Literary notes about brush (AI summary)
In literature, the word "brush" wears many hats. It appears both as a tangible tool—be it the soft badger-hair brush essential for a proper shave [1], a paint-brush channeling artistic expression [2], [3], or even a tooth-brush vital to personal grooming [4], [5]—and as a metaphor for fleeting, sometimes unexpected encounters. Authors cleverly use it to denote brief contacts or dismissals, as when a character is brushed aside both physically and socially [6], [7]. In other contexts, "brush" evokes the untamed textures of nature—a concealed pile beneath the woods [8] or the wild, untended growth underfoot [9], [10]—and even serves as a vehicle for whimsical or symbolic imagery in moments of creativity and transformation [11], [12]. Whether describing the delicate swish of a painter’s hand or the abruptness of a chance meeting, "brush" enriches the narrative by lending both pragmatic detail and deeper resonance to the actions and settings portrayed in the literature.
- The chief requirements are hot water, a large, soft brush of badger hair, a good razor, soft soap that will not dry rapidly, and a steady hand.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness by Cecil B. Hartley - This form of drawing is the natural means of expression when a brush full of paint is in your hands.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed - If the brush is only moderately full, such touches will not have any hard edges, but be of a light, feathery nature.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed - Every boy should own his own tooth brush.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook by Boy Scouts of America - You must also, after smoking, rinse the mouth well out, and, if possible, brush the teeth.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness by Cecil B. Hartley - He might, methinks, have stood one brush with them, and have yielded when there had been no remedy.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come by John Bunyan - I wonder now that he did not brush me aside, too, as a conceited meddler, but instead he smiled and surrendered.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. Du Bois - The boat was again lifted and borne into the woods, where it was carefully concealed under a pile of brush.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper - the under brush Such as mentioned in the N. E. Creek.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis - Camp-fires and hot suppers in the deserts would be impossible but for the friendly sage-brush.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - I could have fancied, while I looked at it, that some eminent landscape-painter had built it with his brush.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe - But a round brush with a round point is also made, and this is much more convenient for mass drawing.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed
