"Razor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dispassionately indeed was he delivering himself of these remarks that it was impossible to tell whether he meant their application to be personal, to me, or general, to my associates. "I went to jail when I was fourteen because I wanted a knife to make kite sticks, and I stole a razor from a barber. I was bitter when they steered me into a lockup in Hickory Street. It was full of bugs and crooks, and they put me in the same cell with an old-timer named 'Red' Waters; who was one of the slickest safe-blowers around in those days. Red took a shine to me, found ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... addresses me as Madame, and preserves the most perfect coolness imaginable at moments when every man is more or less amenable. To him love-making!—on my word, it is nothing more nor less than shaving himself. He wipes the razor, puts it back in its case, and looks in the glass as if he were saying, 'I have ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... that such waters were apt to swarm with giant crocodiles of varying type and unvarying ferocity, as well as with ferocious flesh-eating fish that swarmed in wolfish packs, and were able to tear an aurochs or a mastodon in pieces with their razor-edged teeth. He gazed desirously at the opposite shore, however—which looked to him much more beautiful and more interesting than that on which he stood—and wondered if he should ever be able to devise some way of reaching it ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... marriage to a man three times her age; one Jacques Letellier, who offered generously to take the young girl as payment for a debt owed by his convivial comrade, M. Dumont. Berene wept and begged piteously to be spared this horrible sacrifice of her young life, whereupon Pierre Dumont seized his razor and threatened suicide as the other alternative from the dishonour of debt, and Berene in terror yielded her word and herself the next day to the debasing mockery of marriage with a depraved ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... biscuit, and a slice of cold salt beef to us after a watch on deck. To be sure, we were mere animals, and had this life lasted a year instead of a month, we should have been little better than the ropes in the ship. Not a razor, nor a brush, nor a drop of water, except the rain and the spray, had come near us all the time: for we were on an allowance of fresh water—and who would strip and wash himself in salt water on deck, in the snow and ice, with the thermometer ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Tecumseh's breast. Tecumseh had been shot with a rifle, but, before expiring, appeared to have shot Wheatley with a pistol, which he still held in his hand. R——— affirms that Tecumseh was flayed by the Kentucky men on the spot, and his skin converted into razor-straps. I have left out the most striking point of the narrative, after all, as R——— told it, viz. that soon after Wheatley passed him, he suddenly ceased to hear Tecumseh's voice ringing through the forest, as he gave his orders. He was at ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... curiosity was awakened, and his comparative warmth in this place, out of the razor-edged wind—oh, what a relief to be out of that infernal sawing blast!—made him explore. And he ran along the edge of the manger to a hole in the wall, which led—the peculiar and indescribable smell said so—through ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... time is writing the biggest book—and his neighbors smile because his clothes are rusty. This is the reward they get in their own day and their own generation, when it would sweeten their lives, make them worth living. The fellow who invents a mouse-trap or a safety razor or devises a way of sticking two hogs where one was killed before, inherits the earth, sees his name and fame heralded in every periodical; while the other, the real man—God, it's unbelievable, neither more nor less; and still ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... eyes that plainly said they wished he had remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book, and jotted down a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms even from a razor-prop. Was not Hippias's dream the very counterpart of Richard's position? He, had he looked narrowly, might have taken the clear path: he, too, had been making dainty steps till he was surrounded by the grinning blades. And from that text Sir ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was down. They were off. Off in a smother of spume and dust. Off for the short seven furlongs eating up less than a minute and a half of time. All this preparation, all the preliminaries, the whetting of appetites to razor edge, the tilts with fortune, the defiance of fate, the moil and toil and tribulations of months—all brought to a head, focused on this minute and a half. All, all for one minute and ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... right—it is called the Castle Market. Well, I was passing through that very identical Castle Market, when I observed a butcher preparing to kill a calf. He had a huge knife in his hand—it was as sharp as a razor. The calf was standing beside him—he drew the knife to plunge it into the animal. Just as he was in the act of doing so, a little boy about four years old—his only son—the loveliest little baby I ever saw, ran suddenly ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... our best and rush things in order to get through with the work. Besides, if you will come this way with me, you will see that there is no idling; we are just now going to fell an oak, and before a quarter of an hour is over it will be lying on the ground, cut off as neatly as if with a razor." ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... the very edge of the mountain roof, so the boy could look down the mountain walls, he noticed that they were simply filled with birds' nests; and in the blue sea beneath him, lay surf-scoters and eider-ducks and kittiwakes and guillemots and razor-bills—so pretty and peaceful—busying themselves with fishing ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... Chanden Sing and Mansing, the two Hindoos, divested of all their clothing except a doti, were squatting near the edge of the lake, having their heads shaved clean by Bijesing the Johari. I must confess that I was somewhat annoyed when I saw them using my best razor for the purpose, but I repressed my anger on remembering that, according to their religion, the fact of being at Mansarowar absolved them from all sins. My two servants, with heads turned towards Kelas Mount, seemed excited, and were ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... thick club. Tvashtri of great strength took up in wrath, a huge mountain and Surya stood with a bright dart, and Mrityu with a battle-axe. Aryaman stalked about with a terrible bludgeon furnished with sharp spikes, and Mitra stood there with a discus sharp as a razor. And, O monarch, Pusha and Bhaga and Savitri, in wrath, rushed at Krishna and Partha with bows and scimitars in hand. And Rudras and the Vasus, the mighty Maruts and the Viswedevas and the Sadhyas, all resplendent ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... strange depolarized feeling consequent upon realizing that his whole worldly possessions consisted in three "grey-back" shirts, two pairs of cotton pants, two pairs of woollen socks, a towel; a hold-all containing razor, shaving-brush, spoon, knife and fork, and a button-stick; a cylindrical valise with hair-brush, clothes-brush, brass-brush, and boot-brushes; a whip, burnisher, and dandy-brush (all three, for some reason, to be paid for as part of a "free" kit); jack-boots and jack-spurs, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... overlooked and neglected his vast wholly-shaven face, which thus showed not so much for perfunctorily scamped as for not treated, as for neither formed nor fondled nor finished, at all. Nothing seemed to have been done for it but what the razor and the sponge, the tooth-brush and the looking-glass could officiously do; it had in short resisted any possibly finer attrition at the hands of fifty years of offered experience. It had developed on the lines, if lines they could be ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... alternative, and jammed her into the teeth of it for all I thought she could stand without imitating an opera hat or an accordion. And, glory be, she made it, the blessed little old cross between a porpoise and a safety-razor blade! Whether the gale really moderated, or I got more nerve, I don't know; but anyhow I gave her more and more, half a knot at a time, until we were actually making appreciable headway against it. I never ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... but Aaron Burnham could have had the chance and the good will. Old Aaron.... And Aaron's knives were always razor sharp. Drawn once across ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... Nitro-benzole Making, Nitro-glycerine Making, Paint Makers, Paper Making, Philosophical Instrument Makers, Photographers, Pieric Acid Making, Portland Cement Making, Pottery Manufacture, Printers, Quicksilver Mining, Rag Pickers, Razor Grinders, Red Lead Making, Rope Making, Sand Paper Making, Saw Grinders, Scissors Grinders, Shoddy Manufacture, Shot Making, Silk Making, Silver Mining, Skinners, Slag, Wood Manufacture, Steel Makers, Steel Pen Making, Stereotypers, Stone Masons, Straw Hat Makers, Sulphuric ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... from either side of her face to serve as ear-rings; another figure followed them equally curiously dressed, with a basin under one arm, a pair of sailmaker's shears hanging round his neck, and a piece of rusty hoop shaped like a razor in his hand. A fourth person, tall and gaunt, was seen in a cocked-hat, a thick cane in one hand, and a box of pills of large proportions in the other. Following them came a party of monsters in green dresses with long tails, and heads covered by ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... shirts, their "reinforced" riding-breeches, the substantial boots, and the field blouses and broad-brimmed campaign hats that Arizona suns and storms have long since robbed of gloss or freshness. The faces are strong and virile in almost every case. It is ten days since the razor has profaned a single chin, and very stubbly and ugly do they look, but long experience has taught them that the sooner the beard is allowed to sprout when actual campaigning is to be done the greater the eventual comfort. Occasionally ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... has his faults, but I know them. He always forgets white ties and handkerchiefs, but these I can buy, borrow or steal. You would forget white shirts and dress trousers, which mean nothing to you, but are all the world to me. Swabey packs my shaving-brush and my safety razor into my dress shoes, where I come upon them eventually. You would leave them out altogether. I am grateful to you all for your generous offer, but Swabey shall do my packing—that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... a jovial misunderstanding with his half-brother Willie, who cut a neat wedge out of the rim of Tom's ear with a razor. He had intended, of course, to gash Tom's throat, but Tom was on the alert. In revenge and defence Tom merely sat upon Willie, who is a frail, thin fellow, but the sitting down was literal and so deliberate and long-continued ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... to this, suffering their black hair to be shaved off and the robes of Buddhist neophytes to be put on them. But Yoshitsune, the youngest, had no fancy for the life of a monk, and refused to let the razor come near his hair. Though dwelling in the monastery, he was so merry and self-willed that his pranks caused much scandal, and the pious bonzes knew not what to do with this young ox, as they called ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... now and again flung out of the trough of the waves, and his huge shoulders labouring against the weight of the storm. Then suddenly the rope they were holding fell slack in their hands,—they said afterwards it had snapped on a jagged razor of rock,—and the man disappeared. A day or two later his battered and bruised body was flung up on the bathing strand, where in summer the city ladies take their dip in the sea. He was buried with some of the drowned sailors he had ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... comer at the pension, is a journalist. He has no race or polish, and the rest rather despise him for having none of their landed traditions. He is lean and brown, with a razor-like jaw and a twisted, sardonic expression to his lips. His face is cruel. At Warsaw, where he was working, he was thrown into prison time after time on account of the radical, revolutionary character of his articles. He is well known for the strong, intellectual quality of his work. The ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... self-respect proceeded with success. For all the semblance of having grown too big for Shelton's clothes, for all his vividly burnt face, and the quick but guarded play of cynicism on his lips—he did much credit to his patrons. He had subdued his terror of a razor, and looked well in a suit of Shelton's flannels. For, after all, he had only been eight years exiled from middle-class gentility, and he had been a waiter half that time. But Shelton wished him at the devil. Not for his manners' sake—he was never tired of watching how subtly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and found it almost as keen as a razor. It was about ten inches long, and not more than half an inch broad, with a hilt of carved ivory, yellow with age, and inlaid with fine lines of silver. Certainly a very dangerous weapon. The sheath was of purple velvet, ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... infallible in both. Gregory the Seventh's wildest dream of a universal popedom is more than fulfilled in him. He is the unapproachable model of quack advertisers. He pats Italy on the head and cries, "Study constitutional government as exemplified in England, and try Mechi's razor-strops." For France he prescribes a reduction of army and navy, and an increased demand for Manchester prints. America he warns against military despotism, advises a tonic of English iron, and a compress of British ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... though that would naturally have been resorted to, had not the indignity of being rendered beardless appeared intolerable. Under this figure the desolation of a country is threatened. "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, by them beyond the river, even by the King of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet, and it shall consume the beard" (Isaiah vii. 20.). Again, as a token of grief and humiliation: "Then ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... that and no more, for the long walk had made him ravenous, and the keenness of his spirits served to put a razor edge on an appetite which was already sharp. He began eating before the regular breakfast at the little hotel was ready. He ate while the other men were present. He was still ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... son of Mars, that a she-wolf was his foster mother, that he marched with a thousand men of his village of Rome against twenty-five thousand combatants of the village of the Sabines: that later he became a god; that Tarquin, the ancient, cut a stone with a razor, and that a vestal drew a ship to ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... and palm leaves. A very brown Britisher came out of his tent as we passed, his face half white with soap lather, and his shirt sleeves rolled up; he did unintelligible semaphore signalling with both arms, a razor in one hand, paper in the other. He likewise spoke to us in words that were barely audible for the sound of the rush of the water. When we pieced together what each had heard, it came to "what the blankety blank has come over your—tut tut-down-stream cargo boat? She was ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... from its leather sheath and examined it by touch, for it was too dark to see it. He felt carefully of the blade; yes, it was, sharp as a razor, and would do the work wanted of it. He grasped it nervously, but firmly, in his right hand. Then he paused. Was it, after all, worth the pain he must suffer; had life anything in store for him in recompense for what he must endure? ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... their father. His sons had just got down from their horses. They were two sturdy fellows, still looking out from under their brows just like fresh seminary graduates. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first down, as yet untouched by a razor. They were much embarrassed at such reception by their father, and they stood motionless, with eyes fixed ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... the weapon from its sheath and looked at it carefully in the dim light. He saw at once by the bright gleam that it was in excellent order, and well polished. He tried the edge with his thumb; it was as keen as a razor. He stepped back two or three paces to give himself room to swing the blade, and flourished it about his head in order to find out its swing and play. These, too, were perfect. So well balanced were the huge, broad blade and heavy handle, that the great ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... little ledge at the rear were a safety razor, a small mirror, and a shaving mug. Ned picked up the coat and thrust a hand into an inside pocket. That, he thought, would be an easy way to ascertain the identity of ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... door was ajar. He pushed it open and looked about him. It was empty. The bed had not even been lain upon. The single chair stood by the window, and there the old man must have sat since he left them. There was no book, no paper, no means by which he could have amused himself, nothing but a razor-strop lying on ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mr. Jones mopped his frontal bone, his stalk-like neck, his razor jaws, his fleshless chin. Again his voice faltered and his aspect became still more gruesomely malevolent as of a wicked and ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... enormous ears, and his forehead ran up to the summit of his egg-shaped head. His nose was pendulous and his eyes were closely set, with too crafty a look for honesty. He wore no beard, and his leathery cheeks were blue from the razor. His age may have been fifty; his air was mean and sycophantic. Finally he was dressed in a black gaberdine that descended to his knees, and he ended in a pair of the leanest shanks and largest ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... sir. I could fair feel the razor aclippin' a bit off me chin, so ter speak. 'Avin' some nice adventures this ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... one of the rowers, who relished the idea of going down to posterity in a wonderful story,—"I was just thinking that your wisest way will be to take a rest in my bed at Holberg's, without anybody knowing, and shave yourself with my razor, and dress in my Sunday clothes, and so show yourself to your betrothed in such a trim as that she will be ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... back to that first aimless descent into the evening gloom of Widderstone from which it was in vain to hope ever to climb again. Surely never a more ghoulish face looked out on its man before than that which confronted him as with borrowed razor he stood shaving those sunken chaps, that ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... they've been at mischief,' burst forth the major; and the doctor, razor in hand, listened with wide open eyes and half his face lathered, to the story. Before it was over the doctor shaved the unshorn side, and (the major still in the room) completed his toilet in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gentleman, in order to increase the horror of the situation, added that now there was nothing left for him but to cut his throat. At this John quietly left the room. The gentleman was delighted at the success of his ruse until the door reopened and John reappeared with his master's razor, which he quietly slipped—as if it had been a forgotten fork—beside his master's plate, and calmly resumed his serving. I have always considered this story to be quite as improbable as it was inartistic, from its tacit admission of a certain interest ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... thorough-draught of the gangway ladder, but that he may eat, drink, and lie down before you have even begun to feel the qualmishness that the dinner of a troop-ship is well calculated to suggest; cuts his pencil with your best razor; wears your shirts, as washing is scarce; and winds up all by having a good story of you every evening for the edification of the other "sharp gentlemen," who, being too wide awake to be humbugged themselves, enjoy his success prodigiously. This, gentle ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... various and remote, as the reader may well imagine without my repeating; although indeed I could not very perfectly understand them. I then gave up my silver and copper money, my purse, with nine large pieces of gold, and some smaller ones; my knife and razor, my comb and silver snuff-box, my handkerchief and journal-book. My scimitar, pistols, and pouch, were conveyed in carriages to his majesty's stores; but the rest of my ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... Psyche must have been short-sighted when she blundered about hunting for Cupid; she'd have found him in a decent pair of spectacles, poor girl! Clytie suffered from earache, and couldn't motor without a veil; as for Venus, it's giving her the vote that's forced a moustache; she's sent for a safety-razor, but ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... pocketing my tip. All day I'd hear my scissors going, "Snip, Snip, Snip;" I'd lather people's faces, and their noses I would grip While I shaved most carefully along the upper lip. But I wouldn't be a barber if . . . The razor was ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... and silver uniform was ragged and soil-stained; his boots were white with dust; his face was unshaved, though a razor lay beside him, and it seemed that he had been trying to strop it on his Sam Browne belt. His pipe, filled but unlit, had fallen from his weary fingers; beside him was an empty match-box and tragic evidence of a number of unsuccessful attempts to get fire from a Swedish tandsticker. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... antagonists, young George Fielding had drawn near them. He had, luckily, a stout pig-whip in his hand, and by an adroit turn of his muscular wrist he parried a blow that would have stopped the old Jew's eloquence perhaps forever. As it was, the corn-factor's stick cut like a razor through the air, and made a most musical whirr within a foot of the Jew's ear. The basilisk look of venom and vengeance he instantly shot back ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... was one of the small traders, and had accumulated forty dollars by his bartering. One evening at dusk Delaney's Raiders, about twenty-five strong, took advantage of the absence of most of us drawing rations, to make a rush for Marion. They knocked him down, cut him across the wrist and neck with a razor, and robbed him of his forty dollars. By the time we could rally Delaney and his attendant scoundrels were safe from pursuit in the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also {Hanlon's Razor}). The label 'Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this 'Belter' culture professed a religion and/or running ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... said Bob. "Some farmer is going to sell out and Peabody wants a wagon. So I have to ride that horse fourteen miles and back —and he has a backbone like a razor blade!—to buy a wagon; that is, if ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... his only attire being a pair of trousers, without braces, and a night-shirt. The wearer had evidently hurried from his bed-room to his study, without the customary ablutions, and his tangled hair and scrubby beard were innocent of comb and razor. On being invited to be seated, I with some difficulty found a chair, for almost every square foot of surface in the place—floor, chairs, tables, shelves, and every other "coign of vantage"—was piled up with books, reports, law papers, printers' proofs, and other literary matter, begrimed with ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... mid-day hours happily and unconsciously away. One could easily pocket and walk off with his stock-in-trade, for small is the danger of his awakening. Waking him up, he shuffles mechanically over to hia razor and lathering apparatus, this latter being a soup-plate with a semicircular piece chipped out to fit, after a fashion, the contour of the customers' throats. Pressing this jagged edge of queen's-ware against your windpipe, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... man came down, and meeting Mr. Wade, asked him if he would be so kind as to lend him a razor, that he might remove his beard, which did not give his face a very attractive aspect. ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... they ran round the varanda they found her under the window, on the spot where William Barton had been murdered, lying cold and dead, with a ghastly gash in her neck, and her white garments dyed red with her life-blood. A razor, the instrument with which she had accomplished her self-destruction, was clutched, with the grip of death, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... stubby gray beard. Eppner was short and a little stooped, with a blue-black mustache, snapping blue-black eyes, and strong blue-black dots over his face where his beard struggled vainly against the devastating razor. Both were strongly marked with the shrewd, money-getting visage. I set ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... world must be treated as one would treat a maniac who brandished a razor in one's face. Direct defiance argues folly worse ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... according to your demerit, in not washing your hands after eating the garlic ragoo. This said, she called the ladies, who, by her order, threw me upon the ground, and, after binding me fast, had the barbarity to cut off my thumbs and great toes with a razor. One of the ladies applied a certain root to staunch the blood; but by the bleeding and pain I swooned away. When I came to myself, they gave me wine to drink to recruit my strength. Ah! madam, said I to my wife, if ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... either hand; it was enclosed to the landward by a bulk of shattered mountains. In every crevice of that barrier the forest harboured, roosting and nestling there like birds about a ruin; and far above, it greened and roughened the razor edges of the summit. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the two big snakes thrashed around the deck, Mr. Bengal slunk away like a cat scared by a dog—his tail between his legs, and the fur on his back raised up so that it looked like that of a razor-backed hog. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... among the birds. They filled our thoughts, our lives for the time:—great cormorants and northern divers, flitting red-legged oyster-catchers, shags spreading their wings to the wind and sun, sea-parrots, murrs, razor-bills, gannets questing by ones and twos—now poised, now dropping like plummets with a resounding splash; sandpipers and curlews dotting the beaches, and wading; tern, common gulls, herring-gulls, and kittiwakes, and, at nightfall, shearwaters popping from their ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Old Testament. In 1 Sam. i Hannah vowed that if God would give her a son she would devote him to the Lord, in sign of which no razor should touch him. She gave him to be an aedituus, who lived in the temple awaiting divine instructions and commissions. In Josh. ix. 23, 27 we have a case of war captives condemned to menial service ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... cut me in two places this mornin' when you shaved me," said Cap'n Ira suddenly and in some slight exasperation. "And I can't handle that dratted razor myself." ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... as to make the marks of the teeth of the drowned man disappear. When, standing before the mirror, he raised his chin and perceived the red spot beneath the white lather, he at once flew into a rage, and rapidly brought the razor to his neck, to cut right into the flesh. But the sensations of the cold steel against his skin always brought him to his senses, and caused him to feel so faint that he was obliged to seat himself, and wait until he had recovered sufficient courage ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... happen to be out of their place. If you are angry, the little rebel laughs and shows his two rows of pearls: if you scold him, he cries. His mother rushes in! And what a mother she is! A mother who will detest you if you don't give him the razor! With women there is no middle ground; a man is either ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... too high above us for anyone to be thrown out, and on a board nailed beyond our reach was the legend, "Order must and will be preserved." But that boarding-house was very exciting; my last excitement In it was tripping up a man, treading on his wrist and taking away a razor with which he meant to cut throats. In Hull we never went further than a good common "scrap," though ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... this harangue became so infuriated that he rushed blindly at the cobbler, and with his razor would have severed his head from the rest of his body, but that he was prevented by the guard, who ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... word of his philosophy is well expressed in a passage of his Autobiography: "Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune, that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day; thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... force of Beduin police, but was abandoned with the rest of the province when Turkey declared war. The country round the town is almost completely bare of scrub, a mass of tumbled hills of sand, rounded slopes and razor-like crests, alternating with deep valley between almost sheer cliffs. Here and there are palm or other evergreen trees, and in the low ground round the wadi are numerous ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... dashes up, and Jim, the man who is pulling bow oar, picks up his harpoon. A minute later, it flies from his hand and is buried deep into the body of the quivering animal, cutting through the thick blubber as a razor would cut through the ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... Lucius had little trust in the augur, and said to him, "Come, tell me by your auguries whether the thing I have in my mind may be done or not." "It may," said Attus, the augur. "It is this," said the king, laughing: "it was in my mind that you should cut this whetstone in two with this razor. Take them and see ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in a line, four ragged-looking fellows, all of us with beards of various degrees of growth, that is, all the other three, for mine had been an established fact for years, and everything having been taken away from us, we possessed neither razor ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... appear at his best, a large piece of plaster on his right cheek showing where he had cut himself with his razor, and a shabby and tight black suit (it was his London suit, and had lain crumpled disastrously in his hand-bag) accentuating the undue roundness of his limbs; his eyes blinked and his mouth trembled a little at the corners. He was obviously afraid of his sister and flung his niece a watery wink ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... beam some of them. But hell, they all seemed so long-lost, and he wasn't in the mood, now. He even thought about how it was, trying to give yourself a dry shave with a worn-out razor, inside an Archer. He thought that sometime, surely, perhaps soon, the Big Vacuum would ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Epithelial Grafting.—The method introduced by the late Professor Thiersch of Leipsic is that almost universally practised. It consists in transplanting strips of epidermis shaved from the surface of the skin, the razor passing through the tips of the papillae, which appear as tiny red points yielding ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... grigged me; thinks I, "My boy, I'll just take that expression, roll it up into a ball, and shy it back at you, in a way that will make you sing out 'Pen and ink,' I know. Well," sais I, quite mild (I am always mild when I am mad, a keen razor is always smooth), "have you any other thing to say ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... judge from their faces. They should not have been there handling sticks, and moving their unaccustomed legs in cramped paces. They were as razors, for which no better purpose could be found than the cutting of blocks. When such attempts are made the block is not cut, but the razor is spoiled. Most unfit for the commencement of a soldier's life were some that I saw there, but I do not doubt that they had been attracted to the work by the one idea of doing something for their country ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... experiments which illustrate the vestiges of ganglionic impressions. If on a cold, polished metal, as a new razor, any object, such as a wafer, be laid, and the metal be then breathed upon, and, when the moisture has had time to disappear, the wafer be thrown off, though now the most critical inspection of the polished surface can discover no trace of any ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... how I am getting on. I am spending a fortune in carrying out this grand advice of yours. I like it hugely; but when the time comes for paying you your debts I shall have to renew the bill. * * * To make me do such work as this is putting a saddle upon a cow"—cutting a block with a razor, as we should say—"clearly I am not made for it; but I will bear it, so that it be ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... down to Pecos town and bought some hogs, drove them up the river, and turned them into his alfalfa field to fatten. They were of genuine thoroughbred razor-back variety, trained down to sprinting form, agile, self-reliant as mules, tougher than braided rawhide, and disorderly in their conduct. They broke through the fence the first night, went up into a quaking asp patch where there was nothing ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... who knew him before I did said they never had seen him drink tea, coffee, or water, but rather rum and whiskey; he drank so hard that he used to go into a crazy fit; he finally put an end to his life by cutting his throat with a razor, at a place called O'Handly's race course, about three miles from Columbia, S.C. This was done just a few days before ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... nothing. "How is this," I said to my turjeman who had now come in. "This is the custom of the country," he replied, "we always shave one another for friendship." There are several other little things done gratuitously in Ghadames, but shaving the head is the principal one[43]. He who has the sharpest razor is expected to do the most work. They cut and hack one another about most barbarously, some using no soap, only rubbing a little water over their heads. I have seen a score in a row, all sitting on the ground, waiting patiently their turn. Some ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... unlikely to be ever numerous; for it supplies a side of its author's character nowhere else (except in glimpses) provided by his extant work. It may even be doubted, by those who have read it, whether "cutting blocks with a razor" is such a Gothamite proceeding as it is sometimes held to be. For in this case the blocks are chopped as well as the homeliest bill-hook could do it; and we know that the razor was none the blunter. At any rate, the ethical document is one ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... the Balm will relieve the smart occasioned by the heat of the razor; it will protect the lips from chapping, and restore their color; it dispels in time all discolorations, and revives the natural tones of the skin. Such results demonstrate in man a perfect equilibrium of the juices of life, which tends to relieve all persons subject to headache from ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... indecisions, of the first. A weaker man would have floated helplessly on the ebb and flow of the Cabinet's wavering policies; a rasher man would have plunged headlong into Gordon's schemes. He did neither; with a singular courage and a singular caution he progressed along a razor-edge. He devoted all his energies to the double task of evolving a reasonable policy out of Gordon's intoxicated telegrams, and of inducing the divided Ministers at home to give their sanction to what he had evolved. He might have succeeded, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... you de 'tick. Hab you flog—hab you—Oh! Oh, Mass' Capen, done, done," he cried piteously, changing his tone and appealing to my father, as he saw him take out and open his great gardening knife, which was as sharp as a razor. ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... endeavour in their service. till they became accustomed to her [and felt assured of her]. One night she plied them with drink and they drank [till they became intoxicated]; whereupon she arose and took her clothes and five hundred dinars from the captain; after which she fetched a razor and shaved all their chins. Then she took soot from the cooking-pots and blackening their faces withal, opened the doors and went out; and when the thieves awoke, they abode confounded and knew that the woman ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... tell you, my dear, that when Francois woke me at a very early hour on this eventful morning, while the keen stars were still glittering overhead, a half-moon, as sharp as a razor, beaming in the frosty sky, and a wicked north wind blowing, that blew the blood out of one's fingers and froze your leg as you put it out of bed;—shall I tell you, my dear, that when Francois called me, and said, "V'la vot' cafe, Monsieur Titemasse, buvez-le, tiens, il est tout chaud," I felt ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... first display of official skill in his new capacity, was in shaving the head of the young prince of Ludamar, in the presence of the king, his father, but happening to make a slight incision, the king ordered him to resign the razor, and walk out of the tent. This was considered by Mr. Park as a very fortunate circumstance, as he had determined to make himself as useless and insignificant as possible, being the only means ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... I pique not myself upon managing steel in any other shape than that of a razor, would rather charge a Swiss battalion of pikes, than I would accompany your Highness upon such a visit of friendship to Charles of Burgundy, when he hath so many grounds to be well assured that there is enmity in your ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... about her mouth. Incongruously, the thought crossed his mind that he'd hate to have this woman against him. She looked as though she would be capable of more than he'd care to tangle with. For all her lovely face there was an edge of thin ice to her smile, a razor-sharp, dangerous quality that made him curiously uncomfortable. But now she was nervous, withdrawing a cigarette from his pack with trembling fingers, fumbling with his lighter until he struck a match for her. "Now," he said. ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... a thick beard, and looked what he professed to be—a digger pure and simple; and Green and Cheyne also had discarded the use of the razor, and in their rough miners' garb—flannel shirts, moleskin pants, and slouch felt hats—there was nothing to distinguish them from the ordinary run of diggers at Hansen's Rush. They had, Vale knew, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... upon us, and one of the shells clipped a large tree as easily as if it had been done with a giant razor, and it crashed down directly in front of our gun, putting it out of business ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... Warden, formerly a servant of the Horeszko family [Ger-vae'zi Rem-bai'wo]. Rykov, a Russian captain [Ri'kof]. Jankiel, a Jew [Yaen'kyel]. Maciej (Maciek) Dobrzynski [Mae'cha (Mae'chek) Dob-zhin'ski]. Sprinkler (also called Baptist), Bucket, Buzzard, Razor, Awl, the Prussian: all members of the Dobrzynski clan. Henryk Dombrowski [Hen'rik Dom-brof'ski]. ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... distinguished visitors," Mine Host said, bidding us welcome with another smile, but never a hint that he was placing his own private quarters at our disposal. Like all bushmen, he could be delicately reticent when conferring a favour; but a forgotten razor-strop betrayed him ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... got mad if I tried to crack a joke," he wrote in his letter. "He looked like he had paid too much fer his whistle an' thought I had sold it to him. Thought he were goin' to box my ears. John Addums is erbout as sharp as a razor. Took a likin' to Jack an' me. I tol' him he were smart 'nough to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... his hand in signal, bending forward his head as agreed so as to expose cleanly the articulation to his taut spinal cord, forgot Balatta, who was merely a woman, a woman merely and only and undesired. He knew, without seeing, when the razor- edged hatchet rose in the air behind him. And for that instant, ere the end, there fell upon Bassett the shadows of the Unknown, a sense of impending marvel of the rending of walls before the imaginable. Almost, when he knew the blow ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... head of the fly to be tied smaller, and also reduces the weight of the hook, an advantage for dry flies. Of course flies may be tied on any style or grade of hook, but considering the work involved in making the fly, and realizing that with an old razor blade the fly can be quickly removed from the hook should the first attempts prove unsatisfactory, you will see the advantage in using ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... fables never bothered Bismarck a moment. When he was ready, he repaid them in his own splendid coin; and certainly he was past-master of the gentle art of putting a razor-edge on an insult! ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... it to warm; and she brought a towel of white linen, and placed it around Owain's neck; and she took a goblet of ivory, and a silver basin, and filled them with warm water, wherewith she washed Owain's head. Then she opened a wooden casket, and drew forth a razor, whose haft was of ivory, and upon which were two rivets of gold. And she shaved his beard, and she dried his head, and his throat, with the towel. Then she rose up from before Owain, and brought him to eat. And truly Owain had never so good a meal, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in there), Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the jailer and his keys is where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist they keep the national razor in ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... blade, and one inch and seven-eighths in breadth; the hilt, from the top of the guard to the extremity, five and a half inches. Thus the sword complete would be about three feet five or six inches. Such a weapon possesses immense power, as the edge is nearly as sharp as a razor. But the Arabs have not the slightest knowledge of swordsmanship; they never parry with the blade, but trust entirely to the shield, and content themselves with slashing either at their adversary or at the animal that he rides; one good cut delivered by a powerful arm would sever ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... usual traveling impedimenta—change of linen, collars, handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the attention of the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet, around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which bore in gilt letters ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... difficulty was met by the suggestion that your humble servant should take the part of "Emily Trevor" in "Boots at the Swan." I protested my inability, but was overruled. Not yet having occasion to use a razor, and being youthful, it was decided that I should try my hand at female impersonation, under the "stage name" of "Helen Fawcet." The result of the experiment was that I subsequently took the parts of "Julia Jenkins" in "Who ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... standing, somewhat inclined, her lips parted, a divine trouble in her eyes, I could have clapped my hands in applause, and was ready to acclaim her a genuine daughter of the winds. What put it in my head, I know not: perhaps because it was a Thursday and I was new from the razor; but I determined to engage her attention no later than that day. She was approaching that part of the court in which I sat with my merchandise, when I observed her handkerchief to escape from her hands and fall to the ground; the next moment the wind had taken ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... investigators usually retreat hastily, looking anxiously over their shoulders to see if my keeper is anywhere in sight. As to the real-estate men, they are more in number than the sands of the sea, and the competition is razor-edged. If you have the dimmest idea of ever buying a lot or house, or if you are comfortably without principle, you won't need to keep a motor at all. The real-estate men will see that you get lots of fresh air, and they are most obliging about letting you do your marketing on the way ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... slipping out of his clothes and donning a great-coat in lieu of a dressing-gown. "Otherwise 'The ruddy 'eart-burn.' Just move your greasy head off my till. I want to get at my razor." ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... out carrying a razor, at which Scott looked hungrily, for he had a beard that he did not love. And when they sat down to dinner in the tent he told his tale in few words, as it might have been an official report. Mrs. Jim snuffled from time to time, and Jim bowed ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... pitilessly on his ears! She in one room, he in another, and through the open door there rolled that unending recitation of woes and reproaches, an interminable catalogue of nothings, while he sat dumb as a fish, with a mind that smouldered or blazed. He had stood unseen with a hammer, a poker, a razor in his hand, on tiptoe to do it. A movement, a rush, one silent rush and it was done! He had revelled in her murder. He had caressed it, rehearsed it, relished it, had jerked her head back, and hacked, and listened to her entreaties bubbling ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... can look you in the eye," he said. "Back on the farm we had hogs, dirty razor-back hogs. I ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick
... snatched it up and chopped the stinger before it could strike again, then yanked off the glove and looked at his hand. A thin scratch, beaded with drops of blood, showed on the flesh. Unhesitatingly, he drew the razor edge of the hatchet across it, sucked and spat, sucked and spat again and again. Then he ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... that fightin' crowd, an' ez I'm that sort uv a man myself I'll jest roll down here on the floor. Bein' as you're tender, Sol Hyde, an' not used to hard life in the woods, you kin take that bed yourself, an' in the mornin' your wally will be here with hot water in a silver mug an' a razor to shave you, an' he'll dress you in a ruffled red silk shirt an' a blue satin waistcoat, an' green satin breeches jest comin' to the knee, where they meet yellow silk stockin's risin' out uv purple satin slippers, an' ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the other night at Dr. Taylor's,' wrote the biographer Boswell, 'Dr. Johnson said, "Sir, of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished." I thought this not possible, till he specified so many of the varieties in shaving,—holding the razor more or less perpendicular; drawing long or short strokes; beginning at the upper part of the face, or the under; at the right side or the left side. Indeed, when one considers what variety of sounds can be uttered ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... a general shaving took place; no subject could be better for Bunbury than a Packet cabin taken at such a moment. For me, I am as yet whiskered, for I would not venture to shave on board, and have had no razor on shore till this evening. Custom-house officers are more troublesome here than in England, I have however got everything at last; you may form some idea of the weather we endured; thirty fowls over our head were drowned; the ducks got loose, and ran ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... The least valuable of all are the Mierga—a light, small-headed, thin-skinned, weak-trunked and unintelligent variety that are often found in the best elephant herds. They are often born of the most noble parents, and they are as big a problem to elephant men as razor-backs to hog-breeders. Then there is a second variety, the Dwasala, that compose the great bulk of the herd—a good, substantial, strong, intelligent grade of elephant. But the Kumiria is the best of all; and when one is born in a captive ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Kennedy was found wandering about the street Tuesday night with an open razor in his hand, and he was given $25 or ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... met his own death, but he would have injured me or my horse past all hope of escape. But the fool flinched as he saw me waiting and flew past me on my right. I lunged over my Arab's neck and buried my toy sword in his side. It must have been the finest steel and as sharp as a razor, for I hardly felt it enter, and yet his blood was within three inches of the hilt. His horse galloped on and he kept his saddle for a hundred yards before he sank down with his face on the mane and then dived over the side of the ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... technical drudgery of preparatory criticism: they are far from despising it; on the contrary, they hold it in honour, if they are clear-sighted; but they shrink from devoting themselves to it, for fear of using a razor, as is said, to cut stones. "I have no mind," wrote Leibnitz to Basnage, who had exhorted him to compile an immense Corpus of unpublished and printed documents relating to the history of the law ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... is Queene of Tunis: she that dwels Ten leagues beyond mans life: she that from Naples Can haue no note, vnlesse the Sun were post: The Man i'th Moone's too slow, till new-borne chinnes Be rough, and Razor-able: She that from whom We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast againe, (And by that destiny) to performe an act Whereof, what's past is Prologue; what to come In yours, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... broad-shouldered, thick-set man, in a coarse coat such as the Szeklers wear, high boots, and a large hat. His arms were disproportionately long for his short body, his beard was either very closely cut or sadly in need of the razor, and his legs were planted widely apart as he confronted the travellers in a challenging attitude. Perhaps he wished to invite Manasseh to ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... necessary to pull and stretch the skin in all directions, so that its texture opens, and it becomes white, owing to the admission of air into the pores; this stretching is accompanied, or rather preceded, by careful scraping or currying with a sharp knife or razor, to remove the fleshy matters and render the skin thinner. With the larger number of skins the process is successful; but some few go bad, apparently from not absorbing ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... than spoken words, swift as the strokes of an electric fan, the wings beat the air. Swish-h-h! long-drawn out, crescendo, yet crescendo as, razor-keen, irresistible, those same invisible wings cut it through and through; while, answering the primitive challenge, responding to the stimulus of the game, the hot tingle of excitement speeds up and down our spines. Nearer, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Though equal to all things, for all things unfit— Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit, For a patriot too cool, for a drudge disobedient, And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient: In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir, To eat mutton cold and cut blocks with a razor. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum |
