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Fleece   /flis/   Listen
Fleece

verb
(past & past part. fleeced; pres. part. fleecing)
1.
Rip off; ask an unreasonable price.  Synonyms: gazump, hook, overcharge, pluck, plume, rob, soak, surcharge.
2.
Shear the wool from.  Synonym: shear.



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"Fleece" Quotes from Famous Books



... charged, which, night by night, 120 Shed radiance over all the festive throng. Full fifty female menials serv'd the King In household offices; the rapid mills These turning, pulverize the mellow'd grain, Those, seated orderly, the purple fleece Wind off, or ply the loom, restless as leaves Of lofty poplars fluttering in the breeze; Bright as with oil the new-wrought texture shone.[25] Far as Phaeacian mariners all else Surpass, the swift ship urging through the floods, 130 So far in tissue-work the women pass All others, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... Or, if that golden fleece must grow For ever, free from aged snow; If those bright suns must know no shade, Nor your fresh beauties ever fade; Then fear not, Celia, to bestow What still being gather'd still must grow. Thus, either Time his sickle brings In vain, or ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... "because he knew that he was intended to take the cordon bleu to the Prince of the Asturias, and he would not quarrel with the regent just when he expected the Golden Fleece as the reward of his embassy; but now the regent has changed his mind and deferred sending the order, so that the Duc de Richelieu, seeing his Golden Fleece put off till the Greek kalends, has come ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... divorce detectives, was not averse to guiding events, to put it mildly. He had ingratiated himself, perhaps, with the clairvoyant and Davies. Constance had often heard before of clairvoyants and brokers who worked in conjunction to fleece the credulous. Now another and more serious element than the loss of money was involved. Added to them was a divorce detective—and honor itself was at stake. She remembered the doped cigarettes. She had heard of them before at clairvoyants'. She saw it all—Madame ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... pliant few, Who worship Interest and our track pursue; There shall we, though the wretched people grieve, Ravage at large, nor ask the owners' leave. For us, the earth shall bring forth her increase; For us, the flocks shall wear a golden fleece; Fat beeves shall yield us dainties not our own, And the grape bleed a nectar yet unknown: For our advantage shall their harvests grow, And Scotsmen reap what they disdain'd to sow: 460 For us, the sun shall climb the eastern hill; For us, the rain shall fall, the dew distil. When ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... here, but I may say this, that at one preaching there has been some thousands wakened up, who had not been so for a long time before. And will it not be a hard matter, seeing that it is so, that Saint Andrews sall be as Gideon's fleece; that all the kingdom about it sall be wet with the dew of heaven, and it sall only be dry? Even so, will it not be a shame, that all others sall be stirred up, and ye not a whit stirred up in this day more than if there ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... private intrigue rather than real diplomatic negotiation; and, notwithstanding all the trouble he took, he obtained nothing by it, "the gratitude of Madame des Ursins excepted, who made Philip V. give him the Golden Fleece, the rank of grandee, the Walloon company of the bodyguard—everything, in fact, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... the fault of indulging in buffooneries of this kind, which, however, were the result of his natural gaiety, and not of any subserviency of character. Such, however, was not the case with another exalted nobleman, a Knight of the Golden Fleece, whom Madame saw one day shaking hands with her valet de chambre. As he was one of the vainest men at Court, Madame could not refrain from telling the circumstance to the King; and, as he had no employment at Court, the King scarcely ever after ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... place," said he, "privileged by the most excellent Princess the High Governor of the whole Island, wherein are store of Gentlemen of the whole Realm, that repair thither to learn to rule and obey by Law, to yield their fleece to their Prince and Commonweal; as also to use all other exercises of body and mind whereunto nature most aptly serveth to adorn, by speaking, countenance, gesture, and use of apparel the person of a Gentleman; whereby amity is obtained, and continued, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... and the dewy meadows beyond. In the one, bees were busy ruffling the ruddy gillyflowers and April stocks; in the other, the hedge twigs were all frosted with Mary buds, as if Spring had brushed them with the fleece of her wings ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The first purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or decency, but ornament. "Miserable indeed," says he, "was the condition of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round him like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... much in love at the moment, and ready to make any sacrifices.... I won't accept sacrifices of any kind from you. What? Instead of encouraging you ... come, how is one to express it properly?—in your noble sentiments, eh? am I to fleece you? that's not my way. I can be hard on people, on occasion—only ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... doorway and pushed his hat into the flux of the sidewalk. More flakes, dancing upward like suds blown in merriment from the palm of a hand—light, lighter, mad, madder, weaving a blanket from God's own loom, from God's own fleece, whitening men's ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... Fox has a White Piccola Tip to his Tail The Story of the Morning- Why the Wren flies low Glory Seed Jack and the Beanstalk The Discontented Pine The Talkative Tortoise Tree Fleet Wing and Sweet Voice The Bag of Winds The Golden Fleece The Foolish Weather-Vane The Little Boy who wanted The Shut-up Posy the Moon Pandora's Box Benjy in Beastland The Little Match Girl Tomtit's Peep at ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... it began again to snow; a million feathers from the frost king's fleece were flying in the air. It snowed all day, and in the evening it snowed and whirled and blew around the Eyry, with its little party of choice spirits in its cosy parlor making merry and singing. Perhaps it was the "Wood Robin," ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... who has also made Maurice's acquaintance, loiters in this studio. The amiable Bohemian has not yet paid his bill to Pere Lebuffle, but he has cut his red fleece close to his head, and publishes every Sunday, in the journals, news full of grace and humor. Of course they will never pardon him at the Cafe de Seville; the "long-haired" ones have disowned this traitor who has gone over to the enemy, and is now only a sickening and fetid bourgeois; and if ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... is uncertain about the call, God will deal patiently with him, as He did with Gideon, to make him certain. His fleece will be wet with dew when the earth is dry, or dry when the earth is wet; or he will hear of some tumbling barley cake smiting the tents of Midian, that will strengthen his faith, and make him to know that God is with him ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... is then "passed through the willow, the scuthing machine, and the spreading machine, in order to be opened, cleaned, and evenly spread. By the carding engine the fibres are combed out, and laid parallel to each other, and the fleece is compressed into sliver. The sliver is repeatedly drawn and doubled in the drawing frame, more perfectly to strengthen the fibres and to equalize the grist. The roving frame, by rollers and spindles, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... in April, Robert Starbird dropped in while the members of the Walker family were at dinner. He was a wool-buyer for the Starbird Woolen Company of Lowbridge, and a nephew of its president. Having completed a bargain with Grandpa Walker for his scanty spring clipping of fleece, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... iron are good To buy iron and gold; All earth's fleece and food For their like are sold. Boded Merlin wise, Proved Napoleon great,— Nor kind nor coinage buys Aught above its rate. Fear, Craft, and Avarice Cannot rear a State. Out of dust to build What is more than dust,— Walls Amphion piled Phoebus stablish ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... it. Malleable, divisible, indestructible, rare, it is the indispensable medium of exchange. It is our chosen unit of power and success, the measure of civilization and human attainment. Hence it has always been the object of human desire. The Golden Fleece very probably was the sheepskin bottom of an old-time sluice-box, in a day when they used wool, instead of blankets, below the rocker troughs. In the vast ruined civilization of Southeast Africa unknown men once mined probably ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... to the Church and deaf to me, this town Yet wears a reverend garniture of peace. Set in a land of trade, like Gideon's fleece Bedewed where all is dry; the Pope may frown; But, if this city is the shrine of youth, How shall the Preacher lord of virgin souls, When by glad streams and laughing lawns he strolls, How can he bless them not? Yet in sad sooth, When I would love these English gownsmen, sighs Heave my frail breast, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... Keeping along under the lee of the island, we crossed the 'Umbrella Mouth,' between it and Huevos, or Egg Island. On our right were the islands; on our left the shoreless gulf; and ahead, the great mountain of the mainland, with a wreath of white fleece near its summit, and the shadows of clouds moving in dark patches up its sides. As we crossed, the tumbling swell which came in from the outer sea, and the columns of white spray which rose right and left against the two door-posts of that mighty gateway, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... and more than a hundred thousand men: it was the first time that all the Greeks joined together in one cause. There, besides those who had come for their oath's sake, were Nestor, the old King of Pylos—so old that he remembered Jason and the Golden Fleece, but, at ninety years old, as ready for battle as the youngest there; and Achilles, the son of Peleus and Thetis, scarcely more than a boy, but fated to outdo the deeds of the bravest of them all. The kings and princes elected ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... which forms such a conspicuous landmark for several leagues round Malines. Still, some of the churches are not without interest: the Cathedral of St. Sauveur, where the stalls of the Knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which was founded at Bruges, are to be seen in the choir, and over one of them the arms of Edward IV. of England; the curious little Church of Jerusalem, with its 'Holy Sepulchre,' an exact copy of the traditionary grave ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... their inheritance, Philip and Juana were driven on English shores. Henry VII. treated them with all possible courtesy, and made Philip a Knight of the Garter, while Philip repaid the compliment by investing Prince Henry with the Order of the Golden Fleece.[61] But advantage was taken of Philip's plight to extort from him the surrender of the Earl of Suffolk, styled the White Rose, and a commercial treaty with the Netherlands, which the Flemings named the Malus Intercursus. Three months after his arrival in Castile, Philip ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... down under the blow. But his soft fleece had saved the boy from serious injury, if not ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... purple hills, deep in the clasp of somber night, The shepherds guarded their weary ones— guarded their flocks of cloudy white, That like a snowdrift in silence lay, Save one little lamb with its fleece of gray. ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... settlement of accounts takes place at the end of the year, the money will, at the time of delivery, be naturally paid into the accountancy. Those high up will then as usual add a whole lot of controllers; and these will, on their part, fleece their own share as soon as the money gets into the palms of their hand. But as by this system, we've now initiated, you've been singled out for appointment, you've already ridden so far above their heads, that they foster all sorts of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... intelligent eye, the vivacity of whose expression denotes its possessor to be far in advance, in spirit, even of his still active and powerful frame. With these must be connected a snub nose—a double chin, adorned with grisly honors, which are borne, like the fleece of the lamb, only occasionally to the shears of the shearer—and a small, and not unhandsome, mouth, at certain periods pursed into an expression of irresistible humour, but more frequently expressing a sense of lofty independence. The grisly neck, little more or less bared, as the season may ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... that I had just slipped a light ragged fleece into the belly-wool and "bits" basket, I felt deeply injured, and righteously and fiercely indignant at being pulled up. It ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... woollen manufactory is in the sorting of the wool, and if this is not particularly attended to; that is to say, if the different kinds of wool of various qualities which each fleece naturally contains, are not carefully separated; and if each kind of wool is not employed for that purpose, and FOR THAT ALONE, for which it is best calculated, no woollen manufactory can possibly subsist ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... maggot-like, abound. Alas! was it for this that Warren died, And Arnold sold himself to t' other side, Stark piled at Bennington his British dead, And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?— For this that Perry did the foeman fleece, And Hull surrender to preserve the peace? Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray, The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay And gallant trappings of this idle life, And be more ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... and the gold and silver vessels used in the mass were carried off. For three days these tumultuous proceedings continued, and were suppressed only when the fury of the mob had ceased, by the Knights of the Golden Fleece, of which the Prince of Orange was a member. The career of this remarkable man is closely identified with the history of the Netherlands during this period. He was opposed to the violence of the ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... this time the mayor was boasting that he had put an end to gambling and prize fighting in the city; but here a swarm of professional gamblers had leagued themselves with the police to fleece the strikebreakers; and any night, in the big open space in front of Brown's, one might see brawny Negroes stripped to the waist and pounding each other for money, while a howling throng of three or four thousand surged about, men and women, young white girls from the country rubbing elbows with ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... a prolific loose-grained barley, wheat, peas, and lucerne, are oases in the surrounding deserts. The people export apricot oil, dried apricots, sheep's wool, heavy undyed woollens, a coarse cloth made from yaks' hair, and pashm, the under fleece of the shawl goat. They complained, and I think with good reason, of the merciless exactions of the Kashmiri officials, but there were no evidences of severe poverty, and not one beggar ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... Go on. The night is growing late. Soon the silver dawn will steal along the river, and touch with radiance those monstrosities upon the Thames Embankment. John Stuart Mill's badly fitting frockcoat will glow like the golden fleece, and the absurd needle of Cleopatra will be barred with scarlet and with orange. The flagstaff in the Victoria Tower will glitter like an angel's ladder, and the murmur of Covent Garden will be as the murmur of the flowing tide. Oh! Esme, when ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... beach and heaping the sand in curious little crescent ridges. The sun beat hotly on the board walk. There were faint sounds in the distance, from the Indian village up the shore and the fishing community across the bay. Life in this parish of the Northland drifted by like the fleece ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... night in the manner common to wintry days. From time to time a gust of wind tore the fleece from the clouds and hurled it in snow upon the silent earth. Dimly the lights of the cabins shone through the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... a glance how short a distance the helpless boy was from the bank, and that an eddy was setting him in so near that, if he went close down to the rushing water, he might be able to reach out and seize the fleece of the sheep as ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... such was the prestige of the extraordinary hero who personified the whole regime, that even those he had vanquished did not disguise their admiration. The King of Spain—a Bourbon—sent him the insignia of the Golden Fleece. The world was fascinated and history shows no example of material and moral power comparable to that of Napoleon when the Holy Father crossed the mountains to recognise and hail him as the instrument of Providence, and anoint him Caesar in the ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... them into her quarrel with La Normande with respect to the ten-sou dab, they had at once made friends again with Lisa, and they now had nothing but contempt for the handsome fish-girl, and assailed her and her sister as good-for-nothing hussies, whose only aim was to fleece men of their money. This opinion had been inspired by the assertions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had declared to Madame Lecoeur that Florent had induced one of the two girls to coquette with Gavard, and that the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... its bounty[271]. Moreover, those secret caves, the bowels of the mountains from whence it springs, have power even to judge contentious business. For if any sheep-stealer presumes to bring to it the fleece of his prey, however often he may dip it in the seething wave, he will have to boil it before he succeeds in ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... one is this, art's masterpiece, A thing ne'er equall'd by old Greece: A thing ne'er match'd as yet, a real Golden Fleece. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... embroidered with silver and black, with rich open sleeves, and his Spanish cloak was of velvet of the same colour and similarly embroidered. His hose were of tawny silk, and the plumes in his bonnet black, striped with white. He was decorated with the order of the Golden Fleece, and bore at his side a genuine blade of Toledo, with a handle of rarest workmanship. Bound his throat he wore a large, triple ruff, edged with pointed lace. His face was oval in shape, his complexion of a rich olive hue, his eyes large, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... thy watchfulness O'er me, oh may it never cease! Keep thou the opening of my lips! the fleece Of purest snow be my soul's daily dress. Guard thou my hands! O Samas, Lord of Light! And ever keep my life and ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... complete, that it might not with justice be said in Denmark, "Thorwaldsen has quite wasted his time in Rome." Doubting his genius just when it embraced him most affectionately; not expecting a victory, while he already stood on its open road, he modelled "Jason who has Gained the Golden Fleece." It was this that Thorwaldsen would have gained in the kingdom of arts, and which he now thought he must resign. The figure stood there in clay, many eyes looked carelessly on it, and—he broke ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... to you." Hereupon she took the little ivory ball in her hand, and, with a turn of her beautiful wrists, unscrewed a lid so nicely and cunningly adjusted that no eye could have detected where it was joined to the parent globe. Within was a fleece of raw silk containing an object which she presently displayed before the astonished gaze of our hero. It was a red stone of about the bigness of a plover's egg, and which glowed and flamed with such an exquisite and ruddy brilliancy as to dazzle ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle

... o'er her shoulders thrown, A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air; 'Twas simple russet, but it was her own: 'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair, 'Twas her own labour did the fleece prepare, &c. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... them which our Country is entirely free from. Instead of those beautiful Feathers with which we adorn our Heads, they often buy up a monstrous Bush of Hair, which covers their Heads, and falls down in a large Fleece below the Middle of their Backs; with which they walk up and down the Streets, and are as proud of it as if it was ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... lost. He heard there was a club of cheats, Who had contrived a thousand feats; Could change the stock, or cog a dye, And thus deceive the sharpest eye: No wonder how his fortune sunk, His brothers fleece him ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... the folds of her mottled purple skirt were as vaguely dark as the foliage on the lilac-bush beside her. All at once the flowering branches on a wide-spreading apple-tree cut the gloom like great silvery wings of a brooding bird. The grass in the yard was like a shaggy silver fleece. Charlotte paid no more attention to it all than to her own breath, or a clock tick which she would have to withdraw from herself ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Angora fleece, which sometimes reaches eight inches, is due solely to the peculiar climate of the locality. The same goats taken elsewhere have not thriven. Even the Angora dogs and cats are remarkable for the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... the Persian kings.[955] It was perhaps grown in the neighbourhood of Aleppo.[956] The "white wool" may have been furnished by the sheep that cropped the slopes of the Antilibanus, or by those fed on the fine grass which clothes most of the plain at its base. The fleece of these last is, according to Heeren,[957] "the finest known, being improved by the heat of the climate, the continual exposure to the open air, and the care commonly bestowed upon the flocks." From the Syrian wool, mixed perhaps with some other material, seems to have been woven the fabric ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... chilly limbs his woollen coat He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, And threw a white cloak round him, and he took In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword deg.; deg.99 And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 100 Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul deg.; deg.101 And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd His herald to his ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... the subdued light on gloriously painted frescoes representing evening benediction at a temple altar, a gathering of the Muses, sacrifice before a shrine of Aesculapius and Jason's voyage to Colchis for the Golden Fleece. The inner court, where Cornificia received her guests, was like a sanctuary dedicated to the decencies, its one extravagance the almost ostentatious restfulness, accentuated by the cooing of white ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... sigh, and dropped a silent tear, And said, "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear: It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece; But sins like these one ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... noble birth. It is also adorned by the city of Anazarbus, which bears the name of its founder; and by Mopsuestia, the abode of the celebrated seer Mopsus, who wandered from his comrades the Argonauts when they were returning after having carried off the Golden Fleece, and strayed to the African coast, where he died a sudden death. His heroic remains, though covered by Punic turf, have ever since that time cured a great variety of diseases, and have generally restored men to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... pushing his spectacles up on to his forehead, and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair uncover his baldness. "I can't understand that any young girl of any—any upbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose such a—such an—occupation. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... pounds per quarter, and wethers from thirty to thirty-five pounds. The Sussex, Hampshire, and Shropshire varieties of the Down sheep, are all highly esteemed. The Leicester are very valuable. An ordinary fleece weighs from three to five pounds. Mr. Joseph Beers of New Jersey had one that sheared thirteen pounds at one time, and the live weight of the sheep ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... late but gleaming Moon, in hoary light Shines out unveil'd, and on the cloud's dark fleece Rests;—but her strengthen'd beams appear to increase The wild disorder of this troubled Night. Redoubling Echos seem yet more to excite The roaring Winds and Waters!—Ah! why cease Resolves, that promis'd everlasting peace, And drew my steps to this incumbent height? I wish!—I shudder!—stretch ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... fleece, fur and feather, Grass and greenworld all together; Star-eyed strawberry-breasted Throstle above her nested Cluster of bugle-blue eggs thin Forms ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... series of beautiful contrasts, from the earliest tender bud to the last sere autumn leaf. And the ferns! Did the Great Artist have any left after planting the fence-corners, roadsides and deep woods of Peterboro? Overarch these features with a fair dome of fleece-scattered blue and waft abroad throughout the place a succession of mountain breezes, ozone charged, and you have a place to live and work and ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid" (1 Tim 5:25). Whatever thou hast done to one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me. I felt the nourishment of thy food, and the warmth of thy fleece. I remember thy loving and holy visits when my poor members were sick, and in prison, and the like. When they were strangers, and wanderers in the world, thou tookest them in. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant;—enter thou into the joy of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... marvellous ancient ships were these! Were their prows a-plunge to the Chersonese? For the pomp of Rome or the glory of Greece, On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, Were they out on a quest for the Golden Fleece On ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... relics were brought to Scotland in the fourth century, and he has since that time been honoured as the patron saint of that country. He is also the patron saint of the Burgundian Order, the Golden Fleece.] ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... interior of his throat was to be seen. His lungs and his lights stood out so that they fluttered in his mouth and his gullet. He struck a mad lion's blow with the upper jaw [3]on its fellow[3] so that as large as a wether's fleece of a three year old was each [4]red,[4] fiery flake [5]which his teeth forced[5] into his mouth from his gullet. There was heard the loud clap of his heart against his breast like the yelp of a howling bloodhound or like a lion ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... are too good a king To die for any trivial thing; Your simples are too nice. Eat sheep, and why not? Is it a sin? is it a vice? No, sire, you did them honor; And as for shepherds, I desire, That over us their false empire Should cease, and we have all we want Of sheep and fleece." So said the fox, flatterers applaud, The tiger, bear, and other powers they laud, Even for their most violent offence. All quarrelsome people, Down to the mastiffs, Were little saints. But when the donkey's turn came on, They heard him with many ifs. He said, "I now remember That ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... capes of white fur with the hair outside over long white garments of various stuffs, lined also with white fur, but of a lighter kind than that of the capes. Mandarins of high rank use the skin of the white fox for the latter, but the ordinary official is content with the curly fleece of the snow-white Mongolian sheep. For one hundred days no male in the Empire might have his head shaved, and women were supposed to eschew for the same period all those gaudy head ornaments of which they are so inordinately fond. At the expiration of this time the Court mourning ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... to be told anything for their own good. So what followed happened quickly. A fleece of cloud slipped over the moon. The night seemed bitterly cold, for the space of a heart-beat, and then matters were comfortable enough. The moon emerged in its full glory, and there in front of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... dressing-room and called her maid. Contrary to her Puritan notions, she frankly sought to beautify herself. She remembered that it was the anniversary of her coming to this house. She got out her wedding-dress, and although it hung loosely, the maid draped the Silver Fleece ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... smiling, as a man might listen to a dull child; and, indeed, I think that that was all that he thought of her. His Majesty himself appeared very noble and gallant, in His Order of the Garter, and with the Golden Fleece too, over his rich suit. Both Their Majesties wore a good ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... must escape her," he said gayly. "See! yonder lies the Silver Fleece spread across the brown back of the world; let's get a bit of it, and hide it here in the swamp, and comb it, and tend it, and make it the beautifullest bit of all. Then we can sell it, and send ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... many opulent cities and fruitful provinces, he felt himself equal to the kings of Europe. Upon his marriage with Isabella of Portugal, he founded, at Bruges, the celebrated order of the Golden Fleece. What could be more practical or more devout than the conception? Did not the Lamb of God, suspended at each knightly breast, symbolize at once the woollen fabrics to which so much of Flemish wealth and Burgundian power was owing, and the gentle humility of Christ, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... orthodox riding-habit and nondescript hat, she looked what she felt. But the mercury of those days had a trick of falling unexpectedly. First, only for one minute in ten had she a sense of depression. Then a large cloud, that had been hanging in the north like a black fleece, came and placed itself between her and the sun. It helped on what was already inevitable, and she sank into a uniformity ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... are bending in the attitude of flight—their boughs are brandishing their foliage as a dog worries a fleece, and littering the black soil with leaves among which runs a constant querulous hissing and rustling. Also, storks are uttering their snapping cry, sleek rooks cawing, steppe grasshoppers maintaining their tireless chirp, sturdy, well-grown husbandmen ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... acknowledge that the same nature of soul dwelt within, and that the only difference between the white man and the black was in the colour of their skin. Yes, there was a difference: Uncle Boz had lost his hair, while Bambo had retained, in its woolly integrity, a fine black fleece, which served to keep his cranium cool in summer and warm in winter. Bambo used to be called the shadow of Uncle Boz. A jolly, fat noonday shadow he might have been. He had followed him, I believe, round and round the world, and when at length Uncle ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... composed, morsels of his conversation with himself. It was the romance of a soul (to be traced only in hints, wayside notes, quotations from older masters), as it were in lifelong, and often baffled search after some vanished or elusive golden fleece, or Hesperidean fruit-trees, or some mysterious light of doctrine, ever retreating before him. A man, he had seemed to Marius from the first, of two lives, as we say. Of what nature, he had sometimes wondered, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... Jeanne, a life in the open air. She wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... increased. The country became the richest in Europe, and the splendor of the ducal court surpassed that of any contemporary sovereign. A permanent memorial of it remains in the celebrated Order of the Golden Fleece, which was instituted by the duke of Burgundy in the fifteenth century and was so named from the English wool, the raw material used in the Flemish looms and the very foundation of the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... Hapsburgs?" asks she. "And the Austrian Hapsburgs being out, do not the Spanish Hapsburgs come in? He, I say, this BOURBON-Hapsburg, he is the real Hapsburg, now that the Austrian Branch is gone; President he of the Golden Fleece [which a certain "Archduchess," Maria Theresa, had been meddling with]; Proprietor, he, of Austrian Italy, and of all or most things Austrian!"—and produces Documentary Covenants of Philip II. with his Austrian Cousins; "to which Philip," said the Termagant, "we Bourbons surely, if you consider ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... house made themselves as irritating to Lord Dauntrey in their selfish obstinacy as Dodo; and all his hopes centred upon Mary. She was a lamb whom his wife had cleverly caught in the bushes, a lamb with golden fleece. He would have liked above all things to help her win this first night; but curiously enough she lost monotonously, no matter what game she tried, unless Prince Giovanni Della Robbia pushed money on to some chance ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... which our country is entirely free from. Instead of those beautiful feathers with which we adorn our heads, they often buy up a monstrous bush of hair, which covers their heads, and falls down in a large fleece below the middle of their backs, with which they walk up and down the streets, and are as proud of it as if it was ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... of it an unclean beast, an ugly dog, lame and blind. Thereon the Brahmin cried out, "Wretch, who touchest things impure, and utterest things untrue, callest thou that cur a sheep?" "Truly," answered the other, "it is a sheep of the finest fleece and of the sweetest flesh. O Brahmin, it will be an offering most acceptable to the gods." "Friend," said the Brahmin, "either thou or I must ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... every day more reluctant to undergo the inconveniences of military service, and better able to pay others for undergoing them. A new class of men, therefore, dependent on the Crown alone, natural enemies of those popular rights which are to them as the dew to the fleece of Gideon, slaves among freemen, freemen among slaves, grew into importance. That physical force which in the dark ages had belonged to the nobles and the commons, and had, far more than any charter, or any assembly, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... paupers for the Evil, Touch'd England half way to the devil Or Hook, picks up my favorite hits, For when was friendship between wits? Or Lyster, doubly dandyfied, Fidgets his donkey by my side; Or Bulwer rambles back from Greece, Woolgathering from the Golden fleece— Or forty volumes, piping hot, Come blazing from volcano Scott; When pens like their's play all my game. The tasteless ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... even fonder of sheep and pigs than is its smaller black brother. Lurking round the settler's house until after nightfall, it will vault into the fold or sty, grasp a helpless, bleating fleece-bearer, or a shrieking, struggling member of the bristly brotherhood, and bundle it out over the fence to its death. In carrying its prey a bear sometimes holds the body in its teeth, walking along on all-fours and dragging it as a wolf ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... simple, honest, country gentlemen will be easier prey for your gamester's snares than are the men you meet at public resorts. And you mean to swindle and fleece ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... Hath need of pause and interval of peace. Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease, Save hum of insects' aimless industry. Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry Of color to conceal her swift decrease. Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece A blossom, and lay bare her poverty. Poor middle-agd summer! Vain this show! Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset One meadow with a single violet; And well the singing thrush and lily know, Spite of all artifice which her regret ...
— A Calendar of Sonnets • Helen Hunt Jackson

... animal, he strode sturdily on; and after a short time he overtook a man who was driving a sheep. It was a good fat sheep, with a fine fleece on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... mean to say that the ministry is crowded with unworthy men, who love the fleece more than the flock. I believe that there are in the ministry a large number who are the salt of the earth and whose life work bears witness to their fitness. But unfortunately there are men who seem ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... unto the communion of the mysteries of Christ every Sabbath and Lord's Day, let them loose their girdles and put off the goatskin, and enter with only their cuculla [cf. DCA]. But he made the cuculla for them without any fleece, as for boys; and he commanded to place upon them certain branding marks ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... plays. Critics pointed out to him his anachronisms, and well-intentioned readers set him right on points of morality and law. When he was old, and ill, and ruined, there was yet no respite from the curse of correspondents. A year before his death he wrote dejectedly in his journal:—"A fleece of letters which must be answered, I suppose; all from persons—my zealous admirers, of course—who expect me to make up whatever losses have been their lot, raise them to a desirable rank, and stand their protector and patron. I must, they take it ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... Meanwhile, the prudent husbandman is found In mutual duties striving with his ground; And half the year he care of that does take That half the year grateful returns does make Each fertile month does some new gifts present, And with new work his industry content: This the young lamb, that the soft fleece doth yield, This loads with hay, and that with corn the field: All sorts of fruit crown the rich autumn's pride: And on a swelling hill's warm stony side, The powerful princely purple of the vine, Twice dyed with the redoubled sun, does shine. In th' evening to a fair ensuing ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... are concerned, there is a good deal of the virtue of wool in such a snow-fall. How it protects the grass, the plants, the roots of the trees, and the worms, insects, and smaller animals in the ground! It is a veritable fleece, beneath which the shivering earth ("the frozen hills ached with pain," says one of our young poets) is restored to warmth. When the temperature of the air is at zero, the thermometer, placed at the surface of the ground beneath a foot and a half of snow, would probably ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... account with a mission, which he terminated so entirely to my satisfaction, that had I been king, I should have instantly created him knight of all my orders, even had I been able to offer him the Golden Fleece and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... number, well I ween, As all must know, who aught can tell Of sacred lore or glamour spell; Strip them of their gaudy hides, Saffron garb of Pagan brides, And like the Argonauts of Greece, Treasure up their Golden Fleece. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... in thy sensual fleece O turn aside, and take, I pray, That he below may rest in peace, Thy pin-point ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... soothe his vanity by letters and messengers, urging upon him the propriety of reconciling himself with the King, and promising him large rewards and magnificent employments in the royal service. Even the splendid insignia of the Golden Fleece were dangled before his eyes. It is certain that the bold Hollander was not seduced by these visions, but there is no doubt that he listened to the voice of the tempter. He unquestionably neglected his duty. Week after week he remained, at Ostend, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... world. Ashes of roses! There were no ashes here. It was the rose, itself; a world veiled in gold mist, wind-blown, flame-fired of joy, little cressets of fire edging every ridge. The sheep browsing in the Valley, the fleece-clouds herding mid the winds of the upper peaks, you hardly knew which shone whiter. The burnished mountain with its silver cross and wings of light, opal about the peaks, melting in fading lines about the base, with ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... she spoke. "You ought to go, Jeannot, now; you are so late. I will come and see your mother to-morrow. And do not be cross, you dear big Jeannot. Days are too short to snip them up into little bits by bad temper; it is only a stupid sheep-shearer that spoils the fleece by snapping at it sharp and hard; that is what Father ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... heroes, sailors in the Argo, who, under the command of Jason, sailed for Colchis in quest of the golden fleece, which was guarded by a dragon that never slept, a perilous venture, but it proved successful with the assistance of Medea, the daughter of the king, whom, with the fleece, Jason in the end brought away with him to be ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... guard a certain fleece, In vain is all the watchman's care; 'Tis labour lost, if Beauty chance To ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... at work among them, and the stubborn churls will not without instruction under your hand and seal. The farms your father worked himself I have reaped, but last night every grain of corn and every fleece of wool were burned in ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... Bay ash (CORYMBOSA and TESSELLARIS respectively)—and two acacias are represented, the former developing into great trees of economic value, the latter being comparatively short-lived and ornamental. The young shoots of Acacia flavescens are covered as with golden fleece, and its globular flowers are pale yellow. The wood resembles in tint and texture its ally, the raspberry-jam wood of Western Australia, though lacking its significant and remarkable aroma. ACACIA AULACOCARPA displays ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... European powers; and reliant upon the kingship of cotton inducing early recognition, both believed that the ships of England and France—disregarding the impotent paper closure—would soon crowd southern wharves and exchange the royal fleece for the luxuries, no less than the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... knew a garden green and fair, Flanking our London river's tide, And you would think, to breathe its air And roam its virgin lawns beside, All shimmering in their velvet fleece, "Nothing can hurt ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... methods of chivalry have undergone some modification since the days of Queen Anne, and that the Blue Ribbon of the Garter, which ranks with the Golden Fleece and makes its wearer a comrade of all the crowned heads of Europe, is attained by arts more dignified than those which awoke the picturesque satire of Dean Swift. But I do not ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... purpose to trace my future progress through life. I had extricated myself, or rather had been freed by my friends, from the brambles and thickets of the law; but, as befell the sheep in the fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind me. Something remained, however: I was in the season for exertion, and, as my good mother used to say, there was always life for living folk. Stern necessity gave my manhood that prudence which my youth was a stranger ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Fleece" :   material, bill, pelage, squeeze, cheat, coat, rip off, leather, fleecy, textile, fabric, charge, rack, wring, undercharge, extort, gouge, trim, shave, chisel, cloth



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