"Reed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a scientific explanation. Built in the first place to be as nearly as possible non-conducting, with an impervious "puddled" bottom, the pond is renewed every night to a certain extent by the dew which trickles down each grass and reed stem into the reservoir beneath, and to a much greater extent by the mists which drift over the edge to descend in rain on the Weald. The pools might well be ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... this "human face divine," already defaced by the bloody sweat, and to be yet more by the mocking reed, and smiting hand and piercing thorn. The vision of the prophet seven hundred years before becomes a reality—"His visage was so marred more than any man." "But nothing went so close to His heart as the profanation of ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... Adams, but saw him little, and heard him less, as I will relate. Mr. Reed, of Barnstable, introduced me,—"Father Reed," as they used to call him, from his having been longer a member of Congress than any other man in the House,—and I said to him, as we were entering the White House, "Now ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... conclusions, that the forms which in other things are produced by slow increase, or gradual abrasion of surface, are here produced by rough fracture, when rough fracture is to be the law of existence. A rose is rounded by its own soft ways of growth, a reed is bowed into tender curvature by the pressure of the breeze; but we could not, from these, have proved any resolved preference, by Nature, of curved lines to others, inasmuch as it might always have been answered that the curves were produced, not for beauty's sake, but infallibly, by the ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... duty to do! But whensoever God may take me hence, to reckon yourselves then comfortless, as though your chief comfort stood in me—therein would you make, methinketh, a reckoning very much as though you would cast away a strong staff and lean upon a rotten reed. For God is, and must be, your comfort, and not I. And he is a sure comforter, who (as he said unto his disciples) never leaveth his servants comfortless orphans, not even when he departed from his disciples by death. But he both ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... wine was presumably in flasks of the usual Italian kind, bottles encased in straw or reed, &c., with oil on the top of the wine instead of a cork in ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... particularly in Suse, among the Mograffra Arabs, the Woled Abbusebah, and Woled Deleim, the whole country is in a blaze of light of a summer's evening; music, dancing, and rejoicing, is heard in every direction. Their music consists of a kettle-drum, a flute or reed, similar to what Homer describes as the instrument of the ancient shepherds, a rhabeb or two-stringed fiddle, played with a semicircular bow, a tamboureen, and brass castanets. They play in precise time; and the ladies arrange themselves at the entrance of the sheik's tent. It is pleasant ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... her, dread Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!' No voice descended from above, But ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... quiet region of narrow, winding, shady lanes, where you may wander long between the tall hedges without meeting a living creature but the wild birds that start from the honey-suckle and hawthorn, and the frogs croaking among the sedges; a region of soft-flowing rivers with curlew-haunted reed beds, and fields where quails cluck in the furrows; the fertile plain studded with clumps of ash and alder, and a rare farm-habitation standing amid orchards and hemp-fields, or a rarer hamlet of a dozen cottages grouped together. The ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... of plays altered from Shakspere, as drawn up by Steevens and Reed, that Julius Caesar had been altered by sir William D'Avenant and Dryden jointly, and acted at the Theatre-royal in Drury-lane. It would therefore seem probable that one of those poets wrote the prologue on that occasion. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... better than so many phantoms. We have lost many men from the season, very few from the enemy." He himself escaped more easily than most. To use his own quaint expression, "All the prevailing disorders have attacked me, but I have not strength enough for them to fasten upon. I am here the reed amongst the oaks: I bow before the storm, while the sturdy oak is laid low." The congenial moral surroundings, in short,—the atmosphere of exertion, of worthy and engrossing occupation,—the consciousness, to him delightful, of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... my bitter tears, flow ever; All I love I leave behind; Sadly whisper here the willows, And the reed shakes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the keys that stretched beneath. His calmness chilled her blood. She thought him dead, and all within her that lived seemed to pass out of her in the will, nay, the power also, to restore him. She grasped his arm. He was not dead, then, for he sighed,—an awful sigh; it shook him like a light reed in the tempest, he shuddered from head to foot; he leaned towards her, as if about to faint, but never removed his close-locked hands from his eyes.... She had only clasped his arm before; as hand met hand, or touch thrilled touch, he shivered, his grasping fingers relaxed in their hold on each other, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... Gilgals, when he led them out of Egypt, as the Lord commanded. And they are there unto this day." The rabbinical law, in connection with this subject, reads as follows: "We may circumcise with anything, even with a flint, with crystal (glass), or with anything that cuts, except with the sharp edge of a reed, because enchanters made use of that, or it may bring on a disease; and it is a precept of the wise men to circumcise with iron, whether in the form of a knife or scissors, but it is customary to use a knife." This mention of the objectionable nature of the reed as a circumcising ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... these men of Tyrnaus," she cried. "They make vows only to break them. Their honour is a broken reed." ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... found shelter from the glare of middle-class snobbery beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's inadequate shadow as a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry reed by some burned-out watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment had annihilated this shadow and given her the courage of necessity. And there was something more than courage—there was an eagerness to stand alone in the ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... thus I will be seen; unless the succour, The last frail reed of our beleagured hopes, Arrive ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... gradually the canvas was distended, and bellying as it filled, was drawn down to its usual place by the power of a hundred men. The vessel yielded to this immense addition of force, and bowed before it like a reed bending to a breeze. But the success of the measure was announced by a joyful cry from the stranger, that seemed to burst from his ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... always at hand to rally and give encouragement to our forces, many of whom at times were in despair over the prospects of the bill. The leaders of the opposition on the committee were Senator Root on the Republican side and Senators O'Gorman and Reed ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... adventures are soon told. I had despatched to the Protector such documents as I knew would lead him to prevent the marriage of Lady Constantia; my heart relented towards her, and I saw that Providence was working its reed in other ways without my aid. Secreted in one of the chapel vaults, I watched the coming of those who were to stay the ceremony. I knew the certainty that come they would, for I could rely upon the speed of the man I trusted, and that Oliver would act upon the instant I had no doubt. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... with 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 sand desert, Sir F. Palgrave's ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... that?" repeated the Paymaster, pinching his snuff vigorously. "Maybe they're right too. I'll tell you what. The lad's head is stuffed with wind. He goes about with notions swishing round inside that head of his, as much the plaything of nature as the reed that whistles in the wind at the riverside and ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... impotent arms upon the empty breast, to save the last, the sole honour he can attain to, the dignity of knowing his own nothingness; that dignity at which Pascal hints when calling man a thinking reed he says that if the whole universe crushed him, he, that reed, would be higher than the universe, because he would know it was crushing him, and it would know it not. A poor dignity! A sorry consolation! Try your utmost to be penetrated by it, to have faith in it, you, whoever you ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... were like the group of attendants and entertainers who come down by train when people in the country give a party; they represented the contract for carrying the party on. That was an excellent relation with them—a possible one even with so broken a reed (from her slightness of cohesion) as Henrietta Stackpole. It is a familiar truth to the novelist, at the strenuous hour, that, as certain elements in any work are of the essence, so others are only of the form; that as this or that character, this or that disposition of the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... and will appreciate the aspect of his face, and will see the motion of his hand, as he spoke these latter words. Mr Thumble felt the power of the man so sensibly that he was unable to carry on the contest. Though Mr Crawley was now but a broken reed, and was beneath his feet, yet Mr Thumble acknowledged to himself that he could not hold his own in debate with this broken reed. But the words had been spoken, and the tone of the voice had died away, and the fire in the eyes had burned itself out before ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Probably an error for John Reed, at that time a newspaper correspondent in Mexico—afterward well known as a champion of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... lad,[1] that lately taught His oaten reed the trumpet's silver sound, Young Thyrsilis; and for his music brought The willing spheres from heaven, to lead around The dancing nymphs and swains, that sung, and crowned Eclecta's Hymen with ten thousand flowers Of choicest praise; and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... intuition given A PRIORI. That every change has a cause must necessarily (without being thus formulated) be one of the initial beliefs of conscious beings far lower in the scale than man, whether derived solely from experience or otherwise. The reed that shakes is obviously shaken by the wind. But the riddle of the wind also forces itself into notice; and man explains this by transferring to the wind 'the sense of his own nature.' Thunderstorms, volcanic disturbances, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... halt with such suddenness as to create great confusion in the swarming ranks that followed in our wake. But while they sorted themselves, I slipped the booth off my shoulders, gave one long, echoing call upon the reed, and, striking an attitude, made ready to address ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... in the school of trial I have felt, as I never could before, how precious an inheritance is the smallest patrimony of faith. When everything seemed gone from me, I found I had still one possession. The bruised reed that I had never leaned on became my staff. The smoking flax which had been a worry to my eyes burst into flame, and I lighted the taper at it which has since guided all my footsteps. And I am but one of the thousands ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was interposed to receive the descending blade, which fell on the staff of a half-pike and severed it as though it had been a reed. Nothing daunted by the defenceless state in which he found himself, Scipio made his way to the front of Wilder, where, with a body divested to the waist of every garment, and empty handed, he fought with his ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... old-fashioned rocker with high back and curved arms, built throughout for the solid comfort of its occupants. Mrs. Reist chose an old hickory Windsor chair, Aunt Rebecca selected, with a sigh of relief, a fancy reed rocker, given in exchange for a book ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... while the friends of Sphodrias became much more forward in his defence. Indeed Agesilaus was remarkably fond of children, and an anecdote is related of him, that when his children were very little he was fond of playing with them, and would bestride a reed as if it were a horse for their amusement. When one of his friends found him at this sport, he bade him mention it to no one before he himself became the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... garden was strewn with broken glass. The buggy, which had been standing before the door, was nowhere to be seen, but one wheel impaled in a tree twenty yards away, told the story. The upright of the sun-dial was gone, snapped off at the ground as though it had been a reed. The club-house remained intact. The track of the tornado was not more than forty feet wide, but where it had passed, the ground was swept ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... Hump-Backed Clay Figure, standing on a fish; a reed staff in one hand, and incised lines on face. From ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Father, for these are days when fools stalk about and say, 'there is no God.' Thou hast given me my birth, O my Creator, in these days when superstition rages at my right hand and skepticism scoffs at my left. So I often stand and quake in the storm; and oh, how often would the bending reed break if thou didst not prevent it; thou, the mighty Preserver of all thy creatures and Father of all ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... reed in his bright green knitted jersey, was clinging with one hand to a wooden bar attached to the wall which served Magda for the "bar practice" which constitutes part of every dancer's daily work, while Magda, holding his ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... not gainsay me therein, I would not expose it to thee." Asked the Queen, "And what is thy need? Expound it to me, and I will accomplish it to thee, for I and my kingdom and troops are all at thy commandment and disposition." Therewithal the old woman quivered as quivereth the reed on a day when the storm-wind is abroad and saying in herself, "O[FN138] Protector, protect me from the Queen's mischief!"[FN139] fell down before her and acquainted her with Hasan's case, saying, "O my lady, a man, who had hidden himself under my wooden settle ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... said Musq'oosis. From the "fire-bag" hanging from his waist he produced a red-clay bowl such as the natives use, and a bundle of new reed stems. He fitted a reed to the bowl, and passed it to Sam. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... the lawyers, you know," he stammered. "Some day, Miss Kimball, I expect to represent the firm of Roland, Reed ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... sheltering himself from their clamours in the stronghold of privilege. Hence it was, that when he coalesced with others, he found no support on which he could lean with safety, and by which he could assist the monarch. His staff was but a reed on which, if he leant, it pierced his hand. This Chatham felt; and though he clung tenaciously to office, from the fear of displaying his weakness and incapacity, he only acted, when he did act, behind the scenes. Ministerial exertions were also paralysed by another ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... amusement, so, after the table hospitality, Sam took us into the Causeway. Out of the coloured darkness of Pennyfields came the muffled wail of reed instruments, the heart-cry of the Orient; noise of traffic; bits of honeyed talk. On every side were following feet: the firm, clear step of the sailor; the loud, bullying boots of the tough; the joyful ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Caesar, than by the same individual as a military commander-in-chief; and, as to enjoyment, that for the Roman imperator was now extinct. Rest there could be none for him. Battle was the tenure by which he held his office; and beyond the range of his trumpet's blare, his sceptre was a broken reed. The office of Caesar at this time resembled the situation (as it is sometimes described in romances) of a knight who has achieved the favor of some capricious lady, with the present possession of her castle and ample domains, but which he holds under ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Vineyard Lavender and Old Lace Flower of the Dusk The Master's Violin At the Sign of the Jack-O'Lantern Love Letters of a Musician A Spinner in the Sun The Spinster Book Later Love Letters of a Musician The Shadow of Victory Love Affairs of Literary Men Myrtle Reed Year Book ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... certain place in the city, within closed doors, I saw a young slave-girl dancing. She was about fifteen years old, thin and supple; she danced like a reed in the wind; but her eyes were weary as death, and her white body was marked with bruises. She stumbled, and the men laughed at her. She fell, and her mistress beat her, crying out that she would fain be rid of such a heavy-footed ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... Gallo-Belgicus was erroneously supposed, by the ingenious Mr. Reed, to be the "first newspaper, published in England;" we are, however, assured by the author of the Life of Ruddiman, that it has no title to so honourable a distinction. Gallo-Belgicus appears to have been rather ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... solitude. Few sounds are heard at mid-day to break the quiet of the scene. Sometimes the whistle of a solitary muleteer, lagging with his lazy animal along the road that winds through the centre of the valley; sometimes the faint piping of a shepherd's reed from the side of the mountain, or sometimes the bell of an ass slowly pacing along, followed by a monk with bare feet and bare shining head, and carrying ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... 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
... Spinoza, Flechier, and many others. Characteristically enough, if you turn up Rousseau in the index, you will find Jean Baptiste, but not Jean Jacques. You will search in vain for Dr. Thomas Reid the metaphysician, but will readily find Isaac Reed the editor. If you look for Molinaeus, or Du Moulin, it is not there, but alphabetical vicinity gives you the good fortune to become acquainted with "Moule, Mr., his Bibliotheca Heraldica." The name of Hooker ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... 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
... by the Cashmere gate, which was to be blown open by the engineers. The fourth column, eight hundred and sixty strong, was made up of detachments of European regiments, the Sirmoor battalion of Ghoorkas, and the Guides. It was commanded by Major Reed, and was to carry the suburb outside the walls, held by the rebels, called Kissengunge, and to enter the city by the Lahore gate. In addition to the four storming columns was the reserve, fifteen hundred strong, under Brigadier Longfield. It consisted of ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Cary of Boston, Mass., afterwards well known as a writer and as an active promoter of educational work in connexion with Radcliffe College (see an article on Radcliffe College, by Helen Leah Reed in the New England Magazine ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sufficiently large scale, he resolved to use water-power, which had already been successfully applied for a similar purpose, notably in the silk-mill erected by Thomas Lombe, on the Derwent at Derby in 1717. In 1771 Arkwright therefore went into partnership with Mr. Reed, of Nottingham, and Mr. Strutt, of Derby, the possessors of patents for the manufacture of ribbed stockings, and erected his spinning-frame at Cromford, in Derbyshire, in a deep, picturesque valley near ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the afternoon meal, while the men went off on their war and hunting expeditions, or amused themselves with feats of arms. The children were generally left to their own devices in the camp, and the principal amusement of the boys appeared to be the hurling of reed spears at one another. The women brought home the roots (which they dug up with yam sticks, generally about four feet long) in nets made out of the stringy parts of the grass tree; stringy bark, or strong ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... been suspected, has an adaptable temperament. Her natural position is upright, but like the reed, she can bend gracefully, and yields only to spring back again blithely. Since this chronicle regards her, we must try to look at existence through her eyes, and those of some of her generation and her sex: we must ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reed-like notes of the flute were true and clear as the song of a thrush. The melody turned and climbed and twisted, rose to a climax, and re-commenced again the same phrase. Arithelli listened, hypnotised and bewitched, as she always ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... history of a woman who suffered from metastasis of milk to the stomach, and who, with convulsive action of the chest and abdomen, vomited it daily. A peculiar instance of milk in a tumor is that of a Mrs. Reed, who, when pregnant with twins, developed an abdominal tumor from which 25 pounds ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... were departing, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... silence the old man coughed, then waited with eager eyes; and the long long hum of London hummed as it always has since first the reed-huts were set up by the river, changing its note at times but always humming, louder now than it was in years gone by, but humming night and day though its voice be cracked with age; so ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... grew the vine of bitter-sweet, What made the path for truant feet, Winter nights would quickly pass, Gazing on the magic glass O'er which the new-world shadows pass. But, in fault of wizard spell, Moderns their tale can only tell In dull words, with a poor reed Breaking at each time of need. Yet those to whom a hint suffices Mottoes find for all devices, See the knights behind their shields, Through ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... none to question, none to give The Nay or Aye, the Aye or Nay That might smoothe half our cares away. O, strange indeed! And sad to know We pitch too high and doing so, Intent and eager not to fall, We miss the low clear note of call. Why is it so? Are we indeed So like unto the shaken reed? Of such poor clay? Such puny strength? That e'en throughout the breadth and length Of purer vision's stern domain We bend to serve and serve in vain? To some, indeed, strange power is lent To stand content. Love, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so sorry you were ill... It was all my fault. I kept you there in the cold... Doctor Reed says I should have been plucky and made up my mind to bear the pain ... It's easy to talk when your bones are whole. When they are broken and sticking into your flesh you feel quite different. It seemed easier to die than to move, but it ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Lucanian marshes, where the moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always affected the native herds unfavourably. For hours together these fierce untameable beasts love to lie amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their flanks in slimy malodorous mud and seemingly impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the local wasps and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence. Perchance between Battipaglia ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... dear friend, is yonder upright reed transformed into a crooked plant by its own act, or by the force ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... that saw the wild ravens, And the eagles with hunger impell'd, Exultingly gorge 'mid your ruins. On corpses of men which they held; How sweet for you now 'tis to hear The shepherd, so peaceful and meek, Tune his reed with a melody clear, While his flock in ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... sized it up, and then stood on his hind legs and took a good hold of the trunk with his arms. He couldn't quite reach me, and at first I thought he was going to climb up, which made me laugh, but I didn't laugh long. The old bear began to shake that tree until it rocked like a reed in a gale, and I had all I could do to hold on with arms and legs. It's a fact that he pretty nearly made me seasick. He shook the tree for about ten minutes, and when he saw that it was a little too stout and that he couldn't ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... with a stormfulness (Ungestum) under which the boldest quailed, assert that he too had Rights of Man, or at least of Mankin." In all which, who does not discern a fine flower-tree and cinnamon-tree (of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, reed-grass and ignoble shrubs; and forced if it would live, to struggle upwards only, and not outwards; into a height quite sickly, and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... 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
... of others both large and small with paper mache heads, leather bodies, and clay arms and legs. The body was like a bellows in which a reed whistle was placed, that enabled the baby to cry in the same tone as the toy dog barks or the cock crows. They had "real hair" in spots on their head similar to those on the child, and they were dressed in the same kind of clothing as that used on the baby in summer-time, viz., a chest-protector ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... remarkable agreement, when we consider that they are about 1200 miles apart, and have no means of communication with each other. It is no uncommon custom, either, for the natives to pierce their noses, and to place a bone or reed through the opening, which is reckoned a great ornament. But there is another custom, almost peculiar to Australia, which, from its singularity, may deserve to be noticed at some length. Among many of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Penhaligon at once, and caution her about Alcibiades. . . . No, I won't, though. I'll call first and have it out with Mary-Martha. She thinks she knows everything, and she has a way of making others believe it. But she has proved herself a broken reed over this affair: and," said Miss Oliver to herself with decision, "I rather fancy I'll make ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... immemorial, a cluster of green and white-striped grass, without which no door yard in this section of Bucks County was considered complete in olden times. Near by, silvery plumes of pampas grass gently swayed on their reed-like stems. Even the garden was not without splashes of color, where, between rows of vegetables, grew pale, pink-petaled poppies, seeming to have scarcely a foothold in the rich soil. But the daintiest, sweetest ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... and killed Robert with, was blown through a long, hollow reed, a weapon much used in Africa, and the barb had been dipped in poison so subtle, rapid and sure in its effect, that the wound the girl had received accidentally in her hand, was fast proving fatal to her. In Robert Bramble's ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... the bell of Tarpaulin Cove reassured him, and after a time he heard the unmistakable blast of the great reed horn of Nobska uttering its triple hoot like a giant owl ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... with different degrees of interest by the ladies. When little Dubois toddled forward, and sprang with what little impetus his short legs could give him, it was difficult not to laugh, and when Montgomery's reed-like shanks were seen passing, Kate clung to Miss Leslie in fear that he would crush his frail body against the door; but when it came to the turn of any of the big ones, the excitement was great. Mortimer and Bret were watched eagerly, but most faith was placed ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... pass a mountaineer named Reed met them. It was he who had brought the news of the latest exploit by Slade and Skelly, but he had returned quickly to warn some friends of his in the foothills and was back again in time to meet the soldiers. He was a long thin man of middle age, riding a ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... eastern corner there was built a temporary stage upon which the dance of Koehi was to be performed. For about half a block, with the stage on the right, there was a display of flowers and plant settings arranged on shelves sheltered with reed screens. Everybody was looking at the display seemingly much impressed, but it failed to impress me. If twisted grasses or bamboos afforded so much pleasure, the gallantry of a hunchback or the husband of a wrong pair should give as ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... clock again shall strike; the broken reed shall pipe again: But we, we die, and Death is one, the doom of brutes, the doom ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... of 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 numbers on ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly, without closing. Afterwards she passes through a light piece of this reed. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... a final effort was made by Captain H. L. Reed, of the 7th Field battery, who, with three wagon-teams, came across from the eastern flank, but before the teams could reach the guns, Captain Reed was wounded and his horse killed. Of his thirteen men, one was killed and five ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... St. Louis. Time was further required to equip ships, and for these ships to find us; we resolved to hold out as long as possible. In the course of the day, two soldiers slipped behind the only barrel of wine we had left; they had bored a hole in it, and were drinking by means of a reed; we had all sworn, that he who should employ such means should be punished with death. This law was instantly put in execution, and the two trespassers were thrown into ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... 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, ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... when Benjamin Franklin wanted to marry the daughter of Mr. Reed, of Philadelphia, her mother said, "I do not know about giving my daughter to a printer; for there are already four in the United States, and it is doubtful if ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... creep into my own hut and get my assegais and a skin blanket, then to gain speech with Baleka. My hut, I thought, would be empty, for nobody sleeps there except myself, and the huts of Noma were some paces away to the right. I came to the reed fence that surrounded the huts. Nobody was to be seen at the gate, which was not shut with thorns as usual. It was my duty to close it, and I had not been there to do so. Then, bidding the dog lie down outside, I stepped through boldly, reached the door of my hut, and listened. ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... strength bend like a reed Before the flowing of Affliction's river, Not, not for shame, nor for one strumpet deed Doth this weak frame bow down, or faintly quiver, As I stand ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... animals. They made their first attempts upon slabs of limestone, on 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 groove in which ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... he ground his teeth, 'never was anything so frail, and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!' And he shook me with the force of his hold. 'I could bend her with my finger and thumb; and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... went to Oakland and was employed by Mrs. Mauvais. Having learned all of his notes he was able to read the Gospel hymns and play them on the piano. Because he was continually at the reed organ in the mission the other boys made fun of him and called him Crazy Frank. After having heard me sing it occurred to him that I was the very person to teach him and he importuned Mrs. Mauvais to find me and she and her friends came to ask me to teach this boy the art of singing. I only laughed ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... stilled is all yearning, No passion returning, No terror come near thee Where the Saviour can hear thee! For He, if in need be Thy storm-beaten soul, Though it bruised as a reed be, Shall raise ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Redouble duobligi. Redoubt (fortification) reduto. Redoubtable timinda. Redress (amend) rebonigi, ripari. Reduce (to powder) pisti. Reduce (dissolve) solvi. Reduce malpliigi. Redundance suficxego. Redundant suficxega. Reed kano. Reef (rocks) rifo. Reel (stagger) sxanceligxi. Re-enter reeniri. Re-establish reigi. Refection mangxeto. Refectory mangxejo. Refer to turni sin. Referring to rilate al. Refine rafini. Refined (manners) bonmaniera, gxentila. Refiner rafinisto. Refinery rafinejo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... The Bunia himself, bare-headed and bare-footed, sat cross-legged on a cushion, with a wooden stool in front of him, on which lay an open ledger of stout yellowish paper, bound in soft red leather and nearly two feet in length. In this he was carefully entering yesterday's transactions with a reed pen, which he dipped frequently in a brass inkpot filled with a sponge soaked in a ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... a huge ape white with age, or born white, I know not which. He is twice as big as any man, and stronger than twenty men, whom he can break in his hands, as I break a reed, or whose heads he can bite off in his mouth, as he bit off my finger for a warning. For that is how he treats the Kalubis when he wearies of them. First he bites off a finger and lets them go, and next he breaks them like a reed, as also ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... 'canon' derives ultimately from the Greek 'kanon' (akin to the English 'cane') referring to a reed. Reeds were used for measurement, and in Latin and later Greek the word 'canon' meant a rule or a standard. The establishment of a canon of scriptures within Christianity was meant to define a standard or a rule for the religion. The ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... 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
... white man had some supper out of the basket, then collecting a few sticks that lay about the platform, made up a small fire, not for warmth, but for the sake of the smoke, which would keep off the mosquitos. He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat with his back against the reed wall of the house, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... wilted meadow reed, the blue streamers on her hat drooped dejectedly, her best shoes were all dusty, and the three-cornered rent was the feature of her best muslin delaine dress that one saw first. Then her little delicate face was all tear-stains and downward curves. She ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... caused by some grass fire or reed-burning, to which he replied indifferently that he did not think so as the line of the glow was not ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... movements may be caused let us imagine a case that may occur in nature. It is an interesting mechanical study. There is an upright rush or reed growing in the middle of a running stream. The stem of this rush has elasticity naturally; it has a tendency to stand upright; but it bends when there is a current against it. It is easy enough to imagine it bending down stream more or less as the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... such severity that the person reproved shrinks and becomes abashed), and said, 'Beast that thou art! shall I keep my servant in pain for thy sake?' And when I said, 'Lord, what then shall I do?' He answered me, 'He was but a reed that I spoke through, and I will provide another reed to speak through.' Dalrymple points out that it was a belief in these 'answers from the Lord' that led John Balfour and his comrades to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... 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 ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... say that my last thoughts were of herself and God. She always feared that I was trusting too much in myself—in my own good resolutions and reformation; so I have been—but that's past. Tell her that God in His mercy has snapped that broken reed altogether, and enabled me to rest my ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, his case would be hopeless—and Clay suspected that the clubman would prove only a broken reed as a support. The fellow was selfish to the core. He had not, in the telling Western phrase, the guts to go through. He would take the line of ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... [Footnote: 1 'Parcy Reed,' the hero of the well-known ballad, was foully slain in Bakinghope above Catcleugh Lough, but his wraith is said to haunt the Rede and to be ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... subsequently editor of The New York Herald, Henry J. Raymond, the founder of The New York Times, and Charles King, father of Madam Kate King Waddington and Mrs. Eugene Schuyler, who at one time edited The American and subsequently became the honored president of Columbia College. James Reed Spaulding, a New Englander by birth, was also connected with the Courier and Enquirer for about ten years. In 1860 he became a member of the staff of the New York World, which, by the way, was ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the air; and close to the bomb-proof, and at the very skirt of the forest, they beheld a huge globe of iron fall perpendicularly to the earth, to the outer part of which was attached what they supposed to be a reed, that spat forth innumerable sparks of fire, without however, seeming to threaten the slightest injury. Attracted by the novel sight, a dozen warriors sprang to the spot, and fastened their gaze upon it with all the childish wonder and curiosity of men in a savage state. One, more eager and ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... gold, The Prince of Egypt war 'gainst you prepare, What if the valiant Turks and Persians bold, Unite their forces with Cassanoe's heir? Oh then, what marble pillar shall uphold The falling trophies of your conquest fair? Trust you the monarch of the Greekish land? That reed will break; and breaking, wound ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... These were accepted with the usual good grace of these people. The king then, ever attentive to our position as guests, sent his royal musicians to give us a tune. The men composing the band were a mixture of Waganda and Wanyambo, who played on reed instruments made telescope fashion, marking time by hand-drums. At first they marched up and down, playing tunes exactly like the regimental bands of the Turks, and then commenced dancing a species of "hornpipe," blowing furiously all the while. When dismissed with some beads, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... water-spirit among the reeds, sometimes addressing a few pleasant words, such as, "how d'ye do, old boy," or, "don't alarm yourself, my tulip," to a water-hen or a coot, or some such bird which crossed his path, but was unworthy of his shot; at other times stopping to gaze contemplatively through the reed stems, or to float and rest in placid enjoyment, while he tried to imagine himself in a forest ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... Thoreau's wife! The instant he had looked up into her face, he had forgotten the fiddler; but he remembered him now as he watched the woman, who stood with her back toward him. She was as slim as a reed. Her hair fell to her hips. He drew a deep breath. Unconsciously he clenched his hands. SHE—the fiddler's wife! The thought repeated itself again and again. Jan Thoreau, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... destructive than the service; for this was during the lion sun, as they call our season of the dog-days. Of 2000 men, above half were sick, and the rest like so many phantoms. Nelson described himself as the reed among the oaks, bowing before the storm when they were laid low by it. "All the prevailing disorders have attacked me," said he, "but I have not strength enough for them to fasten on." The loss from the ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... broom, and tie Greek reeds, 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 ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... oblivion, and striding to the front of the stage for a moment, and then they disappear, swallowed up of night. It has no care to tell the stories of any of its heroes, except for so long as they were the organs of that divine breath, which, breathed through the weakest reed, makes music. The self-revelation of God, not the acts and fortunes of even His noblest servants, is the theme of the Book. It is full of gaps about matters that any sciolist or philosopher or theologian ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... into Chinatown from Chatham Square we could see that the district was celebrating its holidays with long ropes of firecrackers, and was feasting to reed discords from the pipes of its most famous musicians, and was gay with the hanging out of many sunflags, red with an eighteen-rayed white sun in the blue union. Both the new tong truce and the anniversary were more ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... days," he went on, seeing that the boys were still deeply interested, "when they depended upon the ordinary telephone to convey warnings of fires they were surely leaning upon a broken reed. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... strengthening their fortifications for the desperate struggle they felt was at hand. General Artemas Ward, who commanded the colonial army, was not as prompt as he ought to have been in sending reinforcements to Breed's Hill, but at length Stark's New Hampshire regiment and Colonel Reed's regiment were permitted to join the men in the redoubt. The British sent 3000 of their best troops to carry the works by assault. Thousands of the people of Boston and neighborhood, many of whom had fathers, sons, brothers and husbands in the patriot lines, looked from hill and ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... Extracted from a series of interviews conducted by Lee Nichols with a group of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 12 November 1952, in ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Were you not forewarned of this?' 'By God His faith,' replied the physician, 'I did it not.' 'How?' cried Buffalmacco. 'You did not call on them? Egad, you did it again and again; for our messenger told us that you shook like a reed and knew not where you were. Marry, for the nonce you have befooled us finely; but never again shall any one serve us thus, and we will yet do you such honour thereof as you merit.' The physician fell to craving pardon and conjuring them for ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of game mammals found are as follows: Elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe, buffalo, zebra, sable and roan antelope, kudu, water buck, blue wilde-beest, impalla, reed buck, bush-buck, steenbok, duiker, klipspringer, ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... I was f-fishing in Swithin Reed's mill p-pond, yesterday afternoon, and Venus Roe came over and said that Swithin shot a lot ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... of individuals whose only offence against the State was that they would not willingly sacrifice their rights, and become the tools of venality and corruption? In not one solitary instance had it served any such purpose. Such responsibility was a mockery, "a broken reed, which it would be folly ever again to rest upon."[217] Of real, constitutional responsibility to the people there was not so much as a pretence. "All the powers of the Government," says Mr. Lindsey, "were centralized in Downing Street, and all the colonial officers, from the highest to the lowest, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... shall 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
... chair before the table, and the head that she had held so high bowed down upon her folded arms. The violence of her grief shook her from head to foot like a dry, light reed. Her heart seemed literally to be breaking. She must set her teeth with all her strength to keep from groaning aloud, from crying out in her hopeless sorrow her impotent ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Colone's olives swart'—(Kiss me, my Siren!)—Well, it seemed awful to watch that bee—he seemed so instantly from the teaching of God! AElian says that ... a frog, does he say?—some animal, having to swim across the Nile, never fails to provide himself with a bit of reed, which he bites off and holds in his mouth transversely and so puts from shore gallantly ... because when the water-serpent comes swimming to meet him, there is the reed, wider than his serpent's jaws, and no hopes of a swallow that ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... "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 see you start ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... sank within him. He knew Ferdy Wickersham too well not to know on what a broken reed the old ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... have they not written to the missionaries "that there is no tear that they shed that is not red with blood because of this opium?" ("China," by M. Reed, p. 63). Why, then, does China, while she protests against the importation of a drug which a Governor of Canton, himself an opium-smoker, described as a "vile excrementitious substance" ("Barrow's Travels," ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and said, "Hast thou seen the son of Amram?" The tree replied, "Since the day on which he came to me to get a writing reed, wherewith to write the Torah, I have not ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... still a lad to make flutes out of a kind of reed. He used to burn out the heart of the stalk, make holes where necessary, drill them, fix a mouthpiece at one end, and tune them so well that it was possible to play almost any air on them. He made a number of them in his spare time, and sent ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... tell them? I can't see how to get about the remedy clearly myself. The trade-unions have not hit it either. When they say to a man, 'Because I will not work for a certain sum, you shall not,' they lean on a reed that will surely break, and pierce themselves. Hunger is stronger than theory. No: I shall have to give the point a more thorough study before I become ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... contrived to enjoy a sup of whiskey at the tavern bar-room, and had actually, and with a manner the most adroit, gone deeply into the distribution of an entire packet of steel-pens, one of which he accommodated to a reed, and to the fingers of each of the worthy twelve, who made the panel on that occasion—taking care, however, to assure them of the value of the gift, by saying, that if he were to sell the article, twenty-five cents each would be his lowest price, and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms |
