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Flax   /flæks/   Listen
Flax

noun
1.
Fiber of the flax plant that is made into thread and woven into linen fabric.
2.
Plant of the genus Linum that is cultivated for its seeds and for the fibers of its stem.



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"Flax" Quotes from Famous Books



... out, sheltering themselves in tents and caves, enduring agues and fevers, hunger and cold, the majority still remained loyal to the leader whose eloquence fired them with a sustaining hope. Thrift, unremitting toil, the wonderful fertility of the prairie, the high price of wheat, flax, and broom corn, were bound to bring prosperity. In 1848 they built a huge brick dormitory and dining hall, a great frame church, and a number of smaller dwellings. Improved housing at once told on the general health, though in the next year ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... a foot-path on the side of the road; in others there were bye-paths which led from the road into the country, sometimes to a village, the chimnies only of which were visible; at other times to a chateau, the gilded pinnacle of which shone afar from some distant hill. I observed several fields of flax and hemp, and we passed several cottages, in the gardens of which the flax flourished in great perfection, Mr. Younge informed me, that every peasant grew a sufficient quantity for his own use, and the ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... lurked in the Oldtown fen Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den, Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock, Nothing on record is left to show; Only the fact that he lived, we know, And left the cast of a double head In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. For he carried a head where his tail should ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... when all things in the Wood had speech, there lived within its depths a lone Flax-spinner. She was a bent old creature, and ill to look upon, but all the tongues of all the forest leaves were ever kept a-wagging with the story of her kindly deeds. And even to this day they sometimes whisper low among themselves ...
— The Legend of the Bleeding-heart • Annie Fellows Johnston

... large crops from it. In a country so densely peopled there could not be many large farms, and the majority of the farmers cultivate what would not be more than a garden in America; but the system of agriculture is not surpassed by that of any country in the world. Flax-raising is the principal occupation of the farmers; but grasses and roots receive particular attention. Horses, cattle, and sheep are ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... pottery districts of Stafford, woollen and cotton factories of Yorkshire and Lancashire, mills driven by steam, wind and water, lighthouses, the sheep-rearing districts of Cumberland and Midlothian, the flax-growing of northern Ireland, and much else, and the means of transit and communication between all these. The children will gradually realise that many of the things they are familiar with, such as tea, oranges, silk ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... up from his papers and smiled, which was all the answer the Englishman seemed to expect, for he stormed on, "Here have we better fleeces than Spain, better wheat than France, finer cattle than the Netherlands, the tin of Cornwall, the flax of Kent and Durham, and our people starve or live rudely because of ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... own foster-sister had the veil there; mine own mother's sister was there the abbess.' She stretched out a hand. 'Sir, they dwelled there simply and godly, withdrawn from the world; succouring the poor; weaving of fine linens, for much flax grew upon those lands by there; and praying God and the saints that blessings fall upon ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... wisest of Irish public men, Sir William Ewart, head of the leading linen concern in the North, Sir Daniel Dixon, now Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sir James Musgrave, Chairman of the Belfast Harbour Board, and Mr. Thomas Andrews, a well-known flax-spinner and Chairman of the Belfast and County Down Railway, would be universally accepted as the highest authorities upon the needs of the business community which has made Ulster famous in the industrial world. ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... the island has an undulating surface, and is covered either with an open forest or with high ferns. In general the soil is extremely fertile, and where it is naturally drained a rich vegetation of fern and flax occurs. On the north-west are several conical hills of basalt, which are surrounded by oases of fertile soil. On the south-western side is Petre Bay, on which, at the mouth of the river Mantagu, is Waitangi, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... In those sections of the country where flax is spun on a "foot-wheel," it is not unfrequent that the spinners moisten the thread with the secretions of the mouth. This seems to operate economically for a time, but debility of the salivary organs soon follows, which incapacitates them from supplying saliva sufficient to moisten ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... washed by modern methods, but always by hand in clear cold running water. There were presses full of this linen, deliriously scented with lavender, and there were also the spinning-wheels that had spun the flax and the hand-looms on which the threads had been woven. These were witnesses to the days when women, instead of gadding abroad, were happy to be at home— when the winter evenings seemed short and bright because as they sat ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... sent. From 1619 tobacco was so common as to be the currency. About 1650 it was largely exported, a million and a half pounds, on the average, yearly. The figure had risen to twelve million pounds by 1670. At the middle of the century, corn, wheat, rice, hemp, flax, and fifteen varieties of fruit, as well as excellent wine were produced. A wind-mill was set up about 1620, the first in America. It stood at Falling Creek on the James River. The pioneer iron works on the continent ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... in the house; and at midnight, when all was still, she stood before the eyes of the astonished young savage, as, hard bound with cords, he lay, like a sheep designed for slaughter, upon a quantity of the refuse of flax which filled a corner in the apartment. Amid features sunburnt, tawny, grimed with dirt, and obscured by his shaggy hair of a rusted black colour, Jeanie tried in vain to trace the likeness of either of his very handsome parents. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, Possessed the land which rendered to their toil Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood. Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm, Saying, ''Tis mine, my children's and my name's. How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees! How graceful climb those shadows on my hill! I fancy these ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... to a victorious close. Who shall sing the sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the "Suwanee River" was sung by ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... in this direction also, and was about to turn to the left again, when he perceived a damp hollow: "It would be a pity to leave that out," he thought. "Flax would do well there." So he went on past the hollow, and dug a hole on the other side of it before he turned the corner. Pahom looked towards the hillock. The heat made the air hazy: it seemed to be quivering, and through the haze the people ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy

... butter, while others were all through, his mother would laugh and call him her Buttercup. But always Klaas wanted more cheese. When unusually greedy, she twitted him as a boy "worse than Butter-and-Eggs"; that is, as troublesome as the yellow and white plant, called toad-flax, is to the farmer—very pretty, but nothing but ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... the Falls, where now stands the city of Richmond. All along the shore the inhabitants stood in clusters, offering food to the strangers. The habitation of Powhatan was situated on a high hill by the water side, with a meadow at its foot where was grown wheat, beans, tobacco, peas, pompions, flax, and hemp. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Lutes are made of thirty or forty single intestines, and the best are made in Rome and some other cities in Italy. This superiority is owing to the air, the water, or the herbage on which the sheep of Italy feed." He adds that "chords may be made of silk, flax, or other material," but that "animal chords are far the best." The experience of upwards of two centuries has not shaken the soundness of Merseene's opinion of the superiority of gut strings over those made of silk and steel. Although strings of steel and silk are made to some extent ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Isa. 61:1, 2. The execution of this mission required a tender and forbearing spirit, that would not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax; and such was the spirit of his whole ministry. For the penitent, though publicans and sinners, he had only words of kindness. Towards the infirmities and mistakes of his sincere disciples he was wonderfully forbearing. When a strife had arisen among the apostles which ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... of them can fall to the ground without the express will of God: he will not suffer thee to be tempted above measure, he corrects us all, [6809]numero, pondere, et mensura, the Lord will not quench the smoking flax, or break the bruised reed, Tentat (saith Austin) non ut obruat, sed ut coronet he suffers thee to be tempted for thy good. And as a mother doth handle her child sick and weak, not reject it, but with all tenderness observe and keep it, so doth God by us, not forsake us in our ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... the two looms the original shows a man spinning coarse thread into finer(?) using two spindles at once; the threads pass through rings fixed in the ceiling as in a picture at Beni Hasan. Behind him two girls are breaking up the flax and two others are making coarse threads of the fibres, almost exactly like those in the tomb of Daga (No. 103) a couple ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth

... hand on the iron chains And like flax they moulder'd asunder, And the coffin lid that was barr'd so firm He burst ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... disconsolate thoughts followed Michael to Baja, where he had an office, and where, when he traveled into the flax districts of Hungary, he had his letters sent. A whole bundle awaited him; he opened one after another with indifference; what did he care whether the rape had been frost-bitten or not, that the duties in England were raised, or that exchange was higher? But among the letters he found ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... been the means of bringing out a wonderful study, that is explained by the nature of the soil itself. In every country certain sections will spontaneously produce product alike, in almost every essential quality. Thus, flax, for instance, is found, identical in its character, in Kamscatska, and in Minnesota; in the Siberian wilds and in Central America; on the heights of the Himalayas, and in the lowest plains of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... his aged mother; and in response to an emphatic gesture from the priest, he pulled out a little coil of rope, partly worn at the end into a little wisp of flax. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... East Branch, and ploughed our way through heavy sands to Keene, where we dined, and whence the road up the valley to the Keene Flats becomes firmer and less tedious. The way was bordered by rich fields of grass and grain, potatoes in abundance, flax in pale azure flower, and acres blue with the beautiful campanula or harebell. At the inn in Keene we met our rebellious friend Spart, who, having tired of his chase, had returned to his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... fragrant freight Oil-olive, fig, and date; Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes, Or Tyrian azure glass Wavy with gold, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... quantity of water. A seam would have done them little injury; but a butt's end was more than they could manage, though every method that could be deemed serviceable was tried. The spritsail was quilted with oakum and flax, and one of the top-gallant sails was prepared in the same manner, to see whether any thing would sink into the leak, but ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... he said quite kind like, "you will be shut in here to-morrow morning with some victuals and some flax, and if by evening you have not spun five skeins, your head ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... another thing about the Colchians to show how they resemble the Egyptians:—they alone work flax in the same fashion as the Egyptians, 90 and the two nations are like one another in their whole manner of living and also in their language: now the linen of Colchis is called by the Hellenes Sardonic, whereas that from Egypt ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... to the Great Kaan' and 'all worshippers of Mahommet.' 'There are numerous towns and villages in the country, but Cotan, the capital, is the most noble of all and gives its name to the kingdom. Everything is to be had there in plenty, including abundance of cotton [with flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and the like]. The people have vineyards and gardens and estates. They live by commerce and manufactures, and are no soldiers.' Nor did the peculiar laxity of morals, which seems always to have distinguished ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... her and tagging ideas on her—and to what end, Doris? The girl has the right to her own path and you have, by the grace of God, pushed obstacles from before her, in heaven's name give her fair play and don't—flax out at ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... The flax plant grows spontaneously, and may, with the assistance of proper implements and other necessaries, be turned to ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... my girl? My escapades were the fault of my father, who brought me up to play the clown, to assist him in his juggling, to eat flax and spit fire; that was the cause that I had not the time to associate with the sons of peers of France, and that I made bad acquaintances. But, to return to Beaugency: once out of Melun, I spent my money as I had a right. After fifteen years in a cage one must have a little air, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... yellow star That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, Had often and often watched to see Propped and held in its place in the skies By the fork of a tall, red mulberry tree, Which close in the edge of our flax field grew, Dead at the top,—just one branch full Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, From which it tenderly shook the dew Over our heads, when we came to play In its handbreath of shadow, day after day,— Afraid ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... that he would perform three tasks set him, and when Charles was curious to know what was required of him she led him into another room where was a large heap of every kind of seed—corn, barley, clover, flax—all ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... himself, with helmet closed, his great buckler hanging to his neck, his sword in his fist. All the night it rained and blew; the water ran through the joints of his hauberk, and wetted his ermine pelisse beneath. His beard swayed, whiter than flax, his long moustache quivered; until dawn he lamented his nephew, and the twelve peers, and all his next-of-kin who were dead. From the gate at morn a Saxon, King Dyalas, defies the old man, swearing that he will wear his crown in Paris. The Emperor has ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... whether all Teutons, or, as Mr. Latham thinks, Sclavonians with Teuton leaders, still intimately connected with our own English race both by their language and their laws, struggling for existence on the bleak brown bogs and moors, sowing a little barley and flax, feeding a few rough cattle, breeding a few great black horses; generation after generation fighting their way southward, as they exhausted the barren northern soils, or became too numerous for their marches, or found land left waste in front of them by ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... was most faulty in their conduct.—Formerly, and still in all the smaller Towns and Villages throughout North Germany, these Presents were sent by all the Parents to some one Fellow who in high Buskins, a white Robe, a Mask, and an enormous flax Wig, personates Knecht Rupert, i.e. the Servant Rupert. On Christmas Night he goes round to every House and says, that Jesus Christ, his Master, sent him thither—the Parents and elder Children receive him with great pomp of reverence, while ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... ocean, upon which were sprinkled millions of different flowers. Through the tall, slender stems of the grass peeped light-blue, dark-blue, and lilac star-thistles; the yellow broom thrust up its pyramidal head; the parasol-shaped white flower of the false flax shimmered on high. A wheat-ear, brought God knows whence, was filling out to ripening. Amongst the roots of this luxuriant vegetation ran partridges with outstretched necks. The air was filled with the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... one or two have departed altogether. There is a front and a back entrance. Along the front of the house runs a path, on the other side of which, with a wall between, is the garden. This is fairly large and is bounded by stone walls and a hedge of flax. From its appearance it has had no cultivation for some years. As far as I can see the only sign of any crop besides weeds is an entangled strawberry patch. There is a good view of the sea from the house and garden. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... beauties when they awoke next morning, but they had to start. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was visible but one stretch of prairie, enameled with flower, in all the freshness and abundance of spring. The blue flowers of the slender-leaved flax, combined with the bright hues of the scarlet acanthus, a ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... molders, founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers, turners; those again that conveyed them to the town for use, merchants and mariners and ship- masters by sea, and by land, cartwrights, cattle-breeders, waggoners, rope-makers, flax-workers, shoe-makers and leather-dressers, roadmakers, miners. And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of journeymen and laborers belonging to it banded together as in array, to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... vineyards, the same limestone crags, each with its feudal tower, the same fertility and richness everywhere. Our road winds for miles amid avenues of fruit-trees, laden with pear and plum, whilst on every side are stretches of flax and corn, tobacco and hemp. What plenty and fruitfulness are suggested at every turn! Well might Goethe extol "this magnificent Alsace." We soon reach Andlau, a picturesque, but, it must be confessed, somewhat dirty village, lying amid vineyards ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... great preparation was made for tapping the maple-trees and boiling the sap down to sugar, which was always an agreeable employment for young Daniel. Another occupation of the boy on the farm was in weeding, pulling, and spreading flax, which ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various

... we were led at once to a very beautiful tent made of woven flax and ornamented as I have described, where we found food made ready for us in plenty, milk in bowls and the flesh of sheep and oxen boiled and roasted. Bes, however, was taken to a place apart, which made Karema even more angry ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... smoking flax, But raise it to a flame; The bruised reed he never breaks, Nor scorns ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts

... perfect type of a race, a sort of lovely and stupid Venus. She was sixteen, and I have rarely seen such perfection of form, such suppleness and such regular features. I said she was a Venus; yes, a fair, stout, vigorous Venus, with large, bright, vacant eyes, which were as blue as the flowers of the flax plant; she had a large mouth with full lips, the mouth of a glutton, of a sensualist, a mouth made for kisses. Well, one morning her father came into my consulting room with a strange look on his face, and, sitting ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... were to be admitted free of duty to both countries, the principal being grain, flour, lumber, bread-stuffs, animals, fresh, smoked and salted meats, lumber of all kinds, poultry, cotton, wool, hides, metallic ores, pitch, tar, ashes, flax, hemp, rice, and unmanufactured tobacco. In return the American fishermen obtained the coveted privilege of fishing within the territorial waters of the Maritime Provinces, without any restriction as to distance or headlands. Canadians were accorded the right to fish in the ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... is, it must be believed there is plenty, and he took their Highnesses a lump of copper originally of six arrobas,[364-1] lapis-lazuli, gum-lac, amber, cotton, pepper, cinnamon, a great quantity of Brazil-wood, aromatic gum,[364-2] white and yellow sandalwood, flax, aloes, ginger, incense, myrobolans of all kinds, very fine pearls and pearls of a reddish color, which Marco Polo says are worth more than the white ones,[364-3] and that may well be so in some parts just as it is the case with the shells that are gathered ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... shall be his voice; No threats from him proceed; The smoking flax shall he not quench, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... case with regard to textiles made from vegetables fibers is quite different; upon materials made from cotton, flax, jute, or other fiber of the vegetable kingdom, the new aniline colors cannot be fixed without the assistance of other bodies acting the part of mordants. Some of these bodies are actively poisonous in their nature, and introduce ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... met the mother of this maiden, nine bushels of flax were sown therein, and none has yet sprung up, neither white nor black; and I have the measure by me still. I require to have the flax to sow in the new land yonder, that when it grows up it may make a white wimple for my daughter's ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... produce any one complete manufacture, is almost always divided among a great number of hands. How many different trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woollen manufactures, from the growers of the flax and the wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... ornamented man, nor has he clothed him; but he has given him the powers and faculties necessary to clothe and ornament himself. He has provided him with the means, too, and with the means as much for the one as for the other. There are cotton and flax which he can procure from plants, and wool and fur from animals, for his clothing; and then there are gold and silver in the earth, and rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, for his ornaments; and if we are not to use them, what were they ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott

... gave the Queen a red glass full of honeybell whiskey; but she called it a fine name, like Rose-dew, or Tears-of-Flax, and then Queen Lura drank it down nicely;—so much depends on names, even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... the spaces between the lagoons and the river are thickly wooded (the trees consisting principally of the blue gum of a large growth), and are overgrown with vines of various descriptions, and the fern, the peppermint, flax plant, and currajong. The fern, currajong, and the flax flourish here in abundance, and the peppermint plant (which they had not seen in any other part of the country) seems to surpass, both in odour and taste the species that is generally ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... no longer grow the food for our people, we were still its dressers; if we did not always plant and prepare the flax and hemp, we still wove the garments for our race; if we did no longer raise the house walls, the tapestries that covered them were the work of our hands; we brewed the ale, and the simples which were used ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... over-production; but what has caused the over-production? One thing that may have had something to do with it is the new mills they have been putting up in the Northwest. Many of the Eastern mills used to get large quantities of seed from Iowa; but they are building cities out there now, as well as raising flax-seed, and when they were booming some of those cities they would raise heavy bonuses in aid of new enterprises. Among these were some great linseed oil mills, which have loaded up the market pretty heavily of late years; ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... throughout with lead." In the time of the Plantagenet kings Bridport was noted for its sails and ropes, much of the cordage and canvas for the fleet fitted out to do battle with the Spanish Armada being made here. Flax was then cultivated in the neighbourhood, and the rope-walks, where the ropes were made, were in the streets, which accounted for some of the streets being so much wider than others. Afterwards the goods were made in factories, the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... sits beside her wheel; No maiden better knew To pile upon the circling reel An even thread and true; But since for Rob she 'gan to pine, She twists her flax in vain; 'Tis now too coarse,—and now too fine,— And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various

... the small objects which they find, and it is an easy matter to carry off the stolen goods, even though the men are searched at the end of the day. A little girl minding her father's sheep and goats in the neighbourhood of the excavations, and apparently occupying her hands with the spinning of flax, is perhaps the receiver of the objects. Thus it is more profitable to dig for antiquities even in authorised excavations than to work the water-hoist, which is one of the usual occupations of the peasant. Pulling the ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... lurked in the Oldtown fen, Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den, Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock, Nothing on record is left to show; Only the fact that he lived, we know, And left the cast of a "double head" In ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... have passed, till she's nigh broken-hearted, Her reel, and her rock, and her flax she has parted; She sails with the "Wild Geese" to Flanders away, And leaves her ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... day-school in the village, and it was controlled by a Board which had the village butcher as its chairman. The only teacher was a tall woman of thirty, who plaited her hair, which was of the colour of flax, into a ridiculous-looking crown on the top of her head. But her expression, I remember, was one of perpetual severity, and when she spoke through her thin lips she clipped her words with great rapidity, as if they had been rolls of bread which were being ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... Baltimore Oriole, also called the Baltimore Bird, is a distinguished weaver. With strong stalks and hemp or flax, fastened round two forked twigs corresponding to the proposed width of nest, it makes a very delicate sort of mat, weaving into it quantities of loose tow. The form of the nest might be compared to that of a ham; it is attached by the narrow portion to a small branch, the large part being ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... busily hewed and hammered Mallet huge and heavy axe; Workmen laughed and sang and clamored; Whirred the wheels, that into rigging Spun the shining flax! ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... above the cornfields when Margaret and her cavalier left St. Anne. South of the town there is a stretch of road that runs for some three miles through the French settlement, where the prairie is as level as the surface of a lake. There the fields of flax and wheat and rye are bordered by precise rows of slender, tapering Lombard poplars. It was a yellow world that Margaret Elliot saw under the wide light of the ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... reason the land is not cultivated. Yet it is famous for commerce with India, and the islands of the Indian sea; and merchants from Sennar, Arabia, and Persia, bring thither all sorts of silk and purple manufactures, hemp, cotton, flax, and Indian cloth, with plenty of wheat, barley, millet, and rice. The Indian merchants bring also great quantities of spices, and the natives act as factors and interpreters, by which they make great gains; but in that place there are not above 500 Jews. Sailing thence ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... armful from the heap, when her grandfather stopped her. "Wait a moment," he said, and he climbed down the ladder again and went towards his bed. He returned to the loft with a large, thick sack, made of flax, which he threw down, exclaiming, "There, that is better than ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... European flax is Linum usitatissimum, N.O. Liniae. There is a species in Australia, Linum marginale, Cunn., N.O. Linaceae, called Native Flax. In New Zealand, the Phormium is called Native Flax. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... was, at the moment, like entangled flax. Every one was at a loss what to do, when they espied lady Feng dash into the garden, a glistening sword in hand, and try to cut down everything that came in her way, ogle vacantly whomsoever struck her gaze, and make forthwith ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... chartered a dragoman and wandered far and wide. On his return he told me that he had seen Lady Emily Rich at Pherae in Arcadia, and that he had spoken to her. He had seen her sitting on the door-step of a one-storied white house, spinning flax. She wore the costume of the peasants, which he told me is very picturesque. Two or three half-naked children tumbled about her. They were beautiful as angels, he said, with curly golden hair and extremely light eyes. He noticed that particularly, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... for "conservation and use of agricultural land resources"—the so-called AAA program—for the fiscal year 1947, compared with 356 million dollars in the current year. This reduction of 86 million dollars is in large part accounted for by elimination of the wartime flax production incentive project and other nonrecurring items; the proposed reduction in normal activities is less than 33 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... fields, where Labor counts his sheaves, And, whatsoever himself believes, Must bow to the Establisht Church belief, That the tenth is always a Protestant sheaf;— Ye calves of which the man of Heaven Takes Irish tithe, one calf in seven;[2] Ye tenths of rape, hemp, barley, flax, Eggs, timber, milk, fish and bees' wax; All things in short since earth's creation, Doomed, by the Church's dispensation, To suffer eternal decimation— Leaving the whole lay-world, since then, Reduced to nine parts out of ten; Or—as we calculate thefts and arsons— Just ten per cent. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... the heavens overarch the flowers, filling them with heat by day and yielding cooling dews by night. Give him but a flickering aspiration and he will give thee balm for the bruised reed and flame for the smoking flax. Give him the publican's prayer and he will give thee mercy like the wideness of the sea. Give his little ones but a cup of cold water and he will give thee to drink of the water of the river of life and bring thee to the banquet hall in the house ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... way. To their right, the path was bordered by high laurels, alternating at regular intervals with cypress trees, and in the background, through the fluttering leaves, the sea rippled and laughed, blue as the flower of the flax. On their left ran a kind of parapet like the back of a long stone bench, ornamented throughout its whole length with the Ateleta shield and arms and a griffin alternately, under each of which again was a sculptured mask through whose mouth a slender stream of water fell into a basin below, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... out in the Reports (Committee, House of Lords) for the last seven years all that is said about the growth of flax; mark ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... full charged with gunpowder," answered Crevecoeur, "to which, I fear, it is my fate to bring the kindled linstock. Your news and mine are like flax and fire, which cannot meet without bursting into flame, or like certain chemical substances which cannot be mingled without an explosion. Friends—gentlemen—ride close by my rein, and when I tell you what has chanced in the bishopric of Liege, I think ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... gien I saw sign o' repentance or turnin' upo' ane o' them 'at pits their legs 'aneth my table—Wad ye luik intil the parlour, sir? No!—as I was sayin', never did I, sin' I keepit hoose, an' never wad I set mysel' to quench the smokin' flax; I wad hae no man's deith, sowl or body, lie ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... spinning some very fine flax next week," said Mara; "and have I shown you the new pattern I drew for a counterpane? it is to be morning-glories, leaves and flowers, you know,—a pretty idea, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... manage! Fire and faggots! Haven't I managed every thing within and without, most reputably, these twenty years? I must own I grow a little old, and she does take a deal of pains: but all this she learned of me. When she first came here—Mercy on us! she didn't know that linen was made of flax. But what was to be expected from one who ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue

... European fruits, grain, etc., would grow well in New Zealand, and an agricultural population would be successful. Timber of excellent quality was plentiful, and it was believed that New Zealand flax promised to be of considerable commercial value. Fish was found in great quantities, the lobsters and oysters being specially remarkable for quality and quantity. No quadrupeds except dogs and rats were seen, and birds did not seem very plentiful. The minerals, in Cook's ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... an important Country:—only about the size of Cheshire; wet like it, and much inferior to it in cheese, in resources for leather and live-stock, though it perhaps excels, again, in clover-seeds, rape-seeds, Flanders horses, and the flax products. The 'clear overplus' it yielded to Friedrich, as Sovereign Administrator and Defender, was only 3,200 pounds; for recruit-MONEY, 6,000 pounds (no recruits in CORPORE); in all, little more than 9,000 pounds a year. But ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Buchan, where was the altar-source of the Samhain fire, bonfires were lighted on hilltops in the eighteenth century; and in Moray the idea of fires of thanksgiving for harvest was kept to as late as 1866. All through the eighteenth century in the Highlands and in Perthshire torches of heath, broom, flax, or ferns were carried about the fields and villages by each family, with the intent to cause good crops in succeeding years. The course about the fields was sunwise, to have a good influence. Brought home at dark, the torches were thrown down in a heap, and made a fire. This ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... woody fibres of the stem of the flax. The flax stem is not made up entirely of the valuable fibres, but largely of more brittle wood fibres, which are of no use. The valuable fibres are, however, closely united with the wood and with each other in such an intimate fashion that it is impossible to separate them ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn

... Irish flax trade, a similar example of the high price paid for verification occurs. It is stated in the report of the committee, "That the natural excellent quality of Irish flax, as contrasted with foreign or British, ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... had no more welcome for this man than the story tells that He had. For He meets him without a word of encouragement; without a word that seemed to recognise even a growing and a groping confidence, and yet He would not 'quench the smoking flax.' Yes! sometimes the kindest way to deal with an imperfect conception is to show unsparingly why it is imperfect; and sometimes the apparent repelling of a partial faith is truly the drawing to Himself by the Christ of the man, though his ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... clustered; second, ample store, not less than forty pounds of honey; and third, a hive with not less than 57 degrees inside temperature. This temperature may be maintained outside in a double walled hive or in a hive lined with flax or felt, now manufactured for that purpose, or by packing the hives in leaves, straw or shavings—or by putting ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... was an uncritical age, and its spirit breathed hot and cold, east and west, from all quarters of the globe at once, confusing the traditions and tales of all times and countries into one incongruous mass of fable, as much tangled and knotted as that famous pound of flax which the lassie in one of these Tales is expected to spin into an even wool within four-and-twenty hours. No poverty of invention or want of power on the part of translators could entirely destroy the innate beauty of those popular traditions; but here, in England ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... Latooka. Ground-nuts are also in abundance in the forests; these are not like the well-known African ground-nut of the west coast, but are contained in an excessively hard shell. A fine quality of flax grows wild, but the twine generally used by the natives is made from the fibre of a species of aloe. Tobacco grows to an extraordinary size, and is prepared similarly to that ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... taken September 15th, '76, was confined in prison with no sustenance for forty-eight hours; for eleven days he had only two days allowance of pork offensive to the smell, bread hard, mouldy and wormy, made of canail and dregs of flax-seed; water brackish. 'I have seen $1.50 given for a common pail full. Three or four pounds of poor Irish pork were given to three men for three days. In one church were 850 prisoners ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... to recover herself, ordered the baskets filled with wools of different colours, and the spindles wrapped with flax, to be brought to her, and distributed the work to her women as she had been accustomed to do; but she thought she noticed that the slaves looked at her in a very peculiar way, and had ceased to entertain the same timid respect for her as before. Her voice ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... wondered? And then she remembered, to her great joy, that he could not; because his face would be in full view of the people behind the scenes in the library. The little brown spinning-wheel was brought on the platform; a heap of flax at which Priscilla is supposed to have been working, was piled together in front of it; and she and Alexander took their places. The curtain was drawn aside, and a cry of pleasure from the company testified to the picturesque prettiness of the representation. ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... Pocomtuck was increasing in strength and prosperity. The rich soil of the meadows yielded an abundance of Indian corn, wheat, rye, barley, beans, and flax. Game of every kind was plenty and easily secured. Flocks of turkeys, pigeons, geese, and ducks were all about them in the woods and waters. The forest also furnished condiments, in the form of sugar from the sap of the maple tree, and honey from the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... good care that her own daughter's flax was fine and strong, while the stepsister had only some coarse stuff, which no one would have thought of using. As might be expected, in a very little while the poor girl's thread snapped, and the old woman, who had been watching from behind a door, seized her stepdaughter ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... with ourselves as God is with us. He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust. He shows all patience toward us. He does not look for great things from us. He does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till He have set judgment in the earth. And ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... London.—The returns showing the quantity of flax imported up to the 5th of August, viz., 774,659 cwts., are official, but do not distinguish the ports from which it was shipped. The latest year for which such distinction has been made to this time is for the year 1841; for which, or any preceding year back to 1832, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... tell thee, for I do not know." How old is the oldest straw known? the oldest {165} linen? the oldest hemp? We have mummy wheat,—cloth of papyrus, which is a kind of straw. The paper reeds by the brooks, the flax-flower in the field, leave such imperishable frame behind them. And Ponte-della-Paglia, in Venice; and Straw Street, of Paris, remembered in Heaven,—there is no occasion to change their names, as one may have to change 'Waterloo Bridge,' or the 'Rue de l'Imperatrice.' Poor Empress! Had she but known ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... winter's thraldom from which Happy Moses had escaped, I never learned. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, six feet in height, with a beard like flax, and a sunny, ingenuous countenance. What term should have been applied to his eccentricities in politer circles I cannot say, but in Wallencamp, he was artlessly designated as "the fool." Whether it was on this account, that with a certain rashness ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... mortals. To death, by being used for snares and nets for birds, animals and fish; to corruption, by the flaxen sheets in which the dead are wrapped when they are buried, and who become corrupt in these winding sheets.— And again, this flax does not separate its fibre till it has begun to steep and putrefy, and this is the flower with which garlands and decorations for funerals should ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... wonderfully stitched of blue, white, scarlet and purple—representing the universe in its four elements—scarlet standing for fire and blue for air by their colours, and the white linen for earth and the purple for sea on account of their derivation, the one, from the flax of the earth and the other from ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... string, a piece of bagging, a piece of sacking, a piece of canvass, a piece of hessian, a piece of Scotch sheeting, a piece of unbleached linen, a piece of bleached linen, a piece of diaper linen, a piece of dyed linen, a piece of flax, a piece of thread, a piece of yarn, a piece of ticking, a piece of raw silk, a piece of twisted silk, a piece of wove silk, figured, a piece of white plain sills, and a piece of dyed silk, a piece of ribbon, a piece of silk cord, a piece of silk ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... well cultivated, growing wheat, maize, rice, barley and flax, in its eastern districts. Everywhere are great masses of trees, willows, mulberries, poplars. As far as the eye can reach are fields under culture, irrigated by numerous canals, also green fields in which are flocks of sheep; ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... Mrs. Katy, with conscious dignity. "There was an Irish weaver came to Newport the year before I was married, who wove beautifully,—just the Old-Country patterns,—and I'd been spinning some uncommonly fine flax then. I remember Mr. Scudder used to read to me while I was spinning,"—and Aunt Katy looked afar, as one whose thoughts are in the past, and dropped out the last words with a little sigh, unconsciously, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... inside of it. She watched her mother spin off the fine silk and make it into neat skeins, and once she rode on her mother's back to market to sell it. You could gather mulberry-leaves, and set up these little silkworm boxes on the windowsill of your schoolroom. I have seen silk and flax and cotton all growing in a pleasant schoolroom, to show the scholars of what linen and silk and ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... all like large country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by the fame ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... this sort does not seem to belong properly to an atlas. This is not my idea of geography at all. When I open my atlas I open it to look at maps—to find out where Tripoli is—not to acquire information about flax and things; yet I cannot forego the boast that if I wanted I could even speak ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... swine in pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... synagogue, which was regarded in the 16th century as the first in Europe, and is the seat of an Armenian and of a Greek Catholic bishop; the former has authority over the Armenians throughout the whole country. The town carries on an extensive trade in grain, flax, hemp, wood, tar and leather. First mentioned in the beginning of the 11th century, Brest-Litovsk was in 1241 laid waste by the Mongols and was not rebuilt till 1275; its suburbs were burned by the Teutonic Knights in 1379; and in the end of the 15th century the whole town met a similar ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... plains, which were most remarkable for some considerable flax plantations, and came to a beautiful lake, near to which lay a very pretty palace. Towards evening, we reached the little village of Moasa, where ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... the Alleghany. Here is a country but a little less than the size of England; its surface covered with a rich vegetable loam capable of the highest cultivation, and of producing wheat, barley, rye, Indian corn, hemp, oats, flax. Here too are mighty forests supplying woods of every kind, abounding too in wild game and venison, equal to any in England. The rivers are full of fish, oysters, and crabs in abundance. On the coast the most luscious fruits grow wild, ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston

... this city is the most of any town on this side the Baltic Sea, having a convenient port or road at Tremon, belonging to this city, from whence they send into all parts of that sea, and have the advantage for the commerce of copper, deal, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and all the commodities of those parts; and by this port, they save the trouble and charge of going about through the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... horses!"—Then Tremsin was sore distressed, and went to his faithful steed and wept bitterly, and told him all about it. "Well," said the horse, "this time 'tis no trifle, but a real hard task. Go now to thy master, and bid him buy twenty hides, and twenty poods[13] of pitch, and twenty poods of flax, and twenty poods of hair."—So Tremsin went to his master and told him, and his master bought it all. Then Tremsin loaded his horse with all this, and to the sea they went together. And when they came to the sea the horse said, "Now lay upon me the hides and the tar and the flax, and lay them ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous

... rudest; fishing a little and hunting in the winter, but chiefly employed in cultivating the meadows along the River Annapolis, or rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from the tides of the Bay of Fundy. The British Government left them entirely free of taxation. They made clothing of flax and wool of their own raising, hats of similar materials, and shoes or moccasons of moose and seal skin. They bred cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses in abundance; and the valley of the Annapolis, then as now, was known for the profusion and excellence of its apples. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... the lady, 'as one who is still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. God forbid that we should endeavour to preserve nets of flax and stakes of wood, or the Mammon of gain which they procure for us, by the hands of men of war and at the risk of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... chains with which to bind the earth and the waters," and on Christmas Eve "the oldest man in each family takes a spoonful of kissel (a sort of pudding), and then, having put his head through the window, cries: 'Frost, Frost, come and eat kissel! Frost, Frost, do not kill our oats! Drive our flax and hemp deep ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Red River settlement grow wheat, barley, oats, flax, hemp, hops, turnips, and even tobacco, though Indian-corn grows best, and can always be relied on. Wheat, however, is the staple crop of Red River. It is a splendid country for sheep pasturage, and did easier means of transporting the wool exist, or could ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... plaster were unknown. The walls within, to the height of a man's shoulders, were worn smooth by the backs that leaned against them. Solid wooden boxes and benches usually took the place of chairs. A clumsy loom, on which the women wove their coarse homespuns of wool or flax, occupied one corner of the main room; and a deep, box-like cradle, always rocking, stood beside the ample fireplace. Over the fire stood the long, black arms of a crane, on which was done most of the cooking; though the "bake-kettle" sometimes relieved its labours, and the ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... selects the most productive spots for his plantations. When he desired muslin, calico, and camel's-hair shawls for his family, he put his finger on India; and when he called for those great staples of commerce, indigo, saltpetre, jute, flax, and linseed, India sent them at his bidding. When he required coffee, he found Ceylon a Spice Island, and at his demand it furnished him with an annual supply of sixty millions of pounds. He required more sugar for his coffee, and by shipping a few coolies from Calcutta ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... their first acquaintance they were bound together as friends and partners. Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to alchymy, had stumbled upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of which was an ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and imparting to goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to silk. Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone for the present undiscovered, and make gold ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... gave up their useless net, and, choosing an island near by, they resolved to plant flax that they might make a stronger and better net. They went to Tuoni's kingdom before they could find the proper seed, and found it there under the care of a tiny insect. When they had brought the seed from the ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind

... came to mean a god. Land naturally moist was considered as irrigated by a god and the special place or habitation of the god. To the numerous Canaanite Baalims, or local deities, the Israelites ascribed all the natural gifts of the land, the corn, the wine, and the oil, the wool and the flax, the vines and fig trees. Pasture land was common property, but a man acquired rights in the soil by building a house, or, by 'quickening' a waste place, that is, bringing it under cultivation. [61] The Israelites thought that they derived their title to the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... the orangetrees, was abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional labourers were called in for the field work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax; but against the growth of flax the squire set his face obstinately. That most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops when soil and skill suit, was formerly attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, since you will find ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... went barefoot in the summer, but in winter the pioneer wore moccasins of buckskin, and buckskin leggins or trousers; his coat was a hunting shirt belted at the waist and fringed where it fell to his knees. It was of homespun, a mixture of wool and flax called linsey-woolsey, and out of this the dresses of his wife and daughters were made; the wool was shorn from the sheep, which were so scarce that they were never killed for their flesh, except by the wolves, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... great is the influence of the Quakers over some of these tribes, that many individuals belonging to them, and now living together, have been reclaimed from a savage life. These have laid aside the toilsome occupations of the chase. They raise horses, cattle, and sheep. They cultivate wheat and flax. They weave and spin. They have houses, barns, and saw-mills among them. They have schools also, and civilization is taking place of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... eyes, listening with rapture to the click of its handle, and the bubbling of the falling stream. Coltrane brought a pitcher of the cool water, and held it for him to drink. Presently Goree sat up—a most forlorn object, his summer suit of flax soiled and crumpled, his discreditable head tousled and unsteady. He tried to wave one of ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... of 'lightwood,' unwashed cooking utensils, two or three cheap stools, a pine settee—made from the rough log and hewn smooth on the upper-side—a full-grown blood-hound, two younger canines, and nine dirt-encrusted juveniles, of the flax-head species. Over against the fire-place three low beds afforded sleeping accommodation to nearly a dozen human beings, (of assorted sizes, and dove-tailed together with heads and feet alternating,) and in the opposite corner ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... him down by a wicked faction; if he be in error, I woulde rather have him reclaymed than destroyed; for this is most agreeable to the doctrine of our deare Lord and Master, who woulde not bruise y'e broken reede, nor quenche y'e smoaking flax." And much ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various



Words linked to "Flax" :   Linum, plant fibre, genus Linum, flax rust fungus, herb, herbaceous plant, plant fiber, linen



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