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More "Combing" Quotes from Famous Books



... at the time. His mother was busy "washing his face and combing his hair," so he had double cause for whimpering. But the smell of the tarts thrilled him; he jumped up, and when his mother tried to hold him he squalled, and I am afraid—he bit her. She should have cuffed him, but she did not. She only gave a disapproving growl, ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... when she heard that Arthur was lost. Twice they thought her heart had ceased to beat, and, in an agony of remorse, Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as her murderer, but giving no other explanation to those around her than: "I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted all over her wrapper, and she said that ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... down to Liberty Street, home of burglary insurance. I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise. He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs. Branford. Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable ability in the first ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... never struggle through; nor can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express purpose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been safely removed, he still has to struggle on toward freedom through one of the narrow openings, where an anther almost ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... Sunderland was a great politician; and having, like her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or interests she wished ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... giving place to certainty and open accusation, while Hasbrook, combing at his beard, was muttering in a like tone. "You'll take him off to yourself, will you? Where you can do as you damned please ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... how like a very dunce, Man—with his bumps upon his sconce, Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he Has had, till lately, of Phrenology— A science that by simple dint of Head-combing he should find a hint of, When scratching o'er those little poll-hills, The faculties throw up like mole-hills; A science that, in very spite Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light, For though he knew his skull had grinders, Still there ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... worst transgressions are not the passionate outbursts contradictory of the main direction of a life which sometimes come; but the habitual, though they be far smaller, evils which are honey-combing the moral nature. White ants will pick a carcase clean sooner than a lion. And many a man who calls himself a Christian, and thinks himself one, is in far more danger, from little pieces of chronic meanness in his daily life, or sharp practice in his business, than ever David was in his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... were silent, but the snipers were busy on both sides. A German searchlight was combing out the heavens above: a constant succession of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... doings, for the new wife took care that they should never be about the house at midnight. But one night as he lay in bed he had forgotten something and asked her to fetch it from below. She looked at him with a disdain out of the mists of her black hair, which she was combing to her knee. Perhaps for a minute she resented his unfaithfulness to the dead. 'No,' she said, with deliberation, 'not till that dog and his companion pass.' She flung the door open, and looked half with fear, half with ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... wall, which having rebuilt they were now guarding; but he had a clear view of those on the outside, whose arms were piled in front of the wall. At this time the Lacedaemonians happened to be posted outside; and some of the men he saw performing gymnastic exercises, and others combing their hair. On beholding this he was astonished, and ascertained their number, and having informed himself of everything accurately, he rode back at his leisure, for no one pursued him and he met with general contempt. On his return he gave an ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... the castle, which still bear as names the King's and the Queen's Crag, Guinevere chanced to let fall a remark which angered Arthur; whereupon he, snatching up a rock that lay ready to his hand, hurled it at his royal consort. Now, Guinevere at the moment was combing her long, fair locks; but she saw the stone come hurtling through the air, and, with remarkable presence of mind and dexterity, with her comb she fended off the missile, so that it fell between them, doing no harm. And if anyone should presume to disbelieve this tale, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... bath, wonderful clean garments, and Claire's happy fingers combing the tangles out of ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... heavy fall, Jerry essayed the ladder again. A temporary easement of the Arangi's rolling gave him his opportunity, so that his forefeet were over the high combing of the companion when the next big roll came. He held on by main strength of his bent forelegs, then scrambled over and out ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... demanded a hundred ducats of gold, and Scioravante counted them out of his purse and gave them to her without a murmur. Then the old woman led him to the roof of the house, where he could see Cannetella combing out her long hair in a room in the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... had been towing astern, and the seas combing over her had swamped her. Moran had been inspired to use the swamped boat as a sea-anchor, fastening her to the schooner's bow instead of to the stern. The "Bertha's" bow, answering to the drag, veered around. The "Bertha" stood head to the seas, riding out the squall. It was a masterpiece of ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... hand-mirror to his cousin as unconcernedly as he might have pointed to a dog. His cousin, on her side, took no more notice than a dog would have taken of the contemptuous phrase by which he had designated her. She went on combing and oiling his beard ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... clergyman, such as Dr. Chauncey, wearing a white wig, which the barber took from his head and placed upon a wig-block. Half an hour, perhaps, was spent in combing and powdering this reverend appendage to a clerical skull. There, too, were officers of the Continental army, who required their hair to be pomatumed and plastered, so as to give them a bold and martial aspect. ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... opportunely; for, worn out with jealousy and watching, Jog had made up his mind to cut to Australia, and when Sponge returned after meeting Facey, Jog was in the act of combing out an advertisement, offering all that desirable sporting residence called Puddingpote Bower, with the coach-house, stables, and offices thereunto belonging, to let, and announcing that the whole of the valuable household furniture, comprising mahogany, dining, loo, card, and Pembroke ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... washing unnecessary (cat's face washing; aversion to getting wet). Danger from dampness. Need of combing and brushing; method. ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... hackneys and taking them off, buckling the harness and making the metal work shining and bright. Grooms went about their business. Never was such a cleansing of stables, such taking of horses to the meadows, such a currying and combing, shoeing and loosing of girths, washing and watering, such a bearing of straw and of grass for the litter, and oats for the manger. Nor these alone, but in the courtyards and chambers of the hostels you might see the ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... peasant's hoary hair, Make patriot breasts with ardour glow, And warrior pant to meet the foe; And long by Nith the maidens young Shall chant the strains their minstrel sung. At ewe-bught, or at evening fold, When resting on the daisied wold, Combing their locks of waving gold, Oft the fair group, enrapt, shall name Their lost, their darling Cunninghame; His was a song beloved in youth, A tale of weir, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Groom who used to spend long hours clipping and combing the Horse of which he had charge, but who daily stole a portion of his allowance of oats, and sold it for his own profit. The Horse gradually got into worse and worse condition, and at last cried to the Groom, "If ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... insinuating, flattering, cringing, grimacing fellow, and has wit enough to solicit a suit of love; and if he fail he has malice enough to ruin the woman with a dull lampoon; but he rails still at the man that is absent, for all wits rail; and his wit properly lies in combing perukes, matching ribbons, and being severe, as they call ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... added Cousinenry, 'but it's not easy.' He thought deeply for a moment. 'Suppose you two attend to the other things,' he said presently, 'while I take charge of the combing- out.' ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... woman's work-stand, some of them curiously inlaid with pearl and silver. The walls were hung with a great number of pictures of all kinds of vessels—generally, however, of the merchant description—under full sail, with vivid light-houses in the distance, and combing breakers under the lee; and all portraying gallant crews and buoyant freights, which probably had never reached their destinations. Among this gallery of marine display was a broad framing of the "Flags of All Nations;" and codes of signals, too, in bright colors, hung beside ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... within sight of Thermopylae. He sent a horseman forward to spy out the Greek camp, and this man saw the Spartans amusing themselves with running and wrestling, and combing their long hair, outside the wall. They took no notice of him, and he returning, told Xerxes how few they were, and how unconcerned. Xerxes then sent for Demaratus, an exiled king of Sparta in his camp, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... to bed. She gathered together stray garments that were hanging on the backs of chairs, and put each where it belonged in closet or bureau drawer. She changed her gown for a more comfortable and commodious wrapper. She rearranged her hair, combing and brushing it with unusual energy. Then she went in and assisted the quadroon in getting the boys ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... no longer made her mother hold her hand while she fell asleep and no longer found herself suffocating in nightmares. A fortnight went by in this fashion. Then, one morning, while sitting at her dressing-table, combing her hairs she bent her head toward the glass, as the weather was overcast, and she saw in it, not her own face, but the face of the dead man. A thread of blood was trickling from one corner of his mouth; he was smiling and gazing ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... ammoniated mercury, four per cent strength. Shampoos with tar-soap suds should be given once in four or five weeks, and the hair should not be wet with water between the shampoos. The hair must be arranged by combing, the brush being used to smooth the surface of the hair only. Deep and repeated brushing does great damage, which is equalled only by the frequent washing some ill-advised sufferers employ. Massage of the scalp is useless to control seborrheic ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... grew up accustomed to their hands, it was very tame and docile, and became a great favorite with all the family. Sylvia loved and played with it continually. She kept it always in trim by washing it in a fountain, and combing and smoothing its hair, and she amused herself by adorning it with wreaths, and garlands, and such other decorations as her sylvan resources ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... said nothing. He talked a little about ordinary things and I answered stupidly as I always do with him. I hated the solemn way he undressed. He was a long time cleaning his teeth, making noises in his mouth as though he were laughing at me. Then he sat on his bed, naked except for his shirt, combing his moustache and beard very carefully with a pocket-comb. He was so thick and solid and scornful, not looking at me exactly, just staring in front of him. There was no sound except his comb scraping through his beard. The room was so small and he seemed absolutely ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... this woman, the strange, sullen beauty of her (despite her masculine apparel) as she sat thus combing her long hair and foul with a dead man's blood, I bethought me of the wild tales I had heard of female daemons, succubi and the like, so that I felt my flesh chill and therewith a great disgust and loathing ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... guess," cried the bold Yankee, combing out his matted locks hastily with his fingers, and sitting up in what he conceived to be a proper position. "Here you are, sir. I'm your man; fix me off slick. Only think! Big Waller in a ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... was set upon a stool where, in the white combing-cloth, with his curly hair, he resembled an angel done by an Italian Primitive. For an instant the father thought himself a barbarian, and the barber hesitated, scissors in air, as before a crime. They exchanged glances; then the father stiffened ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... began to eat, but in the first mouthful the sun-god found a hair. He got very very angry, and called out, "To what sinful woman does this hair belong?" Then the poor queen remembered that during her twelve years of poverty she had always sat under the eaves combing her hair, and knew that it must have been one of her hairs which had got into the sun-god's food. She begged for mercy, but the sun-god would not forgive her until she had clothed herself in a black blanket, plucked a stick out of the eaves, and had gone outside the town and there thrown the ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid

... horribly realistic than ever, this time, because of our rehearsal; and when I crawled from under the masts and sails to seat myself on the beach with the Wrig, I had scarcely strength enough to remove the cooky from her hand and set her a-combing her ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... society of little dogs with turned-up tails, such as Florence abounds with. Unhappily it abounds also with fleas, which afflict poor Flush to the verge sometimes of despair. Fancy Robert and me down on our knees combing him, with a basin of water on one side! He suffers to such a degree from fleas that I cannot bear to witness it. He tears off his pretty curls through the irritation. Do you know of a remedy? Direct to me, Poste Restante, Florence. Put via France. Let me ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... and mud and mist, day after day through long months. Feeding hungry horses their breakfast at five o'clock in the morning; brushing, currying, combing till they shone satin-smooth. Harnessing, unharnessing; washing mud from rigs that would be splashed and plastered again before night. Driving to houses that were known by the number over the door, giving the reins over to somebody and walking ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... house-keeper takes care that her cook shall make her toilet in her room, not in the kitchen. Particularly should she be made to arrange her hair upstairs, as some cooks have an exceedingly nasty habit of combing their hair in the kitchen. It will repay a house-keeper to make several visits to ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... scheme of carrying on our pursuit—a chase which he now seemed determined to direct—when even Tommy, the superstitious Tommy, declared they would throw us off the track a thousand miles. I could think of no plan, for altogether it did seem like combing out the universe for ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... a healthy girl of sixteen who found one morning while combing her hair, which was black, that a strip the whole length of the back hair was white, starting from a surface about two inches square around the occipital protuberance. Two weeks later she had patches of ephelis ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... pressed by her sacred body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night, terrible and implacable Goddesses. They are sitting before the doors of the prison shut close with adamant, and are combing black vipers from their hair. Soon as they recognize her amid the shades of darkness, {these} Deities arise. This place is called "the accursed." Tityus[58] is giving his entrails to be mangled, and is stretched over nine acres. By thee, Tantalus,[59] no waters are reached, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... region for me. In those Fall days there was nothing too hard to try, no queer hours too exhausting, no deep corner too remote, in the search for my material. I saw the place from an old fisherman's boat and from a revenue launch at night, with its searchlight combing the waters far and wide for smugglers. I saw it from big pilot boats that put far out to sea to meet the incoming liners. I ate many good suppers and slept long nights on a stout jolly tug called The Happy, where from my snug bunk at the stern ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... out of his long hair and combing it out of his whiskers, he laughed at his ignorance and lack of resource. He swept the decks and floor of his cabin, and scooped the sand up with an ash shovel to throw overboard. A lesson learned on the Mississippi is part of the education of the future—if there is ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... said disconsolately, combing his long beard with his thin fingers. "This is a difficult situation indeed. There must not be a cat on the premises, or the King will assuredly have nervous prostration. Yet the Queen must have a cat or she will pine quite away ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... going to like it here, Alice?" asked Ruth as they sat in the room they were to share. Ruth was manicuring her nails, and Alice was combing her hair. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope

... the cart she and her old mistress travelled with was stopped by two sailors, who would have robbed and stripped the owners. "Let me get down," she exclaimed simply, and so saying she got down, and fought with them both until they turned round and ran away. On another occasion, while combing out her long hair beneath a hedge, she was insulted by a jockey. Starting up, though her hair was unbound, she promptly gave him what he characterised as "a most confounded whopping," and "the only drubbing I ever had in my life; and ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... faintly—"nurses a special bitterness against me. I told you how I tricked him on his ranch. He'd be very eager to pursue us in the asteroid simply for the opportunity of repaying me for that trick." The adventurer's left hand rose to the bangs of flaxen hair combing down over his forehead, and he murmured, musingly: "I rather hope it ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... how the land lies," the sheriff concluded. "My deputies have got the pass to the south blocked; Lee is closing in through Elkhorn; and Fox, with a strong posse, is combing the hills beyond Dead Man's Cache. There's only one way out for him, and that is over Powderhorn Pass. Word has just reached us that MacQueen is moving in that direction. He is evidently figuring to slip out over the hills during the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... for the present to a brief account of an inventor of comparatively recent date, by way of illustration of the difficulties and privations which it is so frequently the lot of mechanical genius to surmount. We allude to Joshua Heilmann, the inventor of the Combing Machine. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... had seen other lanterns wandering around, and guessed that these were carried by some of the Slavin crowd, also diligently combing the woods in the hope of being the lucky ones ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the Ghost? He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on my hands in ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... unavailing until some of the men came to the mouth of the tunnel by which they had reached the upper land, when, looking down, they saw their queen combing her long, black locks. She told them that she was dead and that her people could go to her only after death, but that they would be happy in their old home. With that the earth shut together and the place has never since been open to the eye of mortals. Soon came the cannibal giants ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... minor exceptions, differences between statements made today and Stewart's lists take the form of traits marked present in the lists which are unknown to my own informants. Moreover, most of these differences are to be found in the hair-combing and scratching complex and suggest that the taboos on hair combing were abandoned some time between the childhood of his informants, who were in their seventies in 1936, and that of my own informants, who are in their ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs

... expecting that he will awaken. Charles the Hammer, Pepin Bow-legged, where now is their eye of menace, their voice of command? Rollo and his shaggy Northmen cover not the Seine with ships; but have sailed off on a longer voyage. The hair of Towhead (Tete d'etoupes) now needs no combing; Iron-cutter (Taillefer) cannot cut a cobweb; shrill Fredegonda, shrill Brunhilda have had out their hot life-scold, and lie silent, their hot life-frenzy cooled. Neither from that black Tower de Nesle descends now darkling the doomed gallant, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... nobleness, did these poor men prepare themselves for their end; not less beautiful in their resolution, not less deserving the everlasting remembrance of mankind, than those three hundred who in the summer morning sate combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae. We will not regret their cause; there is no cause for which any man can more nobly suffer than to witness that it is better for him to die than to speak words which he does not mean. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... needed no second order. Every morning just after eight bells Shrap would be taken over by the watch below. Every man took a delight in combing the animal's long hair, until Shrap's coat was the pride of the Capella's crew and the envy of the rest of the flotilla, whose mascots never aspired to be more than a tame rat, ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... cause to go from home. She was alone in her lodge, combing her hair. She had just untied the belt to which the implements were fastened, when suddenly the event, to which her brother had alluded, occurred. She ran out of the lodge, but in her haste forgot the belt. Afraid to return, she stood for some time thinking. ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... was a streak of porcupine in our family. This accounted for the trod-grass appearance of my head, even when prepared carefully for public appearance. It was at its best when it looked like a meadow of tall timothy that had been walked over by the cows on a wet day. Curry-combing would not disturb it. Herr Most, Ibsen, Old Hoss Hoey and I had a ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... emerged, a red head in need of combing; its owner rested his arms on the gleaming mahogany deck and turned a sullen, ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... him, and hereupon we are called in scorn block-heads." The courtiers of Charles II. compensated themselves for the stern restraints of Puritanism, by giving way to the wildest excesses in dress and manners. Enormous periwigs were introduced, and it became the fashion for a man of ton to be seen combing them on the Mall or at the theatre. The hat was worn with a broad brim, ornamented with feathers; a falling band of the richest lace adorned the neck; the short cloak was edged deeply with gold lace; the doublet was ornamented in a similar manner—it was long, and swelled ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... there is no doubt that the most beautiful machine used in the cotton trade is Heilmann's comber. Although the details of this machine are hard to master, when once its action is understood it will be found to be really simple. The object of combing is to remove the short staples and the dirt left in after the carding of the cotton, such as is used in the spinning of fine and even coarse numbers. The operation is an extremely delicate one, and its successful realization is a good illustration ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... seemed to me that the most dangerous point of sailing in a small open boat in a high combing sea is running dead before the wind. When you are sailing close-hauled, you can luff up into a squall, if necessary, or meet a steep, dangerous sea bow on; but when you are scudding you are almost helpless. You can neither ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... better when I get back," she said, as she began preparations for the evening service. These consisted in combing stiffly back the strands of light-brown hair which, during the day, had exuberantly loosened themselves over her temples into something almost like curls; in fastening down upon this rebellious hair a plain brown-straw bonnet, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... fifty years longer, I suppose he would to the last have been perfecting his phrases, as we read in Dionysius of Halicarnassus that Plato up to the age of eighty-one was "combing and curling, and weaving and unweaving, his writings after a variety of fashions." Possibly, the great dramatist would at last have corrected one of his couplets as a modern commentator has done for him, so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... erit tum Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo Delectos Heroas. I will be of the party, though I must hire an officiating curate, and deprive poor dear Mrs. Folliott, for several weeks, of the pleasure of combing ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... mineral-springs in Nassau, a legacy of the Romans to the genius and enterprise of the first of German traders. He could have bought up every hawking crag, owner and all, from Hatto's Tower to Rheineck. Lore-ley, combing her yellow locks against the night-cloud, beheld old Gottlieb's rafts endlessly stealing on the moonlight through the iron pass she peoples above St. Goar. A wailful host were the wives of his raftsmen widowed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... her long, and Esther soon was busy with her toilet, combing out and looping-back her curls, and bringing a plain dress of rich bombazine, with fresh bands of white crape, as had been worn the previous day. Katy's toilet was complete at last, and as Esther ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... performed by the hand, by means of an instrument, called a comb, with several rows of pointed teeth; this, though not much used now, is still occasionally employed, except in large factories. This combing is repeated two or three times, till it is sufficiently smooth and even for spinning. Spinning or converting wool, or cotton, silk, &c. into thread, was anciently performed by the distaff and spindle: these we find mentioned in sacred history, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... mainland, and in its receding flow it had swirled him into a round cavity in the rocks, where as a boy he had often played and bathed and fished; he knew it well, and saw in a moment that he was saved! Clasping Valmai firmly, he ran up the beach, another combing, foaming wave coming dangerously near his hurrying footsteps; but in spite of the buffeting wind, he gained the shelter of the cliffs, and at last laid his burden tenderly down on the rocks. And now the fight for life was replaced ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... rock in a sunny spot, was painstakingly combing out the tangled hair of his chaps, which he had washed quite as carefully not long before, as the cake of ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... haste was at an end. She was about to enjoy the feminine luxury of time. The combing of her hair became a delightful and leisurely function in the silky feel of the strands in her fingers and the refreshing pull at the roots. The flow of the bath water made the music of pleasurable anticipation, and immersion set the very ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... dilemma. To escape from it there appeared but one way. They must keep their course along the combing of the peninsula—if they could. But their ability to do so had now become a question—each instant growing more difficult ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... came running in at the door, quite out of breath, saying that a horseman was coming over the Master's Mount, with a tall plume waving on his hat, and that she believed it was the young lord. When my child, who sat upon the bench combing her hair, heard this, she gave a shriek of joy, which would have moved a stone under the earth, and straightway ran out of the room to look over the paling. She presently came running in again, fell upon my neck, and cried without ceasing, "The young ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... The steersman, crouching low by his strong tiller, was doing his best to avoid a clean sweep, but only a small jib and the mizzen were standing with straining clews and gleaming seams. Crouching beneath the weather bulwarks, with their feet wedged against the low combing of the hatch, three men were vainly endeavouring to secure the boom, and to disentangle the clogged ropes. Two were huge fellows with tawny, washed-out beards innocent of brush or comb, their faces were half hidden by rough sou'-westers, ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... effort to avoid it, presently again into the street of a mud-built village. Few people were astir. A man slept in an angle of a wall, flies about his head; a dog in an entry scratched himself with ecstasy; a woman at a doorway was combing her child's hair, and looked up to watch ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... nothing," said Sancho; "but I told her how your worship was left doing penance in her service, naked from the waist up, in among these mountains like a savage, sleeping on the ground, not eating bread off a tablecloth nor combing your beard, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... being able to wash himself with soap once more, and to have a towel to use, while it seemed as if Ben and Johnny never would make themselves ready to go to the table, so interested were they in the very "swell" thing of combing their hair before ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... contained free pictures of the condition and dealings of those who govern here. M. de Villeroy has found himself depicted often, and now under pretext of a public negotiation he has found an opportunity of revenging himself. . . . Besides this cause which Villeroy has found for combing my head, Russy has given notice here that I have kept my masters in the hopes of being honourably exempted from the claims of this government. The long letter which I wrote to M. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... their ingenuity upon it, the latter seeming to have been the first to provide a carding machine operated by other than hand-power. The basic principle involved is the straightening out of the fibers by combing or brushing them with wire ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous

... to be. I took that note to the police, and they are on the case. They are combing the city right now for Hobart, and if they get him, this bubble of yours ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... our descendants to learn that outside the circle which Colonel Repington reports at its dinner-tables where the ladies were so diverting, the fare usually excellent, and the gentlemen discussed the "combing out" of mere men for places like Ypres, there was genuine knowledge and warm understanding. Beyond those cheerful dinner-tables, and in that outer darkness of which the best people knew nothing except that it ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... him in the shape of a bird. David threw a dart at him. Instead of striking Satan, it glanced off and broke a wicker screen which hid Bath-sheba combing her hair. The sight of her aroused passion in the king. (94) David realized his transgression, and for twenty-two years he was a penitent. Daily he wept a whole hour and ate his "bread with ashes." (95) But he had to undergo still heavier penance. For a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... had a daughter named Ibla, who was as fair as the moon. The ladies were wont to drink camel's milk morning and evening when Antar had cooled it in the winds. It chanced one morning that Antar entered Ibla's tent just as her mother was combing her hair, and the beauty of her form transfixed him. A thing of loveliness fairer he had never seen, nor ringlets of darker hue grace a human head. His heart beat wildly at the birth of a great passion and the hot blood burned his dark cheeks. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... perceived, to his great astonishment, a most beautiful creature with flowing hair sitting on the unruffled surface of the lake combing her tresses, the water serving as a mirror. Suddenly she beheld the young man standing on the brink of the lake with his eyes rivetted on her, and unconsciously offering to herself the provision of barley bread ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... saw my plans an accomplished fact. I put in bulkheads fore and aft, and pitched the canoe inside and out, making her heavier, but thoroughly water-tight—the end compartments being even air-tight. I raised the combing of the well to six inches in height, put on a deeper keel, shortened my mast, and added an outrigger. What more could I do? The outrigger I made of a bundle of bamboos lashed firmly together, like the pictures one ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... several times, the final combing causing much mental strain and strong will. Into a barley sack went his saddlery, with a reserve of many straps, buckles and horse-brushes, all collected at odd moments. Rifle, revolver, field-glasses, everything underwent a thorough overhaul. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... sitting in the corner, was Mrs. Neptune, the doll which Captain January had carved out of a piece of fine wood that had drifted ashore after a storm. Her eyes were tiny black snail-shells, her hair was of brown sea-moss, very thick and soft ("though as for combing it," said Star, "it is im-possible!"), and a smooth pink shell was set in either cheek, "to make a blush." Mrs. Neptune was somewhat battered, as Star was in the habit of knocking her head against the wall when she was in a passion; ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards

... instant; for suddenly they stopped, and hurried away through the grass on opposite sides of the stone, as if remembered business had just called to them. Whatever the business was, the first mouse seemed to forget it very speedily, for in half a minute he was back upon the stone again, combing his fine whiskers and scratching his ears. This done to his satisfaction, he dropped like a flash from his seat, and disappeared into a small hollow beneath it. As he did so, a hairy black spider darted out, and ran away among ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the kitchen glass combing his hair. He combed slowly and painstakingly, arranging his brown hair in a smooth hillock over his forehead. He did not seem to pay any attention to ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... before been in, though not so elegantly furnished; for, instead of being covered with a carpet, there was only a small one round the bed; and near the fire was a cradle, with a cleanly-looking woman sitting by it, rocking it with her foot, whilst at the same time she was combing the head of a little boy about four years old. In the middle of the room stood a table, covered with a great deal of litter; and in one corner was the little girl whom I had before seen with her mamma, ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... at her bureau. "Put it on the table, please," she said, without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the sea, gathered into a combing wave and, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... the head and hung down fairly and far between brown shoulders. It was a fine head of hair; there could be no question about that. It had gloss and color. Captious critics, reasoning from the standpoint of another age, might think it needed combing, but that is only a matter of opinion. It was tangled together in a compact and fluffy mass, and so did not wander into the woman's eyes, which was a good thing and a great convenience, for bright eyes and unobstructed vision were required in ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... splinters; and, flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me caught me here (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... in his chair, his unhandsome face, with its outthrust lower lip and deeply cleft masculine chin, flushed and eager, his yellow hair disordered, the one tuft on the crown standing stiffly forth like the feather in an Indian's scalp lock; Broderson, vaguely combing at his long beard with a persistent maniacal gesture, distressed, troubled and uneasy; Osterman, with his comedy face, the face of a music-hall singer, his head bald and set off by his great red ears, leaning back ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... his respects; said they wouldn't be back at the chateau until about five; perhaps the ladies would come to the stable-yard and see the pansage. It was quite interesting; all the horses ranged in a semi-circle, men scrubbing and combing hard, the sous-officiers superintending, the officers standing about smoking and seeing that everything was being packed and ready for an early start the next morning. I was astonished to see how small the horses were. ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... hair. She was thinner than ever now—the tall, loose-jointed "slinky" girl—her hair in its plenteous dark abundance was all of her that was not marked by the branding finger of death. She sat on the hearth combing her long brown hair. But soon the comb slipped from her feeble grasp into the cinders. She, the intrepid, active Emily, watched it burn and smoulder, too weak to lift it, while the nauseous, hateful odour ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... ringlets at the sides, fastened with shell combs that had been her mother's, and were very dear to her. She wore a light changeable silk, and it still had big sleeves, such as we are wearing to-day. But they had mostly gone out. And the elder ladies were combing their hair down over their ears. There were no crimping-pins, so they had to braid it up at night in "tails" to make it wave, unless one had curly hair. Most of the young girls brushed it straight above their ears for ordinary wear, and braided or twisted it in a great coil at the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... directly at her. Then Jinnie slowly dropped one white lid over a bright, gleeful blue eye in a wicked little wink. This was more than Peggy could endure. She had kissed the little boy several times during the process of washing the tear-stained face and combing the tangled hair, but that any one should know it! Just then, Peggy secretly said to herself, "If uther one of them kids get any more kisses from me, it'll be when water runs uphill. I 'spose now I'll never hear ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... cheeks were pale and a little sunken; his dark eyes were warm, penetrating; his mouth and chin mobile and even affable, but not a line suggested weakness. The forehead was high, massive, and was exaggerated by a semi-baldness which was only partially concealed by combing the dark, grey-streaked hair forward. He was reclining; if he had arisen he would have displayed a frame at once to be called soldierly, though spare and hardly powerful. To complete the figure it should be added that on one finger he wore a large ring set ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... that he was knocked on the head by a tortoise falling out of an eagle's talons in the air. Another was choked with a grape-stone;—[Val. Max., ix. 12, ext. 2.]—an emperor killed with the scratch of a comb in combing his head. AEmilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own threshold,—[Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 33.]— and Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered the council-chamber. And betwixt the very thighs of women, Cornelius ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... and she looked across the room through her golden hair which she was combing—and through the window, beyond which lay the tops of the great trees, and the still foliage of the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... better ye might hobble up to see what the good gintleman—him as brought ye home—left behind for yees and us arl—the Christmas things, ye'll mind?" inquired Winnie, combing her tangled auburn locks, and stooping ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... in this station! Samuel listened to the mooing of the breakers, to the wind rattling at the casements,—and wondered if Blossy had missed him. About this time, she must be sitting in her chintz-covered rocker, combing out the ringlets of her golden-white hair ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... had nothing more to fear from Eisenkopf, he rode on slowly till he came to a small white house. Here he entered and found himself in a room where a gray-haired woman was spinning and a beautiful girl was sitting in the window combing her golden hair. 'What brings you here, my ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... bid you!" said Dorothy, and glided past her to her dimity dressing-table, and began combing out ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... humming-bird I have seen: she alighted, and rested frequently and for long periods. Droll enough it looked to see such an atom, such a mere pinch of feathers, conduct herself after the fashion of a big bird; to see her wipe that needle-like beak, and dress those infinitesimal feathers, combing out her head plumage with her minute black claws, running the same useful appendages through her long, gauzy-looking wings, and carefully removing the yellow pollen of the honeysuckle blooms which stuck to her face and throat. Her favorite perch was a tiny dead twig ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... of it, father was the one who took the brunt of our "revellee." He always built the fire in the kitchen stove before calling the family. Mother, silent, sleepy, came second. Sometimes she was just combing her hair as I passed through the kitchen, at other times she would be at the biscuit dough or stirring the pancake batter—but she ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... growth of reddish whiskers and inclosed at the temples by shaggy, unkempt strands of red hair which protruded from beneath the black hat. Evidently the man had not been shaved for weeks; certainly his hair needed trimming and combing. But what at the moment impressed Waggoner more even than the general unkemptness of the stranger's aspect was the look out of his eyes. They were widespread eyes and bloodshot as though from lack of sleep, and they glared into Waggoner's with a peculiar, ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... hundred were holding the pass of Thermopylae, and Xerxes sent scouts to ascertain what the Greeks were doing in their camp, the report was that some of them were engaged in gymnastics and warlike exercises, while others were merely sitting and combing their long hair. If the hypothesis already suggested is correct, the Spartan youths so engaged were perhaps not merely adorning themselves for death, but, as they thought, obtaining their full strength for battle. "The custom of keeping the hair unshorn during ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... discovered lying in a dense forest fast asleep. The Devil has summoned a number of his little imps who are busily engaged in washing, {396} combing and dressing the sleeper. Satan is in a very bad temper, but he does not give up his battle for a soul with Heaven yet, and intends to make a last effort to get Hans into his clutches. The lad's ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... With silver buckles on his knee: He'll come back and marry me, Pretty Bobby Shaftoe! Bobby Shaftoe's fat and fair, Combing down his yellow hair; He's my love for evermore, Pretty ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)

... but our love was tongue-love souls, not heart and souls- love; for he kept not his trust nor was he faithful to his troth.' Said I, 'O my lady, and what was the cause of your separation?', and she replied, 'I was sitting one day whilst my handmaid here combed my hair. When she had made an end of combing it, she plaited my tresses, and my beauty and loveliness charmed her; so she bent over me and kissed my cheek.[FN334] At that moment he came in unawares, and, seeing the girl kiss my cheek, straightways turned away in anger, vowing eternal-separation ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... instruments, and an "etherist" who poured. Costumes were uniformly white with great profusion of gauze trimmings, with which I also eventually became somewhat decorated. One of the internes wasn't half bad, so I kept the nurse busy combing my adopted hair and pinning it on becomingly. It is a much quicker and easier process to have your appendix cut out than ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... fulling and dyeing were made a business of elsewhere, then with the introduction of machinery the hand-loom disappeared from our cottages to special centres; next the spinning disappeared; then the combing, and last of all the wool-sorting went too, leaving nothing but sheep shearing of what was a complete local industry, with as many centres as there were formerly houses to work ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... blond hair, less to my own delight than to my mother's; for to keep it in its would-be state of beauty I was subjected to the most interminable and occasionally the most painful combing ordeals, especially those with the fine comb. If I had been called upon at the time to name the medieval instruments of torture, the "fine comb" would have stood among those at the head of my list. Until the blood came there was no thought of stopping. The ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... first meeting with Merton in the girl's letter had brought up the past very vividly to Mary's mind; at night, after partially undressing, as she sat combing out her dark hair before the glass, she thought of the old days when Fan had combed it for her, and of her strange mixed feelings, when she had loved the poor girl she had rescued from misery, and had studied ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... puffs of wind were quite as much as the boat would bear; but this he did not mind, as he was running off before it, and there was little danger of the yawl capsizing with such a weight in her. It was also an advantage to have swift way on, to prevent the combing waves from shooting into the boat, though the wind itself scarce outstrips the send of the sea in a stiff blow. As the yawl cleared the brig and began to feel the united power of the wind and waves, the following short dialogue occurred ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... was changed, as if by magic. Several leaped to their feet. Gode, the Canadian, skilled in snow-craft, ran to a bank, and drawing his hand along the combing, shouted back— ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... nothing this day, nor all the days of my life, which can divide me from thee. For the Lord Jesus my Redeemer's sake. Amen.' After which the Lord's Prayer. Then rapidly and vigorously (GESCHWINDE UND HURTIG) wash himself clean, dress and powder and comb himself [we forget to say, that while they are combing and queuing him, he breakfasts, with brevity, on tea]: Prayer, with washing, breakfast and the rest, to be done pointedly within fifteen minutes [that is, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... oven to use in the same manner as tea-leaves. Liberty tea sold readily for sixpence a pound. In 1787 these same Newbury women spun two hundred and thirty-six skeins of thread and yarn for the wife of the Rev. Mr. Murray. Some were busy spinning, some reeling and carding, and some combing the flax, while the minister preached to them on the text from Exodus xxxv. 25: "And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands." These spinning-bees were everywhere in vogue, and formed a source of much profit to the parson, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... get no credit for herself. She has a matter of 40l. standing out; she owes 21l.; she has sold her cow and calf to keep up her credit at Clifden, and she is doing no business. When I looked in on her she was engaged in combing the hair of one of her fair-skinned children, an operation not common in these parts, where the back hair of even grown women in such centres of commercial activity as Clifden has a curious knack of coming down. It is part of the tumble-downishness ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... the room. I asked for accommodation for the night, hoping that I should find a room where I could sit quietly. A dirty chambermaid took me to a room or dormitory containing four beds. In one part of it three women were affectionately and assiduously nursing a sick child; in another, two were combing tangled black hair; upon which I declared that I must have a room ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... on the edge of the bed with his hair in disorder, combing his little silky mustache ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... flowers. By a bit of luck, James, my gardener, whom I pay half-a-crown a week for combing the beds, knows nothing about them either; so my ignorance remains undiscovered. But in other people's gardens I have to make something of an effort to keep up appearances. Without flattering myself I may say that I have acquired ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... the meadow stood a huge stone castle, with an iron gate leading to it, which was wide open. Everything in the castle seemed to be made of copper, and the only inhabitant he could discover was a lovely girl, who was combing her golden hair; and he noticed that whenever one of her hairs fell on the ground it rang out like pure metal. The youth looked at her more closely, and saw that her skin was smooth and fair, her blue eyes bright and sparkling, and her hair ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... on her scaled and fish-tailed costume. When her turn came, a spot-light on the clubhouse was to illuminate the float and reveal her, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and singing away ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... her away to arrange her hair for the amiable lady had insisted upon combing and plaiting, with her own hands, the hair of the child confided to her care. As I had come a little before the hour agreed upon, I had interrupted this charming toilet. By way of punishment I was ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... Kaulualua was combing her hair she saw a tall, fair man fishing in the rivulet, and he was a stranger to her. Never before had she seen so fair a man, though in very sooth she had been wooed of many king's sons and of chiefs from every part of ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... dressing gown, of white embroidered flannel, the combing of the bright tresses is a lengthy affair, for thought is busy; "Yes, this intense sympathy, this earnest tenderness, this languor and sweet sense of a new joy in living, all mean that I love him; and, as 'tis ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... be roaming, where the crested waves are foaming, And the shy mermaidens combing locks that ripple to their feet; When the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost of an endeavour To discover—but whatever were the hour, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... her chamber, a-combing of her hair. There came Queen Mary's spirit and It stood behind her chair, Singing, "Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, But I will stand beside you till you face the looking-glass. The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As lovely ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... he does this my friend bends forward and clutches him round the neck tightly. I think he is trying to whisper in the horse's ear and beg him in Heaven's name to forbear; but what he looks like is Santa Claus with a clean shave, sitting on the combing of a very steep house with his feet hanging over the eaves, peeking down the chimney to see if the children are asleep yet. When that horse dies he will still have finger marks on his throat and the authorities ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... were like wine, Her eyes in her wee face Like water-sparks shine, Her niminy fingers Her sleep tresses preen, The which in the combing She ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare

... by carelessly shewing or letting him, as if without meaning or design, sometimes my bosom rather more bare than it should be; sometimes my hair, of which I had a very fine head, in the natural flow of it while combing; sometimes a neat leg, that had unfortunately slipt its garter, which I made no scruple of tying before him, easily gave him the impressions favourable to my purpose, which I could perceive to sparkle in his eyes, and glow in his cheeks: then certain ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... peace whilst the Basha stood moodily combing his white beard, his glittering eyes sweeping from Oliver to Rosamund and back again. He was weighing what Sakr-el-Bahr had said. He more than feared that it might be no more than true, and he realized that if he were to provoke a mutiny here he would be putting all ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... give but a portion of his time and effort to his life's work until he was sixty years of age. I first remember him as a bank examiner. I remember his going away for trips to examine banks, of his packing his valise and putting on a white or "boiled" shirt, the gold cuff buttons, his combing his beard, the wonder and mystery of it all. Then he became a "mugwump" and the new party gave his bank-examining to someone else; and, as he expressed it, "I had to stir my stumps," and he took up the ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... coarse grass, and, as I ate my supper by the camp-fire, swarms of mosquitoes attacked me with such impetuosity and bloodthirstiness that I was glad to seek refuge in my boat. This proved, however, only a temporary relief, for the tormentors soon entered at the ventilating space between the combing and hatch, and annoyed me so persistently that I was driven to believe there was something worse than New Orleans roughs. During this night of torture I heard in the distance the sound of oars moving in the oar-locks, and paused for an instant in the battle with the phlebotomists, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... afternoon, they sleep, and ride on the Prado; and in the evening, visit their friends, or attend a tertulia. The ladies are to be pitied; for they pass three-fourths of their time in deshabille, with their maids around them, sleeping, dressing, lolling, and combing their hair. In this way the whole morning is lounged away; they neither read, write, nor work. In dress they generally imitate the Europeans, except that they seldom wear stockings, and go with their arms bare. In the afternoon they ride on the Prado in state, and in the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... hereditary trait, for all the genius which Mrs. White consecrated to the glorious work of making her house too neat to be habitable, her son Walter gave to tying exquisite knots in his colored cravats and combing his oiled locks so as to look like a dandy barber. And she had no other children. The kind Providence that watches over the destiny of children takes care that very few of them are lodged in these ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... combing his beard with both hands; his shadow, too, stood still on the wall, looking like ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... when they came up close to the rocks they saw sitting on a flat and polished stone a mermaid combing her golden hair, and singing a strange sweet song that brought the tears to their eyes, and by the mermaid's side was a ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... tomorrow on foot to see if there is water in the waterholes on the road to Barcoo River. Jemmy made flour into a cake and the blackfellow and his companions ate it with avidity. I gave the blacks a comb, and Jackey pleased them very much by combing their hair. ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough

... bulldogs have got blood in their eyes now. The coach has been combing them down, and they're just bound to carry things before them, or die trying. It's going to ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... little hand at poker. It was a simple preparation. He took his pistol from its holster, examined it, then shoved it between his overalls and his shirt in front, and pulled his waistcoat over it. He might have been combing his hair for all the attention any one paid to this, except myself. Then the two friends went out, and I bethought me of that epithet which Steve again had used to the Virginian as he clapped him on the shoulder. Clearly this wild country spoke a language ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... Teasel, or Thistle (Dipsacus fullonum) is so termed from its use in combing and dressing cloth,—teasan, to tease,— three Teaselheads being the arms of the Cloth Weavers' Company. This is found in the neighbourhood of the cloth districts, but is not considered to be a British plant. It is probably a cultivated variety of the wild ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... over the combing. Louis's companion, who was also a sailor, coarsely clad, rose and, awkwardly taking off his cap, hurried to the door, murmuring some vague apology. It is not always the roughest men who have the ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... carbonate of soda, amounts to about d. per lb. of the raw material. The cost for the total quantity of wool imported is at least 1,214,000. But it is customary to wash wool with soap, especially for the combing trade, and the cost is then about 1d. per lb. The cost of scouring by the new process is about 1 5s. per ton, or 0.13d. per lb. Taking the least favorable comparison, were all the imported wool (home-grown wool is here left out of the calculation, for want of sufficient ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls can pull their hairs when they are combing them," was the appalling threat from Hannah Straight Tree. "If they tell the teachers we can say their hairs were snarly and ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness

... saying in the Desert," Ilderim began, gathering his beard, and combing it with his slender fingers, "that a good appetite is the promise of a long life. Hast ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... ground, and slanting over their procumbent forms. The Bhotanese were rude and boisterous in their pursuits, constantly complaining to the Sirdars, and wrangling over their meals. The Ghorkas were sprightly, combing their raven hair, telling interminably long stories, of which money was the burthen, or singing Hindoo songs through their noses in chorus; and being neater and better dressed, and having a servant to ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... pursued. But he got away easily, heading north. The whole island was searched, from the southern tip to the wall, and the police were ready to start an inch-by-inch combing of the game preserve by the end of the third day after he was seen. But he hit and robbed a chemical supply house in northern Pennsylvania, killing two men, so ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... outfit. Captain Jones, who had acted as my interpreter at Rio, gave her an anchor, and one of the steamers gave her a cable to match it. She never dragged Jones's anchor once on the voyage, and the cable not only stood the strain on a lee shore, but when towed off Cape Horn helped break combing seas astern that threatened to ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... the doors hung with garlands made of herbs, flowers, and plants consecrated to certain gods and goddesses, which possessed peculiar virtues suitable for the occasion. Cakes were bestowed on the bride on her marriage day; and there was a custom among the Greeks and Romans of combing her hair with a spear which had belonged to a man that lost his life in a fight, or with a weapon that had been used in killing a man. If this was done, she was sure to have brave sons. As the bride rose to leave ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... rode up to reconnoiter the pass. He could not see over the wall, but in front of it and on the ramparts, he saw the Spartans, some of them engaged in active sports, and others in combing their long hair. He rode back to the king, and told him what he had seen. Now, Xerxes had in his camp an exiled Spartan Prince, named Demaratus, who had become a traitor to his country, and was serving ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... difficulty in the tumbleweed. While one was searching, the rest would get ahead of him. The line became disorganized, broke into groups, finally disintegrated entirely. Each man hunted for himself, circling the tumbleweed patches, combing carefully their edges for the quail that sometimes burst into the air fairly at his feet. When he had killed one, he walked directly to the spot. On the way he would flush two or three more. They were tempting; but we were old hands at the sport, and we knew only too well ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... at length, without whimper or whining The task of the combing was done, And each lock was as smooth and as shining As long iris leaves in the sun— Soft as silk ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... leaning confidentially to my ear. "The cat fell into it, and they're combing it out of her fur. Have a drink while you wait? No! All right, old thing. I dare say you know best when you've had enough. Shut up, you kids! Don't you see ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... Egyptian—a race of men who, after degenerating for many centuries, have sunk at last into the abyss of depravity, in consequence of having been subjugated for a time by the French. I do not find that Turgot, or Condorcet, or the rest of the economists, ever reckoned the combing of the head a species of productive labour; and I conclude, therefore, that wherever French principles have been propagated, Lice grow to an immoderate size, especially in a warm climate like that of Egypt. I shall only add, that we ought to be sensible of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... with pearl and silver. The walls were hung with a great number of pictures of all kinds of vessels—generally, however, of the merchant description—under full sail, with vivid light-houses in the distance, and combing breakers under the lee; and all portraying gallant crews and buoyant freights, which probably had never reached their destinations. Among this gallery of marine display was a broad framing of the "Flags of All Nations;" and codes ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... our old maid-servant came running in at the door quite out of breath, saying that a horseman was coming over the Master's Mount, with a tall plume waving on his hat; and that she believed it was the young lord. When my child, who sat upon the bench combing her hair, heard this, she gave a shriek of joy, which would have moved a stone under the earth, and straightway ran out of the room to look over the paling. She presently came running in again, fell upon my neck, and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... children, Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of the sea; And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines; And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun shining south; And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and my western shore the same; And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi, with bends and chutes; And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri; The CONTINENT—devoting ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... about the house at midnight. But one night as he lay in bed he had forgotten something and asked her to fetch it from below. She looked at him with a disdain out of the mists of her black hair, which she was combing to her knee. Perhaps for a minute she resented his unfaithfulness to the dead. 'No,' she said, with deliberation, 'not till that dog and his companion pass.' She flung the door open, and looked half with fear, ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... made the most of Josue," continued the Master. "The mouth was crooked, but he was clean, clean—I shaved him just in time. And he had good hair for combing to a peaceful look, and he was light to carry—O my good! Go on, what has Josue the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, "what would it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a little gentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. What would you want to ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... a tiny room at the top of a tenement Lives a white maid of surpassing virtue, Gentle in manner and quiet and dutiful, Combing her golden curls each morning Before a window that looks out to hell; That looks upon cesspools of mud, and mounds of refuse and the ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke

... fear for the safety of their wives and children made the faces of these men gray as they rode the sage, combing the hollows and hills for the sight of old Mark Thorn. One by one they began to drop out of the posse, until of the fourteen besides Macdonald who had ridden in the hunt on the second day, only five remained on the ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... dewy roseate Morn had with her hairs In sundry sorts the Indian clime adorned; And now her eyes apparreled in tears, The loss of lovely Memnon long had mourned, When as she spied the nymph whom I admire, Combing her locks, of which the yellow gold Made blush the beauties of her curled wire, Which heaven itself with wonder might behold; Then red with shame, her reverend locks she rent, And weeping hid the beauty of her face, The flower of fancy wrought such discontent; The sighs ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... jewels the while she stitched tiny garments for her newest child who had come to her with no clothing at all, or fashioned a marvelous hat for another whose features were but a smudge of paint and whose hair had been glued on so many times that it was far past combing and a hat was a necessity to hide the tangled mat. And sometimes she was a princess shut up in a castle tower and a noble prince, who wore golden armor and rode a great war horse, would come to woo her and she would ride away with him through the deep forest followed by a long procession ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... claim agents found the bearded woman sitting on a hay cock, combing out her whiskers, and asked what it would take to settle, and she said $10,000, and she got up and walked over to another hay cock where the Circassian beauty was drying her hair, and the claim agent looked at how spry the bearded woman walked, and he said ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck

... are bolder, and never cry, shall I? For they make our guards quail And'twixt curtain and rail, Oft combing their ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... than handsome cast of countenance. He was of dark complexion, with dark harmonizing eyes, and he wore a closely trimmed black beard of more advanced growth than is usual at his age; this, with his great mass of black curly hair, was some trouble to him in combing and washing out the stone-dust that settled on it in the pursuit of his trade. His capabilities in the latter, having been acquired in the country, were of an all-round sort, including monumental stone-cutting, gothic free-stone work for the restoration of churches, and carving of ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... already, were telling stories of scandal and duelling, to which Tom could not but listen with ill-concealed interest. Others were discussing the last new play, or the last new toast. A few fine dandies sat combing their periwigs as they talked of the latest fashions, taking snuff freely, and sprinkling themselves with perfume from a small pocket flask, if they were ever too nearly approached by some ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... land lies," the sheriff concluded. "My deputies have got the pass to the south blocked; Lee is closing in through Elkhorn; and Fox, with a strong posse, is combing the hills beyond Dead Man's Cache. There's only one way out for him, and that is over Powderhorn Pass. Word has just reached us that MacQueen is moving in that direction. He is evidently figuring to slip out over the hills during the night. I've ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... if the most glorious actions which are set like jewels in the history of mankind are weighed one against the other in the balance, hardly will those 300 Spartans who in the summer morning sate "combing their long hair—for death" in the passes of Thermopylae, have earned a more lofty estimate for themselves than this ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... human beings, officers and men returning from a brief glimpse of home. There was nothing of the glory of war in the embarkation, and, to add to the sad and sinister effect of it, each man as he came aboard mounted the ladder and chose, from a pile on the hatch combing, a sodden life-preserver, which he flung around his shoulders as he went in search of a shelter. The saloon below, where we had our tea, was lighted indeed, but sealed so tight as to be insupportable; and the cabin above, stifling too, was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... amidships to stem, and from amidships to stempost, were alike. She possessed that essential characteristic of seaworthiness, abundant sheer. The deck was pierced for a cockpit in the centre, which was six feet long and surrounded by a high combing to keep out water. The builder had done his best to make the Mayeta serve for rowing and sailing — a most difficult combination, and one ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... turning to a sort of iron-grey; it was very dry, wiry, and plentiful, and part of it projected almost horizontally over his forehead. He had a habit of stretching it in this direction, by irritably combing it out, from time to time, with his fingers. His lips were thin and colourless, the lines about them being numerous and strongly marked. Had I seen him under ordinary circumstances, I should have set him down as a little-minded man; a small tyrant ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... upon a stool where, in the white combing-cloth, with his curly hair, he resembled an angel done by an Italian Primitive. For an instant the father thought himself a barbarian, and the barber hesitated, scissors in air, as before a crime. They exchanged glances; then the father stiffened and gave ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... laugh had subsided, Nathan, whose cheeks were still burning at the slighting way in which Billy Talbot had spoken of Richard, and who had sat hunched up in his chair combing the white hair farther over his ears with his long, spare fingers, a habit with him when he was in deep thought, lifted his head and remarked, quietly, addressing the room rather ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... hospital with Indian corn and Peruvian bark. As I write this, three naked little Paddies are creeping about my floor, their mother having so far forgotten her duty as to leave them behind her, and I enjoy the privilege of washing and combing the frog-like little abominations. A pleasant occupation for my father's son! I don't know how long I shall have to stick here; probably till the very last ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... Jerry, feeling that it was a very lame excuse, seeing that he had lectured Faith so strongly in the Good-Conduct Club sessions for her lack of thought. "We're sorry, Father—truly, we are. Pitch into us hard—we deserve a regular combing down." ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... must move on. At any moment now might come a hunting party, combing the gorge for the smaller animals that fed ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... with carbonate of soda, amounts to about d. per lb. of the raw material. The cost for the total quantity of wool imported is at least 1,214,000. But it is customary to wash wool with soap, especially for the combing trade, and the cost is then about 1d. per lb. The cost of scouring by the new process is about 1 5s. per ton, or 0.13d. per lb. Taking the least favorable comparison, were all the imported wool (home-grown ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... harassed pedlar when gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear." Lord Devonport, occupied in deciding on the exact architecture and decoration of the Bath bun (official sealed pattern), would make a companion picture. For the rest the House has been occupied with the mysteries of combing and re-combing. The best War saying of the month was that of Mr. Swift MacNeill, in reference to proposed peace overtures, that it would be time enough to talk about peace when the Germans ceased ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... the air with their feet upwards, to the great terror of their wives and families, who were naturally very much disconcerted when the master of the house unexpectedly came home, knocking at the door with his heels and combing his hair on the scraper. These were their commonest pranks, but they every day played a hundred others, of which none were less objectionable, and many were much more so, being improper besides; the result was that vengeance was denounced against all old women, with ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... the crafty eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... and brush the hair frequently. Brushing stimulates the grease glands, and causes the hair to become glossy. Probably the reason men lose their hair so much more than women is that the brushing and combing the latter must give it stimulates the hair roots. Massaging the skin of the scalp with the fingers night and morning will greatly promote growth of the ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... the narration of her maid Lutwyche, prolonging her hair-combing for talk's sake. Lutwyche had the peculiarity of always accommodating her pronunciation to the class she was speaking with, elaborating it for the benefit of those socially above her. So her inquiry how the gentleman was getting on was accounted for by her having seen ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... you that we're having an ugly time with the boy?" said Sidney, then, combing his horse's mane with big ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... beheld the pretty Countess sitting on the ground at Genevieve's knee, while the peasant girl was wholly absorbed in combing out Stephanie's long, black hair with a huge comb. The Countess submitted herself to this, uttering low smothered cries that expressed her enjoyment of the sensation of physical comfort. A shudder ran ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... the roof and busied herself in untying and combing her beautiful hair; for it was truly beautiful, not only of a fine, glossy quality, but it was so very long that it hung over the eaves of the house and reached down on the ground, as ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... show a sufficient amount of skin to convince the Top, when he eyes you over, that you have actually shaved, you shake the lather off your razor and brush, dab what is left of the original water over the torn parts of your face, seize the opportunity, while you have the mirror before you, of combing your hair with your fingernails, and button your shirt collar. The performance concluded, you are good for forty-eight hours more, having a perfect alibi if anyone comments on your facial growth. You are not, however, in any condition to attend a revival ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... The riders were now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told him that the outfit ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... children from her too, all but one, whom he left with her a while to comfort her, as he said; but one day an officer came and seized this one from her very arms, while she was dressing him and combing his hair. This last blow caused her a severer pang than any that she had before endured, and left ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... care that her cook shall make her toilet in her room, not in the kitchen. Particularly should she be made to arrange her hair upstairs, as some cooks have an exceedingly nasty habit of combing their hair in the kitchen. It will repay a house-keeper to make several visits to ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... while combing and brushing my hair at night, and though I made no use of my looking-glass while thus employed, having my eyes fixed on my book, I sat (for purposes of general convenience) at my toilet table in front of the mirror. While engrossed in my book it has frequently happened to me accidentally ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... glanced around at the others. There was Sahwah, her kimono wrapped loosely around her, patting her feet dry with the fringe of a dozen towels; Nyoda stood in front of the dressing-table with a towel wrapped around her, combing her hair: I was sitting on the floor putting my shoes on, while through the bathroom door came the sounds of the shower turned on full force, with an occasional shriek from Nakwisi when she got ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey

... strength of the wind, the result of the water's weight. These waves now reminded them of the behaviour of mercury, or of melted lead when stirred on earth, by the rapidity with which the crests dropped. Though the wind was blowing an on-shore gale, there was but little combing, and when there was any it lasted but a second. The one effort of the crests and waves seemed to be to remain at rest, or, if stirred in spite of themselves, to subside. When over the surface of the ocean, the voyagers rose to a height of thirty thousand metres, and after twenty- four hours' ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... I'm proud of you. This odious Yankee needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is conceited in his own impudence," and Vincent exploded in shouts ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... lid and saw the well-filled interior. She paused before the shelf upon which reposed a supply of canned foods; and exclaimed with delight when she saw, affixed to the wall near the door, a piece of broken mirror. She spent some time looking into the glass, combing her hair with a fragment of comb she found on a shelf beside ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... it under circumstances of privation; nor have they the slightest idea of what a difference to one's well-being and comfort is made by the possession or non-possession of an article so common as a comb. Whilst Augusta was still combing out her hair with sighs of delight, Mrs. Thomas knocked at the door and ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... as if they had been at Timbuctoo. Every man who is taken from munition making at X to spur-worshipping in khaki, is a dead loss to the military efficiency of the country. Every man that is needed or is likely to be needed for the actual operations of modern warfare can be got by combing out the cavalry, the brewing and distilling industries, the theatres and music halls, and the like unproductive occupations. The under-staffing of munition works, the diminution of their efficiency by the use of aged and female labour, is the straight ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... Princesses. The Queen used it in the same manner and place for undressing herself in the evening. She went to bed in corsets trimmed with ribbon, and sleeves trimmed with lace, and wore a large neck handkerchief. The Queen's combing cloth was presented by her first woman if she was alone at the commencement of the toilet; or, as well as the other articles, by the ladies of honour if they were come. At noon the women who had been in attendance four and twenty hours were relieved by two ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... man was an escaped convict, the leader of a gang of counterfeiters, and he was serving a term in one of the federal prisons when he succeeded in his break for liberty. For many months the United States Secret Service operatives had been combing the country for him, hot and cold on his trail, but always, until now, finding themselves baffled by the crafty rogue, who, according to the records, was one of the most dangerous, desperate criminals alive. Finally they got track of his wife, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... Choctaw widows mourn by never combing their hair for the term of their grief, which is generally about a year. The Chippeway men mourn by painting their ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... sleep, and ride on the Prado; and in the evening, visit their friends, or attend a tertulia. The ladies are to be pitied; for they pass three-fourths of their time in deshabille, with their maids around them, sleeping, dressing, lolling, and combing their hair. In this way the whole morning is lounged away; they neither read, write, nor work. In dress they generally imitate the Europeans, except that they seldom wear stockings, and go with their arms bare. In the afternoon they ride on the Prado in state, and in the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... were prowling around the place, but it seemed to him that they might have stretched their curiosity a little farther and investigated the cabin. He did not know that the snow of a week ago was banked over the doorstep with a sharp, crusty combing at the top, to prove that the door had not been opened for some time. Nor did he know that the two had ridden past the cabin on the other side of the creek and had seen how deserted the place looked; had ridden to the stable, noted there the unmistakable and ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... gems, give an idea of the exquisite taste of these head-dresses. At the same time, it must be confessed that most modern fashions, even the ugly ones, have their models, if not in Greek, at least in Roman antiquity. The combing of the hair over the back in wavy lines was undoubtedly much in favor. A simple ribbon tied round the head, in that case, connected the front with the back hair. This arrangement we meet with in the maidens of the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... said the governor to the prince; 'you brought her to this when you burnt the crocodile's skin. Now try if, by combing, you ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... in great Fear and dreadful Fright in the main Ocean ...... but to his great Amazement he espy'd a beautiful young Lady combing her Head and toss'd on the Billows, cloathed all in green (but by chance he got the first Word from her). Then She with a Smile came on Board and asked how he did. The young Man, being Something Smart and a Scholar reply'd—Madam, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... be a big telling, if Alice ever begins," the beach-combing and disreputable kamaainas (old-timers) gleefully told one another over ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... good care, good food, and a contented mind, I was getting better every day. One day I heard her say that I was improving and must have once been a handsome cat. I wanted to tell her of my wonderful voice, but did not do so, and compromised by squaring my shoulders and combing out my whiskers with my claws, for I had saved them and felt that they were still a credit to me. (I think she admired ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe

... the pass, a scout sent by Xerxes rode up to see how strong the enemy were, and how they were employing their time. In front of and on the walls were a number of the Greeks engaging in games and combing out their long hair. Surprised to see so few men, and to see those few busying themselves in such an apparently unnecessary way, the scout rode back and made his report to the Persian king. Now there was in the camp of Xerxes one Demaratus, who had formerly been King ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... was pitted like a colander, and who seemed to have been made on purpose to wait on Valerie, smiled meaningly in reply, and brought the dressing-gown. Valerie took off her combing-wrapper; she was in her shift, and she wriggled into the dressing-gown like a snake into ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... lived. Then it quickly passed through his mind that, instead of the leads and the little yard, there would be the playground; and instead of the church bells, the rooks; and instead of Susan, with her washing and combing, and scolding and kissing, there would be plenty of boys to play with. As he thought of these things, he started up, and toppled head over heels on the grass, and then was up by his mother's side again, saying that he did not care ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau

... Renovales felt a sort of anguish. Like a sleep-walker he saw the streets of the city passing by the carriage window, then they went down a steep hill, ill-kempt gardens, where loafers were sleeping, leaning against the trees, or women were combing their hair in the sun; a bridge; wretched suburbs with tumble-down houses; then the open country, hilly roads and at last a grove of cypress trees beyond an adobe wall and the tops of marble buildings, angels stretching out their wings with a trumpet at their lips, great crosses, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... her sacred body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night, terrible and implacable Goddesses. They are sitting before the doors of the prison shut close with adamant, and are combing black vipers from their hair. Soon as they recognize her amid the shades of darkness, {these} Deities arise. This place is called "the accursed." Tityus[58] is giving his entrails to be mangled, and is stretched over nine acres. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had laid the book of Sir Austin's aphorisms open on the dressing-table. Hastily combing his hair, Richard glanced down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the merry chirp of a chipmunk that every morning ran along the seamy side of the opposite wall of the gorge. Getting up, he went to the back of the cave, where he found Wetzel combing out his long hair. The lad thrust his hands into the cold pool, and bathed his face. The water was icy cold, and sent an invigorating thrill through him. Then he laughed as he took a rude ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... I said, ... in an off-hand way; but really, next to nothing. I am a barber, your honor, and Heaven be praised! I have custom enough to keep me busy from morning till night. There are three of us in the shop, and what with shaving and combing and hair-cutting, not one of the three has the time to stop and scratch his head, and I least of all. Many of my customers are so kind as to prefer my services to those of my two young men; perhaps because I ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... older, as the years must in passing. Basil was now forty-two, and his moustache was well sprinkled with gray. Isabel was thirty-nine, and the parting of her hair had thinned and retreated; but she managed to give it an effect of youthful abundance by combing it low down upon her forehead, and roughing it there with a wet brush. By gaslight she was still very pretty; she believed that she looked more interesting, and she thought Basil's gray moustache ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the house. Mattia and I were very pleased and we intended to do our utmost to bring back a good sum of money so that he would let us have the dog always. We had to get Capi back and we would not spare ourselves, neither one of us. We made Capi undergo a severe washing and combing early in the morning, ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... himself, Their unknown Sov'reign thus his speech address'd. Ye maidens of the long-regretted Chief 380 Ulysses! to the inner-courts retire, And to your virtuous Queen, that following there Your sev'ral tasks, spinning and combing wool, Ye may amuse her; I, meantime, for these Will furnish light, and should they chuse to stay Till golden morn appear, they shall not tire My patience aught, for I can much endure. He said; they, titt'ring, on each other gazed. But one, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... "Speaking of combing and things of that sort," remarked Mr. Rabbit, turning to Mrs. Meadows, "did I ever tell you how Brother Bear learned to comb ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris

... groups were combing out their hair and chatting merrily among themselves and with ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound, and slightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... (Nicholas Harpsfield) for his inaccuracy, Foxe replied: "I hear what you will say: I should have taken more leisure and done it better. I grant and confess my fault, such is my vice, I cannot sit all the day (Moister Cope) fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero. Yet, notwithstanding, doing what I can, and doing my good will, methinks I should not be reprehended, at least not so much be railed of at ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... having chattered in his very face? What awful signs of evil are these! and on such a morning, at the rising of the sun! * * * May the bon Dieu, the Holy Virgin, and the white fairies of the subterranean caves, who are always combing their hair at the first glimpse of dawn, and looking into the clear mirror of the fountains, protect that beautiful young lady, who is at this moment entering the church. It is to be hoped she has made an ample provision of fennel ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... Mermaid. They are handsome, rather beneficent than evil, though occasionally both are treacherous. "Fishermen sometimes see the Mermaid in the bright summer sun, when a thin mist hangs over the sea, sitting on the surface of the water, and combing her long, golden hair with a golden comb, or driving up her snow-white cattle to feed on the islands. At other times she comes as a beautiful maiden, chilled and shivering with the cold of night, to the fires ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... Malek, had a daughter named Ibla, who was as fair as the moon. The ladies were wont to drink camel's milk morning and evening when Antar had cooled it in the winds. It chanced one morning that Antar entered Ibla's tent just as her mother was combing her hair, and the beauty of her form transfixed him. A thing of loveliness fairer he had never seen, nor ringlets of darker hue grace a human head. His heart beat wildly at the birth of a great passion and the hot blood burned his dark cheeks. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... from the frantic combing of his fingers, Kenny went down to find Joan. He read the will aloud to her, controlling ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... tables and cupboards And waggons and bundles. A tailor approaches The vodka tent also; 320 A shrivelled old fellow. His irons and his scissors He holds in his hands, Like a leaf he is shaking. The pope has arisen From sleep, full of prayers. He is combing his hair; Like a girl he is holding His long shining plait. Down the Volga comes floating 330 Some wood-laden rafts, And three ponderous barges Are anchored beneath The right bank of the river. The barge-tower yesterday Evening ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... have killed the outrager; they have escaped; or they have submitted—sometimes seeming to get on very well with the victor afterward. There was that adventure of "false Sextus," for instance, who "found Lucrese combing the fleece, under the midnight lamp." He threatened, as I remember, that if she did not submit he would slay her, slay a slave and place him beside her and say he found him there. A poor device, it always seemed to me. If Mr. Lucretius had asked him how he came to be in his wife's bedroom overlooking ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... nothing about flowers. By a bit of luck, James, my gardener, whom I pay half-a-crown a week for combing the beds, knows nothing about them either; so my ignorance remains undiscovered. But in other people's gardens I have to make something of an effort to keep up appearances. Without flattering myself I may say that I have acquired a certain manner; I give ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... her bureau. "Put it on the table, please," she said, without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the sea, gathered into a combing wave and, breaking, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... impertinent girl; but as my dress happens to fasten behind, and the people in this house are all foolish, I suppose I had better get you to help me. No, my hair is my own. You must make it look as well as you can. Do you understand back-combing?' ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade

... poured. Costumes were uniformly white with great profusion of gauze trimmings, with which I also eventually became somewhat decorated. One of the internes wasn't half bad, so I kept the nurse busy combing my adopted hair and pinning it on becomingly. It is a much quicker and easier process to have your appendix cut out than ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... to begin painting heads or much detail in this picture till it's all settled. I do so believe in getting in the bones of a picture properly first, then putting on the flesh and afterwards the skin, and then another skin; last of all combing its hair and sending it forth to the world. If you begin with the flesh and the skin and trust to getting the bones right afterwards, it's ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild continent are in some measure done for him by those who have gone before. Society has subdivided itself enough to have a place for every form of talent. Thus, if a man show the least sign of ability as a ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... While she was combing her hair, she was tempted to take the scissors and cut it off just to make herself ugly. In the night she went to the window to look for the stars. If it only had not happened, if it only were a dream, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... sea, With not a single ship in sight, Just ocean there, and me; And heard my father snore. And once, As sure as I'm alive, Out of those wallowing, moon-flecked waves I saw a mermaid dive; Head and shoulders above the wave, Plain as I now see you, Combing her hair, now back, now front, Her two eyes peeping through; Calling me, 'Sam!' -quietlike- 'Sam!'... But me .... I never went, Making believe I kind of thought 'Twas some one else she meant.... Wonderful lovely there she sat, ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzino would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzino came to the window with a napkin round his neck—for he was combing his hair —and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista Martelli, who kept his sword for the defense of Lorenzino's person, enter and come forth again. Concluding that they would probably go abroad, I went home to get ready and procure the necessary weapons, and there I found ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... receding flow it had swirled him into a round cavity in the rocks, where as a boy he had often played and bathed and fished; he knew it well, and saw in a moment that he was saved! Clasping Valmai firmly, he ran up the beach, another combing, foaming wave coming dangerously near his hurrying footsteps; but in spite of the buffeting wind, he gained the shelter of the cliffs, and at last laid his burden tenderly down on the rocks. And now the fight for life was replaced by ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... an English patrol boat, after exchange of signals, passed near by on Dave's port side. Twenty minutes after that two British mine-sweepers were found at work combing the seas with their wire sweepers. If those wires should touch a hidden mine it would be quickly known to the seamen who operated the mine-detecting device, and the mine would be hauled up and taken aboard the mine-sweeping craft, provided it did ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... stare, Bristle the peasant's hoary hair, Make patriot breasts with ardour glow, And warrior pant to meet the foe; And long by Nith the maidens young Shall chant the strains their minstrel sung. At ewe-bught, or at evening fold, When resting on the daisied wold, Combing their locks of waving gold, Oft the fair group, enrapt, shall name Their lost, their darling Cunninghame; His was a song beloved in youth, A tale of weir, a tale ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... same, that Dr. Hirt[127] considers girls should not be at all employed in, by reason of the danger to health, especially with an eye to their sexual functions, are: The preparation of bronze colors, of velvet and glazed paper, hat making, glass grinding, lithography, flax combing, horsehair twisting, fustian pulling, iron tinning, and work in the flax and ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... and scrubbed one another with towels and pieces of canvas, stripping to it; and then, getting into the head, threw buckets of water upon each other. After this, came shaving, and combing, and brushing; and when, having spent the first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the forecastle, in the afternoon, with clean duck trowsers, and shirts on, washed, shaved, and combed, and looking a dozen shades lighter for it, reading, sewing, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... act of combing his beard, which he had allowed to grow, as well as his hair, in order to reproach Mazarin with his wretched appearance and condition. But having some days previously seen from the top of the donjon Madame de Montbazon pass in her carriage, and still cherishing an affection for ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... reach the heart. I was once acquainted with a woman, who (except in her own family and among her neighbors) had the reputation of being very devotedly pious, who went to her pastor, (an aged and venerable man,) greatly grieved because he was in the habit of combing his hair upwards, so as to cover his baldness. She was afraid it was pride. She was a great talker, and often had difficulties with her brethren and sisters in the church; for she thought it her duty to exercise a watchful care ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... but it is the same implement. Pliny gives an account of the mode of preparing flax: plucking it up by the roots, tying it in bundles, drying, watering, beating, and hackling it, or, as he says, "combing it with iron hooks." Until the Christian era linen was almost the only kind of clothing used in Egypt, and the teeming banks of the Nile furnished flax in abundance. The quality of the linen can be seen in the bands preserved ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... Seville is too poor to have a peinadora to do her hair; and these women go from house to house, combing and arranging the coiffure for such infinitesimal sums as half a real, which is little more ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... powerful than I, then prevent me from telling thee unpalatable truths. Thou art very vain of thy beard, thou art combing and dressing it ten times a day, and thou would'st not shave half of it to get me out of this body. Cut off thy beard, and I promise ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... it struck Clarence for the first time that a great deal of his real wickedness resided in his hair. This set him to thinking that it was strange that Mr. Peyton did not try to reform him with a pair of scissors, but not until Clarence himself had for at least four days attempted to imitate Jim by combing his own hair ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... when I opened my eyes, the new member of Mess 6 was sitting on his knapsack, combing his blond beard with a horn comb. He nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they woke up, one by one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the animated conversation of the previous night; but while he was gone to make a requisition for what was in pure sarcasm called ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... not do anything for very long at a time, getting tired of one thing after another as all children do. So when Sue had undressed and dressed her two dolls, combing and braiding their hair, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope

... married couple had kept school eleven years—he instructing the boys in history, Latin, and such like; and she washing, combing, and moralising the same, and in fact, becoming a mother to many a motherless boy, it pleased the mercy of the Almighty to call them—not directly to heaven, but through his angel the Consistorium to the pastoral care of the rural ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... in which I think your daughter may fail is in properly washing, combing, and examining the dogs, and cutting her ladyship's corns; but surely she can practice a little of both, as she will not be wanted for a month. There can be no difficulty about the first; and as for the latter, as all people ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... she spoke, locking the door again, and Mollie got up with a heavy sigh. She had taken off only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before. Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... narrower grows the passage until it would seem as if he could never struggle through; nor can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express purpose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been safely removed, he still has to struggle on toward freedom through one of the narrow openings, where an ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... was almost completely covered with a blanket of debris, but I could move my arms, and managed to prop myself up in a sitting posture. It was there that my father and his searching party found me; he had been combing that district all night. They carried me back, terribly bruised, but without even a bone broken. It was a miracle that I escaped, and the miracle must have been worked by your ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... me nothing," said Sancho; "but I told her how your worship was left doing penance in her service, naked from the waist up, in among these mountains like a savage, sleeping on the ground, not eating bread off a tablecloth nor combing your beard, weeping ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... answer the telephone while he was away. All of his other riders were already out combing the hills under supervision of Curly. Luck had waited with Sam only to get some definite information before starting. Now he had his lead. Fendrick was either telling the truth or he was lying with some sinister purpose in view. The ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... stiff plait of hair which stuck out almost horizontally from the nape of Harriett's neck, and watched her combing out the tightly-curled fringe standing stubbily out along her forehead and extending like a thickset hedge midway across the crown of her head, where it stopped abruptly against the sleekly-brushed longer strands which strained ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... Munich Gallery. With what delicious enjoyment do the little vagabonds poise above their open mouths a cluster of purple grapes or a slice of rich melon! Their ragged garments scarcely suffice to cover them; their arms and legs are bare; their abundant dark curls have known no combing, and they are undeniably dirty. And yet they are perfectly charming. The rich tints of their sunburned skin; the dark liquid eyes of the Spanish race; the beautiful curves of their plump necks and shoulders; the free grace of their attitudes,—all combine to make ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... were a fault, it was that they were not tight enough. For a long while I stood before the looking-glass as I combed my elaborately pomaded head, but, try as I would, I could not reduce the topmost hairs on the crown to order. As soon as ever I left off combing them, they sprang up again and radiated in different directions, thus giving my face a ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... yet, but perhaps I may, and then I'll write the book," said Uncle Wiggily, combing out ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... not as she had been the first time I had seen her, in her low combing chair; but full facing me on a great high-backed seat like a throne, her feet on a footstool, a table at her right on which her hand rested over some white thing, like a folded paper. Her gown, too ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... Mrs. Galland, "I could help you a little if you would let me comb your hair. You are combing in a most unsystematic way, I must say. Systematic, gentle combing is very good ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... souls, not heart and souls- love; for he kept not his trust nor was he faithful to his troth.' Said I, 'O my lady, and what was the cause of your separation?', and she replied, 'I was sitting one day whilst my handmaid here combed my hair. When she had made an end of combing it, she plaited my tresses, and my beauty and loveliness charmed her; so she bent over me and kissed my cheek.[FN334] At that moment he came in unawares, and, seeing the girl kiss my cheek, straightways ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... a woman; and in the time that had passed since the morning she had seen her reckless, beach-combing father carried ashore at Nukutavake with a skinful of whisky and his pockets full of the dollars for which he had sold her, the tongue and memories of her mother's race ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... got blood in their eyes now. The coach has been combing them down, and they're just bound to carry things before them, or die trying. It's going to be ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... customers, but she can get no credit for herself. She has a matter of 40l. standing out; she owes 21l.; she has sold her cow and calf to keep up her credit at Clifden, and she is doing no business. When I looked in on her she was engaged in combing the hair of one of her fair-skinned children, an operation not common in these parts, where the back hair of even grown women in such centres of commercial activity as Clifden has a curious knack of coming down. It is part of the tumble-downishness ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... are cleanly, combing their hair frequently and bathing three times daily. The men bathe even oftener; still all of them have more or less parasites in their hair and frequently apply lime juice in order to kill them. A young woman, whom I remembered as one of two who ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... do the feats of Gymnast against Tripet, and the fate of the unlucky Touquedillon, and the escalade of La Roche Clermande, and (a little less perhaps) the pure burlesque of the eating of the pilgrims, and the combing out of the cannon balls, and the contrasted sweet reasonableness of the amiable though not at all cowardly Grandgousier. But the advice of the Evil Counsellors to Picrochole is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... shoves ahead. For she is a good ship, and later we shall miss her, but at this moment we feel that we can part from her without a pang. She rounds a turn in the channel. What is that mass which looms on beyond, where cloud-combing office buildings scallop the sky and bridges leap in far-flung spans from shore to shore? That's her—all right—the high picketed gateway of the nation. That's little old New York. Few are the art centers there, and few the ruins; ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... for suddenly they stopped, and hurried away through the grass on opposite sides of the stone, as if remembered business had just called to them. Whatever the business was, the first mouse seemed to forget it very speedily, for in half a minute he was back upon the stone again, combing his fine whiskers and scratching his ears. This done to his satisfaction, he dropped like a flash from his seat, and disappeared into a small hollow beneath it. As he did so, a hairy black spider darted out, and ran ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... occurred during our passage home. It was in the season of the year when severe gales are met with on the Atlantic, but the brig Joseph proved a good sea boat, tight as a drum, and could lie to or scud without danger of being overwhelmed by the combing waves. On this passage a little incident occurred off the Orkney Islands, that will convey some idea of the dangers to which those are subjected whose home is on ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... up and settled on a haycock, turning its head from side to side and looking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying about the field, and a bare-legged boy was driving the horses to an old man, who had got up from under his long coat and was combing his hair. The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... with ointment of ammoniated mercury, four per cent strength. Shampoos with tar-soap suds should be given once in four or five weeks, and the hair should not be wet with water between the shampoos. The hair must be arranged by combing, the brush being used to smooth the surface of the hair only. Deep and repeated brushing does great damage, which is equalled only by the frequent washing some ill-advised sufferers employ. Massage of the scalp is useless to control seborrheic eczema, which is practically ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... Jonas came in without his otter-skin cap, combing the thick grisly fringe round his head, the top of which was quite bare; and directly after from another door—for there were doors nearly everywhere, because Jonas Uggleston had built the cottage very small at first and then kept on adding ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... basalt-quarries about Linz; mineral-springs in Nassau, a legacy of the Romans to the genius and enterprise of the first of German traders. He could have bought up every hawking crag, owner and all, from Hatto's Tower to Rheineck. Lore-ley, combing her yellow locks against the night-cloud, beheld old Gottlieb's rafts endlessly stealing on the moonlight through the iron pass she peoples above St. Goar. A wailful host were the wives of his raftsmen widowed there by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... have L2000 worth of goods in hand left unsold, and has trusted out to drapers, and mercers, and merchants, to the value of L4000 more; and look into his workhouse at home, namely, his wool-lofts, his combing-shop, his yarn-chamber, and the like, and there you will find it—in wool unspun, and in yarn spun, and in wool at the spinners', and in yarn at and in the looms at the weavers'; in rape-oil, gallipoli oil, and perhaps soap, &c, in his warehouses, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... hive me in, the flowers That prink my fountain's brim, are hers and mine; And when the days are mild and fair, And grass is springing, buds are blowing, Sweet it is, 'mid waters flowing, Here to sit and know no care, 'Mid the waters flowing, flowing, flowing, Combing my ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... the finishing processes of fulling and dyeing were made a business of elsewhere, then with the introduction of machinery the hand-loom disappeared from our cottages to special centres; next the spinning disappeared; then the combing, and last of all the wool-sorting went too, leaving nothing but sheep shearing of what was a complete local industry, with as many centres as there were formerly houses to work in and ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... her lips, she straightway quitted the room, and during this while, Pao-yue having finished combing her hair, asked She Yueeh to quietly wait upon him, while he went to sleep, as he would not like to disturb ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... well as on the fore-part of the main-deck, and likewise between the guns, chiefly those abreast of the fore-hatchway, there have been groups assembled to scrape and polish themselves ever since breakfast-time, and even before it. Some are washing themselves; others cutting, and combing, and trimming their hair; for, now-a-days, there are none of those huge long tails, or club ties, which descended along the back of the sailors who fought with Benbow and Rodney. The dandyism of Jack has now taken another turn, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... occasionally called into her room, to cut her nails or dress her hair; and we would often collect the clippings, and distribute them to each other, or preserve them with the utmost care. I once picked up all the stray hairs I could find, after combing her head, bound them together, and kept them for some time, until she told me I was not worthy to possess things so sacred. Jane McCoy and I were once sent to alter a dress for the Superior. I gathered ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... altered, Surely the port she'll win; Never my faith in my ship has faltered, I know she is coming in. For through the restless ways of her roaming, Through the mad rush of the wild waves foaming, Through the white crest of the billows combing, My ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... few produce brown wool; but that of far the greater proportion of the goats is white, and this latter is more valuable than the other. The coat is a mixture of long, coarse hair and of short fine wool: this latter begins to be loose early in April; and is collected, easily and expeditiously, by combing the animals two or three times with such a comb as is used for horses' manes. A good deal of the long hair comes off at the same time, but the manufacturer has found no difficulty in separating it. The produce of a male is about 4 oz., and of a female 2 oz.: 2 lbs. of wool, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various

... was the same as if she were going upon a long journey or were preparing for a great sickness. Toward four o'clock Miss Douglass, looking in to ask how she did, found her before her mirror carefully combing and arranging her great bands and braids of dark-red hair. The fever nurse declared that she was immensely improved in appearance, and asked at once if she ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... her husband, found the doors hung with garlands made of herbs, flowers, and plants consecrated to certain gods and goddesses, which possessed peculiar virtues suitable for the occasion. Cakes were bestowed on the bride on her marriage day; and there was a custom among the Greeks and Romans of combing her hair with a spear which had belonged to a man that lost his life in a fight, or with a weapon that had been used in killing a man. If this was done, she was sure to have brave sons. As the bride rose to leave her father's house, she was carried over the threshold; ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... blown off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap and ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... soap or with a little alcohol and rosemary are beneficial. The scalp should be well brushed with moderately firm but not hard bristles. The best brushes are those without handles, known as army and navy. Water is bad for the hair. Constant combing with a fine-tooth comb is apt to irritate the scalp and provoke dandruff, which can be allayed by brushing, shampooing, and the use of borax and ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... on, and when they came up close to the rocks they saw sitting on a flat and polished stone a mermaid combing her golden hair, and singing a strange sweet song that brought the tears to their eyes, and by the mermaid's side was a ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... he reappeared, carrying his case, professing himself tired, bothered, hungry, thirsty, cold, and in immediate need of his tea. Rubbing his hands, he told them the adventures of the day: how he had come upon poor old Jackson combing his moustache before the glass in the office, little expecting his descent, had put him through such a morning's work as seldom came his way; then treated him to a lunch of champagne and ortolans; paid a call upon Mrs. Jackson, who was fatter than ever, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... for supper rang, and washing up and combing his hair, he went below. He ate his portion leisurely, and was just finishing when the landlady said there was a young lady to ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... included among these early lyrics. "A Christmas Carol" is a ballad of burdens, suggested by a drawing of Rossetti's, and full of the Pre-Raphaelite colour. The inevitable damsels, or bower maidens, are combing out the queen's hair with golden combs, while she sings a song of God's mother; how she, too, had three women ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removed his waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing did not cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled. The next was ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... an unknown Georgia Negro, little past his majority. This is what Senator Smith said to Mr. Easterly; what Miss Wynn said to herself; and it was what Mrs. Vanderpool remarked to Zora as Zora was combing her hair on the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... their respective duties; blacksmiths busy at the forge, reapers gathering in the harvest, furriers preparing rich skins, children picking maize, drovers tending their flocks, wood-cutters returning heavily loaded from the mountains. Others again are engaged in carding and combing wool, navvies are digging irrigation canals, chemists are manufacturing saltpetre and gunpowder, armourers are making or mending firearms. Tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers, potters, millers, sawyers—every kind of labourer or artisan is here to be found. There are no idlers, ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot

... days." Whereupon he made a great splashing in his corner and let her go without more words, feeling more than ever that he needed time to think. "Just visiting—'cause it's Sunday, eh? The dickens it is!" Meditating deeply, he was very deliberate in combing his hair and settling his blue tie and shaking the dust out of his white silk neckerchief and retying it in a loose knot; so deliberate that Mama Joy was constrained to call out to him: "Your dinner is getting cold, Mr. Boyle," before he went in and took his seat where ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... is in this Humour, let Abigail while combing her Hair at the Toilette in a Morning, stir her up to Vengeance. This will under-hand promote your Voyage; for while you openly manage your Sails, she works under the Water with ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding









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