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Reed   Listen
noun
Reed  n.  
1.
(Bot.) A name given to many tall and coarse grasses or grasslike plants, and their slender, often jointed, stems, such as the various kinds of bamboo, and especially the common reed of Europe and North America (Phragmites communis).
2.
A musical instrument made of the hollow joint of some plant; a rustic or pastoral pipe. "Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed Of Hermes."
3.
An arrow, as made of a reed.
4.
Straw prepared for thatching a roof. (Prov. Eng.)
5.
(Mus.)
(a)
A small piece of cane or wood attached to the mouthpiece of certain instruments, and set in vibration by the breath. In the clarinet it is a single fiat reed; in the oboe and bassoon it is double, forming a compressed tube.
(b)
One of the thin pieces of metal, the vibration of which produce the tones of a melodeon, accordeon, harmonium, or seraphine; also attached to certain sets or registers of pipes in an organ.
6.
(Weaving) A frame having parallel flat stripe of metal or reed, between which the warp threads pass, set in the swinging lathe or batten of a loom for beating up the weft; a sley. See Batten.
7.
(Mining) A tube containing the train of powder for igniting the charge in blasting.
8.
(Arch.) Same as Reeding.
Egyptian reed (Bot.), the papyrus.
Free reed (Mus.), a reed whose edges do not overlap the wind passage, used in the harmonium, concertina, etc. It is distinguished from the beating or striking reed of the organ and clarinet.
Meadow reed grass (Bot.), the Glyceria aquatica, a tall grass found in wet places.
Reed babbler. See Reedbird.
Reed bunting (Zool.)
(a)
A European sparrow (Emberiza schoeniclus) which frequents marshy places; called also reed sparrow, ring bunting.
(b)
Reedling.
Reed canary grass (Bot.), a tall wild grass (Phalaris arundinacea).
Reed grass. (Bot.)
(a)
The common reed. See Reed, 1.
(b)
A plant of the genus Sparganium; bur reed. See under Bur.
Reed organ (Mus.), an organ in which the wind acts on a set of free reeds, as the harmonium, melodeon, concertina, etc.
Reed pipe (Mus.), a pipe of an organ furnished with a reed.
Reed sparrow. (Zool.) See Reed bunting, above.
Reed stop (Mus.), a set of pipes in an organ furnished with reeds.
Reed warbler. (Zool.)
(a)
A small European warbler (Acrocephalus streperus); called also reed wren.
(b)
Any one of several species of Indian and Australian warblers of the genera Acrocephalus, Calamoherpe, and Arundinax. They are excellent singers.
Sea-sand reed (Bot.), a kind of coarse grass (Ammophila arundinacea). See Beach grass, under Beach.
Wood reed grass (Bot.), a tall, elegant grass (Cinna arundinacea), common in moist woods.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reed" Quotes from Famous Books



... safety of the State by weakness of character. At this period even Madame de Stael said, in a party where the firmness of M. Barbs Marbois was the topic of conversation—"What, he inflexible? He is only a reed bronzed!" But whatever may be the opinion entertained of the character of this Minister, it is certain that Napoleon's rage against him was unbounded. Such was the financial catastrophe which occurred during the campaign of Vienna; but all was not over with Ouvrard, and ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... face of the earth? When shall I those scenes of affection explore, Our forests, our fountains, Our hamlets, our mountains, With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore? O when shall I dance on the daisy white mead, In the shade of an elm, to the sound of the reed? ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... was the common living-room for both men and women, who slept on the reed-strewn floor, the ladies' sleeping-place being separated from the men's by the arras. The walls were hung with tapestry, woven by the skilled fingers of the ladies of the household. A peat or log ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... in a gesture of repudiation and horror; she flashed one withering, horrified look into his face, then, with a moan of anguish, she swayed like a reed broken by the tempest, and would have fallen to the floor in her spotless robes had not Gerald Goddard caught her senseless form in his arms, and, lifting her by main strength, he bore her from the room and upstairs ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... then. The duke says: "Although I was in the woods and fields of Canada and of the States in the richest moments of the spring, I heard little of that burst of song which in England comes from the blackcap, and the garden warbler, and the whitethroat, and the reed warbler, and the common wren, and (locally) from the nightingale." Our birds are more withdrawn than the English, and their notes more plaintive and intermittent. Yet there are a few days here early in May, when the house wren, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... flow. Two white-breasted greyhounds bounded before his steed. Broad collars set with rubies were on their necks; and to and fro they 15 sprang, like two sea swallows sporting around him. The blades of reed grass bent not beneath him, so light was his courser's tread, as he journeyed toward the gate ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... retreating to the shiver of the harp. She was elusive as dream, subtle as love; she intoxicated and entranced; and finally, as she threw herself on her hands, her feet, first in the air and then slowly descending, touched the ground, while her body straightened like a reed, there was a long growl of ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... Master, but through the disciple's own heart, soul, and brain. For surely not the most idolatrous of our Bible-worshipping brothers and sisters will venture to assert that the Spirit of God could speak as freely by the lips of the wind-swayed, reed-like, rebukable Peter, or of the Thomas who could believe his own eyes, but neither the word of his brethren, nor the nature of his Master, as by the lips of Him who was blind and deaf to everything but the will ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with God for the sacred fire, Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire; Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing; Two pale souls in the legion lost; lo! Love bent with a tender wing, Taught them a joy so deep, so true, it seemed that the whole-world fabric shook, Thrilled and dissolved in radiant dew; then ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... with Xolilizwe as his wife, and about three months before the feast of the first-fruits (Ukushwama). You know something about what then happens. Each chief sends away by night, and has a pumpkin, a mealie-cob, and a stick of 'imfe' (sweet-reed) stolen from the territory of some chief belonging to another tribe. These are mixed with medicines by the witch-doctor, and partaken of by the Chief and his family, in the calf-kraal before dawn on the morning of the day of the new moon. You have no doubt also ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... perform miracles which astound the world. But if he allow his mind to inquire, for instance, why it should have been necessary for Elijah to part the waters of the Jordan with his garment in order that he and Elisha might pass over dryshod, or for Bodhidharma to stand on a reed to cross the great Yangtzu River, or for innumerable Immortals to sit on 'favourable clouds' to make their journeys through space, he spoils myth—his child is stillborn or does not survive to maturity. Though the ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... but knotty enough in those days, the commissioners wrangled for nearly two years. And when the Spanish government, unable to carry on the war any longer without risk of utter bankruptcy, and daily crippled in its resources by the attacks of the Dutch navy, grudgingly a reed to a truce upon the Netherlanders' terms, it virtually acknowledged its own defeat and the downfall of the principles for which it had so obstinately fought. By the truce of 1609 the republican principle was admitted by the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... asked her if she were ready, she said "Yes, monsieur," with something very like a checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the table, and folded it round her, not only did tear after tear course unbidden down her cheek, but she shook to my ministration like a reed. I said I was sorry to see her in such low spirits, and requested to be allowed an insight into the origin thereof. She only said, "It was impossible to help it," and then voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting her hand into ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... the Pennsylvania Journal. It was on the southwest corner of Second and Market Streets, and was named the London coffee house, the second house in Philadelphia to bear that title. The building had stood since 1702, when Charles Reed, later mayor of the city, put it up on land which he bought from Letitia Penn, daughter of William Penn, the founder. Bradford was the first to use the structure for coffee-house purposes, and he tells his reason for entering upon the business in his petition to the governor for a license: ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... me humming the motives of "The Ring," and I shall always remember a pretty picture in an earlier cruise. "Jess" was a stable boy who drove our team to the point where roads ceased, and during a halt in the expedition this exuberant youth reclined upon a log, and with a pipe fashioned from a reed sought to imitate responsively the song of the white-throated sparrow. He looked for all the world like Siegfried in ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... the 23d of May, with reference to the King's reply—"That he should have been wanting to the public, as well as to himself, if he had not expressed his dissatisfaction at the late address." At the end of the Alderman's speech, in his copy of the City Addresses, Mr. Isaac Reed has inserted the following note:—"It is a curious fact, but a true one, that Beckford did not utter one syllable of this speech. It was penned by Horne Tooke, and by his art put on the records of the city and on Beckford's statue; as he told me, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Sayers, etc. at the Athenian ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... a thing cannot be obtained, then a tube made of the wood apple, or tubular stalk of the bottle gourd, or a reed made soft with oil and extracts of plants, and tied to the waist with strings, may be made use of, as also a row of soft pieces of wood ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana

... hole Of som clay habitation visit us With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light. 340 And thou shalt be our star of Arcady, Or Tyrian Cynosure. 2. Bro: Or if our eyes Be barr'd that happines, might we but hear The folded flocks pen'd in their watled cotes, Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the Lodge, or village cock Count the night watches to his feathery Dames, 'Twould be som solace yet, som little chearing In this close dungeon of innumerous bowes. But O that haples virgin our lost sister 350 Where may she wander now, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... did he see? Running as fleet over the turf as a rabbit, was a child. The little figure was quite black in the moonlight, and Hans could not catch its face: in a moment the hell-dogs were on it. Hans quivered like a windy reed, and the Wild One laughed till the very woods echoed. 'How like you hunting moss-men?' asked the Spirit. Now when Hans found it was only a moss-man, he took heart again, and said in a shaking voice, that 'It is rare good sport in good company;' and then the Spirit jumped ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... looking into the garden, is a lamp of an odd kind. This lamp has a common glass globe, about the size of an ostrich egg, which is fastened into a candle-stick by a glass tube. Through a hole at the top of the globe issues a wick which passes through a sort of reed of brass, drawing the nut-oil held in the globe through its own length coiled like a tape-worm in a surgeon's phial. The windows which look into the garden, like those that look upon the court-yard, are mullioned in stone with hexagonal leaded panes, and are draped by ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... of trouble is like a staff to one that is lame or weary. But when Laura, in these straits, leaned upon her dearest friend, Cornelia, for aid and comfort, she found but a broken reed; for, instead of words of consolation and encouragement, Cornelia uttered only dismal prophecies that Laura was surely doomed to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... here and there. We are going to call on Langalibalele, and his son, Malambuli, who are located at Uitvlugt on the Cape downs, about four miles from the town. It is a sort of farm-residence; and considering that the chief has hitherto lived in a reed hut, he is not badly off, for he has plenty of room out of doors as well as a good house over his head. We bump over some strange and rough bits of sandy road and climb up and down steep banks in a manner seldom done on wheels. There ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... was a picture of neatness and cleanliness. The walls were made of bertam (a kind of plaited reed) so as to be easily destroyed and replaced in case of infection. The floors were of cement and raised off the ground. This hospital has only been started two years, and, at the present time, possesses fifty beds. The bathing places in particular merited attention, ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser

... shipbuilders, and on quitting it had taken the assistant-secretaryship in question as an occupation pending some suitable vacancy in the Government service or some large private yard. The famous naval constructor, E. J. Reed, had started in life in precisely the same post, and it was, indeed, at his personal suggestion that my brother took it. A year or two later he and his friend Dr. Francis Elgar, subsequently Director of Dockyards and one of the ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... of Indian corn are very numerous, exhibiting every grade of size, color, and conformation, between the "chubby reed" that grows on the shores of Lake superior—the gigantic stalks of the Ohio valley—the tiny ears, with flat, close, clinging grains, of Canada—the brilliant, rounded little pearl—the bright red grains and white cob of the eight-rowed ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... himself. "I cannot quite make up my mind, but I am very sure that she is charming. Like my bracelet, this is a fancy article. She is a little thin, and her shoulders are too vigorously fashioned for her waist, which is slender and supple as a reed; but, such as she is, she has not her equal. Her walk, her carriage, resemble nothing I ever have seen before. I can well imagine that when she appears in the streets of Paris people turn to look after her, but no one would have the audacity to follow ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... occasion the idle swain had taken up his instrument within an hour or two of his early dinner. His melody was burdened with no peculiar tune, but consisted of a few low, wailing, melancholy notes, such as may be extracted from the reed by a breath and the slow raising and falling of the little finger, much, we believe, to the comfort of the player, but to the ineffable disgust of, too often, a large ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... (Fig. 1). This transmitter, represented apart in elevation and section in Fig. 2, is identical with the one used in the curious experiment with the singing condenser. At A is a mouthpiece before which the musician hums his part as upon a reed pipe. He causes the plate, B, to vibrate in unison with the sound that he emits, and this produces periodical interruptions of varying rapidity between the disk, B, and the point, C. The button, D, serves to regulate the distance in such a way that the breakings ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... Reed, Ben Gitlow and some other leading members of the Left Wing refused to go over to the Communist Party, having decided to fight for the rights of the Left Wingers in the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party. This group of Left Wingers later on, as will be seen, became the nucleus ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... the history of the country. But the Romans were not interested in "anything foreign" and did not inquire into the origin of these queer figures which covered the walls of the temples and the walls of the palaces and endless reams of flat sheets made out of the papyrus reed. The last of the Egyptian priests who had understood the holy art of making such pictures had died several years before. Egypt deprived of its independence had become a store-house filled with important historical documents which no one could decipher and ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... their stage the party came on to a black's camp, where they found some matters of interest. The natives, who were puddling a waterhole for fish, had, as was most frequent, decamped at their appearance, leaving them leisure to examine some very neatly made reed spears, tipped variously with jagged hardwood, flint, fish-bones, and iron; pieces of ship's iron were also found, and a piece of saddle girth, which caused some speculation as to how or where it ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... without marsh? Can the Nile-reed shoot up without water? Whilst still in its greenness uncut, It withereth before ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... his dealings in musical instruments. It is, he writes, his first offence, and as he has "never been in prison before," begs her not to feel it a disgrace to come and see him there. But Peace was leaning on a broken reed. Loyalty does not appear to have been Susan Thompson's strong point. In her own words she "was not of the sentimental sort." The "traitress Sue," as she is called by chroniclers of the time, had fallen a victim to the wiles of the police. Since, after Peace's arrest, she had been in possession ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... And every reed that rustles and sways By the gurgling river that plashes and plays, And the beasts of the dread, neurotic night All know the Glugs quite well by sight. And, "Why," say they; "It is easily done; For a dexter ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... septangulare, would it have shown a closer knowledge of its habits than did his careful avoidance of its vicinity, his keeping line and flies at a safe distance, as he muttered to himself, "Them pesky butt'ns agin!" He knew by sight the bur-reed of mountain ponds, with its round, prickly balls strung like big beads on the stiff, erect stalks; the little water-lobelia, with tiny purple blossoms, springing from the waters of lake and pond. He knew, too, all the strange, beautiful ...
— Fishin' Jimmy • Annie Trumbull Slosson

... past a safe reach of marsh, while our assailants were riding by cross-paths to attack us at the next bluff. It was Reed's Bluff where we were first attacked, and Scrubby Bluff, I think, was next. They were shelled in advance, but swarmed manfully to the banks again as we swept round one of the sharp angles of the stream beneath their fire. My men were now pretty ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... afternoon in June, but the young professor had forgotten the heat and the grime of the workshop. He was wholly absorbed in the making of a nondescript machine, a sort of crude harmonica with a clock-spring reed, a magnet, and a wire. It was a most absurd toy in appearance. It was unlike any other thing that had ever been made in any country. The young professor had been toiling over it for three years and it had constantly baffled him, until, on this hot afternoon in June, 1875, he heard an almost ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... present at the sale of the books of Isaac Reed, the commentator on Shakspeare, when "a Treatise on the Public Securities" was knocked down at the humble price of sixpence—the great tragedian observed, "that he had never known the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various

... "Another broken reed, my friend! If rumour speaks truly, he has made a bargain with Conde, and will support him even in open rebellion. By the way, do not wander about the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... temptations, or lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring with her irresistible ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... up!—what seest thou here To court thy anxious eyes? Earth is beneath thee, lone and drear, Above, thy native skies! Beneath, the wreck of faded bloom, The shadow, and the clod, The broken reed, the open tomb,— ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... Milton's Samson. For the comparison we are indebted to Henry Reed, Lectures on ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... hurl'd, And Bacchus' vineyards overspread the world; Where woods and forests go in goodly green;— I'll be Adonis, thou shalt be Love's Queen;— The meads, the orchards, and the primrose-lanes, Instead of sedge and reed, bear sugar-canes: Thou in those groves, by Dis above, Shalt live with me, and be my ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe

... the other. In this connection I must not omit to mention that the great majority of the documents laid before the Commission had been secured by means of bribery or theft. It is also worth while to remind the reader of the significant words of Senator Reed, a member of the Commission, who said at one point in the examination: "I am interested in trying to distil some truth from a mass of statements which are so manifestly unfair and distorted that it is hard to characterize ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... (Fr. contrebasson; Ger. Kontrafagott), a wood-wind instrument of the double reed family, which it completes as grand bass, the other members being the oboe, cor anglais, and bassoon. The contrafagotto corresponds to the double bass in strings, to the contrabass tuba in the brass wind, and to the pedal clarinet in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people who had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact I was so worn out that I could hardly walk through the building. The next morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... the order and went at once to call upon his old friend, Governor Reed. He told the Governor of his falling out with ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... 1846 that James T. Reed, of Springfield, Ill., determined to move to California. This land of promise was then a Mexican province, but Reed carefully and thoroughly had considered the question and had decided that, for his family's good, it was ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... the gallant gentleman that he was, he swore i' faith before the notary that they were of the same age, just as Robert Browning did when officially interrogated as to the age of Elizabeth Barrett. Thomas Brackett Reed avowed that no gentleman ever weighed over two hundred pounds, and I also maintain no gentleman ever married a woman older ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... entered the inner apartments of that illustrious Brahmana, like unto a cow running towards her tethered calf. She beheld the Brahmana with his wife, son and daughter, sitting with a woeful face, and she heard the Brahmana say, 'Oh, fie on this earthly life which is hollow as the reed and so fruitless after all which is based on sorrow and hath no freedom, and which hath misery for its lot! Life is sorrow and disease; life is truly a record of misery! The soul is one: but it hath to pursue virtue, wealth and pleasure. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... The reed-like murmur ended in a terrific shriek. There was a silent movement, and Sybil felt the clammy form snatched up from her side and borne away in ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... outside, a half-frozen clarinetist was sending up a mournful carol from the mouth of his reed. Somewhere in the distance a high-voiced child was singing. And the wind played a dirge as it marched past the windows ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... upon which he sought a sight of your yepissle, and read it as a thing that was just wonderful for its whorsogroffie; and then he sayid, that looking at the prinsipol of your spilling, he thought we should reed, "a gardner's bill, or a list of all flooring plants"; whilk being no doot your intent, I have proqurt the same, and it is included heerin. But, Miss Mally, I would advize you to be more exac in your inditing, that no sic torbolashon may hippen ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... a straw or a reed!" thought the boy; but there was hardly a twig of the sage-brush to be seen, and he shook ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... Pan; and, that they had designed her Mistresse of a Love-feast, which was to be kept that present day, in an Arbour built that morning, for that purpose; she told him also, that Orpheus would bee there, and bring his Harp, Pan his Pipe, and Titerus his Oaten-reed, to make musick at this feast; shee therefore perswaded him, not to lose, but change that dayes pleasure; before he could return an answer they were unawares entred into a living mooving Lane, made of Shepheard ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton

... have been suspected, has an adaptable temperament. Her natural position is upright, but like the reed, she can bend gracefully, and yields only to spring back again blithely. Since this chronicle regards her, we must try to look at existence through her eyes, and those of some of her generation and her sex: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... knob of the mission door; it yielded to her touch, and for the second time in her life Tessibel Skinner was inside the mission room. The small reed organ stood open: a hymn book stretched back with a rubber band caught her eye. A bright bit of red carpet wound its way about the altar. The squatter did not pause to examine the pictures on the wall nor even an instant before the glowing fire. Her eyes were searching ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... for its strawberries, and Celaya for its sweets, so Queretaro is famed for its huge, cheap hats, of a sort of reed, large enough to serve as umbrellas, and for its opals. From the time he steps off the train here until he boards it again, the traveler, especially the "gringo," is incessantly pestered by men and boys offering for sale these worthless bright pebbles—genuine and otherwise. Here ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... up the sun-baked bank, vanishing down a crack without a sound; it left a streak of fire in the air. A golden fly hovered about the tallest reed, then darted into another world, invisibly. A second followed it, a third, a fourth—points of gold that pinned the day fast against the moving wall of green. A wren shot at full speed along the bed of the ditch, threading its winding length together as upon a woven pattern. All were busy and intent ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... constant communication with him. Born on 3rd July 1819, at Illack, in Austria, Edward Rehatsek was educated at Buda Pesth, and in 1847 proceeded to Bombay, where he settled down as Professor of Latin and mathematics at Wilson College. He retired from his professorship in 1871, and settled in a reed-built native house, not so very much bigger than his prototype's tub, at Khetwadi. Though he had amassed money he kept no servants, but went every morning to the bazaar, and purchased his provisions, which he cooked with his own hand. He lived frugally, and his dress was mean and threadbare, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... Domingo ever yielded in the palmy days of slavery. He wanted wool, and his flocks soon overspread the plains of Australia, tendering him the finest fleeces, and his shepherds improved their leisure not in playing like Tityrus on the reed, but in opening for him mines of copper and gold. He had his eye on California, but Fremont was too quick for him, and he now contents himself with pocketing a large proportion of her gold, to say nothing of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... Hodge, if that ich could find my nee'le, by the reed, Ch'ould sew thy breeches, ich promise thee, with full good double thread, And set a patch on either knee should last this moneths twain. Now God and good Saint Sithe, I pray to ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... shell-formed hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold, and a saddle also of gold. In his hand were two spears of silver, well-tempered, headed with steel, of an edge to wound the wind and cause blood to flow, and swifter than the fall of the dew-drop from the blade of reed grass upon the earth when the dew of June is at its heaviest. A gold-hilted sword was on his thigh, and the blade was of gold, having inlaid upon it a cross of the hue of the lightning of heaven. Two brindled, white-breasted ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... at Damascus, which is a very fair and rich city, and full of all manner of merchandise; and I have been by Byzantium, and have seen all the holy relics there kept; to wit, the cross of our Lord, and His coat, and the sponge and reed wherewith the heathen Jews ['Cursed be they!' interposed Friar Andrew] did give Him to drink, and more blessed relics else than I have the time to write of, the which nathless be named, as I think, in the Travels of Sir John Maundeville. This city of Damascus ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... eating the flesh, he did not mark his own danger, for as he suddenly cast his eyes he saw a terrible foe of his arrived at that spot. That foe was none else than a restless mongoose of coppery eyes, of the name of Harita. Living in underground holes, its body resembled the flower of a reed. Allured to that spot by the scent of the mouse, the animal came there with great speed for devouring his prey. And he stood on his haunches, with head upraised, licking the corners of his mouth with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... a clear space before it for tribal dances or meetings. Ackbau also lived in a large house. On the reserve around the queen's palace, the older men spent most of the day in gossiping, or playing upon reed pipes, which furnished their sole musical instrument. The younger men made nets, mended weapons, or shaped stones for their slings. The natives in this island did not appear to understand the use of the bow and arrow, their only weapons being clubs, slings, and spears. The spears ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... start Unbidden to your eye, oh! do not blush To own it, for it speaks the gen'rous heart, Full to o'erflowing with the fervent gush Of its sweet waters. Hark! I hear the rush Of many feet, and dark-browed Mem'ry brings Her tales of by-gone pleasure but to crush The reed already bending—now, there sings The syren voice of Hope—her of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... are accustomed to wander about carrying their grass-matting huts with them. Many of them live by petty thieving and cheating. Their women practise palmistry and retail charms for the cure of sickness and for exorcising evil spirits, and love-philtres. They do cupping and tattooing and also make reed mats, cane baskets, palm-leaf mats and fans, ropes from grass- and tree-fibre, brushes for the cotton-loom, string-net purses and balls, and so on; and the women commonly dance and act as prostitutes. There is good reason for thinking that the Kanjars are the parents of the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... roaring of the flames. Cuculain was a pale red all over, for ere the last combat was at an end that pool of the Boyne was like one bath of blood. His eyes blazed terribly in his head, and his face was fearful to look upon. Like a reed in a river so he quaked and trembled, and there went out from him a moaning like the moaning of winds through deep woods or desolate glens, or over the waste places of the earth when darkness is abroad. For the war-fury which the Northmen named after the Barserkers ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... repeated the Paymaster, pinching his snuff vigorously. "Maybe they're right too. I'll tell you what. The lad's head is stuffed with wind. He goes about with notions swishing round inside that head of his, as much the plaything of nature as the reed that whistles in the wind at the riverside ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... June twenty-ninth, Captain Glazier was cordially welcomed by Colonel F. H. Ellsworth, proprietor of the Reed House, who showed him many attentions while his guest. The lecture was delivered to a full house at the Academy of Music, the introduction being made by Hon. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... himself to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and said, "Hast thou seen the son of Amram?" The tree replied, "Since the day on which he came to me to get a writing reed, wherewith to write the Torah, I have ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... supposed, by the ingenious Mr. Reed, to be the "first news-paper published in England;" we are, however, assured by the author of the "Life of Ruddiman," that it has no title to so honourable a distinction. Gallo-Belgicus appears to have been rather an ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... of cotton most carefully, so that, after an unexpectedly long war, a little was still left over. The mills which were running, displayed great assiduity in procuring and utilizing substitutes for cotton. Paper, wood, cellulose, reed and nettle fibres, and other materials were tried, some were manufactured quite extensively. During the war they did good service, but in normal times, they cannot usurp the place of cotton. After ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer

... with any grass trees, and the few spears that were seen being made of solid wood, it may be conjectured that the light grass reed spear used by the natives of Port Jackson is unknown among these people, as well as ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... reed-like, yet serving to pierce that temporary obscurity and horrible jangle of outer sounds, came the voice of ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... of that time?" parried Steinmetz, polishing his glasses with a silk handkerchief. "My memory is a broken reed—you remember?" ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... advised. The first half-hour I lost, wandering through the corridors, reading the names on the doors. There were so many people in the same office, how should I know, when I entered, which was Wilson & Reed, Solicitors, and which C. Jenkins Smith, Mortgages and Bonds? I decided that it did not matter: I would call them ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... sunshine falls on my wearied limbs, sometimes wrapping my garments around me in cold and drenching rain. I am in the hand of God; I know that; and I hope that I may dare to trust Him; but my confidence is shaken as He passes over me, as the reed in the river ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... listened there was the creaking and straining of the rough capstan used, but no shouted orders, no singing in chorus by the men tugging at the bars; all was grim silence and darkness, while we lay-to there, waiting and listening to the various faint sounds, till we heard the rattling of the reed-sails as they were hauled up. Then we knew that the junks were off, for there came to us that peculiar flapping, rattling sound made by the waves against a vessel's planks, and this was particularly loud in the case ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... is written with sprightliness and ease, and may justly claim to be considered an agreeable as well as an instructive companion. It is inscribed in a brief but modest dedication to Mrs. E. D. Reed—a lady of uncommon refinement, of manners and intellectual accomplishments. The descriptions of Madeira and Lisbon are the best we have read. The pages are uniformly enriched with sentiment, or enlivened by incident. The author, whoever ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... capable of a scientific explanation. Built in the first place to be as nearly as possible non-conducting, with an impervious "puddled" bottom, the pond is renewed every night to a certain extent by the dew which trickles down each grass and reed stem into the reservoir beneath, and to a much greater extent by the mists which drift over the edge to descend in rain on the Weald. The pools might well be called ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... illuminative reading, of their sort, for all manner of inquiring souls. A little verdant flowery island of poetic intellect, of melodious human verity; sunlit island founded on the rocks;—which the enormous circumambient continents of mown reed-grass and floating lumber, with their mountain-ranges of ejected stable-litter however alpine, cannot by any means or chance submerge: nay, I expect, they will not even quite hide it, this modest little island, from the well-discerning; ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... thought to make the nobles its tools, and only leagued with them to secure their services. The crafty Mazarin quietly beheld these dissensions, and was sure of ultimate success, even though at one time banished to Cologne. And, like a reed, he was ever ready to bend to difficulties he could not control. But he stooped to conquer. He at last got the Prince of Conde, his brother the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Longueville, in his power. When the Duke of Orleans heard of it, he said, "He has taken a good haul in the net; he ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... her flute-like voice; the flute-tone is not one a real voice need cultivate; except where it silvers the edges of a dark mass of orchestral harmony, the flute's unmitigated sweetness must and should contrast with the more clarionet and reed-like quality of a voice as rich and human as that ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... are leaning on a mighty nearly broken reed," said Mitchell. "I'm all tied up in money matters this week. But spit it out, anyhow. I've got six or seven thousand loose. If it's more than that perhaps Archie can swing it—if ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... of New England Home Life. With illustrations by C. W. Reed, and Scenes Reproduced ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... as to-night. It seemed to him that her body, with its indolence of aspect, expressed an almost superhuman courage. She was soft and fragile and weary, leaning there in her transparent black, her cheek in her hand, her elbow, in, its loose sleeve, resting on the table; but she made him think of a reed: that the ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... hard case I had came up a few days later. We drove into Reed City, and soon learned that our customer had sold out three days before. We then went to the hotel, and after putting our team out I began a search for my man, and was informed that he was carrying about two thousand dollars around in his pocket, ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... of those wretched wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish some of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass on it,) swinging like a reed, in a wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like a blade of grass? I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... a reed, like to a staff, saying: Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and those who worship therein. (2)And the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; because it was given to the Gentiles, and they will tread down the holy city forty-two months. (3)And I will give ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... being a native, and a recent product. It was powerful by its appeals to the sensuous imagination and carnal superstitions of that Iberian-Latin people. It was seductive by its mitigation of oppressive orthodoxy and inflexible prescriptive law. Where the Dominican was steel, the Jesuit was reed; where the Dominican breathed fire and fagots, the Jesuit suggested casuistical distinctions; where the Dominican raised difficulties, the Jesuit solved scruples; where the Dominican presented theological abstractions, the Jesuit offered stimulative or agreeable ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... is ended, and still keeps The stranger hidden in his dusky weed; And Nino stands, wide-eyed, as one that sleeps, And dimly wonders how his heart doth bleed. Anon he bends, yet neither moans nor weeps, But hangs atremble, like a broken reed; "Ah! bitter fate, that lured and sold us so, Poor lady mine; ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... from the North of Ireland to off Cape Horn; common, under the tropics; Mediterranean: attached to wood, cork, charcoal, sea-weed, a reed-like leaf, spirulae, cuttle-fish bones, to a bottle together with L. anatifera; to a ship's bottom, Belfast, (W. Thompson.) Often associated with L. fascicularis. Montagu states ('Test. Brit.,' p. 18) that this species ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... Ranged around the building in ring fashion, the hamlet's squat white huts stand girdled with belts of plaited wattle, shawled in the gorgeous silken scarves of gardens, and crowned with a flowered brocadework of reed-thatched roofs. In fact, they resemble a bevy of buxom babi, [Peasant women] as over and about them wave silver poplar trees, with quivering, lacelike leaves of acacias, and dark-leaved chestnuts (the leaves of the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... Elsie,—at least, so long as she remained under its influence. It was something to trust another as Jacqueline intended now to trust her friend. It was a touching sight to see her seeking her old confidence, and appearing to rely on it, while she knew how frail the reed was. But this girl, frivolous as was her spirit, this girl had come with her from the distant native village; their childhood's recollections were the same. And Jacqueline determined now to trust her. For in times of blasting heat the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... as dunces are but men of ill-balanced mental faculties, yet perhaps, in a great degree, superior to the average of minds. For instance, a poet of much merit, but more ambition, has written the "Lampiad," an epic; when he should not have dared beyond the Doric reed: his ambitious pride has prevented the publication of excellent pastorals, therefore the world only knows him for his failure. This, I say, is a likely man to become a detractor; for his good judgment shows the imperfections of most works, his own included; his ambition (an ill-combination ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... Egypt war 'gainst you prepare, What if the valiant Turks and Persians bold, Unite their forces with Cassanoe's heir? Oh then, what marble pillar shall uphold The falling trophies of your conquest fair? Trust you the monarch of the Greekish land? That reed will break; and breaking, wound ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... situated in Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Missouri, and Ohio. Families from each of these States joined the train and participated in its terrible fate; yet the party proper was organized in Sangamon County, Illinois, by George and Jacob Donner and James F. Reed. Early in April, 1846, the party set out from Springfield, Illinois, and by the first week in May reached Independence, Missouri. Here the party was increased by additional members, and the train comprised about one hundred persons.... In the ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough

... blanket and seventy-five blue egg-beads. These were accepted with the usual good grace of these people. The king then, ever attentive to our position as guests, sent his royal musicians to give us a tune. The men composing the band were a mixture of Waganda and Wanyambo, who played on reed instruments made telescope fashion, marking time by hand-drums. At first they marched up and down, playing tunes exactly like the regimental bands of the Turks, and then commenced dancing a species of "hornpipe," blowing furiously all the while. When dismissed with some beads, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... daughter he will shortly marry. I have, of course, made it my business to enquire as to the antecedents of this man. I find that he has the reputation of being a brutal ruffian, remarkable alike for his greed and his cruelty—a worse adviser Scindia could not have. Holkar was but a poor reed to lean upon, for he was as weak in mind, as in body. But at any rate, he was a true friend of mine and, now that he has been succeeded by one even more imbecile than himself—and who is but a puppet in the hands of Scindia, to whose troops he owes his accession—his power and his ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... the pleasantest recollections, we sailed for Messina, Sicily, and from there went to Naples, where we found many old friends; among them Mr. Buchanan Reed, the artist and poet, and Miss Brewster, as well as a score or more of others of our countrymen, then or since distinguished, in art and letters at home and abroad. We remained some days in Naples, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... criticism of sentimentality. "Weakness, timidity, and sentimentality," he said in the Guildhall address, "many cause even more far-reaching harm than violence and injustice. Of all broken reeds sentimentality is the most broken reed on which righteousness can lean." Referring to these phrases, a correspondent a day or two after the speech asked if the word "sentiment" might not be substituted for the word "sentimentality." Mr. Roosevelt wrote the ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... pass a mountaineer named Reed met them. It was he who had brought the news of the latest exploit by Slade and Skelly, but he had returned quickly to warn some friends of his in the foothills and was back again in time to meet ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... whether he could at present afford it, with his money vanishing like a belated snowbank. Then, while he had been debating, Rufus Reed appeared at such a timely moment that it ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... but said, the Lord rebuke, thee, Satan, so say I unto thee. Truly, I comprehend thy game. Thou art weary of thy old friends, and being desirous to propitiate new, dost seek a quarrel to mask thine ingratitude. But see whether this famous knight prove not a broken reed." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... Captain Lincoln, sailed from Boston, bound for Trinidad de Cuba, Nov. 13th, 1821, with the following crew; Joshua Bracket, mate; David Warren, cook; and Thomas Young, Francis De Suze, and George Reed, seamen. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... the most likely places for birds' nests! In one of these searches they found a great treasure. They were walking by the loch, when, amongst the reeds which grew along the water's edge they saw a reed-warbler's nest. What an ingenious construction it was—long and deep and pointed, woven between the reeds, and so firmly fixed and of such a shape that the eggs could not be shaken out, even by the roughest of winds. Marjory was very ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... places; while other ground-feeders seek their food among dead leaves in dense gloomy forests. Coryphistera resembles the lark and pipit in its habits; Cinclodes, the wagtail; Geobates a Saxicola; Limnornis lives in reed beds growing in the water; Henicornis in reed beds growing out of the water; and many other ground species exist concealed in the grass on dry plains; Homorus seeks its food by digging in the loose soil and dead leaves about the roots of trees; while Geo-sitta, Furnarius, and Upercerthia ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... was some two hundred yards away, with a pronounced rising ground between him and it. Behind him was a great cut-faced rock of ironstone that certainly looked auriferous. The base of it lay in a definite hollow, reed-grown and oozy. Beyond him, to the right, following the river bank, the ground declined gradually towards a black-looking, turgid and overgrown swamp. While, from the direction in which the gambler approached, a low, dense, thorny bush grew, made up of branches almost skeleton ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... to do with as you choose? Your Soul, is it not your helpless prisoner, while you keep it in its cage of clay? Revenge, revenge, through the body and the soul, upon Him who has mocked you! Do you not hear Him laugh as you sit there desolate in the darkness—poor, broken reed that thought itself an oak of might—alone, while your brother kisses the sweet lips that were yours. David and Mildred are laughing too, at you. Hasten to efface every memory of the lying kisses she has given you upon the bosoms of the Daughters of Pleasure! Love, revel, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... swinging pendulums. A certain voluminousness is indispensable to the support of such slow measures. The limit is reached sooner when the series of sounds is given by the fall of hammers on their anvils than when a resonant body like a bell is struck, or a continuous sound is produced upon a pipe or a reed. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... There is to be a nomination of a candidate for Governor, against Mr. Briggs, or whoever may be nominated by the Whigs; and there is to be a nomination of a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, against Mr. Reed, or whoever may be nominated by the Whigs; and there are to be nominations against the present members of Congress. Now, what is the utility or the necessity of this? We have ten members in the Congress of the United States. I know not ten men of any party who are more zealous, and firm, and ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... basket and book, For herbs of power on thy banks to look; Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me, To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee. Still—save the chirp of birds that feed On the river cherry and seedy reed, And thy own wild music gushing out With mellow murmur and fairy shout, From dawn to the blush of another day, Like ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... place and was told to leave the city. While Washington was in doubt as to what move Clinton would make, messengers came from England with offers of peace for the colonies. They offered a large bribe to General Joseph Reed, a member of Congress. His scornful answer was, "I am not worth purchasing, but such as I am, the King of Great Britain is not rich enough to do it!" This was the spirit ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay

... and they watched him fling them far away and stand up with outstretched arms in the little skiff. The waves tossed it hither and thither, the boiling, racing flood hurried it with terrific force towards the ocean. The tall, massive figure swayed like a reed in a tempest, and suddenly the half despairing, half defying song was lost in the roar of the bleak, green surges. All ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... him he had not heard what she had said. But he did not mind having missed it. The meaning of the spring was reaching him through her presence like music through a reed. He had never understood it till now. Poor empty little reed! Poor entranced listener ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... take advantage of the difference between his opinion and that of the First Consul; and it must be owned that the utter ignorance of the police respecting this event was a circumstance not very favourable to Fouche. He, however, was like the reed in the fable—he bent with the wind, but was soon erect again. The most skilful actor could scarcely imitate the inflexible calmness he maintained during Bonaparte's paroxysm of rage, and the patience with which he allowed himself to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... community where an outlaw was abhorred, Mary Fortune could no more agree to his program than he could agree to hers. She respected the law and she turned to the law, instinctively, to right every wrong; but he from sad experience knew what a broken reed it was, compared to his gun and his good right hand. The return to Gunsight was a gloomy affair, but nothing was said of the Old Juan. Abercrombie Jepson guessed, and rightly, that his company was not desired; ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... IX-inch to 32-pounders, were landed from the fleet to take their place in the siege batteries, in charge, at different points of the lines, of Lieutenant-Commander T.O. Selfridge, and Acting-Masters C.B. Dahlgren and J.F. Reed; and as many officers and men as could be spared were sent with them. Three heavy guns, a X-inch, IX-inch, and 100-pound rifle, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander F.M. Ramsay, of the Choctaw, were placed in scows close to ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... introduce another character to our readers, in the person of Sandy Reed. At the period at which we introduce him, he was a widower, between forty and fifty years of age, with an only daughter, named Anne, a child of five years old; and his house was kept by a maiden aunt, who was on the aged side of sixty. Sandy was a farmer near the Reed water, in Northumberland, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... foods of the Mafulu people are sweet potato and other plants of the same type, yam and other foods of the same type, taro and other foods of that type, banana of different sorts, sugar-cane, a kind of wild native bean, a cultivated reed-like plant with an asparagus flavour (what it is I do not know), several plants of the pumpkin and cucumber type, one of them being very small, like a gherkin, fruit from two different species of Pandanus, almonds, the fruit of the malage (described later on), ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... is it for the frailness of a reed like you that such noble enterprise must perish? Make no remonstrance, sir, but do what ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... hard. She had but recently left the hospital after a severe operation, which had followed several years of precarious health. She was quite a year reestablishing her former strength and full capacity for work. One of the most exuberantly vital persons I had ever met, she looked as frail as a reed during that first terrible year of the war, but now seems to have recovered ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... to tobacco is as firm as that of the youth, Robert Reed, whose noble and inspiring words on this subject, embodied in verse form, I have frequently quoted to the growing youth about me. I realised instantly that to be seen in the apparent act of leaving or entering the establishment of a tobacconist would, in a sense, be compromising; so I retreated ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... (now) slave gives the money to his mother, and follows the taleb. Away they go. The taleb repeats certain words, upon which the earth opens, and he sends down the slave for "the candlestick, the reed, and the box." The slave hides the box in his pocket and says he did not find it. They go off, and after a time the slave discovers that his master has disappeared. He returns home, hires a house, opens the box, and finds a cloth of silk with seven folds; he undoes one of them, whereupon ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... objects steal upon the sight, * * * * * The brooklet branching from the silver Trent, The whispering birch by every zephyr bent, The woody island and the naked mead, The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed, The rural wicket and the rural stile, And frequent interspersed the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... in more luxurious homes, and he said to himself, 'Women of the lower class are much better and happier when well curbed.' It did not occur to him that possibly the evil tempers of men of the lower class are made more endurable by a system of co-operation; one reed bends, breaks, and dies, but ten reeds together ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... had hardly time to crawl down to the only bulwark above water (for the schooner now lay on her beam-ends with her bilge towards the sea), when it fell by the board. In about five minutes more the main-topmast was snapped by the gale as if it had been a reed, while the bowsprit and other gear were carried away, leaving nothing but the gutted hull with the mainmast standing. Another hour of awful suspense passed, during which the five men lashed themselves to the bulwark, the sea every ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... promptly obeyed, and when they reached the house and looked back, (the door was kept open,) they beheld the renowned pioneer standing erect, holding a pistol in his right hand (which he pointed at the cotton that connected with a train of powder running along a short plank to the reed that reached the buried keg,) while the moon, now midway in the heavens, "and beautifully bright," revealed the stern and determined expression of pale brow and fixed lip. Thus he stood many minutes, and they seemed hours to those who gazed upon the breathless ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... day endeavoring to recover himself from a stumble occasioned by his lameness, he overstrained his arm, and broke the bone near the shoulder. But he recovered from his successive accidents and illnesses in the most extraordinary way. The reed bent, but did not break; the storm passed, and it stood ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... smoking among the Indians of Hispaniola[5]. He alludes to it as one of their evil customs and used by them to produce insensibility. Their mode of using it was by inhalation and expelling the smoke through the nostrils by means of a hollow forked cane or hollow reed. Oviedo describes them as "about a span long; and when used the forked ends are inserted in the nostrils, the other end being applied to the burning leaves of the herb, using the herb in this manner stupefied them producing a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... clapping spurs to its sides (his spurs grew naturally on his bare heels, horrible to relate, like a cock's spurs) and taking his cat by the head, the Dwarf forced it to leap on to Ricardo's saddle. The diamond sword which slew the king of the Golden Mines—that invincible sword which hews iron like a reed—was up and flashing ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang

... circumstances pleaded for him. She felt so troubled about the future, so helpless and lonely, and he seemed so inseparably associated with her old bright life, that she was tempted to lean on such a swaying reed as she knew Gus to be. She did not reply, but he could see the color deepen in her cheeks even in the fading twilight, her bosom rose and fell more quickly, and her hand rested upon his arm with a more confiding pressure. What more could ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... river at that time, we had broken all our bones. But it was deep and had a strong current, so that when we fell into it we sank. The horse reached the shore immediately by swimming. The current carried me above water for a very great distance, until I seized some reed-grass by which I was able to reach the shore, where I thanked God for so many mercies. The fifth was by falling into the Dumangas River from a little boat. The above one of the ship is the sixth. I have left untold countless other dangers, while on the sea so ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... plunged into an animated discussion of basket-ball, and Rachel and Katherine, who were on a sort of provisional team that included most of the best freshman players and arrogated to itself the name of "The Stars," showed Betty in strictest confidence the new cross-play that "T. Reed" had invented. "T. Reed" seemed to be the basket-ball genius of the freshman class. She was the only girl who was perfectly sure to ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... the Sonnets on 'Aspects of Christianity in America,' Wordsworth wrote to his valued friend, Professor Reed of Philadelphia, as follows: ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... trees of a nearly lemon-colored vividness of spring-green, and there are glimpses of low, red roofs behind the hill. On either side of the old-world-looking town and its fringe of bungalows are glimpses of steep, reed roofs among the cocoa-palms. A long, deserted-looking jetty runs far out into the shallow sea, a few Chinese junks lie at anchor, in the distance a few Malay fishermen are watching their nets, but ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... like a wilted meadow reed, the blue streamers on her hat drooped dejectedly, her best shoes were all dusty, and the three-cornered rent was the feature of her best muslin delaine dress that one saw first. Then her little delicate face was all tear-stains and downward curves. She stood there in the road as ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... had drawn a reed across her face, to hide it, but the Large Doll had not been able to fly quickly enough, and was left in full view, leaning against a mullein. A blush suffused her cheek. What was Angelica ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... drawing boards covered with a coat of red or white stucco, or on the backs of old manuscripts of no value. New papyrus was too dear to be spoiled by the scrawls of tyros. Having neither pencil nor stylus, they made use of the reed, the end of which, when steeped in water, opened out into small fibres, and made a more or less fine brush according to the size of the stem. The palette was of thin wood, in shape a rectangular oblong, with a groove in which to lay the brush at the lower end. At the ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... possibility of the greater. She now saw her error, and repented it. She was reaping the penalty in a lonely and unsatisfied life. For a long time her work had seemed to suffice, but she felt now that she had been trusting to a broken reed. She was terrified at her solitude. She could not face the thought of old age, without a single close tie, without a home, without ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... hurricane was on its way, bringing rain and lightning; it was swifter than the first. Donadieu endeavoured to repeat the same manoeuvre, but he could not turn before the wind struck the boat, the mast bent like a reed; ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... over, my Undine, and clutch me a reed— Nymph of mine idleness, notch me a pipe— For I am fulfilled of the silence, and long For to utter the sense of ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis

... isn't what I'm talking about. I'm speaking of Walter Reed and his fellow scientists, who went down there and ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... grow—he's scarcely begun to grow yet," Hilda continued about her offspring, "then he will reed all his strength!" ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... between defiance and obstinacy, and that other feeling of pity for the boy, that arose once more in Fausch. Only the battle had never been so fierce before. The two forces wrestled together and shook the powerful man back and forth like a reed, even although outwardly he sat so still. Then too, other thoughts came to him. He wanted to go away, the boy! All alone! They must part! Yes, yes, of course, if he were alone, the boy might more easily pass unnoticed through the world. Yes, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... putting out her hands. "Wait. You don't understand. I have got something to say to you." She might as well have talked to the wind. McTeague put aside her hands with a single gesture, and gripped her to him in a bearlike embrace that all but smothered her. Trina was but a reed before that giant strength. McTeague turned her face to his and kissed her again upon the mouth. Where was all Trina's resolve then? Where was her carefully prepared little speech? Where was all her hesitation and torturing doubts of the last few days? She clasped McTeague's ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... The heaviness of a single chalice made the danger of spilling its contents so great that several chalices were used. This, however, only increased the chances, and various methods were adopted with a view to minimising the difficulty. Sometimes a reed was used; later on, bread dipped in wine was administered, as was already usual in the case of sick persons or children; or even unconsecrated wine was given. Some of these methods came under papal condemnation; and the ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... understand their business," remarked Washington to his secretary, Mr. Reed. "Their works are thoroughly constructed, and they seem to be provided with every thing that war requires." At that time he had reconnoitered until he had acquired quite a thorough ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... through the night-air, and the company of a handsome, agreeable, well-bred man, began to have a lurking idea that she had been making a fool of herself; when they came suddenly on a hut, dark, cheerless, deserted, standing above a black, stagnant, reed-grown waterhole. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... changed man. He no longer sided with, but against, the people; sheltering himself from their clamours in the stronghold of privilege. Hence it was, that when he coalesced with others, he found no support on which he could lean with safety, and by which he could assist the monarch. His staff was but a reed on which, if he leant, it pierced his hand. This Chatham felt; and though he clung tenaciously to office, from the fear of displaying his weakness and incapacity, he only acted, when he did act, behind ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... and John, were very anxious for their cousin, Samuel Reed, to spend the August holidays with them. His father said that he might; and when school was closed for the season, Samuel bade his father good bye, and was soon in the carriage, driving toward Uncle Harvey's ...
— The Summer Holidays - A Story for Children • Amerel

... thirty of their water-vessels in a bag or net on their backs. These water-vessels consist of ostrich egg-shells, with a hole in the end of each, such as would admit one's finger. The women tie a bunch of grass to one end of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep as the arm will reach; then ram down the wet sand firmly round it. Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they form a vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and in a ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone



Words linked to "Reed" :   bur reed, ditch reed, reedy, vibrator, giant reed, reed stop, feather reed grass, reed section, sand reed, reed bunting, single-reed instrument, bur-reed family, salt reed grass, single-reed woodwind, surgeon, journalist, woodwind instrument, gramineous plant, Walter Reed, woodwind, common reed, cane reed, carrizo, Egyptian paper reed, Arundo conspicua, beating-reed instrument, reed mace, free-reed instrument, sawbones, vibrating reed, reed organ, toetoe, reed canary grass, reed grass, reed pipe, reed meadow grass, Chionochloa conspicua, reed rhapis, John Reed, graminaceous plant, communist, Phragmites communis



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