"Ragamuffin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cold and stormy December morning, the half frozen, desperate band of ragamuffin soldiers started its march toward Trenton—toward its last forlorn hope. Washington prayed that he might catch the garrison of Hessians unsuspecting and unprepared; but he feared that he had taken so long to effect ...
— Washington Crossing the Delaware • Henry Fisk Carlton
... select clergy of the district. The subject of examination was Christ's entry into Jerusalem on an ass's colt. 'Why,' said the M.P.—'why did they strew rushes before the Saviour? can any of you children tell me?' Profound silence. The M.P. repeated the question. A little ragamuffin held up his hand. The M.P. demanded silence as the apt scholar proceeded with his answer. 'Why were the rushes strewed?' said the M.P. in a condescending tone. I don't know,' replied the boy, 'unless it was to ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... at them through the door. "You think you can frighten me because I am only a poor girl left alone in the house. You ragamuffin thieves, I defy you both! Our bolts are strong, our shutters are thick. I am here to keep my father's house safe, and keep it I will ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... was to have another awakening. The years passed and brought their changes. In the manly youth who came forward as his name was called in the academy, and stood modestly at the desk to receive his diploma, few would have recognized the little ragamuffin who had dragged bundles of fire-wood to the rookery in the alley, and carried Uncle Pasquale's dinner-pail to the dump. But the audience gathered to witness the commencement exercises knew it all, and greeted him with a hearty welcome that recalled his early struggles and his hard-won ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... was about got into marching order, up rode John Watson, a ragamuffin-looking gamekeeper, in a green plush coat, with a very tarnished laced hat, mounted on a very shaggy white pony, whose hide seemed quite impervious to the visitations of a heavily-knotted dogwhip, with which he kept saluting his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... paved space on the sidewalk that served to the pedestrian as an indication of the spot in the tall, long, broad fence where a gate might be sought. It was a small gate with a strong latch. It required a strong hand to open it. At the sound of the click it made, the little street ragamuffin, who stood near, peeping through the fence, looked up. He had worked quite a hole between the boards with his fingers. Such an anxious expression passed over his face that even a casual passer-by could not help relieving it by a ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... name was Ragamuffin and called Rag for short, came duly, unknowing, like his young master, to meet his fate. He wriggled broad-side down the walk as a puppy will in his first joy till, overpowered by his emotions, he rolled over on his back at Champney's feet, the fringes of his four legs waving ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... comically puffed out, his lips parted, and his eyes were screwed up and blinking with extreme rapidity. He had obviously not expected so rapid and insulting a termination to his conversation with this long-whiskered ragamuffin. The ragamuffin took no further notice of him. He whistled dreamily, sitting on the stone post, and beating time on it with his bare, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... by way of atonement for youthful vituperation (he called him "a ragamuffin deist") of Tom Paine, exhumed his bones from their first resting-place at New Rochelle, and brought them to Liverpool on his return to England in 1819. They were preserved by Cobbett at Normanby, Farnham, till his death in 1835, but were sold in consequence ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... who stood in the middle of the freight-car, looking down in wonder at the fugitives, was a tall vagabond of the most picturesque type. No ragamuffin was ever so tattered and torn as this rakish individual. His clothes barely hung together on his lank frame; he was barefoot and hatless; a great mop of black hair topped his shrewd, rugged face; coal-black eyes snapped and twinkled beneath shaggy brows and a delighted, knowing grin spread slowly ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... his drive for nothing, though the pedler pretended to wish to force some silver into his hand; and afterwards he got down to water the horses, while the driver was busied with other matters. This driver was a little, dark ragamuffin, apparently of irascible temper, speaking with great disapprobation of his way-bill not being timed accurately, but so as to make it appear as if he were longer upon the road than he was. As he spoke, the blood ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that, and come into the world again with two sound legs, you'd see me disappear oversea double-quick, whoop! I wouldn't stay messing about here any longer.... Well, have you seen your navel yet to-day? Yes, you ragamuffin, you laugh; but I'm in earnest. It would pay you well if you always began the day ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... conspicuous by the fact that he wore no hat, and by the deadly pallor of his face, relieved only by a reddening bump beneath the right eye. His clothes also were dirty and disheveled till he seemed scarcely the superior in elegance of the little ragamuffin behind him. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... party, as I had expected, came up, and when poor Dthemetri saw me on my sheepskin, “the life and soul” of this ragamuffin party, he was so astounded, that he even failed to check his cry of horror; he plainly thought that now, at last, the Lord had delivered me (interpreter and all) into the hands of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... quirites [Lat.], pessoribus orti [Lat.]; bourgeois gentilhomme [Fr.], novus homo [Lat.], snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer; man of straw. beggar, gaberlunzie^, muckworm^, mudlark^, sans culotte, raff^, tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian^, panhandler [Slang], sundowner^, chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench^, scrub, jade; gossoon^. Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and how for a long time she had tried in vain to get the children to "come in," to take a hand. That she might get in touch with them, understand their small problems, she had urged them to ask questions. And there had fallen such long silences. Until, at last, one cheeky ragamuffin had ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... patois. I tell him to come in. The sack contains crayfish, and now I know the reason of his mysterious air, for all fishing is prohibited at this time, and he is running the gauntlet of the garde-pche, who lives close by. The poor ragamuffin has been out all night, wading in the streams, and his wife, who looks, if possible, more eager and hungry than himself, is waiting near, keeping watch. He offers his crayfish for three sous the dozen, and I buy them of him without feeling that respect for the law and the spawning season which ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... successful man, and they showed a disposition to be friendly. John, with a rankling memory of their former coldness, flouted every overture, by letting them see plainly that he preferred to their company that of Swipey Broon, Jock M'Craw, and every ragamuffin of the town. It was a kind of back-handed stroke at them. That was the paltry form which his father's pride took in him. He did not see that he was harming himself rather than his father's enemies. Harm himself he did, for you could not associate with Jock M'Craw and the like without ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... 1629 men, women, and children were grubbing for roots, fishing for food, ranging the rocks for berries. There are times when the only thing to do is—do nothing; and it is probably the hardest task a brave man ever has. When the English fleet came back in July Champlain had a ragamuffin, half-starved retinue of precisely sixteen men. Yet he haggled for such terms that the English promised to convey the prisoners to France. On July 20, for the first time in history, the red flag of England blew to the winds ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the amusements of the fete. The Mexican generals and other officers follow in his wake, and the gratifying spectacle may not unfrequently be seen, of the president leaning from his box in the plaza de gallos, and betting upon a cock, with a coatless, bootless, hatless, and probably worthless ragamuffin in the pit. Every one, therefore, however humble his degree, has the pleasure, while following his speculative inclinations, of reflecting that he treads in the steps of the magnates of the land; and, as Sam Weller would say, "Vot a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... replied to the lawyer's attack, pronouncing him to be "destitute of delicacy, decency, good manners, sound judgment, honesty, manhood, and humanity; a poltroon, a cat's-paw, the infamous tool of a party, a partisan, a political weathercock, and a ragamuffin." ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... young ragamuffin, "dat Fader Letheby is going to take Simon Barry into his new choir. Simon is a tinner, and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... humor than from a certain flavor of brandy toddy and tobacco smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his person. Another well-remembered though strangely altered face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people still called him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirt-sleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp practitioner, and in great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... excursions into the forest for a long time before I discovered that Jack was playing the part of eavesdropping guardian angel. Do you know, by the way, what a quaint little ragamuffin philosopher that child is? He has a shrewd sobriety, a steady watchfulness over all about him, and he is endowed with a power of silent devotion that is absolutely compelling. He has been such a comfort to me! and there is ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... "That ragamuffin!" said Curtis, scornfully. "She certainly shows extraordinary taste for a young lady ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... and set off along the quays to seek employment. But he was now not only penniless, his clothes had begun to fall in tatters; he had begun to have the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing to say to a ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, it is the coat that depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and steer like an angel, but if you have a hole in your trousers, it is like a millstone round your neck. The Devonian lost ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to multiply towards midnight. There are several beggars, one of whom is a dirty, round-shouldered old ragamuffin with a long, matted beard. He cringes in front of the inspector's desk, and suddenly his hand flickers upwards with a deft movement. The next instant he is looking as innocent as though butter would ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... little chap he looked up and in a sharp, clear voice, he cried: "Good-bye! Come back soon!" These words cut into my soul. Was it possible that this little ragamuffin was the only one in that village who was sorry to see me depart and who desired my return? And the acuteness of this cut was not decreased by the remembrance that on several occasions when he had accompanied his mother to my lodging I had given ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... a path to the right questioningly. The man nodded. Feeling suddenly young again, Lewis hurried along the path with a long and eager stride. He had not gone far when he saw a dainty figure, grotesquely accompanied by a ragamuffin, coming toward him. He did not have to ask himself twice if the dainty figure was Folly's. If he had been blind, the singing of the blood in his veins would ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... I should like to run a knife into him under the left shoulder-blade. How dare he, a ragamuffin from some hovel of Naples, make you ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... and interest he contrived to get himself elected a Ragamuffin; believing that to be a Ragmuffin was to secure a position as a dramatic writer. But with one or two fortunate exceptions, his pieces were refused. The managers would not have the poor little feeble phantasmagoria of bygone fun, even supported by the whole clan of Ragamuffins. So Mr. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the boats shoved off, Ronald went round to visit the forts. He found Glover and his party standing guard over the prisoners they had captured—a ragamuffin crew composed of natives of nearly every country in the world, and from their appearance Ronald had strong suspicions that they might deservedly be looked upon as pirates. In the other fort Mr Tarbot, the boatswain, had charge of a similar crew. They were very sulky, and as the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... before him, and held him chief of all their tribe. Nor despite his blindness did he find any difficulty in getting a wife, but rather was able to pick and choose, for he was just that mixture of ragamuffin and of genius which is dear to the heart of woman, who, perhaps because she is wholly conventional herself, loves the unexpected, the crooked, the bewildering. Nor did he lack, despite his rags, many excellent things, for it is remembered that he ever loved ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... devices during the time he had been alone with his father at Castletownrock. Captain Caldwell's theory was that boys would look after themselves, "and the sooner you let 'em the sooner you'd make men of 'em. Blood will tell, sir. Your gentleman's son is a match for any ragamuffin"—a theory which Jim justified in many a free fight; but, during the suspension of hostilities he hobnobbed with the ragamuffins, who took a terrible revenge, for by the time Mrs. Caldwell arrived Jim was thoroughly ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand |
