"Sleeveless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and they were undoubtedly women. The muffling cloaks gone, they wore sleeveless garments of silver which were girded at the waist with belts of blue gems. Only in their hair and their eyes did they betray alien blood. For the hair which flowed and wove about them, cascading down shoulders, ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... customers to lay their money on and which generally held a few oil-jars-projected a little way into the street like a window-board, and on this singular couch sat a distinguished looking youth in a light blue, sleeveless chiton, turning his back on the stall itself, which was not much bigger than a good sized travelling-chariot. By his side lay a "Himation"—[A long square cloak, and an indispensable part of the dress of the Greeks.]—of fine white ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... but her veil was fastened by her own flower,—exquisite daisies in silver and gold filigree work; and the dress?—Madam vowed it would ruin her prestige,—that it was unheard of, impossible; that no bridal dress could be made low-necked and sleeveless; but Marion well knew the beauty of her neck and arms, and Ray had begged it should be so. Madam protested, but in vain; the low-cut, sleeveless corsage fitted closely to the lines of the lovely figure, and gleamed with pearl embroidered lace, while ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... heels is more comfortable in a cold climate than one ending at the knees, and is likely to be worn in preference. Students in Russia to-day wear the red shirt, the loose trousers tucked into the high boots, and the sleeveless caftan of the peasant, to show that they are Slavs in feeling, while the old Russian costume is the regulation court dress for ladies ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... me in slavery time. Remember, Dear, when the yankees came through here, I was only ten years old. Misses Fannie and Ann Crawford were Major Crawford's daughters, and they kept house for Marse John. That morning in May I was wearing a sleeveless apron, and they (Miss Fannie and Miss Ann) put a bag of gold and silver, and some old greenback Confederate money in my apron and told me to hold on to it. Miss Fannie and Miss Ann, both of them, patted me on the head and said: 'Now, be a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... in a voice that vibrated unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the subdued afternoon haze—wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... white cotton frock on this particular Sunday. It was starched and ironed with a beautiful gloss, while a touch of distinction was given to her costume by a little black sleeveless "roundabout" made out of the covering of an old silk umbrella. Her flat hat had a single wreath of coarse daisies around the crown, and her mitts were darned in many places, nevertheless you could not entirely spoil her; God had used a liberal hand in making her, and her ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on which Dirk had landed was illuminated by lights which simulated sunshine, and their soft bright glow revealed the violet hue of her eyes and the shimmering gloss of her silken hair. She wore a sleeveless, light blue tunic which was gathered around her waist with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... emphasized the ideas suggested by the peculiarities of his mien and face. Soul, body, and garb were in harmony, and calculated to impress the coldest imagination. He wore a sort of sleeveless gown of black cloth, fastened in front, and falling to the calf, leaving the neck bare with no collar. His doublet and boots were likewise black. On his head was a black velvet cap like a priest's, sitting in a close circle above his forehead, and not showing a single hair. It ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... tying up their hair or letting it hang loose, and of riding astride or side-saddle as they pleased. At the same time, to both sexes, except on State occasions, liberty of choice was accorded in the matter of wearing sleeveless jackets fastened in front with silk cords and tassels, though in the matter of trousers, men had to gather theirs in at the bottom with a lace. By and by, the tying up of the hair by women was forbidden ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... and to keep me back, You sent Jack Daw your son with ka-ka-ka, To tell a sleeveless tale! lay hold on him, To Newgate with him and your tut-a-tut! Run, Redcap, and trudge about, Or bid your father's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... gadder about or a gossip, but she was sleeveless, dawdling, and dreamy, and always behindhand. Everything was out of its place. Thus Foster would take up a spill-case, expecting to find material wherewith to light his evening pipe; but instead of spills, it was full of greasy hair-pins. And ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... "dzamadan," a red waistcoat, embroidered with gold or black silk—the former on gala occasions—over which the "gunj" is worn, a long, white or very pale blue coat, cut so that the breast is left open and free. Another sleeveless jacket is worn, again, over the gunj, called the "jelek," and is a mass of heavy gold and silk embroidery, quite stiff in fact, and a marvel of beautiful tracing ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... not waste another day in following, or attempting to follow, the cold trail. Other cases were pressing, and his daily mail from the New Orleans head-quarters brought urgings impatient and importunate; and on the third day following the sleeveless interview with the doctor's daughter he had paid his bill at the Winnebago House and had packed his grip for the southward flight by ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... reason, ridiculous, absurd, idiotic, silly, stupid, asinine; ill-imagined, ill-advised, ill-judged, ill-devised; mal entendu[Fr]; inconsistent, irrational, unphilosophical[obs3]; extravagant &c (nonsensical) 497; sleeveless, idle; pointless, useless &c. 645; inexpedient &c. 647; frivolous &c. (trivial) 643. Phr. Davus sum non [Lat][Oedipus]; "a fool's bolt is soon shot" clitellae bovi sunt impositae [obs3][Henry V.][Lat][Cicero]; "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" [Pope]; il n' a ni bouche ni eperon ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... after taking leave of his companion in the hall and watching her glimmer away up the staircase. He had for himself another impulse than to go to bed; picking up a hat in the hall, slipping his arms into a sleeveless cape and lighting still another cigar, he turned out upon the terrace through one of the long drawing-room windows and moved to and fro there for an hour beneath the sharp autumn stars. It was where he had walked in the afternoon sun with Fanny Assingham, and the sense of that other ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... than to offer her husband some writings.—His Grace followed, yet first stood looking so wistfully towards me, that I verily thought he had a mind to throw me a guinea or two for all these indignities, and two or three months' then sleeveless waiting upon him—and accordingly I advanced to address his Grace to remember the poor author; but, instead of an answer, he immediately undams his mouth, out fly whole showers of lymphatic rockets, which had like to have ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... waved, but hung in long snaky tresses about his neck and shoulders. He was altogether less distinguished-looking than his comrade the mulatto. His dress partook of the character of his tribe—wide trousers of coarse cotton stuff, with a sleeveless shirt of the same material,—a waist scarf, and coarse serape. Half the upper part of his body was nude, and his thick copper-coloured arms ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... was the sleeveless dimity B.V.D. undershirt, in which he resembled a small boy humorlessly wearing a cheesecloth tabard at a civic pageant. He never put on B.V.D.'s without thanking the God of Progress that he didn't wear tight, long, old-fashioned undergarments, like his father-in-law and partner, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... withdrew, but strange mutterings still continued to issue forth from his lair. While I was sitting in the office the editor happened to drift in from the adjacent room crisply attired in a pair of ragged, disreputable trousers and a sleeveless gray sweater which was raveling in numerous places. It was ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... comparatively small attention to their personal adornment. Their hair is combed straight back upon their heads. The style of dresses never undergoes a change. The ordinary dress consists of three important pieces—the chemise, a long, white, sleeveless garment; the camisa, or the pina bodice, with wide sleeves; and the skirt, caught up on one side, and preferably of red material. A yoke or scarf of pina folds around the neck, and is considered indispensable by senoritas. The native ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... bullet-head. And, incredible almost—as if made of putty by a joker—his nose stuck out like the first joint of a thumb, the oddest nose ever on a man. His little eyes were blue and bright. Barefooted, bare-headed, in the sleeveless shirt and short trousers of a life-guard, with an embroidered V on the front of the upper garment, he was radiantly healthy and happy, a civilized ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... come at last, after a delay of six hours, and after two signals from the castle? But, I warrant, some idle junketing hath occupied you too deeply to think of your service or your duty. Where is the note of the plate and household stuff?—Pray Heaven it hath not been diminished under the sleeveless care of so young ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the beach in front of the adjacent Outrigger Club, and entering and leaving the water, a score of women, not provoking gasping notice, were more daringly garbed. Their men's suits, as brief of leg-tights and skirts, fitted them as snugly, but were sleeveless after the way of men's suits, the arm-holes deeply low- cut and in-cut, and, by the exposed armpits, advertiseful that the wearers ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... appearance. Their skins were still of the same colour—the pure bronze-black of the Indian—but, instead of the eagle's feathers late sticking up above their crowns, both had their heads now covered with simple straw hats; while sleeveless coats of coarse woollen stuff, with stripes running transversely—tilmas—shrouded their shoulders, their limbs having free play in white cotton drawers of ample width. A leathern belt, and apron ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... smaller children rent the sultry air of the black, crowded rooms with their cries, while the older ones trooped out into the street in great crowds, chasing each other noisily or rolling on the ground. Growing boys, dressed not in sleeveless jackets like the children, but in long, grey halats, stood on the thresholds of the huts leaning against the walls, pale, thin, drowsy, with widely opened mouths, as though they wished to breathe into their sickly, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... she was beautiful to-night!—the way she came to meet me: the long skirt that hung so gracefully, and that fluffy, white, sleeveless thing that fitted her so perfectly and showed her white arms and the curves of her throat. I forgot to rise, and I fear I stared at her. I can yet see the smile that crept through the long lashes as she looked at me, and as I stumbled an ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... desirable, but wherein he would not be undesirable. And he found it in Tahiti, the garden-spot of garden-spots. And so it was, according to the narrative as given, that he wrote the pages of his book. He wears only a loin-cloth and a sleeveless fish-net shirt. His stripped weight is one hundred and sixty-five pounds. His health is perfect. His eyesight, that at one time was considered ruined, is excellent. The lungs that were practically destroyed by three attacks of pneumonia have not only recovered, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... rosary of beads belonging to Madame Blavatsky, the pedlar said that such things could only be got by those to whom the Tesshu Lama presented them, as they could be got for no amount of money elsewhere. When the Chela who was with us put on his sleeveless coat and asked him whether he recognized the latter's profession by his dress, the pedlar answered that he was a Gylung and then bowing down to him took the whole thing as a matter of course. The witnesses in this ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... readily guessed these gentry to be, were some forty or more in number, and were principally Greeks and Albanians, clad in their picturesque dress—a short sleeveless jacket, coarse gaiters and shoes, a kilt of some rough texture, and a fez; while across their chests they carried a cartridge belt, and around their waist a sash, in which were stuck pistols and knives, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... up at the door and, on enquiry, heard that his master was on the point of leaving; and even as he hesitated in the entrance, Cromwell shambled down the stairs with a few papers in his hand, his long sleeveless cloak flapping on each step behind him, and his felt plumed cap on his head in which shone ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... cloth, fringed with bat fur, was draped about her waist and fell below her knee, the ends passing up in front and back of her round body to fasten loosely at the right shoulder. This, with a little sleeveless garment fashioned, bolero-like, out of the delicate bat skins, and a pair of sandals contrived in such a way as to bring the hair of the deer skin against the little feet, was ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... telecast, to be transmitted to the Cyrano, on orbit five thousand miles off planet and relayed from thence to Terra via Lunar. Sid Chamberlain, the Trans-Space News Service man, was with them. Like Selim and herself, he was a civilian; he was advertising the fact with a white shirt and a sleeveless blue sweater. And Major Lindemann, the engineer officer, and one of his assistants, arguing over some plans on a drafting board. She hoped, drawing a pint of hot water to wash her hands and sponge off her face, that they were doing something ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... There were at the beginning crowded levees of Malay women with their children, seeking eagerly after "Ubat" for all the ills of the flesh from the young Mem Putih. In the cool of the evening grave Arabs in long white shirts and yellow sleeveless jackets walked slowly on the dusty path by the riverside towards Almayer's gate, and made solemn calls upon that Unbeliever under shallow pretences of business, only to get a glimpse of the young girl in a highly decorous manner. Even Lakamba came out of ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... enormous saddle. The owner is an Egyptian, small, lithe, and of a complexion which has borrowed a good deal from the dust of the roads and the sands of the desert. He wears a faded tarbooshe, a loose gown, sleeveless, unbelted, and dropping from the neck to the knee. His feet are bare. The camel, restless under the load, groans and occasionally shows his teeth; but the man paces indifferently to and fro, holding the driving-strap, and all ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... costume of the citizens of London of that period, when long blue coats were the common habit of apprentices and serving-men, and yellow stockings were generally worn; the coat fits closely to the body, but has loose sleeves, and beneath is worn a sleeveless yellow under-coat; around the waist is a red leathern girdle; a clerical band around the neck, and a small flat black cap, about the size of a saucer, completes the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... attorney was also worn, bored, and unexpectant. Behind the judge sat the mayor of the city, a portly man, who meditatively stroked his cheek; the marshal of the nobility, a gray-haired, large-bearded, ruddy-faced man, with large, kind eyes; and the district elder, who wore a sleeveless peasant overcoat, and possessed a huge belly which apparently embarrassed him; he endeavored to cover it with the folds of his overcoat, but it always slid down ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the black and white linen uniform worn also by Tarrano. Yet more pretentiously dressed than his superior. A broad belt of dangling weapons; under it, a sash of red, encircling his waist and flowing down one side. Over his white ruffled shirt, a short sleeveless vest of black silk. A circular hat, with a vivid plume. A smooth-shaven face; black hair long to the base of the neck; a deep, red-brown complexion. A native of the Little People of Mars, here in the service of Tarrano. He stood stiff and ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... bath, then, sat the People's Friend on that July evening, immersed to the hips, his head swathed in a filthy turban, his emaciated body cased in a sleeveless waistcoat. He is fifty years of age, dying of consumption and other things, so that, did Charlotte but know it, there is no need to murder him. Disease and Death have marked him for their own, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... embossed velvet, or what they please, so that the dress is cut high, and has sleeves to the elbow. Each lady should have near her an ermine cloak, or a small camel's-hair shawl in case of draughts. It is not good taste to wear low-necked or sleeveless dresses during the day-time. They are worn by brides on their wedding-day sometimes, but at receptions or ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... arms naked all day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee—the local tea was undrinkable—she still had bare arms; and, examining her more closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began to wonder whether her house would ever be ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... hair, richly waved above the ample forehead; and she wore a curious Oriental-looking navy-blue robe of some soft woollen stuff, that fell in natural folds and set off to the utmost the lissome grace of her rounded figure. It was a sort of sleeveless sack, embroidered in front with arabesques in gold thread, and fastened obliquely two inches below the waist with a belt of gilt braid, and a clasp of Moorish jewel-work. Beneath it, a bodice of darker silk showed at the arms and neck, with loose sleeves in keeping. The whole costume, though quite ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... palmers, pilgrims trod, Men bearded, bald, cowl'd, uncowl'd, shod, unshod, Peel'd, patch'd, and piebald, linsey-woolsey brothers, Grave mummers! sleeveless some, and shirtless others. That once was Britain—happy! had she seen No fiercer sons, had Easter never been.[357] In peace, great goddess, ever be adored; How keen the war, if Dulness draw the sword! 120 Thus visit ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... big, muscular fellows, and shiny to a degree whenever the light caught their skins, a good deal of which was visible, for their dress consisted of a pair of striped cotton drawers, descending half-way to the knee, and a sleeveless jacket of the same material, worn open so that neck and breast ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... to keep him off. He veered clear, and began circling about again. A second time I escaped him by the same maneuver. The third rush was a miss on both sides. He sheered at the moment my hands should have landed on his nose, but his sandpaper hide (I had on a sleeveless undershirt) scraped the skin off one arm ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... entrance slip, which had four bunks, there were two persons—an old man and a woman. Immediately adjoining this, was a rather long slip of a room; in it was the landlord, a young fellow, dressed in a sleeveless gray woollen jacket, a good-looking, very pale citizen. {8} On the left of the first corner, was a third tiny chamber; there was one person asleep there, probably a drunken peasant, and a woman in a pink blouse which was loose in front and close-fitting ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... little thing, for all her thorniness and her sharpness with him, which he now saw that he had deserved.... Pretty, too.... Damned pretty!... What color was that dress of hers?... Ummm, let's see ... Chartreuse, didn't they call it? Chartreuse with big brown dots in it. Bet it was sleeveless under that short little jacket of golden-brown chiffon velvet.... By Jove—and Dundee lapsed into one of the Englishisms he had picked up during his six months' work in England as a tyro in the records department of Scotland ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... common to every lover, 'tis all his felicity to be with her, to talk with her; he is never well but in her company, and will walk [5288] "seven or eight times a day through the street where she dwells, and make sleeveless errands to see her;" plotting still where, when, and how to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... pair of linen working trunks and a ragged, sleeveless shirt, both garments much the worse for their winter's wear, was lazily swinging ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... twisted shoulders a short and sleeveless red tunic fell. Incredibly old the creature was—and by its corded muscles, its sinewy tendons, as incredibly powerful. It raised within me a half sick revulsion, loathing. But the eyes were not ancient, no. Irisless, lashless, black and brilliant, they blazed out of the face's carven ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... Mexican village, Vicente Garcia's little sister. He had found her balancing on her stomach on the bank of the ditch. Three years old, she was, and slim and straight, with enormous eyes and a great tangle of sunburned brown curls. Her dress made her quainter still, for it was low-necked and sleeveless, and came to her tiny ankles so that she looked like a child from ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... been, and whether his father would approve of it. It was pleasanter than sitting in a dusty printing office, and the smells were less obtrusive. Also, Bill Bardin went about bareheaded and clad above the waist only in a sleeveless jersey that was tight across his broad chest and gave his big arms free play. He chewed tobacco, too, like a printer, but cautioned his young helper against this habit in early youth. He said if indulged in ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... and down Princess Street in their shirt-sleeves, and saw fair ladies blush and look the other way. Next they tried sleeveless jerseys for street wear, and speculated as to just how much clothing they would have to abjure before women would entirely cease ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... a sleeveless overcoat, then in general use, was, like the "Bell," a frequent sign for inns. The Tabard Inn, famous in Chaucer's day, was situated in the Southwark High Street; often repaired and restored, rebaptised the "Talbot," it lasted ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... light of that bleak headland he presented a back sufficiently conscious. Yet though to Vanderbank he couldn't look young he came near—strikingly and amusingly—looking new: this after a minute appeared mainly perhaps indeed in the perfection of his evening dress and the special smartness of the sleeveless overcoat he had evidently had made to wear with it and might even actually be wearing for the first time. He had talked to Vanderbank at Mrs. Brookenham's about Beccles and Suffolk; but it was not ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... General Williams wore a dress of Nile-green silk, trimmed with Valenciennes lace. Lady Thornton wore a dress of royal purple velvet, elegantly trimmed, and the bride of the Minister from Ecuador wore a dress of sage-green silk, with a sleeveless velvet jacket, and a velvet hat of the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... like it—might just have walked out of a picture, such as one knows so well of the old Puritans in Cromwell's time. The dress of the peasants, though unlike the English fashion of any period, had an old-world look. The married women wore white kerchiefs twisted round the head, sleeveless jackets, with a mystery of lace adornments. The marriageable girls sat together in one part of the church, which I thought very funny; they wore drum-shaped hats poised on the head in a droll sort of way. Some of them had a kind of white leather ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... it absorbs the perspiration, protects the body against drafts and, in a mild manner, excites the skin. When the conditions permit it the men may be exercised in the ordinary athletic costume, sleeveless shirt, flappers, socks, and ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... burberrys thick, but light, suits of Jaeger fleece were worn. They combined trousers and a sleeveless coat, over which a woollen jersey was worn. In calm weather these with underclothing were all-sufficient, but in the average fifty-mile wind at any temperature in the neighbourhood of zero Fahrenheit, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Madeira, with an addition of loose straw-ends which would commend itself to Ophelia. The decent body-garb is a kamis, a nightgown of long-cloth, and wide, short drawers; the whole is covered with a sleeveless aba, or burnous, and sometimes with a half-sleeved caftan—here termed 'tobe'—garnished with a huge breast-pocket. It is generally indigo-stained, with marblings or broad-narrow stripes of lighter tint than the groundwork. An essential article, hung round the neck or slung to the body, is the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey they were only people out of a fairy ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... noted that Lapo had on a new, short, sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel. In this festive garment, so different from his usual attire, the grim tyrant was ill at ease, secretly anxious, almost timid. Avoiding her eye, he assumed ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... up his sword and began forthwith on the iron bar; but the mortar was hard, he could scarcely make a mark upon it. Still, it must be done. In order to free his arms better for the work he took off all his clothes save his flimsy, sleeveless waistcoat and the loin-cloth that was girt about him, and buckled down steadily. But when more than an hour had passed the bar seemed as firm as ever. As he crouched down on the window sill he could see through it to the flat ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... gaberdines of the same stuff. After the trumpeters come four gentlemen ushers, and four pages, mounted on his spare horses, and habited in orange-coloured doublets and hose, with yellow plumes in their caps. To them succeed the grooms in mandilions, or loose sleeveless jackets, leading the Marquis's charger, which is to run in the lists—a beautiful dark bay jennet—trapped with green velvet, sewn with pearls, and pounced with gold. Next comes Buckingham himself, in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Sleeveless sweaters are good and easy to make, I am told. They don't last long at the best, so should not be elaborate. Any garment worn close to the body gets cooty in a few weeks and has to be ditched. However, keep right on with the knitting, with the exception ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... the door. A dim figure developed within, moving about among pots and pans. It was the cook, I could tell by the white cap he wore ... an old, very old man. He wore a sleeveless shirt. His long skinny, hairy arms were bare. His long silvery-grey beard gave him an appearance like an ancient prophet. But where the beard left off there was the anomaly of an almost smooth, ruddy face, and very ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... arrived, the lady's bell was answered by a hall-boy and, hearing the piano, I told him he need not announce me. When I opened the door, I saw Peter and the dark lady sharing the same seat in front of the open piano. She wore a black satin sleeveless tea-gown, cut low at the throat, with a coral ribbon round her waist, and she had stuck a white rose in her rather dishevelled Carmen hair. I stood still, startled by her beauty and stunned by Peter's face. She got up, charmed to see ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... train the girls all got out their knitting, and soon their needles were plying merrily away on sleeveless sweaters, socks, helmets, and wristlets for the boys at the front, timing their work by their wrist watches for patriotism honors. True to their resolve, following Miss Ladd's warning lecture, they kept the subject of their mission out of ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... such of these as he saw were clad otherwise than the darker women: their heads uncoifed, uncovered save for some garland or silken band: their gowns yellow like wheat-straw, but gaily embroidered; sleeveless withal and short, scarce reaching to the ancles, and whiles so thin that they were rather clad with the embroidery than the cloth; shoes they had not, but sandals bound on their naked feet with white thongs, and each bore an iron ring about her ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... to Mrs. Jack Bendish, for the sufficient reason that she disliked him and disliked talking to any one while Laura played. Her defiant sparkle, her gipsy features, her slim white shoulders emerging from the brocade and sapphires of a sleeveless bodice cut open almost to her waist, produced the effect of a Carolus Duran lady come to life and threw Laura back into a dimmed and tired middle age. Jack's eyes glowed as they dwelt on her. His marriage had been a trial to his family, but no one ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... conducting between them a woman dressed as if for the stage, in a short, white, satiny skirt reaching to the knees, pink stockings, and a sort of sleeveless bodice bright with relucent, armour-like scales. Upon her curly, light hair was perched, at a rollicking angle, a shining tin helmet. The costume was to be instantly recognized as one of those amazing conceptions ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... awaiting a summons to the meal that evening when Nancy entered; a new Nancy, and one so wondrous to behold that Sandy and I started at the sight of her. She wore a gown of yellow crepe embroidered in gold, low and sleeveless, with a fold in the back, after the fashion of the ladies of Watteau, and a long train falling far behind. Her hair was gathered high and dressed with jewels which sparkled as well upon her throat and hands. The thing that marked her most, an alluring ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... nearly shoved me under, I managed to keep him off. He veered clear and began circling about again. A second time I escaped him by the same maneuver. The third rush was a miss on both sides. He sheered at the moment my hands should have landed on his nose, but his sandpaper hide—I had on a sleeveless undershirt—scraped the skin off one ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... toilette, gentlemen. He will be exposed presently. It is necessary to proceed according to rule. His toilette is not made all at a blow. He will be exposed in good time, gentlemen, in good time.' And so retires, smoking, with a wave of his sleeveless arm towards the window, importing, 'Entertain yourselves in the meanwhile with the other curiosities. Fortunately the Museum ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... sheer piece of perversity—a sleeveless errand," Anthony answered. "So now we might set about sweeping and garnishing ourselves," he ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Pursuivants, attendants on the heralds, their TABARD being a sleeveless coat. Chaucer applies the name to the loose frock of the ploughman (Prologue, 541). See Clarendon Press ed. of ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... and doors made the cabins like sleeping porches—ate heartily, got enough exercise to keep them lean and hungry and became tanned with sun and wind to the colour of light mahogany. Khaki trousers, sleeveless shirts and rubber-soled canvas shoes made up their ordinary attire, although for shore visits they "dolled up" remarkably. Those early morning baths were fine appetisers, as will be understood by the reader who has had experience of the water along the Maine coast, and ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... terminating just above the knees as a skirt. Amongst Teutonic and English knights, on account of its comparative lightness, it would have been distinguished from an old-fashioned hauberk, and called haubergeon. A sleeveless surcoat of velvet, plain green in color, overlaid the mail without a crease or wrinkle, except at the edge of the skirt. Chausses, or leggins, also of steel, clothed the nether limbs, ending in shoes of thin lateral scales sharply pointed at the toes. A slight ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... and return again before the end of the third half-day. They were each clad in a garment, which they called "kiafal,"[33-2] which was so fashioned, that it had a hood at the top, was open at the sides, was sleeveless, and was fastened between the legs with buttons and loops, while elsewhere they were naked. Karlsefni and his companions cast anchor, and lay there during their absence; and when they came again, one of them carried a bunch of grapes, and the ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... the Court ladies each a beautiful embroidered gown and a few hundred taels, the same to the Young Empress and the Secondary wife. The presents which she gave us were a little different, consisting of two embroidered gowns, several simple ones, jackets and sleeveless jackets, shoes, and flowers for the Manchu headdress. She said that we had not so many gowns, and instead of giving us the money, she had things made for us. Besides that, she gave me a pair of very pretty earrings, but none to my sister, for she noticed that I ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... strange to see a ragged clerke, Some stammell weaver, or some butcher's sonne, That scrubb'd a late within a sleeveless gowne, When the commencement, like a morrice dance, Hath put a bell or two about his legges, Created him a sweet cleane gentleman: How then he 'gins to follow fashions. He whose thin sire dwelt in a smokye roofe, Must make tobacco, and must wear a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... be seen standing in it. He had thrown off his coat and cap, and his sleeveless arms were bare to the armpits. The civil guard ran to the cliff and fired. One shot hit. The man could be seen to tear the coarse linen shirt from his breast and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... pocket-book, a gold-banded fountain pen, and a gold watch that indicated a quarter past three. On the lower edge of the picture in the mirror appeared the back of a gilt chair, over which a garment of peculiar construction had been carelessly thrown. It was in the form of that sleeveless cassock of purple, opening at the side, whose lower flap is called a bishop's apron; the corner of the frogged coat showed behind the chair-back, and the sash lay crumpled on the floor. Black doeskin breeches, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... a chamberlain whispered the Gerad, who arose, deposited his black coral rosary, took up an inkstand, donned a white "Badan" or sleeveless Arab cloak over his cotton shirt, shuffled off the Dais into his slippers, and disappeared. Presently we were summoned to an interview with the Amir: this time I was allowed to approach the outer door with covered feet. Entering ceremoniously as before, I was motioned by the Prince to sit near ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... his body at the point where it would touch the cable he might have at least a chance of surviving the contact. The only possible insulating medium he had was the clothing he wore—a pair of heavy corduroy trousers and the sleeveless remnant of a woolen shirt. They could be rolled into a bundle that would be bulky enough to at least give him some protection from contact with ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... to a deputation, but to a whole platform of rejected humanity, presenting the most grotesque appearance. Falstaff's invincibles would convey no comparison. Some were hatless and shoeless; some had sleeveless coats and tattered trousers: others had collars but no shirts; all had faces immersed in massive beards. Two-and-two abreast, they walked, in with an independent air, each provided with a Saunder's circular, and took up a position in a half-circle ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Lakonian twilight, they were sinister figures indeed, clothed all alike in short, sleeveless tunics, belted loosely at the waist, feet and legs encased in leather buskins reaching nearly to the knees, their brown, gnarled limbs and stoop-shouldered postures giving them a half-bestial resemblance which was disturbing. ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... we knew the full measure of the peril menacing our dear lady, there was need for swift determination and a blow as swift and sure; a coup de main which should atone in one shrewd push for the sleeveless failure of the night. So we would grip hands around, even to the stolid Indian, and swear a solemn oath to cut the women out or else to leave our bones to whiten ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... ladders. The men were not negroes, though some negroes lived among them; they were very much like the Egyptians in appearance, wore pointed beards, and were dressed only in loincloths, while the women wore a yellow sleeveless dress, which reached halfway between the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... into the open space, and keeping a most wary eye upon his opponent. He had thrown off his green jerkin, and his chest was covered only by a pink silk jupon, or undershirt, cut low in the neck and sleeveless. Hordle John was stripped from his waist upwards, and his huge body, with his great muscles swelling out like the gnarled roots of an oak, towered high above the soldier. The other, however, though near a foot shorter, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... represent a thick woolen stuff, whose folds show very little pliancy. The drapery of Sterope (Fig. 108) should be especially noted, as it is a characteristic example for this period of a type which has a long history She wears the Doric chiton, a sleeveless woolen garment girded and pulled over the girdle and doubled over from the top. The formal, starched-looking folds of the archaic period have disappeared. The cloth lies pretty flat over the chest and waist; there is a rather arbitrary little fold at the neck. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... three, and half a pint of honey five drachmae," took him to the meal market, and showed him half a peck of meal for an obol, then took him to the olive market, and showed him a peck of olives for two coppers, and lastly showed him that a sleeveless vest[737] was only ten drachmae. At each place Socrates' friend exclaimed, "How cheap this city is!" So also we, when we hear anyone saying that our affairs are bad and in a woful plight, because we are not consuls or governors, may reply, "Our affairs are in an admirable condition, and our life ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... he moved about the boat never palled. His nose reminded her of the prow of a ship of war, and his deep-set eyes were continually searching the horizon for an enemy. Such were her fancies. In the early morning when he donned his sleeveless bathing suit, she could never resist the temptation to follow him on deck to see him plunge into the cold ocean: it gave her a delightful little shiver—and he was made like one of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... covers back and got out on her small bare feet. Then she stretched her slim young arms above her head, her spoiled red mouth forming a scarlet O as she yawned. In her sleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in the day helped her to poise and firmness, she looked a pretty young girl, almost—although Jane herself never suspected this—almost ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... either be clasped together across the shoulders, or the two rims might be pulled across the upper arm as far as the elbow, and fastened in several places by means of buttons or agraffes, so that the naked arm became visible in the intervals, by means of which the sleeveless chiton received the appearance of one with sleeves. Where the diploidion was detached from the chiton, it formed a kind of handsome cape, which, however, in its shape, strictly resembled the Diploidion proper. Its shape was considerably modified ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... it was the men who worked in these who ran the most risk of all, because whenever they had to pass to another room they had to go through ice-cold corridors, and sometimes with nothing on above the waist except a sleeveless undershirt. On the killing beds you were apt to be covered with blood, and it would freeze solid; if you leaned against a pillar, you would freeze to that, and if you put your hand upon the blade of your knife, you would run a chance of leaving your skin on it. The men would tie up their feet in ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... converted into an Irish fair ground. Every one who had anything to do with the tables or the conduct of the bazaar was dressed in an Irish peasant costume, the girls with short, full skirts with plain white shirt waists showing beneath a sleeveless jacket of dark cloth. Heavy low shoes and thick stockings would have been the appropriate wear for the feet, but ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... fixed, interference with its smooth running causes an emotion. The nature of the habit broken is of no importance. If it were habitual for grandes dames to go barefoot on our boulevards or to wear sleeveless dresses at high noon, the contrary would be embarrassing. Psychologically the important point is that, when the habit is set up, the attention is in equilibrium. When inadvertently or under a sufficiently powerful stimulus we break through a ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... interlarded with outlandish Gallic oaths. He wore cloth trousers with bright stripes of red and orange; a short-sleeved cloak of dark stuff, falling down to the thigh; and over the cloak, covering back and shoulders, another sleeveless mantle, clasped under the chin with a huge golden buckle. At his right thigh hung, from a silver set girdle, by weighty bronze chains, a heavy sabre, of which the steel scabbard banged noisily ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... rattling, clanging, banging addition to the music gave it an irresistible rhythmic cadence. Even Burke felt the call of the dance, until he studied the evolutions of the merrymakers. Oddly assorted couples, some in elaborate evening dress, women in shoulderless, sleeveless, backless gowns, men in dinner-coats, girls in street clothes with yard-long feathers, youths in check suits, old men in staid business frock coats—what a motley throng! All were busily engaged in ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... as a summer's dawn, of medium height, with violet eyes, and an extraordinary wealth of ruddy-golden hair which, confined to her head by a fillet of what looked like red velvet set with precious stones, rolled thence to far below her waist in great waves. Her outer garment, sleeveless, might have been copied from those depicted on the Greek vases in the British Museum and, like her grandfather's, was red in colour, adorned with braiding in the same colours as his. Her sandals were of white leather, and she wore ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... turned to her, not touching her, yet so close that he felt her breath on his sleeveless arm. "She loved him. And she ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... and we worked together without speaking. Her long thick hair had come down and she had hastily tied it in a knot, just as you might tie a knot in a towel, and she had thrown off things like everybody else and only a flimsy cotton, sleeveless bodice, or whatever it's called, drenched through and sticking to her, made a pretence of covering her ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... to the fire?" lie asked. "It's very cold tonight and you must be chilled to the bone. You are not dressed for cold weather." She was attired in a low-necked and sleeveless gown. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... of her breast; her eyes glittered at her gorgeous reflection in the mirror. Then suddenly her expression changed, her lips parted in scorn, and with a savage, tigerish gesture, she tore off her splendors. She stood once more in her simple tunic of knee-length, sleeveless, beauty-revealing; and picking up her dagger with the gold cord she knotted it about her waist and again regarded ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... imagined. Their first and most natural impression was that they had again fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; but they were disabused of this idea when, an hour or two later, four stalwart copper-hued, sharp-featured men, with long, straight black hair, clean shaven, clad in white, sleeveless tunics, with sandals on their feet, and each armed with a short, broad-bladed sword of copper, entered the cell, leaving two coarse earthenware basins liberally filled with what looked like stiff porridge, and two jars containing water. ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... women, with red silk kerchiefs on their heads, black velveteen sleeveless jackets, bright red shirt-sleeves, gay-coloured green, blue, and red skirts, and thick leather boots. The old women, dressed more quietly, stood behind them, with white kerchiefs, homespun coats, old-fashioned skirts of dark home-spun material, and shoes on their feet. Gaily-dressed children, their ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... them from all the others. They had neither tarboosh nor burnous, but simply red fezes; tight sleeveless shirts of striped stuff, and trousers of Turkish cut. Their feet ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... dark skin was drawn so tightly about his face that he looked a bit like a mummy. Val was over sixty, Odin judged, and though his wrists were skinny the tendons and muscles on his arms stood out like taut lengths of cable. He and his men were dressed alike—a sleeveless shirt of walnut-brown plastic, dark peg-bottomed trousers of corduroy, and footgear that looked like engineer's boots with rippled soles. The tops of the boots were tight-fitting and the peg-bottomed trousers were drawn snugly over them. Odin learned later that what had appeared to ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... heap were selected and put on a lovely pair of fair linen drawers, of that baggy kind peculiar to Algerine ladies; also an exquisite little caftan, or sleeveless jacket, of scarlet cloth, so covered with gold lace that scarcely any of the scarlet was visible; likewise a perfect gem of a cap of gold, not bigger than Agnes's own hand, which Fatma put on in a coquettish style, very much to one side of the head; saying, ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... out-of-doors man and seldom made much of a toilet; his overalls in particular betraying at important points a lack of the anxiety he should have felt, since only Genesis himself, instead of a supplementary fabric, was directly underneath them. And the aged, grayish, sleeveless and neckless garment which sheltered him from waist to collar-bone could not have been mistaken for a jersey, even though what there was of it was dimly of a jerseyesque character. Upon the feet of Genesis ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... dike*, and delve, *dig ditches For Christe's sake, for every poore wight, Withouten hire, if it lay in his might. His tithes payed he full fair and well, Both of his *proper swink*, and his chattel** *his own labour* **goods In a tabard* he rode upon a mare. *sleeveless jerkin ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... many of the far-famed women of Tehuantepec. Some were of striking beauty, almost all were splendid physical specimens and all had a charming and alluring smile. They dressed very briefly—a gay square of cloth about their limbs, carelessly tucked in at the waist, and a sleeveless upper garment that failed to make connections with the lower, recalling the women of Ceylon. The absence of any other garments was all too evident. Almost all wore in their jet-black hair a few red flowers, all displayed six inches or more of silky brown skin at ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... drawing.]—The creature whom she sees drawing her to "the palaces of the dead" is certainly not Charon, who had no wings, but was like an old boatman in a peasant's cap and sleeveless tunic; nor can he be Hades, the throned King to whose presence she must eventually go. Apparently, therefore, he must be Thanatos, whom we have just seen on the stage. He was evidently supposed to be ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... for parting compliments? A lepero would send better to his sweetheart in sleeveless camisa. That's ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... issued, walk to the cigar store on the north-west corner of Washington and Montgomery streets, and thence out Washington street homeward. He usually wore a talma of coarse fabric, loose and reaching to his hips. It was sleeveless, concealing his arms and hands. As he came out of the cigar store, Casey hailed him. The distance between the two was about forty feet. Casey shouted to him, "Prepare yourself!" and fired. King tottered and ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... stopped short at the entrance—both our European companions were dressed, or rather undressed, exactly like Hindus! For the sake of decency they kept on a kind of sleeveless knitted vest, but they were barefooted, wore the snow-white Hindu dhutis (a piece of muslin wrapped round to the waist and forming a petticoat), and looked like something between white Hindus and Constantinople ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... drum; Beyond the skies transports his mind, And leaves a lifeless corpse behind. But, as for me, who ne'er could clamber high, To understand Malebranche or Cambray; Who send my mind (as I believe) less Than others do, on errands sleeveless; Can listen to a tale humdrum, And with attention read Tom Thumb; My spirits with my body progging, Both hand in hand together jogging; Sunk over head and ears in matter. Nor can of metaphysics smatter; Am more diverted with ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... but it is quite observable that these same girls are the very ones who are eternally grunting and groaning and coughing and fussing. And how can they help it? You can't have good health if you keep yourself in a semi-refrigerated state. A sleeveless vest of silk is not sufficient to keep one's body warm, even though the prettiest bodice in Christendom and the swellest of "coaties" cover it. Skirts of white muslin, with pretty frills and lacey trimmings that fall in soft folds and ruffles around one's feet, are mighty dainty things ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... can't you? I want to try it another way. Didn't I see one of those sleeveless jacket affairs ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the Irish with red lappets, the Spaniards with blue cords, to say nothing of all the others with broidery and bindings and buttons in a hundred different styles. And in addition there were the confraternities, the penitents, white, black, blue, and grey, with sleeveless frocks and capes of different hue, grey, blue, black, or white. And thus even nowadays Papal Rome at times seemed to resuscitate, and one could realise how tenaciously and vivaciously she struggled on in order that she might ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Mod. Fr. simarre; Ital. zimarra; cf. Span. zamarra, a sheepskin coat; possibly derived ultimately from Gr. [Greek: cheimerios], "wintry," i.e. a winter overcoat), in modern English use the name of a garment worn as part of the ceremonial dress of Anglican bishops. It is a long sleeveless gown of silk or satin, open down the front, gathered in at the back between the shoulders, and with slits for the arms. It is worn over the rochet (q.v.), and its colour is either black or scarlet (convocation robes). ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... recently, in his most earnest and persuasive manner, that it was my duty to write a book about the American composers, exposing their futile pretensions and describing their flaccid opera, stave by stave. It was in vain that I urged that this would be but a sleeveless errand, arguing that I could not fight men of straw, that these our composers had no real standing in the concert halls, and that pushing them over would be an easy exercise for a child of ten. On the contrary, he retorted, they belonged to the academies; certain people ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... one of the jury) it was my chance to be in the city of Hereford, when, lodging at an inn, I was told of a certain silly-witted gentleman there dwelling, that would assuredly believe all things that he heard for a truth; to whose house I went upon a sleeveless errand, and finding occasion to be acquainted with him, I was well entertained, and for three days' space had my bed and board in his house; where, amongst many other fooleries, I, being a traveller, made him believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... work. But it is better worth looking at, for all that, than the monument on the other side of the church, where the recumbent form of Sir Arthur Onslow is apparently giving vague directions to an imaginary audience. Wrapped in a Roman toga, he waves a sleeveless right arm; his left is propped by a set of Journals of the House of Commons. It is a relief to pass beyond such tawdry pomposities into the solemn little chapel, sacred to one of the great regiments of the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... such lovely clothes: A long gown with wide sleeves of blue-black satin, embroidered in peach-colored flower petals and innumerable minute sapphire and orange butterflies, a short sleeveless jacket of sage green caught with looped red jade buttons and threaded with silver and indigo high-soled slippers crusted and tasseled with pearls. Her hair rose from the back in a smooth burnished loop. There were long pins of pink jade carved into blossoms, a quivering ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... robes; her thick braids of golden brown hair with their flame glints of bronze were twined in a high coronal meshed in silken net of green; little clustering curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the proud white neck, shyly kissing it. From her shoulders fell a loose, sleeveless garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden girdle; skirt folds dropping barely ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... to the studio in his taxicab, Kirk, in boxing trunks and a sleeveless vest, was engaged on his daily ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... killed and her meal and wine given to the busy priests. Taking her child by the hand, she led him forward to the doorway of the tabernacle, where sat Eli, the aged chief priest. The little child clung to his mother's dark-red robe as he stood with naked feet before the old man, the hem of his sleeveless tunic scarce reaching to his knees, and ...
— Children of the Old Testament • Anonymous
... took him to a chest. He dragged forth a sleeveless sailor's cloak of hair-cloth. To fling this over Glaucon's rent chiton took an instant, another instant to clap on the fugitive's head a brimless ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the boat which was to take him on board, Tristram was led up to the Rice-bank, where a barber shaved his head, and where he was forced to exchange the suit he wore for a coarse canvas frock, a canvas shirt and a little jerkin of red serge, sleeveless, and slit on either side up to the arm-holes. The design of this (as a warder explained to him) was to allow his muscles free play, which Tristram pronounced very considerate, repeating this remark when he received a small scarlet ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... prophet of the wilderness. The humility of the countenance is perhaps the feature most appropriate to the character. The shy, haunting expression in the eyes is, too, such as belongs to one who, like St. John, lived much alone in the woods. The tunic is short and sleeveless, showing the strong limbs of ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... the postern, where he saw two horsemen, bearing unequivocal signs of their allegiance to the renowned constable of Chester. They wore what was then considered a great novelty in dress, the tabord or supertotus, a sleeveless garment, consisting of only two pieces, which hung down before and behind, the sides being left open.[53] Low-crowned yellow caps covered their heads, and the upper tunic was yellow, richly embroidered, reaching ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... forward, stood to greet him, her gown, sleeveless, neckless, taking the bluish tinge that early twilight gives to snow, a tinge that deepened to dusk about her eyes and in her hair. She gave him her hand and at once he felt a balm poured into his tortured heart. After all, men were born to hurt and ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... the sleeveless tunic, and then with arms and feet quite bare she came between the two kings, and all around the barons watched her in silence, and some wept, for near the holy relics was a ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... up; at her side was Vinicius. He was without a toga, for convenience and custom had enjoined to cast aside the toga at feasts. His body was covered with only a sleeveless scarlet tunic embroidered in silver palms. His bare arms were ornamented in Eastern fashion with two broad golden bands fastened above the elbow; below they were carefully stripped of hair. They were smooth, but too muscular,—real arms of a soldier, they were made for the sword and the ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... appeared with little Nina Almayer in his arms. The child had one arm round his neck, and with the other she hugged a ripe pumelo nearly as big as her own head. Her little pink, sleeveless robe had half slipped off her shoulders, but the long black hair, that framed her olive face, in which the big black eyes looked out in childish solemnity, fell in luxuriant profusion over her shoulders, all round her and over Ali's ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the most picturesque of academic robes), over his field-marshal's uniform. Her Majesty forbore to disarrange her toilet—which consisted of a blue bonnet with blue feathers, a dress of Limerick lace, and a scarlet shawl, with a deep gold edging—by putting her arms through the sleeveless arm-holes of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... sleeveless and ornamented with a fringe. It opened in front, and in walking allowed the left leg to be seen. The girdle was often tied around it instead of round the tunic. The Assyrian King is sometimes represented as wearing a sort of richly embroidered cape ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... Peggy he placed in his pocket, and returning to the room where they were now dancing, found her in a flimsy cream gown, sleeveless and cut low—a dress that suited her to perfection—dancing with apparent merriment with young Eastwood, though he knew that her heart was sad. But her face was flushed by excitement, and she was entering thoroughly into ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... a fine black lace, of a delicate and beautiful pattern, made over old gold silk, with the corsage cut low and sleeveless, thus leaving her neck and arms to gleam like alabaster through the meshes of delicate lace. The heavy edging at the throat was just caught together with a shell of Etruscan gold, studded with diamonds. Costly solitaires ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... colliers, it must be admitted, are a shade reckless in the scarcity of their drapery when they are handling baskets in the presence of ladies. They do usually wear shirts with short tails behind, and very economical breechcloths, but their shirts are sleeveless, and the buttons are missing on collar and bosom. The only clothing beneath the knees consists of straw sandals. The precipitation of perspiration takes care of itself. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... leaving England, the grand prior ordered for him the outfit which would be necessary in his position as a page of the grand master. The dresses were numerous and rich, for although the knights of St. John wore over their armour the simple mantle of their order, which was a sleeveless garment of black relieved only by a white cross on the chest, they indulged in the finest and most costly armour, and in rich garments beneath their black mantles when not ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... of the procession, and after Jesus came the two thieves, who were likewise led, the arms of their crosses, separate from the middle, being placed upon their backs, and their hands tied tightly to the two ends. They were clothed in large aprons, with a sort of sleeveless scapular which covered the upper part of their bodies, and they had straw caps upon their heads. The good thief was calm, but the other was, on the contrary furious, and never ceased cursing and swearing. The rear of the ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... found chiefly in the towns, where they serve as labourers and domestic servants. (5) Mzabites (q.v.) or Beni-Mzab, a distinct branch of the Berber race, are for the most part engaged in petty trade, and are distinguished by their sleeveless coats of many colours. (6) A few Tuareg (q.v.), another division of the Berbers, are among the nomads found in the Algerian Sahara. The Kabyles, Mzabites, Tuareg, Arabs and Moors all profess Mahommedanism, though it is only among the Arabs ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... inspect the latter, she heard a door open, and looking up saw a pretty, slender girl in a short white petticoat and a sleeveless black dress lining, which displayed a pair of remarkably ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice |
