"Rag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good ship did so, and then, although there was scarcely a rag of canvas upon her, she sprang away before the ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Water Rat, gravely and firmly, "you go off upstairs at once, and take off that old cotton rag that looks as if it might formerly have belonged to some washerwoman, and clean yourself thoroughly, and put on some of my clothes, and try and come down looking like a gentleman if you can; for a more shabby, bedraggled, disreputable-looking ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... Hamel said quietly, "that St. David's Tower was going to spoil the landscape for a good many years. My property, you know, and there's the end of it. I am sick of seeing people for the last few days come down and take photographs of it for every little rag that ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... milksop, for although the wound was pretty severe, the only care he had taken was to tie it loosely up with a strip of white rag. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... been torn in the mouth of the sniper's gallery, and the sniper himself was not good to look upon, every rag of clothing having been stripped from his back and lower limbs by the bomb, while a couple of yards farther on lay the man whom ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... {235a} said truly that Lamarck's theory had never yet had the honour of being seriously discussed. It never has—not at least in connection with the name of its propounder. To mention Lamarck's name in the presence of the conventional English society naturalist has always been like shaking a red rag at a cow; he is at once infuriated; "as if it were possible," to quote from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, whose defence of Lamarck is one of the best things in his book, {235b} "that so great labour on the part of so great a naturalist should have led him to 'a fantastic conclusion' ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... the keepers. He despised it all—it was all non-existent. Their good professors, their good clergymen, their good political speakers, their good, earnest women—all the time he felt his soul was grinning, grinning at the sight of them. So many performing puppets, all wood and rag for the performance! ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... its return, the womb must be injected daily with an antiseptic solution (borax, one-half ounce, or carbolic acid, 3 drams to a quart of tepid water). If inflammation threatens, the abdomen may be bathed continuously with hot water by means of a heavy woolen rag, and large doses of opium (one-half dram) may be given twice or ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... do that," declared Ailwin. "Not a rag will he leave to anybody that you don't stow away while he is out of sight. Never did I see such perverse children as you, and so thankless for God's gifts. I should be ashamed to be no more grateful than you for what He puts ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... "Oh, don't rag and don't be facetious. If you do, I shall clear. I'm trying to talk sense, and at any rate it's what I feel. And I believe you know I'm right too." Peter was ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... get their letters 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 who knew ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... one of the poorest of the poor. A bullock-cart comes along, drawn by two lean animals with their ribs sticking out. A heavy yoke passes across their necks, but otherwise they have not a scrap of harness on them. That lean man huddled up on the pole between them, clad in a few yards of rag, prods them with a pointed stick when he wants them to go this way and that. He dares not now twist their tails till he breaks them, or keep open running sores so that he may prick them in a sensitive part, as he would have done at one time, for if he did the ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... from side to side as though she were drunk. Her knees doubled under her, and she fell with the limpness of a bundle of clothes, her head first striking against the cushions of the divan. The rest of her body remained like a rag on ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... over the wall of primeval forest surrounding the clearing on three sides. The atmosphere is heavy, and a fine spray floats in the air and covers everything with moisture. Knives rust in one's pocket, matches refuse to light, tobacco is like a sponge and paper like a rag. It had been like this for three months; no wonder malarial fever raged among the white population. Mr. Ch., after only one year's sojourn here, looked like a very sick man; he was frightfully thin and pale and very nervous; so was his wife, a delicate lady of good French family. She ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... conversation before they retired for sleep. John found here an old table made of slabs, on which for a time he pursued his work as map-maker, by the aid of a candle which he fabricated from a saucer full of grease and a rag for a wick. The others sat about in the half darkness on the floor or on ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... Should not those Gladstone girls be ready to snag themselves? and there was that Mary Talbot, did every thing she could to attract his attention but it was no go. My little Sophronia came along and took the rag off the bush. I guess they will almost die with envy. If he had waited for her father's consent we might have waited till the end of the chapter; but I took the responsibility on my shoulders and the thing is done. My daughter, the Countess of Clarendon. I like the ring of the words; but dear ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... jes git in," said Dilsey, and Dumps, with her wax baby and a rag doll for her little daughters, and a large cotton-stalk for her little boy, took a seat in the omnibus. Dilsey wheeled her up to the hotel, and Diddie ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... dragging the soul out of their systems, holding it up for slow slaughter! As for Humanity, (how Knowles lingered on that word, with a tenderness curious in so uncouth a mass of flesh!)—as for Humanity, it was a study to see it stripped and flouted and thrown out of doors like a filthy rag by this poor old Howth, a man too child-hearted to kill a spider. It was pleasanter to hear him when he defended the great Past in which his ideal truth had been faintly shadowed. How he caught the salient ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... one, two, right and left—like a little hero as he is, with all his dear mother's spirit in him. First came a crack which sent a long dusky white hat—that looked damp and deep like a well, and had a long black crape-rag twisted round it—first came a crack which sent this white hat spinning over the gentleman's cab and scattered among the crowd a vast number of things which the cabman kept in it,—such as a ball of string, a piece of candle, a comb, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lost both masts and ran aground on Gull Marsh. The tide will take her off at the full of the moon. Sambo 's been playing 'possum again. Said he'd cut his foot with his hoe so badly that he couldn't stand upon it. Said I could see that by the blood on the rag that tied it up. I made him take off the rag and wash the foot, and there wa'n't no cut there. The blood was puccoon. If he'd waited a bit he could 'a' had all he wanted to paint with, for I gave him the rope's end, lively, until Mistress Patricia heard him ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... ill-prepared meal, served on those artistic plates, as complacently as if dainty food were not a refinement; as if heavy rolls and poor bread, burnt or greasy steak, and wilted potatoes did not smack of the shanty, just as loudly as coarse crockery or rag carpet—indeed far more so; the carpet and crockery may be due to poverty, but a dainty meal or its reverse will speak volumes for innate refinement or its lack in the woman who serves it. You see by my speaking of rag carpets and dainty meals in one breath, that I do not consider good things ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... th' rag with Waffles about his hat—he's lost it again," answered Red. "He needs a guardian fer that bonnet. Th' Kid an' Salvation has jammed it in th' corral fence an' Waffles has to stand ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... close to him, and after a while he began to look at her. She greatly resembled her dead mother, and presently her face seemed to remind him of something. He unwound a string from around his neck and unfolded a little rag which was tied to it, and there was a lock of hair like Lucie's. Then he suddenly burst into tears—the first he had shed for long, long years—and the tears seemed to bring back a part of the past. Lucie took him in her arms and soothed him, while ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... said Mrs. Yorba to her daughter, "if I haven't a decent rag to my back. They think nothing of that; I was a fool not to go before. And I'm going to get well—against the time when that old fiend dies. There! I never thought I'd say that, for I was brought up in the fear ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... testimony to a miracle he is presumed to speak the truth. He lived in a mud hut somewhere about the barren hill now consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The attempt to make out that it was Saint Thomas, or the Wandering Jew who here had an interview with the Virgin Mary, and that the old rag on which the picture is painted is really a part of the cloak of Saint Thomas, is, by a very verbose proclamation of the Archbishop of Mexico, dated 25th March, 1795, pronounced a damnable heresy. I have in my possession a copy of this precious document, bearing ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... same spirit of reverence toward their country's flag!" said Uncle Teddy fervently. "It is becoming a rarer sight all the time to see a young man take off his hat to the Stars and Stripes. We have come to regard it as a sort of decorative rag, and of no more significance than any other decoration. I think it is up to you Camp Fire Girls to foster this spirit of respect for the flag among young folks. I am very glad you did this thing today, Sahwah. It was ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... brats of this last age Spoke FLETCHER perfectly in every Page. This rowz'd his Rage to be abused thus: Made's Lover mad, Lieutenant humerous. Thus Ends of Gold and Silver-men are made (As th'use to say) Goldsmiths of his owne trade; Thus Rag-men from the dung-hill often hop, And publish forth by chance a Brokers shop: But by his owne light, now, we have descri'd The drosse, from that hath beene so purely tri'd. Proteus of witt! who reads ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... hide A sigh that he converted to a laugh. He seemed to hang rather than stand there, half Ghost-like, half like a beggar's rag, clean wrung And useless on the brier where it has hung Long years a-washing by sun and ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... surgeon, being a handy fellow, and he usually carried about with him two or three odd pieces of spun-yarn for emergencies—also a lump of cotton-waste as a handkerchief, while the tail of his shirt served at all times as a convenient rag. ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... heard by the Duchesse de Chartres, who replied, loud enough to be heard, in her slow and trembling voice, that she preferred to be a "winesack" rather than a "rag-sack" (sac d guenilles) by which she alluded to the Clermont and La Choin adventure I ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... friendship too fragile to last, With pieces of dearly bought pleasures, that cost Vast fortunes of pain in the past. A fabric of passion, once ardent and bright, As tropical sunsets in spring, Was spread out before me—a terrible sight - A moth-eaten rag of a thing. ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... within reach, I thrust my hands through the bars, and in an instant tore the paper off. Unfolding it, I found in the inside three steel-spring saws, and read these words: "As soon as you have sawed away the bars, tie a white rag on the grating. On the first evening after this, when the wind is favorable, a kite will be flown to the window. Pull in the string very carefully, and you will come to a larger cord. Keep pulling ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... in the splendor of Wyoming space. Around it spread the watered fields, westward for a little way, eastward to a great distance, making squares of green and yellow crops; and the town was but a poor rag in the midst of this quilted harvest. After the fields to the east, the tawny plain began; and with one faint furrow of river lining its undulations, it stretched beyond sight. But west of the town rose the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... of four shelves. Two china pugs and a statuette of a simpering pair of children under a massive umbrella adorned this article of furniture. On the wall ticked an old-fashioned square wooden clock. The floor was concealed by a rag carpet. So much for the East. The West contributed brilliant green copper ore, flaky white tin ore, glittering white quartz ore, shining pyrites, and one or two businesslike specimens of oxygenated quartz, all of which occupied points of exhibit on the "whatnot." Over the carpet ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... 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 ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... things are like. A yard square of tough paper backed by indestructible calico—one might as well try to devour a child's rag book. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... bloody rag tied just below the young Indian's knee. He paused, supporting himself against a rock. Across his eyes, drawn and haggard with pain, flashed a look of joy that Rhoda, eying the ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one. The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us, we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How many persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.—I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... that ours are common sense methods. Anyone can see that if a head is hot and fevered the application of a cold towel is likely to lower that heat and reduce the fever. But it is no use putting a little bit of wet rag on and then saying our treatment has failed. Large towels repeatedly changed for an hour or more may be needed, and this will give more trouble than administering some dose from the chemist's shop, but the results are well worth the ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... sprawling body, and come and drawn Pomfrette inside the house. He rubbed the face and hands and ears of the unconscious man with snow till the whiteness disappeared, and, taking off the boots, did the same with the toes; after which he drew the body to a piece of rag carpet beside the stove, threw some blankets over it, and, hurrying out, cut up some fence rails, and soon had a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bay be Bicrobes, as they say, This Idfluedza pest; What batters? I bust cough—ad pay! The Doctor orders "Rest"! Bicrobes be blowed, ad Rest go hag! I'll stad this thig do bore! BARY! was that the door-bell rag? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... Ham and Frank and Ford hurried back to the other beach to find that Mrs. Kinzer had taken complete possession of that baby. Every rag of his damp things was already stripped off, and now, while Miranda lighted the "heater" and made some milk hot in a minute, the good lady began to rub the little sufferer as only a mother ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... Larry growled. "Look, Sam, as science columnist for that rag you work for you probably come in touch ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... bottle of witch hazel in his haversack, which he often found exceedingly useful. This he got out, and after warning the other that it might sting a little at first, he poured some of the extract on the lump; and then wetting a piece of rag with it, he laid this over the wound, Cale's cap ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... be expected under such circumstances, the newspapers are, with few exceptions, of the "rag" variety. Conducted for the most part by clever young fellows fresh from Coimbra, they are violent in their views and incorrect in their news, especially with regard to foreign intelligence. They have some influence, no doubt, but not so much as the same type of newspaper in France. The habitual ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... one stamping and the other tripping daintily, who effectually mimic the late partners of the dance in the most heartless manner. Another of these hideous creatures is sitting down, his head covered with a dirty rag, staring, stuttering, and mumbling, like an imbecile. His pantomime is recognized at once as a cruel mimicry of the chief penitent while at prayer, and it is universally pronounced to be a superb performance. To the Koshare nothing is sacred; all things are permitted, so ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... near that he was assured that his piece would carry that far. It actually came within thirty yards of him, and he shot it while lying prone on the ground, the graceful animal noticing nothing but the white rag that ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... than reply, for we all received notice that it was Hightum—mine came about twelve—he couldn't do other than reply, 'Yes, Miss Bracely, it is.' 'Good gracious me,' she would say, 'and I've only got this old rag on. I must go back to the Ambermere Arms, and tell my maid—for she brought a maid in that second motor—and tell my maid to put me out something tidy.' 'But that will be a great bother for you,' he would say, or something of that sort, for I don't pretend to know what he actually ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... clothes—so it is necessary to dress the sick room in garments that are suitable, convenient, and capable of being thoroughly disinfected, fumigated, or even burned if the occasion demands. Hence, expensive rugs should be replaced by rag carpets or no rug at all, while unnecessary articles and garments should be removed from ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... As the last fluttering rag vanished from sight, our lads, who had watched the latter part of this performance in silent wrath, turned to each other ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... 