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Sponge   Listen
verb
Sponge  v. i.  
1.
To suck in, or imbibe, as a sponge.
2.
Fig.: To gain by mean arts, by intrusion, or hanging on; as, an idler sponges on his neighbor. "The fly is an intruder, and a common smell-feast, that sponges upon other people's trenchers."
3.
To be converted, as dough, into a light, spongy mass by the agency of yeast, or leaven.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sponge" Quotes from Famous Books



... food, they are enchanted; they like that much better than a present. So I will honour her house some day. Good old Hannah, she is divorced for being too fat and old, and replaced by a young Turk whose family sponge on Hajjee Ali and are condescending. If I could afford it, I would have a sketch of a beloved old mosque of mine, falling to decay, and with three palm-trees growing in the middle of it. Indeed, I would have a book full, for all is ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... peculiar manner, by which cocks declare themselves to be vanquished. Early in the tenth round the right eye-ball of one cock is broken, and, shortly after, the left eye is bunged up, so that for the time it is blind. Nevertheless, it refuses to throw up the sponge, and fights on gallantly to the end of the round, taking terrible punishment, and doing but little harm to its opponent. One cannot but be full of pity and admiration for the brave bird, which thus gives so marvellous an example of its pluck and endurance. At last time is called, and the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... appearance, though the green tip of a Vethi sponge lying coiled lightly about his neck probably had something to do with the impression. Trigger knew about Vethi sponges and their addicts, though she hadn't seen either before. It wasn't so serious an addiction, except perhaps in the fact that it was rarely given up again. ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... he look'd somewhat like a sponge in that pink'd yellow doublet, methought; well, make much of him; I see he was never born to ride ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous

... know what the law is, you'd better find out," answered the fellow, roughly. "What right have you to own a dog, anyway? It strikes me that it is about enough for you to sponge your own living out of the community, without sponging another for a miserable whelp of a ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... on Sabbath some people sent a bottle of wine and a most delicious pudding, which is made nowhere but in Jerusalem. It tastes like milk and honey, with other tasty things mixed up in it. Others sent a lovely sponge cake, coated with different-coloured sugar-icing: many other good things were also given to us; and they lasted us for nearly ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager

... may stop in for a little while," said Mr. Longears, with a smile that made his pink nose twinkle like the frosting on a sponge cake. "But when is the party going ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis

... Inside there were two fine combs in excellent preservation, with the teeth larger on one side than on the other: a small mirror of polished steel, a silver box for cosmetics, an amber hairpin, an oblong piece of soft leather, and a few fragments of a sponge.[140] The most impressive discovery was made after the removal of the water, and the drying of the coffin. The woman had been buried in a shroud of fine white linen, pieces of which were still encrusted and cemented against the bottom and sides of the case, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... trouble, the cake was better than any confectioner's cake that I ever tasted. People took great pride in it; and recipes were copied and handed about and talked over with an interest which would be impossible now-a-days, when everything comes to hand ready made, and you can order a loaf of sponge cake by postal card, and have it appear in a few hours, sent by express from central New York, as some of us have been doing ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... hands clenched, teeth set. They knew! They knew! Had there ever before been a time in history when breastworks had been charged by artillery? Twenty-four men in the crew of one gun, and only two unhurt! One iron sponge-bucket with thirty-nine bullet holes shot through it! And then blasts of canister sweeping the trenches, and blowing scores of living and dead men to fragments! And into this hell of slaughter new regiments charging, in lines four deep! And ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... between the shafts he hesitated.... The buggy was very shabby; it sagged badly on the right side and there was a rent in the faded cushion. The doctor looked at his watch.... Then, hurriedly, led Jinny back to her stall, got a bucket of water and a sponge, and washed off the dashboard and wheels. After that he fumbled along a dusty beam to find a bottle of oil with which he touched up the harness. But when all was done he shook his head. The buggy was hopeless. Nevertheless, when he climbed in and ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... go up to the cabin, and, as she turned something struck her in the neck. It was a sponge, thrown by Boscoe Doldrum—a sponge soaked in whiskey from his still on the other side ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... holding the silver pot high and letting the amber fluid trickle slowly, and the pearls and diamonds on her thin hands shone dully. Sophia passed little china plates and fringed napkins, and Anna a silver basket with golden squares of sponge-cake. ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... many great ones may remember'd be, Which in their days most famously did flourish, Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see, But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish, Because the living cared not to cherish No gentle wits, through pride or covetize, Which might their names for ever ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... more active energies through the anemone-studded and sponge-fringed caves under the Gouliots; through the long rough-polished, sea-scoured passages of the Boutiques; down the seamed cliffs at Les Fontaines and Grande Greve; along the precarious tracks and iron rings into Derrible; with the assistance ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... been asked to describe the lava beds. That is beyond the power of language. In a letter to the Army and Navy journal, written at the suggestion of General Wheaton, I compared the Indians in the lava beds to "ants in a sponge." In the language of another it is a "black ocean tumbled into a thousand fantastic shapes, a wild chaos of ruin, desolation, barrenness—a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature mountains rent asunder, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... sure not, Sir," said Job, calmly—"I should be but a poor dauber, if my paints washed off with a wet sponge." ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... proceeding will be the cleansing of the surfaces that are to be permanently joined. In most instances the application of clean cold water in a sponge will be sufficient, but where much grime and grease have accumulated different means must be resorted to. Soap is not to be recommended but, and especially if the surfaces are irregular, some pure benzine, applied or slightly scrubbed ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... from the river the first elevation usually consisted of hillocks of red sand, so soft and loose that the cattle could scarcely draw the carts through. The clay adjacent to the sand was firmer than any clay seen elsewhere on the plains because the sand there acted like a sponge, taking up the water from the adjacent clay which consequently preserved its tenacity at all seasons. This edge of clay along the skirts of plains at the base of the red sand ridges I found the most favourable ground for travelling upon. Still further back gravel, consisting ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... wings." Unfortunately, these interesting observations were cut short by the death of the mother, and the young animal, which was with some difficulty removed from the nipple, survived only eight days, during which it was fed with milk from a sponge, and made but little progress, its eyes being still unopened, and its ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... had put his supper on the table and was beckoning him with swift gesture. "You eat," he said pleadingly. And Achilles ate hastily and gave directions for the basin of water and towels and a sponge, and the boy carried them into ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... remember of the blank night after he was hurt) that he had seen her white, worn-out face looking down at him; that she did not touch him; and that, when, one of the sisters told her she might take her place, and sponge his forehead, she said, bitterly, she had no right to do it, that he was no friend of hers. He saw and heard that, unconscious to all else; he would have known it, if he had been dead, lying there. It was too late now: why need he think of what might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... Where does that come from? Through wandering underground mazes, from some cave mouth in the Fiji Islands to the north? That would indicate that all the earth around here is honeycombed like a gigantic section of sponge. I wonder—" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... we knelt and prayed, Mad mourners of a corse! The troubled plumes of midnight shook The plumes upon a hearse: And bitter wine upon a sponge Was the ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... 'Pluteus', is competent to produce the Echinoderm, which is so widely different from it; if a hydroid polype can produce the higher Medusa; if the vermiform Trematode 'nurse' can develop within itself the very unlike 'Cercaria', it will not appear impossible that the egg, or ciliated embryo, of a sponge, for once, under special conditions, might become a hydroid polype, or the embryo ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley

... which consisted of glass plates, with leaves of metal at the back; they were probably of an inferior character. Those of copper and tin were made chiefly at Brundisium. The white metal formed from this mixture soon becoming dim, a sponge with powdered pumice stone was usually fastened to the mirrors made of that composition. They were generally small, of a round or oval shape, and having a handle; and female slaves usually held them, while their mistresses were performing the duties of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... we possess the Great Secret?" they cried. "Nevertheless, dispose your engaging band of mendicants about the place freely until it suits your refined convenience to proceed elsewhere, O meritorious Yuen Yan, for your unassuming qualities have won our consistent regard; but an insatiable sponge has already been laid upon the well-spring of our benevolence and the tenacity of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... his Master thrice, is usually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he generally is. Under him, is the inscription. Then, hung on to the cross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar and water at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers cast lots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer that drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladder which was set against the cross, the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... course have their specialties. 'Soapy-Sponge' would figure in the stable-yard, and 'Proverbial Philosophy' watch the trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be obtained for a room in such an establishment, and every place at the table-d'hote should be five guineas ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... in love with the Nurse. She was a part of his illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There were even times—when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned—when she seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentiment did not enter into the matter at all; ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... performed for them; but what do you think of common working folks going about from house to house to help each other wash up for the day? Fancy having a neighbor step in bright and early to wash your face and hands for you, or give you a sponge-bath, or a nice ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... wheels, that of their own motion they might enter the assembly of the gods and again return unto his house, a marvel to look upon. Thus much were they finished that not yet were away from the fire, and gathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver chest; and with a sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck and shaggy breast, and did on his doublet, and took a stout staff and went forth limping; but there were handmaidens of gold that moved to help their lord, the semblances of living maids. In them is understanding at ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... that he had forgotten something. It wasn't the spare sponge; it wasn't the extra shaving-brush; it wasn't the second pair of bedroom slippers. Just for a moment the sun went behind a cloud as he wondered if he had included the reserve razor-strop; but no, ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... was Palle Dyre. He drank like a sponge. He was like a tub that could never get full; he snored like a whole sty of pigs, and ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... stand in a tub containing a little warm water, and a large bath sponge filled with cold water should be squeezed two or three times over the body. This should be followed by a vigorous rubbing with a towel until the skin is quite red. This may be used at three years, and often at two years. For infants ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... are put up, latrines are dug, and tents are pitched. When everything has been tended to each man should give his feet a good salt water bath. Put them in the water and let them remain there for 2 minutes. Do not dry them by rubbing, but sponge them—this will harden the feet. This should be done for the first three days, after which it can be dispensed with. A change of socks daily should be made, take one pair of socks from the pack, and wash out the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... constipated, or there is diarrhea of the fermentative type. The amount of urine excreted is generally insufficient and likely to be concentrated and show various signs of imperfect kidney elimination. Therefore hot sponge baths, with perhaps warm alcohol rubs, are daily necessary. Gentle massage, generally in the direction to aid the circulation, will benefit the skin. If the skin is dry or in places scaly, oil rubs ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... being unlike other people is a common vanity. Beware of the man who asserts such a claim. He is sure to be a bore and will serve up to you, as his own, a muddle of ideas and opinions which he has absorbed like a sponge from ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... minute cells. In this case the outermost sporangia are often consolidated to form a cortex more or less dense and shining. In any case the hypothallus is a prominent feature; generally laminated and of two or three layers, it is in the more hemispheric aethalia very much more complex, sponge-like. When thin this structure is remarkable for its wide extent, 40-50 cm.! The simpler forms approach very near to Cribraria through C. argillacea. The most complex remind ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... choked, and his eye sought the galley. "Eat more?" he spluttered. "Yesterday the meat was like brick-bats; to-day it tasted like a bit o' dirty sponge. I've lived on biscuits this trip; and the only tater I ate I'm going to see a doctor about direckly I get ashore. It's a sin and a shame to spoil good food the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... thumb the line, so I let him go. With these jerky plunges he ran about three hundred feet. Then I felt my line get fast, and, handing my rod to R. C., I slipped off my shoes and went overboard. I waded out, winding as I went, to find that the bonefish had fouled the line on a sponge on the bottom, and he had broken free ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... to north and west are cave-dwellers. Mountains so hollowed out that only a shell remains, a sponge—a honeycomb! No man knows how far those tunnels run! The Turks have attempted now and then to smoke out the inhabitants. They were laughed at! One mountain is connected with another, and the tunnels run ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... writers is warranted in saying that the scene was indescribable. Correspondents did their best, and after they had squeezed the rhetorical sponge of its last drop of ink distilled to frenzy of adjectives in inadequate effort, they gaspingly laid their copy on the table of the censor, who minded not "word pictures" ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... on the sandy beach. What myriads of sea shells, and what beautiful colors they have. And here are sponges without number, but they are worthless. There on the sea are the little sloops of the sponge fishers. They are there through the whole summer and the fishers dive down into the sea where the water is from 100 to 200 feet deep, and walk around on the bottom holding their breath, and when they can bear it no longer pull the cord which is tied around the waist, and then their ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... matron's remark to me as I went to bed: "If you want to wash," she said, "you'd better wash now; you can't have no water in your room, and there won't be nobody up when you leave in the morning." My evening bath is supplemented by a whisk of the sponge at five. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... not raining now, but the murky, mist-laden atmosphere was rendered like a damp, choking, heavy pall of gloom by the dense volumes of pitch and tar-smoke with which it seemed to be perfectly soaked, as a sponge is with water. It caused Agnes to cough violently and continuously until she arrived at her new destination, which was a private dwelling-house, apparently the abode of some one belonging to the ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw

... me have your name and the address of any relatives you want notified in case of accident. Something is going to blow up pretty soon, and when the explosion is over they'll go around with a sponge to gather up the pieces of the innocent bystanders. Among those present was a former waiter at ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... angrily. "'Tinhorn' thought it was some kind of a tony cuspidor, and a round-up cook offered me a dollar and a half for it to set bread sponge in." ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... "Let's throw up the sponge, then," proposed Dalzell demurely. "If we can't beat the visitors what's the use of playing them? It isn't even necessary to get into togs. We can send a note to the referee, and he can award the game ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... man always promises that when he wants a girl to be kind to him. But why should he stick to it? What can he get by marrying Nina—a penniless girl, with a pauper for a father? The Trendellsohns have squeezed that sponge ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... five days Julian abruptly threw up the sponge and returned to London, abandoning the old salt to the tobacco-chewing, which was his only solace during the winter season, now fast drawing to a close. He went at once to see Valentine, who had a narrative to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... with pick down through three feet of soil. The great entrance arteries of the nest branched and bifurcated, separated and anastomosed, while here and there were chambers varying in size from a cocoanut to a football. These were filled with what looked like soft grayish sponge covered with whitish mold, and these somber affairs were the raison d'etre for all the leaf-cutting, the trails, the struggles through jungles, the constant battling against wind and rain ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... she was finished, and took a parting peep at herself in the mirror. Cold water and a soft sponge had taken from her face all traces of travel and emotion. Her dark, crisp hair was arranged in marvelous convolutions, and from the white tip of each ear, peeping out beneath, hung an Etruscan gold ear-ring, given her by Aunt Margaret. Her ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... stood gave a mighty convulsion. It rocked and swayed. I gripped hold of my tripod to steady myself. Then, for all the world like a gigantic sponge, the earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet. Higher and higher it rose, and with a horrible, grinding roar the earth fell back upon itself, leaving in its place a mountain of smoke. From the moment the mine went up my feelings changed. The crisis ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... blandishments of Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study law. Once installed, he discovered, as others have done before him, that his duty was to do the work while his friends criticized. Stalky christened it the "Swillingford Patriot," in pious memory of Sponge—and McTurk compared the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took an interest in the publication, and his methods were peculiar. He gave Beetle the run of his brown-bound, tobacco-scented library; prohibiting nothing, recommending nothing. There Beetle found ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... wanted? And the bigger the sponge the better? And I'm to get my nose bitten off by asking Robert Disney for it? And if by a miracle he said yes, for all I know somebody else might ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... eerie to be alone in the National Gallery in the dead of the night with a tiny electric lamp in one's buttonhole and a sponge of alcohol and turpentine in one's hand. While he worked the little Madonna's eyes rested upon him and it could hardly have been mere fancy that made him believe they were full of gratitude and trust. At the end of an hour the outline of a child, faint and misty, appeared ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... pour upon the article to be cleaned a sufficient quantity of the Magic Annihilator rubbing well with a clean sponge, and applying to both sides of the article you are cleaning. Upon carpets and coarse goods, where the grease is hard and dry, use a stiff brush and wash out with clear cold water. Apply again if necessary. One application is ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... arose as soon as the door closed behind the constable, and stuffed a piece of damp sponge into the keyhole; he then returned and took a ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... she isn't quarrelsome in this room, that's all!" said a third speaker, who had hitherto been silent, "because if she is, I shall feel it my duty to give her a taste of Home Rule that she may not appreciate. And if she snores I shall squeeze my sponge over her, so you may tell her what she has to expect. There's nothing like training these youngsters properly from ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... briefer than usual, for the good woman had many things upon her mind this morning. First, there was Betty to rouse and get into a state of locomotion, a good half hour's work, as Aunt Barbara knew from a three years' experience. There was the "sponge" put to rise the previous night. She must see if that had risen, and with her own hands mold the snowy breakfast rolls which Ethelyn liked so much. There were the chambers to be inspected a second ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... home to Peaches. He hid the cake and the hospital box under the things he bought for supper and went to her with empty hands. He could see she was tired and hungry, so he gave her a drink of milk, and proceeded to the sponge bath and oil rub. These rested and refreshed her so that Mickey demanded closed eyes, while he slipped the dainty night- robe over her head, and tied the pink ribbon on her curls. Then he piled the pillows, leaned her against them and ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... what he considered two rattling rounds, Harrigan conceded that his cravat had once more got the decision over him on points. And the cravat was only a second-rater, too, a black-silk affair. He tossed up the sponge and went down to the dining-room, the ends of the conqueror straggling like the four points of a battered weather-vane. His wife and daughter and Mademoiselle Fournier were already at their table by the casement ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... text) Lancheinge of the May, MS. play by W.M. Gent. Lapwing Larroones Lather ( ladder) (In Women beware Women Middleton plays on the word:— "Fab. When she was invited to an early wedding, She'd dress her head o'ernight, sponge up herself, And give her neck three lathers. Gaar. Ne'er a halter.") Laugh and lye downe Launcepresado Law, the spider's cobweb Legerity Letters of mart Leveret Limbo Line of life Linstock Long haire, treatise ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... be free and all be saved:" the second all be is a most unnecessary tautology. The poem was perfect and faultless, if you could have let it alone. I wonder how your mischievous flippancy could help maiming that most new and beautiful expression, "sponge Of sins;" I should not have been surprised, as you love verses too full of feet, if you have changed it to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... to efface the pencil lines when they are drawn very lightly, squares of sponge-rubber answer admirably, these being furnished by ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... the growing light, began to regain their confidence, tried to make ridicule of this plaintive ejaculation; but one who noticed His pale and parched lips was touched with pity, and took a stalk of hyssop, which was just long enough to reach the mouth of the Sufferer, and elevating a sponge dipped in vinegar, fulfilled thus unwittingly the ancient prediction, "They gave Me also gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... by interleaving it with common white paper that has been wetted with a sponge. One sheet of wet paper to two of blotting-paper will be enough. The pile of blotting-paper and wet paper is put in the press and left for an hour or two under pressure, then taken out and the ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... moment and then said, "Well, Bob, you must excuse me—I forgot to set my sponge, and there isn't a bit of bread in the house for Sunday." Whereupon she left them, and when the colonel had talked himself out he left them, and when the two were alone there came an awkward silence. In the years they had been ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... strident. Banjoes strummed; the parade smelt of tar which stuck to the heels; goats suddenly cantered their carriages through crowds. It was observed how well the Corporation had laid out the flower-beds. Sometimes a straw hat was blown away. Tulips burnt in the sun. Numbers of sponge-bag trousers were stretched in rows. Purple bonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs. Triangular hoardings were wheeled along by men in white coats. Captain George Boase had caught a monster shark. One side of the triangular hoarding said so ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... have perceived that it is not convenient for them to go into the sea or the rivers in winter, as we used to do on the Coral Island; but then, I knew from experience that a large washing-tub and a sponge do form a most pleasant substitute. The feelings of freshness, of cleanliness, of vigour, and extreme hilarity, that always followed my bathes in the sea, and even, when in England, my ablutions in the wash-tub, were so delightful, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... mother. I can sponge and turn and fix over the old one; a plush collar and cuffs will make ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... tell you once for all. For twenty years I was poor, and this is what that means. To be tied hand and foot to a piece of hideous drudgery—morning by morning, month by month, and with the consciousness too that, if health fails you, or if you lose your work, you will either starve or have to sponge on your friends—never to be able to do what you like or go where you like—to know that the world is full of beautiful places, delightful people, interesting ideas, books, talk, art, music—to sicken for all ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... headlong from the throne into his abyss of misery. Justinian is a man; he is a prince; does he not dread for himself a similar reverse of fortune? I can write no more: my grief oppresses me. Send me, I beseech you, my dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, [30] a sponge, and a loaf of bread." From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed of the motives of this singular request. It was long since the king of Africa had tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect of fatigue or incessant weeping; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... doubt, and with great trepidation, she put her fingers to her lips, and taking the Prince's slate—with the sponge tied to it, ready to rub out the ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... Certainly it was true that washing was not one of the most important things in the world to him. In the morning he would lurch out of bed, put on a soiled shirt and trousers, dab his face with a decrepit sponge, take a tiny piece of soap from an old tin box, look at it, rub it on his fingers and put it hurriedly away again as though he were ashamed of it. Sometimes, getting out of bed, he would cry: "Have you heard the latest scandal? About the ammunition in the Tenth Army! They ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... of Punch of March 31st last, because I too always smoke a pipe in a hot bath, to which I add the habit of reading, not books—they are too sacred to risk—but newspapers. I also frequently indulge in a further luxury at this time, a cup of coffee, which rests on the sponge and soap bridge between sips. Of course the soap sometimes falls into the coffee, and if this is undetected in time a slight frothing at the mouth occurs, but no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various

... light straw hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last to step on board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at her feet a white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a sponge, in case the ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... talked to a man who was making a sugar-bowl, and he told us how he did it. All the men have on the table in front of them a lump of clay, a wheel, some moulds, a sharp knife, a bucket of water with a sponge in it, and something like the slab of a round, marble-topped table, only it's made of plaster ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... turned up my sleeves and poured some of the "Milk of Beauty" into a little onyx bowl that was at hand, then I dipped a little sponge into it, and approached my Aunt Venus ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... also a collection of corals, gorgonias or sponge corals, having a spread of about ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... led the newcomer towards the pump for his bath, while Keineth went in search of soap and a sponge. Over the bath they discussed names and, as it looked as though they could not agree, they decided that, because Keineth was a visitor, she should select ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott

... dressed, and then Mrs. Harry asked for clay to make a water-tap for her house. That made all the children want to make things in clay, so we made cups and saucers, plates, and a baby's bottle, then scones and sponge-cakes, bread and a bread-board, and one of the children said we must put a ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... gray old stones. By and by the pools would be filled, and the hidden caves; their sides would give way; the waters would rush from the one into the other, and from all down the hill-sides, and the earth-sponge would be ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... At last he begins to grow a little weary o' the battle—it is so awful hard. Better almost to die an' be done with it, he sometimes thinks. Then comes a day when his temptation is ten times more than he is able to bear. He throws up the sponge; he has done his best an' failed, so away he goes like the sow that was washed to his wallowing in the mire. But he has not done his best. He has not gone to his Maker; an' surely the maker of a machine is the best judge o' how to mend it. Now, when a believer in ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... Mr. Chamberlain was remarking (at Highbury, August 27th) that he "could not truly say that the crisis was passed," and picturesquely complaining of President Krueger "dribbling out reforms like water from a squeezed sponge," every loyalist in South Africa knew that the time for words had gone by. On September 6th and 7th public meetings were held respectively at Maritzburg and Capetown, at which resolutions were passed affirming the uselessness of continuing ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... her from her venture, it seemed that he had thus far missed his calculations. Indeed, each new experience seemed only to make her relish the keener. She was drinking in impressions avidly, absorbing the new life as a sponge absorbs water, differing from this only in the particular that her capacity for retention had no limitations. He smiled because it pleased him to think that his judgment of her character had not been at fault. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... she stood thus, looking in timid appeal from one to another of the faces about her. These faces were blank enough as they returned her gaze. The glad expectancy was wiped from them as with a sponge. It was the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... throat. He thought he was doing his duty, but he nearly killed the boy, for a fever gave the poor child a sad holiday, and when he recovered, the overtasked brain gave out, and Billy's mind was like a slate over which a sponge has passed, leaving ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... the weary march At dead of night in dismal storm begun. We made a stand at Harrison's, and there With careful hands we laid him on a cot. Now I had learned to prize the noble boy; My heart was touched with pity. Patiently I watched o'er Paul and bathed his fevered brow, And pressed the cooling sponge upon his lips, And washed his wound and gave him nourishment. 'Twas all in vain, the surgeon said. I felt That I could save him and I kept my watch. A rib was crushed—beneath it one could see The throbbing vitals—torn as we supposed, But found unwounded. In his feverish sleep He often ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... process of nature when they wish, for example, to obtain, in animals under experiment, a state of complete immobility. But did the first surgeon who thought of trepanning the skull in order to exert on the brain, by means of a sponge, a certain degree of compression, ever imagine that an analogous procedure had long been employed in the insect world, and that these clumsy methods were merely child's play beside the astonishing feats ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... picturesque of sound.' That is to say, he simulated thunder by shaking one of the lower corners of a large thin sheet of copper suspended by a chain; the distant firing of signals of distress he imitated by striking, suddenly, a large tambourine with a sponge affixed to a whalebone spring—- the reverberations of the sponge producing a curious echo, as from cloud to cloud, dying away in the distance. The rushing sound of the waves was effected by turning round and round an octagonal pasteboard box, fitted with shelves, and containing ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... Lord, I imagined on every part environing and penetrating it, though every way infinite: as if there were a sea, every where, and on every side, through unmeasured space, one only boundless sea, and it contained within it some sponge, huge, but bounded; that sponge must needs, in all its parts, be filled from that unmeasurable sea: so conceived I Thy creation, itself finite, full of Thee, the Infinite; and I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created; and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better than ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... wash in a stable bucket of fresh water, and it amused me to see George use the big stable sponge to lave and cool Patty's excited parts. She was in a nervously lost kind of state, sobbing and whimpering: "Oh! oh! oh! You have quite done for me—my poor, poor bottom is so hot and so stretched—I shall never be right again. Oh! ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous

... you as the 'one as is a little wantin'," retorted Phil. "Just think, Miss Hilda, Jerry and I spent a week together at a house at Pemaquid, and Jerry left his sponge behind him when he came away. Well, and when the captain of the tug brought it over to the island where the rest of us were, he said one of the boys had left it, the one as was a little wantin'. And he said it was a pity ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... one dipped a sponge in a cup of vinegar, and put it upon a reed, and gave him a drink of it. Then Jesus spoke his ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall

... since he is familiar with facts which only occur at a height of ten thousand feet or more above the sea—mountain-sickness and its accompaniments—of which his imaginary comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in essence. The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus, of which he speaks, are perhaps ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... at those lined up in front of the mirrors for drinks, but a curious change had come over him. The relaxed body had grown rigid. No longer was he lounging against the back of his chair. From his eyes the laughter had been wiped out, as a wet sponge obliterates writing on a slate. All his forces were gathered as if for instant action. He was tense as a coiled spring. His friend noticed that the boy was listening intently, every ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... tightly round a stone by means of a shoelace, thundered through the window of the room where Mabel and her aunt, in the ardour of reunion, were enjoying a supper of unusual charm stewed plums, cream, sponge-cakes, custard in cups, and cold ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... theory of evolution which are provided by comparative anatomy, embryology, paleontology, dysteleology, chorology, and classification, may try to refute the analytic proof given in my treatise on the sponge, the outcome of five years of assiduous study. I repeat: It is now impossible to oppose evolution on the ground that we have no convincing example of the descent of all the species of a group from a common ancestor. The monograph on the sponges furnishes such a proof, and, in my opinion, an ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... vigorous scratching of pencils, with shy laughing glances between the culprits, while the teacher took a book and began to read, keeping, however, a sharp eye on the pupils to see that no one shirked her work. When one announced that her slate was full, she was told to sponge it off and ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... is largely interested in the trade at Limasol. The old commanderia was sufficiently sweet to occasion a roughness in the throat, and each quality was far too luscious for English taste, but might have been agreeable to sip like Tokay, by soaking a sponge biscuit. The utterly rude method of producing native wines, which can scarcely be dignified by the term "manufacture," is a sufficient explanation of their inferior quality, but at the same time it is a proof of the great wine-producing power ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... file entirely into {core} before working on it. This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next piece. "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does an FFT." See also {sponge}. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... They had come off their trail a long way already, helping me, it seemed to us—but if they wanted to keep us company further, hurrah! Only, we wouldn't sponge off of them, just because they had the better ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... often with my grandfather and his friends, as you may suppose; and never so much as when they had to trudge it across country, with the nor'-easter buzzin' in their teeth and the snow piled on their cockt hats like lemon sponge on entry dishes. The rewards, I've heard him say—for he lived to be ninety, nevertheless—was poor compensation for the drifts, and the inflienza, and the broken chilblains; but now and again they'd get a fair skinful of liquor from a jolly squire, as 'd set ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... me now!' cried he in pitiable agitation; and then he began to mutter bitter curses against me, or the evil fortune that had brought me there; while I put down the sponge and basin, and resumed my seat at ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... passing the Enquiry Bureau on the C-Deck, striding along with bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous young man who looked like ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... tender Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be less than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort—the thorough-bred Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? Her face is as good as a picture. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... in its form, and for the sake of this latter and secondary result fermentation is resorted to in the baking of bread. The moist, soft, yet dense mass of dough, is by fermentation thrown into the form of a sponge. Owing to the consistence of the material, the openings made by the ferment remain open, and consequently the lump, which would otherwise have been solid, is penetrated in every direction by an innumerable multitude of small cavities. Through these the heat in the oven obtains ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... as a sponge sucks up water, or a bit of lump-sugar the little drop of tea or coffee left in the bottom of a cup. But I mustn't say much more about this, or else you will tell me I am doing something very much like teaching my grandmother to—you ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... his deficiencies—if you can say that 'bout one as had more rather than less than Nature generally bestows. Land! the learning that child was capable of absorbing! Hillcrest School just sunk into him like he was a sponge. When he got all he could over there, he just walked off as natural as could be, without a cent to his name—and they do say, so I've heard, that down the state they set an awful store by his knowledge of stars and moons and such-like. And ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... meals which would make you grow thinner, Often absorbing with infinite glee Sponge-cakes at breakfast and crumpets at dinner, Whitstable oysters at five ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various

... Wallacetown. She don't eat a particle of breakfast, an' she streaks off for a long walk every day, rain or shine, an' wants the old tin tub carried in so's she can have a hot bath every single night, besides takin' what she calls a 'cold sponge' when she gets up in the mornin'—which ain't till ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... dock but another and myself. It is very strange if that was said by Mr. Anderson. He knew that there was nothing more to be got out of Corydon, the informer—that he had told everything he knew in his information, but on pressure there was found to be a little left in the sponge. They refreshed his memory a little, and he comes to think that he saw Costello at a meeting in 814 Broadway I think he gives it. And here is a singular occurrence—that Devany, who never swore an information against me, comes on the ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... day is the evil thereof" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality than quantity, neither ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens

... accomplish, when the roar of mill machinery begins to reverberate through the hills of the future Joplin, arousing the vast energies and resources of We-all, Pewee and Big Wheat, let us be generous. If there was a sponge, kicker, shirk or drone, let us cover his selfishness with the mantle of charity. Leave him under the beating light of progress to wrestle with whatever remnant of a conscience he may happen to have. If he can ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... layer of sponge cake at the bottom of a glass dish. Cut up a tinned pine-apple (get the pine-apple chunks if possible) and fill dish, first pouring a little of the juice over the cake. Melt a very little agar-agar in the rest of the juice. (Allow half the 1/4 oz. to a ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel

... heart, he heals and cheers it with the faith of a glorious immortality for them all, who shall call him selfish and sinful? To rest contented with the speedy night and the infinite oblivion, wiping off all the unsolved sums from the slate of existence with annihilation's remorseless sponge, that would be the selfishness and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... my mind not to pour forth all my troubles, lest she should think that I wanted to take advantage of her kindness and sponge upon her for help; but she was irresistible, as only a true Irishwoman can be, and the first thing I knew, I had emptied my heart ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... diffused, and caste barriers unknown, a New Zealander, when meeting a stranger, does not feel called upon to act as though in dread of finding in the latter a sponge, toady, or swindler. Nor has the colonist to consider how the making of chance acquaintances may affect his own social standing. In his own small world his social standing is a settled thing, and cannot be injured ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... "And a sponge? Here, I say: I wonder whether old Morningstar has got any sponges: we'll buy one. New boots, too: mine are getting like Paddy's ride in the sedan-chair; I'm ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... the convention. The effects of the India company seized and sealed. The members of the revolutionary tribunal doubled, in order that they may be able to go through business more expeditiously. 31. Engagement between the republicans and Sardinians. Motion by Danton, to pass a national sponge over the enormous number of assignats. Aug. 1. The convention regulates an uniformity of weights and measures in the republic. It denounces to all Europe the government of England. Ordered, that the Queen be sent to the ordinary prison of the Conciergerie, and ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz

... You just ask me to pass the sponge over Elmer Moffatt of Apex City? Cut the gentleman when we meet? That ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... people by the time all my neighbors had made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and Judy a half-hour to unpack her things and set them in the refrigerator and on the pantry shelves. One was a plump fruit-cake that had been keeping company in a tight box with a sponge soaked in sherry for ever since New Year's. It was ripe, or smelled so. It made me gnaw ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... ease me of my responsibilities. Also thence I could attend to the matter of Heda's inheritance and rid myself of her father's will that already had been somewhat damaged in the Crocodile River, though not as much as it might have been since I had taken the precaution to enclose it in Anscombe's sponge bag before ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... sunshine the exception. The mud became almost unfathomable and it was not uncommon to see the six mules attached to an army wagon tugging and striving with all their power to drag the empty wagon out of a mud hole. Boys who had plied the trade of bootblack gave up their profession and with pail and sponge in hand called to the passer by, "Wash your boots, sir?" During the lovely month of December we had been impatient for action; but now the oft repeated question, "Why don't the Army of the Potomac move?" became ludicrous to ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... all celestial treasures; by it we penetrate into the midst of all the joy, strength, mercy, and goodness Divine, ... we receive our well-being from all around us, as the sponge plunged into the ocean imbibes without an effort the water that surrounds it ... this joy, strength, mercy, and goodness become ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.

... rumours that had been floating about the city all day. Could it possibly be that the Germans had effected a landing in Ireland and were marching on the city? Could it be true that the British Fleet had been destroyed by the German Fleet? Had the Government thrown up the sponge?... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... capacious barns where knowledge is stored like hay to become musty because it is never used. I have seen hundreds of boys of this character, graduate with great honor in college (where the only criterion applied was the capacity to absorb knowledge as a sponge does water), only to be eclipsed in after years by the boys who graduated at the foot of the class, who were practically in disgrace on Commencement day. In our popular public school and collegiate system, there is too much stuffing of knowledge, ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... off and was back in a moment with a basin of water, a sponge and a towel, and before Grenfall fully knew what was happening, the man-servant was bathing his head, the others looking on anxiously, the young lady apprehensively, her hands clasped before her as she bent over to inspect ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... Caiaphas, Calcol echoed, "Behold your king!" and raising a stalk of hyssop, on which was a sponge that he had dipped in the posca, the thin wine the soldiers drink, he offered it to ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... me," I plunged my prick up, and spent a full stream in her cunt. "I hope to God that sperm's all up your womb," said I. Her own pleasure had so overcome her, that she could not move for a minute; then jumping up she washed herself with a sponge,—she recently had used one. I never had a spend in her again ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... Natural History—Will a horsehair become a snake? The Hedge hog—What it is, how it lives, and where it is found. Illustrated. The Sponge—Its origin, growth, and uses. Educational Matters-Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Michigan. Cathedral of Rheims-The Coronation place of the old French Kings; ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing out of the water) Raoul darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my new hat and a carriage sponge. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... and took it, and what he was taking was death. It was creeping over him, seeping into his feet, filling him like liquid does a sponge. ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon

... world we roam, And in all climates are at home; With care provide you as we go With sunshine, rain, and hail, or snow. You, when it rains, like fools, believe Jove pisses on you through a sieve: An idle tale, 'tis no such matter; We only dip a sponge in water, Then squeeze it close between our thumbs, And shake it well, and down it comes; As you shall to your sorrow know; We'll watch your steps where'er you go; And, since we find you walk a-foot, We'll soundly souse your frieze surtout. 'Tis but by our peculiar grace, That Phoebus ever ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... for Mollie's ankle to be answered. Fresh crusty loaves were brought out by the baker, loosely wrapped in soft paper, and packed away under the seats. A large box, containing a peculiarly delicious make of sponge cake, was set on Mollie's lap, and a blue paper bag of sifted sugar was entrusted to Jerry's special care by a misguided grocer. Dick had a golf-club needing attention, which entailed a long and intimate conversation with the local carpenter, who ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... since, when staying at watering-places in the summer, he had mounted a hired hack. So that his ideas of sport were gathered entirely from books and pictures, to which, when they treated of that subject, he was devotedly attached. What happy hours he had spent poring over Jorrock's Hunts, Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour, and the works of the Old Shekarry! When he went to a picture-gallery he was listless until he came upon some representation of moving adventure by flood or field, and then the rest of the party could hardly ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... different answers. Again, a bright day or a cloudy, the presence of a slight haze, or the juxtaposition of other colours, alters it very much; for the dandelion is not a glazed colour, like the buttercup, but sensitive. It is like a sponge, and adds to its own hue that which is passing, sucking ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... actions were guided by sound principles. His quiet determination not to allow himself to be influenced by the gossip of Cape Town was also realised, and amid all the spite shown it is to his honour that, instead of throwing up the sponge, he persevered, until at last he succeeded in the aim which he had kept before him from the day he had landed in Table Bay. He restored peace to the dark continent where no one had welcomed him, but where everybody mourned his departure ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... while a still greater excess of the citrate, in a concentrated solution causes the sensitized paper to change without exposure to light, and to produce a redder blue or purple, which does not adhere to the paper, but may be washed off with a sponge. I have found that the cheapest method of reproducing inked drawings that have been made on thick paper is not to trace them, but to print the blues from a photographic glass negative; and also, that the dry plate process is well adapted to such work in offices, when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... of the war is gettin to it. I been rained on so much the last week I feel like an old sponge. Every nite weve been marchin along thru the pitch dark with trucks an guns an everything else that rattles ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter

... Roet, mottled red and green marls and clays with occasional beds of shale, sandstone, gypsum, rocksalt and dolomite. In Hesse and Thuringia, a quartzitic sandstone prevails in the lower part. The "Rhizocorallium Dolomite" (R. Jenense, probably a sponge) of the latter district contains the only Bunter fauna of any importance. In Lorraine and the Eifel and Saar districts there are micaceous clays and sandstones with plant remains—the Voltzia sandstone. The lower beds in the Black Forest, Vosges, Odenwald and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... is sponge cake for me may be sawdust for somebody else. Say, I rode for an hour in a 'rickshaw at Nagoya to see the most beautiful girl in Japan and when we got to the teahouse they trotted out a little shrimp that looked as if she'd been dried over a barrel—you know, stood bent all the time, as if she ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... rained heavily, which was good for my plants, but, as our kitchen is some six or eight yards from the house, cooking became a series of adventures. I had set a sponge for bread last night, and was most anxious to bake the dough early in the day. A black boy was sent to the carpenter for a moulding board, and, placing it on a chair on the back veranda, I knelt on the floor with a ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... cold as it seems, does more to carry off the snow than a week of spring sunshine, although it may be warm for the season. What is more, the snow is wasted evenly, and not merely on sunny slopes. The wind seems to soak up the melting snow like a great sponge, for the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... very inviting and Betty offered a share most hospitably, and in spite of its only being a quarter before eleven when the feast began, the chicken sandwiches entirely disappeared. There were only four, and half a dozen small sponge-cakes which proved to be somewhat dry ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... "Because we always get 'em," he says; and the class is convinced: it is a fact. A baby wails because it cannot get the whole tree at once. The "little mother"—herself a child of less than a dozen winters—who has it in charge, cooes over it, and soothes its grief with the aid of a surreptitious sponge-cake evolved from the depths of teacher's pocket. Babies are encouraged in these schools, though not originally included in their plan, as often the one condition upon which the older children can be reached. Some one has ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... stages of the cure; but he (or she) will soon reject even wine. Strong black coffee, or tea, should be given as often as possible—the oftener the better—and iced soda-water should be administered after a heavy meal. Take this prescription and let it be made up—Rx Acid. Acet. eight ounces. Sponge down the patient's spine with this fluid until the parts moistened tingle smartly; and let this be done night and morning. Also get the following from your chemist—Rx Ext. Cinch. Rub. Liq. four ounces—and give one teaspoonful in water after each meal. In a week the drinker will ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... Renaissance, given by Charles the Fifth, and spoiled, in the last century, by tasteless ornaments; fourteen richly sculptured gold plates, which once ornamented the arm-chair of the emperor; an ostensorium, given by Philippe the Second; the cord which bound our Savior; the sponge that was used upon the cross; the girdle of the Holy Virgin, and that ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... a million from amongst its numbers, and for the remainder a storm of misery so fierce that in the end (as happened also at Athens during the Peloponnesian war from a different 5 form of misery) very many lost their memory; all records of their past life were wiped out as with a sponge—utterly erased and cancelled: and many others lost their reason; some in a gentle form of pensive melancholy, some in a more restless form of feverish delirium and nervous agitation, and others in the fixed forms of 10 tempestuous mania, raving frenzy, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey



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