"Breeches" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... agony before this vulgarity. And a moment later he saw Margaret standing, drooping and resigned, at the curb, while Craig excitedly hailed a cab. "Poor girl!" he muttered, "living with that nightmare-in-breeches will surely kill her—so delicate, so refined, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... I did not trek, but lay down (in my own breeches and spotted waistcoat). As the smoke from the "prime segar," presented to me by my Colonel, was eddying in spirals over my head, these gradually changed into clouds of rosy glory, and I heard brass bands in the distance playing a familiar air: "See the Conquering Hero ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... of thin deer-skin, ornamented with fawns' trotters, or turkey spurs that tinkled as they walked. In their hair they braided eagle plumes, hawk wings, or the brilliant plumage of the tanager and redbird. Trousers or breeches of any sort they despised ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... coat be of woollen-cloth, he has that from Yorkshire; the lining is shalloon from Berkshire; the waistcoat is of callamanco from Norwich; the breeches of a strong drugget from Devizes, Wiltshire; the stockings being of yarn from Westmoreland; the hat is a felt from Leicester; the gloves of leather from Somersetshire; the shoes from Northampton; the buttons from Macclesfield in Cheshire, or, if they are of metal, they come from Birmingham, or ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... yielded to their persuasions, and presented himself to his bishop. But the bishop would not ordain him—why is not known, but it was said that he was offended with Goldsmith for coming to be ordained dressed in scarlet breeches. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... and needle now good-bye, With slates I aim at riches; The scissors will I ne'er more ply, Nor make, but order, breeches."[12] ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... figures represent our party after getting over the bow and into the straight for the cup. We then wandered about, and admired the uniforms of the governor's body guard, tall native soldiers standing round about the passages with huge turbans and beards, blue tunics, white breeches, and tall black boots, all straight and stiff as their lances, and barring their roving black eyes, as motionless. From a verandah opposite the Viceroy, we watched the new comers making their bows; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Line in grey; Zouaves in blue and red; Senegalese wore dark blue and the Foreign Legion blue-grey. The Cavalry rode Arabs and barbs mostly white stallions; they wore pale blue tunics and bright scarlet breeches. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... take the form of words, because I had wit enough to know that I could not put a better barrier between myself and a real danger than those husky lads of the leather breeches and white hats. For all that, I had a yearning to see one of them encounter the deer at his worst. I did not wish anyone hurt, and was so confident of their physical ability that I did not think anyone would be; but I felt that such an ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the person from whose trousers the piece of cloth had been torn he took good care to destroy what he had retained of the breeches without delay, for they were never again seen ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... on the pavement. I shall buy a bundle of wood and tie a piece of cord to it, and when some one goes to pick it up, lo! it has vanished—not lost, but gone before. I shall go butterfly-catching, and catch some fish at Snob's Brighton (Lea Bridge). I shall finish up by having a whacking, tearing my breeches, giving a boy two black eyes, and then wake up on Monday morning refreshed and quite happy to make the ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... were abnormally clear, cold: he saw every detail of the Hatburns' garb—the soiled shirts with buttoned pockets on their left breasts; the stained baggy breeches in heavy boots—such boots as had stamped Allen into nothingness; dull yellow faces and beady eyes; the long black ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... waistcoat, coat, and breeches Were all cut off the same web, Of a beautiful snuff-colour, Of a modest genty drab; The blue stripe in his stocking, Round his neat slim leg did go, And his ruffles of the cambric fine, They were whiter than the snow. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the zenith, when, rounding a corner, I came to a part where the height sank from the foundation of the house to the level by a grassy slope, and at the foot of the slope espied an elderly gentleman, in a white hat, who stood with his hands in his breeches-pockets, looking about him. He was tall and stout, and carried himself in what seemed to me a stately manner. As I drew near him I felt somewhat encouraged by a glimpse of his face, which was rubicund and, I ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... named Cheveux Releves, [113] since their hair is very high and carefully arranged, and better dressed beyond all comparison than that of our courtiers, in spite of their irons and refinements. This gives them a handsome appearance. They have no breeches, and their bodies are very much pinked in divisions of various shapes. They paint their faces in various colors, have their nostrils pierced, and their ears adorned with beads. When they go out of their houses they carry a club. I visited them, became somewhat ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... fashion of the thing like that of a man near desperate. It was late in March at least, or early in April 1764. I had slept heavily, and wakened with a premonition of some evil to befall. So strong was this upon my spirit that I hurried downstairs in my shirt and breeches, and my hand (I remember) shook upon the rail. It was a cold, sunny morning, with a thick white frost; the blackbirds sang exceeding sweet and loud about the house of Durrisdeer, and there was a noise of the sea in all the chambers. As ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the next thing that had to be done. In fact, the Canadian people, regarded collectively, felt and acted in this case with as much ingenuousness as did those Tyrolese mountaineers, bred, according to Heine, to know nothing of politics save that they had an Emperor who wore a white coat and red breeches. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... philosopher"—which has passed almost into an American household phrase. The allusion of course is to the thighs of the bee, covered with the yellow pollen of flowers so as to make them seem covered with yellow breeches, or trousers ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... high black boots, closely fitting breeches of white leather, short fur coat of black cloth, of the kind worn by Italian cavalry officers, trimmed with astrakhan and many rich loops; on his black locks is ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... shack indicated that one juvenile investigator had come to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul Laurent, who could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding the seat of his breeches. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... and clutched his pantaloons, shouted to the assistant editor, when he, too, read and grasped frantically at his cassimeres, called to the reporters and pressmen and typos and devils, who all rushed in, heard the news, seized their nether garments and joined the general chorus, "My breeches! oh, my breeches!" Here was a woman resolved to steal their pantaloons, their trousers, and when these were gone they might cry "Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more?" The imminence of the peril called for ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... [according to our computation 1661], that she was washing ore on the top of a steep hill about a quarter of a mile from Ashover, when a lad who was working on the spot missed two-pence out of his pocket, and immediately bethought himself of charging Dorothy with the theft. He had thrown off his breeches, and was working in his drawers. Dorothy with much seeming indignation denied the charge, and added, as was usual with her, that she wished the ground might open and swallow her up, if she had ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... song,—found that he both could and did oftentimes drink New England water very well,—which he seems to look upon as a remarkable feat. He could go as lightclad as any, too, with only a light stuff cassock upon his shirt, and stuff breeches without linings. Two of his children were sickly: one,—little misshapen Mary,—died on the passage, and, in her father's words, "was the first in our ship that was buried in the bowels of the great Atlantic sea;" the other, who had been "most lamentably handled" ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and brambles, and we stole into this cover as they approached. The foremost bore the light, was armed at all points, and mounted on a fresh horse. I started with exultation where I lay—he was her father. His companion's black breeches and canting seat proclaimed a priest. They were conversing as they passed. "Another month, good father, and we will be behind the bastions of Belle Isle; were it not for my Madeline's sake, I would make it six; but this bloodhound having been slipped upon us."—The sounds were here lost ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... every moment to utter louder threats and menaces of death to the king. Unable to reach him through the hedge of bayonets crossed in front of him, they waved beneath his eyes and over his head hideous flags, with sinister inscriptions, ragged breeches, the guillotine, the bleeding heart, the gibbet. One of them tried perpetually to reach the king with his lance in his hand; it was the same cut-throat who, two years before, had washed with his own hands in a pail of water the heads of Berthier and Foulon, and, carrying them by the hair to the Quai ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of the dead some threw letters addressed to dead relatives on the funeral pile, believing that the dead would read them in the next world."[1156] Valerius Maximus writes: "They would fain make us believe that the souls of men are immortal. I would be tempted to call these breeches-wearing folk fools, if their doctrine were not the same as that of the mantle-clad Pythagoras." He also speaks of money lent which would be repaid in the next world, because men's souls are immortal.[1157] These passages are generally taken to mean that the Celts believed ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... done marking down the things I want. Let's see; where did I leave off? Try Finch's feeding-bottle for Infants. No! there's a cross against that: the cross means I don't want it. Comfort in the Field. Buckler's Indestructible Hunting-breeches. Oh dear, dear! I've lost the place. No, I haven't. Here it is; here's my mark against it. Elegant Cashmere Robes; strictly Oriental, very grand; reduced to one pound nineteen-and-sixpence. Be in time. Only three left. Only three! Oh, do lend us the money, and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... duenas and parents who rode older and milder mustangs and shook brown knotted fingers at heedless youth. The young men had ribbons twisted in their long black hair, and silver eagles on their soft gray sombreros. Their velvet serapes were embroidered with gold; the velvet knee-breeches were laced with gold or silver cord over fine white linen; long deer-skin botas were gartered with vivid ribbon; flaunting sashes bound their slender waists, knotted over the hip. The girls and young married women wore black ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... been but a cockleshell; and the tiny steamer, at a safe distance, her deck crowded with sunburnt men, many of whose faces were familiar to us, and who were picturesquely attired, for the most part, in the very same clothes they had worn on their ill-fated march—flannel shirts, khaki breeches, high boots, and the large felt hats of the Bechuanaland Border Police, which they were wearing probably for the last time. As soon as they came on board we were able to have a few hasty words with those we knew, and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... his bureau, put his purse into his breeches-pocket, and, having ordered the Corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep. The sun looked bright the morning after to every eye in the village but to Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death prest heavy upon his eyelids; and hardly ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Drury Lane, October 18, 1785. She was one of the most admired actresses of her time. Genest, who saw her, writes of her, "As an actress she never had a superior in her proper line Mrs. Jordan's Country Girl, Romp, Miss Hoyden, and all characters of that description were exquisite—in breeches parts no actress can be put in competition with her but Mrs. Woffington, and to Mrs. Woffington she was as superior in point of voice as Mrs. Woffington was superior to her in beauty" (viii. p. 430). Mrs. Jordan died at St. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... a half score and one who had been years in the wood instead of months; weather-beaten indeed were these, shaggy and rough-skinned like wild men of kind. Some of them had made themselves skin breeches or clouts, some went stark naked; of weapons of the Dale had they few, but they bore bows of hazel or wych-elm strung with deer-gut, and shafts headed with flint stones; staves also of the same fashion, and great clubs of oak or holly: some of them also had made them targets of skin and ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... himself on his back to the wall, and then, supporting himself on the nape of his neck, he hoisted up his body as high as he could and began drumming on the wall with his heels. His cassock slipped down and exposed to view his black breeches, which were patched at the knees with ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... and perfectly brushed hair were unexceptionable of course, but because his duties would presently take him into the garden he wore, not the regulation black, but an ancient shooting-jacket, khaki breeches and brown gaiters, looking every inch of him the old ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... grievance, they, on the contrary, sometimes change their faith en masse, and when conciliated undergo as speedy a re-conversion. The women are, as a rule, very fond of ornaments, and the men are, above all things, proud of a horse or a pair of scarlet breeches. Of late years they have in a few districts began to intermarry with the Wallachs, and the sharp distinction between them and the other races in Hungary will, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... to the trap, delighted with the capture they had made, and each one got down on his knees and peeped into the trap. Sure enough, there was Mr. Bobolink. He had on his black dress-coat and white waistcoat and breeches, and a pretty yellow necktie. They all thought him very handsome, and they laid plans for having him put into a nice brass cage at the front of the house, where they could every day hear his cheerful song. They were all delighted with their prize, and thoughts of much enjoyment went ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... line was much greater than the supply. The Queen Dowager Adelaide requested the General's attendance at Marlborough House one afternoon. He went in his court dress, consisting of a richly embroidered brown silk-velvet coat and short breeches, white satin vest with fancy colored embroidery, white silk stockings and pumps, wig, bagwig, cocked hat, and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... have no great riches, Yet take this tunic, take these breeches, My shirt and my vest, take everything, And give due thanks to ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... every hoarded shilling, or half-crown, or pound, carry his head higher, smiling in secret at the world and his friends, and the aristocrat of wealth is formed: he is removed for ever from the hand-to-mouth family of man, and thenceforth represents his breeches pocket. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... displaying from a basket-box placed on the floor, trying to keep aloof a little Maltese lion-dog, which had been roused from its cushion, and had come to inspect his wares. A little further off, Archer, in a blue velvet coat, white satin waistcoat, and breeches and silk stockings, and Amoret, white-frocked, blue-sashed, and bare-headed (an innovation of fashion), were admiring the nodding mandarins, grinning nondescript monsters, and green lions of extraordinary form which an emissary ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... young and headstrong. The Catholic religion! 'Tis no more than fine manners; as we say in Hebrew, derech eretz, the way of the country. Why do I wear breeches and a cocked hat—when I am abroad, videlicet? Why does little Ianthe trip ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... himself, yawning, and then laughed again. "By my staff," he said, "but I am the weary one." He stood now in the full glow of the lantern, and Catherine saw that he wore close-fitting breeches of fine linen, a dark pourrpoint, and a tunic of blue. The black hair was cut short like a soldier's, and the small secret face had the clear tan of one much abroad in wind and sun. The eyes were tired and yet merry, great grey eyes ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... Roderic Random and his companions "sewed their money between the lining and the waistband of their breeches, except some loose silver for immediate expense on the road." For a description of these purses ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... belonging to one age is brought suddenly with singular vividness before the eyes of another. A great effect this; yet by the very nature of it an altogether temporary one. Consider, brethren, shall not we too one day be antiques and grow to have as quaint a costume as the rest? . . . Not by slashed breeches, steeple hats, buff belts, or antiquated speech can romance-heroes continue to interest us; but simply and solely, in the long run, by being men. Buff belts and all manner of jerkins and costumes are transitory; man alone is perennial." [38] Carlyle's dissatisfaction with Scott arises ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... must sit, tied to a chair, and hearken To an old wife, havering of bumblebees, While my hard-earned sovereigns lie snug and warm In the breeches' pocket of a rascal ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... centre of literary and antiquarian loungers, as well as lawyers—Creech's place of business was much frequented by the gossipers, and was known as Creech's Levee. Creech himself, dressed in black-silk breeches, with powdered hair and full of humorous talk, was one of the most conspicuous members of the group. He was also an author, though this was the least of his merits. He was an appreciative patron of literature, and gave large sums for the ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... previously to disturb her. With great reluctance, Madame Miot's maid delivered the key of her rooms, while she accompanied him with a light. In the antechamber he found a hat and a greatcoat, and in the closet adjoining the bedroom, a coat, a waistcoat, and a pair of breeches, with drawers, stockings, and slippers. Though the maid kept coughing all the time, Madame Miot and her gallant did not awake from their slumber, till the enraged husband began to use the bludgeon of the lover, which had also been left in the closet. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... proved to be scanty, and the women of the household could only get out a very bob-tailed coat and leggings. With these Mr. Grammar started for Kaskaskia, the seat of government, and these he continued to wear till the passage of an appropriation bill enabled him to buy a civilized pair of breeches. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee to force them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay struggling with indignation, and dying with terrors; but he stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, cursing, and repeating ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... many still called him the "young Squire," as they had done when his father died, some fifteen years before. He was a massively built man, standing a good six feet tall in his boots; and in his boots, thick-soled, and rusty with old mud splashes, reaching high above his knees over his buckskin breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always stood. He was scarcely ever seen without them, except in the meeting-house on a Sunday—when he went, which was not often. There was a tradition that he in his boots, just home from a quail sortie in the swamp, had once invaded ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that only because it has been worn. And it's bought on condition that when's it's worn out, they will give you another next year. Yes, on my word! Well, now let us pass to the United States of America, as they called them at school. I assure you I am proud of these breeches," and he exhibited to Raskolnikov a pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen material. "No holes, no spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn; and a waistcoat to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an improvement, it's softer, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... hombres. At the bend of the path they turned and waved to me—Scott with a quick lift of the hand. But little Daurillac swept off his hat and stood half turned for a minute; the sun splashed on his dark head, on his Frenchified belt and puttees, on his white breeches, and on an outrageous pink shirt Henkel seemed to have supplied him with. He looked suddenly brilliant and unsubstantial, a light figure poised on the edge of the dark.... One gets curious notions in Herares. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... a nose. Polleuetagay, a knife. Arered, an eye. Accaskay, a ship. Keiotot, a tooth. Coblone, a thumb. Mutchatet, the head. Teckkere, the foremost finger. Chewat, an ear. Ketteckle, the middle finger. Comagaye, a leg. Mekellacane, the fourth finger. Atoniagay, a foot. Callagay, a pair of breeches. Yachethronc, the little finger. THE SECOND ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... replied the blacksmith, as he received the instrument, "there's a great want of faymales in thim parts; but the sailors have consinted to ripresint the purty craytures on the present occasion, which is but right, for, ye see, the most o' thim's shorter nor us, an' their wide breeches are more like the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... there he went to Buffalo and Detroit, and returned to Washington. Everywhere the people greeted him by thousands. Monroe on this occasion wore the three-cornered hat, scarlet-bordered blue coat and buff breeches of the American Revolutionary army. The "Boston Journal" called the times the "Era of Good Feeling," and the expression has passed into American history as a characteristic ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... followed by about thirty mannikins like themselves, who bore a magnificent dress which they deposited before Peter. There was a coat of blue silk, turned up with fur, and trimmed with precious stones. Besides this there were knee-breeches of the same material, slashed with white and fringed with gold, white silk stockings, and smart shoes with gold buckles. To complete the whole, there lay on the top a cap, with a heron's plume fastened ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... he saw the garret and Dr. Bull sitting writing at a table, he remembered what the memory was—the French Revolution. There should have been the black outline of a guillotine against that heavy red and white of the morning. Dr. Bull was in his white shirt and black breeches only; his cropped, dark head might well have just come out of its wig; he might have been Marat or ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the very group of people who only ten days before were being shown to their places in the Worldlys' own tapestry-hung marble dining-room at Great Estates by a dozen footmen in satin knee breeches, file into the "dining camp" and take their places at a long pine table, painted turkey red, on ordinary wooden kitchen chairs, also red! The floral decoration is of laurel leaves in vases made of preserve jars covered with birch bark. Glass and china is of the cheapest. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... accompanied the army, cook-shops. These places became the resort of every body who wanted to buy something to eat, or to hear the news of the day. There might be seen soldiers in their shirts and drawers, hawking about their breeches for sale in order to be able to buy a joint of meat to relish their rations of durra withal, and cursing bitterly their luck in that they had not received any pay for eight months; while the solemn Turk of rank ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... shoes, not because they were more comfortable, but because other people did. He had no debts. Lucien had fair crops, but they yielded no more than enough to pay interest on the mortgage. He wore a ragged shirt, patched breeches and cowhide boots. People said that Reuben was making a gentleman of himself and learning a trade ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... Harrison to offer me any less office than Secretary of State. The "Barnstable Pocketbook," a clever little sheet, edited by Miss Holebrook, who snapped her political whip in the teeth of the town, and had come off conqueror in many a tilt with editors in breeches, was willing to compromise with he of the Longbow, by assuring its readers that only two years' study of law would make me an excellent judge of the Supreme Court. These well bestowed encomiums, (as I think they are called,) so elated my wife that she speedily took to giving tea parties, to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... without a look, without a move of the facial muscles; the true physician should hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand had been made more precious by the touch of gold. Whereas, that fellow Thorne would lug out half a crown from his breeches pocket and give it in change for a ten shilling piece. And then it was clear that this man had no appreciation of the dignity of a learned profession. He might constantly be seen compounding medicines in the shop, at the left hand of his front door; not making experiments philosophically in materia ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... was that he would be obeyed, but because it would not do to let little people see the mischief that was going on abroad. So, while boys had their hair powdered, and wore long coats and waistcoats, and little knee-breeches, and girls were laced tight in stays all stiff with whalebone, they were trained to manners more formal ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... cackling syllable of the laugh, with appalling fatefulness Eve Edgarton herself loomed suddenly on the scene, in her old slouch hat, her gray flannel shirt, her weather-beaten khaki Norfolk and riding-breeches, looking for all the world like an extraordinarily slim, extraordinarily shabby little boy just starting out to play. Up from the top of one riding-boot the butt of ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... vast gor-bellied volume, bigger bulkt than a Dutch hoy, and more cumbersome than a payre of Switzer's galeaze breeches."[90] ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... stared, and presented a very strange appearance. The boys were dressed in buckskin breeches and linsey-woolsey shirts, and the girls in homespun gowns of most economical patterns. The furniture seemed all pegs and puncheons. The one cheerful object in the room was the enormous fireplace. The pupils delighted to keep this fed with fuel in the ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Eyes that dance and flash and flirt; Every time she smiled she showed you Teeth as white's my Sunday shirt. Baked us biscuits light as cotton; I can't eat mine any more,— I must get some better breeches,— Kind o' 'shamed of those I wore; But I'm goin' there to-morrow, Like enough I'll stay all day, Seems to me too dry for plowing— ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... undersigned acknowledge that we have authorised M. Holker to treat with Messrs Sabatier & Despres, for five thousand coats, waistcoats, and breeches, of which, two thousand five hundred coats are to be blue, and two thousand five hundred brown, with facings, linings, and collars of red, the waistcoats and breeches to be white, agreeably to the present treaty, and to the same clauses and conditions therein stipulated. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... The Breeches, or Geneva Bible 17 Poems discovered among the Papers of Sir Kenelm Digby 18 Works of Camoens, by John Adamson 18 Folk Lore 20 Elizabeth Walker—Shakspeare 21 Old English Actors and Musicians in Germany 21 Minor Notes:—The Curse of Scotland—George Herbert—Dutch Versions ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... the man of the house came to the door; he had on his breeches or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no stockings, a pair of slipped-shoes, a white cap on his head, and, as the young man ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... that was in the fit. There were a lot of men round me, the front row on their knees—holding me, some of them. A man in a red coat and plush breeches—a waiter—was holding a glass of water; another had a small bottle. They were talking about me under their breaths. At one end of the horseshoe ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... French Royal Marine wore red breeches, and, if by chance a democrat were given a commission, he had to appear in blue small-clothes throughout his entire career. Very few of the "Blues" ever came to be an Admiral, for the odds were too great ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... off our shoes and socks, tie them to the barrel of our muskets a little below the muzzle and just above the end of the stock, poise the piece on the hammer on either shoulder, stock uppermost, and roll up our breeches to the knees. Then like Tam O'Shanter, we "skelpit on through dub and mire, despising wind, and rain, and fire," and singing "John Brown's Body," or whatever else came handy. But rainy days in camp, especially such as we had at Benton Barracks, engender feelings of gloom and dejection ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... for me at the Coburg Hotel, whither we drove, after having fought my way through a mob of reporters at the station. One fellow told me that since I left New York the papers had published a declaration by me that I meant to be very "democratic" and would under no conditions wear "knee breeches"; and he asked me about that report. I was foolish enough to reply that the existence of an ass in the United States ought not necessarily to require the existence of a corresponding ass in London. He printed that! I never knew the origin of this ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... trumpets in Piccadilly: I looked out of the window and saw a procession with streamers flying. At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. I was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is a new ally. In short, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... ag'in. Waal, waal! Sol'mon say ef ye spare the rod ye spile the child—mos' ennybody could hev fund that out from thar own 'sperience; but the wisest man that ever lived lef' no receipt how ter keep a boy's pockets whole in his breeches." ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... a piece of wood, as large as the palm of the hand, and shaped like the bottom of an artichoke, they made a cadogan, which they filled with the same white mortar, and raked in the same manner, as the rest of the head dress.[11] The army wore cocked hats, knee breeches and gaiters. The habitants, or peasantry, had retrograded, and Volney found that, in general, they had no clear and precise ideas: that they received sensations without reflecting on them; and that they could not make any calculation that was ever so little complicated. If ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... such relique, nor the least rag of such a sordid weakness shall keep me warm, these Breeches are mine own, purchased, and paid for, without your compassion, a Christian Breeches founded in Black-Friers, and ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... apology—as if he would have said, "I am sorry my way is not yours, for I see very well how wrong you must think it." He wore large strong shoes—I think a description should begin with the feet rather than the head—fit for boggy land; blue, ribbed, woollen stockings; knee-breeches of some home-made stuff: all the coarser cloth they wore, and they wore little else, was shorn from their own sheep, and spun, woven, and made at home; an old blue dress coat with bright buttons; a drab waistcoat which had once been yellow; and to crown all, a red woollen nightcap, hanging ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... gently to the veranda and closed the door upon her. Then he came down the room and regarded his prospective father-in-law with an expression of amused exasperation. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his riding-breeches and nodded his head. "Well," he exclaimed, "you've made a damned pretty mess of it, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... "Shut up, you beggar, or I'll beat you; an' I'll take them breeches you got on off you, an' you can go without any—they're mine. My ma give ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... and fur-tipped mantles, with slender swords dangling from embroidered belts, vying with each other in the length and crookedness of their turned-up shoes. Anglo-Saxons looked on, in long fur-lined cloaks, tight breeches, and leathern hose swathed with bands of many colored cloth. Stern-faced northerners, Poles and Germans, in fur caps and with colored girdles and clumsy shoes, or with feet roughly tied up in the bark of trees, waited impatiently for the announcement of Li Mestre. Pale-faced ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... gallies, some having ten, and others fifteen oars of a side. On coming near our ship, the king ordered all the boats to fall astern, except the two which carried him and his nephew, who only came on deck, both dressed in silk gowns, under which were linen shirts and breeches. Each of them wore two cattans, or Japanese swords, one of which was half a yard long in the blade, and the other only a quarter of a yard. They wore neither turbans nor hats, the fore part of their heads being shaven to the crowns, and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... though I was thinking a great deal. From time to time I stole a look at my companion. His coat was black, and so was his waistcoat; neckcloth he had none, his strong full throat being bare above the snow-white shirt. He wore drab-coloured knee-breeches, grey worsted stockings (I thought I knew the maker), and strong-nailed shoes. He carried his hat in his hand, as if he liked to feel the coming breeze lifting his hair. After a while, I saw that the father took hold of the ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... spare, bony old fellow, in leathern jacket and calzoneros (breeches), with a keen, shrewd eye, that took in our situation at a single glance, and saved the Frenchman a great deal of explanation. Notwithstanding the cordiality with which his friend received him, I noticed that Raoul seemed uneasy about something as he glanced around the room; ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... Attired in white corduroy breeches, a blue velvet waistcoat, and a light boating-jacket of yellow flannel, your reporter left the Battery at 6 hrs. 22 m, and 5 secs, on Friday morning, and steamed slowly down the bay in the editorial row-boat Punchinelletto, which ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... that buncos found his wife, he wint away south for three or fore weeks, an brot her bak wid him, an she hadnt married nobody in his absence, the its urgin her purty hard they was. shees patchin a pair o me owld breeches at this minit while I write them lines, an is uncomon usful wid her needle, capn blathers says he had no notion before that wimin was so nisisary to man. but hees a dirty owld bachiler. the traper tawks o laivin us, im sory to say. hees a good harted man an a rail ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... art and science of the West, as well as the most approved methods of manufacture, from the making of a man-of-war to the etching of an engraving. Nothing escaped the keen eyes of this rude, half-savage northern giant. For a week he put on the wide breeches of a Dutch laborer and worked in the shipyard at Saardam near Amsterdam. In England, Holland, and Germany he engaged artisans, scientific men, architects, ship captains, and those versed in artillery and the training of troops, all ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... meaning of all these Scripture names from the first table to the Genevan or Puritan version, vulgarly called "The Breeches Bible," ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... silver mug; two Revere tablespoons; a few tiny teaspoons marked F.; a handsome sword and scabbard; a yellow satin waistcoat and small-clothes; portraits, not artistic, but effective, of his grandfather, in a velvet coat and knee-breeches, with a long spyglass in his hand, and of his grandmother, a strong, matter-of-fact looking ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... back and forerd acrost the hull country. I'd hate to keep ye in buckskin breeches, Kit. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... heraldry, but, excepting always his prayer-book, he had not read three volumes in the course of his life. His clothing, which is not an insignificant point, was invariably the same; it consisted of stout shoes, ribbed stockings, breeches of greenish velveteen, a cloth waistcoat, and a loose coat with a collar, from which hung the cross of Saint-Louis. A noble serenity now reigned upon that face where, for the last year or so, sleep, the forerunner ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... can recollect, he had always lived in a hole, (a small, low apartment, which he sometimes calls a cage,) where he had always sat upon the ground, with bare feet, and clothed only with a shirt and a pair of breeches. In his apartment, he never heard a sound, whether produced by a man, by an animal, or by anything else. He never saw the heavens, nor did there ever appear a brightening (daylight) such as at Nuremberg, he never perceived any ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... play is a coarser piece than Ralph Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the lost needle, which is at length found, by very palpable proof, to be sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... aside, we all pressed forward and looked down into the hole. Huddled in a heap at the bottom was a man in hunting kit—white breeches, top boots and "pink" coat. Sitting along the floor, he was bent almost double, so that we could not see ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... arrived. With some officers of the West Riding Engineers, Whyte and I visited the "Queen Elizabeth," the most powerful ship afloat, and went over her lower front turret, climbing by an iron ladder to the top, lowering ourselves through a manhole and clattering down on the floor behind the breeches of the guns. The muzzles of these guns look enormous, but I was completely thunderstruck when I saw the two great breeches side by side. They reminded me of two big engine boilers. They must be about 6 feet in diameter and are probably not less. The officer who took ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... up, and some eight or ten gentlemen on horseback, each carrying a boar-spear—a weapon not unlike the lance of an English cavalryman, but shorter in the handle. The riders were mostly dressed in coats of the Norfolk jacket type, and knee-breeches with thick gaiters. The material of their clothes was a coarse but very strong cloth of native make, gray or brown in color. Some wore round hats and forage caps with puggarees twisted ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... but I could swear it was my son. He was just the right size, with long flaxen hair and a very pale face. He wore a light-colored waist and darker knee-breeches and stockings, with a large black bow at his throat, Just as I remember ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... instead of scraping it together coin by coin. Like Peter the second, too, his projects had almost invariably failed, and, but for the magnificent success of the final one, would have left him with hardly a coat and pair of breeches to his gaunt and grizzled person. Reports were various as to the nature of his fortunate speculation, one intimating that the ancient Peter had made the gold by alchemy; another, that he had conjured it out of people's pockets by the black art; and a third—still more unaccountable—that ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sleeues with coloured Silks, two inches good and more. Aloft their shirts they weare a garment iacket wise Hight Onoriadka, and about his burlie waste, he tyes His portkies, which in stead of better breeches be: Of linnen cloth that garment is, no codpiece is to see. A paire of yarnen stocks to keepe the colde away, Within his boots the Russie weares, the heeles they vnderlay With clouting clamps of steele, sharpe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... to enable you to read, with your own eyes, to-night. Let me add, that few chapters of human history have a more profound significance for ourselves. I weigh my words well when I assert, that the man who should know the true history of the bit of chalk which every carpenter carries about in his breeches- pocket, though ignorant of all other history, is likely, if he will think his knowledge out to its ultimate results, to have a truer, and therefore a better, conception of this wonderful universe, and of man's relation to it, than the most learned student who is deep-read in the records ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the veriest tyro realizes, as a rule, that this sort of punning characterization went out with the eighteenth century, or survived into the nineteenth century only as a flagrant anachronism, like knee-breeches and hair-powder. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said, "I know what I'll do: I'll talk it over wi' Riley; he's coming to-morrow, t' arbitrate ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... one!' cried Tom. 'They're all mine; uncle Robson gave them to me—one, two, three, four, five—you shan't touch one of them! no, not one, for your lives!' continued he, exultingly; laying the nest on the ground, and standing over it with his legs wide apart, his hands thrust into his breeches-pockets, his body bent forward, and his face twisted into all manner of contortions in the ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... nothing new to be discovered, filled another glass of wine, and then proceeded to make himself more comfortable by unbuttoning three more buttons of his waistcoat, pushing his wig farther off his head, and casting loose all the buttons at the knees of his breeches; he completed his arrangements by dragging towards him two chairs within his reach, putting his legs upon one while he rested his arm upon the other. And why was not Mr. Witherington to make himself comfortable? He had good health, a good conscience, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... pedometer. To the loop at the bottom of it you must sew a tape, and at the other end of the tape a small hook (such as we use under the name of hooks and eyes), cut a little hole in the bottom of your left watch-pocket, pass the hook and tape through it, and down between the breeches and drawers, and fix the hook on the edge of your knee-band, an inch from the knee-buckle; then hook the instrument itself by its swivel-hook on the upper edge of the watch-pocket. Your tape being well adjusted in length, your double ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... shall not help him to her or her acres," again interrupted the father. "The impudence of these Whigs passes belief. I hope ye sent him off with a bee in his breeches, Matilda." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... if it ain't, sir," said Jim, putting on his breeches. "I was in there not eighteen months since. It's a fighting-house; and there used to be a dog show there, and a reunion of vocal talent, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Tyltyl has put on Hop-o'-my-Thumb's blue jacket and red breeches; and Miss Mytyl has Gretel's frock and Cinderella's slippers.... But the great thing was the ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Petruchio is coming, in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points: his horse hipped with an old mothy saddle and stirrups ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... have risen; fifty steeds they all behold: Black the horses seemed; the bridles, stiff with silver and with gold, Firmly to the gate were fastened; fifty silver breeches there Heaped together shone, encrusted all with gold the brooches were: There were fifty knightly vestments, bordered fair with golden thread: Fifty horses, white, and glowing on their ears with deepest red, Nigh them stood; of reddish purple were the sweeping ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... of clothing, James Habersham sent an order to London in 1764 on behalf of himself and two neighbors for 120 men's jackets and breeches and 80 women's gowns to be made in assorted sizes from strong and heavy cloth. The purpose was to clothe their slaves "a little better than common" and to save the trouble of making the garments at home.[13] In January, 1835, the overseer of one of the Telfair plantations reported ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... quashed by the dictum of the wise, that the sky represented a sunset, as anyone who looked could see. Then there were a number of little figures, no taller than your hand, but with little wooden faces and arms and legs, just beautifully made little dolls, and these were dressed in kirtles and breeches—all rags mostly—and little coats and wooden shoes. They were massed together in groups with ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Chrysler to it on the first morning of his stay in Dormilliere, which was a Sunday. As they approached it through the square, filled with the tied teams of the congregation, a beadle, gorgeous in livery of black and red, with knee-breeches and cocked hat, emerged from the side door and proceeded to drive the groups of stragglers gently inwards with his staff, as a shepherd ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... corner of one of the principal streets, and hung up his beautiful costumes in the windows. He was a little fellow, not much bigger than a boy of ten. His cheeks were as red as roses, and he had on a long curling wig as white as snow. He wore a suit of crimson velvet knee-breeches, and a little swallow-tailed coat with beautiful golden buttons. Deep lace ruffles fell over his slender white hands, and he wore elegant knee buckles of glittering stones. He sat on a high stool behind his ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... coming within an easy range of his eyesight; a nose red and bulbous like a ripe raspberry; on his head he wore a huge hemp-coloured wig, bulging out over his fat poll; a coat of light green plush, with steel buttons as large as a five-franc piece; velvet breeches, silk stockings, and shoes garnished with silver buckles. He was just with his hand upon the top of the cask, with an air of inexpressible satisfaction beaming upon his ruddy features, and his eyes glowing in profile, from the reflection ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... Bridget McCarty that wears the breeches," said that lady. "It's me husband's, and a dacent, respectable man he is, barrin' the drink, which turns his head. What'll ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and always, probably, will be. I sat down beside her and regarded it also, but more charitably than usual. Perhaps it was rather trivial, just a lot of pretty dresses and excited young men in white riding-breeches doing foolish things on ponies in the shortest possible time, with one little crowd about the Club's refreshment tent and another about the Staff's, while the hills sat round in an indifferent circle; but it appealed to me with a kind of family feeling ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... jests: Can it call whore? cry bastard? O, then, kiss it! A witty child! can't swear? the father's darling! Give it two plums. Nay, rather than't shall learn No bawdy song, the mother herself will teach it!—- But this is in the infancy, the days Of the long coat; when it puts on the breeches, It will put off all this: Ay, it is like, When it is gone into the bone already! No, no; this dye goes deeper than the coat, Or shirt, or skin; it stains into the liver, And heart, in some; and, rather than it should not, Note what we fathers do! look how we live! What mistresses we keep! at ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... to fight here all day. What's the figure? What's the figure?" He slapped his breeches ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... was just and right that she should pay the bill. As long as her government of a colony was paternal, so long was it right that the mother country should put herself in the place of a father, and enjoy a father's undoubted prerogative of putting his hand into his breeches pocket to provide for all the wants of his child. But when the adult son set up for himself in business—having received education from the parent, and having had his apprentice fees duly paid—then that son should ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... Marie Louise went about in breeches and shirts and worked like hostlers around the stables and in the paddocks, breaking colts and mucking out stalls. They donned the blouses and boots of peasants, and worked in the fields with rake and hoe and harrow. They even tried the plow, but they followed it too literally, ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... had been inserted in the "Twins," the breeches closed and the muzzles elevated to point at the fast-flying airships. At the aft gun Ted gripped the trigger ready to fire, while Mike Mowrey jammed his good right eye into the telescopic sight to make sure of ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Highlander in full-dress, are carefully preserved from year to year. These paste-board erections are covered with flowers, feathers, bugles, and coloured streamers. The dresses are of coloured calico, with ribbons everywhere; "points" to the breeches and ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... original pen-and-ink sketch is in the "Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to Catalogue, 1886) Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint." The costume—long coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings—is not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a leer and a sneer. Walpole (Letters, 1858, vii. 274) describes another portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking—no, squinting tenderly at his daughter. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... in advance, a tall person, wrapped to the eyes in fur, wearing a silver bugle in front of his cap, and covered with buff breeches. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Squire, "it's cramped and bothered I am in these clothes. What possesses people to make Merry-andrews of themselves night after night beats my comprehension. In my old velveteen jacket and knee-breeches I am a man—in this tomfoolery I do not feel as good ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... All its lilt and rhythm and color and humanness as well. And ladies walking along with huge white balloons from the White House as though they had been blowing bubbles from some great clay pipes. And a plump, rosy Chinese woman so dainty in her breeches with her shiny, black hair bound in a head dress of jade ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... given it in happy pastime, and now I did the little one's bidding and was right glad to be her play fellow for a while. Time slipped on as I sat there making merry with little Katie, doing the dolly's leather breeches and jerkin off and on, blowing on the child's little shoulder when it smarted or giving her a sweetmeat to comfort her, and still Ann came not, albeit she had promised to join me so soon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... flunkey, all in inflamed plush and buttons and knee-breeches as to his trunk, and a glinting white frost-work of ground-glass paste as to his head, who stood with his heels together and the upper half of him bent forward, a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... giving the animal a hearty slap on her round, glossy haunches. In the meantime the horse-dealer had mounted. With his gaunt figure, his short riding-jacket under the broad-brimmed, varnished hat, his yellow breeches over his lean thighs, his high leather boots, his large, heavy spurs, and his whip, he looked like a highwayman. He rode away cursing and swearing, without saying good-by, leading the brown mare by a halter. He never once glanced back at the farm-house, but the mare several ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various |
