"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more fair than is the sun's bright beams, Or snow-white Alps beneath fair Cynthia! Who would refuse with Hercules to spin, When such fair faces bears us company? Fair Polyxena never was so fair: Nor she that was proud love to Troylus. Great Alexander's love, Queen of Amazons, Was not so fair as is fair Alfrida. But, Perin, be thou secret ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... churches They'd seen skip by - Seven fine churches, And five old mills, Farms in the valley, And sheep on the hills; Old Man's Acre And Dead Man's Pool All left behind, As they danced through Wool. And Wool gone by, Like tops that seem To spin in sleep They danced in dream; Withy - Wellover - Wassop-Wo- Like an old clock Their heels did go. A league and a league And a league they went, And not one weary, And not one spent. And Io, and behold! Past Willow-cum-Leigh ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... with a Piece called 'A Boiled Dinner,' and it always went big. When she sees me eat the Flower, that makes her sore, understand? She comes at me with a right-hand Pass. I fall over a Chair and do a Head Spin. You fix up a strong Line for me just as I go over the Chair. Then—What's the matter, Cull? Here, ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... what do you spin? Spider. Mainsails for a man-of war. Fly. Spider, spider, 'tis too thin. Tell me truly, what 'tis for. Spider. 'Tis for curtains for the king, When he lies in his state bed. Fly. Spider, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... seemed to be in the centre of a whirling vortex, around which all creation revolved at an extraordinary speed, and realised that my trusty steed was indulging in a particularly violent "spinning nose dive." A "spin" at the best of times rather takes one's breath away, so, shutting the throttle, I endeavoured to come out of it in the usual way. To my surprise, the engine refused to slow down, or any of the controls to respond, except one, which only ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the window to sniff in that damp, sweet scent of unseen flowers, to feel the white moonlight on her hand. She had often wished that, by some magic, the world might be enabled to spin out its whole time in such a gossamer, irradiant sheen as this—a sort of moon-haunted night-without-end, keeping you tingling ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... string out to near a hundred years with mighty few birthdays. Some people spin up to Methuselahs ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... gathered in! Thou shalt visit him again To watch his heart grow cold; To know the gnawing pain I knew of old; To see one much more fair Fill up the vacant chair, Fill his heart, his children bear:— While thou and I together In the outcast weather Toss and howl and spin. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... those streets now. And sometimes on an evening you will see automobiles going down the block with family parties on their way for a spin along the Benson road where the Clanton boys, Frank Stilwell, John Bingo, and the other bad men used to rob the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... blush like girls, And say,'Our fathers were afraid to die!' Ye will not dare to 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 wilt thou blot with ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... there was generally only one girl in the kitchen to help to do all the work. Her name was Betsey Gould, and she was strong and willing; and Rachel and Dorcas each did her share, and so did even little Mary; but they could not do everything. The dear mother of all had to spin and weave, and bake and brew, and pray every hour in the day for strength and patience to do her whole duty ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... Rosenbug asked me to go, and Johnny tried to make me not go. I asked Solly was he old enough, and knew enough, and he said he did; but he didn't any such thing. And grandma, there it was, right in the middle of the solid water! And began to spin and dance round. We couldn't stop it from dancing; the more we held on, the quicker it went. Way up and down, grandma, and the rain raining, and our feet all sopping, and pouring right into that wherry ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... 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 farm was a miniature ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... one person in every family of five or six must have been absolutely needed to spin and weave by hand the fabrics required for the scanty clothing of the people; now one person in two hundred or two hundred and fifty only need work in the factory to produce the cotton and woolen fabrics of the most amply clothed nation of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... change! the plough is sweeping O'er some scene of household mirth, The sickle hand is reaping O'er some ancient rural hearth— Where the mother and the daughter In the evenings used to spin, And where little feet went patter, Full often out ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sorrow or joy; but the life which our dulness calls romance,—the sentiment, the remembrance, the hope, or the fear, that are never seen in the toil of our hands, never heard in the jargon on our lips,—from that life all spin, as the spider from its entrails, the web by which we hang in the sunbeam, or glide out of sight into the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... morning and evening, day after day, into the consequences. Lo! into that life which he had hoped to make worthy of the God who gave it, a pattern life, a great poem within hose azure fitness other poems should arise to spin their gleaming courses—into this life what had he imported? Not the solace and bliss of a kindred soul's society, which had been his intent and dream; but a darkness, a disturbance, a marring melancholy, a daily and hourly debasement, a coinhabiting ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... on the beach grow thinner. Millionaires begin to move their private cars from Palm Beach sidings, and depart for other fashionable places farther north. Croupiers at the Beach Club stand idle for an hour at a time, though ready to spin the wheel, invitingly, for any one who saunters in. The shops hold cut-price sales. And we, regarding somewhat sadly our white trousers, perceive that there does not remain a single spotless pair. The girl ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... spin out a story,' said Wardle abruptly. 'It must come out, sooner or later, and it'll save us all a great deal of time if it comes at once. The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last mustered up courage to tell ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... and get acquainted with his inside self, as Glen Eddy used to say. So you understand, U-Bim, that you are not to give us away or let on that we are any kin to the Caspars. Sabe? All right. Now for a twenty-mile spin down-stream, and then we'll hunt a place to ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... and riveted on. When the shell is fired, the soft copper ring slides into the steel rifling of the gun, and thus the shell goes straight with a spinning motion. The ring having become unriveted, the shell did not spin, and simply turned head over heels. Was it not fortunate that it missed the house? It is because they have no copper for these rings that the Germans are making such strenuous efforts to find some. Nothing else except ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... at Jack's fancies; but there was something tremendously thrilling in the idea. Think of landing on another world! Think of meeting inhabitants there! Really, it made one's head spin. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... me: but that's the way with that sort of people, just to draw back and draw back, to make a poor young gentleman follow them all the keener, as a trout does a minnow, the faster you spin it." ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... reason why this interruption of the feast took place on the Sabbath. Vashti was in the habit of forcing Jewish maidens to spin and weave on the Sabbath day, and to add to her cruelty, she would deprive them of all their clothes. It was on the Sabbath, therefore, that her punishment overtook her, and for the same reason it ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... ceiling had fallen upon the table, and the chairs had mouldered away; the looking-glass on the mantelpiece was hidden with cobwebs, the cobwebs themselves disused; for as they collected the dust, the spiders at last left them to spin new ones elsewhere. The carpet, if it remained, was concealed by the dead leaves which had been carried in by the gales. On these lay one or two picture frames, the back part upwards, the cords had rotted from the nails, and as they dropped so they stayed. In ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... that way before Sally, father, for her head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was a-showin' on me a blue-jay she painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she could brile a bird fit to be eat if she tried; and she don't know the price of nothin'," continued ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... fell, as will happen in conversation. I came back from the bar and settled myself beside Missy. She looked for a while into her drink, and then out to the stars. The slow spin of our rock had now brought the Dippers into view. Her faded eyes sought the Pole Star—but it's Earth's, not our own any more—and I wondered what memories they were sharing. She shook herself the least bit ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... he lov'd marbles and kite, And spin-top, and nine-pins, and ball; But this I declare with delight, His book he ...
— Phebe, the Blackberry Girl - Uncle Thomas's Stories for Good Children • Anonymous
... It seems to me, Dawson, that most horses are wholly broken but very few wholly trained. If we disturb the others, however, we'll go off for a spin by ourselves. Come, Polly. Full speed, Tzaritza! Four bells, Shashai!" and away sped the trio, Tzaritza, like the obedient creature she was, bounding from the platform where Peggy had bidden her "charge," ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... two, I have caught in less than an hour half a dozen two-pound bass, not counting other fish and small bass which I tossed back. I used one of Chubb's ordinary silk trolling lines and one of Abbey's spoons, which, by the way, to my fancy spin more freely and better than any others I have used. This I worked sometimes from a small bark canoe and sometimes from a wooden one, which I keep at the farm, and use to paddle up and down the stream between the willows and the bridge, or upon the ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... court; but chile, the lie-yers are aworking day and night fur to hang you, 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 help free Miss Ellie's ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... milk and wool and food. He brought with him to our shores cows and sheep and goats, horses and dogs. Moreover he made pottery, moulding the clay with his hand, and baking it in a fire. He had not discovered the advantages of a kiln. He could spin thread, and weave stuffs, though he usually ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... preliminary in that campaign which is to end with the final victorious occupation of St. Stephen's. But stay! The horrific pioneers of womanhood who gad hither and thither and, confounding wisdom with the device on her shield, shriek for the unbecoming, are doomed. Though they spin their bicycle-treadles so amazingly fast, they are too late. Though they scream victory, none follow them. Artifice, that fair ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Sun" were conquered by Pizarro and his conquistadores. At that time many Peruvians, fleeing from the barbarous cruelty of their Spanish invaders, sought asylum in the Chaco, there finding it; and from these the Tovas and other tribes have long ago learnt many of the arts of civilised life; can spin their own thread, and sew skilfully as any sempstress of the palefaces; weave their own cloth, dress and dye it in fast colours of becoming patterns; in short, can do many kinds of mechanical work, which no white artisan need feel ashamed to ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... secure peace forever was the earnest desire of two statesmen so strongly contrasted as the impressionable Czar Alexander I of Russia, acclaimed as the "White Angel" and the "Universal Savior," and Prince Metternich, the real ruler of Austria, the spider who was for the next thirty years to spin the web of European secret diplomacy. While the Czar invited all governments to unite in a "Holy Alliance" to prevent war, Metternich for the same purpose formed the less holy but more powerful "Quadruple Alliance" of ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... son of 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 ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show through the weary lids with their deep golden fringe. A fair woman, a lovely woman, delicately ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... have nobly distinguished themselves in the cause of humanity and America. On the other hand we were not ignorant that the labour and manufactures of Ireland, like those of the silkworm, were of little moment to herself, but served only to give luxury to those who neither toil nor spin. We perceived that if we continued our commerce with you, our agreement not to import from Britain must be fruitless. Compelled to behold thousands of our countrymen imprisoned; and men, women, and children in promiscuous and unmerited misery—when we found all faith at an ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a moment. "So correct. I'm sure he's the person at home, and spoilt, and does what he likes with them all, doesn't he? Of course, he's the person to be friends with if you want anything fixed up! Well, here we are at Onslow Square. It was jolly seeing you again. You must come for another longer spin soon. Isn't Mervyn a good chap? He's so really distinguished that it wouldn't ever matter what he wore, or where he went, or when. And you'd never dream he was an actor, ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... grow in wild exuberance almost every where, without culture, and the women collect such quantities as they consider requisite for their families, which they prepare and spin upon a distaff; the thread is woven, by an apparatus of great simplicity, into fillets, or pieces from six to nine inches broad, which are sewed together to any width, required for use. The indigo, in its indigenous state, and ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... each afternoon, of strolling away from the rest, out of sound of their chaff. On the grassy top of one of the reefs, he found a spot where he could lie comfortably and watch the "quiet one." He used to spin long day-dreams there. She looked so remote far up in the boiling blue, and so strange, that he had an ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... caterpillar's first meal. After the calyx has closed, it is too late to spray effectively. The caterpillars become full grown in July and August, leave the fruit, crawl down on the trunk, and there most of them spin cocoons under the loose bark. In most parts of the country there are two broods annually. Immediately after the blossoms fall, spray with 1 lb. Paris green or 4 lb. arsenate of lead in 100 gal. of water. Repeat the application 7 to 10 days later. Use burlap ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... certainly not dogmatic enough to deny—or to assert either—that there are sensations.... far too numerous for comfort .... but as for proceeding any further, by induction, deduction, analysis, or synthesis, I utterly decline the office of Arachne, and will spin no more cobwebs out of my own inside—if I have any. Sensations? What are they, but parts of oneself—if one has a self! What put this child's fancy into one's head, that there is anything outside of one ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... "Then spin away, Amarilly. You'll have my sympathy and help in everything that makes you feel bad, whether ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... variable—terror, excitement, numbness, tingling, irritability, twitching, a feeling of something passing up from the toes to the head, delusions of sight, smell, taste, or hearing (ringing, or buzzing, etc.), palpitation, throbbing in the head, an impulse to run or spin around—any of these may warn a victim that a fit is at hand. Some patients "lose themselves" and make curious mistakes ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... wantin' to take a spin in one av me ingines, is it?" he asked then. And, after a moment: "An' do you think you'll be able to hang on, whin she ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... earth, why, John, I can't tell you how thankful I feel. 'Twas lonesome up garret there, and yesterday I dragged in the old cradle and the little wheel to make it seem more social like; but the cradle was empty and broken, and the wheel brought back the old days when I used to sit and spin, while your father husked corn; so they didn't cheer me up much. But I never mistrusted what you was doing down here for me. John, I believe nothing but the Spirit of God could have coaxed you into this. Don't you think I'll see you a Christian yet before I die?" ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... little wind storm, I reckon,' says Bachelder. Bachelder was settin', with his legs curled up under him, mendin' sail, and he begun to spin one o' them yarns o' hisn, with his voice pitched up middlin' high, and the boys, they begun to laugh ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... is. My friend had met me in his car (I repeat firmly, in his car) at the little painted station in the middle of the warm wet woods and hop-fields of that western country. He proposed to drive me first to his house beyond the village before starting for a longer spin of adventure, and we rattled through those rich green lanes which have in them something singularly analogous to fairy tales: whether the lanes produced the fairies or (as I believe) the fairies produced the lanes. All around ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... come out without anything I ought to have!" she admitted. "My chauffeur was sent for hurriedly to the death-bed of his wife's aunt or some one, and I just thought I'd come out for a spin this afternoon and explore the neighbourhood. I never prepared for accidents! I shall have to ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... mother is not over solicitous to preserve it from slight falls and other trifling accidents. A little practice soon enables the child to take care of itself, and experience acts the part of a nurse. As they advance in life, the girls are taught to spin cotton, and to beat corn, and are instructed in other domestic duties; and the boys are employed in the labours of the field. Both sexes, whether Bushreens or Kafirs, on attaining the age of puberty, are circumcised. This painful operation is not considered by the Kafirs so ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... therefore have no opportunity of examining the first process, or the progress of the work. Abundantly supplied with every article of convenience from Europe, and prejudiced in their favour because from thence, we make but little use of the raw materials Sumatra affords. We do not spin its cotton; we do not rear its silkworms; we do not smelt its metals; we do not even hew its stone: neglecting these, it is in vain we exhibit to the people, for their improvement in the arts, our rich brocades, our timepieces, or display to them in drawings the elegance of our architecture. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... and does with equal 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 ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... he approached the claim, his knees began to smite together, and he felt so weak he could hardly drag one foot after the other. He threw down his pick; he began to tremble and spin around. The world seemed to be turning over and over, and he trying in vain to hold on to it. He jerked the pipe from his teeth, and throwing it down on the bank, he tumbled down too, and clutching at the grass with both hands tried hard, oh! so hard, to hold the world from slipping from ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... fly around! Take that team to my place—put the wagon in my lot—put the horses under the shed, and get out hay and oats and fill them up! Ain't any hay and oats? Well get some—have it charged to me—come, spin around, now! Now, Hawkins, the procession's ready; mark time, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the charges must be proved to the satisfaction of the jury, and called upon Captain Right's advocate to substantiate them. It would spin out our description to a fatiguing length, were we to go through all the cases of oppression, fraud, and cruelty, that were brought home to the unfortunate proctor; against whom, if we are to take him as the ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... hull came to life. It steadied. It ceased to spin, however slowly. It darted ahead. It checked. It swung to the right and left and up and ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... "It would spin very long," said Forester, "if it was well made, though it would require more strength to set it a-going well. But lead would be soft, and thus would easily get bruised and indented. Besides, black would be a prettier color for a top than lead color. A jet black top, well polished, would ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... see in that"— "Boredom, my friend, behold the ill—" "Your fashionable world I hate, Domestic life attracts me still, Where—"—"What! another eclogue spin? For God's sake, Lenski, don't begin! What! really going? 'Tis too bad! But Lenski, I should be so glad Would you to me this Phyllis show, Fair source of every fine idea, Verses and tears et cetera. Present me."—"You are ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... and Mrs. S. C. Hall have not come. It is Lestock's last day, and he and Fanny and Lucy are so busy and so happy putting the transit instrument to rights, and setting black spotted and yellow backed spinning spiders at work to spin for the meridian lines. I have just succeeded in catching the right sort by descending to the infernal regions, and setting kitchenmaid and housemaid at work. I was glad Mr. and Mrs. Hall did not arrive just at the crisis ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... is always there what she seemed to me when I fell in love with her, many and many years ago. The neighbors called her then a nice, capable girl; and certainly she did knit and darn with a zeal and success to which my feet and my legs have testified for nearly half a century. But she could spin a finer web than ever came from cotton, and in its subtle meshes my heart was entangled, and there has reposed softly and happily ever since. The neighbors declared she could make pudding and cake better than ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... the question of the Egyptian loan that was being discussed at that time, as well as with respect to the burning Afghan question, Bismarck adhered tenaciously to this policy, and later on, too, he was determined to spin the threads further. In the latter part of the Autumn of 1887 an exchange of letters again took place between Lord Salisbury and Prince Bismarck, wherein the latter gave expression to the idea that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... fancy that a realist is a good corrector of formalism, no matter how incapable of syllogism or continuous linked statement. To great results of thought and morals the steps are not many, and it is not the masters who spin the ostentatious continuity. ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... pleasant, so captivating? Have you not renounced many of your beautiful gifts—your pleasure in literature and music—nay, in short, what is the most lovely part of life, in order to bury yourself in concealment and oblivion, and there, like the silkworm, to spin your own sepulchre of the threads which another will wind off? You bow your own will continually before that of another; your innocent pleasures you sacrifice daily either to him or to others: are you so very happy amid ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the ivory bobbins, rewound the silver wire, which seemed to spin out still longer, and gave them to Three Wits. 'Take these,' he said, 'and go ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... sling they have now a hollow iron or piece of horne, not unlike a shoeing horne, fastened to the other end of the crosier, by wch they take up stones and sling, and keep their flocks in order. The French sheperdesses spin with a ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... repaid for losing the jolly run down, and the grand entree into Dunraven, his soul loved, but he covered up what he thought, by pulling Phronsie into the middle of the hall. "Come on, Phron," he said, "for a spin ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... eyes to his. "Truly, Mr. Hayden, I do not know. I can not throw any light on the subject. I remember though when we were school-girls, Marcia used to spin some fascinating yarns about the sayings and doings of her friend Ydo; but since the lady has made her spectacular appearance as a fortune-teller, the Veiled Mariposa, and become such a social fad, why, it is simply impossible ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... But to spin off this thread, which is already grown too long; what honour and request the ancient poetry has lived in, may not only be observed from the universal reception and use in all nations from China to Peru, from Scythia to Arabia, but from ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... islands off Cape Sable, and was lost in the fog. Rumor had it that she ran on the rocks off that perilous coast, and sank with all on board. As time went by, and there was no more sign of the corsair, the rumor was accepted as proven. Men began to spin yarns in the forecastle about Mogul Mackenzie, with an interest that was tinged with its former fear. Skippers were beginning to feel at ease again on the grim waters, when suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, came the awful news of the discovery ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... mighty fallen! No longer do the men of God indulge in thunderous Saxon. They latinise their sermons and diminish the effect of terrible teaching. You shall hear them designate "hell" with twenty roundabout euphemisms, and spin "damnation" into "condemnation" and "damned" into "condemned," until it has not force enough to frighten a cat off a ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Toss and spin and stay away and roll in hay in the center of the afternoon of the same day. There is no use in all of that, there is no use and that understanding is not reception it is a cook-stove solving emigration. So then the union of the palm tree and the upside down one makes a lying ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... galley of Lepanto (1571 A.D.) as of the trireme of Salamis (480 B.C.). Of the three cardinal virtues of the fighting ship, mobility, seaworthiness, and ability to keep the sea, or cruising radius, the oar-driven type possessed only the first. It was fast, it could hold position accurately, it could spin about almost on its own axis, but it was so frail that it had to run for shelter before a moderate wind and sea. In consequence naval operations were limited to the summer months. As to its cargo capacity, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... 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 ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... expected, further, that their families would not be separated, and that they could be allowed to acquire property for themselves. I know there were many negroes in the South who expected they would neither toil nor spin after being set free, but the belief was by no means universal. The story of the negro at Vicksburg, who expected his race to assemble in New York after the war, "and have white men for niggers," is doubtless true, but ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... eyes that transfixed me? Must I then be the husband of a she-goat? No, no, my heart shall not break for such a goat-face!" So saying, as soon as they reached his palace, he put Renzolla into a kitchen, along with a chambermaid; and gave to each of them ten bundles of flax to spin, commanding them to have the thread ready at the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... he, 'Mr. Borem,' sez he, 'you're a quaint morril character. You've got protracted humor,' sez he. 'You've bin an hour tellin' that yarn o' yours! Ef ye could spin it out to fill two chapters of a book—yer fortune's made! For you'll show that a successful hoss trade involves the highest nash'nul characteristics. That what common folk calls "selfishness," "revenge," "mean lyin'," and "low-down money-grubbin' ambishun" is really "quaintness," and will go in ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the line the German bullets spin overhead or crack like whips against our sandbags, sending little clods of earth down into the trench; all down the line we stand on our firing platforms, and answer back to the little spurts of flame which mark the enemy trench; sudden flashes and explosions tell of bombs or grenades, ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... was also a splendid engineer; was full of invention and devoted to his profession, but he, too, was not without his romances, and even vagaries. He loved a story, was a fine teller of stories, used to sit at night and spin the most wondrous yarns, a man of much reserve, yet also of much power in discourse, with an aptness and felicity in the use of phrases—so much so, as his son tells, that on his deathbed, when his ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... genius of shaping and developing, which is a chief quality of the French mind and which 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, in culture as in ambition. 'Il est donne,' says ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... 'most gone," said Ruth, pointing, as she spoke, to a little twinkle of light so far astern that it seemed to rest on the very waters. Half an hour later the captain said, "Now let's go below, where it is warmer; and if you care to hear it, I will spin you a yarn ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... do great things. You are facile, and you see things very quickly and accurately, and you have a style. But I don't think you have got the tragic quality or the passionate gift. You are too placid and contented—but you spin along, and I think you see something of the reality of things. You will be led forth beside the waters of comfort—you will lack nothing—your cup will be full. But the great work is done by people with large empty cups ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pleasure; but, bewitching jades! they have beggared me. Would they but spare me a little of their cast-linen! Were it only to put it in my power to say, that I have a shirt on my back! But the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not, neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... who gave us wool, which my mother spun, and wove it into cloth. Just think of that! Do you imagine you would have as fine clothes, if your mothers had to spin all the cloth? She knit, too, O, so fast! as well in the dark as the light. I have known her to knit a coarse stocking easily of an evening—her fingers flew along the needles! Cotton cloth was a great rarity among us. I remember once my ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... he asked what would be the effect were the Savannah River turned through the beautiful plains of Augusta, and manufactures built up where the industrious could find employment. Hundreds of persons, he said, would be brought together to spin the raw cotton grown in the State, to consume the provisions which the farmers raised, thus diversifying their employment and increasing their profits. "Would any man tell me," shouted the orator, his eyes blazing, and his arms uplifted, "that this would impoverish the country—would ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... do spin and hachell it, and the English tarre it in threed and lay the cable. And one cable of those is woorth two of Danzick, because the Danzickers put in old cable and rotten stuffe, which in fowle weather is found of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight In which I see the universe unrolled Before me like a scroll and read thereon Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl Dizzily round and round and round and round, Like tops across a table, gathering speed With every spin, to waver on the edge One instant—looking over—and the next To shudder and lurch forward ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Saint Monica than I had expected. In fact, its chief fault is that it is too much spun out; and, just at this time, Saint Monica mustn't be associated in any sort of way with the House at Cambridge where they spin. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... His conduct was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a Mamaluke [42] exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the Christian dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards of the sultan, and retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin with the females of the harem?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field, [43] after the obstinate defence of Alexandria [44] by his nephew Saladin, an honorable capitulation and retreat [441] concluded the second enterprise of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... cells; The cunning Spider with adhesive line Weaves his firm net immeasurably fine; The Wren, when embryon eggs her cares engross, Seeks the soft down, and lines the cradling moss; Conscious of change the Silkworm-Nymphs begin Attach'd to leaves their gluten-threads to spin; 420 Then round and round they weave with circling heads Sphere within Sphere, and form their silken beds. —Say, did these fine volitions first commence From clear ideas of the tangent sense; From sires to sons by imitation caught, Or in dumb language ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... "you just spin yourself a cocoon caterpillar fashion and go to sleep, and you will surely find yourself turned into a butterfly when you wake up! Mother said so! Now there! Why didn't I remember that caterpillars turn into butterflies, before I promised to give away my porridge bowl! I should like to ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... they bruise their ears; the far-fetched notion, which is 'really too bad,' that Simonides uses the Lesbian (?) word, (Greek), because he is addressing a Lesbian. The whole may also be considered as a satire on those who spin pompous theories out of nothing. As in the arguments of the Euthydemus and of the Cratylus, the veil of irony is never withdrawn; and we are left in doubt at last how far in this interpretation of Simonides Socrates is 'fooling,' how far he ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... swiftness. Lena, a little pale, nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran towards her big friend; and then in the drowsy silence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann's voice rang out so changed that it made me spin round in my chair to see ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... can talk more comfortably when we're alongside of one another; and you can spin me the yarn how you come to be all alone by ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... running is in the Pioneer. At the end of the first mile, Shackles crept out of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to get round the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight before the others knew he had got away. Brunt was sitting still, perfectly happy, listening to the "drum-drum-drum" of the hoofs behind, and knowing that, in about twenty strides, Shackles would draw one deep breath and go up the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... courses are, however, open to us, and we are pursuing them all. First, we are writing "short stories," accounts of episodes needing no historical perspective, and not caring for any; and, so far as one may judge, we write the best short stories in the world. Secondly, we may spin out our short stories into long-short stories, just as we may imagine a baby six feet high; it takes up more room, but is just as much a baby as one of twelve inches. Thirdly, we may graft our flower of romance on a ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... went off simultaneously. To my horror I saw the young Brazilian spin round and drop to the ground, his face downwards; we rushed up to him and found that the bullet from A.'s pistol had gone through his brain. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... will do a lot of things. For instance, it can change probability as magnetism can change temperature. You can establish a psi field in a suitable material, just as you can establish a magnetic field in steel or alnico. Now, if you spin a copper disk in a magnetic field, you get eddy currents. Keep it up, and the disk gets hot. If you're obstinate about it, you can melt the copper. It isn't the magnet, as such, that does the melting. It's the energy of the spinning disk that is changed ...
— The Ambulance Made Two Trips • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Rosa was waiting. He pondered this idea for some time, until its absurdity became apparent. Undoubtedly he must be going out of his head; he saw that it was necessary to keep walking until the back-spin of that ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... care I if at sixteen years of age she cannot paint the baptism of John upon velvet, does not know a word of that accursed French language, breaks down in the "forward and back" of a cotillon, and cannot with spider fingers spin upon the piano the swiftest Tarantelle of Chopin.— 2558 Metronome? We will find something better and braver than all that, my little Alice! Confound your Italianos!—the birds shall be the music-masters of my tiny dame. Moonrise, and sunset, and the autumnal woods shall teach her tint ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... in a woman's clutches so tight before, Bigot," continued Cadet. "If you let La Pompadour suspect one hair of your head in this matter, she will spin a cart-rope out of it that will drag you ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... determined on the side of vanity, who, like Hercules, (before he knew the queen of Lydia, and had learnt to spin) have not resolved on their choice between VIRTUE and PLEASURE, may reflect, that it is still in their power to imitate that hero in his noble choice, and in his virtuous rejection. They may also reflect with grateful triumph, that Christianity furnishes ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... the fatigue, and the fright, I never before passed so trying a night; I would not again undergo the vexation Of such a soiree, for the wealth of a nation." "With you I agree," the sage Emperor replied, Who deemed it a lesson to cure them of pride; "And I trust that the thread of our lives will spin out, Ere we ever again attempt such a rout. Alas! we must own we were never designed To flit in the sunshine, or soar on the wind; Nature's changeless decree has allotted its share To each beast of the field, to each bird of the air, To each reptile that creeps, to each insect ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... of girls I knew who were just crazy to have me take 'em for a spin out around Fairmount Park and along the speedways. Just think, Miss Fielding, of the difference between those times and these," and he ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... realised clearly enough the danger of his correspondence with the Prime Minister, and immediately took steps to counteract it. There was a semi- official agent of the English Government in Rome, Mr. Odo Russell, and around him Manning set to work to spin his spider's web of delicate and clinging diplomacy. Preliminary politenesses were followed by long walks upon the Pincio, and the gradual interchange of more and more important and confidential communications. Soon poor Mr. Russell was little better than a fly buzzing ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... Ada Singer spoke to him as he was going out. "Wait a minute, Frank. It is so mild to-day, mother is coming for me after school with the auto. We're going to take a long spin. Wouldn't ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... we now look back at those proceedings, an inevitable occurrence, a foregone conclusion. The pulpits were only representative of the religion of the pews, and the pews were occupied by the same sort of humanity that toil and spin and haggle over dollars and cents six out of every seven days. They have their selfish and invested interests, fixed social notions, relationships, and prejudices, which an episode like Sunday, churches, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... of this great glitter, is more pitiful than if it lay upon a dung-hill. There is not a ray of imprisoned light in all the flash and fire of jewels, but seems to mock the dusty holes where eyes were, once. Every thread of silk in the rich vestments seems only a provision from the worms that spin, for the behoof of ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch. Marriage a la Mode, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... spin The web of life for weal or woe, Whilst I above my violin Shall sit and watch the vale below All crimson in the afterglow; And when the patient stars grow bright I'll draw across the strings my bow Till Chopin ushers in ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... minded to hide her past, and the choice of her last residence was a stroke of diabolical genius. Paisley is an ancient town inhabited by a virtuous and industrious people, who used to make shawls and now spin thread, and the atmosphere is so literary that it is believed every tenth man is a poet. Yet people do not boast of having been born there, and natives will pretend they came from Greenock. No one can mention Paisley without a smile, and yet no ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... Love," said the light, "and I spin for joy of the womb in which our Hope abided; and ever, O Lady of Heaven, must I thus attend thee, as long as thou art pleased to attend thy Son, journeying in his loving-kindness ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... corner of his swab—some puts it round their necks, and some into their pockets; I never heard of such a thing till chaps run soft and watery—and so we come to this here place to change the air and the breeding, and spin this yarn to your honor's honor, as hath a liberal twist in it; and then to take orders, and draw rations, and any 'rears of pay fallen due, after all dibs gone in your service; and for Bob to tip a stave ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything. They smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... space to turn in, no chance to whirl his lariat, even for a side throw. There was no time to spin a loop. But his hand detached the rope, flying fingers found the free end as he pivoted in the saddle, thighs welded to ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... it does; but then some mothers can't sew and spin and cook, you see, so where would the home be if we didn't have servants and folks to do for us?" sighed Eleanor, comparing her own home life to Polly's—to the ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... into the tree. Bang! went another gun,—another,—and another; and the pickets all along the rebel lines, thinking that the Yankees were coming, blazed away at random. The Yankee pickets, thinking that the rebels were advancing, became uneasy and fired in return. Paul could hear the bullets spin through the air and strike into the trees. His first thought was to get back to his comrades as soon as possible; then he reflected that it would be dangerous to attempt it just then. The firing woke up all the sleepers in the two armies. The drums were beating ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... be no more Saturday afternoons off for me for some time to come, I fear." Then he added, quickly, "But look here, Helen, there is no need of our losing the day altogether. Send your man on, and come with me for a little spin. The roadster is in the next block. I'll take you home in an hour and get on back to ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... those four lines are proof positive of that. But what matters is not so much the intrinsic value of the gift as the kindly thought which prompted the giver. Mr Shanks's speciality is beauty. He also is an amateur of nature. He bids us: 'Hear the loud night-jar spin his pleasant note.' Of course, Mr Shanks cannot have heard a real night-jar. His description is proof of that. But again, it was a kindly thought. Mr Freeman is, like Mr Squire, a more interesting case, deserving detailed analysis. For the moment we can only recommend a comparison of his first and ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... mine I wear a solemn face. I try to hide the pout I feel, and do my best to smile, But envy of the man in front gnaws at me all the while. I want to be where I can see the road that lies ahead, To watch the trees go flying by and see the country spread Before me as we spin along, for there I miss the fear That seems to grip the soul of me while ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... unctuous tones; "it would not be 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. . . . Have ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... next morning. Dear Bob was not only such a gentleman, but such a man, that it was almost a pleasure to be at secret issue with him; he would make way for me at our lady's side, listen with interest when she made me spin my martial yarns, laugh if there was aught to laugh at, and in a word, give me every conceivable chance. His manners might have failed him for one heated moment overnight; they were beyond all praise this morning; and I repeatedly discerned a morbid ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... "You don't mind waiting a while, do you?" he asked, turning toward the visitor. "I have some chores to do, and then we will all go for a spin. You will come along too, mother, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... and the Beast is ten minutes, and, if we stop at the place when the Beast thought he was dead, six minutes twenty-five seconds. But, with the aid of seemingly innocent questions, a determined character can make even the craftiest uncle spin the story out ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... condescend to turn and look. Meanwhile, I had not the courage to go near my club, and the Temple was a place where I was accosted in every court, effusively congratulated on the marvellous preservation of my stale spoilt life, and invited right and left to spin my yarn over a quiet pipe! Well, perhaps such invitations were not so common as they have grown in my memory; nor must you confuse my then feelings on all these matters with those which I entertain as I write. I ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... It is very bumpy and ends in a big drift; not half so nice as this one. Hop on and we'll have a good spin across the pond;" and Jack brought "Thunderbolt" round with a skilful swing and an engaging air that would have won obedience from ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... was a very light one, and for a time the cutter moved along but slowly, but as it got beyond the shelter of the land it felt the wind, and began to spin fast through the water. Stephen's spirits, which had been greatly depressed for the last few days, rose as the little craft heeled to the breeze. Nearly six months had been spent on the island, but at last ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... every nerve, I could not keep pace with the leaders. My eyes smarted and ached; my head seemed to spin round; more than once I should have fallen but for a friendly hand. Presently I heard Plaza cheer; but he was out of sight, and the sound seemed to come from a long distance. Then I was placed gently against a rock by a soldier, who pushed on ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... Emmy looked—I hate the broad Scotch Aamy—how bright her flashing eyes, and how fragrantly the orange-blossoms clustered in her rich brown hair; let him speak lengthily, whose province it may be to spin three volumes out of one: for me, I always wish to recollect that readers possess, on the average, at least as much imagination as writers. And why should you not exercise it now? Is not Emmy in her bridal-dress a theme well worth ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... American popular successes ("On the Banks of the Wabash," "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me," and various others), as a third owner of one of the most successful popular music publishing houses in the city and as an actor and playwright of some small repute, he was wont to spin like a moth in the white light of Broadway. By reason of a little luck and some talent he had come so far, done so much for himself. In his day he had been by turn a novitiate in a Western seminary which trained aspirants for ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... "If it is to be, why put it off?" I found a ready answer: "Because I do not want to lose any of my present sensations; the sudden thrills, the charm of the words unspoken, the questioning glances, the expectations. I wish to spin out the romance to the very end. I found fault with women that they preferred the semblance of love to love itself, and now I am quite as anxious not to lose any of its outward manifestations. But as one gets more advanced in years one attaches greater importance to these things; and besides, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the rate is twice as great for unoccupied males as for occupied males. Unhappy Mr Meggs, accordingly, got it, so to speak, with both barrels. He was fifty-six, and he was perhaps the most unoccupied adult to be found in the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. He toiled not, neither did he spin. Twenty years before, an unexpected legacy had placed him in a position to indulge a natural taste for idleness to the utmost. He was at that time, as regards his professional life, a clerk in a rather obscure shipping firm. Out of office ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... weft. Hitherto single threads only had been dealt with on the spinning machines, but the same year witnessed the introduction of an invention which in a few years completely revolutionized the spinning industry, and which enabled one worker to spin ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... aloud to me, "not to disturb his webs." He lamented "the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using silkworms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave, as well as spin." And he proposed further, "that by employing spiders, the charge of dyeing silks should be wholly saved;" whereof I was fully convinced, when he showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... 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 ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... never cared for domestic things. I'd rather wear a dinner-gown than an apron; I'd a damn sight rather spin a roulette wheel than rock a cradle. And, perhaps, Peyton wanted a housewife; though heaven knows he hasn't turned to one. It's her blonde, no bland, charm and destructive air of innocence. I've admitted and ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... telling you about that, youngster, though I ain't much of a story-teller. You just wait till I get my pipe filled, and I'll spin a yarn for you, as they used to say down ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... how, Maudie. Ask Polly; she 'll spin you round like a teetotum." "Mr. Sydney's name is down for that," answered Polly, looking at her fan with a pretty little air of importance. "But I guess he would n't mind my taking poor Maud instead. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... elegantly harnessed and attended by a couple of servants in livery, a boy of ten or twelve years holding the lines from his seat in the light and graceful little vehicle. Merry young misses drive their ribbon-decked hoops with special relish, and roguish boys spin their tops with equal zeal. Clouds of toy-balloons, of various colors and sizes, flash high above the heads of itinerant vendors, while the sparkling fountains throw up softly musical jets everywhere. Soldiers off duty, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou |
