"Winding-sheet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment by its feet, then let it slide into my arms, and lowered it on to the gravelled path. It was the body of John Emmet, in his winding-sheet. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... encourager of idleness. It was connected with all that was most serious and all that was most delightful in life. It is difficult, indeed, to realize the delight which it gave, and the earnestness with which it was followed at this period, when it seemed, as by a miracle, to fling off the winding-sheet which had long wrapped its stiffened limbs, and to come forth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... mould is my covering now, "But and my winding-sheet; "The dew it falls nae sooner down, "Than my resting-place ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... and composed his limbs," said Bianchon. "When the certificate has been officially registered at the Mayor's office, we will sew him in his winding-sheet and bury him somewhere. What do you ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... body. "These being got, then without delay a choice painter was got to be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken as followeth:—Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study, he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand, and, having put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tied with knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed as dead bodies are usually fitted to be shrouded and put into their coffin or grave. ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... made no reply; but taking D'Artagnan by the hand, he led him to the coffin, and showed him, under the thin winding-sheet, the black wounds by which life had escaped. The captain turned away his eyes, and, judging it was useless to question Grimaud, who would not answer, he recollected that M. de Beaufort's secretary had written more than he, D'Artagnan, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shadows gather and fall,— Still the whispering snow-flakes beat; Night and darkness are over all: Rest, pale city, beneath their pall! Sleep, white world, in thy winding-sheet! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... Debreschescourt died in his sleep. His tiny body—the placid, massive, baby head still one broad smile, the rest of him wrapped round together like a chrysalis—was put to rest finally, in a fold of the winding-sheet of a very aged person, deceased at ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... windward and rapidly neared the vessel they could see the flares being carried up the rigging by the sorely beset crew, and knew the extremity of the case; then the next snow squall wrapped them in like a winding-sheet, and all was shut out. But still, on plunged the Aid at great speed, for the new tug-boat Aid is a much faster and more powerful boat than either of the old tugs, the Aid and the Vulcan. Towing the lifeboat well to windward of the wreck, at last ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... will tell thee to-morrow night, if the King let me live." And the King said to himself, "By Allah, I will not kill her, till I hear the rest of the story!" So they lay together till morning, when the King went out to his hall of audience and the Vizier came in to him, with the winding-sheet under his arm. Then the King ordered and appointed and deposed, without telling the Vizier aught of what had happened, much to the former's surprise, until the end of the day, when the Divan broke up and he retired ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... at full length, and faintly illuminated by the pale light that came from the window, lay a sack of canvas, and under its rude folds was stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria's last winding-sheet,—a winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little. Everything was in readiness. A barrier had been placed between Dantes and his old friend. No longer could Edmond look into those wide-open eyes which had seemed to be penetrating the mysteries of death; no longer could he ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... told me to kiss my father's hand, and then we must go. I obeyed him; he raised the edge of the winding-sheet; I saw two wax-like hands put together; two hands in which I could not have recognized those strong muscular hands, upon the shapely fingers of which in my younger days I had so often played with the wonderful signet-rings, drawing them ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... o'er Donocht head, The snaw drives snelly thro' the dale, The Gaberlunzie tirls my sneck, And, shivering, tells his waefu' tale. "Cauld is the night, O let me in, And dinna let your minstrel fa', And dinna let his winding-sheet Be naething but a wreath ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that if life is a battle, it is not a slaughter-house where ferocious beasts wrangle over their prey, but a wrestling with the divine, under whatever form it may present itself—truth, beauty, or love? Who knows whether this expiring nineteenth century will not arise from its winding-sheet to make amende honorable and bequeath to its successor ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... more, no more, since thou art dead, Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed, No more, at yearly festivals, We cowslip balls Or chains of columbines shall make, For this or that occasion's sake. No, no! our maiden pleasures be Wrapt in thy winding-sheet with thee.'[193] ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... for thy royal beauty Be humble, I pray thee. Here all things die, flower, summer, Youth and life: Soon, soon the day will be, My fair one, when they'll carry thee Faded and pale in a winding-sheet." ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Arms, and run her round the Market-place, till she was ashamed of her Laziness. And what was worse than this, she must not play with the Young Fellows that Day, but stand Neuter, like a Girl doing penance in a Winding-sheet ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... shall part, where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... in its winding-sheet, Black is the night. Hear the owls on the wing, Striking the earth as they pass, while the horses stand 220 Chewing the leaves, and their bells faintly ring. Two eyes are burning like lamps at the train's approach, Steadily, brightly they gleam in the night, Strange birds ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... delusions have been crushed under the foot of Time since then; but this has been left unscathed, to frighten the weak-minded and embitter their existence. A belief in omens is not confined to the humble and uninformed. A general who led an army with credit has been known to feel alarmed at a winding-sheet in the candle; and learned men, who had honourably and fairly earned the highest honours of literature, have been seen to gather their little ones around them, and fear that one would be ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... over I said that I desired to walk in the gardens with the princess Otomie, and we went out and wandered under the solemn trees, that are draped in a winding-sheet of grey moss which, hanging from every bough as though the forest had been decked with the white beards of an army of aged men, waved and rustled sadly in the keen night air. But alas! we might not be alone, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... relics at the present time are the Holy Coat of Treves,[54] the Winding-sheet of Christ at Besancon, and the Santa Scala at Rome. The last are said to be the steps which Jesus ascended and descended when he was brought before Pontius Pilate, and are held in great veneration. It is sacrilegious to walk upon them; the knees of the faithful alone ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... was moving with deliberate steps, the imaginary winding-sheet dragging slowly after him. There was an automatic precision ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... ever. Prematurely old, ruined in constitution, ever dreading the knife of the assassin and the pen of the satirist, greedy of gold and power, wrapping himself lovingly in the purple and fine linen of earth, while conscious that ere long the sumptuous draperies of pride must be exchanged for a winding-sheet, Richelieu looked with a jaundiced eye on all about him, and appeared to derive solace and gratification only from the sufferings of others. He had pursued the unfortunate Duc de la Valette with his hatred until the Parliament, composed almost entirely of the creatures of his will and the slaves ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the country-side was ghastly in its winding-sheet of snow, and the clouds hung heavy as a pall over the stricken earth, the little funeral held its way from the lonely farm-house to the village-churchyard. As a last tribute of respect to their mother, the two brothers drove side by side in the same ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... broom, and the stern peaks of the Puy de Dome mountains, a while ago seen like giants, appeared like rolling hillocks; but here and there a little white streak showed that the snow still lingered and would linger on until the frosts of autumn bound it in chains to await the universal winding-sheet of winter. Climate varied with the varying altitude of the route. Here, on a last patch of mountain ground, were a man or two and a woman or two and odd children, reaping and binding; there, after a few minutes' ascent, on another ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground he turned to gaze ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... prodigality of our times, and tells of the thrift of our forefathers: how that great prince thought himself royally attired, when he bestowed thirteen shillings and fourpence on half a suit. How one wedding gown served our grandmothers till they exchanged it for a winding-sheet; and praises plainness, not for less sin, but for less cost. For himself, he is still known by his forefather's coat, which he means with his blessing to bequeath to the many descents of his heirs. He neither would be poor, nor be ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... the Commons into the state of servile dependency they were in when they wore the badges of the Lords." It would, he contended, take away "one of the most powerful incentives to virtue, . . . since there would be no coming to honor but through the winding-sheet of an old decrepit lord and the grave of an extinct noble family." Walpole knew well his public and his time. He dwelt most strongly on this last consideration—that the Bill if passed into law ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... shade appeared on the threshold of the vast hall. This shade resembled the ancient statues lying on the tombs. It was wrapped in an immense winding-sheet which ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... his winding-sheet, the waters were his tomb; But, for his fame, the ocean sea was ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... at length quite visible to the youth on the other side, who stands by himself with clasped hands and tearful eyes, he shrinks from the sight. He turns round to his companions who are provided with a large winding-sheet or pall, and with the help of one of them, to the surprise of the populace, he spreads it all over the body. And having done this, he stands again trembling, just for a few seconds, absorbed in his meditations, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the monotonous surface of this plain, and then looked upon the chaotic mountains that walled it in, my mind became impressed with ideas of coldness and desolation. It seemed as if everything was dead around us, and Nature was laid out in her winding-sheet. I saw that my companions experienced similar feelings, but no one spoke; and we commenced riding down the pass that led ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... not the look of this mist. My grandsire hath told me of a mist that lay like a winding-sheet on everything for two days, and this seemeth to me to be of that kind. It were not wise to ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... by, no word came from the Count nor from the Baron; nobody appeared to act for them, and Rastignac had already been obliged to pay the priest. Sylvie asked ten francs for sewing the old man in his winding-sheet and making him ready for the grave, and Eugene and Bianchon calculated that they had scarcely sufficient to pay for the funeral, if nothing was forthcoming from the dead man's family. So it was the medical student who laid him in a pauper's ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... fields and the somber prairie. The little girl's mother, stringing pop-corn in the kitchen for the Christmas tree at the school-house, looked out toward noon to see the farm restored, as if by enchantment, to the aspect of other and happier winters; and sorrowfully welcomed the winding-sheet that gave promise of the coming resurrection, when the grass and flowers should rise again from out the naked, charred ground, bright and glorious ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... hame, gae hame, my mither dear, Fetch me my winding-sheet; And at the back o' merry Lincoln, It's there we ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... tendencies are held in check; the meaning of the symbolism is remembered and fresh; it is a living language, pregnant and suggestive. Bye and bye, as the mind passes into other phases, the meaning is forgotten; the language becomes a dead language; and the living robe of life becomes a winding-sheet of corruption. The form is represented as everything, the spirit as nothing; obedience is dispensed with; sin and religion arrange a compromise; and outward observances, or technical inward emotions, are converted into jugglers' tricks, by which men are enabled to enjoy their pleasures ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... little girl of my own age who had died of consumption. The thought of arraying myself in this dress to approach the holy table frightened and revolted me as much as if I had been sentenced to drape myself in a winding-sheet. And yet it was the prettiest dress of all—white muslin beautifully embroidered. It had been ardently coveted by the other children, and had been given to me as a sort of reward of merit. And I dared not explain the cause of my unconquerable ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... in the room was in its usual place. The little table stood at the bedside, with the large old Bible on it and the bundle of receipts that Guy had placed there on the day he paid the old man's debts. In a corner lay the black coffin, with the winding-sheet carefully folded on the lid. There was no sign of violence having been done, and the friends were forced to the conclusion that Jeph had quitted the place of his own accord. As he had been confined to bed ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... and resolved to make a third attempt to frighten the United States Minister and his family. He selected Friday, August 17th, for his appearance, and spent most of that day in looking over his wardrobe, ultimately deciding in favour of a large slouched hat with a red feather, a winding-sheet frilled at the wrists and neck, and a rusty dagger. Towards evening a violent storm of rain came on, and the wind was so high that all the windows and doors in the old house shook and rattled. In fact, it was just such weather as he loved. His plan of action was this. He was ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... surface of the city. Drifts and "snow-wreathes," as northern folk say, were lying in exposed places, in squares and streets, as deep as they lie when sheep are "smoored" on the sides of Sundhope or Penchrist in the desolate Border-land. All day London had been struggling under her cold winding-sheet, like a feeble, feverish patient trying to throw off a heavy white counterpane. Now the counterpane was dirty enough. The pavements were three inches deep in a rich greasy deposit of mud and molten ice. Above the round glass or iron coverings of coal-cellars the foot-passengers ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... nodding crest, They bore him to his dreamless rest, A cold and abject thing; Before the whisper of whose name Strong hearts had quailed in fear and shame, While nations knelt to fling The victor's laurel at his feet; Now gorgeous pall and winding-sheet, Were all that royalty could bring To mark the despot and the king: In solemn state they swept the glowing strand, To meet the conclave ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... that we weave is complete, And the shuttle exchanged for the sword, We will fling the winding-sheet O'er the despot at our feet, And dye it deep in the gore ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... by appearing to me, binding himself by this contract that the vision should be unaccompanied by the smallest smell of sulphur or flash of blue flame, and that instead of the indecorous undress of a slovenly winding-sheet, he would wear his usual garments, and the familiar brown great-coat with which, to use his own expression, he "buttoned his bones together" in his life. I remembered that laughing promise when, years after it was given, the news of his death reached ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... crouched and shivered in the blast. Their enemy was not now flesh and blood, but wild winter storms; swords and bayonets could not defend them from the desolating avalanche. Flight or retreat was hopeless; for all around lay the drifted snow, like a vast winding-sheet. On they must go, or death was certain, and the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... fright were of no avail. He was wrapped in a sort of winding-sheet of canvas, smeared from head to foot with grease to make him slip smoothly, and hitched by the fettered wrists to a pair of horses. The strange team was then driven, at a moderate pace, for about half a mile along the main wood-road, the whole camp following ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... broken. I have just seen her in her winding-sheet; her face is quite pale now with purple shadows. Oh! I want my children! my children! Bring me ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward's race: Give ample room and verge enough The characters of Hell to trace. Mark the year and mark the night When Severn shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death through Berkley's roofs that ring, Shrieks of an agonising king![5] She-wolf of France,[6] with unrelenting fangs ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... we build to the purple of Pride, The trappings which dizen the proud? Alas! they are all laid aside; And here's neither dress nor adornment allowed, But the long winding-sheet, and the fringe of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... Norvin Blake emerged from the hospital whither Donnelly had been taken. The air was dead and heavy, a dripping winding-sheet of fog wrapped the city in its folds; no sound broke the silence of the hour. He was sadly shaken, for he had watched a brave soul pass out of the light, and in his ears the words of ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... the parish of Moor-kirk in Kyle) upon one Mabel Weir. After marriage, he said to the bride Mabel, You have got a good man to be your husband, but you will not enjoy him long; prize his company, and keep linen by you to be his winding-sheet, for ye will need it when ye are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody one. Which sadly came to pass in ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... shot through Philip, and for an instant he stood rigid. What was that he saw out in the gray gloom of Arctic desolation, creeping up, up, up, almost black at its beginning, and dying away like a ghostly winding-sheet? A gurgling cry rose in his throat, and he went on, panting now like a broken-winded beast in his excitement. It grew near, blacker, warmer. He fancied that he could feel its heat, which was the new fire of life blazing ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... continued to pervade the apartment where Colonel de Vineuil and Madame Delaherche spent their days, the blinds tight drawn, the lamp continually burning, like a votive candle illuminating a tomb. December had come and wrapped the city in a winding-sheet of snow; the cruel news seemed all the bitterer for the piercing cold. After General Ducrot's repulse at Champigny, after the loss of Orleans, there was left but one dark, sullen hope: that the soil of France might avenge their defeat, exterminate and swallow up the victors. Let the snow ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... lourd[140] have had a winding-sheet, And helped to put it ower his head, Ere he had been disgraced by the border Scot, Whan he ower Liddel his men ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... her flannel mufflings and dressed her in a clean night-gown. Without saying what I meant to do with it I had begged a square of white cambric from Mam' Chloe, and set about notching it with a pair of blunt scissors. Mariposa had described a winding-sheet minutely to me, and I meant that my dead doll-baby should be decently laid out. The notching took a tedious time, and the bows of the blunt scissors left purple furrows upon thumb and fingers. Uncle Ike had given me an empty raisin box. I lined it with Musidora's own mattress and quilt, spread ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... William, as a reward for his great services; and unless she wed him—why, you may guess what follows, when a lone woman is left in a wooer's clutches. I shall never forget their wedding-day; it should rather have been her burying, by the look on't. Her long veil was more like a winding-sheet ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... would not mind looking in this direction," whispered Carne, who could never be contented, "I think I could show you, just beyond the murder-stone—yes, and it seems to be coming towards us, as white as a winding-sheet; do ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... patient horse! Few and evil were the days of his pilgrimage with me; but we had begun to know and like each other well. I cannot remember to have borne a heavier heart, than when I turned away from his corpse, half shrouded in a winding-sheet of drifting snow-flakes—seeing nothing certain in my own future, save frustrated projects and ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... your acquaintance with Scripture you are not like to play it long," laughed Crispin, as he surveyed him. "There, man, you'll do well enough. Your coat is somewhat tight in the back, somewhat short in the skirt; but neither so tight nor so short but that it may be preferred to a winding-sheet, and that is ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and scimitar; he perfumed his body with musk, as if for his burial, and dressed himself in white, that he might be slain in his winding-sheet. After his victory, the captive Emperor of New Rome was brought before him in a peasant's dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then, raising him up, he struck or patted him three ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... possession of his palace, and were daily revelling there, thrusting his son Telemachus aside, and insisting that Penelope should choose one of them as her husband. She could only put them off by declaring she could wed no one till she had finished the winding-sheet she was making for old Laertes, her father-in-law; while to prevent its coming to an end she undid by night whatever she wove by day. Telemachus had gone to seek his father, but came home baffled to Eumaeus' hut, and there was allowed to recognise Ulysses. But it was as a beggar, broken-down and ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... skeleton. If you are dim-eyed, you may not see the difference in the fall of the folds at first, but learn how to look, and the folds themselves will become transparent, and you shall see through them the death's shape, or the divine one, making the tissue above it as a cloud of light, or as a winding-sheet. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... lies he in his winding-sheet, By organized hypocrisy Hurled from his happy wine-clad seat, Stilled his kind heart and hushed his glee; His very name daren't mention we, That good old friend who brought such zest, And set our tongues and spirits free: I ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... and suspense with which the book ends is meant to be symbolic. From Kielland's point of view, Norway is yet wrapped in the wintry winding-sheet of a tyrannical orthodoxy; and all that he dares assert is that the chains of frost and snow seem to be loosening. There is a ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... elaborate, flanked at each wing by a low tower supporting a heavy stone spire cut into facets, like a pine-apple. At Paray there is none of the puerile ornament and heavy richness that we see at Poitiers. The barbaric dress of the little toy church of Notre Dame la Grande gives way to the winding-sheet of a flat wall, but the exterior is none the less remarkably impressive with its solemn simplicity of outline. And those two square towers, pierced with narrow windows and overlooked by a round tower resting ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... ghost before, he naturally was terribly frightened, and, after a second hasty glance at the awful phantom, he fled back to his room, tripping up in his long winding-sheet as he sped down the corridor, and finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister's jack- boots, where it was found in the morning by the butler. Once in the privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small pallet- bed, and hid his face under the clothes. ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... Confederates had not yet reached the outskirts of the town. Once more they had to bivouac in the open, and rations, tents, and blankets were still behind. When the day broke over the Shenandoah Mountains the country was white with snow, and the sleeping soldiers were covered as with a winding-sheet. After a hasty meal an attempt was made to surround the village, and to cut off the retreat of the garrison. The outflanking movements, made in a blinding storm, failed in combination. The roads were too bad, the subordinate commanders too inexperienced; ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... grave were growing green, A winding-sheet drawn ower my e'en, And I in Helen's arms lying On ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... answered, Here. At his command they opened up three graves and cutted off from the dead corpses the joints of their fingers, toes, and nose, and parted them amongst them, and the said Agnes Simpson got for her part a winding-sheet and two joints. The Devil commanded them to keep the joints upon them while [till] they were dry, and then to make a powder of them to do evil withal." This confession is sadly memorable, for it was made ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... is well taken, my lad," said the Count, with a twinkle in his eye. "You can't help being young any more than I can help being old. Youth is perennial, old age a winding-sheet. I am to take it, then, that you've lost your heart to ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... for honor sweet.— And thus he fell!-'Tis doubly meet, Our flag should be his winding-sheet, Proud banner of the free! Oh, let his honored form be laid Beneath the loved Palmetto's shade; His praises sung by Southern maid, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... hours and loves, and of his neighbour's sorrows that he cannot lessen, and wisdom that brings not consolation? Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink back from the worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the winding-sheet doth curtain from our view. But harder still, to my fancy, would it be to live on, green in the leaf and fair, but dead and rotten at the core, and feel that other secret worm of recollection ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... adulterous bed. At morn I looked, and saw him not among the youths; I heard his father mourn, his mother weep; For none returned that went with her. The dead Were in her house; her guests in depths of hell: She wove the winding-sheet of souls, and laid Them in the urn of ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... one. Go and look for him wherever he is likely to be. Tell him he must bring the rest of the money at once. Now, run quickly. What else do I want to say? Oh, yes [pointing to the calico]; take that winding-sheet with you. ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... accused of murdering him, was tried, convicted on the clearest evidence, and hanged. Very shortly after she had suffered capital punishment, horrible stories of a ghost were widely circulated. Certain people declared that they had seen a ghastly resemblance of the murderess, robed in her winding-sheet, with the black mark of the rope round her swollen neck, standing on stormy nights upon her husband's grave, and digging there with a spade in hideous imitation of the actions of the men who had disinterred the corpse for medical examination. This ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... hame, my mither dear, Prepare my winding-sheet, And at the back o merry Lincoln The morn I will ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... is nought—the Mercy-seat is bare: we may sin behind the veil, and who shall punish us? To you, I said, the presence of God shall be revealed in his temple as a consuming fire, and your sacred garments shall become a winding-sheet of flame, and for sweet music there shall be shrieks and hissing, and for soft couches there shall be thorns, and for the breath of wantons shall come the pestilence. Trust not in your gold and silver, trust not in your high fortresses; for, though the walls were of iron, and the fortresses of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... grave were growing green, A winding-sheet drawn owre my e'en, And I in Helen's arms lying, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... courser At the cabin of his father. In the court-yard stood the mother, Thus the wicked son addressed her: "Faithful mother, fond and tender, Hadst thou slain me when an infant, Smoked my life out in the chamber, In a winding-sheet hadst thrown me To the cataract and whirlpool, In the fire hadst set my cradle, After seven nights had ended, Worthy would have been thy service. Had the village-maidens asked thee: 'Where is now the little cradle, Wherefore is the bath-room empty?' This ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... Lastly, her dreams are so chaste that she dare tell them: only a Friday's dream is all her superstition; that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is that she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... bid defiance still further to modern liberalism, great store of relics was sent in; among these, pieces of the true cross, of the white and purple robes, of the crown of thorns, sponge, lance, and winding-sheet of Christ,—the hair, robe, veil, and girdle of the Blessed Virgin; relics of St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Paul, St. Barnabas, the four evangelists, and a multitude of other saints: so many that the bare mention of these treasures requires ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... sedulously eschewed. Every man is provided with a square of canvas with eyelets, which serves as a carpet on which he lies at night, as a stretcher on which, when wounded, he is carried to the place where he can have his injuries attended to, and which, when he is killed, is used as a winding-sheet. The medical organization of the army is as thorough as the military. And the results attained justify the solicitude displayed. From month to month the percentage of wounded who are able to return to ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the night. The wood is a deserted temple. The god has betaken himself to some secret abode. Everywhere you come upon chill, abandoned altars, littered debris of Summer sacrifices. Maybe he is dead, and perchance, deeper in the wood, you may come upon his marble form in a winding-sheet of drifting leaves. ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... nose hooked like the beak of a falcon; and the gaps between those old man's teeth; the meagre, birdlike neck, and the hand raised in a gesture of menace. Twenty years have elapsed since he was brought back to the light, this master of the world. He was wrapped thousands of times in a marvellous winding-sheet, woven of aloe fibres, finer than the muslin of India, which must have taken years in the making and measured more than 400 yards in length. The unswathing, done in the presence of the Khedive Tewfik and the great personages of Egypt, lasted two hours, ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... other bodies his General's remains, by the side of which lay his sword, at the same time pronouncing with the deepest emotion a glowing eulogium of the worth and character of him who, frozen stiff and cold, had been found half buried in his winding-sheet—a Canadian snow-drift. Deeply impressed by the scene and circumstances, Sir Guy Carleton ordered that his late enemy be interred in the foreign soil with the glory of martial, burial honours. In the Chateau Museum may be seen a sword which ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty smooth cheeks, such a low gende voice, and so pure a complexion, as if nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry and comeliness? Beside, what live, but to be wound up as it were in a winding-sheet before we are dead, and so to be shuffled quick into a grave, and ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... of lead, which was in good condition, and enclosed two others—one of tin and one of wood. The last coffin was lined inside with white satin, which, having become detached by the effect of time, had fallen upon the body and enveloped it like a winding-sheet, and had ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... imagination, with spectres, wraiths, and airily-malicious shadows, I will not cross your fancy. To a person of solid nerves a banshee may be an entertaining companion, and an apparition in a well-worn winding-sheet may be a pretty toy. For all I know, it may be a delight to you to find your hair standing on end at the unexpected appearance of a dead woman in a black cloak between you and the person with whom you are engaged in animated conversation. All very well, as a mere pastime, I say. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... nerve are built. Situated as we are, knowing that it is inevitable, we cannot keep our thoughts from resting on it curiously, at times. Nothing interests us so much. The Highland seer pretended that he could see the winding-sheet high upon the breast of the man for whom death was waiting. Could we behold any such visible sign, the man who bore it, no matter where he stood—even if he were a slave watching Caesar pass—would usurp every eye. At the coronation of a king, the wearing of that order would ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... glance beneath, he wrapped the object under the old gunny-sack round and round with the rough wool winding-sheet, and, carrying it to the edge of the grave, himself descended clumsily and placed it gently at his feet. The pit was deep, and in getting out he slipped back twice; but he said nothing. Outside, he paused a moment, looking at ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Don't you know it? You go upstairs in the accustomed way, fearing nothing; but when you open the door you find the air dark with dust and the floor with tea-leaves, and nothing looking as it ought to look. Prone on its face on the bed, covered with a winding-sheet, lies your overthrown looking-glass; and underneath it, in a shapeless mass, are huddled together all the things that you hold dearest upon earth. You thrust in your hand to get something that you want, and it is a pure chance whether your Bible or your button-hook rises to the surface. ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... a bright red ruby, would perch on the trees. We pulled bouquets of orange blossom, jasmines, lilies, double red roses, and lemon leaves, and wished we could have transported them to you, to those lands where winter is now wrapping the world in his white winding-sheet. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room and verge enough[383-3] The characters of hell ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... to plunge it in, and our mother Italy to bless me. I would have toiled: I would have done good in my life. I would have bathed my soul in our colours. I would have had our flag about my body for a winding-sheet, and the fighting angels of God to unroll me. Now here am I, and my own pale mother trying at every turn to get in front of me. Have her away! It's a ghost, I know. She will be touching the strength out of me. She is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... world is wrapped, The sullen wind doth groan, 'Neath winding-sheet the earth is stone, The ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... inevitably happened, had we remained much longer in this place. Such was the economy in some ships that, rather than be at the trouble of interring the dead, their commanders ordered their men to throw their bodies overboard, many without either ballast or winding-sheet; so that numbers of human carcases floated in the harbour, until they were devoured by sharks and carrion crows, which afforded no agreeable spectacle to those who survived. At the same time the wet season began, during which a deluge of rain falls, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... shared in the birds' disapproval, but Alf had a boy's affinity for snow, and resolved to construct an immense fort as soon as the storm permitted. Before the day had far declined the heavy flakes ceased, and the gusty wind died away. Johnnie forgot the budding flowers in their winding-sheet, and joyously aided in the construction of the fort. Down the sloping lawn they rolled the snowballs, that so increased with every revolution that they soon rose above the children's heads, and Webb and Burt's good-natured help ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... eye in that assembly was staring at this peak, although its gigantic outline could only be seen dimly through the mist, dimly as the shape of a corpse buried in a winding-sheet of snow. Here, upon the loftiest precipices of the mountain the full light of morning struck first and struck always, for their pinnacles soared far above the level of the mist wreaths, and by the quality of that light this people judged the weather ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... us or against us? Whether or not, to all our other woes, this intolerablest one is to be added; which renders us not a menaced Nation in extreme jeopardy and need, but a paralytic Solecism of a Nation; sitting wrapped as in dead cerements, of a Constitutional-Vesture that were no other than a winding-sheet; our right hand glued to our left: to wait there, writhing and wriggling, unable to stir from the spot, till in Prussian rope we mount to the gallows? Let the Hereditary Representative consider it well: The Decree of Priests? The Camp of Twenty ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... of human-kind; Yea, stricter and closer than those of life,— 'Tis a neighborhood that knows no strife. They are noiselessly gathered—friend and foe— To the still and dark assemblies below. Without a frown or a smile they meet, Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet; In that sullen home of peace and gloom, Crowded, like guests ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Morgiana had warmed some water to wash the body, Ali Baba came with incense to embalm it, after which it was sewn up in a winding-sheet. Not long after, the joiner, according to Ali Baba's orders, brought the bier, which Morgiana received at the door, and helped Ali Baba to put the body into it; when she went to the mosque to inform the imaum that they were ready. The people of the mosque, whose business ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... jerks. Kurtz—Kurtz—that means short in German—don't it? Well, the name was as true as everything else in his life—and death. He looked at least seven feet long. His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet. I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... revolving round and round his prisoner, and very soon the poor vanquished wretch—the aggressor, let us hope, in the interests of justice—was closely wrapped in a silvery cocoon, which, unlike the cocoon the caterpillar weaves for itself, was also its winding-sheet. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the stream. Make of it, soiling not, spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine, which I will embroider and fill with flowers.'—'Madame, the child is no longer here; what is to be done?'—'Then make of it a winding-sheet in which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... an axe and spade, Bring me a winding-sheet; When I my grave have made, Let winds and tempests beat: Then down I'll lie, as cold as clay. True ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... is a large and striking monument to the memory of Sarah Colvile, daughter of Thomas Lawrence. She is represented as springing from the tomb clothed in a winding-sheet. The figure is larger than life and of white marble, which is discoloured and stained by time. Overhead there was once a dove, of which only the wings remain, and the canopy is carved to represent clouds. The ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton |
