"Pin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... abominable little idiot! But they needn't think I'm going to help them with father; I wouldn't if I could, and I can't. He won't speak to me. I'm in disgrace, Minnie." She gave her hair a shake, twisted it into a rope and then a knot, and stuck a pin in it. It was lovely: I wish Miss Cobb could have seen her. "You've known father for years, Minnie: have you ever ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... though all Materials in abundance were at hand. 'Tis incredible to relate, but, at the Time I am speaking of, certain Fact, on her whole Estate there was not one to be found could make a Buckle for her Shoe, or a Pin to her Sleeve; a Pot, a Spit, or any Utensil to cook her Victuals, might as well be found among the Tartars as with her. She took every thing from her Sister at what Price she pleased, unsight unseen, ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous
... moon—more than enough strength to enable Hetty to move about and undress with perfect comfort. She could see quite well the pegs in the old painted linen-press on which she hung her hat and gown; she could see the head of every pin on her red cloth pin-cushion; she could see a reflection of herself in the old-fashioned looking-glass, quite as distinct as was needful, considering that she had only to brush her hair and put on her night-cap. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... earth had been served daily upon his table. Yet as he looked back to-day no shining trout that had ever risen to his fly had stirred his emotions like the diaphanous minnows, caught, with a crooked pin, in the crooked creek; no luscious fruit had ever matched in sweetness the sour grapes and bitter nuts gathered from the native woods—by him and ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Bunting valued, notably of the old-fashioned gold watch-chain which had been given to him after the death of his first master, a master he had nursed faithfully and kindly through a long and terrible illness. There had also vanished a twisted gold tie-pin, and a large mourning ring, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... group of officers. "It is impossible to do anything for him," he heard one say: "I know where he is, but no man's life would be worth a pin's purchase who tried to get at him. The Germans are not more than 500 yards away, and whoever shows himself to them is a dead man. Only a few minutes ago some men were trying to get from one trench to another, and they were just mowed ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... they will not accept the ground which is common to men as men, but disregard that part of the 'Vox Populi' which is truly 'Vox Dei,' for that which is 'Vox Diaboli'-for private sentiments, fancies, and aspirations; and so casting away the common sense of mankind, build up each man, on the pin's point of his own private ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... smiling. His clothes were a trifle out-grown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button-hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an hour longer than was necessary—a wad of closely folded tissue-paper, wrapped in oilskin—an impersonal, unaddressed statement, with five microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings, the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, and an important, semi-independent Mohammedan ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... are apt to be most impressed by them,"—he sagaciously reflected—"The writhings of a beetle on a pin are not so complex or interesting as the writhings of a parson's stabbed senses! Now a remarkable psychological study might be made— My good friend! Kindly look where you ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... fibulae or buckles of a simple character. Brooches set with stones have not at present been found on Phoenician sites; but in certain cases the fibulae show a moderate amount of ornament. Some have glass beads strung on the pin that is inserted into the catch; others have the rounded portion surmounted by the figure of a horse or of a bird.[1254] Most fibulae are in bronze; but one, found in the treasury of Curium, and now in the Museum ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Smith,[27] tends to crush all real life out of its victims. The soul of the political economist may rejoice when he sees a human being devoting his whole faculties to the performance of one subsidiary operation in the manufacture of a pin. The poet and the moralist must notice with anxiety the contrast between the old-fashioned peasant who, if he discharged each particular function clumsily, discharged at least many functions, and found exercise for all the intellectual and moral faculties of his nature, and the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... were so artfully arranged that they told for myriads; while, for lack of unity, the Carolinians, though numerous as myriads, passed only for ciphers. In short, the British were a handful of hawks; the poor Carolinians a swarm of rice-birds, and rather than be plucked to the pin feather, or picked to the bone, they and their little ones, they were fain to flatter those furious falcons, and oft times to chirp and sing when they were much in the humor to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... and fair. school closed today. we dont have enny more school til September. snapcrackers have come. 8 cents a bunch at old Langlys store. Lane and Rollins sell them for 10 cents. torpedos 8 cents a bunch. pin wheels 1 cent each. Pewt is going to have a cannon. father wont let me have a cannon. he says i dont know enny more than to look into it and ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... but powderless and paintless. She got into her blue tailored suit without assistance, and, sitting on the floor, buttoned her shoes with her own fingers, to the maid's disgust. Then she jerked on her hat, stuck a hat-pin through it carelessly, snatched up gloves and hand-bag, and was ready for departure. The expression of her face at that moment sent the maid cowering against the wall, and tied her tongue; the bride looked as if she were ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... keep her in the right course. One single error of judgment on his part, and the boat might go crashing into a similar steamer, or into one of the vessels lying in the stream. It is a moment of danger, and those who are used to the river know it. You could hear a pin drop in the silent crowd on the deck. If men speak at all, they do so in low, subdued tones. There is a sharp whistle on the right, and the boat suddenly stops. You hear the splashing of paddle wheels, and the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... this life—for anything. This horrid thought he could not shake out of his mind, day nor night, for many months together. It intermixed itself with every occupation, however sacred, or however trivial. "He could not eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, nor cast his eye to look on this or that, but still the temptation would come, 'Sell Christ for this, sell Christ for that, sell him, sell him.' Sometimes it would run in my thoughts not so little as a hundred times together, Sell him, sell him, sell him: Against ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... They're saying that Sam told George Hoskins to let up on the drinks the other night, that maybe he could stand it but other men couldn't. And Sam the hotel keeper, mind you! Of course Sam is well off but still the men haven't got over it yet. They say you could have heard a pin drop and that George stood with his mouth open for five ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... belly in the straw, I lay, and watched her sleek her fur, As, daintily, with well-licked paw, She washed her face and neck and ears: Then, clean and comely in the sun, She kicked her heels up, full of fun, As if she did not care a pin Though she should jump out of her skin, And leapt and lolloped, free of fears, Until my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... accuracy. A book from Langrish hit me on the ear, and a wet sponge from Trimble moistened my cheek. And when I sought shelter under the sheets, the butt-end of a fishing-rod in the ribs drew me from my hiding-place, and a clever cast with a hooked pin by Langrish relieved me of my outer covering altogether. The footsteps of the monitor on duty deprived me of the privilege of making an audible protest. All I could do was to send Trimble's sponge quietly over to ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... dancing about in pain and muttering a dust-covered oath, the other's staff came swinging through the cloud at one side—zip!—and struck him under the arm. Down went Robin as though he were a nine-pin—flat down into the dust of the road. But despite the pain he was bounding up again like an India rubber man to renew the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... a light suit, and a paste pin in a dirty white necktie, has arrived with a chest, from which he extracts a quantity of small parcels ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... kid, who is one of these Cynthia-of-the-minute' youngsters, 'you're wrong, Grandpa. I've been working for an hour blowing soapbubbles and trying to pin them on a clothes line in the nursery to dry!' Perseverence didn't cut much of a figure in her case, did it?" ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... to the body of this shaft (one on each side of the eccentrics); one carrier worked the engine ahead, the other back. The small handle on the right side of the boiler was used to lift the eccentric rod (which passed forward to the rock shaft on the forward part of the engine) off the pin, and thus put the valves out of gear before it was possible to shift the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... nothing of the kind. I don't believe he ever cared a pin for her. You had the man's first love; you have it yet, if it is worth aught. He was here seeking you, dearie, and he was distracted with the loss ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... children. This was, I think, in 1827. I have no clear knowledge of her object, or of my father's; but I believe that he had an idea that money might be made by sending goods,—little goods, such as pin-cushions, pepper-boxes, and pocket-knives,—out to the still unfurnished States; and that she conceived that an opening might be made for my brother Henry by erecting some bazaar or extended shop in one of the Western ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... the room in order. Then she went into the bed room and made up the three beds: the big one for Papa Bear, the medium sized one for Mamma Bear, and the little one for the Tiny Bear; she bustled and had everything as neat as a pin when in bounced the three jolly bears. For a moment the bears stood speechless, with wide open eyes, staring at Golden Hair, who stood, like a ray of sunshine in the dusky room; then they burst into loud laughter and made her welcome to their home. When they saw how nice and clean it was they ...
— Denslow's Three Bears • W.W. Denslow
... in Nordred's mind that the insulation weakness must have been caused by deliberate sabotage, but he had no one to pin his suspicions on. Neither he nor anyone else connected with the Redford project was aware of the true status of Dr. ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... too hungry to come out; so there I was "Alone in New York." The cabman then asked for his money for the whole day. I told him that the lack of money was the least of my troubles, and I went down after ninety dollars that I had pinned in my trousers watch-pocket with a safety pin. Exit money. Whoever got to me hadn't even left the safety pin. The cabman made some remarks about taking it out of my hide, and I spent all of twenty minutes proving to him that the rest of the bunch would settle when they came out. I then walked ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... may stick in the surface of the eye, and refuse to be washed away by the tears. Take a square inch of writing paper, curve one of the sides of it, and draw it lightly and quickly over the spot. Never use any sharp instrument or pin. Repeat the operation a ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... her time came, Ethlinn gave birth to a son. And when Balor knew that, he bade his people put the child in a cloth and fasten it with a pin, and throw him into a current of the sea. And as they were carrying the child across an arm of the sea, the pin dropped out, and the child slipped from the cloth into the water, and they thought he was drowned. But he was brought away by Birog of the Mountain, and she brought him ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... embraced Al-Islam with heart and tongue. Then Mura'ash took Gharib by the hand and showed him the palace and its ordinance and all the marvels it contained, till they came to the armoury, wherein were the arms .of Japhet son of Noah. Here Gharib saw a sword hanging to a pin of gold and asked, "O King, whose is that?" Mura'ash answered, " 'Tis the sword of Yafis bin Nuh, wherewith he was wont to do battle against men and Jinn. The sage Jardum forged it and graved on its back names of might.[FN33] It is named Al-Mahik the Annihilator for that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... too, had been dug up far away—had, in a sense, voluntarily dug himself up—and been transplanted in the college campus; how, ever since being placed there, the different sectarian churches of the town had, without exception, begun to pin on the branches of his mind the many-shaped garments of their dogmas, until by this time he appeared to himself as completely draped as the little locust after a heavy dormitory washing. There was this terrible difference, ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... were these chargers, wiry and gaunt were the men, for those were days when neither horse nor rider went over-weight on campaign, or came back with a superfluous ounce. But horses and men had stripped for the day's work. Blanket, poncho, and overcoat, saddle-bags, side lines, lariat, and picket-pin—everything, in fact, but themselves, their arms, cartridges, canteens, saddles, saddle-blankets, and bridles—had been left to the pack-train. A good breakfast to start with, a few hardtack and slices of bacon in the breast-pocket of the hunting-shirt, settled the question of subsistence. They were ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... clerk had retired Cuffer and Shelley both paid their attention to Dick, and with great rapidity they went through his pockets, stripping him of his watch and chain, and twenty-four dollars and a quarter in money. They also took a small diamond scarf pin and a ring set with a valuable ruby. In one pocket Cuffer found several letters and he likewise ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... point the question rises as to who has a pack of cards. The question is soon answered; there always is a pack handy, and the swindlers have it; and this pack, if examined, will be found to contain a neat round pin-hole through the center of the pack. The object of this pin-hole is as follows: the player against the bank makes his boldest play on the turn, that is, at the end of the game, when there are only three cards out, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... the size of the vessel. A life of slash and dash was just the kind of experience that appealed to a full-blooded rip like Jim Leigh, so that he needed no persuading to take the offer, and adapt himself with fervour to the new conditions, which invested him with the knuckle-duster, the belaying pin, and the six-shooter. The Betty Sharp was chartered for London instead of the Far East, as was expected, and twenty days after passing Cape Henry she entered the Thames; but even in that short time the sprightly officer ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... had satisfied me that it was occasioned by sea-insects. Mr Forster, however, seemed not to favour this opinion. I therefore had some buckets of water drawn up from alongside the ship, which we found full of an innumerable quantity of small globular insects, about the size of a common pin's-head, and quite transparent. There was no doubt of their being living animals, when in their own proper element, though we could not perceive any life in them: Mr Forster, whose province it is more minutely to describe things of this nature, was now well ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... fixedly at him]. "Your diamond pin is loose, it is coming out. Well, you may know all that, but you don't know the human heart; you have gone no further in the geography and history of that organ than you have in the environs of the city ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... the door. Howard wondered how she had found the time to lay aside her hat, give a new effect to her hair and pin on those field flowers. Her cheeks were only delicately flushed, her eyes were filled ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... amusement, as contend for the bravos of a drawing-room. It was because he was one of the proudest men in the world, that Maltravers was one of the least vain. He did not care a rush for applause in small things. But Cesarini would have summoned the whole world to see him play at push-pin, if he thought the played ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rushed at him, embraced him, hugged him, cried over him, and dragged him into the lower room of the Bravees. "Give me your word that I am not crazy!" he kept crying. "It can't be true. Not a tap, not a pin missing. It is incredible. We have only to put in a little oil. What a revolution! You are my child, my son, my Providence. Brave lad! To go and fetch my good old engine. In the open sea among those cut-throat rocks. I have seen some ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to attack an enemy, he rushes at it backwards, and usually leaves the enemy literally covered, like a living pin-cushion, with his spines. These animals have convex skulls, short tails, and live chiefly in the warmer regions of the Old World. Those of America are different in one particular—the soles of their feet are covered with hard, bone-like ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... fatras^, frippery; leather or prunello; chaff, drug, froth bubble smoke, cobweb; weed; refuse &c (inutility) 645; scum &c (dirt) 653. joke, jest, snap of the fingers; fudge &c (unmeaning) 517; fiddlestick^, fiddlestick end^; pack of nonsense, mere farce. straw, pin, fig, button, rush; bulrush, feather, halfpenny, farthing, brass farthing, doit^, peppercorn, jot, rap, pinch of snuff, old son; cent, mill, picayune, pistareen^, red cent [U.S.]. minutiae, details, minor details, small fry; dust in the balance, feather in the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... window to which it was fastened—the plan consulted by the captain on his last visit to Planchet. This plan, which he brought to the comte, was a map of France, upon which the practiced eye of that gentleman discovered an itinerary, marked out with small pins; where-ever a pin was missing, a hole denoted its having been there. Athos, by following with his eye the pins and holes, saw that D'Artagnan had taken the direction of the south, and gone as far as the Mediterranean, toward Toulon. It was near Cannes that the marks and the punctured ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... by no means a new one. Scaliger says, as quoted by omnivorous old Burton: "Nequaquam, nos homines sumus sed partes hominis." The old illustration of this used to be found in pin-making. It took twenty different workmen to make a pin, beginning with drawing the wire and ending with sticking in the paper. Each expert, skilled in one small performance only, was reduced to a minute fraction of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... man to a boy who was writing with a diamond pin on a pane of glass in the window of a hotel. "Why not?" inquired the boy. "Because you can't rub it out." Yet the glass might have been broken and all trace of the writing lost, but things written upon the human soul can never be removed, for the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... depression in the external table of the frontal bone just above the temporal ridge. Although no perforation was detectible by the probe, and this was positively excluded on the raising of a flap (Major Murray, R.A.M.C.), it was considered advisable to remove a 1/4-inch trephine crown, the pin of the instrument being applied to the margin of the depression. No depression or splintering of the internal table was discovered, nor any injury to the dura, nor blood upon the surface of that membrane. The man made ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... my rifle ready, when suddenly there was a most awful yell, and I saw the trunk reappear, and in its mighty fold the old woman who had been sleeping in the hut. Out she came through the hole like a periwinkle on the point of a pin, still wrapped up in her blanket, and with her skinny arms and legs stretched to the four points of the compass, and as she did so, gave that most alarming screech. I really don't know who was the most frightened, she, or I, ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... You'll never put a stitch where a pin will do. But, never mind. If everybody else sets out to spoil you, I don't know as ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... hemorojdo. Pilfer sxteleti. Pilferer sxtelisto. Pilgrim pilgrimanto. Pilgrimage pilgrimo—ado. Pill pilolo. Pillage rabegi—ado. Pillar kolono. Pillory punejo. Pillow kapkuseno. Pillow-case kusentego. Pilot piloto, gvido. Pimple akno. Pin pinglo. Pince-nez nazumo. Pincers prenilo. Pinch pincxi. Pinch (of snuff, etc.) preneto. Pine (languish) konsumigxi. Pine away (plants, etc.) sensukigxi. Pining sopiranta. Pineapple ananaso. Pine tree pinarbo. Pinion (feather) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... purely diplomatic principles, Miss Van Brock's temper was little less than angelic, exhibiting itself under provocation only in guarded pin-pricks of sarcasm, or in small sharp-clawed kitten-buffetings of repartee. But she was at no pains to conceal her scornful disappointment when David Kent made known his doubts concerning his moral right to use the weapon he ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... George for Merrie England!" let us cry And each a red rose pin upon his breast, Then face the foe with fearless front and eye Through all our frowning leaguer in the West. For not alone his Patron Day it is Wherefrom our noble George hath drawn his name; Three centuries and a half gone by ere this; By Shakespeare's birth it won a ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which Napoleon was so concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French generals lost touch with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and according to Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by the skill—and apparently ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his quality. My forelights! how I should like to see him with his double rows of grinders wide open, bearing down upon a whole fleet of Mussulmen—there'd be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing o' teeth among the Turks! I wouldn't give my wooden pin for the whole of the Grand Sultan's flotilla. But come, shipmate, may I never want 'bacca, if we don't drink his health, and that 'ere gemman you've taken in tow shall join us, if he likes." I was too ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... had not forgotten me; no, nor even given me up. Luckily he was not only very clever, but rich besides; without which, to be sure, his brains would not have availed him a pin. What does he do, therefore, but take a house in the neighbourhood on the sea-shore; and while my tormentor, in alarm and horror, watches every movement, and thinks him coming if he sees a cloud or a bird, Ordauro ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... and had long golden hair of which she was very proud. She was different from her sister, and never helped with the work, but spent the day combing her hair and catching butterflies. She would catch a pretty butterfly, cruelly stick a pin through it, and fasten it in her hair. Then she would go down to the lake to see her reflection in the clear water, and would laugh to see the poor butterfly struggling in pain. The people disliked her for her cruelty, but they loved Mangita very much. This made Larina ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... alternating currents of very low frequency, it would not turn, because of the very slow exchange of air and, consequently, smaller bombardment; but in the latter case it might turn if the potential were excessive. With a pin wheel, quite the opposite rule holds good; it rotates best with a steady potential, and the effort is the smaller the higher the frequency. Now, it is very easy to adjust the conditions so that the potential is normally not sufficient to turn the ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... said to the sage, 'Go and show him its movement, that he also may help thee to thy wish.' Now the Persian bore the prince malice for that he willed not he should have his sister; so he showed him the peg of ascent on the right side [of the horse's neck] and saying to him, 'Turn this pin,' left him. So the prince turned the pin and forthwith the horse soared with him into the air, as it were a bird, and gave not over flying with him, till it disappeared from sight, whereat the King was troubled and perplexed ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... my energy and all my resources not to be discouraged. Fortunately, with me, these little gibes are only so many pin-pricks which stimulate me to further exertions. Once the sting is allayed and the wound in my self-respect closed, I always end by saying: 'Laugh away, my lad. Sooner or later, you will be betrayed by your own hand.' For, when all is said, Wilson, wasn't it Lupin ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite, With spirits feather light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin— (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... articles at this time entered into, the baronet agreed to give his daughter L12,000 as her portion; while the earl, on his part, promised L1000 jointure rent charge to the lady, to which L100 a-year was added on the death of either of her parents, and an allowance of L300 a-year was also granted as pin-money. The earl's estates were to be charged with L12,000 for the portions of daughter or daughters, or with L20,000 in the event of there being no male issue; while by the same settlement his lordship took an estate for life in the family property, which was thereby entailed upon his first and ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin[1] Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell, King!" [Footnote 1: In Hamlet's famous soliloquy the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... coming to her again, "maybe the world is just loving me, that's all, and doesn't know. Maybe it's the same as it was when I scratched my face on your breast-pin when I was a baby, when your arms were around my neck. You did not mean it. Maybe life does not mean it. Maybe it's just ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... the first; "it is easy to see that he has not been accustomed to be addressed by gentlemen; for half a pin I would slit ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... that neither grief nor poverty could destroy. She was so unmistakably the gentle-woman. In the simple, but dainty white cap, with its floating strings, which modestly covered her dark waving hair, the plain black dress and prim collar fastened with its mourning pin, she made a reposeful picture of the old-fashioned conception of "a ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 'I'd better call agin;' Says she, 'Think likely, mister;' Thet last word pricked him like a pin, An'—wall, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... out what they meant! The others were empty; Richard was full of man! As regarded her father and mother, she could betray no secret of theirs; everybody about them knew the things she talked of; and had they been secrets, neither would have cared a pin what a working man might know or think of them! Did they not quarrel in the presence of the very cat! Then Richard was such a gentlemanly workman! Of course he could not be a gentleman in England, but there ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... such a turmoil would be so natural to her: and whence she has this light confidence in the world into which she has so abruptly come I do not know, for it is as though someone inspired her with the mood of nonchalance, saying: 'Be of good cheer, and care not a pin about ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... he had a crowd of friends behind to sick him on. Oh, he's a cur all right; for when I told him that he was whelped under a house, he never resented it. He loves me all right, or has good cause to. Why, I bent the cylinder pin of a new six-shooter over his head when he had a gun on him, and he forgot to use it. I don't expect any trouble, but if you don't look a sneaking cur right in the eye, he may slip up ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... maudlin, a little how came you so, groggy, jolly, rather mightitity, in drink, in his cups, high, in uubibus, under the table, slew'd, cut, merry, queer, quisby, sew'd up, over-taken, elevated, cast away, concerned, half- coek'd, exhilarated, on a merry pin, a little in the suds, in a quandary, wing'd ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... from your Uncle Frederick, Timmie. Think of that! It comes all the way from Liverpool with King George neat as a pin smiling out of the corner of it. Yes, you may take the envelope, Carl, but don't let the baby be fingering and tearing it. Show Martin the King's picture. He's old enough now to learn how he looks. Mercy on us! What a ream ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... a pin in a bundle of hay" would be a job of sense and wisdom rather than to seek a thing so very small as a very big man among the depth, and height, and breadth of river, shingle, stone, and rock, crag, ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... the poor old creature's feelings. So she walked out bravely in her best style. But nevertheless her shapely neck would turn itself now and then from side to side, as though in dread of some familiar face. And there were little pin-pricks all over her of irritation and mortified self-love. "A thing is all very well in theory, but it may be tough in practice," she said to herself. And she felt an irresistible desire to return the offending dress ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... every one had several pretty presents. Mary Leslie and little Flora Arnott were made perfectly happy with wax dolls that could open and shut their eyes; Caroline Howard received a gold chain from her mamma, and a pretty pin from Elsie; Lucy, a set of coral ornaments, besides several smaller presents; and others were equally fortunate. All was mirth and hilarity; only one clouded face to be seen, and that belonged to Enna, who was pouting in a corner because Mary Leslie's doll ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... and the movable part of its carriage are capable of revolving around a strong pin, c, so placed that the axis of the piece always passes very near the center of the embrasure, thus permitting of giving the latter minimum dimensions. The chamber of the 8 inch pump is provided with projections that slide between circular guides, and carries the strap of a small hydraulic piston, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth. Swithold footed thrice the old; He met the nightmare, and her nine-fold; Bid her alight And her troth plight, And aroint ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Arabella. You think you are the stronger; and so you are, in a physical sense, now. You could push me over like a nine-pin. You did not send that letter the other day, and I could not resent your conduct. But I am not so weak in another way as you think. I made up my mind that a man confined to his room by inflammation of the lungs, a fellow who had only two wishes left in the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... between the ceiling and the roof. Not an inch of the massive oaken struts above did they fail to scrutinize, and they made experiments with smoke and water, to learn if, at any point, so much as a pin-hole existed in the face of the stucco. But it was solid, and spread evenly to a considerable depth. They studied it, then, from inside the room, to discover nothing but the beautifully modeled surface, encrusted with successive layers of whitewash. The workmanship ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... as they are found sitting every evening, from the left side of the fire, at the Smyrna,[165] to the door. This will be of great service for us, and I have authority to promise an exact journal of their deliberations; the publication of which I am to be allowed for pin-money. In the meantime, I cast my eye upon a new book, which gave me a more pleasing entertainment, being a sixth part of "Miscellany Poems," published by Jacob Tonson,[166] which I find, by my brother's notes upon it, no way inferior ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... got to his feet and said evenly, "We're in a fix. One of the front wheels is turned almost at a right angle to the other. A king pin is broken. The car couldn't be driven even if I managed to get it up on the road. We've got to walk. There ought to be soldiers on the way up to the lake today. If we meet them we'll be all right. ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... you've got. Do you know what it means to kiss over running water?" His lips whispered it close to her ear. And with that, as she bent, some treacherous pin gave way, and her loosely knotted hair fell in dark masses across his face. She heard him laugh as he kissed her in the tangled screen ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... very much about it. But there's one sure tip, Yuki San, the Christians' God is all right. You can't lose out if you pin to him." He stammered like a foolish schoolboy, but struggled bravely on: "When things get pretty thick and you've struck bottom, that's the time you find out. I know. I've been there. More's the pity I don't ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... a hitch,—things lag behind. Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, 80 Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, Jes' so our Spring gits eyerythin' in tune An' gives one ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... much they would Enjoy going to Weber and Fields'. Seeing a Book on the Table, he sauntered up to It and said, "Ah, one of Dick Davis' Things." Later in the Evening he visited the only Club House in Town. The Local Editor of the Evening Paper was playing Pin-Pool with the Superintendent of the Trolley Line. When the New York Man came into the Room, they began to Tremble and ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... he cried, his face beaming with premature relief." You will pin us down, I see. I do not wonder that you are so rich. I shall give you my personal note, Mr. Smart, for the amount, secured by a mortgage—a supplementary ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... it possible to doubt that the experience of some animals includes a great deal of positive rapture. If the lark be not really the soul of joy, he is the greatest hypocrite under the sun. Many insects seem to be pin-points of vibrant vitality which we can scarcely believe to be unaccompanied by pleasurable sensation. The mosquito which I squash on the back of my hand, and which dies in a bath of my own blood, has had a ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... rings the order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing, saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the whole troop is mounted and, following its ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... polished metal. For this design is sometimes substituted the figure of a young girl, either nude, or clad in a close-fitting garment, who holds the mirror on her head. The tops of hair-pins were carved in the semblance of a coiled serpent, or of the head of a jackal, a dog, or a hawk. The pin- cushion in which they are placed is a hedgehog or a tortoise, with holes pierced in a formal pattern upon the back. The head-rests, which served for pillows, were decorated with bas-reliefs of subjects derived from the myths of Bes and Sekhet, the grimacing features of the former ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... pin, Is beauty such as VENUS owns— HER beauty is beneath her skin, And lies in layers on her bones. The other sailors of the crew They ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... in the east, The earth is gray below, And, spectral in the river-mist, The ship's white timbers show. Then let the sounds of measured stroke And grating saw begin; The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, The mallet to the pin! ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the red tie and large scarf pin bowed amiably to the two witnesses of the interview, and Mr. Carruthers, with the minister by his side, proceeded to examine the papers. "Here it is," he said, after a few minutes of painful silence, "but what in aa the warld's the meanin' o't? B.R.—B.T.—R.C.P. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... walk, Emily felt something about her feet, and looking down discovered her pantalets; she hastily stooped to pull them off and the pin scratched her foot severely. Mrs. Manvers saw all this, but said nothing; she knew that her daughter had wasted time enough to have mended all her pantalets, and she added another hour to the already long account of wasted ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... to his seat and started a quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave, elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole class were of a pattern—restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they came to recite their lessons, not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... either in the public service or otherwise, he displays it not in any richness in his toilet or in greater care of his person, but in the splendor of his jewels. One of his first purchases is a diamond-pin, which he sticks in his shirt-front, but he never sees any connection of an aesthetic kind between the linen and the pin, and will wear the latter in a very dirty shirt-front as cheerfully as in a clean one—in fact, more ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... eventful evening, when Mr. Davis came in from the town meeting, I asked him what was to be done with the tea. 'They are now throwing it overboard,' he replied. Receiving permission, I went immediately to the spot. Everything was as light as day, by the means of lamps and torches; a pin might be seen lying on the wharf. I went on board where they were at work, and took hold with my own hands. I was not one of those appointed to destroy the tea, and who disguised themselves as Indians, but was a volunteer; the disguised men being largely men of family and position in Boston, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... (moon) ending the "ou." This final sound, though sometimes accentuated for humorous effect, is usually not to be made prominent. The sound of "oi," as in voice, has the main form of "aw" as in saw, and the final form in short "i," as in pin. The vowel "u" is sounded like "oo" (moon) in a few words, as in rule, truth. Generally, it sounds about like "ew" in new or mew. In some of the forms the front of the mouth will be open, in some half ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... them. His sister Louisa, who was a more vivacious person than Elizabeth, was his chief companion and comfort. Seated at the window with her on summer evenings, he elaborated the plan of an imaginary society, a club of two, called the "Pin Society," to which all fees, assessments and fines were paid in pins,—then made by hand and much more expensive than now. He constituted himself its secretary, and wrote imaginary reports of its proceedings, in which Louisa is frequently fined for ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... stream and plunged into a shining dazzling nightmare. Where the cannon were I don't know—all a considerable distance away, I suppose, because the only sign of shell were the little breaking puffs of smoke in the blue sky with just a pin-flash of light as they broke; but really amongst that welter of wooded hill the sounds were uncanny. They'd be under one's feet, over one's head, in one's ear, up against one's stomach, straight in the small of one's back. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Church. The office is shut. I stead noiselessly down the stairs, frightened as a thief, and stand irresolutely outside the door. What should I do now? I lean up against the wall, stare down at the stones, and consider. A pin is lying glistening at my feet; I stoop and pick it up. Supposing I were to cut the buttons off my coat, how much could I get for them? Perhaps it would be no use, though buttons are buttons; but yet, I look and examine them, and find them as good as new—that was ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... collected before an enormous pin-cushion in the form of a fat star, and about the size ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... going as a personification of "The Kitchen." Her skirt was draped with dusters and dish-cloths, she wore a small dish-cover as a hat, clothes-pegs were suspended round her neck as a necklace, and she brandished a rolling-pin in her hand. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the mean while you had better take care of your pins,"—he stooped as he spoke, to pick up one at her feet and presented it with comical gravity. "You must remember you are not in England. Here you could not spend pin-money even ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... state, to take up, that he might put in his bosom, something that he had espied lying trampled under the feet of those that stand by; would you think that he would do this for an old horseshoe, or for so trivial a thing as a pin or a point? Nay, would you not even of yourselves conclude that that thing for which the prince, so great a man, should make such a stoop, must needs be a thing of very great worth? Why, this is the case of Christ and the soul. Christ is the prince, his throne is in heaven, and as he sat ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with pin-feathers and one of his thumbs ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... no bank balance," said the aspirant eagerly. "I have no debentures of any kind; I have not even pin money." ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... be so good as the bare truth. Perhaps, however, no one in particular invented some of them, but the stories grew, just as a report often does amongst yourselves. Although everybody fancies he or she is only telling just what was told to him or her, yet, by degrees, the pin's-point of a fact is covered over with lies upon lies, almost everybody adding something, until the report has grown to be a mighty falsehood. Why, you had such a story yourselves, not so very long ago, about one of your best friends! ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... like the yellow head of a nail. I scratched it with my finger, and it seemed to move. I seized it between two finger-nails, and pulled as hard as I could. It came toward me gently. It was a long gold pin which had been slipped into a hole in the wood ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... was weakly but frequently susceptible to the charms of woman, had made up his mind that if Josephine had enough pin- money she would make him an admirable wife, and he accordingly began to make love to her in his own fashion, as has been seen. A day or two earlier Joe would have laughed at him, and it would perhaps have amused her to hear what he had to say, as it amuses most young ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... with flour, and sprinkle a little on the lump of paste. Roll it out thin, quickly, and evenly, pressing on the rolling-pin very lightly. Then take the second of the four pieces of butter, and, with the point of your knife, stick it in little bits at equal distances all over the sheet of paste. Sprinkle on some flour, and fold up ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... his poems"; and finally, in the name of the Canonists and Jurisconsults, under the title "Nuptials." The first arguments were addressed to the Academy, the last one was aimed at the Cardinal. After the pin-pricks the blow with a club. A judge was needed to decide the question. Chapelain gave judgment. Corneille saw that he was doomed; the lion was muzzled, or, as was said at the time, the crow (Corneille) ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... of your body and personal appearance. Allow plenty of time for bathing, caring for your hair, nails, teeth, and clothing. Wear plain clothes if need be, but DON'T wear soiled or ragged ones. And don't ever put a pin where a hook or button ought to be. No man can continue to love a woman who ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... brace 29, inserting brace bit 37 at position 28, make a clean cut hole in centre of broad end of violin for the end pin later; and when I have inserted the label, the putting on of the belly ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... halted—and stood still. He appeared to be listening. "What's up with you?" Hamar asked. "Both you fellows are behaving like lunatics this morning—there's not a pin to choose between you." ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Mary and the St. Catherine in the parish church. But there are some things little girls know directly they are born. Catherine knows that flowers are becoming to wear, and that pretty ladies who pin nosegays in their bosoms look lovelier than ever. So she has a notion she must be very fine indeed now, carrying a nosegay bigger than her own head. Her thoughts are as bright and fragrant as her flowers. They are thoughts that cannot ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... that he was shabby,—but the man was altered rather than shabby. He still had rings on his fingers and studs in his shirt, and a jewelled pin in his cravat;—but he had shaven off his moustache and the tuft from his chin, and his hair had been cut short, and in spite of his jewellery there was a hang-dog look about him. "I've got something that I particularly want to say to you, my Lord." ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... THE ACCOUCHMENT BED.—Over the mattress place the rubber sheet so that its center will be exactly under the hips of the patient. Pin with large safety pins each corner of the rubber sheet to the mattress; now put the sheet on exactly as you do when making an ordinary bed. On top of the sheet, and in the middle of the bed (again ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... it as fresh as a new pin—St. Peter with his great key, and the rich man with his money-bag trying to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... strange noise, and in a few minutes, the rain having almost ceased, we put on our rubber boots and went out to look after the other horses. Old Browny we found in the lee of the sod house, not exactly asleep, but evidently about to take a nap. The pony had pulled up her picket-pin and retreated to a little hollow a hundred yards away. We caught her and brought her back. By the light of the lantern we found that the great stroke of lightning had struck the curb of the well, shattering it, and making a hole ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... way; she did not live far from hereabouts—ye needna shake your head and groan, Dominie; I am sure the kirk dues were a' weel paid, and what can man do mair?—it was laid till her ere she had a sark ower her head; and the man that she since wadded does not think her a pin the waur for the misfortune. They live, Mr. Mannering, by the shoreside at Annan, and a mair decent, orderly couple, with six as fine bairns as ye would wish to see plash in a saltwater dub; and little curlie Godfrey—that's ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of Charles II. humorously enough broke up as "riots," yet they had a thousand propaganda meetings (ignored by the Press) to one militant action (recorded and magnified). Even in battle nothing could be more decorous or constitutional than the overwhelming majority of their "pin-pricks." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... I've never tried to burgle with it! I've never found any moonwort. It's an exceedingly rare plant now, and it's not been my luck to come across any. If you're troubled with warts, you ought to go at sunrise to an ash tree, stick a pin ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Smerdyakov, who was footman to your late father—it was before his death, of course—and he taught the little fool a silly trick—that is, a brutal, nasty trick. He told him to take a piece of bread, to stick a pin in it, and throw it to one of those hungry dogs who snap up anything without biting it, and then to watch and see what would happen. So they prepared a piece of bread like that and threw it to Zhutchka, that shaggy ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... guineas," returned Francis, "how would it be then? He, who despises small faults will fall into great ones, but he who is faithful and honest in small matters will also be honest in great ones. He who fears to steal a pin will certainly not take a guinea. In fine, he who is faithful over a little shall be ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... and even of the wisest among us, are still in the condition of the sailor's mother — believing and disbelieving on the same grounds that she did — protesting against the flying fish, but cherishing the golden wheels. Thousands there are amongst us, who, rather than pin their faith in the one fish, would believe not only in the wheel of gold, but the chariot - not only in the chariot, but in the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... trouble Often, we would rather be hurt than hurt People who are clever never think of trying to be Queer that things which hurt most can't be punished by law Rack of secrecy, the cruelest inquisition of life Sacrifice to the god of the pin-hole Sardonic pleasure in the miseries of the world Sympathy, with curiousness in their eyes and as much inhumanity Thanked him in her heart for the things he had left unsaid There was never a grey wind but there's a greyer There is something humiliating in even an ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... going to a drawer in his desk and taking out a small engraving, which she brought me. "For nearly a month before his death he had this picture stuck up over the other with pins. You can see the pin-holes now, if you look; they went right through the canvas. I thought it a very sensible thing to do, myself; but when I spoke of it to him one day, remarking that I had always thought the picture unfit for any ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... burst and the young birds came out, they looked much as other birds look. They had large mouths and panting sides and tiny featherless bodies. Soon the pin-feathers appeared. ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... beauty do the pleadin'. I was a flamin' roarer in me time. Lovers was nothin'. Dozens! There was a sea-captain once—(She smiles dreamily, then seems to cut her throat with her little finger.) Positive! Jest 'cause we tiffed. And a stage-coach driver! I had ter cool his passion with a rollin' pin. He brooded hisself inter drink. 'Appy days! (She is lost for a moment in her glorious past, then blows her nose upon her apron and returns to us.) Duke—askin' yer pardon—I was noticin' lately that you was castin' ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... Record," and set to looking it over. He saw on the first page a picture of two rotten trees, while on these trees was suspended a jade girdle. There was also a heap of snow, and under this snow was a golden hair-pin. There were in addition these ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Ma'am; I wonder, I'm sure, how you've stood him so long; He has choked you for years—'tis a thundering shame, Ma'am! High time the Young Spark put a term to his wrong. Just look at me! Am I not trim, smart, and sparkling, As clean as a pin, and as bright as a star? Compare me with him, who stands scowling and darkling! So gazed the old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... my little friend," Cowper once wrote to Christopher Rowley; "everything that we do is in reality important, though half that we do seems to be push-pin." Here we see one of the main reasons of Cowper's eternal attractiveness. He played at push-pin during most of his life, but he did so in full consciousness of the background of doom. He trifled because he knew, if he did not trifle, he would go mad with thinking about Heaven and Hell. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... Providence, who made him do it so. But our developed intellect and keener perspicacity Has all reduced to system now and a priori rule: We've altogether ceased to trust in natural capacity, And pin alone our faith upon ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... They attacked the boar with spears, or surrounded him and drove him into nets. He was a ferocious antagonist to both dogs and men, and when sore pressed would wheel about, prepared to fight to the death. Before the dogs could grip him by the ear, his one weak point, and pin him down, his sharp teeth would often wound or even kill both the hunter and his dogs. The pluckier the animal the louder the praise sung in his honor when his head was brought into the hall. The great head, properly soused, was borne in on an immense ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... very small boy when first he went fishing. And he fished in the brook that ran through the valley below the little girl's house. His hook was only a pin, bent by his own fingers; his line, a bit of string or thread borrowed from mother's work basket; and his rod, a slender branch of willow or a green shoot from one of the trees in the orchard, or, it might be, a stalk of the ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... silence so that you could hear a pin drop. And then the wind that had been making hit the house like the blow of a fist and went screaming down the road. Deolda didn't see or hear; she was just looking at Johnny. He ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... when he was going to Munster. He made another of the wood of the druim. It broke immediately. He made one again, and it broke also. Patrick said that there should never be any implement made of the timber of that wood, which has been fulfilled, for even a pin is not made of it. Patrick's Disert is there, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... him steadily. "Human creativeness can be mined only by flotation methods. It's in low-grade ore. Process a million stupid notions and find a pin point of genius. Turn over enormous wastes of human thought and recover a golden principle. But turn your back on these mountains of low-grade material and you shut out the wealth of creative thought that is buried in them. More than ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... reply, suddenly picked up a scarf pin set with a diamond, and, tossing the old Woman a five-dollar piece, said as he left the room: "You can tell Ernestine that I ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... played this trick. He was now trying to avoid giving me any opening to tell him that it was Amulya I wanted, not him. But his stratagem was futile, for I could see his weakness through it. I must not yield up a pin's point of the ground ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... beyond the average of womenkind. She knows the advantages this match offers. Sir Charles Carew can give her a title, and a name that's as old as her own. He is a man of parts and distinction, has served the King, is familiar with the courts of Europe. I do not pin my faith to the tales that are told of him. His father was a gallant gentleman, and I am not the man to believe ill of his son. Moreover, if, as he hath half promised, he will come to Virginia, he ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... tied his canoe to a pile, and arrived at his own gangway to find Leyden at bay. Rolfe's sturdy figure barred the ladder; Bill Blunt grinned happily over the rail, tapping the wood playfully with the biggest iron belaying pin the ship afforded; while natives on deck and on the wharf looked on full of ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... with your rolling-pin, then mince them; then chuck them into a big pot with cold water, stew them an hour, and then boil them to a jelly, strain, and serve. Meantime, send up three slices of mutton half raw; we will do ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... you hang nothing upon them they will seem to stand firm; but hang a heavy weight upon them, or even give them the least jog as you pass, and the whole thing will suddenly come down. The wall is God's word, the slack pin is our faith, and the weight and the jog are the heavy burdens and the sudden shocks of life, and down our hearts go, wall and pin and suspended ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... the torch from the native woman and looked at the roof above his head. "Mustn't fetch too much down," he remarked, "and pin ourselves under ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... periscope and I went forward to the tubes. Five minutes elapsed and the order instrument bell rang, the pointer flicking to "Stand by." I personally removed the firing gear safety pin and put the repeat to "Ready." A breathless pause, then a slight shake and destruction was on its way, whilst I realized by the angle of the boat that Weissman was taking ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... all was over, returned to the cabaret where he had left his horse, and rode on. Passing through the little town of Pin a powerful-looking man, some thirty-five years old, with a quiet manner, broad forehead, and intelligent ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... I look in her different dresses. She sighs over me as I appear in a new garment, and says, O, if she only had the dressing of me! Then she gets up and limps and hops across the room to where I stand before the glass, and puts a pin here and a ribbon there, and gives my hair (which she has dressed herself) a little dab, to make it lie differently, and then scrambles back to her sofa, and knocks her lame ankle against something, and lies there groaning ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Stonehouse a pair of binoculars. For an instant she looked through them, then handed them back and continued gazing out to where the two heads appeared—when they did appear on the crest of the waves like pin-heads. The Captain said half to himself and half to ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the boon granted to thee by thy sire, the righteous Santanu, thy death, O puissant hero, depends on thy own will. I myself have not that merit in consequence of which thou hast obtained this boon. The minutest pin (inserted) within the body produces pain. What need then be said, O king, of hundreds of arrows that have pierced thee? Surely, pain cannot be said to afflict thee. Thou art competent, O Bharata, to instruct the very gods regarding the origin and dissolution of living ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... sure of having fulfilled all his obligations. The bridesmaids' eight bouquets of white lilac and lilies-of-the-valley had been sent in due time, as well as the gold and sapphire sleeve-links of the eight ushers and the best man's cat's-eye scarf-pin; Archer had sat up half the night trying to vary the wording of his thanks for the last batch of presents from men friends and ex-lady-loves; the fees for the Bishop and the Rector were safely in the pocket of his best man; his own luggage was already at Mrs. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... and etiquette allowed only silk and velvet for visits of ceremony, and though you smothered you had to obey those tyrants. At the moment when I saw him out of the corner of my eye he was sticking a cluster diamond pin into his shirt-frill and another diamond into his lace cravat. It was the first time I ever saw papa so fine, so dressed! Presently we heard him call us to arrange his queue, and although it was impossible for us to work up a club and pigeon wings like those I saw on the two young Du Clozels ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... fears. They had never looked so spick and span and prosperous within the memory of Upham, for both of them were clad in glossiest new broadcloth, of city cut, and both wore silk bell-hats, which gave them the air of London dandies. Jennings, moreover, displayed in his fine shirt-front a new diamond pin, and the Colonel stepped out with stately flourishes ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
