"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wretched and meanest of all thieving more than once. One incompetent conniver at inexpiable wrong thought by cheating his men out of a portion of their meagre allowance he would make the insufficiency of stores put aboard by the owner spin out till the voyage ended. The water was served out just as exactingly as anything else, and as soon as the day's allowance was handed over to each man, the bung was put in the cask with canvas nailed over it, and the dipper, which is a long, narrow copper or tin pot, with a lanyard attached to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... before, and how out of a flat sheet of metal what seemed like beautiful silver spoons were made; but I had never yet seen a man spin a teapot, so being holiday-time, and having to wait for Uncle Jack, ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... all at once; "well there, I s'pose they ain't quite 'xactly the thing, but they look pretty nice on paper. See that fellow, now, Polly, a-flyin' through that ring. Beats all how they do it. Makes my head spin to look at him. See there!" and Mr. Atkins pointed a stubby forefinger, shaking with excitement, to the big poster ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... or the whole duty of man. Just then, reading is an end in itself. At that time of life you no more think of a future consequence—of the remote, the very remote possibility of deriving knowledge from the perusal of a book, than you expect so great a result from spinning a peg-top. You spin the top, and you read the book; and these scenes of life are exhausted. In such studies, of all prose, perhaps the best is history: one page is so like another, battle No. 1 is so much on a par with battle No. 2. Truth may be, as they say, stranger than fiction, abstractedly; but in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... and if she could, it will be months before the house is fit to live in. But we cannot stay here in comfort, unless thy mother will let me make up in some way. Mother will not need me all the time, and I know thy mother hires women to spin." ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... there I met Miss Harding, Miss Ross and Miss Dangerfield. I chatted with them for a moment and went on. I remember—oh, do I not remember!—that I called Miss Harding aside and reminded her that we were to take a moonlight spin in my new automobile. She smilingly replied that she had not forgotten it, and with a look into each other's eyes which thrilled my very being I ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... now, with our other necessaries, to decrease. To remedy this inconvenience, we were driven by necessity to avail ourselves of some knowledge which we had gained from the natives; and one of the convicts (a rope-maker) was employed to spin lines from the bark of a tree which they used for the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... eagerly at her, 'O Noorna, what is it in thy speech affecteth me? Surely it infuseth the vigour of wine, old wine; and I shiver with desire to shave Shagpat, and spin threads for the historian to weave in order. I, wullahy! had but dry visions of the greatness destined for me till now, my betrothed! Shall I master an Event in shaving him, and be told of to future ages? By Allah and his Prophet (praise be to that name!), this is greatness! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... are!" she cried. "Are not the Turks made of flesh and blood as you? Cannot their blood be shed as yours? Whither are you running? Home? But we women only are at home. Well, come home, take our distaff and spin, and give us your rifles; we will go ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... spin so wondrous wise? The nautilus to form his chambered shell? The carrier-pigeon under alien skies, Who taught him how his homeward course ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... dem slaves at night, even when de moon warn't shinin'. On dem dark nights one set of slaves helt lanterns for de others to see how to chop de weeds out of de cotton and corn. Wuk was sho' tight dem days. Evvy slave had a task to do atter dey got back to dem cabins at night. Dey each one hed to spin deir stint same ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... incline, Or be so hardy to her to trespace,* *offend When she comes home she rampeth* in my face, *springs And crieth, 'False coward, wreak* thy wife *avenge By corpus Domini, I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have my distaff, and go spin.' From day till night right thus she will begin. 'Alas!' she saith, 'that ever I was shape* *destined To wed a milksop, or a coward ape, That will be overlad* with every wight! *imposed on Thou darest not stand by thy ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... How little the things actually doing around us affect the springs of our sorrow or joy; but the life which our dulness calls romance,—the sentiment, the remembrance, the hope, or the fear, that are never seen in the toil of our hands, never heard in the jargon on our lips,—from that life all spin, as the spider from its entrails, the web by which we hang in the sunbeam, or glide out of sight into ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... '50's there lived near Indianapolis two young people. Their fathers were old-time farmers, keeping no "hired man" and buying very little "store goods." The girl could spin and weave, make delicious butter, knit soft, well-shaped socks, and cook as good a meal as any other country girl around. She was, withal, as buxom a lass as ever grew in Indiana. The young man was a little uncouth in appearance, round-faced, rather ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... along with a languid motion, Lapping the reed-beds on either side, Wending their way to the Northern Ocean. Grey are the plains where the emus pass Silent and slow, with their staid demeanour; Over the dead men's graves the grass Maybe is waving a trifle greener. Down in the world where men toil and spin Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her; Only the dead men her smiles can win In the great lone ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... old acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, He warms ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... I do not undertake to describe furniture, so I say nothing of Prigg's dingy office, except this, that if Prigg had been a spider, it was just the sort of corner in which I should have expected him to spin his web. Being a man of enormous practice, and in all probability having some fifty to sixty representatives of county families to confer with, two hours elapsed before Mr. Bumpkin could be introduced. The place, small as it was, was filled with tin boxes ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... money mania, jealousy, love of power, desire to outshine neighbors, lust, sensuality, gross appetites, gourmandism, love of praise, personal conceit and egotism, selfishness in every form—all these are webs which the Devils spin about humanity. ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... house where all the old women would card and spin wool in de winter and cotton in de summer. Dey made all our clothes, what few we wore. Us boys just wore long tailed shirts 'till we was 12 or 13 years old, sometimes older. I was 15 when I started driving the fambly carriage and I got ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... croupiers were crying in their strident, monotonous voices, inviting players to stake their counters of cent-sous, their louis, or their hundred or five hundred franc notes upon the spin of the red and black wheel. It was the month of March, the height of the Riviera season, the fetes of Mi-Careme were in full swing. That afternoon the rooms were overcrowded, and the tense atmosphere of gambling was laden with the combined odours ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... time I might attain this joy—that this book might find shelter beneath roofs of thatch, and that the village girls, as they spin and turn the wheel, humming the while their much-loved verses, of the girl who so loved to make music that while fiddling she lost her geese, or of the orphan, who, fair as the dawn, went to drive home the birds at ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... lamented 'the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using silk-worms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave as well as spin.' And he proposed, farther, 'that, by employing spiders, the charge of dying silks would be wholly saved;' whereof I was fully convinced when he showed me a vast number of flies, most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us, 'that the webs would take a tincture from them;' ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... bows, The wind sweeps through the brown leaves. The brown leaves crackle and rattle and dance, They rustle and murmur and pull at the bough, They shiver, they quiver till they pull themselves loose And are free. Up, up they fly! Little brown specks in the sky. They twist and they spin, They whirl and they twirl, They teeter, they turn somersaults in the air. Then for a moment the wind holds its breath. Down, down, down float the leaves, Still turning and twisting, Still twirling and whirling, The brown leaves float ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... while the man smokes she spins the flax grown on her own ground and the wool from the sheep of the farm. In some parts of Overyssel it is still the custom for the women to meet together at some neighbouring friend's house to spin, and during these sociable evenings they partake of the 'spinning-meal,' which consists of currant bread and coffee, and in turn sing and ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... easy languid deuce-may-care air of the young bucks of the Hicks and Kicklebury school—they can't put on their clothes with that happy negligence; their neck-cloths sit quite differently on them, somehow: they become very hot when they dance, and yet do not spin round near so quickly as those London youths, who have acquired experience in corpore vili, and learned to dance easily by the practice ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... read and write fluently in the mother-tongue. She could spin both on the little and the great wheel, and there were numberless towels, napkins, sheets, and pillow-cases in the household store that could attest the skill of her pretty fingers. She had worked several samplers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... servants can do many things beside the one thing they are hired to do. A spinner's hands can do nothing but spin. They are unfit for any other labor and are spoiled for spinning if they try it. Servants live in other people's houses. Nearly all of Hatton's spinners own, or partly own, their homes. In its seclusion they can bear with patience ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... The spin and "whizz" of his reel, the rush of a brown mountain stream with its fringe of silver birch and stunted alder, the white side of a leaping salmon, and the gasp of that noble fish towed deftly into the shallows at last, afforded him a natural ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... give thanks to the Lord next Sunday for his recovery; whereupon he answered that I might do as I pleased in the matter. Hereat I shook my head, and left the house, resolving to send for him as soon as ever I should hear that his old Lizzie was from home (for she often went to fetch flax to spin from the sheriff). But mark what befell within a few days! We heard an outcry that old Seden was missing, and that no one could tell what had become of him. His wife thought he had gone up into the Streckelberg, whereupon ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... my tongue to the cats to eat!" burst out the other, "if ever I saw a man lie on a sofa and blow blue circles in the air and spin pretty theories about what is back of ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... dear! A pretty pair of shoes for thee!— Alas, my mother! let me hear What use are pretty shoes to me! I cannot dance—I cannot spin: And why these promised shoes to win! O mother mine. I will not take Thy kindly gift. My ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... signification of MAN or BEAST, as the names man and beast are to have significations different one from the other. This, well considered, would resolve this matter, and show my meaning without any more ado. But I am not so unacquainted with the zeal of some men, which enables them to spin consequences, and to see religion threatened, whenever any one ventures to quit their forms of speaking, as not to foresee what names such a proposition as this is like to be charged with: and without doubt it will ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... some wholly new features; one of these is the almost entire self- sufficingness of very small holdings, their owners neither buying nor selling, making their little crops and stock almost completely supply their needs. Thus on a field or two, enough flax is grown with which to spin linen for home use, enough wheat and Indian corn for the year's bread-making, maize being mixed with wheaten flour; again, pigs and poultry are reared for domestic consumption—expenditure being reduced to the minimum. Coffee is a luxury seldom indulged in, a few drink home- grown wine, but all ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... saloon, who often leaned to hear him over the rails of the hurricane-deck. He was somewhat pleased, but not at all abashed, by this attention; and one night, in the midst of his famous performance of 'Billy Keogh,' I saw him spin half round in a pirouette and throw an audacious wink ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very little about the ocean. In fact, there are some things you don't know, and, if they wanted to, some of the old sailors could spin you yarns that would make your hair ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... Martin, for I was at The Hague at the time, and can't remember. Of course I don't approve of such things"—and the young rascal clasped his hands and looked pious—"but as it is all done with, one may as well hear the story of the fight. To spin it won't make you more ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... many to be told just now,—trust me, and be sure you get everything as good as can be: and if, in the villainous state of modern trade, you cannot get it good at any price, buy its raw material, and set some of the poor women about you to spin and weave, till you have got stuff that can be trusted: and then, every day, make some little piece of useful clothing, sewn with your own fingers as strongly as it can be stitched; and embroider it or otherwise beautify it moderately ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... Fitzgeralds and about the opera, but she held back her discovery, so to speak, of the baby, and the episode of Marna's wistful tears when she heard the music, and her amazing volte-face at remembering the baby's feeding-time. She would have loved to spin out the story to him—she could have deepened the colors just enough to make it all very telling. But she wasn't willing to give away the reason for her changed mood. It was enough, after all, that he was aware of it, and that when he drew her hand within his arm he held it in a clasp ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... day while the season lasts; I catch 'em as far as the Braisne. In harvest time, I glean; in winter, I spin." ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... children covered the shining expense, and when a game of shinny was in progress Mr. Watson might ring his bell till it cracked. But in the evenings the grown-up youth of the village appropriated the pond. Every night it was black with skaters, while occasionally a group would spin away up the river ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... treading on everybody's toes, and begging nobody's pardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying to rehearsal with no thought but of her own sweet self and whether there will be a letter from Harry at the stage-door,—yes, if we are alone in our griefs, we are no less alone in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in an enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,—as how should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to be tired of life, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... Garrone jumped up and said, "The first person who touches Nelli will get such a box on the ear from me that he will spin round three times!" ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... this form, however, the intelligence reaches its maximum. As a result, all living creatures, except selected ones, have their growth arrested at the larval stage and pass their entire life in this form. Certain ones at long intervals of time as the population diminishes, are allowed to spin cocoons and hatch out in the form you have witnessed. This form is almost brainless, the securing of nourishment from flowers and reproducing their kind being the limits of their intelligence. The eggs are maturing in the body of the one ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... glare of midday. Some daring ones ventured out to the first abutment despite the danger, and we saw the glare of their lanterns on the rushing, muddy water and the immense blocks of ice. Some of the latter would impinge against the stone abutment with a prodigious grinding crash, spin around several times, and then mount up from the water, crowded by others behind, as though it was about to climb over the massive stone. Then it would tumble back with a splash and swiftly sweep out ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... girl, and had never associated much with the village children in their rude sports. Once, when her mother spent a week at Mrs. Murray's, assisting her to spin, she had taken Annie, and thus a friendship commenced between ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... found that Chateau-Renard's two supporters were both polite men of the world. They were as indifferent as Louis was to the choice of weapons, and by a spin of a coin it was decided that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... can, began to dry the dishes that Walter was piling in front of him. First he patted and rubbed the towel on one side of the dish that lay before him; then he turned the same dish over with a bang and repeated the patting and rubbing on the other side. After that he gave the plate a spin. If it landed right side up he left it so; if the trade-mark showed he counted it a "foul," and tried the trick again. How boys can get work done that way is always a mystery to girls, who find ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... Bill Bevis that you will spin me over in the motor," said the doctor, a little timidly, when ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... about it," she declared, with spirit. "In trying to make things better you're content to spin theories, while we put ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... terrace the fair girl leaned and looked over at the garden and its golden occupant. To the eyes of Villon her beauty had never seemed rarer, and the wild passion which had prompted him to spin his very soul into song burnt with a new, delicious strength of hope. He stared at her as a worshipper might stare at some sudden vision of a long dreamed of goddess, and as he stared, Olivier descended the steps, soft-footed, and ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... appointed for you; beyond all this, ye sow not, neither do you reap; and God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and fountains for your drink; the mountains and the valleys for your refuge and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin or sew, God clotheth you, you and your children; wherefore your Creator loveth you much, seeing that He hath bestowed on you so many benefits; and therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God." Whenas St. Francis ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... us; face to face with us it stands, With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egypt's sands! This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin; This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin; Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy crown, We call the dews of blessing or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... account of his accident to his uncle and Patty, who anxiously inquired what had detained him so long, and what had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hatband to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune, and he was at the same time endeavouring to refute his uncle's opinion that the waste of the whipcord that tied the parcel was the original cause of all his evils, when he was summoned to try his skill ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... "Moss has got kicked out! He's jacked it up, and is going at Christmas. Jolly good job! He shouldn't have stopped the roast potatoes in the dormitories. Bickers's fellows have them; they can do what they like! Dig and I did the two mile spin in 11.19, but there was too much slush to put it on. All I can say is, I hope we'll get a fellow who is not a cad after Moss, especially as he will be Master of the Shell, and I'll get a dose of him both ways after Christmas. ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the question of the Egyptian loan that was being discussed at that time, as well as with respect to the burning Afghan question, Bismarck adhered tenaciously to this policy, and later on, too, he was determined to spin the threads further. In the latter part of the Autumn of 1887 an exchange of letters again took place between Lord Salisbury and Prince Bismarck, wherein the latter gave expression to the idea that Austria and England were the natural allies of Germany. If they were opposed to an alliance ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... exclaimed in accents of satisfaction, as he exhibited the balls to Dick. "These are the cocoons of a certain caterpillar, the name of which I forget, but they spin a kind of silk which is admirably adapted for the making of bowstrings, for it is incredibly strong, does not fray, and is not ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... with tempestuous weather that he takes the bluster of the storm for a friendly greeting, as if it should say, "How fare ye, brother?" He is a retired sea-captain, wrapped in some nameless garment of the pea-jacket order, and is now laying his course towards the Marine Insurance Office, there to spin yarns of gale and shipwreck, with a crew of old seadogs like himself. The blast will put in its word among their hoarse voices, and be understood by all of them. Next I meet an unhappy slipshod gentleman, with a cloak flung ...
— Beneath An Umbrella (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very rife, and if there was a penny to spin Tommy would spin it. This, of course, is not by any means true of all regiments, and as one of French's cavalry naively put it, 'You see, sir, we had not ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... Mitford can always be depended upon to spin a rattling story, and in 'Averno' he has made no exception to ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... accommodation will do, friend. If you hav'nt got beds, we'll sit up all night, and warm our toes at the fire, and spin long yarns, as they tell in the Eastern sea-ports. Anything but turn a fellow out such a night ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... astonishment, she had passed him; her laugh as she went brushed the tip of his youth like a swallow's wing. It remained with him as a little, far spark; it seemed as if a dream was about to spin itself out from it. He went around that way several times on his evening walks in hopes that he ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... the proud salmon gorge the feather'd hook, Then strike, and then you have him—He will wince; Spin out your line that it shall whistle from you Some twenty yards or so, yet you shall have him— Marry! you must have patience—the stout rock Which is his trust, hath edges something sharp; And the deep pool hath ooze and sludge enough To mar your fishing—'less ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... to spin silk; for her father had a garden of mulberry-trees, and a quantity of silk worms. She was of so much use in spinning, that her mother did not like to spare her: but the little maid promised, that if she might go to school, she would spin faster than ever when ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax. But many superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having in years gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the time of day on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said in Germany to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend is among the household tales of the peasantry:—"Two old women, good friends, were the most industrious spinners in their ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... physical type. They are of medium stature or tall. Their noses are the largest and most prominent in indian Mexico, and are boldly aquiline. The men are rarely idle; even as they walk, they carry with them their netting, or spindle with which they spin cord for making nets. It seems to be law, and is certainly custom, that persons coming to the plaza are expected to be more fully dressed than when travelling on the road or when in their homes. Usually white cotton drawers and shirt ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... snowy, fleecy pile it made, to be sure! And what fun it was to take up a handful of it, roll it into a string between her fingers, then twist one end of it around a spindle which she would throw out in the air with a twirl that would make it spin. Of course this would twist the wool into a thread, fine or large, according to whether the spindle was twirled ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... education was a part of the spiritual life itself, which comprehended all life. Our centre of culture should not only be the centre of the intellectual life of India, but the centre of her economic life also. It must co-operate with the villages round it, cultivate land, breed cattle, spin cloths, press oil from oil-seeds; it must produce all the necessaries, devising the best means, using the best materials, and calling science to its aid. Its very existence should depend upon the success ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... should sit in front of the "Sacrifice of Lystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare at that masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air of resolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of the gallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out of ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead.... Only two days later came a letter in which not a syllable was written but 'We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow,' and I knew he ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... your pardon, miss." There were children, who always will go where they ought not to go, running against people, and taking hold of their clothes with sticky, smeared hands, asking commercial gentlemen to spin their tops, and corpulent ladies to play at hide and seek. I saw one stern-visaged gentleman tormented in this way till he looked ready to give the child its "final quietus." [Footnote: American juveniles are, generally speaking, completely destitute of that agreeable ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Brummagem Republican Is witched by Primrose Maid. There is soft fascination In radiant rank, we know; And a posy, though primrosy, From soft hands makes soft hearts glow, Lilies—though they toil not nor spin ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... exhaustive statement of my opinions? .... I am certainly not dogmatic enough to deny—or to assert either—that there are sensations.... far too numerous for comfort .... but as for proceeding any further, by induction, deduction, analysis, or synthesis, I utterly decline the office of Arachne, and will spin no more cobwebs out of my own inside—if I have any. Sensations? What are they, but parts of oneself—if one has a self! What put this child's fancy into one's head, that there is anything outside of one which produces them? You have exactly ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... may be the opinion of fair ladies who dwell in ceiled houses in our older Eastern States and cities, who like lilies, neither toil nor spin, whose fair hands would gather close their silken apparel at the thought of touching the homelier garments of many a heroine of Kansas—whatever they may say in reference to this question, we, the women of the Spartan State, declare, we ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... soaring, balancing, ascending, instead of falling; or that can be made to behave in this way. Here we have a host of toys and sports: balloons, soap bubbles, kites, rockets, boats, balls that bounce, tops that balance while they spin, hoops that balance while they roll, arrows shot high into the sky; climbing, walking on the fence, swimming, swinging, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... the person at home, and spoilt, and does what he likes with them all, doesn't he? Of course, he's the person to be friends with if you want anything fixed up! Well, here we are at Onslow Square. It was jolly seeing you again. You must come for another longer spin soon. Isn't Mervyn a good chap? He's so really distinguished that it wouldn't ever matter what he wore, or where he went, or when. And you'd never dream he ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... roulette circle of one hundred numbered spaces and a blindfolded man to spin the ball; it could be counted just how many times in one thousand said ball would come to rest upon ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the humorous mind of a cynical cast, Party change many matters for mirth affords; But of all the big jokes, we've the biggest at last, In CHAMBERLAIN's backing the House of Lords! They toil not, nor spin? That's a very old jeer! Won't the Lilies take back seats when JOE is ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... here. We certainly don't look our best in the early morning, but the women stand the test better than the men. With big hats, veils, and the long cloaks they wear now, they pass muster very well and don't really look any worse than when they are attired for a spin in an open auto; but the men, with no waistcoats, a foulard around their throats, and a very dejected air, don't have at all the conquering-hero appearance that one likes to see in the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... will fetch him. You stay with Marie.' Then I go ver' quick for Gal, and I find him, his hands all shut like that! and he shake them at the sky, and he say not a word, but his face, it go wild, and his eyes spin round in his head. I put my hand on his arm and say: 'Come home, Gal. Come home, and speak kind to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... matter, concerning which so many words are expended. The growth of the germinal idea depends on the nature of an author's talent—he may excel in expansion, or in reduction; he may be economical, and out of an anecdote may spin the whole cocoon of a romance; or he may be extravagant, and give a capable idea away in the briefest ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the compressing wind as by water. Molly did not turn her eyes from the road ahead, leaping up to meet them, and vanishing under the car. She tried to make a little casual talk: "Don't you love to let it out, give it all the gas there is?" "There's nothing like a quick spin for driving the nightmares out of your mind, is there?" But as Sylvia made no answer to these overtures (the plain fact was that Sylvia had no breath for speech,—for anything but a horrified fascinated ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... traditions of the common faith, partaking in the superstitions of their age, banished from the bosoms of men by their monastic position, and inflamed with hierarchic pride, with but a faint connection or intercourse between conscience and intellect or between heart and fancy, strove to spin out theories which would explain and justify the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... which we once were. Nor could any sane man expect that we should for ever retain our former exceptional position. Other nations move as well as we. They buy the machines which we invent and make; they employ our foremen to teach them the arts we have acquired, and in time they learn to weave and spin for themselves instead of coming to us for every yard of cloth or every pound of yarn. This relative advancement of foreign nations and, too, of our own Colonies and Dependencies was and is inevitable. It is part of the general ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... utterly vanished from view. "Now, what in thunder does that mean I want to know—why should they douse the glim in such a hurry—wonder if they could have caught any sound from us to give 'em a scare? I'm in a tail-spin, seems like. Oh I shucks! mebee it was on'y a measly star after all, that's set back o' the horizon. Who got fooled that time, I want to know, ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... fatuus of the day! Leave it, and settle down as woman should. What has been always, must be to the end. Always has woman been subordinate In mind, in body, and in power, to man. Let rhetoricians rave, and theorists Spin their fine webs,—bow you to holy Nature, And plant your feet upon the ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... doubt, give a directing light in some cases, but not a conclusive light. It leaves us inconsistent and uncertain amidst these unavoidable problems. Yet upon these questions most people feel that something more is needed than the mood of the moment or the spin of a coin. Religious conviction may help us, it may stimulate us to press for clearer light upon these matters, but it certainly does not give ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... to hang you, and little is made of much, on your side, and much is spun out of little, on theirn. They are more cunning than foxes, and bloodthirstier than panters, and they no more git tired than the spiders, that spin and piece a web as fast as you break it. Three nights ago, I got down on my knees, and I kissed a little pink morocco slipper what your Ma wore the day when she took her first step from my arm to her own mother's ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... office," continued the young man, gaily. "Now, no backwardness to-day. Sit right down, while I spin my yarn, as the sailors say. It was as big a surprise to me as it ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... girl with the black eyes holds you tight, and you run... and run past the wild, wild towers... and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet and little frightened dolls shut up in the shops crying... and crying... because no one stops... you spin like a penny thrown out in the street. Then the man clutches her by the hair.... He always clutches her by the hair.... His eyes stick out like spears. You see her pulled-back face and her black, ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... Bonner some time later. He was taking her for a spin in the automobile. "It was a forlorn hope, and it is also quite probable that Mr. Crow's impressions are wrong. The man may have absolutely no connection with the matter. I'll admit it looks interesting, his manner and his questions, and there is a chance that he knows the ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... while decision in Nanette's case was still pending, and, still self-secluded, she hid within the trader's home, refusing speech with anyone but little Fawn Eyes, a sleighing party set out from Frayne for a spin by moonlight along the frozen Platte. Wagon bodies had been set on runners, and piled with hay. The young people from officers' row, with the proper allowance of matrons and elders, were stowed therein, and tucked in robes and furs, Esther Dade ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... This is evidently going to be a mile run, and not a hundred yard dash, as Jack would say. So come in, sit down, get comf'y, wait until you and your breath—are on speaking terms, and I'll listen. But first I want to tell you all that happen to me. Why didn't you come for a spin? It was ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... right about that," Uncle John said heartily, "and now run and get your wraps, and we'll spin away to the shore." ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... a hole to spin, Puss came by, and puss peeped in; What are you doing, my littoo old men? We're weaving ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... early at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show through the weary lids with their deep golden ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he, who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence; and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty. In addition to these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were affixed to the van: which may have contained ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... weaver of ribbons, and I love them well, all the bright, beautiful colors. I look at the windows of my St. Etienne and feel the color like a song in my heart, and while I weave I see them always, and could even think that I spin them from my ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... the same means which promote your improvement be likewise useful to me? You desire to obtain knowledge, by travelling and conversing with many persons, and studying many sciences; but you desire it for yourself alone. Me you think poor, weak, and contemptible; fit for nothing but to spin and churn. Provided I exist, am screened from the weather, have enough to eat and drink, you are satisfied. As to strengthening my mind and enlarging my knowledge, these things are valuable to you, but on me they are thrown away. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... London; fascinating for all their demureness the damsels of France, clinging closely to their mothers, with large eyes wondering at the wicked world; excellent in her own place and to those who understand her is the Anglo-Indian "spin" in her second season; but the girls of America are above and beyond them all. They are clever, they can talk—yea, it is said that they think. Certainly they have an appearance of so doing which ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... sugar over the fire with half a cup of grape-juice, bring to a boil and cook until it will spin a thread from the tip of the spoon. Have ready the yolks of three eggs, beaten well, pour the grape-juice syrup upon it, and add two cups of whipped cream. Turn into a mold, pack in ice, salt ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... of the sun, for instance—an impersonal, intangible something which started the universe as one winds a clock, and left it to go on ticking till the mechanism runs down.... Good or bad, wise or foolish—what difference? Spin our webs no matter how carefully, they are only gossamer, visible for a moment with the dew or the frost upon them and then—vanished. Human and spider alike, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... only found various seeds to vegetate sooner, and to grow taller which were put upon his insulated table and supplied with electricity, but also that silk-worms began to spin much sooner which were kept electrified than those of the same hatch which were kept in the same place and manner, except that they were not electrified. These experiments of M. D'Ormoy are detailed at length in the Journal de Physique of Rozier, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... at all, for the other ball, the full-pitch as we call it, is, with a flat bat, too easy to hit, for our bowlers swerve very rarely: it is the contact with the ground which enables them to give the ball its extra spin or break. Full-pitches are therefore very uncommon. In cricket a bowler who delivered the ball with the action of a pitcher would be disqualified for "throwing": it is one of the laws of cricket that the bowler's ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... had nothing like the necessary thing to make it - I mean fine thin canvas or stuff to searce the meal through. And here I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what to do. Linen I had none left but what was mere rags; I had goat's hair, but neither knew how to weave it or spin it; and had I known how, here were no tools to work it with. All the remedy that I found for this was, that at last I did remember I had, among the seamen's clothes which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of calico or muslin; and with some pieces ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... life is from the very beginning most suitable to philosophers seem to me to be in an error, thinking that men ought to follow this for the sake of some recreation or some other thing like to it, and in that manner to spin out the whole course of their life; that is, if it may be explained, to live at ease. For this opinion of theirs is not to be concealed, many of them delivering it clearly, and not a few more obscurely." Who therefore did ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the gear of those Who neither toil nor spin; I merely want some standard clo's To drape my standard skin, Wrought of material suitable for writing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... Masters are regarded as common enemies; and it is never necessary to tell them the truth. Expediency is the golden rule in all relations with the common room. And after a very few weeks even Congreve would have had to own that the timid new boy could spin quite as broad a yarn as he. The parents do not realise this. It is just as well. It is a stage in the development of youth. Everyone must pass through it. Yet sometimes it leads to quite a lot ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... habit, each afternoon, of strolling away from the rest, out of sound of their chaff. On the grassy top of one of the reefs, he found a spot where he could lie comfortably and watch the "quiet one." He used to spin long day-dreams there. She looked so remote far up in the boiling blue, and so strange, that he had an inexplicable sensation ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... top, all colored red and green, and blue and yellow and skilligminkpurple, as it was, he felt better at once, and, sitting up in bed, he began to spin it on a nice smooth board that his brother brought up from ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... bed, there came to me, for the first time in my remembrance, that horror of death of which you sometimes spoke to me. I thought to myself: I shall lie thus in the dark, only this heart will be still, this blood will be cold, and there will be no dawn for me,—yet the world will spin on as before, and those who loved me will smile again. I feared death for the first time, because, for the first time, life is dear to me. It is the outcome of my great content; I cling to my happiness, and Death ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... much as Flora had liked the idea of it, she had never built the house so large, so vivid, so wonderfully towering to please her fancy as she was doing now to cover Kerr. With questions she led Mrs. Herrick on to spin out the subject, to play it over with lights and shades, to beat all around it. And all the while she knew that Kerr was watching her; watching her once again in dubious admiration. It was a look that made Mrs. Herrick seem ready at a movement ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... as to be beyond connection with the past. His identity, if one could call a bundle of disconnected memories an identity, seemed to remain; but his life was once more broken into separate pieces; he was a spider and had to spin a new web in some new place with a ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... accuracy of taste in the public, some conscientiousness of production in the artist. If artistic creation be not a joy, an imperious necessity, an instinct of all the forces of the mind, let the boy go and plough, and the girl go and spin." ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Russell inquired if she possessed any relics of Prince Charles from the time he used to spin with ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... I, my little man,' returned the Duke, patting him on the head, then adding to his own two boys, 'Take your cousins and play ball with them, or spin tops, or whatever may ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in state in the mess-wagon of the "Custer Trail," and hour on hour, about the camp-fire on the round-up, Eaton would play to the dreamy delight of the weary men. The leading spirit of those evenings was Bill Dantz, who knew a hundred songs by heart, and could spin an actual happening into a yarn so thrilling and so elaborate in every detail that no one could tell precisely where the foundation of fact ended and the Arabian dome and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... by persons ignorant of Greek. Who could understand the sentence in the Psalm [Ps. 50.4 (51.3)] Et peccatum meum contra me est semper,[32] unless he has read the Greek? This runs as follows: [Greek: kai he hamartia mou enopion mou esti diapantos]. At this point some theologian will spin a long story of how the flesh is perpetually in conflict with the spirit, having been misled by the double meaning of the preposition, that is, contra, when the word [Greek: enopion] refers not ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... sings its strange song amongst the ruins," says one of us, "what a wonderful acoustic phenomenon!" "Bhuta, bhuta!" whisper the awestruck torch-bearers. They brandish their torches and swiftly spin on one leg, and snap their fingers to chase ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... farmer, and the stirring life of a farmer's daughter in a new country, fell to her lot. To spin the garments she wore, to make cheese and butter, were parts of her education, while to lend a hand at out-door labor, perhaps helped her to acquire that vigor of body and brain for which she has ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... single cow That charges for her milk, And though they are not paid a sou, The silkworms still spin silk. ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... been amused in ciphering out the amount of favors which produced this result. It was a look—a word—a smile: it was that she seemed pleased with my new kite; that she rejoiced with me when I learned to spin a top; that she alone seemed to estimate my proficiency in playing ball and marbles; that she never looked at all vexed when I upset her workbox upon the floor; that she received all my awkward gallantry and mal-adroit helpfulness as if it had been in the best taste in the world; ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... were not altogether effectual, for the next morning Springate found several clots of blood, but not suspecting anything of the matter, threw them away. Neither had they escaped letting some tokens of their cruelty fall upon the floor, stain the wall of the room, and even spin up against the ceiling, which it may be supposed happened at the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... answered. "He is more or less the sort of man I have been thrown with all my life. They toil not, neither do they spin. I know you will not misunderstand me, for I am very fond of him. Mr. Temple is honest, fearless, lovable, and of good instincts. One cannot say as much for the rest of his type. They go through life fighting, gaming, horse-racing, riding to hounds,—I have often thought ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was the senior pilot of the three; the observer, the pilot pointed out, was the senior observer. Was it not right, therefore, that they should be given preferential treatment? The flight-commander agreed, and by the time the early-risers and quick-lunchers had settled their quarrel by the spin of a coin, the Scarff had found a ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... sorts of games with marbles, how to make and spin more kinds of tops than most boys ever heard of, how to make the latest things in plain and fancy kites, where to dig bait and how to fish, all about boats and sailing, and a host of other things ... an unmixed delight ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... the wind seems gone now and it is the hum of whirling spinning wheels that I hear. And what I see is a room where a dozen girls sit spinning and singing songs about their wheels and about their lovers. But one among them does not spin. She lets her wheel stand idle and only sits and looks at a picture that hangs on the wall. It is of a dark man with black hair, a black beard, and deep, piercing eyes; it is the captain whom we have seen so much already. The other ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... Beyram with a message to Albuquerque, excusing them for not having sent to inquire what the Portuguese wanted in their port, and promising that the governor should wait upon him next day. Attar however did not perform this promise, but endeavoured to spin out the time by a repetition of messages, in order to strengthen the fortifications of the city, and to receive farther supplies. Albuquerque immediately perceived the purport of these messages, and told Beyram that he would listen only to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... and working for M—— under this new arrangement and being apparently fascinated for the moment by his personality, he seemed to me to gradually lose sight of his ideal, to be actually taken in by the plausible arguments which the latter could spin with the ease that a spider spins gossamer. In that respect I insist that M—— was a bad influence. Under his tutelage L—— gradually became, for instance, an habitue of a well-known and pseudo-bohemian chop-house, a most mawkish and naively imitative ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... abused men in France. Trochu (a friend of his told me to-day) deserted by all, makes speeches in the bosom of his family. No more speeches, no more lawyers; is the cry of the journals. And then they spin out phrases of exaggerated Spartanism by the yard, and suggest some lawyer as the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... composition."—'Diary; Life', p. 38. The prologue was written by him, between stages, on his way from Harrogate. On getting into the carriage at Chesterfield, he said to his companion, "Now, Pigot, I'll spin a prologue for our play;" and before they reached Mansfield he had completed his task,—interrupting only once his rhyming reverie, to ask the proper pronunciation of the French word 'debut'; and, on being told it, exclaiming, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... hearing her ask this question, forthwith suppressed a laugh, and, with a glib tongue, he began to spin a yarn. "At Yang Chou," he said, "there's a hill called the Tai hill; and on this hill stands a cave called the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... introduced, all was smooth sailing, and writing progressed by leaps and bounds. Nothing was easier now than to provide signs for the other words pronounced fang. "A room" was [Ch] door-fang; "to spin" was [Ch] silk-fang; "fragrant" was [Ch] herbs-fang; "to inquire" was [Ch] words-fang; "an embankment," and hence "to guard against," was [Ch] mound-fang; "to hinder" was [Ch] woman-fang. This last ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... mother at Hillsboro as often as she'll have the caravan and plead with Billy Harvey or Hampton Dibrell to keep me out until I'm late for dinner every time they pick me up for a little charitable spin. That and other deceptions have kept Mark Morgan uncertainly happy so far, but if I am pushed to the wall I'll—I'll go to the Reverend Mr. Goodloe's study for ministerial counsel like you did last Friday afternoon, Harriet," ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to be said for the life of a nomad, but whether or not I should place him among the inhabitants of the underworld I am not sure; for he toils not, neither does he spin, and his bitterest enemies cannot accuse him of taking thought for the morrow. I had almost forgotten one great advantage he possesses: he need not wash; and when this distasteful operation becomes, for sanitary reasons, absolutely ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... had the car ready early, and took every one for a spin through the Hout, which reminded them of the Bois, or what the Bois would be if pretty houses were scattered over ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... they were well fed and clothed, and did nothing Quality would be ashamed of, she said she was content. Days spent on the mountains, fishing in some brown stream, helping an old peasant to herd his cow, or watching a woman spin by her door, taught the children more than they learnt from Mr Rannigan. They brought back to Lull stories of ghosts, Orange and Papist, who fought by night on the bridge that had once been slippery with their blood; of the devil's strange doings in ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... all of his ten brothers and sisters helped to card and spin the cotton for the looms. Sometimes they worked all night, Charlie often going to sleep while carding, when his mother would crack him on the head with the carder handle and wake him up. Each child had a night for carding and spinning, so they all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Pearson, began to get the thread of the thing. Foster was sure the thread would run through. Hortense was still alert for ulterior meanings. Poor Cope, however, had no ambition to spin a double thread,—a single one was all he was ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller |
