"Limp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rather tall, and wore a somewhat limp, faded print gown, and a big sunhat, beneath which a glossy knot of chestnut showed itself. Her skin was very fair, somewhat freckled, and her mouth was delicious. As for her eyes, they were grey, but ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they'd massed there on both sides, like fleas on a razorback. Thinks I, 'If we make it through here, we've busted the strike,' and I glances back at the 'Detroit' just in time to see her crew pullin' their captain into the deck house, limp and bleedin'. The barricade was all knocked to pieces and they'd flunked absolute. Don't blame 'em much either, as it was sure death to stand out in the open under the rain of stuff that come from the bridges. Of course with ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... no more than justice, for the cook was paid well; but there was one man in the assembly to whom this did not altogether appeal. The victim was frail and helpless, a watery-eyed, limp bundle of nerves, with, nevertheless, a pitiful suggestion of outward dignity still clinging to him, though his persecutors would have described him aptly as a whisky tank. The former fact was sufficient for Weston, who did not stop to think out the matter, but rose and strode quietly ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... shell rose to a shriek and the explosion was instantaneous. The little man suddenly went limp and his rifle rolled down the bank of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... away from the office window, obeying the directions to "read other side," and as she walked down the long corridor (her sore feet causing her to limp slightly) the words "if sick or disabled, notify employment bureau at once" sang through her head, keeping time with her ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... he staggered on his way. He wished this little inanimate body at his breast to participate in his tremblings. But the child had lain limp and still during these headlong charges and countercharges, and no ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... and Betty were only intent on receiving the inanimate form wrapped up in its mantle. What a meeting it was for Betty, and yet what joy to have her at all! They laid her with her head in her sister's lap, and Sir Amyas hung over her, clasping one of the limp gloved hands, while Eugene called "Aura, Aura," and would have impetuously kissed her awake, but Loveday caught hold of him. "Do not, do not, for pity's sake, little master," she said; "the potion will do her no harm if you let her sleep it off, but she may not know ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and, if she cannot attract attention to herself amid a gathering even of sensible, cheerful adults, she will probably break up the evening by dint of a well-timed fit of spasms or something similar. Dickens made Mrs. Gummidge very funny; but the Gummidge of real life is not merely a limp, "lorn" creature—she is a woman who began by being unhealthily vain, and ends by being venomously malignant. I do not think that many people have passed through life very far without meeting with a specimen of the dolorous shrew, and ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... appear next; he could prevision the lithe puma, in its quick nervous movements, the lashing of the heavy tail and the glint of the teeth. And so when he saw what it was that entered, he sat back for a moment limp and the next sprang to ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... few minutes before. He must have been handling himself carelessly, not expecting to get such a jerk. I heard his startled cry—Oh!—in a high treble as he felt himself going, and looked up in time to see him go limp all over as he fell. Ough! Poor father was remarkably white about the gills when we shook hands in Gravesend. 'Are you all right?' he says, looking hard at me. 'Yes, father.' 'Quite sure?' 'Yes, father.' 'Well, then good-bye, my boy.' He told me afterwards that for half a word ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed the Bozra ever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor; the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men the keleustes ceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... when I drew a stiff white amice over my head, instead of the dear old limp and wrinkled one I was used to; and when I feebly tried to push my hands through the lace meshes of an alb, that would stand with stiffness and pride, if I placed it on the floor. I would gladly have called for my old garment; but I knew that I ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... at the Home was a lame boy named Hal Chester. That is, he had been lame when the Curlytops first met him early in the summer, but he was almost cured now, and walked with only a little limp. The Home had been built to cure lame children, and ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... crazed with liquor. With clubbed guns we cleared it again and again, battering mercilessly at every head that fronted us. Then a great giant of a fellow—dead or alive I know not—was hurled headlong through the opening, an inert, limp weight, that bore the two soldiers beside me to the floor beneath his body. With wide sweep of my gun I struck him, shattering the stock into fragments, and swung back to meet the others, the hot barrel falling to ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... table as well as his weak legs would allow, and inspected him critically. He certainly was a forlorn specimen. One of the black beads which had served him for eyes was gone. His ears, which had originally stood up saucily on his head, now drooped in limp dejection. One of them was a mere shapeless rag hanging by a thread. He was dirty and discolored, and his tail was gone. But still he smiled with his red-thread mouth and seemed trying to make the best ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... you. Course it's all right for you to register this leader about not bein' scared of him. You may think you ain't, but you are all the same; and as long as you're in that state you're licked. That's the big trouble with most of us,—bein' limp in the spine. We're afraid of our jobs, afraid of what the neighbors will say, afraid of our stomachs, afraid of to-morrow. And here you are, prowlin' around on the outside, gettin' yourself messed up, and standin' to lose the one and only girl, all because an old stuff like Pulsifer says ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... could not see a single one of them on the beach, it was pretty evident that they were brooding over their grievance. We might have weighed anchor and made for the open sea, only unfortunately there was a perfect calm, and our sails, which were set in readiness for a hasty departure, hung limp and motionless. Suddenly, as we stood looking out anxiously over the side in the direction of the shore, we were amazed to see at least twenty fully-equipped war-canoes, each carrying from thirty to forty warriors, rounding the headland, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... Then he managed to limp back to his battalion, and piteously begged his adjutant not to let his name be put down on the casualty list, for, said he, "my mother is in feeble health, and if she saw my name in the papers among the wounded she would worry herself almost to death, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... waist and very wide below, and in the bosom of this dress were sticking dozens, maybe hundreds, for all Freddie could tell, of pins and needles. She must have been very tall when she stood up. A cane leaned against the back of her chair; she was a little lame; not very lame, but enough to make her limp when she walked, and to make her cane useful in getting about. If she had had a stiff starched ruff about her neck and a lace thing on her head pointed in front, she would have done very well for Queen Elizabeth, the one you see the picture of in that history-book. There was a thimble ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... advice iv th' Jap'nese ambassadure f'r poor young Japs to marry rich American girls, a Jap'nese combynation theelogical student an' cook applied f'r th' hand iv th' daughter iv th' boordin'-house keeper where he was employed. He was able to limp to th' Jap'nese Consul's house, where he made a complaint to th' Impror, who was an old frind iv his father. Th' Prisidint has ordhered th' lady to marry th' Chink.' 'Th' Hoop-la Theatre was closed last night on complaint ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... kiss them. If she is very young she will blush and close her eyes. By the way in which she receives his caresses he will divine what pleases her most in union. The signs of her enjoyment are that her body becomes limp, her eyes close, she loses all timidity, and takes part in the movements which bring her most closely to him. If, on the other hand, she feels no pleasure, she strikes the bed with her hands, will ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... So limp and helpless had China become since the overthrow by Japan and the humiliations following the "Boxer war," and so compliant had she been with Russia's demands, that the United States, Great Britain and Japan, fearful that she would yield, combined to prevent this last concession, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... happened to fit him very well, and to become his very dark complexion, especially as he now held up his head, and used the manners, not only of a well-behaved but of a highly-accomplished gentleman. When he moved, his clumsy and awkward limp was exchanged for a sort of shuffle, which, as it might be the consequence of a wound in those perilous times, had rather an interesting than an ungainly effect. At least it was as genteel an expression that the party had been ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... was plunging straight toward the ring, head first. He struck heavily, crumpling up in a little heap, then straightening out, while half a dozen attendants ran to the lad, hastily picking him up and hurrying to the dressing tent with the limp, unconscious form. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... spike, there to stay in meek obedience to his will. "The flowers are made to assume their definite position," says Professor W. W. Bailey in the "Botanical Gazette," "by friction of the pedicels against the subtending bracts. Remove the bracts, and they at once fall limp." ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... I did not see the great admiral enter the room. When I turned he was standing close by my elbow, a small, brown man with the lithe, slim figure of a boy. He was not clad in uniform, but he wore a high-collared brown coat, with the right sleeve hanging limp and empty by his side. The expression of his face was, as I remember it, exceedingly sad and gentle, with the deep lines upon it which told of the chafing of his urgent and fiery soul. One eye was disfigured and sightless from a wound, but the other looked from my father to ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that my excellent friend France d'Houdetot received a wound to his thigh which has left him with a limp. D'Houdetot, scarcely out of childhood was a naval cadet, and attached to the staff of Admiral Magon, a friend of my father. After the death of the admiral, the ship "The Algesiras," in which he served, was captured after a bloody encounter, and the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they were up against. I used those men as whet-stones—used them to kick fear out of myself. You notice that I limp a little? That's a legacy from the days of ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... crash. The next moment the pack would have been upon him, but Peggy jerked the rifle she had selected to her shoulder and fired into the midst of the savage horde. With a howl of anguish one of the creatures leaped high in a death agony and came toppling down among his mates, a limp, inanimate mass. This checked the surging onrush for an instant, and in that instant Roy was on his feet and ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... black before him, T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., pale and limp, crumpled, and slid to the ground, senseless; therefore, he failed to hear the roar from the Bannister bench, from the loyal Gold and Green rooters in the stands, as big Beef lumbered across the plate with what proved later to be the winning run. He did not hear the Umpire ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... like a thunderbolt. He sat utterly dumbfounded—his hands went limp, and the letter fell upon the desk ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... pretence of little conversational flurries: "That second movement—oh, exquisitely rendered!... No one has ever read Chopin so divinely.... How his family must idolize him!... They say.... That exquisite concerto!... Hasn't he the most stunning hair.... Those staccato passages left me actually limp—I'm starting Myrtle in Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take stenography, but I tell her.... Did you think the preludes were just the tiniest bit idealized.... I always say if one has ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... again seemed of considerable length. When the lit candle was placed steadily on top of the coffin, and a light, dim, though strong enough to see with, spread around, he stooped and lifted Stephen in his arms. She was quite senseless, and so limp that a great fear came upon him that she might be dead. He did not waste time, but carried her across the vault where the door to the church steps stood out sharp against the darkness, and bore her up into the church. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... came to a halt, and the man, bending down, lifted the boy from the chair. With pitiful eyes, Theodora noted the limp helplessness of all the lower part of his body; but she also saw that the boyish face was bright and manly, and that his blue eyes flashed with a spirit equal to Hubert's own. She watched approvingly the handy way in which the man settled the cushions. Then he turned to go away. Half way ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... there, Paul! Keep back!" cried Mr. Pertell. "Don't get in range and spoil the picture. That's fine, Miss DeVere. It's very natural—that limp!" ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... the best in the house," Alan Hawke laughed and charitably divided the hour of long waiting with the simple-hearted old father. At half-past twelve, with a rush and a flutter, the two young falcons sailed into the main hallway and effusively bade adieu to their limp cavaliers, who slunk away, in different directions, when they observed the disgruntled parent and ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... nothing, but made a few quick steps in the direction of the limp figure which the crowd was following up the beach; then she stopped. Her nature prompted her to go on; her present feelings restrained her. She could not help wondering at this, and said to herself that she must be aging faster than she thought. Her distant ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... here in the room, in my arm, His limp body hangs on the spin Of the waltz we are dancing, a swarm Of blood-drops is hemming us in! Round and round! One! Two! Three! And his sin Is red like his tongue ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... sir—egad! I say damme! he should limp in irons to Botany Bay and stay there if I ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... deposited his gun against the wall of the kitchen, and dropped a pair of very limp rabbits with a thud to the floor, proceeded to climb through the window. This operation performed, he stood on one side while the besieged garrison passed out by ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... old beaver hat; black mohair in the obsolete form of a stock drearily encircled his neck and rose as high as his haggard jaws. The one morsel of color he carried about him was a lawyer's bag of blue serge, as lean and limp as himself. The one attractive feature in his clean-shaven, weary old face was a neat set of teeth—teeth (as honest as his wig) which said plainly to all inquiring eyes, "We pass our nights on his looking-glass, and our ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... grass blades. He stood looking down upon her, his head reeling beneath the hot rays of the sun, barely conscious of what had occurred, yet never becoming totally dead to his duty. Painfully he stooped, lifted the limp, slender figure against his shoulder, and went straggling forward, as uncertain in steps as a blind man, all about him stretching the dull, dead desolation of the plain. Again and again he sank down, pillowing his eyes from the pitiless sun glare; only ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... was naturally of a resolute disposition, acquired courage from this circumstance to examine his monstrous guest, who gave him sufficient leisure for this purpose. He saw, as the lion approached him, that he seemed to limp upon one of his legs, and that the foot was extremely swelled, as if it had been wounded. Acquiring still more fortitude from the gentle demeanour of the beast, he advanced towards him, and took hold of the wounded part as a surgeon would examine his patient. He then ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... they start run. Old Man run ver' fast. Coyote limp along close behind. Then coyote turn round and run back very fast. Him not lame at all. Tak' Old Man long tam to get back. Jus' before he get there coyote swallow las' rabbit, and trot away over the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... Limp and impotent, it is little more than a skin full of water, a yard and a half of intestine with no superficial indication of difference between head and tail. Watch closely, and the "face,"—a much frayed mop—is shyly obtruded from one end, and there is justification for the opinion ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... to rest close to where Chet lay, then placed the limp form on the self-adjusting floor of the control room. There must be no shifting of the body as the pull of gravitation ceased. Soft blankets made a resting place ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... got a grip around his master's body and lifted it out to Parker, who received it and laid the limp form out on the grass. While he stood looking down at Don Mike's white, relaxed face, Pablo knelt, made the sign of the cross and commenced to pray for the peaceful repose of his roaster's soul. It was a long prayer; Parker, waiting ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... myself sitting. My position was an accident, but if it had been calculated the reason would scarce have eluded an observer of the fact that no one else in the room had an approach to an appearance. Our philosopher's "tail" was deplorably limp. This visitor was the only person who looked at her ease, who had come a little in the spirit of adventure. She seemed to carry amusement in her handsome young head, and her presence spoke, a little mystifyingly, of a sudden extension of Saltram's sphere ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... and there seemed to be shots from the second boche. My own particular duelist dropped back limp after my first shot, although I got off ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... by no means quiet me. I insisted that Preston should stop the man; and at last he did. The fellow turned and came back towards us, ducking his old white hat. His face was just like the rest of him; there was no expression in it but an expression of limp submissiveness. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... was one of the pneumatic-tire, hot-water-bag kind of giants, who flat out if you stick a pin into them and lie perfectly limp until they are bandaged up and set going once more. That is really a secret, but Robin knew it by the help of the Owl's wisdom, and he was not the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... like a stricken creature, her beautiful head limp against the pillow of her chair, ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... then the classes began to file out of the rooms and along the corridors towards the refectory. He sat looking at the two prints of butter on his plate but could not eat the damp bread. The tablecloth was damp and limp. But he drank off the hot weak tea which the clumsy scullion, girt with a white apron, poured into his cup. He wondered whether the scullion's apron was damp too or whether all white things were cold and damp. Nasty Roche and Saurin drank cocoa that their people sent them in ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... avoid being irritated a little by such a woman, but I always tried to conceal this from her. I suppose she had a right to her own play-world. She was dressed now in a limp black of many rusty ruffles that sagged close to her and glistened in spots through its rust. Both the dress and the spiritless silk bonnet that circled her keen little face seemed to have been cried over a long time—to be ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... much about the same, the diagnosis of pricks received in the forge, as compared with those occurring in the natural manner, is easy. The animal starts to the forge quite sound, and returns, perhaps, with a slight limp. The slight limp in two days' time becomes a decided lameness, and no doubt remains as to what has occurred. The mere fact of the lameness arising immediately after a visit to the forge should be sufficient in the majority of cases to lead ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... to come back! The letter fell from Farquaharson's fingers. His hands themselves fell limp to the table. He sat ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... discharged as he can not walk well, and the surgeon says he will always limp. He owes you a grudge, and I am glad that he is going away, for he is a dangerous man. But the sun is setting, Mr. Edward, and supper will soon be on the table; you had better go ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... started toward her. "You must not go alone." But before I could reach her she fell in a heap at the door, and as one dead she lay limp and white and piteously pretty ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... meeting Giovanni almost daily, and dancing with him almost every evening, her father was slowly negotiating an appropriate marriage for her with the eldest son of certain friends who were almost as clerical and intransigent as himself. The young man was a limp degenerate, with a pale face, a weak mouth, and an inherited form of debility which made him fall asleep wherever he was, if nothing especial happened to keep his eyes open; he not only always slept from ten at night till nine the next morning with ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... a limp, met them at the gate. Transley's eyes reassured him that he had not been led astray by any process of idealization; Zen was all his mind had been picturing her. She was worth the effort. Indeed, a strange sensation of tenderness ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... husbands and brothers were in Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war, thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... him, and Isabel and Sarah moved to help; but the wife turned on hearing Ruth's voice at her side, and Leonard Byington lifted the limp man in his arms unaided, and bore ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... by flesh, but had been muscular with exercise and full-blooded with health. She was glad that the body was changed; glad that its beauty, too, had gone some other-where than into the coffin. She had loved his hands as apart from himself; loved their strong warm magnetism. They lay limp and yellow on the quilt: she knew that they were already cold, and that moisture was gathering on them. For a moment something convulsed within her. They had gone too. She repeated the words twice, and, after them, "forever." And the while ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... to treat them with sympathy, refinement, and respect, and to let them deteriorate as little as possible, for the spirit of an important ornamental form is like a gathered flower—it soon withers and becomes limp. ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... seizing this chance to make some examination of my wounded toe, the which, indeed, was causing me to limp, I found that I had endured less harm than seemed to me; for the bone of the toe was untouched, though showing bare; yet when it was cleansed, I had not overmuch pain with it; though I could not suffer to have the boot on, and so bound some canvas about my foot, until ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... half an hour to pass, and when it was gone, remembering the ladies in lovely dresses who had rolled by in their gorgeous carriages, looking not a bit cleverer or handsomer than other people, I turned away with a little hard lump at my heart and a limp in my left foot—the young Cockney with the fringe had backed on to my toe. I suppose they are feasting with the lords and all the nobility at the Guildhall to-night, and no doubt the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table will go in pies and cakes to ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... about two weeks, they suddenly became covered with a dull bluish mould, at the same time ceasing to give out bubbles; and the whole plant, instead of rising to the surface of the water as hitherto, hung limp from the fissure where it was placed, and trailed upon the sand. Coincidently, (was it consequently?) a greenish tinge pervaded the water, speedily increasing in depth and opacity. In five days, no object could be discerned six inches from the glass, and my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... As he loosened the collar, the whiteness of her throat struck him almost dazzlingly. Instinctively he took the little crumpled handkerchief that lay on the pine carpet beside her, and spread it over her throat reverently. He lifted her limp hand gently and felt her ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... sure; the singer cannot express all these emotions without feeling them to the full during performance. I always feel every phrase I sing—live it. That is why, after a long and exhausting program, I am perfectly limp and spent. For I have given all that was in me. Friends of Sara Bernhardt say that after a performance, they would find her stretched prone on a couch in her dressing room, scarcely able to move or speak. The strain of a public ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all a-tremble. He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his chamber till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's voice, and that of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones, which he recognized ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... second day after the wounding of Black Michael, Clayton came on deck just in time to see the limp body of one of the crew being carried below by four of his fellows while the first mate, a heavy belaying pin in his hand, stood glowering at the little ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to-night, while he leaned back on his velvet bench with his head against a florid mirror and his eyes not looking further than the fumes of his tobacco, might have been regarded by him as a little less limp than usual. This wasn't because, before getting to his feet again, there was a step he had seen his way to; it was simply because the acceptance of his position took sharper effect from his sense of what he had just had to deal with. When half an hour before, at the palace, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... had made himself the leader of the charge gallop straight at a breastwork that the Southerners had built, reach and stand, horse and rider, a moment at the top, then both fall in a limp heap. The next instant the officer, not dead but wounded, was dragged a prisoner behind the embankment by generous foes who had refused to shoot at him until ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... twisting the long limp grass, "every enemy is a tyrant, if he has the upper hand. Consider, what will the war be? Blood, the blood of the noblest Romans! The overturning of time-honoured institutions! A shock that will make the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... cannot carry home even your tail — so farewell!" Off he jumped, and was soon lost to view, leaving us alone — three miserable cripples, far from any shelter, and (so far as I was concerned) not knowing at all how to rejoin our friends. Tip being now able to limp on three legs, and myself upon one, we returned to the unhappy steed, who remained where I had left him, hanging down his head, and ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... apple blossom, with its limp cover of pale green and its stalk of golden-rod, is this little volume containing two stories by Francois Coppee. The tales are charmingly told, and their setting is an ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... feel that he could not abstract himself from personal concerns even in the most sacred duties. He was conscious that the two elder sisters went away, and that only poor aunt Dora, her weak-minded ringlets limp with tears, came tremulous to the altar rails. When the service was over, and the young priest was disrobing himself, she came to him and gave a spasmodic, sympathetic, half-reproachful pressure to his hand. "Oh, Frank, my dear, I did it for the best," said ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the once florid, jovial, and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that used to be so glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons showed the copper. His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat. When he used to treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he would shout and laugh louder than anybody there, and have all the waiters skipping round him; it was quite painful to see how humble ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one of his hands with the other and shaking it violently. He said not a word, and left me to poke about and stumble on the limp warm carcass of a large ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... which the approach of death gives, took hold of the watchers, all the external things which go to make life fell away from him and the stark roots of it stood out. This had been his mate, this fragile little thing lying there, her listless eyes not meeting his, her limp fingers not responding to any touch. She had been nearer to him physically than any other human being, and that she had been further mentally was swamped in that thought in the hour when she was dying of the nearness.... For he had the guilty feeling of the man whose ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... great iron limbs pounding back and forth. A rattle, a shriek, a puff of smoke: he had come and gone. The worm—where was he? Limp and dead in his little hole under the rail. And the butterfly—the poor ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and then, an ugly hitch in their gait, ungraceful in itself, and inconvenient to the reader. To this charge also I plead guilty, but beg leave in alleviation of judgment to add, that my limping lines are not numerous, compared with those that limp not. The truth is, that not one of them all escaped me, but, such as they are, they were all made such with a wilful intention. In poems of great length there is no blemish more to be feared than sameness of numbers, and every art is useful by which it may be avoided. A line, rough in ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... into the darkness of the hallway where I myself was almost sickened, I saw that he was dragging with him a limp form. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... used to convulse Wyndham. He had a line, "Whose child is this?" and there was I, looking a mere child myself, and with a bad cold in my head too, answering: "It's bine!" The very thought of it used to send us off into fits of laughter. We hung on to chairs, helpless, limp, and incapable. Mrs. Wigan said if we did it again, she would go in front and hiss us, and she carried out her threat. The very next time we laughed, a loud hiss rose from the stagebox. I was ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... like a ferret's. He opened his mouth, and there were two teeth on either side like tusks. Gray stubble covered his face, and he wore a brown suit, the trousers retained about his pot-belly—all that remained of his body—by a scarf. There was some limp linen and a red muffler about his throat. He spoke of his age—he was ninety-five—and the priest said he was a fine-looking, hearty man for his years. There wasn't a doubt but he'd pass the hundred. Patsy was inclined to believe he ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Dalag at noon and found the doctor even redder and hotter than usual. The perspiration glistened on his hands and wrists, dripped from his fat face and neck, and his once-starched clothes hung limp from his rolypoly frame. Worn with loss of sleep and fruitless efforts to bring the frightened Bogobos to reason, he welcomed Terry weariedly to the little hut that had been sat aside for ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... But as the seed forms, we see that life is working death, slowly and surely; the swords lose their stiffness and colour and begin to hang helplessly, and by the time it is ripe, every vestige of vitality is drained away from them, and they have gone to limp, greyish-brown streamers. The seed has possessed itself ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... little kisses, praised her hands and hair, and her beautiful limp, and had sat up close to her on the bench, then run after her into the kitchen, gave her money (shows the money), asked again for ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... revived crackle of coals lent spirit to an otherwise dreary solo, and always it was Melissa who poked the grate and at the same time rubbed her leg to renew the circulation that had been checked by the limp weight of Katie Sykes; the deep sighs of Mrs. Bingle and the loud yawns of the older children relieved the monotony of sound from time to time; and the cold wind whistled shrilly round the corners of the building, causing the youngsters to wonder how Santa was enduring the frost ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... head ever spun round and round at some of the confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot forbear ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... limp and leathery type of Social Sham, And Legislative Flam! Which cunning CUNNINGHAME and MATTHEWS cool (Both prompt to play the fool, In free-lance fashion or official form) Prattled of, 'midst a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... hands, it will be bad for their bodies. Instead of roaming far and wide over the country, getting vigorous exercise, they will use their hands to catch and tame horses, build carriages, motors, and then when they want a good outing they will "go for a ride," with their bodies slumped down, limp and sluggish, and losing ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... stand it—no! Of Fiction, limp or strong, Yanks want but little here below, Nor want that little long! (But oh! our (Saxon) stars one thanks, Romance is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... take the wheel now," said Dunston Porter, quietly, and Dave slid out of the driving-seat willingly enough, for the excitement had left him somewhat limp. ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... spare any of the garrison, but food must be had. So, on a bright spring morning one of the vessels weighed anchor and started for the East. Before she left the Detroit River the wind died and her sails hung limp. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... down to it, showed details of design and masonry not generally visible to the naked eye from where Beth stood. There were neither ships nor boats in the bay; but a few cobles, with their red-brown sails flapping limp against their masts, rocked lazily at the harbour-mouth waiting for the tide to rise and float them in. Beth heard the men on them shouting an occasional remark to one another, and now and then one of them would ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... nigh onto eight year ago. 'Come, Josh,' she called ter me, 'jest you carry this hyere child inter the house an' lay her on the bed. I reckon she can have the leetle room, an' you can sleep in the kitchen ternight.'—'I'm agreeable,' answers I; so I picked her up (she war as limp an' docile as could be), an' carried her in, an' put her down on the bed. That was three weeks come Sunday, an' thar she's been ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... house; all were alike threadbare. The color of the men's coats were problematical; such shoes, in more fashionable quarters, are only to be seen lying in the gutter; the cuffs and collars were worn and frayed at the edges; every limp article of clothing looked like the ghost of its former self. The women's dresses were faded, old-fashioned, dyed and re-dyed; they wore gloves that were glazed with hard wear, much-mended lace, dingy ruffles, crumpled muslin fichus. So much for their clothing; but, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... limp, squashed, obedient. "She wants me to write to her," he began, presently. "Says she doesn't mind the spelling, it I'll only ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... simple enough to admit his premises. Towards men who have some logical capacity his tone is that of respectful impatience; but as he goads on the reluctant and resentful victims of his reasoning, who loiter and limp painfully in the steps of his rapid deductions, he seems to say, with ironic scorn, "A little faster, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... I always think of the remark about the Queen in 'Alice in Wonderland.' 'A little kindness, and putting her hair in curl-papers, would do wonders for her.' She is so limp and thin and melancholy. As for him—isn't there a race or a prize-fight ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... beside the corpse and stroked its limp right hand. She had hated the boy throughout his brief and merry life. She thought now of his likeness ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... was the price agreed upon; here it is," he said, taking out a thick bundle of notes that occupied the whole inside of the poor, limp pocket-book; and as the old woman stretched out a skinny claw for them and began to slowly count them, he turned his gaze away, on to the upturned face of the girl ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... From the madly racing horses her glance flew to the cloud of dust which concealed the spot where a moment before had lain that little patch of white. Her fingers clenched as she steeled herself to the sight of the two limp, twisted forms that the lifting dust cloud must reveal. Scarcely daring to wink she fixed her eyes upon the ground—but the dust cloud had drifted away and there were no limp, twisted forms. Even ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... a hotel where there's a blue sign out he leans up against a window gratin', sort of limp and exhausted, and it looks like he means to ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... value of time, that he would continue to urge them on, whenever any signs of slackening appeared, with exclamations: "A little faster, boys, a little faster!" and Mr Stannard states that he has seen the boatmen land after such a row as this in as limp a condition as four strong men could be. All his own movements were carried on at the run, and his activity was such that few younger and taller men were able to keep up with him. I well recollect myself my first interview with General Gordon in 1881, when he roused me up by a surprise ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the man was free. But he could not raise himself up, and when Dick did it Arnold Baxter fell a limp form in his arm. He ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... a deep shadow of sorrow and disappointment on the face of Dr. Gresham as he rose to leave. For a moment he held her hand as it lay limp in his own. If she wavered in her determination it was only for a moment. No quivering of her lip or paling of her cheek betrayed any struggle of her heart. Her resolve was made, and his words were powerless to swerve her from the purpose ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... country-side and eaten I don't know how many children and goats. He walked up the main street till he got to the open Piazza in front of the great church. And the long grey wolf padded beside him with a limp tongue lolling out between the ragged palings which stood him for teeth. In the middle of the Piazza was a fountain, and above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our friend mounted the steps of the cross in the alert way he had ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... morning—much to the disadvantage of the former, through which he could perceive the fundamental axiom protruding like a cloven foot, when he suddenly ceased thinking for ever, for a blow from the heavy knob of a strong stick crushed his skull in on his brain like an egg-shell, and he sank, a limp mass, to ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... put her strong arm round her, and nearly carried her down-stairs, gratified to find her clinging to her, and refusing all other support. Scarcely a word was spoken as they went home; but Theodora held the hand, which was cold, limp, and shaking, and now and then she made inquiries, always answered by 'Better, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge |
