"Kneed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perhaps as object lessons of "the incorrect method" in reading novels—women, as novel-readers, must be considered as not existing. And, of course, no offense is intended. But if there be any weak-kneed readers who prefer the gilt-wash of pretty politeness to the solid gold of truth, let them understand that I am not to be frightened away from plain facts by any charge of ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... found the grass-land brown and lifeless, with a chill wind blowing over it. The cattle wandered as before except that knock-kneed little calves trailed beside their lean mothers ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... short jacket of goat-skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of my thighs; and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same. The breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side, that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs. Stockings and shoes I had none, but had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce know what ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... a great crowd gathered around the tree; the boys who go to Master Lovell's school came with an old knocked-kneed horse and a rickety wagon with a platform in it. They fixed the effigies on the platform with cords and pulleys, so that the arms and legs would be lifted when the boys under it pulled the strings. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... life in mending the rotten bamboo bridges of his people, in killing a too persistent tiger here or there, in sleeping out in the reeking jungle, or in tracking the Suria Kol raiders who had taken a few heads from their brethren of the Buria clan. He was a knock-kneed, shambling young man, naturally devoid of creed or reverence, with a longing for absolute power which his ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... pouring in. Peter went to the window to open it to the altered air, and in doing so beheld at the garden gate the humble "growler" in which a few hours before he had seen Mrs. Ryves take her departure. It was unmistakable—he remembered the knock-kneed white horse; but this made the fact that his friend's luggage no longer surmounted it only the more mystifying. Perhaps the cabman had already removed the luggage—he was now on his box smoking the short pipe that derived ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... to get the price of a decent animal out of me for that broken-kneed hard-mouthed brute of yours," replied the stranger with a scornful laugh. "I think there never was such a money-grubbing, grinding, grasping beggar since the world began. However, you've seen the last shilling you're ever likely to get out of me; so make the best of it; and remember, wherever ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the impression of ferocious determination. But something lacked. Perhaps it was from excess. Perhaps the jaw was too large. At any rate, it was a lie. Beauty Smith was known far and wide as the weakest of weak-kneed and snivelling cowards. To complete his description, his teeth were large and yellow, while the two eye-teeth, larger than their fellows, showed under his lean lips like fangs. His eyes were yellow and muddy, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... carried at Nagpur stated bluntly that "the object of the Indian National Congress is the attainment of Swaraj by the people of India by all legitimate and peaceful means." Many of the members would have left out the last words which were intended to ease the scruples of the more weak-kneed brethren. But Mr. Jinna, a Mahomedan Extremist from Bombay, whose legal mind in spite of all his bitterness does not blink the cold light of reason, warned his audience that India could not achieve complete independence ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... dined five free daily, and clothed three, and previous winter three had free dinners and two had clothes. A school-boy earns. The twins are delicate. There are two lodgers. The eldest child very dirty; the second, glands; the third, knock-kneed, pigeon chest; very feeble, enlarged radices. Three children have died. Housing: nine in three rooms. Evidence from Police, Poor Law Officer, Parish Sister, School Charity, Army Charity, Children's Employment, School Officer, Factor, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... an old man. To cuff Jonas; said of one who is knock-kneed, or who beats his sides to keep himself warm in frosty weather; called also ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Nipptisch, and indeed better kept from public view. But hardly had we begun when 'Respectability,' that whited sepulchre full of all uncleanness, rose up against us. 'Propriety' cried us down with her brazen, blatant voice, and the weak-kneed brethren fell away. [202] Yet the organ was much wanted and is wanted still." [203] Soon after the founding of the Society Burton, accompanied by his wife, took a trip to Madeira and then proceeded to Teneriffe, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the kind of sullen grunt with which he always prefaced a disagreeable remark. "Ugh! I do not agree with you. I think his behavior was weak-kneed. Knowing their hatred against the word Christian, all the more would I have dinged it into their ears; that they might not think they had got the better of me. Now they believe he has become ashamed of his faith and ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... twenty-five cent table d'hote for their existence. He would provide for them, he would engage them forthwith for his orchestra. By degrees they understood, and when they did understand they made his little outburst of enthusiasm appear almost feeble and weak-kneed compared to the wild, unrestrained, excited, and enthusiastic yells of joy that they let loose. They embraced each other and danced around the room. They hugged Miss Husted. Poons even dared to kiss her, and although she slapped his face, she joined in the Latin-Franco-Teutonic ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... flour, add two eggs, one half-pint milk, tablespoon of yeast, kneed it well; let rise till morning. Work in one ounce of butter, and mold in small ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... few steps of a noiseless high-kicking dance when there was a tap at the door, and he collapsed into an attitude of weak-kneed humility. Dom ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... fierce wind continually blowing. Smoke curled up from the chimneys to perish against the sunny sky. Cattle left in the open crowded in the lee of the straw-stacks, their rough flanks crawling, and in the folds the ewes, yet frail from their travail, stood stung and still, mothering their weak-kneed lambs. Beside the thud of the horse's hoofs toward town there was no sound on the road save a little, dry cracking of the frost. The doctor, as he started in his carriage for Davie's house, drew his robes closely about him and scowled at the fierceness of the blast; but Davie, riding ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Cloth, but not wash'd. Put these with your Fruit, and a little Salt into the Flour; then take as much Cream as you think proper: then melt two Pounds of Butter, to mix with it, and add a Pint of Canary-Wine, and kneed it with some fresh Ale-Yeast, till it rises under your hand. Have your Oven hot before you put it in ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... to confront the Bonneys, mentally thanking Gail. Up until she'd slapped me, I'd been weak-kneed and dry-mouthed with what I had to do. Now I was just plain angry, and I found that I was thinking a lot more clearly. Jack-High Bonney's wounded left shoulder, I knew, wouldn't keep him from using his gun hand, but ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... backers of the measure - although pleaded with by weak-kneed Senators to withdraw the bill - insisted upon a vote being taken, when the measure came up on March 15th. This decision compelled Wolfe to make his famous "Fate of the Republican Party" speech, in which ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... table she suggested pessimistically, 'Let's go and look at the donkeys—I suppose they'll be horrid, scraggly, knock-kneed ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... have more than a desire to help Karl—you must have an enthusiasm for the thing itself. You'll get so then that when you see an operation like this you won't see just some broken-down, diseased tissue that makes you feel weak-kneed, but you'll see something to get in and fight. Oh, it's a battle—so get your fighting blood up! Remember that you'll have to have enough for two. You know, what you must do for Karl is not only give him back the weapons ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... Just now the dog, the mules and chickens and a family of mice and I are all living peacefully together in the one room but we're awful healthy if a good appetite is any kind of a sign. I can't write to Carrie because her folks open all her letters and they'd nag her into marrying that old knock-kneed, squint-eyed, fat-necked son-of-a-gun of an Andrew Langly, if they thought she was having anything to do with a worthless heathen cuss like me. And say, Grandma, throw in some of your flower seeds, those right out ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... never again do what it had in the past. These last, however, were but side reflections, toning down for him the fact that his nerves could no longer stand this vicarious butchery of youth. And so he had gradually become that "traitor to his country, a weak-kneed Peace by Negotiation man." Physically his knees really were weak, and he used to smile a wry smile when ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... either because he desired thereby to mark the day, when he had found him, or because he wished to designate by that name to what a degree the poor little creature was incomplete, and hardly sketched out. In fact, Quasimodo, blind, hunchbacked, knock-kneed, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... peasants in Pindus starve upon. Even this—enough in itself to inflame any English stomach—is reduced to 1/2 lb. a day. As I stood at the gate this afternoon taking my first breath of air, I watched the weak-kneed, lantern-jawed soldiers going round from house to house begging in vain for anything to eat. Yet they say the health of the camp as a whole has improved. This they attribute ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... bundle of hemp, and corresponding to a similar word signifying a flock. It became in early times applied to a wide-spread tribe of broad-leaved wayside weeds. They all belong to the botanical order of Polygonaceoe, or "many kneed" plants, because, like the wife of Yankee Doodle, famous in song, they are "double-jointed;" though he, poor man! expecting to find Mistress Doodle doubly active in her household [158] duties, was, as the rhyme ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... forth the horse!" Alas! he showed Not like the one Mazeppa rode; Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, The wreck of what was once a steed, Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; Yet not without his knowing points. The sexton laughing in his sleeve, As if 't were all a make-believe, Led forth the horse, and as ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... was wonderfully bored and superior. Surely not this Seth Appleby but a twin of his, a weak-kneed inferior twin, had loafed in Tompkins Square and wavered through the New York slums, longing for something to do. He didn't really mean to be curt, but his chief business in life was to get his shoes ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... garrison at Gibraltar of 6,000 or 7,000 men, and so uniforms of flaming red are plenty; and red and blue, and undress costumes of snowy white, and also the queer uniform of the bare-kneed Highlander; and one sees soft-eyed Spanish girls from San Roque, and veiled Moorish beauties (I suppose they are beauties) from Tarifa, and turbaned, sashed, and trousered Moorish merchants from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged Muhammadan ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... across the bright green turf toward the source of all this enchantment, leaving poor Mr. Hobbs braced against the wall, weak-kneed and helpless. If he heard the frantic, though subdued, whistles and the agonized "hi!" of the man from Cook's a minute or two later, he gave no heed to the warning. A glimpse behind might have shown him the error of his ways, reflected in the disappearance of Hobbs's head below the top of ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... you?" "Far bigger." "How bigger? Has he got legs, and heads, and—and things like that?" "We'll see. When I stand on this chair I'm as big as a giant," but it was all of no avail, and only after Teddy had seen a huge, knock-kneed being in a penny show did he understand what a giant could be like. Then he asked for giant stories ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... he is in this state, his favorite remedy is to return to his old vagabond habits, and go roaming away by himself nobody knows where. He went through the form this morning (knowing I had no riding habit) of offering to hire a little broken-kneed brute of a pony for me, in case I wished to accompany him! I preferred remaining at home. I will have a handsome horse and a handsome habit, or I won't ride at all. He went away, without attempting to persuade me to change my mind. I wouldn't have changed it, of course; but he might ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... As to being a play-actor, confound it, I hate the very word; you need not think anything about your size. Thou'rt very tall and hast a better face to look at than any on 'un I see; and though thou be'est knock-kneed a bit, its the way with all growing boys. Lord love thee, Jack, if wert to see some of them fellows, for all they look so on the stage with paint and tinsel and silk, when they stop to take a pint of beer, I think they be the ugliest, conceitedest, foolishest ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... since supposed his friend to be dead. Conceive, then, the warmth of their greeting, the fondness of their glances, the fervor of the reminiscences into which they straightway launched, sitting wide-kneed by the roaring hearth, steaming ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... both Dandy and I were teetotallers and we could arrest disease by our temperance habits. The weakness of knees too was no objection in my eyes. In fact, I had so long, as a parson, sat over weak-kneed congregations that I felt quite at home sitting on a ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... but a poor creature withal, the eleventh of the miserable children born to the mad Charles VI and his prolific Bavarian Queen.[575] He had grown up among disasters, and had survived his four elder brethren. But he himself was badly bred, knock-kneed, and bandy-legged;[576] a veritable king's son, if his looks only were considered, and yet it was impossible to swear to his descent.