"Brass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... foot like a deer, able to scale the crags where his foes fortified themselves like the wild antelopes he had so often seen bounding among the dizzy ledges of the cliffs in the wilderness; his hands are trained for war, and his sinewy arms can bend the great bow of brass. But these capacities are gifts, and not they, but their Giver, have made him victorious. Looking back upon all his past, this ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... in hearing him talk, of what Menander says about the Dodonian brass, that if a man touched it only once it would continue ringing the whole day in the same monotonous tone. Thus this talker, touch him on the story-key, and he plays away until you are ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... son!—scattered amongst the swine—I mean amongst brandy-balls, open tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a top and string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a Little Warbler; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerable period, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully, for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket);—with all these things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your pockets, and your hands, of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... others had hired native carriers, who staggered under the heavy bales and cases, and the uproar was deafening and incessant as they wrangled over their bartering and dazzled the eyes of their customers with rolls of English and French silks, pigs of iron, copper, and brass, sacks of rice and sugar, glittering Manchester cutlery, American beads, ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... familial and neighbourly as if he'd been a common chap. Ay, 'a cussed me up hill and 'a cussed me down; and then 'a would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth would glisten in the sun like fetters of brass, while I, being a small man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a strappen fine gentleman as he was too! Yes, I rather liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I looked at his towering height, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Chairman of the Board, Bridgeport Brass Co.; Former President, U. S. Chamber of Commerce; Trustee, ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... distinguished visitors would throng to a much more imposing front door. He announced, with an air of state, that his master and young mistress were "receivin'," and took ceremonious charge of the callers. He had brushed his threadbare coat and polished each brass button singly until it shone. An African imagination aided him to feel the dignity ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Titanic, a mass of 40,000 tons, moving through the water at 20 knots an hour, a marvel of the science and skill of man, crashes into an iceberg, because the trained intelligence directing her errs—and is reduced at once to an inert mass of iron and brass. The mighty fleet of Russia meets the Japanese fleet in Tsushima Straits; and because the trained intelligence that directed its movements seriously erred, in an engagement decided in less than an hour, is stripped of ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... catch of fur he straightway spreads out before him an alluring display of goods specially manufactured for native trade. Here are brilliant cotton velvets and sateens and tinselled muslins and gay ribbons that take the eye of his women folk; here are trays of Brummagem knickknacks, brass watches, and rings set with coloured glass, gorgeous celluloid hair combs, mirrors with elaborate, gilded frames, and brass lamps with "hand-painted" shades and dangling lustres; here are German accordions and mouth-organs and all sorts of pocket-knives and alarm-clocks—the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... day of burial, and my mother, wrapped in fair white robes, was laid to her rest in the chancel of the church at Ditchingham, where my father has long been set beside her, hard by the brass effigies that mark the burying place of Lily's forefather, his wife, and many of their children. This funeral was the saddest of sights, for the bitterness of my father's grief broke from him in sobs and my sister Mary swooned away in my arms. Indeed there were few dry eyes in all ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... me. I was in high favour on both sides of the Channel; and this, I suppose made me think little of the troubles in my own country: so when I and James reached London late in the evening, after riding up from Kent, I went straight to Whitehall, as bold as brass to demand to see Mr. Chiffinch. We had ridden fast, and had talked with but very few folks, and these ignorant; so that I knew nothing of what impended, and was astonished that the sentinels at the gate ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... tell you anything about that house, nor the fixings in it; it beat me a mile—that house did. We had a room somewheres up on the hurricane deck, with brass bunks and plush carpets and crocheted curtains and electric lights. I swan there was looking glasses in every corner—big ones, man's size. I remember Cap'n Jonadab hollering to me that night when he was getting ready to ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... odor, a dust of arsenic through which gleamed the piles of insects, impaled before being shipped, the birds packed closely together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... that Dino's eyes were fixed earnestly upon something on his writing-table. He drew near enough to see that it was a cabinet photograph of Elizabeth Murray in a brass frame—a likeness which had just been taken, and which was considered remarkably good. The head and shoulders only were seen: the stately pose of the head, the slightly upturned profile, the rippling mass of hair resting on the fine shoulders, round which a shawl had ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... He was unkempt and travel-stained; his moleskin trousers, held up by a strap buckled round his waist, were trodden down at the heels; under the hem of his coat, a thing of rents and patches, protruded the brass end of a knife-sheath. His back was bent under the weight of his neat, compact swag, which contained his six-by-eight tent and the blankets and gear necessary to a bushman. He helped his weary steps ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... is a holiday, my friend,' said Arncliffe, upon whose kindly heart and front of brass the beating of the waves of Time seemed powerless to develop the ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... I'll tell him you asked me in." He moved toward her, his body swaying, his hands shaking, his face convulsed; but as he groped forward she snatched one of the electric candlesticks from among her toilet articles and swung it above her head. The fixture was of heavy brass, and its momentum ripped the connection from its socket; her arm was tense with the strength of utter loathing as she brought the weapon down. Hayman reeled away, covering his face with his hands and cursing wildly; then, profiting ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... that still remained of the possessions of Richard Saint Leger. There were not many of them: his sea-chest, containing a somewhat limited wardrobe, including the clothes in which he died; his writing-desk, a substantial oak-built, brass-bound affair; a roll of charts, still faintly redolent of that peculiar musty odour so characteristic of articles that have been for a long time on shipboard; a few books, equally odoriferous; a brace of pistols; and his sheathed ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... he said hotly, "that Madan's opinion of anything I may be doing matters one brass farthing to me! Only I give you and him fair warning that if he blackguards me again in the way he has done several times lately, I shall ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the tiger was sham!" laughed William W. Kolderup. "Both of them were stuffed with straw, and landed before you saw them with Jup Brass and ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... of wonder, La Boulaye permitted himself to be led up the crazy stairs to a most untidy room above, which evidently did duty as the Captain's parlour. A heavy brass lamp, hanging from the ceiling, a few untrustworthy chairs and a deal table, stained and unclean, were the only articles of furniture. But in almost every corner there were untidy heaps of garments Of all sorts and conditions; strewn about the floor were other ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Saraeen fleet was equipped, which drove the Roman navy into the Hellespont; how Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, were ravaged, and the Colossus, which was counted as one of the wonders of the world, sold to a Jew, who loaded nine hundred camels with its brass; how the armies of the khalif advanced to the Black Sea, and even lay in front of Constantinople—all this was as nothing ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... saves wood, and gives out more heat than a deeper one. A false back, of brick, may be put up in a deep fireplace. Hooks, for holding up the shovel and tongs, a hearth-brush and bellows, and brass knobs to hang them on, should be furnished to every fireplace. An iron bar, across the andirons, aids in keeping the fire safe, and in good order. Steel furniture is more genteel, and more easily kept in order, than that ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... Until early morning the incessant shuffling in the streets kept up, for every one had gone to midnight mass. Throughout the town the strumming of guitars, the voices of children, and the blare of the brass band was heard, and the next morning Jack-pudding danced on the corner to the infinite amusement of the crowd. As for our own celebration, that was held in the back room of a local restaurant, the Christmas dinner consisting of canned turkey and ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... to go forward to a trench-line traced on the map; I knew the brass-hats had blundered, I knew and I told 'em so; I knew if I did as they ordered I would tumble into a trap, And I tried to explain, but the answer came like a ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... had many ridiculous adventures. Among them was an attack he made upon an inoffensive barber who happened to be carrying a brass basin for his trade that Don Quixote believed to be an enchanted helmet. After capturing the basin Don Quixote proceeded to wear it in place of his steel casque. He called it Mambrino's Helmet, and his appearance in ancient ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... awning of the Cafe de la Rotunde, he read the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly about and peck up the grains in the sand. Children ran here and there, playing at ball; and, above the noise of the promenaders, arose the music of the brass band. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that she must stop at some point short of that; and that, therefore, all expenses in the rivalship are so much thrown away. But, reason and broaches and bracelets seldom go in company. The girl who has not the sense to perceive that her person is disfigured and not beautified by parcels of brass and tin, or even gold and silver, as well to regret, if she dare not oppose the tyranny of absurd fashions, is not entitled to a full measure of the ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... froth the inner room with the keys. "I was afraid I had mislaid then," he said; "the middle one opens the padlock, Miss Woolcot; the brass fat one is for the two bins, and the long steel one for ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... give. They've been after t' winders, and after t' vittle, and after t' very saut to 't; it's dearer by hauf an' more nor it were when a were a boy: they're a meddlesome set o' folks, law-makers is, an' a'll niver believe King George has ought t' do wi' 't. But mark my words; I were wed wi' brass buttons, and brass buttons a'll wear to my death, an' if they moither me about it, a'll wear brass buttons i' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... imagine how brilliant and beautiful that new brass fender is, and how perfectly naturally it takes its place under the carved oak. How they did scour it up before they sent it! I lied a good deal about it when I came home—so for once I kept a secret and surprised Livy on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... use charcoal for the sparking points. In a lecture before the Royal Society in the following year he described and demonstrated that the "spark" passing between two pieces of charcoal was larger and more brilliant than between brass spheres. Apparently, he was producing a feeble arc, rather than a pure spark. In the years which immediately followed many scientific men in England, France, and Germany were publishing the results of their studies of electrical phenomena bordering ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... ever-swinging doors, she traversed the office corridors with rapid tread, her hands too full of packages to consult her watch. But twisting her head to see the round clock, just above the entrance, with its great brass weights ponderously doling off the time, in plain view, she started with dismay, for its hands remorselessly pointed to fourteen minutes past five. One minute late. It was too provoking! She felt the tears close, and dashed on down the long steps leading to the passenger ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... connection with that first invention of the apron of fig-leaves. That faculty has marked his path throughout the centuries. Not always at one level, or ever moving in one direction,—it has risen and fallen, with flow and ebb, as the tides; now surging upward with skillful "artifice in brass and iron," and to the music of "harp and organ," until it aims at heaven itself, and the Lord again and again interposes and abases by flood and scattering,—now ebbing, till apparently extinct in the low-sunken tribes of earth. Its activity is the accompaniment usually of the ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... deprecating look that seemed to beg me not to notice the peculiarly quaint antics which the wind, evidently a humourist, chose at that moment to execute with the female garments upon the line. However, I was for once cased in triple brass and inexorable. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... hats, wider at the top than at the head. They wear long blue cloth coats, crossed at the breast, and fastened round the waist with a red cotton sash. Their wide trousers are tucked into high boots, and at their back hangs a square brass plate with their number on it, serving the purpose of the London cabman's badge. They are, indeed, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... matter of boring the cylinder. To bore an iron cylinder on a foot lathe is difficult even when the lathe is provided with automatic feed gear, and it is almost impossible with the ordinary light lathe possessed by most amateurs. To bore a brass cylinder is easier, but even this is difficult, and the cylinder, when done, is unsatisfactory on account of the difficulty of adapting a durable piston ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... which has attained to perfection of maturity, to the goal of completeness, they firmly believe that it is something which has gradually come to that perfection by passing through the forms of all other metallic bodies, so that its gold nature was originally lead, afterward it became tin, then brass, then silver, and finally reached the development of gold; not knowing that the natural philosophers mean, in saying this, only something like what they mean when they speak of man, and attribute to him a completeness and equilibrium in nature and ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... was wrath. Mrs. Western had misbehaved egregiously, and had come to her in her trouble solely because it was necessary. So far she had done naturally. But though she had come, she had not come in any of the spirit of humility. She had been bold as brass to her in the midst of her cowardice towards her husband,—imperious to herself and unbending. She had declined her advice with scorn. And yet one word spoken by herself would have been destructive. Seeing that she had been so treated ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... inevitable enterprise, she crossed the room, and averting her face, and closing her eyes in a paroxysm of nervous excitement, she stretched forth her arm, and with a rapid motion withdrew the curtain. The harsh sound of the brass rings drawn quickly over the rod, the only noise that had yet met her ear in this mystical chamber, made her start and tremble. She looked up, she beheld, in a broad and massy frame, the full-length portrait of ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... extraordinary looking little gentleman he had ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-colored; his cheeks were very round, and very red, and might have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last eight-and-forty hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long silky eyelashes, his mustaches ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... admiration. The priest laughed at me, and I am sure he would not have purchased this venerable city of the dead if he could have done so by saying a mass. The very name has perished; instead of Saguntum it is called Murviedro from the Latin 'muri veteres' (old walls); but Time that destroys marble and brass destroys also the very ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... surplice will stir up such publications as the Christian Remembrancer and the Quarterly—those heavy Goliaths of the periodical press; and if I alone were concerned, this possibility would not trouble me a second. Full welcome would the giants be to stand in their greaves of brass, poising their ponderous spears, cursing their prey by their gods, and thundering invitations to the intended victim to "come forth" and have his flesh given to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. Currer Bell, without pretending to be a David, feels no awe of the unwieldy ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... "O with what face of brass, what brow of steel, Can you unblushing speak this to the face Of the espoused wife of so dear a friend? It is my husband that maintains your state, Will you dishonour him that in your power Hath left his whole affairs? I am his wife, Is it ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... close of this letter sent family remembrances in characteristic form. "Kate, Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Sampson Brass, commend themselves unto your Honour's loving remembrance." The last but one, who continued long to bear the name, was Frank; the last, who very soon will be found to have ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... table. Here I am reminded, though, of a modern instance to the contrary in prose. Mr. H. G. Wells, who, as far as I know, has never written a line of verse, was inspired a few years ago to write a short story, Under the Knife. Out of a clock-dial, a brass rod, and a whiff of chloroform, he has conjured for us a sensation of space and eternity, evoked the face of the Unknowable, and an awesome, august voice, like the voice of the Judgment Day; a great voice, perhaps the voice of science itself, ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... thought of death than our respected lexicographer; and yet we know how little it affected his conduct, how wisely and boldly he walked, and in what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of life. Already an old man, he ventured on his Highland tour; and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not recoil before twenty-seven individual cups of tea. As courage and intelligence are the two qualities best worth a good man's cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligence to recognise our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... —— thought, as he uttered these words, 'so wicked and uncivic' (as Gellius says of a similar wish on the part of a Roman lady, for which she was fined the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds brass), that in the future lay such dire fulfilment of them! Apropos of the subject, what fitting tools for the purposes of rebellion have these hated 'poor whites' proved themselves!—their ignorance, their vices, their brutality rendering them all the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... East; and I'm darned if Spud didn't have his oil painting down and the mosquito netting ripped off it before Alonzo heard about it and put the Not-at-All on it. He wouldn't reason with Henrietta either. He just said his objection was that every man that saw it would put one foot up groping for the brass railing, which would be undignified for a Sabbath-school scheme, and that she'd better hunt out something with clothes on like Whistler's portrait of his mother, or, if she wanted the nude in art, to get the Horse Fair or something ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... where "there was just room for his bed and himself, and in which few men could stand upright." With this lodging he was content. His food was rice and vegetables dressed native fashion, and his clothes were made of black dimity. The little brass lamp which he had used for his studies at the University went with him to India, and served him all his life, often late at night, for he never preached even to the natives without ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Morgiana would have opened it to let in the forty thieves. A small, pale man, with whitish eyes, and gray hair standing on end, peered at us rather inhospitably; and on the lower step of the staircase a tallow candle, in a brass candlestick, emitted the brilliant light ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe;—to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... State Arsenal, to see what arms and material might be there. We found a few boxes of smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued to militia companies and had been returned rusted and damaged. No belts, cartridge-boxes, or other accoutrements were with them. There were two or three smooth-bore brass fieldpieces, six-pounders, which had been honeycombed by firing salutes, and of which the vents had been worn out, bushed, and worn out again. In a heap in one corner lay a confused pile of mildewed ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... heard that glad announcement issue from the Speaker's lips they ceased to fret at the dragging delay, and plucked up spirit. The Chairman of the Committee on Benevolent Appropriations rose and made his report, and just then a blue-uniformed brass-mounted little page put a note ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cross-legged on a cushion, with a wooden stool in front of him, on which lay an open ledger of stout yellowish paper, bound in soft red leather and nearly two feet in length. In this he was carefully entering yesterday's transactions with a reed pen, which he dipped frequently in a brass inkpot filled with a sponge soaked in a ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... have had to be lodged in the Soldier Room.[24] As for the little room by the stable, there it stands empty; it is too small to play soldiers in, and I do not see what we can do with it, except to have a nice brass name-plate engraved in Sydney, or in "Frisco," and stuck upon the door ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sprung they went thither, and having waged war, continued there and began to cultivate the lands. The number of the people is countless, and their buildings exceedingly numerous, for the most part very like those of the Gauls; the number of cattle is great. They use either brass or iron rings, determined at a certain weight, as their money. Tin is produced in the midland regions; in the maritime, iron; but the quantity of it is small; they employ brass, which is imported. There, as in Gaul, is timber of every description, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... its endless privations and restrictions makes one rebellious. The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one's heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one's heart to stone. One sometimes feels that it is only with a front of brass and a lip of scorn that one can get through the day at all. And he who is in a state of rebellion cannot receive grace, to use the phrase of which the Church is so fond—so rightly fond, I dare say—for in ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... convinced he saw through me, while his face was polished brass. My self-possession returned, for my pride was not to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... said the invalid, and he took one little brass thimble-like thing from its inside. "I—I wanted to use it for something before you went out, but I saw you come up, and I don't want it any more. I must certainly get back to the world again. Dear old world! Nice old ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of relief the young man stretched himself luxuriously out on the broad triple plank of the stile, and drew from his pocket a brass spy-glass which he had been itching to make use of for the past ten minutes. He also had his reasons for being interested in the Ferris properties which lay beneath him, every field and dyke and hedgerow, every curve of coast and curvet of breaking wave ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... 5th, 1840.—I have been to-day to see a new tin-mine, two or three miles off, which is expected to turn into a copper-mine by and by, so they will have the two constituents of bronze close together. This, by the way, was the 'brass' of Homer and the Ancients generally, who do not seem to have known our brass made of copper and zinc. Achilles in his armor must have looked like a bronze statue.—I took Sheridan's advice, and did not go down ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... heart was a dial to which the world was the sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered every purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was invisible, the dial was mute—a piece of brass ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the old signs which indicated the callings of shopkeepers have been swept away. Indeed, the three brass balls of the pawn-broker and the pole of the barber are all that are left of signs of the olden time. Round the barber's pole gather much curious fact and fiction. So many suggestions have been put forth as to its origin and meaning that the student of history is ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... heart when the man comes round with the tin pail!—everyone has a spade or a pail at the seaside—all the latest London successes, from TOSTI to "Ta-ra-ra," accompanied by a strong contingent of the Salvation Army Brass Band!—and there is a lot of "brass" about the Army still unaccounted for! What an enervating part of the world this is! One quite realises what "lotus-eating" means, even though there are no lotuses ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... fight to put them back again; but to your generation, Ronald, the Stuarts are after all only a tradition, and it is a sort of generous madness for you to risk your life to set them again on the throne of England. It cannot matter a brass pin to you whether James or George rules at St. James's. It is not, as in the case of the Royalists in England in Charles's time or of the Covenanters of Scotland, that a great principle is involved — a principle for which men may well risk their lives and ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... see what the effect would be, those who disliked the Indians the most made them presents with the rest. Tobacco, skeins of cotton, brass buttons, cakes, crackers, cents, sticks of candy, bits of ribbon, were received by the Indians without a word or nod of acknowledgment. No sign of consciousness of visitor or presents was evinced, save that a grimy hand would deftly clutch the article tossed within its reach, and convey it to ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... ground glass on which the camera-picture had been brought to an exact focus, we drop the shield containing the sensitive plate into the groove the glass occupied. Then we pull out a slide, as the blanket is taken from a horse before he starts. There is nothing now but to remove the brass cap from the lens. That is giving the word Go! It is a tremulous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... we are spared the sight of. The staircase, painted to imitate black marble with yellow veins, turns upon itself like those you see in cafes leading from the ground-floor to the entresol. The balustrade, of walnut with brass ornaments and dangerously slight, was pointed out to us as one of the seven wonders of the world. The cellar stairs run under it. On the other side of the corridor is the dining-room, which communicates by folding-doors ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... and then is obliged to live in its neighbourhood, she will find herself dwelling with an enemy. We all know that there are colours of which a little is enjoyable when a mass would be unendurable. Predominant scarlet would be like close companionship with a brass band, but a note of scarlet is one of the most valuable of sensations. The gray compounded of black and white would be a wet blanket to all bubble of wit or spring of fancy, but the shadows of rose colour are gray, pink-tinted it is true; indeed the shadow of pink used to be known by the ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... holding by the brass rail. "I will give him a fine surprise!" she said to herself. "I can take care of him, now. To-night we shall be on shore and this misery all over. And then the great ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... sight. A steam-coach, with its disgusting, hissing, sputtering, shapeless, lifeless engine, ought to be ashamed of itself, and would probably blush for its appearance, if it were not for the quantity of brass that goes to its composition. On the above-mentioned bright day in June, only two passengers go out from the inside of the Celerity. The outsides, who were apparently pushed for time, urged them to make haste; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... gradually died out. Rand was still typing when Gladys came up the spiral and perched on the corner of the desk, picking up a long brass-barreled English ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... the Texan galloped to the door of the Red Front Saloon, and swinging from his horse, entered. Some men were playing cards at a table in the rear, but he paid them no heed. Very deliberately he squared himself to the bar and placed his foot upon the brass rail: "Give me some red liquor," he ordered. And when the bartender set out the bottle and the glass the cowboy poured it full and drank it at a gulp. He poured out another, and then a third, and ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... pronounced the canoe a "regular macaroni" and laid down a pair of brass buckles, signifying that he would ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... believe in no such stuff as that. I think a woman can be bold and unwomanly in other things besides goin' with a thick veil over her face, and a brass-mounted parasol, once a year, and gently and quietly dropping a vote for a Christian President, or a religious and ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... She was hauled out of Deadman's Dock into the river on January 13th, 1800, with her full complement of men and stores on board. She carried provisions for 15 men for a period of nine months, and enough water for three months. Her armament consisted of only two brass carriage-guns. ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... critic Legouve says: "Certain particular gifts are necessary if the speech is to possess colour. The first of these is Metal in the voice. He who has it not will never shine as a colourist. The metal may be gold, silver or brass; each has its individual characteristic. A golden voice is the most brilliant; a silvery voice has the most charm; a brassy voice the most power. But one of the three characteristics is essential. A voice without metallic ring is like teeth without enamel; they may be sound and healthy, but ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... pieces of artillery in a ravine on my left. I sent Lieutenant Stewart, of Company A, to see if these guns which the enemy had abandoned could not be turned upon them. He returned and reported them to be four ten-pound Parrotts and two brass Napoleons; also that it would require a number of men to place them in position. I ordered him to report the same to General Wagner, and ask permission, but before receiving a reply was ordered by you to move forward my regiment on the left of the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and were reconciled. But it was a reconciliation without cordiality, without affection—a shaking of hands across a barrier of brass; and even this hand-shaking was a strictly metaphorical one, for they do not seem ever to have got beyond the interchange of a frigid bow. The opportunities, however, for observation were few. Soon after Randolph's arrival at Orven Hall, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... expected; for, as I afterwards found, there were iron and copper fittings in our boat that were looked upon by the islanders as a great acquisition. So then my uncle proceeded to lay in the boat a bit at a time the additions that he would give in exchange, his offerings consisting of showy cloth, brass wire, and axes, till the chief was satisfied and the boat was our own, after which he made signs for us to get our guns, and we started inland for our first shooting expedition, I with my pulses throbbing, and every nerve in a state ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... Like unto a slain serpent, it hath indeed its former terrifying appearance, but it is only the appearance; in truth it is a dead evil, and harmless enough. Nay, as God commanded Moses to lift up a serpent of brass, at sight of which the living serpents perished, [Num. 21:8 f.] even so our death dies in the believing contemplation of the death of Christ, and now hath but the outward appearance of death. With such fine similitudes the mercy of God prefigures to us, in our infirmity, this truth, that though ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... one another. Just then, above the roar of the flames and the screams of the people, something else was distinctly audible. The fast approach of horses; the gallant figures of men in brass helmets: the brave firemen—members of the noblest brigade in the world—were on ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... admitted when they stood under the peaked roof. "I took it down from the spare room when Mary Ellen bought the brass one to sleep in when she comes. The mattress wouldn't fit any other; so I suppose it might as well go along. There's some patchwork quilts in that chest, too, that Mary Ellen never liked. I guess you could have ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... born of a squirrel's brain that had leapt from tent to tent, from encampment to encampment, from tribe to tribe. And all this was done with the severe looks that this reserved people always preserve, with the appearance of a brass idol, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... its work, the binding everything tight just before the storm comes on, for that is just the moment when nothing essential to the ship itself must be cast away, when I make sure, if I can, that every plank and timber, that every iron and brass is in its true place and ready for the strain that may be ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... appeared at a neighboring window, cast its rays upon a group of exquisite statues—angels and saints, reading or preaching, with a large open book before them. Admirable prologue for a church, which is nothing else than the Word made marble, brass or stone! Swallows have fearlessly taken up their abode here, and their simple yet curious masonry contrasts strangely with the architecture of the building. This was my first visit to the cathedral of Cologne. The dome of Cologne, when seen by day, appeared ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... are of Manilla hemp, neatly secured to copper belaying-pins, and coiled down on the deck, whose whiteness is well contrasted with the bright green paint of her bulwarks: her capstern and binnacles are cased in fluted mahogany, and ornamented with brass; metal stanchions protect the skylights, and the bright muskets are arranged in front of the mainmast, while the boarding-pikes are ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... of these very maidens that Belinda wears; and all this would only go to show that to every meanest thing the past can lend a halo. When one person showed another the "entire costume of a Nubian woman, purchased as she wore it,"—a necklace of red beads, and two brass ear-rings simply, hanging on a nail,—how it brought up the whole scene, the wondrous ruins, the Nile, the lotos, and the palm-branch, the splendid sky soaring over all, the bronze-skinned creature shining in the sun! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... man unlocked the desk and the brass-bound box within it. The latter contained all the missing property, evidently placed there for immediate removal. In the desk were found bills, letters, and correspondence, a glance at which disclosed a long system of fraud and peculation. Above all, amongst the loose ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... a top, too, this time. What woke me was a voice close abeam, hailin' the Early and Late; and there was a brisk, brass-bound young chap alongside in a steam-launch, explainin' as he'd brought out the boat, and why the harbour-master hadn't sent her out last night. 'As requested by your crew, Cap'n.' 'That's very polite o' them and o' you, and o' the harbour-master,' ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with this taking name is nothing more than the alloy formerly called Pinchbeck, and made by melting zinc, in a certain proportion, with copper and brass, so as in colour to approach ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... when gaslights replaced candles, an elaborate brass chandelier fitted for gas illumination has been found in the courthouse attic. It is possibly the fixture which the sheriff was directed at the February 1890 court to purchase, for a price not to exceed $25.00. In about ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... low-hanging clouds, red and brown and a brassy yellow, while the fields and woods below were a deep, unnatural green. The white roads and houses and the white church steeples turned yellow. Even the clean silver in the houses looked like brass. These colors foreboded an eclipse of the sun; yet there ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... which that of the other bore, and which the face of the woman possessed in a yet more remarkable degree. For the rest, he wore drab breeches, with certain strings at the knee, a rather gay waistcoat, and tolerably white shirt; under his arm he bore a mighty whip of whalebone with a brass knob, and upon his head was a hat without either top ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... has stolen thy stalks be milked, with her (hind) legs bound with a rope of human hair, and with the aid of a calf not her own, and, while milked, let her milk be held in a vessel of white brass!'[435] ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... looking at the illuminated clock at the end which told me that it was half-past eleven. I remember also my wondering whether I could get home before midnight. Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring head-lights and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new thirty-horse- power Robur, which had only been delivered that day. I remember also asking Perkins, my chauffeur, how she had gone, and his saying that he ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... walloped the Belgae, the adventurous ruffians of Cortez, the swashbucklers who fought in Flanders, the followers of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the regulars of the American Indian campaigns. When they rose to the charge with a yell, in a wave of scarlet and blue, flashing with brass buttons, their silken flag rippling in the front rank, they made a picture to please the romantic taste. Here on the brown background of the commonplace three millions of moderns was a patch of the color and glamour that story-tellers, poets, artists, and moving-picture men would choose as the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... brass in the Power Board considered that everything was moving smoothly. There was no need to consider new devices. Hoddan's drawings and plans had simply never been bothered with, because there was no recognized need for them. And when he forced acknowledgment that his receptor worked, the ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... for the time, glanced up. The smudge of smoke had quickly resolved itself into a stubby, gray steam-vessel with a few bright brass guns forward and a black cloud belching from her funnel. She was still some five miles away, but apparently ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... boats were despatched on their ordinary work, and Captain Wickham and myself landed on the largest island, a quarter of a mile long, forming the north-western extreme of Pelsart Group, and which we named Gun Island, from our finding on it a small brass four-pounder of singular construction, now deposited in the United Service Museum (see the cut annexed) with quantities of ornamental brasswork for harness, on which the gilding was in a wonderful state of preservation; a number of glass bottles and pipes, and two Dutch doits, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... frame at the back of the stage on a platform or box three feet high, three feet wide, and two feet deep; fasten the frame by means of hooks or screws to the top of the box, flush with the front; attach a heavy crimson cord and tassel to the top, and pass it over a brass hook screwed to the ceiling. The lady takes her seat behind the frame, in such a position as will display a partial side view of the head and chest in the centre of the oval, the eyes cast down, the countenance expressing sorrow. After the lady has taken her position, the box must ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... fitted with two Metal Bilge Pumps 3-1/2 inch chamber and everything complete; also one Metal Pump amidships with 6 inch chamber, and two sets of Brass Boxes, and everything requisite; also a ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... closed by a spiral brass spring, with a hole (.14 inch in diameter and .6 inch in depth) bored through the narrow closed part, through which a radicle of a bean was allowed to grow. Temp. 50o ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... tolerably true, but is an inch thick and weighs about 10 cwt. Its diameter is about as much above 18 inches as the tin one was under, and therefore it is become necessary to add a brass hoop to the piston, which is ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... like it was Kick-in Day, or something like that; for here was Nutt Hamilton, a sporty young plute friend of Mr. Robert's, that I'm tryin' to entertain, camped in the private office, when fair-haired Vincent comes in off the brass gate to ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... swept and garnished for a social function long planned by the nieces. Carnations leaned from tall glass vases, intricate little cakes jostled carefully piled sandwiches, and a huge brass samovar, borrowed for the occasion, gave dignity to the small parlor. Miss Trueman had learned by now the unwritten law that prevented the various objects in the once proudly segregated "drawing-room set" from association with each other, and made no attempt to correct their intentional ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... a terrible bother about carrying our things. So what did I do but turn to and make a carpet-bag that would hold all mine and Dan's too. This, you see, Berta, is a deal top and bottom out of three-quarter stuff, stained and varnished. Well, then you see I've got carpet sides tacked on with these brass nails, which make it look very handsome; and so when my bag is empty 'twill shut up and be only a couple of boards under yer arm, and when 'tis open it will hold a'most anything you like to put in it. That portmantle didn't cost more than three half-crowns ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... what he called a monkey jacket, made of thick duffle cloth, with a pair of Dutchman's petticoat trousers, reaching only to his knees, where they were met with a pair of long water-tight boots; with this dress, his glazed hat, and his small brass speaking-trumpet in his hand, he bade defiance to the weather. When he made his appearance in this most suitable attire for the service, his crew seemed to possess additional life, never failing to use their utmost exertions when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stated, baby should sleep in his own crib, an iron or brass crib without rockers is best. A screen or plain white curtain of some wash material may be used to protect him against draughts. If this cannot be had, he may sleep while very young in a large clothes basket placed on two chairs. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... every-day men in five minutes. Now with these few words, and admitting that I'm all that you want to tell me I am—and confessing to a whole lot more that I personally know about my unadulterated brass cheek in the whole thing—we'll close debate. Order those militia ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the thing had been done genteelly and without scandal. Democrates affected to be a collector of fine arms and armour. The ceiling of his living room was hung with white-plumed helmets, on the walls glittered brass greaves, handsomely embossed shields, inlaid Chalcidian scimitars, and bows tipped with gold. Under foot were expensive rugs. The orator's artistic tastes were excellent. Even as he sat in the deeply ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... of 1901 approached. Judge Jerome went upon the stump and rattled the brass checks from the cash-register that paid for the virtue of innocent girls, the daughters of his hearers. The mothers of the East Side, the very Tammany women themselves, rose and denounced the devil's money, and made their husbands and brothers go to the polls and vote their anger.[15] ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... is an instrument to measure the pressure of the air, just as a thermometer measures the heat or coldness of it. A metallic barometer is a new kind, in which the air presses on a curiously contrived ring or band of brass, and according as it presses more or less, it moves an index like the hand of a watch, which is placed on the face of it. It was such an instrument as this that the two ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... and skins. They were at war with the Tockwoghes. Proceeding up the River Tockwogh, the latter Indians received them with friendship, because they had the weapons which they supposed had been captured in a fight with the Massawomeks. These Indians had hatchets, knives, pieces of iron and brass, they reported came from the Susquesahanocks, a mighty people, the enemies of the Massawomeks, living at the head of the bay. As Smith in his barge could not ascend to them, he sent an interpreter to request a visit from them. In three or four days ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mast-heads and tops, white; monkey-rail, black, white, and yellow; bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; waterways, lead color, etc., etc. The anchors and ring-bolts, and other iron work, were blackened with coal-tar; and the steward kept at work, polishing the brass of the wheel, bell, capstan, etc. The cabin, too, was scraped, varnished, and painted; and the forecastle scraped and scrubbed; there being no need of paint and varnish for Jack's quarters. The decks were then scraped ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana |
