"Rag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for that," replied the trapper, "mebbe he do be afther thinkin' discretion was the better part av valor. Ye say, he had one av his hands wrapped up in a rag, and I suspect ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... by the table, and he caught himself with his hand; his head sank and his arms shook—it looked as if he were going to collapse. Then suddenly Aniele got up and came hobbling toward him, fumbling in her skirt pocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one corner of which she had ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... each tattered rag Of that old war-rent flag Of Liberty! Flag of great Washington! Flag of brave Anderson! Flag of each mother's son Who ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... and cream coloured cows, and black hairless buffaloes, whose skins reflect the blue sky. The mud banks are brown and the water yellow, and there's bright green grass between the red mud and the soft green of the bamboos. Put in the little brown-skinned herds, one with a pink rag on his black hair, and that is as near as I can get it with the A.B.C., and there is not time nor sufficient ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... grabbed at it with both hands. It seemed like a sharp, smooth pole sticking almost upright in the water. There was a bit of rag, or marine plant of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the way, or to make his testimony incompetent for the will contest. So, when the ex-lunatic returned from Europe a year ago, our friend Honeywell here, in some way located him at the Caronia. He matured his little scheme. Through a letter broker who deals with the rag and refuse collectors, he got all the second-hand mail from the Caronia. Meantime, William Honeywell Robinson had moved away, and as chance would have it, William Hunter Robinson moved in, receiving the pinprick letters which, had they reached their goal, ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... revolvers with which all the banks are provided now. Mr. Macbean has been practising with ours, and purposely put a bullet through one of our back windows. The whole township has been chafing him about it, and the local rag has risen to a sarcastic paragraph, which is exactly what we wanted. The trap-door over the pit is now practically finished. It's too complicated to describe, but Stingaree has only to march into the bank and 'stick it up,' and the man behind the counter has ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... fore and main hatches; and comprise so extensive an area, that it much resembles the market place of a small town. The melodious sounds thence issuing, continually draw tears from the eyes of the Waisters; reminding them of their old paternal pig-pens and potato-patches. They are the tag-rag and bob-tail of the crew; and he who is good for nothing else is ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Dick, as he pranced up. "What price school! How's this for a rag? Jolly old beano, I ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... is out on the links snap goes one of his shafts, and "Confound that rotten wood!" he exclaims. But it is not a case of rotten wood at all. When shafts are constantly allowed to get wet and are afterwards merely wiped with a rag and given no further attention, all the life dries out of the wood, and they are sure to break sooner or later. It should be your invariable practice, when you have been out on a wet day, first to see that your shafts are well dried and then ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloud left in the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there were bits of plank scattered—which was the disarticulated skeleton, so to speak, of my canoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, taking advantage of two of the trees being together, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Betty suddenly, her eyes sparkling with a new idea. "Give me that old red rag we use for a duster, Mollie, and I'll go and signal ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... lee-earrings dipped into the sea, 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the head and press the middle part of the nose firmly between the fingers. Apply a cold wet cloth or a lump of ice wrapped in a cloth to the back of the neck. Put a bag of pounded ice on the root of the nose. If it does not stop in a half hour, wet a soft rag or a piece of cotton with cold tea or alum water and put it gently into the bleeding nostril so as to entirely close it. Do not blow the nose for several hours after the bleeding has stopped as this may ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... blanket, went to sleep, and so remained till roll call next morning. When I stirred I was somewhat sore and stiff, but was essentially well, and made that day's march as easily as I ever did. During this day's march we had one of the hardest showers I was ever out in. In a short time every rag on the men was drenched. Shortly after the sun came out and before halting the heat of the sun and bodies had dried everyone, and we felt as though we had been washed and ironed—thoroughly laundered. This day's march brought us to Newport News, where shipping was at anchor to transport ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... tatter'd ensigns of Rag-fair,[245] A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air;[246] Keen hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, Emblem of music caused by emptiness; Here in one bed two shivering sisters lie, The cave ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... Mr. Bumble, 'see anything like the pitch it's got to. The day afore yesterday, a man—you have been a married woman, ma'am, and I may mention it to you—a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer's door when he has got company coming to dinner; and says, he must be relieved, Mrs. Corney. As he wouldn't go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... victory was a costly one; he had made the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter in the North; he had introduced a new term, "popular sovereignty," which was to rouse the nation as a red rag rouses a bull. He had started a storm, wrote Seward, "such as this country has never yet seen." Every great newspaper editor in the North,—Greeley, Dana, Raymond, Webb, Bigelow, Weed,—broke into violent ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... next man who comes after me shall call me a liar and laugh at my pretensions? And even though I relate every fact as truly as the Holy Book itself, what will there be left of it by the time it has passed through a hundred sottish brains in Greenland yonder? I tell you, this stained rag of a cloak I wear is nearer to what it was first, than that tale will be after swinish mouths have chewed upon it a day. It is the curse of the old gods upon the heathen. And I fling my curse back at them, for the chains they have hung upon my free hands and the beast-dumbness ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... that?' sez I; 'thin I'm O'Connell the Dictator, an' by this you will larn to kape a civil tongue in your rag-box.' ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... other writings of a kindred character, is unfit for perusal by inexperienced and unsophisticated young ladies. Some of this literature is actually too vile for any one to read, and if written to-day by any poet of note would cause his works to be committed to the stove and the rag-bag in spite ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... his voice. "Your friend's this w'y." He waved his fat red hand toward the door. "Them fools back there 'll think you're tryin' for a berth with Abercrombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll not tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... have to rummage about and get up what we can. If we can't find anything that suits us exactly, we are obliged to use what we do find as well as we can. I remember, when I was a young man, an ostler was to be tried for stealing some oats in the Borough; and he did steal them too, and sold them at a rag-shop regularly. The evidence against him was as plain as a pike-staff. All I could find out was that on a certain day a horse had trod on the fellow's foot. So we put it to the jury whether the man could walk as far as the rag-shop with a bag of oats ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... scrubbed his rifle with an oily rag, and scowled. "Got both hosses saddled, and lots of ca'tridges—and Dorry ain't here yet! She promised to ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... I hope, in the future. I am tempted to risk a battle with 'The Observer.' With Cairns and O'Connor, myself, and one or two others—yourself, for instance, doctor—we might make the old rag gallop, possibly even beat ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... is reached, and drama merges again into allegory. In the wan light of the moon rag-pickers, men and women, are dragging their hooks through the slimy muck that flows through the open sewer beneath the fatal window. They sing mockingly to the moon. A flash of light from Fujiyama awakens a glimmer ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of the Lord, whether he be bond or free" (Eph 6:8). Ah! little do the people of God think, how largely and thoroughly, God will at that day, own and recompense all the good and holy acts of his people. Every bit, every drop, every rag, and every night's harbour, though but in a wisp of straw, shall be rewarded in that day before men and angels—"Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you," ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, Jest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use tools, can devise tools: with these the granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing iron as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unvarying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools: ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... Morgana, with an angry look, 'your red rag will never be still. And what was the purpose of your present travel?' ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... the lounge was a light-stand, as they called it, and on it was a very brightly polished brass candlestick and a brass tray, with snuffers. That is all I remember of her describing, except that there was a braided rag rug on the floor, and on the wall was a beautiful flowered paper—roses and morning-glories in a wreath on a light-blue ground. The same paper ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Bostonians can understand Bostonians and thoroughly sympathize with the inconsequences of the Boston mind. His theory and practice were also at variance. He professed in theory equal distrust of English thought, and called it a huge rag-bag of bric-a-brac, sometimes precious but never sure. For him, only the Greek, the Italian or the French standards had claims to respect, and the barbarism of Shakespeare was as flagrant as to Voltaire; but his theory never affected his practice. He knew that his artistic standard ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... his face, where the road ran between the summer fields, lying waveless, low, gracious in promise; but, coming to a wood of hickory and beech and walnut that stood beyond, he might turn his down-bent-hat-brim up and hold his head erect. Here the shade fell deep and cool on the green tangle of rag and iron weed and long grass in the corners of the snake fence, although the sun beat upon the road so dose beside. There was no movement in the crisp young leaves overhead; high in the boughs there was a quick ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue The crowds that rag to "Hitchy-koo" and boston to the "Barcarole". ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... you, Miss Stein!'" the quivering voice jerked out in bitter mimicry. "Up to me, indeed! And he gives me this rag bag!" ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... for if they were hers, to punish her for shirking me, by the Lord, I'd have every rag she has in the world out in the middle of the floor in ten minutes! You don't know me—I'm a terrible person when provoked—stop ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... herself, standing on the grass, while a pool of water rapidly widened round her. Alas, for the trim maiden of the morning! soaked to the skin, her lank hair clinging round her face, her collar a limp rag, the dye from her red silk tie spreading in artistic patches on her white blouse! Over all was the rich black mud of the lagoon, from brow to boot soles. Her hat, once white felt, was a sodden black-streaked mass; even her hands and face were stiff ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Bunting?" cried (when in full view 500 Our new acquaintance) Torquil. "Aught of new?" "Ey, ey!" quoth Ben, "not new, but news enow; A strange sail in the offing."—"Sail! and how? What! could you make her out? It cannot be; I've seen no rag of canvass on the sea." "Belike," said Ben, "you might not from the bay, But from the bluff-head, where I watched to-day, I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind Was light and baffling."—"When the Sun declined ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... upon some part of their bodies, and then either to lure or drive them into the forest; for by a peculiar arrangement of Mother Nature this mixture has a fascination, a maddening effect upon the Mynga Worm—just as a red rag has on a bull—and, enraged by the scent, it finds the spot smeared with it and delivers ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the jolly sailors, Lounging into port! Heave ahead, my hearties— That's your lively sort! Splendid sky above us, Merrily goes the gale. Stand by to launch away Rag ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the hunters poured volley after volley of lead into the forest. Suddenly a white rag tied to a stick was thrust out ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... column struck upon his beaver, thence spreading on all sides. His carefully starched collar became instantly as limp as a rag, while his coat suffered severely from ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... was that during the Reception the Company would stand about in little Groups, and ask each other what Books they liked, and make it something on the order of a Salon. This Plan miscarried, because all the Men wanted to hear Rag Time played by Josephine, the Life-Saver. Josephine had to yield, and the Men all clustered around her to give their Moral Support. After one or two Selections, they felt sufficiently Keyed to begin to hit up those low-down Songs about Baby and Chickens and Razors. No one paid any Attention ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... special shawl, though old. It was red, and the bright color seemed to take the child's fancy; he was never so good as when playing upon the gay old rag. His black eyes would sparkle, and his tiny fingers clutch at it, when the mother put it about him as he swayed in Abel's courageous grasp. And then Abel would spread it for him, like an eastern prayer carpet, under the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... acrobatic exhibition. The Dodo performed on the trapeze. The Mock Turtle and the Cheshire Cat took turns on a diminutive springboard. The March Hare and the Dormouse energetically jumped over a small barrel. The Queen and the Duchess had a fencing match, the Queen using her sceptre, the Duchess the rag baby she carried, and to which she had sung the "Pepper Song" at intervals during the performance. The King tossed four colored balls into the air, keeping them in motion at once. The Rabbit went on balancing his plate until it slid off his ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and most interesting part of the garden, is that devoted to wax dolls. There are other beds for the commoner dolls—for the rag dolls, and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of course wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax dolls have to be planted quite early in the season; for they need a good start before the sun is very high. The seeds ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... thumping of a rockerless chair on the floor. Presently the mother of the child came out. She blinked from the staring blue eyes which she timidly raised to Mostyn's face. Her dress was a poor drab rag of a thing which hung limply over her thin form. Her hair was tawny and drawn into a tight, unbecoming knot at the back of her head. No collar of any sort hid her sun-browned, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... a rag of meaning, Cecilia! I love your name. I love this too: this is mine, and no one can rob me ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fluttering rag vanished from sight, our lads, who had watched the latter part of this performance in silent wrath, turned to each other and ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... on to the loose crumbling soil of the margin of the rocks. He still held her by her cuff and it seemed for a moment as though she must go with him. But, on a sudden, she spurned him with her foot on the breast, the rag of cloth parted in his hand, and the poor wretch ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... gesture] downstairs, because I'm frightened of the mob, or of the window's bein' broke again, or mind what the boys in the street say. I should think not— no! It's my heart. I'm sore night and day thinkin' of my son, and him lying out there at night without a rag of dry clothing, and water that the bullocks won't drink, and maggots in the meat; and every day one of his friends laid out stark and cold, and one day—'imself perhaps. If anything were to 'appen to him. I'd never forgive meself—here. Ah! Miss Katherine, I wonder how you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in rags, and a waistcoat, of which I have managed to keep the pockets together. The others are no better off. Besides these, we have between us, for bedding, two small camel pads, some horse-hair, two or three little bits of rag, and pieces of oil-cloth saved from ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... An old rag carpet covers the floor. A wash-tub, with wash-board, clothes, etc., stand at C. Two rickety chairs are on the stage, one R.C. and one L.C., the latter a rocking-chair. The larger table is covered with a well worn red cloth and supports an ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... mother. Can I order some more jam? And Jaggers could scoff some more eggs, couldn't you, Jag? Waiter, two more poached eggs and some more strawberry jam. You see, dear, we haven't done anything exciting yet. That's all been the luck of the battle-cruisers and destroyers. They've had a topping rag—three of our term have been wounded already. But we aren't allowed to gas about what we're going to do—why, that waiter might be a German spy, for all ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Sheikh, a thin, sallow-faced man of about forty years, is reclining on a mattress in one corner smoking cigarettes; a dozen ill-conditioned ragamuffins are squatting about in various attitudes, while the rag, tag, and bobtail of the population crowd into the buffalo-stable and survey me and the bicycle from outside ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... dish-washing you will attend to the moment you have finished eating. Do not commit the fallacy of sitting down for a little rest. Better finish the job completely while you are about it. You will appreciate leisure so much more later. In lack of a wash-rag you will find that a bunch of tall grass bent double makes an ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... having glanced up and recognised the inevitable, rose to her feet, and, holding the hideous rag-doll she had been nursing, head down and dangling in one hand, she stood waiting till Dicky, after a few last perfunctory bellows, suddenly dried his eyes and held up a tear-wet face for his father to kiss. Then ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... said, "try to get a clear idea of the state of your mind. To me it seems in a great mess—chaotic as a rag-bag." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... depressed Madeleine's mind. Ratclife spared her nothing except the exposure of his own moral sores. He carefully called her attention to every leprous taint upon his neighbours' persons, to every rag in their foul clothing, to every slimy and fetid pool that lay beside their path. It was his way of bringing his own qualities into relief. He meant that she should go hand in hand with him through the brimstone lake, and the more repulsive it seemed to her, the more ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... luncheon party, for Gallows was full of guests. Everybody was very merry and bright, except Luke. Tyburn was specially elated, for his little drive with the zebras had only cost thirteen hundred altogether. There had apparently been a terrific rag the night before. While the guests were at dinner, Tyburn arranged for a number of wild beasts to be brought up from the Mammoth Circus. One was put into the bedroom of each guest to greet him or her on going to bed. No, there had been no real damage ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... which we had been recommended at Quartes was full, or else the landlady did not like our looks. I ought to say, that with our long, damp india-rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of civilization: like rag-and-bone men, the Cigarette imagined. "These gentlemen are pedlars?—Ces messieurs sont des marchands?"—asked the landlady. And then, without waiting for an answer, which I suppose she thought superfluous in so plain a case, recommended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chair by Goddard's bedside. Nothing had been disturbed in the room; the furniture had been left as it was before Lloyd's death. A feeble attempt had been made to remove the blood stains in front of the mantel; but the servant had only succeeded in spreading the stains over the rag carpet. ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... with over-much civilization. I hate the English love of land for land's sake. That line of hills, swelling in massive curves, and crowned, not with a tottering ruin, serving to hang some legendary romance or faded rag of superstition upon, but with stately trees—that is my idea ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... be indiscretion so to publish one's errors, yet there is no great danger that it pass into example and custom; for Ariston said, that the winds men most fear are those that lay them open. We must tuck up this ridiculous rag that hides our manners: they send their consciences to the stews, and keep a starched countenance: even traitors and assassins espouse the laws of ceremony, and there fix their duty. So that neither can injustice complain of incivility, nor malice of indiscretion. 'Tis pity but a ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... cool, so we drove home; and on the way, Mr. Story told us of the horrible practices of the modern Romans with their dead,—how they place them in the church, where, at midnight, they are stripped of their last rag of funeral attire, put into the rudest wooden coffins, and thrown into a trench,—a half-mile, for instance, of promiscuous corpses. This is the fate of all, except those whose friends choose to pay an exorbitant sum to ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as a last resource, the boatswain tried what a piece of colored rag might do by way of attracting some voracious fish, and having obtained from Miss Her- bey a little piece of the red shawl she wears, he fastened it to his hook. But still no success; for when, after several hours, he examined his lines, the crimson shred was still hanging ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... little maid ensconced herself in a chair near grandma's large one, with her wash-rag. Grandma took up her knitting, also, and the needles ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... misunderstanding with 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 for ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... body, as a'body kens. It wasna his ain sins, for he had nane, but oors, that caused him sufferin'; and he took them awa'—they're vainishin' even noo frae the earth, though it doesna luik like it in Rag-fair or Petticoat-lane. An' for oor sorrows—they jist garred him greit. His richteousness jist annihilates oor guilt, for it's a great gulf that swallows up and destroys 't. And sae he gae his life a ransom for us: and he is the life o' the world. He took oor sins upo' ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... of wine fifty drops, and oil of cloves ten drops, if painted over the seat of pain, will relieve neuralgia of the face, or sciatica promptly. Unhealthy sores may be cleansed, and their healing promoted, by being dressed with strips of soft rag dipped in sweet oil, to each ounce of which one or two drops of the oil of Peppermint has been added. For diphtheria, Peppermint oil has been of marked use when applied freely twice or three times in the day to the ulcerated parts of the throat. This oil, or the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... that she must fly from the life which was choking her. It was all so petty and so small. People went about sneaking into other people's homes like detectives; they turned yellow and grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, native tobacco, and the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was an event, the birth of a baby every year till the woman was forty-five was a commonplace; but the exit of a youth to a seminary to become a priest, or the entrance to the novitiate of a young girl, were matters as important as a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... having been detailed for guard-duty, walks off; his voice grows fainter and fainter in the distance, and we call forth our poet. One eye is bandaged with a dirty cotton rag. He is bareheaded, and his hair resembles a dismantled straw stack. His elbows and knees are out, and his pants, from the knee down, have a brown-toasted tinge imparted by the genial heat of many a fire. His toes protrude themselves prominently from his shoes. You would say, "What a dirty, ignorant ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... she cried to the luckless Rosa. "That is the third time thou hast spilt the chocolate. Thy hands are of wood when they should be of air. A soft bit of linen to clean them, not that coarse rag. Dios de mi alma! I shall send ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... rat Dressed up in a hat; If you saw a lamb Take a slice of ham; If you saw a bear Combing out its hair; If you saw an ox Opening a box; If you saw a pig Eat a nice new fig; If you saw a mouse Throwing down a house; If you saw a stag Picking up a rag; If you saw a cow Make a pretty bow; If you saw a fly Take its slate and cry— You would surely say, "What peculiar play!" Or would surely sing, ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... the bridge that crossed the Potomac, and then, their courage oozing out of their fingers and toes both, stopped there and waited for the return of the regulars. On the instant of their arrival, each time fetching a great hay-wagon full of captured goods, tents, picks, spades, pikes, the tag-rag and bobtail party at once set to work to help themselves to the nearest articles, and were soon seen making off homeward with their contraband of war on their backs. The plunder, however, was not confined to the captured ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... who, during a gleam of illusory sunshine yesterday, were so nonchalantly parting with their blood—of which, by the by, your bread and cucumber eating, and cold water drinking Persian has little enough, and that little thin enough at any time. These rag-bedecked, shivering wretches hop up on the raised platform where the fire is burning and squat themselves around it in the most sociable manner; and under the thawing process of passing their hands through the flames, poking the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... The rag-room was nearly deserted. The whistle had blown, and most of the girls had hurried away to their dinner. Two only lingered behind, deep in conversation; Mary Denison ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... the boys tied small pieces of white rag, so that on the next day these fluttering bits of white could be seen through field glasses by the American officers, and the full force of guns and men could be brought to bear against these weakened ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... Skeet passed me, she wiped a paw on a paint rag and offered it to me without another word. I got a grip and a look that told me there was no hang-over with her from that scene yesterday in her mother's sick-room. Vandeman was commenting on his depleted ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... you have not sat through the long black night in, a cold cell with the rats, a wet rag thrown over your lacerated back, the chains eating into your flesh like the nibbling of tiny teeth, thinking of the good people who rule England, sitting at their blazing fires or smiling round ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "Take that rag out of the way," said Mr. Harry, kicking aside the old apron I had been wrapped in, and that was stained with my blood. One of the boys stuffed it into a barrel, and then they all looked ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... two pieces, a lowel[HW:?] underskirt and a lowel[HW:?] dress, bachelor brogans and sacks and rags wrapped around my legs for stockings. That was in winter. Summer I went barefooted and wore one piece. My sun hat was a rag ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... had become chums. A chance in their freshman year had brought them together. Watts, with the refined and delicate sense of humor abounding in collegians, had been concerned with sundry freshmen in an attempt to steal (or, in collegiate terms, "rag") the chapel Bible, with a view to presenting it to some equally subtle humorists at Yale, expecting a similar courtesy in return from that college. Unfortunately for the joke, the college authorities had had the bad taste to guard against the annually attempted substitution. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... she said, leaning on her stick, the queerest rag-bag of a figure—crooked wig, rusty black dress, and an unspeakable bonnet—"you are a saint, of course, and I am a quarrelsome old sinner; I like society, and you, I believe, regard it as a grove of barren fig-trees. I don't care a rap for my neighbor if he ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thought you didn't see her at all. One of her eyes was set where her nose should be and there was an ear in its place, and her nose itself was hanging out of her chin, and she had whiskers round it. She was dressed in a red rag that was really a hole with a fringe on it, and she was singing "Oh, hush thee, my one love" to a cat that ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... flat-iron on the stove, Ellen burnt her fingers so as to make her hop. She did not cry; for she remembered her promise. Patience wet a cloth with cold water, and put it on the burn; then she remembered that common brown soap was the best thing for a burn, so she spread some soap on a cotton rag and put that on. Soon the pain was gone, and Ellen ran and told her mother what ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... and stars—hoist the rag, thou galiant sailior; go it strong as it can be mixed. For the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o'er the land of the free and the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... de —, hence. laisser, to allow, leave. lambeau, m., rag, tatter. langage, m., language. langue, f., tongue. larme, f., tear. las, -se, tired, weary. lasser, to weary, pall upon; se —, to tire, grow weary. lg-er, -re, light. lopard, m., leopard, leur, their; to them, them. lever, to lift, raise; se —, to arise. libation, f., libation ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... exclaimed the miner, "if ever I saw a rag in my shack before that would leave a white mark on anything! Say!" And he took off ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... wall ladder, push it along that narrow hallway, moving boxes aside as he went, and stop somewhere along the wall. Then he'd scramble up the ladder, pull out a bin, fumble around in it, and come out with the article in question. He'd blow the dust off it, polish it with a rag, scramble down the ladder, and say: "Here 'tis. Thought I had one. Let's go back in the back and ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... lovely lookin' from the outside with their thatched roofs, some on 'em with little bushes growin' out on the thatch and little bunches of grass growin' out under the eaves. The children of the poor are entirely naked and don't have a rag on 'em until they're ten or twelve. A lot of 'em come up to the jinrikishas and called out "oh-hi-o" to Josiah, and he shook his head and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... what do you think of a man who can play like that, and who is out on the road for a living just because he knows it's a sure thing? Music! That's my gift. And I've buried it. Why? Because the public won't take a fat man seriously. When he sits down at the piano they begin to howl for Italian rag. Why, I'd rather play the piano in a five-cent moving picture house than do what I'm doing now. But the old man wanted his son to be a business man, not a crazy, piano-playing galoot. That's the way he put it. And I was darn fool ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... of vespers, the same day, October 15th, the choir of St. Paul's took up the headless body of the prelate and conveyed it to St. Paul's, but, on being informed that he died under sentence, the body was brought to St. Clement's beyond the Temple, but was ejected; so that the naked corpse, with a rag given by the charity of a woman, was laid on the spot called 'Le Lawles Cherche,' and without any grave, lay there with those of his two esquires, without office of priest or clerk. His house was attacked, the gates burned, quantities of jewels ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... pianist has taken possession of it. He has been selected by no one in authority, elected by no committee. He has occurred, emerged from the mass of men; by virtue of some energy within him has made good his position in front of the instrument. He flogs the keys, and above the babel of talk sounds some rag-time melody, once popular, now forgotten or despised at home. Here or there a voice takes up the tune and ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... position, when I felt something tickle the top of my head. The idea that it might be a large spider caused me to start, when, stretching up my hand, it came in contact with what seemed to be a rag, which I had not observed. Getting carefully up, I perceived a faint light gleaming through the aperture, and then saw that a hand was protruded through it, apparently waving the rag. As I felt instinctively ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... clothes, that is to say so far as the dim light of the kitchen allowed him to do so. He saw nothing suspicious about the coat and trousers, but there were bloodstains on the boots. He removed them with the aid of a damp rag. But these precautions only half reassured him, for he knew that he could not see properly and that certain stains had very likely escaped him. He stood irresolute in the middle of the room, a prey to a somber, agonizing thought, the thought that he was going ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... whole of this neighborhood. Poverty, thin and wanting food to eat, stalks abroad dressed in a rag or two, armed with a staff to keep away the snarling dogs, and a ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... over to the ranch house for food for his men, and the cooking was too much for the hungry outlaws, who had had nothing to eat. They put up a dirty white rag on a gun barrel and offered to give up. One by one, they came out and were disarmed. That night was spent at the Brazil ranch, the prisoners under guard and the body of Charlie Bowdre, rolled in its blankets, outside in the wagon. The next morning, Bowdre was buried in the little cemetery next ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... the militarist it is particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally end war. The stern, strong, silent man will cease to trouble us only when we have stripped him of his last rag of pretension and touched through to the quick of his vanity with the realization of his apprehended foolishness. Literature will have failed humanity if it is so blinded by the monstrous agony in Flanders as to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... His graying hair was pulled here and there like a rag mop that's dried dirty—stiff. He had a freshly lit cigarette between his lips. He grinned nervously when he saw me, butted the cigarette, said in a thin voice, "This is it, Anders. Ship goes up in ...
— The Very Black • Dean Evans
... in fighting anything in preference to his fists and a stone tied up in a kerchief or a rag makes no mean weapon ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... tracing is like a leper in the scattering effects which he produces during his shaky promenade. He is indeed alone in the world, and brandy or gin is his only counsellor and comforter. As to character, the last rag of that goes when the first sign of indolence is seen; the watchers have eyes like cats, and the self-restrained men among them have usually seen so many fellows depart to perdition that every stage in the process of degradation is known to them. No! there is not a friend, and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... him with her wand and covered him with wrinkles, took away all his yellow hair, and withered the flesh over his whole body; she bleared his eyes, which were naturally very fine ones; she changed his clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him, and a tunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke; she also gave him an undressed deer skin as an outer garment, and furnished him with a staff and a wallet all in holes, with a twisted thong for him to ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... the amount being seventeen dollars and a few cents. A friend who was by, knowing that Lincoln was short of funds, in order to save him from embarrassment, offered to lend him the needful sum. "Hold on a minute and let's see how we come out," said he. He went to his room and returned with an old rag containing money. This he counted out, being the exact sum to a cent. It was all in small denominations of silver and copper, just as it had been received. In all his emergencies of need he had never touched this small fund which ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... some rebels bear the picture of the five wounds painted, against those who put their only hope of salvation in the wounds of Christ ... and though they do bear the image of the cross painted in a rag ... yet let no good and godly subject ... follow ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... what a spendthrift you are with your breath! I'm going to dance my dress to a rag. Did you ever think that Cinderella may have just danced her dress to rags by twelve o'clock and after all the fairy godmother had nothing to do with it? Cinderella danced every dance with the prince and perhaps he ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... had to subsist as well as they could. There was generally only one entrance to the hold, and provision for only the smallest amount of air through the gratings on the sides. The clothing of a captive, if there was any at all, consisted of only a rag about the loins. The food was half-rotten rice, yams, beans, or soup, and sometimes bread and meat; the cooking was not good, nor was any care taken to see that all were fed. Water was always limited, a pint a day being ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... like any sitting-room in a village home. The firewood was contributed, a load apiece, by the farmers of the country about, and the oil for the lamps was the common gift of the three grocery-stores. There was no carpet, but bright-colored rag rugs lay about on the bare floor, and it was a point of honor with the Ladies' Aid Society of the church to keep ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... admit him into their raucous fellowship. But, for some reason which his immature mind could not fathom, he felt a pariah even among his coevals. He could run as fast as Billy Goodge, the undisputed leader of the gang; he could dribble the rag football past him any time he desired; once he had sent him home to his mother with a bleeding nose, and, even in that hour of triumph, popular sympathy had been with Billy, not with him. It was the only problem in existence to which his fatalism did not supply the key. He knew ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... upon the joyous gathering like a wet blanket; and the young people subsided into silence until Leslie, rising to the occasion, went to the piano and started them all singing. A wicked little spirit seemed to possess her, and she picked out the most jazzy rag-time she could find, hoping to freeze out the unwelcome guest, but he sat with patient set smile, and endured it, making what he seemed to think were little pleasantries to Julia Cloud, who sat by, busy with some embroidery. She, poor lady, was divided ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... morning watching for the rag-man. I wish I had taken down a note which day it was I saw him before. I remember it was washing-day, for I had to take my hands out of the tub and wipe the suds off when Johnnie came to tell me that the rag-man ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... had to provide myself with certain necessaries for the way. These were not numerous. The silver-mounted dressing-case is here supplied by a rag containing a miswak, a bit of soap, and a comb—wooden, for bone and tortoise-shell are not, religiously speaking, correct. Equally simple was my wardrobe: a change or two of clothing. The only article of canteen description was a zemzemiyah, a goatskin water-bag, which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... had happened. On top of one of the jagged rocks, behind which they had conducted the defense that had failed, stood a ragged Yaqui Indian. To and fro, on the end of his gun, he waved not exactly a white flag, but a dirty rag that once might have been white. Objects of this hue did not long remain like the driven snow among ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... his enthusiasm. The very fact that he was summoned into the sitting room seemed ominous for that holy of holies was never used; not more than once or twice in Pee-wee's recollection had his own dusty shoes stood upon that sacred oval-shaped rag carpet. Never before had he found himself within reaching distance of that plush album that stood on its wire holder on ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... cyanide of potassium. Dissolve one ounce of the drug in a quarter of a pint of water. This will be sufficient to destroy several nests, but it is a deadly poison, and must be kept in a place of safety. Soak a piece of rag in the fluid, and lay it over the entrance to the nest. There is no occasion to run away; not a Wasp will venture out, and those which return from foraging will not lose their tempers and find yours, but at each successive attempt to enter their home they will become ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... confined so constantly to a farinaceous diet? It came over him with some force that his opinions would not yield interest, and the evaporation of this pleasing hypothesis made him feel like a man in an open boat, at sea, who should just have parted with his last rag of canvas. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... after carried off all they could lay their hands upon, and left their benefactress to her fate. They were no sooner gone than she unexpectedly recovered, and sent to have her things back again; but not one of them could she get, and she was left without a rag to her back, or a ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the doctor as a red rag to a bull. "Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "I know what I shall do with you. You are going right over to the infirmary for ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... hair;" of a garrulous one, "He has no bone in his tongue" or "His tongue is always wet;" of a spendthrift, "Water does not stand on a hillside;" and of a noble family in reduced circumstances, "It is a decayed rag, but it is silk." All these metaphors are clear, vivid and forcible, and the list of such proverbs might be almost indefinitely extended. With all their vividness of imagery, however, Caucasian sayings are sometimes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... and put his hands up to something round his head. He was now lying out in the light, with a cold bandage round his forehead, and a moist rag on ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... hanged, if you like!" was the reply; and as Mr. Taylor was not usually a man given to violent language, I understood that Miss Blake's name acted upon his temper with the same magical effect as a red rag does upon that ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... bought it secondhanded, and almost unfit for use. The curtains retained but a vague shade of their original color. The veneer was almost entirely off the bedstead. Not a single lock was in order, whether in the bureau or the secretary. The rug had become a nameless rag; and the broken springs of the sofa, cutting through the threadbare stuff, stood up threateningly ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... out, Mike, is that havin' jest had our feed we're happ'ly lethargic. Which if you'd let fly that crack about barbarians, an' us not fed none, some gent not otherwise employed 'd have seized upon you as a mop-rag wharwith to wipe up ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... ever to have seen one in the works of any of the old masters so true to nature. In conclusion, the buttons on the jacket, and the button-holes, companions thereto, would baffle the criticism of the most hyper-fastidious stab-rag; and the shirt collar, with every other detail—never forgetting the chiaro-scuro—are equal to any ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... the band of incapables who obtained power and place on the fall of Walpole. Horace Walpole, in his Memoires, calls him "that old rag of Lord Bath's quota to an ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... a family in which the patronage of singers was a tradition. Her husband, too, had a pronounced liking for literature. He was fond of books, and once paid a visit to Glastonbury to visit King Arthur's tomb. These, perhaps, are limited virtues, but Henry the Second had need of every rag. It is somewhat difficult to recognise in that King of the Prologue, "in whose heart all gracious things are rooted," the actual King who murdered Becket; who turned over picture-books at Mass, and never confessed or communicated. It is yet more difficult to perceive "joy as his handmaid" ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... out of the carriages and collected in a crowd. They saw a man lying senseless on the footway, drenched in blood, and another man standing beside him with a blood-stained rag on a stick. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... whistling in the vicinity of his cabin, but it was not from the valet's cabin that the cheery sounds proceeded. They found him in the bathroom with an oily rag, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... those poor souls lying about like rag dolls," she explained. "The only thing that keeps me sane is the hope that ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West |
