"Rag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... off." Against such pests he has also six infallible recipes—to wit, a mosquito net over the bed; sprigs of fern hung up for the flies to settle on; a bowl filled with a mixture of milk and hare's gall, or with the juice of raw onions, which will kill them; a bottle containing a rag dipped in honey, or else a string dipped in honey to hang up; fly whisks to drive them away; and closing up windows with ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... were all stalled in the next gully to ours, and one afternoon three or four of us were sitting admiring the sunset when a shell came over. It was different from that usually sent by Abdul, being seemingly formed of paper and black rag; someone suggested, too, that there was a good deal of faultiness in the powder. From subsequent inquiries we found that what we saw going over our dug-outs was Mule! A shell had burst right in one of them, and the resultant mass was what we had observed. The Ceylon Tea ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... cabin they closed the damper, fastened the window-hooks, and locked the door. But no one had thought of the broken window-pane which was only stuffed with a rag. After the showers of a couple of summers, the rag had moulded and shrunk, and, finally, a crow had succeeded in ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... was gone. "I never expected it of you," he told her coolly. "You would sooner die than admit it, simply because it would be infinitely easier for you to die. You will be false to yourself, false to Grange, false to me, rather than lower that miserable little rag of pride that made you jilt me at Simla. I didn't blame you so much then. You were only a child. You didn't understand. But that excuse won't serve you now. You are a woman, and you know what Love is. You don't call it by its name, but none ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... jumped about in the moonlight in a foolish way. For some strange reason it seemed unable to get away. Wahb's old hatred broke out. He rushed up. In a flash the Coyote bit him several times before, with one blow of that great paw, Wahb smashed him into a limp, furry rag; then broke in all his ribs with a crunch or two of his jaws. Oh, but it was good to feel the hot, bloody juices oozing between ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... have had the warden of the Minorites and the provincial of the Dominicans here this morning," he said, "about that accursed business of the rag-picker's wife. It is another example of what I told you just now, that these people attribute what they cannot understand to persons they can only dream about. They put down the whole of your miracles to a special reward for their zeal in hounding down the Carmelite and his mistress. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... gown that Madge has brought in her suit-case and a hat that she has also brought, both of which her father will easily recognize, while Madge will redden her face with rouge, muss her hair, don a torn, calico dress, and with a scrub-rag and a mop in her hands easily pass ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... and rain the wind went round to the north. Then from the N.N.W. there began a storm the like of which none of them had ever known, and for week after week they were buried in it, not knowing where they were. They lost men, tackle, stores; there was not a dry rag on the ship; every day Thorstan expected the snow. Instead of that, after a few days of sunny weather, the wind dropped in a clear sky; it began to freeze, and then came the white blanket to cling about sheets and spars, and hold them close, a blur drifting upon a sea ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... this touch of sarcasm—only just enough to show how well she could have handled that weapon if she had chosen to fight with it—Rose calmly went her way, wetted a rag, and bound up her injured hand, and then drew the ale and ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory. Its mourning was not showy, but it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... slaving at their tasks with rounded shoulders, their arms moving incessantly. Each had a flat brick blackened by hot irons near her. A soup plate filled with clean water was on the middle of the table with a moistening rag and a small brush ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... his denying himself all color, just in the little bits which an artist of inferior mind would paint in sienna and cobalt. If a piece of broken wreck is allowed to rise for an instant through the boiling foam, though the blue stripe of a sailor's jacket, or a red rag of a flag would do all our hearts good, we are not allowed to have it; it would make us too comfortable, and prevent us from shivering and shrinking as we look, and the artist, with admirable intention, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... band came streaming into town. "Now tag, rag and bobtail carry a high hand." Bacon drew up a double line before the State House and demanded that some members of the Council come out to confer with him. When Colonel Spencer and Colonel Cole appeared he told them he had come for a commission. Then he ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... which has been given to this chapter is now becoming clear, and the direction of the argument is already apparent. So far it has been my purpose to show that the archaeologist is not a rag-and-bone man, though the public generally thinks he is, and he often thinks he is himself. The attempt has been made to suggest that archaeology ought not to consist in sitting in a charnel-house amongst ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... of this or that grim flag, No angel-flags in all the rag-array— Banners the demons love, and all Hell sings And plays wild harps. Those flags march ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... extraordinary, the more incredible was it that he should have made such a difference between them. And an agonizing pang of unspeakable anguish piercing his bosom made his heart beat like a fluttering rag. Its springs seemed broken, and the blood rushed through in a flood, unchecked, tossing it ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... a noble lord was as a red rag to a bull) all but cut him for this, and we none of us approved of his swell friends, Guardsmen and others. How we've all changed, especially Z——, who hasn't missed a levee for twenty years, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... was the appearance of the tall rag-doll, the armature of which was a dead body, moving so stiffly and awkwardly with a sort of horrible parody of life, under the hands that were stripping it, while the bandages rose in heaps around it. Sometimes the bandages held in place pieces of stuff ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... it will be; be sure they are exactly square. Nothing is more trying, in a small way, than to get a diaper that cannot be folded true. These should be made double and the edges turned in and sewed around. By the time the baby has outgrown them they will be fit only for the rag- bag, and may be thrown aside. The second size diaper, also the third should be many times washed to make them soft enough for use. These may be used at first folded eight times and put under the baby next the damask diaper, between that and the pinning blanket, and will often save the nurse ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... boiling Brimstone and arsenic? We must give, I say, Unto the motives, and the stirrers up Of humours in the blood. It may be so, When as the work is done, the stone is made, This heat of his may turn into a zeal, And stand up for the beauteous discipline, Against the menstruous cloth and rag of Rome. We must await his calling, and the coming Of the good spirit. You did fault, t' upbraid him With the brethren's blessing of Heidelberg, weighing What need we have to hasten on the work, For the restoring of the silenced saints, Which ne'er will be, but by the philosopher's ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... 'I was in one of the police-courts this morning doing my work for the Evening Star. You know I report the police news for that rag, don't you? Well, I do. My column is called "The Doom of the Disorderly." Rather a good title that for a column of the kind! There didn't appear to be anything particular on, just a few ordinary ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... content herself with examining the witnesses for the prosecution. When they had testified, she rose and reviewed their testimony in a few words, pronounced it vague, confused, and of no force, then she placed the Paladin again on the stand and began to search him. His previous testimony went rag by rag to ruin under her ingenious hands, until at last he stood bare, so to speak, he that had come so richly clothed in fraud and falsehood. His counsel began an argument, but the court declined to hear it, and threw out the case, adding a few words of grave compliment for ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Sunday is not a Christian Scientist. The Christian Scientist does not cut into the grape; specialize on the elevated spheroid; devote his energies to bridge whist; cultivate the scandal microbe; join the anvil chorus, nor shake the red rag of wordy warfare. He is diligent in business, fervent in spirit, and accepts what comes without ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Melon Eaters" is known far and wide as a great masterpiece, and yet the boys were little rag-a-muffins, the pests of the market people. Murillo knew the joys and sorrows of those boys because he too at that time was very poor and hungry and no one was giving him a helping hand. Do you suppose that when he was famous ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... the room over the door-way was occupied, they were forced to go into a little cold damp cell. As there was no door to the cell, they hung up a rag to keep out the chilling night air, and they placed a pan of coals in the midst. Many Persians came and peeped into the cell; and seeing the sick men looking miserable as they lay on their carpets, the unfeeling creatures laughed at them, and no one would help them or give ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... woman learning the art is usually with her during delivery. The confined woman lies up one month, and the midwife remains in constant attendance for seven days. Each woman on confinement has a bundle given her containing articles of clothing for the infant, pieces of cloth and rag, and some nourishment, as sugar, coffee, rice and flour ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... carpenter, goldsmith, armourer, jeweller, saddler, tailor, and painter. There is extant, in Dugdale, a curious example of the character of the times, and a scale by which we can measure the public admiration of art. It is a contract between the Earl of Warwick and John Rag, citizen and tailor, London, in which the latter undertakes to execute the emblazonry of the earl's pageant in his situation of ambassador to France. In the tailor's bill, gilded griffins mingle with Virgin Marys; painted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... but righted herself as she came before the wind, and rose like a duck on the back of the angry swells. It was a fearful night, and every incident of it is photographed indelibly on my memory. There was not a rag of canvas on the ship except her heavy main-staysail, and yet one after another the topmasts splintered and fell, hampering the lower rigging and littering the deck with the wreck, the broken royals making terrible work as they whipped about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... jubilant. In the development a dance misterioso is used with faithful screaming repetitions, and the work ends regularly and brilliantly. There is much syncopation, though nothing that is strictly in "rag-time;" banjo-figurations are freely and ingeniously employed, and the whole is a splendid fiction in local color. Schoenefeld's negroes do ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... bending over him. The man had for a moment mistaken the prostrate form for a bundle of rags; but taking pity on the half-frozen lad, he placed him in his basket and carried him to his miserable home. And so the future artist commenced his professional career as a Parisian rag-picker. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... jolly of you to do gymnastics with that little beggar; he's dreadfully delicate, ain't he, not likely to live? But you're awfully cruel to me. You think no more of giving a wring to my heart than if it was a bit of rag. I think you'd like ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... it. And the station-business doesn't pay for the sheep-dip to sanctify their coffee with. It's just as I say. And accommodating? Why, if you shake a rag the train will stop in the midst of the wilderness to pick you up. All that kind of politics costs, you see. And then, besides, any town that has a good many votes and wants a fine station, gets it. Don't you overlook that Maryborough station, if you take ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Tarwater began to break. His cough had become terrible, and had not his exhausted comrades slept like the dead, he would have kept them awake nights. Also, he began to take chills, so that he dressed up to go to bed. When he had finished so dressing, not a rag of garment remained in his clothes bag. All he possessed was on his back and swathed around his ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... out of the closet her brown jug, stopped with a cork that had a rag twisted round it to make it tighter, filled a mug half full of the concoction and set it on the ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have this?" she asked at last, picking up a bit of rag from a pile of things untidily heaped on a chair. Mrs. Lang, though, was gone, and did not hear her. Jessie looked at the rag, and pondered. At last, however, the temptation to wipe off some of the dust became too much for her, and she ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... market-waggons commenced, and then the rush of the fire-brigade. Thus much by way of asking special prayer for those whom God has made willing to live in the midst of such surroundings. On the other side of the building is an empty space, known as 'Rag Fair,' filled in the morning with a horde of the poorest women selling the veriest old rubbish. We are thankful to have among these a faithful Christian woman, who, though a seller of rags, is able to testify of the great love of the ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... Edwin could see over the hedge, and also through it, on to the croquet lawn of the Orgreaves. Croquet was then in its first avatar; nothing was more dashing than croquet. With rag-balls and home-made mallets the Clayhanger children had imitated croquet in their yard in the seventies. The Orgreaves played real croquet; one of them had shone in a tournament at Buxton. Edwin noticed a figure on the gravel between the lawn and the hedge. He knew it to be Janet, by the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... ignored or sat down upon whenever possible. He once said, "I don't know a man on the press who would do me a favor. The press is a great engine, of course, but its influence is vastly overrated. It has the credit of leading public opinion, when it only follows it; and look at the rag-tag-and-bobtail that contribute to it. Even the London 'Times' only lives for a day. My books have made their way in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... of the deep window recesses Roberta had set up her entire doll family to housekeeping. She was very fond of her dolls. The mother instinct in her was developed very early. She had wax dolls and china dolls and rag dolls. Mrs. Marsden painted features on the rag dolls, and they looked very natural. There was Miss Prim and Miss Slim, Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Folly, Miss Snappy and Miss Happy, named from their different expressions. Roberta had the quaintest way of talking to her dolls. She had caught some ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... cork and immediately the water began to flow. I turned triumphantly on Mrs. Carkeek, who had grown suddenly red in the face. Her eyes were fixed on the cork in my hand. To keep it more firmly wedged in its place somebody had wrapped it round with a rag of calico print; and, discoloured though the rag was, I seemed to recall the pattern (a lilac sprig). Then, as our eyes met, it occurred to me that only two mornings before Mrs. Carkeek had worn a print gown of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to my chest, and so dark that I could not see the colour of the dirty hair that fell matted from the bald patch on the top of his skull; so familiar that I knew the feel of every little worming of rust on the iron candlestick. He wiped his face with a brown rag of handkerchief, and said: ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... with some other man. She knows how to exile him from his home with a reception or a bridge party. But when a good faithful wife makes up her virtuous mind to humble her man and declare her own supremacy, she pins an ugly rag tight over her head to keep the dust out of her hair, doubles her chin, draws her mouth into a facial command, tucks up her skirts, moves the furniture out of the living-room, dashes twelve gallons of hot suds over the floor, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... sharp arrows of sarkasm and argument through his coat armor of dignified complacency and self-esteem, for truly his idees wuz to her like a red rag to ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... with a great cry, and for an instant the whole body of combatants turned and looked at us. A strange and awful sight we must needs have presented at that moment. There was scarcely a rag upon us, our hair was long and unkempt, our shoulders were torn and bleeding from the effects of the lashes lately laid on them, and our entire aspect must have resembled that of wild beasts rather than of men. I saw Nunez turn paler as he caught sight of us, and heard the English storm of execration ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... a sick rag doll, he fitted the key into the Security lock and snapped open the bar ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... his ears open for some suggestive little incident, but the whole world seemed suddenly given over to the dreariest commonplace. He had walked out this evening, slowly revolving in his mind the various odds and ends which came upon demand of his rag-picking memory, and yet nothing of value had turned up. He was tired, and determined to take a horse-car for the rest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... whole of the newer front, and had a cheerful, cosy appearance. Its floor was covered with a tidy rag carpet, evidently of home manufacture, and its plastered walls were decorated with tasteful paper, and hung with a number of neatly framed engravings. Opposite the doorway stood a large mahogany bureau, and over it, suspended from the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Hightower from the inside of the house. "Don't set her atter me, Abe—don't, fer mercy's sake. Get her in the notion, an' she'll be a-yerkin' me aroun' thereckly like I wuz a rag-baby. I'm a-gittin' too ole fer ter be romped aroun' by a great big double-j'inted gal like Babe. Projick wi' 'er yourself, but ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... up in David's arm-chair, looked sleepily at his parents. His thumb was tightly wedged in his mouth, and with the other he held pressed against him a hideous rag doll, which had been presented to him ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with the brief, hurried entries further on. He found himself, as he had anticipated, in a society composed of some of the most heterogeneous elements. Stillwater, viewed from a certain point, was a sort of microcosm, a little international rag-fair to which nearly every country on earth had contributed one of its shabby human products. "I am moving," wrote Mr. Taggett, "in an atmosphere in which any crime is possible. I give myself seven days at the outside to light upon the traces ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... idle young beggar good. All right, Miss Gibbs, he shall give you a hand this afternoon when he gets back. He's an awfully good sort, you know, though I pretend to rag him. He's as clever as you please, and with it all as obliging and unspoilt as possible. Well, I'd better go. You can get along all ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... if I can't signal some passing boat," he thought. "It is impossible to swim to the shore, especially now when I feel as weak as a rag." ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... though it was often a mass of rags, sewed or tied together; but the poor children! It makes my heart ache to think of them. Some had a tolerably whole shirt and drawers, some had no drawers, and what was once a shirt was now a few shreds, hanging from the shoulders. Many had merely a rag, as a sort of jacket, with holes to put the arms through, and others had not a thread upon their bodies. The people seem to be almost bedless. Wherever we went, we found that the beds were a piece of carpet, or felt, or only ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... red, "she is. She gave me a rag when I cut me knee, and one day she lifted the cup down for me when Mary Deane stuck it up on a high nail, so that none of us could get drinks, and when Sister Rose said, 'Who is talking?' she said Alanna Costello wasn't 'cause she's sitting here as ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... rag'd the goddess; and, with fury fraught. The restless regions of the storms she sought, Where, in a spacious cave of living stone, The tyrant Aeolus, from his airy throne, With pow'r imperial curbs the struggling winds, And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... left me open, bare For every storm that blows; I, to bear this, That never knew but better, is some burden: Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men? They never flatter'd thee: what hast thou given? If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag, Must be thy subject; who in spite put stuff To some she-beggar and compounded thee Poor rogue hereditary. Hence! be gone! If thou hadst not been born the worst of men, Thou hadst been ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... description of a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer's home, similar to the one in which the quilting above mentioned took place: "We keep one fire in winter. This is in the kitchen which, with nice housekeepers, is the abode of neatness, with its rag carpet and brightly polished stove. Adjoining the kitchen is a state apartment, also rag-carpeted, and called 'the room.' Will you go upstairs in a neat Dutch farmhouse? There are rag carpets again. Gay quilts are on the best beds, where green and red calico, perhaps in the form ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... but they do look rather dirty, don't they? Suppose you take a rag and some scouring soap and clean up ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... you suffer. I have been for thirty years plotting to get you just where you are. It is hard for you now—it will be worse for you after awhile. It pleases me. Lie still, sir. Don't flinch or shudder. Come now, I will tear off from you the last rag of expectation. I will rend away from your soul the last hope. I will leave you bare for the beating of the storm. It is my business to strip ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... said the child. "Philip! that doll of mine that you used to know, only think! she was sick and died last summer, and went into the rag-bag. And the other split down the back, so there ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... crystals, fragments of Indian implements, small pieces of the skeletons of their proprietors, vertebrae of extinct animals, besides a great amount of miscellaneous rubbish that refused to come to terms and be classified. Thus it seemed good to the proprietor of this medical rag-bag to invite the citizens of Foxden to a series of explanatory lectures upon its varied contents. This would have done well enough, if the Doctor could only have persuaded himself to select his most interesting specimens, and read up upon them, so as to retail a little fluent information ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... and the women helped as best they might, giving their stockings as bags for grape-shot, and tearing up their clothes to bind up wounds, till they had scarcely a rag to cover them. One, the gallant wife of a private of the 32nd, Bridget Widdowson, stood, sword in hand, over a number of prisoners tied together by a rope. Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her; her gun was instantly levelled ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... Ireland, or of India, or of Egypt? Or, in this country herself, what movement of men or of women striving to be free have they welcomed with their paeans of joy? Not once have they perceived a glory in liberty's cause to-day. Wherever a rag of that torn banner fluttered, they have denounced and stamped it down, declaring it should fly no more. Their admiration and enthusiasm are reserved for a buried past, and over triumphant rebellion they will sentimentalise for ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... was furious, so that they could scarcely carry a rag of canvas, and before morning lost one of their topmasts. It was an anxious night, for they knew not if they would live through it; moreover, the hearts of Castell and of Peter were torn with fear lest the Spaniard ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... is termed a "blind alley." On each side were low doors entering the basements of the houses, and the population consisted of rag-pickers, second-hand clothiers and one pawnshop. It was just such a place as one would expect to meet the lowest types of humanity. Dirty children were playing in the half-deserted place, their blue lips and pinched faces speaking eloquently ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... regard to that amiable lady, Miss Tickle.' No misunderstanding at all. You said you liked her, and I supposed you did. And when I had been living for twenty years with a female companion, who hasn't sixpence in the world to buy a rag with but what she gets from me, was it to be expected that I should turn her out ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... up beyond high-water mark, and the waves as they ran up towards them seemed as if they were calling to them. Gaffs, oars, coiled ropes, baskets and barrels lay about in disorder and amidst it all was a cabin built of yellow branches, bark and matting. Above the general chaos floated a red rag at the extremity ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... Thyrsis began to exclaim in dismay. Thirty cents was a third of all they had to live upon for a day! And to pay it for a fool piece of rag for which they had no earthly need! So Corydon sank down in the middle of the floor and dissolved in floods of tears; and at the next trip into town the "turkey-red table-cover" was returned, and over the bare board table there were new expositions of the theory ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... did not grow in Sofi, great numbers were brought down by the river during the rains; these were eagerly collected by the Arabs, and the grave of the Faky was ornamented with selected specimens, upon which were hung small pieces of rag-like banners. The people could not explain why they were thus ornamented, but I imagine the custom had originated from the necessity of scaring the wild animals that might have exhumed ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... "Kitchener's Rag-Time Army I calls it!" growls the veteran of South African fame. "Ain't we a 'andsome lot o' pozzie wallopers? Service? We ain't never a-go'n' to see service! You blokes won't, but watch me! I'm a-go'n' to grease off out ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... understand and feel what a Conne'ticut man can do. You say Boe, Boe! like a poor benighted crittur as you are, but what do you say to that?" cried the pedlar in a triumphant voice, as he held close to the negro's nose a piece of linen rag on which he had smeared a green greasy substance bearing a strong resemblance to paste-blacking in a state of decomposition. Then, taking up the box which contained this precious compound, he put it in close proximity to the obtuse snout of the blackamoor, who made a grimace ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... picture-books should also be considered; some being in constant use, some only brought out occasionally. For the very smallest children some may be rag books, but always children should be taught to treat books carefully. The pictures on the walls ought to be changed, sometimes with the children's help, sometimes as a surprise and discovery. For ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... King Custom are as follows. First, there is Etymology, the chiffonnier, or general rag-merchant, who has made such a fortune of late years in his own business that he begins to be considered highly respectable. He gives advice which is more thought of than followed, partly on account of the fearful extremes into which ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... he realized what was going on in the building a guarded door was opened and Edipon came out, blowing his sizable nose in a scrap of rag. The creaking wheel turned and when its rotation brought Jason around again ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... travelling-cart, which is a curiosity in itself. It is a two-wheeled vehicle of the most primitive description, with long, rough poles for shafts or thills. Sometimes it is covered with a blanket, and sometimes with a white rag, under which are a few things for market, and the good wife, with sometimes one or two wee-yans; for the liege lord never fails to bring his wife to market, that she may see the things of the city. The dejected-looking ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... gathered by the disaster, considered sufficient grounds for marching her off to the handiest J. P. on a charge of attempted suicide. Mrs. M'Bean vehemently repelled the accusation. She explained that she had said her heart was broke only "because she had lost her ould hat, and every thread of a rag on her had been dhrenched and ruinated with the salt water. How could she go for to do such a sin as destroy herself, she urged, and she wid a houseful of little childer waitin' for her at home, the crathurs?" Her arguments proved convincing, and the charge ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... get voila as the French say for over there itll come handy to be able to sit down and have a dosy dos with them poilus. (That means chew the rag in English.) A poilus Mable is a French peasant girl an they say that they are very belle. (Now don't mispronounce things an get sore till you know. You pronounce that like the bell in push button. It means good lookers.) There crazy about ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... Before the war he may have been a lawyer, doctor, man of many affairs. For him it is harder than, for example, the peasant to accept a future of unending blackness spent in plaiting straw or weaving rag carpets. Under such conditions life no longer tempts him. Instead, death tempts him, and the pistol seems very ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... a-year, and no tea and sugar allowed. And then there's seven children to do for—two is down with the measles, And t'others, poor things! is half starved, and as thin as weazles; And then missus sells all the kitchen stuff!—(you don't know my trials!) And takes all the money I get at the rag-shop for ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... indoors 'and hear the rain upon the windows.' They were told of a famous inn. When they reached the carriage entry 'the rattle of many dishes fell upon their ears.' They sighted a great field of snowy table-cloth, the kitchen glowed like a forge. They made their triumphal entry, 'a pair of damp rag-and-bone men, each with a limp India-rubber bag upon his arm.' Stevenson declares that he never had a sound view of that kitchen. It seemed to him a culinary paradise 'crowded with the snowy caps of cookmen, who all turned ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... risen to her feet. She moved swiftly over to the window which gave on to a wide stoop, the roof of which was supported on well-built rag stone columns. She was more angry than her words admitted. Her fine eyes were sparkling, her delicately ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... business, tag-rag and bob-tail, soon, however, spunked out, and was the town talk for more ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... absurd interrogation, but before it is possible he should understand the answer puts another. His desire to be informed torments himself and every man of his acquaintance, which is almost every man he meets; yet, though he lives inquiring, he will die consummately ignorant. His brain is a kind of rag shop, receiving and returning nothing but rubbish. It is as difficult to affront as to get rid of him; and though you fairly bid him begone to-day, he will knock at your door, march into your house, and if possible keep you answering his unconnected fifty times answered queries tomorrow. He is the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... correspondence with our foes of Greece! His hand! his seal! The secrets of my soul, Conceal'd from all but him! All, all conspire To banish doubt, and brand him for a villain! Our schemes for ever cross'd, our mines discover'd, Betray'd some traitor lurking near my bosom. Oft have I rag'd, when their wide-wasting cannon Lay pointed at our batt'ries yet unform'd, And broke the meditated lines of war. Detested Cali, too, with artful wonder, Would shake his wily head, and closely whisper, Beware of Mustapha, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... upon his beaver, thence spreading on all sides. His carefully starched collar became instantly as limp as a rag, while his coat suffered ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... knees again, and had to sit down on the old chest. Not a word escaped his lips; a deep sigh burst from the pent-up boiler of his remorse. With an agonized countenance he seized a piece of rag which he had used as a shaving towel, and wiped away a repentant tear. His soul was subdued within him. He went to meeting, but declined officiating in any capacity, pleading a pain in his stomach as an excuse. At dinner he found it impossible to finish the remaining quarter of ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... extraordinary about that albatross, father. I allowed you to suppose that I left it as it fell, but in reality I raised it to the deck of the canoe, and then perceived a piece of rag wound round one of its legs. This I removed, and, to my utter astonishment, saw English words written on it, which I plainly made out to be: 'Save an unfortunate Englishwoman ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... South London Street of two-storeyed houses, with a Rag-and-Bone Shop at one end and a Public House at the other. Time, about four o'clock on a warm Saturday afternoon. Enter Mr. CARLTON-JERMYN, a middle-aged gentleman, in faultless get-up, who, in a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... didn't once cast his eye towards Molly, and he seemed to have no suspicion of me. When we came out I looked about me, and where do you think we were but in the dyke of the Rath of Cromogue. I was on the horse again, which was nothing but a big rag-weed, and I was in dread every minute I'd fall off; but nothing happened till I found myself in my own cabin. The king slipped five guineas into my hand as soon as I was on the ground, and thanked me, and bade me good-night. I hope I'll never see his face again. I got into bed, and couldn't sleep ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... mystical democracy was destined to survive, when every other sort of democracy was free to destroy itself. And whenever democracy destroying itself is suddenly moved to save itself, it always grasps at rag or tag of that old tradition that alone is sure of itself. Hundreds have heard the story about the mediaeval demagogue who ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... celery cut small. Put in a very small head of cabbage, cut into little pieces. If you have any objection to cabbage, substitute a larger proportion of the other vegetables. Put in also a bunch of sweet marjoram, tied up in a thin muslin rag to prevent its floating ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; with this he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest of the operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper, yellow in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first time the great being addressed his ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... hygiene, affectation, or whatever other cause, he had a scarlet handkerchief tied tightly but somewhat aslant across his brow. After these two facts had become emphatic, others appeared sufficiently important. One was that under the scarlet rag the hair was plentiful, but white as with the last snows of mortality. Another was that under the mop of white and senile hair the face was strong, handsome, and smiling, with a well-cut profile and a long cloven chin. The length ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... grateful," Alyosha interrupted suddenly, "if you could give me a clean rag to bind up my finger with. I have hurt it, and it's ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a little," she continued, lifting one hand to her hair, while with the other she endeavored to fasten a buttonless collar; "leavin' alone the vanities o' dress, it's ez much as one can do to keep a clean rag on with the children climbin' over ye. Sit by, and I'll be back in a minit." She retired to the back room, and in a few moments returned with smoothed hair and a palm-leaf broche shawl thrown over her shoulders, which not only ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... Rebecca Gibbons had traded her corn crop for a beaver skin. That piece of fur had become a much-beloved treasure to Becky. It covered her rag dolls in the daytime and served her as a blanket many ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... "To-morrow's Rag Sunday, isn't it? Let's give it him to-night—after tea. I'll write out a list of the chaps, and you can get up an address, unless Felgate will come and ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... dead the prince said: "Minister, return to the country of Damas, with a rag for your girdle, and during your last days change your conduct. If you do not know it, I am the princess Djouher-Manikam, daughter of the Sultan of Bagdad, wife of Chah Djouhou, my lord, and the sister of Minbah-Chahaz. God has stricken your ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... his appearance, holding in his hand a small earthen chatty, or pot, in which he had confined the snake, covered over with a linen rag. He exchanged a few sentences with the interpreter, who explained that "man not afraid of bite of snake, and if gentleman give him rupee, he let snake bite him—man eat herb, same as ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... all, that twopence for which Ezra toiled so miserably was to go towards the weaving of a rag carpet which his mother was making, and for which she was saving every penny. He could not lay it out in red-and-white sugar-sticks at the store. He sat there all the week, and every time there was a whir of little brown wings and the darting flash of a red breast among the ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... last fluttering rag vanished from sight, our lads, who had watched the latter part of this performance in silent wrath, turned to each ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... was turned over to the anthropological service; they had never seen anything like him. However, they easily traced his past history. He was known at Courbevois, at Asnieres and at Levallois. He lived on alms and slept in one of those rag-picker's huts near the barrier de Ternes. He had disappeared from there a ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... was to come, in this awful heat," she said to herself. "They won't be here for hours, and I will be just like a wash-rag." ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Sandy Hook Bar with so completely blank a mind as he would wish. So, at least, I found. It is not so much that the recent American invasion of London music-halls has bitten into one's brain a very definite taste of a jerking, vital, bizarre 'rag-time' civilisation. But the various and vivid comments of friends to whom the news of a traveller's departure is broken excite and predispose the imagination. That so many people who have been there should have such different and decided opinions ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... as a uniformity in type is desirable for marketing, hence the greater number of trees now being planted are of selected varieties of proved merit. Many of the seedlings have produced most excellent fruit, but a seedling has usually the disadvantage of being very full of seeds, and having a lot of rag (the indigestible fibre round the pulp) as compared with the worked varieties, which have either no seeds or very few seeds and little rag. Seedlings are also of many types, and they produce a lot of small fruit, thereby making an uneven sample, whereas worked trees produce fruit even in size ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... me beat Weedie at his game, or give me a look at the cards old Madame Beattie holds. I feel a fool. Why can't I know what they're talking about when they can kick up row enough under my very nose to make you come and rag me like this?" ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... into molten glass To cool me, when I enter'd; so intense Rag'd the conflagrant mass. The sire belov'd, To comfort me, as he proceeded, still Of Beatrice talk'd. "Her eyes," saith he, "E'en now I seem to view." From the other side A voice, that sang, did guide us, and the voice Following, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... of those dreadful North-western States and bound to be corrupt," cried Emory, triumphantly. He wished desperately that he had waited and got up his case. He spoke from sincere conviction. "There may be a rag of decency left in the older States, but the West is positively fetid. I give you my word I am speaking the truth, Betty dear, and in your own interest. If I have no more details to give you, it is because I promised ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... and puffing steam with an air of lazy comfort, as if it were smoking a cigarette. The stove had stood in the southwest corner of the room, and the room was warm with the heat of it; and the floor was white and had a strip of rag carpet reaching from the table to a corner of the stove. There was a red cloth with knotted fringe on the table, and a bed in another corner had a red-and-white patchwork spread and puffy white pillows. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... moving solitary through the evening glow, that put him in accord with the landscape's solemn beauty, retouched him with his lost magnificence. In buckskins black with filth, his blanket a tattered rag, an ancient rifle across his saddle, the undying picturesqueness of the red ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... "little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally employed outside the shop-doors of nautical instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney-coaches." All have disappeared, together with the black dolls of the rag shops and many other old-time figures. A stray highlander or two, or other figure, may survive here and there; but with very few exceptions indeed, the once abundant tobacconists' signs have disappeared from our streets ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... large visor, and, tripping quickly along with his white feet, he led me through the swinging door in the rear. In the dirty, malodorous kitchen, in the out-building, we encountered an old woman who was carefully carrying some very bad-smelling tripe, wrapped in a rag, off somewhere. From the out-building we descended into a sloping court-yard, all encumbered with small wooden buildings on lower stories of stone. The odor in this whole yard was extremely powerful. ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... touch the "Limit," he knots himself into it with odds and ends of string and has to be liberated by his ally, the cook, with a kitchen knife. Edward calls it his "garden coat," and swears he only wears it on dirty jobs, to save his new mackintosh, but nevertheless he is sincerely attached to the rag, and once attempted to travel to London to a Royal Society beano in it, and was only frustrated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... weapon, after being dipped in the blood from the wound, was to be carefully anointed, and then laid by in a cool place. In the mean time, the wound was to be duly washed with fair clean water, covered with a clean, soft, linen rag, and opened once a day to cleanse off purulent or other matter. Of the success of this treatment, says the writer of the able article on Animal Magnetism, in the twelfth volume of the "Foreign Quarterly Review," there cannot be the least ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... issued out below, and therefore are not onely glutted, that is, can dissolve no more then what they are already acting upon, but they carry up with them abundance of unctuous and sooty particles, which meeting with that rag of the Week, that is plentifully fill'd with Oyl, and onely spends it as fast as it evaporates, and not at all by dissolution or burning, by means of these steamy parts of the filterated Oyl issuing out at the sides of this ragg, and being inclos'd ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... it, sir. I have instructions to place each day's papers in a pile by itself in case they should be wanted again. There is always one week's supply in the cellar, and we sell the papers of the week before to the rag men.' ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... put "faculty," and every other talent which his mother possessed, to rout. He was an infant of moods and tenses, and those not of any regular verb. He would cry of nights, and he would be taken up of mornings, and he would not suck his thumb, nor a bundle of caraway-seed tied in a rag and dipped in sweet milk, with which the good gossips in vain endeavored to pacify him. He fought manfully with his two great fat fists the battle of babyhood, utterly reversed all nursery maxims, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... His gift of tongues would enable him better than any of us to persuade, and if need were, compel. We had left our rifles leaning by the wall at the castle entrance, and in his cartridge bag was my oil-can and rag-bag. I asked him for them, and he threw them to me rather clumsily. Trying to catch them I twisted for the second time the ankle I had hurt that morning. Fred mounted and rode out through the echoing entrance without a backward glance, and I sat ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... from Grand Rapids, and, although we have nothing against Durban, breakfast food and canned meats. We know Victoria Falls, because they have eclipsed our own Niagara Falls, and Zanzibar, farther up the Coast, is familiar through comic operas and rag-time. Of itself, the Cape to Cairo Railroad would make the East Coast known to us. But the West Coast still means that distant shore from whence the "first families" of Boston, Bristol and New Orleans exported slaves. Now, for our soap and our salad, the West Coast supplies palm oil and kernel ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... a laugh, "if you really want to know, I understand that every eighth of a mile is marked with a single small white rag; each quarter has a blue one; while the mile shows a plain red one. I hope some meddlesome fellow doesn't go to changing the signals on Brad, and make him think he's doing a record stunt. But I believe he's got some other secret sign of his ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the hands of the willing boy, and by noon all the tools had been ground, including some additional ones that his grandfather, seeing the work going so fast, had added to the pile. When all were finished, Bob wiped them off with a greasy rag, while his grandfather stood watching ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... bottle which she has picked up, and fills it with water at the fountain; and Liza takes from her pocket an apple and some sticky toffee, and perhaps one of the little ones has a bun. And then the apple is rubbed until it shines with a dirty bit of rag called a pocket-handkerchief, and they all sit down together in a row and share the things; and even the baby has a hard lump of apple stuffed into its mouth, for Liza and Bella do not mean to be unkind to their babies, for they ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... ragging! What rags, in your day, were as good as ours; as the Carrie Nation rag, for instance, when five hundred people sat through a temperance lecture and never guessed they were listening to a man ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... candles stuck into glass bottles are placed upon the table. The daily contributions of the benevolent are here disposed of; what one has, another lacks. Old coats, old boots and shoes, old gowns, are freely bartered for tobacco and gin. Women from neighboring rag-shops attend to buy, and candle-makers send their agents to collect fat and grease. Every individual brings his own food, for the proprietor of the house finds lodging only, and not board. The atmosphere reeks with the smell of herrings and fried sausages. After supper is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had to be helped out of the boat and led home; for he was, as they said, "limp as a rag;" and it was noticed that after this perilous adventure he was a much more ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... soaked to the skin in his watery hiding-place, Jeffreys roused himself and descended into the lane. Any one less abstracted could not have failed to detect the scared face of the spy shining out like a white rag from the hedge. But Jeffreys heeded nothing and strode ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... protested a voice. "He won't listen to reason. Now take that rag off your face and handle this thing yourself. It's up ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... see it as comparatively garish and violent, after the manner of the complacently approved stained-glass church-windows of the same period. I was to have my impression of Charles Kean renewed later on—ten years later, in America—without a rag of scenic reinforcement; when I was struck with the fact that no actor so little graced by nature probably ever went so far toward repairing it by a kind of cold rage of endeavour. Were he and his wife ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of his Chinese guests up the cellar-steps to the street, and sitting down on the top step began to chat in a low voice with his apparently half-intoxicated countryman. At the same time he polished about two dozen little saki-bowls with an old rag, afterwards arranging them in long rows on ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... relics of splendor; who knew what might be lying hidden in those vast hair-covered chests? They were there no longer now; for once, in an access of angry irreverence, Margaret had had them all dragged down, and had sold their contents to the rag-man, and had made by her speculation cloaks for themselves and a shawl for Frederick,—in the days when gentlemen condescended to lend to their stiff costume the graceful dignity of a dropping fold or ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... twice a week. They have pictures in their cells—and they may have musical instruments if they wish; and many a man, beside his narrow plank bed, has a strip of rag carpet made at home. Their lives are horrible—for confinement kills men's souls; and one has said ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... "You have to be a millionaire, don't you, and a great political bug, before they'd let you in? No place for poor soldiers! I have to be content with the Rag." ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Manhattanese, if he be anything of a man of the world, must confess that New York is, after all, but a Rag-Fair sort of a place, so far as the eye is concerned. I was particularly struck with this fact, even at that hour, as we went stumbling along over an atrociously bad side-walk, my eyes never at rest, as any one can imagine, after five years of absence. I could not ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... 14: It is proper to take notice, that Mr. Samwell spells the names of several persons and places differently from what is dune in the history of the voyage. For instance, Karakakooa he calls Ke, rag, e, goo, all, Terreeoboo Kariopoo, Kowrowa Kavaroah, Kaneecab areea Kaneekapo, herei, Maiha ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... love a rag torn by every wind? Their affairs were in dreadful shape; their estate mortgaged; no money anywhere. Finally his uncle sends them two thousand rubles to pay the interest on the estate. He takes it, disappears, leaves Lisa home and the baby sick—when suddenly she gets a note ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al |
