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At work   /æt wərk/   Listen
At work

adjective
1.
On the job.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"At work" Quotes from Famous Books



... we at present. I hope we shall not find any of Nat. Lee's left-handed gods at work, to dash our ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... would take his seat on the 'Gospel Boat' when away on some evangelistic enterprise; and while we were slowly rowing up some river or creek, or scudding away before a favorable wind to some distant port, Si-boo would be busy at work on his beads; but as soon as we reached our destination, the beads and tools were thrust into his pouch, and with his Bible and a few tracts in his hand, he was off to read or talk to the people, and leave his silent messengers ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... my husband was busily at work, I sat beside him reading an old cookery book called The Compleat Housewife: or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion. In the midst of receipts for "Rabbits, and Chickens mumbled, Pickled Samphire, Skirret Pye, Baked Tansy," and other forgotten delicacies, there were directions ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... had been taken out for the expedition; they were still in the same place and, taking two of them, he went to the break in the wall that gave exit from the courtyard and called to the soldiers, who were busy at work rebuilding their huts. ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... passed the rapids of Machuca, on San Juan River, and entered Lake Nicaragua on the 1st of January. She is now running between Granada and San Carlos, a distance of 95 miles, at $20 a passenger. The engineers employed to survey the route of the proposed ship canal, were at work between Granada and San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific. By the 1st of January, upwards of four thousand returning Californians had passed through Nicaragua, on their way to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... the Carboniferous period, that is, as they suppose, through millions of years. More wonderful still, the little animals whose remains constitute the chalk formations which are spread over large areas of country, and are sometimes a hundred feet thick, are now at work at the bottom of the Atlantic. Principal Dawson tells us, with regard to Mollusks existing in a sub-fossil state in the Post-pliocene clays of Canada, that "after carefully studying about two hundred species, and of some of these, many hundreds of specimens, I have arrived at the conclusion that ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... admired, beloved, have just left us, the Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time.* Ere a few weeks are over, many a critic's pen will be at work, reviewing their lives, and passing judgment on their works. This is no review, or history, or criticism: only a word in testimony of respect and regard from a man of letters, who owes to his own professional labor the honor ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sickening feeling of helplessness and apprehension. Of course she thought the idea utterly fantastic, but Jim and her mother appeared to believe it, and her own notions of the city's wickedness were so vivid that anything seemed possible. Certainly some malign influence seemed to be deliberately at work against her, and a thousand disagreeable incidents, once she took time to reflect upon them, bore out her suspicions. She was half minded to run away, but ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... hundred yards of me, and would have given all I had or hoped for just to have a friend within speaking distance, a shot rang out in the forest ahead, and rattled from tree to tree like the echo of a skirmish. It was not from Fred's gun, or Will's. It was the phantom rifleman at work again. Schillingschen—Schillingschen's ghost—or whoever he was, he could not have timed his fusillade better for our undoing. The first shot was followed by six more in swift succession. And ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... over it and finds out more of it, but comes out more and more continually, all that is found out pointing to and indicating still more behind, and giving additional stability and reality to that which is discovered already. But if it be fancy or any other form of pseudo-imagination which is at work, then that which it gets hold of may not be a truth, but only an idea, which will keep giving way as soon as we try to take hold of it and turning into something else, so that as we go on copying it, every part will be inconsistent with all that has gone before, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... up with the last of the soap and starch. "I wonder," said Annie, "when I shall ever have nicely starched clothes after these? They had no starch in Natchez or Vicksburg when I was there." We are now furbishing up dresses suitable for such rough summer travel. While we sat at work yesterday, the quiet of the clear, calm noon was broken by a low, continuous roar like distant thunder. To-day we are told it was probably cannon at Vicksburg. This is a great distance, I think, to have ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... She never loses her head,—I don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was the only achromatic one I ever looked into,—I did n't say looked through.—-But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your books that when Sydenham ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... her as much a part of the gardens as the trees that grew in them—these hoary and faithful servants had been cashiered, to make room for two brawny young Scotchmen, whose dialect was as Greek to the mistress of the Abbey House. It wounded her not a little to see these strangers at work in her grounds. It gave an aspect of strangeness to her very life out of doors. She hardly cared to go into her conservatories, or to loiter on her lawn, with those hard unfamiliar eyes looking at her. And it wrung her heart to think of the Squire's old servants thrust out in their old age, unpensioned, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... Menges (of the Hague) a most interesting description of an apparatus on which he has been at work for some time past, with the object of generating electricity by the direct conversion of heat, or, as it might be more accurately described, by a more direct conversion than that of an ordinary dynamo. M. Menges' apparatus depends, like that of Edison, upon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... brothers, who fought a fatal duel about a love affair) in these words:—"We sought for near half an hour in vain. We could find no steps at all, within a quarter of a mile, no nor half a mile, of Montague House. We were almost out of hope, when an honest man who was at work directed us to the next ground adjoining to a pond. There we found what we sought, about three quarters of a mile north of Montague House, and about 500 yards east of Tottenham Court Road. The steps answer Mr. Walsh's description. They are of the size of a large human foot, about three ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... is the first mark of good breeding that strikes the observer. Not that a dandy is always a gentleman; but an habitual sloven cannot be. The clothing worn at work may be unavoidably soiled; as also the hands, when occupations involve the handling of dirty substances. But "a little water clears us of this ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... and hungry garden was waking up. They passed the afternoon there. They felt now an antipathy toward Paris and the crowd, against life also. At certain moments even, a moral paralysis kept them silent, immovable, one close to the other, without a wish to stir. A strange feeling was at work in both of them. They were afraid! Fear—in the measure that the day approached when they should give themselves the one to the other—fear through excess of love, through the purification of soul which the ugly things, ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland

... scattered platoon of the mob, who were rambling along as if on a party of pleasure; tossing their pikes and clashing their sabres to all kinds of revolutionary songs. I was instantly seized, as a 'courier of the Aristocrats.' Their sagacity, once at work, found out a hundred names for me:—I was a 'spy of Pitt,' an 'agent of the Austrians,' a 'disguised priest,' and an 'emigrant noble;' my protestations were in vain, and they held a court-martial, on me and my horse, on the road; and ordered me to deliver ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... CANADIANS. The Massachusetts revolutionary authority had been at work upon the wavering Canadians since 1774, with only partial success. (See note 2, preceding chapter.) The Americans thought the Canadians would seize the opportunity of freeing themselves, but events proved this opinion ill-grounded. ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... although at considerable intervals the great cannon hurled their missiles against the fort, it was evident that, for the time at least, the attack was not to be pressed at that point. A fresh body of slaves, however, came down from the town to relieve those who had been all night at work, and the repair of the defences was continued, and with greater neatness and method than had been possible ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... of the ruin of Antony and Cleopatra must have struck many students of the records of their age as one of the most inexplicable of tragic tales. What malign influence and secret hates were at work, continually sapping their prosperity and blinding their judgment? Why did Cleopatra fly at Actium, and why did Antony follow her, leaving his fleet and army to destruction? An attempt is made in this romance to suggest a possible answer to these ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... would be sheer madness! They would have to crawl, to run, to jump—then to crawl again! That wasn't what they were doing when every morning on the parade-ground one heard a continual tack—tack—tack—tack, as if a thousand telegraph clerks were hard at work. What was the good of all this senseless show, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... another at times, and, once over the range, fell in with a river on its way to the Atlantic. The country grew dry and Mexican, covered with fine white dust and grown with cactus. At Zacapa, largest town of the line, Dakin was already at work in a machine-shop on wheels in the railroad yards, and Ems was preparing to take charge of one of the locomotives. Descending with the swift stream, we soon plunged into thickening jungle, growing even more dense than ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... pleasure in reporting that I have not worn the truss for a long period, and that I have been at work steadily at my business of binding and printing, running a large establishment, for over four years, without any trouble whatever from the rupture. It has remained permanently and perfectly cured. You ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... the slaves, who were at work hoeing between the canes; and certainly, if an estimate of their condition was to be taken by the noise and laughter with which they beguiled their labour, they were far ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... squire. "Come here, you sir!" he shouted to Andy. Now Andy at this moment stood trembling under the angry eye of Dick the Devil, who, having detected a bit of lead on the point of the pricker, guessed in a moment Andy had been at work, and the unfortunate rascal, from the furious look of Dick, had a misgiving that he had made some blunder. "Why don't you come here when I call you?" said the squire. Andy laid down the pistol-case, and sneaked up to the squire. "What did you do with the letter Mr. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... population was about twelve thousand. [Footnote: Thurston, Pittsburg and Allegheny in the Centennial Year, 61.] Foundries, rolling-mills, nail-factories, steam-engine shops, and distilleries were busily at work, and the city, dingy with the smoke of soft coal, was already dubbed the "young Manchester" or the "Birmingham" of America. By 1830 Wheeling had intercepted much of the overland trade and travel to the Ohio, profiting by the old National Road and the wagon trade from Baltimore. ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... of people flying in from all the neighboring places. Magistrates could no longer govern, nor the eloquence of any orator quiet it; it was all but suffering shipwreck by the violence of its own tempestuous agitation. The most vehement contrary passions and impulses were at work everywhere. Nor did those who rejoiced at the prospect of the change altogether conceal their feelings, but when they met, as in so great a city they frequently must, with the alarmed and dejected of the other party, they provoked ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... four masons, who had been at work since daybreak to remove the wall and replace the door. Thusnelda was obliged to laugh in spite of the unhappy night she had passed, as she climbed over rubbish and ruins into her room, and met her maid dissolved in tears, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... paper-making in Europe is but imperfectly presented through these fragmentary facts. Paper may have been made for many years before it found chroniclers who thought the manufacture worthy of notice. The Spanish paper-mills of Toledo which were at work in the year 1085, and an ancient family of paper-makers which was honored with marked favor by the king of Sicily in the year 1102, are carelessly mentioned by contemporary writers as if paper-making ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... will require development for another reason. In the case of the plant just referred to, there is a principle of growth or vitality at work superseding the attraction of gravity. Why is there no trace of that Law in the Inorganic world? Is not this another instance of the discontinuousness of Law? If the Law of vitality has so little connection with the Inorganic kingdom—less even than gravitation with the Spiritual, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... fastening it to the roof of a house or elsewhere, I took to be a confession of inaptitude for mechanical works. He does not seem to have been very accomplished in the handling of agricultural implements either, for it is told in the family that his little son, Waldo, seeing him at work with a spade, cried out, "Take care, papa,—you will ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... under the stimulus of serious study, to decide definitely whether their attack on problems is the same, whether they come out the same. Nevertheless, he would be a rash observer who would pretend to lay down hard-and-fast generalizations. Assert whatever you will as to the mind of woman at work and some unimpeachable authority will rise up with experience that contradicts you. But the same may be said of the mind of man. The mind—per se—is a variable ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... (thirty-seven miles), that a band of twenty or thirty Sioux Indians had come suddenly upon the two conductors, named Cahoone and Kinney, and, after a severe conflict, had shot both through with arrows, and scalped one of them (Cahoone), besides killing some of the railroad hands at work repairing the road near by the scene of conflict. Presently we met a special train, consisting of engine and caboose-car, coming with tremendous speed,—one mile a minute,—containing Dr. Latham, surgeon of ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... of going to sleep until I had read it all through; it was delightful, but oh! it's still better when he preaches it! I hope I did not do wrong in copying a part of it? I wish to impress it on the children. There are some worldly influences at work with them, dear madam [looking at Lady K. in the garden], which I do my feeble effort to—to modify. I wish YOU could ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray

... which a number of monks worked came when an edition of eight or ten copies of a book was to be prepared. One monk could then dictate, while eight or ten others carefully printed on the skins before them what was dictated by the reader. [13] Figure 40 shows a monk at work, though here he is copying from a book before him. After an edition of eight or ten copies of a book had been prepared and bound the extra copies were sent to neighboring and sometimes distant monasteries, sometimes in exchange ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... throughout the world to establish peaceful, commercial, and industrial relations with all the civilized nations. Japan, too, awakes to the necessity of a more liberal policy, and looks toward a partnership in modern civilization. Who, seeing this, and reflecting on the manifold agencies at work in the old world and the prodigious movements in the new, which I cannot even glance at, can help exclaiming, in the language of the first telegraphic message which was sent to America, 'What hath God wrought?' How great a part has this ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... Kyngston for J. Wight, and this was re-edited, with fresh additions by Thomas Speght, in 1598 for G. Bishop and again in 1602 for Adam Islip. In 1687 there was an anonymous reprint, and in 1721 John Urry produced the last and worst of the folios. By this time the paraphrasers were already at work, Dryden rewriting the tales of the Knight, the Nun's Priest and the Wife of Bath, and Pope the Merchant's. In 1737 (reprinted in 1740) the Prologue and Knight's Tale were edited (anonymously) by Thomas Morell "from the most authentic manuscripts," and here, though by dint of much violence ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... stop was at the office, dark with a Sabbath darkness; but not for long. Within the space of a few minutes after he came, every light switched on, the windows open wide, his coat dangling from a chair in the corner, Roberts was at work upon a small mountain of correspondence collected upon his desk, a mountain of which each unit was marked "personal" or "private." At almost the same time a waiter from a near-by cafe entered with a tray of sandwiches and coffee. Thereafter he ate ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... great deal, and by and by I began to see the light. I had suspected from observation and personal experience that there was a powerful private influence at work in the state land office, and by reason of their seeming control of the office were engaged in looting the state of its school lands which were timbered. In the congressional investigation into certain land frauds in California, it was discovered that ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... nigger slave business,—never stirring out o' the settlement, never seein' a town or a crowd o' decent people,—and he did the lord and master! We played that game for two years, and I got tired. But when at last he allowed he'd go up to Elktown Hill, where there was a passel o' his countrymen at work, with never a sign o' any other folks, and leave me alone at Red Dog until he fixed up a place for me at Elktown Hill,—I kicked! I gave him fair warning! I did as other nigger slaves did,—I ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... minutes he was hard at work with a pick, and succeeded, with some difficulty, in breaking through the frozen crust. The moisture, however, had not penetrated far enough into the fine wood-ash for the rest to freeze, so that ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... shop where he was at work, he addressed him as John; and at the uttering of the word started, as though he had been alarmed. Harry noticed it, and repeated the name several times, with the same result, and he hastened to inform the Professor ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... hallway of her home as he was nervously pocketing the $60 he had received in payment for his clothes. Her face was like that of a ghost. He tried to answer her reproof, but the words would not come, and he fled to his room, locking the door after him. He was at work there on the transaction that was to record the total disappearance of Edwin Brewster's million—his final report to Swearengen Jones, executor of James Sedgwick's will. On the floor were bundles of packages, carefully wrapped and tied, and on the table was the long sheet of ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... the porch, moody, preoccupied, somber, all the time. Only a little of his mind was concerned with me. Manifestly there were strong forces at work. Both men were strained to a last degree, and Wright could be made to break at almost a word. Sampson laughed mockingly at this sally of mine, and that stung Wright. He stopped his pacing and turned his handsome, fiery eyes on me. "Sampson, I won't ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... church, while the people bustled about getting their food. Every old woman had a piece of corn cake, and the ragged children got what they could, gathering the crumbs in their mothers' aprons. A few rough fellows who were not away at work in the valley munched the maize bread with a leek and a bit of salt fish, and some of them had oil on it. Our mountain people eat scarcely anything else, unless it be a little meat on holidays, or an egg when the hens are laying. But they laugh ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... It would be unjust to deny that she was greatly actuated by a sincere interest in her ci-devant pupil's welfare; but other feelings were at work. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... a great deal about it. Before I came over I always imagined that American women spent their time in reading fashion magazines and talking over their clothes. Mrs. Geoff and Mrs. Page certainly don't do that. I don't often hear them speak about dresses, or see them at work at them; and both of them know a great deal more about a house than I do, or any other English girl I ever saw. Mrs. Geoff, and Mrs. Page too, can make all sorts of things,—cakes and puddings and muffins and ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... substances as forming a coating which dries out and possibly disintegrates when the wood dries. The drying-out may result in considerable shrinkage, which may make the wood fibre more porous. It is also possible that there are oxidizing influences at work within these substances which result in their disintegration. Whatever the exact nature of the change may be, one can say without hesitation that exposure to the wind and air brings about changes in the ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... followed by Australia, where Chinese immigration was also held to be a public danger. Canada also adopted the policy of excluding Chinese, but not before there had been a considerable immigration into British Columbia. Two factors, a racial and an economic, are at work to bring about these measures of exclusion. As indentured labourers Chinese have been employed in the West Indies, South America ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... that it was perhaps safer to blow from my end, and for a little while we had in this way as much smoke around us as the most fastidious cigar-smoker could want. Then I accidentally dropped it; something in the middle of it shifted, I suppose—and for the rest of my stay behind it only one end was at work. ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... delivered by the reserves of the Second Welsh Regiment and First South Wales Borderers, and by a company of the First Royal Highlanders, (lent by the First Brigade as a working party—this company was at work on the keep at the time,) was completely successful, with the result that after about an hour's street fighting all who had broken into the village were either captured or killed, and the original line around the village ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... are you here and at work, young man? I thought you were asleep after all that gallivanting, and was just preparing to blow you up out of bed over the telephone," exclaimed my Uncle, the General Robert, with great fierceness of manner but also ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... to patternize the justice of the p'lice," replied Peace, limping over to the long table where they were all at work, "I'd just be married here at the hospital ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... dawn the next morning, and rousing his men, set them at work throwing up redoubts. He was standing some distance from them, watching the sun rise over the great valley they had been forced to abandon, with its woods and beautiful homes, now the quarters of British officers, when every nerve in his body became ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... sculpture can be little more than a letter; and yet, in putting this circlet, and its encompassing fretwork of minute waves, he does more than if he had merely given you a letter L, or written 'Leuce.' If you know anything of beaches and sea, this symbol will set your imagination at work in recalling them; then you will think of the temple service of the novitiate sea-birds, and of the ghosts of Achilles and Patroclus appearing, like the Dioscuri, above the storm-clouds of the Euxine. And the artist, throughout his work, never ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... astonishment of the natives when they saw the printing-press at work. Lessons, spelling-books and catechisms were prepared for the schools. To see a white sheet of paper disappear for a moment and then emerge covered with letters was beyond their comprehension. After a few noisy exclamations one obtained a sheet, with which he bounded ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane

... troops there to be ready to take the field at once. Fast though he travelled, however, reaching Dera Galib in two nights of hard riding, he had been outstripped. Emissaries from Sher Singh had already been at work among the Granthis, calling upon them to join their brethren who had betrayed Nisbet and Cowper, and fight the English for the sake of God and the Guru. Valuable gifts, and the promise of doubled pay and unlimited loot, strengthened ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... as much. And you fought a stranger in the gale? Winds, ocean, and man were all at work together." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... to ride around the country bare-headed with two or three girls when honest men were at work, and he acquired a fine leather-coloured tan. He tried organising a polo club, but the ponies from the delivery waggons that were available after six o'clock did not take training well, and he gave up polo. In making horse-back riding a social diversion he taught a lot of fine old family ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... going a considerable distance from the house with a piece of bread her mother had given her. This attracted the attention of the mother, who asked the father to follow the child, and find out what she did with the bread. On coming to the child, he found her busy at work feeding several snakes of the species of rattlesnakes called yellow heads. He quickly took her away, went to the house for his gun, and returning, killed two of them at one shot, and another a few days afterward. The ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown

... second Chapter that the same principle applies to the whole individual; {169} for in a district where many species of any genus are found—that is, where there has been much former variation and differentiation, or where the manufactory of new specific forms has been actively at work—there, on an average, we now find most varieties or incipient species. Secondary sexual characters are highly variable, and such characters differ much in the species of the same group. Variability in the same parts of the organisation ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... only poetry I had ever seen) a song-book, which had, scattered among its vulgarisms and puerilities, some gems of Burns and Moore. These my natural, unvitiated taste had singled out, and I would croon them over to myself, set them to a tune of my own composing, and half sing, half chant them, when at work out-of-doors, till my mother ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... rebellion against his Father; he plunges into the lowest depths of sin. But we still recognise in him the promise of infinite and eternal possibilities of spiritual expansion and happiness. Indeed we find at work a divinely benevolent scheme through which he is to be ultimately exalted to heavenly places in Christ Jesus and made the ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... all the time he came, and my father welcomed him, but my mother always sat in silence at work with the quills; my mother ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... read, no ship of the old days ever proceeded so sadly and blunderingly to sea. Ere long Mr. Mellaire joined Mr. Pike in the struggle of directing the men. It was not yet eight in the evening, and all hands were at work. They did not seem to know the ropes. Time and again, when the half-hearted suggestions of the bosuns had been of no avail, I saw one or the other of the mates leap to the rail and put the right rope in the hands of ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... the methods pursued, checking the expenditure on this, on that, on the other. He interviews the partners, the managers, the men down through the various grades; the books are open to him. He presents his diagnosis and writes his prescription. The "business doctor" has been at work in the churches—in our Church. He has looked into many things. He has made some suggestions. They have not all been foolish, but, as yet, he has not quite hit upon the very thing. He has, however, not altogether finished his work. Why should ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... coming with Herr Greif!' she cried, before she was really within hearing of the room where Berbel was at work. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... Christian woman who superintends us at work in the papyrus factory, and since my mother died I have had no love. I enjoyed all my share of happiness once for all in my childhood, now I am content if only we are spared the worst misfortunes. Otherwise I take what each day brings, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the ragpickers, and, like them, are scattered about in various poorer quarters of the city. Ever-picturesque argot has given them a name of ridicule, and calls them les peintres and their brooms their inspired brushes. Every tourist has seen those unhappy wretches at work, sometimes alone, sometimes in gangs of three or four, men and women together. There is no distinction of sex in this branch of industry, as indeed there is in none of the lowest fields of labor in Paris. Women and girls are quite often ragpickers; among the street-sweepers they form a good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... stories reached the tea-garden villages and eventually came to his ears he was very puzzled. For he knew that, in spite of their extravagance, there was probably a grain of truth somewhere in them. They made him suspect that some other agency had been at work and another reason than hope of money ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... reassuring; so Lachaussee had orders to carry out his instructions. One day the civil lieutenant rang his bell, and Lachaussee, who served the councillor, as we said before, came up for orders. He found the lieutenant at work with his secretary, Couste what he wanted was a glass of wine and water. In a moment Lachaussee brought it in. The lieutenant put the glass to his lips, but at the first sip pushed it away, crying, "What have you brought, you wretch? I believe you want to poison me." Then handing the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... While Santos was at work gathering the parts, the stamping machine, the press, the dies, the plates, and the rest of the counterfeiting plant which had not yet been delivered, Constance, during the hours that she was not collecting money from the concession-grabbers, haunted the Junta. There ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... and flocks of sheep or pigs that they had seized and taken away from the poor peasants; and at night the sky would show red lights where farms and homesteads had been set on fire. After a time, in front of the tents, the English were to be seen hard at work with beams and boards, setting up huts for themselves, and thatching them ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... the large establishments to appoint professionally trained psychologists who will devote their services to the psychological problems of the special industrial plant. There are many factories that have scores of scientifically trained chemists or physicists at work, but who would consider it an unproductive luxury to appoint a scientifically schooled experimental psychologist to their staff. And yet his observations and researches might become economically the most important ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... last, one sunny morning, mother came out with a basket and began to pick the pods. Harry and Dora wished to help her, and all three were soon at work. ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various

... textbook, is found in the crucible of the class-room work. There are many chemistries, and good ones; but, for our use, this leads them all. It is stated in language plain, interesting and not misleading. A logical order is followed, and the mind of the student is at work because of the many suggestions offered. We use Williams's work, and the results are all we could wish. There is plenty of chemistry in the work for any ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... began to make as close investigation of our opponents across the stream as the difficulties of the position would allow. We found the country thickly inhabited, every stump and tree sheltering its quota of men in gray, and six ugly-looking cannon at work upon our position with a rapidity and precision that was certainly commendable to them, if not fully appreciated by us. However, we soon lost our fears and misgivings in our eagerness to make the climate as warm for them as they had so far made it for us, and we settled down to our work with ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... which are in St. Peter's, several men are employed at the same time, but on the lesser only one. It is very tedious, requiring years to copy one of the largest size. All the pictures in St. Peter's are in mosaic, except one, and they are at work on one which is to replace this single oil-piece. The studio appeared in good order, but there were only two men at work, as the Government spends very little money upon it at present. From one of the open galleries we (Morier and I) saw a thunderstorm, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... vouchsafed to give the desire, he would surely increase knowledge. Here was a poor afflicted boy getting out of his bed to look by night for one whom he had vainly sought all the day: here was Satan at work to strengthen unbelief: I was commanded to resist the devil, and surely there must be some way of resisting him. I sat silent on the opposite side of the fire, and a plan having struck me, I looked at Jack, shrugged my ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... that Father Chaufour had a right to reparation from me. To make amends for the feeling of ill-will I had against him just now, I owed him some explicit proof of sympathy. I heard him humming a tune in his room; he was at work, and I determined that I would make the first ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... doctor, entering a room, in which three or four other men were at work, hastily finishing ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... entirely unattractive, ranking far below the dog, horse, or even cow. Consequently but few men in the sheep business have any affection for them. Of these few, Hard-winter Sims was probably the leader. Something closely akin to a maternal obligation was constantly at work in him, and the one thing that brought instant response was the cry of distress of a ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... a moment's reflection, "you two are so much alike, that any one, who was not in the habit of seeing you daily, might easily take one for the other. Well! if they did not know that you are, so to speak,'doubles,' they might think an imp was at work instead of such good little angels ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... thatch and bamboo huts of the ordinary natives. In the next place it is a tremendous sight to see the work on the canal going on. From the chief engineer and the chief sanitary officer down to the last arrived machinist or time-keeper, the five thousand Americans at work on the Isthmus seemed to me an exceptionally able, energetic lot, some of them grumbling, of course, but on the whole a mighty good lot of men. The West Indian negroes offer a greater problem, but they are ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... that either of the sailors knew that there was a new force at work upon the ship was the falling of a mighty hand upon a shoulder of each. As if they had been in the grip of a fly-wheel, they were jerked suddenly ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... stuck fast, and through the dingy panes she could see only roofs and chimneys. The other women and girls near her chatted and laughed, but she was silent. She did not feel like talking, certainly not like laughing. The garment she was at work on was a coat, a wedding coat, so the foreman had told her, with a smile; therefore she ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... government is so fully aware of this, that an inspector has been dispatched to direct immediate repairs to be made against the arrival of the English ambassador; and, in some communes, the people are at work by torch-light. With this exception, my journey was exceedingly pleasant. At ten o'clock the first night, we reached Montreuil, where we supped; the next day we breakfasted at Abbeville, dined at Amiens, and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... tables were profuse with solid silver table-service. The table cloths were of the finest woven flosses. At one time when I was there Maxwell took me to the "loom shed" where he had two Indian women at work on a blanket. The floss and silk the women had woven into the blanket cost him $100 and the women had worked on it one year. It was strictly waterproof. Water could not penetrate it in any way, ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... it enters, between the walls of lofty, fly-blown houses, a world of maccaroni haunted by foul odors, beggars, poultry, and insects. There were few people to be seen on the street, but through the open doors of the lofty fly-blown houses we saw floury legions at work making maccaroni; grinding maccaroni, rolling it, cutting it, hanging it in mighty skeins to dry, and gathering it when dried, and putting it away. By the frequency of the wine-shops we judged that the legions were a thirsty host, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... misfortune overtake him, that Calvert set out on his journey back to Maubeuge the following day buoyed up with the belief that should the army refuse its allegiance and support the King would find, at any rate, a safe asylum at Strasburg. But already Brunswick's ill-advised manifesto was at work overthrowing these well-laid plans, which were to come to nothing, as were his own, unhappily, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... day of the big storm, with the wind from the northeast, the El Dorado began to leak badly again. All hands took spells at the pumps. We were at work every minute. We left the ropes for the pumps and the pumps for the ropes. We double-reefed the mizzen, and in the wind this was a terrible job. It nearly killed us. At eight o'clock to-night we could not see five feet ahead ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... having struck something that indicated a buried foundation, there in the black pea field, this young antiquarian had put men at work and was being rewarded by finding the ruins of some ancient house. Portions of two rooms had been disclosed and the stairway leading down into ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... trickish fellow found the way to undo his chain, ma'am, he watches every thing that is done in the kitchen. Yesterday I polished the range, and the door to the oven. I suppose he saw me at work, and thought it would be good fun; for when I was out of the kitchen hanging some towels to dry on the line, in he walks to the closet where I keep the blacking and brushes, and what should he do but black the table and chairs? Such a sight, ma'am, ...
— Minnie's Pet Monkey • Madeline Leslie

... of the sea, a vast and vermilion sun seemed to rest his chin. Gray pelicans came flapping around the mast;—sea-birds sped hurtling by, their white bosoms rose-flushed by the western glow ... Again Sparicio's little furnace was at work,—more fish, more macaroni, more black coffee; also a square-shouldered bottle of gin made its appearance. Julien ate less sparingly at this second meal; and smoked a long time on deck with Sparicio, who suddenly became very good-humored, and chatted ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... end in itself and for itself; it is a motion desirable for its own sake.[731] The relation of the potential to the actual Aristotle exhibits by the relation of the unfinished to the finished work, of the unemployed builder to the one at work upon his building, of the seed-corn to the tree, of the man who has the capacity to think, to the man actually engaged in thought.[732] Potentially the seed-corn is the tree, but the grown-up tree is the actuality; the potential philosopher is he who is not at this moment in a philosophic ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... day, in spite of the article published in No. 135 of Mercurius Civicus, or London's Intelligencer, which explained the absurdity of keeping Christmas day, and ordained that all shops should be opened, and that the shopkeepers should see that their apprentices were at work on that day. If they needed a holiday, "let them keep the fift of November, and other dayes of that nature, or the late great mercy of God in the taking of Hereford, which deserves an especiall day of thanks giving." It would not so much have ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... to see numbers at work to repair the building and cultivate the garden and to observe that at length from this inhospitable mansion, 'health to himself, and to his children bread, the labourer bears.' Within it were all the biggest schoolgirls, with one ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... drive them off: they took their blows without a murmur or the least opposition, but without desisting—even the men of the royal and imperial guards; for, throughout the whole army, such were the scenes that occurred every night. The unfortunate fellows kept silently but actively at work on the wooden walls, which they pulled in pieces on every side at once, and which, after vain efforts, their officers were obliged to relinquish to them, for fear they would fall upon their own heads. It was an extraordinary mixture of perseverance ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent that free competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades which employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into such combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-combers, perhaps, are necessary to keep a thousand spinners and weavers at work. By combining not to take apprentices, they can not only engross the employment, but reduce the whole manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves, and raise the price of their labour much above what is due to the nature ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... were at work, peddlers would come along; and, as they were treated badly by the rich planters, they hated them, and talked to the slaves in a way to excite them and set them thinking of freedom. They would say encouragingly to them: "Ah! You will be ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes



Words linked to "At work" :   busy



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