"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afraid it was very difficult, because the only way was to get a lock of hair from the head of a king's daughter, to spin it, and to make from it a cloak for the giant, who lived up on the top of ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... an English woman's house is her castle. Atkinson proposed that a woman of full age, living in her own house, should connect her loom or spindles by electric wire to the nearest mill or factory, and then proceed to weave or spin more than the legal limit of nine hours per day. Would the state, under the broadest principles of English constitutional liberty, have the right to come in and tell her not to do so; particularly when the man in the next house remained free? Up to this ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... have made instruments for dressing this flax not very dissimilar from the tools of our own wool-combers. The outside they throw away, and the rest they spread out for several days in the sun to dry, which makes it as white as snow. In this prepared state it is, he says, called "mooka." They spin it, he adds, in a double thread, with the hand on the thigh, and then work it into mats, also by the hand: three women may work on one ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... enters the Severn. The advantages of position led to the erection of large manufacturing establishments on the spot. Steam has been brought to aid the Stour, whose waters are pounded back to create a capital of force to turn great wheels that spin, and weave, and grind; whilst iron works, vinegar works, and tan works, upon a large scale, have also sprung into existence. On the opposite bank of the Severn, about three-quarters of a mile from Stourport, ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... following this adventure, toward the latter part of the afternoon, Henry Burns was walking up the same road by the stream, in the direction of the camp, where he was to meet Tom Harris for a spin in the canoe. He had heard no footsteps near, and was therefore not a little surprised when a hand touched his arm and a laugh that was familiar ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... meeting with a mountaintop had effectively despoiled him of his one ambition. Soldiers with game legs are not wanted. He couldn't paint like Charity, he couldn't spin yarns like Rupert, he possessed a mind too inaccurate to cope with the intricacies of any science. And as a business man he would probably be ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... the way in which it spouts, the jet being thrown up obliquely forwards, and it blows at regular intervals. Although the old "bulls" show a certain amount of ferocity at times, their savageness is considerably exaggerated by the whalers, who love to spin yarns about them. Having watched the habits of these and the baleen whales with curiosity, I tried to get as much information about them as I could, from the whalers, but, with the exception of the officers of whaling ships, there was much that was unreliable ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the ocean. In fact, there are some things you don't know, and, if they wanted to, some of the old sailors could spin you yarns that would make ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... kingdom; you sow not, neither do you reap, but your Heavenly Father gives you abundance of food. He gave you the rivers and fountains; He gave you the mountains and valleys as a refuge, and the high trees so that you may build your nests in safety. And because you can neither spin nor cook, God clothed you and your little ones. Behold the greatness of the love of your Creator! Beware of the sin of ingratitude and diligently praise God all day!" And when he had thus spoken, the birds opened their beaks, beat their wings and ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... wimple in O'erlapping tiers of crystal shelves, And little circles dimple in, As if the waters quaffed themselves, The while they spin: ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... her. The heat-haze seemed to spin around. Her eyes were fixed upon their goal, her whole being was concentrated upon reaching it. In the end it was as if the ruined tree shot towards her. The race was over. A great giddiness came upon her. She reeled ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... armour; the long epaulettes of yellow cotton cord, the heavy belt with its brass buckle, the cumbrous boots, plaited and bound with iron like churns were in rather a ludicrous contrast to the equipment of our light and jockey-like boys in nankeen jackets and neat tops, that spin along over ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... now to a rise with its magnificent sweep of scenery, now to the cool, fresh valleys full of the sweet pine-scent of the woods. They had explored much of it together in the little 'run-about,' nearly every day a short spin somewhere; to-day a little more ambitious run—the whole afternoon, and tea, a picnic tea, an hour or more back, in a charming glade beside ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... cotton at a drug store, and see if you can spin some cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, such as is described ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... sitting on the back doorstep, twanging his jew's-harp. He was shy at first, and tongue-tied; then wildly excited on learning that there were "presents" in Mr. Curtis's pocket. When the top was produced, he dropped his jew's-harp to watch it spin on a string held between Maurice's hands; then he devoted himself to the hatchet, and chopped his father's knee, energetically. "Pity there's no cherry tree round," said Maurice; "Look here, Jacobus, I want you always to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... for you to say," returned he, "who can sew and spin the whole Evening through; but I, whose long entire Day is Night, grow soe tired of it by nine o'clock, that I am fit ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... girl with the black eyes holds you tight, and you run... and run past the wild, wild towers... and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet and little frightened dolls shut up in the shops crying... and crying... because no one stops... you spin like a penny thrown out in the street. Then the man clutches her by the hair.... He always clutches her by the hair.... His eyes stick out like spears. You see her pulled-back face and her black, black eyes lit up by the glare.... ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... was Mrs. Vanderpool—she toiled not, neither did she spin, and yet! If all these folk were like poor, stupid, docile Jennie it would be simpler, but what earthly sense was there in trying do to anything with a girl like Zora, so stupid in some matters, so startlingly bright in others, and so stubborn in ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... what is to follow for myself,' he said proudly. 'Nature has her tortures as well as art, and how happy should we think the man who escapes from the throes of a mortal and painful disorder in the space of a short half hour? And this matter, spin it out as they will, cannot last longer. But what a dying man can suffer firmly may kill a living friend to look upon. This same law of high treason,' he continued, with astonishing firmness and composure, 'is one of the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... all among the thundering drums When all is done and said When Britain first, at Heaven's command When cats run home, and light is come When daffodils begin to peer, When daisies pied and violets blue, When Hercules did use to spin When icicles hang by the wall When love with unconfined wings When o'er the hill the Eastern star When the British warrior queen When the sheep are in the fauld, when the kye 's come hame When this old cap was new When we two parted Where gang ye, thou silly auld carle Where the bee sucks, there ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... surrounded by silk cocoons spun by the caterpillars just before finally transforming to pupae. With all butterflies the chrysalids are naked, except with one species which occurs in Central America in which there is a common silk cocoon. With the moths, the larger part spin cocoons, but some of them, like the owlet moths whose larvae are the cutworms, have naked pupre, usually under the surface of the ground. It is not difficult to study the transformations of the butterflies and moths, and it is always ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... standing near the chimney, and as I spoke I walked over to it and started to spin it round. It resisted me heavily; I bent over it, lifting my candle. Then I uttered an exclamation, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... flash continues to be seen for the sixth of a second after the flash has become extinct; and if the body thus illuminated be in motion, it appears at rest at the place where the flash falls upon it. When a colour-top with differently-coloured sectors is caused to spin rapidly the colours blend together. Such a top, rotating in a dark room and illuminated by an electric spark, appears motionless, each distinct colour being clearly seen. Professor Dove has found that a flash of lightning produces the same effect. During a thunderstorm ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... women. Three boys, whose parents were alive, attended her; two of them supported her by the arms, while the third walked before, bearing a flambeau of pine or thorn. Maid-servants followed with a distaff and wool, intimating that she was to spin as matrons formerly did. Many relations and friends attended the nuptial procession. The young men repeated jests and made sport as she passed along. The bride bound the door-posts of her new home with woollen fillets, and anointed them with the fat ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... straining 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 after ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... I did think there were a reprieve to come for you I would be contented to spin out the time thus; but in good earnest I expect none; unless you had an apprehension you were not to die you would not spin out the time thus, not ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... Seville in 1091, after a stubborn resistance. Aben Abed was exiled, with his wife and daughters, and was sent to the castle of Aginat, in Africa, to live his life away. There, if the reports be true, their food was so scanty that the ladies of the family had to spin to get enough for them all to eat, while the despondent emir tried to beguile the weary hours with poetry. The hardships of their life were so great that finally the emir was left alone in his captivity, and it was four long years before he could ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Tarantula-bitten victims so Whirl madly. Shrinks her head and swims; This is not glory's ardent glow, But fever's hectic, herald sure Of dread corruption, if unstayed. Dance on the footing insecure Of the keen edge of War's red blade, Rather than this mad dervish spin, Drunk with that poison-breath; The music is the devil's din, The dance—the modern Dance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... he'd turned me inside out, He turned me outside in; I knew not what I was about— My brain was all a-spin, I'm shaking now with nervous fright, And since I left the court I've changed my dream-opinion quite— I don't ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... 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 ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... old acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... days passed after the departure of the others. It was very hot and the girls kept indoors until after sunset. But it was a dull, dispiriting time, and one morning they decided to take a spin in the "Comet," leaving Mr. Campbell at home to look after things. They had hardly gone when he was summoned to Tokyo by a messenger, and there was no one but the servants ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... just come in from a bicycle ride," she would announce; "quite a picture they make, so fresh and glowing after their spin." ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... Streets to the soul of Theophilus Londonderry? What is Coalchester itself?—though that shall soon be humming and whizzing too. This is but the whirling centre of the ever-spreading wheel of force that has begun to turn at New Zion. Coalchester will spin soon, and then the disappointed fields around it, then the neighbouring towns would join the reel, and so on and on, faster and faster, madder and madder, till even London itself moves, and the world that changes its axis ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... large proportion of her people, willing to toil at six cents per day in occupations that have been transmitted for centuries in the same families, are either driven to the culture of the fields or compelled to spin and weave for a pittance the jute which is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... imparting a spin to the projectile as it travels along the spiral grooves in the bore, permits the use of a long projectile and ensures its flight point first, with great increase in accuracy. The longer projectile, being both heavier and more streamlined than round shot of ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... that has any reference to the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ, as a remedy against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... it wouldn't be worth while to take a spin on the wheel," he mused as he considered the matter; "the chances are the weather will change any day now, and then good-bye to wheeling for the season. Besides, I really believe I'd like to turn down that ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... she dreamt the same dream a third time, and betook herself once more to the old witch's hut in the flowery meadow. This time the old woman told her to go the next full moon to the mill-pond, and to spin there with a golden spinning-wheel, and then to leave the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... the moments are Fates; To shame or to glory they open the gates! There's all we hold dearest to lose or to win; The web of the future to-day we must spin; And bid the hours follow with knell or with chime!— Who's ready? O, forward!—while ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... latitude) playing in the bright blue sea at the vessel's side, the boatswain, who was a fine specimen of a sea-faring man, came up and, seating himself on a fowl-coop near me, commenced sorting rope-yarns for the men to spin. Presently Frederic walked up the ladder with a bucket of water to pour into the troughs for the thirsty poultry, who were stretching their necks through the bars and opening their bills, longing for the refreshing draught: ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... long it seems) In that dear England of my dreams I loved and smoked and laughed amain And rode to Cambridge in the rain. A careless godlike life was there! To spin the roads with Shotover, To dream while punting on the Cam, To lie, and never give a damn For anything but comradeship And books to read and ale to sip, And shandygaff at every inn When The Gorilla rode to Lynn! O world of wheel and pipe and oar In those ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... considerable part of the world's output will, for this reason, be handed over to the holders of the various Government debts, who, ex hypothesi, will be people who have saved money in the past, it is at least possible that they may devote a considerable amount of the spin so received to further saving or increasing ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... Johnny Clare,—I am perfectly sure that I sha'nt be able to write one word of sense, or spin out one decent thought. If the old Devil and the most romping of his imps had been dancing, and jostling, and running stark mad amongst the delicate threads and fibres of my brain, it could not be in a worse condition, but I am ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... earnest with both hands. She seizes herself firmly by the back, and turns the upper part of her body round till her hair is in front and her eyes behind. Still holding herself firmly with her left hand—did she let herself go, goodness knows where she would spin to;—with her right she prospects herself. The purse is there, she can feel it, the problem is how to get at it. The quickest way would, of course, be to take off the skirt, sit down on the kerb, turn it inside out, and ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... there." "You'll have to write your sweet nothings, instead of saying them," Sylvia replied. "For you to leave around for other girls to see," answered Ayrault with a smile. "I don't know what your other girls do," she returned, "but with me you are safe." Ayrault fairly made his phaeton spin, going up the grades like a shot and down like a bird. On reaching New York, he left Sylvia at her house, then ran his machine to a florist's, where he ordered some lilies and roses, and then steered his way to his club, where he dressed for dinner. Shortly before the time he repaired ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... foam flecked. Again as Jim approached him, the minister's boy planted a blow on his ribs that made Jim spin. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... are more thorough theses than those which the German monk pasted on the church door of Wittenberg. Then it was that men felt as if suddenly freed from the force and pressure of a thousand years; the artists, most of all, again breathed freely as the nightmare of Christianity seemed to spin whirling from their breasts, and they threw themselves with enthusiasm into the sea of Greek joyousness from whose foam rose to them goddesses of beauty. Painters once more limned the ambrosial joys of Olympus; sculptors carved, with the joy of yore, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... a dear fellow! Spin out the case as long as you can, and don't let the jury retire for at least three quarters of an hour. I know you can do it better than any other man ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... to have destroyed over four millions of people; pestilence is always threatening these natives, and besides, the demands for tribute of an enervated priesthood (who "toil not," alas! "neither do they spin") have to be met. So is it any wonder that poverty prevails and that sadness ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... moment more," he said; and they walked on slowly. "I know what presumption this is; but I will not spin phrases about that. Nor do I ask what is impossible; but I will only ask leave to teach you in ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25. And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26. If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27. Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith! 29. And seek not ye what ye shall ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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, shall he not much more clothe ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... Athenian thus condemned for having exercised the rights of a free man.... It was one of the principles of Lycurguss, acted upon for several centuries, that free men should not follow lucrative professions.... The women disdained domestic labor; they did not spin their wool themselves, as did the other Greeks [they did not, then, read Homer!]; they left their slaves to make their clothing ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... a public, spin themselves any reasons or excuses for their hearty approval of Canada's engagement in the war. Her or their contributions of men and money to its fields of slaughter and waste appeared and appear to them ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to see it go!" he exclaimed eagerly, for Miss Bradley was really a friend to her pupils, and she knew how to make kites and spin tops almost as good as ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... ease by a spider can scarcely offer insuperable difficulty to the chief of the vertebrates. Of course, each man's production will be more or less guided and limited by his capacity.—Thus, fat men will spin forth cathedrals, opera-houses and railway stations. Thin men will devote themselves to obelisks, church spires, factory chimneys, and artistic bric-a-brac. Short men will willingly produce artisans' dwellings, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... origin of some swollen noses, some battered eyes, when our Yankees mixed with the Tommies. Each would be certain to think that the other couldn't "talk straight"—and each would be certain to say so. I shall not here spin out a list of different names for the same things now current in English and American usage: molasses and treacle will suffice for an example; you will be able easily to think of others, and there ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... 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 ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... all have the gift of genius. Of what ingenious devices and arts are they masters! How wide their range! They spin, they delve, they jump, they fly. They are the original spinners. They have probably been on their job since carboniferous times, many millions of years before man took up the art. And they can spin a thread so fine that science ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... 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
... them to be the work of mortal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered that English manufactures came out of the sea, and beads were gathered on its shore. To Africans our cotton mills are fairy dreams. "How can the irons spin, weave, and print so beautifully?" Our country is like what Taprobane was to our ancestors—a strange realm of light, whence came the diamond, muslin, and peacocks; an attempt at explanation of our manufactures usually elicits the expression, "Truly ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... who rite geography never travel; they stay at home and spin their yarns 'bout things they never sees." Then, glancing at his poor butternut coat and pantaloons, he felt my blue woollen suit, and continued, in a slow, husky voice: "Stranger, them clothes cost something; they be store-clothes. That paper dug-out cost money, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... across the intervening space and stand beside his father. Coiloo's hand was at Sax's neck. He unfastened the string of the luringa and stood up, still hidden from sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... don't set any high value on their lives, either," chimed in Buck. "Whoever's runnin' the show over there, he'll spend his men's blood like water for the chance o' catchin' us and puttin' us to death as slowly as he can make the time spin out." ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... fierce current was seizing them in its remorseless grip; and the overloaded boat began to spin down-stream, turning around and around ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... cheap carbine or a pair of shoddy binoculars, or something of that sort, to the Rajah, or the head-man, or the principal trader; and on the strength of that gift, ask for a house, posing mysteriously as a very special trader. He would spin them no end of yarns, live on the fat of the land, for a while, and then do some mean swindle or other—or else they would get tired of him and ask him to quit. And he would go off meekly with an air of injured innocence. Funny life. Yet, he never ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... is permitted to run about with great freedom. The 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 much in the light of ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of life to realise how right this is; to realise that, after all our fine philosophies and cocksure sciences, there is no better answer to the riddle of things than a good game of cricket or an exciting spin on one's 'bike.' The real inner significance of Earl's Court—Mr. Kiralfy will no doubt be prepared to hear—is the failure of science as an answer to life. We give up the riddle, and enjoy ourselves with our wiser children. Simple pleasures, no doubt, for the profound! ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... of gray Yosemite. Yea, lone, sad soul, thy heights must be thy home; Thou sweetest lover! love shall climb to thee Like incense curling some cathedral dome, From many distant vales. Yet thou shalt be, O grand, sweet singer, to the end alone. But murmur not. The moon, the mighty spheres, Spin on alone through all the soundless years; Alone man comes on earth; he lives alone; Alone he turns to front ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... they had arranged duly took place, but the fact was that the bride was entirely ignorant of how to clean and spin cotton. It was not long before this was found out, for, in the spring, when there was no work in the fields, her father-in-law set all the women of the household to spinning cotton; and told them that they and their husbands should have ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... the trigger-guard; then, with the slightest jerk of the wrist, the gun spun about, the handle jumped into his palm, and instantly there was a click as his thumb flipped the hammer. It was the old "road-agent spin," which Gale as a boy had practised hours at a time; but that this man was in earnest he showed by glancing upward sharply when the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... to string out to near a hundred years with mighty few birthdays. Some people spin up to ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... time the Devas, or gods, and their opponents, the Asuras, made a truce, and joined together in churning the ocean to procure amrita, the drink of immortality. They took Mount Mandara for a churning-stick, and, wrapping the great serpent Sesha round it for a rope, they made the mountain spin round to and fro, the Devas pulling at the serpent's tail, and the Asuras at its head." [56] In this myth the churning-stick, with its flying serpent-cords, is the lightning, and the armrita, or drink of immortality, is simply the rain-water, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... of my satchel. The bee gave it to me." So he handed to the kind butterfly a little honey he had left. The butterfly was very glad to get it, and fluttered away, jumping from one flower to another as easily as a boy can spin his top. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... used to spin when in Scotland, having taken a fancy to the thing. But, not all the wishes in the world could produce a spinning wheel, so I kept my desires secret until I saw some hope of accomplishment. Every day each person had to bring in their ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... no means a slave in the frontier household. She did not spin, or draw water, or tend the oven. Her mother-in-law, Madame Cadotte, had a hold on perennially destitute Chippewa women who could be made to work for longer or shorter periods in a Frenchman's kitchen or loom-house instead of with savage implements. Archange's bed had ruffled curtains, ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... do, friend. If you hav'nt got beds, we'll sit up all night, and warm our toes at the fire, and spin long yarns, as they tell in the Eastern sea-ports. Anything but turn a fellow out such a ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... of crooked clouds priceless things grow. Very tiny things suddenly become important. The sky is green and opaque Down there where the blind hills glide. Tattered trees stagger into the distance. Drunken meadows spin in a circle, And all the surfaces become gray and wise... Only villages crouch glowingly: ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... 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 Mrs. Kittridge, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... worked on communistic principles. Teachers and students must all take their share in manual labour. Lectures on Greek and Latin must be given in the intervals of ploughing, or printing, or teaching Maori children to read or hoe or spin. Each "associate" received a fixed salary; all profits went to the support of ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... sweeping back fast as the wind. The Princess' eyes were like dead coals, and her black curls streamed, the thin silk dress wrapped tight around her and waved back like a gossamer web such as spiders spin in October. Laddie's hair was blowing, his cheeks and eyes were bright, and with one eye on the Princess—she didn't need it—and one on the road, he cut curves, turned, wheeled, and raced, and as he rode, so ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Captain Hardy, "you've hit it exactly. You're as good a reasoner as you are an observer. Now we'll begin at the centre and spin this message outward. What's the ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... But look you here," says he, "'leven months out o' the year she shall have all the vittles she likes to eat, and all the gownds she likes to git, and all the cumpny she likes to hev; but the last month o' the year she'll ha' to spin five skeins iv'ry day, an' if she doon't, ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Wagner's. He never made the mistake the master of Bayreuth so frequently made, of subordinating the drama to the music, and arresting the action for the sake of a "Waldweben" or a "Charfreitagszauber." The little scenes of Pushkin's play spin themselves off quickly through the music; the action is reinforced by a skeleton-like form of music, by swift vivid tonal etchings, by the simplest, directest picturings. Musical characterization is of the sharpest; original ideas pile upon each other and succeed ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... are punished because in their lives they continued to spin after sunset, when they should ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... three-fourths—will be comedy; but by the former plan the whole of it (except the first 3 chapters) would have been tragedy and unendurable, almost. I think I can carry the reader a long way before he suspects that I am laying a tragedy-trap. In the present form I could spin 16 books out of it with comfort and joy; but I shall deny myself and restrict it to one. (If you should see a little short story in a magazine in the autumn called "My Platonic Sweetheart" written 3 weeks ago) that is not this one. It may have been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a bagman," Shotover remarked. "Well, he gave us a rattling good spin whose-ever fox ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... whither rushest thou to die, and darest things o'ergreat? Thy love betrays thine heedless heart." No less, the fool of fate, He rusheth on, till high and fierce the tide of wrath doth win O'er heart of that Dardanian duke, and now the Parcae spin Lausus' last thread: for his stark sword AEneas drives outright Through the young body, hiding it hilt-deep therein from light It pierced the shield and glittering gear wherewith he threatened war, And kirtle that his mother erst with gold had broidered o'er, And flooded all ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... because they have property, but because, as a rule, they have acquired it by unjust processes and use it tyrannically—what excuse have we for aristocracies, an idle class, a privileged class, who toil not, nor spin? What is a recognized aristocracy, such as England maintains? From what perennial fountain did it draw its nobility and wealth? Came they not through Norman conquest and robbery? Who pay the heavy taxes levied upon the people to support the privileged classes of England? The royal ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... life I have, and getten as weary of it as I have, and thought at times, "maybe it'll last for fifty or sixty years—it does wi' some,"—and got dizzy and dazed, and sick, as each of them sixty years seemed to spin about me, and mock me with its length of hours and minutes, and endless bits o' time—oh, wench! I tell thee thou'd been glad enough when th' doctor said he feared thou'd never ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with; I mean fine thin canvass, or stuff, to searce the meal through. And here I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what to do: linen I had none left but what was mere rags; I had goat's hair, but neither knew I how to weave or spin it; and had I known how, here were no tools to work it with. All the remedy that I found for this, was, that at last I did remember I had among the seamen's clothes which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of calico or muslin; and with some pieces of these I made three small sieves, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... slept slept Slide slid slidden Sling slung slung Slink slunk slunk Slit slit, R. slit Smite smote smitten Sow sowed sown, R. Speak spoke spoken Speed sped sped Spend spent spent Spill spilt, R. spilt, R. Spin spun spun Spit spit, spat spit, spitten [10] Split split split Spread spread spread Spring sprung, sprang sprung Stand stood stood Steal stole stolen Stick stuck stuck Sting stung stung Stink stunk ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... reddish-brown bark, and sometimes the white ones are colored with red ocher. The white one is called "so'-put" and the red one "ti-nan'-ag." Some of the other breechcloths are woven of cotton thread by the women. Much of this cotton is claimed by the Igorot to be tree cotton which they gather, spin and weave, but much also comes in trade from the Ilokano at the coast. Some is purchased in the boll and some is purchased after it has been spun and colored. Many breechcloths are now bought ready made from ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... much more enjoyable experience than her shorter rides, which, for the most part, had been beside Billy's tricycle. In some mysterious manner known only to boys, Hubert had learned to ride without being taught, and an occasional spin on a borrowed wheel was apparently all that was needed to keep ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... filled the room; and bending over the flower, and inhaling the delicious fragrance, the master softly said—'My children, the blessed Word of God says—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. Carl ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... at the upper chamber, and while my back is turned, the black man disappears. That dazed me a bit. The officer, who was as handsome as a great lord, goes down stairs again with me. He goes out. In about the time it takes to spin a quarter of a handful of flax, he returns with a beautiful young girl, a doll who would have shone like the sun had she been coiffed. She had with her a goat; a big billy-goat, whether black or white, I no longer remember. That set me ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... to be told just now,—trust me, and be sure you get everything as good as can be: and if, in the villainous state of modern trade, you cannot get it good at any price, buy its raw material, and set some of the poor women about you to spin and weave, till you have got stuff that can be trusted: and then, every day, make some little piece of useful clothing, sewn with your own fingers as strongly as it can be stitched; and embroider it or otherwise beautify it moderately with fine needlework, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... certain children between you, but I go over to visit my mother at Hillsboro as often as she'll have the caravan and plead with Billy Harvey or Hampton Dibrell to keep me out until I'm late for dinner every time they pick me up for a little charitable spin. That and other deceptions have kept Mark Morgan uncertainly happy so far, but if I am pushed to the wall I'll—I'll go to the Reverend Mr. Goodloe's study for ministerial counsel like you did last Friday afternoon, Harriet," was ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... low murmur of voices, the hurried words of the clergyman, the whispers of the bridegroom, were all confused together in an unintelligible whole, and even her own answers had scarce made any impression upon her. Her head seemed to spin, her brain to whirl, and all her frame to sink away. At length the grating of the opening door, the clergyman's departing footsteps, and the slight increase of light ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... dishonourable peace; that they would take care not to expose themselves to the hazards of a battle against too formidable an enemy; and that, in short, they were resolved on making every sacrifice, in order to spin out the war, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... more of the little queer children, dozens and dozens of them. The more they came tumbling out into the hut, the more there seemed to be chattering in the stove and squeezing to get out one over the top of another. The noise of chattering and laughing would have made your head spin. And everyone of the children out of the stove had a little turnip like the others, and waved it about and showed it to the old man, and ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... of interest as the old man began to spin slowly on his toes round the column of smoke, chanting slowly some strange mixture of savage music which was, as Frank guessed, an incantation to the fetish that, as he believed, dwelt in the smoke. As the smoke grew thicker he cast some sort of powder from a skin-bag into it and instantly ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... thoughts, ripe wit, and wisdom old, More skill than I, in all mine arts untrue, To thee my purpose great I must unfold, This enterprise thy cunning must pursue, Weave thou to end this web which I begin, I will the distaff hold, come thou and spin. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... lay my life against a new tunic that I can make this multitude spin on itself like a whipped top," he said. "But I admit ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... like; it is all the same to me if it is a pare that burns, or any other sort of oil, if only I can see to spin. When, pray, do you think of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... 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 History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... young fir-seeds know them, and rattle impatient in their cones. "Blow stronger, blow fiercer, slow air-mothers, and shake us from our prisons of dead wood, that we may fly and spin away north-eastward, each on his horny wing. Help us but to touch the moorland yonder, and we will take good care of ourselves henceforth; we will dive like arrows through the heather, and drive our sharp beaks into the soil, and rise again as green trees ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... ceasing to comb the child's hair. "But so it is—Providence helps us out. I have a couple of cows. Then my daughter and I do some gleaning at harvest-time, and in winter we pick up firewood. Then at night we spin. Ah! we never want to see another winter like this last one, that is certain! I owe the miller seventy-five francs for flour. Luckily he is M. Benassis' miller. M. Benassis, ah! he is a friend to poor people. He has never asked for his due from anybody, and he will not ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... the 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 rocque. - J. ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... you sheer it off the sheep's back. He will pay you for it, more or less, according to the amount of trouble you have taken with your sheep. This is the way the younger generation likes to treat its wool. If you are older, and are blessed with a wife able to card and spin, you deal differently with Mr. Quinn. For many evenings after the shearing your wife sits by the fireside with two carding-combs in her hands, and wipes off them wonderfully soft rolls of wool. Afterwards ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... smoothly over the calm surface. When the men began to grow tired, Mrs Rumbelow was ever ready to cheer them up. "Pull away, boys! pull away!" she cried out. "We are not badly off as it is, but we shall be better still on dry land. We shall find the breeze, may be, a few miles ahead, and that will spin us along without the necessity of making your arms ache." Sometimes she would sit down, and grasping an oar, assist one of the younger seamen; she showed, indeed, that she could pull as good an oar as any one on board, and thus no one ventured to exhibit any ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... got to show her she MUST marry him or he'll die; see? Call on me to back you up in any fairy yarn you spin. You prove to her it's her duty to marry him. You'll have to stay, here and help nurse, of course, and that's easy because his disease isn't contagious. You convince her and I'll take care of the congregation. He'll live to be minister here for the rest ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... reasons. For one, after a gun has been fired a few times the inside is affected. The rifling is worn in places, and that gives a slightly different spin to the shell. It doesn't take much of a change in conditions to alter the course of a shell a good deal. And the weather counts, too. Sometimes there is more air resistance; on a day when it is damp and foggy, with low lying clouds, for instance. So, ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... she answered. "He is more or less the sort of man I have been thrown with all my life. They toil not, neither do they spin. I know you will not misunderstand me, for I am very fond of him. Mr. Temple is honest, fearless, lovable, and of good instincts. One cannot say as much for the rest of his type. They go through life fighting, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... been with them red whiskers on your face," McGuffey agreed. He refrained from saying more, for instinct told him Mr. Gibney was about to grow reminiscent and spin a yarn, and B. McGuffey had a true seaman's reverence for a goodly tale, whether true, half-true, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... a small hole in one end of each and let the contents flow out; rinse each shell well with cold water; then fill them with blanc-mange and set in a pan of sugar or flour, the open end up; place them in a cool place till hard; boil 1 pound sugar to a crack and spin it into quite long threads (see Spinning Sugar); with these threads form a nest a little smaller than the dish it is to be served in; dip each egg into warm water, wipe dry, break shells from about the blanc-mange and ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... air allotted to you. You neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you; and has given you rivers and springs to drink at, mountains and hills, rocks and wild goats for refuge, and high trees for nesting; and though you know neither how to spin nor to weave, He gives both you and your children all the garments you need. Whence much must the Creator love you, Who confers so many blessings. Therefore take care, my small bird sisters, never to be ungrateful, but always strive ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... mending all their own and the men's clothes, which it was part of their duty to wash. This done, wool in what is called its 'raw state' was served out to them—that is, wool as it had been taken off the sheep's fleece—and they had to comb out all the tangles, and spin it into long skeins. Then the skeins were taken to the men, many of whom were weavers by trade, and by them it was woven into cloth which ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... curious, and that is all I can say in its favour," answered the skipper; "I was thinking, or dreaming rather, of a circumstance which I haven't thought of for many a year that I can remember, which occurred during my first voyage. However, I'll undertake to tell it you if, when I've done, Mr Clare will spin you one of his yarns. He can spin one better than I can. Come, make him promise, and I will begin. If not, I'll shut ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... to go to her to-night?—Well, go. I shan't need you. Don't jabber, you make my head spin. Go at once and stay until morning; leave the cigarettes on the tray and the wine on the table—that is all. Just take ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... accident," Forrester said quickly. It was a lie, but he thought a pardonable one. The truth was just too complicated to spin out; he had no real ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... unfledged that she had never tried her wings, and had no notion whether she could fly or not, and yet no girl had a clearer head. "We have chosen work that we know we can do well, and we mean not to be ashamed of our occupation. In the old days ladies used to spin and weave, and no one blamed them, though they were noble; and if my work will bring me money, and keep the mother comfortable, I see nothing that will prevent my ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... 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 little kid were safe gone to Avoncester, and Paula was with her dear Sisters, so Will and I took a jolly spin along the cliff road; and it was such screaming fun. Only once we thought we saw old Sir Jasper coming, and we got behind a barn, but it turned out to be only a tripper, and we ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to read and write often became priests or entered the monastic orders. The monks also took much interest in the material welfare of the Indians and taught them how to farm, how to build houses, and how to spin and weave and cook by ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... find in the conversation of most men that their thoughts are cut up as small as chaff, making it impossible for them to spin out the thread of their discourse to any length. If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, noise of every kind would not be so universally tolerated, as indeed the most horrible and aimless form of it is.[12] If Nature had intended man to think she would not have given him ears, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... who toil not neither do they spin might know the feel of fabrics so cunningly devised that they lay to the flesh like the inner petals of buds, three hundred and fifty men, women, and children contrived, between strikes, to make the show-rooms of the Kessler Costume Company, Incorporated, a sort of ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... about the doldrums," said Captain Dall. "I've read a book by an officer in the United States navy which explains it all, and the Gulf Stream, and the currents, an' everything. Come, I'll spin you a yarn ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 exponent of his heartless ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... will be asked) spin out by these excessive methods a thread of such tenuity? Why go to such lengths for four months longer of fallacious solvency? I expect not to be believed, but I think the Government still hopes. A war-ship, under a hot-headed captain, might be decoyed into hostilities; the taxes might begin to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Fig. 141).—Hawsers, or any ropes not hanging free and liable to spin, may be spliced in this style, in which the strands, instead of being interlocked together, are merely tucked round and round one particular strand in the rope. Each loose strand is of course tucked round a different strand in the rope. This is sometimes called the "Liverpool" ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... himself round with velocity in the opposite direction; continued to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly about him; clapped his cap on his head, very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew moustaches, and replied with perfect ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... a plainly-dressed man awaiting him—a man who, save that he gave the idea of having once been a soldier, might have passed for anything, from a publican to an idler whose wife let lodgings, and made it unnecessary for him to toil or spin. ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... music was at its height, And the waltz was wildest—behold, a sight! The stilts began to hop and twirl Like the saucy feet of a ballet-girl. And their haughty owner, through the air, Was spin, spin, spinning everywhere. Everybody got out of the way To give the dangerous stilts fair play. In every corner, at every door, With faces looking like unfilled blanks, They watched the stilts at their airy pranks, Giving them, unrequested, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... your Homer and Hesiod, of course? Is it all true that they sing of Destiny and the Fates—that whatever they spin for a man at his birth must ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... ever we wrought this sin! Our bodily sustenance for to win, Ye must delve and I shall spin, In care to ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... the balloon all the while rotating on its axis. This continual swinging or revolving of the balloon Green considers an accompaniment of either a rapid ascent or descent, but it may be questioned whether it is not merely a consequence of changing currents, or, sometimes, of an initial spin given inadvertently to the balloon at the moment of its being liberated. The phenomenon of marked change which he describes in the upper currents is highly interesting, and tallies with what the writer has frequently experienced ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... of a nervous temperament—quick in action and speech; and would swear like a pirate, and spin around like a jumping-jack ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston |
