"Strut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... geometry of the make-up box. Curls. Corsets. Cosmetics. Men in undershirts, grease-painting. "Gawdalmighty, Tottie, them's my teddy bears you're puttin' on." Raw nerves. Raw emotions. Ego, the actor's overtone, abroad everywhere and full of strut. "Overture!" The wait in the wings. Dizziness at the pit of the stomach. Audiences with lean jaws etched into darkness. Jaws that can smile or crack your bones and eat you. Faces swimming in the stage ozone and wolfish for cue. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... us to live for the present in just a shade "better style" than we do; but we have mean ambitions in other directions than style. Style is not for those who are placidly indifferent to display; and before whom on a comely, scornful Isle shall we strut and parade? "You and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashions," for do we not proclaim and justify our own? Are we not leaders who have no subservient, no flattering imitators, no sycophantic copyists? The etiquette of our Court finds easy expression, and we smile ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... best, John's pockets are an integral part of his personality. He feels after his pocket instinctively while yet in what corresponds in the genus homo with the polywog state in batrachia. The incipient man begins to strut as soon as mamma puts pockets into his kilted skirt—a stride as prophetic as the strangled crow of the cockerel upon the lowest bar of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus[178], the Knight told me that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... is supported by bayonets is always repugnant, wherever it comes from, and under whatever name it may strut. It can have nothing in common with Socialism, which is not only a doctrine of economic necessity, but also a doctrine of superior ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... heavy shadows of the trees at the far side of Undern Pool. The water looked cold and ghastly even on this golden day. She watched the wagtails strut magisterially, the moorhens with the worried air of overworked charwomen, all the mysterious evening life of a summer pool, but she had no smile for them to-day. The swallows slid and circled across ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... velvet slashed with gold, beneath which were high leather boots, which, with his little gold-laced, three-cornered hat, gave a military tinge to his appearance. In his gait and bearing he had a dainty strut and backward cock of the head, which, taken with his sharp black eyes, his high thin features, and his assured manner, would impress a stranger with the feeling that this was a man of power. And, indeed, in France or out of it there were few to whom this ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strong points in her own favor—the indifference, as every heart perceived, of despairing grief. Then came the manners on the hostile side—the haggard consciousness of guilt, the drooping tone, the bravado and fierce strut which sought to dissemble all this. Not one amongst all the witnesses, assembled on that side, had (by all agreement) the bold natural tone of conscious uprightness. Hence it could not be surprising that the storm ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... said Dorothy. "And how immensely pleased the favored ones are, who have a soldier to show them the way. I see a distinct difference in their walk from that of the others, don't you, Natalie? They seem to be saying 'We were invited—and by this splendiferous creature at our side!' See how they strut! And look at the soldierless ones, how timidly they go—just as if they had found their tickets in the street, or had crept in through the basement windows. 'Please, kind Mr. Soldier-man, let us stay and see the show. We'll be ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... garb, though his tumbling days were over. One had only to look at his bloated, pouchy face to see how drink and sloth had fouled his joints and slacked his muscles. Never again could he spread the drugget in a rustic village street and strut about it on his hands for the edification of a rustic audience. But the uniform he still wore; he seemed to think it gave him some claim to indulgent notice. The Signor, in his own way, was not less in contrast with his background. His lean, predatory face and capacious smile went ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... create concrete images must be the writer's constant aim. Instead of a general term like "walk," for example, he should select a specific, picture-making word such as hurry, dash, run, race, amble, stroll, stride, shuffle, shamble, limp, strut, stalk. For the word "horse" he may substitute a definite term like sorrel, bay, percheron, nag, charger, steed, broncho, or pony. In narrative and descriptive writing particularly, it is necessary to use words that make pictures and that reproduce ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... and watched the men dispersing, their bundles under their arms, each one making direct for his own front door. "Every woman in Riverfield will have to put down needle and fry-pan and butter-paddle to feed them so plum full of compliments that they'll strut for a week. Bless my heart, honeybunch, we have all got to turn around twice in each track to get ready, and as I'm pretty hefty I must begin right now." With this remark, Aunt Mary departed from the back door to her house on the ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the Westerns on this drama, so wrapped up in the actors, so anxious to declaim and strut, that they forget to what end the play exists: they have left the spectators out for whom alone the scenes are enacted, and who, though apparently so silent and motionless, are the raison d'etre of the whole performance. The play must and will continue through the ages; but the wise, the enlightened, ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his fat strut. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... way wid ole Brer Lion, all de yuther creeturs say he sholy is a mighty man, en dey treat 'im good. Dis make 'im feel so proud dat he bleedz ter show it, en so he strut 'roun' like a boy when he git his fust ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... of its object, regardless of its source. In a world where love is far more general than aversion, wherein the most hateful and hideous is frequently the most beloved, it remains true that even a king will strut with added arrogance because of the ardent glance ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... rooms; They use their folded tails for brooms; But fairy dust is brighter far Than any mortal colours are; And all about their tails it clings In strange designs of rounds and rings; And that is why they strut about And proudly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... his capture at Lurin and of his all night ride on mule back. The Dictator sent for the officer, who, thinking he was going to be rewarded for his cleverness, entered the reception room with a peacock strut that was admirable. By the time Don Nicholas finished a reprimand, he slunk away like a whipped cur and it is likely he was more careful to investigate thereafter ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... lived in villages, and assembled as necessity demanded. As they were completely beyond the sphere of Polish influence, they knew nothing about "knightly honour" and similar conceptions of Western chivalry; they even adopted many Tartar customs, and loved in time of peace to strut about in gorgeous Tartar costumes. Besides this, they were nearly all emigrants from Great Russia, and mostly Old Ritualists or Sectarians, whilst the Zaporovians were ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... He cannot strut, vapour, and swagger as thou dost? but why offended at this? Oh but he has been a naughty man! and I have been righteous, sayest thou. Well, Pharisee, well, his naughtiness shall not be laid to thy charge, if thou ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... redly against the water plants in their shining bowl. Creepers crept, plants grew, and ferns waved under the care of Nathan Spiderwitz, Monitor of the Window Boxes. There was such a martial swing and strut in Patrick Brennan's leadership of the line that it informed even the timid heart of Isidore Wishnewsky with a war-like glow and his feet with a spasmodic but well-meant tramp. Sadie Gonorowsky and Eva, her cousin, sat closely side by side, no longer "mad on theirselves," ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... strut! A fighter he of the choicest brand, one not to stop at trifles; there was martial ire in his flaming glance; defiance breathed from his nostrils; triumph sat on his lips; he swung his arms like destructive flails; and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... keep our talents hid, or think we favor men because We use the gifts that God has given? The robins never ask applause, Nor count themselves remarkable, nor strut in a superior way, Because their music sweeter is than that God gave unto the jay. Only a man conceited grows as he makes use of talents fine, Forgetting that he merely does the working of the ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... key which enables its possessor to unlock them; he did not even know how to use it when Del offered it to him, all but thrust it into his hand. Poor Dory, indeed—but let only those who have not loved too well to love wisely strut at his expense by pitying him; for, in matters of the heart, sophisticated and unsophisticated act much alike. "Men would dare much more, if they knew what women think," says George Sand. It is also true that the men who dare most, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... the railway, I must feel towards it otherwise than did my father, upon whose middle age it came as a monstrous iron innovation. The locomotive is one of the wonders of modern childhood. Children crowd upon a bridge to see the train pass beneath. Little boys strut along the streets puffing and whistling in imitation of the engine. All that romance, silly as it looks, becomes sacred in afterlife. Besides, when it is not underground in a foul London tunnel, a train is a beautiful thing. Its pure, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said. "Not that such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen should strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out. Beyond that perhaps you'll do. Have you ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... so busy serving that they have little time to strut and pose in the show places. Few of them are "prominent clubmen." You rarely find their names in the society page. They rarely give "brilliant social functions." Their idle families ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... automobile in sight. Near her was a short, stout woman whose personality seemed to be strangely familiar to Medenham. He never forgot anyone, and this lady was certainly not one of his acquaintances; nevertheless, her features, her robin-like strut, her very amplitude of girth and singular rotundity of form, came definitely within the net of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Huh! She des th'ow up her haid en low, 'Well, Marse Lightfoot, I'm glad you kep' Abel—en we'll use de ole coach agin',' sez she—en den she tu'n en strut ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... can be in coarseness. The coarse work is generally left for the apprentice. Everything coarse, be it a block, a wedge, or a blade, passes as unfinished, as raw, jagged, and just the reverse of cutting. No one is proud of a coarse shirt, but many, even quite distinguished people, proudly strut about the streets in a coarse smock of abusive language, quite unconcernedly, without any suspicion ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... angles; every room had a particular inclination; the gable had tilted towards the garden, after the manner of a leaning tower, and one of the former proprietors had buttressed the building from that side with a great strut of wood, like the derrick of a crane. Altogether, it had many marks of ruin; it was a house for the rats to desert; and nothing but its excellent brightness—the window-glass polished and shining, the paint well scoured, the brasses radiant, the very prop all wreathed about with climbing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I flatter myself I shall know how to strut about the quarter-deck and order the men here and there as well ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... walk upright, and strut with fine canes, Stalking in towns, 'stead of roaming in lanes, Misfortunes they'll meet with, no doubt, such as Jack's, Getting shots through their ears, and ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... him, sir. He found him very useful for stealing pistols and cartridges, and fastening people in the cabins, but once he got all he wanted, though he made a fuss with him and encouraged him to strut about, and called him his lieutenant, he used to be always looking at him ugly-like, and I got to think that before long there would be ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... and even as thus called already civilized, they sacrificed men to gods,—could our great pro-slavers know all this, they would be more decent in their ignorant assertions, and not, so self-satisfied, strut ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... I value praise for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality, forgive (if you can) the INSUFFERABLE vanity of my copying the last sentence in his note: "I regard your Monograph on Chile as, without exception, one of the finest specimens of Geological enquiry." I feel inclined to strut like a Turkey-cock! ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... enjoyed the tableau and several of his wicked sailors were mimicking the pompous strut of Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes. Poor Jack mumbled some explanation but his irate uncle first paid his respects to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... of ease and independence which Chase had held out to her in the brief season of his adroit courtship. The meanest men sometimes turn out to be the nimblest cock-pheasants during that interesting period, and, like those vain birds of the jungles, they strut and dance and cut dazzling capers before the eyes of the ladies when they want to ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... when he signed this. To deprive her, to deprive them both, of everything, all on account of those hated people? But now—it should never be! On no account! Your down-at-the-heel pedagogue shall not strut about in peacock's feathers! Olga and I . . . ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... see the pompous strut of the men on a Sunday, as they walk to mass in their ill-made silk coats, with gold-headed sticks in hand. Both men and women are the worst-favoured race I ever saw: their flat, unmeaning countenances, small, lacklustre eyes, strong, upright, black hair, resembling ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... perversely on that mincing creature of a Dangeville, who plays so flatly, who walks the stage nearly bent double, who stares affectedly and incessantly into the eyes of every one she talks to, and who takes her grimaces for finesse, and her little strut for grace; or on that emphatic Clairon, who becomes more studied, more pretentious, more elaborately heavy, than I can tell you. That imbecile of a pit claps hands to the echo, and never sees that we are a mere worsted ball of daintinesses ('Tis true the ball grows a trifle big, but what ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... told that this other person was of a cynicism hopelessly indurated. Not so with Rigby Reeves, even after Reeves alleged the other discoveries that the rector of St. Antipas had "a walk that would be a strut, by gad! if he was as short as I am"; also that he "walked like a parade," which, as expounded by Mr. Reeves, meant that his air in walking was that of one conscious always of leading a triumphal procession in ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... then, down the hotel corridor, with a strut to his resentment that was bantam and ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept of it; and whosoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote provinces with money in his purse, and a name terminating in ac or ille, may strut about, and cry, "Such a man as I! A man of my rank and figure!" and may look down upon a trader with sovereign contempt; whilst the trader on the other side, by thus often hearing his profession treated so disdainfully, is fool enough to blush at ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... and partly with the help of Destiny (the greater jester than I) I have stripped myself of all these garments of life which not only enabled me to strut peacock-fashion in the pleasant places of the world, but also sheltered me ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... spite of their Polish titles and faces, and a certain tenderness of nature that is almost feminine, they seem to have good, stout, Saxon stuff in them. Especially where the illustrious knights recount their heroic deeds there is a Falstaffian strut in their performance, and there runs riot a Falstaffian ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... tryst with death. It is the spirit of democracy calling across the world. The supreme councils of the Allies—what are they? They change, form and reform. Generals, field marshals, staff officers in gold lace, cabinets, presidents, puppet kings, and God knows what of those who strut for a little time in their pomp of place and power—what are they but points on the drill of the great machine whose power is the people of the world, struggling in protest against despotism, privilege, autocracy and the pretence ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... blossoms of the wattle-tree and many light-green ferns. In this ingeniously contrived sylvan retreat the feathered architect runs about and holds a sort of carnival, to which others of his tribe gather. Here the little party chirp vigorously, and strut about in a ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... creature was to be considered the tallest individual in the kingdom, and indeed nothing could be more amusing than to witness the manner in which he held up his head while he walked, or sat, or stood. In fact his walk was a complete strut, to which the pride, arising from the consciousness of, or rather the belief in, his extraordinary height gave an extremely ludicrous appearance. Poor Tom was about five feet nine in height, but imagined himself to be at least a foot higher. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... through their genuflexions put me in a good mood for an introduction to the pigeons, which I longed to have for friends—strange little stately ruffling things, almost as mechanical in their strut as the figures of the clock; so metallic, too, in their lustre, that I could have believed ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... he had waited for. With a strut he marched across the space between them and the target and carried that much further back. He longed for a target bearing an arrangement of letters that he could hit and cause to disappear, as ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... smart publicans, smart politicians, smart women, smart scoundrels! Greatness became commonplace here, and Mr. Douglas might drink at Willard's Bar, with none so poor to do him reverence, or General Winfield Scott strut like a colossus along "the Avenue," and the sleepy negroes upon their backs would give him the attention of only one eye. It was interesting, to notice how rapidly provincial eminence lost caste here. Slipkins, who was "Honorable" at home, and of whom ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... red-eyed flycatcher and other feathered choristers, while the golden-winged woodpecker or rain fowl, heralds at dawn the coming rain of the morrow, and some crows, rendered saucy by protection, strut through the sprouting corn, in their sable cassocks, like worldly clergymen computing their tythes. On the aforesaid walk, once trodden over by the prince of American naturalists, the great Audubon, whilst on ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of teachers wanting in talent! We see and hear a great many virtuosos, old and young, with and without talent, renowned and obscure. They either play in an entirely mechanical manner and with faulty and miserable touch, or else, which is less bearable, they strut with unendurable affectation and produce musical monstrosities. In order to conceal their indistinct mode of execution, they throw themselves upon the two pedals, and ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... with flexible opinions and liable to be swayed in any course. When he was at Flower De Hundred, living in the atmosphere of liberalists and republicans, he was one of the most outspoken of all. He would strut for hours before any one who would listen to his senseless twaddle and would harangue and discourse on the ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... whom the approach of the hour of closing was bringing out, but whom one of those sudden showers, which seem inseparable from the opening of the Salon, kept waiting beneath the porch, with its floor beaten down and sandy like the entrance to the circus where the young dandies strut about. The scene that met the eye was ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... laying aside his female attire, and being snugly dressed up in a straight collared coat, and pantaloons to match, was again put on the right road towards Canada. Two weeks after this found him in the town of St. Catharines, working on the farm of Colonel Strut, and attending a ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... knew not where to stop. The starting-point was easy. Curiosity began by asking, Why the deuce, Albert Pride was so carefully hiding himself away in the city of Mexico? He must be a fellow-countryman; because an Englishman, no matter how branded at home, by fraud or dishonor, could boldly strut about New-Orleans or New-York, without submitting to voluntary self-imprisonment in the city of Mexico. Was he a fraudulent merchant, or a bank-defaulter? Good heavens! such gentlemen generally assume such a graceful nonchalance, or else laugh ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Tribe and a man named Tintint the Captain of the Sunrise Tribe. Tintint had a very pink skin and eyes so faded in their pink color that he squinted badly in order to see anything around him. He was a fat and pompous little fellow and loved to strut up and down his line of warriors twirling his long, pointed stick so that ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... have the least intention of doing anything of the kind. He was just idly boasting and nothing more. You see, Reddy is one of the greatest boasters in the Green Forest or on the Green Meadows. He likes to strut around and talk big. But like most boasters, he is ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... croaking gut, See how the half-star'd Frenchmen strut, And call us English dogs: But soon we'll teach these bragging foes That beef and beer give heavier blows Than ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... East: we will absorb it with the rest: we have absorbed many others! I just laugh at the air of triumph they assume, and the pusillanimity of some of my fellow-countrymen. They think they have conquered us, they strut about our boulevards, and in our newspapers and reviews, and in our theaters and in the political arena. Idiots! It is they who are conquered! They will be assimilated after having fed us. Gaul has a strong ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... one Yankee in dis las' bunch dat wuz big an' bustin'. He strut bigoty wid his chist stuck out. He walk 'roun' stickin' his sword in de chair cushions, de pictures on de walls an' things like dat. He got powerful mad kaze he couldn' fin' nothin', den he look out de window an' seed Mis' Laura. She wuz standin' on ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... usual strut or swim: it corresponds with the biblical walking or going softly. (I Kings xxi. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... is ruining our agriculture; and soon, I suppose, we have to send to China for labourers. Why, those who do not emigrate demand twice as much to-day for half the work they used to do five years ago; and those who return from America strut about like country gentlemen deploring the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... other. You've seen two peacocks spread their tails and strut as they pass each other? Well, the peacock coming up wasn't in it with the one going down. Her coat wasn't so fine, nor so heavy, nor so newly, smartly cut. Her toque wasn't so big nor so saucy, and the fur on it—not to mention that the descending peacock ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... of access to these mysteries. The formal attempt to impart a good style is like the melancholy task of the teacher of gesture and oratory; some palpable faults are soon corrected; and, for the rest, a few conspicuous mannerisms, a few theatrical postures, not truly expressive, and a high tragical strut, are all that can be imparted. The truth of the old Roman teachers of rhetoric is here witnessed afresh, to be a good orator it is first of all necessary to be a good man. Good style is the greatest of revealers,—it lays bare ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... good old Knickerbocker days." But the truth is, odious though the millionnaire's ascendancy may be at present, that of the Knickerbocker was once hardly less so. Vulgar, brassy, and intolerable the "I'm-better-than-you" strut and swagger of plutocracy surely is; but in the smug, pert provincialism of those former New York autocrats who defined as "family" their descent of two or three generations from raw Dutch immigrants, there ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... and see this long train of camels coming up to the king's gate, and the ox-trains from Egypt, gold and silver and precious stones, and beasts of every hoof, and birds of every wing, and fish of every scale! See the peacocks strut under the cedars, and the horsemen run, and the chariots wheel! Hark to the orchestra! Gaze upon the dance! Not stopping to look into the wonders of the temple, step right on to the causeway, and pass ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... The doctor was moving with his stately strut to the door. Suddenly the boy, in a great outburst of boldness, flung himself before this great man of his childhood and arrested his progress. "Oh, sir, tell me," he begged—"tell me what ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the wheel-house. And something in the unsteadiness of the broad, plump shoulders gave to Peter in his perplexity the not inaccurate notion that the fat little man had enjoyed his joke and was giggling to such an extent that it almost interfered with his dignified strut. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... estrangement cannot, indeed, rob them of their portion in the past, but it will rob them of any effect of reality. The whole of their history becomes more and more foreign, more and more like some queer barbaric drama played in a forgotten tongue. There they strut through their weird metamorphoses of caricature, those premiers and presidents, their height preposterously exaggerated by political buskins, their faces covered by great resonant inhuman masks, their voices couched in the foolish idiom of public utterance, disguised ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... books he read out of school were a Life of Hannibal, the great Carthagenian general, and a Life of Wallace, the great Scottish hero; this last being lent him by the blacksmith. These books excited little Robert so much that if ever a recruiting sergeant came to his village, he would strut up and down in raptures after the drum and bagpipe, and long to be tall enough to be a soldier. The story of Wallace, too, awoke in his heart a love of Scotland and all things Scottish, which remained with him his whole ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... our name, and distribute royal presents—diamonds and gold snuff-boxes? You could have done it much more cheaply. The Russian is not so high-priced. But it was your pleasure to be magnificent at our expense, and to strut about ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... an "Oblique Halving Joint," where the oblique piece, or strut, does not run through (Fig. 28, 3). This type of joint is used for strengthening framings and shelf brackets; an example of the latter is shown at Fig. 48. A strut or rail of this type prevents movement or distortion to a frame diagonally ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... arch-poet, Jonson, died, The sock grew loathsome, and the buskin's pride, Together with the stage's glory, stood Each like a poor and pitied widowhood. The cirque profan'd was, and all postures rack'd; For men did strut, and stride, and stare, not act. Then temper flew from words, and men did squeak, Look red, and blow, and bluster, but not speak; No holy rage or frantic fires did stir Or flash about the spacious theatre. No clap of hands, or shout, or praise's proof Did crack the play-house sides, or cleave her ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... art in being unintelligible in discourse and uncomeatable in business. But he, having no understanding in his polite way, brought in upon us, to get in his money, ladder-dancers, rope-dancers, jugglers, and mountebanks, to strut in the place of Shakespeare's heroes ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... yet 'tis true, Though they be old, the thing is something new; Each new, quite new—(except some ancient tricks), New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks! With vests or ribbons, deck'd alike in hue, New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue; So saith the muse! my ——, what say you? Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain Her new preferments in this novel reign; Such was the time, nor ever yet was such: Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much: Morals and ...
— English Satires • Various
... extraordinary powers of mind, of which he could not but be conscious by comparison; the intellectual difference, which in other cases of comparison of characters, is often a matter of undecided contest, being as clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men above others. Johnson did not strut or stand on tiptoe; He only did not stoop. From his earliest years his superiority was perceived and acknowledged. He was from the beginning [Greek text omitted], a king of men. His school-fellow, Mr. Hector, has ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... commonplace woman now and there are such a lot of 'em in the world. When I remember all you have done for us it makes me ill to think of some in our town—giggling, silly little flirts, with no higher ambition than to strut down the street in ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Kirkwood's pocket, all right enough. By George, can you beat it! And here's another thing. A man hates to talk against his own flesh and blood; and you may think I'm not in a position to strut around virtuously and talk about other people's sins; but I guess I've got some sense of honor left. I've never stolen any money. I did run off with another man's wife, and I got my pay for that. That was in the ardor of youth, Waterman; it was ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... of trouble flee to their mother's arms. Never a mistress in the world's history has asked more from man than she has asked or has had more to give. She asks your life, your thoughts, your passions—every breath of your body must be a breath of desire for her and her alone. You think that you can strut about the world, a talking doll, pay court to women, listen to the voices that praise you, smirk your way through the days, and all the time climb. My young friend, no! I tell you no! Don't interrupt me. I am going to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ingenious casuistry, spread abroad the opinion that these mighty preparations were a colossal bluff which would redound to Germany's advantage. They said that President Wilson had bided his time so that his country might strut as a belligerent for only the last six months, and so obtain a voice in the peace negotiations. He did not intend that America should fight, and was only getting his armies ready that they might enforce peace when the Allies were ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... actor. It was presently suggested that he should appear in his war costume; he gracefully consented; and returned in that strange, inappropriate and ill- omened array (which very well became his handsome person) to strut in a circle of admirers, and be thenceforth the centre of photography. Thus had Moipu effected his introduction, as by accident, to the white strangers, made it a favour to display his finery, and reduced his rival to a secondary role on the theatre of the disputed village. Paaaeua ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and hammered: pert little shoes piping "Be quick, be quick, we want to be toddling. You seem to have no idea, my good man, how much toddling there is to be done." Dapper boots, sighing: "Oh, please make haste, we are waiting to dance and to strut. Jack walks in the lane, Jill waits by the gate. Oh, deary, how slowly he taps." Stout sober boots, saying: "As soon as you can, old friend. Remember we've work to do." Flat-footed old boots, rusty and limp, mumbling: "We haven't much time, Mr. Chumbley. Just ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... feasible," Mr. Dick said in a relieved voice, getting up and beginning to strut up and down the room. "It isn't as though I'm beyond call. You can come out here and consult me if you get stuck. And then there's Minnie; she knows a good bit about the ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... convictions they were peaceable and unobtrusive, never arming themselves with Scriptural texts in order to carry on offensive operations. Never being perplexed by doubt, they desired no one to corroborate their faith, and no inducement could persuade them to strut about in the garb of piety in order to attract respect. The reverence for the Creator was in the heart, rather than upon the lips. In that land papists and protestants lived together in charity and brotherhood, earnest and devoted in their churches, and in contact with the world, humane ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... but unclasped his hands and let me slip from his knee; and then I began to strut the floor, my chest puffed out ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... "Yours, Cowper's manner"—and "yours, Talbot's sense." Thus we dispose of all poetic merit, Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit. Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he'll swear the nine, Dear Cibber! never matched one ode of thine. Lord! how we strut through Merlin's cave, to see No poets there, but Stephen, you, and me. Walk with respect behind, while we at ease Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we please. "My dear Tibullus!" if that will not do, "Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you: ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... bright afternoon, she could no more have helped strutting than the bud to open on the appointed day. She was obeying one of Nature's laws. I think I promised long ago to tell you of the day when Grizel would strut no more. Well, this is the day. Observe her strutting for the last time. It was very strange and touching to her to remember in the after years that she had once strutted, but it was still more strange and ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the patriot's part, Till something good and snug should offer;— Like one, who, by the way he acts The enlightening part of candle-snuffer, The manager's keen eye attracts, And is promoted thence by him To strut in robes, like thee, my TIM!— Who shall describe thy powers of face, Thy well-fed zeal in every case, Or wrong or right—but ten times warmer (As suits thy calling) in the former— Thy glorious, lawyer-like delight In puzzling all that's clear and right, Which, tho' conspicuous ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... synonym. As we went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense—all in the role of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection; her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums that had ten drops of syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild flowers ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... staccato croaks of delight; Harry stood in manly calm, arms akimbo, a beam of satisfaction broadening his face. That smile, alas! gave the last touch of exasperation to the watching Cads. To stand still and behold the line vanishing into space had been in itself an ordeal, but Harry's lordly air, his strut, his smile—these were beyond their endurance! With a rallying shout of battle they plunged forward, grabbed at the ascending cord, hung for a dizzy moment suspended on its length, then with a final cheer felt it snap in twain and drag ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... suppose I can get him something to do. But I don't want you to be under the influence of any of these absurd creatures who think they know what acting is—when they merely know how to dress themselves in different suits of clothes, and strut themselves about the stage. They'd rather die than give up their own feeble, foolish little identities. I'll see that your actor friend is taken care of, but you must keep away from him—for the time ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... nothing. Here was only hurrying to and fro of jaded slaves laden with amphorae of wine and oil and honey; the smell of roasting meats, the clash of pots and kettles. Here, behind the scenes, were the ropes and pulleys which set the stage that the actors might strut through their lordly parts; here was no relaxation and luxurious ease, but labor stern and unremitting, since always pleasure must ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... mount a machine he should know what it is composed of, and how it is made. His investigation should take in every part of the mechanism; he should understand about the plane surface, what the stresses are upon its surface, what is the duty of each strut, or brace or wire and be able to make ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... feast of him whom we call Osiris, but whom other nations have known and know by different names, it is given to us once more to be mortal for an hour, and, though we be but shadows, to renew the loves and hates of our long-perished flesh. Here for an hour we strut in our forgotten pomp; the crowns that were ours still adorn our brows, and once more we seem to listen to our people's praise. Our hopes are the hopes of mortal life, our foes are the foes we feared, our gods grow real again, and our lovers whisper ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... of the hill of the Alhambra, and here was always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics, and city functionaries. A beetling bastion of the fortress overlooked the palace and the public square in front of it; and on this bastion the old governor would occasionally strut backward and forward, with his toledo girded by his side, keeping a wary eye down upon his rival, like a hawk reconnoitering his quarry from his nest in a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind which makes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon." ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... replied grandpapa. "It shall be the lover. There's nothing in the pockets, and that's very interesting, for that's half of an unfortunate attachment. And here we have the nut-cracker's boots, with spurs to them. Row, dow, dow! how they can stamp and strut! They shall represent the unwelcome wooer, whom the lady does not like. What kind of a play will you have now? Shall it be a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... now, you hear human people swell and brag and strut round about how they are different from the animals and have something they call a soul that the animals haven't got, but that's just the natural conceit of this electricity or something before it has found out much about itself. Not different from the animals, you ain't. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... to a childhood more beautiful than the original. Many a man and woman possesses this disciplined childhood through life. Goodness seems the very atmosphere they breathe, and everything they do to be exactly fitting. Their acts are performed with full self-expression, yet without strut or intrusion of consciousness. Whatever comes from them is happily blended and organized into the entirety of life. Such should be our aim. We should seek to be born again, and not to remain where we were ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... The disposition to derision and insult is awakened by the softness of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... I could not see the difference between it and one not worth ten shillings. The pouting pigeons, who have goitres, as Mrs. Marcet said, are frightful; they put in their heads behind these bags of wind, and strut about as if proud of deformity. We saw four Antwerp pigeons, one of which went, Sir John told us, from Tower Hill to Antwerp in ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... convinced that he alone ought to be made responsible for the money. And lastly, she loathed and condemned him for the reason that he was so obviously unequal to the situation. He could not handle it. He was found out. He was disproved, He did not know what to do. He could only mouth, strut, bully, and make rude noises. He could not even keep decently around him the cloak of self-importance. He stood revealed to Mrs. Maldon and Rachel as he had sometimes stood revealed to his dead wife and to his ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... to drop away from him. Insensibly he came to see that the display of his legal knowledge, of his carefully chosen ties, of his splendid equipment in house, horses, and automobiles, had something of the major-domo's strut in parti-colored hose. The day came when he understood that the effort to charm her by the parade of these things was like the appeal to divine grace by means of grinding on a prayer-mill. It was a long step ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... mine is the most plotting heart in the world. Thou dost me honour; and I thank thee heartily. Thou art no bad judge. How like Boileau's parson I strut behind my double chin! Am I not obliged to deserve thy compliment? And wouldst thou have me repent of a murder before I have ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" - "My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be, Isn't equal to that. You ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... battle of Naseby, Miles was slain, And Huntly sank from his wounds that week; We left young Clare upon Worcester plain— How the "Ironside" gash'd his girlish cheek. Aye, strut, and swagger, and ruffle anew, Gay gallants, now that the war is done! They fought like fiends (give the fiend his due)— We fought like fops, it was thus they won. Holdsworth is living for aught I know, At least he was ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... The most dissolute man likes the appearance of virtue. "But graces and accomplishments like yours, dear Mrs. Hopkinson," he said oleaginously, "belong to the whole country." Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he endeavored to represent. "And I shall want to avail myself of all," he added, "in the matter of the Castro claim. A little supper at Welcker's, a glass or two of champagne, and a single flash of those bright eyes, and the ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... Berlioz and a Chateaubriand because of the many beauties, the veritable grandeurs of their styles, we cannot quite learn to love yours. For in you the disease was aggravated by the presence of another powerful incentive to strut and posture and externalize and inflate your art. For you were the virtuoso. You were the man whose entire being was pointed to achieve an effect. You were the man whose life is lived on the concert-platform, whose values are those of the concert-room, who finds his highest good in the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... excepting when any of them may have a purpose to gain, by arresting his attention, with an ungainly cringe; or when some of those who have no sort of present dependence on him, are disposed to cross his way with a look and strut of rudeness, to show how little they care for him. The servility, and the impudence, almost equally repress in him all friendly disposition toward a voluntary intercourse with the class. There is thus as complete a dissociation between the two orders, as mutual ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... were assembled in the drawing-room. The Marquess sallied forward to receive his guest with a most dignified countenance and a most aristocratic step; but, before he got half-way, his coronation pace degenerated into a strut, and then into a shamble, and with an awkward and confused countenance, half impudent and half flinching, he held forward his left hand to his newly-arrived visitor. Mr. Cleveland looked terrifically ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... a leonine magnanimity of courage, a vulpine subtlety of cunning, or a pavonine strut of vanity. The spirit, freed from its fallen cell, "Fills with fresh energy another form, And towers an elephant, or glides a worm, Swims as an eagle in the eye of noon, Or wails, a screech owl, to the deaf, cold moon, Or haunts the brakes where serpents hiss ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... God give me loud honors, That I may strut before you, sweetheart, And be worthy of— ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... a time when the realization caused him to strut a little, but he'd got over it. He was single, had no ties, wanted none. He had a good job which he took seriously, was doing significant work which he also took seriously, was paid premium wages even for a space captain, which didn't matter except in terms of recognition. ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... pompous strut, he marched to the drawing-room door. She had not felt like smiling, but if there had been any such inclination it would have fled before the countenance that turned upon her at the threshold. It was ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... of processions and religious festivals. Almost every day then, and sometimes half a dozen times in a day, the Judge and the baby may see some Italian society parading through the street. Fourteen proud sons of Italy, clad in magnificent new uniforms, bearing aloft huge silk banners, strut magnificently in the rear of a German band of twenty-four pieces, and a drum-corps of a dozen more. Then, too, come the religious processions, when the little girls are taken to their first communion. Six sturdy ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... young flapper, high heeled, short skirted and a jaunty green hat. One of the impudent little swaggering boulevard promenaders who talk like simpletons and dance like Salomes, who laugh like parrots and ogle like Pierettes. The birdlike strut of her silkened legs, the brazen lure of her stenciled child face, the lithe grimace of her adolescent body under the stiff coloring of her clothes were a part of the blur in ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... aged six years, had always considered his Grandfather Michel the greatest man in the world; then I came into his life; and whether it was I, or the American bon bons I lavished on him, or the overseas chapeau I let him strut about in now and then, I completely won his little heart. Darling little Andree in far off Ancey-le-Franc, now eight going ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... any more use for plain folks, Polly. She's going to do herself proud shoppin', so she can go to Boston and strut about like a frilled peacock. You'll have to be satisfied with your mother, Polly; Pawliney doesn't care anything ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... in our viciousness grow hard, O, misery on't! the wise gods seal our eyes: In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us Adore our errors, laugh at us while we strut ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... and cruel Creator who inflicts pain and pleasure at will then disappears from the stage; and it is well, for he is indeed an unnecessary character, and, worse still, is a mere creature of straw, who cannot even strut upon the boards without being upheld on all sides by dogmatists. Man comes into this world, surely, on the same principle that he lives in one city of the earth or another; at all events, if it is too much to say that this is so, ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... horizontal frame pieces on the floor 3 feet apart. Between these place six of the strut pieces. Put one at each end, and each 4 1/2 feet put another, leaving a 2-foot space in the center. This will give you four struts 4 1/2 feet apart, and two in the center 2 feet apart, as shown in the illustration. This makes five rectangles. Be sure ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... determined and relentless master. Bonnet knew that the captain of a pirate ship ought to be the most severe and rigid man on board, and so, at the slightest sign of insubordination, his grumbling men were put in chains or flogged, and it was Bonnet's habit at such times to strut about the deck with loaded pistols, threatening to blow out the brains of any man who dared to disobey him. Recognizing that although their captain was no sailor he was a first-class tyrant, the rebellious crew kept their grumbling to themselves ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... accept it so, for I tell ye I am of a mollifying nature. I can strut and againe in kindnesse I can suffer a man to breake my head, and put it up ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... be distinguished "the September murderers, whom" says an observer[33104] in a position to know them, "I can compare to nothing but lazy tigers licking their paws, growling and trying to find a few more drops of blood just spilled, awaiting a fresh supply." Far from hiding away they strut about and show themselves. One of them, Petit-Mamain, son of an innkeeper at Bordeaux and a former soldier, "with a pale, wrinkled face, sharp eyes and bold air, wearing a scimitar at his side and pistols at his belt," promenades the Palais-Royal[33105] "accompanied ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... so that you can plant your men. I grant that this has the air of a highwayman's attack, but, after all, the uniform covers a host of civil sins, and, really, I do not see a better way to have done with the youth. It will never do to have him strut about Paris boasting that he snatched the sword away from an officer and drubbed him with a cane ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... for almost domestic purposes, the style of high ceremonial was relaxed, and elements taken directly from life were introduced. In his "Corpus Christi," Gentile Bellini paints not only the solemn and dazzling procession in the Piazza, but the elegant young men who strut about in all their finery, the foreign loungers, and even the unfailing beggar by the portal of St. Mark's. In his "Miracle of the True Cross," he introduces gondoliers, taking care to bring out all the beauty of their lithe, comely figures as they stand to ply the oar, and does ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... magnetic. Easy manners. Good figure;" and he walked up and down complacently, slapping his own shrunk shank. There had been a well-shaped leg inside of the ragged linen trousers once, and the conscious merit which infused every atom of his lean little body still culminated in his strut. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... nearly in front of the camping-place, at a spot where the sand lay loose and dry, above the reach of the ordinary tidal influx, all made a stop at the summons of one who, from the superior style of his plumage and the greater grandeur of his strut, appeared a very important individual of the tribe—in all likelihood ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... M. Chebe became a terrible trial. He could not work in the garden. On Sundays the fortifications were deserted; he could no longer strut about among the workingmen's families dining on the grass, and pass from group to group in a neighborly way, his feet encased in embroidered slippers, with the authoritative demeanor of a wealthy landowner of the vicinity. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... all the next day, all the third day, if the river was wide, they would strut and cluck along the shore, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... matter what happens, unless you're cruising deep, it's only a few feet to the top. Not like a crazy aeroplane a thousand feet up in the air! Something happens in an aeroplane, and where are you? With a busted stay or bamboo strut and you a mile in the air, where are you? Volplane? Maybe. But if you didn't—down you'd come atumbling like a hoop out of the clouds. That's 90 per cent—yes, maybe 99 per cent—of the submarine game: See that everything is right ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... nearer upon the rising grounds over against them, was filing off towards their right. No certain judgment could, however, yet be formed of the enemy's real design, and as they were in want of bread, it wras thought probable that they intended to repass the Un-strut; but it was soon perceived that their several motions were contradictory to each other. At the same time that some of their infantry were filing off towards their right, a large body of cavalry wheeled round ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of the House, who had been listening very eagerly, "what made you talk like that, and strut about, and pound the deck? That's not like you. I would not have supposed that you ever could have ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... ever betrayed the secrets of his sovereign with greater fervour than did von Chronicle labour for the Cardinal's costume, which was the consequence of the Prince of Pike and Powdren undertaking the English monarch. To-night, proud as was the part of the Prince as regal Harry, his strut was a shamble compared with the imperious stalk of von Chronicle as the arrogant and ambitious Wolsey. The Cardinal in Rienzi was nothing to him; for to-night Wolsey had as many pages as ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... as nothing," said Joel, drawing a long breath, and beginning to strut up and down, still carrying the cover-lifter. "You're such a 'fraid-cat, ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... their handsome women, these well-dressed men on foot, and splendidly mounted, all did their part toward lifting him out of his gloom. He settled his hat on his head with a rakish slant and his walk became a strut, he courted observation; he would have been grateful for a word, even a jest ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... happily with his wife the Princess. His merriest time was when the Grand Vizier visited him in the afternoon; and when the Caliph was in particularly high spirits he would condescend to mimic the Vizier's appearance when he was a stork. He would strut gravely, and with well-stiffened legs, up and down the room, chattering, and showing how he had vainly bowed to the east and cried 'Mu...Mu...' The Caliphess and her children were always much entertained by this performance; but when the ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... to be done. But in looking round you may perceive men booted and spurred, who perhaps never crossed a horse, and some with whips in their hands who deserve it on their backs—they hum lively airs, whistle and strut about with their quizzing-glasses in their hands, playing a tattoo upon their boots, and shewing themselves off with as many airs as if they were real actors engaged in the farce, that is to say, the buyers and sellers; when in truth ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Didst in thy calling do thy best. But now the senate (if things hit, And thou at Stockbridge[4] wert not bit) Must feel thy eloquence and fire, Approve thy schemes, thy wit admire, Thee with immortal honours crown, While, patriot-like, thou'lt strut and frown. What though by enemies 'tis said, The laurel, which adorns thy head, Must one day come in competition, By virtue of some sly petition: Yet mum for that; hope still the best, Nor let such cares disturb thy rest. Methinks I hear thee loud ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... ascend the Casino steps, and hid myself among the fishing-boats lower down on the beach. Carlotta, however, was delighted and said that I looked pretty. Now I have grown callous, seeing other fools similarly apparelled. But a year ago, should I have dreamed it possible for me to strut about a fashionable plage in white ducks, a pink shirt, and a yachting-cap? I trow not. They are signs of some sort of madness—whether that of a Jaques or a dingo ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... three lessons a week from Miss Oram on the spinet. How happy and proud she was! Her glee was a constant source of wonder to McQueen. Perhaps she put on airs a little, her walk, said the critical, had become a strut; but how could she help that when the new joyousness of living was dancing ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... cried from his tree, as soon as the geese were out of hearing. "I don't want them about the farmyard. I haven't time to bother with them. Besides, they're so stupid that I never could teach them anything. I walked ahead of them, across the farmyard, to show them the stylish strut. But they couldn't learn it. They'll waddle to the end ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... seriously inconvenienced them in walking. That this custom was entirely an outcome of vanity and emulation, and not a manifestation of the esthetic sense, is made clear by the further observations of Livingstone. Men who could not afford so many of these copper rings would still, he found, strut along as if they had them. "That is the way," he was informed, "in which they show off their lordship in these parts." Among the Mojave Indians "nose-jewels designate a man of wealth and rank," and elaborate headdresses of feathers ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... in politics. Only a fledgling from a Brussels or Axminster carpeted reception-room would stand on the hustings and publish a fear that he might be boring his audience. One familiar with the trade of electioneering, as it has always been conducted by men, would strut and shout and brag, never for a moment worrying whether or not he came anywhere near the truth or feeling the slightest qualm, though he deafened his hearers with his trumpeting or bored them to complete extinction, and would refuse to be silenced even ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... degree or standing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... visitors, gazed with admiring eyes at every motion of his grandfather. To one who had from earliest infancy looked up to him with reverence, there was nothing ridiculous in the display, in the strut, in all that to other eyes too evidently revealed the vanity of the piper: Malcolm regarded it all only as making up the orthodox mode of playing the pipes. It was indeed well that he could not see the expression upon the faces of those ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... just opposite the middle of the window. The three crosspieces were then put into their place, and the upright pressed firmly against them. One end of a long beam was placed in the notch, the other in a slight hole made in the ground, thus forming a strut, which held the rest firmly in ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... the early air combats was when Holt, single-handed, and armed only with a rifle, lashed to a strut of his machine, attacked ten Germans near Dunkirk, causing them to drop their bombs in the field and make ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... such a polite element abroad on polling day. Men are so respectful and hurl such affectionate terms at one another. Even the dogs are upset, and strut about in quite a different manner than on ordinary days, so puffed out with vanity are they, on account of their decorations. The members' wives and their friends are all taking part in the scene too, bringing voters along in their carriages, and shaking hands with everybody ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... there. The design of the car shows a radical departure from anything that had been previously attempted, and as a model an ordinary boat was taken. In shape it is as nearly streamline as is practicable, having a keel and ribs of wood with curved longitudinal members, the strut ends being housed in steel sockets. The whole frame is braced with piano wire set diagonally between the struts. The car is floored from end to end, and the sides are enclosed with 8-ply wood covered ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale |
