"Trimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most beautiful and most interesting unprotected birds of the world. The extent of this cold-blooded industry, supported by vain and hard-hearted women, will presently be shown in detail. Paris is the great manufacturing center of feather trimming and ornaments, and the French people obstinately refuse to protect the birds from extermination, because their slaughter affords employment to a certain numbers ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... their places inside the shelter of the conning-tower. Everything was battened down from within, and with a gentle purr the electric motors were set in motion, while at the same time water ballast was admitted into the trimming-tanks. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... roared Jack Curtiss, "if you weren't such a shrimp I'd lick you for that remark, but you're all beneath my notice. All I want to say to you is keep away from my orchard or I'll give you a trimming." ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... curtains are drawn to shut away the dreary fog, and fire-light mingles with the rosy rays from a tall lamp. Eleanor is still quite in a tremble lest the oil should smell, as Sarah frequently fails over the art of wick trimming. ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... deterioration of her complexion, no wrinkling of her skin, could have been so dreadful to look at as the rouge that lay thick on her cheeks, and the white enamel plastered on her forehead. The delicate lace, and the bright trimming on her dressing-gown, the ribbons in her cap, and the rings on her bony fingers, all intended to draw the eye away from the change that had passed over her, directed the eye to it, on the contrary; emphasized it; made it by sheer force of contrast more hopeless and more horrible ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... that is, plants that have been grown from the best seed in a properly prepared nursery. The next best plants to use are nursery stumps. These are nursery trees that have grown too large to safely transplant. By cutting them down and trimming the roots they can be safely transplanted to the field, where they will grow into good healthy trees. Stumps soon after planting send up several shoots, these, with the exception of the strongest one, are taken off. This latter shoot is to grow ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... were busy in trimming the balance of power on the other side of the Alps, their deliberations were interrupted by the arrival of a scullion, who came to receive their orders touching the bill of fare for dinner, and his majesty found much more ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... sweet as a spring morning and made the dull street radiant with her youth and her beauty. She went by the name of "The Little Chicken." One gown, in particular, suited her to perfection. It was white with rose-colored dots, without trimming of any kind. The skirt was short and showed her feet. The sleeves were very wide and displayed her arms to the elbows. She turned the neck away and fastened it with pins—in a corner in the corridor, dreading her father's jests—to exhibit her pretty ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... his leg amputated. It is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick soldier boy, laid down with his clothes on, sleeping, looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cavalry boy. He looks so handsome as he sleeps, one must needs go nearer to him. I step softly over to him, and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the 1st Maine Cavalry, and ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... ladies wore lace trimmings to their clothes, he expressed his contempt of the reigning fashion in these terms: 'A Brussels trimming is like bread-sauce,' said he, 'it takes away the glow of colour from the gown, and gives you nothing instead of it; but sauce was invented to heighten the flavour of our food, and trimming is an ornament to the manteau, or it ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... he awoke to find the sun shining brightly from a sky almost clear blue, save for a few scattered grey fleecy clouds,— and, stepping out into his garden, the first thing he noticed was a root of primroses breaking shyly into flower. Seeing Bainton trimming the shrubbery close by, he called ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... abroad, and is unfathomably deep. It fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden away in it like the man's who prompts the singers from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is no particle of trimming about this monstrous capote, as they call it—it is just a plain, ugly dead-blue mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight points of the wind with one of them on; she has to go before the wind or not at all. The general style of the capote is the same in all the islands, and will remain ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to you, I dare say, for which of you ever heard of trimming cows with their own horns and ears? How should you like to see a cow with her ears—poor thing!—cut to the shape of a leaf with notched edges, and horns trained in some queer shape, twisted into curls, or divided into four, with two meeting overhead, and two turned down toward the ground? It would ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Bridegroom, clad in white, bearing lilies in His left hand, extends His right to the foremost of the five wise virgins. Angels at each side of the central figure welcome the one group, and repel the other. On the extreme right is a kneeling figure, "Ora;" on the left, "Vigila," a figure trimming a lamp. The scale of the figures is over life-size, and the unfortunate position of the work, immediately under a large east window, so that the figures appear standing on the altar, has provoked adverse criticism; but the painting itself, as a triumphant ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... reached the highest step in the scale of promotion by trimming between the rival factions. Caesar was rising simultaneously behind him on lines of his own. In the year B.C. 65 he had been aedile, having for his colleague Bibulus, his future companion on the successive grades of ascent. Bibulus was a rich plebeian, whose delight ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... neighborhood of the Dying Gladiator, talking incessantly, arranging his port-crayons by the drawing-boards, and trimming the lamps that lit the model. Mrs. Blyth cast many an anxious look towards the fireplace. After the lapse of a few minutes Madonna turned round and came back to the couch. The traces of tears had almost entirely disappeared from her face. She made a little appealing gesture that ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... to see the little chitmunks, on a warm spring day, running about and chasing each other among the moss and leaves; they are not bigger than mice, but look bright and lively. The fur of all the squirrel tribe is used in trimming, but the grey is the best and most valuable. It has often been remarked by the Indians, and others, that the red and black squirrels never live in the same place; for the red, though the smallest, beat away the black ones. The flesh of the ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... danger-chances in this haphazarding, I would have asked more about this trimming gentleman to whom I was to be handed on; but at that moment there came a thundering at the door, and my anxious host was fain to hustle me out through the kitchen as he could, catching up a black boy on the way ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... tell you what it was, and then you shall judge if it was not quite past endurance. You must know I commissioned a particular friend of mine, Miss Moffat, to buy me a trimming when she went to Paris; well, she sent it me over about a month ago by Mr Meadows, and it's the sweetest thing you ever saw in your life; but I would not make it up, because there was not a creature in town, so I thought to bring it out quite new in about ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... 229,450 cubic feet capacity and was driven by twin Chenu engines of 210 horse-power each. She carried a crew of six, and was equipped with wireless and machine guns. The car could be moved fore and aft for trimming purposes, either by power or by hand. This was, however, not ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... as they entered the room, Harriet began to admire the lace trimming of Anne's dress, asking many questions about it, to all of which Anne replied with great good nature. As soon as the lace had been sufficiently discussed, Harriet turned round to Elizabeth, exclaiming, 'Why, ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... towards the end of September Jean, in her white-embroidered muslin frock, the only trimming upon which was a single dark cerise rosette at the waist, and wearing a black velvet hat with long black osprey, stood leaning on the verandah chatting to Bracondale, who, in a well-worn yachting suit and a Panama hat, smoked a cigarette. They were awaiting Enid ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... in hand, the carpenter and his assistants made a beginning without delay, by cutting and trimming the spare yards and extra spars to a proper length. These were then lowered into the sea — which was propitiously calm — so as to favor the operation (which otherwise would have been very difficult) ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs, as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work. What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window, to see how the children got on ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the freshest end of this breadth, and should go down; this other had a darn that might be cut across, and a straight piecing made, for which the slope of the skirt would allow,—she should do it so; that hem might be taken off altogether and a new one turned; this was a very nice trimming, and plenty of it, and the wrong side was brighter than the right; she knew a way of joining worsted braid that never showed,—you might have a dozen pieces in the binding of a skirt and not be noticed. ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... they will be most neat and spruce; for, [5505]Omnibus rebus, et nitidis nitoribus antevenit amor, they will follow the fashion, begin to trick up, and to have a good opinion of themselves, venustatem enim mater Venus; a ship is not so long a rigging as a young gentlewoman a trimming up herself against her sweetheart comes. A painter's shop, a flowery meadow, no so gracious aspect in nature's storehouse as a young maid, nubilis puella, a Novitsa or Venetian bride, that looks for a husband, or a young man that is her suitor; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the ribbon a bit, then held the trimming of roses close to her face in front of the mirror. Then she began ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... from his note,) according to Waterson, ranks high in beauty among the birds of Demerara. This beautiful creature seems to suppose that its beauty can be increased by trimming its tail, which undergoes the same operation as one's hair in a barber shop, using its own beak, which is serrated, in lieu of a pair of scissors. As soon as its tail is fully grown, he begins about an inch from ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... commission anew from Richard Cromwell, and favoured the return of Charles; after the Restoration he was made Chief Baron of the Exchequer and knighted; in 1671 he was created Lord Chief-Justice; charges of "trimming" have been made against him, but his integrity as a lawyer has never been ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... initiative, marches onward, and is as a beacon-light to a nation, to a people; often, sometimes, even for all humanity. A man who has a profound faith in his convictions has coruscations, fierce flashes of that second-sight for the signs of the times. The mere trimming and selfish politician is ever ready to swim with the stream which he had neither strength nor skill to breast; he never ventures to take the initiative. In issuing the proclamation, Mr. Lincoln gives legal ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... other sciences, the giving of undue prominence to one fact brings others inexorably on the head of the student to avenge his neglect of them, so it happened with Tom in his practical study of the science of rowing that by thinking of his hands he forgot his seat, and the necessity of trimming properly. Whereupon the old tub began to rock fearfully, and the next moment, he missed the water altogether with his right scull, and subsided backwards, not without struggles, into the bottom of the boat; while the half stroke which he ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... seven o'clock Saturday morning when Bob Trotter drove up to Mr. Hooks's to take in Clara, she being the picnicker nearest his starting point. He did not know that she was a put off-er. She was just trimming a hat for the ride when Bob's wagon was announced. She hadn't begun her breakfast, though all the rest of the family had finished the meal, while the lunch which should have been basketed the previous night was scattered over the house from the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... idea, now, in all this rolling and unrolling of scrolls? To what end the gluing and the trimming, the cedar-oil and saffron, the leather cases and the bosses? Much good your purchases have been to you; one sees that already: why, your language—no, I am wrong there, you are as dumb as a fish-but your life, ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... impeding the course of the water they were carefully picking out and carting away. The bank on either side they were bricking up and cementing. The overhanging trees and bushes, the tangled vines and creepers they were rooting up and trimming down. A little further I came upon the finished work—the mountain valley as it ought to be, according to German ideas. The water, now a broad, sluggish stream, flowed over a level, gravelly bed, ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... copper, and made us suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent furrier had been ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... taken any coffee. She had seated herself apart, with a somewhat wearied expression on her face. Her black velvet gown, unrelieved by any trimming, gave her an air of austerity. In this small drawing-room smoking was allowed, and several boxes of cigars were placed beside her on the pier-table. The doctor drew near; as he selected a cigar he asked her: ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... hermit's life is the ideal one. No bill-collectors calling, no dressing for dinner—how I'd like to be one! But there's no such luck for me. If I don't marry this season I honestly believe mamma will force me into settlement work or trimming hats. It isn't because I'm getting old or ugly; but we haven't enough money left to butt in at any of the swell places any more. And I don't want to marry—unless it's somebody I like. That's why I'd like to be a hermit. Hermits don't ever marry, ...
— Options • O. Henry
... and, indeed, it ought to be done so exquisitely as to leave no trace. But I ought not to criticise in any way a spot which gave me so much pleasure, and where it is good to think of Wordsworth in quiet, past days, walking in his home-shadow of trees which he knew, and training flowers, and trimming shrubs, and chanting in an undertone his own verses up and down the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... into the ships. When a vessel is ready to take in cargo, she is moored alongside of the rocks almost mast head high, from the top of which the guano is sent down through a canvass shute directly into the hold of the ship. Thus several hundred tons can be put on board in a day. The trimming of the cargo is a very unpleasant part of the labor. The dust and odor is almost overpowering; so the men are obliged to come often on deck for fresh air. The rule is to remain below as long as a candle will ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... eighteen inches in diameter were selected for the floor. These were easily split in halves, and with the convex side buried in the earth, and the smooth surface uppermost joined closely together by a slight trimming with axe or adze, presented a very firm and even attractive surface ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... The last of the row came very near obstructing the squire's line of sight, and it once chanced that some projecting branches by degrees stretched out across his field of view. This circumstance caused him much mental trouble; for, having all his life consistently opposed any thinning out or trimming of trees, he did not care to issue an order which would almost confess a mistake. Besides which, why only these particular branches?—the object would be so apparent. The squire, while conversing with Ettles, twice, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... is carefully and meticulously removed from the inside by scraping, cutting, and trimming until only the skin remains, or until the specimen is so thin it can be flattened out to remove most of the wrinkles. If the skin is fairly pliable, the operator should attempt to place it over one of his own fingers and try several prints. If the prints secured are not ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... work. Some of the pear trees that had been grafted had three different kinds of fruit on them, and others had three kinds of apples on them besides the pears. This grafting I did myself, and the trees were considered very fine by Boss. Another part of my work was the trimming of the hedge and the care ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... whole, the garden promises well, and there are buds on her moss-rose bush. It is good to take care of a garden, for, besides the pleasure the flowers can bring us, we learn how watchful we must be to root out the weeds, and how much trimming and care the plants need; so we learn how to watch over ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... space of two or three feet outward from the stems with well-decayed manure. This protects the roots and ensures a vigorous growth the coming season. Allow no weeds or even grass to encroach on the young hedge until it is strong and established. For the first year no trimming will be necessary beyond cutting back an occasional branch or top that is growing stronger than the others; and this should be done in early October. During the second season the plants should grow much more strongly; and now the shears are needed in summer. Some ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... having neither male nor female, had left it an open question. No, Mrs. Cady Stanton, Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Lucy Stone, and Miss Olympia Brown are the "foreign emissaries" that will alone have the credit of emancipating women in Kansas. Your trimming politicians left them in the lurch. Not one of you was honest. (Applause.) Even those who assumed to be their friends by saying nothing on the woman, and everything on the negro, are worse than you and Kalloch. (Applause.) Mr. Kalloch and Leggett and Sears have helped the woman's ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... August we harboured ourselves in a very excellent good road, where with all speed we graved the Moonlight, and revictualled her; we searched this country with our pinnace while the barque was trimming, which William Eston did: he found all this land to be only islands, with a sea on the east, a sea on the west, and a sea on the north. In this place we found it very hot, and we were very much troubled with a fly which is called mosquito, for they did sting grievously. The people of this place ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... extended an invitation to Miss Morleena, and Mrs. Kenwigs rightly deemed the honor of the family was involved in her daughter making the most splendid appearance possible. Now, between the Italian-ironing of frills, the flouncing of trousers, the trimming of frocks, the faintings from overwork and the comings-to again, incidental to the occasion, Mrs. Kenwigs had been so entirely occupied, that she had not observed, until within half an hour before, that ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... duty when he reached Scotland Yard the next morning. The detective-inspector in charge stared at a corpulent man clad in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers of brown tweed, whose heavy boots clanged along the corridor. The hair, moustache, and eyebrows of the intruder were a shiny black, and a little trimming with scissors and a judicious use of a comb and brush had altered the appearance of the superintendent's face as completely as the clothes ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... it, is it?' she exclaimed, trimming his whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing round his head in all directions. 'Very well: very well! Quite a long story. Ought to end "and they lived happy ever afterwards"; oughtn't it? Ah! What's that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... companion that was with him had the appearance of a bare-headed youngster, with dark red hair, and his face too was hidden as he sat by the roadway trimming his long finger-nails ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... all round. When the plaster is dry, trim the edge round, and take it out of plaque. You must now roll out a flat sheet of clay sufficiently large to cover this plaster mould, and, by pressing the clay evenly all over the mould, and trimming round the edges with a knife, you will get a clay plaque sufficiently good to answer your purpose. Don't attempt to remove the clay immediately from the plaster, but let it remain on a few hours, to enable the clay to set. The surface of this plaque may be kept ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... not much to tell, but it was to the following effect. It dated from the evening when he had been left busying himself in the garden of old Tummus's cottage, left entirely to himself, trimming up the roses, and thinking sadly that there was no future for him ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... railway station, and at the high end the viaduct of 21 arches across the valley of the Turdine. The arch which crosses the road has a span of 95 ft., the others average 35 ft. About 60,000 men in the town and environs are employed in the manufacture of velvet, embroidery, trimming, and especially in the particular kind of muslin called "tarlatan," athin gauze-like fabric, for which ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... and wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul his mother looked lonely, in her new black silk blouse with its bit of white trimming. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... of what he had for dinner, these inane domestic confidences—all the more interesting for their inanity! The effect left upon the mind is of some grotesque character in a play, fussy, self-conscious, blustering with women, timid with men, dress-proud, purse-proud, trimming in politics and in religion, a garrulous gossip immersed always in trifles. And yet, though this was the day-by-day man, the year-by-year man was a very different person, a devoted civil servant, an eloquent orator, an excellent writer, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a square fighter. Probably you ain't interested, even to the extent of a hoot, in gossip about the neighbors. But Eck had a bad one put over on him years ago. He hasn't been right since that time. Square dealing is his religion. But to get his worst trimming right in his own family, it was awful. Son-in-law done it. But I reckon I'd better hang up on that subject, miss. Here comes Latisan ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... a puny lad, and not strong enough to work. He did not care to play with the other boys of the town. But he liked to go with his grandfather to the stone-yard. While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips. Sometimes he would make a little statue of soft clay; sometimes he would take hammer and chisel, and try to cut a statue from a piece of rock. He showed so much skill ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... did it at their entreaty, and not for any need which he had of them, ordered them to remain in their cabins in the forecastle, still in irons, and forbade their giving any directions for the navigation of the ship, except only for the trimming of the sails and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... dress might, at need, have explained this free-and-easy demeanor. The old maid wore a merino gown of a dark plum color, of which the cut and trimming dated from the year of the Restoration; a little worked collar, worth perhaps three francs; and a common straw hat with blue satin ribbons edged with straw plait, such as the old-clothes buyers wear at market. On looking down at her kid shoes, made, it was ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... all the company and their efforts to make the awkward new boy feel at home.... I feel doubly grateful to you and Mr. Irving for the light you shed from the lamp of art on life now that I begin to understand the labor and weariness the process of trimming the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the vow which he had made to Jupiter. On the return of the army to Rome, the soldiers, by his directions, cut down a small oak-tree, and trimming the branches at the top, and shortening them as much as was necessary for the purpose, they hung the weapons and armor of Acron upon it, and marched with it thus, in triumph into the city. Romulus walked in the midst of the procession, a crown of laurel ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... do love frilly clothes. Now, I suppose your ideal girl wears plain tailor-made suits, and stiff white collars, and small hats without much trimming,—just a band and ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... eve at home," murmured the young lad after he had said his prayers and tumbled into his narrow berth on the great ship. "I suppose they're trimming the Christmas tree now and hanging up the stockings. I wish ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a full day's pay being from 50 to 60 cents.[23] In other cases a day's work brought in but 25 cents, and seventeen overalls of blue denim gave a return of 75 cents. Two and a half cents each is paid for the making of boys' gingham waists, with trimming on neck and sleeves, including the button-holes; and the women who made these sat sixteen hours at the sewing-machine, with ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... trimmed with bugles and fringe, and a small flat bonnet whose strings indifferently supported her chins. She fixed her sharp small eyes immediately on Madeleine's beautiful house gown of nile green camel's hair, made with her usual sweeping lines and without trimming of any sort. ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... which one of her two dresses (equally faded) she should wear to school, and what bit of ribbon or trimming she could introduce in her old bonnet, to improve its general effect. Marcus Wilkeson was marvelling at the confidence which the inventor and his daughter placed in him, and at what there was about him to inspire it. Mr. Minford was congratulating ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Thursday morning he awoke to see his mother standing over him with her most wondering expression. Her hair still as she had plaited it for the night; one plait had touched him on the nose and awoke him before she spoke. She stood bending over him, in her long white nightgown with its dainty lace trimming, and with bare feet. She would never have come in like that if something terrible had not happened. Why did she not speak? only look and ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Venetians and struggles with Genoa, till the wealth which his piracy had accumulated enabled him to add Mentone and Roccabruna to his petty dominions. It is needless to trace the history of his house any further; corsairs, soldiers of fortune, trimming adroitly in the struggles of the sixteenth century between France and Spain, sinking finally into mere vassals of Louis XIV. and hangers-on at the French Court, the family history of the Grimaldis is one of treason and blood—brother murdering brother, nephew murdering uncle, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... aroused interest in plants extended to the care of the house plants which heretofore had been the sole concern of Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Morton. Now the girls begged the privilege of trimming off the dead leaves from the ivies and geraniums and of washing away with oil of lemon and a stiff brush the scale that sometimes came on the palms. They even learned to kill the little soft white creature called aphis by putting under the ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... with a few turns of the wheel brings the Condor's head round, till she is right to meet the steamer. The officers, with the negro assisting, loose tacks and sheets, trimming her sails ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... an unceasing complaint of the shoemakers against the cobblers that the latter sold new shoes as well as second-hand, a practice contrary to the high privileges of the shoemakers' corporation. Sometimes the civil authorities were called on to interfere. We find the trimming-makers of Paris, who have the right to make silk buttons, obtaining a regulation which forbids all persons wearing buttons of the same cloth as their coats, or buttons that are cast, turned or made ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... man who had introduced himself to me as the surgeon of Gaster Fell came out, bareheaded, with a spade in his hands. In front of the door there was a small cultivated patch containing potatoes, peas and other forms of green stuff, and here he proceeded to busy himself, trimming, weeding and arranging, singing the while in a powerful though not very musical voice. He was all engrossed in his work, with his back to the cottage, when there emerged from the half-open door the same attenuated ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... will involve measuring, trimming, basting, and hemming. A patch is a piece of cloth sewed on to a garment to restore the worn part. The material used for the patch should be as nearly like the original fabric in colour and quality as possible. In placing the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... neglected in houses are the trimming of lamps and the care of the books. The condition of many libraries in large country houses is most lamentable. In such neglect are they that it would take months, and in some cases years, working day and night, to restore them ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... toiled zealously at the important task of mixing and tempering it, while another came and went with pailfuls that were used up as fast as he could bring them. The stones were laid with their smooth faces inward, and there was not a minute wasted in trimming anything for the sake of appearances. Sile could hardly believe that so much could have been done is so short a time, and he was again astonished when the men returned from breakfast. The wall grew at a tremendous rate. He went ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... large sole, trimming off the gills and dark skin and scraping the white side. Make a deep cut on each side of the back-bone and take off the fins. Put into a buttered baking-pan with salt and pepper to season and two cupfuls of white wine. Bake for twenty minutes. Cook together one tablespoonful of ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... Rationalism is not Reason Inconsistency Hope in Humanity Self-love in Religion Limitation of Love of Poetry Humility of the Amiable Temper in Argument Patriarchal Government Callous self-conceit A Librarian Trimming Death Love an Act of the Will Wedded Union Difference between Hobbes and Spinosa The End may justify the Means Negative Thought Man's return to Heaven Young Prodigies Welch names German Language The Universe Harberous An Admonition To Thee Cherubim ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... and emotion, that is, the balance of the different parts of a sonnet, is also a very delicate affair. It is like trimming a sailboat. Wordsworth defended Milton's frequent practice of letting the thought of the octave overflow somewhat into the sestet, believing it "to aid in giving that pervading sense of intense unity in which the excellence of the ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... sat up to the table and ended some barley-trimming that I'd just learned how to make; and as the little kernels came tumbling out from under my fingers, Stephen sat beside and watched them as if it was a field of barley, growing, reaped, and threshed under his eyes. By-and-by I finished it; and then, rummaging round in the table-drawer, I ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... three to seven days. When the requisite period has elapsed, the sides and ends of the frames are removed, and there remains a solid block of soap weighing from 10 to 15 cwt. according to the size of frame used. The blocks, after scraping and trimming, are ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... this assurance, and the fact that they had voluntarily come to help him put the place in order, they did very little beyond lending a cheering expression of unqualified praise and unstinted advice. At the end of four hours' weeding and trimming the boundaries of the garden, they unanimously gave their opinion that it would be more systematic for him to ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... being astonished, and wonder no more at this new manner of decking and trimming up of myself as you now ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... turned up, drying the dishes and putting a polish on them. Talking of hats, E—— has at last got one and a half, it literally covers even her shoulders, and at midday she declares she is as much in shade as under a Japanese umbrella; for trimming a rope is coiled round the crown, the only way to make it stay on the head. Of her gloves there is only the traditional one left; the other is among the various articles we have left on the prairie, bumped out of the buggy one day when she took them off to take ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... Renniker the other day at the club. He is a man who knows everything—from the method of trimming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of every European potentate. If I want information on any subject under heaven ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... large, heavy, and clean-shaven, as became a capitalist; but his overcoat was buff, with a wide trimming of fur, and his yellow hair was parted in the back and perfumed. March did not mind this, but he was truly sorry to notice, very quickly, that his companion's knowledge of horses was mostly a newspaper knowledge. While Mr. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... this moment that I considered him as my prize, and was trimming, in the best manner I could, my much shattered sails, when I found the mainmast was totally unsupported by rigging, every shroud being shot away, and some of them in several places, that even stoppers were useless, and could not be ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the trimming of branches and knots and "rossing" of bark, to lessen the friction in ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... they are safe; those I will myself deliver; though, from what the journals say, his Lordship has small need of new trimming. 'Twas the public talk, when you made me act the respectable character of spy in Sir Willmott Burrell's service—at the court, sir, they talked of nothing else—how the King of France, with his own hands, made him ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Big Doctor, looming large at the door of the dining-room where his daughter was engaged in trimming a hat, "come down to the surgery a ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... garden, the Piper still strove with the weeds. He had the place nearly half cleared now. The space on the other side of the house was, as yet, untouched, and the trees and shrubbery all needed trimming. The wall was broken in places, earth had drifted upon it, and grass and weeds had ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... for conquest knew no bounds. The more young Joe submitted, the more absolute old John became. The ell soon faded into nothing. Yards, furlongs, miles arose; and on went old John in the pleasantest manner possible, trimming off an exuberance in this place, shearing away some liberty of speech or action in that, and conducting himself in his small way with as much high mightiness and majesty, as the most glorious tyrant that ever had his statue reared in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... could afford it. And perhaps the next day a bonnet would come in a bandbox, a bonnet that frightened her when she put it on and looked at herself in the glass. She would pretend it was one of the bonnets she had wanted; and when Papa had forgotten about it she would pull all the trimming off and put it all on again a different way, and Papa would say it was an even more beautiful bonnet than ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... figures, whether the arm is too short or too long, or any part out of proper proportion; the way this skirt hangs, and the effect that fold produces, the completeness and accuracy with which the detail of trimming is shown; whether this hat or bonnet should be shown with front, side, or back view, the faces to be baby-like, youthful, or otherwise, thus indicating who suitable and intended for; in fact, all the detail of all drawings should be examined most carefully, to know that they are exact representations ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... buried the live charcoal deep with ashes, and taking two bits of incense of Cambodia fragrant wood, she threw them over them. She then re-covered the brasier, and repairing to the back of the screen, she gave the lamp a thorough trimming to make it throw out more light; after which, she once more ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... yards, but he must of necessity stop when he comes to the old quay. There the "strong man," the "Great Power," is trimming some blocks of granite. He is tanned a coppery brown with wind and sun, and his thick black hair is full of splinters of granite; he wears only a shirt and canvas trousers, and the shirt is open on his powerful breast; but it lies close on his back, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... regularity of a third day's rain, when trimming and shuffling are over, and the weather has settled down to do its worst. There were no variations of rhythm, no lyrical ups and downs: the grey lines streaking the panes were as dense and uniform as a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... that you can take stock of yourself. The result of this mental disturbance upon me was insomnia. I couldn't get to sleep; but I kept track of the ship, and worried the three Dutchmen and the Jap into trimming sail when necessary. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... Davie Do-little indeed we might ca' him Davie Do-naething, for since he got that gay clothing, to please his honour and my young mistress (great folks will have their fancies), he has done naething but dance up and down about the TOUN, without doing a single turn, unless trimming the laird's fishing-wand or busking his flies, or maybe catching a dish of trouts at an orra-time. But here comes Miss Rose, who, I take burden upon me for her, will be especially glad to see one of the house of Waverley at her ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the youngsters into shape, and for this purpose I have been doing a number of crash dives. It also gives me an opportunity of getting used to the boat's peculiarities under water. She seems to have a tendency to become tail-heavy, but this may be due to bad trimming. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... six months he had thoroughly enjoyed his seclusion. In the company of his books, of which he had brought such a fair store that their shelves lined his snug corners to the exclusion of more comfortable furniture, he found his principal recreation. Even his unwonted manual labor, the trimming of his lamp and cleaning of his reflectors, and his personal housekeeping, in which his Indian help at times assisted, he found a novel and interesting occupation. For outdoor exercise, a ramble on the sands, a climb to the rocky upland, or a pull in the lighthouse ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... watch worked side by side trimming coals and restoring the 'tween decks as cases were shaken and equipment assembled. The scientific staff were soon efficient at handling, reefing, and steering. Every one lent a hand at whatever work was going. Victor Campbell was christened the "Wicked Mate," and he shepherded and fathered ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... round Jimmy, so was this Christmas-Eve given up to him. All day he had stayed in bed for the privilege of an extra hour propped up among pillows in the salon. All day he had strung little red berries that looked like cranberries for the tree, or fastened threads to the tiny cakes that were for trimming only, and sternly ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... between the rose-bushes, that my heart was not in my mouth as it should have been according to convention. In fact, the sun was uncomfortable, and I mopped my brow and decided that the roses stood in need of trimming. And really, you know, I had seen brighter days, and fairer views, and the ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... strong of you, dear Mrs. Thorpe. You mustn't—you mustn't. [AGNES brings the tray with the cut flowers to the nearer table; calmly and methodically she resumes trimming ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... your auburn beard, and cut close your auburn hair, and you must put on a gray wig and a gray beard—those worn by your old Peter, in his character of Polonius at your mask ball, will, with a little trimming, serve your purpose. Then you must wear a pair of spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat and an old man's loose fitting, shabby travelling suit. I can procure both the spectacles and the clothes from the wardrobe of my deceased father. Mrs. Berners, too, should cut her hair short, and wear a red wig ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... helpful, for yours, knowing it to be something new and full of an eternal meaning. It was Dr. Bowdler, rector of an Episcopal church, a man of more influence out of the Church than any in it. He was in the breakfast-room now, trimming the hanging-baskets in the window, while his niece finished her coffee: he "usually saved his appetite for dinner, English fashion; cigars until then,"—poohing at all preaching of hygiene, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... difference of opinion as to where this word originally was used. I fancy in ancient heraldry; but there the word is "purflew" a "bordure of ermines, peans, or furs," whilst the ancients spell it "purfile," a "trimming for women's gowns." Milton says "to purfle—to embroider." So it seems it has ever been used as an ornamental border, no matter what thing it had to grace, for grace it is: and though not essential ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... which may have fallen on the spot on which the collar is to rest. The connection of the laterals with the mains, the laying of the larger sizes of tiles so as to form a close joint, the wedging of these larger tiles firmly into their places, and the trimming which is necessary in going around sharp curves, and in putting in the shorter pieces which are needed to fill out the exact length of the drain, demand more skill and judgment than are often found in the common ditcher. Still, ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... judge, whether some distant and obscure allusion to the trimming politics of Halifax, to whom the Duke of York, our author's patron, was hostile, may not be here insinuated. During the stormy session of his two last parliaments, Charles was much guided by his ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... to work trimming the ivy under his mistress's direction, Rosalind wandered away by herself across the hill-top, pausing now and then to read an inscription and do a sum in subtraction, on the result of which her interest largely depended. ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... of her ordinary square-sails were set, though not one of them all was sheeted home, or well hoisted. An attempt had been made to lay the yards square, but one yard-arm was braced in too far, another not far enough, and nothing like order appeared to have prevailed at the sail-trimming. But, the of the brig was the most remarkable. Her general course would seem to be dead before the wind; but she yawed incessantly, and often so broadly, as to catch some of her light sails aback. Most vessels take a good deal of room in ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... studding-sails, and to brace up and haul aft; an operation that consumed nearly two hours. We were so busily employed, indeed, as to have little or no time to look about us, and my surprise was the less, therefore, when the cook called out "sail ho!" I was busy trimming the main-yard, when this announcement was made, and looking up, I saw a lugger standing towards us, and already within long gun-shot. I afterwards ascertained that perceiving us to be approaching her, this craft had lain like a snake in the grass, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... been out of school with a sore throat. Today it was better. The ladies wanted to go out to match some trimming and view some elegant new party frocks that might do for ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... well along in the Mediterranean. The air was cool and crisp, yet there were dozens of people on deck watching the sunset and the sailors who were trimming the ship. There were passengers on board for China, Japan, India and Australia. A half hundred soldiers, returning to the East, after a long furlough at home, made the ship lively. They were under loose ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... included plain sewing, dress-making, hat-trimming, and fancy work of all kinds, was sent by the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. The useful sewing from that school was above the standard of excellence, and the art work fully equal to that of the New ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... made a picture frame of mosses, lichens, and red and yellow toadstools, ever so pretty; then proofs came, then we had tea, and then went and made calls. Yesterday on a tramp with M., who wanted mosses, then home with about a bushel of ground-pine. Every minute of the afternoon I spent in trimming the grey room with the pine and getting up my bracket, and now the room looks like a bower of bliss. I was to go with M. on another tramp to-day, but it rains, and rain is greatly needed. The heat in New York is said to exceed anything in the memory of man, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... hut. The commissaire praised our philanthropy, the women watched us in awed silence, and the tallow candle melted and ran down the iron candle-stick in spite of the efforts of the garde, who kept trimming the wick with his fingers. We attended to the old woman first. The cut had been given conscientiously; the bare arm showed the bone, and a triangle of flesh about four inches long hung over it like a cuff. We tried to put this back in its place ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... great pains with her toilet; she did not wish to startle, but to attract—and the two things were very different. Her dress looked brilliant, being of a silvery texture; the trimming was composed of small fern-leaves; a parure of fine diamonds crowned ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... small hickory tree on that farther margin, and threw himself against it and bent it down, and plunged his knife into the straining fibres so that it crackled and splintered in his hand. He leaped to the tree and scaled it as he had often climbed a mast, and he thrust the sapling under the staple, trimming the point down with the knife as he clutched the tree by his knees, and then, catching the young hickory like a lever, he dropped down the pine trunk and got his shoulder under the sapling and brought the weight of his body desperately ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... one in this garden was like playing at "hide-and-seek." There were the tall hollyhocks beginning to flower and dazzle the eye with their pink, white, and yellow; there were the syringas and Guelder roses, all large and disorderly for want of trimming; there were leafy walls of scarlet beans and late peas; there was a row of bushy filberts in one direction, and in another a huge apple-tree making a barren circle under its low-spreading boughs. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot |
