"Ready to hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ellipse at the time when he undertook his celebrated researches on the movements of the planets. He had found, as we have already indicated, that the movements of the planets could not be reconciled with circular orbits. What shape of orbit should next be tried? The ellipse was ready to hand, its properties were known, and the comparison could be made; memorable, indeed, was the consequence of this comparison. Kepler found that the movement of the planets could be explained, by supposing that the path in which each one revolved was an ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... When he left the Bastille, he plotted with his willing mistress his revenge upon her father. She cheerfully undertook to experiment with the poisons which Sainte-Croix, possibly with the help of a chemist, Christopher Glaser, prepared, and found subjects ready to hand in the poor who sought her charity, and the sick whom she visited in the hospitals. Meanwhile Sainte-Croix, completely ruined financially, enlarged his original idea, and determined that not only M. Dreux d'Aubray but also the latter's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... got ready to hand things that might be wanted in the night, she settled herself in a chair by the head of the bed in order to snatch what sleep she might. Before she dozed, she wondered if that day week, which she would be spending ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... mines as a receiver until such time as the Commission might make its report, and until I, as President, might issue further orders in view of this report. I had to find a man who possessed the necessary good sense, judgment, and nerve to act in such event. He was ready to hand in the person of Major-General Schofield. I sent for him, telling him that if I had to make use of him it would be because the crisis was only less serious than that of the Civil War, that the action taken ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... through thickets all but untrodden? More than once I have been tempted to give up the quest and turn aside to paths where pioneers have cleared the way. There, at least, the whereabouts of that fabulous well is known and the plummet is ready to hand. Nevertheless, I resolved to struggle through with my task, in the consciousness that the work of a pioneer may be helpful, provided that he carefully notches the track and thereby enables those who come after him to know what to seek and what ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... forwards to it. There had been times when for days together the moor could not be crossed. The boy was tired too, and hungry, and he knew well there was not much of a meal waiting for him at home. But at least there would be shelter and warmth, for there was no lack of fuel ready to hand—same as we have it here. The wind whistled and moaned, and felt as if it cut him. More than once he put his hands up to his ears, just to feel like if they were still there and to shut out the dreary sound for a moment. And one time after doing ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... possibly accept as a greater compliment to myself than that of being set to choose a young man worthy of being the father of grandchildren to Arulenus Rusticus. I should have had to look carefully and long, had it not been that Minucius Acilianus was ready to hand,— one might almost say that Providence had prepared him for the purpose. He has for me the close and affectionate regard of one young man for another—for he is only a few years younger than myself—yet at the same time he pays me the deference due to a man of years, for ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... living under the same roof, have the misfortune to fall out a hundred and one small ways are ready to hand for the infliction of moral torment. The weak, it may be added, are not only far more addicted to such inflictings than the strong, but far more resourceful in their execution. Theresa Bilson's conduct may furnish a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... for the Hawk, and found him already in the lockers and pulling out three space-suits. The clumsy, heavy cone of a portable heat-ray lay on the table ready to hand. ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... think that's fair, do you?" said his brother eagerly. "A nice bit of ground—and there's all the clay you'll need ready to hand. But it'll cost a deal of hard work to drain and clear it—I've thought over that many a time. As for the building timber—you shall have all you want, and help for the carting. But all the same, we must fix a price for Koskela as a whole, ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... gateways straight Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad. But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front Ready to hand. Lastly those images Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, In water, or in any shining surface, Must be, since furnished with like look of things, Fashioned from images of things sent out. There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, Like unto them, which no one can divine ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... my monotonous horizon; a regular intrigue seems ever ready to explode in the midst of this little world of mousmes and grasshoppers: Chrysantheme in love with Yves; Yves with Chrysantheme; Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here, ready to hand, the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other country than Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and dwarfing influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into ridicule, nothing will come of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... independent as feudal princes. But the more I consider the period the more this strange and restless alliance of doctrine with temperament appears to be of its essence; wherefore, I shall not hesitate to make of it a light wherewith to take a hasty look about me. Here are two labels ready to hand—"temperamental" and "doctrinaire." I am under no illusion as to the inadequacy and fallibility of both; neither shall I imagine that, once applied, they are bound to stick. On the contrary, you will see, in a later chapter, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... reduce everyone to a regimented, miserable level. It is hardly necessary to say that I spared no effort to combat the insidious agents of the Fourth International. Fortunately for the preservation of the free enterprise system, I had tools ready to hand. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... queer," said Monteith, "and isn't it significant, too? Here I am, born in Canada, sticking out against reciprocity and anxious to guard our Imperial connection and ready to hand our Navy clean over to the Imperial authorities, and on the other hand, there you are, born in the Old Country, you don't appear to care a darn about Imperial connections. You let that take care of itself, and you stick up for ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... I drew a picture of that scene and heard myself telling her I was nothing but a fawn-colored four-flush I could see my future putting on the mitts and getting ready to hand me one. ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... asked, grumbling, and there will be no loss to our folk. As for this talk of taking the horses—well, a sailor always wants a ride when he first comes ashore, if it is only on an ass. Then if there is not enough meat ready to hand in the town, no doubt they would say they would find it for themselves. Well, come on, ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... be nothing ready to hand that you call work, there is always preparation for work to be done," ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... up from Burns, or Thomson, or Shakespeare, or Tennyson, are ready to hand for every occasion, so that you may calculate upon a piece, in or out of place, in course of conversation. If you will do the prose, rely upon it he will do the poetic, much to his own satisfaction, if not to your entertainment. ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... material lies ready to hand. There is a written language, which for difficulty is unrivalled, polished and perfected by centuries of the minutest scholarship, until it is impossible to conceive anything more subtly artistic as a vehicle of human ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... whose polish is annually refreshed by contact with metropolitan splendour, and others whose robust and homely geniality is, at times, and by way of contrast, not less cheering and acceptable. Tired of the parlours and drawing-rooms of our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the clash of wits or the small talk of the day amid the solemn beauties of our venerable minster, whose silvern chimes daily 'knoll us to prayer,' and in the shady walks of whose tranquil graveyard ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... from the rough hut which had been built in a niche for the colonel, Roby was limping along with the aid of a stick and Lennox's arm, while Dickenson was rolling up a cigarette composed of the very last dust of his tobacco, ready to hand it to the captain, who suffered a good deal still from the bullet wound, the missile having passed right through his thigh. They had to pass two of their men, seated upon a rock in a shady corner, one of them ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... in filling positions in Government services or any professional calling that agents, merchants, officials and the professional classes find employment, so that if in exile we surround ourselves with such luxuries and enjoyments as are reserved for the wealthy at home it is because they are ready to hand at but little cost, and that they serve in a degree to compensate us for the sweet pleasures of home-life which are forfeited by those who leave Old England to push their ways ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... she carefully avoided to expose, presenting only her full front. I had given Stofolus my Moore rifle, with orders to shoot her if she should spring upon me, but on no account to fire before me. Kleinboy was to stand ready to hand me my Purdey rifle, in case the two-grooved Dixon should not prove sufficient. My men as yet had been steady, but they were in a precious stew, their faces having assumed a ghastly paleness; and I had a painful feeling that I could place no reliance on them. Now, then, for it, neck or ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... Italy, Constantinople, even Antioch, and the Holy Land itself, showed in time Norman states, Norman laws, Norman civilisation, and all alike felt the impulse of Norman energy and inspiration. England lay ready to hand for Norman invasion—the hope of peaceable succession to the saintly Edward the Confessor had to be abandoned by William; the gradual permeation of sluggish England with Norman earls, churchmen, courtiers, had been comprehended and checked by Earl Godwin and ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... answered Regin the guileful: "The deed is ready to hand, Yet holding my peace is the best, for well thou lovest the land; And thou lovest thy life moreover, and the peace of thy youthful days, And why should the full-fed feaster his hand to the rye-bread raise? Yet they ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... part. Then Yorke, having finished with the raft, went with me along the beach, and collected some old coconuts for food, and some young ones to drink, for, as my comrade observed, one never knew what might happen, and it would be as well to have some provisions all ready to hand in case of emergency. There were still thousands of dead fish to be seen everywhere lying on the sand, cast up among the debris above high-water mark, but these were now turning putrid, and ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... very clothes ready to hand," Jacques said. "When we joined you, we left ours with a friend in the town, to hold for us. There is no saying how long military service may last and, as our clothes were serviceable, we laid them by. We can go round and get them, the first thing in the morning; ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... a sister dodder as it rises from the earth day by day, and it will be observed to clasp a stalk of flax very tightly; so tightly that its suckers will absorb the juices of its unhappy host. When, so very easily, it can regale itself with food ready to hand why should it take the trouble to drudge for ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... in Mr Powell was released with great force. He jumped. The flare-up was kept inside the companion with a box of matches ready to hand. Almost before he knew he had moved he was diving under the companion slide. He got hold of the can in the dark and tried to strike a light. But he had to press the flare-holder to his breast with one arm, his fingers were damp and stiff, his hands trembled a little. One match broke. Another ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... his father knew each other. They had passed on the road, neither speaking to the other. And Little Jim was not blind to the significant movement of shifting a belt that a gun might hang ready to hand. ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... retorted in an unexpectedly earnest and confidential voice. It was as if something subtle in the air of Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith in "pronunciamientos." All at once he began to talk, like an expert revolutionist, of the instrument ready to hand in the intact army at Cayta, which could be brought back in a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to make his way at once down the coast. For the military chief there was Barrios, who had nothing ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... ready to hand," he went on, summing up his argument. "I have an acquaintance here, an employee of one of the best-known men in the gold-mining industry." Here Kovroff mentioned a well-known name. "He is now in St. Petersburg. Well, a few days ago he suddenly came to me as if he ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... portals of the British Museum, it is painful to see the splendid granite slabs of British cromlechs thrown down and carted away, stone circles destroyed to make way for farming improvements, and ancient huts and caves broken up to build new houses and stables, with the stones thus ready to hand. It is high time, indeed, that something should be done; and nothing will avail but to place every truly historical monument under national protection. Individual efforts may answer here and there, and a right spirit may be awakened ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... the converted idolater is dead against complexity in worship, and for simplicity. He does not want something as like his own old religion as possible, but as different as possible from it; and so we have good building material ready to hand, and a foundation ready laid. "But let every man take ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... give thee boldness to come to God. Shall Jesus Christ be interceding in heaven? Oh, then, be thou a praying man on earth; yea, take courage to pray. Think thus with thyself—I go to God, to God, before whose throne the Lord Jesus is ready to hand my petitions to him; yea, 'he ever lives to make intercession for me.' This is a great encouragement to come to God by prayers and supplications for ourselves, and by intercessions for our families, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... everywhere on horseback in the High Valley, and the gingham riding-skirts and wide-brimmed hats hung always on the antlers, ready to hand, beside water-proofs and top-coats. Before long the sisters were on their way, their saddle-pockets full of little stores, baskets strapped behind them, and the newly made curtains piled on their laps. The distance was about a mile to the house which Lionel Young and his sister ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... active and useful service not to be lost. Dave immediately cast about to scrape up and collect such mud as came ready to hand, and with it began to build up an intercepting embankment to stop the foremost current, that was winding slowly, like Vesuvian lava, on the line of least resistance. Dolly followed his example, filling a garment she called her pinafore with whatever mould or debris was attainable, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... thoughtful in their kindness. An odour in a box that had evidently travelled across the Atlantic close to the ship's boilers was traced to the pocket of a boy's suit, which contained the hardly-distinguishable remains of a ham sandwich, meant to be ready to hand for the hungry Belgian boy who got that suit. Broken pots of jam were quite frequent. But no matter. Soap and water and Belgian industry saved the suit, if not the sandwich. Sweaters and underclothes and overcoats almost new, and shiny old morning coats and ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... ready, before going to the ball. I accordingly went, and this gave the prince an opportunity to go at once to the Hotel de Choisy, and be ready there to receive me when I should arrive I found him there at the door, ready to hand me from my coach. I stopped in a chamber to readjust my hair, and the Prince of Wales again held a flambeau for me. This time, too, he brought his cousin, Prince Rupert, as an interpreter between us; for, believe it who will, though he could understand every word I said to ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... he calmly returned; "the name was ready to hand, and so I took it. I don't imagine it will make any difference to him. It's only a whim of mine, and with me there's no accounting for a whim. I make it a point to gratify every one that strikes me. I confess to being ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... real life,' said Theodora. 'What is it but the work ready to hand? Shrinking from it is shrinking from the battle. Come, Lady Lucy, I ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when the old King was to bring the new Queen home, May Margret counted over the keys of the castle chambers, knotted them on a string, and after casting them over her left shoulder for luck—more for her father's sake than for the new Queen's regard—she stood at the castle gate ready to hand over ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... made of myself yesterday! but to-day Richard is himself again," said Phillis, as she gathered up another muslin curtain in her arms ready to hand to Nan, who was mounted on some steps. It was only Monday afternoon, but the girls had done wonders: the work-room, as they called it, was nearly finished. The great carved wardrobe and mahogany table had been ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Ambermere Arms at five. He had brought up with him a pair of opera-glasses, with the intention of taking them to bits, so he had informed Foljambe, and washing their lenses, but he did not at once proceed about this, merely holding them ready to hand for use. Hermy and Ursy had gone back to their golf again after lunch, and so callers would be told that they were all out. Thus he could wash the lenses, when he chose ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... our trunks were lost on the "Tigris," I had very little trouble in packing up,—I said to Rectus that by the time he started off he could lay in a new stock of clothes. I had made out our accounts, and had his money ready to hand over to him, but I knew that his father had arranged for him to draw on a Savannah bank, both for the tug-boat money and for money for himself. I think that Mr. Colbert would have authorized me to do this drawing, ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... hour, but was probably five minutes, the letter, whatever its nature, was judged complete; and with the same stealthy but unhurried movements the writer sought and obtained an envelope from the many which lay ready to hand and slipped the missive in with deft fingers. An address added, the abominable thing was complete; and having quietly put everything in order, so that even the most acute eyes could discover nothing amiss, the writer rose softly from the chair, and taking up ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... of the philanthropic clergyman was found to work well, and was acceptable to his parishioners. One reason why it was so was because dry earth was ready to hand, or could be easily procured in a country district where labor was cheap. But where labor was dear and dry earth scarce, those who had to pay for the carting of the earth and the removal of the deodorized increment found it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various |
