"Waist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which is almost shyness. Clearly, she knows it to be thus that she will be remembered; feels this to be the moment of her immortality. Her form is all but in profile, swaying far forward, but her face is full-turned to us. Her arms float upon the air. Below the stark ruff of muslin about her waist, her legs are as a tilted pair of compasses; one point in the air, the other impinging the ground. One tiptoe poised ever so lightly upon the earth, as though the muslin wings at her shoulders were not quite strong enough to bear her up into the sky! So she remains, hovering betwixt two ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... aback by his low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer into things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands behind his back—an unobtrusive personality, which would have been insignificant had ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... might come in the confusion of a hurried crossing, and here it was. He dived and swam down the stream toward the willows that lined the bank. When he could hold his breath no longer he came up in one of the thickest clumps. The water reached to his waist there, and standing on the bottom in all the density of willows and bushes he was hidden thoroughly from all except watchful searchers. And who would miss him at such a time, and who, if missing, would take the trouble to look for him while ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cloth clothes; his hair was held in at the nape of the next in a modish manner with a black taffeta bow. His hands were clean, slender, and claw-like, and he wore the tricolour scarf of office round his waist which proclaimed him to be a member of one of the numerous Committees which tyrannised ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... stupefaction at the stocking-cap and at the long flannel pyjama legs that depended from the body of the infant, around whose neck the waist was tightly drawn. Never since the world began had babe masqueraded in such attire. Aristide smiled his most ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... hopeless, am I not, Herr Arthmann?" Her voice was so frankly appealing, so rich in comic intention, that he sat down and laughed. She eagerly joined in: "And yet my waist is not so large as Mitwindt's. We always call her Bagpipes. She is absurd. And such a chest—! Why, I'm a mere child. Anyhow, all Germans like big singers, and all the German Wagner singers are big women, are they not, Herr Arthmann? There was Alboni and Parepa-Rosa—I know they ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... silver, with a deep sky blue velvet train six yards long, held up by six silver pages [or Cupids]; he in black and gold, with a purple velvet train of the same length held by six gold pages [or Cupids]. His arm is about her waist, she is leaning back her head against him and looking up into his face. They come in slowly, talking softly together, as utterly oblivious of the court, the pages, the music, everything, as if they were a shepherd and a shepherdess ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... There was a moment of silence. Then the ball shot back. Simmons caught it waist-high, dropped it, kicked and went down under the charge of the desperate second squad players. But the ball sailed over the cross-bar and ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and the cold is still freezing. All the wood inside was soon consumed, and the men were compelled to go outside the redoubt for it, and to split it, too. The storm was so fierce and wholly blinding that it was necessary to fasten the end of a rope around the waist of each man as he went out, and tie the other end to the entrance gate to prevent him from losing his direction and wandering out on the plains. Even with this precaution it was impossible for a man to remain out longer ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the bedside exactly as she had come from the carriage, save that a white gossamer web had dropped from her head and shoulders, and lay coiled about her waist. Her tearless eyes were wide and filled with painful meditation, even when she turned to the alarmed and astonished girl before her. With suppressed exclamations of wonder and pity the girl glided forward, cast her arms about the sitting figure, and ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... officer dead or wounded, the brave Dutch admiral hauled down his flag. Twice during the terrible combat had Admiral Duncan's flag been shot away. It was then that bold Jack Crawford, whose name indicates his Scottish origin, wrapped the colours round his waist, and providing himself with nails and a hammer, climbed nearly to the main-truck and nailed the ensign ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... John Melton, of Philadelphia," he shouted, and looked back to address them more directly. Alas, the pistols reposed in the pockets of the two prim aprons, the lantern smoked askew at Aunt Sarah's waist, and both women were holding their ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... only one welcomed by the throng. A great jurist, chrysanthemumed from collar to waist, bowed jovial acknowledgment of the applause his appearance summoned. The governor of a State came too to see once more the crimson of his alma mater clashing with the blue of her old enemy. Professors, who had put aside their books, beamed benevolently through their glasses as they walked ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... former times, the purse was carried hanging to a girdle round the waist, and great dexterity was requisite to cut and carry it away without the knowledge of the owner. Public executions for theft had so little effect in repressing crime, that thefts were committed in sight of, or even ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... heavy brass eyelets running down both edges. The width of this canvas is never the full girth of the human body it is to surround. The width is also irregular—broadest at the shoulders, next broadest at the hips, and narrowest at the waist. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening. It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with which they connect themselves to ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... his eyes looked as if they were hung from it. A fierce beak of a nose, very long and very thin, cut the air in front of him. His ague had caused him to swathe his throat and chin with a broad linen cravat, and he wore a loose damask powdering-gown secured by a cord round the waist. As he advanced he carried his masterful nose high in the air, but his head turned slowly from side to side in the helpless manner of the purblind, and he called in a high, querulous voice for ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nothing if not a "sport," so he grasped his sister around the waist and away they went down the hall at a great rate, Lucile singing like mad, until the sounds of merriment reached Mr. Payton in the library and out he came, paper in hand, to have ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... now so popular. When on the horse, it looks, as some one phrased it, as though one were riding side saddle on both sides. This is accomplished by having the fronts of the skirt double, free nearly to the waist, and, when off the horse, fastened by patent hooks. The back seam is also open, faced for several inches, stitched and closed by patent fasteners. Snug bloomers of the same material are worn underneath. The simplicity of ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... face, drawn as much with the pain of others as with its own weariness. His hair stood up in long tufts, his eyes had black circles under them. He wore neither coat nor waistcoat, and his regimental trousers were tied round the waist by a bit of rope. On the sleeve of his collarless shirt were three dark dry splashes; he noticed them as he raised his arm to put on his pith helmet. The words did not reach his lips, but his heart cried out within him for a boy of ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... continued the elder, 'let us talk for a few minutes before I go back: we may not meet again for some time.' She put her arm round the waist of Picotee, who did the same by Ethelberta; and thus interlaced they walked backwards and forwards upon the firm flat sand with the motion of one body ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... a slaughter-house with bloody floors and that their breakfast rolls, instead of coming ready-made into the world, are mixed and molded in bake-rooms where men work sweating by night, stripped to the waist, like stokers. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... spear-straight of stature and five feet tall; budding of bosom with eyes large and black as by Kohl traced, and dewy lips sweeter than syrup or the sherbet one sips, a virginette smooth cheeked and shapely faced, whose slender waist with massive hips was engraced; a form more pleasing than branchlet waving upon the top-most trees, and a voice softer and gentler than the morning breeze, even as saith one of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... face as white as a sheet, my eyes staring, my hair pouring down over my shoulders. I ran to the bureau and found a scissors. Then I hesitated a moment. You don't dream how hard it was to do. My hair was long, you see, below my waist. And I had always been proud ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... black velvet, edged with gold, was set upon it, and contrasted well with the bright locks, from which a curl, either by accident or design, had been loosened, and rippled over her shoulder, below her waist. ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... the audience, a sudden rising, a craning of necks. Everyone seemed to be looking for the person who had uttered the sudden cry. Before anyone fully realized what had happened, Grace had reached the fainting woman's side, and supporting her with an arm about her waist, was leading her toward the rear of ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... stood on the little mound, from which I had sprung, like so many petrifactions: Rose, just as he had caught Louise back on firmer ground, when she was about to follow me, his arm wound swiftly round her waist, yet his head thrust forward eagerly, his pale face and glowing eyes bent, not on her, but me. Still he never stirred, and poor Mr. Dudley first came to my assistance. We all drew breath at our escape, and, a little slowly, on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the waist and bathed in cold water; even then it seemed to him that his flesh was heavy and dull and yellow, that he was growing obese and out of all condition. He put on a clean shirt and collar, sat down on his bed and ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the poor man. He had taken refuge under the prow of another boat, and was standing in the water up to his waist. The angry vociferation of his pursuers, did not intimidate him. He defied them all. 'Don't you dare to come near me, or I will sink you in the river.' He was armed with despair. For a moment the mob was palsied by the energy of his threatenings. They ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... New York" was quite different and more attractive, Imogen thought. She had never seen any one in the least like her. Rather tall, with a long slender throat, a waist of fabulous smallness, and hands which, in their gants de Suede, did not seem more than two inches wide, she gave the impression of being as fragile in make and as delicately fibred as an exotic flower. She had ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be!— Properly based Oun— 130 Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews! Here's the top-peak; the multitude below Live, for they ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had seemed to hesitate whether or no she should advance to Florence, held her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her, close about her waist, as if to reassure her and comfort her. Not one word passed the lady's lips. She bent her head down over Florence, and she kissed her on the cheek, but ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... visit from the doctor, Mrs. Preston found on her return from the school a woman's bicycle leaning against the gate. Under the arbor sat the owner of the bicycle, fanning herself with a little "perky" hat. She wore a short plaid skirt, high shoes elaborately laced, and a flaming violet waist. Her eyes were travelling over the cottage and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... should be made with, so to speak, no neck through which the heat which one produces can leak out. The headpiece must be attached to the tunic, which also clips tight round the wrists and round the waist to retain the heat. The edges may be bound with fur, especially about the hood, so as to be soft and tight about the face, and to keep the air out. The Eskimo cuts his own hair so as to fill that function. Light sealskin boots are best for all weathers, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... decks, in the ship's waist, is the propelling power: fifty-four benches or banks, twenty-seven a side, support each four or five slaves, whose whole business in life is to tug at the fifty-four oars. This flagship is a Christian vessel, so the rowers ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... board one of the king's frigates, went and returned the visit at Aigues-Mortes, where Francis, with his whole court, was awaiting him; after disembarkation at the port they embraced; and Queen Eleanor, glad to see them together, "embraced them both," says an eyewitness, "a round the waist." They entered the town amidst the roar of artillery and the cheers of the multitude, shouting, "Hurrah! for the emperor and the king!" The dauphin, Henry, and his brother Charles, Duke of Orleans, arriving boot and spur from ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... slenderness, but the warm softness was gone. It was a flesh-warm waist of flexible steel. I was being held by a statue of bronze, animated by some monster servo-mechanism. This was ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Haye, a shrewish young woman with an ill-tempered face, a waist that could scarcely be called slender, a thin figure, and colorless, fair hair, in spite of a certain little air that she had, was by no means easy to marry. The "parentage unknown" on her birth certificate was the real bar to her entrance into the sphere where her godmother's affection stove to ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... kind of food, eaten in an entirely different way, and under entirely different circumstances. There was experience to be gained as to washing clothes—I can almost see Frank now by a certain kind of stream, stripped to the waist, waiting while his shirt dried, smoking an ill-rolled cigarette, yet alert for the gamekeeper. Above all, there was an immense volume of learning—or, rather, a training of instinct—to be gained respecting human ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... sunk to his waist, and it was only a question of minutes ere the slimy ooze would close over his head. It was a situation that demanded instant action. For a moment Charley stood silent beside the captain gazing hopelessly at his doomed chum. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... hands and prayer, even when the person baptized is in the water. Their habit seems to be peculiar to themselves, consisting of a long tunic or coat, reaching down to their heels, with a sash or girdle round the waist, and a cap or hood hanging from the shoulders. They do not shave ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... officers, who succeeded in having such a uniform. But the great mass of our rebel troops had no uniforms at all. They wore a hunting shirt or smock frock which was merely a cheap cotton shirt belted round the waist and with the ends hanging outside over the hips instead of being tucked into the trousers. Into the loose bosom of this garment above the belt could be stuffed bread, pork, and all sorts of ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... men beaten until they dropped in their tracks or knocked over by clubs, women stripped down to their waist and cowhided. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... strange man like a black bear in the drawing-room, and he has got his arm round Aunt Bertha's waist.' ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... emotions which always were a credit to you, although in those days gone by I didn't tell you so. Your hair was black then, Robert, and you looked taller, for you hadn't a stoop, and your face was very smooth, and so was mine, and I remember I had on a white dress with a broad ribbon around the waist, and neither of us wore specs. What you said to me was very fresh and sweet, Robert, and it all comes to me now as it never came before. You have never loved another, Robert, and you don't know how happy it makes me to think that, and to know that I can come to ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... open the canteen and hold it to her lips. Only a few drops were left when she managed to thrust it away. He put his uninjured arm about her slender waist and lifted her to ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... bow To Arthur, then to all the court. "And now," Said he to Gawayne, "wheresoe'er you choose To strike your blow, strike on; I'll not refuse; Head, shoulders, chest, or waist, I little reck; Where shall it be?" Quoth Gawayne, ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... Thackeray looked after her with a smile, which was exchanged for another of different character when she found herself in the chamber of Margaret. She put her arms about the waist of the sufferer; kissed her cheeks, and with the tenderest solicitude spoke of her health and comfort. To her, alone, with the exception of her mother—according to the belief of Margaret—her true ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... complications, but this is the chief one, and it is worked out in Mr. Phillpotts' best West-country manner. I accept Faith and salute her, but it is before her mother that I completely bow the knee. Mrs. Tresilion was paralysed up to her waist, which was just as well, for if her activities had not been limited she would have swamped the whole book. As it was she lay in bed, drank gin, directed various operations with her eye fixed rather upon this world than the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... Sire's arm she leant, And round her waist his arm did fold; And forth into the world they went, To glad the grieved, to warm the cold. Across the town, and far away, Of kindness full, and frolic whim, To cheer all hearts went Christmas Day, That white-wing'd Presence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... good gifts she added that of being a first-rate cook. And oh, how often and how bitterly, in my transatlantic household tribulations, have I deplored that her apron had not fallen on my shoulders or round my waist! Whether she derived this taste and talent from her French blood, I know not, but it amounted to genius, and might have made her a pre-eminent cordon bleu, if she had not been the wife, and cheffe, of a poor professional gentleman, whose moderate means were so skillfully turned ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... they sing merrily on their way "home" to the jail. Once I recall seeing two hundred prisoners, all armed with long knives, engaged in cutting weeds along the roadside, chanting happily as they slashed, while a solitary native dressed only in a waist-cloth and armed only with a club stood guard at one end of the line, and this not near the prison, but in a lonely wood fully a mile ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... part of the Suomi Jehu's attire was his petticoat. He had a double-breasted blue-cloth coat fastening down the side, which at the waist was pleated on to the upper part in great fat folds more than an inch wide, so that from behind he almost looked like a Scheveningen fishwife; while, if he was not fat enough for fashionable requirements, he wore an additional pillow before and behind, and tied ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... man, who had seen some ninety summers; his long beard descended below the girdle which confined his brown tunic at the waist. It was Haga, the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... to say—rude?" laughingly asked the one who had first spoken. "Come, now, 'fess up! Weren't you?" and the shorter of the twain, a girl rather plump and pretty, with merry brown eyes, put her arm about the waist of her sister and endeavored to lead her through the maze of chairs in the whirl of a dance, whistling, meanwhile, a joyous strain from one ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... muslin, the front of which was concealed by her white bib-apron, and her abundant glossy hair was brushed straight back from her brow, confined at the top of her head by a blue ribbon, and thence fell in shining waves below her waist. One hand hung listlessly at her side, the other clasped the drooping lily and held it ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... very tall and slender, with a long black pigtail, swung out upon the ice. She caught the music with a faultless steadiness and swing. Her eyes were fixed on the mountains; her flexible hips and waist swung her to and fro as easily as a winter bird hovers balanced on its steady pinions. Out of the crowd her partner, a huge black-bearded Russian, glided toward her, caught her by the waist, lifted her, and flung her from side to side in great swirls and resounding leaps. Her skirts ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... always something more frightful to come; this woman following that other one increased the general shudder of horror. From the neck of a girl of twenty who had a crushed, flattened head like a toad's, there hung so large a goitre that it fell even to her waist like the bib of an apron. A blind woman walked along, her head erect, her face pale like marble, displaying the acute inflammation of her poor, ulcerated eyes. An aged woman stricken with imbecility, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... any shadow, even stopping as he passed young Bawdrey's on his way back to his own to peep in there. Yes; he, too, had got his share of the effective draught, for there he lay snarled up in the bedclothes, with his arms over his head and his knees drawn up until they were on a level with his waist, and his handsome boyish face a little paler ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... while, Through valley deep and dark defile, Are riding on the Chistians' track, All armed in steel from breast to back; Their lances poised, their helmets laced, Their falchions glittering from the waist, Their bucklers from the shoulder swung, And so they ride the steeps among, Till, in a forest on the height, They rest to wait the morning light, Four hundred thousand crouching there. O God! the ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... necromancer, and can raise the dead out of their graves to make them marry and beget those they never heard of in their lifetime. His coat is, like the King of Spain's dominions, all skirts, and hangs as loose about him; and his neck is the waist, like the picture of Nobody with his breeches fastened to his collar. He will sell the head or a single joint of a beast or fowl as dear as the whole body, like a pig's head in Bartholomew Fair, and after put off the rest to his customers at the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Everybody in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders weren't long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind—nobody but me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I threw the old man the end of it. He caught it and I told him to tie it around his waist. He did so, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thrown from the shop-window of a shoemaker, suddenly illuminated from the waist down the figure of the woman who was before the young man. Ah! surely, she alone had that swaying figure; she alone knew the secret of that chaste gait which innocently set into relief the many beauties of that attractive form. Yes, that was the shawl, and that the velvet bonnet ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... obeyed him, and he took her on his knee, but in her secret soul she was utterly aloof from him. The poor thing saw only that the world was not ordered to her liking, and Lydgate was part of that world. But he held her waist with one hand and laid the other gently on both of hers; for this rather abrupt man had much tenderness in his manners towards women, seeming to have always present in his imagination the weakness of their frames and the delicate poise ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... that cause you dismay? Where can one possibly have better quarters than in a church?" he said soulfully. He gently put his arm around her waist, and with his other hand grasped her hand. Then he led her to a seat, gently forced her to sit down and himself sat down beside her. She dropped her eyes and toyed with the ribbons on the gay-colored bodice ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... arrived there, and had told them wherefore he was come, they took and condemned him to death, to wit, to be burned for an heretic. Now he was to ride from the prison to the place of execution upon an ass, with his face to the beast's tail, and was to be stripped from the shoulders to the waist, that he might be tormented all the way he went with burning torches continually thrust to his sides; but he, nothing at all afraid, spake in his exhortation to the people to fly from their sin and idolatry; he would also catch hold of the torches and put them to his sides, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in this kind of courtesy, returned the compliment with such good-will, that Tom's organ performed the office of a multiplying-glass. These were mutual hints for stripping, and, accordingly, each was naked from the waist upwards in a trice. A ring of butchers from the market was immediately formed; a couple of the reverend flamens, who, in morning gowns, ply for marriages in that quarter of the town, constituted themselves seconds and umpires of the approaching contest, and the battle began ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... full of the perfume of roses. They blossomed everywhere. There was a pink bud in John's buttonhole, and a red one in Sir Peter's. Phyllis had a great bunch of white roses at her waist. Her gown was white, too: soft and lacy and clinging. That would have been John's description of it; ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... dispositions, behaving to each other with much civility, and shewing no appearance of wildness or savageness in their behaviour. Their bodies were not painted like those of the islanders they had seen hitherto, but very handsomely cloathed from the waist downwards, with a sort of silk fringes very neatly arranged. On their heads they wore hats of a very neat-looking stuff, very large and wide spreading, in order to keep off the sun, and their necks were adorned with collars or garlands ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... fallen in love with at all beautiful? No. I can see her now. She had a splotch of vermilion on either cheek, short soft arms, horrible wooden hands, and long sprawling legs. Her flowered petticoat was fastened at the waist with two pins. Even now I cans see the balck heads of those two pins. It was a decidedly vulgar doll—smelt of the faubourg. I remember perfectly well that, child as I was then, before I had put on my first pair of trousers, I was quite conscious ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... of the richest silk, both profusely decorated with gold filigree buttons; purple velvet breeches fastened at the knee with bunches of ribands; silk stockings, and falling boots of chamois leather, by the most expert maker in Cordova; a crimson silk sash round his waist, and round his neck a silk handkerchief, of which the ends were drawn through a magnificent jewelled ring. A green velvet cap, ornamented with sables and silver, and an ample cloak trimmed with silver lace, the spoil of a commandant of French ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... her slender waist The beauteous robe she wore; Its folds a golden belt embraced, One rose-hued ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... with feet stuck into old shoes, turned under at the heels for convenience sake. A remark from the cribber touches his pride, and borrowing a few pins he commences pinning together the shattered threads of his nether garment. A rope-yarn secured about his waist gives a sailor-like air to his outfit. But, notwithstanding Tom affects the trim of the craft, the skilled eye can easily detect the deception; for the craftsman, even under a press of head sail, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... knowing what is the crime with which they are charged. Removing the jar of water and the can of food from my pony's back, without stopping to think why I did it, but following a sort of instinct which afterwards saved me from perishing, I fastened these articles on my shoulders and around my waist; then, sobbing, threw my arms around poor pony's neck, and with a pang bade him good-by. He flew snorting away to his stable, where I have no doubt he soon found comfort in a quart or two of rice ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... be with this sheikh! Perhaps he was the gate-keeper of the city, and these were under his authority." He therefore drew near to him, and lifted up his garments, and, lo, the keys were hung to his waist. At the sight of them, Abd-Es-Samad rejoiced exceedingly; and he took the keys, opened the locks, and pulled the gate and the barricades and other apparatus, which opened and the gate also opened, with a noise like thunder. Upon this the sheikh exclaimed: ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... fit as a fiddle after my walk. I am four inches bigger about the waist than last July! There, that's your prophecy did that. I am on 'Charles of Orleans' now, but I don't know where to send him. Stephen obviously spews me out of his mouth, and I spew him out of mine, so help me! A man who doesn't like ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chaste, flowing white. Automatically, he surveyed them, checking. The priest's right shoe was twice as broad as his left, the rabbi's head, beneath the black cap that covered it, was long and thin as a zucchini squash. The witchman, defiantly bare and black as ebony from the waist up, had a tiny duplicate of his own handsome head sprouting from the base of his sternum. The visible deformities of the lama and abbess were concealed beneath their flowing robes. But they were there—they ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... there was never a word spoken in the Island. Con had been well liked, God rest his soul!—but the man was drowned nigh upon twenty years ago. There was some old tragic tale about it, how he had volunteered to swim with a rope round his waist to a ship breaking up a few yards from the rocks in a sea that a gannet could scarcely live upon. He had pushed aside the men who remonstrated with him, turning on them a face ghastly in the moonlight. 'Stand aside, men,' he cried, 'and ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... thumping went on more vigorously than before, and Rose, recognizing the voices, peeped through the half-open door to behold a sight which made her shake with suppressed laughter. Steve, with a red tablecloth tied around his waist, languished upon Mac's shoulder, dancing in perfect time to the air he whistled, for Dandy was proficient in the graceful art and plumed himself upon his skill. Mac, with a flushed face and dizzy eye, clutched his brother ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... sun, darting his golden javelins high up into the blue majestical canopy; and cheerily into the water, now burnished by the sunbeams, sprang Alfred Redsull, danger and hardship all forgotten, with a line round his waist, to guide and help the exhausted man away from the deadly 'fox-falls,' which were full of swirling water, and at last into the lifeboat. Then with bated breath they learned the story,—that all the rest were gone, and that the captain himself was the solitary survivor. ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... drew out his sword, and hurtled his horse unto him fiercely, and through the waist of the body he smote Sir Segwarides that he fell to the earth in a swoon. And so Sir Tristram departed and left him there. And so he rode unto Tintagil and took his lodging secretly, for he would not be known that he was ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Chinese neighbours, and is severely utilitarian in cut, differing little for men or women. The working dress of Haiphong was full, long, square-cut trousers over which fell a sort of prolonged shirt slashed to the waist. When at work the front panel was tucked up out of the way. All alike wore huge straw hats tied ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... crime which she had committed, but he did not catch the broken words, nor did he wish to hear them, for he was dulled by his sorrow. So they continued walking together in sadness as it were for ever, he with his arm about her waist, she turning her head to him and often casting her eyes down ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... sister-in-law about the waist, waltzed away towards the stairs and forced her to ascend, while Mr. Mellen stood looking after them with a pleasant smile on ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... woods in the utmost stress of service. Barlow stands in the group just as he looked in college, the face thin and beardless, almost that of a boy, and marked with the nonchalance which always characterised him. There are no military trappings, a rough checked shirt, trousers, slouching from the waist to campaign boots, hang loosely about the attenuated limbs. Soon after that he was carried from the field, not wounded, but in utter exhaustion after exposures which no power of will could surmount. A few months' respite and he was at his post again, intercepting by a swift march Lee's retreating ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... noisily with their loads of coffee-sacks, the drivers shouting as only a Haitian negro can shout. At the wharf, each cart was at once surrounded by a cluster of negroes, each one striving to outshout his fellows, while the bawling of the driver rose high above all. Lines of negroes, naked to the waist, sacks on their glistening backs, poured out from the warehouses like ants from an anthill, but yelling to out-vie the carters. The tiny car-line seemed to exist only to give opportunity for the perpetual clanging of the gong; and the toy wharf railway expended as much steam on its ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... embrasure of the window rose, and turning round fully confronted all the men. Her black cloak falling back on either side, disclosed her figure robed in dead white, with a scarlet sash binding her waist. Her face, pale and serene, was not beautiful; yet beauty was suggested in every feature. Her eyes seemed to be half closed in a drooping indifference under the white lids, which were fringed heavily with dark gold lashes. A sculptor might have said, that whatever claim to beauty she had was contained ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... noon of colour, lay about her throat, as once they lay upon the shoulders of the dead queens of Yaque and, before them, of the women of the elder dynasties long since recorded in indifferent dust. Girdling her waist was a zone of rubies that burned positive in the tempered light. With all her delicacy, Olivia was like her rubies—vivid, graphic, delineated not by light but ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... to-day, darling?" I asked my little wife as I slipped one hand round her waist and took the cigar from between my lips with the other; "shall we ascend grim Pilatus, or cog-wheel it up the Rigi and have lunch at the little hotel at the top, or shall we idle away the day in a boat on the lake? ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... the second tier of cellars by means of an endless chain, on to which the baskets of bottles are swiftly hooked. The workman engaged in this duty, in order to prevent his falling down the shaft, has a leather belt strapped round his waist, by means of which he is secured to an adjoining iron column. We descend into the lower cellars down a flight of ninety-three broad steps—a depth equal to the height of an ordinary six-storied house—and find no less than four-and-twenty galleries excavated ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... the most marked contrast in their appearance being in their dress. General Jackson wore broadcloth of the cut seen in all his older portraits; Joe Daviess wore buckskin breeches and a hunting shirt belted at the waist, both richly fringed on the leg and sleeve. The suit was the same that he had worn when he rode over the Alleghanies to Washington, to plead the historic case before the Supreme Court. But the rudest garb could never make him seem other than ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... the Princesse smiling, as she put an arm round her friend's waist and entered the studio, "You have certainly had an excitement! What of the courageous ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... state-room—the portmanteau was open—and in another moment I held the piece of quilted cork in my hands. In a few seconds its strap was over my head, and the strings securely knotted around my waist. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... least, so Watty described it within my hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... slowly;—as though he would not have said it, if he could have helped it. And then his arm crept slowly round her waist, as though in that also he ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... hundred and fifty of them, in calm, comfortable rows: lovingly side by side they lay, with the great moon shining down upon them—thin at the tip, full in the waist, elegantly round and full, a little spot here and there shining upon them—beauty-spots upon the cheek of Sylvia. The house was quite quiet. Dawdley always smoked in his room—I had not smoked for four months and ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dragging the poor beast about this way and that, so that he staggered and could scarcely keep his legs; another caught the bridle-reins in his mouth; while a third fixed his fangs in the heel of my boot. After eyeing me for some moments, the grizzled old herdsman, who wore a knife a yard long at his waist, advanced to the rescue. He shouted at the dogs, and finding that they would not obey, sprang forward and with a few dexterous blows, dealt with his heavy whip-handle, sent them away howling with rage and pain. Then he welcomed ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... a girl— Heigho! heigho! Coral lips and teeth of pearl; Heigho! heigho! Then 'twas hers, her arms to twine Round my neck, as at Love's shrine, Soft I zoned her waist with mine, Heigho! heigho! Beauty's grown a woman now, Heigho! heigho! Haughty mein and haughty brow, Heigho! heigho! Tossing high her head in air, As if she deems her charms so rare, Will ever be what once they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... found him sitting by a little pool, propped against a stone. He had been an ugly man originally, but now that the bones of his jaw and face were broken in pieces by the bullet, he was hideous to look upon. His only garment was a ragged blue linen cloak fastened at the waist. There he sat—a typical tribesman, ignorant, degraded, and squalid, yet brave and warlike; his only property, his weapon, and that his countrymen had carried off. I could not help contrasting his intrinsic value as a social organism, with that of the officers who had been killed during ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... stripped her to the waist, and then for decency—their decency!—had thrown a jacket of coarse sacking over her, lacing it loosely in front with pack-thread. But, because their work required it, this garment had been gathered up into a rope at the neck, whence ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... officers of my staff. There was no military order, but the place was occupied by a crowd of soldiers, mingled with many native allies, under the command of an extremely blackguard-looking savage, dressed in a long scarlet cloak made of woollen cloth. This was belted round his waist, to which was suspended a crooked Turkish sabre; he wore a large brass medal upon his breast, which somewhat resembled those ornaments that undertakers use for giving a lively appearance to coffins. This fellow was introduced ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Ps would take footpaths haphazard across fields, and plunge into unknown winding lanes between high hedges of honeysuckle and dogrose. Greatly daring, they would follow green bridle paths through primrose studded undergrowths, or wander waist deep in the bracken of beech woods. About twenty miles from Port Burdock there came a region of hop gardens and hoast crowned farms, and further on, to be reached only by cheap tickets at Bank Holiday times, was a sterile ridge ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... indeed, the appearance of these two people was well calculated to inspire: the woman was a stout figure, seemingly between thirty and forty; she wore no cap, and her long hair fell on either side of her head like horse-tails half-way down her waist; her skin was dark and swarthy, like that of a toad, and the expression of her countenance was particularly evil; her arms were bare, and her bosom was but half concealed by a slight bodice, below which she wore a coarse petticoat, her only other ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... quite natural; it seemed quite natural that he should relent, overcome by such filial tears, and by so much beauty; but, to her thinking, it was at any rate equally natural, that having relented, John should put his arm round his mistress's waist, and say: "Now having settled that, let us be man and wife, and all will end happily!" Why his good nature should not be rewarded, when such reward would operate to the disadvantage of none, Mary, who had more sense than ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... turned round. There was not a tremor of fear in her behaviour, and she marched directly up to me like a queen. I was barefoot, and clad like a common sailor, save for an Egyptian scarf round my waist; and she probably took me at first for some one from the fisher village, straying after bait. As for her, when I thus saw her face to face, her eyes set steadily and imperiously upon mine, I was filled with admiration and astonishment, and thought her even more beautiful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... paradise, all white and yellow. These Indians spoke the language of Ternate, and some of them could speak a little Spanish and Malayan, in which last language Clawson the merchant was well skilled. All the people in these canoes were finely clothed from the waist downwards, some with loose silken robes, and others with breeches, and several had silken turbans on their head, being Mahometans. All of them had jet black hair, and wore many gold and silver rings on their fingers. They bartered their provisions with the Dutch for beads and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... had a large head, he wore of necessity a large cap, with a long frontispiece and with a button on the top. His coat was what is called a "roundabout," scarcely reaching to his waist, but it abounded with pockets, as did the vest which it partly inclosed. His trousers were coarse, thick, and comfortable, and his large boots were never touched by blacking, Nick's father having no belief in such nonsense, but sticking ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... into a beautiful waltz, and Frank and Phebe were the first on the floor, his arm about her waist, her ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... at which the school in placing its students must look. To be a desirable candidate for a good position a girl need not be expensively gowned, but she must be daintily and freshly dressed. Immaculate shirt waist, a plain, well-made skirt, with good shoes, stockings and gloves and a quiet, pretty hat, are all any woman needs in meeting her business obligations. And that daintiness which she shows in her dress ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... red, yellow, and green, which was closed over the chest by a row of silver buttons attached to one another like the links of a chain. Their costume was completed by a pair of short breeches of the same color as the jacket, tied round the waist by a band ornamented by a large stud of chiselled silver,—a red cravat, and woollen stockings reaching to the knee. In short, below the waist their dress was that of a priest, and above it, that of a harlequin. One of them had coins ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... is getting low, and the water in this arm of it is hardly more than waist-deep anywhere. So it is not at all extraordinary that the boat should be anchored in mid-stream. On the bank, to my right, the ryots are ploughing and cows are now and then brought down to the water's edge for a drink. ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... tears rolled down her cheeks as the girls compressed her into the plum-colored gown with its short waist, leg-of-mutton sleeves, and narrow skirt. But a worked scarf hid all deficiencies, and the towering cap struck awe into the soul of ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... on the upraised booty, made one whole revolution, her soft crinoline ballooning and subsiding with a seductive swish as she paused: "And you shall share these blessings, grannie, love, although of the assets themselves"—she returned the bag to its sanctuary and smoothed the waist where the paper proceeds of the schoolmistress's gold still hid—"you shall never handle ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... resistless. And whatever was to come, in that hour the great priest of Love in the white robe of innocence had made them one. The air about them was full of strange delight, They were in deep dusk as they neared the house. For one moment of long-remembered joy she let him put his arm about her waist, but when he kissed her cheek she ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... helped their leader into the saddle. Marto, crestfallen and silently anticipating the worst, was led out next; a reata passed around the saddle horn and circling his waist was fastened back of the saddle. His hands were free to guide his horse, but Chappo, with a wicked looking gun and three full cartridge belts, rode a few paces back of him to see that he made no ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... a badge of office. Upon his immature chest, concealed by his waist-coat, was an eight-pointed star emblazoned with an open eye. Billy had once proudly confided to me that the star was "pure German Silver." A year before he had answered an advertisement which made known that a trusty man was ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... them, and to turn their gaiety off in praise of the roses. She got a vase for them, and set it on the table. He noticed for the first time the pretty house- dress she had on, with its barred corsage and under-skirt, and the heavy silken rope knotted round it at the waist, and dropping in heavy tufts ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... but it was really too much of an effort to commit first one foot and then the other for the reception of my socks, and when that operation was accomplished a long interval always elapsed before I could devote my energy to the steering of my arms into sleeves, and the disposal of my waist to the adjustment of a sash. Indeed, I believe I am doing myself more than justice when I put forward two hours as the time spent in personal decoration ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... an American one named the Argo, and she was bound for London. The voyage was every way pleasant, lasting but twenty-five days from land to land, with bright skies, quiet sea, and fair winds. Their berths were in the waist of the ship, in the second cabin, all the places in the first cabin having been taken; this pleased them well, for they loved the poor man's lot. Isaac's passage money was paid by his brothers, and he was supplied by them and his ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... week older than Dorothea and one inch (they measured upon the verandah wall) taller. Her waist was two sizes larger; her boots and gloves were three. In every way she was cast in a different mould from Dorothea. She was a heavily built girl, who looked at sixteen as though her teens were a year or two behind her. Her features were pronounced—high cheek-bones, square ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... One person can have room enough on this second seat, but it usually carries two. Invariably the drosky is lined with dark-blue cloth, and the drosky-driver wears a dark-blue wrapper, coming to the feet, girded around the waist by a crimson sash. He also wears a bell-shaped hat, turned up at the side. You are a little in doubt, if you see him at first separated from his drosky, whether he is a market-woman or a serving-man, the dress being very much like a morning wrapper. But he is rarely six ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... There was no time to lose. "I think that almost deserves a kiss," he said, placing an arm round her waist. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... with one of the college tutors, whose influence was to be the spark which should at last fire the clay. This modest, heroic, and learned man was a paralyzed invalid, owing to an accident in the prime of life. He had lost the use of his lower limbs—"dead from the waist down." Yet such was the strength of his moral and intellectual life that he had become, since the catastrophe, one of the chief forces of his college. The invalid-chair on which he wheeled himself, recumbent, from room to room, and from which he gave his lectures, was, in ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seen any churchyard comparable to this one; happy, serene dead, to sleep amid such blossoms and consecration! Good taste prevailed here; distinguished men lay beneath memorial stones that came no higher than your waist or shoulder; there was a total absence of obscure grocers reposing under gigantic obelisks; to earn a monument here you must win a battle, or do, at any rate, something more than adulterate sugar ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... still he seemed to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced; For all might see the bottle necks Still dangling at his waist. ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... she spoke, and I saw that her body was evidently incased in some kind of rigid and unyielding garment, and that her waist was surely not the waist of nature. I gazed as intently as decorum would permit—for I am but a student of cities and of men—and I was sure that my lovely companion's body was more cruelly compressed than the feet of my adorable countrywomen, and her panting ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... ride home a few nights after, but Flosi gave him a scarlet cloak, and it was embroidered with needlework down to the waist. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... the oval glasses out of a pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article long associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays—an appearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a series of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... front of the log fire, pulling Vixen's auburn hair. The girl had put on a picturesque brown velvet frock. A scarlet sash was tied loosely round her willowy waist, and a scarlet ribbon held back the rippling masses ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... together: and I conversed with him, and with Colonel B—, who joined us; and in this manner the hour for the assembly approached. God knows, I was thinking of nothing, when who should enter but the honourable Lady accompanied by her noble husband and their silly, scheming daughter, with her small waist and flat neck; and, with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. As I heartily detest the whole race, I determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable Miss B—came in. As I ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... together by the fire, Griffith with his arm thrown round the girl's waist, and she with both her plump, flexible hands clasped on his shoulder and her chin resting on them, and her big, round eyes gazing up into his. She was prone to affectionate, nestling attitudes and coaxing ways—with Griffith it may be understood—her ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett |
