"Flax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a little factory, and every farmer a jack-of-all-trades. He and his sons made their own shoes, beat out nails and spikes, hinges, and every sort of ironmongery, and constructed much of the household furniture. The wife and her daughters manufactured the clothing, from dressing the flax and carding the wool to cutting the cloth; knit the mittens and socks; and during the winter made straw bonnets to sell in the ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... of peasants no great inequalities of wealth existed. Few citizens were very rich; few were very poor. The members of each household made their own clothing from flax or wool, and fashioned out of wood and clay what utensils were needed for their simple life. For a long time the Romans had no coined money whatever. When copper came into use as currency, it passed from hand ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... inflection of a word, for which we cannot conceive an appropriate meaning or use, it follows that whatever is of such a species that it cannot be taken in any plural sense, must naturally be named by a word which is singular only: as, perry, cider, coffee, flax, hemp, fennel, tallow, pitch, gold, sloth, pride, meekness, eloquence. But there are some things, which have in fact neither a comprehensible unity, nor any distinguishable plurality, and which may therefore be spoken of in either number; for the distinction of unity and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... material, in exchange for which they could get what they wanted from the Western races; while these Western races had at least one article which they could barter for the much-prized jade implements, viz. linen cloth, the weaving of which was practised in the oldest settlements, hanks of unspun flax and thread, nets and cloth of the same material having been found not ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... the domestic manufacturers in the class of goods in which they were most interested. To conciliate other sections, the convention adopted the plan of an additional duty on hammered bar-iron, hemp and flax, and various other products. [Footnote: Stanwood, Tariff Controversies, I., 264; Niles' Register, XXXII., 369, 386, XXXIII., 187; Elliott, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... Son of Man, and therefore, ere we lost sight of Him once more, the Son of God? Let us think. First, therefore, we must believe that—as in Judea of old—Christ would meet men with all consideration and courtesy. He would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He would not strive, nor cry, nor let His voice be heard in the streets. He would not cause any of God's little ones to offend, to stumble. In plain words, He would not shock and repel them by any conduct of His. Therefore, as in Judea of old, He would be careful of, even indulgent ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the ground, and was far more neatly made than that of the foregoing species; it is likewise less deep internally. It was composed of the dry stalks of 'forget-me-not,' compactly held together by the intermixture of a quantity of moss interwoven with fine flax and seed-down, and lined with fine grass-stalks. Internal diameter 31/2 inches; external 6 inches; depth 11/2 inch, forming a flattish cup, of which the sides are about 11/2 inch thick. The depth, therefore, is less by 1 inch than in that ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... 1 ounce Irish moss 1 ounce Flax Seed (the seed not pulverized) 1 ounce Boneset 1 ounce Licorice Root ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels, while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco, Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons of produce were sent out the State of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... following may not be declared contraband of war: (1) Raw cotton, wool, silk, jute, flax, hemp and other raw materials of the textile industries, and yarns of the same; (2) oil seeds and nuts; copra; (3) rubber, resins, gums and lacs; hops; (4) raw hides and horns, bones and ivory; (5) natural and artificial manures, including nitrates and phosphates for agricultural ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... peculiarly American production, known as cuttyhunk line, made of flax, immensely strong, very light and cheap. I know of no line so suited to its purpose, or which, as I have said before, forms such excellent backing to a trout or salmon line. The regulations of the Club provide that the line must not ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... about the country where the bells tinkle for matins and vespers or call with a deep, solemn sound for high mass on Sundays. He was so very fond of hearing about the country, about the large fields in which the blue flax and golden rye grow, about the bluish line of forest on the horizon, about the wide, wide stretches of heath, where the bees buzz busily over the blooming heather and the fen-fowls screech near the quiet waters ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... commenced: this makes it much softer for stitching through. Coloured linens are rarely satisfactory, a certain kind of blue being almost the only exception. The safest plan is to keep to pure white, or to the unbleached varieties that have a slightly grey or warm tone about them. Wools, silks, and flax threads all look well upon a linen ground; it is not usually in good taste to embroider with poor thread upon a rich ground material, and, upon the other hand, gold thread and floss demand silk or velvet rather than linen, though any rule of ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... that he could see around him on every side. He would often in the day-time change himself into a salmon and hide in the water called Franangursfors, and he thought over what trick the gods might devise to capture him there. One day while he sat in his house, he took flax and yarn, and with it made meshes like those of a net, a fire burning in front of him. Then he became aware that the gods were near at hand, for Odin had seen out of Hlidskjalf where he was. Loki sprang up, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... only one well, and there is no stream in the whole island, but they drink rain-water. The merchants who come from India and the islands encamp there with their wares. Moreover, men from Shinar, El-Yemen and Persia bring thither all sorts of silk, purple and flax, cotton, hemp, worked wool, wheat, barley, millet, rye, and all sorts of food, and lentils of every description, and they trade with one another, whilst the men from India bring great quantities of spices thither. The islanders act as middlemen, ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... comrades, behold this wonder. Glyc has robbed me of my cock and has fled. Oh, Nymphs of the mountains! oh! Mania! seize her! How unhappy I am! I was full busy with my work, I was sp-sp-sp-sp-spinning the flax that was on my spindle, I was rounding off the clew that I was to go and sell in the market at dawn; and he flew off, flew off, cleaving the air with his swift wings; he left to me nothing but pain, pain! What tears, tears, poured, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the same delicate, wild-rose pink in her cheeks, the same mischievous smile dimpling her laughing face. But Christine's eyes had not been a starry hazel like the Little Colonel's. They were blue as the flax-flowers she used to gather—thirty, was it? ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Norfolk Island, there was sent with Lieut. King only a small detachment, consisting of one subaltern officer, and six marines, a very promising young man who was a midshipman, a surgeon,* two men who understood the cultivation and dressing of flax, with nine men and six women convicts. That the nature of this settlement may be fully understood, a copy of the instructions delivered to Mr. King at his departure is subjoined ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... genii of nature give their smiles to him only who confronts them freely and securely—they revolt when they discern weakness, precipitation, and half measures. No undertaking any longer prospers. The yellow blossoms of the turnip and the blue flowers of the flax wither without fruit. Rust and gangrene appear among the cattle, the shriveled potato sickens and dies; all these, long accustomed to obey skill, now cruelly avenge neglect. Then the daily walk through the fields becomes a daily curse; the very lark that springs from the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... him as "fond of all stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ... a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic tumults ... a noble, loyal, and religious nature, not strong enough to vanquish the perverse element ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... little, pale woman, with blue eyes, and hair as soft as flax. You've seen her, I dare say, for she took in washin', and used to hang the things on the ruf, and I would go up with her under pertence of helpin', but more, I'm afeard, because I could the better see ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... the particularly mild, sweet amiability of the yellow warbler is responsible for the persistent visitations of the cowbird, from which it is a conspicuous sufferer. In the exquisite, neat little matted cradle of glistening milk-weed flax, lined with down from the fronds of fern, the skulking housebreaker deposits her surreptitious egg for the little yellow mother-bird to hatch and tend. But amiability is not the only prominent trait in the female yellow warbler's ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Lenny, and additional labourers were called in for the field work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax; but against the growth of flax the squire set his face obstinately. That most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops when soil and skill suit, was formerly attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, since you will find few old leases do not contain a clause prohibitory of flax as an impoverishment ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... growth and produce of the British colonies and of the United States—the principal being grain, flour, breadstuffs, animals, fresh, smoked, and salted meats, fish, lumber of all kinds, poultry, cotton, wool, hides, ores of metal, pitch, tar, ashes, flax, hemp, rice, and unmanufactured tobacco. The people of the United States and of the British provinces were given an equal right to navigate the St. Lawrence river, the Canadian canals and Lake Michigan. No export duty could be levied on lumber cut in Maine and passing down ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... recognized good, and therefore could not be wholly unsanctified by good; it had repented, and therefore sin was no longer loved; all the rest was dark; but He who, speaking in metaphors, forbade the "bruised reed" to be broken, or "smoking flax" to be quenched, might have seen light, invisible to mortal eyes, even about a soul as shadowed as that ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... as her linen which she had put out to bleach. When long grey strips of clouds drifted across the sky they said she was weaving, for she was supposed to be also a very diligent weaver, spinner, and housekeeper. It is said she gave flax to mankind and taught them how to use it, and in the Tyrol the following story is told about the way in which she bestowed this ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... swam in circles, eddying ever inward until it streamed intensely and joyously through her eyes "blue as the fairy flax." And he had carried the remembrance of this away into the world with him, but had never gone back again. He had travelled beyond the seas to live among savages and wear out his life in self-denial; and now he had come ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... root-crops. Niort is a centre for the growing Of vegetables (onions, asparagus, artichokes, &c.) and of angelica. Considerable quantities of beetroot are raised to supply the distilleries of Melle. Colza, hemp, rape and flax are also cultivated. Vineyards are numerous in the neighbourhood of Bressuire in the north, and of Niort and Melle in the south. The department is well known for the Parthenay breed of cattle and the Poitou breed of horses; and the mules reared in the southern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... which was to some extent perceptible in Downe's manner towards his companion, though nothing of it ever showed in Barnet's manner towards the solicitor. Barnet's position in the town was none of his own making; his father had been a very successful flax-merchant in the same place, where the trade was still carried on as briskly as the small capacities of its quarters would allow. Having acquired a fair fortune, old Mr. Barnet had retired from business, bringing up his son as a gentleman-burgher, and, it must be added, as ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... but if he could not get the middle man to pay him his rent punctually, he went to his land, and drove the land for his rent, that is to say, he sent his steward or bailiff, or driver, to the land to seize the cattle, hay, corn, flax, oats, or potatoes, belonging to the under-tenants, and proceeded to sell these for his rents: it sometimes happened that these unfortunate tenants paid their rent twice over, once to the middle man, and once to the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... hear the drowsy hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the flax, his head as yellow and his eyes as blue as the flowers themselves; or that bank opposite the gate, with its gorse bushes in golden bloom, its mountain-ash hung with scarlet berries, its tufts of harebells blossoming in the crevices of rock, and the quaint low clock-tower at the foot? Can ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... world to speak very hardly of those who are in want and misery, for as nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure. But again, that is not Christ's way. He never breaks the bruised reed, or quenches the smoking flax. My brothers, let us learn to look on all men as our neighbours, let us stretch out a helping hand to those who have fallen among thieves, let us pour the wine and oil of sympathy, and kind words where we can, let us be gentle in our judgment of another's fault, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... good whiplashes. I remarked, as they were working, how strong and pliant these strips seemed, and, examining them closely, I found they were composed of long fibres, or filaments, which made me suspect it to be Phormium tenax, or New Zealand flax, a most important discovery to us, and which, when I communicated it to my wife, almost overwhelmed her with joy. "Bring me all the leaves you can without delay," cried she, "and I will make you stockings, shirts, coats, sewing-thread, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... carpenters, moulders, founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers, turners; those again that conveyed them to the town for use, merchants and mariners and ship-masters by sea; and by land, cartwrights, cattle-breeders, wagoners, rope-makers, flax-workers, shoe-makers and leather-dressers, road-makers, miners. And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of journeymen and laborers belonging ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... roofing in the house; Jesus, assisted by the angels, is carrying a beam of wood up a ladder; below, in front, Mary is carding wool or flax. ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... Meg was heaping some flax loosely together. Before answer to this question, she dropped a firebrand upon the flax, which had been previously steeped in some spirituous liquor, for it instantly caught fire, and rose in a vivid pyramid ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... more curiously wrought than all the sculptures of Torrigiano or Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli or Michael Angelo himself. For they named a lovely little lilac snapdragon, Linaria Domini Pellicerii,—"Lord Pellicier's toad-flax;" and that name it will keep, we may believe, as long as winter ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... so," replied Plato, "so long as he feasts them at his own expense, and drinks three cotylae of wine at a draught. I know not of what materials he is made; unless it be of Carpasian flax, which above all things burns ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... gave the Queen a red glass full of honeybell whiskey; but she called it a fine name, like Rose-dew, or Tears-of-Flax, and then Queen Lura drank it down nicely;—so much depends on names, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... white as snow, All flax-en was his poll; He's gone, he's gone, And we cast away moan; God ha' ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... had gone into Jerusalem to dispose of flax spun by the Hebrew ladies, and procure a few necessary articles of food. Hadassah never suffered her beautiful girl to enter to walls of the city, nor, indeed, ever to quit the precincts of her home, save when on Sabbath-days and feast-days she went, closely veiled, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... to Mam' Sarah at the loom-house. It was considered a great treat by Roberta to go down to the loom-house. That was where the wool, cotton, and flax was carded, spun, and wove, then manufactured into winter and summer clothes for the negroes on the place. Yard upon yard of beautiful red and black flannel, blue and brown linseys, and blue and white striped cottonades, for the women, jeans for the men, and that coarse fabric ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... 1862. "Thus," he concluded, "it is that even in Lancashire and other manufacturing districts no open demonstration has been made against the blockade[676]." Manufactures other than cotton were greatly prospering, in particular those of woollen, flax, and iron. And the theory that the cotton lords were not, in reality, hit by the blockade—perhaps profited by it—was bruited even during the war. Blackwood's Magazine, October, 1864, held this view, while the Morning Post of May 16, 1864, went to the extent of describing ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... the introduction of Whitney's cotton gins there had been much attention bestowed by the people of the State upon the cultivation of flax. This crop was never reared for exportation, but for family use at home. Few of the ancient spinning-wheels can now be found, but they were once abundant and the manufacture of home made linen was common in North Carolina. This ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... condemnation of it, having passed here a season of unusually bad weather. Orange and lemon trees grow in the open air, and are now loaded with ripe fruit. The fields in the environs are green with grass nourished by abundant rains, and are spotted with daisies in blossom. Crops of flax and various kinds of pulse are showing themselves above the ground, a circumstance sufficient to show that the cultivators expect nothing like what ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... up to heaven, and temples, and obelisks, and pyramids, and giant gods of stone. And he came down amid fields of barley and flax, and millet, and clambering gourds; and saw the people coming out of the gates of a great city, and setting to work, each in his place, among the water courses, parting the streams among the plants cunningly with their feet, according to the wisdom of the Egyptians. But when ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the reminder to the man of his secular duties, and its material varies, in consequence, according to the occupation of the wearer. Thus, while the thread of the Brahmans is made of pure cotton, that of the Kshatriyas (the warriors) is composed of flax—the bow-string material; and that of Vaishyas (the traders and cattle-breeders), of wool. From this it is not to be inferred that caste was originally meant to be hereditary. In the ancient times, it ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn of the Philistines, with the vineyards and olives." On another occasion he allowed himself to be bound with cords, and thus apparently delivered powerless into the hands of his enemies; he then broke his bonds "like flax that was burnt with fire," and taking the jaw-bone of an ass, which he found, slew a thousand men with it. His account of this massacre shows that he regarded it in a humorous light: "With the jaw-bone of an ass heaps upon heaps, with ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... merchandise of Philadelphia; with rude dwellings of logs now giving way to others of frame and of brick; and, stretching away from the town toward the encompassing wilderness, orderly gardens and orchards now pink with the blossom of the peach, and fields of young maize and wheat and flax and hemp. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... beds or on battlefields or in water or in mire or on wooden planks or on diverse kinds of beds; or impelled by desire of fruits, he regards himself as clad in a scant piece of cloth made of grass or as totally nude or as robed in silk or in skin of the black antelope or in cloth made of flax or in sheep-skin or in tiger-skin or in lion-skin or in fabric of hemp, or in barks of birch or in cloths made of the produce of prickly plants, or in vestures made of threads woven by worms or of torn rags or in diverse other kinds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... club; and from the nature of many of his exploits, the destruction of wild beasts and robbers. This part of the history of Hercules seems to have related to times before the invention of the bow and arrow, or of spinning flax. Other stories of Hercules are perhaps of later date, and appear to be allegorical, as his conquering the river- god Achilous, and bringing Cerberus up to day light; the former might refer to his turning the course of ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... quench the smoking flax, But raise it to a flame; The bruised reed he never breaks, Nor scorns the ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... was carried on in small boats that could be drawn up along the river bank by means of oars, spikes, poles, and hooks. The articles most in demand were axes, hoes, cotton cards, hatchels for cleaning flax, hemp and cotton, spinning wheels, knives, and ammunition, guns, and bar shears for plows. In exchange for such goods the people traded beef, hides, furs, tallow, beeswax, and honey. Money was not needed or used by anyone - everything was ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... came for miles to look at it, the fence around the fields some days being lined with spectators, I have been told by my grandfather. I remember when a child nothing appeared to me more beautiful than my father's fields of flax; a mass of bright blue flowers. I also remember the fields of broom-corn. Just think! We made our own brooms, wove linen from the flax raised on our farm and made our own tallow candles. Mary, from what a thrifty ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... in his God, and the Christians will come and they will remove our laws." Then took they counsel together, how they should destroy him with their snares, and under the pretence of justice bring him unto the death. And a certain woman was washing flax nigh unto the place where the saint was to pass; and her they directed to hide much of the flax in a hollow tree, and when the saint and his company passed by to accuse him as of the theft. And the woman did according as she was induced, nay rather as she was seduced; and loudly crying out, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... act of grinding oats into meal for their dinner with a quern, consisting of two diminutive millstones turned by the hand; this was placed upon a praskeen, or coarse apron, spread under it on the floor to receive the meal. An old woman, her mother, sat spinning flax with the distaff—for as yet flax wheels were scarcely known—and a lubberly young fellow about sixteen, with able, well shaped limbs and great promise of bodily strength, sat before the fire managing a double task, to wit, roasting, first, a ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... nicely into flax, we have had one great comfort, which we had lost before, in being able to make and use paper. We have had great fun, and we think the children have made great improvement in writing novels for the Union. The Union is the old Union for Christian work that we had in dear old No. 9. We have ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... did;"—poor old drinking Duke; very Protestant all these Saxon Princes, except the Apostate or Pseudo-Apostate the Physically Strong, for sad political reasons. "In Weissenfels Town, while the Pilgrim procession walked, a certain rude foreign fellow, flax-pedler by trade, ["HECHELTRAGER," Hawker of flax-combs or HECKLES;—is oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am told).] by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, 'The Archbishop ought to have flung you ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... grange, near the Calder. Sir Ralph was saying yesterday, that the roan mare had pricked her foot. You must wash the sore well with white wine and salt, rub it with the ointment the farriers call aegyptiacum, and then put upon it a hot plaster compounded of flax hards, turpentine, oil and wax, bathing the top of the hoof with bole armeniac and vinegar. This is the best and quickest remedy. And recollect, Peter, that for a new strain, vinegar, bole armeniac, whites of eggs, and bean-flour, make the best salve. How goes on Sir Ralph's black charger, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... spinning, carding, sewing, etc., and feeding them on bread and water to effeminate them (canto 4). When she overthrew Sir Artegal in single combat, she imposed on him the condition of dressing in "woman's weeds," with a white apron, and to spend his time in spinning flax, instead of in deeds of arms. Radigund fell in love with the captive knight, and sent Clarinda as a go-between; but Clarinda tried to win him for herself, and told the queen he was inexorable (canto 5). At length Britomart arrived, cut off Radigund's head, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... -kapti. fist : pugno. fit : atako. "—for", tauxga; konvena, deca. fix : fiksi. flake : floko, negxero. flame : flami. flannel : flanelo. flat : plata, ebena; apartamento. flatter : flati. flavour : gusto. flax : lino. flea : pulo. flesh : (meat), viando; karno. flint : siliko. flit : flirti. float : nagxi; surnagxi. flock : aro, pasxtataro, sxafaro. flog : skurgxi. flood : superakvegi. floor : planko, etagxo. flour : faruno. flow ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before. Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to anchor the ships in the channel and to bind them to the shore. Two bridges were constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water, while over each of them stretched ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... with rags it makes an excellent product, but the chemicals required to free it from resin and gritty silica are expensive, while the cost of importation has rendered its use in America impractical. Flax, hemp, manila, jute and straw, and of course old paper that has been once used, are extensively employed in this manufacture, the process beginning with the chemical treatment and boiling that are found necessary in the manipulation ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... to renew an old and deeply valued friendship," she said, with mock sentimentality; "I am going back to my flax now." ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... that all her girls should learn to spin both wool and flax. Betty had rebelled a little two years ago, but ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... has one part of his capital in the form of buildings, fitted and destined for carrying on this branch of manufacture. Another part he has in the form of machinery. A third consists, if he be a spinner, of raw cotton, flax, or wool; if a weaver, of flaxen, woolen, silk, or cotton thread; and the like, according to the nature of the manufacture. Food and clothing for his operatives it is not the custom of the present age that he should directly provide; and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... rooms in the straw-roofed parsonage requiring new furniture, which had to be procured with borrowed money—a beginning of things that formed a grievous burden for many a day. The trade of the place consisted chiefly in the dressing of flax, which was extensively grown in the fields of the river-island of Axholme, in-which the village of Epworth stood, with its population of two thousand. The parsonage shared in this trade; but ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... for the great sculptors and painters had not then arisen. The age was still dark; the mariner's compass had not been invented, chimneys had not been introduced, the comforts of life were few. Dames of highest rank still spent their days over the distaff or in combing flax. There were no grand structures but cathedral churches. Life was laborious, dismal, and turbulent. Law and order did not reign in cities or villages. The poor were oppressed by nobles. Commerce was small and manufactures scarce. Men ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... bugloss, the yellow iris, the star thistle, the common mallow; and, a convolvulus which was brilliantly pink, in contrast to his white brother before- mentioned. Besides these, Nellie had also gathered some sprays of the "toad flax" and "blue succory," a relative of the "endive" tribe, which produces the chicory-root so much consumed in England, as in France, as a "substitute" for coffee. A splendid sprig of yellow broom and dear little bunch of hare-bells, the "blue Bells of ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a square deal in this town, my boy," he said, after I had enlarged upon my story sufficiently to make it include my late experience with Callahan and Mullins. "It ain't any part of my job to bruise the broken reed n'r quench the smokin' flax. You don't look like a thief, and, anyways, if you're tryin' to make an honest livin', that settles all the old scores—or it ort to. Go find you a job, if you can. What you've told me stays right in here"—tapping his broad chest—"leastwise, it won't be used against you as long as you ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... pond-lily is found in every sluggish stream and pond, but Nymphaea odorata requires a nicer adjustment of conditions, and consequently is more restricted in its range. If the mullein were fragrant, or toad-flax, or the daisy, or blueweed, or goldenrod, they would doubtless be far less troublesome to the agriculturist. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule I have here indicated, but it holds in most cases. Genius is a specialty: it does not grow in ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... made his way. When his friends nominated him as a candidate for the legislature, his enemies made fun of him. When making his campaign speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that he could not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers, straw hat, and pot-metal boots. He had nothing in the world ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... rye or Indian meal, milk, and a very limited variety of vegetables, constituted the food throughout the year. When night came on his light was derived from a few candles of home manufacture. The farmer and his family wore homespun. If linen was wanted, the flax was sown and weeded, pulled and retted, then broken and swingled, for all of which processes nearly a year was required before the flax was ready for the spinners, bleaching on the grass, and making and wearing. If woolens were wanted, sheep were sheared ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... mines of Wales or Lanarkshire, pottery districts of Stafford, woollen and cotton factories of Yorkshire and Lancashire, mills driven by steam, wind and water, lighthouses, the sheep-rearing districts of Cumberland and Midlothian, the flax-growing of northern Ireland, and much else, and the means of transit and communication between all these. The children will gradually realise that many of the things they are familiar with, such as tea, oranges, silk and sugar, have not been accounted for, and this ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... attainments in holiness, the strength of your temptations, and your inability to resist sin. "Said I not unto thee," interposes this voice of mingled reproof and love, "My grace is sufficient for thee?" "The bruised reed I will not break, the smoking flax I will not quench." "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." We are too apt to look to ourselves, to turn our contemplation inwards, instead of keeping the eye of faith centered undeviatingly on a ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... and one or two have departed altogether. There is a front and a back entrance. Along the front of the house runs a path, on the other side of which, with a wall between, is the garden. This is fairly large and is bounded by stone walls and a hedge of flax. From its appearance it has had no cultivation for some years. As far as I can see the only sign of any crop besides weeds is an entangled strawberry patch. There is a good view of the sea from the house and garden. I spent most of the morning, which was a fine one, in a sheltered ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... oppression of kings and sultans and governors and much miasma and lack of rain; and that people will be in great tumult and the grain-crop will be good, except lentils, which will perish, and the vines will rot and flax will be dear and wheat cheap from the beginning of Tbah to the end of Barmaht.[FN423] And, in this year there will be much fighting among kings, and there shall be great plenty of good in this year, but Allah is All-knowing!" Q "What if the first day fall on Second Day (Monday)?" "That day belongeth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... garden that I ken, Full of little gentlemen; Little caps of blue they wear, And green ribbons, very fair. (Flax.) ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... and occupations require for their proper carrying on methods and surroundings absolutely destructive to health. In all preparation of hemp and oakum dust is excessive; far beyond that of the cotton-mill, which itself breeds consumption. In the spinning of flax great heat and water are both necessities. "Nothing is more wretched," writes Jules Simon, "than a linen-spinner's surroundings. Water covers the brick floor. The odor of the linen and a temperature ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... become a blanchisseuse de fin. She did my blouses beautifully the last time I was there, and was so delighted to see me again. I gave her all my old clothes, even my old hats, though she always wears her Breton headdress. Her hair is still like flax, and her blue eyes are just like a baby's, and she has the same three freckles on her little nose, and talks about going back ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... only person disposed to give the clergy the honour of being the sole encouragers of all new improvements. If hops, hemp, flax, and twenty things more are to be planted, the clergy, alone, must reward the industrious farmer, by abatement of the tithe. What if the owner of nine parts in ten would please to abate proportionably in his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... lifeless thing, that had not taken the oath. But he could find not one. Then, disguised as a fair maiden, he went to Fensal Hall, where dwelt Balder's mother. The fair Asa-queen was busy at her distaff, with her golden spindles, spinning flax to be woven into fine linen for the gods. And her maid-servant, Fulla of the flowing hair, sat on a stool beside her. When the queen saw ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... about Phormiun tenax (New Zealand flax), which I see is imported to San Francisco in large quantities yearly for making cordage and binder twine, and is said also to be the best of bee pasture. Can I get the plants on the coast, and is California soil and climate adapted ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... and gave them hire; And, we returning after many years, Filled was that wood with homesteads; plots of corn Rustled around them; here were orchards; there In trench or tank they steeped the bright blue flax; The saw-mill turned to use the wanton brook; Murmured the bee-hive; murmured household wheel; Soft eyes looked o'er it through the dusk; at work The labourers carolled; matrons glad and maids Bare us the pail head-steadied, children flowers: Last, from her ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... him! He didna quench the smokin' flax. There's little fire aboot me, but surely I ken in my ain hert some o' the risin' smoke o' the sacrifice. Eh! sic words as they are! An' he was gaein' doon to the grave himsel', no half my age, as peacefu', though the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... farmer was, under a penalty of 6s. 8d. (about L3 of our currency), compelled to rear all his calves for a period of three years; and in the 24th Henry VIII. the act was further continued for two years. The culture of flax and hemp was also encouraged by legislation. The 24th Henry VIII., cap. 14, requires every person occupying land apt for tillage, to sow a quarter of an acre of flax or hemp for every sixty acres of land, under a penalty ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... a considerable trade to Norway and to the Baltic, from whence they bring back deals and fir timber, oaken plank, balks, spars, oars, pitch, tar, hemp, flax, spruce canvas, and sail-cloth, with all manner of naval stores, which they generally have a consumption for in their own port, where they build a very great number of ships every year, besides refitting ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... him. He has dwelt and communed with Nature all the days of his life: he knows her now too well, he cannot falter over the material littlenesses of her outward form: he must give her soul, or he has done nothing, and he cannot do this with the flax, the earth, and the oil. 'I cannot gather the beams out of the east, or I would make them tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the night sky, or ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... Rafferty), ENGINEER and MACHINIST. Flax, Hemp, Jute, Rope, Oakum, and Bagging Machinery, Steam Engines, Boilers, etc. Also Agent for the celebrated and improved Rawson & Rittinger Hoisting Engine, I will furnish specifications and estimates for all kinds ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... sisters, and as many of the others, including the children, as were within sight or hail at the time—most of them could not by any possible means have had the slightest connection with the business in hand—accompanied the teacher to the cottage. August took to the flax directly she caught sight of her relations, and was with difficulty induced to return. There was a lot of talk in Maori, during which the girl and her aunt shuffled and swung round at the back of each other, and ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... such times my father was almost always found in his workshop, making pails or tubs for the house, or repairing his tools or making new ones. At other times he would turn his attention to dressing the flax he had stowed away, and getting it ready for spinning. The linen for bags, as well as for the house, was then all home-made. It could hardly be expected that with such facilities at hand my ingenuity would not develop. ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... errand to the Princess, and begged her to accompany him to Paris. She agreed only on condition that he would perform three tasks set him, and when Charles was curious to know what was required of him she led him into another room where was a large heap of every kind of seed—corn, barley, clover, flax—all ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... "Shall it be done thus unto me? She has borne three kings, and I will go and tell this to his majesty King Khufu the blessed." And she went, and found the eldest brother of her mother, who was binding his flax on the floor. And he said to her, "Whither goest thou, my little maid?" And she told him of all these things. And her brother said to her, "Wherefore comest thou thus to me? Shall I agree to treachery?" ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... the northern spinning-wheel has not supplanted the antique custom. Homer describes noble ladies handling the distaff with the spindle belonging to it. Helen received a present of a golden spindle, with a silver basket to keep the thread in. The distaff, with a bundle of wool or flax fastened to its point, was held under the left arm, while the thumb and first finger of the right hand, slightly wetted, spun the thread at the end of which hung the spindle, made of metal. The web was, from the spindle, wound round a reel, to be ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Isa. 61:1, 2. The execution of this mission required a tender and forbearing spirit, that would not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax; and such was the spirit of his whole ministry. For the penitent, though publicans and sinners, he had only words of kindness. Towards the infirmities and mistakes of his sincere disciples he was wonderfully forbearing. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... growth, Stood shrunken; Youth and Age appeared as one; Like Winter Summer; good as labour sloth; Nor was there answer wherefore beamed the sun, Or why men drew the breath to carry pain. High reared the ploughshare, broken lay the wain, Idly the flax-wheel spun Unridered: starving lords ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to replace him!—I can toy with his axe; As I sit on the hill my feet swing in the flax, And my knee caps the boulders and troubles the trees. How they shiver, yea, quake if I happen ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Wherefore the clerks were diligent in writing the books of Holy Scriptures, and the lay folk busied them with bodily labour and tillage. Some also followed the tailor's craft, others wove wool and flax; others again made baskets and mats, or did divers tasks for the good of the community at the bidding of their Superior. Outwardly indeed they led a life of poverty and toil for Christ's sake, but the love of the heavenly life made sweet the present ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... at their place of meeting They keep a home and shrine. Your angel twists a purple flax, Then weaves a ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... ladies met at the house of the Rev. Mr. Ellis, in Rehoboth, and lodged 187 skeins of good linen yarn, which they had spun for Mrs. Ellis; and others have since added 31. Solomon, in describing a virtuous woman, says, "She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.—She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Industry is certainly a virtue, which, while it adorns, enriches, society; it banishes the languid hue from the countenances of the fair, and adds vigour ...
— The Olden Time Series: Vol. 2: The Days of the Spinning-Wheel in New England • Various
... Sion Mills, Co. Tyrone, should know something of the Irish people. The model village above-named belongs to him. Travellers to Londonderry via the Great Northern will remember how the great Herdman flax-spinning mills, with their clean, prosperous, almost palatial appearance, relieve the melancholy aspect of the peaty landscape about the Rivers Mourne and Derg. Mr. Herdman pays in wages some L30,000 a year, a sum of which the magnitude assumes colossal proportions in view ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... that when he grants the lease of a farm, one of the conditions he desires to insert is, that all the hay that is made shall be fed upon the land, and that manure shall be purchased to supply the waste resulting from the sale of corn or flax from off the land. In order, however, that it may be so supplied, it is indispensable that the place of consumption shall not be far distant from the place of production, as otherwise the cost of transportation will be greater than the value of the manure. In a recent work ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... morning following his trip on the Ernestina he found a letter addressed to her that gave him food for reflection. The address was typewritten. The envelope was of medium size "Irish linen" of the kind that never saw either Ireland or flax; in other words, just such an envelope as those which had brought the blackmailing letters. In itself this was nothing for many thousands of such envelopes are sold. But it was postmarked "Hamilton Grange" and it was ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff-ful of flax, combing and whirling it. She span away till dinner-time, then suddenly sleep fell upon her—such a deep sleep! And when she had gone to sleep, suddenly the door opened and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who were there, clad in a white dress, and in such ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... raspberries poised above the dish to which she was helping. "Why, old Dr. Smith attended me forty years ago when I had measles. I remember he made me lie in bed with blankets over me, though it was August, and he wouldn't let me drink anything except hot flax-seed tea. They say all that has been ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... ceremonies, and should wrap them in a linen cloth, the purest of coverings for holy things? For wool, produced by the most stolid of creatures and stripped from the sheep's back, the followers of Orpheus and Pythagoras are for that very reason forbidden to wear as being unholy and unclean. But flax, the purest of all growths and among the best of all the fruits of the earth, is used by the holy priests of Egypt, not only for clothing and raiment, but as a veil for sacred things. And yet I know that some persons, among them that fellow Aemilianus, ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... of the same day. In the existing law, "young persons" were defined to be persons between the ages of thirteen and eighteen: he did not wish any alteration in this respect; but he should propose that such young persons should not be employed in any silk, cotton, wool, or flax manufactory, for any portion of the twenty-four hours, longer than from half-past five o'clock to seven in the summer, and from half-past six o'clock to eight in the winter:—thus making thirteen hours and a half each day, of which one hour and a half, should be allowed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... usually near their own residence. Many of these cabins were the poorest habitations that can be imagined; and these were given rent free, that is, the rent was to be worked out on whatever days, or on whatever occasions, it was called for. The grazing for the cow, the patch of land for flax, and the ridge or ridges of potato land were also to be paid for in days' labour in the same manner. The uncertainty of this tenure at will, that is, at the pleasure of the landlord, with the rent in labour ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... made flowers scarce, but on this long curving bend of coarse meadow the grass has kept something of its greenness, and the season of blossoming stays by the beautiful stream. There is a wanton tangling and mingling of the waste-loving flowers, such as the yellow toad-flax, the bristling viper's bugloss, the thorny ononis that spreads a hue of pink as it creeps along the ground, sky-blue chicory on wiry stems, large milk-white blooms of datura, and purple heads of centaurea calcitrapa, whose spines are avoided like those of a ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Here are included also the prohibition to mix divers kinds of seeds in planting, the prohibition against eating the fruit of a tree during the first three years of its growth, and against wearing a garment made of a mixture of wool and flax. The prohibition of idolatry is evident in its purpose, which is to teach true ideas about God. The other matters above mentioned are connected with idolatry. Magic is a species of idolatry because it is based on a belief in the direct ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... the attention of Russo-maniacs to the fact that eighty years ago, soon after the second partition of Poland, flax in Riga brought eight hundred and seventy florins, while in 1845 it hardly brought two hundred and forty florins; and the famous wheat of Sandomir sold, at the first-named period, at sixty, while in 1856 it brought barely thirty-five. Yet money now is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... state, as well as nuts and fruit. Barley was one of the cereals early discovered, and from that bread was made. Then ramie, a well-known fiber, was found in the early days of their occupation, as well as flax, and a wild species ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... man scowled at his aged mother; and in response to an emphatic gesture from the priest, he pulled out a little coil of rope, partly worn at the end into a little wisp of flax. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... al-Dn,[FN28] after the battle of Hattn,[FN29] when I was a young man." We asked, "And how gottest thou her?" and he answered, "I had a rare adventure with her." Quoth we, "Favour us with it;" and quoth he, "With all my heart! You must know that I once sowed a crop of flax in these parts and pulled it and scutched it and spent on it five hundred gold pieces; after which I would have sold it, but could get no more than this therefor, and the folk said to me, Carry it to Acre: ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... instance to match this. A year before, Joan of Arc, a low-born peasant girl, had occupied herself in tending sheep and spinning flax; her hours of leisure being given to dreams and visions. Now, clad in armor and at the head of an army, she was gazing in triumph on the flight of a hostile army, driven from its seemingly assured prey by her courage, intrepidity, and enthusiasm, while veteran soldiers ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... dollars be appropriated for "conservation and use of agricultural land resources"—the so-called AAA program—for the fiscal year 1947, compared with 356 million dollars in the current year. This reduction of 86 million dollars is in large part accounted for by elimination of the wartime flax production incentive project and other nonrecurring items; the proposed reduction in normal activities is less than ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... a great difference. Some have hair almost as light as flax; some almost as dark as yours, but not quite so dark. Some have hair almost exactly the color of gold; some a red, like the fringe of your garments; then there are many shades of brown, between red and black. The eyes vary in the same way. People with light hair, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... old— Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 She was a woman of a stirring life, Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool; That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest, It was because the other was at work. 85 The Pair had but one inmate in their house, An only Child, who had been born to them When Michael, telling o'er his years, began To deem that he was old,—in shepherd's ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Countrey, hath their comen resorte to by and purvey many thinges that be gode and profytable, as ornaments of holy church chalets, bokes, vestmentes [etc.] . . . also for howsold, as vytell for the tyme of Lent, and other Stuff, as Lynen Cloth, wolen Cloth, brasse, pewter, beddyng, osmonde, Iren, Flax and Wax and many other necessary thinges."[1] The chief fairs for the sale of books were those of St. Giles at Oxford, at Stourbridge, Cambridge, and St. ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Highnesses a lump of copper originally of six arrobas,[364-1] lapis-lazuli, gum-lac, amber, cotton, pepper, cinnamon, a great quantity of Brazil-wood, aromatic gum,[364-2] white and yellow sandalwood, flax, aloes, ginger, incense, myrobolans of all kinds, very fine pearls and pearls of a reddish color, which Marco Polo says are worth more than the white ones,[364-3] and that may well be so in some parts just as it is the case with the shells that are gathered in Canaria and are ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... World—yield harvests too abundant for the commerce of native cereals to be efficaciously protected by the prohibitive system of the custom-house, in an island near the mouth of the Mississippi and the Delaware. Analogous difficulties oppose the cultivation of flax, hemp, and the vine. Possibly the inhabitants of Cuba are themselves ignorant of the fact that, in the first years of the conquest by the Spaniards, wine was made in their island of wild grapes.* (* De muchas parras monteses con ubas se ha cogido vino, aunque algo ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... 'am too lazy to avoid traps; and I rather like to remark the cleverness with which they're set. But then of course I know that, if I choose to exert myself, I can break through the withes of green flax with which they try to bind me. Now, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... must be men of sound piety and lively interest in the spiritual welfare of the heathen; but their religious lessons should be given whilst they were instructing the Maoris in the building of a house, the forging of a bolt, or the spinning of their native flax. ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... again alluded to her plan of dressing 'Lena, wishing "Cad would mind her own business." Then, as a new idea entered her head, she brightened up, exclaiming, "I know what I can do. I'll have Corinda curl your hair real pretty. You've got beautiful hair. A heap nicer than my yellow flax." ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... An oasis in Mesopotamia. Close at hand the end of a log house abuts on a kitchen garden. Adam is digging in the middle of the garden. On his right, Eve sits on a stool in the shadow of a tree by the doorway, spinning flax. Her wheel, which she turns by hand, is a large disc of heavy wood, practically a flywheel. At the opposite side of the garden is a thorn brake with a passage through it barred by ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... the people obtain large crops from it. In a country so densely peopled there could not be many large farms, and the majority of the farmers cultivate what would not be more than a garden in America; but the system of agriculture is not surpassed by that of any country in the world. Flax-raising is the principal occupation of the farmers; but grasses and roots receive particular attention. Horses, cattle, and sheep are raised in ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... riches. "They had a great quantity of cotton cloths, and they held their markets in the open squares, where they traded. They had a manufactory where they made cordage of a sort of nequen, which is like carded flax; the cord was beautiful and stronger than that of Spain, and their cotton canvas was excellent. The Indians were very civilised in their way of life, like those of Mexico, for they were a people who had come from that country, and they had nearly ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... dress were grass-cloth, thick as matting, and tamarcos, or smock-frocks, of poorly tanned goatskins. They had also rough cords of palm-fibre, and they seem to have preferred plaiting to weaving; yet New Zealand flax and aloes grow abundantly. Their mahones correspond with Indian moccasins, and they made sugar-loaf caps of skins. The bases of shells, ground down to the thickness of a crown-piece, and showing spiral depressions, were probably the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... which reason the land is not cultivated. Yet it is famous for commerce with India, and the islands of the Indian sea; and merchants from Sennar, Arabia, and Persia, bring thither all sorts of silk and purple manufactures, hemp, cotton, flax, and Indian cloth, with plenty of wheat, barley, millet, and rice. The Indian merchants bring also great quantities of spices, and the natives act as factors and interpreters, by which they make great gains; but in that place there are not above 500 Jews. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... larger and more varied than any of the preceding. There are few lines of manufacture which are not represented here. Machines for working in iron and other metals, for sawing and fashioning wood, for the ginning, breaking or carding of cotton, flax, wool, jute and hemp, for working in stone, glass, leather and paper, are shown. Then, again, the finished productions; prime motors, such as stationary engines, locomotives and fire-engines; lifting-machines for solids or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... their stocks. Here, as in other things, the isolation of the revolution had the effect of teaching the Russians that they were less dependent upon the outside world than they had been in the habit of supposing. He asked me if I knew it had been considered impossible to combine flax and cotton in such a way that the mixture could be worked in machines intended for cotton only. They had an infinite supply of flax, much of which in the old days had been exported. Investigations carried on for the Centro-Textile by two professors, the brothers Chilikin, had ended ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... reached the cabin of my father, when she bid me good night and departed. I entered the cabin and found my father, who was bent with age, sitting by the great fire-place, mending his nets. My mother was at her wheel, spinning flax. She was a tidy little body, of the old school. Her notions of the world in general were somewhat narrow and antiquated; while the steeple-crown cap she wore on her head so jauntily, and her apron of snow-white muslin, that hung so neatly over a black silk dress, and was ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... child know it will burn? No; for it has not yet learned the quality of the paper. It is not till the child has been burned that it dreads the fire. Suppose I take some asbestus, of the kind called amianthus, which is a mineral, and is formed of slender flexible fibres like flax; and in eastern countries, especially in Savoy and Corsica, is manufactured into cloth, paper, and lamp wicks. It was used in making winding sheets for the dead, in which the bodies were burned, and the ashes, retained in the incombustible ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... made of wool, flax, cotton, silk, or leather; and there are great manufactures of each ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood |
