"Askew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like the contrast of him with the drilled Swiss and Germans about us. Convict coloured stockings and vast hobnail boots finished him below, and all his luggage was a borrowed rucksac that he had tied askew. He did not want to shave in the train, but I made him at one of the Swiss stations—I dislike these Oxford slovenlinesses—and then confound him! he ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... get to the bottom of the prospectus; then we can drink without an afterthought," said Gaudissart. "After dinner one reads askew; the tongue digests." ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... off. Aboon, above. Abarde, went on. Abread, abroad. Acquent, acquainted. Ae, one. Aff, off. Aften, often. Agley, askew. Aiblins, maybe. Ain, own. Airt, direction, quarter. Aith, oath. Alane, alone. Alang, along. Albeytie, albeit. Alestake, alehouse sign. Alleyne, alone. Almer, beggar. Amaist, almost. Amang, aming, among. An, if. Ance, once. Ane, one. Arist, arose. Ashrewed, accursed. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... in one, and hanging down with a fulness almost of skirts about the small determined legs. The accompanying dog was a very sympathetic, blunt-nosed, round-headed, curly-coated type, whose whiteness, which positively invited the stroking hand, was broken by two great black blotches set all askew on the back, and by a black patch which ringed the left eye and completely smothered the cocked-up left ear. The child carried a stick, which nearly reached to his shoulder, and which ended in a long and narrow crook. The happy dog, like ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... mouths distended into squares, from which came such a measure of sound as to rack the ears and burden the air heavily with sadness. Poleon was going away! Their own particular Poleon! Something was badly askew in the general scheme of affairs to permit of such a thing, and they manifested their grief so loudly that Burrell, who knew nothing of Doret's intention, sought them out and tried to ascertain the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the breeches that gave the stranger his startling and admirable appearance—the breeches and his face. For directly under the hat, which was worn askew, was one round, greenish eye, set at the upper end of a nose that was like a triangle of leather. The eye held the geographical center of the whole countenance, this because its owner kept his head tipped, precisely as if he had a stiff neck. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... appearance is a little unfamiliar, of course, but all the muddle of dust-collecting hangings and witless ornament that cover the earthly bedroom, the valances, the curtains to check the draft from the ill-fitting windows, the worthless irrelevant pictures, usually a little askew, the dusty carpets, and all the paraphernalia about the dirty black-leaded fireplace are gone. The faintly tinted walls are framed with just one clear colored line, as finely placed as the member of a Greek capital; the door-handles and the lines of the ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... labeling of the books to be added to the library. This is a mechanical process, and yet one of much importance. Upon its being done neatly and properly, depends the good or bad appearance of the library books, as labels with rough or ragged edges, or put on askew, or trimmed irregularly at their margins, present an ugly and unfinished aspect, offensive to the eye of good taste, and reflecting discredit on the management. A librarian should take pride in seeing all details of his work carefully ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Hauser with his three-cornered hat, the ex-mayor, the ex-postman, and others besides. They all seemed depressed; and Hauser had brought an old spelling-book with gnawed edges, which he held wide-open on his knee, with his great spectacles askew. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... times,—he's going about lecturing, you know,—but I don't see as he has any very good plan for getting work on its legs again. Then I've listened to the parson this winter, to please the old lady; and he is sure all this is a judgment for our sins. Seems to me, judgment went a little askew: why doesn't it touch Eastman and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... ridge of rock, and filling all the open spaces with the play of wavering light. I shrank back into the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road, and gloomily employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on which the moonlight fell askew. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... hair, and his beard, They paint as black as my shoe With burnt stick, but they spoil his nose, For they stick it rather askew. ...
— King Winter • Anonymous
... one of the risks of the business in which she was engaged. The most expert artisan sometimes finds that he has made a failure of some cherished bit of work, but he does not cease to pursue his vocation because of that. So it was with Mrs. Upton, and when some of her plans went askew, and two young persons whom she had designed for each other chose to take two other young people into their hearts instead, she accepted the situation with a merely negative feeling of regret. But when ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... mountains out of the night, directly above Sour Creek. Riley Sinclair regarded them with a longing eye. That was his country. A man could see up there, and he could see the truth. Down here in the valley everything was askew. Men lived blindly and did blind things, like this "justice" which the six riders were bringing on ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Usher had been coming to the conclusion that Father Brown might possibly be mad. The moment after he began to think he was mad himself. There burst and fell into his private room a man in the filthiest rags, with a greasy squash hat still askew on his head, and a shabby green shade shoved up from one of his eyes, both of which were glaring like a tiger's. The rest of his face was almost undiscoverable, being masked with a matted beard and whiskers through ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... like the dead, his head askew on his hands, and lips compressed in pouting content. For the time being the body had mastered invincibly any soul there might be within. The man ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Thus Anne Askew, a young and beautiful woman, was nearly wrenched asunder on the rack, in the hope of making her implicate the Queen in her heresy. She was afterward burned because she insisted that the bread and wine used in the communion service seemed to her to be simply bread ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... inspiration, an incomprehensible and irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be slightly askew; there follows then an historic triumph, then an historic eccentricity, then an historic folly, then an explosion; and then the series begins again. In the grade of folly, hard upon an explosion, lies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... mounting the stairway. We passed under the arch—where a door, shattered and wrenched from its upper hinge, lay askew against the wall—and climbed to the platform. From this another flight of steps (but these were of worked granite) led straight as a ladder to a smaller platform at the foot of the keep; and high upon these stood my uncle Gervase directing ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... thing" struggled valiantly with the russet bag; the new Babiche, cramped and shaken from her day and night of travel, poked her snubby nose from under the traveling coat and sniffed and squeakingly yawned. Louisa's bonnet had worked itself askew, the sharp wind from the river was flapping the heavy clothing about her slender ankles and displaying the outlandish old "Congress gaiter" shoes. A distressed and ridiculous figure, she stood and shuddered at the roar of the elevated above her and the jangle of the surface ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... her. Good; I do not object. But, imagine in your own mind, my Powys—instead of passion, of rage, of tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do you, hein? sink it will come out,"—Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle smile askew,—"I have sot so;—it will come out when she is one day in a terrible scene . . . Mon Dieu! it was a terrible scene for me when I looked on ze clout zat washed ze blood of ze terrible assassination. So goes out a voice, possibly! Divine, you say? We are a machine. Now, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hour a smallish gentleman, in an old-style Inverness opera-coat that cloaked him to his ankles, with an opera hat set jauntily a wee bit askew on his head, a mask of crimson silk covering his face from brows to lips, slipped silently like some sly, sinister shadow through the Fifth Avenue portals of the Bizarre, and shaped a course by his wits across the lobby to the elevators, so discreetly and unobtrusively that none of the flunkeys ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... the slack-rope; some bare-back riding; some the feats of tossing knives and balls and catching them. There never was more than one ring in those days; and you were not tempted to break your neck and set your eyes forever askew, by trying to watch all the things that went on at once in two or three rings. The boys did not miss the smallest feats of any performance, and they enjoyed them every one, not equally, but fully. They had their preferences, of course, as I have hinted; ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... (far) to the East, Pit het by the Fire-queen Pele. Heaven's dawn is lifted askew, One edge tilts up, one down, in the sky; 5 The thud of the pick is heard in the ground. The question is asked by Wakea, What god's this a-digging? It is I, it is Pele, Who dug Mihau deep down till it burned, 10 Dug fire-pit ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... place in the book-world was taken by Dr. Anthony Askew, who travelled far and wide in search of rare editions and large-paper copies. In describing the sale of his books in 1775 Dibdin almost lost himself in ecstasies over the magnificent folios, and the shining duodecimos ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... shall, pp. 8, 22. Shaued showed, p. 7. Shour shower, p. 10. Sib related, p. 21. Sik such, pp. 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 17, 29. Sillie wretched, poor, p. 2. Skuiographie, probably an invented word, the intention of the author being to oppose skew or askew to orthos, straight. It has been suggested that it may be intended for sciagraphy, skiagraphia, also spelt sciography; but this is improbable, as the meaning of that word, viz., the art of shadows, including ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... the city below. Again the ground heaved, and beneath her—she had dropped on her knees, and hung, clutching the little dog, staring over a level verge where the balustrade had run—she saw Lisbon fall askew, this way and that: the roofs collapsing, like a toy structure of cards. Still the roar of it swelled on the ear; yet, strange to say, the roar seemed to have nothing to do with the collapse, which went on piecemeal, steadily, like a game. The crescendo was ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... wagons came lumberingly creaking in. It was drawn by two yoke of lean spotted oxen. The wheels had been wrapped with rawhide, for repairs, and the canvas top was torn and discolored and askew. From the puckered front peered a woman and two children; the man of the family was walking wearily ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... fitted tightly on as neat a leg as ever a kilt displayed, though the kilt was not nowadays John Campbell's wear but kerseymore knee-breeches. He had a figured vest strewn deep with snuff that he kept loose in a pocket (the regiment's gold mull was his purse), and a scratch wig of brown sat askew on his bullet head, raking with a soldier's swagger. He had his long rattan on the table before him, and now and then he would lift its tasseled head and beat time lightly to the chorus of Dugald MacNicol's song. Dugald was Major once of the 1st Royals; he had ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... engagement in which my true love fought, And cruel was the cannon-ball as knock'd his right eye out; He used to ogle me with peepers full of fun, But now he looks askew at me, because he's only ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... on a crazy dais, two chairs stand ready for the king and queen when they shall choose to worship; over their heads a hoop, apparently from a hogshead, depends by a strip of red cotton; and the hoop (which hangs askew) is dressed with streamers of the same material, red ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a chubby hand, And a voice so sweetly shrill? O Teddy Bear! don't you understand Why the house is awf'ly still? You sit with your muzzle propped on your paws, And your whimsical face askew. Don't wait, don't wait for your friend . . . because ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... servant to take away the clothes and shoes that need cleaning. The subtle analyst would argue from all this that Lushington was one of those painfully orderly persons, who are made positively nervous by the sight of a hair-brush lying askew, or a tie dropped on ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... and Jesse James and Clel Miller killed detective Wicher, of the same agency, torturing him for some time before his death in the attempt to make him divulge the Pinkerton plans. The James boys killed Daniel Askew in revenge; and Jesse James and Jim Anderson killed Ike Flannery for motives of robbery. This last set the gang into hostile camps, for Flannery was a nephew of George Shepherd. Shepherd later killed Anderson in Texas for his share in that act; he also shot Jesse ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... subtle perfumed poison. The other men in the cabin were forgotten; the feeling was between these two. Strikingly contrasted they stood there: Carse, in rough blue denim trousers, faded work-shirt, open at the neck, old-fashioned rubber shoes and battered skipper's cap askew on his flaxen hair; Ku Sui, suavely impeccable in high-collared green silk blouse, full-length trousers of the same material, and red slippers, to match the wide sash which revealed the slender lines of his waist. A perfume hung about the ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... about. The sole concession to comfort was a rug of cheap Axminster covering half the floor. The walls were decorated chiefly with miscellaneous clothing suspended from nails, a few maps and blue prints tacked up askew. Straight across from the entering door another stood ajar, and she could see further vistas of bare board wall, small, dusty window-panes, and a bed whereon gray blankets were tumbled as they fell when a ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... up and looking in, I beheld my poor kinsman perch'd on his chair a-top of the table, in the midst of glasses, decanters, and desserts: his wig askew, his face white, save where, between the eyes, a medlar had hit and broken, and his glance shifting wildly between the two princes, who in easy postures, loose and tipsy, lounged on either side of him, and beat with their glasses on ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... her eyes with her fan, and casting a glance askew at the two naked figures, which exhibited the perfection of symmetry, enquired of her Nephew who ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... one. For of the great screen nothing remained but two tall uprights, surmounted by hideous knops—the addition of some local carpenter. Between the lozenge-shaped shafts of the choir arches, the worm-riddled parclose screens dripped sawdust in little heaps. Down in the nave, bench-ends leaned askew or had been broken up, built as panels into deal pews, and daubed with paint; the floor was broken and ran in uneven waves; the walls shed plaster, and a monstrous gallery blocked the belfry arch. Upon this gallery Parson Jack ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by Attorney-General Hockaday, favorably reported by a majority of the committee on criminal jurisprudence, but while it was pending Farmer Askew, who had piloted the detectives in their raid on the Samuels residence, was called to his door at night and shot and killed by ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... Otao, in the vicinity of which we were to bivouac for the night. My camel nearly stumbled over an old rusty rail thrown across my path, and further on I could trace in the moonlight the dark trail of a crazy permanent way, with its rails all askew. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... was twisted and askew. It had a ludicrously drunken look, as though it were lolling up against the wall—like a staircase in a picture of which ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... some, Art not thou the man that I once saw crying under a sermon, that I once, heard cry out, What must I do to be saved? and, that some time ago I heard speak well of the holy word of God? how askew will they look upon one; or if they will acknowledge that such things were with them once, they do it more like images and rejected ghosts, than men. They look as if they were blasted, withered, cast out, and dried to powder, and now fit for nothing but to be cast into the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... business, this of repairs and restoration. I suppose I am doing fairly well considering that I have been more than half a century getting my gearings askew and awry. But I am taking orders now and say "Thank you," when I get them. Just when I shall be well enough to take hold again is not ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... cosmically vast giant had rolled over it. The buildings to the east of it were ablaze at a dozen points, under the flaming tatters and warping skeleton of the airship, and all the roofs and walls were ridiculously askew and crumbling as one looked. "Gaw!" said Bert. "What's happened? Look at ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... a curious want of house-pride. Dust gave her no great concern. She rather loved a litter of periodicals, chiffons, broken packets of cigarettes, tobacco and half-eaten fruit on the tables. A picture askew never attracted her attention. To remain in the house, dressed in her out-of-door clothes, seemed to her vain extravagance and discomfort. A wrapper and slippers, the more soiled and shapeless the better, were the only indoor wear. Andrew ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... broken piscina. Above this were chambers, concerning which Gunton[25] has preserved a tradition that they were "the habitation of a devout Lady, called Agnes, or Dame Agnes, out of whose Lodging-Chamber there was a hole made askew in the window walled up, having its prospect just upon the altar of the Ladies Chappel, and no more. It seems she was devout in her generation, that she chose this place for her retirement, and was desirous that her eyes, as well as ears, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... it,' said Honor cheerfully; then sighing, 'But do you know, Mr. Askew wishes his curates to visit at ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a Jonah day for us all through. Everything had gone wrong. Ismay had spilled grease on her velvet coat, and the fit of the new blouse I was making was hopelessly askew, and the kitchen stove smoked and the bread was sour. Moreover, Huldah Jane Keyson, our tried and trusty old family nurse and cook and general "boss," had what she called the "realagy" in her shoulder; and, though Huldah Jane is as good an old creature as ever lived, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... mean street, emptily echoing to my footsteps—no soul awake and audible but me. Then my halt at the placard. And amidst that sleeping stillness, smeared hastily upon the board, a little askew and crumpled, but quite distinct beneath that cool meteoric glare, preposterous and appalling, the measureless ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... lay grotesquely sprawling on the well-scrubbed centre table, which was the one thing which had not been moved—probably because of its great weight. And yet—and yet it had been moved—for it was all askew! The man who did that, if, indeed, one man could alone have done all this mischief, must have been very, ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... and walls hung with faded paper of an indeterminate pattern and even more indeterminate color. To-day it was in greater confusion than usual, with white dust thick on table and chair, a window-shade askew, the music-rack disarranged, and a plate of grape-skins which Allison had left last night on the piano still standing there. But it was not the disorder which irritated Allison most, nor the signs of poverty, but the fact that the poverty was so genteel, so self-respecting, so determined to make ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Rhode Island being notorious for its enterprise in that form of piracy. Another impenitent sinner in her inroads upon the companies of king's ships was Boston, where "a sett of people made it their Business" to entice them away. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1440—Capt. Askew, 27 Aug. 1748.] No ship could clean, refit, victual or winter there without "the loss of all her men." Capt. Young, of the Jason, was in 1753 left there with never a soul on board except "officers and servants, widows' men, the quarter-deck gentlemen ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... light, and closing her eyes, she would lie motionless for hours on her little bed, not to sleep, but to feel with Perpetua the wild bull's horns, to hang with St. Maura on the cross, or lie with Julitta on the rack, or see with triumphant smile, by Anne Askew's side, the fire flare up around her at the Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form of Thurnall's; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... by successive transmission on the last whom it will fit: this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the protestant religion, who, in the time of Henry the eighth, was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the historian ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... dreary row of unkempt heads, and bearded anxious faces, and crouching shoulders askew, cleared their throats, and two uncrossed and recrossed their legs, the plank seat creaking ominously with the motion under their combined weight. A shade of disappointment was settling on the coroner's face. This was slight information indeed from the ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... gestures; he punches in and punches out again with his fist, the hat which is stuck askew on his conical head, over the ears that are pointed like artichoke leaves. He is in front of me, and each of his soles is pierced by a valve which draws in water ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... had stuck the pin into the candle he never shut the slide again; and though no wind blew, there was a light breath moving in the morning off the sea, that got inside the lanthorn and set the flame askew. And so the candle guttered down one side till but little tallow was left above the pin; for though the flame grew pale and paler to the view in the growing morning light, yet it burnt freely all the time. So at last there was left, as I ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Bob Askew was killed, Vashti was one of the first who got to Bob's wife; and when Billy Luck disappeared in a battle, Vashti gave the best reasons for thinking he had been taken prisoner; and many a string of fish and many a squirrel and hare found their ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... great privilege to have Martha. I do hope these dear girls will not put her out. She grows a little set in her ways as she grows older, my good Martha. I don't think that blind is quite half-way down. It makes the whole room look askew, doesn't it?" ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... opened it, appeared in a cap all askew and hair loose, up-turned sleeves and scorched arms, with cheeks crimson from the kitchen fire. She confessed to the concoction of a dish of beef a la mode softened by calf's foot jelly and strengthened by a dash of brandy, and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... chin and looked over the two heads, the uncovered one of Francis Sales and Henrietta's, with her hat a little askew, and, absurdly, Rose remembered that the child had washed her hair the night before: that was why the hat was crooked and the curl loose, making the scene undignified and funny above the pain of it. Rose spoke in a voice heightened by a tone. 'It ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... her hat was dented and askew. The little creature looked strangely pathetic as she stood up alongside tall ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... Ludwell Cary rose early, ordered his horse, and opened the door of his brother's room. "Fair," he said, as the younger Cary sat up in bed, with a nightcap wonderfully askew upon his handsome head, "I am off for Greenwood. Make my excuses, will you, to Colonel Churchill and the ladies? I will not be back till supper-time." He turned to leave the room. "And Fair—if you have ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... eh?" he repeated, as he hitched himself into an upright position and straightened his night-cap, that had somehow gone askew in his slumber. "Bless my soul, how the years fly! But that's all right; yes, that's all right. No one can expect them to stay, and why should we? there's better fish in the net than we've taken out yet," and with this consolatory observation, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... not come out to him, an old man, with her intimate troubles. "A name I never repeat," Charlotte had said. That was just like her. Small sympathy there, and no more understanding. He knotted his tie hurriedly, askew; and gathered the ends once more. It tired him a little to dress in the evening; often he longed to stay relaxed, pondering, until Rudolph called him to dinner. But every day something automatic, tyrannical, dragged him up to his room, encased him in rigid linen, formal black. ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and cheeks by walking up and down the street for a space, and then tried again. This landlady was a terrible and pitiful person, so grey and dusty she was, and her face deep lined with dust and trouble and labour. She wore a dirty cap that was all askew. She took Lewisham up into a threadbare room on the first floor, "There's the use of a piano," she said, and indicated an instrument with a front of torn green silk. Lewisham opened the keyboard and evoked ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... analysis of finished work is evident when we discover that not until we have brought the picture to the last stage of detail finish do we fully encompass balance. The conception which looks acceptable to one's general idea in outline may finish all askew; or the scheme of Light and Dark in one or two flat tones minus the balance of gradation will prove false as many times as faithful, as it draws toward completion. It is because of this that artists when composing roughly in ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... with toilsome labor, but yet I shun it not, My maiden curls are all askew, my pearly fingers all be numbed; But I only wish our tea to be of a superfine kind, To have it equal their 'dragon's pellet,' and ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... and she looked as if she had blown all the way from there to Spring Beach. She was, or had been, prettily dressed, but, as Mona had predicted, her hat was awry, her collar askew, and her ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... twist of his bridle-rein the gray's chunky neck arched slightly askew, and he pranced now and then from side to side of the trail as if guided ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Trowbridge, Jr.; Gossip from Paris During the Second Empire, Anthony North Peet; Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign, Jane West; Gossip of the Century, Julia Clara Byrne; Gossiping Guide to Wales, Askew Roberts and Edward Woodall; Gossip with Girls and Maidens Betrothed and Free, Blanche St. John Bellairs. Yet no one has ever thought of writing about gossip for its own ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... of a whip back into striking readiness ... a brutal nose broken askew, a blaster burn puckering across cheek to misshapen ear ... that, evil, gloating grin of anticipation. Flick, flick, the slight dance of the lash in a master's hand as those thick fingers tightened about the stock ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... AYSCUE (erroneously ASKEW or AYSCOUGH), SIR GEORGE (d. 1671), British admiral, came of an old Lincolnshire family. Beyond the fact that he was knighted by Charles I., nothing is known of his career until in 1646 he received a naval command. Through the latter years of the first civil war, Ayscue seems to have acted ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... said, pushing her round black hat askew on her shaggy little head. "I know I've kept you ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... too, In bonnets blue, And little crooked necks askew, Stand, sweet and small, Where the grass is tall, Content to spy But a bit of sky, Nor ever to ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... universe. I'm just as much askew with it as you are, only I haven't got the wit to thump it so satisfactorily. You are going it for the two ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Captain Day in his most particular voice, "I have just heard the most remarkable statement by Dr. Phillimore. Perhaps you will be good enough to repeat it, Dr. Phillimore," and he glanced askew at me. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... tale of the dead that the head-boards kept, each similitude askew in the moonlight on the turf below the slanting monument To judge by the motions of the men engaged in the burial and the mocking antics of their silhouettes on the ground, it must have been obvious to the spectator that they were already filling in the earth. The interment ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... he said shortly, as he stepped to the one where she had been sitting when he first came to the room. From it he commanded not only a complete view of her, but also out of the window, for the blind, pulled down to the full extent, was slightly askew, and left a space between it and the window-pane. Through that space he could see across the yard to the fence running round the allotment, and beyond it to the dark line of the bush, rendered the darker at the moment by the soft sheen of the rising ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... the street, her jacket not quite on and her hat clapped askew, Ann 'Lisbeth found herself quite suddenly scuttling ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... in my mind as he spoke; I seemed to see red-faced gentlemen in knee breeches, dog's-ear wigs askew over broad foreheads, reading out loud with unction the phrases, "inalienable rights ... pursuit of happiness," and to hear the cadence out of Meredith's The Day of ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... he shut the door and carefully lifted the Mirabelle in its bottle to the place of honor on top of his chest of drawers. Then he stood looking at his reflection in the small mirror hung askew ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... and how she wanted to do it. You'd be entertaining your dearest enemies, serene in the consciousness that your house was a credit to your good management; and behold, Mary Magdalen in the drawing-room door, with her wig askew and her hands rolled ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... is that, there? A milestone? No, it is not a milestone. It is a head, a black head, tanned and polished. The mouth is all askew, and you can see something of the mustache bristling on each side—the great head of a carbonized cat. The corpse—it is German—is underneath, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... down the sloping passage. The interior of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock. Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat, like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... instant clamour of jeering. But a man called Askew, who knew Travers well, laughed and said: "Come, let's have it!" Travers turned those twinkling little eyes of his slowly round the circle, and with heavy, hesitating ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... curve they went, and into an open, path-cut field through which the creek meandered. The palace lay in the farthest corner. It did not even stand. Its old logs, disjoined and askew, were all but on the ground. How the roof managed to hold the chimney was a mystery. Perhaps, after all, it was the chimney which acted as a prop to the roof. A lean-to of poles, sod, and bark served as an entrance, and boasted a door. Mountain-fringe and other vines had taken ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... Senators slashed back, taunting the Northerners with seeking to wipe out the system of chattel slavery, only to extend and enforce all the more effectually their own system of white slavery. The honorable Senators unleashed themselves; Senatorial dignity fell askew, and there was snarling and growling, retorts and backtalk and ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... wills. The Orphan Courts were over-worked with these cases. I suggested a rule for all wills: one-third at least to the wife, and let the children share alike. When a child receives more than a wife, the family is askew. A man's wife should be first in every ambition, in every provision. One-third to the wife is none too much. The worst family feuds proceed from ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... division, within a day of the water-parting where the land falls southward to Burgundy and the sun in what they call "The Slope of Gold." From this village a priest, William, had come to Paris in 1423. They gave him a canonry in that little church called "St. Bennets Askew," which stood in the midst of the University, near Sorbonne, where the Rue des Ecoles crosses the Rue St. Jacques to-day. Hither, to his house in the cloister, he brought the boy, a waif whom he had found much at the time when ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... Kents, at this time, two years. Alan and Babs didn't like him, nor did I. He must have been a clever, skillful chemist. No doubt he was. But he was, to us, repulsive. A hunchback, with a short, thick body; dangling arms that suggested a gorilla; barrel chest; a lump set askew on his left shoulder, and his massive head planted down with almost no neck. His face was rugged in feature; a wide mouth, a high-bridged heavy nose; and above the face a great shock of wavy black hair. It was an intelligent ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... back to the edge of the water just as the gang-plank lowered from the white side of the boat. The electric light at the end of the wharf flashed full on the descending passengers, and among them Charity caught sight of Julia Hawes, her white feather askew, and the face under it flushed with coarse laughter. As she stepped from the gang-plank she stopped short, her dark-ringed eyes ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... of sea-bathing is about the same everywhere. First you have the work of putting on the appropriate dress, sometimes wet and chill from the previous bathing. You get into the garments cautiously, touching them at as few points as possible, your face askew, and with a swift draft of breath through your front teeth, punctuating the final lodgment of each sleeve and fold with a spasmodic "Oh!" Then, having placed your watch where no villainous straggler may be induced to examine ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... a little askew, I must own, but he could not help smiling. . . I gave him an instance in point, which -was the reverse given by Mr. Law to the picture drawn by Mr. Burke of Tamerlane, in which he said those virtues and noble qualities bestowed upon him by the honourable manager were nowhere to be found ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... coat, so tightly fitting that he might almost have been wearing stays. On his head was a narrow brimmed brown straw hat with a black band. About his throat, moreover, there was a very tiny red cravat, set rather askew. ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the day along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing? Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had the? Heehaw shesaw. Off her beat here. What ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... out. There was a smothered laugh; and when the light flared up again, the aigrette in her copper-beech hair was all askew. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... with a suddenly relieved grin, and, taking Gresham daintily by the coat sleeve with his thumb and forefinger, he led the unresisting cousin of Lord Yawpingham to the front door. Polly opened it for him, and, grabbing Gresham's silk hat, put it hastily askew and hindside before upon his ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... stumbled across the room, tripping and barking my shins over various malignant hassocks, tables, and chairs. Finding the switch at last, I flooded the room with light, and saw myself in the mirror, with tie and coat askew. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... always beating it out, with his head determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their attention between his two auditors, 'outside the door of the Six Jolly Fellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o'clock at midnight—but I will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter as five minutes—on the night when he picked up ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was not more than two hundred florins' worth. Wherefore Biancofiore, confessing herself outwitted, long lamented the five hundred florins repaid and yet more the thousand lent, saying often, 'Who with a Tuscan hath to do, Must nor be blind nor see askew.' On this wise, having gotten nothing for her pains but loss and scorn, she found, to her cost, that some folk know as much ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... convert hast thou turned, Credo thou to say hast learned; Willing art now bold to view Plates of ham—no more askew. Mass thou hearest, Church reverest, Genuflexions makest, Other alien customs takest. Now thou, too, mayst persecute Those poor wretches, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... Markland expected—him Tyrwhitt hoped to encounter—him the sweet lyrist of Peter House, whom he had barely seen upon earth[1], with newest airs prepared to greet ——; and, patron of the gentle Christ's boy,—who should have been his patron through life—the mild Askew, with longing aspirations, leaned foremost from his venerable AEsculapian chair, to welcome into that happy company the matured virtues of the man, whose tender scions in the boy he himself upon earth had so prophetically fed ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... say, that they were, to him, rather like the stone images of the Twelve Apostles in the niches round the West Door. Today they jumped in a moment into new life. Yesterday he could have calculated to a nicety the attitude that they would have; now they seemed to have been blown askew with a new wind. Because he noticed these things it does not mean that he was generally perceptive. He had always been very sharp to perceive anything that ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... was said of the Judge, and truly, that he had the happiest home, the fairest and wisest wife, and the goodliest young family, of any man in the county. That had been a joyful day, indeed, for him, twenty years before, when he brought the golden-haired Margaret Askew, the heiress of Marsh Grange, as his bride to the old grey Hall of Swarthmoor. Sixteen full years younger than her husband was she, yet a wondrous wise-hearted woman, and his ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... things had gone below. The response, however, indicated that all was well, for almost on the instant, the screw began churning, and the boat slowly receded, allowing the gangplank, after being drawn askew, to drop with a ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... pictures have only one point of support, so that they are sensitive to the slightest movement. The wall goes from east to west, or the other way about, it makes no difference. Now, every morning when I wake, I find these works of art a little askew, the left corner inclined down and the right up!" I came upon that passage in Sylva Sylvarum, the first book of Strindberg's I ever read, and it pleased me so much that I believe I ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... the world with cathedrals if he can. But he must not be allowed to write a history of England; or a history of any country. All history was conducted on ordinary morality: with his extraordinary morality he is certain to read it all askew. Thus Carlyle tries to write of the Middle Ages with a bias against humility and mercy; that is, with a bias against the whole theoretic morality of the Middle Ages. The result is that he turns into a mere turmoil of arrogant German savages ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... different temperament and gait. It is no studied negligence which has arranged the careless inconsistency of his dress. It is but the mind speaking through the person. He wears nothing that has cost a tailor a minute's thought to shape. His staff cap is set askew; his badges of staff distinction have obviously been sewn into position by some unskilled craftsman—probably his soldier servant. His tunic tells its own story of two years' campaigning in the rough; while the Mauser pistol strapped to the nut-brown belt which Wilkinson designed ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... a pretty dog that followed me Instructed by Shakespeare himself Lady Batten how she was such a man's whore Lately too much given to seeing of plays, and expense Lewdness and beggary of the Court Look askew upon my wife, because my wife do not buckle to them None will sell us any thing without our personal security given Quakers do still continue, and rather grow than lessen Sat before Mrs. Palmer, the King's mistress, and filled my eyes So the children ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... and ending in a shrill 'View Halloa!' followed; then 'To them, beauties; to them!' and the crash of an overturned chair. Again the house echoed with 'Jarvey, Jarvey!' on top of which the door opened and an elderly man-servant, with his wig set on askew, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his mouth twisted into a tipsy ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... away, "Uncle Si and A'nt Lurany," taken on their wedding day; Cousin Ruth, who died at twenty, in the corner had a place Near the wreath from Eben's coffin, dipped in wax and in a case; Grandpa Wilkins, done in color by some artist of the town, Ears askew and somewhat cross-eyed, but with fixed and awful frown, Seeming somehow to be waiting to enjoy the dreadful doom Of the frightened little sleeper in ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... see him now—the old slouched hat Cocked o'er his brow askew, The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat, So calm, so blunt, so true. The Blue-light Elder knows 'em well. Says he: 'That's Banks; he's fond of shell. Lord save his soul! we'll give him'—Well, That's ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in and out of the culinary apartment while the dancing and other festivities were in progress. The itinerant pedagogue was prominent in these mysterious movements which possibly accounted for his white choker's being askew and his disposition to cut a dash, not by declining Greek verbs, but by inclining too amorously toward Miss Abigail, a maiden lady with a pronounced ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... I like flowers? I will not write a sonnet, Singing their beauty as a poet might do: I just detest those on Aunt Nipson's bonnet, Because they are like her,—all gray and blue, Dusty and pinched, and fastened on askew! And as for heaven's own buttercups and daisies, I am not good enough ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... five feet deep, and on the south a triple line of tombs of the same depth. And apparently of the same system and same age is the mass of tombs marked W, which are parallel to the tomb of Zet. Later there appears to have been built the long line of tombs, placed askew, in order not to interfere with those which have been mentioned, and then this skew line gave the di-rection to the next tomb, that of Merneit, and later on to that of Azab. The private graves around the royal tomb are all built of mud brick, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... with a bit of black tape, and told me if I kept dirt out it would heal in a day or two. Asking me where I was going, we had some talk. He told me the parish of Dundonald was a long way off and he did not know anybody in it by the name of Askew. I was on the right road and could find out when I got there. He lit his pipe and left me. I walked with more ease, and the farther I went the hungrier I grew. Coming to a house by the side of the road I went to the open door and asked ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... Duke de Medina de las Torres, my husband inclosed a memorial to his Catholic Majesty, demanding the prisoner, saying, he was very sorry that at one time, a few years ago, in the year 1650, some English gentlemen, whereof Mr. Sparks was one, did kill one Askew, an agent of Oliver's to the Catholic King. When they had thus done, all those persons and degrees made their escape but Mr. Sparks, who took sanctuary in one of their churches; notwithstanding which, the privilege thereof being ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... to Craig and Luigi. Their eyes were riveted on the big gilt sign, half broken, and all askew overhead. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... sentence was a nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit; Captain Jim's charm of storytelling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew. But Anne felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story might be made from it. Rich comedy ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Heaven! To what a pass their draughts have brought the mildest, Noblest of princes! Softly, my son; be ruled By me, thy spiritual friend and father. Thou hast been drugged with sense-deranging potions, Thy blood set boiling and thy brain askew; When these thick fumes subside, thou shalt awake To bless the friend who gave ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... lady's stiff, upright figure disappeared bodily within the swooping arms; she was squeezed, hugged, rocked to and fro, and pelted with kisses until she was speechless and gasping for breath. When she was released her cap was askew, and the muslin folds in the front of her gown crumpled out of recognition; but for a marvel she spoke no word of reproach, and Darsie saw, with a sobering thrill, a glitter as of tears in the old eyes, and the mental question ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... undertaker. She must have been wet almost to those unfractured bones which she had been feeling; her black silk dress, with its white ruching about the neck, was torn and bedraggled; her black hat, with its jet ornaments, was crushed and hung askew over one ear; nevertheless, Miss Pringle conveyed at once and definitely an impression of ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... that Blanche Devine moved in there was wild agitation among the white-ruffed bedroom curtains of the neighborhood. Later on certain odors, as of burning dinners, pervaded the atmosphere. Blanche Devine, flushed and excited, her hair slightly askew, her diamond eardrops flashing, directed the moving, wrapped in her great fur coat; but on the third morning we gasped when she appeared out-of-doors, carrying a little household ladder, a pail of steaming water, and sundry voluminous white ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... reins, in spite of the fact that Diashak was doing well and dragging the vehicle almost unaided. This Philip continued to do until he found it convenient to breathe and rest himself awhile and to settle his cap askew, though it had looked ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... the bare thought of what he owed to him. He forced himself to utter some trembling words and set food before the convict, watching him as he ate like a ravenous old dog. His heart was like lead, all his plans knocked askew. Even while he pitied the old man, he shrank from him as if from a wild beast, with all his childish ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... had an ounce more power!" burst out the major, his mouth mumbling the loose ends of that flamboyant mustache. The Master remained quite impassive, and made no answer. Bohannan reddened, feeling that the chief's silence had been another rebuff. And on, on drifted Nissr, askew, up-canted, with the pitiless sunlight of approaching evening in every detail revealing—as it slanted in, almost level, over the far-heaving infinitudes of the Atlantic—the ravages wrought ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... sledges, Alexey Alexandrovitch suddenly heard his name called out in such a loud and cheerful voice that he could not help looking round. At the corner of the pavement, in a short, stylish overcoat and a low-crowned fashionable hat, jauntily askew, with a smile that showed a gleam of white teeth and red lips, stood Stepan Arkadyevitch, radiant, young, and beaming. He called him vigorously and urgently, and insisted on his stopping. He had one arm on ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... pleasant journey to Rydal the day we left all our kind friends at Lowther. We alighted at Lyulph's Tower, and saw the waterfall in great power after the night's rain, the sun shining full into the chasm, and making a splendid rainbow of the spray. Afterwards, walking through Mr. Askew's grounds, we saw the lake to the greatest possible advantage. Mr. R. left on Thursday, the morning most beautiful, though it rained afterwards. I know not how he could tear himself away from this lovely country at this charming season. I say charming, notwithstanding this is a ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... his mouth, but I jerked it aside and caught his cheek in my grip, my thumb inside the cheek-pouch, and my fingers outside. I felt a hot thrill of joy as my nails sank into his cheek inside and out, and he cringed. I held him at arm's length, helpless, and with his head drawn all askew; and still keeping my unfair hold, I rolled him over, and coming on top of him, thrust the other thumb in the other side of his mouth, frenziedly trying to rip his cheeks, and pounding his head on the deck. We rolled back into the corner, where he jerked my thumbs from his mouth, now bleeding ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... the man Eric drew near, a broad-set man clad in skins and rusty mail who looked upon Beltane with head strangely askew, and touched a furtive ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... three hours' flusteration, heat, worry, and good hard work, he had accomplished the following results: A tent, very saggy, very askew, covered a four-sided area—it was not a rectangle—of very bumpy ground. A hodge-podge bonfire, in the centre of which an inaccessible coffee-pot toppled menacingly, alternately threatened to ignite the entire surrounding ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... from the Van jacks are flying, Which makes them look kinder askew, For they see they are joining the standard With the hero ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian |
