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More "Unwind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is, O Memmius, to see through The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt; O this it is to mark by what blind force It maketh each effect, and not, O not To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular, Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods, Even as to whence the flying flame hath come, Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how Through walled places it hath wound its way, Or, after proving its dominion ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... confined to its mere successful composition, for having achieved the miraculous feat of alleging in fourteen ways without punctuation that the defendant did something, and with a final fanfare of "saids" and "to wits" inserted his verb where no one will ever find it, the indicter must then be able to unwind himself, rolling in and out among the "dids" and "thens" and "theres" until he is once more safely upon the terra firma of foolscap at the head of the ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... the soul which is oppressed by the yoke of Nature. It is the expression of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but of which we nevertheless dream. An iron law presides over our destiny. Around us and within us, the series of causes and effects continues to unwind its hard chain. Every single one of our deeds bears its consequence, and this goes on to eternity. Every fault of ours will bring its chastisement. Every weakness will have to be made good. There is not a moment of ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... think the spring began to unwind of itself," answered Mr. Mugg. "Or our walking around may have jarred the engine, and started it off. At any rate no harm is done, and now we must finish unpacking ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... are several things necessary, in order that the silk worm should be a good one to make silk from. In the first place, the fibre of the silk that he spins must be fine, and also strong. In the next place, it must easily unwind from the cocoon. Then the animal must be a tolerably hardy one, so as to be easily raised in great numbers. Then the plant or tree that it feeds upon must be a thrifty and hardy one, and easily cultivated. The mulberry silk worm has been ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... called after him just as far as they could see him, and when they were sure he was gone they thought they would come down and celebrate. But they didn't do it—not just yet. There wasn't one of them that could unwind himself from his limb, except old Mr. Waters, who had got only a teaspoonful of the medicine, which very likely was just about the right amount. Mr. Waters swung quite loose and free from his limb, and got down without much trouble, and it took him all ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I bought a label at the bookstall and wrote it for him. He went round and round my leg looking for me. "Funny thing," he said as he began to unwind, "he was here a moment ago. I'll just go round once more. I rather think ... Ow! Oh, there you are!" I stepped off him, unravelled the lead and dragged him ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... know the absolute, or God, you must be the absolute; or, in other words, God only can find God. This is the simple doctrine, when you unwind the veil he has cleverly hung over it. True, he denounces pantheism; but here is pantheism of the eclectic patent, differing from that of other systems only in subtlety of expression, wherein Cousin certainly excels. One of the most profound philosophical writers ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... chief dies, he is buried in rather a peculiar fashion. As soon as life is extinct—some say even before the last breath is drawn—the bystanders break the spine by a blow from a large stone. They then unwind the long rope that encircles the loins, and lash the body together in a sitting posture, the head being bent over the knees. Ox-hides are then tied over it, and it is buried with its face to the north, as already described when ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... a man muffled up to the eyes in a vast red scarf—or not so much red as pink, salmon colour—which he proceeded gradually to unwind, revealing at length the features of Mr. James Tod Brown, the senior partner of the firm of Brown, Brown & Brown, of Little Britain. Save for a curious nervousness of speech which caused him to repeat every remark several times, Mr. James Tod Brown was a typical lawyer, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... under his cassock, a sign of perturbation; Courtlandt continued to unwind; the Barone glanced fiercely ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... worshipers on all hands. He is a marvelous talker on a deep subject. I do not see how even Spencer could unwind a thought more smoothly or orderly, and do it in a cleaner, clearer, crisper English. He astounded Twichell with his faculty. You know when it comes down to moral honesty, limpid innocence, and utterly blemishless ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the strong note of character in each, fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic. They might in short have represented any mystery they would; the point being predominantly that the key to the mystery, the key that could wind and unwind it without a snap of the spring, was there in her pocket—or rather, no doubt, clasped at this crisis in her hand and pressed, as she walked back and forth, to her breast. She walked to the end and far out of the light; she returned and saw ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... turned upwards towards me. It will smell the honey, but will not guess that it carries it itself, and it will crawl upwards in the hope of getting to the hive from which that honey came. Keep the rest of the silk firmly held, and gradually unwind it as the beetle climbs up. Mind you do not let it slip, for my very life depends on that ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... speaking I felt my soul carried out into the light of God's face, and my grave clothes were taken off one by one as Janet would unwind my plaid, and I stood a living man ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... attention to their collection and arrangement. Who? It would have been idle to shape even a conjecture, but for a circumstance, that appeared to offer a certain clue; and, not without bitter thoughts, did I try to unwind it. The thread which was warped around the flower-stalks was of yellow silk. The strands were finely twisted; and I easily recognised the bullion from the tassel of a sash. That thread must have been taken from the sash ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... of success, especially of their own histrionic. They might in short have represented any mystery they would; the point being predominantly that the key to the mystery, the key that could wind and unwind it without a snap of the spring, was there in her pocket—or rather, no doubt, clasped at this crisis in her hand and pressed, as she walked back and forth, to her breast. She walked to the end and far out of the light; she returned and saw the others still where she had left them; ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... order. Prosperity was expected to attend the reign of Losada, the new president. The ousted office-holders and military favourites organized a new "Liberal" party, and began to lay their plans for a re-succession. Thus the game of Anchurian politics began, like a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly its serial length. Here and there Mirth peeps for an instant from the wings and ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... leafy paths that the witches take, Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake; And of apple islands where the Danaan kind Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams; No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, The boughs have withered because I have told them ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... a very satisfactory thing for a Roman poet, when the wind was quiet, to get an audience about him, under a portico, and unwind his well-written scroll for an hour or two; but there must have been a vast deal of secret machinery, and influence, and agitation, to keep up his name with the people. The followers of Pythagoras, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... numbers of these fish were caught there every season. George turned the boat's head toward this place, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew out a "trolling-line," and, dropping the hook into the water behind the boat, began to unwind the line. The trolling-hook (such as is generally used in fishing for black-bass) can be used only in a strong current, or when the boat is in rapid motion through the water. The hook is concealed by feathers or a strip of red flannel, and a piece of shining metal in the shape ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... thing is to unwind this rope from my body. It is lucky I am so lean that it did not make me look bulky. It is not very thick, but it is new and strong, and there are knots every two feet. Roger is waiting for us below, in ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... of thinking of something else, the Sixth Nocturne, and Theron at first thought she was not playing anything in particular, so deliberately, haltingly, did the chain of charm unwind itself into sequence. Then it came closer to him than the others had done. The dreamy, wistful, meditative beauty of it all at once oppressed and inspired him. He saw Celia's shoulders sway under the impulse of the RUBATO license—the ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... of passion passed from me, I felt more composed. I lay on the ground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my former life; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, and to discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had hitherto been. I could not however at that time feel remorse, for methought I was born anew; my soul threw off the burthen of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... ends, impart Doubts that the Ruler is nor good nor wise. Can it then be that boundless Power, Love, Mind, Lets others reign, the while He takes repose? Hath He grown old, or hath He ceased to heed? Nay, one God made and rules: He shall unwind The tangled skein; the hidden law disclose, Whereby so many ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... "Unwind it, Runt, I don't give a damn how long it is. Not a full-detailed report, just hit the high spots—but don't leave out anything ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... here, creating worshipers on all hands. He is a marvelous talker on a deep subject. I do not see how even Spencer could unwind a thought more smoothly or orderly, and do it in cleaner, clearer, crisper English. He astounded Twichell with his faculty. You know that when it comes down to moral honesty, limpid innocence, and utterly blemishless piety, the apostles were mere policemen to Cable; ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... long—and easy enough to get if one was very careful. You could not cast for them; the brook was too small and brushy for that. You had to use a very short line, and wind it around the end of the rod, and work it through the branches, and then carefully, very carefully, unwind and let the hook drop lightly on the water. Then as likely as not there would be a swift, tingling tug, and, if you were lucky, an instant later you would have a beautiful red-speckled fellow landed among the grass and field ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the spring began to unwind of itself," answered Mr. Mugg. "Or our walking around may have jarred the engine, and started it off. At any rate no harm is done, and now we must finish unpacking ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... or goddess of the grove! At eve she paced the dewy lawn, And called each clown she saw, a faun! Then, scudding homeward, locked her door, And turned some copious volume o'er. For much she read; and chiefly those Great authors, who in verse, or prose, Or something betwixt both, unwind The secret springs which move the mind. These much she read; and thought she knew The human heart's minutest clue; Yet shrewd observers still declare, (To show how shrewd observers are,) Though plays, which breathed heroic flame, And novels, in profusion, came, Imported fresh-and-fresh from France, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... a ball of silken thread," she said. "As soon as you go into the Labyrinth where the monster is kept, fasten one end of the thread to the stone doorpost, and then unwind it as you go along. When you have slain the Minotaur, you have only to follow the thread and it will lead you back to the door. In the meanwhile I will see that your ship, is ready to sail, and then I will wait for you at the ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... wass still speaking I felt my soul carried out into the light of God's face, and my grave clothes were taken off one by one as Janet would unwind my plaid, and I stood a living ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... the whole party made their way silently through the woods. Three men were sent round to the side of the castle opposite that from which Cuthbert was to shoot. The length of light string was carefully coiled on the ground, so as to unwind with the greatest facility, and so offer as little resistance to the flight of the arrow as might be. Then, all being in readiness, Cuthbert attached the end to an arrow, and drawing the bow to its full compass, let fly ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... grip on the North Pole an' go whirlin' round it, he'll be cuttin' meridians as fast as a hay-chopper? Won't he see the sun gettin' left behind an' whirlin' the other way from what it does in nature? An' ef the sun goes the other way round, ain't it sure to unwind all the time thet ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... hands a thread, which, like the clue in the old story, can conduct a searcher safely through the dark recesses of the great labyrinth. He tied it, the dauntless youth in the tale, to the ancient thorn-tree that grew by the cavern's mouth; and then he stepped boldly in, and let it unwind within his hand. ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... successful composition, for having achieved the miraculous feat of alleging in fourteen ways without punctuation that the defendant did something, and with a final fanfare of "saids" and "to wits" inserted his verb where no one will ever find it, the indicter must then be able to unwind himself, rolling in and out among the "dids" and "thens" and "theres" until he is once more safely upon the terra firma of foolscap at the head of ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... as we begin to consider the reform of the law, we come at once to such a tangle of questions that I have the greatest difficulty in finding the right end to unwind the skein. For the trouble with this matter of our divorce laws, as with most other reforms, is to decide just what ought to be done, how far are we prepared to go? where must the marriage bond be held tight? where may it be loosened? These are but examples of the questions that have to ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... bridle, then there was a fight; But I throwed on my saddle and screwed it down tight, Stepped to his middle, feelin' mighty fine, Said: "Out of the way, boys, watch him unwind!" ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... he comes in "stomping" as we say, he must clear his throat, he must strike his hands together; he even seems noisy when he unwinds the thick red tippet which he wears wound many times around his neck. It takes him a long time to unwind it, and he accomplishes the task with many slow gyrations of his enormous rough head. When he sits down he takes merely the edge of the chair, spreads his stout legs apart, sits as straight as a post, and blows his nose with a noise like the falling ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... that flourish by daylight in the Beersheba Flats. Mrs. Rafferty, that despises the asphalt that a Dago treads on, wakes up in the morning with her feet in the bosom of Antonio Spizzinelli. And Mike O'Dowd, that always threw peddlers downstairs as fast as he came upon 'em, has to unwind old Isaacstein's whiskers from around his neck, and wake up the whole gang at daylight. But here and there some few got acquainted and overlooked the discomforts of the elements. There was five engagements to be married announced at the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... still they seem a timid race, for upon my having recourse to threats containing fearful allusions, which there was not the remotest possibility of my being able to carry into execution, a wonderful revolution was effected in the feelings of the sleepers around me; they forthwith began to unwind themselves from the linen wrappers in which natives always swathe themselves at night like so many hydropathic patients, and, converting their recent sheets into turbans and waistcloths, they got with many grumblings into a tub-like boat, just as the smoke from the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... in the fountain, health flows in the rills, As their ribbons of silver unwind from the hills; They breathe not the mist of the bacchanal's dream, But the lilies of innocence float ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it is, O Memmius, to see through The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt; O this it is to mark by what blind force It maketh each effect, and not, O not To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular, Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods, Even as to whence the flying flame hath come, Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how Through walled places it hath wound its ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... habit taking root in the organism forms a little mainspring or instinct of its own, like a parasite; so that an elaborate mechanism is gradually developed, where each lever and spring holds the other down, and all hold the mainspring down together, allowing it to unwind itself only very gradually, and meantime keeping the whole clock ticking and revolving, and causing the smooth outer face which it turns to the world, so clean and innocent, to mark the time of day amiably for the passer-by. But there is a terribly complicated labour going on beneath, propelled ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... his knees together to support his box, bent his spectacles towards the baby, and said cautiously, "It may be a new disease; unwind ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... before he could be hauled close up to the tree, to walk once or twice round it, carrying the rope with him; the decoy, perceiving the advantage he had thus gained over the nooser, walked up of her own accord, and pushed him backwards with her head, till she made him unwind himself again; upon which the rope was hauled tight and made fast. More than once, when a wild one was extending his trunk, and would have intercepted the rope about to be placed over his leg, Siribeddi, by a sudden motion of her own trunk, pushed ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... doctor began, with a physician's carefulness, to unwind the coil she had flung down to him. "Are the Savors going, ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... had found her—what horrible things might have happened before they made her captive no one could know, for an Indian never tells and the white men knew better than to ask! The girl was carried into shelter and laid upon a rough wooden bed. It was Robert, the outlaw, who helped unwind the covers ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... being a day or two loose, it would allow itself to be caught again. I tried tying it up with a cord, and afterwards with a rawhide thong, but had to nail the end, as it could loosen any knot in a few minutes. It would sometimes entangle itself around a pole to which it was fastened, and then unwind the coils again with the greatest discernment. Its chain allowed it to swing down below the verandah, but it could not ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... carpenters, out of the same ranks of common soldiers they walked, and made the cars. From the ranks came other men, who took the twisted rails, unwound them from the stumps and unsnarled them from one another, as women unwind yarn, and laid them down fit to carry our trains. And in forty days our message went back to Grant that we had 'stopped and built the road,' and that our engines were even then drawing supplies to his hungry army. Such was the incomparable army which ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... little where he is so long as he is a gentleman," returned the old lady, so sharply that Mitty began to unwind ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... a good grade of wax for fly-tying. The proper wax will work much better than shoemaker's wax or beeswax. Wax for fly-tying should be quite sticky so that when the waxed tying silk is let go of, it will not unwind ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... instantly suggested to the eager boy. He had often tried it in Old England; why not try it in Newfoundland? A very brief period sufficed to unwind a thread from the cord, and therewith to attach the feather to the hook. He had no rod, and neither time nor patience to make one. Gathering the cord into a coil, such as wharfmen form when casting ropes to steamers; ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... he said, "we want to wind a few layers of shellacked paper on this core. Suppose I turn the core, you let the paper unwind onto it, Joe, and you can shellac the paper ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... several pairs of moccasins, and within one of these Angus found something wrapped up nicely. He proceeded to unwind the long strings of deerskin with which it was securely tied, and brought forth a thin sheet of birch-bark. At first, there seemed to be nothing more, but a closer scrutiny revealed the impression of the awl, ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... lies, and there I tend, Till my life's threads unwind, A various womanhood in blend - Not one, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... interview, in which a mutual confession of affection took place, Ariadne furnished him with a sharp sword and a clue of thread, the end of which she desired him to fasten at the entrance to the labyrinth and to continue to unwind it till he reached the lair of the Minotaur. Full of hope as to the successful issue of his undertaking, Theseus took leave of the kind maiden, after expressing his gratitude ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... about the chairs and tables, the ribbon led to the top shelf of the closet, where there was a box of games, "With love from brother Pat." Then it conducted Anne back to the bed and when she stooped to unwind it from the bed-post she touched a soft, furry thing and gave a squeal, thinking it was a live creature; she gave another squeal of delight when she found that it was a muff and a little fur coat from Mr. Patterson. From the bed, the ribbon guided Anne to the window-seat, and there ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Unwind thyself, my precious one, A thread of gold within the woof. All my happiness rests upon thee, Thou art my greatest delight. Thine eyes are lovely and bright, As the rays of my father the Sun. When thy lips are moving to speak, When thine eyelids are raised with ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... cried Peter. "I might have guessed that that was uppermost in your mind. Well, how much will you have?" Peter began to unwind the fragrant weed off a coil of most appalling size and thickness, which looked like a snake of endless length. "Will that do?" and he flourished about four feet of the snake before the eyes of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... creature on the wall, with its nose turned upwards towards me. It will smell the honey, but will not guess that it carries it itself, and it will crawl upwards in the hope of getting to the hive from which that honey came. Keep the rest of the silk firmly held, and gradually unwind it as the beetle climbs up. Mind you do not let it slip, for my very life depends on that slight ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... On my eternal mind Are all the wrongs endured By Earth's poor patient kind, Which my too oft unconscious hand Let enter undesigned. No god can cancel deeds foredone, Or thy old coils unwind! ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall ever sully your noble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... process of excavation remained, and round it was a portion of the chain so old and rusty as to be worthless for any purpose whatever. Lengths had from time to time been broken off by boys, who would unwind a portion, and then, three or four pull together until the rust-eaten links gave way; and the boys came to the ground with a crash. It was a dirty game, however, dirty even for pit boys, for the yellow rust ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... guest of honor beg the privilege of cleaning up a bit?" Larry drew his right hand from his coat pocket, where it had been all this while, and started to unwind the handkerchief which he had wound about his knuckles as he had ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... had been reached: the tide of frenzy was turning, had turned, was already ebbing. She felt it, was conscious that he also had become aware of it. Then his grasp slackened, grew lax, loosened, and almost spent. She ventured to unwind her limbs from his, to relax her stiffened fingers, unclasp ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... there are several things necessary, in order that the silk worm should be a good one to make silk from. In the first place, the fibre of the silk that he spins must be fine, and also strong. In the next place, it must easily unwind from the cocoon. Then the animal must be a tolerably hardy one, so as to be easily raised in great numbers. Then the plant or tree that it feeds upon must be a thrifty and hardy one, and easily cultivated. The mulberry silk worm has been found to answer ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... upon the nature of the woman. If she continues to unwind the silk she will certainly find a piece of adamant, which has been cunningly covered with this rare, soft substance. If she tries to rewind, she will discover the thread has become tangled, and the ball can never again look smooth and even as before. She must choose which she would prefer, a ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... Spiders. Next, because that I find that water does easily dissolve and mollifie the substance again, which is evident from their manner of ordering those bottoms or pods of the Silk-worm before they are able to unwind them. It is no great wonder therefore, if those Dyes or ting'd liquors do very quickly mollifie and tinge the surfaces of so small and so glutinous a body. And we need not wonder that the colours appear so lovely in the one, and so dull in the other, if we view but the ting'd ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... me in any notions," she said to herself. "And I mean now, if I can find it out, to do the thing God means; and then I suppose,—I believe,—the snarl will begin to unwind." ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... am tired, my father,' he said. 'It is only that my legs cannot take such good long steps as thine; and walk as we will the road ever seems to unwind itself further and further in front, like the magic white ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... listened, but the Evil Spirit answered not. Just as he was going to begin another song, they saw a large ball rolling very fast up the hill towards the spot where they stood. It was the height of a man. When it came up to them it began to unwind itself slowly until at last a little strange-looking man crept out of the ball, which was made of his own hair. He was no higher than my shoulders. One of his feet made a strange track, the like of which the Indians had never seen before. His face was ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... chides all his Rutulians, calling each by name, and shrieks for the sword he knew. But Aeneas denounces death and instant doom if one of them draw nigh, and doubles their terror with threats of their city's destruction, and though wounded presses on. Five circles they cover at full speed, and unwind as many this way and that; for not light nor slight is the prize they seek, but Turnus' very lifeblood is at issue. Here there haply had stood a bitter-leaved wild olive, sacred to Faunus, a tree worshipped by mariners of old; on it, when rescued from ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... destructive words In puzzling measures? What so dark as this? He was his grandsire's son-in-law, and yet His father's rival; brother of his sons, And father of his brothers: at one birth The grandame bore unto her husband sons, And grandsons to herself. Who can unwind A tangle such as this? E'en I myself, Who bore the spoils of triumph o'er the Sphinx, Stand mute before the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... from repose by the unusually languid air, and London seemed meaningless to him, a city where a man of his type could neither dream, nor act, with all the languor, or all the energy, that was within him. And he imagined, as sometimes clever children do, a distant country where all romances unwind their shining coils, where he would find the incentive which he needed to call all his secret powers—the powers whose exercise would make his life complete—into ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... first shock over, the truth gradually dawned upon him that inasmuch as he had wound himself up, he must possess the ability to unwind himself. All he had to do was to begin at the upper instead of the lower ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... instructions. The same, sir, as I would carry out yours!" With an ingratiating smile. Whereupon the attorney told how he had furnished the patroon this roll and fastened it to his bed, so that he might wind and unwind it, perusing it at his pleasure. This the dying man did, sternly noting the damaging facts; thinking doubtlessly how traits will endure for generations—aye, for ages, in spite of the pillory!—the while Little ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... entered a moment later with both hands held out. She would not stop in the hall to unwind her nubia or take off her little fur boots, but motioned Oliver to her knees after she had kissed him joyously on both cheeks, and held out those two absurd little feet for his ministrations, while Mrs. Horn removed her ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the words may fell, And yet the heaven-taught mind May learn the sacred air, and all The harmony unwind. ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... hands to his sides in his vexation at being thus baffled, he touched the soft substance of his silken sash, and instantly an idea kindled at the touch. "Perhaps this will do," he thought, and hurriedly proceeded to unwind it. It was a long sash, for it went from his shoulder to his waist and then three times round his middle, where it was tied in a large bow with long ends. It was at least fifteen feet long, and as ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... signs at first of declining to unwind, but further investigation proved the frauds so great, that even the red tape was thrilled into action, and the Government began a suit in the United States District Court at New York for $1,000,000 for penalties for fraudulent custom-house under-valuations. It sued William E. Dodge, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... Crane proceeded to unwind the silken cord. "Naturally Smith would hate to lose a fair horse out of his stable, and would, perhaps, attempt to thwart any deal; so I think you might ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... of where they come from; marches of bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hopeless at all," laughed Billy. "It's like one of those strings they unwind at parties with a present at the end of it. And Spunk is the present," she added, when she had extricated the small gray cat. "And you shall hold him," she finished, graciously entrusting the sleepy kitten ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... in position (N 1), modified by palms being downward and hand horizontal. From the chest center the hand is then passed spirally forward toward the one addressed; the hand's palm begins the spiral motion with a downward and ends in an upward aspect. (Oto I.) "To unwind or open." ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... of Nature. It is the expression of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but of which we nevertheless dream. An iron law presides over our destiny. Around us and within us, the series of causes and effects continues to unwind its hard chain. Every single one of our deeds bears its consequence, and this goes on to eternity. Every fault of ours will bring its chastisement. Every weakness will have to be made good. There is not a moment of oblivion, not an instant ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... he said. Then he began to unwind the flannel cover from his gun. In the frosty twilight outside a raccoon whistled ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... saddle, saw the first wisps of smoke arise and grow and unwind into long ribbons, reaching deep into the standing crop. Soon tongues of flame appeared and the green tops of the cane began to shrivel and to wave as the steady east wind took effect. From the nearest conflagration a great snapping and crackling ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... their Majesties, the King and Queen, and all the Royal Court." And the pageant began to unwind its sinuous length along the campus lawn, and all the rustic players who formed the rabble fell in behind the royal ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... religion, gathered caste into their garners, and endeavoured to increase and extend it, still there is fair evidence for asserting that these two institutions have no necessary connection, and that, as it was perfectly possible to wind them up together, so it is perfectly possible to unwind them and produce again an entire separation. In a word, it is perfectly possible for a man to retain caste, not as believing it to be part of his native idolatrous religion, but as believing it to be (what it really was till the Brahmins ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... when the glass reached the table it was empty. He then began gradually to unwind his huge woollen comforter, and when he thought himself unobserved, he stole the encumbrance into his ample coat-pocket. He next proceeded to toss about, with a careless abstraction, the large masses of cold fowl and ham in his plate, and, by some unimaginable ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... idiot who ever stammered through his address, can get an innocent prisoner off if he knows enough of the facts and the law. To my mind, the real triumph in our profession is to be able to unwind the meshes of damning facts and force a verdict for an indubitably ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... round and round into the center, and can either wind the children up tightly or can turn them on nearing the center and run out again. For another change the long line can start running and so unwind the spiral. ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... ordered Mr. Swift, and the various windlasses manned by the inventor, Tom and the others began to unwind their ropes. Slowly the ship slid along the greased ways. Slowly she approached the water. How anxiously they all watched her! Nearer and nearer her blunt nose, with the electric propulsion plate and the auxiliary propeller, came to the creek, the waters of which were quiet ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... therefore, that the thread is stuck in this star-shaped fringe, the foundation of the building and the crux of the whole, while every elsewhere it is simply laid on, in a manner determined by the movements of the hind-legs. If we wished to unwind the work, the thread would break at the margin; at any ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the real estate man. "At any minute the strong wind may unwind it and send it whirling off over the town. Or the gale may tear it to pieces, scattering the diamonds over a whole block, and not one in ten of the stones would ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... days, and that new order in them—marking the endless train of exercise, development, unwind, in nation as in man, which life is for—we see, fore-indicated, amid these prospects and hopes, new law-forces of spoken and written language—not merely the pedagogue-forms, correct, regular, familiar with precedents, made for matters ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... gentleman riding roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as hard as he had looked at Miss Sally. The single gentleman, however, was not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but proceeded with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then to pull off his boots. Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to divest himself of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece, and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... There were no mirrors here, not one, to reflect one's figure; and it was only when I had taken off my hat that I discovered what a wreck it was, crushed absurdly out of shape; and my hair was half down. The nun helped me to unwind and brush it out, and I heard her murmuring at my back, "When I was young my hair was ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... touch to unwind the string, and up, up it mounted like the Parzival airship, bearing the little boy with it, who held tight to the end of the cord. He felt rather giddy and frightened at first, but soon found out that by holding the cord in his hands to give him confidence, and ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... again, "unwind your gashly great tail from about my legs, and your skinny fingers from off my throat, or I'll—I'll kill you!" and with the same he whipped his big clasp-knife from ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... if her delusions were humored, they would unwind from her like the cloud which she felt them to be. The family had long fallen into the habit of treating her as a child, playing some imaginary character. She seemed less demented than walking in a dream, her faculties asleep. It was somnambulism ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the river, not many hundred yards from his home. All at once he seemed to be set down in the middle of his old life as if he had never left it, only with a charming freshness superadded. A delicious feeling came over him as he watched the clear, sky-glinting loops unwind themselves in the grass while the car jogged along. There were the big stones over the edges of which the brown water broke into dancing crests of crystal bubbles when the river was full, and the deep pools under the hollow banks where they ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... As the miles unwind behind the regiment the character of the country begins to change. There are fewer women and children to be seen now; there are more roofless buildings, more house-fronts gaping doorless and windowless, more walls with ragged rents, and tumbled heaps of brick lying under ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... is wound on a bobbin which is fastened in the shuttle and which permits the yarn to unwind as it passes to and fro. As fast as each filling thread is interlaced with warp it is pressed close to the previous one by means of a reed which advances toward and recedes from the cloth after each passage of ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... not, however, a rope ladder, but a ball of silk cord, with a narrow board which was to pass between the legs, the ball to unwind itself by the weight of the person who sat astride ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... together. Do they not plead with you to cast yourselves on Jesus Christ, and to turn to Him alone? He will give you the food of your souls; if you will not sit at His table you will starve. He will strip you of the covering that is cast over you, as over us all; if you will not let Him unwind its folds from your limbs, then like the clothes of a drowning man, they will sink you. He will give you immortal life, which laughs at death, and you will be able to take up the great song, 'O Death, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... big ball of white cotton and unwind it as you go," said Chris, grinning. "You're bound to ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... brother shrewdly all the way home, but all traces of any uncommon feeling had passed away; and yet, with the restlessness of female curiosity, she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the end of some skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough to unwind it. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as you unwind her love from him, Lest it should ravel, and be good to none, You must provide to bottom it ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... was to unwind his long turban from his neck, and cut it in two. Two-thirds he twisted round his waist, the other he made fast to one of the little red stone pillars of the balcony. It hung straight and black down into the shadows ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... second, making stars all along the road. As they flew on, his long black hair got twisted all around her, and every time the wind blew, it grew tighter and tighter, till she could scarcely breathe, and she prayed him to stop, and unwind his long black hair, before it reached her throat, for as sure as she was alive ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... his brow tightened into a knot. Things were going on just outside his horizon, and he wasn't to know. Who did know? Madame Beattie, certainly. The old witch was at the bottom of it. She had, for purposes of her own, wound the foreign population round her finger, and she was going to unwind them when the time came to spin a web. A web of many colours, he knew it would be, doubtless strong in some spots and snarled in others. Madame Beattie was not the person to spin ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... labour to withstand What is past help. The longest date of grief Can never yield a hope of our relief: Fold back our arms; take home our fruitless loves, That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears Unwind a love knit up in many years. In this last kiss I here surrender thee Back to thyself.—So, thou again art free: Thou in another, sad as that, resend The truest heart that lover e'er did lend. Now turn from ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... a small bundle on the deck. It obstructs the approaches to the 'scupper' in front of my cabin door. About to step out and clear this watercourse, I see that 'sorrel-top,' corpulent, garrulous German doctor gently unwind the soaked package and tenderly gaze at an upturned childish face. Apparently not approving of this unorthodox baptismal procedure, the boy is borne away. Curled up in the German's warm berth, this little eight-year-old bareback rider, wearied with the night's performance, sleeps ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... enough to make a bull-dog afeared,' whispered Davies, in a frightened tone. But before long they were out of the wood; and in the glimmer of light that lasts all night through during the summer, Stephen saw Black Thompson unwind a net, which had been wrapped round his body under his collier's jacket. More than half the covey of partridges were bagged; and they had such capital luck, as the men called it, that Stephen soon entered into the daring spirit of the adventure. ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... like a strap round the skytale which is in their possession, leaving no intervals, but completely covering the stick along its whole length with the paper. When this has been done they write upon the paper while it is upon the stick, and after writing they unwind the paper and send it to the general without the stick. When he receives it, it is entirely illegible, as the letters have no connection, but he winds it round the stick in his possession so that the folds correspond to one another, and then the whole message can be read. The paper is called ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... has never yet been, and never will be discovered, any direct railway or royal road to the knowledge which we are anxious to gain, but which we are inevitably doomed to wait for and to work for. The different branches of science are Gordian knots, the threads of which we can only hope to unwind and evolve by cautious assiduity, and slow, patient industry. Their secrets cannot be summarily cut open and exposed by the sword of any son of Philip. But, in our daydreams, it is not unpleasant sometimes to imagine the possibility of such a feat. It was, as we all know, very generally believed, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... eminent scholar who has charge of the chief portion of Wodrow's gatherings, as keeper of the Advocates' Library, is following his example, by preserving a collection of the pamphlets of the present century which will keep our posterity in employment, if they desire to unwind the intricacies of all our civil and ecclesiastical sayings ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... form of this story, in the "1001 Days" (Prenzlau ed.), 11 : 247, is added the death-penalty in case the hero fails to perform the second cure, which consists in persuading the spirit, in the form of a snake, to unwind itself from the body of the vezir's daughter. The hero had already cured the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... or two, I should say. There's an awful lot of red-tape to unwind, as there always is in ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... were so hard to put out, smothering the innocent occupants of the dugouts in their sleep and burning their grain. Not to gaze wild-eyed through the shining windows of these splendid cars as they passed on and on to some more promising unwind-blown country, to build there their beautiful cities of ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... little ante-room and talked to her of Denmark, and the happy days they had spent there. At last she departed, just as the clock on the tower of St Giles struck twelve, and Margaret was at liberty to unwind the coil of rope, and hide it among the bedclothes, and then, wrapping the warm cloak round her, she lay down and tried to wait quietly until it was safe to do what she ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... accompaniment. A good plan is to order your whisky by the bottle, and put your card in a nick made in the cork: the ordering of whisky in glasses is expensive and unsatisfactory. Your dinner over, turn your attention to your tackle. Unwind your lines, so far as they have been wet, from the reels, and lay them out on your bedroom floor; if any chance of being interfered with, wind them round the backs of chairs instead. They will be dry by the morning. Dry your reels ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... Letting-off, or permitting the warp to unwind from the beam only just as fast as is needed by the speed of the weaving. This is accomplished by friction bands and weights ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... descended from the shrine, And every deepest look and holiest mind Fed on her form, though now those tones divine Were silent as she passed; she did unwind 2320 Her veil, as with the crowds of her own kind She mixed; some impulse made my heart refrain From seeking her that night, so I reclined Amidst a group, where on the utmost plain A festal watchfire burned beside the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of his boots dropped off. Then he began to spin round—to wind up and unwind and wind up again. Joe came near and eyed the twirling ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... "Make him unwind, and then, if he wants to return to active life and take a hand in politics, he may find some honest way of doing so. He'll never make a Saint Vincent de Paul,—though the saint was at the galleys once upon a time; but there are plenty of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... it out sufficiently so that when a new string is put on, the pin will turn into the block as far as it did originally. Run one end of the string barely through the hole in the tuning pin and turn it about twice around, taking pains that the coils lie closely; then unwind enough wire (of the same size of course) from your supply to reach down to the hitch pin and back. Place the string on the bridge pins properly, draw it as tight as you can by hand and cut it off about three fingers' width beyond the pin upon which it is ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... mind And rolls into a ball of golden silk— A little skein Of tangled glory; And when I want to get it out again To weave the pattern of a verse or story, It must unwind. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... love Philander less, is it to be imagined that should make way for Octavio in my heart, or any after that dear deceiver?' 'No doubt of it,' replied Antonet, 'but that very effect it would have on your heart; for love in the soul of a witty person is like a skein of silk; to unwind it from the bottom, you must wind it on another, or it runs into confusion, and becomes of no use, and then of course, as one lessens the other increases, and what Philander loses in love, Octavio, or some one industrious lover, will most certainly ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... out two small curved combs, she let the whole wealth of her tresses unwind and fall. Her hair dropped below her knees in a glorious mass of colour like that of a brown autumn leaf with the sun just glistening on it. She caught it up in one hand and knotted it all again at the back of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... contemporaries,—my coevals. But where are those contemporaries? Ay de mi! as Carlyle used to exclaim,—Ah, dear me! as our old women say,—I look round for them, and see only their vacant places. The old vine cannot unwind its tendrils. The branch falls with the decay of its support, and must cling to the new growths around it, if it would not lie helpless in the dust. This paper is a new tendril, feeling its way, as it best may, to whatever it can wind ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the linen should be large; a certain number of these animals are placed upon it so that they do not touch; then the linen is rolled upon it self, so as to make a doll sowed with thread, that it may not unwind; afterwards, place the bundles side by side in a cask. When the cask is full, so that the bundles are packed close, it should be filled with brandy, rum or whiskey; generally some strong liquor; afterwards it should be pitched with care, so that the liquor may not escape. ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... in place. The rollers are fitted at one extremity with a handle for turning them round, and at the other with a ratchet and toothed wheel to prevent unwinding. The purpose of the upper roller is to hold the supply of warp-thread and unwind it as required; the lower one is for winding up the web as the work progresses, so that upon a loom of this size a piece of work of considerable length ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... to uncover her arm and unwind the bandages and I saw the tender flesh was very angry and inflamed, whereupon I summoned Resolution from his cooking, who at my desire brought the chest of medicines with water, etc., and set myself ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... above me. I hope my readers are none of them too old to sympathize with the boyish feeling. At all events, I quickened my pace. The distance could not be more than half a mile, I thought. But it was wonderful how that perverse trail among the boulders did unwind itself, as if it never would come to an end; and I was not surprised, on consulting a guide-book afterwards, to find that my half mile had really been a mile and a half. One's sensations in such ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... about an evening like this is, it don't seem to last any time at all. Why, when those girls began to put up their hands to hide their yawns, I felt like I was just starting in for a short call. I wish I could have had a good phonograph around. I'd put it on my sleepless pillow, and unwind its precious record all through the watches of the night." He imitated the thin phantasmal squeak of the instrument in repeating a number of Miss Swan's characteristic phrases. "Yes, sir, a pocket phonograph is the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... hooped skirt with a history, touching and teaching, is no theme for flippancy; so, by your leave, I will unwind my story tenderly, and with reverential regard for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... prevent his breaking or falling from the spit. Let him be roasted very leisurely and often basted with claret wine and anchovies and butter mixed together, and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan. When you have roasted him sufficiently you are to hold under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him, such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of, and let him fall into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly; and by this means the pike will be kept unbroken and complete. Then to the sauce which was within and also that sauce in the pan you ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... clearly in that moment, as he lay in shame and disgrace before all his comrades, all the other elephants. Then Mukna's head began to droop and droop; and his trunk began to unwind. The trunk hung loose and limp before him; and his head sank lower and lower, till it ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... removed ropes from under their coat and began to unwind them. Seth drew his revolver ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... her lap, and began to unwind the bandage bound round his hand. He paused a little when he saw where the blood had soaked through; then went on till his hand was bare and the cut displayed, gaping and long, though only skin deep. He held it up ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... Ammiani said to the count. 'I told you last night, and I tell you again to-day, that Barto Rizzo is guilty of gross misconduct, and that you must plead the same to a sort of excuseable treason. Count Medole, you cannot wind and unwind a conspiracy like a watch. Who is the head of this one? It is the man Barto Rizzo. He took proceedings before he got you to sanction them. You may be the vessel, but he commands, or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... between the two," said Crewe, with a smile. "But we will soon see. Just hold down the end of this measuring tape, one of you." He produced a measuring tape as he spoke, and started to unwind it, walking rapidly towards the house as he did so. "Sixty-two yards!" he said, as he returned. He made a note of the distance in his pocket-book. "So much for that," he said, "but that's not enough. I want you to stand under the library window, Rolfe, by ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... space, In every grain of dust, in every drop Of water, waiting but the thermal touch. Yea, in the womb of nature slumber still Wonders undreamed and forms beyond compare, Minds that will cleave the chaos and unwind The web of fate, and from the atom trace The worlds, the suns, the universal law: And from the law, the Master; yea, and read On yon grand starry ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... unwind the cords from around the necks of the decoys and drop them overboard. Mr. Kincaid moved the boat here and there, scattering the flock in a life-like manner. The gray daylight was coming stronger every instant. Even while they worked in plain sight, big flocks of teal and blue-bill ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... an invention which gives a man a thousand voices; which sets him to singing a thousand songs at the same time to a thousand crowds; which makes it possible for the commonest man to hear the whisper of Bismarck or Gladstone, to unwind crowds of great men by the firelight of his own house. We have the elevator, an invention for making the many as well off as the few, an approximate arrangement for giving first floors to everybody, and putting ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... measure. My acquaintances tell me unreservedly of their triumphs and their piques; explain their purposes at length, and reassure me with cheerfulness as to their chances of success; insist on their theories and accept me as a dummy with whom they rehearse their side of future discussions; unwind their coiled-up griefs in relation to their husbands, or recite to me examples of feminine incomprehensibleness as typified in their wives; mention frequently the fair applause which their merits have wrung from some persons, and the attacks to which certain oblique motives have stimulated others. ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... avisare in place of a decision? But, Anne, have you nothing to say? Is this your gratitude for all Thomas's martyrdoms of readings of I know not what unimaginable nonsense; and holdings of skeins of silk, more difficult to unwind than the labyrinth through which Ariadne's thread conducted Theseus; and pickings up of whatever your feminine carelessness chose to drop on the carpet; and endurance of all the legions of annoyances with which young ladies delight to harass young gentlemen? Have you no backing ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... ramifications are never allowed to get into a "snarl:" the mystery all turns upon a single point which we will not spoil the reader's pleasure by mentioning, and, arrived at the last pages, the various threads of the story unwind themselves easily and naturally like a single coil. The same skill is displayed in the management of the characters. Though drawn with unequal power, many of them being seized with much vividness, whilst others must be accounted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... by the leg, as though some hideous monster had sprung from the bushes. You start and rush forward, only to be dragged back among the elastic leaves. It is useless to struggle. You must either return and unwind yourself by gentle means, or leave the better part of your cloth inexpressibles in the ruthless fangs of the plant. The ranchero fences his limbs with leather, or with leggings of tiger-skin. It is not fancy or choice to wear leather breeches ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... like twisting yourself up tight in the swing, and then letting the rope unwind," said Nellie, and they all agreed that she had described the sensation perfectly. They laughed, also, a thing they had felt little like doing a short ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... sounding wires or from special charts showing the depth of water in feet), the weapon could not rise quite up to the surface, being checked in its ascent, when ten feet from the top, by the mooring wire refusing to unwind farther. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... good lather of soap and water. Immerse the bottle, and move backwards and forwards in the lather for about five minutes. Rinse in clear, lukewarm water in which has been dissolved a small piece of gum arabic. Then unwind the chiffon, spread on the ironing board, lay a clean, thin cloth over it, and iron with a ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... all my string yet," Russ answered. "I can make mine go up a lot higher than yours when I unwind some more cord, ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... Myriad and multiform and marvelous, Throughout all vast, immeasurable space, In every grain of dust, in every drop Of water, waiting but the thermal touch. Yea, in the womb of nature slumber still Wonders undreamed and forms beyond compare, Minds that will cleave the chaos and unwind The web of fate, and from the atom trace The worlds, the suns, the universal law: And from the law, the Master; yea, and read On yon grand ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... guns, we want shells, fuses, chemicals, and explosives. There is one thing we want less of than usual, and that is red tape. It takes such a long time to unwind—[laughter]—and we can't spare the time. Therefore, the first thing I am going to ask you to do is to organize for yourselves in this locality, and in every other locality, the engineering resources, for the purpose of assisting ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in any notions," she said to herself. "And I mean now, if I can find it out, to do the thing God means; and then I suppose,—I believe,—the snarl will begin to unwind." ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... a label at the book-stall and wrote it for him. He went round and round my leg looking for me. "Funny thing," he said, as he began to unwind, "he was here a moment ago. I'll just go round once more. I rather think.... Ow! Oh, there you are!" I stepped off him, unravelled the lead and dragged ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... which is oppressed by the yoke of Nature. It is the expression of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but of which we nevertheless dream. An iron law presides over our destiny. Around us and within us, the series of causes and effects continues to unwind its hard chain. Every single one of our deeds bears its consequence, and this goes on to eternity. Every fault of ours will bring its chastisement. Every weakness will have to be made good. There is not a moment of oblivion, not an instant when we may cease to be on ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... bundle on the deck. It obstructs the approaches to the 'scupper' in front of my cabin door. About to step out and clear this watercourse, I see that 'sorrel-top,' corpulent, garrulous German doctor gently unwind the soaked package and tenderly gaze at an upturned childish face. Apparently not approving of this unorthodox baptismal procedure, the boy is borne away. Curled up in the German's warm berth, this little eight-year-old bareback rider, wearied with the night's performance, sleeps until ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... to unwind the noose end of a lazo that, with some six feet of a raw hide thong, was still tightly fastened around ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... right to utter, and I none to hear! It is dishonorable in you and insulting to me. Gertrude's lover can not, and shall not, address such words to me. Unwind your arms instantly! Let ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... a conservative. For I don't know any fruit that clings to its tree so faithfully, not even a "froze-'n'-thaw" winter-apple, as a Professor to the bough of which his chair is made. You can't shake him off, and it is as much as you can do to pull him off. Hence, by a chain of induction I need not unwind, he ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... leisurely and often basted with claret wine and anchovies and butter mixed together, and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan. When you have roasted him sufficiently you are to hold under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him, such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of, and let him fall into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly; and by this means the pike will be kept unbroken and complete. Then to the sauce which was within ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... in that moment, as he lay in shame and disgrace before all his comrades, all the other elephants. Then Mukna's head began to droop and droop; and his trunk began to unwind. The trunk hung loose and limp before him; and his head sank lower and lower, till it lay humbly ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... the glass reached the table it was empty. He then began gradually to unwind his huge woollen comforter, and when he thought himself unobserved, he stole the encumbrance into his ample coat-pocket. He next proceeded to toss about, with a careless abstraction, the large masses of cold fowl ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... plead with you to cast yourselves on Jesus Christ, and to turn to Him alone? He will give you the food of your souls; if you will not sit at His table you will starve. He will strip you of the covering that is cast over you, as over us all; if you will not let Him unwind its folds from your limbs, then like the clothes of a drowning man, they will sink you. He will give you immortal life, which laughs at death, and you will be able to take up the great song, 'O Death, where ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... were humored, they would unwind from her like the cloud which she felt them to be. The family had long fallen into the habit of treating her as a child, playing some imaginary character. She seemed less demented than walking in a dream, her faculties asleep. It was somnambulism rather than madness. She ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... the tide of frenzy was turning, had turned, was already ebbing. She felt it, was conscious that he also had become aware of it. Then his grasp slackened, grew lax, loosened, and almost spent. She ventured to unwind her limbs from his, to relax her stiffened fingers, ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... weakness and their folly; to calculate the resistance of ignorance and prejudice to your designs, and by obviating, to turn them to account; to foresee a long, obscure, and complicated train of events, of chances and openings of success; to unwind the web of others' policy and weave your own out of it; to judge of the effects of things, not in the abstract, but with reference to all their bearings, ramifications, and impediments; to understand character thoroughly; to see latent talent or lurking treachery; to know mankind for what they ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the chairs and tables, the ribbon led to the top shelf of the closet, where there was a box of games, "With love from brother Pat." Then it conducted Anne back to the bed and when she stooped to unwind it from the bed-post she touched a soft, furry thing and gave a squeal, thinking it was a live creature; she gave another squeal of delight when she found that it was a muff and a little fur coat from Mr. Patterson. From the bed, the ribbon guided Anne to the window-seat, ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... gathered caste into their garners, and endeavoured to increase and extend it, still there is fair evidence for asserting that these two institutions have no necessary connection, and that, as it was perfectly possible to wind them up together, so it is perfectly possible to unwind them and produce again an entire separation. In a word, it is perfectly possible for a man to retain caste, not as believing it to be part of his native idolatrous religion, but as believing it to be (what it really was till ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... careful. You could not cast for them; the brook was too small and brushy for that. You had to use a very short line, and wind it around the end of the rod, and work it through the branches, and then carefully, very carefully, unwind and let the hook drop lightly on the water. Then as likely as not there would be a swift, tingling tug, and, if you were lucky, an instant later you would have a beautiful red-speckled fellow landed among the grass and field ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... went over to him. "All right, I'll unwind yuh. When we started, yuh know, yuh couldn't uh rode a rocking chair. I was plumb obliged to tie yuh on. Think we'll be in time to help Patsy? He was taken sick ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... she paced the dewy lawn, And called each clown she saw, a faun! Then, scudding homeward, locked her door, And turned some copious volume o'er. For much she read; and chiefly those Great authors, who in verse, or prose, Or something betwixt both, unwind The secret springs which move the mind. These much she read; and thought she knew The human heart's minutest clue; Yet shrewd observers still declare, (To show how shrewd observers are,) Though plays, which breathed heroic flame, And novels, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... a long time to unwind the String from the Wallet, but he would Dig if he thought he ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... however, a rope ladder, but a ball of silk cord, with a narrow board which was to pass between the legs, the ball to unwind itself by the weight of the person who sat astride upon ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... gives a man a thousand voices; which sets him to singing a thousand songs at the same time to a thousand crowds; which makes it possible for the commonest man to hear the whisper of Bismarck or Gladstone, to unwind crowds of great men by the firelight of his own house. We have the elevator, an invention for making the many as well off as the few, an approximate arrangement for giving first floors to everybody, and putting all men on a level ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... came the bridle, then there was a fight; But I throwed on my saddle and screwed it down tight, Stepped to his middle, feelin' mighty fine, Said: "Out of the way, boys, watch him unwind!" ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... the warp to unwind from the beam only just as fast as is needed by the speed of the weaving. This is accomplished by friction bands and weights ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... from; marches of bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tuck first one edge under your legs from right to left, then the second edge under from left to right, and over the first edge. Lower your legs, wrap up your shoulders and go to sleep. If you roll over, one edge will unwind but ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... teeth. "Here, unwind the rope I've got around my waist. Take the end—here. Got a knife? Cut off a section about three feet long. I'll get the gag in his mouth while you're doing it. Hangmen always carry their own ropes," he concluded, with grewsome humour. "Got it cut? Well, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... hope you are warm enough! Esther looks like a sausage, and Mellicent looks like a dumpling. Come here, and I'll unwind you. You look as if you could not move ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... plank running out into the river. He pours water over his feet every now and again out of a little copper bowl, and mutters something. He is so much absorbed in what he is doing that he never looks up or turns his head. Another, close by, has hung his gaily-coloured turban on a post and proceeds to unwind his garment and cast it from him before he steps into the water with hardly a rag upon him. This lady in an orange scarf, dripping wet, seats herself on the end of the board, and winds a dry scarf round herself so adroitly that it is like a conjuring trick; she ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... saw the struggling wretch grasp the tail of the reptile with one hand, and seek to unwind the folds that bound him. As well might he have attempted to bend or loosen bars of iron, for with a slight effort the snake freed that portion of his body, and raising his head, hissed, as though with scorn, at the effort of the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... not the lad, Jess twinkled gleefully over tales of sweethearting. There was little Kitty Lamby who used to skip in of an evening, and, squatting on a stool near the window, unwind the roll of her enormities. A wheedling thing she was, with an ambition to drive men crazy, but my presence killed the gossip on her tongue, though I liked to look at her. When I entered, the wag at the wa' clock had again possession of the kitchen. I never heard more than ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... you are wild and coy, Fickle, mysterious, and shy . . . And so we lost you, Love and I! And now, at last, because we find Your golden footprints, Love the boy, Dreams you are near . . . but Love is blind! Yet, surely Sorrow's arms unwind From this tired heart, and dark distress Fades softly . . . softly from the world: And in Hope's silver sky unfurled, I see the banners of delight! And the grey heaven of life grows bright With ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... my Lord," said the Baron. "Bernard has more in that wary head of his than your young wits, or my old ones, can unwind. What he is doing I may not guess, but I gage my life ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Baron, to recognize us at once. Now you know what to expect. Greusel, unwind the rope I gave you last night. I will show ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... runs slowly round and round into the center, and can either wind the children up tightly or can turn them on nearing the center and run out again. For another change the long line can start running and so unwind the spiral. ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... soap and water. Immerse the bottle, and move backwards and forwards in the lather for about five minutes. Rinse in clear, lukewarm water in which has been dissolved a small piece of gum arabic. Then unwind the chiffon, spread on the ironing board, lay a clean, thin cloth over it, and iron with a ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... doing a sort of Roger de Coverley figure in turning first to one side and then to the other to shake hands. No names were mentioned. Our hostess said, by way of general announcement, "La maestra," and having started me up the maze left me to unwind myself. So I zigzagged along with a hand-shake and a decorous "Buenas noches" to everybody till I found myself at the end of the line at an open window. Here one of those little oblong tables, across which the Filipinos are fond of talking, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... these trivial tricks of the household, domestic analogies of threads, skeins and spools, You think that you'll solve such a bitter complexity, unwind such ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... with the water that ran off their umbrellas. They were restless but rather silent, as if awed by the shadow of the coming Vaccination. The woman who had brought up the procession, found a place in the far corner, and began to unwind the comforter around her neck. Her eyes were brighter and more agitated than any in ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... home, but all traces of any uncommon feeling had passed away; and yet, with the restlessness of female curiosity, she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the end of some skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough to unwind it. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... moving. The brown men were like dead men. But inch by inch he had drawn the rope slack until he was able to unwind it from his wrists. Then by half inches he moved his hands free, slipping one of them from behind him to his side. It seemed to him as though Nature herself had paused to watch and listen. He turned now with his free hand beneath him. Slowly his fingers crept ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... apparently insurmountable obstacle to our further progress, I could just perceive a narrow ledge about sixteen feet below me, that the eye could trace for a few yards only, beyond which it was lost in the deep gloom surrounding us. Our conductor had already made up his mind what to do: he proceeded to unwind his long narrow turban composed of cotton cloth, and called to his comrades to do the same; by joining these together they formed a kind of rope by means of which we gradually lowered each other, till at last a party ten in number were safely landed on the ledge. We left ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... you know. One likes to get one's legal points all right. In any case, as I was just about to tell Miss Penny for the benefit of her criminal friend, there would be lots of red tape to unwind before they could do anything, and this little isle of Sark is the quaintest place in the world in the matter of its own old observances and their integrity, and the rejection of new ideas. Mr. Pixley does not know you are here, ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... story, can conduct a searcher safely through the dark recesses of the great labyrinth. He tied it, the dauntless youth in the tale, to the ancient thorn-tree that grew by the cavern's mouth; and then he stepped boldly in, and let it unwind within ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a very safe accompaniment. A good plan is to order your whisky by the bottle, and put your card in a nick made in the cork: the ordering of whisky in glasses is expensive and unsatisfactory. Your dinner over, turn your attention to your tackle. Unwind your lines, so far as they have been wet, from the reels, and lay them out on your bedroom floor; if any chance of being interfered with, wind them round the backs of chairs instead. They will be dry by the morning. ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... not I who am tired, my father,' he said. 'It is only that my legs cannot take such good long steps as thine; and walk as we will the road ever seems to unwind itself further and further in front, like the magic white thread ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... the absolute, or God, you must be the absolute; or, in other words, God only can find God. This is the simple doctrine, when you unwind the veil he has cleverly hung over it. True, he denounces pantheism; but here is pantheism of the eclectic patent, differing from that of other systems only in subtlety of expression, wherein Cousin certainly ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Two-fluid Cells. Instead of the blotters of App. 11, you can use short lengths of mailing-tubes, which are used to protect pictures, etc., when sent by mail. If you find that the particular tube tends to unwind when soaked, you can use a little paraffine along the edges of the spiral, as suggested in App. 11. Bottoms can be made for the ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... taking root in the organism forms a little mainspring or instinct of its own, like a parasite; so that an elaborate mechanism is gradually developed, where each lever and spring holds the other down, and all hold the mainspring down together, allowing it to unwind itself only very gradually, and meantime keeping the whole clock ticking and revolving, and causing the smooth outer face which it turns to the world, so clean and innocent, to mark the time of day amiably for the passer-by. But ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... of repression had left him. The lines about his mouth relaxed again. For a moment I thought the gaze he bent upon me was almost kindly. Then he sighed and shrugged his shoulders, and began slowly to unwind a handkerchief which he had tied about his right hand, disclosing ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... would, by the strong note of character in each, fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic. They might in short have represented any mystery they would; the point being predominantly that the key to the mystery, the key that could wind and unwind it without a snap of the spring, was there in her pocket—or rather, no doubt, clasped at this crisis in her hand and pressed, as she walked back and forth, to her breast. She walked to the end and far out of the light; she returned and saw the others ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... leading her before a curious, half-human, veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very dainty, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Majesties, the King and Queen, and all the Royal Court." And the pageant began to unwind its sinuous length along the campus lawn, and all the rustic players who formed the rabble fell in behind the royal personages ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... her greatly; a thousand pieces of gold will purchase me another voice as sweet as hers,—another maid as fair! Meanwhile the child is free to shape her own fate,—her own future. I bind her no longer to my service; nevertheless, like the jessamine-flower, she clings,—and will not easily unwind the tendrils of her heart ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... to the slim shafts with their little propellerlike fans. "Adjustable, see? Unwind in their fall ... set 'em for any length of travel ... fires the charge in the air. That's how they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... tutored in the art of their tradition, bringing with him the key of its delivery, shall be there to unlock those locked-up meanings, to spell out those anagrams, to read those hieroglyphics, to unwind with patient loving research to its minutest point, that text, that with such tools as the most watchful tyranny would give them, they will yet contrive to leave there. They know that their buried words are seeds, and though they lie long in the earth, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... most disagreeable trait of some disagreeable people is that their intentions are invariably good. She had her "crochy work," and Chip groaned inwardly when he saw her settle herself comfortably in a rocking- chair and unwind her thread. The Countess had worked hard all her life, and her hands were red and big-jointed. There was no pleasure in watching their clever manipulation of the little, steel hook. If it had been the Little Doctor's hands, now—Chip turned again to the decapitated, ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... he, "fetch over my arbalest. Lying where I am you have no advantage to shoot me, as, nom de Dieu! I would have shot you had you not obeyed. And hark ye, by the way, unwind the arbalest before you cross; it is ever well to be on the safe side. And be sure you wet not the string." He pushed his face through the bush, and held in his mouth my naked whinger, that ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... an' it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall ever sully your noble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all that I sent you no cup, I made you no posset, I ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... length it went through dense brush, so dense in parts that it defied anyone but a bear to get through it. But when I did reach a secluded pool and manage to thrust my rod out over the water and slowly unwind my bait, I was almost always rewarded by a lively mountain trout as long as my hand, for they never ran over six inches. The grasshopper was absolutely deadly; no fish seemed able to resist it, and sometimes in ten minutes I took six, or even ten, out of a pool as ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... enough, after harvest, he went to unwind Tommy's two big bundles of straw-rope for thatching the mow, and in the middle of each was one of his ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hauled close up to the tree, to walk once or twice round it, carrying the rope with him; the decoy, perceiving the advantage he had thus gained over the nooser, walked up of her own accord, and pushed him backwards with her head, till she made him unwind himself again; upon which the rope was hauled tight and made fast. More than once, when a wild one was extending his trunk, and would have intercepted the rope about to be placed over his leg, Siribeddi, by a sudden motion of her own trunk, pushed his aside, and ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... lightly on the other side, and open it. He steered the financier gingerly round the planes, past the propelling and steering fans, and got him into the car. He set him well forward in the bows of it, and began to let the rope unwind from the windlass which moored the flying-machine. All the while he heard the steady snores of Herr Schlugst, sleeping ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... moment later with both hands held out. She would not stop in the hall to unwind her nubia or take off her little fur boots, but motioned Oliver to her knees after she had kissed him joyously on both cheeks, and held out those two absurd little feet for his ministrations, while Mrs. Horn removed her ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... placed one after another. The generative idea of a poem is developed in thousands of imaginations which are materialized in phrases that spread themselves out in words. And the more we descend from the motionless idea, wound on itself, to the words that unwind it, the more room is left for contingency and choice. Other metaphors, expressed by other words, might have arisen; an image is called up by an image, a word by a word. All these words run now one after another, seeking in vain, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... along my mind And rolls into a ball of golden silk— A little skein Of tangled glory; And when I want to get it out again To weave the pattern of a verse or story, It must unwind. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... was heard coming down. In a few seconds it made its appearance, and was hauled a little to one side by Spankey, who proceeded to unwind the ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... tried tying it up with a cord, and afterwards with a rawhide thong, but had to nail the end, as it could loosen any knot in a few minutes. It would sometimes entangle itself around a pole to which it was fastened, and then unwind the coils again with the greatest discernment. Its chain allowed it to swing down below the verandah, but it could not ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the asphalt that a Dago treads on, wakes up in the morning with her feet in the bosom of Antonio Spizzinelli. And Mike O'Dowd, that always threw peddlers downstairs as fast as he came upon 'em, has to unwind old Isaacstein's whiskers from around his neck, and wake up the whole gang at daylight. But here and there some few got acquainted and overlooked the discomforts of the elements. There was five engagements to be married announced at the flats the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... the Sun uttered these words than Fortune, as if she had been playing on a cymbal, began to unwind her wheel, which, whirling about like a hurricane, huddled all the world into an unparalleled confusion. Fortune gave a mighty squeak, saying, 'Fly, wheel, and the devil drive thee.'"—Fortune in her Wits, Quevedo. English trans. (1798), ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... of silken thread," she said. "As soon as you go into the Labyrinth where the monster is kept, fasten one end of the thread to the stone doorpost, and then unwind it as you go along. When you have slain the Minotaur, you have only to follow the thread and it will lead you back to the door. In the meanwhile I will see that your ship, is ready to sail, and then I will wait for you at the door of ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... cuttin' meridians as fast as a hay-chopper? Won't he see the sun gettin' left behind an' whirlin' the other way from what it does in nature? An' ef the sun goes the other way round, ain't it sure to unwind all the time thet ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... near at hand just above me. I hope my readers are none of them too old to sympathize with the boyish feeling. At all events, I quickened my pace. The distance could not be more than half a mile, I thought. But it was wonderful how that perverse trail among the boulders did unwind itself, as if it never would come to an end; and I was not surprised, on consulting a guide-book afterwards, to find that my half mile had really been a mile and a half. One's sensations in such a case I have sometimes compared with those of an ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... time they reached the camel, he could totter on his feet and stand without help. With some difficulty Moussa hoisted him into the rear saddle. Having done so, he thrust the stirrups upon his feet and commenced to unwind his puggri. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... miracle worker. Hence the vacant lots are often lighted up; barrels, boxes, and fences disappear; and one almost believes that part of the charm of smoking is in the very making of the smoke and seeing it unwind into greater mystery as did incense from thousands of altars ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... the man who wound it up thinks the whole cause of the muddle rests with the man who is trying to unwind it. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... in his harshest voice. Mr. Newman smiled, and laid his hat down on the table and began to unwind his muffler. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... it, it was coiled up in a close roll at the bottom of the bottle, filled with fresh water, that contained it, and looked more like a little tangle of black sewing-silk than anything else. Wishing to unwind it, that I might examine its entire length, I placed it in a large china basin filled with water, and proceeded very gently to disentangle its coils, when I perceived that the animal had twisted itself around a bundle of its eggs, holding them fast in a close embrace. In the process of unwinding, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... as he stood ready with his keen bare knife in his right hand, "the serpent is harmless now. Take hold of it by the tail, and unwind it ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... outside his horizon, and he wasn't to know. Who did know? Madame Beattie, certainly. The old witch was at the bottom of it. She had, for purposes of her own, wound the foreign population round her finger, and she was going to unwind them when the time came to spin a web. A web of many colours, he knew it would be, doubtless strong in some spots and snarled in others. Madame Beattie was not the person to spin a ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... conclusions he will come. This is what robs most sermons of their interest. Preaching, like humor, must have in it the element of surprise. I remember with what a thrill of delight I would sit and watch Minot Savage unwind his logic and then gently weave it into a fabric. The man was not afraid to follow a reason to its lair. He had a way of saying the thing for the first time—it came as a personal message, contradicting, possibly, all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... isn't hopeless at all," laughed Billy. "It's like one of those strings they unwind at parties with a present at the end of it. And Spunk is the present," she added, when she had extricated the small gray cat. "And you shall hold him," she finished, graciously entrusting the sleepy kitten to ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... "that I would give the order in this way. I would say that I want four pieces of the thread, all exactly the same length as the one that goes. The steward will set that down in his book; and he always does what we ask him very carefully. Then my relation will unwind the ball to see what the length is, and come upon the note; ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... had descended from the shrine, And every deepest look and holiest mind Fed on her form, though now those tones divine Were silent as she passed; she did unwind 2320 Her veil, as with the crowds of her own kind She mixed; some impulse made my heart refrain From seeking her that night, so I reclined Amidst a group, where on the utmost plain A festal watchfire burned beside the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... we unwind the jewels, the blue flowers are woven over the yellow ones, that we may ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... by any set of outer needs puts the whole being under a certain strain. The aim of remedial exercises, prescribed rest-times and legal holidays is to undo this strain, to unwind us from our coil by ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... on her lap, and began to unwind the bandage bound round his hand. He paused a little when he saw where the blood had soaked through; then went on till his hand was bare and the cut displayed, gaping and long, though only skin deep. He held it up towards White Fell, desirous of her ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... catch the rope if I throw it?" she cried, flinging the coil on the ground so that it might unwind easily. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... said, "we want to wind a few layers of shellacked paper on this core. Suppose I turn the core, you let the paper unwind onto it, Joe, and you can shellac the paper as ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... more beds in every room, even the kitchen. If there were three rooms, one was window-less. A mother, with a three weeks' old baby, was scrubbing the stone steps. The babies were bound up like papooses, and the nurse had to unwind the little living mummies to care ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with never a creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the author glowed with such joyous excitement that the producer felt the actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the stage alone in ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... discharge expect enrage depart dispute excel enjoy defend dismiss expose inquire endure disturb excuse inclose enlarge forbid express inform engrave forgive explain intent except forget require insist exchange forsake unwind invite explore rebound behind inflame exclaim recess unfold remark repeat recite reply refer repair replace recall renew regret release retain rejoice return reduce report regard refresh restore remain coachman ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... label at the bookstall and wrote it for him. He went round and round my leg looking for me. "Funny thing," he said as he began to unwind, "he was here a moment ago. I'll just go round once more. I rather think ... Ow! Oh, there you are!" I stepped off him, unravelled the lead and dragged him ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... one of his boots dropped off. Then he began to spin round—to wind up and unwind and wind up again. Joe came near and eyed the twirling form ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... of a decision? But, Anne, have you nothing to say? Is this your gratitude for all Thomas's martyrdoms of readings of I know not what unimaginable nonsense; and holdings of skeins of silk, more difficult to unwind than the labyrinth through which Ariadne's thread conducted Theseus; and pickings up of whatever your feminine carelessness chose to drop on the carpet; and endurance of all the legions of annoyances with which young ladies delight to harass young gentlemen? Have you no backing ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... being downward and hand horizontal. From the chest center the hand is then passed spirally forward toward the one addressed; the hand's palm begins the spiral motion with a downward and ends in an upward aspect. (Oto I.) "To unwind or open." ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... leisurely, and often basted with Claret wine, and Anchovis, and butter mixt together, and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan: when you have rosted him sufficiently, you are to hold under him (when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him) such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of, and let him fall into it with the sawce that is rosted in his belly; and by this means the Pike will be kept unbroken and complete; then to the sawce, which was within him, and also in the pan, you are to add a ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... to the eager boy. He had often tried it in Old England; why not try it in Newfoundland? A very brief period sufficed to unwind a thread from the cord, and therewith to attach the feather to the hook. He had no rod, and neither time nor patience to make one. Gathering the cord into a coil, such as wharfmen form when casting ropes ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... now—Dolph and Rube, old Squire Middleton, and the school-master, all except Tall Tom, who stood by the tree to unwind the cable. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... go!" he yelled again, "unwind your gashly great tail from about my legs, and your skinny fingers from off my throat, or I'll—I'll kill you!" and with the same he whipped his big clasp-knife from ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... effect of thinking of something else, the Sixth Nocturne, and Theron at first thought she was not playing anything in particular, so deliberately, haltingly, did the chain of charm unwind itself into sequence. Then it came closer to him than the others had done. The dreamy, wistful, meditative beauty of it all at once oppressed and inspired him. He saw Celia's shoulders sway under the impulse of the RUBATO license—the privilege to invest each measure with the stress ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... his saddle, saw the first wisps of smoke arise and grow and unwind into long ribbons, reaching deep into the standing crop. Soon tongues of flame appeared and the green tops of the cane began to shrivel and to wave as the steady east wind took effect. From the nearest ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the change she imagined favourable, bent over him. With a great effort he placed his arms about her neck; she kissed his pale lips; a smile of strange meaning passed over his face, and ere she could unwind that loving clasp her little Johnny was no more. He had gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest; but her hopes were blasted; her house was left unto her desolate; and as she ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... with pleasure through her delicately applied rouge, and stretching out her hands for her gift began eagerly to unwind the various tissue-papers which concealed it. The last of these discarded, she placed the basket in the middle of the table and spent herself in ecstatic phrases, melting from pose to ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... in which a mutual confession of affection took place, Ariadne furnished him with a sharp sword and a clue of thread, the end of which she desired him to fasten at the entrance to the labyrinth and to continue to unwind it till he reached the lair of the Minotaur. Full of hope as to the successful issue of his undertaking, Theseus took leave of the kind maiden, after expressing his gratitude for ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
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