"Batten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was shown not alone by his congratulatory message, but by the immediate honours awarded. To the Leicestershires fell one Military Cross[4] and four Military Medals, one of the latter going to Sergeant Batten, Marner's platoon-sergeant. The water-tank leans against the station no longer, and they have repaired the crumbled walls. But the cracks and fissures in the great fort lift eloquent witness to the way both armies desired it, and the quiet, beautiful ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... I was aching to tooth every detail of the great fight. And when they talked on military affairs, as Letchford and others did sometimes, it was difficult to keep from sending them all to the devil, for their amateur cocksureness would have riled Job. One had got to batten down the recollection of our fellows out there who were sweating blood to keep these fools snug. Yet I found it impossible to be angry with them for long, they were so babyishly innocent. Indeed, I couldn't help liking them, and finding a sort ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... had found opportunity to show Tressady that morning a paragraph from one of the numerous papers that batten on the British peer, his dress, his morals, and his sport. The paragraph, without names, without even initials, contained an outline of Lord Ancoats's affairs which Harding, who knew everything of a scandalous nature, declared to be well informed. It had made George whistle; and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... replied Uncle Teddy, "but I would advise you all to batten down the hatches, I mean, tie your tent flaps." As he spoke a white towel came fluttering over the bluff from one of the tents above and went sailing off over the lake. At that they all scattered to make ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... were steamed by wrapping them in burlap for a distance of 2 feet from the forward end, and pouring boiling water over them, as was done with the snow shoes (page 39). Before bending the boards we had fixed screw eyes in the ends of each batten, except the forward one; a rope had been strung through these screw eyes and the ends were now tied to the head piece and drawn tight so as to bend the boards into a graceful curve. In this way the ropes were of service not only for ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... uprose That obscure heritage of foes, The exceeding bitter heritage Which still a jealous God bestows From inappellable age to age, The ghostly worms that softly move Through every grey old corse of love And creep across the coffined years To batten on our blood and tears; And there were hooded shapes of death Gaunt and grey, cruel and blind, Stealing softly as a breath Through the woods that loured behind The City; hooded shapes of fear Slowly, slowly stealing near; While all ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... skipper will order his men to trim, batten down the hatches, and clear the deck of all litter. The barometer says nothing, neither the sky nor the water; the skipper has the "feel" that out yonder there's a big blow moving. Now the doctor had ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... the blood and marrow and life of the struggling people, you heartless extortioner! Begone, sirra; a foot of land upon the property for which I am agent you shall never occupy. You and your tribe, whether you batten upon the distress of struggling industry in the deceitful Maelstrooms of the metropolis, or in the dirty, dingy shops of a private country village, are each a scorpion curse to the people. Your very existence is a libel upon ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... water flopping around her deck—that was no harm. "Tarpaulin her hatches, clamp 'em down, and let her roll!"—that had been Captain Norman's word coming out of Hampton Roads. And "Batten her down and let her plug into it!" had come roaring across to us at almost the same moment from the deck of the Orion. And no more than into the open Atlantic than we were plugging into it. The sea came mounting up over our ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... more with it and had to lie to. Ask old D. what that means, if you can't understand my description of it. The principle of it is to set two small sails, one fore and one aft, lash the rudder (wheel) amidships, make all snug, put on hatches, batten everything down, and trust to ride out the storm. As the vessel falls away from the wind by the action of one sail, it is brought up to it again by the other-sail. Thus her head is always kept to the wind, and she meets the seas, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... garotter, or, indeed, a common thief Is very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef, Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens can afford,— A cut above the diet in a ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... with which, when we met three nights since, you would have crushed the victim of your own perfidy. You shall tread the path of your ambition childless and objectless and hopeless. Disease shall set her stamp upon your frame. The worm shall batten upon your heart. You shall have honours and enjoy them not; you shall gain your ambition, and despair; you shall pine for your son, and find him not; or, if you find him, you shall curse the hour in which he was born. Mark me, man,—I am dying ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... five hundred English adventurers who swarmed to Canada on the heels of the English army thought to batten on the sixty thousand defeated French inhabitants, far otherwise thought and decreed the English generals, Sir Jeffrey {277} Amherst, and Murray, who succeeded him. "You will observe that the French are British subjects as much as we are, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Excellency should be allowed to choose his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... The stranger was drawing the batten blinds together. Her ivory-white arms gleamed in the sun. For a moment they could see her face shining like a star against the dusky glooms within; then the bolt was shot sharply to ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... of camp life proved to be monotonously dreary. Ivan was not of the type of man to press his popularity and batten upon it. Rather, flattery, and the inevitable toadyism of weaker natures, revolted him; and he began once more to retire into himself, and to live again with dreams, which now formed themselves round any one of three topics: first and highest, his music, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... that she is a social outcast, a moral pariah, she becomes reckless, defiant, and finally glories in betraying the fool who trusts her. No matter how fair the mountain upon which she has leave to feed, she will batten on the moor. Love was her excuse when first she went astray, and she hugs the delusion to her heart that Cupid can sanctify a crime; but where honor spreads not its wings of snow love perishes in the fierce simoon of lust. The ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... slotted lead strips (known as "cames"). The window frames used in a few of the Jamestown houses were handwrought iron casements. Most of the humbler dwellings had no glass panes in the windows. The window openings were closed by batten shutters, operated by hinges of wood and fitted with wooden ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... unlatched wicket in some porte-cochere—red-painted brick pavement, foliage of dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... factors in Russia's disasters. And it was heightened by the conduct of, shall we say, the prussianized officials,[123] who are reported to have disposed of waggons for large sums to greedy merchants, who used to raise the prices of the merchandise and batten on the misery of ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... some insolence," said Thirkle. "We've got to get out of here. Give him lip, Buckrow, so he'll come down, or he'll batten down on us until morning, and ye know ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... Joe Batten was the youngest member of the Athletic team and at that time quite a promising young player. He did not last long with the Athletics, however, and after playing on one or two other league teams he dropped out sight. He was a ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... bosom through. Astonishingly high she took the blue, Yet weeping molten dross shall meet the ground— A sight for grief profound to gaze across. Flame follows flame, each like a giant worm, To feast and batten on her beauteous form. Through gold and silver doors they sinuous swarm And crop the carven flowers with gust enorme; Till all is emptiness. Then with hellish shout The embruted Gentiles in exultant rout Into her Holy of Holies ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... fork, repeated it. "One thing! In Potsdam, on that cloudless July night, when the world, on which he proposed to batten, slept, toiled, feasted, fasted, occupied with its futile loves and hates, that thing must ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... stainless gentlemen who do not bet and who want no man's money, partly of perfectly honest fellows who have no judgment, no real knowledge, and no self-restraint, and who serve as prey on which the bookmakers batten. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... head. I knew each lord and lady's passion, And fostered every vice in fashion. But Jove was wrath—loves not the liar— He sent me here to cool my fire, Retained my nature—but he shaped My form to suit the thing I aped, And sent me in this shape obscene, To batten in a sylvan scene. How different is your lot and mine! Lo! how you eat, and drink, and dine; Whilst I, condemned to thinnest fare, Like those I flattered, feed on air. Jove punishes what man rewards;— Pray you accept my ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... officers, and my search proved fruitless, more especially as the records at Woolwich for the period required were destroyed by fire some years ago. The best evidence I have obtained is that of General Gordon's tailors, Messrs Batten & Sons, of Southampton, who write: "We consider, by measurements in our books, that General Gordon was 5 ft. 9 in." As he had contracted a slight stoop, or, more correctly speaking, carried his head thrown ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... potatoes. Another layer of sea-weed, then the roasting-ears. After that come the fish, wrapped in paper. Then the mussels, clams or anything else you want. When you get them all in, cover the whole thing with a lot of heavy kelp and batten it down with a big piece of canvas. The whole trick is knowing just when to open the oven. Nothing can burn so it's better to leave it too long than ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... and their like are the curse of Kosnovia. Who will pay taxes to keep me in the state that becomes a King? Not they. Who will benefit by good government and honest administration of the laws? Assuredly not they, for they batten on corruption; they are the maggots not the bees of industry. Over whom, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not wish to ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... difficult even to take one's place on a board a dozen inches wide. My petticoats have to be firmly wrapped around me, and care taken that no fold projects beyond the sledge, or I should be soon dragged out of my frail seat. I fix my feet firmly against the batten, and F—— cries, "Are you ready?" "Oh, not yet!" I gasp, clinging to Mr. U——'s hand as if I never meant to let it go. "Hold tight!" he shouts. Now what a mockery this injunction was. I had nothing to hold on to except my own knees, and I clasped them convulsively. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... helpless to alleviate it," continued Rachel. "Over work, low prices and middle-men perfectly batten on the lives of our poor girls here. I have thought it over again and again, and it is a constant burden ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'it does look as if we would have to take up gastritis and golf or be measured for kilts in spite of ourselves. This little turn in bug juice is, verily, all to the Skibo. And I can stand it,' says I, 'I'd rather batten than ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... filaments to form the 'sheds'; second, throwing the shuttle, or performing some operation that amounts to the same thing; third, after inserting the weft thread, driving it home, and adjusting it by means of the batten, be it the needle, the finger, the shuttle or a ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... show the fertility of his invention and his consistent improvement in technique. The series, "Fairy Tales of the British Empire," collected and edited by Mr. Jacobs, already include five volumes—English, More English, Celtic, More Celtic, and Indian, all liberally illustrated by J. D. Batten, as are "The Book of Wonder Voyages," by J. Jacobs (Nutt), and "Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights," edited by E. Dixon, and a second series, both published by Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. "A Masque of Dead Florentines" (Dent) can hardly be brought ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... at Public Schools Regard his books with fear and loathing, From Latin's arbitrary rules Deriving practically nothing:— He said,—"O bounding human Boys, Of all the fare whereon you batten, What chiefly mars your simple joys?" With one accord ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... the features you see here never were common—locks seven inches across; several windows without sashes, but with sturdy iron gratings and solid iron shutters. On the fourth floor the doorway communicating with the main house is entirely closed twice over, by two pairs of full length batten shutters held in on the side of the main house by iron hooks eighteen inches long, two to each shutter. And yet it was through this doorway that the ghosts—figuratively speaking, of course, for we are dealing with plain fact and history—got ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... assurance of a man; This was your husband.—Look you now what follows: Here is your husband, like a milldew'd ear Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense Is apoplex'd; ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... to the present sufferings of men, which has enabled powerful political movements to grow out of the hopes of solitary thinkers. It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism important, and it is this that makes them dangerous to those who batten, consciously or unconsciously upon the evils of our present order ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... world assurance of a man; This was your husband.—Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, Blasting his wholesome brother.[124] Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor?[125] Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for, at your age The hey-day in the blood[126] is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment Would step from this to this? O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... thy word? If thou hast need of aught, none shall satisfy thee. What sane man will venture to join thy rablle rout? Ill indeed are thy revellers to look upon, young men impotent of body, and old men witless in mind: in the heyday of life they batten in sleek idleness, and wearily do they drag through an age of wrinkled wretchedness: and why? they blush with shame at the thought of deeds done in the past, and groan for weariness at what is left to do. During their youth they ran riot through their sweet things, ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... now I have it, leave me; y'are infectious, the plague and leprosie of your baseness spreading on all that do come near you; such as you render the Throne of Majesty, the Court, suspected and contemptible; you are Scarabee's that batten in her dung, and have no palats to taste her curious Viands; and like Owles, can only see her night deformities, but with the glorious splendor of her beauties, you are struck blind as Moles, that undermine the sumptuous Building that allow'd you shelter: you stick ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... inches across three planks laid close together side by side, while I nailed a fifth athwartships on the deck at the point where I intended to rear my planks. The length of the battens being three inches more than the combined width of the three planks, the projecting ends of the top batten afforded me a very convenient shoulder for the support of my shrouds and stay, which I cut from my ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... Edward Codrington's fleet just home from the battle of Navarino. Even then, as a mere boy, I was struck by the grand symmetry of that ample basin: the break water—then unfinished—lying across the centre; the heights of Bovisand and Cawsand, and those again of Mount Batten and Mount Edgecumbe, left and right; the citadel and the Hoe across the bottom of the Sound, the southern sun full on their walls, with the twin harbours and their forests of masts, winding away into dim distance on each side; and behind ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... then, while she's melted that a-way, he pours it into these yere auger holes an' lets it cool. It gets good an' hard, this arsenic-tallow does, an' then Coyote drags the timber thus reg'lated out onto the plains to what he regyards as a elegible local'ty an' leaves it for the wolves to come an' batten on. Old Coyote will have as many as a dozen of these sticks of timber, all bored an' framed up with arsenic-tallow, scattered about. Each mornin' while he's wolfin', Coyote makes a round-up an' skins an' counts up his prey. An' son, you hear me! he ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... to adopt is seen at Fig. 6. Here we have supported the joint by rearing up against the wall a couple of pieces of batten, one at each end of the board, thus supporting it throughout its entire width until the glue is thoroughly set. The two or more pieces of timber in a butt joint adhere by crystallisation of the glue and atmospheric pressure. A well-fitted joint made with good quality glue is so strong that, when ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... placed over the hatchway. Perhaps the crew were about to batten down the hatches. In vain I tried, while this was going forward, to strike the cask. I had not sufficient strength to do it. A fearful faintness was coming over me. Perhaps the movement of the ship contributed to this. I ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... more readers and fewer students. The person known as "the general reader" is nowadays fond of literary dram-drinking—he wants small pleasant doses of a stimulant that will act swiftly on his nerves; and, if he can get nothing better, he will contentedly batten on the tiny paragraphs of detached gossip which form the main delight of many fairly intelligent people. Books are cheap and easily procured, and the circulating library renders it almost unnecessary for any one to buy books at all. In myriads of houses in town or country the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... who is my favourite author just now? How are the mighty fallen! Anthony Trollope. I batten on him; he is so nearly wearying you, and yet he never does; or rather, he never does, until he gets near the end, when he begins to wean you from him, so that you're as pleased to be done with him as you thought you would be sorry. I wonder if it's old age? It is a little, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the game," he said, "and so does dear Jessie here. We both of us adore it. As long as I find such good pickings upon you, I certainly am not going to turn away from so valuable a carcass, in order to batten myself, at considerable trouble, upon minor capitalists, out of whom it is difficult to extract a few hundreds. It may have puzzled you to guess why I fix upon you so persistently. Now you know, and understand. When a fluke finds a sheep that suits him, that fluke lives ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... of the work about here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun. The blood-red interiors of drying fish—rackfuls of them turned wrong side out—are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and everything ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... in. "Five thousand acres of prime valley land, all for a lot of failures to batten on, to farm, if you please, on salary, with ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... peasant pitched a bar!' 'Thanks, champion, thanks' the Maniac cried, And pressed her to Fitz-James's side. 'See the gray pennons I prepare, To seek my true love through the air! I will not lend that savage groom, To break his fall, one downy plume! No!—deep amid disjointed stones, The wolves shall batten on his bones, And then shall his detested plaid, By bush and brier in mid-air stayed, Wave forth a banner fail and free, Meet signal for ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... to batten on their own devilries, And mark what heaven-born splendours they could quell, She held him quivering ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... were fed by the keepers in a very primitive manner. Old, worn-out horses were bought and slaughtered for the dogs. A horse would be killed and stripped of his hide somewhere away in the woods, and left for the hounds to batten on its flesh, tearing at and fighting over it like so many jackals. When only partially consumed the carcass would become putrid; then another horse would be killed and skinned at another spot perhaps a ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... hast bid the bread-fruit shade Th' Hesperian regions, and has softened much With bland amelioration, and with charms Of social sweetness, the hard lot of man. 260 But weighed in truth's firm balance, ask, if all Be even. Do not crimes of ranker growth Batten amid thy cities, whose loud din, From flashing and contending cars, ascends, Till morn! Enchanting, as if aught so sweet Ne'er faded, do thy daughters wear the weeds Of calm domestic peace and wedded love; Or turn, with beautiful disdain, to dash Gay pleasure's poisoned chalice from ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... with Lady Lesbia, should stay at his Berkshire place during the Henley week. He had a large steam launch, and the regatta was a kind of carnival for his intimate friends, who were not too proud to riot and batten upon the parvenu's luxurious hospitality, albeit they were apt to talk ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... turned this turbulence To fall instead upon the harmless flock. Wherefore no strength of man shall once avail To encase his body with a seemly tomb, But outcast on the wide and watery sand, He'll feed the birds that batten on the shore. Nor let thy towering spirit therefore rise In threatening wrath. Wilt thou or not, our hand Shall rule him dead, howe'er he braved us living, And that by force; for never would he yield, Even while he lived, to words from me. And yet It shows ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... accompanied with a lifting of the eyebrows, and a pursing of the mouth, in an anxiety not altogether burlesque. He knew himself the prey of any one who chose to batten on him, and his hospitality was subject to frightful abuse. Perhaps Mr. Norton has somewhere told how, when he asked if a certain person who had been outstaying his time was not a dreadful bore, Longfellow answered, with angelic patience, "Yes; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... one spear smote the shield, but pierced it not right through, for the gold stayed it, the gift of a god; and with the other he grazed the elbow of Achilles' right arm, and there leapt forth dark blood, but the point beyond him fixed itself in the earth, eager to batten on flesh. Then in his turn Achilles hurled on Asteropaios his straight-flying ash, fain to have slain him, but missed the man and struck the high bank, and quivering half its length in the bank he left the ashen spear. Then the son of Peleus drew his ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... rise early in the morning, make this short speech to yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of a man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought action had been the end ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... and he was surrounded by greedy Flemish courtiers dressed in outlandish garb, speaking in a strange tongue, and looking upon the realm of their prince as a fat pasture upon which, locust like, they might batten with impunity. The Spaniards had frowned to see the great Cardinal Jimenez curtly dismissed by the boy sovereign whose crown he had saved; they clamoured indignantly when the Flemings cast themselves upon the resources of Castile and claimed the best offices civil and ecclesiastical; ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... parchment with red-ruled margins, and on the parchment were inscribed services and "verse-anthems" and "ffull-anthems," all in engrossing hand and the most uncompromising of black ink. Therein was a generous table of contents— Mr Batten and Mr Gibbons, Mr Mundy and Mr Tomkins, Doctor Bull and Doctor Giles, all neatly filed and paged; and Mr Bird would incite singers long since turned to churchyard mould to "bring forthe ye timbrell, ye pleasant harp and ye violl," and reinsist with six parts, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner |
