"Gnome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yet more deep we rode into the gloom, though the sunset yet clung in a girdle of fire round the horizon, casting red blades of light between the tree trunks; and Pierrebon's cheek grew pale, for goblin and gnome and fay lived to him, and even I, who did not believe, felt if my sword played freely in my sheath. And then I ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... aeroplanes, whether of the single or double type, the propeller, or propellers, are directly connected to the motor. In some monoplanes the motor, especially the Gnome, itself rotates, carrying the blades with it. In biplanes, such as the Burgess, Wright or Curtiss, it is the custom to operate the propellers directly from the motor, either by means of a shaft, ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... and Kara limped after her to implore forgiveness. He assured her that he trusted her fully, and that whatever tricks she played the Gentile would not be taken seriously by himself. "Poison him I would," grumbled the little gnome in his beard. "For his golden talk makes you smile sweetly upon him. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass for it is Transylvanian gold; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that may be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does it, it's very provoking of him, for no gold is woven ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... traversed several great corridors when a great open door stood before us. I looked in, and descried, at the top of a double ladder, the little gnome Knapwurst, whose strange appearance had ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... But the keen, impetuous, rapid figure of the architect, impatient, and justly impatient, of all rivalry, the murmurs and comments of the workmen; the troubled minds of the city authorities, not knowing how to hold their ground between that gnome of majestic genius who had fathomed all the secrets of construction and built a hundred Duomos in his mind, while they were pottering over the preliminaries of one; have all the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... unwilling to leave her behind at Dolly Winthrop's, who was always ready to take care of her; and little curly-headed Eppie, the weaver's child, became an object of interest at several outlying homesteads, as well as in the village. Hitherto he had been treated very much as if he had been a useful gnome or brownie—a queer and unaccountable creature, who must necessarily be looked at with wondering curiosity and repulsion, and with whom one would be glad to make all greetings and bargains as brief as possible, but who must be dealt with in a propitiatory way, ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... the diners. He was an admirable servant, deft and handy, but his blue-lined face and squat figure together with the obtrusively golden halo, rather worried Mrs. Jasher. And, indeed, in spite of custom, Lucy also felt uncomfortable when this gnome hovered at her elbow. It looked as though one of the fantastical idols from the museum below had ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... mother awoke. The curtain shook, she looked forth, and fancied she saw a gnome or some other kind of little spectre. 'In Heaven's name!' she cried, and aroused her husband in a frightened way. He opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the brisk little lad. 'Why, that is Bertel,' said he. And my eye quitted the poor room, for I have so much to see. At the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... aperture—a walnut of a face, with a pair of shrewd, twinkling eyes, and a pipe in a slit of a mouth. Another call brought on deck a figure which matched the face; and on deck Mr. Paasma (it looked like a gnome, but it could be no other than the caretaker) evidently intended to remain until he got ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... York, however, still clung to some of their traditions; and the custom of exchanging simple gifts upon Christmas Day had come down to them as a result of a combination of the church legend of the good St. Nicholas, patron of children, and the Scandinavian myth of the fairy gnome, who from his bower in the woods showered good children with gifts.[148-A] But to celebrate the day quietly was altogether a different thing from introducing to the American public the character of Santa Claus, who has become ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... past Shen Yi provoked the Deities, and to mark their displeasure it was decided to take away his she-child and to substitute for it one of demoniac birth. Accordingly Fuh-sang, being of like age, was moulded to its counterpart, and an attendant gnome was despatched with her secretly to make the change. Becoming overwhelmed with the fumes of rice-spirit, until then unknown to his simple taste, this clay-brained earth-pig left the two she-children alone for a space while he slept. Discovering each other to be the creature ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... figure was making its way down the middle of Main Street. A thick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like a drunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the cold steel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went on to the end of the block and turned ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... simples; he was doctor and priest together. He had a very simple magic. He himself did not expect it to reach the Great Spirit, but it might affect the innumerable zemes or under and under-under spirits. These barbarians, using other words for them, had letter-notion of gnome, sylph, undine and salamander. All things lived and took offense or became propitious. Effort consisted in making them propitious. If the effort was too great one of them killed you. Then you went to the shadowy caves. There was a ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... a uniform," said the gnome. "I'm not afraid of soldiers. My father's got a lot of money, he's got two hundred and fifty dollars and I'm not going ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... along the side of the flat, through tall grass and all the brilliant blossoms of a mountain meadow in June. Great, graceful mountain lilies nodded from little shady tangles in the bushes. Harebells and lupines, wild-pea vines and columbines, tiny, gnome-faced pansies, violets, and the daintier flowering grasses lined the way with odorous loveliness. Birds called happily from the tree tops. Away up next the clouds an eagle sailed serene, alone, a tiny boat breasting the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... the stars, and the stealthily moving winds in the corn, scared, awed her. At such moments the universe was a delicious mystery. Keeping close hold upon my hand she whispered with excitement, "What was that, Poppie? What was that noise? Was it a gnome?" ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... feared that he might be followed, but there being nobody in the vicinity, he suddenly, when about half a mile from the village, struggled through a hedge into a grass-field where, in the corner, sheltered from the wind, stood Noel Barclay's naval monoplane, with its star-like Gnome engine and wide planes of ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... fertile brain and imaginative suggestions. Polly was always able to discover fairy dells and gnome-frequented caves. It was she who invented the plays which were the most delightful. Mary was rather tiresome when it came to anything more than sober facts. She would play very nicely with the dolls, but, when it came to make-believe creatures, she ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef of gold,—the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures, are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... modern superstition. Hahn endeavoured to group the folk-tales of Europe under forty heads, and Baring Gould has followed his example. In every corner of Christendom some form of kelpie, sprite, troll, gnome, imp, or demon has a place in the mind of the people, much the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... part; ay, cosey enough, with good company well-met within, the risen wind clamoring through the night, the rain lashing the black panes, the sea rumbling upon the rocks below, and, withal, a savory smell abroad in goodly promise. My uncle, grown fat as a gnome in these days, grotesquely fashioned, miscellaneously clothed as ever, stood with legs wide upon the black wolf's-skin, his back to the fire, his great hands clasped over his paunch, lying as upon a shelf; regarding the direct importation and myself, the rise of my admiration, the ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... free-and-untrammeled spaces of nature, and well you know it. But you'll go to-morrow and you'll keep on going until you find out what is behind those brown-green goblin spectacles. If only he didn't look so like a gnome!" ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... left the house, and took his way to his counting-house. There, cool, bland, fawning, and weaving in his close and dark mind various speculations of guilt and craft, he sat among his bills and gold, like the very gnome and personification of that Mammon of gain to which he was the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hat, showed him an old man—probably very near his old-age pension. But he carried still with him a look of youth, and he had been a splendid creature in his time. The other was short of stature and of neck, bent besides by field work. A broadly-built, clumsy man, with something gnome-like about him, and the cheerful look of one whose country nerves had never known the touch of worry or long sickness. The name of the taller man was Peter Halsey, and Joseph Batts was ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of helplessness than by fear; and then, blindly, without plan or foresight, darted down the covered way. The tiny flame of a pith wick, floating in a saucer of oil, showed Heywood's gatekeeper sitting at his post, like a gnome in the gallery of a mine. Rudolph tore away the bar, heard the heavy gate slam shut, and found himself ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... sea, and he had disguised himself, and gone out wandering among the farmhouses and huts and castles to try if he could hear some tidings of it, and get it if possible into his power. The moment he heard Hulda mention her gold wand, he became excessively anxious to see it. He was a gnome, and when his malicious eyes gleamed with delight they shot out a burning ray, which scorched the hound who was lying asleep close at hand, and he sprang ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... with braced legs and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days. But as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little face. Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind hunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... might be; and again, after one of those mysterious periods of silence which are of most ominous significance in nursery experience, he would rise from the demolition of her indigo-bag, showing a face ghastly with blue streaks, and looking more like a gnome than the son of a respectable mother. There was not a pitcher of any description of contents left within reach of his little tiptoes and busy fingers that was not pulled over upon his giddy head without ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... gnome who lived in the Bye-bye Meadow, in a fine new house which he loved. To live in the Bye-bye Meadow was sometimes a dangerous thing, for all the big people lived there. Wee-Wun might have lived on the other common ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... saw six paths lying before him, each of which led through the wood. He was hesitating which to choose, when he suddenly beheld two people coming towards him, down the track which lay most to his right. They turned out to be the Prince Gnome and his friend, and the sudden desire to get some news of his sister, Princess Argentine, caused the Invisible Prince to follow them and ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... far-off, on a port-light, a small square of day framed in black. Empty space was luminous beyond that cave. Becoming used to the gloom I saw chains and cordage hanging from the unseen roof. What was faintly like the prow of a boat shaped near. Then out from the lumber and suggestions of things a gnome approached me. "Y' want ole Pascoe? Nex' dore, guv'nor!" At that moment, in the square of bright day at the end of the darkness, the apparition of a ship silently appeared, and was gone again before my surprise. That open space beyond was ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... own eyes of golden brown a little spark slowly burst into flame. It was exactly as if a gnome had lighted a lantern at the back of an unknown cave. Mrs. Ennis inwardly shuddered, but outwardly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was begun, amid a flare of gasolene torches that gave a weird aspect to the plain. The yellow lights; the moving, shadowy forms of the workmen and horses; the cries and shouts—all made a scene gnome-like in character. Frost gleamed upon the earth in a silvery sheen under the torches' smoky flames. The headquarters building and the mess tents now glowed from dusk until dawn. Fires where workmen could warm their cheeks and hands were burning continually, fed from the great ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... husband. Girls often married for other than sentimental reasons. Of that she was well aware. Self-interest was at the bottom of most marriages. Cupid, guileless as he seems, is often a shrewd, calculating little gnome in disguise. If a girl has no means, no friends, no way of earning a living, what is going to become of her unless she seeks refuge in marriage? Her first instinct is to find a husband, a man sufficiently well off to support both. There was, of course, only one word with which to brand that ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... through a mysterious network of narrow passages and vaulted rooms, all lit with electric lamps, and striking cold and cellary. We saw the big hospital, not very busy just then, and the clean, empty operating theatre, and gnome-caverns where munitions were stored in vast, black pyramids. When there was nothing left to see in the citadel, our hosts asked if we would like to pay a visit to the trenches—old trenches which had ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the peaches were all canned, the table filled with amber-colored jars. Billy must carry them to the storeroom and place them on the shelves. He ran back and forth looking like a little brown gnome and actually skipping with happiness. Miss Ann smiled contentedly while Mrs. Buck gathered up the peach skins and stones which she had saved with a view to making marmalade, although Judith assured her that the peach crop was so big ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... round, as well they may To see a horrid sight! The blackest gnome Stands there alone, They scatter ...
— The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' • Bertha Upton
... but the Prince had been journeying in this direction for quite a long time, taking things easily, and seeing everything that was to be seen. His mother had died when he was quite young, and his father had lately married the daughter of a gnome, probably because their estates joined,—his stretching for many miles over the surface of the earth, while hers lay immediately beneath them. The Prince did not like his gnome step-mother (who was, you know, one of those large underground fairies, who are more like human beings ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... queer case, Martin—that's the truth of it. In a book the other day I came across an exact description of myself. I could have laughed if it hadn't hit me so hard. It said: 'She was a super-modern in an early-Victorian frame, a pint of champagne in a little old cut-glass bottle, a gnome engine attached to a coach and pair.'" She picked up a stone and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... but still it is not a nice place, and we were unfeignedly glad to repair on board the Marie Valerie as soon as we noted the cessation of the black coaly cloud, through the murkiness of which a chattering stream of gnome-like figures passed their burthens of "Cardiff" into ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... suspicion that a European war was brewing, its violent emotion would quickly have reached the House. Paul Visire was not uneasy. The European situation was in his view completely reassuring. He was only irritated by the maniacal silence of his Minister of Foreign Affairs. That gnome went to the Cabinet meetings with a portfolio bigger than himself stuffed full of papers, said nothing, refused to answer all questions, even those asked him by the respected President of the Republic, and, exhausted by his obstinate ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... mice transformed. An hour ago, perhaps, this carriage was a pumpkin lying on the hearth of the hotel kitchen. The coachman is a good fairy in thin disguise of overcoat and false mustache. I am doubtful of even you. The whole thing is a delusion. It won't last, it can't last! Presently the wicked gnome that must needs dwell in a stalactite cavern somewhere hereabouts will start up and ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... silence that was more complimentary than the wildest applause; for he had done what few orators do: he had set his audience to thinking. Only one of the Twelve had a remark to make for some time, and that was a small-framed, big-spectacled gnome called "History." He leaned over and ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... he regarded as an embryo monument of national glory, would save him L140 per annum. He then proceeded to make a little speech about the spirit of the age, and the influence of routine, which he described as a gloomy gnome. But his oratory was cruelly cut short by Mr. Vigil, who demanded of him whether he ever used the river steamers. The witness shuddered fearfully as he assured the committee that he never did, and referred to the Cricket, whose boilers burst in the year 1842; besides, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... it succeeded with Lady Davenant: it was in vain to say more about it to her, so Helen let it pass. When she mentioned it afterwards to Lady Cecilia, she said—"I am sorry, for your sake, Helen, that this happened; depend upon it, that revengeful little Portuguese gnome will work you mischief some time or other." Helen did not think of herself—indeed she could not imagine any means by which he could possibly work her woe; but the face was so horrible, that it came again and again before her eyes, and she was more ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... when the earl went down the stair She yielded to her fears. Gave way at last to grim despair, And melted into tears: When suddenly, from out the wall, As if he felt at home, There pounced a singularly small And much distorted gnome. He smiled a smile extremely vapid, And set to work in fashion rapid; No time for resting he deducted, And soon ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... respect a graceful or romantic figure such as Leonardo was. He reminds us rather, by the weird and cosmic nature of his speculations and inventions, of some one of the beings created by the Norse mythologists: a nineteenth century gnome, rough, shaggy, uncouth, wholly absorbed in his search among the secrets of nature, and, while working always for the good of mankind, dwelling in a world apart, and with neither time nor inclination to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... I told the gnome, putting the money in his palm and reaching for the rail. McCord lent me a hand on my wrist. Then when I stood squarely on the deck beside him he appeared to forget my presence, leaned forward heavily on the rail, and squinted after my ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... sea-green light, As if it had but newly come Up from some subterranean palace, The haunt of fairy or of gnome, With its waxen taper still alight, And beaming in its leafy chalice, That lit the revellers down below, When the nights were long, and the moon was low You might have heard, far-off and sweet, The sound of the elfin revelries, Like ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... an afternoon and a morning playing golf amid the immensities of Banff, or travelling in a swift car along its beautiful roads. There are most things in Banff to make man happy, even a coal mine, sitting like a black and incongruous gnome in the heart of enchanted hills, to ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... his eyes with a start and saw a Gnome standing on the window-sill just in front of him. Yes, there was no mistake about it, it was a Gnome. For had not Ned a moment before seen his picture in the big book he had been reading? Indeed, it almost seemed as if the picture ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... done for the imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to believe that some theatrical goblet ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... that the head chewed a straw and spat, which I deemed a gnome would not do—though wherefore straws and spitting are not free to gnomes I do not know and could not have told. Yet, at all events, such was my belief. And a serviceable one enough it was, since it took the fear out of me and gave me back my speech. And ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... she fell in with her nurse's humour, and the two proceeded to "have a night of it." Ziza said she'd be a real fairy and tell him what to do, and Willie said he'd be a gnome or a he-fairy ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Gnome motor is unusually light, being about three pounds to the horse power produced, as opposed to an average of 4 1/2 pounds per horse power in other makes. This result is secured by the elimination of the fly-wheel, ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... vieil gnome rechigne, Va d'une aile pesante et d'un air renfrogne Chercher en murmurant la caverne profonde, Ou loin des doux raions que repand l'oeil du monde La Deesse aux Vapeurs a choisi son sejour, Les Tristes Aquilons y sifflent a l'entour, Et le souffle mal sain de leur aride ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... with alacrity. Suspended head downward from the screen, was indeed a mouse-like shape, with the folded wings of a gnome, which Dorothy had not unnaturally mistaken for an umbrella. Apparently the little creature had passed an active night, and was now enjoying his well-earned repose. Peggy took one look and crossed the hall with a bound. Amy and Ruth were sound asleep, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... is of two kinds, either lyric or gnomic, i. e. subjectively emotional or sententiously didactic, the former belonging to the active or stirring, and the latter to the reflective or quiet, periods of Hebrew history, and whether expressed in lyric or gnome rises in the conscience and terminates in action; for Hebrew thought needs to go no higher, since therein it finds and affirms God; and it seeks to go no farther, for therein it compasses all being, and requires no epic and no drama to work out its destiny. However individualistic in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... part of the brim of his hat and shoulders were brought into brilliant light, while the rest of him was lost in the profound darkness of the level behind, and the flame of his candle rested above his head like the diadem of some aristocratic gnome. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... He smiled, his gnome's face breaking into a million tiny cracks like a piece of gray-glazed pottery. "Bartol, or whatever you call yourself, you are a brave young man. I suppose you are afraid we will block your memories, or your ability to speak ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... goes there comes from him a continued stream of talk concerning the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and other kindred matters. Surely if we two were seen by any human eyes, it must have been supposed that some gnome, or troll, or kelpie was luring the listener to his doom. The worst of such affairs as this was the consciousness that, when left, the old man would continue walking on until, weariness overcoming him, he would take his rest, wherever that happened, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... superhuman cunning and pertinacity in this guileless-eyed cellar plotter called Heeney. He could see the hours of patient labor it had involved, the days and days of mole-like tunneling, the weeks and weeks of gnome-like burrowing and carrying and twisting and loosening and piling, the months of ant-like industry which one blow of the Law's heel would make ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... kind with kind, only rarely lending themselves to transient ructions. They played little jokes on each other; a fat and serious captive was sitting of an evening at his cell door, absorbed in the perusal of a wide-spread newspaper; a gnome-like passerby in the corridor lit an unsuspected match, and suddenly the newspaper was a sheet ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... when the Fair in all their pride expire, To their first Elements their Souls retire: The Sprites of fiery Termagants in Flame Mount up, and take a Salamander's name. 60 Soft yielding minds to Water glide away, And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea. The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of mischief still on Earth to roam. The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, 65 And sport and flutter ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... before him now—yellow, blue, and blood-red. A more perfect semblance of an evil gnome could not be made than the flickering reflection of the sunlight in the bottle of blood-red liquid. It was never still. It skipped from the bottom of the bottle to the top and from one side to the other, ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... The other little gnome tip-toed up and joined his brother and when they had listened a while they winked at each other and quietly walked back to the beach. After whispering together a moment one of the little gnomes ran up the beach and over a ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... cried, as he entered the steeple, "They've hanged him at last, the righteous people! His swollen tongue lolls out of his head! Hoo! hoo! at last the old brute is dead! There let him hang, the shapeless gnome, Choked with a ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... from the oscitancy of the transcriber, or from the trepidation which might have overpowered the modest Frenchman, on finding himself in the act of writing to so great a man, I shall not dare to determine. A few Notes are added by Your servant, GNOME. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... twilight? The sight of that little camp is still in my memory. Elspeth flitted about busied with her cookery, the glow of the sunset lighting up her dark hair. Bertrand did the roasting, crouched like a gnome by the edge of the fire. Grey fetched and carried for the cooks, a docile and cheerful servant, with nothing in his look to recall the proud gentleman of the Tidewater. Donaldson sat on a log, contentedly smoking his pipe, while Ringan, whistling a strathspey, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... long nose, wearing a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his ears, sat on one of the boxes which they had succeeded in bringing out: his wife was lying on her face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome—not one of the villagers, though obviously connected in some way with the fire—walked about bareheaded, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare was reflected on his bald head. The village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, as swarthy and black-haired as a gypsy, went up to the hut ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... dawn." Well pleased, Phraerion answered that embrace; All balmy he with thousand breathing sweets, From thousand dewy flowers. "But to what place," He said, "will Zophiel go? who danger greets As if 'twere peace. The palace of the gnome, Tahathyam, for our purpose most were meet; But then, the wave, so cold and fierce, the gloom, The whirlpools, rocks, that guard that deep retreat! Yet there are fountains, which no sunny ray E'er danced upon, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... or damsel highly born To judgment came, and anxiously displayed For him submission as for others scorn. Then, peering keenly from his peat-roofed home, Calm in his power he scanned her as he chose, And, if she pleased, the swart and twisted gnome Gave her a white, ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... could not recount to you the gems clustered there,—such as a fairy tiny gold palette, with all the colors arranged; a tiny easel with a colored landscape, quarter of an inch wide; a tragic and comic mask, just big enough for a gnome; a cross of the Legion of Honor; a wallet, opening with a spring, and disclosing compartments just of a size for the Keeper of the Privy Purse of the Fairy Queen; a dagger for a pygmy; two minute daguerreotypes of friends, each as large as a small pea, in a gold case; an opera-glass; Faith, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... that "Mother Goose" came to New York saw the introduction of a French troupe of Pantomimists, known as the Ravels. In imitation of these performers Fox introduced in the 'fifties ballet Pantomimes, and several Ravelsque pieces like "The Red Gnome" and "The ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... pioneers whiten as monuments of failure. In the guise of a green-kirtled enchantress, with wild poppies and primroses wreathed above her starry eyes, Science was luring him through the borderland of her kingdom, toward that dark, chill, central realm where, transformed as a gnome, she clutches her votaries, plunges into the primeval abyss-the matrix of time—and sets them the Egyptian task of weighing, analyzing the Titanic "potential" energy, the infinitesimal atomic engines, the "kinetic" force, the chemical ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of the figures rushed upon the dais—and paused. It was the girl who had been brought before Yolara when the gnome named Songar was driven into the nothingness! With all the quickness of light a spiral of the Shining One stretched out and ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... they had reached the room which Abeille knew so well, and her heart beat violently as the gnome carried her over the threshold. By the light of a lamp hanging over the bed Abeille could see her mother, beautiful still, but with a face that had grown pale and sad. As she gazed the sadness vanished, and ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... a moment, clad in a scarlet kimono, her hair hanging in thick braids. With her large round forehead exposed she looked not unlike a gnome, but ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... awaking from his reverie, he stood opposite to that wild and magnificent gloom of Nature which frowned on him from the canvas, the very leaves on those gnome-like, distorted trees seemed to rustle sibylline secrets in his ear. Those rugged and sombre Apennines, the cataract that dashed between, suited, more than the actual scenes would have done, the mood and temper of his mind. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... treasure lay before his eyes. You may imagine how gaily Peter filled his sack with as much gold as he could carry, and how he staggered up the seventy-seven steps with a heart full of hope and delight. He did not quite trust the gnome's promises of safety, and was in such haste to find himself once more in the light of day that he looked neither to the right nor the left, and could not afterwards remember whether the walls and pillars had ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... half an hour before nightfall, the dwarf appeared at the mouth of the cave, looking more like a gnome than a man against the lurid background of the angry sky. A buck was tied across his enormous shoulders, and in his hand he held a large bunch of the fragrant ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... forest fear While pillared darkness hatched malicious life At either elbow, wolf or gnome or knife And wary slid the glance from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from everything, even the beautiful. On the other hand, the grotesque seems to be a halting-place, a mean term, a starting-point whence one rises toward the beautiful with a fresher and keener perception. The salamander gives relief to the water-sprite; the gnome heightens the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... looking from her window like Daniel praying toward Jerusalem, her constant custom now, even when there was no moon to show what lay before her, did think she heard strange sounds come faintly through the night from the valley below—even thought she caught shadowy glimpses of a shapeless, gnome-like train moving along the road; but she only wondered if the Highlands had suddenly gifted her with the second sight, and these were the brain-phantasms of coming events. She listened and gazed, but could not be sure that she ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of the unruffled pond. Here a man might well pause and take no further step lest he fall into the blue depths of space. The moon hangs like a great shield in a sky of soft sapphire, piled with luminous figures. Within the wood are fairy and elf, goblin and gnome, half seen in the filmy light. Here giant genie stand revealed, passing in the dim perspective of mighty distances or leaning portentously from the radiant sky. In the mirror-like pond I see all these things repeated in an underworld that is as distinct and clear, yet strangely distorted. The ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... wrong with Percy's new Gnome engine, then, has it; and he blew his horn so about what wonders it was going to do? Huh!" and Andy chuckled in his ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... the moon, When Diana from her dome Wakes from slumber, woos from swoon All the folk who fear the noon, Dwarf and kobold, witch and gnome— I conjure thee, ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... bright as ever sported Her figure thro' the fields of air, By an old swarthy Gnome was courted. And, strange to say, he ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the door, and the contrast between the appearance of the two brought the ghost of a smile to the thin lips of the pale sacristan, who was occupied in renewing the tapers upon one of the side altars. Keyork Arabian might have stood for the portrait of the gnome-king. His high and pointed head, his immense beard, his stunted but powerful and thickset limbs, his short, sturdy strides, the fiery, half-humorous, half-threatening twinkle of his bright eyes gave him all the appearance of a fantastic ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... peasant-girl. For the first time in her life she saw ferocity in that face. The moonlight seemed to heighten the effect of it. The savage Breton, holding his cap in one hand and his heavy carbine in the other, dumpy and thickset as a gnome, and bathed in that white light the shadows of which give such fantastic aspects to forms, seemed to belong more to a world of goblins than to reality. This apparition and its tone of reproach came upon Francine with ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... man, with an immense bald head, as round and smooth and shining as a giant soap-bubble, and a pair of beady black eyes, set close together, so that he resembled a gnome of amazing brain capacity and prodigious power of concentration, sat bent over a writing desk with a huge sheet of cardboard before him, on which he was swiftly drawing geometrical and trigonometrical figures. Compasses, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were, permanent beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man slowly driving along the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few chairs and tables and bedding. He had a long grey beard and wild eyes; he was old, and very small like a gnome, but he had not the gnome's good-humour. I asked him where he was going, and I slowed down, so as to keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time he would not answer me, and then he said, "Out of this." He added, ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... genius rare, Transfiguring in fire or wave or air At will, but a poor gnome that, cloistered up In some rock-chamber, with his agate-cup, His topaz-rod, his seed-pearl, in these few And their arrangement finds enough to do For ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... seasons and centuries; laurels, roses, and lilies, and pansies for remembrance. We didn't see those flowers with our bodies' eyes, but what of that? What did it matter that to the Turnours in their splendid glass cage this was just a road, with queer little gnome dwellings scooped out of solid rock to redeem it from common-placeness, with a fringe of deserted cottages farther on, and some ugly brickworks? My spirit's eyes saw the flowers, and they clustered thicker and brighter ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... easily accomplished. He was a newly fledged reporter, and Amarilly had all the instinct of the lowly for localities. She turned and doubled and dodged successfully. By a course circuitous she returned to Hebrew haunts, this time to seek, one Abram Canter, a little wizened, gnome-like Jew. Assuring herself that there was no other than the proprietor within, Amarilly entered and handed over the surplice ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... now, They of pure and steadfast mind, By faith exalted, truth refined, Shall hear all music loud and clear, Whose first notes they ventured here. Then fear not thou to wind the horn, Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn; Ask for the castle's King and Queen; Though rabble rout may rush between, Beat thee senseless to the ground, In the dark beset thee round; Persist to ask, and it will come; Seek not for rest in humbler home; So shalt thou see, what few have seen, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... shoulder, seamed with smiles that spoke of some common understanding between him and the daughter of his master; and once, when she thrust more directly at her father, the little servitor deliberately winked to the back of his master's head—a very gnome of slyness. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... only a mouse dancing on a summit of garbage, why did they cheer? At the end of still another street, a mass rape may not have been in progress; the participants may not have waited sullenly in a long line; a macrocephalic gnome in a plaid suit may not actually have moved up and down the line selling tickets at a reduced rate and explaining that the outrage had been in progress since the preceding Christmas Eve: but why ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... better after the gnome-like influence of Mrs Grace had ceased; but we must now hasten to introduce our readers to Mrs. Fanshaw. Mrs. Fanshaw was a card-playing lady, who had been educated at a time when it was not thought necessary for women to have any knowledge, or any taste ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... under a dim street light consulting his timepiece, there came to his ears out of the darkness just ahead, a voice, a rich and throaty tenor, singing softly. The sweet sounds pierced his preoccupation. He looked, and some thirty or forty paces distant perceived a gnome-like figure perched atop a fire hydrant, at ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... saloon-keepers, ward politicians, composing his mental picture of a strike in a minor city, absolutely controlled, industrially, politically, and socially by the industry which had made it. The town, as he came to conceive it, was a fevered and struggling gnome, bound to a wheel which ground for others; a gnome who, if he broke his bonds, would be perhaps only the worse for his freedom. At the beginning of the sixth day, for his stay had outgrown its original plan, the pocket-ledger, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... gleam of his lantern fell red and wild upon his livid countenance. His shaggy hair floated in the cold breezes that blew by him. At this moment he would have appeared from a distance, like a phantom of fire perishing in a mist of darkness; like a Gnome in adoration in the bowels of the earth; like a forsaken spirit in a solitary purgatory, watching for the advent of a glimpse of beauty, or a breath ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... of beauty closes, When the weary are at rest, When the shade the sunset throws is But a vapour in the west; When the moonlight tips the billow With a wreath of silver foam, And the whisper of the willow Breaks the slumber of the gnome,— Night may come, but sleep will linger, When the spirit, all forlorn, Shuts its ear against the singer, And the rustle of the corn Round the sad old mansion sobbing Bids the wakeful maid recall Who it was that caused the throbbing Of ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked so goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous, she might have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome from the land of Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and business-like, and she ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Hudson's yard, still stood aloof. It had towered there ahead of them as they jerked and toiled across the interminable flat in their accompanying cloud of dust. The great circle of the world had dwarfed them to a bitter insignificance: a team of crickets, they seemed, driven by a gnome. The hushed tone of Thatcher's voice made ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... for a rhyme with pine. As he was hurrying along, a gigantic man, with a pole as big as a mast over his shoulder, appeared from behind the pine-trees. Peter was filled with terror, for he felt that it was none other than the giant-gnome, Michael the Dutchman. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... twig and branch of the poor, leafless, skeleton trees with rare festal jewels and ear-drops of glittering icicles; besides weaving fantastic devices of goblin castles and airy, feathery foliage on the window panes, fairy armies in martial array and delicate gnome-tracery—transforming their appearance from that of ordinary glass into brilliantly-embroidered flakes of transparent, lucent crystal. Ah me! Jack Frost is a cunning enchanter: his will is all-powerful, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... warmth, and home enjoyment; of money spent not for show, but for comfort. Thick crimson curtains descend in heavy folds over the embrasures of the windows, and the ample hearth and wide fireplace speak of the customs of the good old times, ere that gloomy, unpoetic, unsocial gnome—the air-tight—had monopolized the place ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... her with all, thy might!! My turn to laugh will come some day. Me hath she jilted once, you the same trick she'll play. Some gnome her lover be! where cross-roads meet, With her to play the fool; or old he-goat, From Blocksberg coming in swift gallop, bleat A good night to her, from his hairy throat! A proper lad of genuine flesh and blood, Is for the damsel far too good; The greeting she shall have ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... graveyard. As he drew near, all eyes were fixed upon him. Never were any one's features so much disfigured. His nose was as large as a hen's egg, and as purple as a plum. Still it was not much disproportioned to the rest of his swollen face; and the whole resembled the unearthly phiz of the most bloated gnome that watched over the slumbers of ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... in strong contrast with the others, instead of affording me gratification, was a source of keen annoyance and vexation to me whenever I heard it. It related to a boy who on one occasion had the good fortune to meet, in the depths of the forest, a little old man in red cap and green jerkin—a gnome or fairy, of course—who with the utmost good-nature offered to gratify any single wish that boy might choose to express. Here was a glorious chance, the opportunity of a lifetime! The boy's first thought was for ginger-bread, but before the thought had time to clothe itself in words the vision of ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... opening all her letters, dressing her in sack-cloth, separating her from her children. Most men, of course, didn't do such things, they were amenable to public opinion, but Sir Isaac was a jealous little Ogre. He was a gnome who had carried off ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... could see large chambers with the larvae in piles, besides being held in the mandibles of the components of the walls and ceilings. Now and then a curious little ghost-like form would flit across the chamber, coming to rest, gnome-like, on larva or ant. Again and again I saw these little springtails skip through the very scimitar mandibles of a soldier, while the workers paid no attention to them. I wondered if they were not quite odorless, intangible ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... drew near. He had limped up on his stick. He spoke like an elderly, affectionate gnome, not like ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... visit the Gnome King, with whom he made a bargain to exchange three drums, a trumpet and two dolls for a pair of fine steel runners, curled beautifully at the ends. For the Gnome King had children of his own, who, living in the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... got hold of that man Mullens that works for Swain's, the motor people. He worked in an aeroplane factory in France once, he says, for nearly a year. He does not know much about the actual planes themselves, but he knows a lot about the Gnome engine. He says he has invented an aeroplane engine that will lick them all when he gets it right. He is not hard to get going, but he won't stay on the point much. I have been at him half a dozen times altogether, but I wanted ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... Hampshire. But the children were almost invariably too small for their years. The most stunted specimen was a little boy I met near Hindhead. He was thin, with a dry wizened face, and looked at the most about eight years old; he assured me that he was twelve. I engaged this gnome-like creature to carry something for me, and we had three or four miles ramble together. A curious couple we must have seemed—a giant and a pigmy, the pigmy looking considerably older than the giant. He was ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson |
