"Distaff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Circus, and then, in a litter of pearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the Street of Pomegranates to a House of Gold, and heard men cry on Nero Caesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with colours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon from Carthage, and given her in ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... was then used for carrying water, poised upon her head, and she was leading a horse by means of a bridle hung over her arm. Her hands, being thus not required either for the horse or for the vessel, were employed in spinning, as she walked along, by means of a distaff and spindle. ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Christianity in that their predestinating, determining force, instead of being qualified by any play of free-will, or any feasible plan of ultimate and superabounding good, has been a real fatalism, changeless, hopeless, remorseless. That the distaff of the Fates, and the ruthless sceptre of the Erinnys, entered in full force into all the religions of the Greeks and Romans, scarcely needs to be affirmed. They controlled all human affairs, and even the ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... still more beautiful from her modesty; and Nourgehan was charmed when he saw the sage who had proposed the question agree that she had answered with her usual justness, when she said that it was a Chestnut. She answered the third without hesitation, that it was a Distaff. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... alireligiulo. Dissertation disertacio. Dissimilar malsama. Dissimulate kasxi. Dissimulation kasxemo. Dissipate malsxpari. Dissipation malsxparo. Dissolute dibocxa. Dissolution solvo. Dissolve solvi. Disrespect malrespekti. Disrespect malrespekto. Dissuade malkonsili. Distaff sxpinilo. Distance interspaco. Distant malproksima. Distaste tedo, nauxzo. Distend plilargxigi, sxveli. [Error in book: sxvelo] Distil distili. Distinct (clear) klara. Distinct neta, klara. Distinctive distingiga. Distinguish distingi. Distort ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... busily occupied in repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and the other two young men, each with a book, were ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... for that old service of reaping in the abbot's fields, had ceased to be exacted from the richer burgesses. At last the poorer sort refused to pay. Then the cellarer's men came seizing gate and stool by way of distress till the women turning out, distaff in hand, put them ignominiously to flight. Sampson had his own thoughts about the matter, saw perhaps that the days of inequality were over, that in the England that was coming there would be one law for rich and poor. At any rate ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... obedience to the King, set about carding the flax, preparing and putting it on the distaff, twirling her spindle, reeling it and working away without ceasing; so that on Saturday evening her thread was all done. But Renzolla, thinking she was still the same as in the fairy's house, not having looked at herself ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... strings of maize and bunches of dried vegetables that hung from the roof and on the copper kettles and saucepans ranged along the wall. The wind raged against the shutters of the unglazed windows, and the maid-servants, distaff in hand, crowded closer to the blaze, listening to the songs of some wandering fiddler or to the stories of a ruddy-nosed Capuchin monk who was being regaled, by the steward's orders, on a supper of tripe and mulled wine. The Capuchin's tales, told in the Piedmontese jargon, and seasoned ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the very top, full of relics of the poor past, its contents increasing gradually in quantity and in quality, the first visible symptom of comfortable circumstances, of wealth in a house. Again, that woman always had the distaff in her hand from morning till night, and if the house-keeper was indignant, the spinster could have wept as at a profanation. Finally, unable to endure it longer, she rose, abandoned her patient, watchful attitude, and stooping ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... different animals, human, or brute [he once said]. Mine, I believe to be more tender than many infants of a month old. Indeed I have remarked in myself, from my earliest recollection, a delicacy or effeminacy of complexion, which but for a spice of the devil in my temper would have consigned me to the distaff or the needle." ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... measures out the long year, who beholds all things, {and} through whom the earth sees all things; the eye, {in fact}, of the universe. Believe me, thou art pleasing to me.' She is affrighted; and in her alarm, both her distaff and her spindle fall from her relaxed fingers. Her very fear becomes her; and, he, no longer delaying, returns to his true shape, and his wonted beauty. But the maiden, although startled at the unexpected sight, overcome by the beauty of the God,[39] {and} dismissing {all} complaints, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to manly labor; and they chatted meanwhile of books, studies, embroidery, discussed the last new poem, or some historical topic started by graver reading, or perhaps a rural ball that was to come off the next week. They spun with the book tied to the distaff; they wove; they did all manner of fine needlework; they made lace, painted flowers, and, in short, in the boundless consciousness of activity, invention, and perfect health, set themselves to any work they had ever read or thought of. A bride in those days was ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... subsistence. We were forcibly reminded of the oft alleged objection to emancipation in the United States, that it would impoverish many excellent families in the South, and drive delicate females to the distaff and the wash-tub, whose hands have never been used to any thing—rougher than the cowhide. Much sympathy has been awakened in the North by such appeals, and vast numbers have been led by them to conclude ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a goddess of the Libyan people; but her worship was firmly implanted by them in Egypt. She was a goddess of hunting and of weaving, the two arts of a nomadic people. Her emblem was a distaff with two crossed arrows, and her name was written with a figure of a weaver's shuttle. She was adored in the first dynasty, when the name Merneit, 'loved by Neit,' occurs; and her priesthood was one ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... Churchill. "There is an excellent print, by Bouck, I believe, of an old woman beating the devil with a distaff; distaffs have been out of fashion with ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... that I am personally interested in the exclusiveness of the Order, my connection with the Brooks of Brookcotes being on the distaff side. My mother was Sir Robert's only sister. My father was a military man—3rd Buffs—died when I was twelve or thirteen years of age. Sir Robert was a confirmed bachelor, and I was his only nephew. Now ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... for me, I know," he said one day to Lydgate. "But then I am not a mighty man—I shall never be a man of renown. The choice of Hercules is a pretty fable; but Prodicus makes it easy work for the hero, as if the first resolves were enough. Another story says that he came to hold the distaff, and at last wore the Nessus shirt. I suppose one good resolve might keep a man right if everybody else's resolve ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... more than the Master does?" asked Winfried; "and will you take the wood that is fit for a bow to make a distaff?" ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... misfortune foretold by the old Fairy, caused immediately proclamation to be made, whereby everybody was forbidden, on pain of death, to spin with a distaff and spindle, or to have so much as any spindle in their houses. About fifteen or sixteen years after, the King and Queen being gone to one of their houses of pleasure, the young Princess happened one day to divert herself in running up and down the palace; ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... child so ungracious as this I never yet saw; no, never! All the day long he idleth away his time with the sons of the quarter, vagabonds like himself, and his father (O regret of me!) died not save of dolour for him. And I also am now in piteous plight: I spin cotton and toil at my distaff, night and day, that I may earn a couple of scones of bread which we eat together. This is his condition, O my brother-in-law; and, by the life of thee, he cometh not near me save at meal-times and none other. Indeed, I am thinking to lock the house-door nor ever ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... in to light the lamp, which she placed on a square table in front of the fire; then she fetched her distaff, her ball of thread, and a small stool, on which she seated herself in the recess of a window and began as usual to spin. Gasselin was still busy about the offices; he looked to the horses of the baron and Calyste, saw that the stable was in order for the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the door of one of these huts, an old motherly-looking woman sat, spinning cotton; I made signs to her that I was hungry, and inquired if she had any victuals with her in the hut. She immediately laid down her distaff, and desired me, in Arabic, to come in. When I had seated myself upon the floor, she set before me a dish of kouskous, that had been left the preceding night, of which I made a tolerable meal; and in return for this kindness I gave her one of my pocket-handkerchiefs, begging at the same time a ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... she cried, in a haughty tone. 'Clothe me more beautifully than mortal maid was ever clad before, so that I may find favour in the prince's sight and become the bride of the castle. I would that I were done for ever with the spindle and the distaff.' ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... knotting. Dempster's sister undertook to teach me; but I could not learn it[682].' BOSWELL. 'So, Sir; it will be related in pompous narrative, "Once for his amusement he tried knotting; nor did this Hercules disdain the distaff."' JOHNSON. 'Knitting of stockings is a good amusement. As a freeman of Aberdeen[683] I should be a knitter of stockings.' He asked me to go down with him and dine at Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, to which I ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... of high degree, From every quarter hither made resort; Where, from gross mortal care, and bus'ness free, They lay, pour'd out in ease and luxury: Or should they a vain shew of work assume, Alas! and well-a-day! what can it be? To knot, to twist, to range the vernal bloom; But far is cast the distaff, spinning-wheel and loom. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... blood. 'Twas he that brought upon his knees The hect'ring kil-cow Hercules; Transform'd his leaguer-lion's skin T' a petticoat, and made him spin; Seiz'd on his club, and made it dwindle T' a feeble distaff and a spindle. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... a distaff, denotes frugality, with pleasant surroundings. It also signifies that a devotional spirit will be cultivated ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... until at length she got, as the saying goes, "over head and ears." Nay, was she not, in the long nights, busy working a pair of red slippers for the object of her new affections, and were not these so very suitable to one who, like Hercules, was reduced almost to the distaff, and who, unlike that woman-tamed hero, did not need them to be applied anywhere but to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... scalps Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices, Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown; Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double-fatal yew against thy state; Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills Against thy seat: both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... this community she proved herself to be of unusual ability. In her youth she had been trained in practical affairs as well as in art, and, although she felt that "the needle and distaff were enemies to the brush and pencil," her varied knowledge served her well in the responsibilities she had assumed, and at the head of the institution she had founded she became as well known for her executive ability ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... well calculated to impress the imagination of a boy with reverence and amazement. Jupiter, seated between the two fatal urns of good and evil, the blind goddess with her cornucopia, the Parcae wielding the distaff, the thread of life, and the abhorred shears, seemed but dim and shadowy abstractions of mythology, when I had gazed upon an assemblage exercising, as I dreamt, a not less eventful power, and all presented to me in palpable and living ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... like those of the Homeric age. Story-telling is much appreciated by all classes. There are wandering minstrels who gain their livelihood by going from house to house to recite the stories in prose and poetry which they have learned by heart. Spindle and distaff are used in spinning the wool into yarn, which is then knit or woven into cloth ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... their families. Most of their garments were made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff, which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... condemned both parties to death; but if her parents refused to put her to death, she became a slave of the crown. The Ripuarian law condemned the female delinquent to slavery; but the woman had the alternative of killing her base-born husband. She was offered a distaff and a sword. If she chose the distaff she became a slave; if a sword she struck it to the heart of her paramour and emancipated ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Belleisle knows how to handle. "Yes, Kaiser you, your Majesty; excellent!" And sets to consider the methods: "Hm, ha, hm! Think, your Majesty: ought not that Bohemian Vote to be excluded, for one thing? Kur-Bohmen is fallen into the distaff, Maria Theresa herself cannot vote. Surely question will rise, Whether distaff can, validly, hand it over to distaff's husband, as they are about doing? Whether, in fact, Kur-Bohmen is not in abeyance ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... aguish hiding, Fell bright-white to the feet, with a purple border of issue. Wreaths sat on each hoar crown, whose snows flush'd rosy beneath them; Still each hand fulfilled its pious labour eternal. 310 Singly the left upbore in wool soft-hooded a distaff, Whereto the right large threads down drawing deftly, with upturn'd Fingers shap'd them anew; then thumbs earth-pointed in even Balance twisted a spindle on orb'd wheels smoothly rotating. So clear'd softly between and tooth-nipt even it ever 315 Onward moved; still clung on wan lips, sodden ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... full of berries, most of them resembling blackberries, though white in colour, and others similar to huckleberries. In this region the women were employed in beating and preparing the inner rind of the juniper bark, to which they gave the appearance of flax, and others were spinning with a distaff; again, others were weaving robes of this fibrous thread, intermixed with strips of sea-otter skin. The men were fishing on the river with drag nets between two canoes, thus intercepting the salmon coming ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... the procession while I was looking down at the ground, and knew that his very look desecrated me like the rain that washed all the blossoms off the young vine-shoots last year. It was just as if he were drawing a net round my heart—but, oh! what a net! It was as if the flax on a distaff had been set on fire, and the flames spun out into thin threads, and the meshes knotted of the fiery yarn. I felt every thread and knot burning into my soul, and could not cast it off nor even defend myself. Aye! you may look grieved and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... him to death. Sophia the empress, Justinian's wife, broke a bitter jest upon Narsetes the eunuch, a famous captain then disquieted for an overthrow which he lately had: that he was fitter for a distaff and to keep women company, than to wield a sword, or to be general of an army: but it cost her dear, for he so far distasted it, that he went forthwith to the adverse part, much troubled in his thoughts, caused the Lombards to rebel, and thence procured ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... reduction is commenced. In all the minor details of the mill there has been the same marked change, until the modern merchant mill of to-day no more resembles that of twenty-five years ago than does the modern cotton mill the old-fashioned distaff. The change has extended into the winter wheat sections, and no mill in the United States can hope to hold its place in the markets unless it is provided with the many improvements in machinery and processes which have resulted from the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... you; But you must swear to keep it secret. Enter SEJANUS. Sej. I knew the Fates had on their distaff left More of our ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... Protesilaus survive; And Hector died, his brothers yet alive. My wench's vows for thee what should I show, Which stormy south winds into sea did blow? The seventh day came, none following might'st thou see, And the Fate's distaff empty stood to thee: Yet words in thy benumbed palate rung; "Farewell, Corinna," cried thy dying tongue. Elysium hath a wood of holm-trees black, Whose earth doth not perpetual green grass lack. 50 There good birds rest (if we believe things hidden), Whence unclean fowls are said ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... occupants from the darts of the enemy. They were also furnished with tackles for hoisting up stones and weapons to hurl at the foe. Above the main-mast was a top-mast or topgallant-mast, called the distaff; the yards were hoisted up much as in the present day, and were secured by parrels or hoops to the mast. They were fitted with topping-lifts and braces. Each mast carried two square sails, and in after days the Romans introduced triangular sails. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... leading to the chase Her kilted nymphs, her hounds with eyeballs burning; And here was Hercules in woman's dress, His warlike hand the peaceful distaff turning. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... bright-red dress and her feet were bare. Her black hair hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked as if she had just ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... matter of language. It involves stripping the immigrant of much of what he has inherited from the centuries. He is the finished product of those centuries. His speech, his manner, his dress, his ideas along social and political and industrial lines have been fashioned upon the distaff of time. He lands upon American soil and at once there is a strangeness in the atmosphere that awes him, it is a new world in truth and the newness of it repels him and drives him back upon himself. The faintest link between the new world ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... find of the Staffs was one Jacobstaff, a famous and renowned astronomer, who, by Dorothy his wife, had issue seven sons—viz., Bickerstaff, Longstaff, Wagstaff, Quarterstaff, Whitestaff, Falstaff, and Tipstaff. He also had a younger brother, who was twice married, and had five sons—viz., Distaff, Pikestaff, Mopstaff, Broomstaff, and Raggedstaff. As for the branch from whence you spring, I shall say very little of it, only that it is the chief of the Staffs, and called Bickerstaff, quasi Biggerstaff; as much as to say, the Great Staff, or Staff of Staffs; ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... couldn't help thinking back to the Bunch, the Planet Strappers. To the wild fulfillment they had sought... So—most of them had made it. They had become men—the hard way. Except, of course, Eileen—the distaff side... They had planned, callowly, to meet and compare adventures in ten years. And this ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... The distaff is worn and smooth with the touch Of the now folded hands that used it so much; And lingering there I clearly can trace The sweet smile of love from a well-cherished face, Which sheds round about it a halo divine ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... are the old spinning wheel, the clock reel, the linen wheel with its distaff, your grandfather's knapsack and cartridge-box and Continental coat, your great-aunt's Leghorn bonnet and side-saddle, or pillion, great files of the village newspapers—the "Morning Cry" and "Midnight Yell," besides ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... duties of his great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, there to keep holiday and squander riches, and, still worse, his precious time, to the shame and scandal of Rome, inglorious and without excuse,—a Samson at the feet of Delilah, or a Hercules throwing away his club to seize the distaff of Omphale, confessing to the potency of that mysterious charm which the sage at the court of an Eastern prince pronounced the strongest power on earth. Never was a strong man more enthralled than was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... surely a worm-eaten, wooden chest which excites curiosity. The dust is lying on it hand high, the lock is still there, but there is no need to look for the key; for one can forage in it wherever one wants, and when with fear and trembling the child does so, he pulls out a torn boot, or the broken distaff of a spinning wheel which was laid aside half a century ago. Shuddering he flings away the double find, because involuntarily he asks himself where is the leg that wore the boot and where is the hand that set the wheel in motion. But the mother carefully picks up the one ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... woman in the full pride of her beauty and maturity. And this boy would condemn her—the most delightful, the most attractive, the most unselfish companion ever desired by a man—to sit in the chimney-corner like an old crone with a distaff, throughout all the years that fate may yet hold in store for her—with no greater interest in life than to watch the fading of her own sweet face in the glass, and to await the intervals during which he would ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... after him they ran; And eke with staves many another man. Ran Coll our dogge, and Talbot, and Gerlond, And Malkin with her distaff in her hond. Ran cow and calf, and eke the very hogges, So fered were for the barking of the dogges, And shouting of the men and women eke, They ronnen so, hem ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... Bright-white, purple of hem enfolding heels in its edges; Snowy the fillets that bound heads aged by many a year-tide, And, as their wont aye was, their hands plied labour unceasing. 310 Each in her left upheld with soft fleece clothed a distaff, Then did the right that drew forth thread with upturn of fingers Gently fashion the yarn which deftly twisted by thumb-ball Speeded the spindle poised by thread-whorl perfect of polish; Thus as the work was wrought, the lengths were trimmed wi' the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... inexpensive straw hats of various and astonishing colours. Woman he would have found in beautiful shades of blue, in such light garments "woven wind" as Theocritus speaks of when he presents the wife of his doctor with a new ivory distaff. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... hundred years ago, when Aaron Force, who came over with Leonard Calvert, received a grant of the land—a thousand acres, then. We have not lost an acre in all these generations, but rather gained a third more. There are fifteen hundred acres now. All this must 'fall to the distaff' and go out of the family unless my daughter should marry her cousin, Leonidas Force. He also has recently inherited a considerable estate, joining this, and, like this, with a long sea front. It is not always that young people submit to be guided by their elders in the matter of marriage, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... war chariots which held our wives, daughters and children, my father, brother and myself wished to make sure by a last look that nothing was lacking for the defense of that car which held our dear ones. My mother, Margarid, as calm as when she held the distaff in the corner of her own fireplace, was leaning against the oak panel which formed the body of the chariot. She had set Henory and Martha to work, giving more play to the straps which, fastened to pegs driven in the edge of the ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... no account, but by one or other of the chiefs of the Shield-ring. Biorn was happy on such occasions, for he himself came into the songs, since it was right to honour the gentle lady, the Queen. He heard how on the distaff side he was sprung from proud western earls, Thorwolf the Black, and Halfdan and Hallward Skullsplitter. But on the spear side he was of still loftier kin, for Odin was first in his pedigree, and after him the Volsung chiefs, and Gothfred the Proud, and—that no magnificence might be wanting—one ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... heathen Saxons. Her long dishevelled gray hair flew back from her uncovered head; the inebriating delight of gratified vengeance contended in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandished the distaff which she held in her hand, as if she had been one of the Fatal Sisters who spin and abridge the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... On this auspicious day, for some few hours I claim to be your hostess. Scenes so awful With flashing light, force wisdom on us all! E'en women at the distaff hence may see, 390 That bad men may rebel, but ne'er be free; May whisper, when the waves of faction foam, None love their country, but who love their home: For freedom can with those alone abide, Who wear the golden chain, with honest pride, 395 Of love and duty, at their own fire-side: While ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the Kalevide and Sarvik engaged in a terrific wrestling-match, which lasted for seven days and nights, with varying success. At length the shade of Linda, who was looking on, took her distaff, swung it ten times round her head, and dashed it to the ground. The hint was not lost on her son. He seized Sarvik by the garters, whirled him ten times round, and then hurled him down, set his knee on his chest, and seized his throat and tried to strangle him. Then ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... She held the distaff which she bore in her hand (for she had been spinning) as if it were a spear; her limbs were goodly and shapely, and she trod the thick grass of the Vale with a kind of wary firmness, as though ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... shouts, not always of the most discreet, are heard from all sides, and loud above all rings the regular Io Talasse—whatever that may have meant, for no man now knows, and almost certainly no one knew then. In the midst of the procession Marcia, followed by bearers of her spindle and distaff, is being led by two pretty boys, while a third carries a torch; Silius meanwhile is scattering nuts or walnuts, or confetti made like them, to the crowd. Arrived on the Caelian, the bride is once more seized and lifted over the threshold; when inside ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... was filled and trimmed, Agnes took it on her arm. Elsie raised and poised on her head the great square basket that contained her merchandise, and began walking erect and straight down the narrow rocky stairs that led into the gorge, holding her distaff with its white flax in her hands, and stepping as easily as if she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... what his wife had seen: and one winter evening beside the peat-fire, as Annette was busy with her distaff, and he sat smoking and watching the glowing embers, he told her her mother's story. She and Paul's father, the elder Paul Gignol, had been betrothed in their youth; but his fishing-smack had struck on the rocks one foggy night, and gone ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... on a low stool, so near the wheel, that several times her short, curly hair mingled with the flax of the distaff, and came within a hair's breadth of being twisted ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... him where they lay. Appall'd he heard,— "And dropp'd the tools his dexterous hand contain'd; "But soon recover'd. Slender chains of brass, "And nets, and traps he form'd; so wonderous fine, "They mock'd the power of sight: for far less fine, "The smallest thread the distaff forms; or line, "Spun by the spider, pendent from the roof. "Curious he form'd it; at the lightest touch "It yielded; each momentum, slight howe'er, "Caus'd its recession: this he artful hung, "The couch enfolding. When the faithless wife, "And paramour upon the bed embrac'd, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... 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 ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... this second paper, which you have kept in order to proceed by degrees, probably contains some demand more difficult to grant than that of yielding to a child scarcely a year old a crown which belongs to me by birthright, and to abandon my sceptre to take a distaff." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... or thirteen, playing at ball with little Ned on the terrace, and coming with tardy steps to her daily task of spinning, had little of the princess about her; and yet when she sat down, and the management of distaff and thread threw her shoulders back, there was something in the poise of her small head and the gesture of her hand that forcibly recalled the Queen. Moreover, all the boys around were at her beck and call, not only Humfrey ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... night was e'er. Then went Alcmena forth and told the thing To Teiresias the seer, whose words were truth, And bade him rede her what the end should be:— 'And if the gods bode mischief, hide it not, Pitying, from me: man shall not thus avoid The doom that Fate upon her distaff spins. Son of Eueres, thou hast ears ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... Literatures;—once more, as in the old time of the Leitourgia, a most waste imbroglio, and world-wide jungle and jumble; waiting terribly to be 'well-edited' and 'well-burnt'! Arachne started with forefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet thou seest Manchester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... a third time, her hair was cropped close, while she stood in the pillory, and she was marched to one of the gates and made to abjure the City for the remainder of her life. A procurer or procuress was also set in the thewe to the accompaniment of music, with a "distaf with towen"—i.e., a distaff dressed with flax—in his or her hand; and the transgressor was made to serve as a public spectacle for such time as the Mayor and Aldermen deemed fit. A priest detected in the company of a loose female, if she were single, was conveyed to the Tun, attended ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... James Watt made the real beginning of the application of steam to industry by patenting his steam engine; in 1760 Wedgwood established the pottery industry in England; in 1767 Hargreaves devised the spinning-jenny, which banished the spindle and distaff and the old spinning-wheel; in 1769 Arkwright evolved his spinning-frame; and in 1785 Cartwright completed the process by inventing the power loom for weaving. In 1784 a great improvement in the smelting of iron ores (puddling) was worked out. These inventions, all English, were revolutionary ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... comes to her husband's house, she finds at the door a broom; or, if he takes possession of her's, a ploughshare is placed there: both allegorical of their duties. The distaff of the bride is carried by an old ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... occupy both sides of our path, and the fine level road is adorned with a beautiful red flower named Bolcamaria. The markets or sleeping-places are well supplied with provisions by great numbers of women, every one of whom is seen spinning cotton with a spindle and distaff, exactly like those which were in use among the ancient Egyptians. A woman is scarcely ever seen going to the fields, though with a pot on her head, a child on her back, and the hoe over her shoulder, but she is employed in this way. The cotton was brought ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... found among the ruins of Troy, with the aid of which we can form a very definite idea of the private life of its people. Some fragments of an ivory lyre, and some pipes pierced with three holes at equal distances, bear witness to their taste for music; a distaff, still full of charred wool, deserted by the spinner when she fled before the conflagration, tells of domestic industry and manual dexterity, while marble and stone phalli prove that the generative ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... circular mound, up which the short trees scramble amain, with a long mossy staircase climbing up to a belvedere. This staircase, rising suddenly out of the leafy dusk to you don't see where, is delightfully fantastic. You expect to see an old woman in a crimson petticoat and with a distaff come hobbling down and turn into a fairy and offer you three wishes. I should name for my own first wish that one didn't have to be a Frenchman to come and live and dream and work at the Academie ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... that the sky could be seen by the worshippers of the "Genius of heavenly light." The oath me-Dius Fidius could not be taken except in the open air. The chapel contained relics of the kingly period, the wool, distaff, spindle, and slippers of Tanaquil, and brass clypea or medallions, made of ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... exceedingly industrious, and took great delight in making her family comfortable, and, in fact, supplying the wants of every living thing about her, even to the cat and the dog. "She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She riseth also while it is yet dark, and giveth meat to her household, and ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... much-confused knight, recognizing, step by step, the path of the night before. The turf hut was before him—the door was open—and in the doorway sat the maiden herself, spinning, the distaff by her side, the spindle dancing on the ground, and the pilgrim's hat no longer hiding her beauteous brow and wealth of dark braided hair. But, intolerable sight, seven or eight of last night's loungers were dispersed hither and thither in the bushes, gazing with all their eyes, endeavouring ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the Volscian bands, Fierce horsemen, each in glittering arms bedight, A warrior-virgin; ne'er her tender hands Had plied the distaff; war was her delight, Her joy to race the whirlwind and to fight. Swift as the breeze, she skimmed the golden grain, Nor bent the tapering wheatstalks in her flight, So swift, the billows of the heaving main ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... indefinable being who suddenly issued from a clump of bushes, pulled away the cow by its rope. This woman wore on her head a red handkerchief, beneath which trailed long locks of hair in color and shape like the flax on a distaff. She wore no fichu. A coarse woollen petticoat in black and gray stripes, too short by several inches, exposed her legs. She might have belonged to some tribe of Red-Skins described by Cooper, for her legs, neck, and arms were the color of brick. ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... Marseille earthenware, filled with boiled chestnuts, the frugal breakfast of an earlier time which nothing could induce her to change. Off she went at once with long strides, the keys jingling on the great silver key-ring fastened to her belt, her plate in her hand, held in equilibrium by the distaff which she held under her arm as if ready for battle, for she spun all day long, and did not stop even to eat her chestnuts. A glance, as she passed, at the stable, still dark, where the horses were sluggishly moving ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... hint regarding Anne's skill in divination will be remembered. Having regard to the period, and to the alchemistic nature of the goods that composed so much of Anne's stock-in-trade at the sign of the Golden Distaff, in Paternoster Row, it may be conjectured that the love-lorn Frances had thoughts ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... began to flame The star of love; while o'er the northern sky That, which has oft raised Juno's jealousy, Pour'd forth its beauteous scintillating beam: Beside her kindled hearth the housewife dame, Half-dress'd, and slipshod, 'gan her distaff ply: And now the wonted hour of woe drew nigh, That wakes to tears the lover from his dream: When my sweet hope unto my mind appear'd, Not in the custom'd way unto my sight; For grief had bathed my lids, and ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... that "there was none that moved the wing or opened the mouth or peeped." We see the swarms of bees and flies resting on the branches in the summer heat; the ploughshare lying in the furrow; the tow and the distaff; the ox turning its head to be patted by the hand of its owner, and the ass trotting off at feeding-time to its master's crib. The prophet looks with a specially observant and sympathetic eye on the toils of men—the woodman thinning the ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... Sirens are not pleasures, but Desires: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain desire; but in Plato's Vision of Destiny, phantoms of divine desire; singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff of Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal; (desire of the eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters of the Muses. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... others of the manly sex they seat, To ply the distaff, broider, card and sow, In female gown descending to the feet, Which renders them effeminate and slow; Some chained, another labour to complete, Are tasked, to keep their cattle, or to plough. Few are the males; and scarce the warriors ken, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... and but four or five feet wide, may be called so—Caper saw at the doors of the houses, standing chatting to each other, many old women, their white hair flying in every direction, who, as they talked, knitted stockings; or, with distaff in hand, twirled the spindle, making flax into thread for spinning, or wool into woof and web for weaving. Hearing a shuttle, he looked in at an open door, and found a young girl busily weaving a heavy blue cloth at a queer old loom; not far from her, an elderly woman was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... consisting of two diminutive millstones turned by the hand; this was placed upon a praskeen, or coarse apron, spread under it on the floor to receive the meal. An old woman, her mother, sat spinning flax with the distaff—for as yet flax wheels were scarcely known—and a lubberly young fellow about sixteen, with able, well shaped limbs and great promise of bodily strength, sat before the fire managing a double task, to wit, roasting, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Seigneur de Sainte Marie solemnly, "to my wife, Onega de la Noue de Sainte Marie, chatelaine by right of marriage to this seigneury, and also to the Chateau d'Andelys in Normandy, and to the estate of Varennes in Provence, while retaining in her own right the hereditary chieftainship on the distaff side of the nation of the Onondagas. My angel, I have been endeavouring to persuade our friends to remain with us at Sainte Marie instead of journeying on ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... maid, spinning together in the Hall, their fingers drawing the roving from the distaff and stretching it out as the spindle twisted it, were finally on the point of ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... bright yellow color. She was conducted in the evening to her future husband's home by three boys, one of whom carried before her a torch, the other two supporting her by the arm. They were accompanied by friends of both parties. The groom received the bride at the door, which she entered with distaff and spindle in hand. The keys of the house were then delivered to her. The day ended with a feast given by the husband, after which the bride was conducted to the bridal couch, in the atrium, which was adorned with flowers. On the following day another ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... head—that head of his that was so like Odysseus'—high and proudly. She saw that her son was now indeed a man. Penelope spoke no word to him, for a new thought had come into her mind. She turned round on the stairs and went back with her hand-maids to the chamber where her loom and her distaff were. And as she went up the stairway and away from them her wooers muttered one to the other that she would soon have to choose one of them for ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... woman rose, and not a word said she, Without a pause her distaff laid aside, And left the cradle where the orphan cried, Took up the jar, and with ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... habits had Clorinda been from her childhood. She disdained to put her hand to the needle and the distaff. She renounced every soft indulgence, every timid retirement, thinking that virtue could be safe wherever it went in its own courageous heart; and so she armed her countenance with pride, and pleased herself with making it stern, but ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... only a portion of the family linen. These humble housewives count their sheets by the dozen of dozens, and linen is still spun at home, although not on the scale of former days. The better-off purchase strong, unbleached goods of local manufacture. Here and there I saw old women plying spindle and distaff, but the spinning-wheel no longer hums in every ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... one fault which was unfortunately too often committed in former days, and which is perhaps sometimes committed still. Let us not fall into the mistake of fancying that everything antiquarian, which we do not see at first sight the exact use of, must necessarily be something very mysterious. Old distaff-whorls, armlets, etc., have, in this illogical spirit, been sometimes described as Druidical amulets and talismen; ornamented rings and bosses from the ancient rich Celtic horse-harness, discovered in sepulchral barrows, have been published as ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... the most, which rings newest in their ears. But let thy heart and mind endure to listen, for not Odysseus only lost in Troy the day of his returning, but many another likewise perished. Howbeit go to thy chamber and mind thine own housewiferies, the loom and distaff, and bid thy handmaids ply their tasks. But speech shall be for men, for all, but for me in chief; for mine is the lordship ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... VOLITION on the banks of Nile Where bloom'd the waving flax on Delta's isle, Pleased ISIS taught the fibrous stems to bind, And part with hammers from the adhesive rind; With locks of flax to deck the distaff-pole, And whirl with graceful bend the dancing spole. In level lines the length of woof to spread, And dart the shuttle through the parting thread. 260 So ARKWRIGHT taught from Cotton-pods to cull, And stretch ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... sons I saw Of Verli and of Vecchio, well content With unrobed jerkin, and their good dames handling The spindle and the flax.... One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it With sounds that lulled the parents' infancy; Another, with her maidens, drawing off The tresses from the distaff, lectured them Old tales of Troy, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... capitulated. The archbishop of Toledo, considering these events as decisive of the fortunes of the war, now openly joined the king of Portugal at the head of five hundred lances, boasting at the same time, that "he had raised Isabella from the distaff, and would soon send her back to ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... had bought my carriage and horses and driver for the journey of forty miles, and I began to look round on the landscape with a cumulative feeling of ownership in everything I saw. For me, old women spinning in old-world fashion, with distaff and spindle, flax as white as their own hair, came to roadside doors, or moved back and forth under orchard trees. For me, the peasants toiled in the fields together, wearing for my sake wide straw hats, or gay ribbons, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... who attempted to plant the duke's standard on the walls, was fiercely attacked by Jeanne Hachette, who, snatching the standard from his hands, threw him headlong over the wall. The assailants, in short, were completely repulsed; nor was the distaff, once thrown aside, resumed, till the ladies of Beauvais had forced the Duke of Burgundy to retire in shame from their walls. In memory of this gallant achievement, the Municipality of Beauvais ordered a general procession of the inhabitants to take place every year, on the ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Bonaparte opposed with fortitude the influence of counsels which she believed fatal to her husband. He indeed spoke rarely, and seldom confidentially, with her on politics or public affairs. "Mind your distaff or your needle," was with him a common phrase. The individuals who applied themselves with most perseverance in support of the hereditary question were Lucien, Roederer, Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, and Fontanel. Their efforts were aided by the conclusion of peace with ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... after supper, as Jack was seated at a little distance from the rest of the party, while the fair Elizabeth was nimbly plying her distaff. ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... very interesting to notice that in the early representations of Athena, while she is very warlike in her bearing and raises her lance in her right hand, she also carries in her left the distaff and the spindle and the lamp of knowledge. In the later art of Phidias she is still stern and severe, but her face also expresses dignity and grandeur of thought and character. Later still, her warlike attributes are ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... little remains; but in the southeastern corner, where the land begins to slope abruptly to the valley below, there are to be seen several stories of the ancient building. Here one comes upon the rooms marked with the so-called "distaff" pattern, supposed to indicate that they were ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... independence; sole remaining representative of Knut (or Knut's sister), of Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old Gorm; and ancestor of all the subsequent kings of Denmark for some 400 years; himself coming, as we see, only by the Distaff side, all of the Sword or male side having died so soon. Early death, it has been observed, was the Great Knut's allotment, and all his posterity's as well;—fatal limit (had there been no others, which we see there were) ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... linen. Woofs, white and fine as those of Holland, and quite as good, are there produced. This variety of work commences after harvest. In the autumn evenings, women, young girls, &c., assemble at different houses, with their distaff or bundle of flax, which they place before the hearth. It is pleasant, indeed, to see this collection of industrious women, busied in the performance of the task prescribed to them, laughing, talking, without sometimes ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... all his predecessors in effeminacy, luxury, and cowardice.(1007) He never went out of his palace, but spent all his time amongst a company of women, dressed and painted like them, and employed like them at the distaff. He placed all his happiness and glory in the possession of immense treasures, in feasting and rioting, and indulging himself in all the most infamous and criminal pleasures. He ordered two verses to be put upon ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Dionysus has sent the sting of his enthusiasm upon them, and has pushed it to a sort of madness, a madness which imitates the true Thiasus. Forced to have the form without the profit of his worship, the whole female population, leaving distaff and spindle, and headed by the three princesses, have deserted the town, and are lying encamped on the bare rocks, or under the pines, among the solitudes of Cithaeron. And it is just at this point that the divine child, [61] ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... can keep tally on a stick or a distaff. It is unnecessary for a girl to scribble in books. They never come to ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from sunny Italy, or busy England. Yet the towns were frequent and lively, and the cordial politeness and ready smile of the wooden-shoed peasant restored good humour to the splenetic. Now, the old woman sat no more at the door with her distaff—the lank beggar no longer asked charity in courtier-like phrase; nor on holidays did the peasantry thread with slow grace the mazes of the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went in procession with him from town to town through ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... see; And that strange sounds were in his ears Which none might hear but he. A woman fair and stately, But pale as are the dead, Oft through the watches of the night Sat spinning by his bed. And as she plied the distaff, In a sweet voice and low, She sang of great old houses, And fights fought long ago. So spun she, and so sang she, Until the east was gray. Then pointed to her bleeding breast, And ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... their wealth and their pride. Some had little children, whose only covering was strings of beads round the waist, neck, ankles, and wrists: an elder girl of about ten years had a small cloth about her loins. We saw no furniture in their huts except a few bowls and calabashes, a rude distaff for spinning cotton, and the usual bed-hurdle covered with mats. The ladies were very garrulous and inquisitive, narrowly inspecting our skin and dress, and asking many questions about European ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... progressive age and having made a great contribution to Science you can hardly escape the fame rightfully yours. You are a public figure now and must stand in the light. Would it not be preferable, mam, to talk as lady to gentleman (I am related to the Taliaferros of Ruffin County on the distaff side) than to be badgered ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... own croupier. Besides, he is so much in London, and you so much here. You sit with the distaff; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the inn, a wedding procession which could not have been much smaller, and the singing of an old woman, who sat with her distaff in front of her house, was the wedding march. Nino seemed in no great haste, I thought, and I let them walk as they would, while I kept soberly in the middle of the road, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... stick is Distaff, a word which is derived from the Low German—diesse, the bunch of flax on a distaff, and staff. Originally it would be the staff on which the tow or flax was fastened, and from which the thread was drawn. The modern representative of the spindle with the twisted thread wound on it is the "cop," and ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... mouth inseparate words, And with blind lips and fingers wrung my breast Hard, and thrust out with foolish hands and feet, Murmuring; but those grey women with bound hair Who fright the gods frighted not him; he laughed Seeing them, and pushed out hands to feel and haul Distaff and thread, intangible; but they Passed, and I hid the brand, and in my heart Laughed likewise, having all my will of heaven. But now I know not if to left or right The gods have drawn us hither; for again I dreamt, ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... have been sent from Portugal, a country which is near Spain, and very like it in all respects. It is a very fine country, famous for wine, and oil; and the sheep are much prized for their superior wool. The ladies of rank still spin flax from a distaff, to show their industry. The peasantry are not very well off; their only luxury is tobacco, and their usual fare is bread, made of Indian corn, with a salted pilchard, or a head of garlic, to give it a relish. They are polite and hospitable; but the people of the towns have not the ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step, watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine gallery. Crimson carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the balcony overhead the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... taunt in the dialogue. We know the patterns on the Dauphin's armour and the Pucelle's sword, the crest on Warwick's helmet and the colour of Bardolph's nose. Portia has golden hair, Phoebe is black-haired, Orlando has chestnut curls, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek's hair hangs like flax on a distaff, and won't curl at all. Some of the characters are stout, some lean, some straight, some hunchbacked, some fair, some dark, and some are to blacken their faces. Lear has a white beard, Hamlet's father a grizzled, and Benedick is to shave his in the course of the play. Indeed, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... hunter in India, should anything happen!" There was a ferocious, wild gleam in Alan Hawke's eyes as the aide grasped his hat and stick. "I wish to probe the family records and find out what I can of the 'distaff side of the line,' as Mr. Guy Livingstone would say. I have some really valuable presents, and I am on honor to the Viceroy in this, for, of course, a baronetcy must not be given into sullied hands. Johnstone will probably hermetically seal the girl ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... and Court were in residence at the rural palace of Eaux-Perdues. Need I relate what happened then? It is well known how the Princess Aurore, wandering one day through the castle, came to the top of a keep, where, in a garret, she found a dear old woman, all alone, plying her distaff. She had never heard of the King's regulations, forbidding the ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France
... with that huge bunch of materials for Lady Mabel's hortus siccus, thinks himself like Hercules with the distaff. To me he looks like a florist's apprentice, selling his flowers at a penny a bunch. It must be confessed though that the fellow has talents and tact. How completely has he contrived to shut out rivalry, by availing himself of my lady's weakness in imagining ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... you must know, were quite poor, and had to work pretty hard for a living. Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden, while Baucis was always busy with her distaff, or making a little butter and cheese with their cow's milk, or doing one thing and another about the cottage. Their food was seldom anything but bread, milk, and vegetables, with sometimes a portion of honey from their beehive, and now and then a bunch of grapes, that had ripened against ...
— The Miraculous Pitcher - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
