"Ticking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instrument on a table in a corner kept up a monotonous ticking, to which the operator paid no attention. But it was a soothing sound to Prescott, and with the food and the heat and the restful atmosphere he began to feel sleepy. The lank youth said nothing, but watched his guest languidly and apparently ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... to his opinion by General Morgan, the warden unwittingly gave Captain Hockersmith time to get out and fall into line for dinner. While the tunnel was being run, Colonel R.C. Morgan, a brother of General Morgan, made a rope, in links, of bed-ticking, thirty-five feet in length, and from the iron poker of the hall stove we made a hook, in the nature of a grappling-iron, to attach to the end of ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... and the fulfilment of my purpose is a gray-haired timekeeper with kindly eyes. He sits in a glass cage and about him are a score or more of clocks all ticking soundly and all surrounded by an extra dial of small numbers running from one to a thousand. Each number means a workman—each tick of the clock a moment of his life gone in the service of the pickle company. I rap on the window of the glass cage. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... you can for your mother," said he, while he held her in his lap, and Doctor Sennar counted her mother's pulse by the ticking of his large ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... endeavour. I have some strength to fight the battle of life. I am aware, and can acknowledge, I have many comforts, many mercies. Still I can GET ON. But I do hope and pray, that never may you, or any one I love, be placed as I am. To sit in a lonely room—the clock ticking loud through a still house—and have open before the mind's eye the record of the last year, with its ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... rooms according to the size of the family. There were 8 such houses, 6 for families and one for the girls and the other for the boys. In the quarters we had furniture made by the overseer and colored carpenters; they would make the tables, benches and beds for everybody. Our beds were ticking filled with straw and covers made of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... comfort even from the sight of my blankets, and the sound of my watch ticking—things which seemed to link me to other people; but the screaming of the wood-hens frightened me, as also a chattering bird which I had never heard before, and which seemed to laugh at me; though I soon got used to it, and before long could fancy that it was many years ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... and I sat at the desk reading the reports of recent fires. The place was very quiet—the sounds of the great city were hushed—the night was calm, and nothing was heard but the soft breathing of the sleepers and the ticking of the clock as I sat there waiting for a fire. I often looked at the telegraph needles and, (I am half ashamed to say it), longed for them to move and give us "a call." At last, when I had begun to despair, the sharp little telegraph bell rang. Up I started in some excitement—up started ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... wine. A little silence followed. Then he took a book out of his pocket, and Sabina went back to her sewing. Sitting there in the corner, she listened to the sound of the leaves being turned and the loud ticking of the clock that hung over the gilt mirror. She wanted to look at him again—there was a something about him, in his deep voice, even in the way his clothes fitted. From the room above she heard the heavy dragging sound of Frau Lehmann's ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... to one of the three who had begun to rail at him, and raised his hand as in warning. So great was the curiosity to hear his words that the swords were lowered again, and again there could be heard the ticking of a clock in the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Mrs. Brent, and when he had obeyed he heard a tall grandfather clock ticking in the hall. He could see a staircase running upwards into shadows, and the half-opened doors made him think of the mouths of monsters. It seemed a long time before Mrs. Brent followed him and made a ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... chair. His face became still, his lips were drawn closely together. Lenora wheeled up the machine and with deft fingers adjusted the fittings on one side. Quest himself connected it up on the other. The Professor sat there like a figure of stone. The silence in the room was so intense that the ticking of the small clock upon the mantelpiece was clearly audible. The silent battle of wills seemed like a live and visible struggle. The very atmosphere seemed charged with the thrill and wonder of it. Never before had Quest met with resistance so complete and immovable. ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 'the side my heart is,'" said Mrs. Elliot, holding up the duster between them. "Most of us—I mean all of us—can feel on one side a little watch, that never stops ticking. So even if you had no bad foot you would still know which is the left. No. 50 white, please. No; I'll get it myself." For she had remembered that the dark ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... Regnicourt, but had found a patrol of about twenty in that village and had been fired on by them. We were discussing this, when suddenly there was a scuffling overhead and we were told that there was "something ticking somewhere," and that everyone had left the house. The cellar occupants were not slow to follow, and thinking of time-bombs and infernal machines managed to empty the cellar in a record time. We settled down uncomfortably under a hedge, and prepared ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... in wonder and surprise. This performance so new and startling to him was a fortunate occurrence for us. Tom saw the effect of his action, and then wound the watch. When he put the timepiece to the ear of the chief, he became frightened and tore the chain from his neck in terror. The ticking timepiece was then carried around to the assembled warriors, who exhibited the same fear at its 'talking.' An ample supply of food was then instantly set before us, and Tom went up to the chief, and tried to tell ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... tired of looking at that box, and as my fancy did not seem disposed to run again upon fighting and defence, I sat listening to the scratching of my father's pen and the ticking of the clock, and then to the dull roar of the furnace, while mingled with it came the clattering of hammers, the creaking of the great windlass, and the rushing and plashing ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... "would be the obvious thing to do. Anything to keep going and keep your mind ticking away until you're safely wound up again.... But I'm ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... time Mr. Trimm was in the Tombs, fighting for a new trial, a certain question had lain in his mind unasked and unanswered. Through the seven months of his stay in the jail that question had been always at the back part of his head, ticking away there like a little watch that never needed winding. A dozen times a day it would pop into his thoughts and then go away, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... eye upon the busily ticking little clock on the table. As she looked, her gaze became fixed and she sat up in bed with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... demurely from under you; Then the blanketing tickles—you feel like mixed pickles—so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking. Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle! Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... conciliatingly, "don't take so much for granted. Why, there are folks suspicious enough to accuse Saint Peter of starting Lent and ticking off Fridays from the meat programme simply because he was in the fish business. Let's not get to fussing about a set of convention resolutions. They're mostly ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... they were frightened, and at last they roared with laughter, put out their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred a little slip of paper, which ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... hot sun for six or seven successive days, shaking them up well and turning them over each day. They should be covered over with a thick cloth during the night; if exposed to the night air they will become damp and mildew. This way of washing the bed-ticking and feathers makes them very fresh and light, and is much easier than the old-fashioned way of emptying the beds and washing the feathers separately, while it answers quite as well. Care must be taken to dry the bed perfectly before sleeping ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... modern house, and replenished my wardrobe so as to keep pace with thought and custom. But, nevertheless, sitting here in my renovated easy-chair, with my feet stretched toward the brass andirons which were the pride of one of my great-grandmothers, listening to the ticking of the old-fashioned clock which belonged to another of them, and conscious that the eyes of my most distinguished ancestor are looking down at me from the wall, I feel bewildered, as it were, by this latter-day ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... motionless, its little heart beating doubtfully, like the ticking of a clock off the level, as if the last beat might be indeed ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... in the telegraph room began an agitated ticking. It was too early for "A.P. stuff," but the reporter recognized, by long association, sounds resembling the Eagle's call. Now he heard the operator give a low whistle, and that, also, from long association, ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... and took his customary stance on the platform in front. His face looked stern, and he held his hands clasped behind his back. His royal blue uniform was neat and trim. Over his head, the second hand of the big clock whirled endlessly. In the silence of the briefing room, it seemed to be ticking much too loudly. ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... the son made no reply. In the silence the ticking of the big clock seemed to fill their world. They were conscious of nothing else. It smote ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... the parlor, where the bright flame on the hearth was setting their shadows to dancing on the walls. The feet of Mary Shrimpton were keeping time to the ticking of the clock. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Mother Bunch, alone in her bed chamber, was seated in an arm-chair, close to a good fire. A thick carpet covered the floor; through the window-curtains could be seen the lawn of a large garden; the deep silence was only interrupted by the regular ticking of a clock, and the crackling of the wood. Her hands resting on the arms of the chair, she gave way to a feeling of happiness, such as she had never so completely enjoyed since she took up her residence at the hotel. For her, accustomed so long to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... into the room, I heard the clock ticking and that caused me to look at it. It sits on the mantelpiece with some layers of paper under one corner where the mantel is warped. When the papers slip out or we move the clock a little as we're dusting, the ticking stops right away. Of course the clock's not a new one at ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... gone out and the servants were all downstairs. Hetty contrived to pull out several drawers and played with ribbons and trinkets. At last she opened a case in which was her foster-mother's watch, and as this ticking bit of gold was like a living companion, Hetty ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... sermon three times, he said, and had never used either of them. He knew a clergyman named Brayley who went up into that region with Bright's justly celebrated disease. He was so emaciated that he couldn't carry a watch. The ticking of the watch rattled his bones so that it made him nervous, and at night they had to pack him in cotton so that he wouldn't break a leg when he turned over. He got to sleeping out nights on a bed of balsam and spruce boughs ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Kennedy was busy adjusting the apparatus, and paused only to remark that the boxes contained two sensitive selenium surfaces balanced against two carbon resistances. There was also in the box a clockwork mechanism which Craig wound up and set ticking ever so softly. Then he moved a rod that seemed to cover the slit, until the apparatus was adjusted to his satisfaction, a delicate operation, judging by the care he took. Several of these boxes were installed, and by that ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... preparations were soon complete, and when he closed the heavy door of whip-sawed lumber it was necessary to light the small kerosene lamp, although the dollar watch ticking on its nail said the hour was ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... got up and found his slippers. The ''fernal 'chine' of an alarm clock was ticking steadily away on the bureau where Mrs. Horton had placed it after unpacking, and with a great deal of trouble and much tracing with a wet forefinger, he made out that it was three o'clock—or was it five o'clock? Three o'clock in the afternoon and no lunch! Sunny Boy felt so sorry for himself ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... of the force of early habit—perhaps He was only life-principle—the warmth 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 ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... eating it, and asked for tobacco; it was, however, impossible to make any presents, as we had nothing to spare. They particularly admired the red blankets, were terror-struck at the sight of a large sword, which they tremblingly begged might be returned into the sheath, and wondered at the ticking of a watch, and at the movement of its wheels. The greater part were young men of mild disposition, and pleasing countenance; the children remained in the distance, and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... it be the Irishman's famous down couch, which consisted of a single feather laid upon a rock, and, like him, if it had not been for the name of it, I should have preferred the bare rock. They said that there was straw in the ticking upon which we lay, but I should never have imagined so from the feeling. We had neither pillows nor sheets, but the coarsest blue blankets, and not enough of them, for bedclothes; so that we suffered with cold, to add to our other miseries. And then the fleas! Well, like the Grecian ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... on his bed. It might have been half-past five o'clock. Only half an hour separated him from what was about to happen. He heard the beating of his arteries as one hears the ticking of a watch in the dark. He thought of the double march which was going on at that moment in the dark,—crime advancing on one side, justice coming up on the other. He was not afraid, but he could not think without a shudder of what was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... this way and that, as if expecting, as I said, that the ball would suddenly appear before her,—of course it did not,—and passing across the veranda, entered the hall. A great, old-fashioned, eight-day clock, like the pendulum that hung in the farmer's kitchen so long, and got tired of ticking, I imagine, stood in one corner. Just at the foot of this, Tidy saw a white string protruding. She forgot for the moment what she was hunting after, and stooped to pick up the string. She pulled at it, but it seemed to catch in something and slipped through her ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... I declare, I'd think it was one of those death-watch beetles had got in here. Sounds like a big watch ticking. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... is ready, the one outside is called in, led into the dark room, and hunts for the object. The rest must remain very quiet, as it breaks the "charm," so the leader says. Guided by the ticking of the watch, and knowing that it is there, he soon discovers the hidden object to the surprise ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... to her, his voice keen with elation, "what fools we are to take any human condition for granted. Man is a machine. Smash his mechanism and it cannot work; make the proper repairs before it is too late and—there he goes, ticking away as before. Not as good a machine as it was prior to the break, but with care and caution it will ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... have heard the ticking of his watch as he stood there and gazed in the face of the patient, while Mrs. Weston and Mr. Brunton and Charles Hardy waited motionless, almost breathless, to hear ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... sing before the door of heaven if there is a heaven or needs to be a heaven. When I look upon the glory of the other worlds, has not science itself told me that they are a part of me and I a part of them? Nothing is that would not be different without something else. My thoughts are ticking through the clouds, and the great sun itself is creeping through me daily down in my bones. The steam cloud hurries for me on a hundred seas. I turn over in my sleep at midnight and lay my hand on the noon. And when I have slept and walk forth in the morning, the stars flow in ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... cotton filled with wool, linsey, M.'s & O.'s, cotton-India dimity, cotton jump stripe, linen filled with tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman M., Janes twilled, huccabac, broadcloth, counterpain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon, fustian, bed-ticking, herring-box, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... was like being rescued from a terrible giant who intended to dash out your brains and eat you for supper. Bumper's heart began to beat slower and slower until pretty soon it wasn't going any faster than the ticking of the clock outside ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... rhythmical and, if I may so say, well-modulated undulation of the back in our ladies of Circular rank is envied and imitated by the wife of a common Equilateral, who can achieve nothing beyond a mere monotonous swing, like the ticking of a pendulum; and the regular tick of the Equilateral is no less admired and copied by the wife of the progressive and aspiring Isosceles, in the females of whose family no "back-motion" of any kind has become as yet a necessity of life. Hence, ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... as well bring them over as everything of that sort in Winnipeg is so fearfully dear I do not like buying anything there. We sent for some unbleached calico the other day, worth twopence-halfpenny; was charged twelve cents or sixpence a yard. Besides the four yards of calico there were ten of bed-ticking, also ten of American cloth; and the bill was six dollars seventy cents, nearly seven-and-twenty shillings. Everything is equally dear, the demand is so much greater than the supply. Beef is tenpence ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... more, and he sat at the table, tapping on it with a pencil. There was no sound in the kitchen but the ticking of the clock and the noise of the water boiling in the kettle and the little tap, tap ... tap, tap ... tap, tap, tap ... of his pencil on the table. Mrs. MacDermott had been hemming a handkerchief when John entered the kitchen, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... and stood with his back to the mantelpiece. They both heard the clock ticking loudly. Then, almost in a whisper, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... elderly, narrow-faced man seated at a large table and surrounded by manuscripts and books. The sunlight flowing through curtains of Turkey red fell sanguinely upon the bust of dead-eyed Pericles on the mantle. A little clock was ticking, hidden somewhere among the countless leaves of writing, the maps and broad heavy tomes that swarmed upon ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Dim with flick'ring candlelight, Lies a man on bed of sickness. Fiercely but a moment past Did he wage with Death the battle; Worn he sinks back into sleep. Save the clock's persistent ticking Not a sound invades the room, Where the gruesome quiet warns us Of the neighborhood of Death. O'er the pale, distended features Plays a melancholy smile. Is he dreaming at life's border Of his ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... above the sickening thudding of her heart as she crept forward round that terrible bend. She heard with an acuteness that made her marvel the long sweet note of the nightingale swelling among the bushes above. She also heard a watch ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward. There was no resisting that steady pressure. She crept on step by step because she could not do otherwise; and when ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... ever lively wife, Born with a genius for the highest life, Like me untimely blasted in her bloom, Like me condemn'd to such a dismal doom? Save money—when I just knew how to waste it! Leave London—just as I began to taste it! Must I then watch the early crowing cock, The melancholy ticking of a clock; In a lone rustic hall for ever pounded, With dogs, cats, rats, and squalling brats surrounded? With humble curate can I now retire, (While good Sir Peter boozes with the squire,) And at backgammon mortify my soul, ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... an image of grief and horror. The lady of honor dared not interrupt her; but clasping her hands, and weeping softly, she gazed at the queen, who, in her grief-stricken beauty, seemed to her a martyr. Nothing was heard but the monotonous ticking of the clock, and, at times, a low whistling of the canary-bird, in its gilt cage ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Clayhanger's entrance disappeared more quickly than the minutes ran. It grew almost impossible for Edwin to pass the time. At moments when his father was not stirring in the cubicle, and Stifford happened to be in repose, he could hear the ticking of the clock, which he could not remember ever having heard before, except when he mounted the steps to ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... The busy, loud-ticking clock was working on with cheerful unconcern, as if this were just like every other day whose passing moments it had registered. The hands were pointing towards seven, and the dinner hour was half-past seven. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager, and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was next to his room,—and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he should ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... been used; and, oh! with what a sickening sense of his unworthiness he now inserted it into the well-oiled lock and entered that citadel of the proprieties! All slept; the gas in the hall had been left faintly burning to light his return; a dreadful stillness reigned, broken by the deep ticking of the eight-day clock. He put the gas out, and sat on a chair in the hall, waiting and counting the minutes, longing for any human countenance. But when at last he heard the alarm spring its rattle in the lower story, and the servants begin to be about, he instantly lost heart, and ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amid which he lives. Now, in a living machine, the machine and the maker are one. The watch is perpetually self-wound and self-regulated and self-repaired. It is made up of millions of other little watches, the cells, all working together for one common end and ticking out the seconds and minutes of life with unfailing regularity. Unlike the watch we carry in our pockets, if we take it apart so as to stop its ticking, it can never be put together again. It has not merely ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house: the fall of coals in the kitchen-grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlour floor, and the thought of that detestable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the hospital was soon considered the best in the department. This was accomplished by a tact and energy which sought no praise, but modestly veiled themselves behind the orders of officials. The management of her kitchen was like the ticking of a clock—regular discipline, gentle firmness, and sweet temper always. The diet for the men was changed three times a day; and it was her aim to cater as far as possible to the appetites of individual men. Her daily rounds in the wards brought ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... than the Marquis Tudesco. His red waistcoat was gone; instead he wore a sort of sleeved vest of coarse ticking, but his shining face, with the little round eyes and hooked nose, still wore the same look of merry, mischievous alertness that was so like ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... of applause, and then dead silence. The ticking of the clock became audible. Some external force took hold upon him, lifted him from the chair, and impelled him a few steps forward. Some voice, decidedly not his own, though it appeared to issue from his throat, uttered the words "Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen." And before the sound ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... our cosy corner! It is draped with a fish net, and has paper butterflies and beetles in it! Very artistic! And she's got—well, really now, I believe she's got at least eleven pillers; counting the two ticking ones that has their covers come off at night ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... why—come back to us here at the old 'Hound' and be content to be just—a man. Good-by, lad; good-by!" saying which, Natty Bell nodded, drew in his head and vanished, leaving Barnabas to stare up at the closed lattice, with the ponderous timepiece ticking in ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... door, he came slowly back into the room and sat down at his desk. For ten minutes he sat there motionless, his head bent forward, every limb relaxed. There was deep silence, broken only by Howard's regular breathing and the loud ticking ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... flexibility of the cloth depend a great deal upon the mechanic who handles the cloth. Some mechanics like a stiff cloth, but the writer has always used a flexible cloth. The sizes, shape, and methods of folding and breaking in as shown in Fig. 21 below have proved successful. Cloths made of whalebone ticking are inexpensive and make the best for ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... them. His mind was wholly intent on getting help and saving the forest. Nothing else mattered. So he staggered on through the dusky woods. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes had passed. He felt sure he had been running an hour and that his watch had stopped. He held it to his ear. The steady ticking somewhat reassured him. After what seemed like another long interval he ventured to look at it again. Five minutes more had elapsed. Five minutes remained before Willie would be at his post waiting for a possible message. Charley crowded on all the speed that was left in him. But his feet ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... rain beat against the windows, the ticking of a clock became audible, but still Mr. Nott sat with vacant eyes fixed on his daughter's face, and the constrained smile on his lips. He was conscious that he had never seen her look so pretty before, yet he could not tell why this was no longer an unalloyed satisfaction. Not but ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... simply because they are women; they are having tea too. They seem to be very fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butter instead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the wash of waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments ticking away hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave it behind, and step out into the street again where the ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... certainty of its being paid. I immediately changed my mode of living, quitted my mess, lived alone, and took up the ship's allowance, which I found quite sufficient; washed and mended my own clothes; made a pair of trousers out of the ticking of my bed; and having by these means saved as much money as would redeem my honour, I took up my bill, and from that time to this I have taken care to keep within my means." Jervis for six years endured pinching privation, but preserved ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... both of them some of that fudge she had made to bring Lovelace Peyton, that Mr. Rogers had been in the telegraph office and had telegraphed your father that the experiment night before last was a success. Tony is ambitious as a Scout should always be and has learned to read the ticking of ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... lower into the car, and attempted to look like a rug. In the silence, while the sentry evidently examined a passport and flashed a lantern over the chauffeur, Nikky cursed the ticking of his watch, the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... unwelcome, old-fashioned remedy that night. He slipped away early—presumably to bed. Janice was not long in going to her room; but she did not lie down to sleep. When the house was dead-still, all save the mice in the walls and the solemn ticking of the hall clock, the girl ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... Only the crackle of the fire, the roar of the wind, and the ticking of his watch bore him company. He strode to the window and looked down at the few dim lights that proclaimed the existence of Upper Asquewan Falls. Somewhere, down there, was the Commercial House. Somewhere the girl who had wept so bitterly in that gloomy little ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... hosts of belfrys toss the hour to and fro like a shuttle-cork. Then the goblin bells hush themselves to sleep again in their dizzy nests, murmuring, murmuring!—and the pen of the pale book-keeper keeps time with the ticking ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... said the young man, cheerfully, "they're a nuisance, anyway—always ticking and striking and getting ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the most costly furniture from the apartments of the opulent. After they had slept upon the beds in the bivouacs, as they could not carry them away, they ripped them open, consigned the feathers to the winds, and sold the bed-clothes and ticking for a mere trifle. Neither the ox, nor the calf but two days old; neither the ewe, nor the lamb scarcely able to walk; neither the brood-hen, nor the tender chicken, was spared. All were carried off indiscriminately; whatever had life was slaughtered; and the fields were covered ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... they had seen in Cairo bazaars and hotels. The windows were closed, and the air heavy, as in a room seldom used. The two seated themselves close together, on one of the ugly sofas facing a door through which the beckoning negress had gone out. There was no sound except the harsh ticking of a huge, bulbous clock, all gilding and flowers, which stood in a corner. Monny's and Brigit's eyes ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... ticked out the last minutes she was to remain at home, and trying not to hear them, she turned to the Monna Lisa, wondering what Owen meant when he had said that the hesitating smile in the picture was like her smile. Her thoughts ran on ticking in her brain like the clock in the corner of a room, and though she would have given anything to stop ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... do not realize its having been stopped at all. A tiny arm holds the wheel firmly, and then lets it escape. Therefore, the fifth wheel and its accompaniments are called the "escapement." This catching and letting go is what makes the ticking. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... of the room, the ticking of his watch suddenly sounded very loud. He raised his arm and looked at its face; it was just ten minutes past eight. He continued to stare at its dial, wondering why nothing was happening to him. Then all at once the figures on the watch became very sharp ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... talked. What a lovely gift of imagination and true affection was in this fond old heart! I looked about the plain New England kitchen, with its wood-smoked walls and homely braided rugs on the worn floor, and all its simple furnishings. The loud-ticking clock seemed to encourage us to speak; at the other side of the room was an early newspaper portrait of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. On a shelf below were some flowers in a little glass dish, as if they were put ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... swayed like reeds, animals ran about demented; men thought the judgment had come. The earth opened in thousands of places, the roads in Hilo cracked open; horses and their riders, and people afoot, were thrown violently to the ground. At Kilauea the shocks were as frequent as the ticking of a watch. In Kau, south of Hilo, 300 shocks were counted during the day. An avalanche of red earth, supposed to be lava, burst from the mountain side, throwing rocks high into the air, swallowing up houses, trees, men and animals, and traveling three ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... the floor to the great curving stairway. Both of Hammon's friends knew the house well, and, guided only by their sense of touch, they labored upward with their burden. The place was still, tomb-like; only the faint, measured ticking of a clock came ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... been ticking away without intermission in the little corrugated iron hut which served as a telegraph station at Sarras. With its bare walls and its packing-case seats, it was none the less for the moment one of the vital spots upon the earth's surface, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bubbling seas of red gold, churned off, and let the low rays stripe the dried grass on which Mowgli and Bagheera were resting. It was the end of the cold weather, the leaves and the trees looked worn and faded, and there was a dry, ticking rustle everywhere when the wind blew. A little leaf tap-tap-tapped furiously against a twig, as a single leaf caught in a current will. It roused Bagheera, for he snuffed the morning air with a deep, hollow cough, threw himself on his ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... apartment, with a home-woven carpet on the floor. A turkey wing, used for a fan, hung beside the enormous fire-place, and on the broad mantelpiece, trimmed with paper cut in scollops, an old Yankee clock was ticking. The woman shook a cat out of a hickory rocking chair and urged me to sit down. She knew that I must be tired after my long ride, and she said that if I would only excuse her for a moment she would go down ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... in how to tell the time, and how to wind it up. He thought at last that he had thoroughly succeeded in enlightening the Maori about his new acquisition. Tama departed with ill-concealed glee, stopping every now and then, as he went, to listen to the watch ticking. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two dozen slips—I love a big pillow—and I've been saving up wild-duck feathers for weeks, the downiest feathers you ever sank your ear into, Matilda Anne; ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... went the bow upon the fiddle, the room became more brilliant and more dreamy. The flowers in the old, old blue jars grew pinker, mistier, the lights had halos, the portraits smiled forthright; but from greater distances, the loud ticking of the clock without the door changed to a great rhythm, as though Time were using a violin string. The laughter swelled, waves of brightness went through the ancient room. They ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable—and the odour of the ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... marched in humble procession into the living-room, their feet pressing without sound into the thick rugs. Everything here was fresh and new, but selected with excellent taste and careful attention to detail. Not a thing; was lacking, from the pretty upright piano to the enameled clock ticking upon the mantel. The dining-room was a picture, indeed, with stained-glass windows casting their soft lights through the draperies and the side-board shining with silver and glass. There was a cellarette in one corner, the Major noticed, and it was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... long that Bea had time to notice the ticking of her watch. Then she turned slowly ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... please, sir, this morning, in making the bed Mr. Pemberton sleeps in, I noticed the ticking loose, and I put my hand in, as I felt something hard, and I ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... years ago was clicking the steady pulse-beats of its second century. The featured moon on its dial had lifted one eye, as if to watch the child, as it had watched so many generations of children, while the swinging pendulum ticked them along into youth, maturity, gray hairs, deathbeds,—ticking through the prayer at the funeral, ticking without grief through all the still or noisy woe of mourning,—ticking without joy when the smiles and gayety of comforted heirs had come back again. She looked at herself in ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a little away from Hillyard when she put the question; and she sat now with her face averted for a long while. Nothing broke the silence but the ticking of the clock. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... room in an unpretentious cottage with the commander, I followed the preparations which were being made for the assault. The ticking of the instruments gave news from the front, the line of which was visible from the windows by flares and rockets and burning villages. By midnight ten breaches had been made in the barbed wire, each approximately ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... call to me, and I looked into their bright faces, threw myself among them, and hugged as many as my arms could encircle, then laid my ear close to the ground to catch the low sound of moving leaf and stem, or of the mysterious ticking in the earth, which foretells the coming of later plants. Sometimes in my ecstasy, I would shut my eyes and lie still for a while, then open them inquiringly, to assure myself that all my favorites were around me still, and that it was not all ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... dark stage. Opening music. Curtain rise—ticking of clock heard. Wind, then church clock chimes, the Lights come very slowly up, when the red glow is seen in the fireplace the low murmurs of the characters heard, and gradually get louder as lights come up to when SOMERS' ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... outside. But Nellie thought nothing of this, for her heart was too much disturbed. Had anything happened to her father and Dan? It was some relief to know that the lad was along, for two were better than one should an accident occur. Her eyes roamed often to the little clock ticking away on the mantel-piece. Six-seven-eight-nine. The hours dragged slowly by. She tried to read, but the words were meaningless. She picked up her needlework, but soon laid it down again, with no heart to continue. Once more she ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... faint tick was heard below from the pendulum, who spoke thus: "I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage; and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking." Upon hearing this, the old clock became so enraged that it was upon the very point of striking. "Lazy wire!" exclaimed the dial plate, holding up ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... The ticking of the clock was so distinct that it made an echo in the high hall; the morning sun streamed across the pavement, from the cloistered garden the chirping of a few sparrows and the sharper twitter of the house-swallow that had already nested under the eaves sounded ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... quite natural? Mr. Prohack could not be sure. Eliza Brating said she must go at once in order not to miss the last tram home. Mr. Prohack, without thinking, said that he would see her home in his taxi, which had been ruthlessly ticking his fortune away for much more than ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... threat lent an added zest to the search, but fortunately someone had the happy thought to look under the mattress (where the officer had put it himself) and there was the ill-fated timepiece calmly ticking off German minutes. I think I forgot to tell you that since the invasion we retire at ten instead of eleven o'clock, having been advised ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... silence, heedless of the fateful seconds ticking from the mantelpiece. At the sound of a slow, measured footfall on the cobblestone path outside Miss Pilbeam caught his arm and drew him towards ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... silence, for a few seconds, that the ticking of the big clock in the corner sounded ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... the sleeper woke not, though her waking then might have changed all my life. So I came safely to the kitchen, and there put in my pocket one of the best winter candles and the tinder-box, and as I crept out of the room heard suddenly how loud the old clock was ticking, and looking up saw the bright brass band marking half past ten on ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... news to Paris, fools! Spell it largely! It will amuse the court. Drink, drink, drink!" Wine bubbled and ran about the table; candles sputtered and died; still the sword rose and fell. Then came silence, broken only by heavy breathing and the ticking of the clock in the salon. The Chevalier sat crouched in his chair, his arm and sword resting on the table where ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... had but an instant to glance at the beautiful facade when a young butler opened the door to them and ushered them into a vast hall, panelled to the ceiling in oak and dimly lighted by Gothic windows of excellent stained glass. Here a silence, amazing in its profundity, permitted the very ticking of the clocks to be heard. All sounds from without, the hoot of the motors, the laughter of children, the grating voices of loafers on the Heath, were instantly shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment. The air ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... prevent their flails colliding, that one lash should be up in the air at the same moment that the other was down on the floor, so that it required some practice in order to become a proficient thrasher. The flails descended on the barn floors with the regularity of the ticking of a clock, or the rhythmic and measured footsteps of a man walking in a pair of clogs at a quickstep speed over the hard surface of a cobbled road. We knew that this mediaeval method of thrashing corn would be doomed in the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... caught his breath and furtively eyed the grandfather's clock, ticking boastfully through a welter of holly—presently it would be time for the Doctor's masquerade, and later, when the clock struck twelve and the guests unmasked, that great surprise which the doctor had planned ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of rain could ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... her head and plaited her hair in the two long ropes which made her nightly coiffure. She was thankful of the employment, thankful of an excuse to hide her face; she listened to the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece and asked herself what she should do next. The incredible had come to pass, and she, Bridgie, sister, guardian, married woman, mother of a family, was nervous in Pixie's ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... said to herself; and yet, as she sat alone in the drawing room, she listened for the ringing of bells, the opening of doors, and the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Every five minutes she looked at the clock, and her heart kept time to its ticking. Half-past two. In any case he wouldn't come before three; and yet—surely that was the front-door bell. No. Three o'clock, four o'clock—he would be more likely to drop in about tea-time. Five o'clock; tea came in on the stroke ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... seem to make you understand how vague the whole thing was—and yet it was there! As he leaned over me, I saw him—saw the indistinct shape—and I heard the sound of a watch ticking. It was not my watch, it was a very faint ticking one, but all else was so still, that I positively ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... Hampton could distinguish the faint ticking of the watch in his pocket, the hiss of the breath between the giant's clinched teeth. Twice the fellow tried to utter something, his lips shaking as with the palsy, his ashen face the picture of terror. No wretch dragged shrieking to the scaffold could have formed a more pitiful sight, but ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... thing, I don't believe that any one should have a lot of money, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while a charming young lady dines at her ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... system he devised means of torture which would induce him to put out the light. Once he tied a nail to a string; an arrangement which he kept on the floor behind the bed. Pretending to be asleep, he would hold the end of the string, and lift it gently up and down, making a slight ticking sound on the floor, maddening to a nervous man. Clemens would listen a moment ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a great many more dottings, which I shall not insert here. During the whole time I was dotting the most marvellous silence prevailed in the room, broken only by the occasional scratching of the dog against the inside of the door, the ticking of the clock, and the ruttling of the smoker's pipe in the chimney-corner. After I had dotted to my heart's content I closed my book, put the pencil into the loops, then the book into my pocket, drank what remained ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... that they were walking depositories of coin and bills. A bandit on a lonely road would, if he were born in Addington, have forborne to rob them. These and other personal eccentricities Jeffrey Blake remembered and knew he should find them ticking on like faithful clocks. It was all restful to recall, but horrible to meet. He knew perfectly what the attitude of Addington would be to him. Because he was Addington born, it would stand by him, and with a double loyalty for his father's sake. That loyalty, beautiful or stupid as you ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... advice to anyone and that I had better do as I thought best. As I thought best!! I remember I did not sleep all night afterwards: I was in agonies of indecision. I was sorry to lose the watch—I had laid it on the little table beside my bed; its ticking was so pleasant and amusing ... but to feel that David despised me (yes, it was useless to deceive myself, he did despise me) ... that seemed to me unbearable. Towards morning a determination had taken shape in me ... I wept, it is true—but I fell asleep upon it, and as ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... an abode of garish luxury. In the great salon, the furniture was crimson velvet and gold. All the chairs were gilt. The very table-legs were gilded. There were clocks chiming and ticking everywhere, no one of them telling the right time. In the bedrooms, which were lofty and spacious, there were beautiful canopies, and the most recent improvements for comfort. The sitting-rooms had glass ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... ticking all the same. If you were a fly, You would be dead by now. And if I were a parrot, I could be ...
— Aria da Capo • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... ears of Jack Carleton, while he stood in the woods, silent and listening, was a peculiar swashing noise, which continued a few seconds, followed by the same space of silence—the intervals being as regular as the ticking of a huge pendulum. Accompanying the sound was another, a soft, almost inaudible flow, such as one hears when standing on the bank of ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... it a very powerful book," said Dove solemnly. "That part, you know, where the boy listens to the clock ticking in the night, and thinks to himself that with every tick, a soul goes home to God. A very ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... how gruff the voice was; it was decidedly pleasant in her ears. Gingerly she picked up one of the revolvers. Kitty Conover with shooting irons in her hands, like a movie actress! She heard a whistle. After this an interval of silence, save for the ticking of the alarm clock on the stand. She eyed the blindfolded men speculatively, swung out of bed, and put on her stockings and sandals; then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the sequence. Kitty Conover was going ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... jew'lry—and, Jack, I think she's goin' off. I could stand all but that. To have her steal away like a thief—" He put his face downward to the pillow, and for a few moments there was no sound but the ticking of a clock on the mantel. Mr. Hamlin lit a cigar, and moved to the open window. The moon no longer shone into the room, and the bed and its occupant were in shadow. "What shall I do, Jack?" said ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Bulbo. The Undertaker came and measured him for the handsomest coffin which money could buy: even this didn't console Bulbo. The Cook brought him dishes which he once used to like; but he wouldn't touch them: he sat down and began writing an adieu to Angelica, as the clock kept always ticking, and the hands drawing nearer to next morning. The Barber came in at night, and offered to shave him for the next day. Prince Bulbo kicked him away, and went on writing a few words to Princess Angelica, ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to being mortal. Yet those were the truly vital and instinctive days of the human spirit. Only when vitality is low do people find material things oppressive and ideal things unsubstantial. Now there is more motion than life, and more haste than force; we are driven to distraction by the ticking of the tiresome clocks, material and social, by which we are obliged to regulate our existence. We need ministering angels to fly to us from somewhere, even if it be from the depths of protoplasm. We ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... eyes were scornful and her lips slightly parted. Before these signs his courage flickered out and left him speechless. Even commonplace statements of fact were denied him. At last in sheer desperation he referred to the loudness of the clock's ticking. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... things, past contradiction, Yet would prove I spoke no fiction Of the room's belongings cryptic Read by light apocalyptic: There is that strange thing, glass-masked, With continual questions tasked, Ticking with untiring rock: It is called an eight-day clock, But to me the thing appears Busy winding up the years, Drawing on with coiling ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... carefully down, for he was still uncertain whether some vertebral bit of him was not broken. Then he put his hand to the back of his head and felt it. Yes, undoubtedly something had happened; at contact with his finger it made a sound curiously like the ticking of a clock, and under the scalp a portion of bone seemed to move. And yet he was not threatened with unconsciousness; on the contrary he felt very wide awake: shaken though he was, ideas positively bubbled in his brain, his whole being effervesced. For a moment a fear flickered across ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... stuff; Or who could bear in bed a thing so rough? Ye knowing fair, how eminent that bed, Where the chintz diamonds with the silken thread, Where rustling curtains call the curious eye, And boast the streaks and paintings of the sky! Of flocks they'd have your milky ticking full: And all this for the benefit of wool! "But where," say they, "shall we bestow these weavers, That spread our streets, and are such piteous cravers?" The silk-worms (brittle beings!) prone to fate, Demand their ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift |
