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Hem   Listen
verb
Hem  v. t.  (past & past part. hemmed; pres. part. hemming)  
1.
To form a hem or border to; to fold and sew down the edge of.
2.
To border; to edge "All the skirt about Was hemmed with golden fringe."
To hem about, To hem around, or To hem in, to inclose and confine; to surround; to environ. "With valiant squadrons round about to hem." "Hemmed in to be a spoil to tyranny."
To hem out, to shut out. "You can not hem me out of London."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hem" Quotes from Famous Books



... there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the ground I sit— I sit ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... much less, but she more lovely. Do I not love he? more than when that beauty Beamed out like starlight, radiating beyond The confines of her wondrous face and form, And animated with a present power Her garment's folds, even to the very hem! ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... time in washing her hands and keeping her hands and clothing free from contamination by contact with innumerable harmless objects. When cleaning her shoes on the grass, she would kneel so that the hem of her skirt would touch the grass, lest some dust should fly up under her clothes. After eating luncheon in the park with a girl who had tuberculosis, she said that she was not afraid of tuberculosis in the lungs, but asked ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... know that not for any dream He died, but for the truth: and whensoe'er The Prophet of that Son of God who died Sinless for sinners, standeth in this place, I, Bacrach, oldest Druid in this Isle, Will rise the first, and kiss his vesture's hem." ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... showed the dust that clung Upon his garment's hem, Where late the water-drops had hung, When he had ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... shall we do," he turned to say, "Should he refuse to take his pay From what is in the pillow-case?" And glancing down his eye surveyed The pillow-case before him laid, Whose contents reaching to its hem, Might purchase endless joy for them. The maiden answers, "Let us wait, To borrow trouble where's the need?" Then, at the parson's squeaking gate Halted the more than ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... in one or two places," pursued Gila's ready tongue, "but it's easily mended. I wore it to a dance and somebody stepped on the hem. I suppose you are good at mending. A girl in your position ought to know how to sew. My maid usually mends things like this with a thread of itself. You can pull one out along the hem, I should think. Then here is a pink satin. It needs cleaning. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... Walewein harde blide Ende bant hem sine wonden ten tide Met selken crude die daer dochten ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... the sky Heav'n's hosts with joyful tidings hie, That He is born in Bethl'hem's stall, Who Saviour is and ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... after the lovely lady and caught the hem of her floating robe in his grasp. "Who are you, and whither ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... said they mustn't force me to sew, and do housework; and mother didn't mind the Almighty any better than she did the doctor. There was nothing in this world I disliked so much as being kept indoors, and made to hem cap and apron strings so particularly that I had to count the number of threads between every stitch, and in each stitch, so that I got all of them just exactly even. I liked carpet rags a little better, because I didn't have to be so particular about stitches, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... Peppers!' he accented somewhat curiously, until the creditor had well nigh lost his patience in suspense. 'I beg your pardon, sir!' (Thomas faced about with an entirely altered face), but, may I, ah!—hem,—you see; there is a small affair in the way, Mr. Peppers. The truth is, Mr. Bolt has ceased his ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... can hem all the ruffles. And Cousin Elizabeth said ruffles were vanity. I'd like my frocks just as well ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... In the way of industry, nothing or next to nothing. Nevertheless the dull butcher is magnificent in his indescribably sumptuous jerkin. It has the refulgency of copper pyrites, of gold, of Florentine bronze. While clad in black, he enriches his sombre costume with a vivid amethyst hem. On the wing-cases, which fit him like a cuirass, he wears little chains ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... he with a full mouth, as he made a feint of half-rising from his chair. "Lady Emily, your servant—Miss Douglas, I presume—hem! allow me to pull the bell for your Ladyship," as he sat without stirring hand or foot; then, after it was done—"'Pon my honour, Lady Emily, this is not using me well Why did you not desire me? And you are so nimble, I defy any man to get the start ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... hem of the dress two or three times; then she lay quiet, a sweet expression round her lips, a tranquil, satisfied light in her eyes. Here she was at rest, her eager, craving heart was ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... another balanced her spoon on the tea-cup; a third told backwards and forwards the rings on her fingers, as duly as a friar tells his beads. As such actions sometimes are the symptoms of mental occupation, I began to anticipate the brilliant results of so much thinking. I cried, hem! in hopes to rouse them to expression—and not quite unsuccessfully: for one remarked, it was a wretched day; another wished it was fine; and a third hoped it shortly would be so. Meantime, the index of the clock went round; it was gaining close upon ten before all had withdrawn from the table. ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... this moment you would allow yourself to be thrown out of that window rather than allow me to kiss the tip of your finger; I would precipitate myself from the top of the balcony rather than touch the hem of your robe. But, in five minutes, you will love me, and I shall adore you. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Know how to run a seam, overcast, roll and whip, hem, tuck, gather, bind, make a French seam, make buttonhole, sew on buttons, hooks and eyes, darn and ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... the Giottesques, or what it still was for Angelico. The Madonna, St. Joseph, the child Christ did not cease to be interesting: he painted them with evident regard, gave the Madonna a beautiful gold hem to her dress, made St. Joseph quite unusually amiable, and shed a splendid gilt glory about the child Christ. But to him the wonderful part of the business was not the family in the shed at Bethlehem which the kings came to see; but those kings themselves, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... read it she would ejaculate: "The land! what kind of company must the child have kept?" wondering next if Helen had never written of the hoop, for which she had paid a dollar, and which was carefully hung in her closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while the hem of her pongee had been let down and one breadth added to accommodate the hoop. On the whole, Aunt Betsy expected to make a stylish appearance before the little lady of whom she stood slightly in awe, always speaking of her to the neighbors as ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... unaw'd by the blast She stood hem'd by ruin around; She saw a frail bark on the rugged rock cast, And heard ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... "Hem! yes, Mivins, I can tell 'ee that. Ye must know that before fresh water can freeze on the surface the whole volume of it must be cooled down to 40 degrees, and salt water must be cooled down to 45 ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... recognized this limitation and offset it by the occupation of a strip of the nearest mainland, cultivated and defended by fortified posts, as an adjunct to the support of the islands. Such a subsidiary coastal hem was called a Paraea. The ancient Greek colonies on the islands of Thasos and Samothrace each possessed such a Paraea.[961] The Aeolian inhabitants of Tenedos held a strip of the opposite Troad coast north of Cape Lekton, while those of Lesbos appropriated the south coast ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... the topmost bough, And young ones they had, and were happy enow. But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise, His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes. 25 He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke, But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke, At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak. His young ones were killed; for they could not depart, And their mother did die of a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... man talking in the darkness. "I loved her," he said. "I don't claim not to be a fool. I love her yet. There in the dusk in the spring evening I crawled along the black ground to her feet and groveled before her. I kissed her shoes and the ankles above her shoes. When the hem of her garment touched my face I trembled. When after two years of that life I found she had managed to acquire three other lovers who came regularly to our house when I was away at work, I didn't want to touch them or her. I ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... worrying sneaks, it won't work. As for "W.B.E." He may frighten the Kensington lot, he won't 'ave no effeck upon Me! Diphtheria be jolly well dashed! It is often, as DUDFIELD explains, Mere "follicular(—hem!—) tonsillitis." Me bother my 'ed about Drains? Go to! I 'ave got other fish, in a manner of speaking, to fry, That L.C.C. gave itself airs and declared it would wipe my old heye With its bloomin' Big Pots and "Progressives." Aha! where the doose are they now? Mister ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various

... ostentatious piety. They made long prayers, fasted with rigor, scrupulously observed the Sabbath, and paid tithes to the cheapest herbs. They assumed superiority in social circles, and always took the uppermost seats in the synagogue. They displayed on their foreheads and the hem of their garments, slips of parchment inscribed with sentences from the law. They were regarded as models of virtue and excellence, but were hypocrites in the observance of the weightier matters of justice and equity. They were, of course, the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... against this outrage, but stood with her body rigid and unyielding within the circle of his arm until he slowly released her, mumbling, "I reckon I air plumb ershamed of myself, Smiles. I didn't go fer ter do hit, an' I knows thet I haint deservin' ter tetch so much es ther hem of yo'r skirt." ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... hesitated. "It would be useless," he answered. "At the return of day they would discover our scanty forces and hem us in. The only chance we have to save our lives is to retreat; and we can return again before long and ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... purpose of the introduction of the figures of the angels; and, I imagine, intended to be more particularly conveyed by the manner in which the small figure of Tobit follows the steps of Raphael, just touching the hem of his garment. We have next to examine the course of divinity and of natural history embodied by the old sculpture in the great series of capitals which support the lower arcade of the palace; and which, being at a height of little more than eight feet above the eye, might be read, ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... rays of the sun shine around us. On every drop of dew you see a piece of the rainbow. That is the hem of His garment, and in that soft breeze, His Spirit is touching us. He is very near to us. Verily, He is a good Father. We cannot see Him just because we could not bear the full glory. What a man was Daniel! ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy

... four outsides (running). The upper classes have made fifty pillow-cases, twelve sheets, forty aprons, hemstitched three tray cloths, outlined one tidy and made three night-dresses. Darning, button-hole making and hem-stitching were taught in one class. The girls in another room have tied six comfortables. The boys in the carpenter shop are doing excellent work, and they like it very much. One class of five or six come every morning at seven o'clock, and ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various

... train-gowns four or five ells in length; which trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, which waver round them by way of hem; the long flood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe, wherewith these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound silver snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... it at once when his teeth shone through his smile,' she said. 'He was not so tall as I, and very brown in that sorrowful light, but not black. There was a robe he wore from his neck to his ankles that left one arm bare and the little feet below its hem, and his head was bare with straight black hair upon it. His hand was on my arm, and he stood before me and looked in my face and smiled a little at ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... he has not that great quantity of it—hem! there—there, may be enough of it for this time. The second thing: I do not like in you is to see you converse with that Counsellor Selling. What is the ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland

... he replied. "Why, her and Yetta spent pretty near an hour up in our room before they got through, and I tell yer with the way they turned up the hem and fixed the sleeves of one of Yetta's black dresses, it fitted her like it would be made ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... of the heart, He talks of a transition in his Soul, And dreams that he is happy. We dissect The senseless body, and why not the mind?— These are strange sights—the mind of man, upturned, Is in all natures a strange spectacle; In some a hideous one—hem! shall I stop? No.—Thoughts and feelings will sink deep, but then They have no substance. Pass but a few minutes, And something shall be done which Memory May touch, whene'er her Vassals ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... be supposyd that suche as haue theyr goodes comune & not propre is most acceptable to god/ For ellys wold not thise religious men as monkes freris chanons obseruantes & all other auowe hem & kepe the wilfull pouerte that they ben professid too/ For in trouth I haue my self ben conuersant in a religious hous of white freris at gaunt Which haue all thynge in comyn amonge them/ and not one richer than an other/ in so moche that yf a man gaf to a frere .iii.d or iiii.d to praye ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton

... through our windows, I experienced such transports of joy that I was almost intoxicated with happiness. So anxious was I to prove the sincerity of my love for Brigitte that I hardly dared kiss the hem of her skirt. Her lightest words made me tremble as if her voice were strange to me; I alternated between tears and laughter, and I never spoke of the past except with horror and disgust. Our room was full of personal effects scattered about in disorder—albums, pictures, books, and the dear ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the room, more than half dark, without a fire, and very large, gloomy, and cheerless, in the gray autumn twilight, that just enabled her to see the white pillows on the sofa, and Philip's figure stretched out on it. Markham advanced and stood doubtful for an instant, then in extremity, began—'Hem! Lady Morville ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Judge SWEENEY, genially, "I believe, though, that I know that world, also, pretty well; for, if I have not exactly been to foreign countries, foreign countries have come to me. They have come to me on—hem!—business, and I have improved my opportunities. A man comes to me from a vessel, and I say 'Cork,' and give him Naturalization Certificates for himself and his friends. Another comes, and I say 'Dublin;' another, and I say 'Belfast.' If I want to travel ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... the gray Atlantic's breast. Shut out, at times, by bulk of sparry blue, That, rolling near us, heaves the swaying prow High on its shoulders, to descend again Ploughing a thousand cascades, and around Spreading the frothy foam. These watery gulfs, With storm, and winds far-sweeping, hem us in, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... are!" mocked Cleo. "Mine be the task! A-hem!" and here a fit of laughter spoiled ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... Spanish. In the dancing, I was much disappointed. The women stood upright, with their hands down by their sides, their eyes fixed upon the ground before them, and slided about without any perceptible means of motion; for their feet were invisible, the hem of their dresses forming a perfect circle about them, reaching to the ground. They looked as grave as though they were going through some religious ceremony, their faces as little excited as their limbs; and on the whole, instead of the spirited, fascinating Spanish dances which I had ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... in Frangistan," replied the Soldan. "Our poets of the Eastern countries say that a valiant camel-driver is worthy to kiss the lip of a fair Queen, when a cowardly prince is not worthy to salute the hem of her garment. But with your permission, noble brother, I must take leave of thee for the present, to receive the Duke of Austria and yonder Nazarene knight, much less worthy of hospitality, but who must yet be suitably entreated, not for their sakes, but for mine own honour —for what ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... meet with one who thinks as I do," she said complacently, and plucking a half-blown rose that hung near her, she turned its petals sharply down as if they were plaits of a hem that she was about ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... fastened?" she whispered, as she bent over him. Dacres felt her breath upon his cheek; the hem of her garment touched his sleeve, and a thrill passed through him. He felt as though he would like to be forever thus, with ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... one with the earth, one in sin, one in redemption. It is the fringe of the garment of God. "If I may but touch the hem," said ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... promised to hem those handkerchiefs for Ned, and so I must; but I do think handkerchiefs are the most pokey things in the world to sew. I dare say you think you can sew faster than I can. Just wait a bit, and see what I can do, miss," she ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... man, clad in a short tunic, ragged of hem and girt about him with a rope. Barefoot, bareheaded and provided only with a staff and a small wallet, he was to outward appearances little more than one of the legion of mendicants that infested the poverty-stricken land of Judea. But his large eyes, ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily in a fresh pair of ...
— Different Girls • Various

... in order to secure a vortex, or a centre bounded by a circle, is to surround the head or figure with flying drapery, branch forms, a halo or any linear item which may serve both to cut out and to hem in. It accomplishes something of what the hand does when held as a tunnel before the eye. Such a device offers ready aid to the decorator whose figures must often receive a close encasement, fitted as they are into limited spaces, when many an ungracious line in the subject is made to disappear ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... forth in the latter part of the Saga; but as yet the new faith can only assert its forbearance and forgiveness in principle. It has not had time, except in some rare instances, to bring them into play in daily life. Even in heathen times such a deed as that by which Njal met his death, to hem a man in within his house and then to burn it and him together, to choke a freeman, as Skarphedinn says, like a fox in his earth, was quite against the free and open nature of the race; and though instances of such foul deeds ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... about her few patched and darned belongings; also very exact in the adjustment of her bits of ribbon, her collars of crocheted thread, her adored coral pendants, and her pile of neat cotton handkerchiefs, hem-stitched by her own hands. Waitstill, accordingly, with an exclamation at her own unwonted carelessness, darted into her sister's room to replace in perfect order the articles she had disarranged in her haste. She knew them all, these poor ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... hearted,' ... 'arrogant,' ... yes, 'arrogant, as women always are when men grow humble' ... there's a charge against all possible and probable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either they or mine deserve the charge—we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'over the way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into ill temper; and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... receiving dividends, eh! Never was happier. So come, let us wind up for the night. I've a memorandum or two for you in my pocket-book," and he placed it on the table, and began to turn over divers papers, as he continued—"Hem! ha! Yes. Those two. You'd better take them, my good sir. They'll admit William and Stephen to Christ Church—what they call the Blue-Coat ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... for we Spaniards were very few in number; and the heat was intense, and we had not eaten, although it was near night. The captain, seeing that he had not accomplished anything, decided to return to the boats which he had left behind, and on the next morning again to besiege the fort, and hem them in as closely as possible; and thus he did. Having come in this manner and having grounded his boats upon a beach close to the enemy, when these latter saw the determination of the Spaniards, and that they would not depart under any circumstances until they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... told him everything," said Nina; "will you come into his room?" Then Madame Zamenoy lifted up the hem of her garment and stepped proudly into the ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... the other. Good dame, I prythee give each of these men a bottrine of wine or a jack of ale. Three—a full piece of white Genoan velvet with twelve ells of purple silk. Thou rascal, there is dirt on the hem! Thou hast brushed it against ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... says he. "I wouldn't touch your hand—I wouldn't touch the hem of your garment. It wouldn't be right. It maybe ain't right for me to think of meeting you again; but it's ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough

... summer days, the time of play and flowers and scents. But now the soft note, it seems, opens a door into the formless and uneasy world of speculation, of questions that have no answer, convincing me of ignorance and doubt, bidding me beat in vain against the bars that hem me in. Why should I crave thus for certainty, for strength? Answer me, happy bird! Nay, you guard your secret. Softer and more distant sound the sweet notes, warning me to rest and believe, telling me to ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... love comes late, not as the most splendid of illusions, but like an enlightening and priceless misfortune, the sight of that woman (of whom he had been deprived for nearly a year) suggested ideas of adoration, of kissing the hem of her robe. And this excess of feeling translated itself naturally into an ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... if you're willing, And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, Sir!) Shall march a little—Start, you villain! Paws up! Eyes front! Salute your officer! 'Bout face! Attention! Take your rifle! (Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold your Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle, To aid ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... business, and stick to thy shop or thy station, whatever it may be; to which while thou stickest, thou must be respectable, but which when thou wouldst quit, desperately to seize the hem of our lordship's garment, thou becomest the laughing-stock of us and of our class, and we cannot ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... by twice turning over the edge of a piece of cloth toward the worker, and then sewing it down. It is used to finish a narrow edge. In turning a narrow hem the first fold must not be so deep as the second, in order that the hem may lie smoothly. If the hem is a wide one, the first fold can be much narrower ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... half asleep or fond with fear, I leapt out of bed and stood in the middle of the room to meet life and fight it. The hem of my nightshirt tickled my shin and my feet grew cold on the carpet; but though I stood ready with my fists clenched I could see no adversary among the friendly shadows, I could hear no sound but the I drumming of the blood against the walls of my head. I got back into bed ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... the soft dark eyes made a pleasant contrast to the whiteness of hair and brow, and his smile was so sweet and winning that I scarcely wondered to see two Catholic ladies prostrate themselves and kiss his feet and the hem of his white garment with a rapture of devotion from which his attendants with difficulty rescued him. He lingered longest by a pretty boy four or five years old, and there was a pathos in the caressing, clinging touch of his hand as it rested on the child's head that called to mind an old love-story ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... half-scandalised, on the point of calling for silence; but his eyes fell on Tilda, and he too dropped back into his chair. The child had raised both arms, and was bending her body back—back—until her fingers touched the hem of her skirt behind her. Her throat even sank out of view behind her childish bust. The shepherd's pipe dropped, and was smashed on the hearthstone. There was a silence, while still Godolphus continued to rotate. Someone broke it, suddenly ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... animation—a most attractive and, even stimulating place for the man who has an absorbing pursuit, say a work in creative fiction. Undisturbed by social claims or public interests, the very noise and whirl of the gay metropolis seem to hem him in and protect the world of his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... She raised the hem of her petticoat a hand's breadth, and tapped the floor with one little foot—a trifle only. "That ballet figure that we did at Sir Henry's—do you remember?—and the heat of the ballroom, and the French red running from the women's cheeks? To-night ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... a hard morning's work pulling and straining the wire and securing it to uprights, the net was in its place, the calico roof smooth and flat against the ceiling, and its curtains hanging to the floor, with strong, straight saplings run through the folded hem to weigh it down. Cheon was brimming ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... mimicked Jack Benson, laughing. "You forget, Hal, old fellow, that we're instruct—hem! ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham

... miles brought us to the Blue Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its foundations. We toiled up and on in time to see the sun rise. An ocean of fog lay around us. Never shall we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the great wall that seemed to hem in on every side the wide valley, and how the sea of mist and cloud visibly fled before the inrolling flood of light, unveiling green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark woodlands, dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty, here and there the silver thread of a winding ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... said gently, when he had looked round the tent. As she made no reply, he was about to withdraw; but, kneeling down, instead, he raised the weighted hem of the mosquito net, to take her hand and ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... thousand cordes sly Continually us waiteth to beclap,* *entangle, bind When he may man in idleness espy, He can so lightly catch him in his trap, Till that a man be hent* right by the lappe,** *seize **hem He is not ware the fiend hath him in hand; Well ought we ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... whirl'd wide, Met Zamor's helve, and glancing grazed his side And settled in his groin; so plunged it lay, That scarce the king could tear his ax away. The savage fell; when thro the Tiger-train The driving Inca turns his force amain; Where still compact they hem the murderous pyre, And Rocha's voice seems faltering to expire. The phrensied father rages, thunders wild, Hews armies down, to save the sinking child; The ranks fall staggering where he lifts his arm, Or roll before him like a billowy storm; Behind his steps collecting warriors ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... have Ben sick But is better at this time. I saw the hills the war well and san thar Love to you. I war sory to hear that My brother war sol i am glad that i did come away when i did god works all the things for the Best he is young he may get a long in the wole May god Bless hem ef you have any News from Petersburg Va Plas Rite me a word when you anser this Letter and ef any person came form home Letter Me know. Please sen me one of your Paper that had the under grands R wrod give ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... lodge whence rose the wail of despair for a warrior who had gone out in the pride of manhood and returned not. "They will be avenged for the warriors who fell in the fight with the whites," he added, "and though they will respect us while guests of Minawanda, they will hem us round so we cannot escape, at last falling into their hands, if the blood of the two prisoners do not satisfy the bereaved friends of their ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... But the Ancon rode like a duck—I can not consistently say swan in this case,—and heaved to starboard and to larboard in picturesque and thoroughly nautical fashion. Some of us were on shore, wading in the mud and the slush, or climbing the steep bluffs that hem in the glacier upon one side. Here it was convenient to glance over the wide, wide snow-fields that seem to have been broken with colossal harrows. It was even possible to venture out upon the ice ridges, leaping the gaps that divided them ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... books in the running brooks." For them the world is the patch of jungle covering the few square miles that they know, and bounded by the hills in the distance; seldom do they get an extended view of the surrounding country; trees hem them in on all sides and the mountains are so difficult of ascent, and furthermore so infested with demons or "antu," that the summits can be gained only at the risk of body, and, still ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness

... appearance. A light cambric handkerchief, with lace border, was pinned across it from side to side; and just at the moment that I began to scrutinize what seemed to me like a coronet stitched on the corner, a couple of delicate fingers reached over the hem, removed the fastening, first on one side, then on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... se the dere draw to the dale, And leve the hillis hee, And shadow hem in the leves grene, Under ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... from that Church did not thereby become narrower. That gulf was caused by the social and political separation of these Jewish Christians, whatever mental attitude, hostile or friendly, they might take up to the great Church. This Church stalked over hem with iron feet, as over a structure which in her opinion was full of contradictions throughout ("Semi-christiani"), and was disconcerted neither by the gospel of these Jewish Christians nor by anything else about them.[429] ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... few minutes the visitor rose to go, and after shaking hands a second time with Fan, turned towards the other ladies and included them both in a bow, when Constance stood up and held out her hand to him. As he advanced to her Mary also rose to her feet, as if anxious to keep the hem of her dress out of his way, and stood with averted face. From Constance, after he had shaken hands with her, he glanced at the other's face, still averted, which had grown so strangely white and still, and for a moment longer hesitated. Then the face turned to him, and their eyes ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... said, looking critically at the hem. "Specially her being taller'n me. So what's not can be cut away, and no loss. She kep' on a-laughing an' a-smiling till the old man he come in and he says in his mimicking way, 'Lizzie,' says 'e, 'they're a-waitin' to fit on your new walkin' costoom,' he says. So I come away, she a-smiling to ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... a morning dress of soft pearl grey, over which she had tied an apron of white lawn with a dainty ruffle of embroidery below its hem. The peas danced merrily against the sides of an old-fashioned china bowl. Miss Diana had an aesthetic repugnance to the use of tin utensils ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... the pawky auld wife; "I trow You 'll fash na your head wi' a youthfu' gilly, As wild and as skeigh as a muirland filly; Black Madge is far better and fitter for you." He hem'd and he haw'd, and he screw'd in his mouth, And he squeezed his blue bonnet his twa hands between; For wooers that come when the sun 's in the south Are mair awkward than wooers ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... moment's pause, with the silver-broidered hem of the pall in my hands, I suddenly swept off that mantle of black cloth, setting up such a gust of wind as all but quenched the tapers. I caught up the bench on which I had been sitting, and, dragging it forward, I mounted it and stood now with my breast ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... Maghrabi, and when the Accursed made act of presence, Alaeddin rose up to him and, acting like one who knew naught of his purpose, salam'd to him as though he had been the real Fatimah and, kissing the hem of his sleeve, welcomed him and entreated him with honour and said, "O my Lady Fatimah, I hope thou wilt bless me with a boon, for well I wot thy practice in the healing of pains: I have gotten a mighty ache in my head." The Moorman, the Accursed, could hardly believe ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... crudely—they saw in him the essential, elemental male. Of that I am convinced. It was the open secret of his many successes. And he had a buoyant, boyish, disarming, chivalrous way with him. If he desired a woman's lips he would always begin by kissing the hem of her skirt. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... disappointments, and she appeared to be deeply interested by the narrative. The questions she put, her tone of voice, her countenance, all expressed her feelings; and several times a deep sigh was smothered and with difficulty passed away in a forced hem. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... surface, namely, AB, which is a part of the upper side of the leaf, that by a kind of hem or doubling of the leaf appears on this side. There are multitudes of leaves, which surfaces are like this smooth, and as it were quilted, which look like a curious quilted bagg of green Silk, or like a Bladder, or some such pliable transparent substance, full ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... that night as I fought my way through the crowd with two distressed ladies under my wing, and a fist and a foot for any one who so much as dared to touch the hem ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... followed. The Dhah who had administered the oath remained near the queen until the ceremony was concluded, and seemed to number the subjects as they came forward. Then he fell before her and, for a second time, kissed the hem of her robe. Smiling gravely upon him, the queen extended to him her hand. Pressing his lips fervently upon it he rose, then, turning to those ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian deg. waste, deg.878 Under the solitary moon;—he flow'd Right for the polar star, deg. past Orgunje, deg. deg.880 Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— 885 Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... she had looked at Di as if Di were some one else. Had not Lulu taught her to make buttonholes and to hem—oh, no I Lulu could not ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... to be confided in any more. He was thought not unfavourable to the Yortes, at least not altogether to approve the virulence wherewith his father proceeded against them; and therefore, immediately upon his succession, the principal persons of that denomination came, in several bodies, to kiss the hem of his garment, whom he received with great courtesy, and some of them with ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... number, and without end. I felt the unfathomable thought of which the universe is the symbol live and burn within me; I touched, proved, tasted, embraced my nothingness and my immensity; I kissed the hem of the garments of God, and gave Him thanks for being Spirit and for being life. Such moments are glimpses of the divine. They make one conscious of one's immortality; they bring home to one that an eternity is not too much for the study of the thoughts and works of the eternal; ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... 'Hem!' said Mr. Bumble, summoning up all his native dignity. 'These women at least shall continue to respect the prerogative. Hallo! hallo there! What do you mean by ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... "'Hem! I am not sure of that,' said Lord Bolsover; 'but I'll just tell you what I have done—from Rome to Naples in nineteen hours; a fact, upon my honour—and from Naples to Paris ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... chokingly: "Do sit down." She drops into an easy-chair beside the tea-table, and stretches the tips of her feet out beyond the hem of her skirt in extremely lady-like abandon. "Have a cigarette." She ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... up, free, with the man on his knees weeping and begging forgiveness. He had yielded to a fit of madness. She was so beautiful; he loved her so much. For months he had been struggling. But now it was over, never again, oh, never again! Not even would he so much as touch the hem of her dress. She made no reply, trembled, put her hair and her clothes straight again with the fingers of a woman demented. To go home—she wished to go home instantly, quite alone. He sent a servant with her; and, quite low, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk. She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who was standing so near her that with each of his rapid shiftings from foot to foot he threatened to tread on the hem ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... "Hem—she's right!" asserted Mrs. Courtney. "When two people, as you and I are, are on hand to prevent our young friends from precipitating themselves into double harness before they have thoroughly studied their own ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... by the suburb of Fond-Corr, with its cocoa groves, and broad beach of iron-gray sand,—a bathing resort;—then Pointe Prince, and the Fond de Canonville, somnolent villages that occupy wrinkles in the hem of Pele's lava robe. The drive ultimately rises and lowers over the undulations of the cliff, and is well shadowed along the greater part of its course: you will admire many huge fromagers, or silk-cotton ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... thrown herself at the bottom of the wagon, with her back towards him and her doll in her lap. He could see the curve of her curly head, and beyond, her bare dimpled knees, which were raised, and over which she was trying to fold the hem ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... observe, further,—that singular pains have been taken to mystify this entire subject. It has been a favourite device to multiply difficulties,—real or imaginary,—and so, to create a miserable sense of the dangers which fairly hem the subject in,—in order to render more palatable a desperate escape from them all. Thus, we are told of the risks to which Grammatical nicety, and Rhetorical accommodation expose us; and again, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... 'Hem!' said Mrs Nickleby. 'I don't know about that, my dear, but I think it is very necessary that somebody should be in ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... last, with a stupendous sigh, as though he were heaving the entire Andes off his rugged old shoulders, yet with a brotherly smile as he patted the little brown hand, "you and I have had pleasant times together. I could have wished—oh! how I—well, hem! but no matter. You will soon, no doubt be among your own people again. All I would ask of you is sometimes, when far-away, to think of me; to think of me as perhaps, the presumptuous young fellow who did his best to make a long and rather trying journey agreeable to you. Think of me, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... new secretary, Mr. Packard. I found out that he drank. He has been discharged. Hem. Let me see: you've got about ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... "Hem!" and that was the very best answer he could make to the learned Pangloss, and if he only continues to answer in that manner he'll get any rule he likes to apply for—(no, not the Rule of ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... saddened, foreboding her words to be ominous, because of suddenly thirsting for a modern cry from him, the silent. She quitted her woman's fit of earnestness, and took to the humour that pleased him. 'Aslauga's knight, at his blind man's buff of devotion, catches the hem of the tapestry and is found by his lady kissing it in a trance of homage five hours long! Sir Hilary of Agincourt, returned from the wars to his castle at midnight, hears that the chitellaine is away dancing, and remains with all his men mounted in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... room and hers sooner than usual. Presently Vic slipped quietly in to me, in the new blue dressing-gown which was to have been mine, only when she saw it finished, she wanted it, and had four inches taken up above the hem. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... eyes; otherwise she was strangely pale. But her paleness toned to pink and not to gray. Her cheeks had no higher color than the rest of her face, the lips had hardly enough. She wore a white linen shirt and a leather belt with a gold buckle. Her skirt was blue with a red hem. She rowed by the outlaws without seeing them. They kept breathlessly still, but not for fear of being seen, but only to be able to really see her. As soon as she had gone they were as if changed from stone images to living beings. Smiling, they ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... passing of the train and the breaking out of the fire. Judge Metcalf, who was always fussy and interfering, said: "How can we tell anything by that, unless we know how large the stocking was?" The old lady, with a most bland smile, turned to the Judge as if she were soothing an infant, lifted up the hem of her petticoats, and exhibited a very sturdy ankle and calf, and said, "Just the size I wear, your Honor." There was a roar of laughter in the court-house. The incident was published in the morning paper the next day, much to the Judge's indignation. He addressed the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... but we found the place indicated by a cluster of lamps hanging like a bunch of grapes from a tree; a palanquin was also in waiting to carry the ladies up the hill in turn. I preferred walking; and though my shoes and the hem of my gown were covered with prickles and thorns, which interweaved themselves in an extraordinary manner through a satin dress, I enjoyed the walk amazingly. A man with a lanthorn led the way, a precaution always taken in Bombay, on account of the alleged multitude of the snakes, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... 'Hem! What can he want? something in the wind; wants my advice, I dare say; shall have it. Soldiers ruly; king's servants; ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... reckon the little kid I used to know ain't here any more!" he said, his eyes alight with admiration, as he critically examined her garments from the distance that separated her from him—a neat house dress of striped gingham, high at the throat, the bottom hem reaching below her shoe-tops; a loose-fitting apron over the dress, drawn tightly at the waist, giving her figure graceful curves. He had never thought of Hagar in connection with beauty; he had been sorry for her, pitying her—she ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... bidden to rise by a pretty woman who stands imperiously over him, the chances are that he obeys. So it was with Clare. He most assuredly did not want to go with Mrs. Lancaster, and quite as assuredly he did want to stay just where he was, with the hem of Eleanor Milbourne's dress touching him and a pervading sense of her presence near, even when she encouraged stupid people to expose their ignorance on the Egyptian question. Yet he found himself walking away with the pretty widow before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... imposed on a romantic defile whose rocky walls, rising perpendicularly to the height of sixty or eighty feet, hem in the stream for three-quarters of a mile, in many places so narrowly that there is a want of room to ply the oars. In passing through this chasm we were naturally led to contemplate the mighty but probably slow and gradual effects of the water in wearing down such ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... the baby gently with her foot; he caught at the hem of her dress, laughing. But she did not laugh. "Neither spot nor blemish," she said, and then: "He is not yet three ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... like fire; and soon they brought a youth lying on a bed, wasted by a mysterious illness, so thin that the bones protruding had formed angry sores on the skin. They touched him with the hem of the monk's garment, ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... the marble stair And said those words so tender, true and just, A royal psalm that took mankind on trust— Those words that will endure and he in them, While May wears flowers upon her broidered hem, And all that marble snows and drifts to dust: "Fondly do we hope, fervently we pray That this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away: With charity for all, with malice toward none, With firmness in the right As God shall give ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... as she had often before come on deck while we were paddling about, barelegged, washing decks. And indeed when, shortly afterward, she emerged through the companion way, encased in a thin mackintosh reaching to the hem of her dress, and with a light sou'-wester on her head which in nowise detracted from her good looks, she at once set me at my ease by laughingly complimenting me upon the sensible character of my attire. ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... outside its narrow hem, Free surmise may sport and welcome! Pleasures, pains affect mankind Just as they affect myself? Why, here's my neighbour colour-blind, Eyes like mine to all appearance: 'green as grass' do I affirm? 'Red as grass' he contradicts me: which employs ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... thought of one or two very ingenious (hem!) little contrivances for adapting the difficulties of "Used Up" to the small stage. They will require to be so exactly explained to your carpenter (though very easy little things in themselves), that I think I had better, before Christmas, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... sewing. Clarissa and her mother were engaged in making up a quantity of dresses out of the materials they had purchased in New York; and Matilda was set to run up breadths of skirts, till she could do that thoroughly; then she was made to cover cord, by the scores of yards, and to hem ruffles, and to gather them, and to sew on bindings, and then to sew on hooks and eyes; and then to make button-holes. The child's whole morning now was spent in the needle part of mantua-making. After dinner came arithmetic, and French exercises, and reading history; ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner

... of Orange was ill; the king made himself master of the citadel of Liege and some small places. Limburg surrendered to the Prince of Conde, without the allies having been able to relieve it; Turenne was posted with the Rhine in his rear, keeping Montecuculli in his front; he was preparing to hem him in, and hurl him back upon Black Mountain. His army was thirty thousand strong. "I never saw so many fine fellows," Turenne would say, "nor better intentioned." Spite of his modest reserve, he felt sure of victory. "This ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... know—these last few days, but no pain." He struck his broad chest several times, cleared his throat with a powerful "Hem!" and repeated: "No. No pain. Good for a few years yet. But I am bothered with all this, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... child;" called the landlady to Fritz, "you cannot go among the stylish people of Frankfort with the hem of your shirt showing. I will mend it as well as I can, and when you get there, your aunt can mend it better. Now see what trouble your dog has ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... told that no person, excepting the physician appointed by her family, was to be permitted to see the lady at the end of the gallery, she opened her keen eyes still wider, and uttered a—"hem!" before she enquired—"Why?" She was briefly told, in reply, that the malady was hereditary, and the fits not occurring but at very long and irregular intervals, she must be carefully watched; for the length of these lucid periods only rendered her more mischievous, when ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... only thine eyes smiled like the edge of a sunset cloud. It is night. Thy figure grows dim in the dark. Thy wind-blown hair flits on my cheek and thrills my sadness with its scent. My hands grope to touch the hem of thy robe, and I ask thee—"Is there thy garden of death beyond the stars, Lady of my Voyage, where thy silence blossoms into songs?" Thy smile shines in the heart of the hush ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... "Well, 'hem! of course I can't definitely say. I'm trying to get them to take some new man. But if they should insist on nominating me, I'm afraid I'd have to—h'm, what—what do you think I'd ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... back of my head for years; but I never gave a thought to it. Why should I? Who would have dreamed of such a tragicomedy? Joan, to-day in the cathedral I could have bound you with ropes if that would have served to keep you in Delgratz; but now I kiss the hem of your dress. My poor girl, my own dear Joan, how you must have suffered! Yet I envy you—I do, on my soul! Life becomes ennobled by actions such as yours. And Alec must never know what you have done for him. That is both the grandeur and ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... forsothe ther was, And as thay entrid thay gaf a schowte With her[M] voyce that was fulle stowte, 'Seint George! seint George!' thay criden[N] on height, And seide, 'welcome oure kynges righte.' The Frensshe pepulle of that Cite Were gederid by thousandes, hem to see. Thay criden[N] alle welcome in fere, 'In siche tyme mote ye entre here, Plesyng to God that it may be, And to vs pees and vnyte.' And of that pepulle, to telle the trewthe, It was a sighte of fulle grete ruthe. Mykelle of that folke therynne ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... very precious just at that juncture, whereupon Mary, who was half laughing, half crying, lifted her hands to her hair and let it fall in all its lustrous wealth down over her shoulders. When Brandon saw this, he fell upon his knee and kissed the hem of her gown, and she, stooping over him, raised him to his feet and placed ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... who sat by the window, brooding over the little woollen skirt on his knees, stroking it, touching the torn hem, and at last folding it with ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... as though to force the wanton witchery to do his bidding. Wild cries of riot answer him; the rosy cloud grows denser round him; entrancing perfumes hem him in and steal away his senses. In the most seductive of half-lights his wonder-seeing eye beholds a female form indicible; he hears a voice that sweetly murmurs out the siren call, which promises contentment of the ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... own problems, he could at least put problems forth, and what more should an artist do? Considered from the point of view of a creator of character he ranks next to him who made Hamlet. Had he been articulate, he might have sat beside him. The only man who can touch the hem of his garment is George Meredith. Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... dinner society, Mrs Podsnap could dispense with her daughter. Mr Podsnap, for his part, on being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronage of the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, should respectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; that they, when they could not bask in the glory of him the sun, should take up with the pale reflected light of the watery young moon his daughter; appeared quite natural, becoming, and proper. It ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... the site of old Camp Almy a ridge of rock and shale stretches down from the foothills of the Black Mesa and shuts off all view of the rugged, and ofttimes jagged, landscape beyond—all save the peaks and precipitous cliffs of the Mogollon, and some of the pine-crested heights that hem the East Fork. Time was, toward the fag end of the Civil War, when the volunteers from the "Coast" kept a lookout on the point, a practice that yielded more scalps to the Indians than security to the inmates. The system, therefore, fell into disuse, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... exciting the choler of a new-made cardinal, was a letter that the Queen of Naples, who had probably overslept herself, had occasion to write to the king on conjugal affairs!—his majesty having left her majesty only the day before, to show himself to his loving subjects at Palermo. Hem! Campania felix! If we were known to be inditing this unreverential passage, and its disloyal apostrophe, we should, no doubt, be invited to leave "Campania the happy" at a day's notice; whereas our comfort is, that this day three months ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... muslin dresses of apparently the same cut and texture; but what the casual eye might fail to observe, the schoolmistress was perfectly well aware of, namely, that the tiny frills at neck and wrists were of the costliest Mechlin lace, that the hem of the dress was bordered with the same material, as if it had been the commonest of things; that the embroidered white ribbons with which it was trimmed had been woven in France especially for Miss Adair, and that the little silver buckles ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... been, as were they, echone! Then have I, in Latin a shoder-bone, Which that was of an holy Jewes shepe. Good men, fay, take of my words kepe! If this bone be washen in any well, If cow, or calfe, shepe, or oxe swell That any worm hath eaten, or hem strong, Take water of this well, and wash his tong. And it is hole a-non: And furthermore, Of pockes, and scabs, and every sore Shall shepe be hole, that of this well Drinketh a draught: Take keep of that I tell! ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... to the embrace by a profound and silent bow, and turned away hurriedly, as if weary of the scene in which he had played so undignified a part. As he moved aside, De Luynes approached the Queen-mother; and having bent his knee, and kissed the hem of her robe, he uttered a few words in so low a voice that they were inaudible to those who stood behind her. In reply she was overheard to say that she had solicited his Majesty to allow Barbin to follow ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... worn MORE AFRICANO, flowing free. Rich men will mount a European coat and hat, and men connected with the mission or trading stations occasionally wear trousers. The personal appearance of the men does not amount to much when all's done, so we will return to the ladies. They wrap the upper hem of these cloths round under the armpits, a graceful form of drapery, but one which requires continual readjustment. The cloth is about four yards long and two deep, and there is always round the hem a border, or false hem, of turkey red twill, or ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... one flimsy riband of Its web Have we here watched in weaving—web Enorm, Whose furthest hem and selvage may extend To where the roars and plashings of the flames Of earth-invisible suns swell noisily, And onwards into ghastly gulfs of sky, Where hideous presences churn through the dark— Monsters of magnitude without a shape, Hanging ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... Liola, a veritable vision of classic beauty in her loose white robe, gold-embroidered at the hem, and broad girdle of fiery rubies, stepped from behind the heavy curtain of blue silk where she had been ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux



Words linked to "Hem" :   sew, emit, let loose, fabric, hem and haw, textile, stitch, hem in, cloth, utterance, run up, utter, sew together, ahem, edge, let out, vocalization



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