"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... awkward and tiresome to be grand and idle, like other great folks; so much so, that for several years they used to go over to Wales in the fishing season, and live in the cottage by the sea, and Sir Brian would go out fishing every day, and Lady Fanny would spin and sew and take care of the baby, just in the old way. Living thus, they were happiest—but they were always happy and good—they lived to be very old, and died on the same day and were buried in the ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... lived in a very grand house, and he married a young lady that had been delicately brought up. In her husband's house she found everything that was fine—fine tables and chairs, fine looking-glasses, and fine curtains; but then her husband expected her to be able to spin twelve hanks o' thread every day, besides attending to her house; and, to tell the even-down truth, the lady could not spin a bit. This made her husband glunchy with her, and, before a month had passed, she found hersel' ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... dissimilar from the tools of our own wool-combers. The outside they throw away, and the rest they spread out for several days in the sun to dry, which makes it as white as snow. In this prepared state it is, he says, called "mooka." They spin it, he adds, in a double thread, with the hand on the thigh, and then work it into mats, also by the hand: three women may work on ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... ancient rhetoric is omitted in the Treatise. The nod is given to elocution. Invention is discussed, but only as a tool to assist the communicator in amplifying his ideas, as a means to spin out his thoughts to extreme lengths. Arrangement, memory, and delivery are overlooked. Accordingly, the Treatise neatly fits into the category of a Renaissance rhetoric on style. It is this school which recognized the traditional ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... came to him. The white number-plates of New York State seemed to be everywhere on automobiles, even outnumbering the yellow of Ontario. One had the impression that every American motor-owner within gasolene radius had decided that he would take his Sunday spin to Niagara Falls, and on to the Canadian side ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... your classics, and have got a grip of French and German. The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it's hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you'll give him as a cue. That's all very fine, but in practical life nobody does give you the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, it's a nicety of conversation which I would ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... bairn, they're a fine key. Clever as the devil, but naething true about them. After the Danae-piff!" and he snapped his fingers. "Ye hae no call to worry, you're the hub, Mary—let the wheel spin a ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... on your coat and bonnet, Aunty," cried Helen, patting her wrinkled cheek. "I've come to take you for a spin. And Ruth, too." ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... I guess he's keepin' company with her, by the looks. I got as nigh to 'em as I could, but I didn't hear much they said. Only, just as they was goin' out, he said somethin' about goin' for a little spin in the car. She said no, her father would want his letters. Carver, he said, why not send Oscar home—that's the chauffeur, you know—with the letters, and he'd run the car himself. She kind of laughed, and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... make a small hole in one end of each and let the contents flow out; rinse each shell well with cold water; then fill them with blanc-mange and set in a pan of sugar or flour, the open end up; place them in a cool place till hard; boil 1 pound sugar to a crack and spin it into quite long threads (see Spinning Sugar); with these threads form a nest a little smaller than the dish it is to be served in; dip each egg into warm water, wipe dry, break shells from about the blanc-mange and lay the artificial eggs ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... and little is made of much, on your side, and much is spun out of little, on theirn. They are more cunning than foxes, and bloodthirstier than panters, and they no more git tired than the spiders, that spin and piece a web as fast as you break it. Three nights ago, I got down on my knees, and I kissed a little pink morocco slipper what your Ma wore the day when she took her first step from my arm to her own mother's knees, and I swore a solemn oath, if I could ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... by Hargreaves, and the mule by Crompton—all within a space of twenty years ending 1785. To these must be added the steam-engine by Watt, which made it possible to drive the machinery, and the gin by Eli Whitney, which made it possible to get cotton to spin. Much as iron has loomed up lately, the working of the various fibres—cotton, wool, flax, hemp and jute—constitutes the pet industry of her people, and very elaborate and beautiful are the machines at the Exposition, especially attractive and less ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... a spin to the projectile as it travels along the spiral grooves in the bore, permits the use of a long projectile and ensures its flight point first, with great increase in accuracy. The longer projectile, being both heavier and more streamlined than ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... like that funny little crab we saw lately in Aquaria, who adorns his head and shoulders with bits of sea-weed, or any other stuff within his reach, and paddles about his tank self-satisfied and ridiculous. Women must and will trim, as spiders spin webs, and bees make honeycombs. They even trim bathing-dresses: one would think that nothing could redeem them from their hideousness. But they obey a law of their being. The special aptitudes of the lower animals are brought into play when no other reason can be given than the necessity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... frog jumped every time she opened it. Indeed, the sentence seemed actually visible between them, like a squat and ugly small beast on the shining white cloth. "Sorry, Aunt Lyddy," said Jane, penitently. "I'm a crosspatch to-night, and I ought to sit by the fire and spin, instead of gamboling." ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... dangers ahead, giving direction, and the watchful steersman acting sympathetically with his long oar or sweep, so that should the bowman with his pole thrust the head of the boat violently to the right the steersman sweeps its stern sharply to the left, thus causing the craft to spin round and shoot aside from the danger, whatever it may be. Of course the general flow and turmoil of a rapid indicates pretty clearly to skilled eyes where the deepest water lies; nevertheless, in spite of knowledge, skill, and experience, disasters ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... rasberry wine, and candy orange chips. Study burns, bruises, and balsams. Distil surfeit, colic, and wormwood water. Concoct hiera picra, rhubarb beer, and oil of charity; and sympathize over sprains, whitloes, and broken shins. Get a charm to cure the argue, and render yourself renowned. Spin, sew and knit. Collect your lamentable rabble around you, dole out your charities, listen to a full chorus of blessings, and take your ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... is not so common among us English as our kindest critics would have us believe. He would take a handful of golden sentences—things wisely thought and finely said by persons having authority—and spin them into an exquisite prelection; so that his work with all the finish of art retains a something of the freshness of those elemental truths on which it was his humour to dilate. He was, that is to say, an artist in ethics as in speech, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... passed through his cheek. One of his fights was in the 'Amethyst' frigate when, under Sir Michael Seymour, she captured the 'Niemen' in 1809. Often in the calm tropical nights, when the helm could take care of itself almost, he would spin me a yarn about hot actions, cutting-outs, press-gangings, and perils which he had gone through, or - what was all one to me - ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... vanished, carrying off my cock, My cock that crew! O Mania, help! O reads of the rock Pursue! pursue! For I poor girl, was working within, Holding my distaff heavy and full, Twir-r-r-r-r-rling my hand as the threads I spin, Weaving an excellent bobbin of wool: Thinking 'To-morrow I'll go to the fair, In the dusk of the morn, and be selling it there.' But he to the blue upflew, upflew, On the lightliest tips of his wings outspread; To me he bequeathed but woe, but woe, ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... later work lacks the inspiration of restlessness and discovery, and he tends to put more and more of his genius into the technique of his verse and less into the meaning. The versification is marvellous, but one gets tired of it, and he often has nothing to say and has to spin out commonplaces in rich language. One feels this even in the "Idylls of the King," which are the best of his later or middle long efforts: they are artificial, not impulsive; Virgil, not Homer; Meredith calls them 'dandiacal flutings,' which is an exaggeration. But I can quite see how ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... maybe the lad was looking at a solitary greatly-blotched egg, big at one end, going off to almost nothing at the other, and wanting in the soft curves of ordinary eggs, while he wondered how it was that such an egg should not blow out of its rocky hollow when the wind came, but spin round as ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... his electric wires. The pathway to the trade of the miners and the men in the shops and smelters lay through his door. Material prosperity for every merchant and every clerk in Market Street lay in the paunch of the old spider, and he could spin it out or draw it in as he chose. It was not usual for him to appear on Market Street. Dr. Nesbit had always been his vicegerent. And often it had pleased the Doctor to pretend that he was seeking their aid as friends and getting it solely ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... man knows that he's in his chair And that God's on His throne in the sky. So he sits by the fire in comfort And he lets the world spin by. ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... said, "that what you heard at the boardin' house—for I suppose that's where you did hear it—was what you might call a Phinneyized story of the doin's at the meetin'. Well, there's another yarn, and it's mine; I'm goin' to spin it and I want you ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... retorted Gertrude, "and I'm going to. You are not going to condemn me to a slow walk when I can have a nice spin with Cecil. I'll arrange it with Mrs. Henchman, and she'll be quite satisfied ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... the center of the bay now and the boat began to spin. For one terrible moment it seemed as if an overturn were imminent. Out of the tail of his eyes, Enoch saw the Mary hugging ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... that the three long-boats conveyed something more than the youth and beauty of Troy to that morning's Maying; that when launched from Mr. Runnells' yard they were not entirely what they seemed: that from their trial spin across the bay they returned some inches deeper in the water, and yet they did not leak. Had you perchance been standing by the shore in the half-light as they came up over the shallows, you might have wondered at the number of times they took ground, and at ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... colours grew fainter, and the moon's silver brightened, the passengers became quieter. The Piper went below and listened to the Ancient Mariner spin a yarn, and let the birds along the shore furnish music. The babies fell asleep in the arms of Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, lovers drifted away in pairs to retired nooks. In a quiet corner J. P. Thornton and Lawyer Ed sat and laid once more their final plans for a trip to ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... there is, then, no great harm in dying privately and far from home; we conceive ourselves obliged to retire for natural actions less unseemly and less terrible than this. But, moreover, such as are reduced to spin out a long languishing life, ought not, perhaps, to wish to trouble a great family with their continual miseries; therefore the Indians, in a certain province, thought it just to knock a man on the head when reduced to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... waved and perspired and rubbed against scratching posts, and daily and hourly the Willy-Willys whirled and spun and danced, and daily and hourly as they threatened to dance, and spin, and whirl through the house, the homestead sped across the enclosure to slam doors and windows in their faces, thus saving our belongings from their whirling, dusty ravages; and when nimbler feet were absent it was no uncommon sight to see Cheon, perspiring and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... beautiful paper flowers. They paint pictures. They sing and play. Some of them pick the snow-white cotton in the fields. Some of them take care of the silk-worms that spin the soft silk. ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... its wiry stem, Its fringed border nicely spin, And cut the gold-embossed gem, That, set ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... us," said her father, "I always have a kind of abandoned feeling, like a top that's got to the end of its spin." ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... "Then spin away, Amarilly. You'll have my sympathy and help in everything that makes you feel bad, whether it's right ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... save for the fact that his forefinger was crooked and thrust through the trigger-guard; then, with the slightest jerk of the wrist, the gun spun about, the handle jumped into his palm, and instantly there was a click as his thumb flipped the hammer. It was the old "road-agent spin," which Gale as a boy had practised hours at a time; but that this man was in earnest he showed by glancing upward ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... dealings with their men; but my experience compels me to say that a great number of them were heartless skinflints. The economical measures adopted by some captains in order that their supplies might spin out were not only comic, but idiotic. For instance, the master and his chief officer had their meals together, and if they were not on very lovable terms the few minutes allowed the mate was a very monotonous affair owing to the forced and dignified ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... at her, 'O Noorna, what is it in thy speech affecteth me? Surely it infuseth the vigour of wine, old wine; and I shiver with desire to shave Shagpat, and spin threads for the historian to weave in order. I, wullahy! had but dry visions of the greatness destined for me till now, my betrothed! Shall I master an Event in shaving him, and be told of to future ages? By Allah and his Prophet (praise be to that name!), ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shinin'. On dem dark nights one set of slaves helt lanterns for de others to see how to chop de weeds out of de cotton and corn. Wuk was sho' tight dem days. Evvy slave had a task to do atter dey got back to dem cabins at night. Dey each one hed to spin deir stint same as de 'omans, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... neighbor, and there was a hope in his heart which made it welcome. When the day came he was early on hand, heartily greeted by Mark, who exclaimed,—"Give me a dozen more such shoulders and arms as yours, and I'll make the timbers spin!" ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... it matter?" he said. "When you are married you can keep him in the house, and make him spin the flax ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Mazeroux by both shoulders, made him spin round on his heels and, with a push, sent him floundering over the sofa. Then ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... abide; All clothed in the same fashion, both the mantle and the shoon, All eating at one table, within her hall at noon: All, save the Lady Alda, she is lady of them all, She keeps her place upon the dais, and they serve her in her hall; The thread of gold a hundred spin, the lawn a hundred weave, And a hundred play sweet melody within Alda's bower ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... the semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast harmonious process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star: that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in times of its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether. ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... the act; and, finally, that there would be sold to the highest bidder, at the court-house of the town of Brunswick, on the sixteenth day of August next ensuing, the said property of the said Lambert Meredith; namely, "Two likely negro women, who can cook and spin," and thirty thousand acres of choice arable farm and wood lands under cultivation lease, with one house, one stable, and corn-cribs and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... spin of the cliff has orders to signal if any one is seen coming up the creek. If Indians appear he is to gallop into the camp, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... simple loop of wire round a magnetic needle he bends its upper portion to the west: the north pole of the needle immediately swerves to the east: he bends his loop to the east, and the north pole moves to the west. Suspending a common bar magnet in a vertical position, he causes it to spin round its own axis. Its pole being connected with one end of a galvanometer wire, and its equator with the other end, electricity rushes round the galvanometer from the rotating magnet. He remarks upon the 'singular independence' of the magnetism and the body ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... god; so that he, being angry, changed her into a chattering magpie; or again to Arachne, who having been taught the art of weaving by Athene, pretended to compete with her own instructress, and being metamorphosed by her into a spider, was condemned, like the sophists, to spin out of her own entrails endless ugly webs, which are destroyed, as soon as finished, by ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... name. One and one-quarter seconds, and twenty-five thousand miles are traversed. Puck promises to put his "girdle round the earth in forty minutes." Radium would pass the fairy girdlist in the spin round sixteen hundred times. Thus truth, as it is being evolved in our day, becomes stranger than the wildest imaginings of fiction. Our century seems on the threshold of discoveries and advances, not less revolutionary, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... the manufacturer of machines to weave, to spin, to spool, and to wind the silk—was not sufficiently smitten to believe in the innocence of the dyer's wife, and swore a devilish hate against her. But some days afterwards, when he had recovered from his wetting in the dyer's drain he came up to sup with his old comrade. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... to you because it is my nicest one and just ready to spin up. Do you like pussy-pillars, and know how they do it?" asked Ruth, emboldened by the kiss she got in return ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... won him round, and departed one morning gleefully in the little toy train that runs out across the Gwebi Flats to the Eldorado Gold Mine. And to Diana's joy, they had a luggage-van fitted up as an impromptu saloon for them, and were able to spin along with both doors wide open, enjoying the air and the country. The Eldorado is the show mine of Rhodesia, having a native compound equal to any in South Africa, and charming bungalows for the staff, and an airy, comfortable hospital. But mines were not likely to hold much interest to lady travellers ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... rich yet, and I'll make you a queen yourself, and then you need spin no more," said Jim, wild with ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... raise heroic eyes Unto the eyes of aliens. In the streets Will women and young children point at you Scornfully, and the sun will find you shamed, And night refuse to shield you. What a life Is this ye spin and fashion for yourselves! And what new tortures of suspense and doubt Will death invent for such as are afraid! Acastus, thou my brother, in the field Foremost, who greeted me with sanguine hands From ruddy battle with a conqueror's face,— These honors ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... unaccustomed task. When she had accomplished it, David wound the other end of the thread round a pin stuck in the high black mantel-shelf. The apple dropped slowly into place before the bars of the grate, and began—as everybody who has been a child knows—to spin slowly round, and then, slowly back again. David, squatting on the rug, watched it in silence. But Mrs. Richie would not let him be silent. She leaned forward, eager to touch him—his shoulders, his hair, his cheek, hot with ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... silk. The spinning of Eri silk thread, and weaving it into cloths is, however, a fairly considerable industry amongst the Khyrwang and Nongtung villages of the Jaintia Hills. The Nongtungs and Khyrwangs rear their own Eri worms, and spin the silk from the cocoons. The late Mr. Stack, in his admirable note on silk in Assam, says, "Throughout the whole range of the southern hills, from the Mikir country, Eri thread is in great request for weaving those striped cloths, in which the mountaineers delight," but this observation ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... a poor tailor in an Eastern city. He was a spoiled boy, and loved play better than work; so that when Mustapha, his father, died, he was not able to earn his living; and his poor mother had to spin cotton all day long to procure food for their support. But she dearly loved her son, knowing that he had a good heart, and she believed that as he grew older he would do better, and become at last a worthy and prosperous man. One day, when Aladdin was walking outside the town, an old man came ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... "Predigt." The people never say "Amen" or anything—only sing. They sing so slowly that, although I had only been with the Pfarrer three days, I could almost sing and look out the words in the dictionary at the same time! I talk German with every one who will talk with me. So well did I spin yarns when I had been in the country three or four days, that with a mixture of Latin and German I managed to make a German use strong language at some of my tales, which he was pleased to think were not exactly ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... as a whip-top by the lash is sent In widening orbs to spin, when lads among The empty courtyards urge their merriment; And, scourged in circling courses by the thong It wheels and eddies, while the beardless throng Bend over, lost in ignorant surprise, And ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... others indifferent; they have, generally speaking, such plenty of potatoes as always to command a bellyful; they have flax enough for all their linen, most of them have a cow, and some two, and spin wool enough for their clothes; all a pig, and numbers of poultry, and in general the complete family of cows, calves, hogs, poultry, and children pig together in the cabin; fuel they have in the utmost ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... named must jump up and catch the plate before it stops spinning or he must pay a forfeit. It is then his turn to spin the plate and call some one else ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... 25. And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26. If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27. Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will He clothe you, O ye ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and weaving. They both met upon a trial of skill; and Pallas finding herself almost equalled in her own art, stung with rage and envy, knocked her rival down, turned her into a spider, enjoining her to spin and weave for ever, out of her own bowels, and in a very narrow compass. I confess, that from a boy, I always pitied poor Arachne, and could never heartily love the goddess on account of so cruel and unjust a sentence; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... right. Mme. Sechard will offer to renew your lease; tell her that you are thinking of setting up for yourself. Offer her half the value of the plant and license, and, if she takes the bid, come to me. In any case, spin the matter out. . . . ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... fine, rare, delicate; subtle means sly, artful, cunning, elusive. "More subtile web Arachne cannot spin." "He had to contend with a ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... saying them," Sylvia replied. "For you to leave around for other girls to see," answered Ayrault with a smile. "I don't know what your other girls do," she returned, "but with me you are safe." Ayrault fairly made his phaeton spin, going up the grades like a shot and down like a bird. On reaching New York, he left Sylvia at her house, then ran his machine to a florist's, where he ordered some lilies and roses, and then steered his way to his club, where he dressed for dinner. Shortly before the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... the neck of which was on the floor, and the bottom forming the uneasy and unstable seat. Without paying much attention to me, every now and then he would give himself an impetus, and flinging out his arms, spin round like a turnstile. It certainly was very amusing, and, no doubt so thought his companion, a fine, manly, handsome-looking fellow, of thirty-five or thirty-eight, by his long-continued and vociferous applause. The little spinner ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the three black angels on you for not saying so first!" he cried in an agony of ecstasy. "Preserver! What can I do for you?—Saviour of my existence, how can I repay you! You shall live forever, as I will; you shall have all my secrets; the gold spider shall spin her web in your dwelling; the Part of Fortune shall shine on your path, it shall rain jewels on your roof; and your winter shall have ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... of the opposite kind, it is known that silkworms which spin colourless cocoons are more resistant to the attacks of a certain deadly fungus than are those which spin the yellow ones. In some parts of North America it is found that the white peaches are much ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Langley and myself as part of it. The mate generally kept us upon the quarter-deck with him, and many were the cozy confabs we used to hold, many the choice cigars we used to smoke upon that handy loafing-place, the booby-hatch, many the pleasant yarns we used to spin while pacing up and down the deck, or leaning against the rail of the companion. As I have said, Mr. Stewart was a delightful watch-mate—and Bill Langley and I used to love him dearly, and none the worse that he made us toe the line of our duty. He always, however, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... girl taught its sacredness; so, we might in time get back some accuracy of taste in the public, some conscientiousness of production in the artist. If artistic creation be not a joy, an imperious necessity, an instinct of all the forces of the mind, let the boy go and plough, and the girl go and spin." ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... almost afraid that, if not watched at night, he would be jumping overboard, so gloomy did he become. Bambrick entertained the same idea also, I suspected, and I was glad to see that he watched him narrowly. We also did our best to amuse him, and I got the men to sing songs and spin yarns from morning till night. Only one story told by Ned Bambrick seemed to afford ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... his boat, or bound to his spar or barrel, appears to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel, vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might be mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spin around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shoot forth, a foul, phosphorescent iridescence, as of accumulated corruption, streaming in a flood of loathsome radiance along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... vulgar and would not fascinate well-bred people. It is in her eyes, in her voice, in the very atmosphere about her, and she is wonderfully beautiful. She isn't the spider, she does not spin a net, but she looks at the mouse out of great, soft eyes, and he comes nearer, nearer, and she plays with him, until he is dull and maimed and tiresome, when she gently pushes him away, and is done ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... obscure Varvilliers. Or would it? I smiled for an instant. Instead of hiding behind the wardrobe, I saw myself becoming part of it, blending with it. Should I take rank as the four-hundred-and-first frock? "Willingly give thyself up to Clotho, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever things she pleases." Even into a frock, O Emperor? Goes the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... transparency or purity is not thereby injured or impaired." "He is like the diamond, which absorbs the light surrounding it, and glows in the dark from the emanation thereof." In similes of a less noble nature they sought to convey their idea to the illiterate "Thou hast seen the spider spin his web, thou hast seen its excellent geometrical form, and how well adapted it is to its use; thou hast seen the play of tinted colours making it shine like a rainbow in the rays of the morning sun. From his bosom the little artificer drew forth the wonderful thread, and into his bosom, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Mrs. Lang, who did the stories in this book, says: 'Many hundreds of years ago, when most of these stories were told in the halls of great castles, the lives of children were very different from what they are now. The little girls were taught by their mothers' maidens to spin and embroider, or make simple medicines from the common herbs, and the boys learnt to ride and tilt, and shoot with bows and arrows; but their tasks done, no one paid any further heed to them. They had very few games, and in the long winter evenings the man who ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... eldest daughter got up very early to spin—in the twilight of the dawn it was—and she looked out, and there was the old woman coming from her house on the hill, with a shawl over her head and a tub in her arms. Oh, but she was a really wicked one! for I'll tell you what ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... hooks, spades and shares to cut iron, &c. &c. Their potters make neat tobacco pipes, and pots to boil their food. Some authors say that weaving is their principal trade; this is done by the women and girls, who spin and weave very fine cotton cloth, which they dye blue or black.[A] F. Moor says, the Jalofs particularly make great quantities of the cotton cloth; their pieces are generally twenty-seven yards long, and about nine inches broad, their looms being very narrow; these they sew ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... would that haue mended my haire? To. Past question, for thou seest it will not coole my nature An. But it becoms me wel enough, dost not? To. Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaffe: & I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs, & spin it off ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... turning to her as by right for sympathy, comprehension, and friendship. Sometimes, as they sat silent in the richly colored, homelike room, Eve would pause over her embroidery and let her thoughts spin momentarily forward—spin towards the point where, the brunt of his ordeal passed, he must, of necessity, seek something beyond mere rest. But there her thoughts would inevitably break off and the blood flame ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... by; summer changed to autumn, and autumn gave place to winter. For week after week one gale followed another. For days on end the spin-drift flew in clouds across the island, salt ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... to avoid the misfortune foretold by the old Fairy, caused immediately proclamations to be made, whereby every-body was forbidden, on pain of death, to spin with a distaff and spindle or to have so much as any spindle in ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... a regular Merry-Go-Round," said the Spinning Wheel. "I just make believe I'm one up here in the attic. Time was when I used to spin yarn for the grandmother of Mr. Dunn. But now all yarn is spun in factories by machinery, and spinning wheels are out of fashion. So I am up here in the dust, and it makes the time pass more quickly to pretend I am ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin; I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win; Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e Said, Jennie, for their sakes, O, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... exclaimed in accents of satisfaction, as he exhibited the balls to Dick. "These are the cocoons of a certain caterpillar, the name of which I forget, but they spin a kind of silk which is admirably adapted for the making of bowstrings, for it is incredibly strong, does not fray, and is not affected ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... unbelievable, the histrionic incident is about to occur, one of those incidents in which life seems set upon the passionate imitation of the lowest forms of literature. PARAMORE has been trying to emulate GLORIA, and as the commotion reaches its height he begins to spin round and round, more and more dizzily—he staggers, recovers, staggers again and then falls in the direction of the hall ... almost into the arms of old ADAM PATCH, whose approach has been rendered inaudible by the pandemonium in ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... bright little picture of an evening at Balmoral in 1866. "The Queen sat down to spin at a nice Scotch wheel while I read Robert Burns to her, 'Tam o' Shanter,' and 'A man's a ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... take you," said Teague, with a chuckle, "an' set up a calico-factory. I'll heat you up an' make you spin silk an' ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... than ever before for worthy occupation, there has never been a time nor a country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care of the house and of the children is still the duty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... look abroad, but said, "I fear, Louis, I cannot go to-day, for see, I have all these rolls of wool to spin up, and my yarn to wind off the reel and twist; and then, my ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... covet not the gear of those Who neither toil nor spin; I merely want some standard clo's To drape my standard skin, Wrought of material ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... careful listener. The witch doctors call upon the sickness to be off to the ends of the earth and return to the unseen regions from whence it came. They invoke the aid of spirits, as well as their own ancestors, and spin out the invocation to last till early morning. Then they rush round the Pagar Api as hard as they can go, still singing their incantation. One of their number suddenly falls on the floor and lies motionless. The others sit down round him. He is covered over with ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... gun, but it wasn't foxes he was after. She was fooling about on the heath too, admiring the wild scenery, and nonsense like that, and behaving half like a man, instead of being kept at home and taught to spin and make porridge; but she was the only daughter, and was allowed to go on just as she liked. And then she meets this spark from the town, and they become friends. He was a curate or a pope, or something of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... upon Philometor, and sent Euergetes home to Cyrene. Philometor received the Roman ambassadors with all due honours; he sometimes gave them fair promises, and sometimes put them off till another day; and tried to spin out the time without saying either yes or no to the message from the senate. Euergetes sent to Alexandria to ask if they had gained their point; but though they threatened to return to Rome if they were not at once obeyed, Philometor, by his kind treatment and still kinder words, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... squatting, places his great toes on each end to keep all steady, and taking the other wand which is of very hard wood cut to a blunt point, fits it into the notch at right angles; the upright wand is made to spin rapidly backwards and forwards between the palms of the hands, drill fashion, and at the same time is pressed downwards; the friction, in the course of a minute or so, ignites portions of the pith of the notched stick, which, rolling ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... beautiful by dancing in the flax. But many superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having in years gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the time of day on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said in Germany to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend is among the household tales of the peasantry:—"Two old women, good friends, were the most industrious spinners in their village, Saturday finding them as engrossed in their work as ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... seems to be really the whole philosophy of this matter, concerning which so many words are expended. The growth of the germinal idea depends on the nature of an author's talent—he may excel in expansion, or in reduction; he may be economical, and out of an anecdote may spin the whole cocoon of a romance; or he may be extravagant, and give a capable idea away ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... steam was applied to industry; the machine replaced the man; semi-skilled and unskilled labor replaced skilled labor; great numbers of men and women, and even of children, crowded together in factories to spin thread, make bolts and washers, weave ribbon, bake bread, manufacture machinery, or do some one of the many hundreds of things now done in factories. The change from home industry to factory industry is well named the Industrial Revolution. It completely overturned ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... mechanic all of a sudden. "That's a hot one, ain't it?" he grins at Sampson. "Sure, old top, we'll give you a spin!" he says, jabbin' the floor board with his feet. "That's if this boiler will roll. Some of you guys will have to give the motor a little spin, if you want to go away from here. She's gone cold on me again! Gimme a cigarette, ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... soft light mantle of rose wear the brown hills As they look down on the valley where the rills Spin their long silver embroideries For the fringe of spring's ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... a touch on your shoulder. You spin on your heel, feeling at your hip for an imaginary sword. But 'tis not Master Francois Villon, in tattered doublet, with a sonnet. Nor yet is it a jaunty blade, in silken cloak, with a challenge. It is your friend of the obscene photograph collection. He has followed you all the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Rationalists are like the spiders, they spin all out of their own bowels. But give me a philosopher who, like the bee, hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by its own ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... may more truly say of God: 'Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.' 'For that He is great in might, not one faileth.' Scripture bids us think of God, not as a creative energy that set the universe in motion, and leaves it to roll or spin, but as of a Divine Presence—to use a word which can only be in a very modified sense applied to that mysterious, intelligent Entity—operating in, and being the sustaining Cause of, all that is. This Divine Presence stamps its signature on the unfailing strength ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... occasional cousin and some leisure for recreation. At present this would be ruinous, and why? Because too frequently the family has but one producer. The wife, herself a consumer, produces more consumers. Daughters grow up around a man like lilies of the field, which toil not, neither do they spin. Every member of every family in the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother, for a child can hardly be born with cheerful views of living whose mother's life ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... associated with them, but in all the three cases marked for us by Scriptural words: 1st. Cheerfulness, or joyful serenity; in the grass for food and beauty—"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." 2nd. Humility; in the grass for rest—"A bruised reed shall he not break." 3rd. Love; in the grass for clothing, (because of its swift kindling,)—"The smoking flax shall he not quench." And then finally observe the confirmation of these last two images in, I suppose, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... sunlight among your pigs, and be giving your young time to improbable sculpture and stagnant water, when there is such a fine adventure awaiting you, and when the Norns are foretelling such high things about you as they spin the ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... cajole me. It's of no use, Anastasia. I would have preferred that you came to me voluntarily, but since you cannot, I mean to take you unwilling. Simon," he called, loudly, "does that rascal intend to spin out his dying interminably? ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... all about it," she declared, with spirit. "In trying to make things better you're content to spin theories, while we put something ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... collect their own salary. Instead of postponing the marriage relation, as modern society compels a young man to postpone it, until he can earn a fortune, and be able, at commencement of the conjugal relation, to keep a companion like the lilies of the field, that toil not nor spin, though Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these—he chose an early alliance with one, who would not only be able to enjoy the success of his life, but who would with her own willing hands help achieve it. And so while father plowed the fields, and threshed the wheat, and broke ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... mechanic all of a sudden. "That's a hot one, ain't it?" he grins at Sampson. "Sure, old top, we'll give you a spin!" he says, jabbin' the floor board with his feet. "That's if this boiler will roll. Some of you guys will have to give the motor a little spin, if you want to go away from here. She's gone cold on me again! Gimme a cigarette, ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... good Carl Augustus, today a great revelation has been made known to me by a philosopher. Wisdom flowed from his mouth. All the spiders in their gray, self-woven nets, whispered and sang in his corridor, 'We weave at the fountain of life, we spin the web of time.' The little mice crept out from the corners, whispering, Hallelujah! Here lives the great philosopher Moses, who has devoured wisdom, and is unknowing of earthly vanities. Oh! the mice and the spiders waltz together upon the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... the other's answer. "And increasing by leaps and bounds. Want to spin around for a look at the city? There's ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... may shove off now, Bill. You are to be captain, and take the helm, and I'll pull till we get out far enough to find a breeze. It seems to me, by the colour of the sea, that it's blowing in the offing, and we shall then spin merrily along." ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... was fairly awake, her love for her friends came back again, and her good humor with it. She made Fly bleat like a lamb and spin like a top, and ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... sudden thunderous silence as the jets cut out; there was the dizzying moment of free fall, followed by the sound of the lateral jets imparting longitudinal spin to the small ship. Artificial gravity took over. It had been a perfect takeoff. Now there was nothing to do but wait for Venus ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... strokes of the hammer ring out day and night, And the huge wheels whirl and they spin: The sky is on fire with the forge's light— Oh, Oh! for the roar and the din. The sparks fly aloft like a starry cloud, And the voices of workmen ring With a cheery refrain both happy and loud, And this is the song they sing: ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... and plaited the straw hats for the family. The journeyman shoemaker dropped in and fitted out the family with boots. The great city industries were then unknown. The farmer's wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... and then it shows us a growing darkness. Very basic. Then it starts picking on us, one by one. Johnny gets machines that don't work, when with his whole soul he worships machines that do. Ives gets a large charge of claustrophobia from the black stuff over there and goes into a flat spin." ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... verse all that I intended to have said in far inferior prose. I intended filling three or four sides with exclamations against a University life; but you have showed me how strongly they may be expressed in three or four lines. I can't build without straw; nor have I the ingenuity of the spider, to spin fine lines out of dirt: a master of a college would make but a miserable figure as a hero of a poem, and Cambridge sophs are too low to introduce into a letter that ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... country, now to a rise with its magnificent sweep of scenery, now to the cool, fresh valleys full of the sweet pine-scent of the woods. They had explored much of it together in the little 'run-about,' nearly every day a short spin somewhere; to-day a little more ambitious run—the whole afternoon, and tea, a picnic tea, an hour or more back, in a charming ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard |
