"Quill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be no fitting arms, the hole thus obliquely perforated, and a faucet or pipe made of a swan's or goose's quill inserted, will lead the sap into the recipient; and this is a very neat way, and as effectual: I would also have it try'd, whether the very top twigs, grasped in the hand together, a little cropt with a knife, and put into the mouth of a bottle, would not instil, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... collecting and also of revisiting old spots, often with the result of a rich harvest of bark which had been left on partly denuded trunks, and the opening up of new localities. The new shoots springing up from the old stumps have yielded much quill bark, and the root bark of the old stumps has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... exchanged by the Council and Grower nearly ate the end of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfrae the young Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the end of the book he apologizes for haste, saying that the copy was "given out to two several printers, one alone not being fully able to hold his quill a-going." ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... was looking at the timepiece on the notary's wall. The town clocks were striking the hour. A knock at the door made the notary turn, with his quill pen still indicating the space for Denise's signature. It was the dingy clerk who sat in a sort of cage in the outer office. After opening the door he stood aside, and Susini came in with glittering eyes and a defiant ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... having hitherto affected to despise all the race of her Majesty's quill drivers, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... heavenly Spirit! from this vain Reck'ning their vanity; less is their gain Than hazard still to meditate on ill, Though with good mind; their reasons like those toys Of glassy bubbles which the gamesome boys Stretch to so nice a thinness through a quill, That they themselves break, and do themselves spill. Arguing is heretics' game, and exercise, As wrestlers, perfects them. Not liberties Of speech, but silence; hands, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... our seats on either side of a long table that ran fore and aft the cabin, whose normal purpose was for the messing of the officers of the ship, but which on the present occasion was supplied with folios of foolscap paper and bundles of quill pens and bottles of ink, systematically distributed along its length, instead of the more palatable viands it more ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... an unlucky goose-quill that lay so handy,' exclaimed Ulick; 'but you may credit me, no eye but my own ever saw the scrawl, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... write of is but the child of sorrow, bred by discontentments, and nourisht vp with misfortunes, to whosc help melancholly Saturne gaue his iudgement, the night-bird her inuention, and the ominous rauen brought a quill taken from his owne wing, dipt in the inke of misery, as chiefe ayders in this architect ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... felt, he said, like a Hindoo god), to see all the cheating, and stuck a notice outside the door, "Door closed," for no earthly reason that any human being could discover. And all the morning from ten till one the quill of Wedderburn shrieked defiance at Hill's, and the quills of the others chased their leaders in a tireless pack, and so also it was in the afternoon. Wedderburn was a little quieter than usual, and Hill's face was hot all day, and his overcoat bulged with textbooks and notebooks ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... it will be so," answered John; "and if rest is what thou needest for thy recovery, it will not be lacking to thee here. It is well that the sword is not the only weapon thou lovest, but that the quill and the lore of the wise of the earth have attractions ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... an ideal substitute for a quill in the stopper of the draftsman's ink bottle. The advantage of this substitute is that there is always one handy to replace a broken or lost pen, while it is not so with the quill. —Contributed by ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... as Sir Condy, or more willing to pay every man his own as far as he was able, which is as much as any one can do. "Well," says he, joking like with Jason, "I wish we could settle it all with a stroke of my grey goose quill. What signifies making me wade through all this ocean of papers here; can't you now, who understand drawing out an account, debtor and creditor, just sit down here at the corner of the table and get it done out for me, that I may have a clear view of the balance, which is ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... not have been afraid. With the next night Hepburn came; and Kinraid did not. After a few words to her mother, Philip produced the candles he had promised, and some books and a quill or two. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... whose hands were very sore, suggested that perhaps they might break it up with gunpowder. Accordingly, a pound flask of that explosive was poured into the hole, which they closed over with wet clay and a heavy rock, leaving a quill through which ran an extemporized fuse of cotton wick. All being prepared, their fuse was lit, and they ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... wondrous wit, Such as all womankynd did far excell, Such as the world admyr'd, and praised it. So what with hope of good, and hate of ill, He me perswaded forth with him to fare. Nought tooke I with me, but mine oaten quill: Small needments else need shepheard to prepare. So to the sea we came; the sea, that is A world of waters heaped up on hie, Rolling like mountaines in wide wildernesse, Horrible, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... calculated to interest a stranger. The great galleries were still thronged—though only with men, now; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone, with the ladies. The reporters' gallery, was merely occupied by one or two watchful sentinels of the quill-driving guild; the main body cared nothing for a debate that had dwindled to a mere vaporing of dull speakers and now and then a brief quarrel over a point of order; but there was an unusually large attendance of journalists ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew—they that do not mind corn- pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill." [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... so come in the morning betimes, plum your ground, gage your line, bait your hook with a red knotted worme; but I hold a Menow better: put the hook in at the back of the Menow, betwixt the fish and the skin, that the Menow may swim up and down alive, being boyed up with a Cork or Quill, that the Menow may have liberty to swimme a foot off the ground: there is no doubt of ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker
... a pen. Agamemnon had a steel one, but Solomon John said, "Poets always used quills." Elizabeth Eliza suggested that they should go out to the poultry-yard and get a quill. But it was already dark. They had, however, two lanterns, and the little boys borrowed the neighbors'. They set out in procession for the poultry-yard. When they got there, the fowls were all at roost, so they could look at ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... bare of feathers to some distance above the tarsal joints, with three long toes to the front and one to the rear, articulated on the tarsus, the front toes free or divided to their bases; the wings of mean length and rounded, the first quill being shorter than the second, and the third and fourth the longest ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... into remorse. At the moment probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my desk, and begin soberly to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of hue, With orange-tawny bill; The throstle with his note so true: The wren with little quill; The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... workmen were some with the unmistakable lozenge eyes, high cheek-bones, and rhubarb complexion of the native American. Upon inquiry, we were introduced to one of the Rhubarbarians. He was a little fellow, not in leggings and quill-embroidered hunting-shirt, with belt of wampum and buckskin moccasins; armed with bow and arrow, tomahawk and scalping-knife; such as one would expect to navigate a wild, romantic lake with, in birch-bark canoe; but a ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... with five semi-palmated toes with short compressed claws; eyes small, with linear erect pupils; long skull with forty teeth; the orbit complete in many cases, or only slightly imperfect; the hairs are long, rigid, and ringed like the quill of a porcupine, which gives the grizzled appearance peculiar to these animals. The female has only four mammae. They are very active and sanguinary, chiefly hunting along the ground, but can climb with facility. There are several species found within the limits of British India, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... trimmed grass, and its beds of gay flowers. Broad streets separated the rows. The white spire of a church loomed proudly at the end of a street. From the doorways dark, full-bodied women smiled happily—their faces clean, and their long, black hair caught back with artistic bands of quill embroidery, as they called to the clean brown children who played light-heartedly in the grassed dooryards. Tall, lean-shouldered men, whose swarthy faces glowed with the love of their labour, toiled gladly in fields of yellow grain, or sang and called to one another in the forest where ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... obediently. Then a fat man came out of the Court House, with a quill in his hand, and a merry twinkle in his eye ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... stowed away in it, for your trouble; but don't forget to secure the casks till we can stow them away below. We can't break bulk now; but the sooner they are down the better; or we shall have some quill-driving rascal on board, with his flotsam and jetsam, for the Lord knows who;" and Thompson, to use his own expression, went down again "to lay ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... friend's humour, rummaged about until he found the stump of a quill, a penny inkbottle, and a dirty sheet of paper. These he placed on a rickety table, and Aspel wrote a scrawly note, in which he gave himself very bad names, and begged Mr Blurt to come and see him, as he had got into a scrape, and could by no means see his way out of it. Having folded ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... pen, and, with the air of complying exactly and courteously with her demand, folded the quill into three or four lengths, and placed it weltering in ink within my waistcoat pocket. I was looking intently ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... foot. His defensive armour is found in the fetid effluvium which, by a muscular exertion, he is capable of ejecting upon his pursuer. This he carries in two small sacs that lie under his tail, with ducts leading outward about as large as the tube of a goose-quill. The effluvium itself is caused by a thin fluid, which cannot be seen in daylight, but at night appears, when ejected, like a double stream of phosphoric light. He can throw it to the distance of five yards; and, knowing this, he always waits till the pursuer has fairly got within range—as ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... in my room & so wild outside that I am frightened. I have tried to make myself smart in a blue silk dressing gown & a tosh lace breakfast cap, & I will write neatly with a quill pen from the Mayfair, but just the same I am a lonely baby & I want you here to comfort me. Would you be too shocked to come? I would put a Navajo blanket on my bed & a papier mache Turkish dagger & head of Othello over my bed & pretend ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... subjects of microscopic proportions can be projected on the screen enormously magnified. During the siege of Paris in 1870-71 the Parisians established a balloon and pigeon post to carry letters which had been copied in a minute size by photography. These copies could be enclosed in a quill and attached to a pigeon's wing. On receipt, the copies were placed in a special lantern and thrown as large writing on the screen. Micro-photography has since then made great strides, and is now widely used for scientific purposes, one of the most important ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate. Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin. Bankrupt brokers, boot-blacks, blacklegs, and blacksmiths here assemble together; and cast-away tinkers, watch-makers, quill-drivers, cobblers, doctors, farmers, and lawyers compare past experiences and talk of old times. Wrecked on a desert shore, a man-of-war's crew could quickly found an Alexandria by themselves, and fill it with all the things which go to make ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... big bit of news which is going to change my whole life. Whom do you think I had a letter from last Tuesday week? From Cullingworth, no less. It had no beginning, no end, was addressed all wrong, and written with a very thick quill pen upon the back of a prescription. How it ever reached me is a wonder. This is ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... went into the ladies' parlour, and felt rather out of place among so many richly dressed females; for as I was proceeding to write a letter, a porter came in and told me that writing was not allowed in that saloon. "Freedom again," thought I. On looking round I did feel that my antiquated goose-quill and rusty-looking inkstand were rather out of place. The carpet of the room was of richly flowered Victoria pile, rendering the heaviest footstep noiseless; the tables were marble on gilded pedestals, the couches ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... frilly clothes. Now, I suppose your ideal girl wears plain tailor-made suits, and stiff white collars, and small hats without much trimming,—just a band and a quill." ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... now and then, always alone, and generally standing on the end of the ship, her green cape blowing in a gale of wind and showing a scarlet lining, her mignonette hat exchanged for a soft green thing with an upstanding scarlet quill. She was the only companionable person on board, but he did not know her and sat nowhere near her at table, an assemblage of facts that seemed to settle the matter, considering the sort of man he was and the ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... store' before I got my fall," he explained, "though if I have got to that I had better go back to England, where those fellows get a half-holiday on Saturdays and lots of bank holidays, and are in civilization at least. Perhaps if the governor saw me with a quill behind my ear, or riding down to the city on top of a 'bus, smoking a pipe, he'd do something for me for the honor of the family. But he's in a beastly humor now, and wouldn't send me a fiver to save my life. He says that I'm not worth my salt anywhere, and that he washes his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... rivulets of ink have been exhausted, and the virulence of both parties enormously augmented. Now, it must be here understood, that ink is the great missive weapon in all battles of the learned, which, conveyed through a sort of engine called a quill, infinite numbers of these are darted at the enemy by the valiant on each side, with equal skill and violence, as if it were an engagement of porcupines. This malignant liquor was compounded, by the engineer who invented it, of two ingredients, which are, gall and ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... used will depend on the kind of drawing you wish to make. In steel pens there are innumerable varieties, from the fine crow-quills to the thick "J" nibs. The natural crow-quill is a much more sympathetic tool than a steel pen, although not quite so certain in its line. But more play and variety is to be got out of it, and when a free pen drawing is wanted ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... thinking that I would come to him presently. But I, too, had to act under the god of friends. In Diego Lopez's room I found quill and ink and paper, and there I wrote a letter to Don Enrique, and finding Diego gave it to him to be given in two hours into Don Enrique's hand. Then Juan Lepe the squire changed in his own room, narrow and bare as a cell, to the clothing of Juan ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... Black ink was early used, though it is certain that it was either kept in a solid state, like India ink, or that it was of the consistency of glue, and needed the application of water before it could be used. For pens, the iron stylus, the reed, needle, and quill (though the last was not admitted without a struggle) were the common substitutes ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... him a narrow strip of paper on which, in preparation, he has jotted down a few words with his inspired quill-pen. Occasionally he looks at his notes, while he is speaking, rocking himself very slowly to and fro, and twisting his thumbs. He often hesitates, almost stutters, and sometimes even makes a slip of the tongue. He seems to be wrestling with his thoughts, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... "only it was Aladdin's Cave undergoing a wondrous 'sea change.' A poetess, who writes for the papers under the name of Melissa Mayflower, had fastened herself upon our party in some way; and I suppose she felt bound to sustain the reputation of the quill. She said the Nereids must have built that marine palace, and decorated it for a visit ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... W ... son follow'd, of congenial quill, As near the dirt and no less prone to ill. Walcot, of English heart, had English pen, Buffoon he might be, but for hire was none; Nor plumed and mounted in Professor's chair Offer'd to grin for wages at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... and they all say here you must come back—no matter how—and put matters to rights. Fred has placed the thing in my hands, and I'm thinking we'd better call out the "heavies" by turns,—for most of them stand by Trevyllian. Maurice Quill and myself sat up considering it last night; but, somehow, we don't clearly remember to-day a beautiful plan we hit upon. However, we'll have at it again this evening. Meanwhile, come over here, and let us be doing something. We ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... cigars somewhat crumpled and frayed; some matches in a gun-metal case, a silver cigar cutter, two five-dollar bills, a handful of silver chicken feed, the leather case of the eyeglasses, a couple of quill toothpicks, a gold watch with a dangling fob, a notebook and some papers. Mr. Trimm ranged these things in a neat row upon a log, like a watchmaker setting out his kit, and took swift inventory ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... little roopy was his exact expression—and it should be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a restorative. Sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although I cannot ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... crow-quill had been cut ready for use; for some time the paper with its coloured vignette had been waiting by the side of the amber writing-case; yet Edmee paid no attention to them and made no attempt to use them. The letter lay open in her lap; her feet were on the fire-dogs, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... the folk who sing or say In sonnet sad or sermon chill, "Alas, alack, and well-a-day, This round world's but a bitter pill." Poor porcupines of fretful quill! Sometimes we quarrel with our lot: We, too, are sad and careful; still We'd rather ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... passionate and frail, Doris drives an earnest quill, Athanasia takes the veil: Wiser Phyllis o'er her pail, At the heart of all romance Reading, sings to Strephon's flail:- 'Fate's a fiddler, ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... use their wings to propel themselves through the air, but the mechanism of the act we may not be able to analyze. I do not know how a butterfly propels itself against a breeze with its quill-less wings, but we know that it does do it. As its wings are neither convex nor concave, like a bird's, one would think that the upward and downward strokes would neutralize each other; but they do not. Strong winds often carry them out over large ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... himself like an officer, never thinks himself, or is thought by others, deficient in anything that constitutes the gentleman, because he happens not to be at the same time a clerk. He has from his childhood been taught to consider the quill and the sword as two distinct professions, both useful and honourable when honourably pursued; and having chosen the sword, he thinks he does quite enough in learning how to use and support it through all grades, and ought not to be expected to encroach on the profession of the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Orion, suddenly. The quill above the blue buoy nods as it lifts over the wavelets—nods again, sinks a little, jerks up, and then goes down out of sight. Orion feels the weight. 'Two pounds, if he's an ounce!' he shouts: ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... the old baronet as never baronet was plucked before; I have scarce left him the stump of a quill; I have got promissory notes in his hand to the amount of—if you like round numbers, say, thirty thousand pounds, safely deposited in my portable strong-box, alias double-clasped pocket-book. I leave ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Mr. Benny assented, looking up and biting the end of his quill. He did not understand the drift of the question. "Now and then, sir," he repeated; "when ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bust; Ninety odd in the shade as I write, I've a 'ed, and a thunderin' thust. Can't go on the trot at this tempryture, though I'm on 'oliday still; So I'll pull out my eskrytor, CHARLIE, and give you a touch of my quill. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... the flesh of the ostrich fall out in the course of a month or six weeks, or can be easily drawn out, and then a new and good feather grows in place of the old one. The reason why plucking still finds advocates is that the feathers with the entire quill bring a higher price in the market than those that have been cut ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... floor, lights up for Reuben only the cobwebbed corners, the faded roundabouts of fellow-martyrs, the dismal figures of Daboll, the shining tail-coat of Master Brummem, as he stalks up and down from hour to hour, collecting in this way his scattered thoughts for some new argumentative thrust of the quill into the sixthly or the seventhly of his next week's sermon! And the long and weary afternoons, when the sun with a mocking bounty pours through the dusty and curtainless windows to the west, lighting only again the gray and speckled roundabouts of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... was even more simple: a "quill tube," filled with fine powder, fitted into the vent. A fulminate cap was glued to the top of the tube. A pull of the lanyard caused the hammer of the cannon to strike the cap (just like a little boy's cap pistol) and start the ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... play the lute, the violin, the flageolet, the harp, the syrinx and the regals," the other replied; "also the Spanish penola that is struck with a quill, the organistrum that a wheel turns round, the wait so delightful, the rebeck so enchanting, the little gigue that chirps up on high, and the great horn ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... New York for this purpose. He was very short of funds, and this fact alone would have discouraged most young men; not so with this man. He hired a cellar; two barrels with a board across served as desk on which was an ink-stand and goose quill. The proprietor of these apartments was not only editor and manager, but reporter, cashier, book-keeper, salesman, messenger and office boy. One hour he was writing biting editorials or spicy paragraphs; the next rushing out to report a fire or some other catastrophe, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... quill from thine own wing I pluck, thy lofty fate to sing; Whilst we behold the varions fight With mingled pleasure and affright; The humbler hinds do fall to pray'r, As when an army's seen i' th' air, And the prophetick spannels run, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... of which was closed and was thus made to serve for a desk. On this were several sheets of what was then called pro patria paper, or foolscap, and most of these were very much bescribbled. An ink-horn and a sand-box completed the outfit, except for a quill in the hands of the bond-servant, which had given rise to the sound the girl had heard. Now, however, it was not writing, for the man was chewing the feather end with a look of deep thought on ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... noted that and perhaps resented it, for his face darkened. He made no comment, however, but celebrated the end of dinner in his usual manner by pushing back his chair a little, crossing his legs comfortably, and beginning a series of excavating operations with a quill toothpick which he drew from his vest pocket. Miss Ocky winced. This was the postprandial habit of his ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... made with the subclavian vein on the upper side at the place where it is joined by the left jugular vein. The thoracic duct has a length of from sixteen to eighteen inches, and is about as large around as a goose quill. The lower end terminates in an enlargement in the abdominal cavity, called the receptacle of the chyle. It is provided with valves throughout its course, in addition to one of considerable size which guards the opening into the ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... surprise). Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal son!—a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture to your mind; that will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has power to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the slightest breeze, and assisting to keep up a circulation of the air. They are fringed at their joints with short branches of long, lance-shaped leaves. We saw bamboos of all sizes, some with the cane as delicate as a small quill, yet fully ten feet long; and these were also exceedingly graceful. So also were the tree-ferns, which grew in great profusion and beauty on the sides of the hills. But the most curious and valuable tree we saw was the traveller's-tree. ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... mayor of Tours, relates incidents of the novelist's method of work, according to the report of a servant employed at the chateau of Sache: "Sometimes he would shut himself up in his room and stay there several days. Then it was that, plunged into a sort of ecstasy and armed with a crow quill, he would write night and day, abstaining from all food and merely contenting himself with decoctions of coffee which he himself prepared." [Brochure of M. le Docteur Fournier in regard to the statue of Balzac, that statue a piece of work to which M. Henry Renault—another ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Peacock, in splendour unmatch'd, Whose Ball shall be talk'd of by Birds yet unhatch'd! His praise let the Trumpeter[19] loudly proclaim, And the Goose lend her quill ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... widely from most of the other Aborigines of North America. I allude to their kind treatment of the women. The men do the laborious work, whilst their wives employ themselves in ornamenting their dresses with quill-work, and in other occupations suited to their sex. Mr. Wentzel has often known the young married men to bring specimens of their wives' needle-work to the forts, and exhibit them with much pride. Kind treatment of the fair sex being usually considered as an indication of considerable progress ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... couple of dollars. I then ripped open the print and found my first suspicions confirmed; for, underneath, the quiver was of buckskin, beautifully embroidered with red feathers and porcupine {80} quills of deep red and turquoise blue. The Indian was as much puzzled by my preference for the quill work as I was by ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... surely not hidden from view. It was the world's own fault that it could not interpret what it saw, that it imagined the little yellow monkey would never dare attack the clumsy polar-bear. Because the diplomatic quill-drivers would only see what fitted into their schemes, because they were capable only of moving in a circle about their own ideas, they could not understand the thoughts of others, and the few warning voices died away unheeded. It was not ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... seen, And ready once more at his Country's call To leave his wife, his home, his all. And I, as I thought of what he had done, And the arm-chair band (of which I am one), Elderly scribblers, who can't even drill, And are only good at driving a quill— Humbled and shamed to my inmost core I wished I could drop clean through the floor. For the tables were turned; I stood at zero, And the office boy ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... he had nothing to complain, although it barely served its purpose, like most of the inexpensive objects about him, was a charming. Italian bronze ink-stand, over whose cover wrestled the infant Hercules in the act of strangling a goose—in friendly aid of "drivers of the quill." My father wrote with a gold pen, and I can hear now, as it seems, the rapid rolling of his chirography over the broad page, as he formed his small, rounded, but irregular letters, when filling his journals, in Italy. He leaned ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... I will seek a blessing on our enterprise by taking earthly precautions to secure its success. You, prince, will use the quill of diplomacy, and I shall make ready to defend my right with a hundred thousand trusty Austrians to back me. To-night I march a portion of my men ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... dream, sometimes, of a straight scarlet collar, stiff with gold lace, around my neck, instead of this limp white cravat; and I have even brandished my quill at the office so cutlass-wise, that Titbottom has paused in his additions and looked at me as if he doubted whether I should come out quite square in my petty cash. Yet he understands it. Titbottom was born ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... dependent on daily wages, whose only capital is their skill or bodily strength—factory operatives, artisans, agricultural laborers, to whom might be added, especially in Germany, the day-laborers with the quill, the literary proletariat. This, Riehl observes, is a valid basis of economical classification, but not of social classification. In his view, the Fourth Estate is a stratum produced by the perpetual abrasion of the other great social groups; ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... Did he felicitate himself like a simple Teuton, on the wonderful learning and eloquence of his Greek-Roman secretary? Or did he laugh a royal laugh at the whole letter, and crack a royal joke at Cassiodorus and all quill-driving schoolmasters and lawyers—the two classes of men whom the Goths hated especially, and at the end to which they by their pedantries had brought imperial Rome? One would like to know. For not only was Dietrich no scholar himself, but he had a contempt for the very scholarship ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... spiritual process, and that good teachers and willing, obedient, and industrious pupils are about all that is required. As a matter of fact, just as modern business has found it necessary to install one-hundred-dollar typewriters to take the place of the penny quill pens, so must education, to be efficient, develop and employ the elaborate tools needed by new and complex modern conditions, and set aside the tools that were adequate in a simpler age. The proper teaching ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious reflexions, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All the time I was at the E.I.H. I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose quill. I cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... specimen of her needlework made for a sister-in- law, my mother. In a very small bag is deposited a little rolled up housewife, furnished with minikin needles and fine thread. In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket is enclosed a slip of paper, on which, written as with a crow quill, are these lines:— ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... annual, sending up stems to the height of ten or fifteen feet, while drooping from the top are enormous leaves three or four feet in length, and looking, as one writer has aptly said, like "great, green quill pens." It is planted in fields like corn, which in its young growth it much resembles. Each plant produces a single cluster of from eighty to one hundred or more bananas, often weighing in the aggregate as high as seventy pounds. The banana ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... is Migwan," said the next girl. "It means 'Quill Pen,' and stands for my ambition to write stories and things." She was a thoughtful-looking girl with a beautiful high forehead and large ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... the signs on Broadway. A large man of unmistakable American make, but with so little that was of New England or New York in his presence that she might not at once have thought him American, lounged toward them with a quill toothpick in the corner of his mouth. He had a jealous blue eye, into which he seemed trying to put a friendly light; his straight mouth stretched into an involuntary smile above his tawny chin-beard, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... annihilate a man by pad and pencil is indeed an art worthy of admiration. The pen of an indictment clerk is oft mightier than the sword of a Lionheart, the brain behind the subtle quill far defter than said swordsman's skill. Moreover, the ingenuity necessary to draft one of these documents is not confined to its mere successful composition, for having achieved the miraculous feat of alleging ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... hemi-ellipsoidal dome, completely covering the head, and even reaching beyond the point of the beak: the individual feathers then stand out something like the down-bearing seeds of the dandelion. Besides this, there is another ornamental appendage on the breast, formed by a fleshy tubercle, as thick as a quill and an inch and a half long, which hangs down from the neck, and is thickly covered with glossy feathers, forming a large pendant plume or tassel. This also the bird can either press to its breast, so as to be scarcely visible, or can ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... are too proud to be pleased by them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance; at least I suppose this quill I hold in my hand writes better than a peacock's would, and the peasants of Vevay, whose fields in spring time are as white with lilies as the Dent du Midi is with its snow, told me the hay was ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... rounded, every tail of every g and y and z is precisely twisted in colonial script. I think the very trouble and preparation incident to writing conduced to the finish and elegance of the penmanship. No stylographic pens were used in those days, but instead, a carefully prepared quill; and the ink was made of ink-cake or ink-powder dissolved in water; or, more troublesome still, home-made ink, tediously prepared with nutgalls, walnut or swamp maple bark, or iron filings steeped in vinegar and ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... direct progeny of the snorting war-horse. The phrase "mad as a hornet" has become a proverb. Think, then, of a brush loaded and tipped with this martial spirit of Vespa, this cavorting afflatus, this testy animus! There is more than one pessimistic "goose-quill," of course, "mightier than the sword," which, it occurs to me in my now charitable mood, might have been thus surreptitiously voudooed by the war-like hornet, and ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... Congress and a jurist of distinction. Beside him on a table were some papers, obviously of the first importance, for they were plastered with seals, a copy of Coke on Lyttleton, and an inkpot with a quill sticking out of it. His arm was lying lightly on the table, his cherubic face smiling back at its observer wherever he stood; and Tom imagined that his next move would be, after the manner of his great-great-granddaughter, ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... was permitted in the room while he was writing except an Angora cat who was allowed to bound upon the desk without rebuke, or even to perch upon the author's shoulders. Here the cat settled down contentedly, and with half-shut eyes watched the steady driving of the quill across the paper. ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... those that Schleiermacher had brought. Christina held the scroll, and placed the pen in the fingers that had lately so easily wielded the heavy sword, but now felt it a far greater effort to guide the slender quill. ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could not always be important, I nevertheless always endeavored to express them clearly and pointedly, the more so as my friend often gave me to understand what a great thing it was to write down a verse on Dutch paper, with the crow-quill and Indian ink; what time, talent, and exertion it required, which ought not to be squandered on any thing empty and superfluous. He would, at the same time, open a finished parcel, and circumstantially to explain what ought not to stand in this or that ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... sprightliness of imagination vanished at sight of an ink-bottle. With a brush his feelings were fluid, and in a company grace dwelt upon his lips; but when asked to write it out he gripped the pen as though it were a crowbar instead of a crow's-quill. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... his pipe before the cabin fire of blazing logs, while she cleared the wooden dishes. He watched her get the paper, goose-quill pen and ink as a prisoner sees the scaffold building ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... and old women for the remainder of my days. My friends, you saw which way my feather flew. I shall hold my shield in that direction, and the lightning will draw a great cloud, and this arrow, which is feathered with the quill of the white swan will make ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the last war against Great Britain "Non-Intercourse Quills" were for sale. This reminds us that most young people know but little about quills of any kind, and probably not one in a hundred knows, in these days, how to make a quill pen. Quills were in pretty general use for writing until about 1835 or 1836, when steel pens took their place to some extent, although quill pens were used by many down to a comparatively recent period, and occasionally a person may now be seen using one. Steel ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... fairy to appear was Green Feather, an elfin page or messenger, and Reginald made a perfect sprite, in his green suit, and cap with a long, green quill. ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... barely read and did not learn to write until her firstborn had gone away from the home nest. Then it was that she sharpened a gray goose-quill and labored long and patiently, practising with this instrument (said to be mightier than the sword) and with ink she herself had mixed—all that she might write a letter to her boy; and how sweetly, tenderly homely, and loving are these letters as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle's window and thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered another—an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot—to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the family, as it were, formality was dropped, and an easy atmosphere of familiarity prevailed. You read that Uncle Enoch Siller had Sundayed over at the Ridge, or that Aunt Gussy Williams was on the puny list, and frequently there were friendly references to "Ye Editor" or "Ye Quill Driver," for after soaring to dizzy heights in his editorials, Mr. Opp condescended to come down on the second page and move in and out of the columns, as ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... through the assistance of the chemist that he finally hit upon the method of staining the sheets with a thin broth of untanned leather, of which the analysis would give a result closely approaching that of the parchment itself. Moreover, he made all sorts of trials of quill pens, until he had found a method of cutting which produced the exact thickness of stroke required, and during the whole time he exercised himself in copying and recopying many pages of the manuscript upon common paper, in order to familiarise ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... writing of my master," hurriedly remarked Gino, who trembled for the fate of the packet, "you will see his skill in the turn of those letters. There are few nobles in Venice, or indeed in the Sicilies, who have a more scholarly hand, with a quill, than Don Camillo Monforte; I could not do the thing half ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to send me up a few quills, I cut out several ostrich quills, and had the pleasure, for the first time in my life, of writing with an ostrich pen. I cut several, and amused and satirized myself by writing in my journal with one quill, "James Richardson has much to learn;" with another quill, "Richardson, James, must take care of his health," &c., "Yâkob Richardson was an egregious ass to come into The Desert," &c., &c. These quills are very firm, if not fine and flexible, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... troubled up they stole To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole, Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair. As cunning stole the boy to angle there, Muffling least tread, with no noise balancing through The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo. Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill On the quicksilver water lay ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Papillotos (the Curl-papers) of Jasmin. The publication of this first volume served to make Jasmin's name popular beyond the town in which they had been composed and published. His friend M. Gaze said of him, that during the year 1825 he had been marrying his razor with the swan's quill; and that his hand of velvet in shaving was even surpassed by ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... My brethren of the quill, the ingenious society of news-writers, having with great spirit and elegance already informed the world, that the town of Tournay capitulated on the 28th instant, there is nothing left for me to say, but to congratulate the good ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... came in from canvassing, there lay upon her desk the neglected manuscript of her book, found in a bottom drawer. Before it stood a chair; beside it a drop-light. A quill pen, brand new, bright green and very gay, perched atop a fresh bottle of ink. Near-by appeared a small flat book showing an account between Esther Claff and Ruth Vars and an uptown bank. Inside, between roseate ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... head to foot in a raccoon fur coat, with a jaunty hat of the same, trimmed only with a bright quill feather. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... that conveys the urine from the kidney to the bladder is like a white, round cord, about the size of a goose quill, prolonged from the pouch on the lower surface of the kidney backward beneath the loins, then inward, supported by a fold of thin membrane, to open into the bladder just in front of its neck. The canal passes first through the middle (muscular) coat of the bladder, and then advances perceptibly ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... specimen, met with by Dr Hooker during his journey, and which he has figured and described in his beautiful work, The Rhododendron of Sikkim-Himalaya. It is called R. nivale, or snow-rhododendron. 'The hard, woody branches of this curious little species, as thick as a goose-quill, struggle along the ground for a foot or two, presenting brown tufts of vegetation where not half-a-dozen other plants can exist. The branches are densely interwoven, very harsh and woody, wholly depressed; whence the shrub, spreading horizontally, and barely raised two inches above the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... citrate of potassa in an ounce vial of clear cold water. This forms an invisible fluid. Let it dissolve, and you can use on paper of any color. Use goose quill in writing. When you wish the writing to become visible, hold it to ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... Dress repainted, but carefully, leaving the hair untouched. Right hand and pen, now a common feathered quill, entirely repainted, but dexterously and with feeling. The hand was once slightly different in position, and ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... what an effect it had upon him—that sometimes for days he would feed upon the prospect of the most childish trifle because it would break in some slight degree the uniformity of his toil. For example, he would sometimes change from quill to steel pens and back again, and he found himself actually looking forward with a kind of joy—merely because of the variation—to the day on which he had fixed to go back to the quill after using steel. He would determine, two or three days beforehand, to get up earlier, and ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held a long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a faint ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... "he could find nothing amongst us but our writings to distinguish us from the worst of barbarians." But to become an "Author by Profession," is to have no other means of subsistence than such as are extracted from the quill; and no one believes these to be so precarious as they really are, until disappointed, distressed, and thrown out of every pursuit which can maintain independence, the noblest mind is cast into the lot ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... quill-drivers,' he said contemptuously; 'but as Renan remarked to me, there is one thing to be said for a government of that sort, "Ils ne font pas la guerre." And so long as they don't run France into adventures, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had was Mrs. Freshett. My! she thought they were big and fine. Mother promised her a couple of eggs to set under a hen. Father said she was gradually coming down the scale of her feelings, and before two weeks she'd give Isaac Thomas, at least, a quill for a pen. Almost no one wrote with them any more, but often father made a few, and showed us how to use them. He said they were gone with candles, sand boxes, and snuff. Mother said she had no use for snuff, but candles were not ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... satisfaction was manifest, for I never have seen him rub the tip of his nose with the feathers of his quill pen so often as he did that afternoon, which was with him the sign of exuberant joy, all his gestures having subdued themselves long since to the limits ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... what I mean, but I am afraid it would not be polite to employ that word, so I merely give you the meaning, and leave you to choose a word to your liking—ideas about the nature, the facts, and the objects of writing. Look at it a moment. With your gray goose-quill you sit, O Rhadamanthus, and to your waiting audience pleasantly enough affirm that I have "taken Benlomond for my model." But when I happen to remember that the larger part of my book was written and printed not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... followed about, carrying the ink pot into which she frequently dipped the big quill pen. She overlooked nothing in the scantily furnished house. She even went so far as to timidly suggest that certain articles of furniture might well be replaced by more attractive ones, and he had promptly agreed. At last she announced that ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... abnormal growth of the lily family. The trunk, about 2 feet in diameter, is a spongy mass, not susceptible of treatment to which the other specimens are subjected. Its bark is an irregular stringy, knotted mass, with porcupine-quill-like leaves springing out in place of the limbs that grow from all well-regulated trees. One specimen of the yucca was sent to the museum two years ago, and though the roots and top of the tree ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... Sheykh Yussuf carrying my lantern—and was loudly hailed with a Salaam Aleykee from the old Shereef himself—who began praising the Gospel I had given him, and me at the same time. Yussuf had a little reed in his hand—the kalem for writing, about two feet long and of the size of a quill. I took it and showed it to the Bimbashee and said—'Behold the neboot wherewith we are all to be murdered by this Sheykh of the Religion.' The Bimbashee's bristly moustache bristled savagely, for he felt that the 'Arab dogs' and the Christian khanzeereh (feminine pig) ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... of Llanwddyn long before it was converted into a vast reservoir to supply Liverpool with water was that of Cynon. Of this Spirit Mr. Evans writes thus:—"Yspryd Cynon was a mischievous goblin, which was put down by Dic Spot and put in a quill, and placed under a large stone in the river below Cynon Isaf. The stone is called 'Careg yr Yspryd,' the Ghost Stone. This one received the following instructions, that he was to remain under the stone ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... OLD JOHN: I had lost you, and thought that perhaps you had gone over to the majority, until I saw your name and recognized your quill in a story. Write to me; am doing well. I send you a photograph of all there are of the Howell outfit. No half-breeds for ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... his pocket and carry something towards his mouth, as if it were a quid of tobacco: it was examined, and found to be a letter, of which the enclosed is a copy, written on silk paper, rolled up in gold-beater's skin, and nicely tied at each end, so as not to be larger than a goose quill. As this is the first authentic disclosure of their purpose in coming here, and may serve to found, with somewhat more of certainty, conjectures respecting their future movements, while their disappointment in not meeting with Lord Cornwallis ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a shepheard (though but young Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill His few yeeres could, began to fit his quill." ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... lady. She wears more "jewelry," as certain young ladies call their trinkets, than I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing and bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet which will add the missing string ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... ill Desires to reconstruct her will; I see the servants hurrying for The family solicitor; Post-haste he comes and with him brings The usual necessary things. With common form and driving quill He draws the first part of the will, The more sonorous solemn sounds Denote a hundred thousand pounds, This trifle is the main bequest, Old friends and servants take the rest. 'Tis done! I see her sign her name, I see ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... let the false outlines alone where they do not really interfere with the true one. It is a good thing to accustom yourself to hew and shape your drawing out of a dirty piece of paper. When you have got it as right as you can, take a quill pen, not very fine at the point; rest your hand on a book about an inch and a half thick, so as to hold the pen long; and go over your pencil outline with ink, raising your pen point as seldom as possible, and never leaning more ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... rattle, making, like most game, more noise than they are worth. Some get back, some dodge among the trees; the fair shots are few and far between: but Elsley blazes away right and left with trusty quill; and, to do him justice, seldom misses his aim, for practice has made him a sure and quick marksman in his own line. Moreover, all is game which gets up to-day; for he is shooting for the kitchen, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... capable of containing near two Ounces each; one situated between the vesiculae seminales and Rectum, the other between the vesiculae and Bladder, which opened into the Urethra by one common Orifice, capable of admitting a large Quill, at the Side of the caput galinaginis. The rest of the Viscera were in a ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... the emigrants gathered around me to see the scalp of the Indian; they had never seen such a sight before; each of the young ladies wanted a quill from the Indian's head dress; and they asked me what I would take for one of them; I told them the ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... idly try To show her sheaepe a-riden by, The rushes brown-bloom'd stems did ply, As if they bow'd to her by will. The rings o' water, wi' a sock, Did break upon the mossy rock, An' gi'e my beaeten heart a shock, Above my float's up-leapen quill. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... such size as to make street cars or cabs or omnibuses necessary. Time was less valuable than in our day. The merchant kept his own books, wrote all business letters with a quill pen, and waited for the ink to dry or sprinkled it with sand. There were no envelopes, no postage stamps, no letter boxes in the streets, no collection of the mails. The letter written, the paper was carefully folded, sealed with wax or a wafer, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster |