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 give her ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... wooden fire kept the temperature nearly up to that of boiling water. A negro, after carefully washing his hands, kept continually stirring the leaves in all directions, till their external dampness was quite evaporated, and the leaves acquired the softness of linen rag, and a small pinch of them, when rolled in the hollow of the hand, became a little ball that would not unroll. In this state the mass of tea was divided into two portions, and a negro took each and set them on a hurdle, formed of strips ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... two on the deck in sorrowful silence, Martin limping somewhat painfully, and the big man accommodating his stride to the other's progress. The brig was running before the wind, over a sun-sparkled, white capped sea; every rag she owned was spread, and the breeze snored aloft like an organ. The bosun paused at the poop break, snorted into his large red handkerchief, and pretended to inspect the drawing of the mainsail. Then, his emotion conquered, he ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... I unlocked the door of the stuffy little cabin and called the old rag-picker. He came shuffling along with his head bent, but raising his eyes as he approached me, he threw up ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... (What a woman it is!) HOW could they be worth more? Think for yourself. They are so much loss to you—so much loss, do you understand? Take any worthless, rubbishy article you like—a piece of old rag, for example. That rag will yet fetch its price, for it can be bought for paper-making. But these dead souls are good for NOTHING AT ALL. Can you name anything ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... in quite recent times. So late as 1872, at Newbury, one Mark Tuck, a devoted disciple of John Barleycorn, suffered this penalty for his misdeeds.[51] He was a rag and bone dealer, and knew well the inside of Reading jail. Notes and Queries[52] contains an account of the proceedings, and states that he was "fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in the Parish Church on Monday evening." Twenty-six years had ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... name to the completed jeu d'esprit is, ethically speaking, the least pardonable of his crimes; for when Raspe's little book was first transformed and enlarged, and then translated into German, the genial old baron found himself the victim of an unmerciful caricature, and without a rag of concealment. It is consequently not surprising to hear that he became soured and reticent before his death at Bodenwerder ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... they neither of them wore any shoes or stockings. Even the richer peasants, who possess shoes or fur-lined boots for winter use, more often than not walk barefoot in the summer, while stockings are unknown luxuries, a piece of rag ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... corner of the curtain and on the instant caught it back again. A dark form, quick and noiseless, slipped past the shadow by the yard-gate. It was Rag the mastiff, left unchained at night: and as he padded across the yard in the full moonlight, Molly saw that he was wagging ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... among individualists. "Oom Paul" Kruger was a type. A fairly familiar story will concretely illustrate what lies within and behind the race. On one occasion his thumb was nearly severed in an accident. With his pocket-knife he cut off the finger, bound up the wound with a rag, and went about ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... Shaken, I pulled a rag from my pocket and wiped blood from my mouth. I'd figured out, in Shainsa, why the mistake was logical. And here in Charin I'd been hanging around in Rakhal's old haunts, covering his old trails. Once again, mistaken ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... part of a pattern has been tooled, it is well rubbed to remove the loose gold with a slightly greasy rag, or with a piece of bottle indiarubber which has been softened in paraffin. After a time the rubber or rag may be sold to the gold-beater, who recovers the gold. To prepare indiarubber for cleaning off gold, a piece of bottle rubber is cut into small pieces and soaked ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... detached—two more are laid hold of. The piece gets rent down the middle—a rag is caught up, then another, and whatever comes to hand is sewn together in breathless haste. The effect of this stitching monomania has been, to keep constantly changing the map of Europe, to bring together, as chance ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... one ounce Red Precipitate in powder, one oz. Burgundy Pitch in powder, one lb. Hog's Lard. Melt all these ingredients over a slow fire until the ointment is formed. Stir until cold. Spread on a linen rag and ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... is a massive cup, composed of twigs, thorns, grasses, feathers, and, usually, some pieces of rag; these last often hang down in a most untidy manner. The nest is, as a rule, placed in a babool or other thorny tree, close ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... message from knight or nobleman. So incongruous was his costume that I could never tell whether kilt or trousers was the original foundation upon which it had been constructed. To his tatters add the bits of old ribbon, list, and coloured rag which he attached to his pipes wherever there was room, and you will see that he looked all flags and pennons—a moving grove of raggery, out of which came the screaming chant and drone of his instrument. When he danced, he was ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... raised from nothing! Begone, begone, begone, go, go; that I took from washing of old gauze and weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chafing-dish of starved embers, and dining behind a traver's rag, in a shop no bigger than a bird-cage. Go, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... and slip a sheet of paper under it. Then lift it carefully nearly out of the water, and arrange all the little branches naturally with the brush. Now lay the paper which contains the weed on a piece of blotting-paper: over it put a rag, so that the weed is entirely covered by it, and over that another piece of blotting-paper, and on this in turn lay another sheet of paper upon which a weed has been floated. Proceed in this manner until you have a pile ready. Place it between two boards, ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... slaves when they can scarcely keep themselves. His Excellency is very sulky. He threatens to resign his Sheikhdom. The poor Sheikh is the dirtiest, unhappiest mortal of all his people. He is without wife, family or friend; he is without a rag to cover himself, except a filthy blanket. He houses in a little dirty cabin. In looks he is a hard strong-featured man, and large of limb. I asked his Excellency what he got by his Sheikhdom, to plague him. He growled, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... head. "Only use your legs," she said. "See that you can bustle about, and bend your necks before the old Duck yonder. She's the grandest of all here; she's of Spanish blood—that's why she's so fat; and do you see? she has a red rag around her leg; that's something very, very fine, and the greatest mark of honor a duck can have: it means that one does not want to lose her, and that she's known by the animals and by men too. Hurry! hurry!—don't turn in your toes, a well brought-up duck ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the most exhaustive effort that his fireman kept up his nerve and strength. Fogg was weak and panting the last shovel full of coal he threw into the furnace, as they sighted Stanley Junction. He was as limp as a rag, and looked wretched as the ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... ways well. And when men and women are still young and inexperienced, that is one of her great cheating times. At some seasons of the year, and in some waters, to the fisherman's surprise and confusion, the fish will sometimes take his bare hook; a bit of a red rag is a deadly bait. And Madam Bubble's poorest and most perfunctory busking is quite enough for the foolish fish she angles for. And not in our salad days only, when we are still green in judgment, but even to grey hairs, this wicked witch ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... felt as if she could spring at this other woman with her gentle murmurings and soft foldings, and shake her into her own meaning of life. If her impulse had had the power of deed, Elvira Gordon's little cap of fine needle-work would have been a fiercely crumpled rag upon her decorous head, her sober bands of gray hair would have streamed like the locks of a fury, the quiet clasp of her long fingers would have been stirred with some response of indignant defence if nothing else. Madelon, with her, realized that worst balk in the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... told of regiments brave and bold, But we are the bravest in the land; We’re called the Tag-rag Band, and we rally in Queensland, We are members of the ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... chuckled, "I'm better at making rag-dolls than men, but if men-making was my trade I think I could have turned out a better job than Long. Folks say that to be wide betwixt the eyes shows sense. That may be so up to certain limits, but I'm afraid his are entirely too far apart. Why, when you set close to him ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... into the wounds, either at the moment of the accident or during the time which has since elapsed. This is done by introducing the acid of full strength into all accessible recesses of the wound by means of a piece of rag held in dressing forceps and dipped into the liquid. [Footnote: The addition of a few drops of water to a considerable quantity of the acid, induces it to assume permanently the liquid form.] This ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... 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, ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... to pale by the time he finished this speech. His mother had paled at the first mention of poor Vixen. That young lady's name acted upon Lady Jane's feelings very much as a red rag acts ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... Industries and Domestic Weavings, published by the Associated Artists, 115 East 23d Street, New York City, Mrs. Candace Wheeler has an interesting chapter on "Rag-Carpet Weaving." Her suggestions for dyeing rags apply equally to yarns and to other materials which may be used on hand looms for children. Through her kind permission I am allowed to ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... without defence. The godless soul will 'be found naked' and ashamed. All 'works of darkness,' laden with rich blossom or juicy fruit though they have seemed to be, will then be seen to be in tragic truth 'fruitless.' A life's spinning and weaving, and not a rag to cover the toiler after all! ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... we'll keep going as long as we can, then abandon the wagons, pack what we can on our animals, and make the last stages on foot. We can eat our cattle as we go along. It would be better to arrive in California without a rag to our backs than to leave our bones here; and leave them we will if ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." Doe then—and not till then—struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, "Jest so." The chief rejoined, that no man should jest so without being punished for it, and charged ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... up this rag," cried Black Paul to Clip, the fellow in command; and so saying, he handed up the old Jolly Roger on the blade of an oar. "Our noble admiral fears that if you do not that you may be captured by some of these ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... why it is," said Prudy, "but since you spoke, this cream toast makes me think of the rag-bag. Excuse me for being impolite, grandma, but where ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... in her?' said Mrs. Hauksbee. 'Do you see what I meant about the clothes falling off? If I were a man I would perish sooner than be seen with that rag-bag. And yet, she has ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... isn't. You understand—my father and her husband were brothers. They all died—everybody died but just Aunt Paula and me. So she took me away with her. And after that it was always the dreadful noise and confusion of New York, with only my one doll—black Dinah—a rag-baby. I thought," she interrupted herself wistfully, "I'd send Dinah to you when I got back to New York. ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... been wretched here. The life would have killed her, though I manage to stand it so splendidly. But servants never will put up with a little discomfort. And it's so good of you not to mind my looking anyhow, and always wearing the same old rag." Such things were said with a resolutely cheerful voice which ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Clapboards, indeed, there were still, and shingles; but doors and windows had long since been removed—by man or Time,—and through the open spaces you could see here a cupboard door, and there a stairway, and there a bit of partition wall with its faded high-coloured paper. No remnant of furniture—no rag of old clothes or calico; but in the dooryard a few garden flowers still struggled to keep their place, among daisies, thistles and burdocks. The little field was bordered with woodland, and human voice or face there was none. The sunbeams which ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... last Friday, but they do look rather dirty, don't they? Suppose you take a rag and some scouring soap and ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... curiously but made no reply. He was not wholly in his chief's confidence. He merely knew that the name of Lou Chada to Kerry was like a red rag to a bull. The handsome, cultured young Eurasian, fresh from a distinguished university career and pampered by a certain section of smart society, did not conform to Detective Sergeant Durham's idea of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... for it; 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... a habitable house left in Peronne. The sixteenth century church of St. Jean is but a relic. W. Beach Thomas wrote after the retreat that nothing was left that was valuable enough to be worth collection by a penny tinker or a rag-and-bone merchant. Foul what you cannot have, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... 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, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... little glimpses into life—hearing very likely how Monsieur B. had made off without paying his bill, or how those trunks that Madame la Comtesse C. had left eighteen months ago, as a pledge of her return, had been opened at last, and been found to contain but old clothes, fit for the rag-market; how a few francs might be advantageously added on here and there in the bill for the rich English family at the premier; how the gentleman known as No. 5 was looked upon as a suspicious character; and how Pierre the waiter had been set ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... and went proudly over the collar: for she fancied she was a steam-engine, that would go on the railroad and draw the waggons. "Rag!" said ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... You want to be invigorated, don't you? Well, I will tell you a splendid way to begin. You see that Bee-man has put down his hive and his coat with the bees in it. Just wait till he gets out of sight, and then catch a lot of those bees, and squeeze them flat. If you spread them on a sticky rag, and make a plaster, and put it on the small of your back, it will invigorate you like everything, especially if some of the bees are not ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... 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 was in ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... were made for her?" answered the father, very angry now at Kate. "You are near of a size. What will do for one is good enough for the other, and Kate may be angry and get over it, for not one rag of it all will she get, nor a penny of my money will ever go to her again. She is no daughter of mine from henceforth. That rascal has beaten me and stolen my daughter, but he gets a dowerless lass. Not a penny will ever ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... displayed, was proposed as a model to the rest of the nation. But music was grating to the prejudiced ears of the Scottish; clergy; sculpture and painting appeared instruments of idolatry the surplice was a rag of Popery; and every motion or gesture prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion. Every thing was deemed impious but their own mystical comments on the Scriptures, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... where we used to swim across the river with our clothes on our heads, because there was no bridge near, and the frequent disaster of a slip of the braces in the middle of the water, so that shirt, jacket, and trousers were soaked, and we had to lie on the grass in the broiling sun without a rag on us till everything ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... manner of the Zephyr, was inscribed, in black letters, the name "Thunderbolt," which was in accordance with Tim Bunker's taste. She was pulled by eight oars, and the redoubtable leader of the gang sat in the stern-sheets as coxswain. Forward floated a blue cotton rag, with the letter "T" daubed upon it in white paint, and surrounded by half a dozen ill-shaped stars. At the stern was a ragged piece of bunting, which had once been the flag of the Republic, but which had been ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... head in answer, when swift came one from the pariah. He searched in his bosom, under the tattered waist, drew out the rag-wound paper and handed it to ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... candidate were popular, and, in view of the serious factional disputes among the Democrats, the Republicans seemed likely to make good their boast that victory would be so easy that they could nominate and elect a "rag baby" if they chose. The redoubtable Hanna was appointed chairman of the National Republican Committee, from which office he was to direct the campaign. McKinley still believed that the contest would be of the old-fashioned sort and that it would turn on the tariff, despite the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... and took a seat near the rear door. A number of half-grown white boys were on the rear platform and felt inclined to contribute their share of discomfort to the newly discovered Negro woman. They hummed over and over again the "rag time" song. "Coon, coon, coon, I wish my ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... children. But when they're out, you know how the money goes if they don't want to look mean beside their companions. Anna's one of those who can spend all they get on clothes. She's willing enough to do without, but she never has a farthing, and hardly a rag to her body, for all that she's ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the Shepherd's Bride," exhibited part of the tall of Balaam's ass, the helm of Noah's ark, and the tartan plaid in which Flora McDonald wrapped Prince Charlie. More select entertainment, such as Shuffle Kitty's wax-work, whose motto was, "A rag to pay, and in you go," were given in a hall whose approach was by an outside stair. On the Muckle Friday, the fair for which children storing their pocket-money would accumulate sevenpence halfpenny in less than six months, the square was crammed with gingerbread stalls, bag-pipers, fiddlers, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... therefore there was no light in the back room of the Spafford house that night for any watching eyes to ponder over. He threw himself upon the bed. He was weary in body yet his soul seemed buoyant as a bird in the morning air. The moon was casting long bars of silver across the rag carpet and white counterpane. It was almost full moon. Yes, to-morrow it would be entirely full. It was full moon the night he had met Marcia down by the gate, and kissed her. It was the first time he had thought of that kiss with anything but pain. It ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... devils! Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell! Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins! Thou rag ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... public meetings, dinners, etc., thereby escaping bores and getting time for real work; the Brick Moon, a story of a projectile built and launched into space, to revolve in a fixed meridian about the earth and serve mariners as a mark of longitude; the Rag Man and Rag Woman, a tale of an impoverished couple who made a competence by saving the pamphlets, advertisements, wedding cards, etc., that came to them through the mail, and developing a paper business on that basis; ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... rag, a mock at first,—erelong When men have bled and women wept, To guard its precious folds from wrong, Even they who shrunk, even they who slept, Shall leap to bless it and to save. Strike! for ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... taking off his rag of a cap, and arranging his tattered regimentals the best he could, off he went stumping among the passengers in an adjoining part of the deck, saying with a jovial kind of air: "Sir, a shilling for Happy Tom, who fought at Buena Vista. Lady, something ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... sign that they are inhabited—and we have daily seen smokes on every part of the Coast we have lately been upon. Between 7 and 8 o'Clock a.m. we saw several naked people, all or most of them Women, down upon the beach picking up Shells, etc.; they had not a single rag of any kind of Cloathing upon them, and both these and those we saw yesterday were in every respect the same sort of People we have seen everywhere upon the Coast. 2 or 3 of the Men we saw Yesterday had on pretty large breast plates, which we supposed were made of pearl Oyster ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... diseases of the lungs, nose and head. On examination I found the ear-wax dried up. So I put a few drops of glycerine, and after a minute's time a few drops of warm water in the child's head, and kept a wet rag corked into its ear frequently for twelve hours, and gave it Osteopathic treatment, at the end of which time all signs of croup had disappeared. I used the glycerine to soften the wax, which combining with water formed a harmless soap better qualified for washing the ear, and retaining the wax ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... number drunk, followed, armed with clubs, forks, lances, shovels, torches, stakes, crooks, levers, sabres, and spits. They sang and howled alternately, counterfeiting with atrocious yells the cries of a cat, and carrying as a flag one of these animals suspended from a pole and wrapped in a red rag, thus representing the Cardinal, whose taste for cats was generally known. Public criers rushed about, red and breathless, throwing on the pavement and sticking up on the parapets, the posts, the walls of the houses, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... muckle^, well, indeed, very, very much, a deal, no end of, most, not a little; pretty, pretty well; enough, in a great measure, richly; to a large extent, to a great extent, to a gigantic extent; on a large scale; so; never so, ever so; ever so dole; scrap, shred, tag, splinter, rag, much; by wholesale; mighty, powerfully; with a witness, ultra [Lat.], in the extreme, extremely, exceedingly, intensely, exquisitely, acutely, indefinitely, immeasurably; beyond compare, beyond comparison, beyond measure, beyond ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... their notice, engaged a hall, and invited George Thompson to address them. Now the foreign emissary was particularly exasperating to Boston sensibility on the subject of slavery. He was the veritable red rag to the pro-slavery bull. The public announcement, therefore, that he was to speak in the city threw the public mind into violent agitation. The Gazette and the Courier augmented the excitement by the recklessness with which they denounced the proposed ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... the mission hospital which lay across a deep ravine and only a few yards from the quarters of the soldiers. At the door of the hospital compound lay a bloody rag, and we found Dr. Trimble in the operating room examining a wounded man who had just been brought in. The fellow had been shot in the abdomen with a 45-caliber lead ball that had gone entirely through him, emerging about three inches to the right ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... gypsy's secret with animals, and the poor little bitch hardly winced under his touch, though her under-lip was torn away, and hung, like a red rag, by half an inch ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the second companion, who stalked behind; so thin, so sexless that none could say if the shape were that of man or woman. Dry, streaming locks of iron-grey, an ashen countenance, deep-set, hollow eyes, a beetling, parchment-covered brow; lean shanks half hidden with a rotting rag, claw-like hands which clutched miserably at the air. Such was its awful fashion, that of new death in all ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Rae Malgregor. The phrase was like a red rag to her. "With my judgment? Great Heavens! That's the whole trouble! I haven't got any judgment! I've never been allowed to have any judgment! All I've ever been allowed to have is the judgment of some flirty young medical student—or the House Doctor!—or ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... with it, is, to take some of the Blood upon a Rag, and put some of the Powder upon the Blood, then keep only the Wound clean, with a clean Linnen about it, and in a moderate Temper betwixt hot and cold, and wrap up the Rag with the Blood, and keep it either in your Pocket, or in a Box, & the Wound ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... he. "You and Barriero—Barriero is wonderfully strong—stroll down to him presently. Pretend you want to ask him a question. That will put him off his guard. What happens? You spring on him suddenly, clap a rag in his mouth, and with our help hold him so that he cannot struggle. Then you exchange clothes and stand on guard. When the relief comes you ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... without carrying away the flesh and blood of its wearer. I am unwilling to give it up; whatever gratitude for the past, and whatever piety toward my vanished youth is in me, seem to forbid it. The warp of this rag is woven out of Alpine joys, and its woof out of human affections. It also says to me in ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her shoe, she leaned forward from the path and slid out her hand to a tiny mound of earth that lay near the compound wall—a little mound that might very well have been pushed up by a mole on the other side—dived her fingers into the earth, and withdrew a small package wrapped in a dirty rag. Then, swiftly she thrust something back into the earth, smoothed the little heap level, rose from tying her shoe, and lightly sauntered on her way. The next time she had occasion to use her handkerchief she slipped the little package into her pocket, and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... over. You know, I guess I'm fastidious, but I can't bear to use a plate for more than three meals without passing a wet rag over it. That's the worst of having refined ideas, they make life so complex. However, I mustn't complain. There's a monastic simplicity about this joint that endears it to me. And now, having immolated myself ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... and East. Here he was often flung a dollar, but too frequently a good-natured kick would follow it. Once a band of hilarious cowboys had roped him on Military Plaza and dragged him across the black soil until no respectable rag-bag would have stood sponsor for his clothes. The winding, doubling streets, leading nowhere, bewildered him. And then there was a little river, crooked as a pot-hook, that crawled through the middle of the town, crossed by a hundred little bridges so nearly alike that they got on Curly's ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... and costermongers' donkeys was being held in Nottingham, when Mr. Russell called the attention of the Duchess to an old rag-and-bone dealer, who had won no prize, but who was known ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... said Mr. Alexander evasively, "I'll see. Anyhow, don't say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is like a red rag to a ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... was. Joseph, as the disgusted Stella said, looked like a walking rag-bag. It was impossible to say what his ground color was. His legs were white with black spots on them. His back was gray with a huge patch of yellow on one side and a black patch on the other. His tail was yellow with a gray ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... knew very well that the tie did not belong to me. I knew it only too well. That is—understand me correctly—I did not see it well enough to be sure whom it might belong to. It might even have been one of my own ties, some old rag I have ceased to use. It is a peculiarity of mine never to remember my own ties; I notice them so little, I imagine—So things are coming around, as I said. And if my big trade now succeeds, perhaps that will bring ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... were very fine ladies indeed; they came from Paris, and had trunks full of splendid dresses. The children did not care much for them, and liked better certain decrepit babies of rag and composition, which were thought too shabby to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge |
