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More "Quill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "But you haven't writ his name out. Give me the pen here, quick!" Then he took the quill and wrote her father's name up in one blank corner, and dried the ink with a little sand, and put the note into the envelope containing his own, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... seated, warmed with his wine, takes many red-taped papers from his bag and a quill ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... ink the ocean fill, Were the whole earth of parchment made, Were every single stick a quill, Were every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God alone, Would drain the ocean dry; Nor would the scroll contain the whole Though stretched from ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... I think, I am nearly sure, there is a feather in this cushion that has the quill in it ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... marked accordingly with a "P," carved rudely enough by one whose hand was much more practised in slitting the weasand of a buck, than in cutting out, with crayon, or Italian crow-quill, the ungainly forms of the Roman alphabet. Ned Hinkley shook his head with some misgiving when the work was done; as he could not but see that he had somewhat impaired the beauty of the peacemaker's butt by the hang-dog looking initial which ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... living representatives of the class Aves, the tail-feathers are attached to a coccygian bone, consisting of several vertebrae united together, whereas in the Archaeopteryx the tail is composed of twenty vertebrae, each of which supports a pair of quill-feathers. The first five only of the vertebrae, as seen in A, have transverse processes, the fifteen remaining ones become gradually longer and more tapering. The feathers diverge outward from them at ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... into a ball, radiating long, sharp needles in all directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed too near a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tail flick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in his muzzle, where it had remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until it finally worked out. So he lay down, in a comfortable crouching position, his nose fully a foot away, and out of the line of the tail. Thus he waited, keeping perfectly quiet. There was ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... usually nothing is placed under the head, but sometimes small wooden blocks are used. In the morning when they arise they roll the mats, and the chamber-work is done. A young girl whom I measured had her hair fastened up with the quill of a porcupine; when asked to undo her hair, she put the quill under the top of her skirt. The Bukits possess one musical instrument, sarunai, a kind of clarinet, which does not sound badly. There are many blians, nearly all men. Several prominent members of ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... had been waved to seats by a great window with Mr. Pollock, made no protest. There they sat in silence for a few minutes, while the Governor General dictated to a secretary who sat at a little table by his side and who wrote with a goose-quill. ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... we reckon those of the governmental leeches, who are merely quill-drivers with a salary of six hundred ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... very strangely dressed, in tweeds and knicker-bockers and wore a soft round hat with a quill in it—the oddest of hats—and had a knapsack on his back. The colours of the coming day were caricatured in his ruddy face and red-gold hair, his bright green stockings and bright red tie. He was Germanic, flagrant, incredible, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... too certaine ill, Did not extinguish, but gaue honour fier, Th'amazing prodigie, (bane of my quill,) Bred not astonishment, but a strong desier, By which this heauen-adopted Knights strong will, Then hiest height of Fame, flew much more hier: And from the boundlesse greatnes of his minde, Sends back this answer ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... the individual man, is the noblest of passions in a people. If he lose one, we are all beaten with him, we all fall down with our Caesar, and the grief glistens in every eye, the shame burns on every cheek. Moralize as we may about the victories of peace and the superiority of the goose-quill over the sword, there is no achievement of human genius on which a country so prides itself as on success in war, no disgrace over which it broods so ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... benefits of British Rule, was its weakening and debasing effect on Indian manhood. "We cannot," he declared, "be grateful to it for degrading our natures, for systematically crushing out all martial spirit, for converting a race of soldiers and heroes into a timid flock of quill-driving sheep." This was done not by the fact that a man did not carry arms—few carry them in England—but that men were deprived of the right to carry them. A Nation, an individual, cannot develop his capacities to the utmost without liberty. And this ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... be neatly folded in paper and marked; and this can be done in the evening or at odd times, but placing the feathers on the pages ought to be daylight work, that the colors may be studied. Now open the tail-feather packet, and with the razor carefully pare away the quill at the back ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... get a footing in a magazine where one would care to appear. There are not many authors whose sole dependence is a goose-quill. Call over the well-known men; they are all something else before they are authors. Your pot-boilers are sure of a market; pictures have become articles of furniture, indispensable to people of taste, and everybody has a taste now-a-days. But rejected papers are good for nothing but to light one's ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... tedious, owing to his weakness, the rough country, and the deepening snow. Towards noon he came upon the newly made track of a porcupine, followed it a short distance into a clump of trees, where he soon saw the round quill-covered animal in the snow and shot it. Immediately he built a fire, and singed off quills and hair. Then, as he related to me afterwards, he considered, talking aloud to himself, what was best to ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... things the easiest to get! How could it care for a fellow's happiness, or even for his leading a correct life! Would he not be a much better man if allowed to have Hester!—whereas in all probability she would fall to the lot of some quill-driver like her father—a man that made a livelihood by drumming his notions into the ears of people that did not care a brass farthing about them!—Thus would Vavasor's love-fits work themselves off—declining from cold noon ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... size, corresponds with the small deer of Ceylon. I never saw so beautiful a little creature, appearing more like a fable than a reality. Their tiny black horns are but slightly curved inwards, their legs are not thicker than the quill with which I am now writing; and yet all the characters of the antelope are strongly marked. The first I saw had been brought to my uncle; and as I entered his room, I stood quite still at the door, with surprise at this exquisite, tiny creature, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... of a shepherd, cleverly modelled and painted, and vaguely resembling himself—he had been a Calabrian goatherd. The contralto, who came from Bologna, the city of sausages, gave Margaret a tiny pig made of silver with holes in his back, in which were stuck a number of quill toothpicks. ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... Bones." Of the passion for gaming of the Beaver Indians, see his Journal, 149. The same author (page 311), describes another game played by the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. It was played by two persons, each of whom had a "bundle of about fifty small sticks, neatly polished, of the size of a quill, and five inches long; a certain number of these sticks had red lines round them; and as many of these as one of the players might find convenient were curiously rolled up in dry grass, and, according to the judgment of his antagonist, respecting their number ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... sending envelopes, carefully addressed in a feigned hand, to a certain person at the Oxenbridge Hydro. These envelopes contained no word of writing, but held, on one day, only a bit of down from a hen's breast, on another, a goose-quill, on another, a glossy tail-feather, on another, a grain of corn, and so on. These trifles were regarded by me not as degrading or unmaidenly hints and suggestions, but simply as tests of intelligence. Could a man receive ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Lincolnshire family named Tetlow, which, with thirteen other figures, includes the representation of a book duly clasped and ornamented, having on it a silver penny; while above the book rests a dove, holding in its beak a crow-quill! This was to commemorate one of the family having, with a crow-quill, actually achieved the exploit of writing the Lord's Prayer within the compass of a silver penny. Amongst the most objectionable of the arms of this class are those which were granted ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... and dragon's blood, as they style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught but the goose-quill!" ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance; at least I suppose this quill I hold in my hand writes better than a peacock's would, and the peasants of Vevay, whose fields in spring time are as white with lilies as the Dent du Midi is with its snow, told me the hay was none the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... ten square leagues her pennons broad expand, And twilight swims upon the shuddering sand; 465 Perch'd on her crest the Griffin Discord clings, And Giant Murder rides between her wings; Blood from each clotted hair, and horny quill, And showers of tears in blended streams distil; High-poised in air her spiry neck she bends, 470 Rolls her keen eye, her Dragon-claws extends, Darts from above, and tears at each fell swoop With iron ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... goin' to grow up?" he asked; and poured out a big glass of the pure quill for me, and fiercely ordered me to drink it. By this time I was desperate; so I smashed his glass and mine; and taking him by the throat I shook him and told him that if he did not take me to the hump-backed man or to the drayman, and that right off, I'd shut off his wind ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... acquaintance, and so in three days' time a clergyman said, "Wilt thou take this woman here present to be thy lawful wife?" knowing full well what the answer must be. Short of other materials, the marriage contract was written with a goose quill on the parchment head of a drum. Sir William found that Meg made him a very good wife in spite of her wide mouth, and they lived happily together, the moral being, we supposed, that it is not always the prettiest girl that makes ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... play the lute, the violin, the flageolet, the harp, the syrinx and the regals," the other replied; "also the Spanish penola that is struck with a quill, the organistrum that a wheel turns round, the wait so delightful, the rebeck so enchanting, the little gigue that chirps up on high, and the great horn that booms ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... for whom, to-night, These walls are crowded with this cheering sight Ye love the poet—oft have conned him o'er, Knew ye the man, ye'd love him ten times more. Ye critics, spare him from your tongue and quill, Ye gods, applaud him; and ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... I receive are preceded by a volume of some sort or other, as a token of my new acquaintance being a regularly initiated member of the fraternity of the quill. In two or three instances, I have been surprised at subsequently discovering that the regular profession of the writer is arms, or some other pursuit, in which one would scarcely anticipate so strong a devotion to letters. In short, such is the actual state of opinion ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from Rydal, with a washing tub of ink on castors, which he pushes about with him wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, my door-keeper ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... silence. M. de Rivarol sat back in his chair, the feathered end of a quill between his teeth. Presently he cleared his throat and ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... one more example. The feather of a bird is a marvellous structure, and no one will deny that as a whole it depends upon adaptation. But what part of it DOES NOT depend upon adaptation? The hollow quill, the shaft with its hard, thin, light cortex, and the spongy substance within it, its square section compared with the round section of the quill, the flat barbs, their short, hooked barbules which, in the flight-feathers, hook into one another with just sufficient firmness to resist the pressure ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... who was allowed to bound upon the desk without rebuke, or even to perch upon the author's shoulders. Here the cat settled down contentedly, and with half-shut eyes watched the steady driving of the quill across ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... served to make Jasmin's name popular beyond the town in which they had been composed and published. His friend M. Gaze said of him, that during the year 1825 he had been marrying his razor with the swan's quill; and that his hand of velvet in shaving was even surpassed by ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... and, entering a house, were ushered into a cool, lofty room, where there were a lot of mahogany desks, and a single old clerk, who resembled a last year's dried lemon, with some few drops of acid juice for blood, perched up on a hard stem of a high stool, with four or five quill pens, like so many thorns, sticking out ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... do it delicately! I can't Apologize. I'll hint at it ... in verse; And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through, I'll make it an appendix to my will!" —Still cynical, you see. He couldn't help it. He had seen much, felt much. He snapped the snuff box, Shook his white periwig, trimmed a long quill pen, And then began to write, most carefully, These couplets, ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... leant forward and took from the tray of the inkstand a quill pen. With the point of it he followed the lines written ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... a young Examiner, scarce thirty were his years, His name our University loves, honours, and reveres: He pondered o'er some papers, and a tear stood in his eye; He split his quill upon the desk, and raised a bitter cry— 'O why has Fortune struck me down with this unearthly blow? "Why doom'd me to examine in my lov'd one's Little-go? "O Love and Duty, sisters twain, in diverse ways ye pull; ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... only through the assistance of the chemist that he finally hit upon the method of staining the sheets with a thin broth of untanned leather, of which the analysis would give a result closely approaching that of the parchment itself. Moreover, he made all sorts of trials of quill pens, until he had found a method of cutting which produced the exact thickness of stroke required, and during the whole time he exercised himself in copying and recopying many pages of the manuscript upon common paper, in order to familiarise himself ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... said Meeson, addressing himself to Mr. Todd and the managing clerk, as he took the quill between his fingers to sign, "do you two bear in mind that at the moment I execute this will I am of sound mind, memory, and understanding. There you are; now do you ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... a cave.] In Guiuan I had an opportunity of purchasing four richly painted Chinese dishes which came from a similar cavern, and a gold signet ring; the latter consisting of a plate of gold, originally bent into a tube of the thickness of a quill with a gaping seam, and afterwards into a ring as large as a thaler, which did not quite meet. The dishes were ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... so," answered John; "and if rest is what thou needest for thy recovery, it will not be lacking to thee here. It is well that the sword is not the only weapon thou lovest, but that the quill and the lore of the wise of the earth have attractions for ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... our party. Presently the folding-doors are to be shut, the ladies are to descend from their chambers, the bar will be kept appropriated to our house, the male part of the company will get into good humour, dinner will be ready, and then I must lay aside the grey goose-quill. As a preliminary to these promised comforts, the servant is mopping the hearth, which is composed (like a tesselated pavement) of little bricks about two inches long by half an inch wide, set within a broad black stone frame. The fuel is of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... listening again, and as her master was preparing to take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced around to see that they were entirely alone; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... difference between a full-grown bear and a furry, inquisitive cub. Though he was not afraid, the appearance of the mother bear was more than he had bargained for, and he immediately rolled himself into a ball again, every quill bristling defiantly. The old bear, however, wise in the lore of the dim trails, paid no more attention to him. Calling her cub, she shambled off through the bushes, the youngster casting many a backward glance at this little, ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... barbarous-looking. A great many fine canoes. The life is very wild about us here. One canoe comes in loaded down with rabbits which they have shot along the shores. Much gaudy clothing and savage finery now. Every one wears moccasins. One woman here does fine porcupine-quill work. She is Mrs. McLeod, and is the daughter of Old-man Firth, who is the factor at Fort McPherson, so they say. She is the wife of the factor at Fort Nelson, and knows how to trade. Quill-work ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... accident I met him out there in the timber. I delivered the telegram you sent him. After he had read it I showed him mine. He scribbled something on a bit of paper, folded it, and pinned it with a porcupine quill. I've been mighty curious, but I haven't pulled out that quill. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... distantly reminded of a celebrated racehorse. However, it was clear that Mr. Fulton was a retired tradesman of some kind. 'He went out of isinglass—before the cheap scientific substitute was invented (it is made out of old quill pens)—with seventy-five thousand pounds. And it ought to come to my children. He has not another relation living but ourselves; he married my aunt. But we never see him: he said that he could not stand ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... five minutes I set to work, and in a few more, to my intense satisfaction—for I felt nervous—the thing was done, and I had extracted a piece of wood half an inch long, and as thick as a small quill. Then Guest and I carefully washed the wound over and over again in a solution of carbolic acid, and in half an hour the hand was bound up pro tem. Poor Yorke bore the pain without the twitching of an eyelid, and I felt a sincere thankfulness when, ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... expressed his commiseration was sitting with his high chair tilted back, with his knees against the edge of his desk, with his hat almost down upon his nose as he looked at his visitors from under it, and he amused himself by cutting up a quill pen into small pieces with his penknife. It was not pleasant to be pitied by such a man as that, and so ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Virtue (to trace only a few of its varied activities) meant manliness, then the quality or attribute peculiar to true manhood (with the Romans this was valor), then any admirable quality, then female chastity. Pen meant a feather, then a quill to write with, then an instrument for writing used in the same way as a quill. A groom meant a man, then a stableman (in bridegroom, however, it preserves the old signification). Heathen (heath-dweller), pagan (peasant), and demon (a divinity) had in themselves ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... painting set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... had enough of it. He was still striking the water, but his movements were becoming slower, for he was weakened by the loss of blood from the stabs he had received from below, and from the arrows, many of which were now buried to the goose quill in him. In a minute or two he gradually turned on one side, and floated, with his ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... abandoned. In 1878, when I spent three weeks at Ampersand, the cabin was in ruins, and surrounded by an almost impenetrable growth of bushes. The only philosophers to be seen were a family of what the guides quaintly call "quill pigs." The roof had fallen to the ground; raspberry-bushes thrust themselves through the yawning crevices between the logs; and in front of the sunken door-sill lay a rusty, broken iron stove, like a dismantled altar on which the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... no one is speaking, and the grating of the clerks' quill pens against the paper is the only sound which disturbs the silence of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that is, the Weekly Review (which was published weekly from February 19th, 1704, until 1712) which, says Gay, "is quite exhausted and grown so very contemptible, that though he has provoked all his brothers of the quill round, none of them will enter into ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... as we could get hold of it we inhaled, with delight, the perfume which issued from it, and which communicated to our senses the most soothing impressions. Some of us reserved our portion of wine in little tin cups, and sucked up the wine with a quill; this manner of taking it was very beneficial to us, and quenched our thirst much more than if we had drunk it off at once. Even the smell of this liquor was extremely agreeable to us. Mr. Savigny observed that many of us, after having taken ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... dear Cally, comes the hour When triumph crowns thy will, Submissive to thy winning power I seize the recreant quill: Indite these lines to bless thy days And sing my ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... in Spinville. And Jedidiah tried to tell his mother, through the open window, how the more they took the potatoes out of the bin, the more there were left in it; and how everybody had enough, and went away satisfied, and had filled their pockets; and even one of the boys was planning a quill popgun for sliced potato, such as the worst boys had not dreamed of all summer. He was a ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... task to write a letter. Paper and ink were not things of common use, as they are with us. A pen had to be made from the quill of a goose. ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... "Take a swan quill and a sheet of the finest parchment, and write down carefully what I shall dictate: the story of ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... thronged—though only with men, now; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone, with the ladies. The reporters' gallery, was merely occupied by one or two watchful sentinels of the quill-driving guild; the main body cared nothing for a debate that had dwindled to a mere vaporing of dull speakers and now and then a brief quarrel over a point of order; but there was an unusually large attendance of journalists in the reporters' waiting-room, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... out ahead, darted forward and stopped at where a small plant grew with linear leaves and a stalk not thicker than a crow's quill. Instantly taking a spade fastened to the back of the ox, he began eagerly digging away; and after he had got down to the depth of a foot, he displayed to us a tuber, the size of an enormous turnip. On removing the rind, he ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble Novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... forked hill Sate full-blown Bufo, I)uff'd by every quill; Fed with soft dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... be used to make trimming for a hat by cutting it from the quill with a very sharp knife or razor blade, retaining a small portion of the quill which will be sufficient to hold the feathers together. This should be sewed onto a fine wire, and it may then be wound into a rosette. A small flower placed in the ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... they never attack one another, and there's no record of one yellow dog who tried to eat another yellow dog who belonged to the same gang. There's a mighty difference between the canine and the human, eh? You're one of our breed, Armstrong—yellow dog of the yellow dog quill-driving tribe—and your comrades haven't the gentlemanly instinct of the Constantinople cur. They get round you and worry you,' he declaimed, rising, and striding about the room, with an occasional double-handed clutch at ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... enough from a peasant the number, quartered there, they would write a report on the number the intentions as far as they could learn them, the amount of food in store, and the sentiments of the population, would enclose the despatch in a goose-quill and give it to their host, who was ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... the timepiece on the notary's wall. The town clocks were striking the hour. A knock at the door made the notary turn, with his quill pen still indicating the space for Denise's signature. It was the dingy clerk who sat in a sort of cage in the outer office. After opening the door he stood aside, and Susini came in with glittering eyes and ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... going in and out down there in the narrow streets, who were neither princes, nor generals, nor even captains, and yet the people looked after them with respectful curiosity—mere quill-drivers! It was ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... brother is not looking. Let him turn his eyes to the left. He will see two wild flowers broken off at the stem, a feather which has not fallen from the plumage of a bird, because the quill is painted, and two traces of footsteps ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... with his crop rapped upon the factor's door. Old Islay came out with a quill behind his ear and a finger ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... fact that one day, while leaving the swamp, a big feather with a shaft over twenty inches long came spinning and swirling earthward and fell in the author's path. Instantly she looked upward to locate the bird, which from the size and formation of the quill could have been nothing but an eagle; her eyes, well trained and fairly keen though they were, could not see the bird, which must have been soaring above range. Familiar with the life of the vulture family, ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Women think themselves completely Adorned till they have tinged the Lashes and the edges of their Eyelids with the powder of Lead-Ore. This they do by dipping a Bodkin of the thickness of a Quill into the Powder, and dragging it under the Eyelids. This gives their Eyes a Sooty colour, but is thought to add a Wonderful Grace to their Complexions. And was not this that which Jezebel did in the Ancient Time?[C] ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a crop of paint-brushes growing all over it; for a feather, when it first comes, is protected by a little case, and the end of the feather, which sticks out of the tip of the case, does look very much like the soft hairs at the end of a paint-brush, the kind that has a hollow quill stem, you know. After they were once started, dear me, how those feathers grew! It seemed no time at all before they covered up the ear-holes in the side of his head, and no time at all before a little bristle fringe grew down ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... follow by ear—no difficult matter, for on the line of their course every wood-pigeon rose from its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings against the branches with wellnigh force enough to break every quill. By taking the track of this noise he soon came to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... consequence, disappoints everybody, the sitter always included. When we wish to judge of a man's character by his handwriting, we want his customary scrawl dashed off with his common workaday pen, not his best small text traced laboriously with the finest procurable crow-quill point. So it is with portrait-painting, which is, after all, nothing but a right reading of the externals of character recognisably presented to the ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... joy to your lodges, or I shall live among the dogs and old women for the remainder of my days. My friends, you saw which way my feather flew. I shall hold my shield in that direction, and the lightning will draw a great cloud, and this arrow, which is feathered with the quill of the white swan will make a hole ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... did idly try To show her sheaepe a-riden by, The rushes brown-bloom'd stems did ply, As if they bow'd to her by will. The rings o' water, wi' a sock, Did break upon the mossy rock, An' gi'e my beaeten heart a shock, Above my float's up-leapen quill. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... those ancient papers with their great Old English capitals, their stiff flourishes, their quaint abbreviations, we should scarcely have been startled to see a peruked head bend above them and a hand with noisy quill go tracing along the lines of those long-ago "Whereases" and ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... regular order from the lowest to the highest degree of the attendant women. But it certainly was perhaps a little too much of a departure from the usages of a Court when the monarch, about to sign an important document in the presence of his State Council, flung down the quill with which he had begun to write and proclaimed it to be a damned ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a wise child," he said. "My writing isn't the plainest in the world, but I'll do my best. I have some sheets of good smooth paper in my sea-chest, and a good quill pen, too. Elder Haven fixed the pen for me from the feather of a wild goose I killed on the marshes last spring. But I do not think there is such a thing as ink in the house; but I can make a fair ink with the juice of the elderberry and a fair lot of soot from the chimney. So think up what you ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... Tribunal" the wild hawk-moths were beginning to whir with their red-green wings. Gradually the ground in the forest also began to show signs of life. A hedgehog crept sleepily through the underbrush; a little weasel dragged his supple body forth from a crevice in the rocks no broader than a quill. Little hares darted with cautious leaps out from the bushes, stopping in front of each to crouch down and lay their ears back, until finally, growing more brave, they mounted the ridge by the cornfield and danced and played together, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... perforated with several holes, about the outer and lower part of the edge, in which they hang little bunches of beads, made of the same tubulous shelly substance used for this purpose by those of Nootka. The septum of the nose is also perforated, through which they frequently thrust the quill-feathers of small birds, or little bending ornaments, made of the above shelly substance, strung on a stiff string or cord, three or four inches long, which give them a truly grotesque appearance. But the most uncommon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... would be hunting or walking in solitude, he would suddenly be seized with an unearthly fright, terribly awe stricken, apprehending some great evil. He feels very peculiar sensation from head to foot—the hair of his head standing and feeling stiff like a porcupine quill. He feels almost benumbed with fright, and yet he does not know what it is; and looking in every direction to see something, but nothing to be seen which might cause sensation of terror. Collecting himself, he would then say, "Pshaw! its nothing here to be afraid ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... started up wondering what it might be. After a while one of the men-at-arms gathered courage enough to pick it up and bring it to the Sheriff. Then everyone saw that it was a blunted gray goose shaft, with a fine scroll, about the thickness of a goose quill, tied near to its head. The Sheriff opened the scroll and glanced at it, while the veins upon his forehead swelled and his cheeks grew ruddy with rage as he read, for ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... Pekan the Fisher we all saw. I might add that Puma the Panther is to be feared at times, and when he is very hungry Buster Bear will take a chance on turning you on your back. By the way, don't any of you call Prickly Porky a Hedgehog. He isn't any thing of the kind. He is sometimes called a Quill Pig, but his real name, Porcupine, is best. He has no near relatives. Tomorrow morning, instead of meeting here, we'll hold school on the shore of the pond Paddy the Beaver has made. ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... grotesquely. But finally he finished. The search produced four cigars somewhat crumpled and frayed; some matches in a gun-metal case, a silver cigar cutter, two five-dollar bills, a handful of silver chicken feed, the leather case of the eyeglasses, a couple of quill toothpicks, a gold watch with a dangling fob, a notebook and some papers. Mr. Trimm ranged these things in a neat row upon a log, like a watchmaker setting out his kit, and took swift inventory of them. Some he eliminated from his design, stowing them back in the pockets easiest to reach. He kept ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... a valley, the noble bird sprang from the top of a dry tree above me and came sailing directly over my head. I saw him bend his eye down upon me, and I could hear the low hum of his plumage as if the web of every quill in his great wings vibrated in his strong, level flight. I watched him as long as my eye could hold him. When he was fairly clear of the mountain, he began that sweeping spiral movement in which he climbs the sky. Up and up he went, without once breaking his majestic poise, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... business of getting a new suit he has more trouble than a fine lady, for he has to shake off the old garments, while getting the new, bit by bit, here a feather and there a feather, today a new wing-quill; tomorrow a new ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... common disapproval. It is marvellous how a member of her sex will conceive dislike of people that she has never seen; but birds are sensible of heat or cold long before either arrives, and it may be that this mocking-bird feels something wrong at the quill end of ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... he fondly entitled them "Pistolette Amorose del Doni," 1552, 8vo. These Pistole were designed to be little epistles, or billets-doux, but Doni was one of those fertile authors who have too little time of their own to compose short works. Doni was too facetious to be sentimental, and his quill was not plucked from the wing of Love. He was followed by a graver pedant, who threw a heavy offering on the altar of the Graces; PARABOSCO, who in six books of "Lettere Amorose," 1565, 8vo. was too phlegmatic to sigh over ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... who tells us the trill of the Hair-Bird (Fringilla socialis) is produced by the bird fluttering its wings upon its sides! The Hermit-Thrush may be easily identified by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown, becoming rufous on his rump and tail. A quill from his wing placed beside one from his tail, on a dark ground, presents quite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... of which he had nothing to complain, although it barely served its purpose, like most of the inexpensive objects about him, was a charming. Italian bronze ink-stand, over whose cover wrestled the infant Hercules in the act of strangling a goose—in friendly aid of "drivers of the quill." My father wrote with a gold pen, and I can hear now, as it seems, the rapid rolling of his chirography over the broad page, as he formed his small, rounded, but irregular letters, when filling his journals, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... with a white unused quill, and a vellum scroll on which the names of all the members of the Society were written in ominous red. He handed ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... expand in the evening, and are sweet-scented. They are produced along the margins of the broad, flat, deeply-notched branches, the serratures being rounded instead of angled, as in some of the kinds. The tube of the flower is long and slender, no thicker than a goose quill, and covered with reddish scales; the petals are spreading, and form a cup 6 in. across; they are narrow, pointed, and pure white, the outer whorl, as well as the sepals, being tinged on the under side with a tawny colour. The stamens form a large cluster in the centre, and are bright yellow, ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... it was Aladdin's Cave undergoing a wondrous 'sea change.' A poetess, who writes for the papers under the name of Melissa Mayflower, had fastened herself upon our party in some way; and I suppose she felt bound to sustain the reputation of the quill. She said the Nereids must have built that marine palace, and decorated it for a visit from ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... of paper on which we have written (post-card fashion) message and address are rolled two or three together, and inserted into a piece of quill less than two inches long, which, however, they do not entirely fill. While a pigeon is held by one man, another pushes one of the bird’s tail-feathers well through the quill, which is then fastened in its place by two minute wooden wedges. A moment later the pigeon is tossed up into the air, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... father's watch, and Bud had found it and played with it until it was creased and cracked all over like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have thought there was not room for another. Her eyes were dark and bright She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... came down from his brother's closet, old Sigismond was sure to be watching for him, and would walk a few steps with him in his long, lute-string sleeves, quill and knife in hand. He kept the young man informed concerning matters at the factory. For some time past, things seemed to have changed for the better. Monsieur Georges came to his office regularly, and returned ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... annihilate a man by pad and pencil is indeed an art worthy of admiration. The pen of an indictment clerk is oft mightier than the sword of a Lionheart, the brain behind the subtle quill far defter than said swordsman's skill. Moreover, the ingenuity necessary to draft one of these documents is not confined to its mere successful composition, for having achieved the miraculous feat of alleging in fourteen ways without punctuation ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... serenity expressed in his smooth, regular, and scrupulously perfect handwriting. It was quite vertical, and rounded, with a slope neither to the right nor left, and at the time I knew him first, he was fond of using a soft pencil on printing paper, though commonly he wrote with a quill. Each letter was distinct in shape, and between the verses was always the exact space of half an inch. I have a good many of his poems written in this fashion, but whether they were the first drafts or not I cannot ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... I found a nest which I was not looking for. There were six eggs in it. I took one of them—here it is—and I am waiting for the rest to hatch. I shall go back for the others when the young birds have their quill feathers. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the quill and turned to go behind the counter. The girl was dancing nervously on her toes. "But say, Billy Little, I can't pay you for them now. Will—will—you ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... always a quill, which, during the lecture, he kept constantly twirling about and crushing. He pushed the desk forward upon two legs, swinging it back and forth, and every few minutes would plunge forward almost spasmodically, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... shaped like an olive, with a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a clever, clean-shaven mouth. He was well-dressed, and was continually probing with a quill tooth-pick at his gold-filled front teeth, evidently desirous of excavating some of the ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... see that some of them are hollow; when the bird was alive, those hollow places were all filled with air. Take a dead bird and look at the quills at the roots of the feathers; and now watch that swallow as it darts so rapidly hither and thither. The bird is able to fill each tiny quill with air, so that its body becomes like a balloon, and it rises high above the roofs of the houses; then, like the fish, when it wishes to sink, it can breathe out all the air again, and so constantly change its weight, and fly, now high, now low, faster than ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... for a while thoughtfully biting the top of her quill pen and looking out dreamily into the street. Her little sitting-room faced Knightsbridge and the trees and grass of the Park. Often when some problem of the domestic economy of the hotel caused her a passing perplexity, she would ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Crees and Blackfeet would have nothing to do with him; and the half-breeds were profane regarding him. But Little Hammer was oblivious to any depreciation of his merits, and would not be suppressed. He loved the Hudson's Bay Company's Post at Yellow Quill with an unwavering love; he ranged the half-breed hospitality of Red Deer River, regardless of it being thrown at him as he in turn threw it at his dog; he saluted Sergeant Gellatly with a familiar How! whenever he saw him; he borrowed tabac of the half- breed women, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... out for the fellow That came with this device. 'Twas queintly carried: The stalke pluckt cleanly out, and in the quill This scroll conveyd. What ere it be the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly, without closing. Afterwards she passes through a ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... was brief enough, but there was plenty of husk to the grain. The old expatriate was querulous, long-winded, not niggard with his ink when he cursed the English and damned the Prussians; and he obtained much gratification in jabbing his quill-bodkin into what he termed the sniveling nobility of the old regime. Dog of dogs! was he not himself noble? Had not his parents and his brothers gone to the guillotine with the rest of them? But he, thank God, had no wooden ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... In forming their type the German printers imitated the lettering made by copyists with a quill. Their type is called Gothic, and it is still widely used in German books. The Italian printers made their letters more round and simple in shape, imitating the handwriting of the best Italian copyists. This is the Roman type, in which many European peoples, as also the English and the Americans, ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... are told of him; for he was fond of joking, and was often absent-minded. It is said that his wife was skilled in embroidery, and would decorate his moccasins with fine porcupine quill work; and it disturbed her to see him put them on to go out of a morning when the dew was on the grass. So she took him to task for ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... this time last year that it occurred. But, first of all, I must tell you that I am a clerk in the Admirality, where our chiefs, the commissioners, take their gold lace and quill-driving officers seriously, and treat us like fore-top men on board a ship. Well, from my office I could see a small bit of blue sky and the swallows, and I felt inclined to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... a dress to be hurried with; every quill and gather of its trimming must be "set just so;" and there was still one flounce to be made, and these others were only basted, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... keep? Our teeth would chatter and our eyes would weep; Hunger and dullness would invade our feasts, Did not Batt find us arms against such guests. He is the cunning engineer, whose skill Makes fools to carve the goose, and shape the quill: Fancy and wit unto our meals supplies: Carols, and not minc'd-meat, make Christmas pies. 'Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off; Brutes and Phanaticks eat, and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... could not happen. The greater part of the people were still very ignorant and could not read or write at all. But those who had mastered the difficult art of handling the goose-quill belonged to an international republic of letters which spread across the entire continent and which knew of no boundaries and respected no limitations of language or nationality. The universities were the strongholds of this republic. Unlike modern fortifications, they ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... inspired labour. Their unblessed condition was obvious. On the large library table were a couple of brass candlesticks with fresh candles (Adrian could not work by electric light), a couple of reams of scribbling paper, an inkpot, an immaculate blotting pad, three virgin quill pens (it was one of Adrian's whimsies to write always with quills), lying in a brass dish, and an office stationery case closed and aggressively new. The sight of this last monstrosity, I thought, would play the deuce with my imagination and send it on a devastating ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... destroyed or wasted? A certain amount of white paper at a farthing a square yard (and I am not certain it is not pleasanter all diversified and variegated with black wriggles)—a certain amount of ink meant to be spread and dried: made for no other purpose. A certain infinitesimal amount of quill—torn from the silly goose for no purpose whatsoever but to minister to the high ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... rose and walked back to the inner part of the temple, though he was still visible from the front. Here he took out a roll of paper and a quill pen, which he put in his mouth and bit, as he was in the habit of doing when composing. Then he threw his head back and ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... parental affection, for it builds its nest, hatches its own eggs, and rears its own young, Wilson assures us. It is about a foot in length, clothed in a dark drab suit with a silken greenish gloss. A ruddy cinnamon tints the quill-feathers of the wings; and the tail consists partly of black feathers tipped with white, the two outer ones being of the same tint as the back. The under surface is a pure white. It has a long curved bill of a greyish-black above, and yellow beneath. The female differs from the male in having the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... him so, with brown books before him lit by the light of candles in silver candlesticks, or heading some new chapter of "The Prince," with a grey quill ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... was alive, those hollow places were all filled with air. Take a dead bird and look at the quills at the roots of the feathers; and now watch that swallow as it darts so rapidly hither and thither. The bird is able to fill each tiny quill with air, so that its body becomes like a balloon, and it rises high above the roofs of the houses; then, like the fish, when it wishes to sink, it can breathe out all the air again, and so constantly change its weight, and fly, now high, now low, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... to convey the intelligence of the late events to the English cantonments. It is the fashion of the natives of India to wear large earrings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid aside, lest the precious metal should tempt some gang of robbers; and, in place of the ring, a quill or a roll of paper is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from closing. Hastings placed in the ears of his messengers letters rolled up in the smallest compass. Some of these letters were addressed to the commanders of the English ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... besides the determination to get out, there came to me, also, the keenest and coolest judgment in choosing my means. I lit a candle and endeavored, kneeling in front of the door, to pull the key through with the feather-end of a quill pen. It was just too short and pushed it further away. Then with quiet persistence I got a paper-knife out of one of the drawers, and with that I managed to draw the key back. I opened the door, stepped into my study, took a photograph of myself from the bureau, wrote something across ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as it were, the youth's political guardian. He had himself borne arms more than once before, having shouldered his matchlock under Batenburg, and marched on that officer's spirited but disastrous expedition for the relief of Haarlem. But this was the life of those Dutch rebels. Quill-driving, law-expounding, speech-making, diplomatic missions, were intermingled with very practical business in besieged towns or open fields, with Italian musketeers and Spanish pikemen. And here, too, young Maurice was taking his first solid lesson in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mountainous country, which he named "Staaten Land." "We found here abundance of inhabitants: they had very hoarse voices and were very large-made people; they were of colour between brown and yellow, their hair long and thick, combed up and fixed on the top of their heads with a quill in the very same manner that Japanese fastened their ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... moon. We left there an acorn yet green in its cup, We left also a firchatt upon the great stone hurled by Thor; To a fir branch we tied with a fine whang drawn from a bear we slew The wing feather of an eagle which span towards us, Yet it fell not to the earth, we twain caught it, The one by the quill, the other ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... course, he is too young yet, but unless he is going to walk in your steps and turn sailor he might do worse than come out to me in three or four years' time. Rough as the life is, it is a man's life, and a week of it is worth more than a year's quill-driving in an office. It is a pity your family have run to girls, for if one boy had made up his mind for the sea you might have ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... dropped, and an easy atmosphere of familiarity prevailed. You read that Uncle Enoch Siller had Sundayed over at the Ridge, or that Aunt Gussy Williams was on the puny list, and frequently there were friendly references to "Ye Editor" or "Ye Quill Driver," for after soaring to dizzy heights in his editorials, Mr. Opp condescended to come down on the second page and move in and out of the columns, as ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... she frankly loitered. Just to look at her made you certain that she was not of our town. Now, that doesn't imply that the women of our town do not dress well, because they do. But there was something about her—a flirt of chiffon at the throat, or her hat quill stuck in a certain way, or the stitching on her gloves, or the vamp of her shoe—that was of a style which ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... ground in the forest also began to show signs of life. A hedgehog crept sleepily through the underbrush; a little weasel dragged his supple body forth from a crevice in the rocks no broader than a quill. Little hares darted with cautious leaps out from the bushes, stopping in front of each to crouch down and lay their ears back, until finally, growing more brave, they mounted the ridge by the cornfield and danced and played together, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Gray's Inn grew daily more irksome. There he would sit, in mute despair, drumming the table with his fingers, and biting the quill, whose use he so bitterly contemned. Of winter afternoons he would stare through the leaded window-panes at the gaunt, leafless trees, on whose summits swayed the cawing rooks, until servitude seemed intolerable, and he prayed ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... it was converted into a vast reservoir to supply Liverpool with water was that of Cynon. Of this Spirit Mr. Evans writes thus:—"Yspryd Cynon was a mischievous goblin, which was put down by Dic Spot and put in a quill, and placed under a large stone in the river below Cynon Isaf. The stone is called 'Careg yr Yspryd,' the Ghost Stone. This one received the following instructions, that he was to remain under the stone until ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... about the thickness of a large quill, and five or six inches long, half protrudes its flat head from one of those enormous, perfumed calyces, in which ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... fair no painting set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... made of metal, and called a style. For stone, brass, &c., a chisel was employed. When the bark and leaves of trees, skins, and other materials of a more pliant nature, superseded the above-named tables, the chisel and the style, or stylus, gave way to the reed and cane, and afterwards to the quill, the hair pencil (as now used by the Chinese,) and ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... made for a sister-in- law, my mother. In a very small bag is deposited a little rolled up housewife, furnished with minikin needles and fine thread. In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket is enclosed a slip of paper, on which, written as with a crow quill, are ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... his stand—a high pine desk; threw his left elbow upon it; dropped his head so low that his eyes could not be seen; tilted the desk over on its front legs, so that you expected every moment to see it pitching forward into the lecture-room, with the lecturer after it; and, seizing a quill, always provided for the purpose, began at once to speak, and to twist and twirl and tear in pieces the quill. Sometimes, in the heat of his discourse, he would suddenly jerk up his head, whirl entirely round with his face to the wall and his back to the audience, and then as suddenly whirl ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... to our main question, for the robin's breast to answer, "What is a feather?" You know something about it already; that it is composed of a quill, with its lateral filaments terminating generally, more or less, in a point; that these extremities of the quills, lying over each other like the tiles of a house, allow the wind and rain to pass over them with the least possible resistance, and form a protection alike from the ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... shuddering father, "How she loves my child; they all love her," but the thought made little impression at the time; the mind was too full of terror and woe. The doctor now asked for brandy in a whisper. Mrs. Dodd left the room with stealthy foot, and brought it. He asked for a quill. Julia went with swift, stealthy foot, and brought it. With adroit and tender hands they aided the doctor, and trickled stimulants down her throat. Then sat like statues of grief about the bed; only every now and then eye sought eye, and endeavoured ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... boards there at the ho-tel. He's got four gold teeth, and he picks 'em with a quill. Sounds like somebody slappin' the crick with a fishin'-pole. But them teeth give him a standin' in society; they look like money in the bank. Nothing to his business, though, Duke; no sentiment ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... hard as it could to say, "I am lost, strayed, or stolen; I'm hungry, and I've got a porcupine quill in my foot," but in spite of that, with another ominous growl, Thor began to look about the rocks for the mother. She was not in sight, and neither could he smell her, two facts which turned his great head again ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... 1804) there was never known a single minister who would take upon himself to have an opinion or to decide the slightest matter, unless that opinion or matter had been winnowed, sifted, and plucked to bits by the paper-spoilers, quill-drivers, and splendid intellects of his particular bureau. Jacquet—he was one of those who are worthy of Plutarch as biographer—saw that he had made a mistake in his management of the affair, and had, in fact, rendered it impossible by trying to proceed legally. The thing he should ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... nearly two inches in length, rounded at the ends, and used by the Kyans and Dyaks of Borneo. Before coitus it is inserted into a transverse orifice in the penis, made by a painful and somewhat dangerous operation and kept open by a quill. Two or more of these instruments are occasionally worn. Sometimes little brushes are attached to each end of the instrument. Another instrument, used by the Dyaks, but said to have been borrowed from the Malays, is the palang anus, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Duchesse de Polignac is a droll imitation of a line in the "Mercure Galant." In the quarrel scene one of the lawyers says to his brother quill: 'Ton pere etait aveugle et ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a powder. The best part of the cure is taking care of the nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If it be from corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the tongue, and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If there be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad and elk's hoof. In the fit, give epileptic water, as lavender water, and ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... purpose, like most of the inexpensive objects about him, was a charming. Italian bronze ink-stand, over whose cover wrestled the infant Hercules in the act of strangling a goose—in friendly aid of "drivers of the quill." My father wrote with a gold pen, and I can hear now, as it seems, the rapid rolling of his chirography over the broad page, as he formed his small, rounded, but irregular letters, when filling his journals, in Italy. He leaned very much on, his left ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... species, spice; recito, read; adjuvo, aid; [Greek: aion], aevum, ay, age, ever; floccus, lock; excerpo, scrape, scrabble, scrawl; extravagus, stray, straggle; collectum, clot, clutch; colligo, coil: recolligo, recoil; severo, swear; stridulus, shrill; procurator, proxy; pulso, to push; calamus, a quill; impetere, to impeach; augeo, auxi, wax; and vanesco, vanui, wane; syllabare, to spell; puteus, pit; granum, corn; comprimo, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... which the accompanying German words fell into the music. I saw it was a patriotic song, and while I was thinking of translating it, I felt an impulse to write an American patriotic hymn. I reached my hand for a bit of waste paper, and, taking my quill pen, wrote the four verses in half an hour. I sent it with some translations of the German songs to Lowell Mason, and the next thing I knew of it I was told it had been sung by the Sunday-school children at Park Street Church, Boston, at the following ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... are a couple of pens, And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens, Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... letter, owing to the use of a quill pen and the neglect of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. Every one tried, and every one failed to decipher an important word on which the interest of one whole clause (and the ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... respect behind any of its neighbours of the grove in conjugal and parental affection, for it builds its nest, hatches its own eggs, and rears its own young, Wilson assures us. It is about a foot in length, clothed in a dark drab suit with a silken greenish gloss. A ruddy cinnamon tints the quill-feathers of the wings; and the tail consists partly of black feathers tipped with white, the two outer ones being of the same tint as the back. The under surface is a pure white. It has a long curved bill of a greyish-black above, and yellow beneath. The female differs from the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... unlucky head. Virginia City intermits her trade And well-clad strangers walk her streets unflayed. Nay, all Nevada ceases work to weep And the recording angel goes to sleep. But in his dreams his goose-quill's creaking fount Augments the debits in the long account. And still the continents and oceans ring With royal torments of the Silver King! Incessant bellowings fill all the earth, Mingled with inextinguishable mirth. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... proceeded to sort and equip three slender rods destined to bring joy and fish to Cecil, Colette, and Jacqueline. With perfect gravity he ornamented each line with four split shot, a small hook, and a brilliant quill float. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... lady taken ill Desires to reconstruct her will; I see the servants hurrying for The family solicitor; Post-haste he comes and with him brings The usual necessary things. With common form and driving quill He draws the first part of the will, The more sonorous solemn sounds Denote a hundred thousand pounds, This trifle is the main bequest, Old friends and servants take the rest. 'Tis done! I see her sign her name, I see the attestors do the same. Who is the happy ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... had, on the strength of a marriage portion of twenty thousand francs, found a husband in an inferior official at the War Office. Through the interest of the famous lieutenant-general—made marshal of France six months before his death—this quill-driver had risen to unhoped-for dignity as head-clerk of his office; but just as he was to be promoted to be deputy-chief, the marshal's death had cut off Marneffe's ambitions and his wife's at the root. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... seemed to stand up close to the window,—so close that no direct ray of the sun ever interrupted the signing-clerk at his work. In the middle of the room there was a large mahogany-table, on which lay a pile of huge papers. Across the top of them there was placed a bit of blotting-paper, with a quill pen, the two only tools which were necessary to the performance of the signing-clerk's work. On the table there stood a row of official books, placed lengthways on their edges: the "Post-Office Directory," the "Court Circular," a "Directory to the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Zetetic Society's proceedings. Another complained of a lack of text-books treating of secret societies in the Tenth Century. And the world was going round outside all the time! I looked at them, these men and women—their shoulders humped as they scratched with their absurd quill-pens, their faces pallid with the light reflected from the pages. Some few, as though to show what a farce the whole business could be, had got out a perfect library of books, bastions of them, and lay back in their chairs, ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... Cookes. Soft were my numbers; who could take offence, While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;— I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered—I was not in debt. If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint. Did some more sober critic come abroad; If wrong, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... of the pens, brushing away with it the quill-chips from her desk first, and she looked at me with a kind, wondering face. I brushed them away, clicked the penknife into my pocket, made her a bow, and walked off—for the bell was ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of little books printed with engraved blocks and even with movable types. In the German towns, where the art spread rapidly, the printers adhered to the style of letters which the scribe had found it convenient to make with his quill—the so-called Gothic, or black letter.[230] In Italy, where the first printing press was set up in 1466, a type was soon adopted which resembled the letters used in ancient Roman inscriptions. This was quite similar to the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... carried on in the most subdued and gentle tones, hurried forward, and Mayence requested him to produce the documents entrusted to his care. These were spread out before the young man, who signed each of them amidst a deep silence, broken only by the scratching of the quill. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... explained, "though if I have got to that I had better go back to England, where those fellows get a half-holiday on Saturdays and lots of bank holidays, and are in civilization at least. Perhaps if the governor saw me with a quill behind my ear, or riding down to the city on top of a 'bus, smoking a pipe, he'd do something for me for the honor of the family. But he's in a beastly humor now, and wouldn't send me a fiver to save my life. He says that I'm not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... within. But the man was dumb. The thoughts that came to him he could communicate roughly to his friends, but the pen failed him. The horny hand which results from manual labour is too stiff to wield the swiftly-gliding quill. But there is another species of handwriting which is called Work—a handwriting which will endure when the scribblings of the hour are utterly forgotten. This writing he laboured at earnestly and eagerly, not for his own good either, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... memory. The chapel stands open, a dark, simple little place. The oak benches are the same on which the first pensioners sat, and down upon them look curious faded pictures, dingy in black and gold. One is a fine portrait of the founder at his writing-table, with his seal, his sandbox, a bell, quill pens and a compass (or is it a watch?). Before him lies an open Latin Bible, and he points to his favourite text—Cast thy bread upon the waters. On another wall hangs a framed poem in manuscript, some forty or fifty lines of extravagance in which the archbishop is compared ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... the cool arbour, in a green-and-gold twilight. It is very still, for I cannot hear the trumpets, I only know that they are red and open, And that the sun above the arbour shakes with heat. My quill is newly mended, And makes fine-drawn lines with its point. Down the long, white paper it makes little lines, Just lines—up—down—criss-cross. My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill; ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... Thoreau had held on a few years, until the pilgrims began to arrive at Concord, he could have gotten rich selling souvenir pencils. But he just dozed and dreamed and tramped and philosophized; and when he wrote he used an eagle's quill, with ink he himself distilled from elderberries, and at first, birch-bark sufficed for paper. "Wild men and wild things are the only ones that have life in abundance," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... executioner, who instantly dropped his red cloak, under which he had hitherto concealed his long sword, and just as Joachim looked up to see what was going on, he whirled the sword round like a flash of lightning, and cut Budde's head clean off from the shoulders, so that not even a quill of his Spanish ruff was disturbed, and the blood spouted up like three horse-tails to the ceiling (for he drank so much that all the blood was in his head), and down tumbled his gay cap, with the heron's plume, to the ground, and his head along ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Friend:—Bless you for The Una, and for sending me a copy. I am pleased with its appearance and with the heartiness of your correspondents. Would you find room for some of my lucubrations? If so, I will drive my quill a little for you some of these evenings. Perhaps I might utter ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to grow up?" he asked; and poured out a big glass of the pure quill for me, and fiercely ordered me to drink it. By this time I was desperate; so I smashed his glass and mine; and taking him by the throat I shook him and told him that if he did not take me to the hump-backed man or to the drayman, and that right off, I'd shut off his ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held a long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a faint smile lent singular beauty ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... wormed his way out through the branches in some way, and darted off up the opposite slope. He had failed to secure his prize, but it was wonderful how so large a bird could slip through the network of branches and extricate himself without striking a quill against a twig. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Language % 590. Writing. — N. writing &c. v.; chirography, stelography[obs3], cerography[obs3]; penmanship, craftmanship[obs3]; quill driving; typewriting. writing, manuscript, MS., literae scriptae[Lat]; these presents. stroke of the pen, dash of the pen; coupe de plume; line; headline; pen and ink. letter &c. 561; uncial writing, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... over, he smoked his pipe before the cabin fire of blazing logs, while she cleared the wooden dishes. He watched her get the paper, goose-quill pen and ink as a prisoner sees the scaffold ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... said, sharply. She turned away from the two men and moved to a small table against the wall that carried writing materials. Seating herself thereat, she took up a goose-quill and began to write rapidly on a large sheet of paper. When she had finished she looked round, and beckoned Rufus to her side that he might hear what she had written. She read it aloud, with her eyes ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... waitin' for the preacher sharp, who's goin' in the stage, to get tucked in among the ladies, a hollow-chested, chalk-cheeked, sardonic-lookin', cynical-seemin' bandit, drivin' a lean-laigged hoss to one of them spid'ry things they calls a quill-wheel, comes pirootin' along over to one side of the fooneral cortege at a walk. He's p'intin' in from over Red Dog way, but I savvys from the wonderin' faces of them Red Dog sports that he's as new to them as us. The cynical bandit skirts along our procession ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... because the bell was of silver. Bones looked up, pulled down his waistcoat, smoothed back his hair, fixed his eye-glass, and took up a long quill pen with a vivid ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, as such silly, shallow-hearted fellows deserve ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... elections, roads, public works and charities, passes over into the hands of the intendant or of the sub-delegate, under the supreme direction of the comptroller-general or of the king's council.[1329] Civil servants, men "of the robe and the quill," colorless commoners, perform the administrative work; there is no way to prevent it. Even with the king's delegates, a provincial governor, were he hereditary, a prince of the blood, like the Condes in Burgundy, must efface himself before the intendant; he holds no effective office; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Greeks believed that hornets were the direct progeny of the snorting war-horse. The phrase "mad as a hornet" has become a proverb. Think, then, of a brush loaded and tipped with this martial spirit of Vespa, this cavorting afflatus, this testy animus! There is more than one pessimistic "goose-quill," of course, "mightier than the sword," which, it occurs to me in my now charitable mood, might have been thus surreptitiously voudooed by the war-like hornet, and the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... complexion than the generality of Indians. The women have two double lines of black or blue colour upon each cheek, from the ear to the nose; and the gristle of the nose is perforated, so as to admit a goose-quill, or a small piece of wood to be passed through it. The clothing of these Indians is made of the dressed skins of the rein or moose-deer. Some of them, says Mr. Mackenzie, were decorated with a neat embroidery of porcupine-quills and hair, coloured red, black, yellow, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... be induced to pay them a hostile visit. This island also produces abundance of animals, both wild and tame, as horses, cows, buffaloes, goats, wild hogs, deer, monkeys, and others; also guanas, lizards, snakes, scorpions, and centipeds. These last are not thicker than a goose-quill, but five inches long, and they sting fiercer even than scorpions. Of tame fowl, they have only ducks and hens; but have plenty of wild birds, as pigeons, parrots, parrakeets, turtle-doves, bats as large as our kites, and an infinite ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... prize to-day, and your share shall be the trunk; so you may keep it, and the things that are stowed away in it, for your trouble: but don't forget to secure the casks till we can stow them away below. We can't break bulk now; but the sooner they are down the better; or we shall have some quill-driving rascal on board, with his flotsam and jetsam, for the Lord knows who;" and Thompson, to use his own expression, went down again "to lay his soul ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... larger than we now see it when mature in its native place; but its comparative anatomy is exceedingly hostile to the idea that it is an animal in a state of transition. It has been found of various sizes, from that of the thickness of a quill to that of the thumb, but its form of organs has been always the same. It is surely a perfect animal of a peculiar species. And it adds one instance more to the number already known of the wonderful manner in which ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... thirty-six pigeons. These pigeons were of various colors, and all named. They were expected to return soon to their homes, unless cold, fog, a hawk, or a Prnssian bullet should stop them on the way. Each would bring back a small quill fastened by threads to one of its tail-feathers and containing a minute square of flexible, waterproof paper, on which had been photographed messages in characters so small as to be deciphered only ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... When he had searched the woods for an oak gall to make ink, gone to the post-office, after hours, to buy a sheet of paper, and caused a commotion in the neighbourhood and rumour of thieves by going to the poultry yard with a lantern to pluck a fresh goose quill for a pen, he found that he had nothing to say, and paused—thereby, at least, proving his ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Club of England at this time consisted of Geoffrey of Monmouth and another man. They wrote their books with quill pens, and if the authorities did not like what was said, the author could be made to suppress the entire edition for a week's board, or for a bumper of Rhenish wine with a touch of pepper-sauce in it he would change the objectionable part ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... watched him from the corners of her eyes. He was evidently very much distracted. He walked up and down the room. Every now and then he glanced at Jeanne. Jeanne was very pale, but she wore a hat with a small green quill which he had once admired. Certainly she had an air, she was distinguished. There was something vaguely provocative about her, a charm which he could not help but feel. He stopped short in the middle of his perambulations. ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "literary historian," the moralising and quill-driving "historians," as conceived by Daunou and his school, that we have had in view; we are here only concerned with those scholars and historians who intend to deal with documents in order to facilitate or actually perform the scientific work of history. These stand in need of a technical ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... with this young lady. She wears more "jewelry," as certain young ladies call their trinkets, than I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing and bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet which will add the missing string to our social harp. I hear talk of a rare Miss who is expected. Something ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... excellent Pen in the inkstand by my side, and we passed our leisure hours very pleasantly in communicating to each other our past adventures. His knowledge of life was limited, having resided in that inkstand, and performed all the writing of the family, ever since he was a quill. But his experience was wise and virtuous; and he could bear witness to many an industrious effort at improvement, in which he had been the willing instrument; and to many a hard struggle for honesty and independence, which figures of his writing had recorded. I liked to watch the ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... dupe hurl musk pomp malt tune turn rusk romp salt flute churn stung long waltz plume hurt pluck song swan glue curl drunk strong wasp droop deck chill for sheath gloom neck drill corn shell loop next quill fork shorn hoof text skill form shout roof desk spill sort shrub proof ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... thousand other cares which are inseparable from the agricultural state, to occupy her skill and industry. Even the art of the seamstress is only practised by the Indian woman on a few things. She devotes much of her time to making moccasons and quill-work. Her husband's leggins are carefully ornamented with beads; his shot-pouch and knife-sheath are worked with quills; the hunting-cap is garnished with ribbons; his garters of cloth are adorned with a profusion of small white beads, and coloured worsted tassels ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... she continues to recognize Eugenius IV, and derides the pope of Ripaille and of Basel, as she will declare in a new assembly of Bourges in 1440. Above certain laws which men write on sheets of paper, with a goose-quill and ink, they bear in themselves another law, written by the hand of God, and which is good sense. Happy the nations which never depart from this living and general law, or which, at least, know enough ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... have written with the sword, after the fashion of greater men, and requiring no secretary. I now take up the quill to set forth, correctly, certain incidents which, having been noised about, stand in danger of being inaccurately reported by some imitator of Brantome and De l'Estoile. If all the world is to know of this matter, let it ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... disappoint him after his being so kind to me—Mrs. Skene had made as much of me as if I was her own son. What could I do but take my bread as it came to me? I was fit for nothing else. Even if I had been able to write a good hand and keep accounts I couldn't have brought myself to think that quill-driving and counting other people's money was a fit employment for a man. It's not what a man would like to do that he must do in this world, it's what he CAN do; and the only mortal thing I could ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... garden (I insisted on that), and sunk it into the ground to make it solid; then a stone mason fashioned a flat space on the top to accommodate an old brass dial that Polly had found in Boston. The dial is not half bad. From the heavy, octagonal brass base rises a slender quill to cast its shadow on the figured circle, while around this circle old English characters ask, "Am I not wise, who note only bright hours?" A plat of sod surrounds the dial, and Polly goes to it at least once a day to set her watch by the shadow of the quill, ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... He was very short of funds, and this fact alone would have discouraged most young men; not so with this man. He hired a cellar; two barrels with a board across served as desk on which was an ink-stand and goose quill. The proprietor of these apartments was not only editor and manager, but reporter, cashier, book-keeper, salesman, messenger and office boy. One hour he was writing biting editorials or spicy paragraphs; the next rushing out to report a fire or some other catastrophe, working sixteen to ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... fertile tribe is seen Tom Tyres, in the Magazine, That teazer of Apollo! With goose-quill he, like desperate knife, Slices, as Vauxhall beef, my life, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... sing or say In sonnet sad or sermon chill, "Alas, alack, and well-a-day, This round world's but a bitter pill." Poor porcupines of fretful quill! Sometimes we quarrel with our lot: We, too, are sad and careful; still We'd ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... were the Visitors' Book of "Watts' Charity," at Rochester, containing the signatures of "C. D." and Mark Lemon; the quill pen belonging to Charles Dickens, and used by him just previous to his death; a paper-knife formerly belonging to "C. D.," and the writing-desk used by "C. D." on his last American tour; silver wassail-bowl and stand presented ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... 31st March, 1915. Alexandria.—Quill driving and dictating. Have made several remonstrances lately at the way McMahon is permitting the Egyptian Press to betray our intentions, numbers, etc. It is almost incredible and Maxwell doesn't see his way clear to interfere. For the last day or two ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the farther end of the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key was pressed down, the jack ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... "see to what journalism may lead a man. There you have Sagnier and Fonsegue: just compare them a bit. In reality they are birds of the same feather: each has a quill and uses it. But how different the systems and the results. Sagnier's print is really a sewer which rolls him along and carries him to the cesspool; while the other's paper is certainly an example of the best journalism ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the Athene Boobook. Belly brown and white; wings brown, with white spots; third quill-feather, longest; legs feathered, lightish brown colour; tail brownish white, marked with transverse bars of a darker brown; eye prominent; iris blue. The only difference I could observe between the male and female is that the female ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... hurrying and scurrying on the part of those that stood around to get to the book and borrow quill and ink from the attendant pages, and be among the earliest to deserve the honorable immortality that Messer Simone promised. There were certain restrictions, so Messer Simone explained, attendant upon the formation of the Company ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... his mouth for her to be silent, but pointed with the feather of his quill to a line of a little book that lay upon the pulpit near his elbow. She ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... would chatter and our eyes would weep; Hunger and dullness would invade our feasts, Did not Batt find us arms against such guests. He is the cunning engineer, whose skill Makes fools to carve the goose, and shape the quill: Fancy and wit unto our meals supplies: Carols, and not minc'd-meat, make Christmas pies. 'Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off; Brutes and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... related the story to me. "The friend who had promised to create a vacancy for me in his office ordered his chief clerk to lock the safe and send for the police when he heard of my antecedents. He invited me to dinner, but candidly told me that a rifle was more in my line than a quill." ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... inches long, and 1 foot across, from the apex of the right to that of the left wing. The furculum, or merry-thought, which is entire, marks the fore part of the trunk; the ischium, scapula, and most of the wing and leg bones are preserved, and there are impressions of the quill feathers and of down on the body. The vanes and shafts of the feathers can be seen by the naked eye. Fourteen long quill feathers diverge on each side of the metacarpal and phalangial bones, and decrease in length from ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... quite a trial to us sometimes!" she whispered to the Mole-mother. "Such bad taste to mention Gypsies. It makes me tremble in every quill!" ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... over the outer surface of the membranes. When these scales are brushed off, membraneous wings of the ordinary transparent character are disclosed. The scales are attached to the membrane by little stems, like the quill-ends of feathers, and they are arranged in overlapping rows. The variegated colours and patterns of the insects are entirely due to them. If the wings of a butterfly be pressed upon a surface of card-board covered with gum-water to the extent of their own outlines, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... weighed with Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious reflexions, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All the time I was at the E.I.H. I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose quill. I cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, where he had so many ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... suo naso. Du Cange, not understanding this word, substitutes vaso. But nasus here signifies a silver pipe or quill to suck up the blood of Christ at the communion, such as the pope sometimes uses. Such a one is kept at St. Denys's, near Paris. The ancient Ordo Romanus calls that pugillar which is here called nasus, because it sucks up as a nose draws ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... small, and were rested upon the table. The essential distinction between the cembalo and the spinet was in the manner of tone production. In the cembalo there was a wooden jack resting upon the end of the keys, and upon this jack a little plectrum made of raven's quill, which had to be frequently renewed. When the key was pressed, the jack rose and the plectrum snapped the wire. The tone was thin and delicate, but as the plectrum did not remain in contact with the string, the vibration ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... and despatch, To ensure a side-box station at half-price. You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress, His daily fare as delicate. Alas! He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet. The rout is folly's circle which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoyed into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow early gray, but never wise; There form connections, and acquire no friend; Solicit pleasure ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... list of the gentlemen on whom you have to call, which you had best learn by heart and destroy before you cross the frontier. You shall have one paper only, and that written so small that it can be carried in a quill. This you can show to one after the other. If you find you are in danger of arrest you can destroy or swallow it. I will give them to you at the prince's levee this afternoon, and will send to your tent a purse of gold for ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... low did lie Rose at a well-dissembled fly There stood my Friend, with patient skill, Attending of his trembling quill. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... seen old Donald until to-night. Almost by accident I met him out there in the timber. I delivered the telegram you sent him. After he had read it I showed him mine. He scribbled something on a bit of paper, folded it, and pinned it with a porcupine quill. I've been mighty curious, but I haven't pulled out that ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Bet, little bits every day. I have got an ink-pot and a quill pen up in the garret, and Mr Chatterton gave me some paper from the office, but I don't think that is quite honest, so please buy me a little. I can give you a shilling,' she said, putting her hand in the large pocket which was fastened to her ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... who knew very well how to handle a yard, so as to make short measure in selling a piece of cloth; men who could acquit themselves well at a pestle and mortar, who could tie up a paper parcel, or "split a fig;" who could drive a goose-quill, or ogle the ladies from behind a counter, very decently; but who knew no more about the management of a farm than they did about algebra, or the most intricate problems of Euclid. A pretty mess these gentry made of it! every one ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... found she improved on closer acquaintance, and so in three days' time a clergyman said, "Wilt thou take this woman here present to be thy lawful wife?" knowing full well what the answer must be. Short of other materials, the marriage contract was written with a goose quill on the parchment head of a drum. Sir William found that Meg made him a very good wife in spite of her wide mouth, and they lived happily together, the moral being, we supposed, that it is not always the prettiest girl that makes ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... bethought him now of the thousand humiliations his proud spirit had suffered at their hands when he noted the disdain with which they addressed him, speaking to him—because he was compelled to carve his living with a quill—as though he were less than mire. It was not so much against her scorn of him that he voiced his bitter grievance, but against the entire noblesse of France, which denied him the right to carry a high head because he had not been born ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... is kept in a cage in the school-room and the pupils observe: its size as compared with that of other birds; outline of body, including shape of head; the feathers, noting quill feathers, and covering or contour feathers; manner of feeding and drinking; movements, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... years ago that could not happen. The greater part of the people were still very ignorant and could not read or write at all. But those who had mastered the difficult art of handling the goose-quill belonged to an international republic of letters which spread across the entire continent and which knew of no boundaries and respected no limitations of language or nationality. The universities were the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... the bird from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail is 21 inches 6 lines; and the length of the longest quill feather ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... shrill, Delia's passionate and frail, Doris drives an earnest quill, Athanasia takes the veil: Wiser Phyllis o'er her pail, At the heart of all romance Reading, sings to Strephon's flail:- 'Fate's a ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... gave woman all her will: Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird And keen alternate notes of laud and gird: Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil: Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word: Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred: Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still: Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand: Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... observer, it appears to move gradually backwards and forwards, being seen sometimes pointing eastward and sometimes westward. One of the Indian grasses, Panicum arborescens, whose stem is no thicker than a goose-quill, rises as high as the tallest trees in this contest for light and air. Spec. Plant a Reichard, Vol. I. p. 161. The tops of many climbing plants are tender from their quick growth; and, when deprived of their acrimony by boiling, are an agreeable article of food. The Hop-tops are in common use. ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... found he had written the wrong word he simply wiped the place off with, perhaps, his finger and wrote what he wanted to say. In such a case Littrow described the matter as erased and new matter written. When the ink flowed freely from the quill pen it was a little dark. Then Littrow said a different kind of ink had been used, probably after he had got back from his journey. On the other hand, there was a very singular case in which there had been a subsequent interlineation in ink ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... bit of news which is going to change my whole life. Whom do you think I had a letter from last Tuesday week? From Cullingworth, no less. It had no beginning, no end, was addressed all wrong, and written with a very thick quill pen upon the back of a prescription. How it ever reached me is a wonder. This is ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... lips of fire, No marvel of the immortal quill, Can teach a moral, sterner—higher, Than thou, so helpless and so still. Reft as thou art by blistering burn— Blinded and shorn—poor stricken Fly! The wise may stoop and lessons ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... behind some great veil to shut out the world from your view. Your mind toiled with thought until you were resolved upon the heroic. There was no scheme nor formula; your quill ran on and on in obedience to the flood of ideas which ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... a grey which at night was a fathomless dusk, and by day that green which you perceive where the sea is a hundred fathoms deep. With the light upon her eye there was a glint of emerald, that witching glare which made Becky Sharpe irresistible. Now imagine an eyebrow, dark as the raven's quill, overarching such an eye, and contrasting itself with the burning gold of the hair, and a skin of Parian white and purity. Then contemplate a softness beside which the velvet upon the petal of a pansy would seem rigid; and this eye ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... very autocratic, almost brutal in discipline. It is he who leads me up to the Visitors' Books at the wayside inns, and putting the quill in my reluctant fingers bids me write in cheerful hexameters my impressions of the unpronounceable spot. My martyrdom began at Penygwryd (Penny-goo-rid'). We might have stopped at Conway or some other town ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... about four inches long. Near the uterus its cavity will just admit an ordinary bristle; but near its free end, at the ovary, it is as large as a goose-quill. ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... be used, subjects of microscopic proportions can be projected on the screen enormously magnified. During the siege of Paris in 1870-71 the Parisians established a balloon and pigeon post to carry letters which had been copied in a minute size by photography. These copies could be enclosed in a quill and attached to a pigeon's wing. On receipt, the copies were placed in a special lantern and thrown as large writing on the screen. Micro-photography has since then made great strides, and is now widely used for scientific purposes, one of the most important being the study of the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... through this slip to show the earthenware underneath. This decoration was more commonly used by the old potters than slip decorating, which consisted in mixing white clay and water until the consistency of cream. The liquid clay was then allowed to run slowly through a quill attached to a small cup, over the earthenware (before burning it in a kiln) to produce different designs. The process is similar to that used when icing a cake, when you allow the icing to run slowly from a pastry tube to form fanciful ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... my numbers; who could take offence While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, 'A painted mistress, or a purling stream.' 150 Yet then did Gildon[101] draw his venal quill; I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd—I was not in debt. If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Papers are freely allowed To fling right and left their absurd imputations, To find a new name for the quill-driving crowd Will surely be one of our first obligations. The Penny-a-Liner for long has been known As a genial gusher, a fine phrase-refiner; But now that he false and malignant has grown, We must call ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... was silence. M. de Rivarol sat back in his chair, the feathered end of a quill between his teeth. Presently he cleared his ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... deceive their guardians by writing their love letters with new milk, and to make the writing appear by rubbing coal dust over the paper. Any thick and viscous fluid, such as the glutinous and colorless juices of plants, aided by any colored powder, will answer the purpose equally well. A quill ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... to make Jasmin's name popular beyond the town in which they had been composed and published. His friend M. Gaze said of him, that during the year 1825 he had been marrying his razor with the swan's quill; and that his hand of velvet in shaving was even surpassed by ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... new name in the register; he looked up at her with short-sighted eyes, a quill pen ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... Aladdin's Cave undergoing a wondrous 'sea change.' A poetess, who writes for the papers under the name of Melissa Mayflower, had fastened herself upon our party in some way; and I suppose she felt bound to sustain the reputation of the quill. She said the Nereids must have built that marine palace, and decorated it for a visit from fairies of ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... it for your good more than for my own. If you want to be happy, don't let this handsome quill-driver get you entirely into his hands. You are saying to yourself that because of my ill-success with you I am trying to injure him; but what if I could prove that he does not love you as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... enormously magnified. During the siege of Paris in 1870-71 the Parisians established a balloon and pigeon post to carry letters which had been copied in a minute size by photography. These copies could be enclosed in a quill and attached to a pigeon's wing. On receipt, the copies were placed in a special lantern and thrown as large writing on the screen. Micro-photography has since then made great strides, and is now widely used for scientific purposes, one of the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... tells us the trill of the Hair-Bird (Fringilla socialis) is produced by the bird fluttering its wings upon its sides! The Hermit-Thrush may be easily identified by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown, becoming rufous on his rump and tail. A quill from his wing placed beside one from his tail, on a dark ground, presents ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... as Apollo, on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill; Fed with soft dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... implements, The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron, The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the making of all sorts of edged tools, The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers, Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... be a quill blower. Brother Jim would cut fishin' canes and plat 'em together—they called 'em a pack—five in a row, just like my fingers. Anybody that knowed how could sure make music on 'em. Tom Rollins, that was my baby uncle, he ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the effect of inducing more care in collecting and also of revisiting old spots, often with the result of a rich harvest of bark which had been left on partly denuded trunks, and the opening up of new localities. The new shoots springing up from the old stumps have yielded much quill bark, and the root bark of the old stumps ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... complain, although it barely served its purpose, like most of the inexpensive objects about him, was a charming. Italian bronze ink-stand, over whose cover wrestled the infant Hercules in the act of strangling a goose—in friendly aid of "drivers of the quill." My father wrote with a gold pen, and I can hear now, as it seems, the rapid rolling of his chirography over the broad page, as he formed his small, rounded, but irregular letters, when filling his journals, in Italy. He leaned very much on, his left arm while ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... it done? How does the Shamrock sail? Watch, and you will see. When the wind is behind, each stiff quill at the end of the wing stands out by itself and is caught and driven by the blast; but as the bird turns round to face the gale, they all close up and form a continuous mainsail, close-hauled. And all the while the expanded tail is in play, dipping first at one side and then at the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... sometimes reports himself at my gates from Rydal, with a washing tub of ink on castors, which he pushes about with him wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, my door-keeper ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... it, as it scolded him from a high limb, but he could not delay and he set about his task quickly. Cutting off the end of each quill, he scraped it clean inside and washed the pithy part out. He had seen his father prepare a quill in this ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... roads, public works and charities, passes over into the hands of the intendant or of the sub-delegate, under the supreme direction of the comptroller-general or of the king's council.[1329] Civil servants, men "of the robe and the quill," colorless commoners, perform the administrative work; there is no way to prevent it. Even with the king's delegates, a provincial governor, were he hereditary, a prince of the blood, like the Condes in Burgundy, must efface himself before the intendant; he holds no effective office; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Vol. I., "Burney's History of Music," we read, "The ancients had instead of a bow, the Plectrum." "It appears too clumsy to produce from the strings tones that had either the sweetness or brilliancy of such as are drawn from them by means of the bow or quill. But, notwithstanding it is represented so massive, I should rather suppose it to have been a quill, or piece of ivory in imitation of one, than a stick or blunt piece of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... is Migwan," said the next girl. "It means 'Quill Pen,' and stands for my ambition to write stories and things." She was a thoughtful-looking girl with a beautiful high ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... a red knotted worme; but I hold a Menow better: put the hook in at the back of the Menow, betwixt the fish and the skin, that the Menow may swim up and down alive, being boyed up with a Cork or Quill, that the Menow may have liberty to swimme a foot off the ground: there is no doubt ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker
... particularly distinguished himself. He moved an address on the subject to the prince regent, in doing which he remarked:—"There are but few persons who know what is the dreadful manner in which this torture is inflicted. The instrument, formed of pieces of whipcord, each as thick as a quill, and knotted, is applied by the main strength of fresh men, relieving each other, until human nature can bear no more; and then, if pains are taken to recover the unhappy sufferer, it is only that he may undergo fresh agony. The most disgusting part of the whole ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a single minister who would take upon himself to have an opinion or to decide the slightest matter, unless that opinion or matter had been winnowed, sifted, and plucked to bits by the paper-spoilers, quill-drivers, and splendid intellects of his particular bureau. Jacquet—he was one of those who are worthy of Plutarch as biographer—saw that he had made a mistake in his management of the affair, and had, in fact, rendered it impossible by trying to proceed ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... behind a desk within a railing, and a large book lay open on the desk. This man, whose blue waistcoat with brass buttons marked him for some sort of officer, looked impersonally at Lemuel and then at the officer, while he chewed a quill toothpick, rolling it in his lips. "What have ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... a stubby quill, which, for some occult reason, he preferred for his intimate correspondence, and scribbled: "Of course, little friend. The crowned heads can wait." He tossed the envelope on the pile for special delivery, and speared the invitation ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers and artistic notabilities, I mean those who are no good, ride in the New Year's-night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them, they're too stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to draw their enmity ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Let garlands of sad yew Adorn your dainty golden tresses. I, that loved you, and often with my quill, Made music that delighted fountain, grove, and hill; I, whom you loved so, and with a sweet and chaste embrace. Yea, with a thousand rather favours, would vouchsafe to grace, I now must leave you all alone, of love to plain; ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... The book of gold can be imitated by placing sheets of gold paper on the cover and in the inside of a large book. Let it rest on the left arm, and be held at the top by the left hand. The right hand holds a long quill pen, the point of which rests on the pages of the book. Let the body and head incline forward slightly; the eyes directed to the book; the expression of the face tranquil. Ben Adhem's position in the first scene is, reclining on the couch, with ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... learning's fountain rise; Not there the wise alone their entrance find, Imparting useful light to mortals blind; But, blind themselves, these erring guides hold out Alluring lights to lead us far about; Screen'd by such means, here Scandal whets her quill, Here Slander shoots unseen, whene'er she will; Here Fraud and Falsehood labour to deceive, And Folly aids them both, impatient to believe. Such, sons of Britain! are the guides ye trust; So wise their counsel, their reports so just!- Yet, though ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... a quill pen and drew a half sheet of paper toward him, poised his pen a moment and ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... armour is found in the fetid effluvium which, by a muscular exertion, he is capable of ejecting upon his pursuer. This he carries in two small sacs that lie under his tail, with ducts leading outward about as large as the tube of a goose-quill. The effluvium itself is caused by a thin fluid, which cannot be seen in daylight, but at night appears, when ejected, like a double stream of phosphoric light. He can throw it to the distance of five yards; and, knowing this, he always waits till the pursuer ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... "Not a quill of the devil's pinion saw I," replied Wildrake. "He supposes himself too secure of an old cavalier, who must steal, hang, or drown, in the long run, so he gives himself no trouble to look after the assured ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... pointed to where Ted's cactus was ambling indignantly away with every quill rattling and set straight out in anger at having his morning nap disturbed. Kalitan wrapped Ted's hand in soft mud, which took the pain out, but he couldn't use it much for the next few days, and did not feel eager to hunt when his father ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... declaration of the last war against Great Britain "Non-Intercourse Quills" were for sale. This reminds us that most young people know but little about quills of any kind, and probably not one in a hundred knows, in these days, how to make a quill pen. Quills were in pretty general use for writing until about 1835 or 1836, when steel pens took their place to some extent, although quill pens were used by many down to a comparatively recent period, and occasionally a person may now be seen using one. Steel and silver pens were made ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... owner of this quill—and I can't say that he was very smart. He was only a slow-witted, homely old porky who once lived by the Glimmerglass. But in spite of his slow wits and his homeliness a great many things happened to him in the ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... at opposite ends of the table. The one held a long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... in honour of their illustrious Sorrentine guest, for the Ferrarese delighted in the handsome stranger who could in an emergency wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his quill. Twice only however did Tasso revisit the city of his birth, and each return home was occasioned by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks of his literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... dancing and novels, as proposed by local loose thinkers and latitudinarians of every degree. I was officially introduced to the debate at the height of the squabble; and found myself one of a large party in a small room, sitting round a long table, each man of us with a new pewter inkstand, a new quill pen, and a clean sheet of foolscap paper before him. Seeing that everybody spoke, I got on my legs along with the rest, and made a slashing speech on the loose-thinking side. I was followed by the leader of the grim faction—an unlicked ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... high and universal esteem. Parents read poetry to their children. Children recited poetry to their parents. And he was a dullard, indeed, who did not at least profess, in his hours of idleness, to pour spontaneous rhythm from his flowing quill. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... safety, so she sprang in front of Ojo and shielded him from the darts, which stuck their points into her own body until she resembled one of those targets they shoot arrows at in archery games. The Shaggy Man dropped flat on his face to avoid the shower, but one quill struck him in the leg and went far in. As for the Glass Cat, the quills rattled off her body without making even a scratch, and the skin of the Woozy was so thick and tough that he ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... lowering faces and weather-beaten skins of those hardly-entreated thralls looked grimly out from amidst the knots of cowslip and oxlip, and the branches of the milk-white blackthorn bloom, and the long trumpets of the daffodils, of the hue that wrappeth round the quill which the webster takes in hand when she would pleasure her soul with the sight of the yellow growing upon the dark ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... Cannell or gutter. Canalis. Baret. Tuyau, apipe, quill, cane, reed, canell. Cotgrave. Canelle, the faucet [l.68] or quill of a wine vessel; also, the cocke, or spout of ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... the workmen were some with the unmistakable lozenge eyes, high cheek-bones, and rhubarb complexion of the native American. Upon inquiry, we were introduced to one of the Rhubarbarians. He was a little fellow, not in leggings and quill-embroidered hunting-shirt, with belt of wampum and buckskin moccasins; armed with bow and arrow, tomahawk and scalping-knife; such as one would expect to navigate a wild, romantic lake with, in birch-bark canoe; but a pinched-up specimen of a man, in a seedy black suit, out ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... my pen were of the quill of the swan that sings for future days! then shouldst thou, my friend, receive the fulness of thy fame. The fathers, of the years to come, should talk of thy noble deeds; and the youth yet unborn should ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... finished. The search produced four cigars somewhat crumpled and frayed; some matches in a gun-metal case, a silver cigar cutter, two five-dollar bills, a handful of silver chicken feed, the leather case of the eyeglasses, a couple of quill toothpicks, a gold watch with a dangling fob, a notebook and some papers. Mr. Trimm ranged these things in a neat row upon a log, like a watchmaker setting out his kit, and took swift inventory of ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... detached. These plates are usually ten or twelve feet long and two feet nine inches broad. To form the canoe, they are stitched together with fibrous roots of the white spruce about the size of a quill, which are deprived of the bark, split and suppled in water. The seams are coated with resin of the ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... will respect thee for thy acquirements.' The same day I was introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a little man with a fine, bald, benevolent head; and after a long conversation which he was pleased to hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. I don't know how it was, but by little and little I rose in my master's good graces. I propitiated him, I fancy, by disposing of my L500 according to his advice; he laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a landed estate. Mr. Asgrave was of social habits,—he ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this decision, and with the aid of a great quill pen stiffly traced the address of his eldest son, who practised as ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... shared the oriental taste of her illustrious sister-author, took a magnificent Persian narghile, given to her by an ambassador. She filled the nipple with patchouli, cleaned the bochettino, perfumed the goose-quill, which she attached to the mouthpiece and used only once, set fire to the yellow leaves, placing the vase with its long neck enamelled in blue and gold at some distance from her, and rang the bell ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... a substance resembling flour, like which it thickens by boiling, and is of an agreeable flavour: it is eaten frequently in its raw state either green or dried. The second species was much mutilated, but appeared to be fibrous; it is of a cylindrical form about the size of a small quill, hard and brittle. A part of the rind which had not been detached in the preparation was hard and black, but the rest of the root was perfectly white; this the Indiana informed us was always boiled before eating; and on making the experiment we found that it became ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... of the experience had been remarkable, and the actuality of those childhood's creations scarcely belonged to dream or reverie. They were certainly quite as real as the sleek Directors who sat round the long Board Room table, fidgeting with fat quill pens and pewter ink-pots; more alive even than the Leading Shareholder who rose so pompously at Annual Meetings to second the resolution that the 'Report and Balance Sheet ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the autumn, the nasturtiums and verbenas and marigolds are bright; and the asters quill themselves into the biggest globes they can, of white and purple and rose, as if it were to make the last glory the best, and to do the very utmost of the year. Then the chrysanthemums go into the house ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the news and the comment it inspired. In these old and generous letters, which antedate the railroad and the telegraph, critics have discovered one of the most delicate and informing of the lost arts—the epistolary. But to the average hand, wearied by heavy tools, the lightsome goose quill, committing its owner to dubious spelling and clumsy penmanship, and exposing the interior of his intellect, was a dreaded thing. When old Black Hawk signed a treaty he was wont to say that he had "touched it with the goose ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... was the goose-quill, and the ink was home-made. Paper was scarce, expensive, and, while of good material, poorly made. Newspapers were unknown in that virgin forest, and books were like angels' visits, few and ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... seduction of the President and the Heads of Department by importunate Congressmen; and you may rest assured that this criminal multiplication fills nobody with half so much righteous indignation and virtuous sorrow as the clerks themselves. Emerging from the palace of quill-drivers, a new surprise awaits you. The palace is surmounted by what appear to be gigantic masts and booms, economically, but strongly rigged, and without any sails. In the distance, you see other palaces rigged in the same manner. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... how the tunnel was pushed forward, foot by foot; how the bank was attacked in its one and only vital spot, precisely as a porcupine curled defensively up in the snow is seized by the fisher-marten, not through open attack, but by artfully tunneling up under the quill-less belly. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... authorship of the article, but I did not mean any harm. I saw by an item in the Boston ADVERTISER that a solemn, serious critique on the English edition of my book had appeared in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, and the idea of SUCH a literary breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much for a naturally weak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it —reveled in it, I may say. I never saw a copy of the real SATURDAY REVIEW criticism until after my burlesque was written and mailed to the printer. But when I did get hold of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awkwardly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there was silence. M. de Rivarol sat back in his chair, the feathered end of a quill between his teeth. Presently he cleared his throat ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... very widely from most of the other aborigines of North America. I allude to their kind treatment of the women. The men do the laborious work whilst their wives employ themselves in ornamenting their dresses with quill-work and in other occupations suited to their sex. Mr. Wentzel has often known the young married men to bring specimens of their wives' needlework to the forts and exhibit them with much pride. Kind treatment of the fair sex being usually considered as an indication of considerable ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... far as the High Street through the grounds of The Lawn, an old house which stood next the Spotted Horse. To the west short roads have been pushed out into the market-gardens, and north, at the angle, stands the Quill Inn, behind which Quill Alley, a narrow paved passage skirting the backs of the houses, leads into a labyrinth of small streets set at all angles and of all degrees of respectability. There are many newly-built flats on either side ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... simple black straw hat with a quill through it and set off for the office of the lawyer, ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... worn, stubby old quill, much the worse for its monstrous task. It at least of all quill pens might rest content with having done its work in the world. Some charred paper beside ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... saw the President quite close to him; that monstrous inkstand had diminished to its natural size. Nothing was to be heard beyond the hissing of the rain but the scratching of the Judge-Advocate's quill, as he slowly dictated to himself the words "The—prisoner—pleads—'not guilty.'" But why they had asked him a question which could only admit of one answer and then persuaded him to give the wrong one, was a thing that both puzzled and ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... moved the sheets of foolscap, and tested the point of the quill pen like one who considers with deliberation. He dipped the point into the inkpot and slowly wrote ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... House of the Brothers of the Common Life, who made a business of transcribing books; and, indeed, so profitably, that, for instance, Ian van Enkhuisen of Zwolle received five hundred golden gulden for a Bible. On account of the goose-quill which the brothers wore in their hats, they were familiarly known as the Brethren of ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... Gillie, I think, I am nearly sure, there is a feather in this cushion that has the quill in it yet. I feel ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... into her new, dark-blue kid gloves. She was dark and trig in a little belted jacket, a gold quill shimmering at a cocky angle ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... of the place was disturbed only by the quill of the writer, who was penning words as unworldly as himself. Another good old divine, with his Bible in his hand, looked down benignantly and encouragingly at the young man from his black-walnut frame. He was the sainted predecessor ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... These sinews are much stronger and tougher than thread, and therefore are well adapted to sew together such things as moccasins, leggings, and garments made of the skins of wild animals. The finer threads are used for sewing the beads and quill ornaments on moccasins, sheaths, and pouches, besides other things that ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... town dines late, but soon enough, With reasonable forecast and despatch, To ensure a side-box station at half-price. You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress, His daily fare as delicate. Alas! He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet. The rout is folly's circle which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoyed into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... inferior importance to the ill-dressed and overworked Vicar's daughter. Imperial Shirley, no need to wave your majestic wand, we have bowed to it long ago unblinded; and all its illusive splendours are not so potent as that worn-down goose-quill which you used to wield in the busy kitchen of your ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... E. J. Bowes, I'd rather talk with E. J. Bowes, In woodlands where the sunlight gleams Across the golden Lake of Dreams Than drive a quill across ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... with five semi-palmated toes with short compressed claws; eyes small, with linear erect pupils; long skull with forty teeth; the orbit complete in many cases, or only slightly imperfect; the hairs are long, rigid, and ringed like the quill of a porcupine, which gives the grizzled appearance peculiar to these animals. The female has only four mammae. They are very active and sanguinary, chiefly hunting along the ground, but can climb with facility. There are several ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... wrote down his words, for I heard the quill scratching on the paper, and as he wrote, Guatemoc turned his head and saw me. His face was grey with pain, still he spoke as a hundred times I had heard him speak at council, slowly and clearly. 'Alas! are you also here, my friend Teule?' he said; 'I hoped that they had ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Brownie the cow, and her own faithful subject, Dowie. Still, it was a great mortification to her to be put into the spelling-book, which excluded her from the Bible-class. She was also condemned to follow with an uncut quill, over and over again, a single straight stroke, set her by the master. Dreadfully dreary she found it, and over it she fell fast asleep. Her head dropped on her outstretched arm, and the quill dropped from her sleeping fingers—for when Annie slept she all ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... man doesn't marry without knowing just a little about his wife's connections. Wouldn't be reasonable to expect him. You'd never told me anything— never would; except that you'd liked to have boiled the lot. What was I to do? [He is playing with a quill ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... progress in the art, and letter-writing always appeared to me a great undertaking; but Aunt Henshaw, having one afternoon provided me with pen, ink, and paper, and elevated me nicely with the large Bible and my "Pilgrim's Progress," I sat biting the end of my quill, and pondering over some form of commencement. I had already written "dear mother" at the top; at length I added ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... a fit pustule and properly prepared for preservation, it may certainly be kept without losing its specific properties a great length of time; for instance, when it is previously dried in the open air on some compact body, as a quill or a piece of glass, and afterwards secured in a small vial. [Footnote: Thus prepared, the cow-pox virus was found perfectly active, and possessing all its specific properties, at the end of three months.] But when kept several days in a state of moisture, and during that time exposed to a warm ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... the song divine, and these advance In measur'd steps to form the solemn dance. There Orpheus graceful in his long attire, In seven divisions strikes the sounding lyre; Across the chords the quivering quill he flings, Or with his flying fingers ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... mentioned. They were, by the way, exceedingly interested in the records of my daily life, sensations, &c., which I had written in blood in the margins of my little Bible whilst on the island in Timor Sea. About this time I tried to make some ink, having quill pens in plenty from the bodies of the wild geese; but the experiment ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the method of staining the sheets with a thin broth of untanned leather, of which the analysis would give a result closely approaching that of the parchment itself. Moreover, he made all sorts of trials of quill pens, until he had found a method of cutting which produced the exact thickness of stroke required, and during the whole time he exercised himself in copying and recopying many pages of the manuscript upon common paper, in order to familiarise ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... tree leaned a man, so brown and shaggy in his short coat that he seemed like part of the tree trunk. He was of medium height, wore high leather gaiters, and a grey felt hat with a long red quill thrust rakishly through the band. His face was round and rosy and the kindest eyes in the world twinkled at Evelina from beneath his bushy eyebrows. At his feet, quietly happy, was a bright-eyed, yellow mongrel with ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... "I wish he wouldn't do so much of it. If he scribbled less he'd compose more. The cobbler should stick to his last, and the musician shouldn't relinquish the music-pen for the goose quill." ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... came upon my brother first. And I lied. I told him he had made a mistake, and killed you, that his life was not worth the quill from a porcupine's back if he remained in the country. I made him believe it was another who fought him in the forest. He fled. I am glad of that. He will never come back. Then I followed over the trail he had made to Adare House, and far back in the swamp ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... two large Cysts, containing a small Quantity of Matter, though capable of containing near two Ounces each; one situated between the vesiculae seminales and Rectum, the other between the vesiculae and Bladder, which opened into the Urethra by one common Orifice, capable of admitting a large Quill, at the Side of the caput galinaginis. The rest of the Viscera were in a ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... harpsichord was much more complicated than the clavichord, in that the latter ceased to sound when the key which moved the bridge was released, whereas the harpsichord required what is called a "damper" to stop the sound when the key came up; once the string was touched by the quill, all command of the tone by the key was lost. To regulate this, a device was added to the instrument by means of which a damper fell on the string when the key was released, thereby ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... yet green in its cup, We left also a firchatt upon the great stone hurled by Thor; To a fir branch we tied with a fine whang drawn from a bear we slew The wing feather of an eagle which span towards us, Yet it fell not to the earth, we twain caught it, The one by the quill, the other by ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... with their red-green wings. Gradually the ground in the forest also began to show signs of life. A hedgehog crept sleepily through the underbrush; a little weasel dragged his supple body forth from a crevice in the rocks no broader than a quill. Little hares darted with cautious leaps out from the bushes, stopping in front of each to crouch down and lay their ears back, until finally, growing more brave, they mounted the ridge by the cornfield and danced and played together, using their fore ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... happens to me while the fighting is going on—it may be on these very fields—you will know what to do,' he resumed. 'But first please sit down again, there's a dear, whilst I write what's in my head. See, there's the best paper, and a new quill that I've ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... one sole pen I writ this book, Made of a grey goose-quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... believed, could be cured by putting a spider into a goose quill, sealing it up, and hanging it about the neck, so that it would be near the stomach. This disease might also be cured by swallowing pills made of a spider's web. One pill a morning for ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... I was laboring up the side of a mountain at the head of a valley, the noble bird sprang from the top of a dry tree above me and came sailing directly over my head. I saw him bend his eye down upon me, and I could hear the low hum of his plumage as if the web of every quill in his great wings vibrated in his strong, level flight. I watched him as long as my eye could hold him. When he was fairly clear of the mountain, he began that sweeping spiral movement in which he ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... hearty crow as he related the story to me. "The friend who had promised to create a vacancy for me in his office ordered his chief clerk to lock the safe and send for the police when he heard of my antecedents. He invited me to dinner, but candidly told me that a rifle was more in my line than a quill." ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the ocean fill, Were ev'ry stalk on earth a quill, And were the skies of parchment made, And ev'ry man a scribe by trade, To tell the love of God alone Would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretch'd ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... instructions; 'Tis not the first time I have kill'd a man: I learn'd in Naples how to poison flowers; To strangle with a lawn thrust down the throat; To pierce the wind pipe with a needle's point; Or, whilst one is asleep, to take a quill, And blow a little powder in his ears; Or open his mouth, and pour quick-silver down. But yet I have a braver way than these. Y. Mor. What's that? Light. Nay, you shall pardon me; none shall know my tricks. Y. Mor. I care not how it is, so it be not spied. Deliver this to Gurney and Matrevis: ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... accommodated to their habits of living. Accordingly, birds of prey, swallows, and such birds as are intended to hover long in the air, have much longer wings, in proportion to their size, than hens, ducks, quails, etc. In some, such as the ostrich, the cassiowary, and the penguin, the largest quill-feathers of the wing ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... this Gospel of his. He was not simply writing a book; that might have been fairly easy. But he was telling about a friend of his, the friend of his life, his one dearest Friend. And when he remembers how they treated Him his eyes fill up, and his heart beats till it thumps, and his quill sticks into the paper in sheer reluctance to ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... the ocean fill, Were the whole sky of parchment made, Were every blade of grass a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain that ocean dry, Nor could the scroll contain the whole Though ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... and Jadwin was admitted at once. He sat down in a chair by the broker's desk, and for the moment the two talked of trivialities. Gretry was a large, placid, smooth-faced man, stolid as an ox; inevitably dressed in blue serge, a quill tooth-pick behind his ear, a Grand Army button in his lapel. He and Jadwin were intimates. The two had come to Chicago almost simultaneously, and had risen together to become the wealthy men they ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... quill in the ink, and, with her head on one side, and her lips set very firmly together, carefully ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... so long thriv'd in, to take those Measures that both the Ancient and Modern Writers have set me, and by which they have pleas'd the World so well: If I must not, because of my Sex, have this Freedom, but that you will usurp all to your selves; I lay down my Quill, and you shall hear no more of me, no not so much as to make Comparisons, because I will be kinder to my Brothers of the Pen, than they have been to a defenceless Woman; for I am not content to write for a Third day only. I value Fame as much as if I had been born a Hero; and if ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... and large eyes: the great gums in its mouth have a brush-like surface, like a whale's in miniature: it is said to eat small fish. A bony spine rises on its back (I suppose for defence), which is 2-1/2 inches long, and as thick as a quill. They ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... went to an old chest that stood in one corner of the room, to get a piece of woolen goods she had carefully prepared for the market, which would bring her several dollars. She had placed an old band box, quill wheel and some other rubbish upon the chest, to conceal it from view as much as possible. Upon opening it, she discovered her treasure was gone, and she knew too well, for what purpose. The son, too, drank with his father, and got so much the start of ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... striking the water, but his movements were becoming slower, for he was weakened by the loss of blood from the stabs he had received from below, and from the arrows, many of which were now buried to the goose quill in him. In a minute or two he gradually turned on one side, and floated, with his white ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... very small bag is deposited a little rolled up housewife, furnished with minikin needles and fine thread. In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket is enclosed a slip of paper, on which, written as with a crow quill, are ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... chatter and our eyes would weep; Hunger and dullness would invade our feasts, Did not Batt find us arms against such guests. He is the cunning engineer, whose skill Makes fools to carve the goose, and shape the quill: Fancy and wit unto our meals supplies: Carols, and not minc'd-meat, make Christmas pies. 'Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off; Brutes and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... quicksand, there is none; and, mar or deface its bright surface as you will, it is ever beaten down anew, and washed even of the dust of the foot of man by the returning sea. You may write upon its fine-grained face with a crow-quill—you may course over its dazzling expanse ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... I was sweeping over my parlour floor, a slight tap drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old squaw, who immediately slipped into my hand a set of beautifully-embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other, and exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine quill-work. While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old creature fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, "You remember old squaw—make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for her sake," ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... I think (I was now a slave of the quill myself), I received a brief note from Mr. Stevenson, introducing to me the person whom, in his essay on his old college magazine, he called "Glasgow Brown." What his real name was, whence he came, whence ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... you for The Una, and for sending me a copy. I am pleased with its appearance and with the heartiness of your correspondents. Would you find room for some of my lucubrations? If so, I will drive my quill a little for you some of these evenings. Perhaps I ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... go thinking that I would come to him presently. But I, too, had to act under the god of friends. In Diego Lopez's room I found quill and ink and paper, and there I wrote a letter to Don Enrique, and finding Diego gave it to him to be given in two hours into Don Enrique's hand. Then Juan Lepe the squire changed in his own room, narrow and bare as a cell, to the clothing of Juan ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... muttering to himself, biting the end of his quill pen. He had not apparently been aware of his son's entrance, but suddenly he sprang up, pushed back his chair until it nearly fell over, and began to stride up and down the room. He was a fine figure then, throwing up his head, flinging out his arms, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... was an old man, as dry as a stick! And I hardly remember what the others were like—except one, a white-headed boy with a pimply face. I couldn't help noticing him, because whenever I looked up there he was at the next table, staring at me and chewing a quill." ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tempora! oh, mores!' Have mercy, illustrious and praise-bespattered, and almost Sir-Waltered BOZ. Do not, under the uneasy weight of glory, and in the intoxicating consciousness of a right to the oligarchic exclusiveness of the goose-quill 'haute volee,' strike right and left among your sturdy democratic adorers, because they choose to convert their mandibles into quid-grinders, and their [Greek: chasmat' odonton] into ceaseless jet d'eaux of saliva. ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... find a regular graver to write this chapter of horrors. No goose quill could afford me any assistance. Now then. Let me see—(Reads, and during his reading BARNSTAPLE comes in at the door behind him, unperceived.) "At this most monstrously appalling sight, the hair of Piftlianteriscki ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... were of fairer complexion than the generality of Indians. The women have two double lines of black or blue colour upon each cheek, from the ear to the nose; and the gristle of the nose is perforated, so as to admit a goose-quill, or a small piece of wood to be passed through it. The clothing of these Indians is made of the dressed skins of the rein or moose-deer. Some of them, says Mr. Mackenzie, were decorated with a neat embroidery of porcupine-quills and hair, coloured red, black, yellow, and ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... that low did lie Rose at a well-dissembled fly There stood my Friend, with patient skill, Attending of his trembling quill. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... that is not dull, When all the world with rifts is full; But unamazed dares clearly sing, Whenas the roof's a-tottering; And though it falls, continues still Tickling the Cittern with his quill. ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... through the gradual attrition of the paper by mineral acids. It is also not impossible that artists may have already invented what we call steel pens. Sarpi, in the seventeenth century, thanks a correspondent for the gift of one of these mechanical devices. Speaking broadly, the reed and the quill, red and black chalk, or matita, were the vehicles of Michelangelo's expression as a draughtsman. I have seen very few examples of studies heightened with white chalk, and none produced in the fine Florentine style ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... leathern-bound Daboll, too, was brought to light, and its most difficult problems selected and sent to Mary, who, being an excellent mathematician, worked them all out to the widow's astonishment. But when it was known that quill pens had been discarded, and steel ones substituted in their place, Mrs. Perkins again looked askance, declaring that Mary couldn't make a quill pen, and by way of testing the matter, Sally Ann was sent across the road with a huge bunch of goose quills, ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... looking so well. Helen thought Miss Cavendish herself was looking very well also, but Marion said no; that she was too sunburnt, she would not be able to wear a dinner-dress for a month. There was a pause while Marion's quill scratched violently across Carroll's note-paper. Helen felt that in some way she was being treated as an intruder; or worse, as a guest. She did not sit down, it seemed impossible to do so, but she moved uncertainly about the room. She noted that ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... from lips of fire, No marvel of the immortal quill, Can teach a moral, sterner—higher, Than thou, so helpless and so still. Reft as thou art by blistering burn— Blinded and shorn—poor stricken Fly! The wise may stoop and lessons ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... mahogany desk with brass trimmings, which was placed between the two windows, in hope of finding some ink and paper; but all I found was a quill-pen, very much worn, and chewed at the end. I was about to close this piece of furniture, when a shining spot attracted my attention it looked like the yellow head of a nail. I scratched it with my finger, and it seemed ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... growing; In the whole only worketh he; Many drops go to make the sea; Much water sets mills going. Then with the wild wolves do not stand, But knit the state's enduring band:" From doctor's chair thus, tranquil, Herr Pufendorf and swan-quill. ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
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