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Sheaf   /ʃif/   Listen
Sheaf

noun
(pl. sheaves)
1.
A package of several things tied together for carrying or storing.  Synonym: bundle.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sheaf" Quotes from Famous Books



... weep their enchantless grief. Spring is so much too bright, since Spring is brief, And in our hearts is Autumn all the year, Least sad when the wide pastures are most drear And fields grieve most—robbed of the last gold sheaf. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... The present sheaf of young folk's stories were written during the latter part of that battle for recognition, and my gathering of them inside book covers is pursuant of his own intention at the time of his death on November ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... did not mean Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, Lay thy sheaf adown and come Share my harvest and ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... hand should bring only its culminating glories, its most perfect results, whether of leaf or flower or fruit. For in an urn of tintless alabaster, that had lain centuries in the breathless dust and gloom of an Egyptian tomb, that hand had set a sheaf of gentians, every fringed cup blue as the wild river when a noon sky tints it, or as the vaulted azure of a June midnight on the edge of the Milky Way,—a sheaf no Ceres owned, no foodfull garner coveted, but the satiating aliment ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... possession of] a horse and all such pampering vanities! and that can foot it five or six miles in the dirt, and preach till starlight, for as many [5 or 6] shillings! as also a sober and temperate Clergy, that will not eat so much as the Laity, but that the least pig, the least sheaf, and the least of everything, may satisfy their Spiritualship! And besides, a money-renouncing Clergy, that can abstain from seeing a penny, a month together! unless it be when the Collectors and Visitationers come. These are all Gospel dispensations! ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... got the stove-pipe up. They had to go right by the side of the house, right by the parlor winders, to get to the side of the barn where they wanted to thresh; and just as they wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever heard that was the cap sheaf. ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... And as a cap-sheaf came the thought of differentiating the whole verse[8] by an Italicized setting! That is almost the last word of ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... right," said Mickey, his face flushing. "Often I hear you say 'let good enough alone.' My sentiments exact. Lily is fine, and so am I. Let us alone! If you and Peter will do me the 'cap-sheaf favour, as he would say, you'll dust up and spunk up, and the very first hint that comes—'cause it's coming—at the very first hint of how Miss Leslie would love to take care of the dear little darling ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... later, sat in his study, the checks in his hand, striving to rally his courage. Christopher had gone; he had seen him from his window, laden with parcels, starting upon the ascent of Silver Mountain. Christopher had made out many checks for small amounts, and Stephen held the sheaf in his hand, and gradually his courage to arise and go and tell Christopher's wife gained strength. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... 'em? have you not threshing work enough, but Children must be bang'd out o'th' sheaf too? other men with all their delicates, and healthful diets, can get but wind eggs: you with a clove of Garlick, a piece of Cheese would break a Saw, and sowre Milk, can mount like Stallions, and I ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... that my own affairs are so immediately pressing that I cannot have the pleasure of attending you. Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the Sheaf, not 'Scyld the son of Scaf'; for it is too inconsistent, even in myth, to give a patronymic to a foundling. According to the original form of the story, Scēaf was the foundling; he had come ashore with a sheaf of corn, and from that ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... the United States finished reading the sheaf of papers before him, laid them neatly to one side, and looked up at the big man seated across ...
— Suite Mentale • Gordon Randall Garrett

... compelled to serve him for seven years, during which time the giant was fishing for the salmon which had this property—that whoever ate the first bit of it he would obtain the gift of prophecy; and during the seven years the only nourishment which the giant could take was after this manner: a sheaf of oats was placed to windward of him, and he held a needle before his mouth, and lived on the nourishment that was blown from the sheaf of corn through the eye of the needle. At length, when the seven years were passed, the giant's perseverance was rewarded, and he caught the famous salmon and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... and strolled about the footways. The dawn had risen in the white sheaf of light at the end of the Rue Rambuteau; and the sun, now level with the house-tops, was diffusing rosy rays which already fell in warm patches on the pavements. Claude was conscious of a gay awakening in the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... Mears, president of the Junior class, had held a conference with Mr. Edmonds, the most influential member, some said, next to the president, Cameron Jordan, a cousin of the old and respected physician. The result of this conference was that Bill McCormack held in his fat, red hands a sheaf of papers which allotted the streets to the four classes and took the decision quite ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... bold rider, a dancer, and a writer of verses, singing and fluting all day long, and "fresh as the month of May;"—and his "knot-headed" yeoman; a bold forester, in green, with horn, and baudrick, and dagger, a mighty bow in hand, and a sheaf of peacock arrows shining beneath his belt;—and the coy, smiling, simple nun, with her gray eyes, her small red mouth, and fair forehead, her dainty person clad in featly cloak and "'ypinched wimple," ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... "Rest" in the centre, from Dr. and Mrs. Hodgins; pillow, with "Father," from Mrs. E. Harris; crown from the scholars of Ryerson school; pillow, with "Grandpapa," from the grandchildren of the deceased: wreath from Mr. C. H. Greene; cross, also scythe, with sheaf, from Mr. and Mrs. George Harris, London; crown and cross from Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Potts; anchor from W. E. and F. E. Hodgins; sheaf from George S. Hodgins; lilies and other choice flowers inside the casket from ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... knife I cut a sheaf of golden grain and an armful of scarlet poppies and said a prayer for the boy and his mother ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis

... has gathered his harvest from wide fields, just for the gathering; he has not threshed it out and put it into the bread of literature—only a few loaves; the Saunterer has gathered his harvest from a rather circumscribed field, but has threshed it out to the last sheaf; has made many loaves; and it is because he himself so enjoys writing that his readers find such joy and morning freshness in his books, his own joy being communicated to his reader, as Mr. Muir's own enthusiasm is communicated to his hearer. With Mr. Burroughs, if ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... sheaves, Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined Of memories that go not out of mind; Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves When you bring ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang

... figure of a woman clad in a long, white robe sat at a table in the middle of the room with a sheaf of letters littered before her. Her emaciated arms were flung wide over them, her ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... (so called because he wore glasses with circular lenses and his name made you think of telephones) answered the summons, carrying a sheaf of papers. He was the Captain's Clerk: that is to say, the junior accountant officer, detailed by the Captain to conduct his official correspondence and perform secretarial work generally. The position is not one commonly sought after, but Double-O Gerrard appeared ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... structure of the barn, and in its interior accommodation, much will depend upon the branches of agriculture to which the farm is devoted. A farm cultivated in grain chiefly requires but little room for stabling purposes. Storage for grain in the sheaf, and granaries, will require its room; while a stock farm requires a barn with extensive hay storage, and stables for its cattle, horses, and sheep, in all climates which do not admit of such stocks living through the winter in the field, as is the case in the great grazing districts west of ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... was speaking the landlady came in again, bearing a broad platter, upon which stood all the beakers and flagons charged to the brim with the brown ale or the ruby wine. Behind her came a maid with a high pile of wooden plates, and a great sheaf of spoons, one of which she handed round to each of the travellers. Two of the company, who were dressed in the weather-stained green doublet of foresters, lifted the big pot off the fire, and a third, with a huge pewter ladle, served out a portion of steaming collops to ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Brantome!—engrossed in his pessimistic peroration, his visage of an urbane, successful man full of complicated satisfactions and regrets. Behind him the staircase was suddenly bathed in sunshine; all the panes of stained glass became sparkling and rich; and a sheaf of prismatic rays stretched down, through the gloom of the hall, toward Lilla's ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... Poke," grunted the ugly little creature, putting his moss-coloured hair behind his great yellow ears. "But do not be afraid, Narragansetts, the Little Man loves you, and is come to make you a gift. What do you think these are?"—showing them a bow and a sheaf of arrows. The Narragansetts all declared they could not tell, and begged the Little Man to tell them the names, and shew them the uses of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... no reply, but glided silently away. One by one the men came up with the light tread of cats, and manned the walls, keeping well under cover of the parapet—each taking his appointed station beside his particular pile of stones and sheaf of arrows, which lay on the platform, while below a man with a bow was ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... and clasped by roses and ribbons, an oblique cross of roses lying on a bed of ivy, a basket made of ivy and autumn leaves, holding a sheaf of grain and a sickle of violets, an ivy pillow with a cross of flowers on one side, a bunch of pansies held by a knot of ribbon at one corner, a cross made of ivy alone, a "harvest-field" made of ears of wheat, are some of the many new funereal ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... grasses and the leaves Shall lift and lean between me and the splendor of the sun, Till the moon swoons into twilight, and the gleaners' work is done— Save that yet an arm shall bind me, even as the reapers do The meanest sheaf of ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... by a sound intelligence and some power of observation, makes an admirable commentary. Our author's narrative carries us to those days of the great hopes of the Spring of 1917, hopes so tragically deferred. Perhaps the best thing in an interesting sheaf is the description of the attack of the Guards Division—as it had become—on the Transloy-Lesboeufs-Ginchy road, with its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various

... this, La Rochefoucauld prepared, with infinite patience and with the conscientiousness of a great literary artist, his sheaf of Maxim-arrows, ready to shoot them, one by one, into the gross heart of amour-propre. What, then, were the reflexions which, now settled in Paris, and secure from the rough world in the recesses of Mme de Sable's salon, the Duke ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... his tail. If Mr. Traill had been there he would surely have caught the infection, thrown care to this sweet April breeze for once, and taken the wee terrier for a run on the Pentland braes. The temptation was going by when a preoccupied lady, with a sheaf of Easter lilies on her sable arm, opened the wicket. Her ample Victorian skirts swept right over the little dog, and when he emerged there was the gate slightly ajar. Widening the aperture with nose and paws, Bobby was off, skirmishing at ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... corn. There are three methods of harvesting corn, one as in Umbria, where they cradle the straw close to the earth and shock up the sheaves as they are cut: when a sufficient number of shocks has been made, they go over them again and cut each sheaf between the spikes and the straw, the spikes being thrown into baskets and sent off to the threshing floor, while the straw is left in the field and stacked. A second method of harvesting is practised in ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... A sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door of the house, and there it swayed and rustled in the wind and whispered its tidings. At noon the preparation of the dead was finished, and in the coffin lay the fair young form, beautiful, and in the sweet ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... hook over the compositor's "case," Fred reached down a sheaf of the Daily Weather Reports, and laid those for the last three days on the table in front of Anton. The Forecaster stood by to help the crippled lad and to correct him if he made any mistakes in ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... and in the contentious times of the last Stewarts we were severely fined for harbouring and resetting intercommuned ministers, and narrowly escaped giving a martyr to the Calendar of the Covenant, in the person of the father of our family historian. He "took the sheaf from the mare," however, as the MS. expresses it, and agreed to accept of the terms of pardon offered by Government, and sign the bond in evidence he would give no further ground of offence. My grandsire glosses over his father's backsliding as smoothly as he can, and comforts himself ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... herself that evening in her husband's study with a sheaf of visiting cards in her hand. She thought it possible that she might obtain further illumination by confronting ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... defend the right and change the hearts of her enemies, or, at all events confound their politics; and each, with a sort of awful second-sight, when they viewed one another across the street, beholding her neighbour draped in a dark film of thunder-cloud, and with a sheaf of pale lightning, instead of a fan flickering in ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... returned he called to Julius and his daughters, "What idle-backs you are! Come, and bind a sheaf with me." And they rose with a merry laugh, and followed him down the field, working a little, and resting a little; and towards the close of the afternoon, listening to the singing of an old man who had brought his fiddle to the field in order ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... about the sheaf that was to be waved, and bread of first fruits, which was a type of Christ; for he is unto God 'the first fruits of them that slept' (1 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... refer to a sheaf of papers he carried around with him, fastened together with a little arrangement that allowed of their being rapidly turned over from time to time. Doubtless this was his plan of campaign. Hugh would have given something for the privilege of examining ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler

... I hope—because they've an unkind way of stopping them. Not but what you might get rid of one or two if you make haste. But they're ugly things to track a chap out by, you know. Why, I knew a young fellow, much your age and build, borrowed a whole sheaf of 'em and went up north, and made up his mind he'd have a high old time. He did slip through a fiver; but—would you believe it?—the next he tried on, they were down on him like shooting stars, and he's another two years to do on the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... been in the fields with Janet, who had woven for her breeze-blown hair a wreath of the wild gerardia blossoms, whose purple beauty had reminded the good Scotchwoman of her own native heather. In her arms the child bore, like a little gleaner, a great sheaf of graceful golden-rod, as large as her grasp could bear. In all the artist's visions he had seen nothing so aerial, so lovely; in all his passionate portraitures of his idol, he had delineated nothing so like to her. ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... asters she had gathered in passing, she sat in deep thought, when a car stopped on the road. Kate looked up to see Robert coming across the churchyard with his arms full of greenhouse roses. He carried a big bunch of deep red for her mother, white for Polly, and a large sheaf of warm pink for Nancy Ellen. Kate knelt up and taking her flowers, she moved them lower, and silently helped Robert place those he had brought. Then she sat where she had been, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Lev. xxiii. chap. and xxviii. and xxix. ch. of Numbers, the Lord's Sabbath and the Jewish Sabbaths of holy convocations are all brought to view, so that from the 14th day of the first month to the 22d, is the feast of unleavened bread with offerings, and fifty days from the wafe sheaf or resurrection is another. See Lev. xxiii: 16-18, and then from the first day of the 7th month until the 23d of the same, viz. 1st, 10th, 15th and 23d. The eight last days is a continual feast. Now the Sabbath ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates

... due to his being thoroughly au courant with all the very latest gossip of the London world, his success can only be put down as past understanding. Neophytes who did not know Pansey Cottrell, when they met him in a country house, would gaze with awe-struck curiosity at the sheaf of correspondence awaiting him on the side-table, and wondered what news he would unfold to them that morning. But the more experienced knew better. Pansey Cottrell always came down late, and never ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... garland of wheat-ears and poppies. How busy is the scene around her! The shining scythe cuts down the bearded barley and the quivering oat; the reaper bends over the golden wheat, and fills the plenteous sheaf. ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... his waistcoat, and, ripping away the lining, brought out a sheaf of notes. "A man," said he, "who never knows one minute whether he may not be arrested and have his pockets cleared the next, should never be without these. Senor Briton, use your big strength and tear away all that seems you good. I ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... lightened by utterance of his trouble, and his courage a little restored by food and rest, the Bishop came back to him with a cheerful countenance from his prayers, the King took heart again. Kennedy produced to him the old image of the sheaf of arrows which, bound together, were not to be broken, but one by one could easily be snapt asunder, and advised him to make proclamation of a free pardon to all who would throw down their arms and make submission, and to march at once against ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... making-up, Dolly Doodles!" she let her bow wander idly over the strings, until a sort of rhythmic measure came to her; fragments she knew of many compositions but bound into a sheaf, as it were, by a theme ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... from the fact that all the different branches of the animal kingdom, from the protozoa up to man, have come along with what we call the higher branches, the mammals; the suckers have kept pace with the main stalk, so that we have the image of a sheaf of branches starting from a common origin and all of equal length. Man has brought on his relations along ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... "I'm getting off. Look at these results." He brought over a sheaf of graphs, with explanatory tables attached. Rapidly Buck ran through them with him. Most of them were graphs of functions of light, considered as ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... sheaf presumably refers metaphorically to the fate of the farmer whom the stone was set up to commemorate. The old-fashioned plough is cut only in single profile, but is not an ineffective emblem. I imagine that the ribbon above the ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... ceased to long for letters containing good news, or to fear that one full of bad tidings would come, and every one knows that such a state of mind as this is serious. Now, when Assunta found her one morning, pacing the long, frescoed hall, by the side of the running water, and put a whole sheaf of letters into her hand, Daphne looked at them cautiously, and started to open one, then lost her courage and held them for a while to get used to them. Finally she went upstairs and changed her dress, putting on her short skirt and red felt hat, and walked out ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... remembrance. Many people in the villages, wanting to be sure that their prayers and wants would be remembered, wrote their names on slips of paper and thrust them into the pilgrim's hand. Thus in the hostelry at Jerusalem an old wanderer came to me one morning with a sheaf of dirty papers on which were written names, and I read them out for him ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... survey of his works is out of the question, nor would any one be repaid for the labour of criticism. A mere list of the topics that he handled would fill a long chapter. A redaction of a long treatise on harmony, a vast sheaf of notes on the elements of physiology, a collection of miscellanea on the drama, a still more copious collection of miscellanea on a hundred points in literature and art, a fragment on the exercise of young Russians, an elaborate plan ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... heart is like the ocean, and claims the outpourings of every stream of life. To these grand souls of virtue and goodness let every man bow in reverence, for they are mothers to the motherless. When the Reaper came forth to reap he aimed to take the richest sheaf, but lo! the mother in Israel gathered the orphans together, and poured out ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... three weeks to her wedding when one day Nelly suddenly came upon Mrs. Rooke in one of the narrow, fashionable streets south of Oxford Street. Mrs. Rooke was coming out of a florist's shop, and she was carrying a sheaf of lilies in her hand. For one second she looked as though she would have turned aside and avoided Nelly. Then she came straight on with a little unfriendly uplifting of ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... will find you a bed; you shall have a hot supper. What would your ladies think of me, if I let you go forth among the snow again? Just look at the window-panes, while you and I were talking! And the feathers of the ice shooting up inside, as long as the last sheaf of quills I opened for them. Quills, quills, quills, all day! And when I buy a goose unplucked, if his quills are any good, his legs won't carve, and his gizzard is full of gravel-stones! Ah, the world grows every day ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... loved flowers almost as though they were children. She writes: "I bore on this June day a sheaf of the white columbine,—one single sheaf, one single root; but it was almost more than I could carry. In the open spaces, I carried it on my shoulder; in the thickets, I bore it carefully in my arms, like a baby.... There is a part of Cheyenne ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... that week he had the run of things; had met his professors, one of whom had preached that sermon two summers before, and now, on being told who the lad was, welcomed him as a sheaf out of that sowing; had been assigned to his classes; had gone down town to the little packed and crowded book-store and bought the needful student's supplies—so making the first draught on his money; been assigned ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... everything, doesn't he, sir?" asked Pratt, as he took an address book from the desk, and picked up a sheaf ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... happen them. I am resolved, therefore, not to stay here, but to go with them, let what will betide; and I request and command, according to my bargain, that the Queen shall stand on the highest tower of the palace until we come back (or find out that we are certainly dead), with nothing but sheaf corn for her food and cold water for her drink, if it should be for seven ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... he charged this man with the crime of originating them:—and why? what was his object? He was, the count declared in answer, a born intriguer, a lover of blood, mad for the smell of it!—an Old Man of the Mountain; a sheaf of assassins; and more—the curse of Italy! There should be extradition treaties all over the world to bring this arch-conspirator to justice. The door of his conscience had been knocked at by a thousand bleeding ghosts, and nothing had opened ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the play. The first act is one of the most picturesque scenes on the stage. It takes place in a farmyard, the day when the reapers have finished their task, which is just as awe-inspiring as that of the sowers. A cart, drawn by oxen, enters the yard, bringing a sheaf all adorned with ribbons and flowers. The oldest of the labourers, Pere Remy, addresses a fine couplet to the sheaf of corn which has cost so much labour, but which is destined to keep life in them all. Claudie is one of those young peasant girls, whom we met with in the novel entitled ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... The biographers didn't take time to give her first name, nor recount her pedigree, so rapt were they with her personality. They only say, "She was tall, willowy and lissome; and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her picture as a peasant beauty, bearing on her well-poised head a sheaf of corn." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... been such a joy, and although behind his tenderness vaguely she had sensed some change, some new excitement in his mind, in her own absorption in their boy she had attributed it to that. But early one evening he came in with a sheaf of roses in his arms, and when she had exclaimed at them and breathed deep of their dewy fragrance, Joe bent over and kissed her, and said ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... she admitted only her bruised pride, her bleeding heart, her relentless incorruptible conscience; and over the conclusion, she shed no tears, made no moan, allowed no margin for pity. Early on that Spring morning, she had received a glowing sheaf of La France and Duchess de Brabant roses, accompanied by a brief note announcing Mr. Dunbar's return, and requesting an interview at noon. The tone of her reply was markedly cordial, and after offering congratulations upon his birthday, she begged his ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... on the two short, upraised handholds. Satisfied at length with his preparations, he finally drew the scythe back with a sweeping motion of both arms and curved it forward close to the ground. It embraced a sudden island lovingly and a sheaf of grass swooned into a heap. I was reminded of old woodcuts in a ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... marched away like a king with thoughts of state in mind. I thought his beard was grayer than it had been, but oh, sahib, he strode as an arrow goes, swift and straight, and splendid. Lonely as an arrow that has left the sheaf! ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... the way down here," Fremont said, "why you copied one of the papers in the Tolford estate packet. I know now. There is in that sheaf of papers a description of a lost Mexican mine—a very valuable mine which has been lost for any number of years. I remember of hearing Mr. Cameron discuss the matter with one of the heirs. The lost mine seems to be the most valuable item in the estate schedule," ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... of the cafes, a favorite resort of the officers of his own regiment, he saw Cigarette. A sheaf of blue, and white, and scarlet lights flashed with tongues of golden flame over her head, and a great tricolor flag, with the brass eagle above it, was hanging in the still, hot air from the balcony from which she leaned. Her tunic-skirt was full of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... had never been able to explain the magic Kitty had brewed for him. There was a heady quality in the very ring of her name. His first glimpse of her, on Class Day, in a white gown and a hat that to his manly indiscrimination looked as guileless as a sheaf of poppies nodding above the pale-yellow hair that had the sheen of corn-silk, had been a vision that stirred in him heroic promptings. He had no difficulty in securing an introduction. She was a connection of the Wetmores, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... that he was without pipe or tobacco. Dinah was summoned again, left the room after a whispered consultation, and returned with a small sheaf of clean churchwarden pipes and a cake of tobacco, dark in hue, somewhat dry but (as a quick inspection ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... a head of the Queen, for which Her Majesty recently gave Mr. Wyon sittings; the reverse bears an allegorical design—Britannia seated and holding the scroll of confederation, with figures representing the four provinces grouped around her. Ontario holds the sheaf and sickle; Quebec, the paddle; Nova Scotia, the mining spade; and New Brunswick the forest axe. Britannia carries her trident and the lion crouches by her side. The following inscription runs round a raised border: "Juventas et Patrius Vigor Canada Instaurata 1867." The relief ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... and the bootmaker came, saw and measured, while Jack sat in the background, with a sheaf of plates of men's clothing in his lap, and gave directions. Jerry must have felt a great deal like a fool during the operation for I'm sure he looked one. But Ballard had his way and not until night did he leave us to peace ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... admirals who were famous figures in Dundonald's fiery youth and famous memories in Dundonald's noble age. And as the admirals were, so were the captains, so were the men. Fearney sticking the surrendered swords in a sheaf under his arm; Walton calmly informing his superior that "we have taken or destroyed all the Spanish ships on this coast: number as per margin," are typical figures in a tradition of a courage so superlative that Admiral Sir Robert Calder, who fought very gallantly and ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... bank just pinged with electronic shock when he presented one of the bills and flashed a panel that directed him to see Vice President Wain. Wain was a smooth customer who bugged his eyes and lost some of his tan when he saw the sheaf of bills. ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... in birth, for, at their backs, came a discreet cough of warning, and, both heads turning as one they saw Bonbright, the assistant secretary, with a sheaf of notes on ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... wheat ranged in its serried rows, Seems like some noble camp upon the distant plain. Glory to God!—the crickets chirp their wide refrain; From sheaf to sheaf ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Giles employed in examining his followers, and rigidly sending home all not properly equipped with bow, sheaf of arrows, strong knife or pike, buff coat, head-piece and stout shoes; also a wallet of provisions for three days, or a certain amount of coin. He would have no marauding on the way, and refused to take any mere lawless camp follower, thus disposing of a good many disreputable- looking ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... people pay them all the marks of honour the more freely because none are exacted from them. The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the High Priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... action roused her, and she went over to her davenport. But on lifting the lid her eyes fell upon the little sheaf of bills—and again the Kresneys faded into insignificance. She took up the detested slips of paper; laid them out one by one on the table; and, sitting down before them, contemplated them with knitted brows and a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... Huron chief escaped from foemen nigh, His frail bark launches on Niagara's tides, "Pride in his port, defiance in his eye," Singing his song of death the warrior glides; In vain they yell along the river sides, In vain the arrow from its sheaf is torn, Calm to his doom the willing victim rides, And, till adown the roaring torrent borne, Mocks them with gesture proud, and ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... of masquers, approached the cottage, and drew up before it, while the jingling of bells ceasing at the same moment, told that the rush-cart had stopped likewise. Chief amongst the party was Robin Hood clad in a suit of Lincoln green, with a sheaf of arrows at his back, a bugle dangling from his baldric, a bow in his hand, and a broad-leaved green hat on his head, looped up on one side, and decorated with a heron's feather. The hero of Sherwood was personated by a tall, well-limbed fellow, to whom, being really a forester of Bowland, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Binney was at last prevailed on to leave him in peace, he sat down with the sheaf of miscellaneous papers she had left him, and began to examine them without much hope of discovering anything to ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... burst forth at last. They rushed at the platform. Robur disappeared amid a sheaf of hands that were thrown about as if caught in a storm. In vain the steam whistle screamed its fanfares on to the assembly. Philadelphia might well think that a fire was devouring one of its quarters and that all the waters of the Schuyllkill ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... But it is known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered one of Crowley's launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. It is further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours later, he immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine fellow-captains of industry who had received letters from Goliah. These telegrams were similarly worded, and read: "The yacht Energon has arrived. There is something in this. I advise you ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... was seated, Bush took up a sheaf of letters, and dictated replies. Though rapid, his enunciation was perfectly clear, and Hazel found herself getting his words with greater ease ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... impetuosity he at once set about arming himself for the adventure. On his head he placed a cap of steel. Underneath his Lincoln green he wore a coat of chain metal. Then with sword and buckler girded at his side he made a goodly show. But he also took with him his stout yew bow and a sheaf of chosen arrows. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... enterprise and in no way to be compared with the royal factory of a rich king. Burne-Jones drew the figures; H. Dearle, a pupil, and Philip Webb drew backgrounds and animals, but Morris held in his own hands the arrangement of all. It was as though a gardener brought in a sheaf of cut roses and the master hand arranged them. Mr. Dearle directed some compositions ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... bloom or dense with leaf Far-shadowing, deep as depth of dawn or night: And all were parcel of the garnered sheaf His strenuous ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... horse snorted, gasped, and stamped, without making any way. It was as though the devil had tied a hair about the spokes. After fearful struggling and long agony, the wood was at length reached. Klaus fell manfully to work. A sheaf of young trees were presently down before his axe. In the haste of the felling, he cut down some shrubbery, of no use in the manufacture of twirling-sticks, but trees and shrubs were heaped together on his cart; he stopped his pipe, and with provision at least for the next week, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... away from him, her face went white again, she grew cold with the fear upon her. Just then she cared infinitely little for the sheaf of banknotes in the yellow envelope which the banker had given to her. She jerked the parcel out from her dress and tossed it to him, her fingers fumbling with the button of the thin garment under which her heart was beating wildly. And the little "toy pistol" she could have hurled ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... one dead. Meanwhile, some time in September, the parson of the parish had fallen a victim to the scourge, and on the 2nd of October another was instituted in his room. Who reaped the harvest? The tithe sheaf too—how was it garnered in the barn? And the poor kine at milking time? Hush! ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... into the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes. "These haven't been published yet," ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... the frosty air, No need to heed the blasts that chafe, The scatter'd sheaf, the vintage spare— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... sea: and, turning, by his side Victor, God's angel, stood with lustrous brow Fresh from that Face no man can see and live. He, putting forth his hand, with living coal Snatched from God's altar, made that dripping cowl Dry as an Autumn sheaf. The angel spake: "Rejoice, for they are fled that hate thy land, And those are nigh that love it." Then the Saint Upraised his head; and lo! in snowy sheen Cresting high rock, and ridge, and airy peak, Innumerable the Sons of God all round Vested the invisible ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... in evidence on the earth; and the yearly sacrifice of those two animals and of the growing Corn for the good of mankind runs parallel with the drama of the sky, as it affects not only the said constellations but also Virgo (the Earth-mother who bears the sheaf ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... stalks on the floor. Then each hunter takes a stalk, and they unite in a song to the parsnip, the burden of which is a request that the stalks may become dry and useful for purification. The heat of the seal oil lamps soon dries them, and they are tied into one large bundle. The third day the sheaf is opened, and two bundles made. The larger one is for the use of the dancers; the smaller is placed on a spear and stuck in front of ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes

... eyes, peering through her tangled sheaf of golden-brown curls, took a hasty and discontented survey ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... when the empty frame of the portico became occupied by a figure, and one so appropriate, in its wig and obsolete habiliments, to the old-world surroundings that it seemed to complete the picture, and I lingered idly to look at it. The barrister had halted in the doorway to turn over a sheaf of papers that he held in his hand, and, as he replaced the red tape which bound them together, he looked up and our eyes met. For a moment we regarded one another with the incurious gaze that casual strangers bestow ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... of his Remsen road cottage, Ferris Stanhope, Hunston's returned celebrity, sat under a green-shaded lamp and frowned down at a sheaf of his own neat manuscript. Behind him, in a corner, books and various knick-knacks lay spilled over the floor around an open trunk. The room was, in fact, in the litter incident to getting to rights. But this did not act as a stay on the great man's habit of industry, which ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... he is in every other land, but in winter he sticks close to the habitations, and were it not for the fact that the people are bird-lovers, sparrows would have a poor chance of picking up a living at this time of the year. Towards the end of autumn it is a general custom to erect near the house a sheaf of corn on a pole, so that the small birds may have something to eat when the hard weather comes. And the ceremony of putting up the pole is made the occasion for a feast for the children. They are thus not likely to forget the birds, and even ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman

... a time for idle grief, Nor a time for tears to flow; The horror that freezes his limbs is brief— He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf Of darts made sharp ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... Chief picked up a sheaf of papers, mostly standard charts and position reports, I judged, and frowned at them thoughtfully. "I've some work cut ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... City swarm with such retainers—sturdy, brown-faced country fellows, quick of quarrel, and not disposed to bear gibes. He wears a coat and hood of Lincoln green, and has a sword, dagger, horn, and buckler by his side. The sheaf of arrows at his girdle have peacock-feathers. Ten to one but that fellow let fly many a shaft at Cressy and Poictiers, for he is fond of saying, over his ale-bowl, that he carries "ten Frenchmen's lives under ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... earthly existence, from the ceiling, there was not an object but had its own special history. In one corner was an Afghan matchlock, and a bundle of spears from the southern seas; in another a carved Indian paddle, a Kaffir assegai, and an American blowpipe, with its little sheaf of poisoned arrows. Here was a hookah, richly mounted, and with all due accessories, just as it was presented to the major twenty years before by a Mahommedan chieftain, and there was a high Mexican ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Persian's Armada?—when Caesar, finding his army hard pressed, seized spear and buckler, fought while he reorganized his men, and snatched victory from defeat?—when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of Austrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed to freedom?—when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in which he was personally engaged?—when Wellington fought in many climes without ever being conquered?—when Ney, on a hundred fields, changed apparent disaster ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... a little sheaf of this grass at the semi-annual meeting of the Kansas State Horticultural Society, where it excited much attention—the height, softness of the stem, length of blade, and sweet aroma ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various



Words linked to "Sheaf" :   fagot, faggot, package, swag, bale, parcel, pack



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