"Spade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fainting from loss of blood, he was tied to a tree, and the privilege of shooting him was sold at auction. They required his companion to witness these brutalities. Whenever he turned away his eyes, his captors pressed the point of a saber into his cheek. Finally, they compelled him to take a spade and dig his own grave. When it was finished, they stripped him of his clothing, and shot him as he stood by the brink of the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... he had seen. Henderson was a minute or so taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and came out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to the common, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the body of the cylinder. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... on the ebb, and a current set strongly against the point of dike where the diggers were at work. This fact tended to make the results of their work the more immediately apparent, rendering mighty assistance to every stroke of the spade. At the same time, however, it told heavily in favor of the English, for, in order to counteract the special stream, the dike at this point was of great additional strength. Moreover, in the tidal rivers of that region the ebb and flow are so vast and so swift, that ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Cockrell roved far enough to find on the knoll a small pit freshly dug, with a spade and pick beside it. Like excited children, his two comrades ran to inspect the hole which Blackbeard's seamen had dug ready for the treasure chest. Then they scattered to explore the knoll in search of signs to indicate where previous hoards might have been buried. Trimble ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the soil, and that while it stood they could not expect a very great show of vegetables. Mrs. Barfield asked if the sale of the tree trunk would indemnify her for the cost of cutting it down. Jim paused in his work, and, leaning on his spade, considered if there was any one in the town, who, for the sake of the timber, would cut the tree down and take it away for nothing. There ought to be some such person in town; if it came to that, Mrs. Barfield ought to receive something for the tree. Walnut was a valuable ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... legend, Yin Chiao fought on the side of the Yin against Wu Wang, and after many adventures was caught by Jan Teng between two mountains, which he pressed together, leaving only Yin Chiao's head exposed above the summits. The general Wu Chi promptly cut it off with a spade. Chiang Tz[u)]-ya ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... and his Diggers set to work with spade and shovel on the barren soil of St. George's Hill, in Surrey, in the spring of 1649, was the attention of the Council of State called to the strange proceedings. The matter was left to the local magistrates ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... dark as a cave, Or a vault in the nave When the iron door Is closed, and the floor Of the church relaid With trowel and spade. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... Scraggsy," he announced cheerfully when the gun was finally assembled on the carriage, "get a sizeable timber an' spike it to the centre o' the deck. I'll run the trail spade up against that cleat an' that'll keep the recoil from lettin' the gun go backward, clean through the opposite rail and overboard. Gimme a coupler gallons o' distillate and some waste, somebody. This cosmoline's got to come out o' the tube an' out o' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... began in the streets. Leaving, he went with his dark-skinned Eastern musicians to the provinces. And the government trembled. Peasants threw aside spade, forgot vodka and rushed to his free concerts, given in canvas-covered booths; and the impetus communicated to this huge, weltering mass of slaving humanity, broke wave-like upon the remotest borders of the empire. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... did his best by leaping into the ditch, taking the spade, and showing the superior security of the angle of inclination traced by the King, but all in vain; both Trenton and Kitson silently but obstinately scouted the notion that any king should know more about ditches ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... miles from either end, the two holes came together exactly, within a limit of error of less than six inches, and made one continuous tunnel twelve miles long. Now, this was not all accomplished by the practical men who knew how to handle a spade in digging a ditch. The work was controlled by science, and it was known in advance what the results would be. I do not mean that it was known how hard the digging would be, nor how much trouble would be caused by caving or by water; but it was known that if the practical work ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... New Orleans Delta, "between the overseer of Mr. A. Collins (a planter in our vicinity) and one of the negroes. It seems the overseer wished to chastise the negro for some offence, and the negro resisted and struck the overseer with a spade. The overseer grappled with him, and called some of the negroes to his assistance; but, perceiving that the negroes were not willing to assist him, he drew his knife, and stabbed the negro to the heart. A coroner's inquest has been held, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... General's bed-room. He had heard an angry altercation carried on between General Darrington and some one, and supposed he was scolding one of the servants. He went to a shed in the barn yard to get a spade he needed, and when he came back he saw the prisoner walk down the steps, and thought it singular a stranger should leave the house that way. Wondered whom she could be, and wondered also that the General had quarrelled with such a splendid looking lady. Next ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... passed away, and Fink and Karl were still absent. One sunny day, Lenore was busy enlarging her plantation, where about fifty young firs and birches already made some show. In her straw hat, a small spade in her hand, she seemed so lovely to Anton as he was hurrying by that he could not resist standing still to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... plain. In all ages men delight to acquire property by expedients other than that of honest labour. In the period of private war the most obvious alternative to working is fighting, or hiring servants to fight; the sword is mightier than the spade. If we add that an expedition into a foreign country offers the additional advantages of escape from your exacting creditors, and your still more exacting king, we have something very like the economics of the Invasion of Anywhere ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... coined the word when he could not find it, transposed phrases, inverted sentences, and never called a spade an agricultural implement. Not content with this, he put the spade on exhibition and this often at unnecessary times, and occasionally prefaced the word with an adjective. Had he been let alone he would ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... of the avenue, and round the corner of it, and there ran into Pitt, alone, toiling with a wooden spade upon an irrigation channel. A pair of cotton drawers, loose and ragged, clothed him from waist to knee; above and below he was naked, save for a broad hat of plaited straw that sheltered his unkempt golden head from the rays of the tropical sun. At sight of him Nuttall returned thanks aloud to his ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... explanation. The story is this:—The laird riding past a high steep bank, stopped opposite a hole in it, and said, "Hairy, I saw a brock gang in there." "Did ye?" said Hairy; "wull ye hand my horse, sir?" "Certainly," said the laird, and away rushed Hairy for a spade. After digging for half-an-hour, he came back, quite done, to the laird, who had regarded him musingly. "I canna find him, sir," said Hairy. "'Deed," said the laird, very coolly, "I wad ha' wondered if ye had, for it's ten years sin' I ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... well on the beach at Nome, saw in the sands thrown up that alluring yellow glint which has led so many men to fortune and so many to death. The story of his find came to the ears of an old prospector from Idaho, who, too ill to go inland, was stranded in the military station of Nome. Spade and pan were at once put to work and in twenty days the fortunate invalid found ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... almost unknown—the people are on farms—the style of living is less costly by half, but greatly superior in quality and comfort—according to the census, there is but little crime—almost all have homes—the amount of agricultural labor does not fluctuate—the farms are not cultivated by the spade and hoe, but are large enough to justify a system of enlarged agricultural operations by the aid of horse power. The result is that more is saved, and the proceeds more equally distributed between capital and labor, or the rich and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... groaned Cleena, with a comical grimace. "Pose! Sure, it's I minds the time when the master caught me diggin' petaties an' kept me standin', with me foot on me spade, an' me spade in the ground, an' me body this shape," bending forward, "till I got such a crick in me back I couldn't walk upright, for better 'n a week. Posin', indeed! Well, he might. He looks ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... a fertile soile (because the generall curse is so) till your Trees grow great, will be noysome, and deforme your allies, walkes, beds, and squares, your vnder Gardners must labour to keepe all cleanly & handsome from them and all other filth with a Spade, weeding kniues, rake with iron teeth: a skrapple of ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... more tiring than spade work. But I'll guarantee that the man who does eight hours' brain work is not much more tired than the man who does ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... flushed and angry faces at the table, and withal a measure of awe. They were a little frightened at this smooth-faced young fellow, and the swing and smash of his words, and his dreadful trait of calling a spade a spade. Mr. Calvin ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... non-celibate clergy, and an intermingled aristocracy? Your endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could imagine you anything ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... breathes, With verdant carvings, flowery wreathes Of never-wasting bloom; In strong relief his goodly base All instruments of labour grace, The trowel, spade, and loom. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... yet has loved a maid, But they were sure to part, sir; Nor never lacked a paltry spade But that he drew ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... struck a spade deeper than he knew into his first countermine, for Kitty had none of those delicate scruples about the means of obtaining information which might have embarrassed a ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... clergyman disappeared to the vestry; a young florid man, with pale hair, tightened his leather belt, turned up his sleeves, watched a grand pair of biceps roll up as he crooked his elbows, then, taking a spade, set to work upon the wet mound he had dug from the earth the day before to clear those few square feet of space below. As he worked, he whistled, for his occupation held no more significance to him ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the spade or the shuttle, that plies Its own honest task in its own honest way, Serves heaven not less than a star in the skies— What more could the Pleiades do ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... be a yeoman, mither, to follow my father's trade, To bow my back in miry banks, at pleugh and hoe and spade. Stinting wife, and bairns, and kye, to fat some courtier lord,— Let them die o' rent wha like, mither, and I'll die ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... man MEANING, AS YOU WILL EASILY SUPPOSE, MR. PITT who could give them strength and solidity; that, under this person, he should be willing to serve in any capacity, not only as a General Officer, but as a pioneer; and would take up a spade and a mattock." When he quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke; who both declined them, probably for the same reasons that made the Duke of Grafton resign them; but after their going a-begging for some time, the Duke of———-begged them, and has them ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... guard what it builds with laws and with that sword which is behind all laws. Non-resistance is for the non-constructive man, for the hermit in the cave and the naked saint in the dust; the builder and maker with the first stroke of his foundation spade uses force and opens ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... its own spade, and took it in turns to carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because 'Baa' was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea 'Panther', which seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... his lips—never, at all events, when I saw him, which was often; for every day as I strolled past his domain he would be on the outside of his hedge, or just coming out of his gate, invariably with something in his hand—a spade, a fork, or stick of wood, or an old empty fruit-basket. Although thus having the appearance of being very much occupied, he would always stop for a few minutes' talk with me; and by-and-by I began to suspect that he was a very social ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... smash their entrenchments in no time, and effectually cover an advance across the bridge or one of the drifts. When I was in the army it was always said that the next war would be fought with the spade as much as with the rifle, but so far we have seen nothing whatever of the spade, except just by the guns. We were also taught that strong positions held by steady troops armed with magazine guns and supported by good artillery were absolutely impregnable ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... Ho! dwellers in the vales! Ho! ye who by the chafing tide Have roughened in the gales! Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot, Lay by the bloodless spade; Let desk, and case, and counter rot, And burn ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... ugly face off these 'ere works," said the foreman; "take it 'ome and bury it in the back-yard. Anybody'll be glad to lend you a spade." ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... irrigation. The idea pleased mightily, and to work we went instanter. Even the chief's own doctor is at it, and works like a good fellow, laughing heartily at the cunning of the 'foreigner' who can make rain so. We have only one spade, and this is without a handle; and yet by means of sticks sharpened to a point we have performed all the digging of a pretty long canal. The earth was lifted out in 'gowpens' and carried to the huge dam we have ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... shout heard through parlor and hall. But they only leave a few dark freckles on the garden beds. Alas, yes! There is no light without its shadow, no joy without its sorrow tagging after. It isn't all marbles and play in the gladsome springtide. Bub has not only to spade up the garden—there is some sense in that—but he has to dig up the flower beds, and help his mother set out ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... to ingenuity, talent, and manliness, the whole world swings open. Carnegie's Thirty Partners, most of whom have come from the working-ranks, demonstrate that a man can rise from the pick, the spade, the foreman's duties, to the control of great ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Dwarfs. I taught them how to plant and to sow, and to reap the yellow grain. I showed them where the precious metals of the earth lie hidden, and how to smelt iron from its ores,—how to shape the ploughshare and the spade, the spear and the battle-axe. I taught them how to tame the wild horses of the meadows, and how to train the yoke-beasts to the plough; how to build lordly dwellings and mighty strongholds, and how to sail in ships across old AEgir's watery kingdom. But they gave ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... this till noon; he trimming, lifting and placing the logs—and elephants have never swung teak more splendidly—while I, with our jointed camp spade, filled in the sand. The use of an axe could not possibly betray our position as Efaw Kotee had been betrayed, because the breeze continued from him to us, and also for the equally good reason that the bite of an axe in soggy palmetto does not sound with anything like ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... cheaper. Potatoes, for example, do not at present, through the greater part of the kingdom, cost half the price which they used to do thirty or forty years ago. The same thing may be said of turnips, carrots, cabbages; things which were formerly never raised but by the spade, but which are now commonly raised by the plough. All sort of garden stuff, too, has become cheaper. The greater part of the apples, and even of the onions, consumed in Great Britain, were, in the last century, imported from Flanders. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... soul, and fit it for its cares; Their graves before them and their griefs behind, Have each a med'cine for the rustic mind; Nor has he care to whom his wealth shall go, Or who shall labour with his spade and hoe; But as he lends the strength that yet remains, And some dead neighbour on his bier sustains, (One with whom oft he whirl'd the bounding flail, Toss'd the broad coit, or took the inspiring ale,) "For me," (he meditates,) "shall soon be done This friendly ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... work would be repeated again and again. But he just watched for the next hour as Max kept returning to the far end of the bed and working his way up to the window, nodding mindlessly with each neat twist of his spade attachment. ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... us cross, as well as being impelled by prying curiosity to see how many kerans he gets for his trouble. The first stream is found to be arm-pit deep, with a fairly strong current. My sturdy Khorassani crosses over first, to try the bottom, feeling his way with a long-handled spade; he then returns and carries the bicycle across on his head, afterward carrying me across astride his shoulders, landing me safely with nothing worse ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... life, You must leave 'im very careful where 'e fell; An' may thank your stars an' gaiters if you didn't feel 'is knife That you ain't told off to bury 'im as well. Then the sweatin' Tommies wonder as they spade the beggars under Why lootin' should be entered as a crime; So if my song you'll 'ear, I will learn you plain an' clear 'Ow to pay yourself for fightin' overtime. (Chorus) With ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... soldiers, while King Frederick declared that he was ready to die in his capital like a bird in its nest. Every soul in the city burned with patriotism, and nobles, burghers, and laborers alike manned the walls, while even women could be seen wielding spade and axe in the repair of the neglected defences. When the siege began the citizens made several successful sallies against their foes and hope arose ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... manner as she led him to where her father was; perhaps she was rather tired after the varied emotions she had experienced; perhaps she was still anxious. He was not anxious. It was in a glad way that he addressed the old gentleman who stood there with a spade ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... is my task. I was thoughtlessly cruel. Neither can we remain here, only long enough to bury those bodies. It would be inhuman not to do that. Sam, there is an old spade leaning against the cabin ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... high road- Yet the Deil hae General Wade For learnin's the shauchle instead o' the step Wi' the weary wark o' his spade, Till the Jew an' the Sassenach lord it noo Owre the hills whaur the ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... in some form unknown to her narrow experience), and lighted short pipes, and breached the brig upon the putrescent monster, and grappled to it, and then the skipper jumped on it, a basket slung to his back, and a rope fast under his shoulders in case of accident, and drove his spade in behind the ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Mrs. Crimm, serving them punctiliously with all that was included in the evening's refreshments. When there was nothing more that he could do I saw him sitting between Gracie Hurd the little shirtwaist girl, and Marion Spade, a waitress at one of the up-town restaurants, eating his supper as they ate theirs, and they were finding him apparently ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... not listening; he had fallen into a brown study, turning the piece of metal in his skilful, wonted, knotty fingers, with their spade tips. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... cargo of wooden-ware, a shop full of knick-knacks, an age of inventions. Boys need not be kept back to the hand-craft of the knife. For in-doors there are the type case and printing press, the paint box, the tool box, the lathe; and for out doors, the trowel, the spade, the grafting knife. It matters not how many of the minor arts the youth acquires. The more the merrier. Let each one gain the most he can in all such ways; for arts like these bring no harm in their train; quite otherwise, they lure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... I mind me, such impressions made; P'r'aps you never heard of Ginger Hicks, Him what done in uncle with a spade Down in Canning Town in ninety-six? Ginger was a wrong 'un from the fust; As a child ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... of poor, ignorant savages. It is an ugly word, isn't it? But why dissimulate? At least, we can call a spade a spade. These men are human beings. Their right to life and happiness is as good as yours or mine, and their souls ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... little bit more of what you mean? I know you are speaking as my friend, and, believe me, I am not ungrateful. I am sure there is a definite story against me. I wish you would call a spade a ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... himself with another scrutiny, the red-headed man resumed his work. 'We want to put this horse up here,' said Mr. Pickwick; 'I suppose we can, can't we?' 'Want to put that ere horse up, do ee?' repeated the red-headed man, leaning on his spade. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... his time at the muskeg, encouraging the men who searched it and often assisting in the work. The whole morass was being systematically turned over with the spade, but no further discoveries had been made. In addition to this, Jernyngham rode to and fro about the prairie, talking to the farmers whom he met on the trail or found at work in the fields. They ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... parapet it was turned sharp to left and right, forming a capital T with the cross-piece running roughly along the line of trench and parapet. Here there was need of the utmost deliberation and caution. A pick could not be used, and even a spade had to be handled gently, in case the sounds of working should reach the Germans overhead. In some places the Subaltern could actually hear the movements and footsteps of the enemy ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... the wolf's clothing of war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a militia training. Not that my flock are backward to undergo the hardships of defensive warfare. They serve cheerfully in the great army which fights even unto death pro aris et focis, accoutred with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, the spelling-book, and other such effectual weapons against want and ignorance and unthrift. I have taught them (under God) to esteem our human institutions as but tents of a night, to be stricken whenever Truth ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... over the dry-farm. There are several kinds of disk harrows used by dry-farmers. The full disk is, everything considered, the most useful. The cutaway harrow is often used in cultivating old alfalfa land; the spade disk harrow has a very limited application in dry-farming; and the orchard disk harrow is simply a modlfication of the full disk harrow whereby the farmer is able to travel between the rows of trees and so to cultivate the soil under ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... He had been president of the State Agricultural Society, and was eminent, not only for his knowledge of his subject, but for his power of making it interesting. Men came away from Mr. Gould's lectures filled with intense desire to get hold of a spade or hoe and to begin turning ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred to—themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long continuance—even the trifling irregularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... with a grin. Fortunately the professor did not hear him; but the boys could hardly keep from laughing outright as they set to work with the spade. A few minutes of brisk digging set the professor at liberty and he was able to stand upright and triumphantly exhibit a small black rock which looked in no way remarkable, but which, it was evident, ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... meetin' up, don't it now? Likewise it's always to m' benefit, too. Only this time I've got me somethin' to trade. You keep on goin' down this trail, compadre, an' maybe you'll wind up with a spade pattin' you down ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... green, round-crowned, narrow-brimmed hunting hats and green boots up to just below their knees. Each carried a heavy shafted hunting spear, tipped with a huge triangular gleaming head, pointed like a needle, edged like a razor, broad as a spade at ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... tree, in order to build himself a dwelling; a third is hoeing in his field of Indian corn. Here comes a huntsman out of the woods, dragging a bear which he has shot, and shouting to the neighbors to lend him a hand. There goes a man to the sea-shore, with a spade and a bucket, to dig a mess of clams, which were a principal article of food with the first settlers. Scattered here and there are two or three dusky figures, clad in mantles of fur, with ornaments of bone hanging from their ears, and the feathers of wild birds in their coal black hair. ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... [is heard calling, almost out of breath]. I wanted to catch you before you went down. [Enters.] There was nobody else at home to bring the spade, so I ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... of the mountain-side! Ho, dwellers in the vales! Ho, ye who by the chafing tide Have roughened in the gales! Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot, Lay by the bloodless spade: Let desk and case and counter rot, And ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and roots of herb, which little by little gather a feeble soil over the iron substance; then, supporting the narrow slip of clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the spade; and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets that seem always to have chosen ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... mine, and after the death of my aunt he became a Carthusian monk. As I write these lines, ill and aged as he is, and bent with pain, I know he is digging his own grave, weak with the weight of the spade, imploring God to take him, and thinking sometimes of me, of his little Bohemian. Ah, the dear, good man, it is to him that I owe all that is best in me. I love him devotedly and have the greatest respect for him. How many times ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Especially if those who are not known, For Cuckolds too the Title wou'd but own, And such as are not summon'd would appear, In those Accoutrements we ought to wear, Which are our Horns, a Pick Axe and a Spade, That Paths may for our Wives be ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... "in a cardboard case, with some inanity about 'digging for fortune with a royal spade' emblazoned on the cover. The moment I saw it in the shop I said to myself 'Froplinsons' and to the attendant 'How much?' When he said 'Ninepence,' I gave him their address, jabbed our card in, paid tenpence or elevenpence to cover the postage, and thanked ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... it no longer. He found his hostess digging around the roots of some rosebushes in her small garden. Curtly she declined his offer to take the spade. For a minute he watched her uneasily before he blurted ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... menageries. The bill of the kiwi, which has the nostrils close to the tip, is even more sensitive than that of the woodcock and is employed in very similar fashion. At Regent's Park the keeper supplies the bird with fresh worms so long as the ground is soft enough for spade-work. They are left in a pan, and the kiwi eats them during the night. In winter, however, when worms are not only hard to come by in sufficient quantity but also frost-bitten and in poor condition, an efficient substitute is found in shredded fillet steak, which, whether it accepts it for worms ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... development of the extremities and of the features of the face,—the bony as well as the soft parts. In a well-marked case the hands and feet are greatly enlarged, but not otherwise deformed, and the normal functions are not disturbed. The hypertrophy involves all the tissues, giving a curious spade-like appearance to the hands. The feet are similarly enlarged, although the big toe may be relatively much larger. The nails also become broad and large. The face increases in volume and becomes elongated, in consequence of the hypertrophy of the superior ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the night of the 7th a strange, murmurous clangor arose from the British camp, and was borne on the moist air to the lines of their slumbering foes. The blows of pickaxe and spade as the ground was thrown up into batteries by gangs of workmen, the rumble of the artillery as it was placed in position, the measured tread of the battalions as they shifted their places or marched ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... father bought a large building-lot and erected a neat and commodious house, which remained in the possession of the family until sold by Mrs. Cunningham after the death of her husband. The lot was soon converted into a garden by its owner who tilled it with the spade and allowed no plough to be used in his little Eden. It was characteristic of his generous spirit, too, that none of the surplus product was ever sold, but was freely given to less favored neighbors. Happy years were spent by Mr. Cunningham in his shop, in his ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... the genealogical trees which she already knew by heart. Beside her, astride a chair, sat Julien, smoking a pipe and occasionally spitting on the ground as he watched the growth of the colored certificate of his nobility. Soon old Simon on his way to the kitchen garden stopped, with his spade on his shoulder, to look at the painting, and the news of Bataille's arrival having reached the two farms the farmers' wives came hurrying up also. Standing on either side of the baroness, they went into ecstasies over the drawing and kept repeating: ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... continued long after the first struggle. M'Taggart, who had his prejudices, but who had unusually good opportunities for observation, thought that a tenth of the poorer Irish settlers died during their first two years in the country. He found them clumsy at their work, accustomed to the spade and shovel, not to the axe, and maiming themselves most fearfully, or even killing themselves, in their {22} experiments in clearing the ground.[16] Of all who came, the immigration agents thought the Lowland Scots and the Ulster Irishmen the best, and while the ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... be too careful, boys," said Mr Rogers, picking up the flat spade-shaped head, and opening the jaws with ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... extensive preparations, and it was not till winter that he drew his army round the walls of Numantia, defended by only eight thousand citizens. Scipio even declined a battle, and fought with mattock and spade. A double wall of circumvallation, surmounted with towers, was built around the city, and closed the access to it by the Douro, by which the besieged relied upon for provisions. The city sustained a memorable siege of nearly a year, and was only reduced by famine. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... in his way). Well, Mum, we 'ave 'ad the 'andle of his spade, and the brim of his garden 'at, but they wore out last year and 'ad to be thrown away—things won't last for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... In the middle (which was now visible, as the "creature" had just transferred the last potato to his own plate, stabbing it with his knife for that purpose) was a quaint representation of a mournful-looking couple, clad in singularly ill-fitting aprons of fig-leaves. The man was digging with a spade, while the woman sat at a spinning-wheel placed dangerously near the edge of the deep ditch which her husband had already dug. Round the edge ran an inscription, which, after some study, Hilda made out to ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... spade guinea—a pocket piece I've carried for years. You've heard, no doubt, of vital things turning upon the tossing of a coin. Well, if you see me toss this coin to-morrow, something of that sort will occur. It will be tossed up in the midst of a riddle, Major; when it comes ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... holding his violin high above his head. "It is my only child; it will laugh or cry, and love and scold as I bid it, and make everybody else do the same when I touch its heart-strings." Jean had brought his violin under his arm, in place of a spade, to help build up the walls of the city. He had never heard of Amphion, with his lyre, building up the walls of Thebes; but Jean knew that in his violin lay a power of work by other hands, if he played while they labored. "It lightened toil, and made work go merrily as the bells ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... when ripe, he kept to sow again, and from this very small beginning, in the course of a few seasons, he had a great quantity of grain, both for food and for sowing. But this meant every year much hard work, for he had no plow nor harrow, and all the ground had to be dug with a clumsy spade, made from a very hard, heavy wood that grew ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... into a torrent of imprecations. "Where have they buried her? Take me to the place!" I cried, as I flung a piece of gold to the woman. She grasped it eagerly. "Bring a spade, and come quick, for God's ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... devotion to Dexter showed itself as the woman's devotion had shown itself—in the man's rough way. He threw down his spade with ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... flout it on that account. You should not blame a bream because it is not a barbel, or a chub for not being a trout, yet the angler grumbles if he catches the humbler fish when aiming at the noble; we are all agreed that the gardener was not justified in "larning" with a spade the squalid batrachians to be toads; even musical comedies ought not to be criticized with spade strokes, although in connection with them it is a pity that a spade so rarely has been called by its proper name. Moreover, one may have an entirely unreasonable prejudice against ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... all was din and confusion around the incipient fort, when the startled Frenchmen saw the neighboring height of St. John's swarming with naked warriors. Laudonniere set his men in array, and for a season, pick and spade were dropped for arquebuse and pike. The savage chief descended to the camp. The artist Le Moyne, who saw him, drew his likeness from memory, a tall, athletic figure, tattooed in token of his rank, plumed, bedecked with strings ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... yellow ray directly at the crack in the nursery shutter. The ray was sharp: it smote full on Archie's eyelids, as he lay asleep, surrounded by "Robinson Crusoe," two red apples, a piece of gingerbread, and a spade, all of which he had taken to bed with him. When he felt the prick of the sun-ray he opened his eyes wide. "Why, morning's come!" he said, and without more ado raised himself ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... February at nearest. We live here the usual quiet country life: and now that the snow is so deep we are rather at a loss for exercise. It is very hard work toiling along the roads, and besides so blinding to the eyes. I take a spade, and scuppet {44} away the snow from the footpaths. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... once a like pleasure in raking over an Indian shell-heap with Wyman. The quiet, amused amazement of the native who plied the spade for us was an odd contrast to Wyman's mood of deep interest and serious occupation. He had a boy's pleasure in the quest, and again displayed for me the most ready learning as to everything involved in the search. Bits of bones were named as I would name the letters of the alphabet: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... he was digging for roots, his poor sustenance, his spade struck against something heavy, which proved to be gold, a great heap which some miser had probably buried in a time of alarm, thinking to have come again, and taken it from its prison, but died before the opportunity had arrived, without making any man privy to the concealment; so it lay, doing ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... crutch, took hold of her head in the way that is unmistakable, and faced her at the barricade. As he did so a countryman sprang up at his right hand and struck furiously at him with a heavy potato spade. The blow was aimed at Dinny Johnny, but the moment was miscalculated, and it fell on "Matchbox" instead. The sharp blade gashed her hind quarter, but with a spring like a frightened deer she rose ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... do with it? Let mariners learn astronomy; merchants, factors study arithmetic; surveyors get them geometry; spectacle-makers optics; land-leapers geography; town-clerks rhetoric, what should he do with a spade, that hath no ground to dig; or they with learning, that have no use of it? thus they reason, and are not ashamed to let mariners, apprentices, and the basest servants, be better qualified than themselves. In ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... humanity conceives it. It is not in human nature to love a stream of tendency, or worship it, or ask boons of it; or to credit it with powers of design, volition, or creation. A prayer beginning "Stream" would sound as odd as Wordsworth's ode beginning "Spade."[57] ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the exception of a few ears of barley gleaned in the women's aprons.' In the following year the plague reappeared; the insects came again, covering the ground so thickly that they 'might be shovelled with a spade.' The stock of seed-grain was now almost exhausted, and the colonists resolved to send an expedition to the Mississippi for a fresh supply. Two hundred {140} and fifty bushels of grain were secured at Lord Selkirk's expense, ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... the passageways and haunted the cabins. Marsha's snake was back. There was Lazar's dragon, which seemed to grow larger every day. There was also a basilisk, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat with a five-foot wingspread, an old-fashioned red spade-tailed demon ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... parades, and hunting the bear and buffalo. The estate you have inherited is not binding on you. You can realise it, and begin by taking over two or three hundred picked Irish and English—have both races capable of handling spade and musket; purchasing some thousands of acres to establish a legal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... inured to danger that nothing could terrify them, and they seemed to court death instead of shunning it on all occasions. Some of them being employed to level some works from which the enemy had been driven near the monastery of St Francis, and being more handy at the sword than the spade, drew upon themselves a large party of the enemy of whom they slew above 200, yet not without some loss on their side. About this time Farete Khan, one of the Nizams generals, made some overtures towards peace, but without any apparent authority from his sovereign, who caused him to be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade, and from a distant point of the earthwork came the sharp report of ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... service. On the day it had been signed, Walter Colton, alcalde of Monterey, wrote thus of it in his diary: "It is thoroughly democratic; its basis, political and social equality, is the creed of the thousands who run the plow, wield the plane, the hammer, the trowel, the spade." Still it had its faults, the greatest of which was the power given the legislature over public moneys and lands, as well as the chance it allowed for dishonesty ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... a man's digging spuds in that field with a long spade, and supposing he flings up the two halves of that skull, what'll be said then in the papers and ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... for, where high wages are given, hard work is required; those must also be disappointed who expect to live in style from off the produce of a small Canadian farm, and those whose imaginary dignity revolts from plough, and spade, and hoe, and those who invest borrowed capital in farming operations. The fields of the slothful in Canada bring forth thorns and thistles, as his fields brought them forth in England. Idleness is absolute ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... You see how admirably they are tilled, and how much they get off them. They are always working in them in their spare hours; and when a man wants a mug of beer, instead of going off to the village and the public-house, he puts down his spade or his hoe, comes to the club- house and gets it, and goes back to his work. When he has done work, he likes to have his beer at the club, still, and to sit and look at his little crops ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... ridiculous in the eyes of worldly people, said the far from unworldly poet. True, she was the daughter of an earl, and he the son of a farmer; and those who called the land their own looked down upon those who tilled it! But a banker, or a brewer, or the son of a contractor who had wielded the spade, might marry an earl's daughter: why should not the son of a farmer—not to say one who, according to the lady's mother, himself belonged to an aristocracy? The farmer's son indeed was poor, and who would look at a poor banker, or a poor brewer, more than a poor farmer! it was all money! But was ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... thinking to meet his man, paidling Jock—but Jock had sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to the wast corner ower yonder he gaed, and throwing his coat ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap o't, he dug away with his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin handles, and the green banes and sic like, till he stoppit a wee to take breath.—What! are ye whistling to yoursell?" quoth Isaac to me, "and no hearing what's ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... covered her brother, and had directed a space left for that purpose. Now the marble was removed, and the coffins of Jane and Enoch Grey rested side by side. The voice of the minister ceased, and only little Stanley's sobs broke that mournful silence which always ensues while spade or trowel does its sad work. Then the sculptured slab was replaced, and brother and sister were left to that blessed repose which is granted only to the faithful when ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... out as far as the fish will carry it, and is then passed in a small boat, which is towing at the stern. Two men jump into this, and pull in upon the line until the fish is brought in alongside; it is then killed with a whale-lance or a whale-spade, which is stuck ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... waiting for the first burst of vengeful fury to be over—and he found it gone! He thought on the first survey that all was well; but on more closely examining the ground his heart misgave him, for it appeared to him as if the soil had been moved. With anxious haste he began to dig, and soon his spade struck the lid of one of the chests. For a moment he breathed again; but he was impelled to carry his search farther. He uncovered the chest and raised the lid—it was empty! In a wild fear and fury he dug again and again, and with the same result. Every chest ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cannot find it there. It is observable that this proverbial kind of expression, for freedom of words and sentiments, has been adopted into almost every language, though the image conveying it is different. Thus the Greeks call a fig a fig, etc. We say, an honest man calls a spade a spade; and the French call "un chat un chat." Boileau says, "J'appelle un chat un chat, et ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... the best methods of further attempts on that spade-work, when, late that evening, he received a note from Queenie Crood. It ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher |
