"Gait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slabs, which are on a level with the soil, and above which white forms are bending, more undefined than clouds. Others rapidly make their appearance. Eyes shine through the openings of long veils. By their indolent gait and the perfumes which exhale from them, Antony knows they are ladies of patrician rank. There are also men, but of inferior condition, for they have visages at the ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... young man was followed, though he knew it not, by a man in a mask, dogging his steps, short and stout, with a rolling gait, like a barrel. To every one familiar with the opera this disguise betrayed a stock-broker, a banker, a lawyer, some citizen soul suspicious of infidelity. For in fact, in really high society, no one courts such humiliating proofs. Several masks had laughed as they pointed this preposterous ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Gait House, lookin' fur a hossman that's stoppin' there, 'n' I see Peewee Simpson settin' in the lobby like ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... himself carried Burton's large elephant gun. "I commenced the journey," he says, "at 6 p.m., as soon as the two donkeys I took with me to ride were caught and saddled. It was a dreary beginning. The escort who accompanied me were sullen in their manner and walked with heavy gait and downcast countenance. The nature of the track ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... From their seats beneath the pine-trees. And whene'er a youth or maiden Found a crooked ear in husking, Found a maize-ear in the husking Blighted, mildewed, or misshapen, 220 Then they laughed and sang together, Crept and limped about the corn-fields, Mimicked in their gait and gestures Some old man, bent almost double, Singing singly or together: 225 "Wagemin, the thief of corn-fields! Paimosaid, the skulking robber!" Till the corn-fields rang with laughter, Till from Hiawatha's wigwam Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens, 230 Screamed and quivered in his ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... it hard work often to make him dance to their piping. Perhaps no one understood him better, or had greater influence with him, than the man who now walked a pace or two behind him, and was so small that, beside the King, he looked almost ridiculous. His mincing gait, and his apparently nervous deference to everyone about him, would have amused those who did not know the man, or until they had made a more careful study of his face. Nature seemed to have tried her hand at a caricature, and had placed upon this diminutive ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... estate, wild elephants appeared. Over the furrowed acres they streamed in endless lines, trampling down the ordered stretch of green bushes. In scores, in hundreds, they came, silently, slowly; the great heads nodding to the rhythm of their gait, the trunks swinging, the ragged ears flapping, as they advanced. Converging as they came, they drew together in a solid mass that blotted out the ground, a mass sombre-hued, dark, relieved only by flashes of ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... young man appeared, a distinctly unprepossessing young man, whose shabby clothing somehow suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... aspect of an athlete. His greatest charm was in the grace of his movements and the natural nobility of his attitudes and his walk; for he moved as lightly and daintily as a deer, and it was a constant pleasure, while walking behind him during our marches through the forest, to admire his elastic gait, the play of his muscles and the elegant ease with which he threaded the thicket. I tried to take some photographs of him, but without great success, owing to technical difficulties; besides, the face had to be hidden ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... such as no tongue can say; and they also stationed themselves by the doorway. Then in came a band of twenty damsels and amongst them the lady, Shams al-Nahar hight, as she were the moon among the stars swaying from side to side, with luring gait and in beauty's pride. And she was veiled to the middle with the luxuriance of her locks, and clad in a robe of azure blue and a mantilla of silk embroidered with gold and gems of price; and her waist was girt with a zone set with various kinds of precious stones. She ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Not a single trace of surprise showed itself on her face, not a single searching glance betrayed the fact that she thought of the original of a well-known countenance when she saw this man who had met her by chance far away from home. Lorand's face, his gait, his voice, all were strange to her. The face had grown older, the gait was that of a farmer, the old beautiful voice had deepened into ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... uncommon degree, this power of mimicry. I was told, almost in the same words, of the same ludicrous habit among the Caffres; the Australians, likewise, have long been notorious for being able to imitate and describe the gait of any man, so that he may be recognised. How can this faculty be explained? is it a consequence of the more practised habits of perception and keener senses, common to all men in a savage state, as ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... he was, indeed, the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. He had no legs that practised not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those that could speak low and tardily, Would turn their own perfection to ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... was worked by strings cleverly pulled to suit the action to every word. Wallack is an honest performer; he don't impose upon you, like Webster, for instance, who as the Apothecary, speaks with a hungry voice, walks with a tottering step, moves with a helpless gait, which plainly shows that he never studied the part—he must have starved for it. Where will this confounded ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... sun, with a constant use of all the ointments and washes and dresses that serve to the adorning of the head or smoothing the skin or improving the complexion, in a manner changed them from what they were before, and having taught them farther to counterfeit the very voice and carriage and gait of virgins, so that there could not be the least difference perceived; he, undiscovered by any, put them into the number of the Athenian maids designed for Crete. At his return, he and these two youths led up a solemn procession, in the same habit ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... showed a fine-made, powerful frame, over six feet in height, and perfectly poised. With a great easy stride he swept silently out of the shop; nor from gait any more than look would one have thought he had been all day at work on the remnant of property ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... haggard; though, indeed, her face had on it that weighty look of endurance which care will always give; it was not that she had lost her beauty, and become unattractive in his eyes; but that the whole nature of her mien and form, the very trick of her gait was changed. Her eye was as bright as ever, but it was steady, composed, and resolved; her lips were set and compressed, and there was no playfulness round her mouth. Her hair was still smooth and bright, but it was more brushed off from her ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... keep hold of a cord fastened to one of his hind legs; for as often as he came to a kennel of one of his wild fellows, he would attempt to escape into it. He invariably travelled with an ungainly trotting gait, carrying his nose, beagle-like, close to the ground. His sense of smell was exceedingly acute, and when near his prey he became agitated, and quickened his motions, pausing frequently to sniff the earth, till, discovering the exact spot where the mouse ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the creek a man, hardly reaching the middle size, lean and active-looking, narrow in the flanks, thin in the jaws, his knees well apart; with a keen bright eye in his head; his clothes looked as if they had belonged to ten different men; and his gait was heavy, and his face red, as if from a long hurried walk; but I said at once, "Here comes a riding man, at all events, be it ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... eyes dwelling pleasurably on that vital gait of hers as she preceded me, I could not help reflecting that, coming down on the tug from Baltimore, she had promised not to bother me nor require ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... The shuffling gait of the gigantic, unwieldy man, who had grown gray stooping over his work, had gained a certain majestic dignity. His cheeks glowed, and the gray eyes, which had long since acquired a fixed look from straining over ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... blue eyes, whose affectionate gaze reveals her identity. She halts slightly in her gait; she writes a letter every day, to which I have to send an ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... train their girls and boys alike up to a certain point in general courtesy and consideration for each other, and then go on with the girls, teaching them the gentle, faithful finesse which every wife has to understand, yet leaves her boy to "gang his ain gait" just at the formative period of his life, I am not able ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... with wooden clogs, who should have been sitting in a rocking-chair, swinging her scythe through some hay, and she was doing it well, too. The scarcity of horses probably accounted for the mowers and rakes not being used, cows being somewhat too slow in their gait to give good results. Although Hanover is noted for its horses, the needs of the army seem to have depleted the country, and I saw very few. Every one rides a bicycle. I think I saw less ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... the less a noble song, and so appropriate is it to the nature of the work it accompanies, to the gait of the oxen, to the peace of the fields, and to the simplicity of the men who sing it, that no genius unfamiliar with the tillage of the earth, and no man except an accomplished laborer of our part of the country, could repeat it. At the season of the year when there is no work or stir afoot ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... is commonly regarded as a homely bird; yet he is not without beauty. His coat of glossy black with violet reflections, his dark eyes and sagacious expression of countenance, his stately and graceful gait, and his steady and equable flight, combine to give him a proud and dignified appearance. The Crow and the Raven have always been celebrated for their gravity, a character that seems to be the result of their black sacerdotal vesture, and of certain manifestations of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... straight—or as straight as his loose gait permitted—to 46 Glover Street, and knocked at the door. Grodman's factotum opened it. She was a pock-marked person, with a brickdust ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... cause and effect and of quiet deductions and deliberate conclusions. His coat was seedy, his trousers bagged at the knees, his shoes were old, and there were patches on them, but his collar and linen were white and very much starched, and his awkward, shambling gait was honest to the last footfall. A world of depth and soul was in his strong, fine face, lit up now with an honest, humble smile, but, at rest, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... often thought how severe a trial of faith must this be to the wives of our great church dignitaries. To us these men are personifications of St Paul; their very gait is a speaking sermon; their clean and sombre apparel exacts from us faith and submission, and the cardinal virtues seem to hover round their sacred hats. A dean or archbishop, in the garb of his order, is sure of our reverence, and a well-got-up bishop fills our very souls with awe. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... as much altered as his person. He had entered the shop at eight o'clock that morning a blackguard as well as a vagabond. He left it now a gentleman; subdued in voice, easy and rather listless in gait, haughty and ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... The gait, the general air, the walk, all were different; and then arose the anxious question of who could it be that had intruded upon that lonely place, and what could be the object of any one else but Varney ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... appearance of regular Roman troops. They were seated round a table, drinking and singing. Some among them, who carried short-handled scourges twisted of several thongs and terminating in bits of lead, detached themselves from time to time from the group, and walked here and there with the uncertain gait of drunken men, casting jeering looks on the prisoners. Next to me lay an aged man with white hair and beard, very pale and thin. A bloody band half hid his forehead. He was sitting up, his elbows on his knees, and his face between his hands. Seeing him wounded and a prisoner, I concluded ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... appearance, Harrison "was commanding, and his manners prepossessing. He was about six feet high, of rather slender form, straight, and of a firm, elastic gait, even at the time of his election to the presidency, though then closely bordering on seventy. He had a keen, penetrating eye, denoting quickness ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... in succession the remnants of a routed army had been passing through the City. They were not troops, but disorganized hordes. The men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they walked with a listless gait, without flag nor formation. All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching only by force of habit and dropping with fatigue as soon as they stopped. One saw for the most part hastily mobilized ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... greeted the conclusion of their famous Wonderland song. The demonstration continued until Alice stepped forward and made a funny little speech, in which she introduced the animals, who skipped, waddled or shuffled forward according to each one's conception of what its own peculiar gait should be. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... livelong night, At that still hour of night, when dreams are oft'nest true, A well-known spectre rose before his view, As in some lake, when hush'd in every breeze, The bending ape his form reflected sees,[46] Such and so like the Doctor's angel shone, And by his gait the guardian sprite was known, Benignly bending o'er his aching head— "Sleep, Henry, sleep, my best beloved," he said,[47] "Soft dreams of bliss shall soothe thy midnight hour; Connubial transport and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... office, has caused it altogitther to be vilipended;[78] for the preast, (said he,) whose dewitie and office is to pray for the people, standis up on Sounday, and cryes, 'Ane hes tynt a spurtill. Thair is ane flaill stollin from thame beyound the burne. The goodwyiff of the other syd of the gait hes tynt a horne spune. Goddis maleson and myne I geve to thame that knowis of this geyre, and restoris it not.'"—How the people mocked thair curssing, he ferther told a meary tale; how, after a sermoun that ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... her own full-grown size and stately gait, as contrasted with that of a meek, half-fledged girl in the nursery; but Miss Browning was half puzzled ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... treasure lay, she came behind him, and pushed him into the well, and then flung great stones in upon him, till she had killed him. After which, when the soldiers led her away bound to Alexander, her very mien and gait showed her to be a woman of dignity, and of a mind no less elevated, not betraying the least sign of fear or astonishment. And when the king asked her who she was, "I am," said she, "the sister of Theagenes, who fought the battle of Chaeronea with your father Philip, and fell there ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... nae feelin's, I'm thankfu' to say. I never kent ony guid come o' them. They're a terrible sicht i' the gait." ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... placing my hand over her lips, I whispered in her ear, 'listen!' She obeyed, and, with beating hearts, we heard the footstep pacing back and forth before our door, now at the west end, now at the east, in a measured gait to which we could almost beat time, so regularly came the sound. The hall was carpeted, and the footfalls soft, yet not as though the unseen visitor was trying to deaden the sound. It was a natural step. From the light tread we might have supposed it to be a woman's foot, but from the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... was restless, and again lethargic. Dropsical symptoms appeared in his discolored feet and swollen ankles. Still he insisted every day upon seeing his ministers, and exhibited himself padded, and rouged, and costumed in the highest style of art. He even affected, in his gait and gesture, the elasticity of youth. In his restlessness, the king repaired, with his ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... whole frame was the prey of a hereditary disease. The tears in her eyes glistened like small specks. Her balmy breath was so gentle. She was as demure as a lovely flower reflected in the water. Her gait resembled a frail willow, agitated by the wind. Her heart, compared with that of Pi Kan, had one more aperture of intelligence; while her ailment exceeded (in intensity) by three degrees the ailment ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... my gentleness!" I sighed. After this we drove in silence awhile; that is to say Diogenes ambled along at his own leisurely gait, as if he very well knew that 'time was ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... dark here away from the gloom of the Rock; the forest was open, and yet I will never know how De Artigny succeeded in following that dim trail at so rapid a gait. As for me I could see nothing of any path, and merely followed him blindly, not even certain of the nature of the ground under my feet. Again and again I tripped over some obstacles—a root, a tuft of grass—and continually unnoted branches flapped ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... and of athletic bearing. He took long strides as with swinging gait he went up the hill. As he did ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... has an old dog grown from indulgence, like his horses, in the habit of going his own gait. He will trot to church on Sundays, and trot, trot, down the aisle after meeting has begun, or, if he likes, up into the gallery. When two of these obstinate old dogs once met before the pulpit they indulged in a whirlwind of fight. The minister requested the sexton to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... promise you that three thousand dollars and to spare. It isn't bluff. It's just God's truth. And if you feel like you're sick to death of the sight of what folks who's friendly call my face any old time, why you only need to say things, and I'll hit a trail out of sight at a gait that would leave a caribou flapping its ears with worry. I mean that, every darn word, and the chairman and half this fool committee are voting for ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... the subject as a thing, the nub of which was unreachable. That was the freshest object in his mind and the first to be mentally disposed of. But there were other subjects which came in swift succession. As he went along with a dog's gait he was not in much terror, practically weaponless as he was. His eye was good and he was going through the forest in the daylight. He was strong enough, club in hand, to meet the minor beasts. As for the others, if any of them appeared, there were the trees, and ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... masses of explosive, enough to destroy a town. It was there, of course, that Herman was to place the bomb. She knew how he would do it, carefully, methodically, and with what a lumbering awkward gait he would make ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... door of my house, when I marked a person passing close to the edge of the bank that was in front. His pace was a careless and lingering one, and had none of that gracefulness and ease which distinguish a person with certain advantages of education from a clown. His gait was rustic and aukward. His form was ungainly and disproportioned. Shoulders broad and square, breast sunken, his head drooping, his body of uniform breadth, supported by long and lank legs, were the ingredients of ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... hokstango. Gag silentigi, busxumi. Gaiety gajeco. Gain gajni. Gain (of a watch) trorapidi. Gainsay kontrauxdiri. Gait irado. Gaiter gamasxo. Gale ventego, blovado. Gall galo. Gall-nut gajlo. Gallant amisto. Gallant gxentila. Gallant brava. Gallery galerio. Galley remsxipego. Gallicism galicismo. Gallop ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... I do depend on it; yes indeed, I place every dependence on my chimney. As for its settling, I like it. I, too, am settling, you know, in my gait. I and my chimney are settling together, and shall keep settling, too, till, as in a great feather-bed, we shall both have settled away clean out of sight. But this secret oven; I mean, secret closet of yours, wife; where exactly do you suppose ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... any disrespect toward the latter. In my walks about Washington, both winter and summer, colored men are about the only pedestrians I meet; and I meet them everywhere, in the fields and in the woods and in the public road, swinging along with that peculiar, rambling, elastic gait, taking advantage of the short cuts and threading the country with paths and byways. I doubt if the colored man can compete with his white brother as a walker; his foot is too flat and the calves of his legs too small, but he is certainly the most picturesque traveler to be seen on ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... as much as conditions and climate permit. When it wears shoes, these should conform as much as possible to the shape of the foot. With such footwear, the active child may form for life the habit of a natural gait, especially if parents will point out the beauty and advantages of this, and praise the men and women of their acquaintance who possess it. It is about the time when a girl is learning Virgil in the High School that she is tempted by vanity ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... christened in derision by W. E. Henley the "Kailyard School," though the imitations were by no means confined to Scotland. In this school the Auld Licht Idylls and A Window in Thrums remained unsurpassed and unapproached. The Scots village tale was no novelty in literature—witness John Gait, the Chronicles of Carlingford and George MacDonald. Yet Mr Barrie, in spite of a dialect not easy to the Southron, contrived to touch a more intimate and more responsive chord. With the simplest materials he achieved an almost unendurable pathos, which yet is never forced; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... feet, with her back arched all but in two, and every hair of her tail standing on end with insulted dignity, vented in a series of spittings and swearings her opinion of dogs in general and those dogs in particular, and then resumed her own decently demure gait and deportment; thanking Heaven, I have no doubt, in her cat's soul, that she was not that disgustingly ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... such a scattering among their ranks as followed. We beheld several mustangs running wild without their riders over the prairie, and the balance of the company were already retreating at a more rapid gait than they approached. We hastily mounted and commenced pursuit, which we kept up until we beheld the independent flag flying from the battlements of the fortress of Alamo, our place of destination. The fugitives succeeded in evading ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... encamped on the common and quartered elsewhere; but also, as he had not expected, that the troops were virtually confined to the town, which was fortified at the Neck; that the last time they had marched into the country, through Lexington to Concord, they had marched back again at a much faster gait, and left many score dead and wounded on the way; and that a host of New Englanders in arms were surrounding Boston! The news of April 19th had not reached Europe until after Harry had sailed, nor had it met his regiment on the ocean. When he heard it ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Say, don't be exerting yourself violent. It strikes me she's for all the world like the wimmen,—in exthremes, sir, in exthremes! And it wouldn't be noways so pleasant to go riproaring that gait down cellar! Slow and easy, sir, let me ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... silly bird of waddling gait On a common once was bred, And brainless was his addle pate As the stubble on which he fed; Ambition-fired once on a day He took himself to flight, And in a castle all decay He nestled out of sight. "O why," said he, "should mind like mine "Midst gosling-flock be lost? "In learning I was meant ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... course of evolution. Perhaps the most curious exception is that of the elephants, in which the testes are abdominal. Here, in consequence of their structure and massive shape, locomotion in usually a walk, and though they run occasionally the gait is a trot, not a sustained gallop, and leaping is out of the question. Sloths which hang from branches upside down have abdominal testes, but even here they are in a posterior position, between, the rectum and the bladder, so there has apparently been a degree of dislocation, probably inherited from ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... women with their gay clothes of various hues, lit up by the expiring gleams of the setting sum, winding their way along the garden paths, like some monster snake, with scales of many colors; their gait perfect, undulating, and undisturbed by the baskets poised gracefully on their heads; singing some quaint refrain in the usual minor key, or making the air gay with their chatter and laughter; which, if far distant, strikes the ear pleasantly as a ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... however, had a broad bench on either side and faced the south, away from the prevailing wind. He had made a mental note of this early in the day, being schooled to anticipate such straits as the present. While, with a gait like a limping hare's, he passed up the narrow path between the graves, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was a small toddler of uncertain gait and chubby visage, the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States canceled out not only the Eighteenth Amendment, but the thriving enterprises conducted by Manelli, Sr., and many ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Juana known there was no game of any kind, excepting jack-rabbits and rattlesnakes, within a radius of several miles from the mission; for the neophytes had, long before, killed everything near. This fact as well as his quick gait, showed her he was not on ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... amuse, without entertaining, their not more tasteful but only less aspiring neighbors. In Northampton, in our Carnegie prize contest—so called for a very sufficient and pleasant reason—our counsel is to avoid all mimicry in gardening as we would avoid it in speech or in gait. Sometimes we do not mind being repetitious. "In gardening" we say—as if we had never said it before—"almost the only thing which costs unduly—in money or in mortification—is for one to try to give himself somebody else's ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... lighted up by two large black [according to another account blue] eyes, already bore the languorous imprint of the vice which was to corrupt his whole being"; his voice was "drawling and caressing"; his gait had "a softly feminine grace." Unfortunately there is no authentic portrait of him. His early life is sketched in letter iv of his Aline et Valcourt. On leaving the College-Louis-le-Grand he became a cavalry officer and went through ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... out of Oxford Street on their homeward journey when a loud shout close by arrested their attention. Looking round, they saw a boy with disordered dress and unsteady gait attempting to cross the road just as a hansom cab was bearing down at full speed on the place where he stood. They only saw his back, but it was evident he was either ill or dazed, for he stood stupidly ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... separated without a good-night, and dragged themselves home with the gait of mortally stricken men. At their homes their wives sprang up with an eager "Well?"—then saw the answer with their eyes and sank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words. In both houses a discussion followed of a heated sort—a new thing; there had been discussions before, but not ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... event happened that took Cynthia's entire interest for a while. This was the return of Captain Corwin. He came up the walk one day—quite a grizzled old fellow it seemed, with the sailor's rolling gait—and looked at her so sharply that she had a mind ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Exercise upon the Personal Appearance. Judicious and systematic exercise, if moderately employed, soon gives a more upright and symmetrical figure, and an easier and more graceful carriage. Rounded shoulders become square, the awkward gait disappears, and there is seen a graceful poise to the head and a bearing of the body which mark those whose muscles have been well trained. A perfectly formed skeleton and well-developed muscles give ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... as interpreted by Betty, is no rest cure. On land it includes an exaggerated rolling gait—itself somewhat fatiguing—and intervals of active participation in that most exacting dance, the hornpipe, to one's own whistling accompaniment. At odd moments, also, it appears that the best sailors double briskly to such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... sardonic tone, his bitter yellow face, the croak in his voice, and his stiff gait—all these things were signs of his hostility to her. And his mention of Anne Boleyn, who had been Queen, much as she was, and of her bitter fate, this mention, if it could not be a threat, was, at least, a reminder meant to give her fears ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... his familiarity with that labyrinth of sombre streets and alleys. Selecting a devious course, stooping low beneath the black shadows of walls and fences, he yet set so swift a gait with his confounded long legs it kept me puffing to follow. But we found clear passage, seeing no one close enough to interfere with our rapid progress, while no challenge sounded, until we crept, silently as possible, around the dilapidated end of the old tobacco shed, and a ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... late hour we escaped. I learned afterward that before we left the Promoter took our men aside and offered them one more thing to drink. This really seemed superfluous, and—judging by the straightforward gait of our escorts, to say nothing of my knowledge of their habits—there is no ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... and something like a shudder went through him. He crossed the room heavily, with the gait of one stricken suddenly old. He sat down again at the writing-table, and took up the pen that he had dropped—how ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Calais steamed out of the noisy Charing Cross Station, it carried in a third-class carriage two shabby boys. One of them would have been a handsome lad if he had not carried himself slouchingly and walked with a street lad's careless shuffling gait. The other was a cripple who moved slowly, and apparently with difficulty, on crutches. There was nothing remarkable or picturesque enough about them to attract attention. They sat in the corner of the carriage and neither talked ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... affecting immodest apparel, or a wanton gait; this will be evil both abroad and at home; abroad, it will not only give ill example, but also tend to tempt to lust and lasciviousness; and at home it will give an offence to a godly husband, and be cankering to ungodly children, &c. Wherefore, as saith the apostle, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with greed stamped on their astute faces, bustle about, watch the blackboards, and make investments with each other. Middle-aged men in slouch hats lounge around with hungry eyes. The place is feverish rather than exciting. A tall fellow, whose gait and clothes proclaim him English, with a hard face and lack-lustre eyes, saunters about; his friends at home suppose he is making his fortune in America. A dapper young gentleman, quite in the mode, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... spick and span for me, mother. It's as though the Being that made her said, 'Now I'll try and see if I can produce a model of a grown-up, full-sized piece of my work.' Mrs. Crozier is an exhibition model, and Shiel Crozier's over six feet three, and loose and free, and like a wapiti in his gait. If he was a wapiti he'd carry the finest ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ground to the enemy, affects the spirits of the troops and manifests itself in the discontented, apprehensive expression which is seen on the faces of the men, and the tired, slovenly, unwilling gait which invariably characterises ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... is your representative in the Congress of the United States and who has always et cetera, et cetera? 'Fellow-citizens, the issue before this country to-day—' and that was where he would hit his gait. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... this time as short, thickset, bowlegged, with the rapid and jerky gait of an English boy. His face, surrounded by dark curly hair, wore a grave, half-melancholy look; but it would light up expressively when he talked. He was a noted walker; and being the adopted child of a rich man, he dressed well and carried himself proudly. ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... listened to the discussion, having been occupied in watching the Comte de Guiche, who was conversing with Raoul. This was a fresh misfortune for Buckingham, who fancied he perceived in Madame Henrietta's look a deeper feeling than that of curiosity. He withdrew, almost tottering in his gait, and nearly stumbled against the mainmast ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... helmet dragged forward over his eyes, and she was too dazzled by the sun to see his face. But there was something—something in his gait, his figure, his attitude—that sent a wild thrill through her, waking her to vivid, pulsing life. With an incoherent cry she ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... have been cleared of every blade of grass and smoothed as if by human hands. A male "was capering, to the apparent delight of several others. Now spreading its wings, throwing up its head, or opening its tail like a fan; now strutting about with a hopping gait until tired, when it gabbled some kind of note, and was relieved by another. Thus three of them successively took the field, and then, with self-approbation, withdrew to rest." The Indians, in order to obtain their skins, wait at one of the meeting-places till the birds are ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... mile went by, and the horses held out capitally; but at last Two Arrows slackened his gait, seemed to make ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... mien and the most exquisite perfection of manner; even when playing billiards he retained an air of world mastery. The first of the Stuarts, on the contrary, was a very awkward man, whose slouching gait, intolerable manners, and pedantic conversation were utterly at variance with his lofty pretensions. Louis added to his graceful exterior a sound judgment and quick apprehension. He said neither too much nor too little. He was, for a king, a hard worker and spent several hours ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... different, and I suppose it must be true, otherwise she would not have married him; but to me he was a source of supply coupled with a bad temper, that was all. That I was not utterly impossible, that, going my own gait as I did, I was not a complete young blackguard, I know now was due entirely to Mother. She and I were as close friends as I would permit her to be. Father had neglected us for years, though how much he had neglected and ill-treated her I did not know until she ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Day after day, and year after year a person moves by your side; he sits at the same table; he reads the same books; he kneels in the same church. You know every hair of his head, every trick of his lips, every tone of his voice; you can tell him far off by his gait. Without seeing him, you recognize his step, his knock, his laugh. "Know him? Yes, I have known him these twenty years." No, you don't know him. You know his gait, and hair, and voice. You know what preacher ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... remarkable behavior and proposal, and did all they could to stay him from carrying it out, but he was not to be swayed. So they all followed at a distance to see what would happen to the knight, who in his anger had not been slow to mount and disappear with Sancho trailing behind on Dapple at his usual gait. ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... this son of the soil, his hollow cheeks and glaring eye-balls, his belt drawn with extreme tightness round his waist, to repress the gnawings of hunger, as well as his enfeebled gait, proved that he was approaching the last stage ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... detective, with whom he had been associated on his cruise some months before, he did not appear at all different from most of those who listened to Captain Sullendine. He had laid aside his gentlemanly gait and bearing, and acted as though he had ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... satirist does for other men, nature had done for him. Whatever was absurd about him stood out with grotesque prominence from the rest of the character. He was a living, moving, talking caricature. His gait was a shuffling trot; his utterance a rapid stutter; he was always in a hurry; he was never in time; he abounded in fulsome caresses and in hysterical tears. His oratory resembled that of justice Shallow. It was nonsense—effervescent with animal spirits and impertinence. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... men, one to drive the team and the other to rake off the wheat, and two horses, work the machine; but when the grain is heavy, or the land mellow, a change of horses is necessary, as the gait of the horses is too rapid to admit of heavy draft. The horses go at the rate of four to five miles an hour, and when the growth of straw is not heavy a fair trot of the team is not ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... afternoon heat subsided, Montrosa let herself out into a freer gait and began to cover the distance rapidly, heading due west through a land of cactus and dagger, of thorn and barb ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... animals, and especially delighted in horses, early demonstrating a surprising power in managing them. He was locally noted for his success in breaking colts, and as a trainer of horses to be pacers, those having this gait being esteemed more desirable for riding, at a time when a large part of all traveling was done on horseback. As General Grant became famous at a comparatively early age, a large crop of stories of his early feats in the subjection and use of horses was cultivated by persons who knew ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... in the arm and failed to retard his progress; he vaulted over the rail to the stage, but caught his spur in the folds of the flag, so that he did not alight fairly upon his feet; but he instantly recovered himself, and with a visible limp in his gait hastened across the stage; as he went, he turned towards the audience, brandished the bloody dagger with which he had just struck Rathbone, and cried "Sic semper tyrannis!" Some one recognized John Wilkes Booth, an actor of melodramatic characters. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... they saw Ellis, with his awkward gait, shuffling out from among the crowd; and, more especially, when he announced himself, in a hesitating tone, not only as the maker, but as the designer of the Knight of ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... forms which, surrounding him while still the sun was high overhead, had kept apace all afternoon with his slackening gait, he halted under a huge tree, leaning against the trunk in sudden weariness. His voice, weak, tremulous, carried to an audience he ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... arrangement, and with daggers and pistols (the latter only to be used in case of necessity, as the report of firearms might lead to detection,) awaited the arrival of their victim. About nine o'clock, the sound of horses' feet, approaching at a rapid gait, gave them to understand the hour of their deadly work was at hand. Taking their stand, one on either side of the road, they ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... And when they were for pushing into a gallop she acknowledged herself a clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own gait?" ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... world, for we had not walked five hundred yards before it dawned on me that to find our hostelry again might not be an entirely simple matter. Maybe the port wine had induced a haze of its own upon my sense of locality. I fancied, too, that the fresh air was affecting Hartnoll, unless his gait feigned a sea-roll to match his uniform. I felt a delicacy in asking him ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and muscle; and while both young men had an appearance of athletic power, as if they could have leaped over the hearse, the elder gave you the further impression that he was actually longing to perform some such feat. The younger brother's half languid gait, that told of bodily strength impaired by disuse, had become in the elder an impatient elasticity as if he moved on springs. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere; his eyes wandered absently to and fro, and his pre-occupation was obvious enough to me later on, when I ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... very completely that H.C.F. of Continental appearance which is labelled in the English mind 'looking like a foreigner'; being short, swarthy, gesticulatory, full of clatter, indeterminately alien. Only in their dress and gait have they—or at least the men among them— ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... the back of the town and climbed over the hill to take the crowds by surprise. They'd made but a poor fist of this, by reason of the officer letting his gang get out of hand at the start; and by their gait 'twas pretty plain they had collared a plenty of liquor up the street. But while Hancock peeped out, taking stock of them, a nasty monkey-notion crept into his head, and took hold of all his spiteful little nature; and says he, pushing the door a bit wider as the ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... appear to be the most wretched of all human beings. Their cabins, their patched and tattered clothes, their broken-down gait—every thing bears witness to their poverty. Their beds consist of a few bits of wood crossed one upon the other, supported by two heaps of stones, and covered with straw; their whole bedclothes a miserable, worn-out quilt, without any blankets . . . . But ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... interesting personality. Tall, stout, and somewhat awkward in his gait, his double chin was lost between the exaggerated points of the stiff white collar so characteristic of our American statesmen at that time. His kindly smile and natural charm of voice and manner, however, soon attracted and held those who at first found him unengaging. With ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... picture it is not always easy to identify yourself at first, especially at a distance, and every morning on my way to work, unless I deliberately avert my face, I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant-looking man, with the rather effeminate, swinging gait, whom I see mincing along through the crowd, ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mare swung into her long gait. "It's a lie! I thought twas somebody's ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on his feet, and guided his steps to the road. As he walked along, the inebriate, whose gait was at first unsteady, recovered his equilibrium ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... request, owing to the Installation, that we have found it impossible to procure a conveyance for Emma before Wednesday, on which day between the hours of 3 and 4 in the afternoon you will see your little friend, with her bloom somewhat impaired by late hours and dissipation, but her gait, gesture, and general manners (I flatter myself) considerably improved by—somebody that shall be nameless. My sister joins me in love to all true Trumpingtonians, not specifying any, to avoid envy; and begs me to assure you that Emma has ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... leaned into their harness, almost falling forward at the unexpected lightness of the load. Again the little company moved at measured gait. For ten minutes nothing ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... was developing itself apace. On the afternoon of one beautiful Sunday, a day in which we of course ordinarily did no work, when the dinner-table had been well cleared away, what should we see but old Bill swinging forth with his sailor gait from the house, and arrayed as jauntily as his check shirt and pea-jacket (his only suit of apparel at hand) would permit, to be speedily followed by Mrs. Rose, who with one set of finger-tips held up the light folds of a sweetly blue lawn skirt, and with the other bore ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... somewhat foolish expression, by which in former days one could recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families, 'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in our open, half-wild country parts,—a hesitating gait, a voice with a lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly, freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,—there you have the whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a fair amount ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strongest of us, though I was wiry and had good staying power, and Jeff was a great sprinter and hurdler, but I can tell you those old ladies gave us cards and spades. They ran like deer, by which I mean that they ran not as if it was a performance, but as if it was their natural gait. We remembered those fleeting girls of our first bright adventure, and concluded that ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... up courage to go forward and salute it, when it moved forward in a gliding and cautious fashion. Edred felt ashamed of his momentary thrill of fear, for he recognized at once the awkward gait and rolling step of Brother Fabian, and knew that his preceptor's bitterest foe was lingering in the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... library door, his body bent forward and his head protruded towards the sanctum he longed to gain, and Madame and Mr. Sagittarius, true to the instinct of imitation that dwells in our monkey race, were in precisely similar attitudes behind him. The hall being rather dark, and the gait of the trio it contained thus tragically surreptitious, it was perhaps not unnatural that Mrs. Fancy should give vent to a piercing cry of terror, and that Mr. Ferdinand should drop the menu and crouch back against the wall in a hunched position expressive of alarm. At any rate, such were ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... alone had attracted my attention. He was a tall, pale man, in the decline of life, dressed in a sort of half-uniform; he walked with a stooping gait, and seemed to me (perhaps it was a mere fancy) as much weighed down by care as years. Several times I had seen him going in or coming out of the court that opened two doors above the abbe's. He was unlike most inhabitants of the neighborhood in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... that something was the matter and saw me tumbling down several times. I suppose they thought I was wounded and could run no farther; they then set up the yell again and mended their gait running. By the time I got my great coat loose from me, and was in the act of pulling off my under coat, I was pulling off one sleeve I looked back over my shoulder, but had not time to pull it off—the ...
— Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788 • William Biggs
... my ain Aggie," she faltered, "to rush intil my quaiet hoose that gait, fling a man upo' my bed, an' fa' ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... o' me tae differ frae him, and it wudna be verra respectfu' o' Saunders tae live aifter this opeenion. But Saunders wes aye thraun an' ill tae drive, an' he's as like as no tae gang his ain gait. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... on the hill when the cannon-fire began, having gone back to camp to change his tired horse for a fresher one; for his gait, says the historian, was always fast and furious. At the first report, however, he pricked up his ears and sent to Commander Ward for another horse; but before his orderly returned, he had procured still another and ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... a good quality of the mind," as stated above (I-II, Q. 55, A. 4). But magnanimity implies certain dispositions of the body: for the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 3) of "a magnanimous man that his gait is slow, his voice deep, and his utterance calm." Therefore magnanimity ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... slinking. The high cheek-bones and slightly tilted eyes bore evidence of the Chinese blood that flowed in his veins, and the tribe shuddered at the thought of Sicto as charm boy. He advanced with a shambling gait. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... he exclaimed, as Bill passed the bottle to Dunnigan. "That's so; b'lieve I did hear some one say you didn't use no booze. Well, every man to his own likin'. Me—about three good, stiff jolts a day, an' a big drunk in the spring an' fall, is about my gait. Have a seegar." Bill accepted the proffered weed ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... what you like, and I'll tell you what you are. Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you meet, what their "taste" is; and if they answer candidly, you know them, body and soul. "You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what do you like?" "A pipe and a quartern of gin." I know you. "You, good woman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?" "A swept hearth, and a clean tea-table; and my husband opposite me, and a baby at my breast." Good, I know you also. "You, little girl with the golden ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin |
