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Digging   Listen
noun
Digging  n.  
1.
The act or the place of digging or excavating.
Synonyms: excavation, dig.
2.
pl. Places where ore is dug; especially, certain localities in California, Australia, and elsewhere, at which gold is obtained. (Recent)
3.
pl. Region; locality. (Low)
4.
A thorough search for something (often causing disorder or confusion).
Synonyms: ransacking, rummage.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Digging" Quotes from Famous Books



... contributed to the eventfulness of Saturday; the Boers continued to display the same ominous energy, digging trenches, erecting forts, and making themselves generally comfortable—pending our submission to the inevitable like practical men. To emphasise the wisdom of surrender on our part, it was freely stated that the town was to be bombarded from Kamfers ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... elsewhere in the State, the prisoners are given useful work to do. Near by a party were digging a hole by the roadway. They were chained together but the chain was so long that it did not hamper their movements. Two policemen were on guard, but the whole gang were ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... wall, and on another his wife hung a calendar with a picture of a girl in a wide-brimmed hat. The neighbours were helpful to them in building their cabin, making ditches, and in other ways. All that summer Torfi stood up to his hips in mud digging ditches, and when the bottom was worn out of his shoes and the soles of his feet began to get sore from the shovel, he hit on a plan: he cut the bottom out of a tin can and stuck his toe into the cylinder. And the first evening when he came ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... Germany, about King James's business, I became familiarly known and acquainted, having occasion to build upon an old foundation of a house, wherein his grandfather dwelt at that time, when the said edict was published in Germany, for the burning the said books, and digging deep under the said old foundation, one of the said original printed books was there happily found, lying in a deep obscure hole, being wrapped in a strong linen cloth, which was waxed all over with bees wax within and without, whereby the said book was preserved fair without ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... "Fahata" for "Fahasa" (?) or perhaps a clerical error for "Fataha"he opened (the ground). ["Fahata," probably a vulgarisation of "fahatha" (fahasa)to investigate, is given by Bocthor with the meaning of digging, excavating. Nevertheless I almost incline to the reading "fataha," which, however, I would pronounce with Tashdid over the second radical, and translate: "he recited a 'Fatihah' for them," the usual prayer over the dead before ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... side were filled with nursemaids in charge of baby- carriages, and of young children who were digging in the sand with their little beach shovels, and playing their games back and forth across the walk unrebuked by the indulgent policemen. A number of them had enclosed a square in the middle of the path with four of the benches, which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... signified the mortality of their comrades, the colony would no doubt have been cut off entirely. It is a melancholy picture, this disheartened and half-famished band of men quarreling among themselves; the occupation of the half-dozen able men was nursing the sick and digging graves. We anticipate here by saying, on the authority of a contemporary manuscript in the State Paper office, that when Captain Newport arrived with the first supply in January, 1608, "he found the colony consisting of no ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... 4th of November fifty workmen commenced digging, in the very center of the enclosed space on the summit of Stones Hill, a circular hole sixty feet in diameter. The pickaxe first struck upon a kind of black earth, six inches in thickness, which was speedily disposed of. To this earth succeeded two feet of fine sand, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... gone far when I saw a person in a field digging with a wooden spade. As I got near I saw that he was white, though I could not be certain if he was my brother or not. I walked close up to him. I did not think that he would suspect who we were. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... on the three friends left their gin and stole away, and crept down to that graveyard where rested in his sepulchre Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence. At the edge of the graveyard, but outside the consecrated ground, they dug a hasty grave, two digging while one watched in the wind and rain. And the worms that crept in the unhallowed ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... sobbed the harder. He couldn't be in danger of death—could he?—when he screamed so. That showed his lungs were all right, and his legs worked, too, and his arms. They were digging into her now, with a force that almost upset her equilibrium. Could something be wrong ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... to the expense of the funeral, 'cause she said it didn't seem right, seeing she never got much work out of Jinny, she was always so weakly. And Mr. Robbins he said the town would pay for the coffin and digging the grave. That made her real pleasant; and I don't know what put me up to it, but I was real set on it that Jinny should have on a white gown in the coffin. And I asked Mrs. Whitmarsh if I mightn't go over to Miss Bradford's; and she let me, and Miss Bradford give me an old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... "It's like the case of the boy who was digging out the woodchuck. 'The minister's coming ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... answered Astro. "I'm a big guy, that's all." He began digging through his space bag for an apple Mrs. ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... awake all night, I had undergone the most violent agitations of mind and body, and it is not so much to be wondered at, as it was exceedingly unwise and foolhardy, that I should have dropped into a doze. From this I awakened to the characteristic sound of digging, looked down, and saw immediately below me the back view of a gardener in a stable waistcoat. Now he would appear steadily immersed in his business; anon, to my more immediate terror, he would straighten his back, stretch his arms, gaze about the otherwise deserted ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sweat-producing effort. Of course this is not definitely planned; getting food often waits on appetite; defense is sometimes merely running away; and the young are frequently left to feed themselves or die. But the fact remains that in digging burrows, building nests, laying up honey and nuts, and in protecting and providing for the young, a vast deal of effort is put forth in forest and field which is not ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... As they drove into the yard, Mother spied her pansy bed and cried, "Somebody has been digging in my garden and has dug all ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton

... you can; but make them, say, nine, eighteen or twenty-seven feet long. Then, at the same time, others can be digging the post holes, and make those eight feet apart and two feet deep. When the posts are set, the men with the poles can go along and lay them in place, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... go pinioned along by my door. Being young, I studied physic, and began To practise first upon the Italian; There I enriched the priests with burials, And always kept the sexton's arms in ure [3] With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells. And after that, was I an engineer, And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. Then after that was I an usurer, And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... not wait to be told twice; he started his horses, digging his spurs into the belly of the one he rode and lashing the others vigorously. The mail-coach dashed forward ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... the opposite party—the crudest possible measure of merit For the odium politicum and the odium theologicum are twin agents of detraction, and the writing of history would be dull indeed were it not for the joy of digging out an approximation to the truth from opposing opinions. Where the material is so scanty it will be safer [30]to summarize what is known, without attempting to pass finally upon Neville's position among ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... can't imagine," the professor pleaded, "how marvelously interesting this is to me. Remember that I have spent all my life digging about among the archives and the literature and the superstitions of these pre-Egyptian peoples. You are the first man in the world, outside a little circle of fellow-workers, to speak to me of this perfect food. Your story as to how ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... depressed, by obstinate continuance in such methods or on such fields as have cost much effort and yielded no fruit. We often call it faith, when it is only pride, which prevents the acknowledgment of failure. Better to learn the lessons taught by Providence, and to try a new 'claim,' than to keep on digging and washing when we only find sand and mud. God teaches us by failures as well as by successes. Let us not be too conceited to learn the lesson or to confess defeat, and shift our ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... my immediate troubles nicely settled. Those beastly blankets have dried at last, and our camps have been made livable again. They are floored with wooden slats and roofed with tar paper. (Mr. Witherspoon calls them chicken coops.) We are digging a stone-lined ditch to convey any further cloudbursts from the plateau on which they stand to the cornfield below. The Indians have resumed savage life, and their chief is back ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... leaves, which awakened his suspicion; on looking a little way from this spot, he saw some leaves which looked as though they had been moved by hands and put there, and on removing the leaves, he found that the earth had been freshly dug and filled in again. Digging down in the spot, he soon discovered pieces of the person of a dead man, whom he could not identify, but was satisfied that it was the remains of his companion, from whom he had been compelled to separate a few days before. This sight frightened the runaway negro so, ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer

... of the Christian family are trained to fit them for their respective positions in the church of Christ. It is a pleasant and profitable exercise to look back to the day of our espousals, and trace the operations of Divine grace in digging us from the hole of the pit; but the important question with us all should be, not so much HOW we became enlightened, but NOW do we love Christ? Now do we regret our want of greater conformity ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... observed from the camp a little sandy hillock, covered with some vegetation, and he determined to see what sort of plants grew there. Arrived there, he noticed a spot where the ground was moist. He got his digging stick and proceeded to make a hole in the ground. He had not dug long when the water suddenly burst forth in great abundance and soon filled the excavation he had made. He hastened back to the camp and announced his success. When they left the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews

... Japanese commander showed no disposition to sacrifice his men unnecessarily, and while waiting for their big guns the Japanese worked like beavers with pick and shovel protecting their positions and digging saps and zigzag trenches up to the very face of the German defenses. They labored under a storm of shells but so little exposed that losses under the bombardment were small compared with the casualties of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... hieroglyphical writing employed by various nations have, for the most part, remained unintelligible until a key of their interpretation was discovered. In 1799 M. Bouchard, a French captain of engineers, while digging intrenchments on the site of an old temple near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, unearthed a black stone containing a trilingual inscription in hieroglyphics, demotic characters, and Greek. The last paragraph of the Greek inscription stated that two translations, one in the sacred and the other in ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... on like this: '5 mattocks; 4 digging picks; 4 head chains; 1 axe; sledge and wedges; also hooks, eyes, and hasps for hard wood.' Never used 'em all the time us been here. '2 sets of trap harness, much worn.' I ban't gwaine to sell the dogs—eh? Us won't sell Ship or your li'l ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... should take a cigar now when you've a chance of getting one for nothing," replied Masham, digging me pleasantly in ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... Roy, quietly. And he thought no more of the remark just then. He waited till the figures of the men digging grew more and more indistinct, and then quite invisible from where they stood; and he was just about to descend, when the sergeant ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... of sheep has not been so general on the mountain pastures as on those of the great plain, but in many places it has been more complete, owing to the more friable character of the soil, and its sloping position. The slant digging and down-raking action of hoofs on the steeper slopes of moraines has uprooted and buried many of the tender plants from year to year, without allowing them time to mature their seeds. The shrubs, too, are badly bitten, especially the ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... Oh, no!" said he who seemed to be Markham, with the optimism of an enthusiast. "There's no trouble about it. We've got some shanties that we put up about the mouth of the hole in the ground we made in the autumn, and you can see the hole without digging at all. Or at least you could in the early part of January, when I was ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... persuaded this man that he could show him a treasure hidden in a cave, for which service he was to receive the sixty ounces of gold, while the silversmith was to have all the treasure for the mere trouble of digging it up. They went together at midnight to an excavation in the vicinity of Palermo, where Balsamo drew a magic circle, and invoked the devil to show his treasures. Suddenly there appeared half a dozen fellows, the accomplices of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... work in reliefs, one relief digging while the others rest, the proportion of shovelers to pick men being about 3 to 1. If a plow can be obtained to turn the sod, it will greatly facilitate the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... keeper, instead of meeting his animal instinct by human reason, and giving him what he seeks, has the inhumanity to torture him by a ring, that, keeping up a perpetual "raw" in the pig's snout, prevents his digging for those corrective drugs which would remove the evils of his ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... include digging with a hoe and a shovel also, but I could omit that. The sun and wind ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... urged forward that work. Now, when our whole state was ablaze with joy at the action of the legislature in providing for the work, Governor Clinton was invited to come and first strike the spade into the earth in digging the new canals. He arrived by steamboat at Cleveland, where the people received him and his train of distinguished New Yorkers with rejoicings worthy of the great event. He took stage for Newark, and on the 4th of ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... mine," continued Michael, "for the inspector of police to play on while his men are digging up ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... nice from the play-room some day. Now hurry! Mammy will soon return and you haven't even laid the table-cloth. Run and get the spoons from the cupboard, Buster, or I'll tell Mammy to put you to bed without any supper. Oh, that baby! Can't you jiggle the cradle, Limpy-toes, while you finish digging out the dish?" ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard

... roared and gurgled in the streams, and along the roadside. Then, when the wind fell murmuring away, the clouds grew blacker and blacker and rain in long slim columns fell straight from Heaven to earth digging itself into the land and throwing back the red mud ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... is easy. Here we are in hard-pan dirt, without any sort of a tool for digging. So we sure can't tunnel out from the sides, ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... detached villages, the inhabitants of which remained fixed to them by local attachment, in spite of constant predatory inroads of the Tuaricks, who carried off their friends, their children, and cattle. They have recourse to one mode of defence, which consists in digging a number of blaquas, or large pits; these they cover with a false surface of sods and grass, into which the Tuarick with his horse plunges before he is aware, and is received at the bottom upon sharp-pointed stakes, which often kill both on the spot. Unluckily, harmless travellers ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... he is really going to begin to get an education. But does that make you feel any better about it? God!—I was out there the other day, and when I saw the grey hairs in his head, the lines this summer has put in his face, when I saw he was digging his finger nails down into his hands to keep himself together while he talked to me about turning his cancer work over to some other man—I tell you it went just a little beyond my power to endure, and I turned in ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... details the adventures of two lads, Dick Elsworth and Bob Harvey, in the wilds of South Africa. By stratagem the Zulus capture Dick and Bob and take them to their principal kraal or village. The lads escape death by digging their way out of the prison hut by night. They are pursued, but the Zulus finally give up pursuit. Mr. Prentice tells exactly how wild-beast collectors secure specimens on their native stamping grounds, and these ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... If the case has not been complicated by overmuch handling, digging, punching, thumping and otherwise manipulating in the name of bimanual diagnosis, no one has any right to put a knife into the pus sac for it matters not how well it is done the drainage is bad and is in ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... actual problems which arise in the course of the work. After school hours one always finds in the shops a certain number of the teachers from the Academic Department looking up problems for their classes for the next day. A physics teacher may be found in the blacksmithing shop digging up problems about the tractive strength of wires and the expansion and contraction of metals under heat and cold. A teacher of chemistry may be found in the kitchen of the cooking school unearthing problems ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... devotion of such social reformers as the late Lord Shaftesbury, whose recently published "Life and Letters" gives a vivid picture of the condition of the working classes fifty years ago, and of the pit which our industry, ignoring these plain truths, was then digging under its ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... what,—the idea of the professions' digging a moat round their close corporations, like that Japanese one at Jeddo, which you could put Park-Street Church on the bottom of and look over the vane from its side, and try to stretch another such spire across it without spanning the chasm,—that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... for myself, as diligently as I ever worked in my life — in a fair way to be a lawyer, Winnie. By day engrossing deeds and copying long-winded papers, about the quarrels and wrongs of Mr. A. and Mr. B. — and at night digging into parchment-covered books, a dryer and barrener soil than any near Wut-a-qut-o or on the old mountain itself, and which must nevertheless be digged into for certain dry and musty fruits of knowledge to be fetched ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... river-bank, halted for the night in bivouac, without fires, within three or four miles of the town. A gunboat prevented his cavalry and artillery from occupying the town next day, but was driven away by the fire of the infantry. The infantry and engineers prosecuted the work of digging rifle-pits, and in the night places were sunk for the field-pieces by excavating near the edge of the bank. By morning of March 7th the four guns were in position, planted apart, with lines of rifle-pits connecting them. When discovered, ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... the Panama Canal before its completion and had talked with the men, high and low, working on it, asking them how they felt about President Roosevelt's action in "digging the Canal first and talking about it afterwards." He wrote the result of his talks to Colonel Roosevelt, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... a stone, in a dead faint; so Whitson dragged him outside, and, leaving him to recover in the open air, returned to the cave. He then seized the pick and began digging, unearthing some new horror at every stroke. A glittering object caught his eye; he picked this up and found it to be the steel buckle of a woman's belt. He glanced toward the cleft in the rock where the lumps of flesh were hanging, and caught his breath short. Going ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... heard him pounding and swearing inside, but was certain he couldn't get out. I didn't faint, but I lay down there quite a while, so completely exhausted I could scarcely lift my hand. I could hear him digging at the wood of the door with a knife, and the awful firing outside and up stairs. I knew the house was being attacked, and then when it became quiet again, I was equally sure you had driven the Confederates back. By that time I was able to get to my feet once ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... The boys were industriously digging dandelions on the side lawn. I inconsistently let the dear, cheery flowers grow and bloom their fill in the early season, when they lie close to the sward, but when they begin to stretch awkward, rubbery necks, and gape about as if to see where they might best shake out their seed puffs, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... years he had been digging wells and building rest-houses on the road to Alexandria. The West was now outwardly quiet, and between Egypt and any hope of succor from the eastern caliphate stood the ravaging armies of the Karmatis. Egypt itself was in helpless disorder. The great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... thirst, went ashore on one of those keys again in hopes of finding some water. Here we found some leaves with a few drops of water in them, which we lapped with much eagerness; we then dug in several places, but without success. As we were digging holes in search of water there came forth some very thick and black stuff; but none of us could touch it, except the poor Dutch Creole, who drank above a quart of it as eagerly as if it had been wine. We tried to catch fish, but could not; and we now began to repine at our fate, and abandon ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... way of purifying water from a pond or swamp by digging a hole about one foot across and down about six inches below the water level, a few feet from the pond. After it had filled with water, they bailed it out quickly, repeating the bailing process about three times. After the ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... of the Red Barn. WILLIAM discovered digging MARIA's grave in his shirt-sleeves, and thereby revealing that his shirt-front is as false as his heart. He announces that "Nothing can shake him, now, from his pre-determined purpose," and that "the grave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various

... as a dividend from another's toil. Mr Rockefeller remembers with the greatest pleasure the lesson which he learned as a boy, "that he could get as much interest for $50, loaned at seven per cent, as he could earn by digging potatoes ten days." The lesson of Shylock is not profound, but its mastery saves a world of trouble. Combined with a light load of scruples, it will fill the largest coffers; and it has been sufficient to carry the millionaires of America to ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... spot where the marauders were energetically digging. Grace gave a little gasp, and reaching back caught ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... but where, then, was he? No signs of any corpse were to be found, though one after another all the gentlemen descended to look, and Mrs. Oakshott was only withheld by her husband's urgent representations, and promise to superintend a diligent digging in the ground, so as to ascertain whether there had ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wood when he heard the lion's terrific roars, and knew that the charge had come. An instant later the Hon. Morison broke upon his vision, racing like mad for safety. The man lay flat upon his pony's back hugging the animal's neck tightly with both arms and digging the spurs into his sides. An instant later ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... dig into these mounds and discover what they contain. First we notice an encircling trench and mound surrounding the barrow, the purpose of which is supposed to have been to keep the dead person in the tomb, and prevent it from injuring the living. After much digging in the centre of the barrow we find a single stone chamber, entered by a passage underneath the higher and wider end of the mound. Sometimes the chamber is divided into three parts, the centre one being covered by a dome, formed by the overlapping of the stones in the upper parts ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof;— Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Under yond yew tree lay thee all along, Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground; So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,— Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,— But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me, As signal that thou hear'st something approach. Give me those flowers. Do as ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... "have n't you heard the news? The chief is coming this way soon, and is going to have all witches and the low animals like myself put to death. For this reason I am digging a pit to hide ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... the flames spread so rapidly that, although he escaped himself, the barn was wholly destroyed, and he was publicly whipped in the village square as a warning to other youths. Equally well remembered is a dangerous encounter with a ram that attacked him while he was busily engaged digging out a bumblebee's nest near an orchard fence. The animal knocked him against the fence, and was about to butt him again when he managed to drop over on the safe side and escape. He was badly hurt and bruised, and no small quantity of arnica was needed ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... the planning and planting of which soon engrossed my wife's whole soul. The planting of the potatoes, beets, carrots, etc.., was intrusted to a raw Irishman; for, as to me, to confess the truth, I began to fear that digging did not agree with me. It is true that I was exceedingly vigorous at first, and actually planted with my own hands two or three long rows of potatoes; after which I got a turn of rheumatism in my shoulder, which ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... born, he was overwhelmed with grief and horror. The baby had six fingers. Grigory was so crushed by this, that he was not only silent till the day of the christening, but kept away in the garden. It was spring, and he spent three days digging the kitchen garden. The third day was fixed for christening the baby: mean-time Grigory had reached a conclusion. Going into the cottage where the clergy were assembled and the visitors had arrived, including Fyodor ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... questioned Harry. "Then in that case we had better press forward without further delay." And, digging his heels into the ribs of his mule, the young ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... all the church-roof gutters, so far as I honestly could cut them, through the red pine-door, I began to long for a better tool that would make less noise and throw straighter. But the sheep-shearing came and the hay-season next, and then the harvest of small corn, and the digging of the root called "batata" (a new but good thing in our neighbourhood, which our folk have made into "taties"), and then the sweating of the apples, and the turning of the cider-press, and the stacking of the firewood, and netting of the woodcocks, and the springles to be minded in the garden ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... soon as the C.P.A.'s get to digging into the pay-roll," he replied, "and I just as good as got the information I need even without that. Well, let's forget our ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the earth of the bad. Suppose then that I lose my life in this way. You will die a good man, doing a noble act. For since he must certainly die, of necessity a man must be found doing something, either following the employment of a husbandman, or digging, or trading, or serving in a consulship, or suffering from indigestion or from diarrhoea. What then do you wish to be doing when you are found by death? I, for my part, would wish to be found doing something which belongs to a man, beneficent, suitable to the general interest, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... massing troops about the hostile works. Two months later, Porter's mortar-boats, the frigates and gunboats, and the batteries and muskets of an immense body of troops, opened on the works. While the heavy fire was being kept up, the Union armies were closing in, digging trenches, and surrounding the Confederates on all sides. The firing came to be short-range work and very deadly. "To show you what cool and desperate fighting it was," says a Confederate, "I had at least ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... handles to be used in one hand. These were of the finest steel, very sharp, and well balanced. There were implements that were really potato-hooks, though in the forest they were used for clearing away brush and leaves rather than for digging potatoes. Then there were short-handled, four-toothed rakes, for use in back-firing. Also there were lanterns, and finally a small compressed air sprayer, for wetting the ground when back-firing. All these tools were painted a bright ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... country-place, including half of an old orchard. A few years afterwards I saw the trees on his side of the fence looking in good health, while those on the other side were scraggy and miserable. How do you suppose this change was brought about? By watering them with Fowler's solution? By digging in calomel freely about their roots? Not at all; but by loosening the soil round them, and supplying them with the right kind of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the olive trees in the orchard bore more fruit than they had ever given before; the fine cultivating they had had from the digging brought so much fruit, and of so fine a quality, that when it was sold it gave the sons a whole ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... were more like a Spillikins Circle than an Army unit, he would, from sheer native kindness of heart, save us the imminent gibbet or the burial by a trench-digging party which awaited us. He would merely illustrate our manifold faults by taking the case of No. 3 in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various

... a resumption of the digging. The ghostly hands began once more their cautious mining. She waited. In hollow reverberations from the interior of the barn came the frequent sounds of old Santo's lazy movements. The sentry ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... man of great stature and grave deportment, eloquent in discourse, and his hoary head was comely to look upon. He took part in the labours of the younger Brothers, and would perform lowly tasks, such as washing the trenchers, digging the ground, carrying stones, or collecting wood. It was his wont to come early into the choir, to be alert in watching, enduring in fasting, careful in celebrating the Mass, and devout in prayer. Once he was asked ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... once in several acts of malice! Old men not staid with age, virgins with shame, Late wives with loss of husbands, mothers of children, Losing all grief in joy of his sad fall, Run quite transported with their cruelty! These mounting at his head, these at his face, These digging out his eyes, those with his brains Sprinkling themselves, their houses and their friends; Others are met, have ravish'd thence an arm, And deal small pieces of the flesh for favours; These with a thigh, this hath cut off his hands, And this his feet; these ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... nevertheless grew and prospered all day, and dreamed at night that he was the king, digging the pits for the English cavalry, and covering them again with the treacherous turf. Somehow the dream never went further. The field and the kingship would vanish and he only remain, the same Robert Bruce, the general dealer, plotting still, but in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... ant-eater found fat termites so satisfying that it left all other things and devoted its life to the exploiting of anthills, and now it has no rival at that business, but it is fit for nothing else. Its awkward digging tools will not allow it to put the sole of its foot to the ground, so it has to double them under and hobble about like a Chinese lady. It has no teeth, and stupidity is the most prominent feature of its character. It has become that poor thing, a ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... of August when we came into Shark's Bay; in which we anchored at three several places, and stayed at the first of them (on the west side of the bay) till the 11th. During which time we searched about, as I said, for fresh water, digging wells, but to no purpose. However we cut good store of firewood at this first anchoring-place; and my company were all here very well refreshed with raccoons, turtle, shark, and other fish, and some fowls; so that we were now all much brisker than when we came in hither. Yet still I was for standing ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... the triumphal road was discovered by accident in digging for a drain; and an attempt is being made to procure the permission of the Government to excavate all that can be found of it, and ascertain its exact course. It was in the Temple of Concord that Cicero assembled the Senate and pronounced ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... asked Kendo to allow some of his people to assist us in digging a grave. Though they at first showed some indications of fear, yet on Tom suggesting that the spirit of the dead man would haunt them if they did not, they eagerly set about the work, and saved us any trouble whatever. At first they made only a shallow hole, but ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... the farm produce. Miss Carson had undertaken to supply several hotels and restaurants with eggs, fowls and vegetables, and so far had found the demand for her goods exceeded the supply. Labor was at present her greatest difficulty. Her students accomplished the light work, but could not do heavy digging. She managed to secure the occasional services of a farm hand, but with most able-bodied men at the war the problem of trenching or of making an asparagus bed was almost ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... as he ran over and began digging it out, and they found later that it did. Platinum is usually found in small granules, but there are records of chunks being found weighing twenty pounds while others, the size of pigeons' eggs, ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton

... honor, but I hears as how Jem Ninnings, digging for stone for the limekiln, have dug out a ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... entering the tomb sat down to await my cousin, who soon rejoined us, carrying a vessel of water, a bag containing plaster and an adze. He went up to the tomb in the midst of the sepulchre and loosening its stones with the adze, laid them on one side after which he fell to digging with the adze in the earth till he uncovered a trap of iron, as big as a small door, and raised it, when there appeared beneath it a winding stair. Then he turned to the lady and said to her, "Up and make ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... there were some bushes. We loaded our gum and awaited the approach of the enemy. They rushed to the edge of the hole, fired on us and killed one of our men. We instantly returned their fire, killing one of their party. We reloaded and commenced digging holes in the side of the bank to protect ourselves, while a party watched the enemy, expecting their whole force would be upon us immediately. Some of my warriors commenced singing their death songs. ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... marsh bed. Now the thick willow-bush screened me, but in a few moments they would be on my very heels. With the supernatural strength of a last desperate effort, I bounded to the empty trunk and like some hounded, treed creature, clambered up inside, digging my wounded feet into the soft, wet wood-rot and burrowing naked fingers through the punk of the rounded sides till I was twice the height of a man above the blackened opening at the base. Then a piece of wood crumbled in my right hand. Daylight broke through the trunk and I found that I had grasped ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... on the steps digging around for matches," he said. "Would you prefer to have me come ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Aphidae is that of the Cicads, hardly represented in our fauna but abundant in many of the warmer regions of the earth. Here also the young insect differs widely from its parent in form, living underground and being provided with strong fore-legs for digging in the soil. After a long subterranean existence, usually extending over several years, the insect attains the penultimate stage of its life-story, during which it rests passively within an earthen cell, awaiting the final ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter

... passed away, during which Ready repaired the boat, and William and Mr. Seagrave were employed in digging up the garden. It was also a very busy week at the house, as they had not washed linen for some time. Mrs. Seagrave and Juno, and even little Caroline were hard at work, and Tommy was more useful than ever he had been, going for the water as they required it, and watching little Albert. ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... exercises any care. If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my chocolate in ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... he bored a hole in the kitchen floor so that he could jest peep through there to der back steps. Sho nuff Sunday morning the nigger come back and as Alec watched him he dug down in the gound a piece, then he took a ground puppy, threw it in the hole and covered it up. All right, he started digging again and all at onct he jumped up and cried: 'Here 'tis! I got it.' 'Got what?' Alec said, running to the door with a piece of board. 'I got the ground puppy dat wuz buried fer her.' Alec wuz so mad he jumped on that man and beat him most to death. They say he did that all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... with contempt appears in Josiah's scattering the 'dust' of the images on the graves of their worshippers, as if he said: 'There you lie together, pounded idols and dead worshippers, neither able to help the other!' The same feelings prompted digging up the skeletons of priests and burning the bones on the very altars that they had served, thus defiling the altars and executing judgment on the priests. No doubt there were much violence and a strong strain ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... her way to the store. It was dark by now, with stars in the sky and a breath of wind from the south and south-by-west. The folks were all in their cabins, save the skipper and Bill Brennen, who were digging the harbor's cache of jewelry from the head of a thicket of spruce-tuck. She let herself into the store and freed John Darling without striking a light. She placed the ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... those ruins at Nimroud that have been identified with the ancient Calah, it is the sides of the mound and of the buildings upon it that face the four cardinal points (Fig. 145). The plan given by Layard of the square staged tower disengaged in his last digging campaign at the north-western angle of the mound shows this more clearly.[400] Nearly half the northern side is occupied by the salient circular mass that is such a conspicuous object to one looking at the mound from the plain. We do not know what caused this ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... won't object, will you, to my dropping the steward work if I get the Wallace appointment. I have almost no time for anything now but digging. I don't care to be known just as 'dig,' but that is all I am so far. The scholarship will pay me twice as much as the work I'm doing and give me leisure for something besides digging. I haven't had time to be homesick, but I would give a lot to see ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... help it,' said Tricksy, looking ruefully down at her little black hands and muddy frock. 'Reggie wanted the ferns for our garden, and we've been digging away with pieces of wood in the banks of the burn. Some of them had roots ever so deep down, and we couldn't help making ourselves muddy. I'll wash my face and hands ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... congratulations at the boy's well-deserved victory; while Patsey himself was so elated at his success, that he could not resist manifesting his exultation by digging his heels into the animal's sides, with a vindictiveness, that could not fail to stir up all its vicious propensities; while he kept up a running tirade of abuse, after the Mexican ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... and loading it into the little car which stood ready to be run down the track to the station. Seven feet above, so that the roof of the lower level formed the flooring of the next, was another short gallery, where the men were busy stoping, digging out the ore from the upper tier. Dingy and grimy as they were, it was fascinating to watch them, burrowing, like so many moles, in the depths of the earth. The visitors lingered to look at them until they were frightened ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging. "Sonia wants pomatum too," he said as he walked along the street, and he laughed malignantly—"such smartness costs money.... Hm! And maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk, hunting big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a crust to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine they've dug there! And they're making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most of it! They've wept over ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the west wind upon the bare brow of the coast. Most of these trees stood back a little from the margin of high tide, reluctant to see themselves in the water, for fear of the fate of Narcissus. But where that clandestine boat had glided into gloom and greyness, a fosse of Nature's digging, deeply lined with wood and thicket, offered snug harbourage to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... the owner decided to leave Villeblanche. What was there for him to do now in the destroyed castle? . . . The presence of so many dead was racking his nerves. There were hundreds, there were thousands. The soldiers and the farmers were interring great heaps of them wherever he went, digging burial trenches close to the castle, in all the avenues of the park, in the garden paths, around the outbuildings. Even the depths of the circular lagoon were filled with corpses. How could he ever live again in that tragic community composed mostly of his enemies? . . . Farewell ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the creek was plentiful; but this was to be expected, as the long drought had naturally driven game of all sort towards the water. I saw two or three small kangaroos, and everywhere along the margin were bandicoot holes, where the little pig-like creatures had been digging ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke

... of a box or purse (thirteenth month); the pulling out and emptying, and then the filling and pushing in, of a table-drawer; the heaping up and the strewing about of garden-mold or gravel; the turning of the leaves of a book (thirteenth to nineteenth month); digging and scraping in the sand; the carrying of footstools hither and thither; the placing of shells, stones, or buttons in rows (twenty-first month); pouring water into and out of bottles, cups, watering-pots (thirty-first to thirty-third months); and, in ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... but its planks wofully shrunk with the sun, and though much stove forward, more especially to larboard, yet its main timbers looked sound enough. Then, too, it lay none so far from high-water mark and despite its size and bulk I thought that by digging a channel I might bring water sufficient to float it, could I but make good the breakage and caulk the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... he was upon his knees, and with his knife-blade was digging around a plant, as if to raise it by the roots. It was a small herbaceous plant, with erect simple stem, oblong lanceolate leaves, and a terminal spike of not very conspicuous white flowers. Though I knew it not then, it was the famed ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... years; and often, when looking my audience over in lecturing about Tony and his hardships, I am thinking about Mulberry Street and the old days when problems, civic or otherwise, were farthest from my mind in digging out the facts that lay ready to the hand of the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... Shapik-zer to Har-ibni, my brother: The gods decree thy well-being. Give ninety-six KA of meal to the men who are digging the canal. Kislimnu, the twentieth, fifth year, Cyrus, King of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... on the finishing touches, and did some very useful bits of training, including some fairly ambitious schemes of trench digging and planning, which proved invaluable later on, and which was a branch of knowledge in which many Yeomanries were conspicuously lacking. Also, by this time, a few courses of instruction had been started at the ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... in the little dell which the stream had made, Walter in her arms—her figure thrown back, so as to poise the child's weight. Her right hand kept firm hold of Guy, who was paddling barefoot in the stream: Edwin, the only one of the boys who never gave any trouble, was soberly digging ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... in our social evolution to come from the entrance of woman upon the political arena?" The roots of these questions, and consequently of their answers, lie as deep as the roots of being, and they cannot be laid bare by superficial digging. But the laying bare of roots is not the only way, or even the best way, to judge of the strength and beauty of a growth. We look at the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit. "Movement" and "Progress" are not synonymous terms. In evolution there ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... capable of suffering as our women would under such circumstances. They are quite as callous and cruel as the men. Evidence is given in the Jackman book (149) that, like Indian women, they torture prisoners of war, breaking toes, fingers, and arms, digging out the eyes and filling the sockets with hot ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... with them the devoted adherence of the aged merchant. She immediately took charge of our education. We must see Santa Maria la Blanca,—it was a beautiful thing; so was the Transito. Did we see those men and women grubbing in the hillside? They were digging bones to sell at the station. Where did the bones come from? Quien sabe? Those dust-heaps have been there since King Wamba. Come, we must go and see the Churches of Mary before it grew dark. And the zealous old creature ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... instruments and testing utensils. I will leave you and Desmond here in the mountains and proceed to the nearest settlement and secure what I need. Creedon, I can almost promise you that we will find a rich digging, and it will be more accessible ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

... with it as a trophy to the camp, the bullets of the enemy whistling after him. The Indians immediately threw themselves into the edge of a swamp, among willows and cottonwood trees, interwoven with vines. Here they began to fortify themselves, the women digging a trench and throwing up a breastwork of logs and branches, deep hid in the bosom of the wood, while the warriors skirmished at the edge to ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging up the Dutch bottle, and Venus restraining Wegg's ardour to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be coming down with the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... skipper and Clancy too well to imagine that they were to be too long left in peace. And then, too, the next man off watch reported a proper night for mackerel. "Not a blessed star out—and black! It's like digging a hole in the ground and looking into it. And the skipper's getting nervous, I know. I could hear him stirrin' 'round up there when I was for'ard just now, and he hollered to the wheel that up to the no'the'ard it looked like planty of fish. 'And I callate we ain't ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... moveless air, and the white sparrow of the sagebrush starts up as if to catch the early worm he is almost sure not to find. The loping jack rabbit slips softly to his greasewood shelter and the prairie dog bounces barking from his snake-infested haunt, noisily preparing for his day's digging and foraging. ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... digging. She condescended to take a little interest in this, for the experience was novel. A lucky strike might mean freedom from this life of hardship and misery. Once back in England—— The thought was tantalizing. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... point of Quebec, so called by the savages, which was covered with nut-trees. I at once employed a portion of our workmen in cutting them down, that we might construct our habitation there: one I set to sawing boards, another to making a cellar and digging ditches, another I sent to Tadoussac with the barque to get supplies. The first thing we made was the storehouse for keeping under cover our supplies, which was promptly accomplished through the zeal of all, and ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... his shoulders. He saw the strange lieutenant still dancing about, hastily gathering up his belongings and stuffing them into his knapsack. He heard him scold his orderly and bellow at him to hurry up, in between digging up fresh details, hideous episodes, from the combats of the past few days, which Weixler devoured ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... Well, he came herein the early days and found a strange yellow outcropping here. He built himself a funny little shanty on the hillside, which he thatched with spruce boughs. Here he spent a good many years of his life, digging. His tunnel caved in soon after he left it, but he did find a little gold for his work. When his provisions gave out, he would take his old mule, which was his only companion, tramp into the city, sell his little bag of gold dust, and buy bacon, flour, and beans. ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... strong beak, by repeated blows, penetrate the trunk of a tree: but the auger, the gimlet, the wimble do the same work better and more quickly. The knife is superior to the carnivore's teeth for tearing meat; the hoe better than the mole's paw for digging earth, the trowel than the beaver's tail for beating and spreading mortar. The oar permits us to rival the fish's fin; the sail, the wing of the bird. The distaff and spindle allow our imitating the industry of insect spinners; etc. Man thus reproduces ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... the Mounds to be gradually levelled and cleared away, while retaining to themselves their present opportunity of watching the process—which would be, he conceived, to put the trouble and cost of daily digging and delving upon somebody else, while they might nightly turn such complete disturbance of the dust to the account of their own private investigations—and that, when the Mounds were gone, and they had worked those chances for their own ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... settlers reached home and found amusement and some little excitement in the digging up of their household treasures and putting things in place once more, the thought of leaving this home in the Far West obtruded itself rather unpleasantly on the minds of all of them, although nobody spoke of what each thought. Oscar had ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... what a lark!" he shouted. "I can see the advertisements! 'Hiding place of Captain Kidd's Treasure in the Grounds.' What do you know about that? Jove, we'll have digging parties, with me ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... of the tremendous dust which is raised by digging into the ground, and which makes the work very arduous, we searched diligently and succeeded in bringing to light a number of objects which fairly welt illustrate the culture of the ancient people. Among them were needles and awls of bone; a complete fire drill with a stick showing drilling, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... to Parwati. He must pray to her and she will bestow a child on him." When her husband came back she told him what had happened. So he at once put on blue clothes, mounted a blue horse, and rode into the forest. He met the horse, dismounted, and began digging. At last he discovered a temple to Parwati, all of gold, with diamond pillars and a spire made of rubies. Inside was a statue of the goddess, and to it he prayed, saying, "I have houses and cottages, cattle ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid

... to oneself in art. What you try to do is always bound to be miles ahead of what you can do—that is where the humility comes in. But a man who can't admire his own work on occasions, can't admire anyone's work. If you do a really good thing, you ought to feel as if you had been digging for diamonds and had found a big one. Hang it, you intend to make a fine thing! You are not likely to be conceited about it, because you can't make a beautiful thing every day; and the humiliation comes in when, after turning out a good ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... been digging around the foundations of Irish landlordism. They declare that those foundations were cemented with blood, and they point to the many wounds still open from which that blood issued so profusely. The facts of the conquest and confiscation were hinted ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... gets fired with the desire to turn civil engineer just when he has got a magnificent opening in life as a doctor is merely the usual flightiness of young men, who do not see where their true advantages lie—and the conduct of the men in dying, after digging a canal is normal, and modern experiences support it, for men who dig canals down in West Africa die plentifully, be they black, white, or yellow; so you can't help believing in those men, although it is strange a black man should have been so enterprising ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... send you a drawing of a Roman votive altar, which was found in digging a cellar about six feet deep, in St. Sepulchre's Gate, Doncaster, in the year 1781. It is the oldest relic of antiquity which Doncaster has yet produced, and is of exquisite engraving and workmanship. Upon the capital, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various

... he felt that something was amiss. Before him danced a yellow quivering haze, his feet were heavy and awkward, his chest ached as he breathed, and he was cold, oh, so cold! It was no easy matter to reach the nest-top. He climbed mechanically upwards, digging his toes into the meshwork of the sides, and sobbing from sheer ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... went on. "The shame of it! All those years while he faced privation, the worst kind, tramping Alaska trails, panning in icy streams, sluicing, digging sometimes like any common laborer, wintering in shacks, she was living in luxury down here. He never made a promising discovery that he wasn't forced to sell. She spent his money faster than he made it; kept him handicapped. And all she ever gave him was a friendly letter ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... Harrietta sick. She, whose very art was that of pretending, hated pretense, affectation, "coy stuff." This was, perhaps, unfortunate. Your Fatigued Financier prefers the comedy form in which a spade is not only called a spade but a slab of iron for digging up dirt. Harrietta never even pretended to have a cough on an opening night so that the critics, should the play prove a failure, might say: "Harrietta Fuller, though handicapped by a severe cold, still gave her usual brilliant and finished performance in a part not quite worthy ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... cantankerous fool, Blake. The queer thing about these people is that they seem to think I'm to blame every time they see a spot on their tablecloths. Mark my words, it ain't been two years since I found that nigger Boaz digging in my asparagus bed, and he told me he was looking for some shoots ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... Ariminta, her composition doll, and she went down into the garden early to find her. She looked in Bose's kennel, but it wasn't there; then she saw a robin in the path digging worms, and he looked so wise that she followed him to the early harvest apple-tree, and sure enough! there was Ariminta on a lower branch where she had put her the night before. She was very wet, for it had rained, and her wig was quite soaked off. So, ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... had for those relics of ancient art, in pursuit of which he saw all his classic fellow-travellers so ardent, was, like every thing he ever thought or felt, unreservedly avowed by him. Lord Sligo having it in contemplation to expend some money in digging for antiquities, Lord Byron, in offering to act as his agent, and to see the money, at least, honestly applied, said—"You may safely trust me—I am no dilettante. Your connoisseurs are all thieves; but I care too little for these things ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... workman and his wife from the west country are busy digging to make bricks for the kiln. Their little daughter goes to the landing-place by the river; there she has no end of scouring and scrubbing of pots and pans. Her little brother, with shaven head and brown, naked, mud- covered ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore

... in flocks!" exclaimed Phil; "let's see if we can dig up a whole bunch of 'em, boys!" But although they all started digging with the toes of their shoes, no more shining coins came to light; and it began to look as if Bobolink had been fortunate enough to pick up all ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... important villages, which enjoy the luxury of a local court, the end of the Cabildo is usually fenced off with wooden bars, as a prison. Occasionally the traveller finds it occupied by some poor devil of a prisoner, with his feet confined in stocks, to prevent his digging a hole through the mud walls or kicking down his prison-bars, who exhibits his ribs to prove that he is "muy flaco," (very thin,) and solicits, in the name of the Virgin and all the Santos, "algo para comer" ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... lest his agitation betray him. The very walls before his eyes seemed to quake in sympathy. He was aware of the ache of swollen veins in his temples, his teeth hurt with the pressure put upon them, his breath came heavily, and his nails were digging ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... through the field,—there was quite a good road now,—and on by the lake to Woodlawn. His father was standing near a company of men who were digging with spades, throwing the dirt out ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie

... could judge, after venturing up and nearly having a severe fall in the darkness, escape was impossible that way, so he returned after each trial to think, and come to the conclusion that if the place had been used for the purpose of digging out stone, of which there could be no doubt, there must be some other way by which the great pieces had been dragged ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... abandoned, and at length one devised by Captain Hines was adopted. This was to "tunnel" out of the prison—as the mode of escape by digging a trench, to lead from the interior to the outside of the prisons, was technically called. But to "tunnel" through the stone pavement and immense walls of the penitentiary—concealing the tremendous ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke



Words linked to "Digging" :   creating by removal, excavation, digging up, dig



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