"All fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her steps toward the sheet. And as she called upon her dead, there issued from her mouth sounds scarcely human, but rather like the howling of some savage dog. As she drew near, she bent over lower and lower, she placed herself almost on all fours; till, reaching him, she threw herself with a howl ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... heart stops for a moment. I can't find the latch. I am vaguely aware of beating something with my fists, and then the door gives, sticks, gives again and I stumble through and land on all fours the other ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... conceive how my friend Thompson would be able to administer clysters, that were ordered for some, in that situation; when I saw him thrust his wig in his pocket, and strip himself to his waistcoat in a moment, then creep on all fours under the hammocks of the sick, and, forcing up his bare pate between two, keep them asunder with one shoulder, until he had done his duty. Eager to learn the service, I desired he would give me leave ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... your mention of Americanism is on all fours with the declarations found in the Bull Moose and regular Republican platforms. The characteristic of all these references to Americanism is vagueness and uncertainty as to what is really meant. I believe that the time has come when the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... hollow, which some, from being suddenly awaked, thought they were attacked by the Indians. We were all panic struck, and could not get thoroughly awaked, being so exhausted, and overpowered with sleep. Most of us were scrambling upon all fours down to the river, and crying for Christ's sake to have mercy upon them, till those who were foremost in the scramble, in crawling into the creek, got recovered from their plight by their hands being immersed in water; yet those who were foremost in ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... especially in children, the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body impulsively, and at the same time pressing the neck closely between ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I told you: four four's sixteen, four in each line and four lines. However you count it, you will find it all fours," ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand. I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees. When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope—thirty-five degrees in some places—made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse thrilled every nerve ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... went out of the dormitory they passed into the children's day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at play—some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of the use ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... broadest in the middle, and lower and narrower towards each end. To these are tied others horizontally, and the whole is thatched over with leaves of sugar-cane. The door-way is in the middle of one side, formed like a porch, and so low and narrow, as just to admit a man to enter upon all fours. The largest house I saw was about sixty feet long, eight or nine feet high in the middle, and three or four at each end; its breadth, at these parts, was nearly equal to its height. Some have a kind of vaulted houses built with stone, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... barbarous, brutal atmosphere, it will, of course, become brutal. The story is told of a well-born child who, being lost or abandoned as an infant, was suckled by a wolf with her own young ones, and who actually took on all the characteristics of the wolf,—walked on all fours, howled like a ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... round for the tenth time to bottle his opponent as before, when he slipped. When the ball came out he was on all fours, and the Ripton exponent, finding to his great satisfaction that he had not been tackled, whipped the ball out on the left, where ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath Mother Chantemesse's colossal bed. There were also two or three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours. They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... take us betwixt your finger and thumb, And quick, oh, quick! for, see! there come Tom on all fours, and Martin the man, And Margaret, picking ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was on all fours retrieving, and the undignified posture had the advantage of serving to conceal the wild terror of his face; a terror such as may stamp itself upon the features of a man who cannot swim and who has ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... at his prison bars as though to rend them from their sockets; he did not growl in an amazingly deep bass, as per inculcated schooling; he did not bare the yellow fang nor yet unsheathe the cruel claw. With apparent difficulty, rising on his all fours from where he was crouched in the rear left-hand corner of his den, Chieftain advanced down stage with what might properly be called a rolling gait. Against the iron uprights he lurched, literally; then, as though grateful for their support, remained fixed there ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... had a foolish but very vivid dream. I dreamed that the landlady and another person, dark and not properly visible, entered my room on all fours, followed by a horde of immense cats. They attacked me as I lay in bed, and murdered me, and then dragged my body upstairs and deposited it on the floor of that cold little square room ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... that swept down from the lofty peaks above. The forest fell away behind them. The great teak and sal trees gave place to the lighter growths of bamboo, plantain, and sago-palm. A troop of small brown monkeys, feasting on ripe bananas, sprang away startled on all fours and vanished in all directions. A slim-bodied, long-tailed mongoose, stealing across the road, stopped in the middle of it to rise up on his hind legs and stare with tiny pink eyes at the approaching elephants. Then, dropping to the ground again ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... a rather turned-up nose and a round face, my father called me "pussy-cat". It needed no more than this to give a small child the desire to imitate a cat; so it was my greatest pleasure to go about on all fours, mewing. I was also in the habit of going up to the second floor of the chteau to join my father in a library, where he spent the hottest hours of the day. When he heard the "miaow" of his little cat, he came and opened ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... hardly done so when Baxter, having disassociated himself from the contents of the table he had upset, began to grope his way toward the electric-light switch, the same being situated near the foot of the main staircase. He went on all fours, as a safer method of locomotion, though slower, than the ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... are white when they are born, but they soon turn brown, as they are rubbed with bear's oil and exposed to the sun. They rub them with oil, both to render their nerves more flexible, and also to prevent the flies from stinging them, as they suffer them to roll about naked upon all fours, before they are able to walk upright. They never put them upon their legs till they are a year old, and they suffer them to suck as long as they please, unless the mother prove with child, in which case she ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... loose, but yoked them together, and had a rope fastened to them besides. Thus united they waddled on; not lovingly, for very often they grumbled and growled, and seemed to be making far from pleasant remarks to each other. They kept on all fours, it must be understood. Bears only stand on their hind legs when they have learned to dance, or are going to eat a man, or at all events are standing at bay. On reaching the end of the lake we found that a considerable ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... fours. To go on all fours. No ellipsis. The word fours is a true substantive, as proved by its existence as ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... man walking erect might be suitably distracted by the arrival of a half-seen figure on all fours. He ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Provinces to be equally ignorant except the prince, the Advocate, and the recorder. Cruwel was then informed that if Neyen expected to discuss such grave matters with the prince, he must first send in a written proposal that could go on all fours and deserve attention. A week afterwards Cruwel came back with a paper in which Neyen declared himself authorized by the archdukes to treat with the States on the basis of their liberty and independence, and to ask what they would give in return for so great a concession as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... window, drawing her handkerchief over her bosom, which had been uncovered to give the baby its breakfast,—the said baby, or its immediate predecessor, sitting at the door, turning round to creep away on all fours;—a man building a flat-bottomed boat by the roadside: he talked with B—— about the Boundary question, and swore fervently in favor of driving the British "into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... nation rejoiced, and Henry became somewhat reconciled to his unattractive spouse. The king was exceedingly fond of this child. One day the Spanish embassador, a dignified Castilian, was rather suddenly ushered into the royal presence at Fontainebleau. The monarch was on all fours on the floor, running about the room with the little dauphin on his back. Raising his eyes, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... constrained here to allude to the treatment given to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly, but he values too highly his own historical judgment to allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the infamous Catiline and his associates must indeed always remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be unreasonable to doubt, that such a conspiracy there really ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have gone very far. What stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne's child, that (Davidson remembered ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... of in the past tense, as we speak of the dead, was not pleasant to Sir Francis, walking behind Geoffrey on all fours. ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... wind to reach the Eden, a couple of miles from our starting-point, and we were on all fours part of the way. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... this proposition, and he held the reins of the Kid's horse, while that cow puncher slipped from the saddle, and, on all fours, crept toward the wall of rock which rose abruptly at a turn of the trail shutting ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... weeks old, was born with hair two inches long all over the body; his features were fiendish and his eyes shone like beads beneath his shaggy brows. He had a tail 18 inches long, horns from the skull, a full set of teeth, and claw-like hands; he snapped like a dog and crawled on all fours, and refused the natural sustenance of a normal child. The mother almost became an imbecile after the birth of the monster. The country people about Bomballa considered this devil-child a punishment for a rebuff that the mother gave to a Jewish peddler ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Dean left several lists of instances of Itacism, he worked out none, except the substitution of [Greek: hen] for [Greek: en] in St. Mark iv. 8, which as it is not strictly on all fours with the rest I have reserved till last. He mentioned all that I have introduced (besides a few others), on detached papers, some of them more than once, and [Greek: lousanti] and [Greek: katharizon] even more than the others. In the brief ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... sight their eyes had ever seen, there was a soft padding of feet and a hurry-scurry behind them, and from the outside darkness beyond the flame-stalks came a crowd of little brown creatures running, jumping, scrambling, tumbling head over heels and on all fours, and some even walking on their heads. They joined hands as they came near the fires and danced ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... slowly, and without talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. An ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... commenced to fly in every direction. In the middle of the hubbub a small dump of bombs was struck by a shell and started to explode behind me. The blast of the explosion caught me up and hurled me down fifteen stairs of the dug-out I had been trying to discover. I landed on all fours in a place full of darkness; a door banged behind me. I don't know how long I lay there. Something was squirming under me. A voice said plaintively, "I don't know who you are, but I wish you'd get ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... all fours, crawling about.] Very like her voice, too, when she's angry. Drat the ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... run with breathless speed, until, having gained a considerable distance away from any probable line of fire, I flung myself down upon the snow, and was somewhat startled at finding Zach very close upon my tracks, tearing along on all fours with a vague sense of danger of some kind, and looking, in his strange envelope, like an infuriated bull-moose in the act of charging a hunter. A shot struck the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering it, so as to give the bewildered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... of conversation among the criminal classes. The language of the Stock Exchange with its Bulls, Bears, Contangos, and other short and comprehensive expressions for various kinds of stocks, is on all fours with the slang of criminals, and it is not necessary to resort to atavism in order to explain it. It arises to supply professional needs, and criminal argot springs up from ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... suddenly presented themselves in their path, and, rising upon their hind legs, contemplated them for some time with a whimsically solemn gaze. The hunters remained motionless; whereupon the bears, having apparently satisfied their curiosity, lowered themselves upon all fours, and began to withdraw. The hunters now advanced, upon which the bears turned, rose again upon their haunches, and repeated their serio-comic examination. This was repeated several times, until the hunters, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... is as follows: The J[)e]s/sakk[-i]d/ is provided with four or more tubular bones, consisting of the leg bones of large birds, each of the thickness of a finger and 4 or 5 inches in length. After the priest has fasted and chanted prayers for success, he gets down upon all fours close to the patient and with his mouth near the affected part. After using the rattle and singing most vociferously to cause the evil man/id[-o] to take shelter at some particular spot, so that it may be detected and located by him, he suddenly touches that place with the end of one ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... to blow so as to oblige the captain to shorten sail, the deuce a seaman durst have gone aloft to stow the canvas. The second mate, standing in the top, was in the act of lifting his rifle, when the monster, running on all fours out to the dizzy topgallant yard-arm, stood erect a breathless instant, poised—in human posture—a marvellous picture of the man-beast against the liquid blue, then sprang into ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... verree short leave of absence, and will presently return, sar—"; the two constables, armed with staves, bringing up the rear; and Faiz Ullah, a Mohammedan's contempt for all Hindoos and foreigners in every line of his face, explaining to the drivers that though Scott Sahib was a man to be feared on all fours, he, Faiz Ullah, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... Mr. Blyth quotes as authority for this trivial name a passage from MAJOR FORBES' Eleven Years in Ceylon; and I can vouch for the graphic accuracy of the remark.—"A species of very large monkey, that passed some distance before me, when resting on all fours, looked so like a Ceylon bear, that I nearly took ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... strike a match, but found the whole box was damp and sodden. I heard a muttering of voices and a curse or two in the outer cavern, and presently the sergeant entered my sanctum on all fours: ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... speed but tripping on a bed-sheet at every other step, with his uncased rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our compartment ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... pick 'em up," exclaimed Lawless, going down on all fours; "don't send for the butler; he's such a pompous old boy; if I were to see him stooping down here, I should be pushing him over, or playing him some trick or other. I shouldn't be able to help it, he's so jolly fat. What a ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... these congregated noises were intolerable. Uncle John aimed a desperate blow with a large apple, which he was just about to bite, at the head of Carlo, who, in order to give his lungs fair play, was standing on all fours on the hampers. The apple missed the dog, and went some distance beyond him into the water. Mr. Carlo, attributing to Uncle John a kinder feeling than that which actually prompted the proceeding, looked upon it as a good-natured ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... different, for it was not still like the others, but went stopping and starting and scuttling like a crab over the grass—sometimes upright like a man and sometimes on all fours like a beast. At last it stood up and ran from tree to tree in a swaying, moving zigzag. I could see then that it was a man, but for the life of me I could not remember where I'd seen his like. Then another cloud slid over the moon and the night was ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... twenty minutes past three an uninteresting performance called the "bear dance" began. A man entered on all fours; his face was painted white; he wore around his loins and over his shoulders pieces of some dark pelt which may have been bear skin, but looked more like the skin of a black sheep. The fire had now ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... saw the mias let go the bough and begin to walk towards us on all fours. It advanced towards where a thick shrub grew, when again catching hold of a bough, it raised itself up on its hind legs. "Now I'll fire!" cried the Frau. I was afraid even then that had it been much nearer she would not have hit it, or at all events wounded it mortally, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... growls. The woman turned about in her distress; waving her hands helplessly before her, and then clapping them to her face. But now the great beast became impatient; it struck the door sharply, and snarled warningly. The woman shrank back as though she herself were about to drop on all fours and answered him. "No, no!" she cried, and considered a moment. Then the door was burst in with one tremendous blow, and Master Bruin rolled over the threshold and leaped toward them in clumsy jumps, his head ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that we might possibly have passed over the open space without being seen, but, for fear of accidents, we covered it, as Frank had done, on all fours. The first persons I met when I rose to a vertical position were Hudson and Frank, who took me to Mr. Hopkins. The ranchman greeted me with the assurance that the arrival of my party was a godsend, and ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... with some pencils, slid to the lower edge of the table, but did not fall off. Mr. Aide looked under the table: Home's legs were inactive. Home said that he thought the table would 'ascend,' and Alphonse Karr dived under it, and walked about on all fours, examining everybody's feet—the others were standing up. The table rose 'three or four feet,' at highest, and remained in air 'from two to three minutes.' It rose so high that 'all could see Karr, and ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Simon had gone and my foot swoll up so s I couldn't walk and I wouldnt a minded its hurtin Miss Hildy but it s like there wornt no bones in it Pink says I sprante it bad and I started to go over to the Farm on all fours to tell ye but I didn't know anythin g agin and Pink made me come back. We couldnt nether on us get hold of Will but now we got him I hope he l go straite, Miss Hildy Pink wanted to write this for me but I druther write myself ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... shout. 'You are raking in the money and buying your wife silk handkerchiefs, but the poor farm labourers have to creep on all fours. It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski."[1] He is the devil's own son, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Ut was un keepun' wuth the way ut ate. Ot a year ut was the size o' a bairn of two. Ut was slow tull walk an' talk. Exceptun' for gurgly noises un uts throat an' for creepun' on all fours, ut dudna monage much un the walkun' an' talkun' line. But thot was tull be expected from the way ut grew. Ut all went tull growun' strong an' healthy. An' even old Tom Henan cheered up ot the might of ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... picked up a rusty jack-knife—and he knew that knife had belonged to Bas Rowlett. Given that clue and attaching to it such other things as he already knew of Bas, it was not hard for Sim to construct a theory that, to his own mind at least, stood on all fours with probability. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... was arrested and fixed with terror; for a deep sigh came from grannie's bed, followed by the voice of words. He thought at first that she had heard him, but he soon found that he was mistaken. Still, the fear of discovery held him there on all fours, like a chained animal. A dull red gleam, faint and dull, from the embers of the fire, was the sole light in the room. Everything so common to his eyes in the daylight seemed now strange and eerie in the dying coals, and at what was to the boy the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... trembling when he dropped into the saddle. With both hands he clung to the horn. Up went the bronco on its hind legs. It pitched, bucked, sun-fished. In sheer terror Bob clung like a leech. The animal left the ground and jolted down stiff-legged on all fours. The impact was terrific. He felt as though a piledriver had fallen on his head and propelled his vital organs together like a concertina. Before he could set himself the sorrel went up again with a weaving, humpbacked twist. The rider shot ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... of their voices. The great brute sat up on his haunches and faced them, growling and snarling. One vaquero sent his rope flying through the air, and the loop settled over a big, hairy fore paw. Then the bear dropped on all fours and made a jump at the pony, which got out of his reach. Another Mexican threw a lasso and caught the bear's hind foot; and as he sat up again a third noose dropped over the other fore paw. Then the poor trapped creature, growling, snarling, and rolling over and over, ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... soft hot sand. However, they picked themselves up; and, Jack, mounting, away they went towards the goal where their friends were ready to receive them. Just as they got up to it, down came the gallant marine once more, but Jack stuck to his back, and on all fours he crawled up to the winning-post. The poor doctor, with Terence, as Jack said, like a huge baboon clinging behind him, came in soon after; and the doctor declared that it was the last time, with or without a jockey, he would ever ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... village on all fours, groaning like a Dutch brig in a cross-sea, went our Albert Edward. He crawled into the dark barn and, having no smaller change, contributed a two-franc bill to the forepaw and told Sandy about his awful stiffness. His eloquence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... Cardan never divulged before Ferrari unravelled Giovanni Colla's puzzle; but it was inevitable that it must be made known to the world as a part of the greater discovery (Ferrari's) which Cardan was in no way bound to keep a secret. The case might be said to run on all fours with that where a man confides a secret to a friend under a promise of silence, which promise the friend keeps religiously, until one day he finds that the secret, and even more than the secret, is common talk of the market-place. Is the obligation of silence, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... passing away and leaving no representatives of their greatness to future ages? On land at least that is very probable. Man, diminutive man, who, if he walked on all fours, would be no bigger than a silly sheep, and who only partially disguises his native smallness by his acquired habit of walking erect on what ought to be his hind legs—man has upset the whole balanced economy of nature, and is everywhere expelling and exterminating before him the great ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... in a corner, which was his own, behind the piano. No one could disturb him there, for to reach it he had to go on all fours. It was half dark there, and the boy had just room to lie on the floor if he huddled up. The smoke of the tobacco filled his eyes and throat: dust, too; there were large flakes of it like sheepskin, but he did not mind that, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Prophet, it is known unto you that a Portuguee dog of a Christian clock mender pollutes the city of Tangier with his presence. Ye know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses bear the stones and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. Now, therefore, send the Christian dog on all fours, and barefoot, into the holy place to mend the clock, and let him go ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wandered a little farther in search of water and was alarmed by a horseman appearing. He made for home on all fours—he ran much on all fours now—and backed into the den. In the prairie grass he was concealed, but the den was on a bare mound, and the horseman caught a glimpse of a whitish thing disappearing down the hole. Badgers were familiar ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... man breathed more freely. He congratulated himself. Intercourse was in act of becoming normal and easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy—and for him, him, to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke, bringing him up to the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Church tent—it was full of rents and holes. And just beyond it was a huge pit with fresh soil heaped up in a ring around it. Loose earth and stones and sods were scattered everywhere. Then we saw something move in the darkness—it was a man on all fours, dragging himself painfully along and uttering a groan with every breath. Two bearers arrived with a stretcher. They put it down by his side and helped him on to it. Then they picked it up and disappeared in the gloom. We had ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... thy feet, and set thy foot on the necks of princes; when earthly dominion, and wealth, and the mind of man bore thy yoke? Exulting in the abasement of humanity, joying to witness the uttermost lengths to which man's folly would go, thou hast bidden thy lovers walk on all fours, and required of them their lands and wealth, nay, even their wives if they were worth aught to thee. Thou hast devoured millions of men without a cause; thou hast flung away lives like sand blown by the wind from West to East. Thou hast come down ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... Next she tore off her slippers, and sent them flying against the brown furry back now turned toward her. Not knowing what to make of such a shower of spools and needles, scissors, buttons, and wearing apparel, old Bruin dropped on all fours and ambled out of the doorway just as Lloyd caught up ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to have some fun with Mr. Tortoise. He looked around to where Mr. Tortoise was coming straddling and panting along, and he laughed and rolled over to see how solemn he looked, and how he was travelling as if he meant to get somewhere before dark. He was down on all fours so he could use all his legs at once, and anybody would think, to look at him, that he really expected to ...
— How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in the wood his friend the bear was lumbering on all fours, wild-eyed, with lolling tongue and panting breath. Close behind him came on foot a young man, several years older than John, dressed in a suit of green velvet, with a plumed cap. In his hand he bore a long spear, and he was charging upon the bear with a cruel light in his eyes. ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... discharged. About the 10th of September, Laupepa was secretly in Apia at the American consulate with two companions. The German pickets were close set and visited by a strong patrol; and on his return, his party was observed and hailed and fired on by a sentry. They ran away on all fours in the dark, and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa grappled and flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body. The second sentry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... knight, Gillemin de Fienne. Douglas chose Shrove Tuesday for his attack. Being a feast day of the church before the long lenten fast the garrison would be sure to indulge in conviviality and the watch would be less strict than usual. Douglas and his followers, supplied with scaling ladders, crept on all fours towards the walls. The night was still and they could hear the sentries' conversation. They had noticed the objects advancing, but in the darkness mistook them for the cattle of a neighbouring farmer. Silently the ladders were fixed and mounted, and with the dreaded war ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Tennyson, and Patmore on an occasion the occurrence of which is vouched for by Mr. Julian Hawthorne. These three masters, out for a walk one chilly afternoon in late autumn, discovered a belated violet bravely putting forth from the shelter of a mossy stone. Not until these worthies had got down on all fours and done ceremonious homage to the flower did they resume their walk. Suddenly Ruskin halted and, planting his cane in the ground, exclaimed, "I don't believe, Alfred—Coventry, I don't believe that there are in all England three men besides ourselves who, after finding a violet ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... the reply. "They'll soon try, when they find there are very few of us, to crawl up the hill upon us. Then's the time you've got to note every movement! See! there comes one fellow behind that rock now. He's crawling on all fours. Thinks we can't see him. Now just hold on until he comes around that little ledge!—I'll take ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... and did succeed in raising himself on all fours. But for the life of him he could do no more. He sat down again and thought about eating. He remembered the bread and olives, the not unkindly red wine of the night before. Then he remembered Spiridion, dispenser ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... completely. I say fortunately, for finding the brute still remaining quite motionless, we cautiously approached, and found it was stone dead. The perfect naturalness of the position, however, might well have deceived a more experienced sportsman. The beast was lying crouched on all fours, as if in the very act of preparing to spring. The one bullet had killed it; the wound was in the lungs, and the internal bleeding had suffocated it, but here was a wonderful instance of the tiger's tenacity ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... spite of all precautions he rolled to the bottom of a grassy ditch. There he lay quiet to rest his bruises, and watch whether any alarm was raised. Luckily for him, the moon was down, and no one had observed his venture. Crawling on all fours along a hollow place, he passed the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... held me around the waist, and raised me from the ground, while I shook my arms and legs in time to the music. The concert of these ladies awoke the sleeper, who stared wildly at me, frightened at my gestures, then sprang up and ran with all his might, followed by my brother, who crept on all fours, representing a dog, I think, which belonged to this strange person. As I was then a mere child, I have only a confused idea of all this; but the society of Madame Bonaparte seemed to be much occupied ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to the children, and a little while afterwards Philpot—who had got a funny-looking mask out of one of the bon-bons—started a fine game pretending to be a dreadful wild animal which he called a Pandroculus, and crawling about on all fours, rolled his goggle eyes and growled out he must have a little boy or girl ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... me, to be obliged to go on all fours, when two legs are my proper walking equipment," replied the Scarecrow. "I consider it beneath my dignity. In other words, my remarkable brains can tire, through humiliation, although my ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a few miles, before we fell in with a squad of as choice game as heart could have wished, three proper tall young vagabonds! profoundly engaged at all fours, in a log tippling shop, with cards as black as their own dirty hands, and a tickler of brandy before them! and so intent were the thieves on fleecing each other, that they took no manner of notice of us, but continued their scoundrel work, eagerly stretched over ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... that I saw Diderot's "Father of a Family," and "The Philosophers" of Palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into a raw ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... we noticed that curious institution—the temazcalli, which corresponds exactly to the Russian vapour-bath. It is a sort of oven, into which the bather creeps on all fours, and lies down, and the stones at one end are heated by a fire outside. Upon these stones the bather sprinkles cold water, which fills the place with suffocating steam. When he feels himself to have been sufficiently sweated, he crawls out again, and has jars of cold water ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... caught a glimpse of a coyote slinking into the gulches, returning from night hunting to sleep. While intently watching some moving body at a distance, we could not yet tell whether of men or animals, I heard a faint noise behind me and slowly turned my head. Behold! a grizzly bear sneaking up on all fours and almost ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... all the wonders of the Church, which grew somehow less wonderful the more implicitly you believed in them. Then, in the midst of all these delightful splendours, the kings themselves! The old grey-beard in the brown pomegranate embossed brocade going on all fours, and kissing the little child's feet; the dark young man, with peaked beard and wistful face, removing his coroneted turban; and last, but far from least, the youngest king, the beardless boy, with the complexion of a well-bred young lady, the almond eyes and golden hair, standing ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... hind legs and try to pull him round, while I watched my opportunity to jump between him and the bank. It was our only chance to save the dog, at any rate, and luckily it proved successful. As Smith laid on I jumped, and although I fell on all fours between the boar and the slippery bank, I contrived just in time to drive the knife into his heart, and the huge beast rolled over and with a few gasps died. We were both exhausted, and the poor dog, when the excitement was over, ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... but when she heard that I sang she seemed more amiable and interested. She even asked me to come to see her the next day. "That is," she said, "if you can climb my hill." I told her that I was sure I could climb her hill, and would, even if I had to climb on all fours. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... cloud, and two red-faced, perspiring troopers emerged from the jam, dragging the yet reluctant mule by main strength behind them. As they cleared the line of the column, Bungay rolled off the animal's back, and, in his eagerness, came down on all fours. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... reached the ditch in too exhausted a condition to climb over the breastwork and had lain out among the rebels where he had been repeatedly hit by our own fire. The pain of his wounds had made him crazy, for he would not talk, but kept crawling about on all fours moaning in agony. There were a few men missing from the company of whom their comrades could give no account. Moved by the fate of the drafted man, I crossed the breastwork to search outside, if perchance I might ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... paused suddenly and scrambling to all fours turned about on his hands and knees, intently gazing at the flap against which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... scene, Ethel lost very little time before she placed herself on the couch on all fours, and as Frank ordered his subjects, the two nieces fairly dragged their uncle by his prick, till they got him up behind Ethel, and planted the head of his fiery steed just within the lips of ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... further!" I shout into the line of sharpshooters. The battalion commander shouts it at the same time. He wouldn't let any one rob him of the honor of advancing in the foremost row of riflemen. We crawl forward on all fours. After thirty meters, halt. Still nothing to be seen. The land rises in front of us. Fifty meters further; eighty; a hundred. At last we have a clear view ahead. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... performance. He went hell-for-leather over a piece of ground which was being watered with H.E., but by the mercy of heaven nothing hit him. He took some fearsome tosses in shell-holes, but partly erect and partly on all fours he did the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish trench right on ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... you didn't say on all fours, it's all right," responded Roy in a weak attempt at a joke that focused three pairs of girlish ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... "Why do you forgive them all this? Before I used to be foolish myself, too, but now I compel them to walk before me on all fours, compel them to kiss my soles, and they do this with delight ... You all know, girlies, that I don't love money, but I pluck the men in whatever way I can. They, the nasty beasts, present me with the portraits of their wives, brides, mothers, daughters ... However, you've ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... to the devil! Chagniol fell forward on his face. Duc got up, and ran along on all fours as far as the bend in the trench, and there he began to scratch out the earth like a rabbit, and then he died. The blood was pouring down me right and left, and I thought it was time for me to go. I set ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... into the tunnel and whispered hoarsely the good news. Men came out on all fours over the bodies of those who could not move. Shorty dragged Dave into the open. He was a sorry sight. The shirt had been almost literally ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... forget the tortures which we had to undergo in climbing almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor dog, Pamir, panting and with his tongue hanging out, ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... that the hall also was deserted. I was wrong, and I crept upon a Kaffir on all fours. Poor devil, I could not bring myself to deal him a base blow, but I threatened him most hideously with my revolver, and left the white teeth chattering in his black head as I took the stairs three at a time. Why ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... that had no spark took huge she-animals unto them. They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied. The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked red-hair-covered monsters going on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold." (And an ancient commentary adds 'when the Third separated and fell into sin by breeding men-animals, these (the animals) became ferocious, and men and they mutually destructive. Till then, there was ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... soil, and catching at whatever branch or stem presented itself, he took the plunge. Clinging, sliding, falling, he arrived at the bottom. In a posture half sitting, half standing, and considerably jarred, he found himself face to face with Bruin. The animal had settled down on all fours, and now, with his surly, depressed head turned sullenly to one side, he looked at Penn, and growled. Penn looked at him, and said nothing. He had heard of staring wild beasts out of countenance—an experiment that could ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... royal cleaning-out, I can tell you. In the afternoon I had Olie down on all fours scrubbing the floor. When he had washed the windows I had him get a garden rake and clear away the rubbish that littered the dooryard. I draped chintz curtains over the windows, and had Olie nail two shelves in a packing-box and ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... a cat, on all fours, clawing energetically as he urged his upward progress, his comrade paying out the rope carefully. At first his speed was good, but gradually it dwindled. Now he was fifteen feet from the peg, now ten, now eight—but going, oh, so slowly! Hazard, looking ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... was no more called bare Wagtail, but Mr. Wagtail, much to the amusement of visitors, who, hearing the name gravely uttered, as it soon came to be, saw the owner of it approach on all fours, with a tireless ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... now to have given up hope of standing erect, and began to move painfully on all fours across the snow to where a log of rotten wood was lying. Having reached it, he tried to raise it, but there was not the strength in his hands. He tried to fasten his teeth upon it, to drag it back with him; but his jaws seemed paralysed. Then he ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... understand that horses and cattle could be justly counted only where property was to be the basis of representation. Yet the slaves, who were counted, were, in the eye of the law, either personal property or real estate, and were no more represented as citizens than if they also had gone upon all fours. Their enumeration, nevertheless, was carried, and it so increased the representative power of their masters that inequality of citizenship became the fundamental principle of the government. This, of course, was to form an oligarchy, not a democracy. Practically the ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... much," said Juve, as he went down on all fours and proceeded to examine the carpeting of the room between the bed and the door, a distance of some seven feet. The carpet, of very close fabric, afforded no trace, but on a white bearskin rug the detective noted in places tufts ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... had dropped flat on the ground, and Carnes, on all fours, crawled forward to join him. He smothered an exclamation as he looked over the crest of the hill. Before him, sitting in a hollow in the ground, was the huge globe which had spirited away ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... on all fours, when my eye first took in that the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving tracery of leaves, made shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches and stared. It was incredible, surely, but there, opposite and ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... the base a cave which had the appearance of being continuously occupied by Indians. As I went on down I saw a very strange looking track upon the ground. There were hand and foot prints as if a human being had crawled upon all fours. As this track reached the valley where the sand had been clean swept by the wind, the tracks became more plain, and the sand had been blown into small hills not over three or four feet high. I followed the track till it led to the top of one of these ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... echo of his endless dreams, and let yourself be pulled by the beard to imitate a horse. All this is kindness, but also cleverness, and good King Henry IV did not belie his skilful policy by walking on all fours on his carpet with his ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... pictures—in which the Cans are represented crawling on all fours like dogs—sculptured on the facade of their house of worship, it would appear that their religion of the mastodon was replaced by that of the reciprocal forces of nature, imported in the country ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... adds that it has a counterpart with the American system of totem; although the exact degree to which the comparison runs on all fours is undetermined. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... and why. Taboos never yet have added a cubit to the stature of the soul of humanity. They have nearly always been the chattering children of fear and pure idiocy. They have always tried to throw the race back on to all fours, and have left the nobility of standing upright wholly out ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... mirth may be used, let the Cards also be brought in sight; which formerly, out of a Puritanical humour, ought not to have been seen in a house; nay, not so much as to have been spoken of; but now every one knows how to play artificially at Put, all Fours, Omber, Pas la Bete, Bankerout, and all other games that the expertest Gamesters can play at. And who knows whether they do not carry in their Pockets, as False-Gamesters do, Cards that are cut and marked. They learn to play the game at Bankerout ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... seemed to come from inside the fallen tree, Sandy Chipmunk was so startled that he leaped high into the air; and when he came down again upon all fours he found himself staring straight into ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Mr. Stenson declared, "this is a veritable temple of peace. I arrived here literally on all fours. Miss Abbeway has proved to me quite conclusively that as a democratic leader I have missed ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... skilfully put, with probably the only illustration which would go on all fours. But to me all this is extremely unsatisfactory: and unsatisfactory in a much farther sense than merely that it is using terms in a non-natural sense. I know, of course, that to look at Nature through blue spectacles will make Nature blue: but I cannot see that to look at Nature ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... ruin." There were conservative women, too, who used their powerful influence against them. It was in the salon of the delicate but ardent young Princesse de Robecq that Palissot was inspired to write the satirical comedy of "The Philosophers," in which Rousseau was represented as entering on all fours, browsing a lettuce, and the Encyclopedists were so mercilessly ridiculed. This spirited and heroic daughter-in-law of the Duchesse de Luxembourg, the powerful patroness of Rousseau, was hopelessly ill at the ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... drowning him out. The troll-wife turned and went on all fours and poked up the fire with ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... of great stature. They were twice as long as the footprints we made, and none of us were noted for small feet. On going a short distance into the woods we saw a vast number of huts made of dried grass, so cramped that a man of ordinary size could not creep into them on all fours, yet many of them contained families of pygmies. We afterwards tried to penetrate somewhat farther into the wood, in order to ascertain the nature and situation of the country, when, on coming to an open place, a number of tall savages, ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... the gallant captain got down on all fours; Whiffle, a small light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang and Fyall, managed to scramble up on my shoulders, where he stood, holding by the window sill above, with a foot on each side of my head. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... horseback must their worships fight, or not at all; and when to shame them I called myself a mountaineer, more used to climb than to ride, and vowed that I should esteem it an honour to follow such a knight as Bayard, were it on all fours, then cast they my burgher blood in my teeth. Never saw I the Kaisar so enraged; he swore that all the common sense in the empire was in the burgher blood, and that he would make me a knight of the noblest order in Europe to show how he esteemed it. And next ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... village, had that morning received a special retainer, in the shape of half a quartern of gin, for the occasion; while in the usher's chair were ensconced two urchins of about fourteen years of age, smoking tobacco, playing at all fours, and drinking purl, with their legs diffused in a picturesque attitude along the writing-desk. One of the justices tried to command silence—till the Squire's commission to the usher should be read; but no sooner had he opened his mouth than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... who had only an ax with him. Jack raised his rifle and fired, and as the bear dropped on all fours fired ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... reasons,—first, to see fair play, in case that Ironhook should come to wash his ugly visage, and find you on all fours over the brook—you understand? And next, to tell you what I heard last night ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... great—standing up like suspects awaiting identification, while her eye ranges over them. Chopin tries to edge behind Wagner, a difficult and forbidding person, and Gounod seeks eclipse of Mendelssohn, who suddenly drops and crawls on all fours between Gounod's legs; Sullivan cowers, and even Piccolomini's iron-framed nerves desert him. She extends her hand. There is a frantic rush to escape. Have you ever seen a little boy picking dormice ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... dissociate this relationship from this issue, then sexual questions become of no more importance than the morality of one's deportment at chess, or the general morality of outdoor games. Indeed, then the question of sexual relationships would be entirely on all fours with, and probably very analogous to, the question of golf. In each case it would be for the medical man and the psychologist to decide how far the thing was wholesome and permissible, and how far ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... on all fours to his brother and put oft his helm, but he might not know him, his visage was so disguised by blood and wounds. But when Balin awoke, he said, "O Balan, my brother, thou hast slain me and I thee, wherefore all the wide world shall speak ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... the man of God was lamenting the deplorable state of the church of Vervignole in the cloister of the cathedral, his meditations were disturbed by strange shrieks, and he saw a woman, stark naked, walking on all fours, with a peacock's feather for a tail. As she came nearer, she barked, sniffed, and licked the ground. Her fair head was covered with mud, and her whole body was a mass of filth. In this unhappy creature the holy Bishop Nicolas ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered a street-organ—a ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... me to go to the Boulevard Cafe—they dance on Sunday just the same as weekdays—and then we'll do a movie afterward. I suppose Steve and his Beatrice are now revelling in the Constantine conservatory, with Steve walking on all fours to prove his devotion. Why is it some girls have everything? Look at me—no one cares if I live or die. First I had a stepmother, and then I tried living with a great-aunt, and then I went to work. Here I am still ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... riveted Matthews' attention and brought him to a temporary halt. "Got th' gun down!" he exclaimed. On finding that Lancaster was gone, he had decided not to produce a weapon. Now, however, he quickly felt for one and dropped on all fours. "That biggest gal 'd no more mind pumpin' lead into me than nothin'," he declared, wagging his head wisely. "I could tell that by the shine in her eyes." He crawled ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... coarseness and scatter ashes for beauty, women do exist, victims rather than culprits, coarse against their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can see. Such a woman can accept coarse men. They may come courting on all fours, and she will not be shocked. But women in the natural state wish men to stand godlike erect, to tread majestically, and live delicately. Women do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... tossed his crest on high, then plunged giddily forward, was checked amid a whirlwind of lashing hoofs, rose on his hind legs higher and higher, swinging giddily round and round, felt a stunning blow, staggered, and dropping on all fours, stove in the stable door with a fling of his hind hoofs. But the eyes of Barnabas were glowing, his lips still curved, and his grip upon the reins was more masterful. And, feeling all this, Four-legs, foaming with rage, his nostrils flaring, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... brought up out of coal mines where they dragged trucks on all fours like brute beasts, by his protests little boys were saved from being forced to climb up inside chimneys risking their young lives and limbs that ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge |
