"Reed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... talk of her flute-like voice; the flute-tone is not one a real voice need cultivate; except where it silvers the edges of a dark mass of orchestral harmony, the flute's unmitigated sweetness must and should contrast with the more clarionet and reed-like quality of a voice as rich and human as ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... matters—half a medical man yourself—can be the dupe of so shallow an impostor. And it is to that man's judgment my darling's life has been confided; and it is to that man I have looked, with hope and comfort in the thought of his power to save my treasure! Good God! what a reed on which to rely! And of all the medical men of London, this is the one ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... grows a peculiar kind of stringy reed, very strong and pliable. She tied several of these reeds together, made a noose at one end, and with the other end tied herself to a rock near the edge of the precipice, that she might not overbalance herself, and be dragged down in her endeavours to recover her kid. She then threw down the noose ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... looking about he saw what produced the sound, in the shape of a pretty little animal, that seemed to be made of the softest and finest of black velvet. It had crawled a little way up a strand of reed, and was nibbling its way through so rapidly that the reed fell over with a light splash in the water, when the little animal followed, took the cut end in its teeth, and swam across the moat, trailing the reed, and disappearing with it under ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... dulness; you would not want me to speak when you could not hear. But God forbid you should be as destitute of the social comforts of life as I must when I lose my mother; or that ever you should lose your more useful acquaintance so utterly, as to turn your thoughts to such a broken reed as I am, who could so ill supply your wants. I am extremely troubled at the return of your deafness; you cannot be too particular in the accounts of your health to me; everything you do or say in this kind obliges me, nay, delights ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... search in the most likely places for birds' nests! In one of these searches they found a great treasure. They were walking by the loch, when, amongst the reeds which grew along the water's edge they saw a reed-warbler's nest. What an ingenious construction it was—long and deep and pointed, woven between the reeds, and so firmly fixed and of such a shape that the eggs could not be shaken out, even by the roughest of winds. Marjory was very ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... her hand a magic lotus-blossom, the flower of open-heartedness, or the peach of immortality given her by Lue Tung-pin in the mountain-gorge as a symbol of identity, playing at times the sheng or reed-organ, or drinking wine—this is the picture the Chinese paint of the Immortal Ho ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... vellum is an indication that the MSS. must be of some antiquity. The word "paper" is derived from papyrus, the most ancient material for writing, if we except the rocks used for runes, or the wood for oghams. Papyrus, the pith of a reed, was used until the discovery of parchment, about 190 B.C. A MS. of the Antiquities of Josephus on papyrus, was among the treasures seized by ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... determined that I should be a god. Henceforward I became a god, the greatest terror of thieves and birds: for my right hand restrains thieves, and a bloody-looking pole stretched out from my frightful middle: but a reed fixed upon the crown of my head terrifies the mischievous birds, and hinders them from settling in these new gardens. Before this the fellow-slave bore dead corpses thrown out of their narrow cells to this place, in order to be deposited in paltry coffins. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... piece of cane or reed, or a hollow cylinder of wood, with a ridge at each end, used to wind yarn ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... have been unaffected by them, the fact of their reception left him with no valid defence. He at once pleaded guilty to the charge. "I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence. I beseech your Lordships," he added, "to be merciful to a broken reed." Though the heavy fine laid on him was remitted by the Crown, he was deprived of the Great Seal and declared incapable of holding office in the State or sitting in Parliament. Fortunately for his after fame Bacon's life was not to close in this cloud of shame. His fall ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... this bale of papers—it had of course no index and no synopsis, and some of the pages were not numbered—handed it over to Whippham, and when he proved, as usual, a broken reed, the bishop had the brilliant idea of referring the young man to Canon Bliss (of Pringle), "who has a special knowledge quite beyond my ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... was exhausted, or the untruth I made her take a silent part in filled the cup of bitterness to overflowing, she burst into incontrollable sobs that shook her like a reed; my aunt folded her into her arms and hushed her as if ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... land, ascended the hill, and came into position by a low stone wall surmounted by rails. Lieutenant Walden's company was nearest the Mystic River. Captain Daniel Moore's came next in line. The regiment with Colonel Reed's New Hampshire regiment extended to the foot of the hill, in ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... more the frown o' the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... and make thy peevish moan Over some broken reed of earth beneath, Some darling of blind ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... less than that of an English man of war of sixty-four guns. And it is fixed in a bed of massive timber laid across the deck. On each mast is a single sail of matting, made from the fibres of the bamboo, and stretched by means of poles of that reed, running across, at the distance of about two feet from each other. These sails are frequently made to furl and unfurl like a fan. When well hoisted up and braced almost fore and aft, or parallel with ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... six feet in height, slender and erect as a reed, and only his head drooped as his rifle came into position. Some one said to the man whose shot, so far, ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... the women wished to marry, there were many fine young men in the regiments who would make capital husbands. I gave each person a paper of freedom, signed by myself. This was contained in a hollow reed and suspended round their necks. Their names, approximate age, sex, and country were registered in a book corresponding with the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... palma brava, in each end of which notches are cut to hold the rattan bow strings (Fig. 17). The arrow shafts are of light reeds and are fitted with one or two bamboo points. These weapons are effective only for close range, and even then the Bagobo are far from being expert marksmen. Boys use a reed blow gun through which they shoot light darts tufted with cotton (Fig. 18). The missile is not poisoned and is of little use at a distance of more than ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... breaking the Jewish Sabbath, now of plotting against the Roman sovereignty; one who in his own person had felt the full power of temptation, and who had been raised to the grandeur of a transfiguration; so tender he would not bruise the broken reed, so gentle his yoke was rest; raying out with compassion and love wherever he went; healing alike the pangs of grief and the languor of disease; whom some believed to be the Messiah, and others thought a prophet; whom the masses followed, and the priests feared;—this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the following page, is the summary of many chapters of 'Modern Painters:' and of the aims kept in view throughout 'Munera Pulveris.' The three kinds of Desert specified—of Reed, Sand, and Rock—should be kept in mind as exhaustively including the states of the earth neglected by man. For instance of a Reed desert, produced merely by his neglect, see Sir Samuel Baker's account of the choking up of the bed of the White Nile. Of the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... "Sergeant Reed knows the whole route and will be a most capable guide, Mr. Ferrers," explained Captain Ruggles. "We shall look for you to be back by five o'clock this afternoon. Don't use your men too hard. Now, I'll stand by to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... the blue, and remembered her thought, that Maurice had been taken by the blue. Hark! Was there not in the air the thin sound of a reed flute playing a tarantella? She shut her eyes, and saw the gray rocks of Sicily. But the blue was too vast. Maurice was lost in it, lost to her forever. And she gazed up into it again, with the effort to travel through it, to go on and ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... upwards to their ideal. Let me see the idle shadows resting on the white dust; let me hear the humble-bees, and stay to look down on the rich dandelion disk. Let me see the very thistles opening their great crowns—I should miss the thistles; the reed-grasses hiding the moorhen; the bryony bine, at first crudely ambitious and lifted by force of youthful sap straight above the hedgerow to sink of its own weight presently and progress with crafty tendrils; ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... espoused, my latest found, Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, How nature paints her colours, how the bee Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet. Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake. O sole in whom my thoughts find ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... previously pounded flat, to them in the required contour. Immediately above the vaulting spread some mortar made of lime and sand, to check any drops that may fall from the joists or from the roof. If a supply of Greek reed is not to be had, gather slender marsh reeds, and make them up with silk cord into bundles all of the same thickness and adjusted to the proper length, provided that the bundles are not more than two feet long between any two knots. Then tie them with ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... what time they left the hill country and came out upon a wide heath void of trees and desolate, where was a wind cold and clammy to chill the flesh, where rank-growing rush and reed stirred fitfully, filling the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... a sponge in a cup of vinegar, and put it upon a reed, and gave him a drink of it. Then Jesus spoke his last words ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... Tricholoma, T. equestre. 91 Tricholoma. The imbricated Tricholoma, T. imbricata. 119 Tricholoma. The sulphury Tricholoma, T. sulphureum. 91 Typhula. The reed mace mushroom, T. ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... had kept her waiting nearly two hours. I heard her say, as she left the house, 'I have lost a day's work by this delay, for I cannot go to Mrs. Reed's at this hour; so I shall be six shillings poorer at the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... accompanied by murder, was committed on a vessel of the United States while engaged in a lawful commerce, nothing is known to have occurred to impede or molest the enterprise of our citizens on that element, where it is so signally displayed. On learning this daring act of piracy, Commodore Reed proceeded immediately to the spot, and receiving no satisfaction, either in the surrender of the murderers or the restoration of the plundered property, inflicted severe and merited chastisement ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... came opposite a village, we kept on our way until we came to Murembwe Point, which, being a delta of a river of the same name, was well protected by a breadth of thorny jungle, spiky cane, and a thick growth of reed and papyrus, from which the boldest Mrundi might well shrink, especially if he called to mind that beyond this inhospitable swamp were the guns of the strangers his like had so rudely challenged. We drew our canoe ashore here, and, on a limited area of clean sand, Ferajji, our rough-and-ready ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... the service, he had seen men meant for better things broken as a reed on the wheel of military formalism; he had seen them retiring when but in the prime of life, broken in spirit, unfit for any new career, impaired in health, perfectly useless—victims of the conventional ideas that rule supreme in the army. Others he had seen ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... north. The sound of the war-car behind them outroared the roaring of the flames. Cuculain was a pale red all over, for ere the last combat was at an end that pool of the Boyne was like one bath of blood. His eyes blazed terribly in his head, and his face was fearful to look upon. Like a reed in a river so he quaked and trembled, and there went out from him a moaning like the moaning of winds through deep woods or desolate glens, or over the waste places of the earth when darkness is abroad. For the war-fury which the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... That web is warped With human entrails, And is hard weighted With heads of people; Bloodstained darts Do for treadles, The forebeam's ironbound The reed's of arrows; Swords be sleys[39] ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... thou my golden fleece;— Where painted carpets o'er the meads are hurl'd, And Bacchus' vineyards overspread the world; Where woods and forests go in goodly green;— I'll be Adonis, thou shalt be Love's Queen;— The meads, the orchards, and the primrose-lanes, Instead of sedge and reed, bear sugar-canes: Thou in those groves, by Dis above, Shalt live with me, and ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... narration than otherwise; none of them but herself seemed to see the sorrow of it; to a certainty, not one knew how cruelly it touched the tender place in her experience. The evening sun was now ugly to her, like a great inflamed wound in the sky. Only a solitary cracked-voice reed-sparrow greeted her from the bushes by the river, in a sad, machine-made tone, resembling that of a past friend ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... first notes of the birds, but though he felt he ought to go back to his companions and be witness of the contest which might determine whether the princess was to be another's bride, his great love and his utter despair of winning her so oppressed him that he lay as motionless as a broken reed. He scarcely heard the music of the birds, and paid no heed to the murmur of the brook rushing by his feet. The crackling of branches near him barely disturbed him, but when a shadow fell across his eyes he looked ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... instruments predominated, and these varied in size from tiny instruments resembling zithers to harps much larger than those used in modern times. In addition to these they had trumpets of many forms, reed instruments, cymbals, and drums, the last-named ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... battle between love and pride—came here with my suffering heart; my sinful heart if you will; and laid it on your bosom to be soothed; and you have taken it and flung it back in my face! You have broken the bruised reed; quenched the smoking flax; humbled the humble; smitten the fallen! Oh, Bee, you have been more cruel than you know! Good-by! Good-by!" And she turned and flung herself out of ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... endured. But the only thing I would dwell upon here, is, that when we think of Christ as dying for us, we are never to separate it from that other solemn and future coming of which this poor robber catches a glimpse. They crowned Him with thorns, and they gave Him a reed for His sceptre. That mockery, so natural to the strong practical Romans in dealing with one whom they thought a harmless enthusiast, was a symbol which they who did it little dreamed of. The crown of thorns proclaims ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... quite as voracious in that state as when they are perfect insects. The larva changes to a grub, and greedily devours water-lizards and young fish; after a certain time, which varies according to the species, it rises to the top of the water by crawling up a reed, and remains perfectly motionless, exposed to the rays of the sun; suddenly, the skin covering the head bursts open, and the dragon-fly, spotted with black, blue, and green, takes flight, and loses no time in darting upon the first insect which ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... of stairs to a small backroom on the first floor, furnished with an old, round oak table, with turned legs, four or five old-fashioned chairs, a few wood-cuts, daubed with green and yellow, representing the four seasons, a Christmas carol, together with that miracle of ingenuity, a reed in a bottle, which ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... we had a glorious gallop after Starlight and his gang, When they bolted from Sylvester's on the flat; How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges rang To the strokes of Mountaineer and Acrobat! Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath, Close beside them through the ti-tree scrub we dashed; And the golden-tinted fern-leaves, how they rustled underneath! And the honeysuckle ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... thickness of the wall, and adorned without end in their columns and pointed arches; to the window with its rose springing out of the round form; to the outline of its framework, as well as to the slender reed-like pillars of the perpendicular compartments. Let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... luxuriant growth. Poplars and sycamores and other trees, willows, I think, and exquisite tamarisks in blossom; and what I specially admired, the canes. I understood then how people might go into the plain to see "a reed shaken with the wind." Growing twelve to fifteen feet high, with graceful tufts of feathery bloom which they bow and sway to the breeze in a manner lovely ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... told me this morrow early. Nay, I doubt she's more of the reed family, and 'll bow down her head like a bulrush. Sens Bradbridge'll bend afore she breaks, and Mistress Benden 'll ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... young fellow was nearly always drunk; his time was passed in sucking plantain cider through a reed, until he became thoroughly intoxicated. We were, therefore, subject to any sudden order that he might give ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... wood. Part of it appeared to have been planted with yams, but the rest was full of grass, and had a little swamp in the middle, where the purple water-hen, or poula sultane, resided in great numbers. As soon as we left this, we entered into a lane about six feet wide, between two fences of reed, which inclosed extensive plantations on each side. Here we met many of the natives, who were travelling to the beach with loads of provisions, and courteously bowed their heads as they passed by us, in sign of friendship, generally ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... wakeful Diane watched the stream glide endlessly on, each reed and pebble silvered. Rex lay on the bank beside her, whither he had followed faithfully a very long while ago, snapping at the insects which rose from the grass. So colorless and fixed was the face of his mistress ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... two old men, together lay and slept; they had strewn the dry sea-moss for a bed in their wattled cabin, and there lay against the leafy wall. Beside them wore strewn the instruments of their toilsome bands, the fishing-creels, the rods of reed, the hooks, the sails bedraggled with sea-spoil, the lines, the weels, the lobster-pots woven of rushes, the seines, two oars, and an old cobble upon props. Beneath their heads was a scanty matting, their clothes, their sailors' caps. Here was all their toil, here all their wealth. The threshold ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... charm in the self-assurance appearing in some of the present verse, as Sara Teasdale's confidence in her "fragile immortality" [Footnote: Refuge.] or James Stephens' exultation in A Tune Upon a Reed, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... was within thee that the long-oppressed bosom heaved its last sigh, and the crushed and gentle spirit escaped from a world in which it had known nought but sorrow. Sorrow! do I say? How faint a word to express the misery of that bruised reed; misery so dark that a blind worm like myself is occasionally tempted to exclaim, Better had the world never been created than that one so kind, so harmless, and so mild, should have undergone such intolerable woe! But it ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... forced to admit to herself that this last resource of hers was a slender reed on which to lean. She mounted the stairs of the theatrical agent's office with very much less than her usual buoyancy, nor did she find much encouragement in the general appearance of the room into which she was shown. There was already a score or more of people there, ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... answer that they would take counsel concerning what he had said, and then reply. Then five of the best and most honourable among them withdrew, and went to Abdalla Adiz, and said unto him, Areed us thy reed now the best and truest that thou canst, for thou art of our law, and oughtest to do this; and the reason why we ask counsel of thee is this. The Cid promised us many things, and now behold he says nothing to ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... Faery, or in the empress Mercilla, the avowed types of the graces and virtues of her majesty; and she herself had discernment sufficient to distinguish between the brazen trump of vulgar flattery with which her ear was sated, and the pastoral reed of antique frame tuned sweetly to her praise by Colin Clout. Spenser was interred with great solemnity in Westminster abbey by the side of Chaucer; the generous Essex defraying the cost of the funeral and walking himself as a mourner. That ostentatious but munificent woman Anne countess ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... great apparent care. In the meantime, Nancy's wrath generally evaporated with the smoke of the pipe—a circumstance which Ned well knew; for after she had sucked it until it emitted a shrill, bubbling sound, like that from a reed, her brows, which wore at other times an habitual frown, would gradually relax into a more benevolent expression—the parenthetical curves on each side of her mouth, formed by the irascible pursing ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... byblus or papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) was perhaps the most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant was a tall smooth reed of a triangular shape. It grew to the height of ten or fifteen feet, and terminated in a tuft or plume of leaves and flowers. Though indigenous in the country, it was the subject of careful cultivation, and was grown in irrigated ground, or in such lands as were ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... street—and the principal street of all these towns is "Main Street"—I had the good fortune to be introduced to Judge Ira H. Reed, who came to Calaveras County in 1854, and has lived there ever since. He told me that Judge Gottschalk, who died a few years ago at an advanced age, was authority for the statement that Mark Twain got his "Jumping Frog" story from the then ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... the brief fable which is said to have been the prime favorite of the author himself. It is the fable of "The Oak and the Reed." Of this fable, French critics have not scrupled to speak in terms of almost the very highest praise. Chamfort says, "Let one consider, that, within the limit of thirty lines, La Fontaine, doing nothing but yield himself to the current of his story, has taken on every tone, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... send them all to hell!" cried Barnabas, swinging his club in his herculean arm as if it had been a reed. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... there is the beauty of barren moors and of green orchards, and of flat fertile marshlands where streams run amid a luxuriance of tangled growth, kingcups and meadowsweet and loose-strife and forget-me-nots, and feathery willows and rushes where the reed-warblers sing. And at Porlock there is such a gathering up of these different beauties that it is difficult to describe the pleasure that one has in it. I have told you how it is fenced by Exmoor, and lies within sight ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... collect a sufficient quantity in autumn for winter use; but when through accident their stock fails they have recourse to the soft down of the typha, or reed mace, the dust of rotten wood, or even feathers, although none of these articles are so cleanly or so easily changed as ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... muted trumpet, and several other instruments. Imitation of the notes and songs of birds is also a familiar type of performance. This peculiar gift of imitation results in each case from some special structure of the vocal organs. One performer can imitate the reed instruments, another the lighter brasses, and so on. Just what peculiar formation of the vocal organs is required for this type of imitative ability need not be inquired here. All that need be noted ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... his family I am Seving with a barber at this time he have promust to give me the trad ef i can lane it he is much of a gentman. Mr Still sir i have writing a letter to Mr Brown of Petersburg Va Pleas reed it and ef you think it right Plas sen it by the Mail or by hand you wall see how i have writen it the will know how sent it by the way this writing ef the ancer it you can sen it to Me i have tol them direc to ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... left, now with its tangled wicked head betwixt its forefeet, and now pawing eight feet high in the air, with scarlet, furious nostrils and maddened eyes, the yellow horse was a thing of terror and of beauty. But the lithe figure on his back, bending like a reed in the wind to every movement, firm below, pliant above, with calm inexorable face, and eyes which danced and gleamed with the joy of contest, still held its masterful place for all that the fiery heart and the iron muscles of the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... made a mistake, Mr. von Rosen," said Mrs. Edes' thin voice, as thin and silvery as a reed. "You are speaking to Mrs. Wilbur Edes. My telephone number is 5R. You doubtless want Doctor Sturtevant. ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... thousand sequins, and offered to count them, but Buddir ad Deen said he would trust his word. "Since it is so, my lord," said he, "be pleased to favour me with a small note of the bargain we have made." As he spoke, he pulled the inkhorn from his girdle, and taking a small reed out of it neatly cut for writing, presented it to him with a piece of paper. Buddir ad ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... peaches, and revenge to anyone who interferes with them. A few weeks ago, they frightened Mrs. Lane and her sister almost into a fainting-fit. You know that high board fence below here? Well! one evening the B. B.'s happened to find out that they were over at Mrs. Reed's, so they waited until the ladies came along, and then they laid themselves down on the ground close behind the fence, and putting their mouths against the boards, groaned out, one by one, 'seven years ago I was murdered and buried under this fence, ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... assembly, and of William L. Apthoop, as secretary of the senate, and William Forsyth Bynum, as clerk of the assembly, and which paper was transmitted to the Secretary of State in a letter dated Executive Office, Tallahassee, Fla., June 10, 1868, from Harrison Reed, who therein signs himself ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... quiet, when a weary swoon Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay Of morning, cool against the encroaching day, There is no murmuring water, save the gush Of my clear fluted notes; and in the hush Blows never a wind, save that which through my reed Puffs out before the rain of notes can speed Upon the air, with that calm breath of art That mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly, Where inspiration seeks its native sky. You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake, The sun's own mirror which I love to take, ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... of the Bobolink, and naturalists generally have described him under one of the many names by which he is known. In some States he is called the Rice Bird, in others Reed Bird, the Rice or Reed Bunting, while his more familiar title, throughout the greater part of America, is Bobolink, or Bobolinkum. In Jamaica, where he gets very fat during his winter stay, he is called the Butter Bird. His title of Rice Troopial is earned by the depredations ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... reed, and the pine in its pride, Shall alike feel the hand of decay, May your God grant that mercy the world has deny'd, And wipe all your ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... hair, Who glory to have thrown in air, High over arm, the trembling reed, By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed: An equal craft of band you show The pen to guide, the fly to throw: I count you happy starred; for God, When He with inkpot and with rod Endowed you, bade your ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (figure 252) in which was inserted a fragment of cotton fiber was unlike anything yet reported from cliff houses, and as the end of the cotton which projected beyond the cavity of the reed was charred, it possibly was used ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... Gillett, a lawyer of Washington, D. C., showed a decided advance in political work over all preceding years. She had placed on her committee Mrs. Upton, Mrs. Elizabeth King Ellicott (Md.), Miss Mary Gray Peck (N. Y.), Mrs. Katharine Reed Balentine (Me. and Cal.) and Miss Belle Kearney (Miss.). State presidents were invited to cooperate and lists of the nominees for Congress in their States were sent to them. The Democratic National Committee furnished the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... still popularly used. The patient should stand upon the leg corresponding to the side on which there is water in his ear, and then, with head leaning to that side, should hop or kick out with the other leg. The water may be drawn out by means of suction through a reed. In order to get foreign bodies out of the external auditory canal, an ear spoon or other small instrument should be wrapped in wool and dipped in turpentine, or some other sticky material. Occasionally he has seen sneezing, especially if the mouth and nose are covered ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... aloud, "Stand forth distinguish'd from the circling crowd, Ye who by skill or manly force may claim, Your rivals to surpass and merit fame. This cow, worth twenty oxen, is decreed, For him who farthest sends the winged reed." —Iliad ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... says—"Ned Biddle has declined his seat in Congress. The truth is, he means to do more essential service in the assembly, which has ordered the general sense of the people to be taken respecting the present constitution of Pennsylvania. Joe Reed is elected, and accepted the honour of being president and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... labels or tags are put under your nose. You are shown the little reed baskets, in rectangular form, that will carry your gift. If your Paris or London friend knows Latin, and thinks a minute, he will realize that Cannes is living up to her name in thus utilizing her reeds to send ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... had no sooner left his mouth than up came a great Swede who was one of the workmen in Lloyd's, and he had Nahum Beals in a grasp as imperturbable as fate. The assassin, even with the strength of his fury of fanaticism, was as a reed in the grasp of this Northern giant. The Swede held him easily, walking him before him in a forced march. He had a hand of Nahum's in each of his, and he compelled Nahum's right hand to retain the hold of the discharged pistol. There was something terrible about the Swede ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... off to find a censor. Censors, though I did not know it then, are very shy birds and conceal their nests with the cunning of reed warblers. Hardly any one has ever seen a censor. But M. found one, and we submitted to his scrutiny letters which we had succeeded in writing. After that I insisted on getting something to eat. I had breakfasted at an unholy hour. I had crossed the sea. I had endured great ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... of this kind the Arabs are quite good. They can plaster mud on a roof, or make a bund, or run up a mud and reed hut, or raise the level of the flooring of a ward, and they take their time over it. But anything that savours of machinery is usually beyond them. It was a common saying amongst the Arabs that sickness stopped as soon as the dates were gathered in. That proved ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... grow—he's scarcely begun to grow yet," Hilda continued about her offspring, "then he will reed ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... as a wind-lashed reed, Wounded he faced you as he stood at bay; You dared not lynch him in the light of day, But on your dungeon stones you let him bleed; Night came . . . and you black vigilants of Greed . . . Like human wolves, seized hard upon your prey, Tortured ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... for several weeks in the winter of 1605-6, but who eventually paid the penalty of his guilty knowledge of the Gunpowder Plot. A hollow in the wall of Mrs. Abingdon's bedroom was covered up, and there was a narrow crevice into which a reed was laid, so that soup and wine could be passed by her into the recess, without the fact being noticed from any other room. But the Government, suspecting that some of the Gunpowder Conspirators were concealed at ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... the midst of a pleasing strain in B natural, Herr Wagner has a habit of suddenly bringing out a small reed-instrument with a big voice (we do not know its name), piped in the key of F sharp. This small reed-instrument will not let go; it holds on to that F sharp like a mortgage. For a brief period the rest of the instruments—fiddles, bassoons, viols, flutes, flageolets, ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... thy place, at top o' t' clod, Thy heead cocked o' one side, Lookin' as far-learnt as a judge. Is that a worrm thou's spied? By t' Megs! he's well-nigh six inch lang, An' reed as t' gate i' t' park; If thou don't mesh him up a bit, ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... or lonely fold, Or low morass and whispering reed, Or simple style from mead to mead, Or sheep walk ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... frown o' the great— Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat— To thee the reed is as the oak; The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the pleasantest recollections, we sailed for Messina, Sicily, and from there went to Naples, where we found many old friends; among them Mr. Buchanan Reed, the artist and poet, and Miss Brewster, as well as a score or more of others of our countrymen, then or since distinguished, in art and letters at home and abroad. We remained some days in Naples, and during the time went to Pompeii to witness a special ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... of rustic drum consisting of a skin stretched over the mouth of a jar, with a reed fastened at the center. This rubbed up and down with the moistened hand produces a strong, hoarse, ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... purple wings Sheds the grateful gifts she brings; Brilliant drops bedeck the mead, Cooling breezes shake the reed; Shake the reed, and curl the stream, Silver'd o'er with Cynthia's beam; Near the checquer'd, lonely grove, Hears, and keeps thy secrets, love. Stella, thither let us stray, Lightly o'er the dewy way. Phoebus ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... drawing boards covered with a coat of red or white stucco, or on the backs of old manuscripts of no value. New papyrus was too dear to be spoiled by the scrawls of tyros. Having neither pencil nor stylus, they made use of the reed, the end of which, when steeped in water, opened out into small fibres, and made a more or less fine brush according to the size of the stem. The palette was of thin wood, in shape a rectangular oblong, with a ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... decease extant dessert ingenuous liniment stature sculpture fissure facility essay allusion advise pendant metal seller minor complement currant baron wether mantel principal burrow canon surf wholly serge whirl liar idyl flour pistil idol rise rude team corps peer straight teem reed beau compliment ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... London Lyrics have, I think, achieved what we poor mortals call immortality—a strange word to apply to the piping of so slender a reed, to so ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... of us, on the lower shelf, was a happy individual indulging in all the variations of a nervous treble of every possible pitch: his was an inconstant falsetto in sound and cadence. Above him snored one as if he had a metallic reed in his larynx that opened with each inhalation: his snore struck me as a brassy alto. The tenors were distributed at such distances as to convey to my ears all the discord of an inebriated band of cracked fifes and split bagpipes playing snatches of different ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... to establish or defend divine order with human reason, unless that reason has previously been established and enlightened by faith, is just as futile, as if I would throw a light upon the sun with a lightless lantern, or rest a rock upon a reed. For Isaiah vii makes reason subject to faith, when he says (vii:9): 'Except ye believe, ye shall not have understanding or reason.' He does not say, Except ye have reason, ye shall not believe. Therefore this scribe would better not ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... [3] Richard Reed, a London alderman, refused to contribute a "benevolence." He was sent to serve as a soldier in the Scotch wars at his own expense, and the general was ordered to "use him in all things according to sharp military ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!— No voice descended from above, But Avis answered, "She ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... conditions and ideals that prevailed there. All the time there was developing in him his own genius. He did not remember a time when he could not play upon almost any musical instrument. "When he was seven years old he made his first effort at music upon an improvised reed cut from the neighboring river bank, with cork stopping the ends and a mouth hole and six finger holes extemporized at the side. With this he sought the woods to emulate the trills and cadences of the song birds." Santa Claus's gift one year took the form of a small, yellow, one-keyed flute, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... Thompson and the families of all except Weech and Dall. To these were added John and Thomas Sessions and Earlton Haws, making 28 in all. Arrival was on April 8, 1879. The Cluffs (three families) came very soon after the first party. In a later migration came Samuel Curtis, Heber Reed, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... the morning. Every Indian has a fire near his hammock. The women are so chilly, that I have seen them shiver at church when the centigrade thermometer was not below 18 degrees. The huts of the Indians are extremely clean. Their hammocks, their reed mats, their pots for holding cassava and fermented maize, their bows and arrows, everything is arranged in the greatest order. Men and women bathe every day; and being almost constantly unclothed, they are exempted from that uncleanliness, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... said the scribe. 'I have a tattered rag around my hips, and on the road I have lost my sandals; but my papyrus and reed I bear with me at all times, as I do the heart in my body. Both while rising in the morning and lying down at night, I repeat that wise poverty is far better than foolish riches. If I know how to express myself in two kinds of ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... where Castaing had not yet been; they treated themselves to a game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of the grand fountain; they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons at the roulette establishment of the Pont de Sevres, picked bouquets at Pateaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Hail to thee, King of Jerusalem Though humbly born in Bethlehem, A sceptre and a diadem Await thy brow and hand! The sceptre is a simple reed, The crown will make thy temples bleed, And in thy hour of greatest need, Abashed thy ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that peculiar, overpowering, yet fresh fragrance— the fragrance of a summer night in Russia. Scarcely a sound was to be heard around.... Only at times, in the river near, the sudden splash of a big fish leaping, and the faint rustle of a reed on the bank, swaying lightly as the ripples reached it ... the fires alone ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen, In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... might have said would have been to the point, but it was lost, for just then the sound of a shot came down the wind, and a half a score of women stampeded through the stalks, carrying me down like a reed before them. When I staggered to my feet Polly Ann and Mrs. Cowan and Mrs. Harrod were standing alone. For there was little of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sitting-room, taking his long-stemmed reed pipe at his ease. He rose as we followed Friend ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... soaks into the surrounding ground and so finds a way into the picturesque stream below. But it is not the loveliness of the spot which fascinates the prince; rather is it the exquisite creature who sits by the bubbling spring, a reed from a hand-loom in her hands, from which she strikes mournful sounds, the while she raises her voice in song. A pink scarf and a blue ribbon are crossed upon her breast, her dark tresses kiss her lovely neck, ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... song contest. Her family would see her name and her song in print on the Ivy Day program, and May Hayward, a friend of hers and T. Reed's in their desolate freshman year, was to be in the mob ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... utterly perishing. With special reference to their work upon the Scriptures, he tells them that they "fight against the wiles of Satan with pen and ink." And again: "Writing with three fingers, they thus symbolize the virtues of the Holy Trinity; using a reed, they thus attack the craft of the Devil with that very instrument which smote the Lord's head in his Passion." But all literature was his care. That the copyists might write correctly, he digested the works of half a dozen grammarians into a treatise on orthography. ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... at your utmost need, did the mate leave the cabin at any moment after I was wounded by the splinter?" And he seized one of my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed up through the open scuttle towards heaven with the other, which trembled like a reed. The moon shone strong on the upper part of his countenance, while the yellow smoky glare of the candle over which he bent, blending harshly and inharmoniously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... said the Major. The boy's eye had been caught by a split-reed screen that hung on a slew between the veranda pillars, and, mechanically, he had tweaked the edge to set it level. Old Chinn had sworn three times a day at that screen for many years; he could never get it to ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... surmised pretty nearly the truth. Speedily dismounting, he told the servants to prop him up. "Uncle Hseh," he laughed, "you daily go in for lewd dalliance; but have you to-day come to dissipate in a reed-covered pit? The King of the dragons in this pit must have also fallen in love with your charms, and enticed you to become his son-in-law that you've come and gored yourself on his ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... old Digger tottered in shaking like a reed, followed by an officer and three soldiers. Barbara rose to meet them, biting her lips to repress her emotion "What is it?" she ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... thou thy vengeance—yet came there the morrow, That shines out, at last, on the longest dark night, When the sceptre, that smote thee with slavery and sorrow, Was shivered at once, like a reed, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... supply of wine: in four days, said we, nothing will be left, and death will be inevitable. Thus came the seventh day of our abandonment. In the course of the day two soldiers had glided behind the only barrel of wine that was left; pierced it, and were drinking by means of a reed. We had sworn that those who used such means should be punished with death; which law was instantly put in execution, and the two transgressors were thrown into ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... toward God through all its darkness grope, And find within its deadened heart to sing These songs of sorrow, love, and faith, and hope? How did it catch that subtle undertone, That note in music heard not with the ears? How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown, Which stirs the soul or melts the ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... in Memphis. Hez he suffered nothin? And yet he is willin to take a seat in Congress—forgettin all he hez suffered, and forgivin the cause thereof. What wickedness it is wich would further bruise sich a broken reed! ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... this, I believe, that, to-day, the issue of this war depends quite as much upon American women as upon American men,—and depends, too, not upon the few who write, but upon the many who do not. The women of the Revolution were not only Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Schuyler, but the wives of the farmers and shoemakers and blacksmiths everywhere. It is not Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Howe, or Miss Stevenson, or Miss Dix, alone, who is to save the country, but the thousands upon thousands who are at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... fell flat upon the stone and when he scrambled to his feet, there beside him stood Father Frog. In his hand he held a long green reed, which he had ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... This was Reed's last book, written even as he lay dying, presumably from cancer. It is a very well-written book, and is very interesting, even though as in the works of Kingston and Collingwood there are a lot of ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... god that this repose I owe, For him I worship, as a god below. Oft on his altar shall my firstlings bleed, See, by his bounty here with rustic reed I play the airs I love the livelong day, The while my oxen round about ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... hero fell, a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat; Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair 20 Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle; Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Chatham's "admiration, thanks, and affection," and was inscribed on the pedestal of Beckford's statue erected in Guildhall, has been the subject of bitter disputes. Isaac Reed boldly asserts every word was written by Horne Tooke, and that Horne Tooke himself said so. Gifford, with his usual headlong partisanship, says the same; but there is every reason to suppose that the words are those uttered by Beckford with but one slight alteration. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... trees gave their swish of leaves, the river darkened the patch of wrinkles, the bordering flags amid the reed-blades ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Nor mourning widows when in sad distress; Would I had ne'er been guilty of that sin, Would I had never known what gold had been; For by the same my heart was drawn away To search for gold: but now this very day, I find it is but like a slender reed, Which fails me most when most I stand in need; For, woe is me! the time is come at last, Now I am on a bed of sorrow cast, Where in lamenting tears I weeping lie, Because my sins make me afraid to die: Oh! Death, be pleased to spare me yet awhile, That I to God myself ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell |
