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Quill   Listen
noun
Quill  n.  
1.
One of the large feathers of a bird's wing, or one of the rectrices of the tail; also, the stock of such a feather.
2.
A pen for writing made by sharpening and splitting the point or nib of the stock of a feather; as, history is the proper subject of his quill.
3.
(Zool.)
(a)
A spine of the hedgehog or porcupine.
(b)
The pen of a squid. See Pen.
4.
(Mus.)
(a)
The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.
(b)
The tube of a musical instrument. "He touched the tender stops of various quills."
5.
Something having the form of a quill; as:
(a)
The fold or plain of a ruff.
(b)
(Weaving) A spindle, or spool, as of reed or wood, upon which the thread for the woof is wound in a shuttle.
(c)
(Mach.) A hollow spindle.
6.
(Pharm.) A roll of dried bark; as, a quill of cinnamon or of cinchona.
Quill bit, a bit for boring resembling the half of a reed split lengthways and having its end sharpened like a gouge.
Quill driver, one who works with a pen; a writer; a clerk. (Jocose)
Quill nib, a small quill pen made to be used with a holder.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quill" Quotes from Famous Books



... with his crop rapped upon the factor's door. Old Islay came out with a quill behind his ear and a ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... amazement, alternately at the writing and the gray unknown. Meanwhile, with a new-cut quill he had taken up a drop of blood which flowed from a fresh thorn-scratch on my hand and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... ink the ocean fill, Were the whole world of parchment made, Were every single stick a quill, And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of God alone, Would drain the ocean dry, Nor could the earth contain the scroll, Though ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... was going to be published soon, and all the rest were helping her "make her fix." Coverlets were being got into the loom, and the great wheel and little wheel going all day Jamie liked to help them "quill." But the best of all, both for him and me, were the quiltings; for these brought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... of small things" is good pathology as well as Scripture. Here we have a little, worm-shaped tag, or side branch, of the food-tube, barely three or four inches long, of about the diameter of a small quill and of a calibre that will barely admit an ordinary knitting needle. And yet we speak of it with bated breath. When we remember that this little, twisted, blind tube opens directly out of one of the largest pouches of the intestines (the caecum), ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... quill of the devil's pinion saw I," replied Wildrake. "He supposes himself too secure of an old cavalier, who must steal, hang, or drown, in the long run, so he gives himself no trouble to look after the assured booty. But I heard the serving-fellows ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... 1915. Alexandria.—Quill driving and dictating. Have made several remonstrances lately at the way McMahon is permitting the Egyptian Press to betray our intentions, numbers, etc. It is almost incredible and Maxwell doesn't see his way ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... how to use their wings to propel themselves through the air, but the mechanism of the act we may not be able to analyze. I do not know how a butterfly propels itself against a breeze with its quill-less wings, but we know that it does do it. As its wings are neither convex nor concave, like a bird's, one would think that the upward and downward strokes would neutralize each other; but they do not. Strong winds often carry them out over large bodies of water; but such a master flyer ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... could take offence While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, 'A painted mistress, or a purling stream.' 150 Yet then did Gildon[101] draw his venal quill; I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd—I was not in debt. If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... into the cave. The leaves were thick on the floor. The Sibyl picked them up and wrote with an eagle's quill on each. ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... Those raise the song divine, and these advance In measur'd steps to form the solemn dance. There Orpheus graceful in his long attire, In seven divisions strikes the sounding lyre; Across the chords the quivering quill he flings, Or with his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... sticks in such a manner as to raise the hive so as to give the bees rapid ingress and egress. If the bees act reluctantly in taking possession of their new habitation, disturb them by brushing them with a goose-quill or some other instrument, not harsh, and they will soon enter. In case it is found necessary to invert the hive to receive the bees, (which is frequent, from the manner of their alighting,) then, first secure the drawers down to the floor by ...
— A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing Bees • John M. Weeks

... rich grayish brown, with plum-colored tints showing through the brown on crest, throat, breast, wings, and tail. A velvety-black line on forehead runs through the eye and back of crest. Chin black; crest conspicuous; breast lighter than the back, and shading into yellow underneath. Wings have quill-shafts of secondaries elongated, and with brilliant vermilion tips like drops of sealing-wax, rarely seen on tail quills, which have yellow bands across the end. Female — With duller plumage, smaller crest, and narrower tail-band. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... with E. J. Bowes, I'd rather talk with E. J. Bowes, In woodlands where the sunlight gleams Across the golden Lake of Dreams Than drive a quill ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... cowries and reels of cotton; pots of odorous pomatum and shea-butter nuts; feathers of the plantain-bird and country snuff-boxes of a chestnut-like fruit (a strychnine?) from which the powder is inhaled, more majorum, through a quill; physic-nuts (tiglium, or croton), a favourite but painful native remedy; horns of the goat and antelope, possibly intended for fetish 'medicine;' blue-stone, colcothar and other drugs. Amongst the edibles appeared huge achatinae, which make an excellent soup, equal to ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... before it was converted into a vast reservoir to supply Liverpool with water was that of Cynon. Of this Spirit Mr. Evans writes thus:—"Yspryd Cynon was a mischievous goblin, which was put down by Dic Spot and put in a quill, and placed under a large stone in the river below Cynon Isaf. The stone is called 'Careg yr Yspryd,' the Ghost Stone. This one received the following instructions, that he was to remain under the stone until the water should work its way between the stone ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... of the Duchesse de Polignac is a droll imitation of a line in the "Mercure Galant." In the quarrel scene one of the lawyers says to his brother quill: 'Ton pere etait aveugle et jouait ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... tracks—a young woman descended from a Pullman at the front of the train. She was lithe and graceful, rather tall and slender, and was dressed with effective simplicity in a blue tailored suit and a tan straw hat with a single blue quill. Her face was flushed, and there glowed an expectant brightness in her brown eyes, as though happiness and affection were upon the point ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... either bamboo or rattan, and usually nothing is placed under the head, but sometimes small wooden blocks are used. In the morning when they arise they roll the mats, and the chamber-work is done. A young girl whom I measured had her hair fastened up with the quill of a porcupine; when asked to undo her hair, she put the quill under the top of her skirt. The Bukits possess one musical instrument, sarunai, a kind of clarinet, which does not sound badly. There are many blians, nearly all men. Several prominent members of the tribe asserted ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... Sir Condy, or more willing to pay every man his own as far as he was able, which is as much as any one can do. "Well," says he, joking like with Jason, "I wish we could settle it all with a stroke of my grey goose quill. What signifies making me wade through all this ocean of papers here; can't you now, who understand drawing out an account, debtor and creditor, just sit down here at the corner of the table and get it done out for me, that I may have a clear view of the balance, which is all I need ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... seldom indeed that I give any attention to insulting letters, but I cannot refrain from paying my respects to one Byron Jassack Wales, who, with gray goose-quill for Pelian spear, charges down on the ICONOCLAST as blithely as a gay moss-trooper making an English swine-herd hard to catch. Such insults usually come unsigned—are simply crass insolence which their cowardly authors fear to father; ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... teeth with a silver quill, "Friends," said he, "it was not convenient for me to come into the dining-room just yet, but for fear my absence should cause you any inconvenience, I gave over my own pleasure: permit me, however, to finish my game." A slave followed with a terebinth table and crystal dice, and I noted ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... joy to your lodges, or I shall live among the dogs and old women for the remainder of my days. My friends, you saw which way my feather flew. I shall hold my shield in that direction, and the lightning will draw a great cloud, and this arrow, which is feathered with the quill of the white swan will make ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... other of the quintuple correspondents, till it reaches the ear, and the liver of the author.[75] Your adventure, however, is truly laughable—but how could you be such a potatoe? You 'a brother' (of the quill) too, 'near the throne,' to confide to a man's own publisher (who has 'bought,' or rather sold, 'golden opinions' about him) such a damnatory parenthesis! 'Between you and me,' quotha—it reminds me of a passage ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... looks. There was nothing else remarkable about him but his quickness; he was perpetually on the alert; by constant activity, the rust was never allowed to collect on his faculties; his sharpness was distressing,—he appeared subject to a tense strain. Now his quill scratched over the paper unconcernedly, while he could join as easily in his master's conversation; nothing seemed to preoccupy him, or he held a mind open at every point. It is pitiful to remember him that morning, sitting quiet, unconscious, and free, utterly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Cysts, containing a small Quantity of Matter, though capable of containing near two Ounces each; one situated between the vesiculae seminales and Rectum, the other between the vesiculae and Bladder, which opened into the Urethra by one common Orifice, capable of admitting a large Quill, at the Side of the caput galinaginis. The rest of the Viscera ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... never took a skin from a buck, nor a quill from a goose, in my life! I knock them over, now and then, for a meal, and sometimes to keep my finger true to the touch; but when hunger is satisfied, the prairie wolves get the remainder. No—no—I keep to my calling; which pays me better, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... have heard that on a day Mine host's sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till An Astrologer's old quill To a sheepskin gave the story, Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new-old sign Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... by pounding, to a substance resembling flour, like which it thickens by boiling, and is of an agreeable flavour: it is eaten frequently in its raw state either green or dried. The second species was much mutilated, but appeared to be fibrous; it is of a cylindrical form about the size of a small quill, hard and brittle. A part of the rind which had not been detached in the preparation was hard and black, but the rest of the root was perfectly white; this the Indiana informed us was always boiled ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... in width, pliant and firm, can be folded up, and enclosed in the shell of a large walnut. It can hold in its breadth one line, which can contain 30 verses, and in its length 250 lines. With a crow-quill the writing can be perfect. A page of this piece of vellum will then contain 7500 verses, and the reverse as much; the whole 15,000 verses of the Iliad. And this he proved by using a piece of paper, and with a common pen. The thing is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Unless obedient to an honest heart. And such a one is his, for whom, to-night, These walls are crowded with this cheering sight Ye love the poet—oft have conned him o'er, Knew ye the man, ye'd love him ten times more. Ye critics, spare him from your tongue and quill, Ye gods, applaud him; ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... who tried to eat another yellow dog who belonged to the same gang. There's a mighty difference between the canine and the human, eh? You're one of our breed, Armstrong—yellow dog of the yellow dog quill-driving tribe—and your comrades haven't the gentlemanly instinct of the Constantinople cur. They get round you and worry you,' he declaimed, rising, and striding about the room, with an occasional double-handed ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... the first two pages of your letter might have been written with a turkey-cock's quill, they actually gobble in the pugnacity of their style, and as it lies by me, the very paper goes fr-fr-fr. But you shall keep that identical picture, my dearest, since you have grown to like it; so shake your feathers smooth again, funny woman that you are! and let ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... mysterious figure of the other man haunt the evidence. The tenant's testimony was not regarded as trustworthy by the Stewart party; it tended to prove that Allan expected a change of clothes and money to be sent to him, and he also wrote the letter (with a wood-pigeon's quill, and powder and water) to William Stewart, asking for money. But Allan might do all this relying on his own message sent by Donald Stewart, on the night of the murder, to James of the Glens, and knowing, as he must have done, that William Stewart was James's agent ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... spontaneously-flowing sap gathered round projecting twigs. Brazilians of all classes still use it extensively in the form of syringes, for injections form a great feature in the popular system of cures; the rubber for this purpose is made into a pear- shaped bottle, and a quill fixed ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... will seek a blessing on our enterprise by taking earthly precautions to secure its success. You, prince, will use the quill of diplomacy, and I shall make ready to defend my right with a hundred thousand trusty Austrians to back me. To-night I march a portion of my men into ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... walls appeared lined with books, the old spinet gave way to the secretaire of some man of learning, whose full-bottomed wig was peering above the back of a red-leather arm-chair. I could hear the quill coursing over the paper. The learned man, buried in thought, never moved; the silence ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... retort, when he was anticipated by a new speaker. It was Quill, the journalist, who has long thin fingers and indigestion. At meals he pecks suspiciously at his plate, and he eats food substitutes. Quill runs a financial supplement, or something of that kind, to a daily paper. He always knows ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... . vpon the highest hights Of Arlo-hill (Who knowes not Arlo-hill?) That is the highest head (in all mens sights) Of my old father Mole, whom Shepheards quill Renowmed hath with hymnes ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales

... Gillie, I think, I am nearly sure, there is a feather in this cushion that has the quill in it yet. ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... creased and cracked all over like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have thought there was not room for another. Her eyes were dark and bright She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick glance ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... it will be so," answered John; "and if rest is what thou needest for thy recovery, it will not be lacking to thee here. It is well that the sword is not the only weapon thou lovest, but that the quill and the lore of the wise of the earth ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... but the great fish had now had enough of it. He was still striking the water, but his movements were becoming slower, for he was weakened by the loss of blood from the stabs he had received from below, and from the arrows, many of which were now buried to the goose quill in him. In a minute or two he gradually turned on one side, and floated, with his white belly ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... is an extraordinary Pleasure for this new Father to hear out of all their prittle pratlings how sweetly they will commend the Quill that hath received all the Colchester Oisters, Cox-combs, Sweetbreads, Lam-stones, and many other such like things, for they have found by experience that such sort of ingredients occasion very ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... I writ this book, Made of a grey goose-quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... first comes, is protected by a little case, and the end of the feather, which sticks out of the tip of the case, does look very much like the soft hairs at the end of a paint-brush, the kind that has a hollow quill stem, you know. After they were once started, dear me, how those feathers grew! It seemed no time at all before they covered up the ear-holes in the side of his head, and no time at all before a little bristle fringe grew ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... and the proud Pathan who attains a commission, and deports himself like an officer, never thinks himself, or is thought by others, deficient in anything that constitutes the gentleman, because he happens not to be at the same time a clerk. He has from his childhood been taught to consider the quill and the sword as two distinct professions, both useful and honourable when honourably pursued; and having chosen the sword, he thinks he does quite enough in learning how to use and support it through all grades, and ought not to be expected to encroach on the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... heels had it been draped on her. It was a chintz valance with birds of paradise patterned on its pink back-ground, and there was pink silk quilled into the quaint tester overhead, reminding her of old Jeremy's favorite quill dahlias. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... quill feather go all over the ham with beaten yolk of egg. Then cover it thickly with pounded cracker, made as fine as flour, or with grated crumbs of stale bread. Lastly go over it with thick cream. Put it to brown in the ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... originated from the fact that one day, while leaving the swamp, a big feather with a shaft over twenty inches long came spinning and swirling earthward and fell in the author's path. Instantly she looked upward to locate the bird, which from the size and formation of the quill could have been nothing but an eagle; her eyes, well trained and fairly keen though they were, could not see the bird, which must have been soaring above range. Familiar with the life of the vulture family, the author changed the bird from which the feather ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... pointed to where Ted's cactus was ambling indignantly away with every quill rattling and set straight out in anger at having his morning nap disturbed. Kalitan wrapped Ted's hand in soft mud, which took the pain out, but he couldn't use it much for the next few days, and did not feel eager to hunt when his father and the Tyee started out in the morning. Kalitan remained ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet

... some merely instruments of percussion. In the early sculptures, indeed, only two or three musical instruments are represented. One is a kind of harp, held between the left arm and the side, and played with one hand by means of a quill or plectrum. [PLATE CXXVI., Fig. 3.] Another is a lyre, played by the hand; while a third is apparently cymbal. But in the later times we see besides these instruments—a harp of a different make played with both hands, two or ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... mean?" cried the old red hen, As mad as hops was she. "Oh, I've been 'round among great men, In the world where the great men be. And none of them scratch with their claws like you, They write with a quill like me." ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... their children's children, that they might know what he had said. Then he gave them many presents of such things as they liked. They gave Penn a name in their own language. They named him "O-nas." That was their word for a feather. As the white people used a pen made out of a quill or feather, they called a pen "o-nas." That is why they ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston

... reasonable forecast and despatch, To ensure a side-box station at half-price. You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress, His daily fare as delicate. Alas! He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet. The rout is folly's circle which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoyed into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow early gray, but never wise; There form connections, and acquire ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... Australia is the alpha and omega. Yet there were no poor! a grand reflection for the serious. Adam Smith, settled the question of "the wealth of nations." The source of pauperism will be settled in Victoria by any quill-driver, who has the pluck to write the history of public-houses in the towns, and sly-grog sellers ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... next narrated the plans he had adopted, and was adopting, for the benefit of all who became Chartists. He anticipated great results from his scheme of labour palaces—denied the propriety of being placed in the election returns as a feather in the quill of Whiggery—was an earnest advocate for the amelioration of Ireland, and still willing and determined to agitate for their cause. He would go to parliament, and record his first motion for 'The people's charter, and no surrender.' The meeting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... mind came back at once from its own pursuits. He gave the most earnest attention to Ambrose's little difficulties, and did not rest till he was sure that they were cleared away; then he took up his squeaking quill-pen again, gave a push to his wig, and scribbled ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... have you been the slaves Of these conniving knaves Now's your relief. Swear you no longer will, Neither in shop nor mill, Tremble for pen or quill, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... there; but of which one would like to have had king Dietrich's opinion. Did he felicitate himself like a simple Teuton, on the wonderful learning and eloquence of his Greek-Roman secretary? Or did he laugh a royal laugh at the whole letter, and crack a royal joke at Cassiodorus and all quill-driving schoolmasters and lawyers—the two classes of men whom the Goths hated especially, and at the end to which they by their pedantries had brought imperial Rome? One would like to know. For not only was Dietrich no scholar himself, but he ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... taught him how to prepare these colors, to which he added another, namely, indigo, which his mother gave him from her laundry. His colors were rude enough, but his pencils were ruder. They were made of the hairs which he had pulled from a cat's back and fastened in the end of a goose-quill. Soon after this, a relative from Philadelphia, chancing to visit the old homestead, was struck with the talent of the little fellow, and upon his return to the city sent him a box of colors, with pencils and canvas and a few prints. He was ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... William Field was no ways concern'd in Mr. Kneebone's Robbery; but that being a Brother of the Quill; Blewskin and himself told him the particulars, and manner of the Facts, and that all he Swore against him at his Tryal was False, and that he had other Authority for it, than what came out of their (Sheppard and Blewskin) Mouths, who actually ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... sweet-scented. They are produced along the margins of the broad, flat, deeply-notched branches, the serratures being rounded instead of angled, as in some of the kinds. The tube of the flower is long and slender, no thicker than a goose quill, and covered with reddish scales; the petals are spreading, and form a cup 6 in. across; they are narrow, pointed, and pure white, the outer whorl, as well as the sepals, being tinged on the under side with a tawny colour. ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... by my side, and we passed our leisure hours very pleasantly in communicating to each other our past adventures. His knowledge of life was limited, having resided in that inkstand, and performed all the writing of the family, ever since he was a quill. But his experience was wise and virtuous; and he could bear witness to many an industrious effort at improvement, in which he had been the willing instrument; and to many a hard struggle for honesty and independence, ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown

... live a long while In continual smile, And eat roast and boil, And not be forgotten, When ye are dead and rotten; That ye would be quiet, and peaceably dwell, And never fall out, but p—s all in a quill. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... did not know it in his dungeon. All he knew was that Sergeant Perkins returned, and stood looking at him, picking his teeth with a quill. This little Bolshevik had stood the water-cure longer than any man whom Perkins had ever known, and he wondered vaguely what sort of damned fool he was, what he thought he was ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... a cuif tak' up a quill, Wha ne'er did aught that he did well, To gar the muses rant and reel, An' flaunt and swagger, Nae doubt ye 'll say 't is that ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... first proof that that gentleman, individually and collectively, was not deficient in a sense of humor. The sketch represented a disheveled scribe seated three quarters submerged in a bottle of ink, from the half-open cover of which his quill pen projected like a signal of distress. This was accompanied by an inscription to the effect that as the Russian censor had blacked so many other people, he might now sit in the black for a while himself. Perhaps the censor thought that remarks ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... Creek," said Kiddie, "with a pebble atop ter keep it in place. Quill end pointed south-east—direction of White ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... Here I drop the quill, for my tale is told. For me, life is full of many quiet interests and much happiness, but even now there grips me at times a longing for those mad wild days, when death hung on a hair's breadth, and the glamour of romance beckoned the feathered ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... a 'country store' before I got my fall," he explained, "though if I have got to that I had better go back to England, where those fellows get a half-holiday on Saturdays and lots of bank holidays, and are in civilization at least. Perhaps if the governor saw me with a quill behind my ear, or riding down to the city on top of a 'bus, smoking a pipe, he'd do something for me for the honor of the family. But he's in a beastly humor now, and wouldn't send me a fiver to save my life. He says that I'm not worth my salt anywhere, and that he washes his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... agrant of arms was made to a Lincolnshire family named Tetlow, which, with thirteen other figures, includes the representation of a book duly clasped and ornamented, having on it a silver penny; while above the book rests a dove, holding in its beak a crow-quill! This was to commemorate one of the family having, with a crow-quill, actually achieved the exploit of writing the Lord's Prayer within the compass of a silver penny. Amongst the most objectionable of the arms of this class are those which were granted to distinguished naval and military officers—arms, ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... soldier was his theme, my name—my name [namme de plume] was nor far off.' King James forgot how many weapons this man carried. He took one sword from him, he did not know that that pen, that harmless goose-quill, carried in its sheath another. He did not know what strategical operations the scholar, who was 'an old soldier' and a politician also, was capable of conducting under such conditions. Those were narrow quarters for 'the Shepherd of the Ocean,' for ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... bow towards Cornish, and resumed his seat. All were watching Lord Ferriby's face, except Major White, who examined a quill pen with short-sighted absorption. Lord Ferriby looked ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... Drill, we must get our prisoners into the abbey with as little noise as possible, in order that the horse may continue their gambols along the coast, without coming to devour our meal. All the fuss must be made at the war-office: for that trifle you may trust me; I think I know who holds a quill that is as good in its way as the sword he wears. Drill is a short name, and can easily be written within the folds of ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... contemporary wits and poets. He was, at least in his literary career, jealous, envious, irritable, vain, pedantic and bombastical, petulant and quarrelsome,—ever on the watch for an affront, and always in the attitude of a fretful porcupine with a quill pointed in every direction against real or supposititious enemies. In such a state of mental alarm and physical vaporing did he live, that he seems to have proclaimed a promiscuous war against all gainsayers,— that is, the literary world; and for the better assurance to them of his indomitable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... that is the journey to Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers and artistic notabilities, I mean those who are no good, ride in the New Year's-night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them, they're too stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to draw their enmity ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... collected under paper-weights. It took Tom Buller just two minutes to note all these objects, and then the doctor looked up with an expression of vacancy which vanished when he saw who stood before him. He tossed his quill-pen down, took off his spectacles, ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... Further, theft can be committed in small even as in great things. But it seems unreasonable for a man to be punished with eternal death for the theft of a small thing such as a needle or a quill. Therefore theft is not a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... his starched neckcloth, had been a delegate to the Continental Congress and a jurist of distinction. Beside him on a table were some papers, obviously of the first importance, for they were plastered with seals, a copy of Coke on Lyttleton, and an inkpot with a quill sticking out of it. His arm was lying lightly on the table, his cherubic face smiling back at its observer wherever he stood; and Tom imagined that his next move would be, after the manner of his great-great-granddaughter, to rise with a sweep ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... clavichord, in that the latter ceased to sound when the key which moved the bridge was released, whereas the harpsichord required what is called a "damper" to stop the sound when the key came up; once the string was touched by the quill, all command of the tone by the key was lost. To regulate this, a device was added to the instrument by means of which a damper fell on the string when the key was released, ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... seat, sir," said the general, and went on to the end of his page. Having here signed his name, he dropped the quill and slightly turned so as to face the waiting officer. From under his high bronzed forehead his blue eyes looked quietly ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... sacksfull to putrify, in order to obtain afterwards a four-fold price?—what is the half-naked soldier who takes your garment away with his sword, to the lawyer, who takes your whole estate from you with a goose's quill, without any claim or bond upon it?—and what is the pickpocket who takes five pounds, to the cogger of dice who will cheat you of a hundred in the third part of a night?—and what is the jockey who tricks you in some old unsound horse, to ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... who found fault with him. The newspapers all took sides against him, for both political parties dreaded the agitation of the slavery question, and Phillips could rarely look into one of them without meeting with a savage attack on himself by some subaltern who knew of no better use for his quill than the manufacture of these venomous darts. Neither could he walk through the streets of Boston without hearing himself cursed and execrated. Meanwhile Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. L. Maria Child extolled him to the skies. Faithful and undistorted picture ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... forward a sheet of paper, bites the end of her quill, and cries great drops of tears on the blotting-book. In a straggling hand she addresses an envelope to Mrs. Mounteagle, placing therein that unlucky letter ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... slight deviations—almost always due north, and with its limpid waters was of extraordinary beauty. The country was open on the right side of us. We saw that day two white urubu (Cathartes). The Brazilians have a curious superstition about them. They say that if you write with a quill taken from the wing of one of these birds any business which you may be transacting will go well; in fact, anything you may wish to do and which you set down on paper with one of these quills and ink is sure to turn ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... but the scratching of the quill pen as it flies over the paper, and the chirping of a bullfinch in ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... any of its neighbours of the grove in conjugal and parental affection, for it builds its nest, hatches its own eggs, and rears its own young, Wilson assures us. It is about a foot in length, clothed in a dark drab suit with a silken greenish gloss. A ruddy cinnamon tints the quill-feathers of the wings; and the tail consists partly of black feathers tipped with white, the two outer ones being of the same tint as the back. The under surface is a pure white. It has a long curved bill of a greyish-black ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... wall at either side, and over the fire-place itself two doors opened and there were shelves inside, broader at the top as the chimney sloped back. I saw some writing on one of these doors and went nearer to read it. There was a date at the top, some time in 1802, and his reverence had had a good quill pen and ink which bravely stood the test of time; he must have been a tall man to have written so high. I thought it might be some record of a great storm or other notable event in his house or parish, but I was amused to find that he had written ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... his quill in ink once more and started writing his book. It is not yet known how ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... resemblance between the hero of the sock and buskin and the Knight of the quill. The former dresses up his person and adopts the language of another, in order to represent a certain character; the latter clothes his ideas in an appropriate garb of words, and puts sentiments in the mouths of his characters which are not always his own. But I was speaking ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... in the morning betimes, plum your ground, gage your line, bait your hook with a red knotted worme; but I hold a Menow better: put the hook in at the back of the Menow, betwixt the fish and the skin, that the Menow may swim up and down alive, being boyed up with a Cork or Quill, that the Menow may have liberty to swimme a foot off the ground: there is no doubt ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker

... not the man. John Randolph expressed the real feeling of his nature toward soldiers, when, a few years later, on the same floor, he said: "If I must have a master, let him be one with epaulets; something which I can look up to; but not a master with a quill behind his ear." In 1800, however, it pleased him to style the soldiers of the United States ragamuffins and mercenaries; which induced two young officers to push, hustle, and otherwise discommode and insult him at the theatre. Strange ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... and irregular; some hiccup. A silk ligature was placed round the small puncture in the stomach, and the displaced viscera returned, after enlarging the external wound. This last was closed by the quill suture. Warm fomentations and abstinence from food and drink enjoined. 2nd day, some re-action; had been sick in the night from some drink given; is free from pain; pulse 120; pain on pressure; an enema ordered. Evening, a dose of castor oil, and twenty ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... should you be arrested. I will give you a list of the gentlemen on whom you have to call, which you had best learn by heart and destroy before you cross the frontier. You shall have one paper only, and that written so small that it can be carried in a quill. This you can show to one after the other. If you find you are in danger of arrest you can destroy or swallow it. I will give them to you at the prince's levee this afternoon, and will send to your tent a purse ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... of drawers—the drawers in the bureau and the bookcases were opened and shut sharply—writing-paper was flung on the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen. The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the house of the head ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... themselves. Black ink was early used, though it is certain that it was either kept in a solid state, like India ink, or that it was of the consistency of glue, and needed the application of water before it could be used. For pens, the iron stylus, the reed, needle, and quill (though the last was not admitted without a struggle) were the common ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... sometimes for days he would feed upon the prospect of the most childish trifle because it would break in some slight degree the uniformity of his toil. For example, he would sometimes change from quill to steel pens and back again, and he found himself actually looking forward with a kind of joy—merely because of the variation—to the day on which he had fixed to go back to the quill after using steel. He would determine, two or three days beforehand, to get up ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... performed, he rubs himself all over with the blubber, then anoints his favourite wives, and thus prepared cuts his way through the blubber into the flesh or beef, the grain of which is about as firm as a goose-quill, of this he selects the nicest morsels, and either broils them on the fire or cooks them as kabobs by cutting them into small pieces and spitting ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... and about the size of a small pigeon. Their back, and upper side of their wings, their feet and bills, are of a blue-grey colour. Their bellies, and under side of their wings are white, a little tinged with blue. The upper side of their quill feathers is a dark-blue tinged with black. A streak is formed by feathers nearly of this colour, along the upper parts of the wings, and crossing the back a little above the tail. The end of the tail feathers is also of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... The gaoler reads the commitment, draws a book deliberately from off a side window, spreads it open on his desk, and commences humming an air. "Pootty smart sums, eh!" he says, looking up at the sheriff, as he holds a quill in his left hand, and feels with the fingers of his right for a knife, which, he observes, he always keeps in his right vest pocket. "We have a poor debtor's calendar for registering these things. I do these things different from other gaolers, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... the Last Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took his seat before a folio of paper, a pink blotting-pad, and two clean quill pens, with a resolve to maintain the cause of justice, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... you were in America with that fine face and your ready quill, you would have no need to be condescended ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... at her desk, writing to Sister Cecilia, whom she most loved of all the world, when the bells startled her with their sudden clangor. The quill dropped from her hand; she started to her feet, wide-eyed, not understanding; while the whole town, drowsing peacefully a moment ago, resounded immediately with a loud confusion. She ran to the front door and looked out, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... dipped the quill in the ink, and, with her head on one side, and her lips set very firmly together, carefully wrote: ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... doses of Peruvian bark frequently repeated, and it was said that he found such infinite benefit from it, that he advised his brothers never to travel without having a good supply. The Emperor, since the plague, always has by him a sufficient quantity of quill bark to supply his emergency. 183 Case V.—H.L. was smitten with the plague, which affected him by a pain similar to that of a long needle (as he expressed himself) repeatedly plunged into his groin. In an hour or two afterwards, a (jimmera) ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... not give up. She saved up every groschen that was given her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother Solomon, who was proud of his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... young lady. She wears more "jewelry," as certain young ladies call their trinkets, than I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing and bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet which will add the missing string to our social harp. I hear talk of a rare Miss who is ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... dey cum ta our barn an' jine in an' if dey had a gal on dis plantation dey lob, den dat wuz da time dey would court. Dey would swing to de band dat made de music. My brother wuz de captain ob de quill band an' dey sure could make you shout an' dance til you quz [TR: wuz?] nigh 'bout exhausted. Atta findin' ya gal ta dat dance den you gits passes to come courtin' on Sundays. Den de most ob dom dey ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... of the Common Life, who made a business of transcribing books; and, indeed, so profitably, that, for instance, Ian van Enkhuisen of Zwolle received five hundred golden gulden for a Bible. On account of the goose-quill which the brothers wore in their hats, they were familiarly known as the ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... the fellow That came with this device. 'Twas queintly carried: The stalke pluckt cleanly out, and in the quill This scroll conveyd. What ere it be the Prince Shall instantly ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... limitations force into perfection, in, and out of season. The violet eyes and crocus fingers of Spring smiled and quivered, at sight of the crimson rose heart, and flaming paeony cheeks of royal Summer; and creamy and purple chrysanthemums that quill their laces over the russet robes of Autumn, here stared in indignant amazement, at the premature presumption of snowy regal camellias, audaciously advancing to crown the icy brows of Winter. All latitudes, all seasons have become bound vassals to the great God Gold; ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... "Better the stroke of the Red Axe than that of the scrivener's goose-quill. My solution is kindlier, sooner over, hurts less, and is all ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... send him a line by his hands. Thus he secures a letter from her, but learns that the artful minx had written it before he entered. Her ink-stained fingers, the disappearance of a sheet of paper from his writing desk, and the condition of his quill pen convince Bartolo on his return that he is being deceived, and he resolves that henceforth his ward shall be more closely confined than ever. And so he informs her, while she mimics his angry gestures behind his back. In another moment there is a boisterous knocking and shouting ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... in him, indeed, a vast deal of the philosopher and the observer of nature and still more, perhaps, of the artist in English; but there was also not a little of the cockney sportsman. He never rose above the low-lived worm and quill; his prey was commonly those fish that are the scorn of the true angler, for he knew naught of trout and grayling, yet was deeply interested in such base creatures (and such poor eating) as chub and roach and dace; and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... from its habit of following the sheep. Adjutant, the nickname of the solemn Indian stork, is clearly due to Mr Atkins, and the secretary bird is so named because some of his head feathers suggest a quill ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... regular order from the lowest to the highest degree of the attendant women. But it certainly was perhaps a little too much of a departure from the usages of a Court when the monarch, about to sign an important document in the presence of his State Council, flung down the quill with which he had begun to write and proclaimed it to ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... pen at the advanced age of fifty-six ... I drove the quill thirty years, during which time I ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... were exchanged by the Council and Grower nearly ate the end of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfrae the young Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad as he would ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... about, carrying the ink pot into which she frequently dipped the big quill pen. She overlooked nothing in the scantily furnished house. She even went so far as to timidly suggest that certain articles of furniture might well be replaced by more attractive ones, and he had promptly agreed. At last she announced that ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... a small dark object lying on the silvery sands. When she reached it, she found it was a little cask, which the smell declared to contain rum. By the smell, and the cask being light, it was clear that some of the spirit had been spilled. Annie found a small hole, beside which lay a quill. She feared that this told too plainly of the neighbourhood of smugglers, and her heart sunk. She went on, and immediately saw another dark object lying on the beach—a person, as she thought. It was a woman, in the common country clothing, sound asleep. Annie hastened to wake ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau

... wolf with a dead bird in his mouth, its body wonderfully true in expression of the passiveness of death. The feathers are each wrought with a central quill and ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... looked around the wigwam, he knew that Nihka must have been there, for everything had fallen on the floor as if struck by her wings, and the floor of the lodge was covered with ashes. The fire was out, and in the centre of it lay the quill of a goose. Wesakchak picked it up, and saw that a little piece of birch bark was rolled inside. He pulled it out, and as he did so, he heard the honk-honk of a wild goose, and Nihka flew in ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister

... to recognize Eugenius IV, and derides the pope of Ripaille and of Basel, as she will declare in a new assembly of Bourges in 1440. Above certain laws which men write on sheets of paper, with a goose-quill and ink, they bear in themselves another law, written by the hand of God, and which is good sense. Happy the nations which never depart from this living and general law, or which, at least, know enough to return to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... quite out of pens, and not able to persuade the Tripolines to send me up a few quills, I cut out several ostrich quills, and had the pleasure, for the first time in my life, of writing with an ostrich pen. I cut several, and amused and satirized myself by writing in my journal with one quill, "James Richardson has much to learn;" with another quill, "Richardson, James, must take care of his health," &c., "YĆ¢kob Richardson was an egregious ass to come into The Desert," &c., &c. These quills are very firm, if not fine and flexible, and it is a good substitute in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... required information. Hans in his heart thought he spelt it wrong, but he did not dare to say so. Then came another pause, only interrupted by the slow scratching of a quill across the dirty paper, during which Hans nearly went to sleep; for the weather was very hot, and he was tired with ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... image light, brightness; for a shadow-casting body bulk; for a man genius, great achievements, amiability, and so on. In this case it is, as the sonnet says, distinctive quality in genius. ... By moonmarks I mean crescent-shaped markings on the quill- feathers, either in the colouring of the feather or made by the overlapping of one on another.' Letter to R. B., May ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... each a scruple; musk, two grains; make a powder. The best part of the cure is taking care of the nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If it be from corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the tongue, and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If there be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad and elk's hoof. In the fit, give epileptic ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... painting need, And therefore to your fair no painting set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... otter, with only his mouth and nostrils above the water. Nay, a whole gang of banditti would, in the twinkling of an eye, transform itself into a crowd of harmless labourers. Every man took his gun to pieces, hid the lock in his clothes, stuck a cork in the muzzle, stopped the touch hole with a quill, and threw the weapon into the next pond. Nothing was to be seen but a train of poor rustics who had not so much as a cudgel among them, and whose humble look and crouching walk seemed to show that their spirit was thoroughly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... him occupying himself with inventions connected with the manufacture of pens and paper. His little pen-making machine for readily making quill pens long continued in use, until driven out by the invention of the steel pen; but his patent for making paper by machinery, though ingenious, like everything he did, does not seem to have been adopted, the inventions of Fourdrinier and Donkin in this direction having shortly superseded all ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... taken down. She was very sorry for her sister, though she could not approve her views of things. Neither did she know well what to say to them. So she kept silence; until Maria stopped sobbing, dried her eyes, washed her hands, and began to quill her blue trimming again. ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... parson perch'd on fortune's top, A man with snug appointments, children, wife, And money to defy the ills of life? If such a man prove such a Philistine, What shall of us poor copyists be said? Of me, who drive the quill and rule the line, A man engaged and shortly to be wed, With family in prospect—and so forth? [More vehemently. O, if I only had a well-lined berth, I'd bind the armour'd helmet on my head, And cry defiance to united earth! And were I only unengaged like you, Trust me, ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... progress was slow and tedious, owing to his weakness, the rough country, and the deepening snow. Towards noon he came upon the newly made track of a porcupine, followed it a short distance into a clump of trees, where he soon saw the round quill-covered animal in the snow and shot it. Immediately he built a fire, and singed off quills and hair. Then, as he related to me afterwards, he considered, talking aloud to himself, what was best to do with ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... was George Fairburn, who ought to have been driving a quill in the office of Mr. Allan, shipping merchant, of London, sailing to join the allied forces in Spain, and to fight against the French. His head swam with the ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead

... round, and with markets not far away. Of course, he is too young yet, but unless he is going to walk in your steps and turn sailor he might do worse than come out to me in three or four years' time. Rough as the life is, it is a man's life, and a week of it is worth more than a year's quill-driving in an office. It is a pity your family have run to girls, for if one boy had made up his mind for the sea you might have ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... her long and gleaming teeth. Presently Astarte appeared to doze off. Her eyes were shut, her attitude relaxed. But so soon as ever her master moved even an inch to consult a marked list of dates which hung on a hook beside him, or leaned over to dip a quill in his scarlet ink, the flashing yellow eye and the gleam of white teeth underneath told that Astarte was awake and intently watching every ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Among the latter were Mrs. Tynan and her daughter and Malachi Deely; among those who held their breath in suspence were John Sibley, Studd Bradley the financier, and the Young Doctor. The swish of a skirt seemed ridiculously loud in the hush, and the scratching of the judge's quill ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... said, too, that it should perish through a goose (oie), and as the word "Huss" means a goose in Bohemian patois, it was said afterward that the writings of Huss, or more truly, perhaps, the work of the goose-quill, had fulfilled the prophecy in undermining and finally subverting the order. There were also disputes respecting the taxes, which the people declared to be oppressive, and finally, in 1454, a formidable rebellion took place against the authority of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various



Words linked to "Quill" :   porcupine, primary, quill feather, Erinaceus europaeus, plumage, primary quill, plume, pinion, hedgehog, Erinaceus europeaeus, wing, feather, pen, rib, tail feather, quill pen, primary feather, calamus, shaft, flight feather



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