[577] Through his presence on the bridge at Montereau on that day, when, according to a wise man, it ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Miss Dosy, Miss Biddy, and Miss Winny; 1 Miss Shum, Mary by name, Shum's daughter, and seven others, who shall be nameless. Mrs. Shum was a fat, red-haired woman, at least a foot taller than S.; who was but a yard and a half high, pale-faced, red-nosed, knock-kneed, bald-headed, his nose and shut-frill all brown ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... crump^, deformed; harelipped; misshapen, misbegotten; misproportioned^, ill proportioned; ill-made; grotesque, monstrous, crooked as a ram's horn; camel backed, hump backed, hunch backed, bunch backed, crook backed; bandy; bandy legged, bow legged; bow kneed, knock kneed; splay footed, club footed; round shouldered; snub nosed; curtailed of one's fair proportions; stumpy &c (short) 201; gaunt &c (thin) 203; bloated &c 194; scalene; simous^; taliped^, talipedic^. Adv. all manner of ways. Phr. crooked ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... people would say, in the legs. They would try to make you believe that your legs, mere combinations of flesh and blood, could go off by themselves and get bowed, or knock-kneed, or long or short, or slim or fat, or gouty, or palsied, or paralyzed, or rheumatic, or shriveled or anything else just as they wanted to and all of their own option, as though they were a living soul with a living will and not simply so many square ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... "Who are you, anyway? Answer: the Sailor Poet. There you are! Sea captain's togs for you—double-breasted blue coat, baggy-kneed blue trousers, ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... looked. And now one of the pot-bellied little horrors, shambling and bulbous-kneed, was scratching its warty, blue hide with its black claws as it trailed along through the forest. It looked up, grinning and jabbering; Stern saw the teeth that should have been molars. With repulsion he noted that they ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... good look at him. He had got out of the trap, and was marching up and down the pavement, with an unlighted cigar stuck in his mouth. I took a match, and said, 'Have a light, my noble swell?' and hanged if he didn't give me ten centimes! My! ain't he ugly!—short, shrivelled up, and knock-kneed, with a glass in his eye, and ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... won't be obliged to you for Carter," said Mr Ormiston; "a more slack-kneed, double-jointed scoundrel was never offered a commission in a respectable cause. He'll be the first to rat if things begin to look queer for this new policy of yours ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... claims to have fought in eighty-seven battles, often wounded, but never badly hurt. Red Cloud is about six feet six inches in his stockings (I mean moccasins), large features, high cheek bones, and a big mouth, and walks knock-kneed, as others do. His face is painted, and his ears pierced for gaudy rings, which men and women have an equal pride for. His and other chiefs' robes were beautifully worked with hair, beads, and jewels. His leggins were red, handsomely worked with beads and ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... If a theft is reported, the inspector of the nearest police-station, or thanna as it is called, sends one of his myrmidons, or, if the chance of bribes be good, he may attend himself. On arrival, ambling on his broken-kneed, wall-eyed pony, he seats himself in the verandah of the chief man of the village, who forthwith, with much inward trepidation, makes his appearance. The policeman assumes the air of a haughty conqueror receiving homage from a conquered foe. He assures the trembling ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... March, 1886, even greater speaking and debating talents than he had shown before. I think also that the organization of dissentient Liberalism, in which he has borne so large a part, has been enormously favourable to his general creed as an advanced Radical, whereas Hartington with his weak-kneed men has been utterly hoodwinked, and hoodwinked by himself. On the other hand, I own myself amazed at Chamberlain's proceedings during the last month. Everyone took a favourable view of his accepting the American mission; [Footnote: ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... shaped dress to-day, but he had recalled her as she was in her poke-bonnet days, when she had been wont to accept the same kind of salutation without demur. It did not seem so very long ago since he had seen her bare-kneed, in short, crimson skirts and all sorts of fantastic caps and brilliant turbans; and he now reminded her of the fact, undeterred by the haughtiness of her mien and the arrogantly rippling masses of golden-brown hair, just a shade darker ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... is to let the knees bend continuously; this gives a "flabbyness" to the whole personal expression, that always seems an outward exponent of a "weak-kneed" character. The knees, to obviate this, should be stiffened when walking. In the other extreme, most women stiffen the ankle-joint unduly, thus giving a straight up and down cramped walk, which is accompanied ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... weak-kneed, white-livered bourgeois too well to be taken in by it. The League talks and Bismarck is silent. Oh, if I had a majority in the Chamber, as they have, I'd leave him ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... would nominally disclaim it, is that we think of the soul after death as a thing so altered as to be practically unrecognisable—as a meek and pious emanation, without qualities or aims or passions or traits—as a sort of amiable and weak-kneed sacristan in the temple of God; and this is the unhappy result of our so often making religion a pursuit apart from life—an occupation, not an atmosphere; so that it seems impious to think of the departed spirit as interested ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... shoulders and a stalk-knife by your side, help drive these hogs into the Ohio River. They've got more devils in 'em than what's-his-name, in the Holy Scripture, cast into all the swine of Jerusalem. Git out, I say, you knock-kneed jackasses!" ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... without any beauty, even without the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all; nothing more nor less; in short, he was uglily ugly. He was not humpbacked, nor knock-kneed, nor pot-bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and his arms were neither too long nor too short, and yet, there was an utter lack of uniformity about him, not only in painters' eyes, but also in everybody's, for nobody could meet him in the street ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... morning we arrayed ourselves in our new habiliments; mine were silk stockings, shoes, and white kerseymere kneed breeches, a blue silk waistcoat loaded with tinsel, and a short jacket to correspond of blue velvet, a sash round my waist, a hat and a plume of feathers. Timothy declared I looked very handsome, and as the ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... equally sincere pleasure, something of Eileen's own enthusiasm returned, and although her ministrations upon Billy's marred countenance, performed under the critical and painstaking eye of Sister Betty, left her weak-kneed and pale, she took her place at the table with something very much akin to pleasure, if it were not the jubilant delight ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... of true patience, Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed; She liked quick answers in all conversations; And when she saw him stumbling like a steed In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones; And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed, Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle, And her proud brow's blue ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... felt rather sorry for the weak-kneed little youngster perched up on that form, and wondered if Mr Trimble would expect him (Jeffreys) to adopt his method of "taking it out" of his ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... told her of the charge against Wilton. The sheriff's expression confirmed the supposition. His mouth hung open, so that the unsteady fingers with which he plucked at his knuckle like chin appeared also to support his fallen jaw. He made a weak-kneed progress from the door to a chair ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Military Commission. Colonel O'Grady, although a member of the Commission, shows he sympathizes with Shaun, and twits Feeny, the Gov'ment witness, with being a knock-kneed thief, &c., &c. Mr. Stanton's grandfather was Sec'y of War in Ireland at that time, so this ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... through," corrected the patient. "I'm goin' to teach you to play monkey-shines with Pete Dinsmore's teeth." He laid a large revolver on the table and picked up the forceps. "Take that chair, you bowlegged, knock-kneed, run-down runt." ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... that impression. You know how many weak-kneed fellows there are who like to be on the winning side. We've been pouring out the money and stand ready to pour it out like water. But these damned reform ballot-laws make it hard for us to control the vote. We buy, but we ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... the conflict the controversy became sectional, the South upholding and the North seeking to remove the evil. Thus the contest raged for years, until the South, growing strong on her ill-gotten gains, and arrogant from her success with the supple-kneed politicians of the North, put the Church in the North upon the defensive by demanding toleration, if not actual adoption. The issue was made in trying to foist upon the whole Church a slave holding Episcopacy. This last act was the feather, if such it might ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... might have been anticipated, did not at all appreciate this description of his personal defects, when it afterwards appeared in print. Edward Bulwer was quite unlike what Willis had expected. 'He is short,' he writes, 'very much bent, slightly knock-kneed, and as ill-dressed a man for a gentleman as you will find in London.... He has a retreating forehead, large aquiline nose, immense red whiskers, and a mouth contradictory of all talent. A more good-natured, habitually smiling, nerveless expression could hardly be imagined.' ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Glapthorne's stock of fancies was not very extensive, but he puts himself to considerable pains to make the most of them. In The Lady Mother we find the same ornaments spread out before us, many of them very tawdry at their best. Glapthorne's editor has striven to show that the weak-kneed playwright was a fellow-pupil of John Milton's at St. Paul's. One cannot think of the two names together without calling to mind the "lean and flashy songs" and "scrannel pipes ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... falsetto squeaked, 'See here, my sweet Signor barber, my excellent Signor surgeon, my honoured Annibal Caracci, my beloved Guido Reni, be off to the devil, and don't ever show yourself here again, if you don't want your legs broken.' Therewith the cranky, knock-kneed old fool laid hold of me with no less an intention than to kick me out of the room, and hurl me down the stairs. But that, you know, was past everything. With ungovernable fury I seized the old fellow and tripped him up, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I do! You're men here—or supposed to be—not a pack of weak-kneed women!... Afraid to go out and see what those lights are, are you? Well, I'm not. Look here. I'll have a bet with you boys. Fifty pounds that I get back safely, and dispel the morbid fancies from your kindergarten brains by tellin' you that the things are glow-worms, or some fool ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... "No, you knock-kneed dishwasher," said Banks as a grin began to edge its way across his face. "Have you tried to sell ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... you a wretched knock-kneed skunk, only I don't want to be fulsome. I hate flattering a man ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... figures made jolly with ale and port-wine. He was greatly amused at being told (his informants meaning to be complimentary) "that he would never be taken for anything but an Englishman." He called Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," just printed at that time, "a broken-kneed gallop ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... custom were a fad which affected only the wealthy classes it would be reprehensible enough, but it curses rich and poor alike, and almost every day we saw heavily laden coolie women steadying themselves by means of a staff, hobbling stiff-kneed along the roads or laboring in ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... in the afternoon, As the band waltzed in on the lion-tune, And there, from the time 'at she'd go in Till she'd back out of the cage agin, He'd stand, shaky and limber-kneed— 'Specially when she come to "feed The beasts raw meat with her naked hand"— And all that business, ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... approach of the undesired, inevitable guest, what sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy portmanteau, rammed with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... my way. You'd make a poor showing, kicking drive levers with a broken leg." Geoffrey nodded toward The Barbarian's right shin. "It's been that way since before you picked me up, hasn't it? I saw it wobble when you kneed ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... Sir: Seeing you add in the Chicago definder that you are in need of labor I write you for full information at once hope you will please give me. I am willing to come & if you kneed any more labor I am sufficient to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... every dirty trick of the Grub-street trade. He is described in that mad book, Amory's John Buncle, as tall, thin, ungainly, white-faced, with light grey goggle eyes, purblind, splay-footed, and "baker-kneed." According to the same queer authority, who professes to have lodged in Curll's house, he was drunk, as often as he could drink for nothing, and intimate in every London haunt of vice. "His translators lay three ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... and shame, There is no place for you, Weak-kneed and craven-breasted, Amongst this English crew! Bluff hearts that cannot learn to yield, But as the waves run high, And they can almost touch the night, Behind it see the sky. While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... and a strong arm,' said the brother. 'He is cross-eyed and knock-kneed. It wouldn't do for you to meet him in the hallway. Go to bed early and lock your door, and if you hear any outcry during the night cover your head with a pillow ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... fought in the service of the king saw the trembling, weak-kneed figure, which had stood behind them, turn and scurry through the gateway, leaving the men who battled for him ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... effected my first introduction to the actual Socialist party. My article was printed and I was asked for others. I made the acquaintance of the editor, who, I must confess, spite of my enthusiasm, soon struck me as a rather weak-kneed and altogether unadmirable character. He thought it necessary to get himself up to look like an artist, though he had not the soul of a counter-jumper, and the result was long hair, a velvet coat, a red tie, bumptious bearing, and an altogether scatter-brained and fly-away ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... they're the limit. They paralyze me. I thought I was pretty fast. But compared to these youngsters I'm tied to a post. My kid sister Joyce—Rose Clymer—Bessy Bell!... Some kids, believe me. And take it from me, girls, these dimple-kneed chickens ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... cometh a white rag thinly from the inner tent—mark her provenance. Son kneeleth down. "Wilt thou have my son, cony?" saith father. "Yea, dear heart," saith she. "'Tis my counterpart, mark you," saith father. "Better than nothing at all," saith she. Benevolent father, supple-kneed son, convenient lady. Here is agreement. And thus it ends.' Again he laughed outright at the steel-blue face of the sky, then jumped in a flash from his seat to the throat of Bertran. Bertran tumbled backwards with a strangled cry, and Richard ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... and, though they rallied him a little at first upon his defection, soon let the matter drop. Condy told himself that there were plenty of good people in the world, after all. Every one seemed conspiring to make it easy for him, and he swore at himself for a weak-kneed cad. ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... and a bare kneed lad began to amble behind the foreigners, he taking his cue smartly and lolling out his tongue. The whole crowd set up a shout, and Eagle looked back. She wheeled and slapped the St. Bat's girl ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... fool,' he went on, 'with every old screw in the country. I got broken-winded mares from the ploughs. I collected a regular hospital of spavined, knock-kneed beasts, and he took them from me without a word at thirty pounds apiece. It would have been all right if I had gone no further. But, hang it all! I got to the end of my tether. I declare to you I don't believe there was another screw left in the whole county of Mayo, and ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... altered, but perhaps it was the shaggy beard that he had let grow over his poor, lean muzzle, that mainly made the difference. His clothes hung gauntly upon him, and he had a weak-kneed stoop. His coat sleeves were tattered at the wrists, and one of them showed the white lining at the elbow. I simply ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... own, which implied death to any who talked of giving out and going back. Thus, in an emergency she would give all to understand that "times were very critical and therefore no foolishness would be indulged in on the road." That several who were rather weak-kneed and faint-hearted were greatly invigorated by Harriet's blunt and positive manner and threat of extreme measures, there could be ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... was all useless. The next morning the first one of us was smitten with the plague—a little nurse-girl in the family of Professor Stout. It was no time for weak-kneed, sentimental policies. On the chance that she might be the only one, we thrust her forth from the building and commanded ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... let the devil win? That's not the trouble. Yer afeered, that's what's the matter. Yer too weak-kneed, an' hain't got as much backbone as an angle worm.' That's what I said to 'em, right out straight, too. Now kin ye tell me, Mr. Bishop, why the Lord made some people men instead of makin' 'em chickens fer all the spunk ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... virgin habit bore, A Spartan maid; or like to her who tames the Thracian horse, Harpalyce, and flies before the hurrying Hebrus' course. For huntress-wise on shoulder she had hung the handy bow, And given all her hair abroad for any wind to blow, And, naked-kneed, her kirtle long had gathered in a lap: 320 She spake the first: "Ho youths," she said, "tell me by any hap If of my sisters any one ye saw a wandering wide With quiver girt, and done about with lynx's spotted hide, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... the right of the altar the King of the Grove, clad in his barbaric smock of dingy undyed black wool, his three-stranded necklace of raw turquoises broad on his bosom, the fox-tails of his fox-skin cap trailing by his ears; saw facing him Almo, bare-kneed, his hunting-boots of soft leather like chamois-skin coming half way up to his calves, his leek-green tunic covering him only to mid-thigh, his head bare, his right hand waving ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... bruise or contusion, often repeated, inflicted upon himself by a horse addicted to the habit of pawing while in the stable and striking the front of the stall with his knees. Another class of patients is formed of those weak-kneed animals which are subject to falling and bruising the front of the joint against the ground, the results not being ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... for we shall not stalk stags or shoot grouse; and I have told Jone that he may put on as many Scotch bonnets and plaids as he likes, but there is one thing he is not going to do, and that is to go bare-kneed, to which he answered, he would never do that unless he could dip his knees into weak coffee so that they would be the same ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth from a country college, underfed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many of this ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... from a hundred throats and a mob rushed on Wallbridge with the apparent intent of tearing him limb from limb. Wallbridge's offer was snapped up at once, but a few weak-kneed holders of the stock threw small ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... shot out, bit the end of the timber, and towed it to the boom pile. Another man stepped on the log with Darrell. They stood facing each other, bent-kneed, alert. Suddenly with one accord they commenced to birl the log from left to right. The pace grew hot. Like squirrels treading a cage their feet twinkled. Then it became apparent that Darrell's opponent was gradually being forced from the top of the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... cuts Strange, and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire, Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too, With long and ghostly shanks, forms which once seen, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... so much. It's these friends of Cross's. I don't blame him. Some sheriffs are mighty weak-kneed about ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... I was doing this, I found the tide begin to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on the shore, upon the sand, swim away. As for my breeches, which were only linen, and open-kneed, I swam on board in them and my stockings. However, this set me on rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use, for I had other things which my eye was more ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... liberties are found, and the strange turns and twists which the poet gives to his decasyllables suggest either a total want of ear or such a study in foreign languages that the student had actually forgotten the intonation and cadences of his own tongue. So stumbling and knock-kneed is his verse that any one who remembers the admirable versification of Chaucer may now and then be inclined to think that Wyatt had much better have left his innovations alone. But this petulance is soon rebuked by the appearance of such a ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... know that your fool head ain't knocked off by a cannon ball.' He shorely jumped up an' down with pleasure an' he called back: 'The good Lord certainly watches over them that ain't got any sense. Dan, you flat-headed, hump-backed, round-shouldered, thin-chested, knock-kneed, club-footed son of a gun, I was never so glad to see anybody before in ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... going! A poor little filly like you, sound-kneed, sound-winded, and full of speed, and no thin' but trouble for your Christmas stockin'. A poor little blue-eyed ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... manfully shouldering his absurd weapon of office, which in the place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... me against this Berselius," said Adams to himself, "same as if we were dogs. That's the long and short of it. Yes, I can understand his meaning in part; he's afraid if Berselius engages some week-kneed individual, he'll give the weak-kneed individual more than he can take. He wants to stick a six-foot Yankee in the breach, instead of a five-foot froggie, all absinthe and cigarette ends. Well, ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... think I wish to appear contemptible?" he shouted. "D' ye think I like to sit here like an old wife, scolding in one breath and preaching thrift in the next? A weak-kneed, chicken-livered, white-bellied old bullfrog that squeaks and jumps, plunk! into the puddle when a footstep falls in the grass! Am I not a patroon? Am I not Dutch? Granted I'm fat and slow and a glutton, and lazy as a wolverine. I can fight like ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... office next morning he found Killen waiting for him. One glance at the weak defiant face told him that the legislator was again in revolt. The lawyer felt a surge of disgust sweep over him. All through the session he had cajoled and argued the weak-kneed back into line. Why didn't Hardy do his own dirty work instead of leaving it to him to soil his hands ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Wear thee away; for know, the womb of Time Hath not conceived a power to set thee free. Such meed thou hast, for love toward mankind For thou, a god defying wrath of gods, Beyond the ordinance didst champion men, And for reward shalt keep a sleepless watch, Stiff-kneed, erect, nailed to this dismal rock, With manifold laments and useless cries Against the will inexorable of Zeus. Hard is the ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... was in my mood and a hot contempt of him that he could stand there and accept their acclamation with an air of humility that I am persuaded was assumed: a certain envious anger was there, too, to think that such a weak-kneed, lily-livered craven should receive the plaudits of the deeds that I, his buffoon, had performed for him. Those acclamations were not for him, although those who acclaimed him thought so. They were for ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Jason Philip detected a lukewarm impotency creeping over his body. The sweat of solicitude trickled down across his forehead. Involuntarily he kneed his way closer to the edge of the platform, threw out his chest, jerked his hat from his head, opened his ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... lacking in bone and animal matter; close confinement; lack of exercise; over-heating in brooders. Symptoms: Chicks walk in a wobbly, weak-kneed fashion, often resting or hobbling along on the joints. Treatment: Feed young chicks on Pratts Baby Chick Food. Give fair amount of beef or fish scrap and bone meal. Afford opportunity for exercise, especially on the ground. Avoid ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... at last—it is a long service, such as we poor weak-kneed Anglicans could not endure—the end. There was a great bustle and ceremony on the platform; they rolled up the Roll of the Law; they wrapped it in a purple velvet cloth; they hung over it a silver ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... one thing," said Pembroke, deciding to play along with her for the moment. "You're too tense. Also you're a bit knock-kneed, not that it matters. Is that what ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle
... go there," answered Irgalac, "but Iriel good at arms, great-kneed son of Conall Cernac. He is a Conall for havoc, a Cuculain for dexterity of feats. He is a Catbad, a right-wonderful Druid, for intelligence and counsel, he is a Senca son of Ailill for peace and for good speech, he is ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... left it too long. In the end I didn't really want to come at all—wanted to lie down and die, but hadn't the strength of mind to insist. I'd been in London a week before I wrote you—just drifting round—too weak-kneed to take the first step. I tore up ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... had maintained the fiction that the States were not at war with France; but in January, 1745, the pressure of circumstances was too strong even for the weak-kneed Van der Heim and his fellow-statesmen, and a quadruple alliance was formed between England, Austria, Saxony and the United Provinces to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction. This was followed in March by the declaration of war between France and the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... be an old-time friend of all the turmoil around him. As he had done us the honour to make an afternoon call on the artillery, I thought it becoming in someone to say something on the occasion. No one did, however, so, although a somewhat bashful and weak-kneed youngster, I plucked up courage enough to venture to remark that those big guns over the river had been knocking us about pretty considerably during the day. He quickly turned his head, and I knew in an instant who it was before me. The clear-cut, chiselled features; the thin, compressed and determined ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... are alcoholic. Another poison also, which I need not name, corrodes the race. To that, to the alcohol, are due the children whom you see there: the dwarf, the one with the hare-lip, the others who are knock-kneed, scrofulous, imbecile. All of them, men and women, young and old, have the ordinary vices of the peasant. They are brutal, suspicious, grasping, and envious; hypocrites, liars, and slanderers; inclined ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... days, at's better dun too nor we wor then; an them were t'golden days a Hallamshoir, they sen. An they happen wor, for't mesters. Hofe at prentis lads e them days wor lether'd whoile ther skin wor skoi-blue, and clam'd whoile ther booans wer bare, an work'd whoile they wor as knock-kneed as oud Nobbletistocks. Thah nivver sees nooa knock-kneed cutlers nah: nou, not sooa; they'n better mesters nah, an they'n better sooat a wark anole. They dooant mezher em we a stick, as oud Natta Hall did. But for all that, we'd none a yer wirligig polishin; nor Tom Dockin ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... corner and from every unionist mouth that everything belonged of right to those who worked and that the idle rich were thieves and robbers. She smiled grimly to watch Mrs. Macanany and viragoes like her pouring oil on the flames and drumming the weak-kneed up and screaming against "blacklegging" as a thing accurst. And when she understood that the fight was over, while apparently it was waxing thicker, she had waited to see what the end would be, longing for something she knew not what. She used to go down town, sometimes of an evening, to watch the ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... did not seek her mouth, sitting down rather awkwardly and in the spread-kneed fashion ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... reason he is nicknamed by his acquaintances "a sling-poke"? Observe the lazy grotesque repose of his three-featured face, for more it does not present, viz.—mouth, eyes, and nose. His long legs are without calves, and he is in-kneed; yet the fellow has such taste, that in order to show his shape he must needs wear breeches! Look at his coat, which was made for him about five years ago, when he was but "a slip of a boy." The thin collar ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... said Richard, with great simplicity, it is not Cousin Bess. But when did you ever know a half-breed, Duke, who could bear civilization? For that mat ter, they are worse than the savages themselves! Did you notice how knock-kneed he stood, Elizabeth, and what a wild look he had in ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... and going to the hearthrug). That wont do for me. Dont be weak-kneed, Balsquith. You know perfectly well that the real government of this country is and always must be the government of the masses by the classes. You know that democracy is damned nonsense, and that no class stands less of it than the working class. You know that we are already discussing ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... weak-kneed general, who afterwards sold himself to the British, went back and told Governor Rutledge that the only thing to do was to abandon the fort. The governor, however, was made of better stuff, and, besides, had the greatest faith in Colonel Moultrie. ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... side on the sofa. Both were cross—kneed, and the tip of her russet boot almost grazed that of his Oxford tie. He did not notice: he was already arranging the first paragraph of a letter to a friend in Winnebago, Wisconsin. "Dear Arthur: I called,—as I said I was going to. She is ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... thought Emerson Mead unaccountably despondent about the probable outcome of his trial, and at times even indifferent to his fate. He wondered much why this man, formerly of such buoyant and determined nature, should suddenly collapse, in this weak-kneed fashion, lose all confidence in himself, and seem to care so little what happened to him. The lawyer finally decided that it was all on account of his client's honesty and uprightness of character, which would ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... seem to think that bull-dozing tactics, cute lies and irritable manners make the seller humble, weak-kneed and non-combative. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... strode stiff-kneed down the long march, the stride of a man for years used to cavalry boots. He was flanked by frozen visaged subordinates, but none so cold ...
— Summit • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... I had done my duty by the race and my own and my husband's people, and I had brought up my sons to be honorable and self-respecting men, whatever their failings, and my daughters in the best traditions of American womanhood. They are model wives and mothers, and they have made no weak-kneed concessions to these degenerate times. They bore me but I'd rather they did that than disgrace me. Mary never had even one child, although her husband must have wanted an heir. I have lived a life of duty—duty to my family traditions, my husband, my children, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Unless Pertinax is man enough to strike the blow that shall restore the ancient liberties, then he is better dead before he tries to play the savior! We have a tyrant now. Shall we exchange him for a weak-kneed theorist?" ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... on a front, Sam," was the answer. "If I had been weak-kneed about it that fellow wouldn't have ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... puts the thumb of each hand into the armhole of his waistcoat, and moves along stiffly, with a knock-kneed gait. His talk was chiefly of hotels, and such matters as a man, always travelling, without any purpose of observation for mental improvement, would be interested in. He spoke of his life ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and the clock stopped, the servant girl sent in her resignation, and a large dog jumped through the parlor-window. All this happened within two hours from the time I erected the lop-eared, knocked-kneed and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... called the Red-kneed Dottrel, Charadrius ruftveniris, formerly Erythrogonys cinctus, Gould. A species of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... of "th' crooked legged 'uns." It was not a mere local name, but became a general stigmatic description of Keighley folks throughout the country. The great agitator, the late Richard Oastler, was agitating for the Ten Hours Bill at this time. Many of the young people of Keighley were then "knock o' kneed" and otherwise deformed. This fact was represented to Mr Oastler by the local poet, Abraham Wildman. The latter was interested in the working folk, and had published some poems reflecting on their hard life. Oastler took up the case of the children, twelve of whom with crooked legs he had exhibited ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... disdainfully, "but if that red-haired, knock-kneed, overfed beau of yours ever sets foot on this place again, he comes in a hearse! And what goes for him, goes for all! Go on and tell, but you'll have the loneliest summer ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... wobbly-kneed journey or two to the edge of the Public Garden he had made no attempts as yet to resume any outdoor life, yet for sundry personal reasons of his own he did not feel over-anxious to postpone the necessary meeting. In the immediate emergency at hand strong courage ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... that "Uncle Gillison" is old. He is knock-kneed and walks slowly. His long thin hands clutch his chair strongly for support as he continually shifts his position. When he brings his hands to the back of his head, as he frequently does, in conversation, they tremble as with palsy. He ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... is not the only one whom this brute is terrorising," murmured Blakeney once between his teeth; "I marvel that the man ever feels safe, alone in these lodgings, with no one but that weak-kneed Rondeau to protect him. He must have scores of enemies in this city who would gladly put a dagger in his heart or a bullet through ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... are weak-minded and weak-kneed," answered Harold Bird, in disgust. "But you stood in with those rascals and you ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... of the road, under the shade of a giant elm, he had brought the car to a halt and with his arms crossed upon the wheel sat motionless, following with frowning eyes the retreating figure of Jimmie. But the narrow-chested and knock-kneed boy staggering over the sun-baked asphalt no longer concerned him. It was not Jimmie, but the code preached by Jimmie, and not only preached but before his eyes put into practice, that interested him. The young man with white hair had been running away ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... struggle. There was fatal division between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, Luther himself having said in his haste that he hated a Calvinist more than a Papist. The great Protestant princes were lukewarm and weak-kneed: like the Tudor nobility of England, they clung much more firmly to the lands which they had taken from the Catholics than to the faith in the name of which the lands were taken; and as powers of order, naturally alarmed ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... in history that he was at his best. It was a noble sight to see him imitate the weak-kneed, slobbering James I; and he had the private scandals of Henry VIII at his finger-tips. For all commentators he had a profound contempt. One day he seized Farrar's edition of St Luke, and holding it at arm's-length between ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... me it means the sickling over a robust nationhood with the yellowing hue of a dollar democracy, the yellowing hue of gnashing social jealousy, the yellowing hue of moral putridity and decadence and rot. Hitherto every man has stood on his own legs in Canada. There has been no weak-kneed, puling greedy mob bellowing for pap from the breasts of a state treasury—demanding the rewards of industry and thrift which they have been too weak and shiftless and useless to earn. But Canada is at the parting of the ways. The day more men live in the cities ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... kinship with a gnome. His head seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been because it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored hair, with mustache and beard to match. He was attired in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that looked as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed. On the floor about his feet lay almost every conceivable type and age of traveling bag, with the ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... At this weak-kneed confession the Baron could hardly withhold an exclamation of contempt, but Essington, with more ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... little moonlit glen they met and exchanged glances—the sturdy, calm-faced boy, and the weak-kneed, trembling man. Pepperill had not recovered from the terror with which he had been inspired, when summoned to guide a reconnoitring party to the ravine. But he had not yet lisped a syllable of what he knew concerning the cave. Carl gave him a look, and turned his eyes away again indifferently. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Christine Chaine, she stayed where she was on the floor, her head resting on the bed in sheer exhaustion, her limbs limp. All thought of going into the garden had left her. Sitting there, stiff-kneed and weary, she thought of Saltire's eyes, and realized that there had come and gone an evening which she must count for ever among the lost treasures of her life. Yet she did not regret it as she rose at last and looked down by the dim light on the pale, beautiful, but composed ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... here, yo'! Dat's twice yo' called me Jackson! If yo' don't know no moah dan to confuse me wif dat wall-eyed, knock-kneed, bandy-legged, fiat-footed, paraletic nigger Jackson, we'll call ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... having lived; of having lived hard, brutally, squalidly, and of being worn out. A room of which Ranny said that, go into it when you would, it looked as if it had been up all night. A stained, bleared-eyed, knocked-kneed sinner of ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... the mighty chieftains marshalled out their hosts. Here stood stout Risingh, firm as a thousand rocks, incrusted with stockades, and intrenched to the chin in mud batteries. He was a gigantic Swede, who, had he not been rather knock-kneed and splay-footed, might have served for the model of Samson or a Hercules. He was no less rapacious than mighty, and withal as crafty as he was rapacious, so that there is very little doubt that had he lived some four or five centuries since he would have figured as one of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... told. She phrased bluntly. Her recital was after the manner of the fireworks called "Roman candles." These, when lit, pour out fire and smoke in a rather weak-kneed dribble. They must be held tightly. When tensely enough constricted, of fire and smoke there is little, but at intervals out there pops an exceedingly ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... making two. They were inexpressibly bored, but that was beside the point. By occupying two stalls, Mrs. Slumper was sure they were doing the right thing. A box would have been better, of course, but there had been some difficulty, and Slumper, being a weak-kneed fool, had been bluffed into taking the stalls. Mrs. Slumper would like to see the clerk who could bluff her. By dint of concentrating upon her grievance, she had worked herself into a passion by the end of ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... shave," he said. "Them was murderin' savages, no weak-kneed Mission variety. I'd give two cents to know what scared 'em and what's goin' on over yonder. They were on the rampage, which same means thievin' and killin', or ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... share in the labours of society beyond the passive fulfilment of sexual functions, has always been negated. It has ended as would end the experiment of a man seeking to raise a breed of winning race-horses out of unexercised, short-winded, knock-kneed mares. No, more disastrously! For while the female animal transmits herself to her descendant only or mainly by means of germinal inheritance, and through the influence she may exert over it during gestation, the human female, by producing the intellectual and moral atmosphere in which ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... eyes snapping with excitement. "Have I your permission to go a little nearer, monsieur?" he asked eagerly. "I won't be gone long. I only want to get a German helmet." It may have been the valour of ignorance which these broad-hatted, bare-kneed boys displayed, but it was the sort of valour which characterized every Belgian soldier. There was one youngster of thirteen who was attached to an officer of the staff and who was present at every battle of importance from the evacuation of Brussels to the fall of Antwerp. I remember ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... and this day put on my close-kneed coloured suit, which, with new stockings of the colour, with belt and new gilt-handled sword, is very handsome. To church alone, and after dinner to church again, where the young Scotchman preaching, I slept all the while. After supper, fell in discourse of dancing, and I find that ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... almost identically the same as what may be heard against him any day in Atlanta. If there be any basis for them, perhaps it would be expedient for the Government to supersede him. The parole law, at its best, seems to be rather a weak-kneed and perverse institution, and it would be a pity to deprive it of what value it may have by committing its dispensation to the hands of a man not peculiarly fitted by nature and temperament to carry out its provisions. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... '76. MY DEAR HOWELLS,—It is a splendid notice and will embolden weak-kneed journalistic admirers to speak out, and will modify or shut up the unfriendly. To "fear God and dread the Sunday school" exactly described that old feeling which I used to have, but I couldn't have formulated it. I want to enclose one of the illustrations in this letter, if I do not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... themselves gracefully, and dress remarkably well—no small praise in these days of pinching, deforming, and demoralizing French fashions; but it is strange how many men—young men especially—one sees at Milan, bent, stunted, and weak-kneed. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... of overgrown and unbalanced hoofs to divert the lower bones of young legs from their proper direction, and, therefore, to cause them to be moved improperly, with loss of speed and often with injury to the limbs, we might hope to see fewer knock-kneed, bow-legged, "splay-footed," "pigeon-toed," cow-hocked, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... tall, thin man whose clothes hung loosely on the angles of his round-shouldered, bony form. His long, thin legs, about which the baggy trousers draped in ungraceful folds, were slightly knock-kneed and terminated in large, flat feet. His arms were very long even for such a tall man, and the huge, bony hands were gnarled and knotted. When he removed his bowler hat, as he frequently did to wipe away with a red handkerchief the sweat occasioned by furious ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... and Girly—well, I wouldn't like to let on Before the children, but I can almost seem to see All of 'em lookin' down, like as if they pitied me, After the breakfasts they give me, to have me have to put up With nothing but bread and butter, and a little mis'able cup Of this here weak-kneed coffee! I can't tell how you feel, But it fairly makes me sick! Breakfast is my ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells |
