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Shaft   /ʃæft/   Listen
Shaft

verb
1.
Equip with a shaft.
2.
Defeat someone through trickery or deceit.  Synonyms: cheat, chicane, chouse, jockey, screw.



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"Shaft" Quotes from Famous Books



... Sigurd,—Robert of Normandy, Godric the English pirate, who fought his way through the Saracen fleets with a spear-shaft for his banner, Edgar the AEtheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, the Dartmouth fleet of 1147 which retook Lisbon,—but the Latin conquest of Syria has now brought us past the Crusades, in the narrower sense, to their results, in the exploration ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... woman lying in a hammock on the broad piazza where a broad shaft of light from the open door fell upon her. Carol stood ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... running, cursing vilely as he came. The shaft of yellow light which shot into the darkness fell upon the gleaming blade of the ax that he ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... and unguarded, Grom drove his spear full force, straight into the soft hollow of it. The weapon sank into a depth of perhaps three feet, till the ragged flint lodged in the vertebrae of the monster's neck. Then the shaft was wrenched violently from his hand; and the monster, blowing blood and foam from mouth and nostrils, fell with a crash among the litter of great branches which ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... blushed, as though the shaft had been leveled at himself. He was most unhappy, and tried to heal the wound his friend ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... motors hitherto used the fly-wheels have been attached to a horizontal shaft or axle, and have thus been made to revolve in a vertical plane, since the horizontal shaft is best adapted to the transmission of power. If, however, in this case we should use a heavy rotating mass, corresponding to the power employed and revolving ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile

... design for the Nelson Testamonial, which would in all probability have been accepted, had not the decision been made in the usual preconcerted underhand manner. Following the columnar idea of Mr. Railton, our talented pupil had put forth a peculiarly appropriate idea: the shaft would have been formed by a sea-telescope of gigantic proportions, pulled out to its utmost extent. On the summit of this Nelson would have been seated, as on the maintop, smoking his pipe, from which real smoke would have issued. This would have been produced by a stove at the bottom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... unlucky incident now comes to pass. A hawk bears away the ruby of re-union. Orders are sent to shoot the bird, and, after a short while, a forester brings the jewel and the arrow by which the hawk was killed. An inscription on the shaft shows that its owner is Ayus. A female ascetic enters, leading a boy with ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... and the American Indian. In his poetry, as in Homer's, only the simplest and most enduring features of humanity are seen, such essential parts of a man as Stonehenge exhibits of a temple; we see the circles of stone, and the upright shaft alone. The phenomena of life acquire almost an unreal and gigantic size seen through his mists. Like all older and grander poetry, it is distinguished by the few elements in the lives of its heroes. They ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... passage. Then they had only to break down the wall between, and there they were—and I give you my word for it, Hal, I was thankful! When they were all busy watching what was being done, and the gold was being handed up through a shaft that they dug, I just dropped down and went to sleep. It wasn't for long, but when I woke up I felt fit to face Sher Singh or the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... muttered angrily under his breath as he shone his flashlight into the well-shaft. Bud was splashing around below, soaked and ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... unbuttoned the other's breeches, and removing the linen barrier, brought out to view a white shaft, middle sized, and scarce fledged, when after handling and playing with it a little, with other dalliance, all received by the boy without other opposition than certain wayward coyness, ten times-more alluring than repulsive, he got him so turned round, with his ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... burst open—he saw before him the shaft of glimmering whiteness shed by the skylight, for since the Zeppelin raid of the month before, the staircase was always left in darkness—and the figure of his unknown guest rolled over, picked itself up, and stood revealed, a woman, not a child, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... laughed Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft. ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... contempt, as the shaft of a frondeur discredited by both parties. He fell back on Blue Books, and other ponderosities—Barton by this time silent, or playing a clumsy chorus. But if Diana was not acquainted with these things in the ore, so to ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Then front to front their Monarchs they defend. But lo! the female White rush'd in unseen, And slew with fatal haste the swarthy Queen; Yet soon, alas! resign'd her royal spoils, 430 Snatch'd by a shaft from her successful toils. Struck at the sight, both hosts in wild surprise Pour'd forth their tears, and fill'd the air with cries; They wept and sigh'd, as pass'd the fun'ral train, As if both armies had at once been ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... attached to a long line, while the harpoon shaft, by an ingenious arrangement, will slip free from the point. Now, while the shaft remains in the hands of the hunter, the line begins running rapidly down through the hole, for the seal in a vain endeavor to free itself dives deeply. The other end of the line also remaining ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace

... stars and blazing planets to fly from His hand as sparks beneath the hammer of a smith, the god of Sirius and Orion, always stopped his work at six o'clock to count the guests around each table, and if he found perchance there were thirteen, then would lift his arrow to the bow to let fly the deadly shaft upon these awful sinners against the law ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... woman!" he broke out, sotto voce, "she's a born natural! Did ye never hear of a shaft? or millions o' gallons a day? It's better nor a California ranch, I tell ye. Mebbe," charitably, "ye didn't ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... her face hidden, while she half heard him, it struck her suddenly, a shaft of light in darkness, that, indeed, he might help her. She dropped her hand to look at him and, with all its tear-stained disfigurement, he thought that he had never seen anything more heavenly than that look. It sought, it sounded him, pleaded with and caressed ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Lexicon I find it stated that the Ash tree signifies 'grandeur.' E ben trovato—it is not badly imagined—but its real meaning is life, and that not mere existence, but fresh, vigorous, exuberant life, the life of action and of enjoyment. The shaft of the Greek spear, which healed the wound given by the point, was, I doubt not, made of Ash, even as was that which slew Achilles. Thus the Ash, it will be seen, was an important letter in the ancient alphabet of the mysteries. May I hope that when you next sit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... A big, grinning man with sandy hair dragged the hose under the nose of the plane to take it to the other wing tank. Close by the nose wheel he slipped and steadied himself by the shaft which reaches down to the wheel's hub. His position for a moment was absurdly ungraceful. When he straightened up, his arm slid into the wheel well. But he dragged the hose the rest of the way and passed it on up. Then that tank was full and ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... his throat now. Without giving him time to prepare himself the girl had shot straight for the bull's-eye, straight to the heart of the thing that meant life or death to him, and for a moment he found no answer. Clearly he was facing suspicion. She could not have driven the shaft intuitively. The unexpectedness of the thing astonished him and then thrilled him, and in the thrill of it he found himself more ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... directions. It furnishes ixtli fibre for ayates, and it yields pulque. For a dozen years the maguey plant stores away starchy food in its long, thick, sharp-pointed leaves. It is the intended nourishment for a great shaft of flowers. Finally, the flower-bud forms amid the cluster of leaves. Left to itself the plant now sends all its reserve of food into this bud, and the great flower-stalk shoots upward at the rate of several inches daily; then the great pyramid of flowers ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft of a pick broken in two and the boards of several packing-cases strewn around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron, the name ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... not; you shall not!" exclaimed Ivanhoe. "Each lattice will soon be a mark for the archers; some random shaft may strike you. At least cover thy body with yonder ancient buckler and show as little of thyself ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... perspective, put on card-board in birch shaded from faint buff to bistre, dashed with the detached lines that seem to have quilted the tree-teguments together. Around the foot of the cross rises a mound of lovely moss-work in relief, with feathery filaments creeping up and wreathing about the shaft and thwart-beam. Miss Craydocke is just dotting in some bits of slender coral-headed stems among little brown mushrooms and chalices, as there comes a sudden, imperative knocking at the door of communication, or defense, between her ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... the rectangle of counters. The room was second storey. It had a great hole in the middle of the floor, fenced as with a wall of counters, and down this wide shaft the lifts went, and the light for the bottom storey. Also there was a corresponding big, oblong hole in the ceiling, and one could see above, over the fence of the top floor, some machinery; and right away overhead was the glass roof, and all light for the three storeys came downwards, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... jay with skyblue shaft Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead. She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed Her warily, cocked upon tail-plumed haunch, Then, skipping the whirligig of last-year leaves, Whisked himself out of sight and reappeared Leering about the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... hollow between the arrises which would constitute the flutings of the Doric column. Its derivations from the Minoan and Mycenaean columns seems most improbable. There are two essential parts in the Doric column, the shaft and the capital (the Greeks did not use any base for this order). The Minoan columns taper downwards instead of upwards, an utterly unconstructional form, and though in the palace of Knossos and at Tiryns columns of this shape appear to have been used to carry lintels, the stone columns on ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... the matter with the littlest one," cried Mr. Biggs, turning around with one foot on the shaft. ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... he met with another outlaw named Idzumo Takeru who he knew had done much harm in the land. He again resorted to stratagem, and feigned friendship with the rebel under an assumed name. Having done this he made a sword of wood and jammed it tightly in the shaft of his own strong sword. This he purposedly buckled to his side and wore on every occasion when he expected to ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... emerging slowly from the long winter of her sorrow, the growing friendship with this man whom she both liked and admired was as a shaft of sunshine breaking across a grey landscape. Insensibly it was doing her good. The deep shadow of a horror that once had overwhelmed her was lifting gradually away from her life. In her happier moments it almost seemed that she ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... "English soldiers," he says, "have never been the men they were in the days of the cross-bow and the long-bow; when they depended upon the strength of the arm, and the English archer could draw a cloth-yard shaft to the head. These were the times when, at the battles of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, the French chivalry was completely destroyed by the bowmen of England. The yeomanry, too, have never been what they were, when, in times of peace, they were constantly exercised with ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... water piled up by lunar influence on the hither and farther sides of our globe, strive, as it were, to detach themselves from the unity of the terrestrial spheroid, and to follow the movements of the moon. The moon, accordingly, holds them against the whirling earth, which revolves like a shaft in a fixed collar, slowly losing motion and gaining heat, eventually dissipated through space.[957] This must go on (so far as we can see) until the periods of the earth's rotation and of the moon's revolution coincide. Nay, the process will be continued—should our oceans survive ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... few know the danger and hardship of the bold worker who risks his life to procure the coal. The first step is to find out if there is coal. This done, the next is to get at it, or, as it is termed, to win the coal. The process is to sink a shaft, and this is alike dangerous, uncertain, and very costly. The first attempt to sink a pit at Haswell in Durham was abandoned after an outlay of L60,000. The sinkers had to pass through sand, under the magnesian limestone, ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... in CO2 reading in the flue is caused by the air being drawn in around the motor shaft for cooling purposes. The motor cooling air is at ambient temperature and, therefore, does not add energy to or subtract energy from the flue gas analysis, it only adds volume to the flue gas. Therefore, applying this data to standard ...
— Installation and Operation Instructions For Custom Mark III CP Series Oil Fired Unit • Anonymous

... excepting the flywheel, shaft, valve cams, pistons and bracing rods connecting the upper and lower plates of the frame proper, is of brass, the other parts named being of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... Delobelles, amuse herself by watching their work and looking at all the insects, and, being already more coquettish than playful, if an insect had lost a wing in its travels, or a humming-bird its necklace of down, she would try to make herself a headdress of the remains, to fix that brilliant shaft of color among the ripples of her silky hair. It made Desiree and her mother smile to see her stand on tiptoe in front of the old tarnished mirror, with affected little shrugs and grimaces. Then, when she had had enough of admiring herself, the child would open the door with all the strength of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... because I must! (earnestly and firmly). My passions, Walter, overcome my tenderness for you. My honor has no alternative. Our union is the talk of the whole city. Every eye, every shaft of ridicule is bent against me. 'Twere a stain which time could never efface should a subject of the prince reject my hand! Appease your father if you have the power! Defend yourself as you best may! my resolution is taken. The mine is fired ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... never doubted, when he had found what he wanted to do, that the gods would be on his side. He showed me how every arrow was a little different from the others in the way the blood drain was cut or the shaft feathered. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... colonists, who had been driven from their homes, had sought shelter. They were silent and seemed to be petrified in all the attitudes of despair. Just outside of the shed an old man, weeping, was seated on the trunk of a mahogany tree which was lying on the ground and looked like the shaft of a column. Another vainly sought to restrain a white woman who, wild with fright, was trying to flee, without knowing where she was going, through the crowd of ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... the joy of being mixed with the uneasy doubt of its tenure, my eye fell at last on the spire of a little church, rising like a pencil of light to heaven, out of the fathomless waste. And there my soul alighted and found rest. Like some sea mark to the voyager, that slender shaft, reared by the social religion of the world, stood to tell me where in the universe I was; the common Christian consciousness reinforced my own, and dark queries and agitating uncertainties subsided from my spirit, as the deluge ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... there been a dark night between this window and the sea. Not once has my spark been put out: and I will not think it now. God can kindle fire where He pleases. I have heard tell that people in foreign countries have seen a lightning-shaft dart down into a forest, and make a tree blaze up like a torch. God ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau

... monuments in San Giovanni e Paolo, even if I cared to discuss them; I only wonder that, in speaking of the bad art which produced the tomb of the Venieri, he failed to mention the successful approach to its depraved feeling, made by the single figure sitting on the case of a slender shaft, at the side of the first altar on the right of the main entrance. I suppose this figure typifies Grief, but it really represents a drunken woman, whose drapery has fallen, as if in some vile debauch, to her waist, and who broods, with a horrible, heavy stupor and chopfallen vacancy, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... gone behind a cloud, and the room was so dark that he could only see that someone was there, but could not tell who it was or by what name he would be called. Then the moon struggled out from behind her covering, and sent a shaft of light into the gloomy chamber, with its dark draping and heavy carved furniture. With the coming of the light Claverhouse, who was not unaccustomed to ghostly sights, for they were his heritage, raised himself in bed, and knowing no fear looked steadily. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... proceeded from her father's poor horse Prince. The morning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels, speeding along these lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlighted equipage. The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound his life's blood was spouting in a stream, and falling with a hiss into ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... their building. There is a large one hundred and fifty horse-power engine which runs during the day, and a seventy-five horse-power which relieves it at night. From this shafting and belting distribute the power in every direction. One shaft runs to and across Frankfort street, supplying THE MAIL and other offices, another crosses William street and runs the six cylinder presses which pile the three hundred thousand copies of the Ledger in its beautiful press-room. Another ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... joked him about his failure, Felix asked him to hang up his breastplate at two hundred yards. He did so, and in an instant a shaft was sent through it. After that Oliver held his peace, and in his heart began to think that the bow was ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... And you think you can be a man of business and a poet at the same time? No go, my boy. If you take up business, you drop poetising. Those two horses never yet pulled at the same shaft, and never will." ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... enjoyment. On a pleasant morning, from the summit of any hilltop the view is delightful. Scores of crafts, from the saucy mackerel-catcher to the huge three-master, are leaving their anchorage under the shadows of Sequin, and the lofty white shaft of the lighthouse above looms clear and grand against the sky. At the weirs along the river fishermen are pulling in their nets, which glimmer with their night's catch. The bustling little tugs, with half a dozen "icers" in tow, are struggling nobly against the tide. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... father, a little heavily. Father and son shook hands with Jim and Anne, and the older man said gravely, "God bless you both!" as he and his son went down the wet path, in the shaft of light from the hall door. At the gate the boy put his arm ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... was now risen, and through a deep cleft in the hills it sent a strong shaft of light straight at the island. The yellow light, almost level, struck through the stems of the trees and dazzled the children's eyes. This, with the fact that he was not looking where he was going, as Jimmy ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... as sure as we can be of anything that hasn't happened yet. But I see that your guardian angel here is eyeing her clock somewhat pointedly, so I'd better be doing a flit before they toss me down a shaft. Clear ether, Storm!" ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith

... has been hollowed out above the roof of the cave being called the dome, and the part below the floor of the cave the pit. The only difference between the two is that in the case of Gorin's Dome the dripping waters have bored their huge shaft on one side of the track of the cave, only just piercing the wall of it in one spot, to make the window through which it is viewed; while in the case of the Side-Saddle Pit the vertical shaft cuts directly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... than that we carried with us. I hoped thus to be enabled to penetrate the scrubs, and reach, and perhaps cross, the higher land bounding this great basin. Our first day's progress, being rather experimental, did not extend above ten miles. I had been obliged to send back the shaft horse, and exchange him for a better, as our load of water was heavy. The day was very sultry. Thermometer 105 deg. Fahrenheit, in the shade. We had passed over ground more open than I expected, but by no means clear of scrubs. Thermometer, at sunrise, 64 deg.; at 4 P. M., 105 deg.; ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... duello as he were a vast mountain, with his fires flaming and his smoke spireing, and shot at me a falling star of fire; but I swerved from it and it missed me. Then I cast at him in my turn, a flame of fire, and smote him; but his shaft[FN126] overcame my fire and he cried out at me so terrible a cry that meseemed the skies were fallen flat upon me, and the mountains trembled at his voice. Then he commanded his hosts to charge; accordingly they rushed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... the vestibule at the west end is a most excellent piece of work. It was carved from a block of white marble by Grinling Gibbons, and is about 5 feet in height. The shaft is the tree of life, round which is twined the serpent, while figures of Adam and Eve stand on either side. It is well worth going into the church to see this alone. The font originally possessed a cover, which was stolen in 1800, and is said to have been hung up in a spirit ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... from amidst of brands; and there he saw a giant sitting withal, marvellously great and dreadful to look on. But when Grettir came anigh, the giant leapt up and caught up a glaive and smote at the new-comer, for with that glaive might a man both cut and thrust; a wooden shaft it had, and that fashion of weapon men called then, heft-sax. Grettir hewed back against him with the short-sword, and smote the shaft so that he struck it asunder; then was the giant fain to stretch aback for a sword that hung ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... to Camelot, Glad, though for shame his heart waxed hot, For hope within it withered not To see the shaft it dreamed of shot Fair toward the glimmering goal of fame, And all King Arthur's knightliest there Approved him knightly, swift to dare And keen to bid their records ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... old stories reminds me that I have something that may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I once ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from falling. To climb it is a noon-day nightmare, and to think of having climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a niblick's shaft, We have learned to make a mashie with a wondrous handicraft, We know that a hazard is often played best by re-driving off, But the Devil whoops as he whooped of old, "It's easy, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... to tell his story then, for a shaft of strong light illumined the roadway, and a big limousine stopped at the foot of the terrace steps. They heard Delilah Jeliffe's high laugh; then Porter's voice in the garden. ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... sat down, Julius was little inclined to divagate into an account of his travels. His glance swept round and noted everything; he remarked on a soft effect of a shaft of sunshine that lit up the small conservatory, and burnished the green of a certain plant; he perceived a fine black Persian cat, the latest pet of the Club, and exclaimed, "What a beautiful, superb creature!" He called it, and it came, daintily sniffed at his leg, and leaped on his ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... recollection, what a saving of reiterated labor and of annoying helplessness. A discrimination sharpened to the nicest discernment of things that differ, though always a shining mark for the arrow of the satirist, will outlive all shots with his gray-goose shaft; for it shines with the gleam of tempered steel. An exactness of knowledge that defines all its landmarks, how is it master of the situation. A precision of speech, born of clear thinking, what controversial ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... crimsoned to the hue of the western sky where the sun was just going down. He started to answer hotly, but an understanding of the Surgeon's evident kindness and sincerity interposed to deter him. He knew there was no shaft of sarcasm hidden below this plain speech, and after a moment's ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... patient, holding her Bible and her Church Service on her knees, ready. Every now and then she dozed. When this happened Mary took the Bible from her and read where it opened: "And he made the candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work made he the candlestick; his shaft, and his branch, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, were of the same.... And in the candlestick were four bowls made like almonds, his knops and his flowers: And a knop under two branches of the same, ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... sunbeams were shooting many a golden shaft among the orange-trees when Elsie returned and found Agnes yet kneeling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... river in Manhattan, four shields were driven eastward to about the middle of the river; and, from two similar shafts at the river front in Long Island City, four shields were driven westward to meet those from Manhattan. From a temporary shaft, near East Avenue, Long Island City, the land section of about 2,000 ft. was driven to ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace, Francis Mason and S. H. Woodard

... new, of the Christ who arose the third day." The old fosters meditation and silence; the new kindles the imagination, by its variety of perspective arrangement and mystic representation,—still reverential, still expressive of consecrated sentiments, yet more cheerful. The foliated shaft, the rich tracery of the window, the graceful pinnacle, the Arabian gorgeousness of the interior,—as if the crusaders had learned something from the East,—the innumerable shrines and pictures, the variegated marbles of the altar, with its vessels of silver and gold, the splendid ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... brushes, dipping into the water which they fringe. It was a pretty cool place to descend to, from a temperature of 80 degrees above, to 74 degrees at the bottom, where the water was 60 degrees; and most refreshing to look, either up the shaft to the green fig shadowing the deep profound, or along the sloping steps through a vista of flowering herbs and climbing plants, to the blue heaven ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... went, down the Corso, till she came to the Piazza Colonna, and saw far on her left, beyond the huge black shaft of the column, the brilliant lights from the French officers' Club. She hesitated then, and slackened her speed a little. The sight of the Club reminded her of society, of what she was doing, and of what it might mean. As she walked more slowly, the wind gained upon her, as it ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... the peep-holes in the pilot-house of the gunboat, but yet a fifth blow was received forward of the wheels without injury. At last, however, the Queen was able to strike just abaft the starboard wheel-house, crushing the wheel, disabling the starboard rudder, and starting a number of leaks abaft the shaft. The starboard engine was thus useless and the Indianola helpless to avoid the onset of the Webb, which struck her fair in the stern, starting the timbers and starboard rudder-box so that the water poured in in large volumes. This settled the fight, and Brent reported to Colonel Brand ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... had to be overcome at the Bristol in the matter of rooms. Without going into details, Brock resignedly took the only room left in the crowded hotel—a six by ten cubby-hole on the top floor overlooking the air-shaft. He had to go down one flight for his morning tub, and he never got it because he refused to stand in line and await his turn. Mrs. Medcroft had the choicest room in the hotel, looking down upon the beautiful Kaerntner-Ring. ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... high arched gateway in the adobe wall. A beautiful horse, snowy, glistening white, groomed to the last hair, an animal of fine thin racing forelegs proudly lifted and high-flung head, shot out of the shadows like a shaft of sunlight. On its back what at first appeared an elegantly dressed young man, a youth even fastidiously and fancifully accoutered, with riding boots that shone and a flaunting white plume and red lined cape floating wildly. Only when the approaching rider came ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... water-casks and washing their clothes. While they were thus occupied a party of negroes rushed out upon them from the woods, and shooting their arrows, hurt several of the men, among whom was a soldier, who, breaking off the shaft, allowed the head to remain in the wound rather than have it cut out. It being poisoned, his body swelled and became black, and he died the ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... month then, they will shut down three of the mines, and will close the Jumbo Breaker. You know what that means. I have asked the men of Shaft Fifteen if they intend to starve, and they answered to a man that they would sooner be shot than starve like rats ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... the heavy drifting cloud-masses, broke through a confined ragged circle and, for a moment, its splendor shone upon the heights of The Gore; its effulgence paled the arc-lights in the quarries; a silver shaft glanced on the Rothel in its downward course, and afar touched the ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... prevail to make me peevish. I find that an older Man than I am, can in the apparent Coolness of Mind, stabb a dreaded Rival to the Vitals. His Words are like Honey, but there is a large Mixture of Poison. You who are in the Midst of Life & Usefulness, do not expect to escape the envenomd Shaft, but you have always the Cure at hand, Moderation, Fortitude & Prudence. It matters little what becomes of an old worn out Servt in this World. He has his foot on the Grave & with Pleasure views it. But the virtuous Patriot, who is in the full Exercise of the ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill will: a word, a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... In connection therewith, it must be said, that the length and diameter of bearings has been increased far beyond the proportions of former years. The "brasses" are bored out about three-sixteenths of an inch larger than the shaft; then the recesses are slotted out for the reception of the wooden strips. If care be taken with this part of the operation, any number of strips can be supplied ready fitted, and to put in a set of spare strips becomes a short ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... law," said he. "He hath shed blood in a court of justice, and for such a sin there is no forgiveness. I will not have my court so flouted and set at naught. He who draws the sword, by the sword also let him perish. Forester Hugh lay a shaft to your bow!" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... That slight shaft had now sunk behind the hills, and we had floated round the neighboring bend, and under the new North Bridge between Ponkawtasset and the Poplar Hill, into the Great Meadows, which, like a broad moccason print, have levelled a fertile and ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... in form, and when driven up tight is fixed thereto by a forelock passing through both; it is formed with a square head to receive the key for screwing it into the ground. It is also furnished with a collar of wrought iron fitted so as to turn freely on the upper part of the shaft of ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton

... principally the Misses Fox, bright cheery young creatures, were concerned; which, for the sake of its human interest, is worth mention. In a certain Cornish mine, said the Newspapers duly specifying it, two miners deep down in the shaft were engaged putting in a shot for blasting: they had completed their affair, and were about to give the signal for being hoisted up,—one at a time was all their coadjutor at the top could manage, and the second was to kindle the match, and then mount with all speed. Now it chanced ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... degrade my choice: Then, in the whirling wave of pleasure, sought From its loved object to divert my thought. With equal hope he might attempt to bind In chains of adamant the lawless wind; For love had aim'd the fatal shaft too sure, Hope fed the wound, and absence knew no cure. With alienated look, each art he saw Still baffled by superior nature's law. 470 His anxious mind on various schemes revolved, At last on cruel exile ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... the most serious and thoughtful works of the Exposition sculpture is the Column of Progress which faces the bay at the end of the Forecourt of Stars. This column represents with direct imagery the upward progress of man. The shaft itself is sculptured with conventionalized waves in a gradually ascending spiral, upon which a repeated vessel, the Ship of Life, sails upward, indicating the slow upward rise of our life. The lower panels, significant of man's endeavors, are described on the ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... to reach her cottage door; O sweetly my love sings! Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth, My soul to meet it springs As the shining water leaped of old, When stirred by angel wings. Aye longing to list anew, Awake and in my dream, But never a song she sang like this, Sewing her ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... a cross-head, D, running in slides, E and F, and is connected with the connecting rod, G. The head of the latter is provided with a bearing of large diameter which embraces the journal of the driving shaft, H. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... may affect some odd, peculiar place; as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure: but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys; and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... of breeds and Indians yelling and whooping and encouraging an intoxicated metis to dash into it at the imminent risk of his life to fetch out some article of inconsiderable value as a proof of his prowess. As she passed on she heard a dull thud; and, looking back, realised by the vast shaft of sparks which rose into the air that the roof had fallen in. Jean Ba'tiste had played with Death ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... been growing dark and drowsy; the afternoon sun sent one heavy shaft of powdered gold across it, which fell with an intangible solemnity upon the empty seat of Mary Gray, for the younger women had left the court before the more recent of the investigations. Mrs. Duke was still asleep, and Innocent Smith, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... dawn, seemed to issue in a most unusual way from the far corner of this apartment near the ceiling. I directed my course towards it, and in the transit made violent contact with some metallic object, which proved to be an upright iron shaft, perhaps three inches in diameter, running from floor ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... my tale of woe. The kitchen being open, I took advantage of the dumb-waiter, as you already know. It's fortunate that waiter is dumb, for it must have many lurid confessions to make. I never saw such an interminable shaft; it seemed higher than the Eiffel Tower. See how I blistered my hands on the rope, letting ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... was opening slowly to admit the nameless horror. I seemed to feel a hot breath on my cheek, and with a wild shriek I woke, to find the moonlight streaming in through the broad diamond-paned window, falling in a white shaft across the floor, while the last embers of the fire were smoldering to ashes ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... of powder, shot, or shaft in this affair. Each man was an expert with his weapon, and cool as the proverbial cucumber, though considerably excited. Loading as they ran, they fitted and shot again, stretching six more of the enemy on the plain. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... into account practically this most important factor in human and animal life. We toil for bread, but we ignore the supply of oxygen. And why? Simply because oxygen is universally diffused everywhere. It costs nothing. Only in the Black Hole of Calcutta or in a broken tunnel shaft do men ever begin to find themselves practically short of that life-sustaining gas, and then they know the want of it far sooner and far more sharply than they know the want of food on a shipwreck raft, or the want of water in the thirsty desert. Yet antiquity never even heard ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... pillar was unfinished, a circumstance which would indicate that it had never been erected. It was left to Pope Pius IX., after all these centuries of neglect and obscurity, to find a use for it. Crowning its capital by a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, and disfiguring its shaft by a fantastic bronze network extending up two-fifths of its height, he erected it where it now stands in 1854, to commemorate the establishment by papal bull of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It was during his exile at Gaeta, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... adoration Jane could not forbear a shaft of raillery. "You'll leave yourself some time to ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... in the Washington cemetery, by the side of the body of his wife. A handsome marble shaft, bearing the simple and speaking inscription "Robert Toombs," marks the spot which is sacred to ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... this, from time to time the shaft must be elaborately timbered in order to prevent its caving in and burying work and workman together—a tedious job, requiring the skill alike of a woodsman, a carpenter, a sailor, and a joiner. The man must make his trips to town for supplies. He must cook his meals. He must ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... there and try to find among those eyes your wife's, and if you find them tell the Thunder why you came and make him give them to you. Here, now, is a raven's wing. Point this at him and he will be afraid and start back; but if that should fail, take this arrow. Its shaft is made of elk horn. Take this, I say, and shoot it ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell

... A shaft of bright hot rays darted into the bay between the summits of two hills, and the water all round broke out as if by magic into a ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... defending its tempting sweets against a host of greedy depredators; but if it could sting a number of times, it would be much more difficult to bring it into a state of thorough domestication. A quiver full of arrows in the hand of a skilful marksman, is far more to be dreaded than a single shaft. ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... that isn't all, there are other ties. I know the cabin her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I DID know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying through the air and clear down to the trail and hit an Indian in the back with ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... the waters, in filtering through it, bring together the disseminated grains of gold; in which case every attempt to work the rock would be useless. In the Savana de la Miel, near the town of Barquesimeto, a shaft has been sunk in a black shining slate resembling ampelite. The minerals extracted from this shaft, which were sent to me at Caracas, were quartz, non-auriferous pyrites, and carbonated lead, crystallized in needles of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... to with a will, and after a time Johnnie joined them. Slowly, laboriously, the three of them carried debris from the edge of the quarry and bricks from the ruined house; they scraped up armfuls of leaves and trash—anything, in fact, which would serve to raise the bottom of the shaft and conceal the entrance to their enemy's resting-place. It was slavish work, but O'Reilly kept them at it until they were ready to drop. Daylight overtook ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... placing the sea-lock on absolute mud, which afforded no foundation other than what was created by compression and pile-driving. The mud was forced down by throwing upon it an immense load of earth and stones, which was left during twelve months to settle; after which a shaft was sunk to a solid foundation, and the masonry of the sea-lock was then ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... that!" said he, rubbing his chin with the shaft of his hammer. "No, 'ardly a poet, p'raps,—but thereabouts. My verses rhyme an' go wi' a swing, which is summat, arter all, ain't it? I made the song I was a-singing so blithe ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... the stern and dropped his oar to its shaft in the phosphorescent water. But he touched no bottom; the current brought the oar at right angles presently to ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... shaft of light rose up abruptly to a position vertical, a beam of light reaching up into the sky. An instant, and it began to swing from side to side. It swung sharply clear against the bald face of the mountain at the farther ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... any artillery of the calibre possessed by the besiegers. Whish resolved to effect their destruction by mines. On the 18th three mines were exploded, and the counterscarp was blown into the ditch. A shaft was then sunk under the trench, and a gallery cut towards the wall. At the same time a battery was placed on a level higher than the citadel itself; another carrying eighteen and twenty-four pounders was placed close up to the wall. From ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... dinner, when he obviously had to be either a waiter or a guest, and could not keep up both parts, as when the guests were arriving. Another man, a "Priest of Apollo," is worshipping the sun on the top of a "sky-scraping" block of offices in Westminster, while a woman falls down a lift-shaft and is killed. Father Brown immediately concludes that the priest is guilty of the murder because, had he been unprepared, he would have started and looked round at the scream and the crash of the victim falling. But a man absorbed in prayer on, let us say, a ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... course of preparation designed to fit him for his subsequent career. He knew not what he was being prepared for; his own intentions about his future were different from God's; but there is a divinity which shapes our ends, and it was making him a polished shaft for God's quiver, though ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... narrow passage where scarcely three customers could have stood in a row. Behind a glass partition one perceived the dim back shop, which served as kitchen and dining-room and bedchamber, and which received only a little air from a damp inner yard which suggested a sewer shaft. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... discovered, and it required the utmost speed of the hunters' horses to enable them to avoid being overtaken. One of the Indians, who was better mounted than his fellows, gained on the fugitives so much that he came within arrow range, but reserved his shaft until they were close on the margin of the wood, when, being almost alongside of Henri, he fitted an arrow to his bow. Henri's eye was upon him, however; letting go the line of the pack-horse which he was leading, he threw forward his ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... "A shaft of light upon its wings descended. And every golden feather gleamed therein." Ay! and their fate's inextricably blended; Let either faint or flag, they shall not win Athwart the aerial azure clear and thin. Brothered in use are they, in use and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various

... lay the shining water, in its feathery willow frame, and still rosy with the last faint radiance of the sunset. As the pond slowly paled to a mirror-like crystal, the moon, round and golden, rose up from the darkness of the Drowned Lands. It sent a silver shaft down into the shadowy ravine, and a gleam from the brook answered. Just as its light came stealing on through the willowy fringe to touch the waters of the pond there arose, from the dark grove opposite the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... bones of the upper and lower limbs are enlarged at each extremity, and have projections, or processes. To these, the tendons of muscles and ligaments are attached, which connect one bone with another. The shaft of these bones is cylindrical and hollow, and in structure, their exterior surface is hard and compact, while the interior portion is of a reticulated character. The enlarged extremities of the round bones are more porous than ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... left for him to do. The holder of the lance was beyond his reach, even if he had wished to strike him, but the lance itself was not. All the strength he had in him seemed to go into the sudden blow with which he severed the wooden shaft, an inch or so behind its ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... sun had sent, through an opening in the woods, a shaft of light, which centred on a hickory tree that stood alone in the meadow, and was then in the perfection of its golden autumn glory. It dripped with moisture, blazed and shimmered. The high lights were diamond tipped, and between them and the deepest ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... news brought by Krool to the Baas, that the sub-manager of the great mine, whose chimneys could be seen from the hill behind the house, had thrown himself down the shaft and been smashed to a pulp. None of them except Byng had known him, and the dark news had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker



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