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Hem   Listen
noun
Hem  n.  
1.
The edge or border of a garment or cloth, doubled over and sewed, to strengthen it and prevent raveling.
2.
Border; edge; margin. "Hem of the sea."
3.
A border made on sheet-metal ware by doubling over the edge of the sheet, to stiffen it and remove the sharp edge.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hem" Quotes from Famous Books



... states and with the resources of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil troubles had left hem. The laws were violated only in cases where the safety of the Protector's person and government was concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government since the Reformation, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... radiant image rise, The flowing hair, the pitying eyes, The faintly crimsoned cheek that shows The blush of Sharon's opening rose, Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat, Thy lips would press his garment's hem That curl in ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... way to Hazebrouck on the 13th, I saw Smith-Dorrien for a short time. He was holding his own, and during the day his left (3rd Division) made good progress, reaching Pont du Hem ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... star, with the wan moon in its wake, marched across the Pacific, trailed the thunderstorms like the hem of a robe, and the growing tidal wave that toiled behind it, frothing and eager, poured over island and island and swept them clear of men. Until that wave came at last—in a blinding light and with the breath of a furnace, swift and terrible ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... letter that Mrs. —- did not know me. I now begin to find she does not intend to know me; that she cares nothing about me, except to contrive how the greatest possible quantity of labour may be got out of me; and to that end she overwhelms me with oceans of needle-work; yards of cambric to hem, muslin nightcaps to make, and, above all things, dolls to dress. I do not think she likes me at all, because I can't help being shy in such an entirely novel scene, surrounded as I have hitherto been by strange and constantly changing faces . . . I used to think I should like to ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... (do you mark, sir?), being sick of the plague (do you see, sir?), had a, a, a—hem, hem (this cold troubles me; it makes me cough sometimes extremely)—had a French crown, sir, (you understand me?) lying by him, and (come hither, come hither), and would not bestow twopence (do you hear?) to buy an urinal (do you mark me?) ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... to mingle with them and to catch the secret of their divine power. The germ of the godlike within his bosom bursts and springs. What they were, why may not he also become? What bars are thrown athwart his path, what obstacles hem his way, which, whoever in any age has excelled, has not had to break down and surmount? Here the wise teacher comes to cheer him, to tell him his faith is not wrong, his hope not without promise of attainment if he but trust himself, and bend his whole mind to the task; that ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... to get the handkerchief out of her drawer she saw her bureau was yet in disorder. "Mamma will be displeased to see this," she thought, "and I shall have time enough to put it in order and hem papa's handkerchief beside." She went eagerly to work, but the bureau took her longer than she anticipated, and when her father came home to dinner she had not ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... to be only an ordinary peasant; but his host knew him well enough, though he pretended not, and had made up his mind to box Old Hornie's ears if he could. One evening the Old Boy began to complain of the hard life of a bachelor, and how he had nobody to knit him a pair of stockings or to hem a handkerchief. The barn-keeper answered, "Why don't you go a-wooing, my brother?" The Old Boy returned, "I've tried my luck often enough, but the girls won't have me. The younger and prettier they are, the more they laugh ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... Hamoud said gently, when he had looked round the tent. As she made no reply, he was about to withdraw; but, kneeling down, instead, he raised the weighted hem of the mosquito net, to take her hand and press it ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... anybody nowadays for all I see, what with our picnics and excursions down the Bay and the clam bakes and winter lecture course and the young folks 'Circle' and two or three dances to help out—and now here are my girls that can't be satisfied to sit down and hem good crash towels for their mother, but must turn themselves into boys, and play ranchmen and baseball and hockey on the ice, and Wild West shows with the dogs and the pony—and even riding him a-straddle—and want to go to college just because their two brothers ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew—not from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel's son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered the Colonel ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... opened the matter to Madame Cervin, a short, stout woman, with no neck, and a keen, small eye. Money was her daily and hourly preoccupation, and she could have kissed the hem of Elise Delaunay's dress in gratitude for these few francs thus placed in her way. It was some time now since she had lost her last boarder, and had not been able to obtain another. She took David aside, and, while her look sparkled with covetousness, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... 'Hem! The Celtic blood is all in commotion! This boy's business was to ask my candid opinion whether there were anything ungentlemanlike in a clerkship in a bank. It was well it was ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of some intimation of immortality. But no, there is nothing to do but sit there, useless as an incubator with no eggs in it. The processes of wasting and decay are hurrying us rapidly to a pauperish grave, every instant brings us closer to a notice in the obit column, and yet we sit and sit ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... the farmer of Grand-Pre Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household. Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal, Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest devotion; Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment! Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended, And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps, Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron; Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... must own,' said the aedile Pansa, 'that your house, though scarcely larger than a case for one's fibulae, is a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted is that parting of Achilles and Briseis!—what a style!—what heads!—what a-hem!' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... from whom he has been separated so long. Not to interfere with family privacy, will you let me assist at the conference?" said Jack Wentworth. "My brother, I understand, is a friend of yours, and your brother—is a—hem—friend of mine," the diplomatist added, scarcely able to avoid making a wry face over the statement. Wodehouse came in behind, looking an inch or two taller for that acknowledgment, and sat down, confronting his sisters, who were standing on the defensive. The heir, too, had a strong ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... them through the country to open shops of their own. As it is, I do not know a city in which a place exists to which a housekeeper could send a week's wash, sure that it would be returned with every button-hole, button, hem, gusset and stay in proper condition. These mending-shops should take on apprentices, who should be sent to the house to do every sort of repairing with a needle. I would open another school to train women to every kind of trivial service, now clumsily or inadequately ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... saw the hills the war well and san thar Love to you. I war sory to hear that My brother war sol i am glad that i did come away when i did god works all the things for the Best he is young he may get a long in the wole May god Bless hem ef you have any News from Petersburg Va Plas Rite me a word when you anser this Letter and ef any person came form home Letter Me know. Please sen me one of your Paper that had the under grands R wrod give My Love to Mr Careter ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... Boreel, in de voorleeden week ter vergaderinge gepraesideert hebbende heeft aan Haar Hoog Mogende voorgedragen en bekend gemaakt dat den heer John Adams, afgezant van de (p. 072) Vereenigde Staten van America, voorleeden saturdag bij hem was geweest en aan hem overgeleevert hadde een missive van de vergadering van 't Congres, geschreeven te Philadelphia den 1 January 1781, houdende creditif op gemelde heer Adams, om in qualitiet als hunnen minister plenipotentiars bij Haar ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... incense should be holy (Exo 29:37). A woman with a bloody issue touched him, and is whole of her plague (Mark 5:28). Yea, they brought to him many diseased persons, 'and besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment; and as many as touched were made ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... "'"Hem!" muttered Billy, and he scratched his head. After an interval of half an hour, the Commissioner who had been his former ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... upon my bed of oats; But see that globe come rolling down its stem Now like a lonely planet there it floats, And now it sinks into my garment's hem. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... Ellen Bourne went through the new-fallen snow of their wood lot. Her feet left scuffled tracks clouded about by the brushing of her gown's wet hem and by a dragging corner of shawl. She came to a little evergreen tree, not four feet tall, with low-growing boughs, and she stood looking at it until her husband, who was also following ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... is so ille, the sipes that arn on se fordriven (loth hem is deth, and lef to liven) biloken hem and sen this fis; an eilond he wenen it is. Thereof he aren swithe fagen, and mid here migt tharto he dragen, sipes onfesten, and alle up gangen. Of ston mid stel in the tunder wel to brennen one this wunder, warmen hem wel and heten and drinken; ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... the power to make you share this conviction,' he protested, ardently. He had forgotten himself; he made a step towards her—perhaps he stumbled. To me he seemed to be stooping low as if to touch the hem of her garment. And then the appropriate gesture came. She snatched her skirt away from his polluting contact and averted her head with an upward tilt. It was magnificently done, this gesture of conventionally unstained honour, of an unblemished ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... kunnen sie wol friunden geben. swem s[o] s[i] witze b[i], 130 der sol n[a]ch ir hulden streben unde zinsen in s[i]n leben: da[z] r[a]te ich [u]f die triwe m[i]n. swer [e]ren s[ae]lic welle s[i]n und r[i]che an h[o]hem muote, 135 der sol mit triwen guotiu w[i]p reht minnen als s[i]n selbes l[i]p. vil guot vor allem guote ist der w[i]be g[u:]ete, unde ir sch[oe]ne sch[oe]ne ob aller sch[oe]ne. ir sch[oe]ne ir g[u:]ete ir werdikeit ich ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright

... One "altogether lovely," as "the chiefest," the only, "among ten thousand." Soulless famine had fled. Agnosticism, pantheism, and theosophy were void. Being was beautiful, its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea. I had touched the hem of ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... image rise,— The midnight hair, the starlit eyes; The faintly-crimsoned cheek that shows The stain of Judah's dusky rose. Thy hands would clasp His hallowed feet Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat; Thy lips would press His garment's hem, That curl ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... paws planted on the hem of Phebe's skirt, was barking madly and making little lunges ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... twenty-six inches from shoulder to hem. It may easily be made longer, if desired, but the model is an excellent one for ordinary wear, and very "natty," and it has the merit of ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous

... a thick and unbroken hedge along the river Peribonka; but the leafless stems did not shut away the steeply sloping bank, the levels of the frozen river, the dark hem of the woods crowding to the farther edge-leaving between the solitude of the great trees, thick-set and erect, and the bare desolateness of the ice only room for a few narrow fields, still for the most part uncouth with stumps, so narrow indeed that they seemed to be constrained ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawship; and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambres and the stables weren wide, And wel we weren esed atte beste. And shortly, whan the sonne was gone to reste So hadde I spoken with hem everich on, That I was of hir ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... School and lessons claimed most of her time, and even on Saturdays she was so useful at home that they found it difficult to manage without her. Seven younger brothers and sisters all looked to Patty to settle their quarrels, hem their boat sails, dress their dolls, kiss their bumps and bruises better, sympathize with their small woes and troubles, tell them stories, invent new games, and generally take the lead in all the important matters of the nursery. She was her mother's right ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... controversies of the early Christian centuries. To Greek, Hebrew was added, so that both Old and New Testaments were known in their proper tongues. About the time when "Ragallac son of Uatac was pierced on the back of a white steed," Saint Camin in his island school at Inis Caltra, where red mountains hem in Lough Derg of the Shannon, was writing his Commentary on the Psalms, recording the Hebrew readings on the margin of the page. A few years before that battle, in 634, Saint Cummian of Durrow, some thirty miles to the east of Camin's Holy Island, wrote to his brother, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... doll's petticoat, or contrive a pin-cushion to surprise mamma, sewing is a mere galling of the fingers and strain upon the patience. Every wry stitch shows, and is pretty sure to be remarked upon: the seam or hem seems longer the oftener it is measured, till the little work-woman becomes capable of the enterprise of despatching a whole one at a sitting; after which the glory is found to ameliorate the toil, and there is a chance that the girl may become fond ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... by the hem of my robe as I descended my rostrum, (oh! would you could have seen me!—per fede I had caught your mantle!—I was a second you!) and said, weeping like a child, 'Ah, Signor, I am but a poor man, and of little worth; but if every drop of blood in this body ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... influence the drama has exerted upon civilization. It has made good morals entertaining. I am to be followed by Mr. Pinero. I conceive that we stand at the head of the profession. He has not written as many plays as I have, but he has lead that God-given talent, which I lack, of working hem off on the manager. I couple his name with this toast, and add the hope that his influence will be supported in exercising his masterly handicraft in that great gift, and that he will long live to continue his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... trav'lling dreams, and these My soul adores—my words condemn— Oh, I would fall upon my knees To kiss their golden garments' hem, Yet words do lie in wait to seize And ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson

... tidings came to the Sybil o' the Side, By the water-side as she ran; She took her kirtle by the hem, And fast ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... the new-comer, bent with his lamp, lifted delicately the hem of the new-comer's trousers, and gazed at the colour of ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... the hem of his white apron through the great marble-paved dining-room out into the smoke-browned kitchen ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... more than a piano, though he is fond of any music. The first time he heard one he quickly hopped across to the player, pulled at the hem of her dress, flew up to her lap, then her arm, and mounted to her shoulder, where he stood some time, looking and listening, turning his head this way and that, raising his crest, jerking his body, and in every way showing intense ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... usually bad and sometimes steep and perilous, passes through flower-gemmed alpine meadows, along dark gorges above the booming and rushing Sind, through woods matted with the sweet white jasmine, the lower hem of the pine and deodar forests which ascend the mountains to a considerable altitude, past rifts giving glimpses of dazzling snow-peaks, over grassy slopes dotted with villages, houses, and shrines embosomed in walnut groves, in sight of the frowning crags of Haramuk, through wooded ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... down to posterity, It will survive in eternity. Truly you hate with a lasting hate; Think you you will escape that hate? "Hate by water and hate by land; Hate of the head and hate of the hand." Black and bitter and bad as sin, Take you care lest it hem you in, Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone, And curses, like chickens, find roost at home ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... banquet of this grand firework, and the cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around the priest of harmony, shuddering on his tripod; and the young beauties, who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hem of his cloak; and the sincere homage drawn from serious minds and the feverish applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bow down, and the narrow hearts, marveling to find themselves expanding '.... It is a dream, one of those golden dreams one has when ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... brother was not forgotten. On the table were two packages directed to him. One of these contained a dozen fine hem-stitched pocket handkerchiefs, with the initials of his name beautifully worked in a corner of each. This had been done by Anna, who was very skilful in such dainty arts. The other package consisted of a complete set ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... beautiful you are! I dare not look at you. It is all over with me when I contemplate you. You are a grace. I know not what is the matter with me. The hem of your gown, when the tip of your shoe peeps from beneath, upsets me. And then, what an enchanted gleam when you open your thought even but a little! You talk astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are a dream. Speak, I listen, I admire. Oh Cosette! ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... He could do more in five minutes to make me see a point than Bradley can in an hour. Bradley's a pretty good lawyer, as the average run of small lawyers go, but Judge Knowles is away above the average. Bradley will hem and haw and 'rather think' this and 'it would seem as if' that, but the judge will say a hundred words, and two of 'em swear words, and there is the answer, complete, plain and demonstrated. I do like Judge Knowles. I only hope he ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... chairs in the presence of the Queen. Such trifles were serious matters at the old court of France. There were precedents on both sides: but Lewis decided the point against his own blood. Some ladies of illustrious rank omitted the ceremony of kissing the hem of Mary's robe. Lewis remarked the omission, and noticed it in such a voice and with such a look that the whole peerage was ever after ready to kiss her shoe. When Esther, just written by Racine, was acted at Saint Cyr, Mary had the seat of honour. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... below the symbol into fringe. I would paint the butterflies red, yellow and blue, which are the colors that represent Work, Health and Love. You could also produce the colors by sewing beads over the design. So much for your symbol. Now in the middle of the hem in the front of your dress you may put the Winnebago symbol—the sign of your tribe. You will find it on the banner before the tents and over the fireplace in the shack, as well as on all the girls' costumes. It is the Indian ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... doubtless examples of secret regeneration in the time of our Lord and his apostles, as well as in our own time. He knew this woman's case as well as he knew the case of the woman who pressed through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. That woman, when she was healed, would have kept her case secret at the time if she could; she was put about and ashamed when she was called in public, and her experience proclaimed in the crowd. It suited the purpose of the Lord to make ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... which hides itself under the edge of a bush, or close against a low tree, bearing its pink and coral treasures modestly out of sight, until a flower-seeking eye spies it, glowing like a gem in the green world about it. Under the shrubs which hem in our nook on one side grows here and there a rosy cyclamen; out in the sunshine are bunches of bluebells; down the bank beside the water are great masses of golden columbine, while a fragrant veil of ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... escape; anywhere, anywhere, only let it be a big town where the inhabitants don't stare at you as if you were a wild animal. Stuttgart is full of stare-cats (as is Berlin for that matter). And those hills that at first are so attractive—they hem in the entire city, which is bowl-shaped, in a valley—become monotonous. They stifle you. To live up there on the heights is another thing; then the sky is an accomplice in your optical pleasures, but below—especially when the days are rainy and the nights doleful, as they ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... wide hem of her black calico skirt, and proceeded to pick out the stitches which held it securely. When she had ripped the thread about a quarter of a yard, she raised the edge of the unusually deep hem, and drew out a white handkerchief with ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... scented his linen and person with peculiar richness this day; and what must have been the valet's astonishment, when, after some blushing and hesitation on Harry's part, the young gentleman asked, "I say, Anatole, when I engaged you, didn't you—hem—didn't you say that you could ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... distribution of coppers which had taken place at their first onslaught, were collecting about the table with clamorous entreaties for l'ultimo. Uncle Dan had begun it by his inability to resist the supplicating eyes of a beatific midget who chewed the hem of her frock with the whitest of little teeth. Kenwick, taking his cue from the Colonel, had mischievously carried out the principle, by presenting a soldo to each one of the assembly having the slightest pretence to comeliness. Upon which the two Pollys, unable to tolerate ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller

... not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... fastened?" she whispered, as she bent over him. Dacres felt her breath upon his cheek; the hem of her garment touched his sleeve, and a thrill passed through him. He felt as though he would like to be forever thus, with her bending ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... 'It ain't been moved since Posie left; and that's the apron she was hemmin', layin' over the arm of it, jist as she flung it. I'm in hopes,' she goes on, 'that Posie'll finish runnin' out that hem some day.'" ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... she was told that no person, excepting the physician appointed by her family, was to be permitted to see the lady at the end of the gallery, she opened her keen eyes still wider, and uttered a—"hem!" before she enquired—"Why?" She was briefly told, in reply, that the malady was hereditary, and the fits not occurring but at very long and irregular intervals, she must be carefully watched; for the length of these lucid periods only rendered her more mischievous, when any vexation or caprice ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... have doubted her having one—were a constant anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to have "followers"; and though she had answered, innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she spoke, "Please, ma'am, I never had more than one at a time," Miss Matty prohibited that one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was all fancy, or else I should have said myself that I had seen a man's coat-tails whisk into ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Captain Rayburn. "You may hem steadily for two hours on flannel petticoats. If that won't make it up to you I don't ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... not hem the flight of the melody. But at the height a redoubled pace turns the mood back to revelling mirth with broken bits of the horn tune. Indeed the crisis comes with a new rage of this symbol of mad abandon, in demonic strife with the ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... arched over the bed and covered with white cotton cloth. Sometimes, as a protection against rain, a large square of black oil-cloth was spread over the white cover. The front of the wagon was left open: at the back the cover was drawn together by a string run through the hem. Before leaving his old home the farmer generally held a public sale and disposed of his household furniture, farming utensils and the horses and cattle he did not intend to take with him. Sometimes this property went by private sale to the purchaser of his farm. He reserved the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... pale-cheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear with the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption points their place in the procession. With their sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science has unavailingly ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of human nature, Peter dropped his eyes to the man's long, claw-like fingers. These were twitching ever so slightly, plucking slowly—it may have been meditatively—at the hem of his black silk coat. At the intentness of Peter's stare, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... comes of using one's eyes too well, my young Monsieur. Hem! I'm not so blind but that I can see as far ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... in the washed air. There were moments when the sky appeared ceiled with phosphor, which a misty cloud had just brushed and set to dazzling. Something in the soil made them talk of girls—and Bedient drew forth for Cairns (to see the hem of her garment)—a certain hushed vision named Adelaide.... At last, the Train made Manila, wreck that it was, after majestic service; and the great gray mantle, a sort of moveless twilight, settled down upon Luzon and the archipelago. Within its folds was a mammoth condenser, contracting to drench ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... was found afterwards to be of great size, and to fairly hem them in to the eastward, so after several disappointments they turned to the westward to examine some of the streams crossed by Grey during his unfortunate expedition to Shark's Bay. On the head of one of these rivers (the Arrowsmith), which from the uncertainty of Grey's ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... sword protruded from the open edges of his cloak. The parted edges disclosed also the butts of two flintlock pistols. The Koran in a velvet case hung on his breast by a red cord of silk. He was pious, magnificent, and warlike, with calm movements and a straight glance from under the hem of the simple piece of linen covering his head. He carried himself rigidly and his bearing had a sort of solemn modesty. Lingard said hurriedly to Mrs. Travers that the man had met white people before and that, should he ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... extravagances. When we entered the court yard, we were surrounded by a vast number, who crowded together so closely to see us that several were in danger of being squeezed to death; those who were near Don Rodrigo fell upon their knees, and kissed his hand, or the hem of his garment, praying aloud for long life and prosperity to him; others approached Narcissa and me in the same manner; while the rest clapped their hands at a distance, and invoked heaven to shower its choicest blessings on our heads! In short, the whole scene, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... of it; and you will have touched the hem of the [1] garment of Jesus' idea of matter, Christ was "the way;" since Life and Truth were the way that gave us, through a human person, a spiritual revelation of man's possible ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... the adjoining streets. The handful of light-horse who had escorted the Duke's carriage formed a single line at the foot of the steps, so that the approach to the porch was still clear; but it was plain that the crowd, with its next movement, would break through this slender barrier and hem in the Duke. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... with hair that was ashen under the moon and honey-coloured under the sputtering gas-lamps of the porch. Over her shoulders was thrown a Spanish mantilla of softest yellow, butterflied in black; her feet were glittering buttons at the hem of her bustled dress. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... departed! For alas! my son and hero, Valiant hero of the islands, Son of trouble and misfortune! Some sad fate has overtaken My ill-fated Lemminkainen! Blood is flowing from his hair-brush, Oozing from its golden bristles, And the drops are scarlet-colored." Quick her garment's hem she clutches, On her arm she throws her long-robes, Fleetly flies upon her journey; With her might she hastens northward, Mountains tremble from her footsteps, Valleys rise and heights are lowered, Highlands soon become as lowlands, All ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... in white embroidery—satin stitch they call it? Were they all formed of little flowers curling in and out about the letters; and was the chemise of fine cambric with a narrow hem?" ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland

... stalked the two Indians, Tayoga and Tandakora. The Ojibway wore a feather headdress, and a scarlet blanket of richest texture was draped around his body, its hem meeting his finely tanned deerskin leggings, while his feet were encased in beaded moccasins. Nevertheless he looked, in those surroundings, which belonged so thoroughly to an exotic civilization, more gigantic and savage ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... and lifted the hem of her dress just two inches—the discreetest, the modestest gesture. He had a transient vision of something ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... nor yellow—but it looks all right by night. She said Mr. Wilson didn't like to see her in it. Of course, she's bigger than you, but they wear things so short and loose nowadays that I dare say if I hem the bottom up it will be all right. My word, I am glad I thought of it. I hate keeping ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose

... stone coping, close to her foot. She felt him take hold of her gown with those deft, masterful fingers. Then he bent his dark head quickly, and whispering: "I kiss the cross," with a gesture of infinite reverence and tenderness, which Jane never forgot, he kissed the hem of her skirt. The next moment ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... and looking straight into the king's eyes, he pleaded for the life of Jeremiah. He spoke very fast, his grey head shaking and his lips trembling. At last he finished his impassioned speech, prostrated himself before Zedekiah and kissed the hem ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... over bents which the mill-stream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes; And good Mrs. Trimmer ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... lakes of water into the air, tossing it up thousands of feet with their delicate fingers, and carefully picking every grain of salt from it before they let it go. No granite reservoirs are needed to hold in the Cochituates and Crotons of the atmosphere, but the soft outlines of the clouds hem in the vast weight of the upper tides that are to cool the globe, and the winds harness themselves as steeds to the silken caldrons and hurry them along through space, while they disburse their rivers of moisture from their great height so ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... enough to slay him!— Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head, His every smile and word As we sat by our fire, stung my fool's heart.— How we laughed to see him curtsey, Fidget strings about his waist,— Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys' hem Drawing it tight about his neck, 'just like Our Baucis.' Could not sleep For thinking of the life they lead in towns; He said so: when, at last, He sighed from dreamland, thoughts I had been day-long ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... coast,—the squaws would display a bit of colored cloth in their costumes; a few of the men carried ancient guns, and occasionally one was decorated with a ruinous old hat or the remains of a sailor's pea-jacket. These poor people had touched the hem of the garment of civilization, and had felt some of its meaner virtue pass into them. They showed daily less and less of barbaric manliness; they were becoming from day to day more vicious, thievish, and beggarly. The whites ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton

... hanging about with a man. It sounded like yon chemist chap from the description. You were seen entering a cab and driving away. I won't tell you"—he stepped backwards, swelled a little, and became the respectable man who has to hem a dry embarrassed cough before he speaks of evil—"what the client made of it all." And then he bent again in that contracted, loathing attitude, as if they were standing in an unspacious sewer and she had led him there, and with that viscous sibilance he said ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... But the gulf which separated them from that Church did not thereby become narrower. That gulf was caused by the social and political separation of these Jewish Christians, whatever mental attitude, hostile or friendly, they might take up to the great Church. This Church stalked over hem with iron feet, as over a structure which in her opinion was full of contradictions throughout ("Semi-christiani"), and was disconcerted neither by the gospel of these Jewish Christians nor by ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... lifted. She turned her head slowly, and looked steadily at him. He held his breath. A cart rumbled along the cobble-stones outside; the puny wail of a child sounded across the stillness; a handful of rose leaves from a vase at the foot of the altar dropped on the hem of Madame Arnault's dress. It might have been the gaze of an angel in a world where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, so pure was it, so passionless, so free of anything like ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... had forgot. She is still unaware of my discovery. Hem! (walking up to his mother.) good woman! look me ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... Charles-Norton part of his wings; oh yes, you should really let him have a bit of these wings. And that bit, Dolly, if you are the wise and capable little girl I think you can be, you should turn to the advantage, to the preservation, to the prosperity—hem—of the home!" ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... proximity of some large creature. There was a rustling of the bushes, the sound drawing ever nearer and nearer; there was a sniffing noise, frequently increasing to a snort. With my eyes above the upper hem of my blanket I strained my vision in the direction from which the disturbance proceeded. To my agitation I perceived in the greyish gloom a large, slowly shifting black bulk, distant but a few paces from me. Naturally, I thought ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... sang. The angels, coming hither, hung gold and silver and jewels and precious stones upon the old olive, where swung the stars; so that the glory of that sight, though I might live forever, I shall never see again. When Dimas heard and saw these things he fell upon his knees, and catching the hem of the little Master's garment, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... Rome. For dress, his purple cloak, similar to those of his lictors, hung loosely from his shoulders to below his knees, and, opening in front, disclosed a corselet of leather overlaid with metal across chest and abdomen, and embossed with bronze designs of ancient pattern and workmanship. The hem of the white tunic showed below the leathern pendants that hung a foot down from his girdle; the greaves were ornamented at the knees with lions' heads; an armour-bearer carried his master's bronze helmet with its crest of divergent ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... the grief of Miss Bailey, and wild was the wailing of Mr. Diamantstein. He tore his hair, he clung to the hem of Miss Bailey's garment and he noted incidentally that it was of "all from wool goods," he cast his cherished derby upon the floor and himself ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... with—when it was the time of dusk, little Corbie sought the one he loved best of all, the one who had been most gentle with him, and snuggling close to the side of the Blue-eyed Girl, tucked his head into her sleeve or under the hem of her skirt, and crooned his sleepy ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... before her, gazed for one instant into her eyes, and then with head bowed, brushed the hem of ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... Glengarry was still unsworn, but Glengarry was too strong to be "rooted out"; William ordered his commanding officer, Livingstone, "to extirpate that sect of thieves," the Glencoe men (January 16). On the same day Dalrymple sent down orders to hem in the MacIans, and to guard all the passes, by land or water, from their glen. Of the actual method of massacre employed Dalrymple may have been ignorant; but orders "from Court" to "spare none," and to take no prisoners, were received by ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... for the sake of rhetorical effect,—a thing, I admit, very trying; but it is of the highest importance (I say this between ourselves, of course, and you may imagine that I would not give publicity to such a statement),—it is of the highest importance that the feelings of our—hem—masculine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... or superstitious, a broker's shop in a low neighbourhood is hardly the place that you will choose to visit. One does not know what unwholesome associations may be clinging to the chairs and carpets and pillows which hem you in on every side; or one naturally recalls wild stories of haunted banjoes and tambourines, and tables which are said to slide about in an uncanny fashion ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney

... mon,' He sayde, 'that wylle hereyn wende, And dwelle theryn a day and a nyght, And hold his byleve and ryght, And come ageyn that he ne dwelle, Mony a mervayle he may of telle. And alle tho that doth thys pylgrymage, I shalle hem graunt for her wage, Whether he be sqwyer or knave, Other purgatorye ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... hem in linen, remove thread from the machine and run the goods through the hemmer as though stitching; you will find a perfect hem ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... this being, of course, the general purpose of the introduction of the figures of the angels; and, I imagine, intended to be more particularly conveyed by the manner in which the small figure of Tobit follows the steps of Raphael, just touching the hem of his garment. We have next to examine the course of divinity and of natural history embodied by the old sculpture in the great series of capitals which support the lower arcade of the palace; and which, being at a height ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... in Ireland, as he now found it, the single element of discord that remained ever unchanged was Religion. He had spent the four most recent and most receptive years of his life in an atmosphere in which religion had no existence. The hem of its raiment might, perhaps, have been touched, when, as sometimes happened, the subject of a studio composition was taken from the Bible, or the Apocrypha. Then, possibly, would the young pagans ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... it at once when his teeth shone through his smile,' she said. 'He was not so tall as I, and very brown in that sorrowful light, but not black. There was a robe he wore from his neck to his ankles that left one arm bare and the little feet below its hem, and his head was bare with straight black hair upon it. His hand was on my arm, and he stood before me and looked in my face and smiled a little at me, very ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... the folds of a magnificent purple cope, embroidered with golden lilies and lined with white silk, flowed from his twisted shoulders over the black and white chequers of the pavement. And he must have dressed himself with care, too: for beneath the torn hem of the alb his feet and ankles stirred feebly, and caught my eye: and they were clad in silken stockings. He was screaming no longer. Only a moan came at intervals as he lay there, with closed eyes, in the centre of that ring of devils: ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... had not heard a tale so glad. With her snow-white hem she wiped the tears from her pretty eyes and began to thank the messenger for the tidings, which now were come. Thus her great sorrow and her weeping were taken away. She bade the messenger be seated; full ready he was for this. Then spake the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... satisfactorily arranged. Unluckily, however, as I was strolling, about a month afterwards, along the Strand, I chanced to stumble up against him. The shock seemed equally unexpected on both sides; but my tailor (as being a dun) was the first to recover self-possession; and, with a long preliminary hem!—a mute, but expressive compound of remonstrance, apology, and resolution—opened his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... good; they baited him worse'n ever. So one day I used my stick to um. Next mornin' I was down in my bake hus, makin' my batch ready fur oven, when, oothout a word o' warnin', up comes my two feet behind, down I goes head fust into my flour barrel, and them young—hem! the clergy be present—them youngsters dancin' round me like forty mad merry andrews ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... a grand reception, and tore the point lace flounce off of Mrs. Grant's train, put my handkerchief in my saucer, and my coffee-cup in my pocket. I was left to entertain a handsome young lady, and all I could say was to cough and "Hem! hem!" until at last she asked me if I had any particular article I would ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... ("Which sounded like a sort of mackintosh," said Alice afterwards), for they couldn't have afforded it themselves. "You're still young enough to take presents," said Uncle Edward. And indeed Alice was very pleased, and saw that the hem was left wide enough to let down several times. And here she is; the dress ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker

... without mentioning a name that once put on a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was to come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... he met Dubhtach Mac Ui-Lugair at Domhnach-mor of Magh-Criathar, in Ui-Cinnse-laigh, who believed for Patrick. Patrick requested from him a handsome youth who would not be of low family—a man of one wife, for whom but one son was born. "Hem," said Dubhtach, "that is Fiacc, son of Ere, I am afraid—the man of those qualities, who went from me to the territory of Connacht with poems for the kings." At these words he (Fiacc) came. "What are you considering?" asked Fiacc. "Dubhtach for the crozier," said Patrick. ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... do amazing sums in his head, so Kedzie could juggle modes and combinations, colors and stuffs, and wrap hem about herself. While Kedzie composed her new gown, her husband studied her, still wondering at her and his inability to get past the barriers of her flesh to her soul. Charity's flesh seemed but the expression of herself. It was cordial and benevolent, warm and expressive in his eyes. Her hands ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... her face to him as a child might have done; and, putting his arm round her, he bent down and kissed her, very simply and gravely. Suddenly, he took her two hands and kissed their soft palms; and then he stooped very low, and lifting the hem of her cotton frock kissed ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... have not lived in vain. Remember this always, that much as I may worship you, I honour you still more," and kneeling before her he kissed first her hand, and next the hem of her robe. Then he turned ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard



Words linked to "Hem" :   hem in, cloth, textile, stitch, material, edge, sew, utterance, hem and haw, let loose



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