"Sprawl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down. O blow the man down in Liverpool town! Give me some time to blow the man down. 'Twas aboard a Black-Bailer I first served my time, And in that Black-Bailer I wasted my prime. 'Tis larboard and starboard on deck you will sprawl, For blowers and strikers command the Black Ball. So, it's ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... again; they were always switching on currents that he switched off—and paid for. They found him lying in a crumpled sprawl that was awkward, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... see in the distance, when he suddenly lurched against me, as if he had slipped and lost his footing. That was what I believed in that startling moment—but as I went head first overboard I was aware that his fall was confined to a sprawl into the scuppers. Overboard I went!—but he remained where he was. And my weight—I was weighing a good thirteen stone at that time, being a big and hefty youngster—carried me down and down into ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... stands in a rocky valley looking south. The grounds are laid out in a succession of terraces, and from every nook and crevice rare specimens of cacti, sedums, and mesembryanthemums with their orange and purple bloom sprawl over the rocks and run riot among the borders. In the gardens South American aloes throw up their flowering stalks heavy with aromatic fragrance, 20 feet high, and giant dracaenas wave their feathery heads in the balmy breeze. Exotic palms, the bamboo, the sugar-cane, and the cotton plant grow ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... finished, for with a sprawl, the "Parson" stumbled over the blade of grass and came down on the other ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... truth, that tiger-like suppleness should have warned him, Dolly Poole provoked a quarrel, and being himself a stout fellow, nor unaccustomed to athletic exercises, began to spar; the next moment he was at the other end of the room full sprawl on the floor; and two minutes afterwards, the quarrel made up by conciliating banqueters, with every bone in his skin seeming still to rattle, he was generously blubbering out that he never bore malice, and shaking hands with Jasper Losely as if he ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perchance he had to dismount, then, after a while, from the door of that hovel or of that pulperia, with a ferocious scuffle and stifled imprecations, a cargador would fly out head first and hands abroad, to sprawl under the forelegs of the silver-grey mare, who only pricked forward her sharp little ears. She was used to that work; and the man, picking himself up, would walk away hastily from Nostromo's revolver, reeling a little along the street and snarling low curses. At sunrise Captain Mitchell, coming ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... (almost grandchildren, in that house) were sickly and comparatively unattractive; but Margarita's daughter, perfect in health, beautiful as a baby angel, active, daring, and enchantingly affectionate, satisfied the old lady's pride completely and she sat for hours contentedly watching her sprawl on an Indian blanket ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the expense of a fellow-creature who has loyally held out his hand to her, she is casting herself into a mire from which it will be impossible, with the best will in the world, ever to rescue her. I dwell so many miles above the puddles in which these filthy little vermin sprawl and crawl and bawl their cheap obscenities, that I cannot possibly be spattered by the witticisms of a Verdurin!" he cried, tossing up his head and arrogantly straightening his body. "God knows that I have honestly attempted to pull Odette out of that ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... bucketful of gudgeons brought to her. At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried: 'Oh, what makes me shudder so?—what makes me shudder so, dear wife? Ah! now I know what it ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... the children sprawl, Or on the door-steps sit; The women, gay with kerchief-shawl, Engage the men with wit, Who lounge at ease against the wall, And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... head lifted away from the rock, and then turned to one side as its body, somehow vaguely obscene in its resemblance to the human form, fell away, to sprawl limply down-slope. ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... goddesses, his exquisite Eros and radiant Psyche of the Farnesina, are indeed succeeded but too soon by the Olympus of Giulio Romano, an Olympus of harlots and acrobats, who smirk and mouth and wriggle and sprawl ignobly on the walls and ceilings of the dismantled palace which crumbles away among the stunted willows, the stagnant pools, and rank grass of the marshes of Mantua. But this is no more the fault of antiquity than it is the fault of the Middle ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Kirby trying the cushions with his foot until he found some firm enough to allow him to retain his dignity. Cavalry dress-trousers are not built to sprawl on cushions in; a man should sit reasonably upright or ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... revenge because he has been shut off from privileges here that decent men haven't abused! But I tell you, gentlemen, even Tom Willy isn't as cheap as the men who have sneaked behind him and prodded him on to do this. There's some one behind him, for Tom Willy hasn't got brains enough nor sprawl enough to ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... speak ugly words. Honi soit qui mal y pense; but then the gentleman is between two and three wines, and the lady is rallying him because he has sense enough left to be a little modest. A couple sprawl in a waltz. A gentleman roars a toast. The hostess prays for less noise. An altercation breaks out in the antechamber. Two ladies exchange slaps on the face, and you thank madame ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... him be put on his feet early; but allow him to crawl, and sprawl, and kick about the floor, until his body and his ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... Anything rather than that fetid huddling, that shameless communal sprawl. And yet, was this so much better? The nearness to the surface was meaningless; it only tantalized. ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham "god" or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read—hoping for visitors ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... a little more out of my work than I have made for a long while back; though even now I cannot make things fall into sentences—they only sprawl over the paper in bald orphan clauses. Then I was about in the afternoon with Baxter; and we had a good deal of fun, first rhyming on the names of all the shops we passed, and afterwards buying needles and quack drugs from open-air vendors, and taking much ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he interrupted himself to duck beneath the swing of a powerful fist. And this last, failing to find a mark, threw its owner off his balance. Tripping awkwardly over the low curbing of the dooryard walk, he reeled and went a-sprawl on his knees, while his hat fell off and (such is the impish habit of toppers) rolled and bounded ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... a spot that will someday lie in the shade of a great oak, a group of students sit, sprawl, lie. The oldest of them is sixteen, and it is true that not one of them has any reverence for college degrees, because the entrance requirements demand the scholastic level of bachelor in the arts, the sciences, in language and literature. The ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... the stranger, "and next time you see me remember who I am," and he spoke a name in the Swede's ear—a name that more effectually subdued the scoundrel than many beatings—then he gave him a push that carried him bodily through the tent doorway to sprawl upon ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hatchers. Sometimes the heat has been too great, and then the little ducks, even if hatched at all, soon die. The way by which those who buy them find out whether they are likely to live, is by holding them up by their beaks. If the heat has not been too great, they will sprawl out their little wings and feet, but if hatched too soon they hang motionless. They are fed on boiled rice, herbs, and little fish, chopped small. When old enough to learn to swim, they are put under the care of a clever old duck, trained to the business. A number of these ducks with ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... in the outfit," I went on, "that have got any sprawl to them; and they are old Tom their bunged-up horse, and ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... and indeed astonishing epithets, and inspired by a certain grim Titanic force. His sentences are often clumsily built. He himself said of them: "Perhaps not more than nine-tenths stand straight on their legs; the remainder are in quite angular attitudes; a few even sprawl out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and dismembered." There is no modern writer who possesses so large a profusion of figurative language. His works are also full of the pithiest and most memorable ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... passed Spot began to weary of never-ending play. There were moments when Spot wanted to lie still and doze. But as soon as he had settled himself for a nap the puppy was sure to come bouncing up and sprawl all over him. He would seize one of Spot's long ears between his teeth and give it a bit of a nip. Sometimes he would ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... came too late. At top speed the auto struck the wayfarer, and before the boys' horrified eyes he was thrown high in the air, to fall, a confused sprawl of legs and arms, ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin, And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... walls—three or four flower-pictures by Varelst; three pictures of horses and dogs by Hondius, and a couple of Dutch pictures by Hoogstraaten. Over the fireplace was a chimney-breast by Gibbons; and the ceiling was all a-sprawl with gods and goddesses, I suppose by Verrio. In the windows, which looked out on two sides, over the river and into a little court, were little tables covered with curious things, for His Majesty delighted in such ingenuities—Dutch figures in silver, clockwork, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... meekly into the tabernacle, hoping to pass unobserved, the parson is sure to detect us and explode a bombful of bosh upon our devoted head. No sooner do we pick up a religious weekly than we stumble and sprawl through a bewildering succession of inanities, manufactured expressly to ensnare our simple feet. If we take up a tract we are laid out cold by an apostolic knock straight from the clerical shoulder. We cannot walk out of a pleasant Sunday ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... on the knoll and Tito told of his wanderings. At times he spit to show his growth in grace, and after studying the long sprawl of Mark's legs disposed his own in as close an imitation as their length would permit. It was when his story was over and the conversation showed a tendency to languish ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... tone quite painted his fears. "I am not afraid of death, Peter. I have walked before God all my life save in one or two points, which, I believe, in His mercy, He has forgiven me; but I cannot endure the idea of being found here some day in some unconsidered posture, fallen out of a chair, or a-sprawl on the floor. I wish to die with dignity, Peter, as I ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... was right about blouses... perhaps they were "slommucky." She remembered phrases she had heard about people's figures... "falling abroad"... "the middle-aged sprawl"... that would come early to her as she was so old and worried... perhaps that was why one had to wear boned bodices... and never breathe in gulps of air like this?... It was as if all the worry were being taken out of her temples. She felt her eyes ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... numerous nobs. Many have menaced you, some had a shy at you; SALISBURY stout, and bespectacled CROSS, Each in his season has joined in the cry at you, Little, 'twould seem, to your damage or loss. Still you eight-headed and lanky-limbed monster, you Sprawl and monopolise, spread and devour. Many assail you, but hitherto, none stir you. Say, has the hero arrived, and the hour? No Infant Hercules, surely, can tackle you, Ancient abortion, with hope of success. It needeth a true full-grown hero to shackle you, Jupiter's son, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... multiplication table failed here, and at this, variously a-sprawl on the turf beneath, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... hundred varieties of cowpeas. These varieties differ in form, in the size of seed and of pod, in the color of seed and of pod, and in the time of ripening. They differ, too, in the manner of growth. Some grow erect; others sprawl on the ground. In selecting varieties it is well to choose those that grow straight up, those that are hardy, those that fruit early and abundantly, and those that hold their leaves. The variety selected for seed should also suit the land and ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... view to the east. Here barren pastures sprawl over the hills, dotted in places with herds of cattle or flocks of mountain sheep. But the Valley of Lavedan, which we expected now to overlook, is not yet in sight. After a long descent before us, there is another though lower col to surmount before we can point out ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... wrathfully at the offender; who without any more ado instantly occupied it. It was a fine thing to hear the jingling of the twenty pieces in his pocket, the oaths which he distributed between the landlord, the guests, and the liquor—to remark the sprawl of his mighty jack-boots, before the sweep of which the timid guests edged farther and farther away; and the languishing leers which he cast on the landlady, as with wide-spread arms he attempted to ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... chicks in eggs for breakfast sprawl, Here godless boys God's glories squall, Here Scotchmen's heads do guard the wall, But Corby's walks atone ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... needed—a week of lolling around a deck in the hot sun with the sea winds blowing over your face. That's what you want to do—get out under the blue sky and soak it in. If you don't believe it, look at me. Fit as a fiddle; strong as a moose. You said you wanted to sprawl in the sunshine,—why the devil don't you take a ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... from the broken trench and hurried across the open. There were not more than fifty yards to cross, but in that narrow space the bodies lay huddled singly and heaped in little clumps. They reminded one exactly of the loafers who sprawl asleep and sunning themselves in the Park on a Sunday afternoon. Only the dead lay in that narrow strip; the living had been moved or had moved themselves long since. Macgillivray pushed on into the trench, along it to a communication trench, and up and down one ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... not, by faithfully copying the various muscular contractions of the body in obedience to the play of gesture and poise, the wrinklings of flesh and the sprawl of limbs, the tensions and the relaxations, that you succeed in making your statues like real beings—make them "breathe" as ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... the Cuban retreated to his stone and sat down. He did not sprawl loosely in dejection, as had the negro, but he sat with one foot beside the stone and his body leaning half-forward, his muscles tense, like a forest cat ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... much better spirits. But they make not many steps—if steps they can be called—before discovering the difficulties at which the old sealer has hinted, saying, "ye'll see." Steps, indeed! Their progress is more a sprawl than a walk; a continuous climb and scramble over trunks of fallen trees, many so decayed as to give way under their weight, letting them down to their armpits in a mass of sodden stuff, as soft as mud, and equally bedaubing. Even if disposed, they could no longer laugh at ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... help. Then Keston stumbled and went down in a sprawl on the rough gray ice. The bear was almost on him and there ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... man diverting suspicion from him. Suddenly, after twisting round a corner, he darted through a swing door into a stone-paved court, surrounded by brick walls. I was at his heels at the moment or I should have lost him there. I darted through the swing door after him. I went full sprawl over his body on the other side. He had, quite used up, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield |
