day, can earn only three or four shillings a week. Before the invention of machinery for flax-spinning, the manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was a most profitable employment. Wonders were wrought in this way by female fingers. The author of 'Our Staple Manufactures' ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... in the seventeenth century, had the peculiarity of igniting the charge close behind the bullet, burning backwards towards the breech—an arrangement identical in principle with that of the modern Prussian "needle gun," for which great merit has been claimed. The flint-locks induced more determined efforts, but all were abortive, as the magazines for priming and the pan covers were continually blown off on the explosion of the charge. Indeed, from the earliest match-lock down ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... arranged for the termination of the day's activities. The clatter of the smelter house was presently still; the men departing. Spawn and I were the last to leave, save for the eight men who were the mine's night guards. They were stalwart, silent fellows, armed with electronic needle projectors. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... mart nor hamlet, help us righteous gods in heaven, Spot that needle's point can cover not unto them ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... this enclosure, which has other little pagodas of a reddish colour, there is a stone like the mast of a ship, with its pedestal four-sided, and from thence to the top eight-sided, standing in the open air. I was not astonished at it, because I have seen the needle of St. Peters at Rome, which is as high, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... but we fear it is getting its metaphors mixed. Surely it is not thinking of the camel which, when pursued, buries its head in the sand, but of the ostrich which, when pursued, runs its eye through a needle." ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... case of logical inference at all, but of empirical association. You may reply that many of the inferences of science are of this character; the inference, for example, that an electric current of a given direction will deflect a magnetic needle in a definite way; but the cases differ in this, that the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... their studies are not neglected thereby. This work means also a livelihood to a poor old lady.... She was in the hospital for over three years, living on the charity money the doctor earned. I felt that she could be more useful and happy by teaching sewing, since she is a beautiful needle worker, so the school boards her and gets her teaching for the women. I have been quite happy in this work, because I feel the women are learning self-respect and to look upon manual labour as something honourable. I have a chance to tell them about the American ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... the time of Bacon and Galileo four discoveries were made which, supplemented and elaborated by later insight and ingenuity, may be said to underlie our modern civilization. A writer of the time of Henry II of England reports that sailors when caught in fog or darkness were wont to touch a needle to a bit of magnetic iron. The needle would then, it had been found, whirl around in a circle and come to rest pointing north. On this tiny index the vast extension of ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... the camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to it. If a fellow is eighteen, and has had a first-rate education and a good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian service. There are about five hundred ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... chimney ducked her head and the smoke came out of the "stump," as Mr. Bumpkin termed it, he thought she had struck and broken short off. Mr. O'Rapley explained this phenomenon, as he did many others on their route; and when they came to Cleopatra's Needle he gave such information as he possessed concerning that ancient work. Mr. Bumpkin looked as though he were not to ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... so swiftly flies the timid swallow? What distant bourne seeks her untiring wing? To reach her nest what needle does she follow When darkness wraps the poor wee ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to sing the rapture of the happy spirits who "bear Time to his tomb in eternity," while they circle in lyrical joy around the liberated earth. There sings Shelley. The picture itself is a faithful illustration etched with a skilful needle to adorn the last chapter of Political Justice. Evil is once more and always something factitious and unessential. The Spirit of the Earth sees the "ugly human shapes and visages" which men had worn in the old bad days float away through ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... her that she could, and indicated some poor families in Briarfield that it was desirable she should visit, giving her likewise, at her further request, some work to do for certain poor women who had many children, and who were unskilled in using the needle for themselves. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... remarked, that the three great discoveries of the magnetic needle, of gunpowder, and of printing, in Europe, followed close upon the return of the famous traveller Marco Polo. It was the boast indeed of Caung-shee to the Jesuits, when they instructed him in some of the sciences of Europe, that the latter country was ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... as follows: A portion of diseased lung is chosen, and a bistoury or needle made to pierce it so as to become charged with the material consolidating the lung, and this is afterward plunged into any part, but, more particularly, toward the point of the tail. If operated severely, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... crying with her handkerchief to her nose, Kat looked as if she was sitting on pins and needles, and I really thought that Sadie Brooks and May Moor would eat us up, the way they actually glared at us. Well, the first thing I knew, Miss Howard was saying something about a needle in Susie Barrow's pen, that she had stuck her nose with, and she wanted whoever had put it there to come to her desk. That's the way she always does, you know; never calls a name unless she finds she has to, and bless you! who should I see walking off but Kat, and what ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... revisiting every stall and show where they had been, to see if her purse had been found. Up and down George toiled with her, wiping his face and feeling that he looked like a fool, as at each place in turn they were told that they might as well "look for a needle in a bottle of hay," and that pickpockets were as plenty at a mop ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... skill as they learnt to handle the materials with which they worked. If the mallet hit the chisel so vigorously as to spoil a part of the pattern, its wielder was wiser next time; and the experimenters in pyrography soon learned that a red-hot needle used indiscreetly can dig holes in leather instead of ornamenting it. Such "dufferisms", as the girls called them, became rarer, and many quite creditable objects were turned out, and judged worthy of a temporary place on ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... great renown abroad for being the delight and favourite of the Egyptian Cercopithecus {72b}. Millions of these animals were cruelly slaughtered every day to appease the hunger of that consuming deity. The chief idol was also worshipped as the inventor of the yard and the needle, whether as the god of seamen, or on account of certain other mystical attributes, ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... pointed to where the remedies were kept. Jock went for the box, which contained, besides the ointment, some rolls of stout linen and a huge needle and twine. Lewis doctored the wound as best he could, and then proceeded to lay on the cloth and sew it to the fleece. The ewe grew restless with the heat and the pinching of the cut, and Jock was given the task ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... you little soft-voiced woman! Well, I can't say I like you any the worse for it. How long will schoolkeeping take to kill you? Is it possible the poor thing works with her needle, too? I don't like those marks on the side ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the full stream of crusaders, he led her down one of the multitude of by-paths cleared out in the hazel coppice for sporting; here leading up a rising ground whence the tops of the trees might be overlooked, some flecked with gold, some blushing into crimson, and beyond them the needle point of the village spire, the vane flashing back the sun; there bending into a ravine, marshy at the bottom, and nourishing the lady fern, then again crossing glades, where the rabbits darted across the path, and the battle of Damietta was broken into by stern orders to Fly to come ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... between them, has resulted from the need of adequate protection against rigorous climates. The piecing and patching provide the maker with a suitable field for the display of artistic ability, while the quilting calls for particular skill in handling the needle. The fusing of these two kinds of needlework into a harmonious combination is a task that requires great patience and calls for talent of no ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... this was revenging itself now in a telling way. The demands of ordinary life were unknown to Spero. He had put his arm in the burning flame with the courage of a Mucius Scaevola, and quailed before the prick of a needle. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... began to feel somewhat anxious about them, the smell of the roast-duck made us so hungry that we could not resist the temptation of eating our share without waiting for them. Dick then set to work to prepare our fishing gear, and in the course of the evening not only made a netting pin and needle, but manufactured a landing-net, which would serve the double purpose of catching some small fish for bait, and rifting up any larger fish likely to break our tackle should we attempt to haul them out of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... this innocent exterior lurked Tom Hood's joke. The fish was made of two pieces of wood, like Fig. 2, glued or gummed together, only one of which was attached to the line, and on this piece was burned, with a red-hot knitting-needle, the words, "O, you April fool!" Of course, after the sportsman had dragged this about in the water for some time, the glue melted, the loose half of the bait floated away, and when he hauled in his line to see how things were getting along, he discovered the inscription, and at the same time ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... former days lending courage to a desperate act. With stealthy tread she crept up to the bed, her hand fumbled for a moment in the folds of her dress, then drew out a syringe. Deftly, and with practiced hand, she thrust the hypodermic needle into the brawny arm which, once so valiant in the fight, ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished. We approached the bed and examined it,—a half-tester, such as is commonly found in attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still left in a rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last died in that house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers: there ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... whom demon foxes enter. Sometimes they run naked shouting through the streets. Sometimes they lie down and froth at the mouth, and yelp as a fox yelps. And on some part of the body of the possessed a moving lump appears under the skin, which seems to have a life of its own. Prick it with a needle, and it glides instantly to another place. By no grasp can it be so tightly compressed by a strong hand that it will not slip from under the fingers. Possessed folk are also said to speak and write languages of which they were totally ignorant prior ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing, gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of being set to find it in ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... conversation. She sat sewing near the lamp, giving all her attention to the piece of lace on which she was working. Her father made her a sign which meant "He consents," and then Marien saw that the needle in her fingers trembled, and a slight color rose in her face—but that was all. She did not say a word. He could not know that for a week past she had gone to church every time she took a walk, and had offered a prayer and a candle that her wish might be granted. ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... you to myself again," he was saying, as he watched admiringly the delicate fingers busied with a crochet needle, forming bright meshes of scarlet zephyr. "How I missed you when you were gone! and yet, do you know, I cannot altogether regret the short separation, since otherwise I should have missed my precious budget ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... was sitting over her needle, all alone. She looked, I thought, unusually pale; but she flushed scarlet, and sprang up, so ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... a premature taste for literary amusements; and our old fashioned moral adages in writing-books are replaced by scraps from "Elegant Extracts," while print-work and embroidery represent scenes from poems or novels. I allow, that the subjects formerly pourtrayed by the needle were not pictoresque, yet, the tendency considered, young ladies might as well employ their silk or pencils in exhibiting Daniel in the lions' den, or Joseph and his brethren, as Sterne's ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... 62885. A needle-like implement, made of a soft black stone that may be cannel coal. It is 3-1/2 inches in length, but is not entire. The shaft is a little more than one-fourth of an inch in diameter, is nearly round, and tapers to a symmetrical point. The surface is highly polished. ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... granite, cut in the shape of tiles and open work, to within eighty feet from the base. According to the legend, on the spot where the church now stands, there lived in the time of St. Genevroc, a young girl, whom the saint found, when passing her house on the fete of our Lady, employed at her needle. He reproached her gently with her impiety, yet she went on sewing, saying "she required food on Sundays as well as on work days." But the girl has hardly finished speaking, when all her body became cold and motionless ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... of the Washington had about convinced her that all human nature was sour but she disliked to tell Mary Rose so when Mary Rose so plainly expected her to agree that the world was inhabited by a superior sort of angel. She snipped her threads and drew the plaid skirt from under the needle. ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... halting-place a "cerastes" (Echis carinata, Merr.), so called from the warty hollows over the eyes (?), was brought to me in a water-bag; the bearer transferred it to the spirit-bottle by neatly thrusting a packing-needle through the head. The pretty specimen of an amiable, and much oppressed, race did not show an atom of vice. I cannot conceive what has caused the absurd prejudice against snakes, even the most harmless. Perhaps we must trace it to the curious resemblance of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... in one of Ben Jonson's old plays: "When I once take the humor of a thing, I am like your tailor's needle—I go through with it." ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... shoulder to the elbow, where the artery (Brachial) can be felt. To secure the parts from further bleeding, the wounded artery must be taken up and tied. Let it be seized by forceps, or the point of a needle may be thrust into it, and the vessel stretched out a little, a thread put round it and tied; cut off one end of the tie, and let the other hang out of the wound, until it comes out by the vessel sloughing off. Bring the lips of the wound ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... ladies in like manner employed much of their time with the needle; and the sculptures represent many females weaving and using the spindle. But they were not kept in the same secluded manner as those of ancient Greece, who, besides being confined to certain apartments in ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... played the game of cat-and-mouse with a man. And Jack never had been the kind to go looking for trouble; truth to tell, he had never found it necessary, for trouble usually flew to meet him as a needle flies to the magnet. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Prussia was always eager enough for treaty, and conclusion to her scheme. True to it, she, as needle to the pole in all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather, poor lady. Nor did the Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time, draw back or falter: but having very soon got wafted across to England, into new more complex conditions, and wider anxieties in that new country, they were ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Fifteenth, And show that Anthony and Cleopatra were like brother and sister, And announce Salome's engagement to John the Baptist, So that the audiences won't go and get ideas in their heads. They insist that Sherlock Holmes is made to say, "Quick, Watson, the crochet needle!" And the state pays them for it. They say they are going to take the sin out of cinema If they perish in the attempt,— I ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... notions and blind experiments. And what the posterity and issue of so honorable a match may be, it is not hard to consider. Printing, a gross invention; artillery, a thing that lay not far out of the way; the needle, a thing partly known before; what a change have these three made in the world in these times; the one in state of learning, the other in state of the war, the third in the state of treasure, commodities, and navigation. And those, I say, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... who chanced to see this domestic scene would carry away with him a perfect image of the life led in Paris by the working class of women, for the embroideress evidently lived by her needle. Many, as they passed through the turnstile, found themselves wondering how a girl could preserve her color, living in such a cellar. A student of lively imagination, going that way to cross to the ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... that we had one more "formula" story. I was fortified against unproved allegations by thirteen years of newspaper and magazine investigation and by professional experience in social work. A few months previously I had investigated the "poison needle" stories of how a girl, rendered insensible by a drug, was borne away in a taxicab to a house of ill fame. The cases proved to be victims of hysteria. At another time, I had looked up certain incidents ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... mothers use no pins in the dressing of their children; they tack every part that requires fastening with a needle and thread. They do not even use pins to fasten the baby's diapers. They make the diapers with loops and tapes, and thus altogether supersede the use of pins in the dressing of an infant. The plan is a good one, takes very little ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... presenting a better surface. As we flashed up a long incline, a glance at the speedometer showed me that we were doing fifty. As I looked again, the needle swung ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... soldiers, the tiny workers ran and bit and chewed away at whatever they could reach. Dozens of ants made their way up to the cotton, but found the utmost difficulty in clambering over the loose fluff. Now and then, however, a needle-like nip at the back of my neck, showed that some pioneer of these shock troops had broken through, when I was thankful that Attas could only bite and not sting as well. At such a time as this, the greatest ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... its opponent. One cannot but be full of pity and admiration for the brave bird, which thus gives so marvellous an example of its pluck and endurance. At last time is called, and the cock-fighter, who is in charge of the blinded bird, after examining it carefully, asks for a needle and thread, and the swollen lower lid of the still uninjured eye-ball is sewn to the piece of membrane on the bird's cheek, and its sight is thus once more partially restored. Again time is called, and the birds resume their contest, the cock with the injured eye repaying its adversary ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... hand tenderly with her other hand, "Billy is not dead, I'm sure! Oh, I'm quite sure! I think somehow it would be hard to kill Billy. He has ways of keeping alive that most of us don't enjoy. He is strong and young and sharp as a needle. No one can put anything over on Billy, and I have somehow a feeling, Miss Saxon that Billy is off somewhere doing something very important for somebody. He is that way you know. He does nice unusual things that nobody else would think of doing, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... glad to ha' heern you've got sech a good digestion," says she, hunting up a piece of paper to light her pipe. "Wal, ez I wuz sayin'," says she, "tew an' one's the best seam, handiest an' 'lastickest; twenty stetches to a needle, cast up so loose thet the fust one's ter one eend uv the needle an' the last ter t'other eend,—thet gives ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... a store kept by a man named T. Q. Jones, locally known as "Three Two," when a digger came in to buy a needle. He demurred at the price asked, one shilling, when the storekeeper remarked, "Good God, man, look at the ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... personal knowledge of the tremendous power of Weed's pen. In his later years, Weed mellowed and forgave and forgot, but when he went to Albany, and for years before, as well as after, he seemed to enjoy striking an adversary. An explosion followed every blow. His sarcasms had needle-points, and his wit, sometimes a little gross, smarted like the sting of wasps. Often his attacks were so severe and merciless that the distress of his opponents ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the fourteen bob, Jack, and have done with it. She's got the needle to-night all right, and damfiknow what for. But the sight of your fourteen bob might bring her round." And Old Jack—as was his way—blundered obediently and promptly right into the hole that ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... to her left. It threw shadows over her features, accentuating their appealing sadness. He watched her, and thought of McPhail's words about the ghosts. He noted too, as the needle went in and out of the fabric, that her hands, though roughened by coarse work, were finely made, with long fingers and delicate wrists. He broke a silence ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke |
