"Lean against" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment was when the waiters stood in a row; but even then he contrived to lean against the wall just round the corner in such a way that for that important instant the waiters thought him a gentleman, while the gentlemen thought him a waiter. The rest went like winking. If any waiter caught him away from the table, that waiter caught a languid aristocrat. He had only to time ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... considered what a flurry she had been in, was to cry afresh; and the next thing, when she reflected how well she had got over it, was to laugh heartily. The tears once banished gave place to the smiles, and at last Dolly laughed so much that she was fain to lean against a tree, and give vent to her exultation. When she could laugh no longer, and was quite tired, she put her head-dress to rights, dried her eyes, looked back very merrily and triumphantly at the Warren chimneys, which were just visible, and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Dick found he could move about very easily. Then the hip would stiffen and he would be obliged to lean against a ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... Yudhishthira, limb by limb. He united his life-breaths with the king's life-breaths, and his senses with the king's senses. Verify, with the aid of Yoga-power, Vidura, blazing with energy, thus entered the body of king Yudhishthira the just. Meanwhile, the body of Vidura continued to lean against the tree, with eyes fixed in a steadfast gaze. The king soon saw that life had fled out of it. At the same time, he felt that he himself had become stronger than before and that he had acquired many additional virtues and accomplishments. Possessed of great learning and energy, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... brokenly and weakly, "oh, faither, I've come back. Jist let me lie here near you. I jist want you to clap my held, to lean against you, an' gang to sleep. Are you angry wi' me, faither? Are you—" and Mysie's eyes closed in a faint, as she lay limp against ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... he could, took her home. It was a hard journey, which he would have made easier for her if he could have got her to lean against him. But she sat erect, holding herself with a white face and compressed lips, and Jarvis, thinking things he dared not put into words, drove with as little jolt and jar as might be back ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... though and dreary With factory smoke, spreads outward to the West; I lie down on the parched-up grass, if weary, Or lean against ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... if you'll excuse the expression, Miss Hands, how that feller did holler! Me and Si come hikin' out, thought he was killed and got the hives besides; when we see what was up, we sot down and laughed till, honest, we had to lean against one another or we'd rolled over an' over on the ground. Hossy held on like a good 'un till I told him to let go, and then he dropped the pants and went to work eatin' grass as if nothin' had been goin' on ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... was too much exhausted and alarmed to make any answer, and even when the steward set him on his legs, he had to lean against the ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... grinned and I got in and the cab started. A hansom cab is better than any carriage you ever rode in, with soft cushions to lean against and little looking-glasses to look at yourself in, and, somehow, you don't hear the wheels. I leaned back and looked at myself and felt like a duchess, for I had my new hat and mantle on, and I knew I looked nice by the way the ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... his mouth, and also in his mouth there was a wisp of straw. The steel-blue smoke floated out lazily, which his steel-blue eyes regarded with appreciation. It was an Elysium of indolence. The cigar, the not having to kill anybody for a few minutes, and a place to lean against, these were content. Troubadour phrases droned soothingly in his brain. Of course he had ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... that he was weakened and dizzy with the conflicting emotions with which he had been battling, he missed his footing and fell, twisting his ankle, on the side of the embankment. He rose with an effort and put his foot to the ground, but a sharp pain obliged him to lean against the trunk of a neighboring ash-tree. His foot felt as heavy as lead, and every time he tried to straighten it his sufferings were intolerable. All he could do was to drag himself along from one tree to another until ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... up again, and another dance began, the enthusiasts forgetting Bill as quickly as they had saluted him; but the ex-watchman continued to lean against the post, a picture of sullenness, and in the box The Lily stood with knitted brows, as if ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... in a wail of passionate sorrow; and clasping her hands before her face, she wept for the first time that day. The violence of her sobs shook her slender frame, and she was obliged to lean against the trunk of a ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... had not known that there were people who traveled in such a manner; that wants could be so perfectly foreseen; that railroad officials, porters at stations, the staff of restaurants, could be by magic transformed into active and eager servants. To lean against the upholstered back of a railway carriage and in luxurious ease look through the window at passing beauties, and then to find books at your elbow and excellent meals appearing at regular hours, these unknown perfections made it necessary for him at times to pull himself together ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... continued Mr. Harper, "while I am alone with you and my wife"—here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind—"I wanted to talk with you, Anne, about some ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... hand, "I do think I am vastly hungry after all." So back we went together and, reaching the fire, found the accursed bird burned black as any coal, whereupon I stood mighty downcast and abashed the while she laughed and laughed until she needs must lean against a tree; and I, seeing her thus merry at my expense, presently laughed also. Hereupon she falls on her knees, and taking the thing from the fire sets it upon a great leaf for dish, and turns it ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... way to do it!" cried Bob. "Soon you will be able to stand up without anything to lean against. And, a little later, you will be able to walk on your hind legs. Now here's an apple ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... sheep business looks like they was goin' into partnership," he muttered. "Leave it to a woman to fool a man every time. And him pertendin' to be all for the long-horns!" He saw the girl turn from Corliss, bury her face in her arms, and lean against the tree beneath which they were standing. Fadeaway grinned. "Women are all crooked, when they want to be," he remarked,—"or any I ever knowed. If they can't work a guy by talkin' and lovin', then they take ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... comparative solitude. Here, in uninterrupted quiet, and in a room devoted to his use, Mr. Browning would work till the afternoon was advanced, and then set forth on a long walk over the cliffs, often in the face of a wind which, as he wrote of it at the time, he could lean against as if it were a wall. And during this time he was living, not only in his work, but with the man who had inspired it. The image of Aristophanes, in the half-shamed insolence, the disordered majesty, in which he is placed before the reader's mind, was present to him from the first moment in which ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the sickening feeling that came over me. It was not the first man I had seen killed in my life, but it was the first whose blood and brains had spurted into my face. My knees shook and my head swam; I was obliged to lean against the wall, or I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... lean against the side of the fireplace. "To a councilor belonging to the parliament, sire, whose name ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I'm going to do directly I'm grown up!" Fauvette had confided to her chums. "I'll buy a white boating costume, exactly like that girl's with the auburn hair, and lean against blue cushions while HE rows. He'll have to have brown eyes, but I've not quite decided yet whether he shall have a moustache or not. On the whole I think ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... the neighborhood are equally oblivious to modern opinion. They consent to lean against each other while jointly turning an indifferent face to the world, like a man about whose ugliness there is no dispute. No two run consecutively with the walks, and all together present a sky-line that ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... sitting room, whose whole side opened to the outer balcony first seen from the street. The master braced himself against a worn davenport, sitting on a covered mattress on the cement floor. Yoganandaji and I sat near the guru's feet, with orange-colored pillows to lean against and ease our ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... quinined, low-dieted, bathed, comforted and reproved for swearing by a college-educated nurse, who liked his principles and disapproved of his professions just as frankly as if he came from her hometown. (Her name was Van-something-or-other, and you could lean against the Boston accent—just a little lonely-sounding, but a very rock of gentle independence, all ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... never faltered in my faith, and in the darkest hours, when misfortunes seemed thronging most thickly upon us, I have never felt the want of anything to lean against; but I own I did feel like shaking hands with a few hundred people when I heard of our Fourth of July, 1863, work, and should like to have heard and joined in an ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... female? Mentorians all look alike to me," Ringg said, while Bart controlled his face with an effort. "Be that as it may, she saved me from having the same thing happen. I was just going to lean against a strip of sheet metal when she screamed at me. Do you think they can really see heat vibrations? ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... huddled in one corner of the pen. And when the selected victim was rushing by him, his long arm and great bony hand swept out, caught him by the ear, and flung him upon his side, squealing with deafening shrillness. But in spite of his smiling concealment of effort, Daddy had to lean against the fence and catch his breath even while ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... call was at the home of a private society in a little brick house that seemed to lean against the wall of a large lying-in hospital in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... always met; and so we have here a devoted mother, worn out by the demands of her cubs, and vainly anxious to hide herself from daylight and man's gaze. She has long given up trying to dig or scratch her way out. All she can do is to lean against the wall, ready for a last defence, should anybody come within her prison. She dares not curl up into a ball, like the one cub, and go to sleep; while this little careless imp on her back, happy and trustful, adds to her ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... promised if ever I reached terra-firma never to set foot on that lake again; and I have kept my word inviolate. I was miserably sick, as were nearly all the passengers. I tried to keep on my feet, as much as I could; sometimes I would take hold of the railing and gaze upon the wild terrific scene, or lean against whatever I could find, that was stationary, near mother and the rest of the family. Mother was calm, but I knew she had little hope that we would ever reach land. She said, her children were all with her and we should not be parted in death; that we should go together, and escape ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... for Mr. Yardsley to say occupy yourself somehow, but what I want to know is, how? I can't look inquiringly at you all that time, waiting for you to say "Ireland! Oh, yes—yes—just over from Dublin." I can't lean against the mantel-piece and gaze into the fire, because the mantel-piece is only canvas, and would fall down if ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... destroyed, had fled away from her home, had died away from her home, and was buried away from her home; and, with that, I shut the door in his face. My agitation, and a sort of terror that I could not account for, so overpowered me that I was obliged to lean against the wall of the passage, and was unable, for some minutes, to stir a step towards going up stairs. As soon as I got a little better, and began to think about what had taken place, a doubt came across me as to whether I might not have acted wrong. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... American, who will tell you grandly that they have "done"—say Rome, in two, nay in one day! All the antiquities, of course, and the Museums; and then comes a string of names of churches, and galleries, until you gasp for breath! You go away and lean against something to recover your breath, and your gravity, but the pilgrimage is an accomplished fact. They have a right to stick to the cockle-shell in their cap, so to speak, and go home saying, "Oh, yes! We have done Rome, or Italy, or ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... woman's sex, what was once her glory, reveals itself to her as an all-containing loss. I realized myself fully only when I was with you; and now I can't undo it.—You gone, I lean against a shadow, and feel myself forever falling, drifting to no end, a Francesca without a Paolo. Well, it must be some comfort that I do not drag you with me. I never believed myself a "strong" woman; your lightest wish shaped me to its liking. Now you have ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... Sometimes it came upon her in the street, and the meditation of it was so vital and complete that Cuckoo could not go on walking, lest she should, by movement, miss the keenest edge of the agony. Then she would stop wherever she was, lean against the down-drawn shutter of a shop, or the corner of a public house, among the gaping loungers, let her powdered chin drop upon her breast, and sink into a fit of desperate detective duty, during which ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... I loved to lean against a pillar in the entrance hall, watching the people go in and out. Groups of children hushed their chatter at the entrance, and skipped, whispering and giggling in their fists, up the grand stairway, patting the great stone lions at the ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... cut low, though never by the fraction of an inch would Madame permit her couturier to exceed the limits of perfect taste. Looking down over her shoulder Rust could see, protruding from the white lace below her bodice, the corner of a paper. She talked little. It seemed to give her pleasure to lean against his shoulder and dreamily, half asleep, to rest there reposefully like a tired child. "But, mon ami" said Madame to me in relating these tender details with the greatest satisfaction, "I was very ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... speech, and next moment Miles found himself in the street, oppressed with a strange and miserable sensation which he had never before experienced. Indeed, he had to lean against the house for a few minutes after coming out into the fresh air, and felt as if the power of connected thought was ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... the inexperience of the surveyor-general, who is, nevertheless, in every other respect a most gentlemanlike, entertaining, and intelligent person, next to its inland situation, this monstrous extent of Adelaide will turn out to be the most fruitful of complaints. You may lean against any tree in the City and exclaim, "This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... eyes suddenly fell on two trunks covered with mud, and on the brass plates of which was stamped the name of "Edward Middleton, Esq." At the same moment the door opened, and he stood before me. I felt myself turning as white as a sheet, and was obliged to lean against the wall to prevent myself from falling. He seized my hand, and said, with apparent ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... long time she continued to lean against him, her head on his knees, as she had done on the terrace of Como on the last night of their honeymoon. She had ceased to talk, and he sat silent also, passing his hand quietly to and fro over her hair. The first rapture had ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... 'Come, lean against the pillar,' he said, 'if you don't want to tumble. Three of brandy's what you want. There's four minutes ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... vacations." She spoke dreamily, as if thinking aloud. "He slept in that tent. It looks like a little ghost to me these nights in the moonlight, the curtains flap in such a lonely way. That gate was his back door through the woods to town. His wheel used to lean against this tree. I miss his fair head in the sun, and his white trousers springing up the hill. But one cannot keep one's boy forever. You have made ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... my understanding; but I knew it was coming, and though I was perfectly calm, a great deal more so than I am now in telling it, I walked quickly to a place where I could sit down, and when I reached it, trembled so that I had to lean against a rock for support. I did not then comprehend my situation, or hardly think of it. I only felt frightened about myself, and thought if I could only get my breath, or if my heart would beat, or stop beating, whichever it ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... the world is a very strong one: it is a pity that she does not always see it so. It is strongest through her natural impulse to steady herself by leaning upon the Eternal Life, the only Reality; and her weakness comes also from her inclination to lean against something,—upon an unworthy support, rather than none at all. She often lets her life get broken into fragments among the flimsy trellises of fashion and conventionality, when it might be a perfect thing in the upright beauty of ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... plan he had formed. Winchester in hand, he moved away from the fire until, by interposing the large trunk of a tree between himself and the light, he was invisible from that direction. He stood erect, taking care not to lean against the trunk for partial support, and concentrated his faculties into ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... lean against him any more. There were some little improvements in the plans which had occurred to Elizabeth, especially in the arrangement ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... he made her lean against him—her support and comfort in all things: "do you think my heart is not ready to break, like yours? But I trust in God. This trouble came upon us while we were doing right; let us do right still, and we need not fear. Humanly speaking, our ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... as though to taunt and mock the wanderer. She was an outcast! Who henceforth would receive her save those, unconformed and unconformable, sentenced to sin in this realm of blackness? Henceforth from all warmth and love she was banished.... In the middle of the Stanley Street bridge she stopped to lean against the wet rail; the mill lights were scattered, dancing points of fire over the invisible swift waters, and she raised her eyes presently to the lights themselves, seeking one unconsciously—Ditmar's! Yes, it was his she sought; though it was so distant, sometimes it seemed to burn like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... stolen softly out of the room as soon as he could do so unobserved, and now the twins were sitting together in their favourite position on the same chair, with their arms around each other, and Angelica's dark head slanted so as to lean against Diavolo's fair one. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... alone, turned to look at the dead rebel. For a moment horrible nausea and faintness made him lean against the tree for support. It was the first violent death of which he had ever been an eye-witness. He had known this man,—who was indeed the same Griffin, who had assisted the unwilling Pepperill to bring ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... ground in trying to keep up with Snookums' whirling treads, came to the door of Power Section too late to stop the robot's entrance. She didn't dare call out, because she knew that to do so would interrupt the men's vital work. All she could do was lean against the doorjamb and try ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in his narrative Granice stood up, and went to lean against the mantel-piece, looking down at Ascham, who had not moved from his seat, or changed his ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... said the young man to himself, drawing back to lean against a wooden railing on the other side of the street. He gazed, unhappy man, at the different storeys of the house, with the keen attention of a detective ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... I've been thinking lately, father. Somehow, I always did like things to have some class to 'em. I remember how I used to lean against the restaurant windows when I was a kid, and watch the folks inside, how they dressed and acted, and the way the nicest of 'em handled table-tools. They weren't swells, of course, and plenty of 'em made ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... I raise myself on my hind legs and lean against that blade of grass I'll be able to see you, and you'll be able to look into my eyes. You ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... manure reaches six inches in thickness we place along the edge a number of lumps of spawn at about one foot apart. These lumps are placed level with the manure on the edge facing the wall. This portion of the surface of the manure ought to be raised vertically, and should lean against the earthen wall of the trench. The other half of the surface ought to slope gently toward the wall, leaving a space of three or four inches between it and the side of the trench, so that it may be trimmed. The lumps of spawn on this surface should be ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... finished, she hastened to change the altar-cloth, taking the greatest care not to smudge the beading. Then she arranged the cross, the candlesticks, and the vases symmetrically. Abbe Mouret had gone to lean against the wooden screen which separated the choir from the nave, by the side of Brother Archangias. Not a word passed between them. Their eyes were fixed upon the silver crucifix, which, in the increasing gloom, still cast some glimmer of light on the feet and the left side and the right temple of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... to hell, Hinnissy," said Mr. Dooley savagely, "ye'd not lean against that mirror, I don't want to have to ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... said, changing his position so as to lean against his sister. Angelica laid her hand on his head, and her face softened. "Evadne used to like to nurse me," he complained. "She's not nearly so nice since she married. I say, Angelica, do you remember the wedding ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... geological ages did he gaze upon cheap and horrible woodcuts of gentlemen in fashionable raiment trying to lean against conspicuously inadequate rustic gates; equally fashionable ladies, with flat chests, and rat's nest hair; and animals whose attitudes denoted playful sportiveness of disposition. Each of these pictures was explained in minute detail. Bennington's distress became ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... be shut in a closet and sit on a shelf?" These narrow, shelf-like seats were usually hung on hinges and could be turned up against the pew-walls during the long psalm-tunes and prayers; so the members of the congregation could lean against the pew-walls for support as they stood. When the seats were let down, they fell with a heavy slam that could be heard half a mile away in the summer time, when the windows of the meeting-house were open. Lines from an ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... drew from us a shudder, a cry, and a prayer. We saw your horse fall, and we thought you lost, but it was not so; the brave Bussy merited his reputation. At last, surrounded, menaced on all sides, you retreated like a lion, facing your foes, and came to lean against our door; the same idea came to both of us, to go down and open to you, and we ran towards the staircase; but we had barricaded the door, and it took us some minutes to move the furniture, and as we arrived on the stairs, we heard the door shut. We ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... will repeat what I said on the day that I first met you at Bielany; let us be friends! . . . It's no use trying to deny it, man is a gregarious beast: he always needs someone near him so that his lot on this earth may be half-way bearable . . . Man does not stand alone; he must lean against and link up with others, go together with them and feel together with them to be able to accomplish anything. To be sure, one kindred soul suffices. Let ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... 'I paused to lean against a tree in the huge avenue that led to the huge hateful house. I leaned wondering whether the thought of re-entering that house were the more hateful because I should have to face my fellow-guests ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... him, through the pane, as he rides laughing, aloft in the faint far sky; and my presumptuous eyes have rained down tears in consequence. I am trying now to read; but a hundred thousand things distract me: the sun shining warm on my shoulder, as I lean against the window; the divine morning clamor of the birds; their invitations to come out that will take no nay; and last, but oh! not, not least, the importunate voices of Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle with the verb "aimer," "to ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Norgate, she must have been so put about to have to go away with her husband last night. How the scamp got into the drawing-room I cannot tell; but he could do nothing but lean against the wall: he could not have bitten his fingers to save his life. She did not show her mortification unless by going away immediately. A wonderful amount of countenance has that poor young woman; but I take it she will not go out with him again if she can help it—and she need not, she need not, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Somewhere near, on an open level, the funeral pile has been built of pine-logs, with the interstices stuffed with pitch, brushwood, or other inflammable material. It is natural that the pyre should take the shape of an altar and that cypress branches should lean against the sides. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... cracking inside me!' he said. 'Shall I never be able to get in there? It is certainly a very innocent wish, and our innocent wishes ought to be fulfilled. I must get there, and lean against the stove, if I have to ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... herself lean against him. "I'm not that sturdy yet; let's sit down while we talk." There was a couch opposite the viewport where they could sit ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... the signal very artistically, leaving the iron door ajar a little, and then neatly poising the large tin basin on its edge, so as to lean against it. Having extremely enjoyed this part of the proceeding, they went to look at the theatricals again, the boys being highly delighted at ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... her way. Mr. Gilmore had wooed her for months without touching her heart. Then Walter Marrable had come and had conquered her almost in an hour. She had never felt herself disposed to play with Mr. Gilmore's hair, to lean against his shoulder, to be touched by his fingers,—never disposed to wait for his coming, or to regret his going. But she had hardly become acquainted with her cousin before his presence was a pleasure to her; and no sooner had he spoken to her of his love, than everything ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... great dark arches of the staircase, with a glimmering light below, and through the throne-room with the nurse. When I came in I saw Hugh sitting up in bed; they had put a chair beside him, covered with cushions, for him to lean against. He was pale and breathing very fast, with the nurse sponging his brow. Canon Sharrock was standing at the foot of the bed, with his stole on, reading the last prayers from a little book. When I entered, Hugh fixed his eyes on me with a ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to increase the intensity of the stimulus. Boys sometimes manipulate their genital organs through their trouser pockets; some even make a hole in the pocket to enable them to masturbate more effectually. In other cases, children, especially girls, lean against some article of furniture—a chair or a table—apparently in a harmless manner, but really in such a way that pressure is exercised upon the genital organs, which are stimulated by pressure or friction. In some, strong mechanical stimulation ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... ses Ginger, sitting down beside her on the sofa and putting 'is arm so that she could lean against it if she ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... head and tail and three deep in the bunks, and all about the deck and along the bulwarks for want of room—well, it's worse here, at the price! In the smoking-room there is not an inch to sit on; men lean against the pillars, others against the side of the bar or against each other. A few have got seats for bridge, others sit on sofas round the side, the rest have to stand. There were more passengers when we left Tilbury than allowed any free ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... tenderness sweeping to and fro between them. A great light had taken possession of her face. He felt her lean against him confidingly, and he put his arm around her and drew her head to his shoulder, and then, with a boldness he would till now have ascribed only to a god, he put his hand under her warm face, turned it upward and kissed ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... night; the same stillness and mild weather. My soul is pondering. I walk mechanically over to a tree, pull my cap deep down over my eyes, and lean against that tree, with hands clasped behind my neck. I gazed and think; the flame from my fire dazzles my eyes, and I do not feel it. I stand in that stupor for a while, looking at the fire; my legs fail me first, and grow tired; thoroughly stiff, I sit down. Not till then ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... "rolling ourselves into a ball, which gives one a funny kind of warmth. I have a special pleasure in talking about some things. It is the same when the governess kisses me on saying good night or when I lean against her breast. I have that sensation, too, when I see some of the pictures in the comic papers, but only in those representing a woman, as when a young man skating trips up a girl so that her clothes are raised a little. When I read how ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... thing to be done was for Harold to mount, and Paul to lean against the saddle, while the pony walked. When they had to separate at the ford, poor Paul's walk across the bridge was so feeble and staggering, that Harold feared every moment that he would fall where the rail was broken away, ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... large white letters. They were secured when closed by clumsy wooden buttons. In many country congregations the elderly men—stiff old farmers—had a fashion of standing up in the middle of the sermon to stretch their cramped limbs, and they would lean against and hang over the pew door and stare up and down the aisle. In Andover, Vermont, old Deacon Puffer never let a summer Sunday pass without thus resting and diverting himself. One day, having ill-secured the wooden button at the door of his pew, the leaning-place ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... man rose and went to lean against the fireplace. A sudden restlessness possessed him, and he was tongue-tied by the sense that their minutes were numbered, and that at any moment he might hear the wheels of the ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... off rapidly, until it rose well above his waist, and with sufficient current do that he was compelled to lean against it to maintain balance, scarcely venturing forward a foot at a time. Once he stumbled over some obstruction, barely averting a fall; he felt the swift clutch of her fingers at his throat, the quick adjustment of ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered around it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... have been; and we escaped, after some hours of confinement, without loss of life or baggage, but with considerable loss of dignity. How can a self-respecting, middle-aged man (to be polite to myself) stand for hours in a crowded shed, or lean against a dirty post, or sit on the sharp edge of his open trunk, waiting for a Superior Being with a gilt band around his hat, without losing some modicum of dignity? And how, when this Superior Being ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... heavily that she was oppressed by a feeling almost of suffocation, and was obliged to stop and lean against a pillar ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... meets people, it is very unbecoming in speaking to them to turn one's back and shoulders to them. It is an impertinent action to knock against the table, or to shake the desk, which another person is using for reading or writing. It is uncivil to lean against any one, or to pluck his dress when speaking to him, or while ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... sought the reading-room. "Down-town I am looked upon as a man of affairs, a business man, with the care of half a dozen fortunes on my hands. Now, what's the matter with me? I begin to tremble when I look that sober old steward in the face. If he had handed me a letter to-night, I should have had to lean against the wall for support. This will never do at all. I have not seen her face, I do not know her name; for all I know, she may be this Leddy Lightfinger.... No, that would be impossible. Leddy Lightfinger would have made an appointment. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... ready to sink; and forced to lean against the wainscot, as I kneeled at her feet. A stream of tears at last burst from her less indignant eyes. Good heaven! said she, lifting up her lovely face, and clasped hands, what is at last to be my destiny? Deliver me from this dangerous man; and direct me—I know not what to do, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... ledge for his knees and no more. Toes and fingers were overside. He sat down as on horseback, and transferred both slippers to his pockets, and then went forward again with bare feet, waiting whenever the wind snatched at him with redoubled fury, to lean against it and grip the rock with numb fingers. Ismail swung the lamp, for reasons best known to himself, and half-way over King sat astride the ridge again to shout to him to hold it still. But ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... both seemed and did not seem to pay attention. The man who sat before him was big and straight and gave forth warmth and light. He needed warmth and light; he needed a big tree to lean against. He vaguely hoped that Glenfernie was home to stay. He rubbed his ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... a "Blue-Coat" for himself is a sensation. The costume is exactly the same as that worn by Edward, "the Boy King," who founded the school; and these youngsters, like the birds, never grow old. You lean against the high iron fence, and looking through the bars watch the boys frolic and play, just as visitors looked in the Eighteenth Century; and I've never been by Christ's Hospital yet when curious people did not stand and stare. And one ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... fade white again and that the sick look of horror, banished from her eyes by the mere intensity of her determination to convey the whole truth to him, did not return to them. She substituted her other hand for the one he held in order to shift her position a little and lean against his knees. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... he took a pillow and lounge cushion and placed them behind her as a support for her wearied frame, but she dared not lean against them sufficiently to find relief; and stooping he put his arm around her shoulder, and pressed her head against him. Laying his cheek on hers, he whispered very cautiously, for his lips ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to find out each other's beauties. I set up nights tryin' to find errands to send 'em together down town in the motor. Take a man and a woman and put 'em close together, in a rich, soft motor car, with nice cushions to lean against and a chauffeur who can't hear 'em, and something is hound to happen if they're human beings. And I git her to serve tea under the trees and let him see what a nice housewife she'd make, and how she'd show off to his women in the church. Do you notice she ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... of him, pale as death, trembling in every limb; her teeth were chattering, and she was forced to lean against her ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... can find any day. They lean against lamp-posts in platoons, they crowd the saloons, they stand about railway stations all day long to see trains go by. They dally on the lounges of fashionable clubs. They may be had tied in bundles by ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... jumped, and jumped," said the man, "until I am tired out and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches." "Oh!" said the traveller, "you might stay here as long as you wished, for you would never get into them in this way. Come down and lean against the tree." Then he took his legs and put them in the breeches, and after he had put them on, he said: "Is that right?" "Very good, bless you; for if it had not been for you, God knows how long I should have had to jump." Then the traveller said ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... Porto Cabello is less ardent than that of La Guayra. The breeze there is stronger, more frequent, and more regular. The houses do not lean against rocks that absorb the rays of the sun during the day, and emit caloric at night, and the air can circulate more freely between the coast and the mountains of Ilaria. The causes of the insalubrity of the atmosphere must be sought in the shores that extend ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... appeared to have no thought of going back to Hurda. The younger priest made her comfortable with dry leaves. Skag brought a log for her to lean against. For the first time she appeared to notice that he was not one of the priests of Hanuman. . . . She did not speak. Dusk was falling. At intervals she would look into his face. The priests brought fruit and ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... reigned throughout the convent. The empress went on through the dim, long corridor, now with hurried step and wildly-beating heart, now suddenly pausing faint and irresolute, to lean against a pillar, and gather courage for the interview. As she turned the corner of the corridor, a flood of light, streaming through an oriel window, revived and cheered her. She stepped forward and looked. The window opened upon the chapel, where the lights were burning upon ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... watching there till he began to feel drowsy, and this made him lean against the great trunk, his head began to nod, and twice over he was pretty ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean against and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... taught punctuality to the Canadians, but better things are in store for them. Cold to the very bone, I walked up and down the saloon to warm myself. The floor was wet, and covered with saturated rugs; there were no fires in the stoves, and my only resource was to lean against the engine-enclosure, and warm my frozen hands on the hot wood. I was joined by a very old gentleman, who, amid many complaints, informed me that he had had an attack of apoplexy during the night, and ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... lived, played, and slept the greater part of the time during the first few months of my life. Whether I was made to lean against a lodge pole or was suspended from a bough of a tree, while my grandmother cut wood, or whether I was carried on her back, or conveniently balanced by another child in a similar cradle hung on the opposite side of a pony, I was still in ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... her window sees the leafless poplars lean Against a windy sunset sky with streaks of golden green; The still canal is touched with light from that wild, wintry sky, And, dark and gaunt, the windmill flings its bony arms on high. "It's growing late; it's growing cold; I'm ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... mind—the fact that he was just now, to her vision, the most definite and upright, the most incomparable, object in the world. If he had not been at his post when she expected him she would have had to stop and lean against something, for weakness; her whole being would have throbbed more painfully than it throbbed at present, though finding him there made her nervous enough. And who was he, what was he? she asked herself. What did he offer her besides ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... arm that promised to take care of her,—that Fleda's courage mounted twenty degrees at once. And it rose higher every minute; the horse went very easily, and Mr. Carleton held her so that she could not be tired, and made her lean against him; and before they had gone a mile Fleda began to be delighted. Such a charming way of travelling! Such a free view of the country!—and in this pleasant weather too, neither hot nor cold, and when all nature's features were softened by the light veil of haze that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Van Torp's lodging, had not moved from the fireplace since she had taken up her position there. Women are as clever as Napoleon or Julius Caesar in selecting strong positions when there is to be an encounter, and a fireplace, with a solid mantelpiece to lean against, to strike, to cry upon or to cling to, is one of the strongest. The enemy is thus reduced to prowling about the room and handling knick-knacks while he talks, or smashing them if he is of ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... lounging against the building and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern about anything. Their lethargy surprised him. He had expected to find the town mad with excitement, to behold here the gold fever blazing without restraint; but wherever there was a post to lean against a man was leaning against it, exactly as if there were nothing doing, and the world had not just run demented over the richness of their Victorian fields. It remained for him to learn that this very ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... sandbags with the earth excavated from the sap, and with frenzied energy tried to complete our defences before dawn. The rain and darkness, both very intense that night, were really very trying. One would pause, shovel in hand, lean against the clay side of the sap, and hurriedly contemplate the scene. Five men, a sergeant and myself, wet through and muddy all over; no sleep, little to eat, silently digging and filling sandbags with an ever-watchful eye for ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... lean against these young jasmines. I can easily, from behind them, glance at my friend's picture, and will then hasten to inform her of her husband's ardent affection. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... lemonade and invite the girls into the house to drink it, just for the mere pleasure of joining in the laughter. She never got the remotest inkling of why the two would double up with joy when one or the other got the hiccoughs in the midst of a sentence. But she would lean against the sideboard and laugh with them, the tears running ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... and compelled him to lean against an upright bough, to which he firmly secured him ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... unto death, tottering so that she had to lean against the wall, and cast upon Jacques de Boiscoran glances in which the whole horror of her soul was ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... He accordingly had him carried into a little room, where he desired the gentleman to attempt to stand. 'That is impossible,' answered the patient, 'for I have not been able to use a leg these three years.' 'Prop yourself, then, upon your crutches, and lean against the wall to support yourself,' answered the physician. The gentleman did so, and the doctor went abruptly out, and locked the door after him. He had not been long in this situation before he felt the floor of the chamber, which he had not before perceived to be composed of plates ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... which he played a part, says: "The roads and the weather were beyond all description—twelve to fifteen degrees Reaumur, with a cutting wind and driving snow, with nothing to eat, as the field kitchens on these roads could not follow. During pauses in the march one could but lean against the wall of a miserable house or lie down in the burned-out ruins, without straw to lie on and no covering. Men and horses sank to their hips in the snow, and so we worked our way forward, usually only about two kilometers an hour. Wagons and horses that upset had to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... attitudes were the last expression of complacent self-righteousness. It was one anchorite's pride to lie naked in the mud and let the insects bite him and blister him unmolested; it was another's to lean against a rock, all day long, conspicuous to the admiration of the throng of pilgrims and pray; it was another's to go naked and crawl around on all fours; it was another's to drag about with him, year in and year out, eighty pounds of iron; it was another's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Durer's 'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' which seems really ill-omened, for this is the second time it has fallen. Thank you, sir. The frame only is injured, and I will not trouble you to remove it. Let it lean against the grate, until I have ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... not been so utterly fascinated by his surroundings and his companion, he might have tried immediately to pull himself together enough to go on to Sunnyside; he was quite content, however, to lean against a huge rock ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... prescribed ritual bath in the spring that flowed out from its roots, the waters of which rose at once for those whose uncleanness was of a venial character and could be removed forthwith, while others had to wait seven days for the water to come up. Accordingly, Abraham bade the three men lean against the trunk of the tree. Thus he would soon learn their worth or ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... seems the best. He thinks the slope was given merely to facilitate the work of the bricklayers. The first course of voussoirs would be sloped in this fashion, and would rest upon some mass of crude brick in the centre of the building. The bricks of the second course would lean against it, and their weight would be brought in to add cohesion and solidity to the whole structure instead of being entirely occupied in adding to the perpendicular thrust, while the ease with which they could be placed without an internal support would be much increased. Assisted by ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... companion had warned her. "Don't lean against the rails of the bridge; the old thing is as crazy ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... you at work?" asked Suzanna then. "My father works every day in the hardware store and sometimes way into the night on his invention in the attic. He doesn't have a chair filled with pillows to lean against. Does God like you better than ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... to lean against the acceleration. Fighting for balance, he picked up his spack and made his way to the nine enlisted Planeteers. They had braced against the ship's drive by sitting with backs against bulkheads or by lying flat on the magnesium deck. Sergeant Major Koa was seated against a vertical ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... comfortable seats enough, but not adapted to any other than a decorously exact position. The woolsack is between these two divisions of sofas, in the middle passage of the floor,—a great square seat, covered with scarlet, and with a scarlet cushion set up perpendicularly for the Chancellor to lean against. In front of the woolsack there is another still larger ottoman, on which he might be at full length,—for what purpose intended, I know not. I should take the woolsack to be not a very comfortable seat, though I suppose ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... brought forward, while Houston, fascinated, watched the kerf mark of the blade as it tore away a slab-side. Then a touch on the arm and he followed Ba'tiste without. The Canadian wandered thoughtfully about a moment, at last to approach a newly stacked pile of lumber and lean against it. A second more and he drew something to his side ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... disused graveyard in the parish of St. Pancras, Fanny Elmer strayed between the white tombs which lean against the wall, crossing the grass to read a name, hurrying on when the grave-keeper approached, hurrying into the street, pausing now by a window with blue china, now quickly making up for lost time, abruptly entering a baker's shop, buying rolls, adding cakes, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... said Mrs. Mulholland, as though some confidences had been exchanged between them. "You might find me useful. Consider me a friend of the family. I make rather a good umbrella-stand. People can lean against me if they like. I hold firm. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bad taste of the decoration, till one line of fire leaped from the text at him, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." But he needed no further lessoning in that wisdom. He retreated from the accusing page and went to lean against the dormer window and look out upon the world from the jail of his past. No jury could release him from that. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he thought, he saw evidence of the penalty he had brought upon his father ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... "Don't lean against any of those stones." Firmly he held her back as she, eagerly inquisitive, started ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and the gipsy man have drawn the first lot. So the rest lean against the rails of the stage, and Joe and the dark man meet in the middle, the boards having been strewed with sawdust, Joe's white shirt and spotless drab breeches and boots contrasting with the gipsy's coarse blue shirt and dirty green velveteen ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... eating. Overcome at last by suspense, she started up, but in doing so, she knocked her head violently against some object that stood close by her. In her madness she never heeded the pain, but stretched out her hands for something to lean against, when fortunately she laid one of them on a stumpy candlestick, in the saucer of which she found a couple of greasy matches. A cry of joy escaped her as she struck a light, as quickly as her nervous fingers and glad excitement allowed her. At least now the horrible spell of darkness and uncertainty ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... an artist is it necessary to know how to draw? By no means. A bit of a bench to sit upon, a wall to lean against, a lead pencil, a bit of pasteboard, a needle stuck in a handle made out of a piece of wood, a little Indian ink or sepia, a little Prussian blue, and a little vermilion in three cracked beechwood spoons,—this is all that is requisite; ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... amber stream rippling past rush-grown banks. He hugged the memories to his soul, rejoicing in them. They brought a dozen trivial little incidents to his mind. He could hear his old nurse's voice warning him not to lean against the door of the carriage. He could feel his small nose pressed against the window-pane, his small hand rubbing the glass where it had been dimmed by his breath. He could hear the crackle of paper bags, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore |
