"Sleek" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brave shew in all else that pertained to his new character. But why enlarge upon our Fra Rinaldo, of whom we speak? what friars are there that do not the like? Ah! opprobrium of a corrupt world! Sleek-faced and sanguine, daintily clad, dainty in all their accessories, they ruffle it shamelessly before the eyes of all, shewing not as doves but as insolent cocks with raised crest and swelling bosom, and, what is worse (to say nought of the ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... shoulder to shoulder, with their heads tucked under their wings and all their feathers puffed out, so that they looked like globes of malachite; English bullfinches, with ashen-colored backs, in which their black heads were buried, and corselets of a rosy down; Java sparrows, fat and sleek and cleanly; troupials, so glossy and splendid in plumage that they looked as if they were dressed in the celebrated armor of the Black Prince, which was jet, richly damascened with gold; a cock of the rock, gleaming, a ball of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... ago, when he had been much smaller, he had desired the skin of Sabor, the lioness, or Numa, the lion, or Sheeta, the leopard to cover his hairless body that he might no longer resemble hideous Histah, the snake; but now he was proud of his sleek skin for it betokened his descent from a mighty race, and the conflicting desires to go naked in prideful proof of his ancestry, or to conform to the customs of his own kind and wear hideous and uncomfortable apparel found first one and ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... vigour of his mind. He had buried his wife in Scotland, and had left there a numerous family, that he might become its pioneer at the antipodes. He had thus far worked his way successfully, and was beginning to reap the fruits of his adventurous industry. Sleek cattle filled his stockyard, his fields waved with ripe grain, and I had the satisfaction of learning from him, that he had written for his family, and that he soon expected their arrival in the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... begs him to sleek o'er his rugged looks, be bright and jovial. He promises obedience; but soon falls into the dark mood again and predicts "a deed of dreadful note." Naturally his wife ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... this wisdom the Diva her well-trained mind did seriously incline, during that last Milan campaign. Nor did her moral aim seem to be without good promise of success. The sleek young colts with their shiny coats, glossy, with the rich pastures of the Lombard plains, pranced up and nibbled, all unconscious of the hidden noose. One fine young unsuspecting animal, the noblest of the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... hated the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not sympathy. But here in Pretoria all was petty and contemptible. Slimy, sleek officials of all nationalities—the red-faced, snub-nosed Hollander, the oily Portuguese half-caste—thrust or wormed their way through the crowd to look. I seemed to smell corruption in the air. Here were the creatures who ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... uncomfortably. What was her trouble? Swope? Had he hurt her? Was the talk I had heard at the Swede's correct, did that black devil beat the lady? My hands grasped the wheel spokes fiercely, as though I had Swope's sleek throat between ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... yet he was vaguely familiar. One eye looked at her steadily from beneath a drooping lid, the other blinked like the shutter of a camera and seemed to take intimate photographs of all parts of her grimy person. His sleek hair was curled over his temples with ends pointing up, and she caught, or imagined, the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... was a hale hearty yeoman, of a ruddy and cheerful countenance. A few wrinkles were puckered below the eyes; the rest of his face was sleek and comfortably disposed. A beard, once thick and glossy, was grown grey and thin, curling up short and stunted round his portly chin. Two bright twinkling eyes gave note of a stirring and restless temper—too sanguine, maybe, for success in the great ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... elements as the hypnotic fascinations of a sleek music-master, the follies of a runaway schoolgirl and the well-disciplined affections of a most superior young gentleman, Mr. W.E. NORRIS has contrived to create yet another new story, without infringement of his own or anyone else's copyright. Thanks to the incidence of War and the author's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... vor lime, an' bring Hwome cider wi' my sleek-heaeir'd team, An' smack my limber whip an' zing, While all ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... army of Rousseaus; for him there was one school and no other, one college and no other, one regiment, club, restaurant, music-hall, tailor, hairdresser and no other. Eric was always meeting John Gaymers and never penetrating below the sleek, well-bred and uninterested exterior; they were politely repellent, as though an intrusion from outside would disturb their serenity and the advantageous bargain which they had struck with life; it might cause them to think, and thought ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... of the Earl of Huntinglen, had called any colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow from haste and toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured as before; nay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised his head, hung down on either cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it was when we first introduced him to our readers, seated at his quiet and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... sort of man one would suppose, who, if his lord were to tell him to jump into the pit Tophet, would pursue one of two courses, either jump in himself, without further to do, or throw his own brother in with profuse apologies. From the top of his sleek round head to the sole of his perfect top-boot, the model and living exponent of what a servant should be—fit to be put into a case and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... sitting of the court, on the ensuing morning—"Will your Lordship allow me," rose and inquired the sleek, smiling, and portly Mr. Subtle, dead silence prevailing as soon as he had mentioned the name of the cause about which he was inquiring, "to mention a cause of Doe on the demise of Titmouse v. Jolter—a special jury cause, in which there are a great many witnesses to be examined on both sides—and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... themselves about the animals, inspecting and feeling of their horns, patting their fat sides, calling their names, and showing their pleasure at seeing the pretty creatures in various ways. I did not know which were of most interest, the deer with long, branching antlers, sleek spotted sides and funny heads, or the group of odd little Eskimo children, with their plump dark faces, dressed in furry parkies and boots, tumbling gleefully around ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... sleek and trim, and we journey much. If I sit down in his reach I wish you could see how deftly he can pick off my cap and swing it high out of my reach. He also carries my crop; his games are simple, but he does ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... of his fellows who made fighting a business, had a contemptuous indifference to the clerical class. A blessing or a curse was alike of little consequence to men who feared neither God, man, nor Devil, and who would as readily strip a sleek priest as a good, fat merchant. Raynor's words were blunt and to the point. He knew nothing of the Abbot except through the gossip of the camp and guard-room, and that made him a cadet of a noble family of the South of England, who for some unknown reason had, in early ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... I mused, "and by what right?—how dared you come to this house, and lay hands on this woman? Who has ordained that she should suffer for you? You array yourself in fine linen, and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble. You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... Indian maiden of about Bob's own age netting the babiche in a snow-shoe, her fingers plying deftly in and out. The woman and girl wore deerskin garments of peculiar design. The former was fat and ugly, the latter slender, and very comely, he thought, from her sleek black hair to her feet encased in daintily worked little moccasins. At that moment she glanced towards him and said something to her companion, who turned in his ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... he, and offered his back. And the Mouse mounted at once, putting his paws upon the other's sleek neck and vaulting nimbly. Now at first, while he still saw the land near by, he was pleased, and was delighted with Puff-jaw's swimming; but when dark waves began to wash over him, he wept loudly and blamed his unlucky change of mind: he tore his fur and tucked his paws in against ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... or overbearing to his inferiors, but to me and to his mistress while in Cairo he had the gentleness of the dove, and I had engaged him at 5l. per month to accompany me to the White Nile. Men change with circumstances; climate affects the health and temper; the sleek and well-fed dog is amiable, but he would be vicious when thin and hungry; the man in luxury and the man in need are not equally angelic. Now Mahomet was one of those dragomen who are accustomed to the civilized expeditions of the British tourist ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... like the beavers, seemingly take great pride in their toilets. Their fur is always sleek and clean 122 ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... gleaming eye, or tear-bedewed face, as the joy and triumph of the eve pierced through their wonted weariness of grief; then the rest of the warriors, and lastly the mingled crowd of Dalesfolk, tall men and fair women gaily arrayed, clean-faced, clear-skinned, and sleek-haired, with ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... prettiest tricks Of words and words and words. Her talk comes out as smooth and sleek As breasts of ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... from Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an accurate purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified reminiscence of his tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically in a turmoil of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again, sleek and wet as seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped easily on, pausing on the timbers heavy enough to support him, barely spurning those too small to sustain his weight. In a moment he stopped abruptly without the transitorial balancing Bob ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... banquet was being given by a party of Chinese merchants, and Holt had thought the scene might amuse her. The round table was covered with dishes no larger than those played with in childhood and the portions were as minute. The sleek merchants wore gorgeously embroidered costumes, and behind them were women of their own race, dressed plainly in the national garb, their stiff oiled hair stuck with long pins lobed with glass. They were evidently an orchestra, ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a blue coat, with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were squeezed up into his head, which perhaps accounted for his ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... that I had not exercised more restraint; but the hungry man does not and cannot consider consequences, else a certain hairy gentleman who figures in ancient history had never lent himself to that nefarious compact, which gave so great an advantage to a younger but sleek and well-nourished brother. In spite of all this, I felt a secret satisfaction in the thought of the clothes, and it was also good to know that the nature of the work I had undertaken would not lower my status in ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... and their husbands, and yet who are utterly regardless of outside responsibilities, who are practically isolated in the community. They pass their lives in a little round of household activities, sunning and preening themselves in their long hours of leisure like so many sleek cats. ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... after years, so salient a delight of London—was not known to them, but they were often admirable upon the steps of clubs. The Lyceum held them never, but nightly they gathered at the Gaiety Theatre. Nightly the stalls were agog with small, sleek heads surmounting collars of interminable height. Nightly, in the foyer, were lisped the praises of Kate Vaughan, her graceful dancing, or of Nellie Farren, her matchless fooling. Never a night passed but the dreary stage-door was cinct with a circlet of fools bearing bright bouquets, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... sea and land, and on subjects of which he was sure the farmer knew nothing he was a perfect mine of information. He began to talk in low tones to Venia, and the heart of Mr. Blundell sank within him as he noted her interest. Their voices fell to a gentle murmur, and the sergeant's sleek, well-brushed head bent closer to that of his listener. Relieved from his attentions, Mr. Turnbull fell asleep without ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... thrill, a quiver, When golden gleams to the tree-tops glide; A flashing edge for the milk-white river, The beck, a river—with still sleek tide. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... in and looked at her as she ran. She stood in the doorway with her finger on her mouth, and she was smiling. Her brown hair was parted in two sleek bands, looped and puffed out softly round her ears, and plaited in one plait that stood up on its edge above her forehead. She wore a wide brown silk gown ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... the fretful gnat, The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree, In sleek and oily coat the water-rat Breasting the little ripples manfully Made for the wild-duck's nest, from bough to bough Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... clad in a tight riding-dress of green velour cloth, and her white face seemed to come from the close collar like a white lily from its sheath. She was e'er flower-like, asleep or waking, as I have said, and her pretty head was sleek and yellow, like a butterfly's wing. She was so sound that it appeared to me and Marian as though one longer breath might transform the mimicry into the actual thing—death. But by-and-by awe fell from us, as it doth ever fall, even in the presence of ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... more varied than that which fills the streets of Bombay. Here are Memon and Khoja women in shirt and trousers ("kurta" and "izzar") of green and gold or pink or yellow, with dark blue sheets used as veils, wandering along with their children dressed in all the hues of the rainbow. Here are sleek Hindus from northern India in soft muslin and neat coloured turbans: Gujarathis in red head-gear and close-fitting white garments; Cutchi sea-farers, descendants of the pirates of dead centuries, with clear-cut bronzed features that show a lingering strain of Med or Jat, clad in white turbans, ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... with kindly care Choice steeds selects. Three hundred of the best Stand in his lofty stables, sleek and fair; And forth in order for each Teucrian guest His servants led them, at their King's behest. Rich housings, wrought in many a purple fold, And broidered rugs adorn them; o'er each breast Hang golden poitrels, glorious to behold. Each champs with foaming mouth a chain ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... land, gashed deep where flows the Missouri. Indeed, there are many such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall shipping of beef. At night the coyotes yap quaveringly and prowl abroad after the long-eared jack rabbits, which bounce away at their hunger-driven approach. In winter it is not good to be there; even ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... followed by the four girls, who came in chattering, and by Mrs. Graham, who, even in evening clothes, with a necklace of diamonds, looked as if she liked dogs. Then came Humphrey, extraordinarily well dressed, his dark hair very sleek; and Dick, very well dressed too, but with less of a town air; and then the Squire, just upon the stroke of eight, obviously ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... back, as sleek and crisp as though cooking were an expensive sort of beauty treatment. "Supper will be ready in five minutes," she said. "If you tigers ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... garden fence, the boys scampered with the greatest glee across the Road to the scene of mop and broom action behind the store, and Uncle Tucker stiffly mounted old Gray to drive the cows away to their separate homes. The thrifty neighbors had been glad to buy and pay him cash for the sleek animals, and their price had been the small capital which had been available for Uncle Tucker to embark on the commercial seas ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had taken off and was circling over the SF-22 in anticipation of her start. Trim, speedy fighting ships these were, with heavy caliber machine-guns in turrets fore and aft and normally manned by crews of twelve each. The under surfaces of their bodies glistened smooth and sleek in the light from the field, for the landing gears had been drawn within and the openings sealed by the close-fitted armor plate that protected these ordinarily vulnerable portions when ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... to see that the best way to capture Alce was to make herself as unlike her sister as possible. With him she was like a little soft cat, languid and sleek, or else delicately playful. She appealed to his protecting strength, and in time made him realize that she was unhappy in her home life and suffered under her sister's tyranny. She had hoped that this might ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... her from wading to his rescue. Now one of the laughing young men, thinking the joke had gone far enough perhaps, and reckless of a wetting, leaped out into the water, and, plunging along in his high boots, soon had the terrier by the scruff of his neck, and waded ashore with his sleek, quivering little body nestled in the bosom ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... windows. Over their doorsteps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearthstone with which the women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotlessly clean curtains. The little coastguard station by the opening on to the shore has difficulty in showing itself superior to the rest in these essential matters of smartness. However, the coastguards glory in ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown, He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue 50 That pricks deep into oakwarts for ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... deliberation, and scattered slowly among the native apple-trees along the sidling. First there came an old easygoing red poley cow, then a dusty white cow; then two shaggy, half-grown calves—who seemed already to have lost all interest in existence—and after them a couple of "babies," sleek, glossy, and cheerful; then three more tired-looking cows, with ragged udders and hollow sides; then a lanky barren heifer—red, of course—with half-blind eyes and one crooked horn—she was noted for her great ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... cats. I have seen one afternoon, as many as thirteen of them seated on the grass beside old Milne, the Master Builder, all sleek and fat, and complacently blinking, as if they had fed upon strange meats. Old Milne was chanting with the saints, as we may hope, and cared little for the company about his grave; but I confess the spectacle had an ugly side for me; and I was glad to step forward and raise my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dance with any woman wishing to dance on the crowded floors of public tea rooms, dinner or supper rooms in the cafes, hotels, and restaurants of France. Lean, sallow, handsome, expert, and unwholesome, one saw them everywhere, their slim waists and sleek heads in juxtaposition to plump, respectable American matrons and slender, respectable American flappers. For that matter, feminine respectability of almost every nationality (except the French) yielded itself to the skilful ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the lower bolt in its turn, he softly unlocked the door and opened it cautiously. There in the passage—for a narrow passage some twelve or fifteen feet long was revealed—near his door, visible in the light from his room, was a large, sleek, yellow cat from whose mouth was proceeding energetic lamentation. But on sight of Dieppe the creature ceased its cries, and in apparent alarm ran half-way along the passage and sat down beside a small hole in the wall. From this position it regarded the intruder with solemn, apprehensive ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... a sleek jaguar showed himself. Again a drove of peccaries peered out from among the underbrush, and more than once Cummings was forced to exert all his authority to prevent the Indians from stopping to bag an incautious tapir which had come ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... windmills—at wide spaces—signalling to each other their peaceful task; the little groups of horsemen coming adown the winding road, or stopping to greet some good wife and her gossip—going abroad in a high-railed cart in quest of trade, or friendly call. And as the day wanes, the sleek cows, with considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... and as Perez looked up, he faced him with such a look of hatred and anger that the Secretary could hot meet his eyes. The King was a sacred and semi-divine personage, privileged to ask any question he chose and theoretically incapable of doing wrong, but it was unbearable that this sleek black fox should have the right to hear Diego de Mendoza confess his daughter's dishonour. Antonio Perez was not an adventurer of low birth, as many have gratuitously supposed, for his father had held an honourable post at court before him; but he was very far from being the equal of one who, though ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... is for yourselves, gentlemen," declared the auctioneer. "We don't need to have this sleek little animal's paces shown. We are in a hurry to get through. Who opens with ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... and small fair moustache, his light eyes and hair, looked as English as the Marquis' short, pointed chestnut beard and sleek hair en brosse, looked French. "Bertie!" I said to myself, flashing a glance at him from ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... master and the mistress of the house having supper. . . . Ivan Petrovitch was highly delighted to see me, and fell to pressing good things upon me. . . . He had grown rather stout, and his face was a trifle puffy, though it was still rosy and looked sleek and well-nourished. . . . He was not bald. Liza, too, had grown fatter. Plumpness did not suit her. Her face was beginning to lose the kittenish look, and was, alas! more suggestive of the seal. Her cheeks were spreading upwards, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was going down Pall-Mall, or some other of your big streets, and I recognized that that hat needed ironing. I went into a big shop and passed in my hat, and asked that it might be ironed. They were courteous, very courteous, even courtly. They brought that hat back to me presently very sleek and nice, and I asked how much there was to pay. They replied that they did not charge the clergy anything. I have cherished the delight of that moment from that day to this. It was the first thing I did the other day to go and hunt up that shop and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... He came in the evening. In the morning, unaccountably from the northward, instead of from the westward where Uganda lay,—avoiding the regular safari route and the belt of sleeping sickness villages, came a genial, sleek, shiny Baganda, arrayed in khaki coat, red fez, and bordered loin-cloth, gifted with tongues, and self-confident ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... behind his head, he leaned back against the carving of his chair, and fixed his gaze on the portrait of the English ancestress over the mantelpiece. The firelight flickered over his firm, clear-cut features, over the sleek dark hair, which was brushed straight back from his forehead, and over his sombre smoke-coloured eyes in which a dusky glow came and went. Margaret, watching him with her pensive smile, thought that she had never seen ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... glossy horses, long Phidian lines of youths so ingenuously fair that one wondered how they could have looked on the Medusa face of war and lived. Men and beasts, in spite of the dust, were as fresh and sleek as if they had come from a bath; and everywhere along the wayside were improvised camps, with tents made of waggon-covers, where the ceaseless indomitable work of cleaning was being carried out in all its searching details. Shirts were drying on elder-bushes, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... be pleased to see you, Friend Joseph," said Rosa, with one of her sweetest smiles, which penetrated the Quaker's soul, as sunshine does the receptive earth. Yet, when the carriage had rolled away, he harnessed his sleek horses to the wagon, and conveyed Henriet and her babe to the house of a Friend at White Plains, till he ascertained whether these stylish-looking strangers were ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... kingdom's portion is the plough. This done, then to th' enamelled meads Thou go'st, and as thy foot there treads, Thou see'st a present God-like power Imprinted in each herb and flower; And smell'st the breath of great-ey'd kine, Sweet as the blossoms of the vine. Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat Unto the dew-laps up in meat; And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer, The heifer, cow, and ox draw near To make a pleasing pastime there. These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks Of sheep, safe from the wolf and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... back with the doctor, and soon after the boys were intently examining the drove of nearly fifty beautiful, sleek, well-bred oxen in their kraal, where they were in charge of their drivers, one a big, bluff, manly-looking fellow, well bronzed by the sun, and with Englishman stamped upon every feature, forming a striking contrast to his companion, ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... did not quite catch what it was and did not reply. He noticed that she was very bright, and clung to her husband affectionately. He did not like Kolia's befrizzled and pomaded head, and when his eye fell on Kollomietzev, thought, "What a sleek individual." He paid no attention to the others. Sipiagin turned his head once or twice in a dignified manner, as if looking round at his worldly belongings, a pose that set off to perfection his long drooping whiskers and somewhat small round neck. Then he shouted to one of the ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... made of cotton, suspended at some height; and however extraordinary or disagreeable this custom may appear, I have found it exceedingly pleasant, and much preferable to the carpets which we use. Their bodies are very clean and sleek, owing to their frequent bathing. When about to ease nature they are at great pains to conceal themselves from observation, yet are very indecent in discharging their urine, which they would do at any time, both men and women, while conversing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... pouch has sprouted out from its sides a pair of tiny pouches, which form oil glands to lubricate the hair and keep it sleek and flexible. It is hard to beat nature at her own game, and her method of oiling the hair is far superior to any hair oil that can be put on from the outside. Keep your hair well brushed and washed, and nature will oil it for you much better than ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... near, and Maud gathering up her hair, with maiden bashfulness, though certainly Nick was no stranger. As for Little Smash, she waddled off to proclaim the news to the younger Pliny, Mari, and Great Smash, all of whom were still in the kitchen of the Hut, flourishing, sleek and glistening. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... vaunting themselves disdainful of public decency, the public was in immediate process of wiping out the saloons. Which citation of fact caused a cold chill to permeate the spines of the liquor interests, and led the large, sleek leader of that clan to make a surpassingly polite and friendly call upon Hal, who, rather to his surprise, found that he liked the man very much. They had parted, indeed, on hearty terms and the understanding that there would be no further objection to ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... into their wooden trough. Going into a little corn-crib adjoining the stable and wagon-shed, she brought out a bucketful of wheat-bran and fed it to the cow, which stood trying to lick the back of a sleek young calf over the low fence in another lot. "I'll milk you after breakfast," she said, as she stroked the cow's back. "The calf will have to wait; I can't attend to all humanity and the brute creation at the same time. You'll feel more like suckling the frisky thing, anyway, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... timidly out at the white men; In the dark-winding eddy the loon sits warily, watching and voiceless, And the wild goose, in reedy lagoon, stills the prattle and play of her children. The does and their sleek, dappled fawns prick their ears and peer out from the thickets, And the bison-calves play on the lawns, and gambol like colts in the clover. Up the still flowing Wkpa Wakn's winding path through the groves and ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... tiny leaded panes falls a light so soft that even poor ugly faces seem beautiful. The organ tones are the very light itself turned into sweet sound. On one side of the nave you can see all the boys' heads, sleek with water; on the other the little mothers to be, in grown-up dress to-day for the first time, kerchief on head and hymn-book in hand, and with careful faces. And now they all sing. The elder folks have taken their places farther back to-day, but ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... actually broken away from that steady stream of people, and had traversed countries as wild and unknown as the lands in the Nibelungen Lied, that my respect for the race rose amazingly. I scanned eagerly the sleek, complacent faces of the portly burghers, or those of the threadbare schoolmasters, thinned like carving-knives by perpetual sharpening on the steel of Latin syntax, in search of men who could have dared the ghastly terrors of the North with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... A sleek, shy colt was suddenly inducted into the scene of action. Then there began a frisky game of maneuvers. The little, would-be rider proved as wary and nimble as the colt on which she finally succeeded in shooting a bridle. Another round of come and ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... throat. His clothes had evidently seen some service, and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was short and stumpy; in person, corpulent; and in countenance, sleek, snub-nosed, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... shave; level, roll; macadamize; polish, burnish, calender^, glaze; iron, hot-press, mangle; lubricate &c (oil) 332. Adj. smooth; polished &c v.; leiodermatous^, slick, velutinous^; even; level &c 213; plane &c (flat) 251; sleek, glossy; silken, silky; lanate^, downy, velvety; glabrous, slippery, glassy, lubricous, oily, soft, unwrinkled^; smooth as glass, smooth as ice, smooth as monumental alabaster, smooth as velvet, smooth as oil; slippery ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... and went round to the stables. Oberon was being groomed. Wilfrid patted the horse's sleek neck, and talked a little with the man. At length he made up his mind to go and prepare for riding; Oberon would be ready for ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... change in her. But was it possible that the tall, handsome young lady with the sleek brown pompadour and a nose unmistakably and plebeianly Grant, who sat by the window doing something to a heap of lace and organdy in her lap, was the little curly-headed, sunburned sister of thirteen whom he remembered? The young man leaning against the sideboard ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... intellect was not the brightest in the world, managed to ascertain that Mrs. Parker had been much worse for several days, that Sal Furbush had turned nurse; faithfully attending her night and day, and occasionally sharing "her vigils" with a "sleek, fancy-looking girl, who dressed up in meetin' clothes every day, and who had first proposed sending for Mary." Mary readily guessed that the "sleek, fancy-looking" girl was Jenny, and on reaching the poor house she found her suspicions correct, for Jenny came out to meet her, followed by Sally, ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... profession, the sleek courtier Horace spared the emperor's vice, contenting himself with only declaring that play was forbidden.(27) The two following verses of his, usually applied to the effects of gaming, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... hung a cloud of anxiety. A sense of delicate balance, which a gust might capsize, lay at the back of each mind, troubling it with vague forebodings. Conditions were ripe for sudden hysteria. Meanwhile well-groomed young men in pongee office coats and their equally sleek elders killed time with newspapers or resumed threads of conversation broken off at parting last night in drawing-room or theater-foyer. The circular benches around the posts blossomed with magazines and a group formed ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... this poor fiend and all he has to bestow, we read the failure of the plot. Faust may sign a hundred such bonds in his blood with little fear. He knows well enough that a spirit such as his can never be satisfied with what the fiend has to give, nor lie down in sleek contentment to ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... day usually kept as a moderate fast, so the breakfast was of oatmeal porridge, flavoured with honey, and washed down with mead, after which Brother Shoveller mounted his mule, a sleek creature, whose long ears had an air of great contentment, and rode off, accommodating his pace to that of his young companions up a stony cart-track which soon led them to the top of a chalk down, whence, as in a map, they could ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... miss, Mary Hay, the saft bloom o' my cheek, And the hair curling round it, sae gentie and sleek? For the snaw 's on my head, and the roses are gane, Since that day o' days I first ca'd ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... mats, and there were two skin-covered couches, besides the one on which I lay. Several weapons, cooking utensils, and other articles, hung to the supports, while round the walls were piled up packages of skins. At my side lay Boxer, looking sleek and fat, as if he had recovered from his fatigue and had been well cared for. He and I were the only inmates of the hut. Though I talked to him he could give me no information as to what had happened, or how I ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... saw the head of a black bird peering at her through the square opening that leads to the chimney. The edges of him looked ragged and rainbow-coloured, but that was because she saw him through tears. To a tearless eye he was black and very smooth and sleek. ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... the window now and then it dropped, with a vague presage, upon the sleek head of the daring and enigmatical captain, reading the Litany, from 'battle, murder, and sudden death, good Lord deliver us,' and he almost fancied he saw a yellow skull over his shoulder glowering cynically ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... have but to strike, and I acquire much wealth and sleek farming-lands and a lovely wife, and the swineherd becomes a great nobleman. But it is you, Niafer, who have won all these things for me with your cleverness, and to me it seems that these wonderful rewards are less ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... those furred and scarlet-robed lackeys of death. This man looks as if he had had some such night adventure as Boccaccio's Maestro Simone, and had his bonnet and mantle pickled a little in the gutter; though he himself is as sleek as a ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... tutor roughly bade him be still, telling him that he would never reign if these young men lived, and presently another came there and stood beside him. The Marshal de Retz it was, who, with a fiendish smile upon his sleek parchment face, conducted the Lady Sybilla to see the end. But it was a good end to see, and nobler far than most lives that ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... he of Lyons! So have the Brissotins, public or private Opinion, and Breakfasts in the Place Vendome decided it. Strict Roland, compared to a Quaker endimanche, or Sunday Quaker, goes to kiss hands at the Tuileries, in round hat and sleek hair, his shoes tied with mere riband or ferrat! The Supreme Usher twitches Dumouriez aside: "Quoi, Monsieur! No buckles to his shoes?"—"Ah, Monsieur," answers Dumouriez, glancing towards the ferrat: "All is lost, Tout est perdu." ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... squirrel leaped up the tree-side and peeped around at him passing; but he heeded not these, and went forward to find the cabin of old Toney. He found the old negro in his usual seat at the foot of his favorite tree, upon his well-smoothed and sleek ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... headland: "There is room enough in Saari, On the firm ground of the island, For the sport that you shall show us, And for dancing on the greensward, For the milkmaids in the meadows, And the herd-boys in their dances; 140 Very lean are Saari's children, But the foals are sleek and fattened." ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... space of time, she was dressed and downstairs, presenting her usual sleek and polished appearance. Wickham was alone in the drawing-room, and a suggestion that they should have another game of piquet quickly drove him to the writing of some purely ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... pavement; but they seemed like black graven images of war-gods, half-smothered in the reeking darkness. And above them, from a window that overlooked the courtyard, shone a solitary lamp that glistened here and there upon the sleek black guns and flickered on the saber-hilts, and deepened the already dead-black atmosphere ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... ne'er presume to eat a bit: Turn every way thy watchful eye, And every guest be sure to ply: Let never at your board be known An empty plate, except your own. Be these thy arts;[34] nor higher aim Than what befits a rural dame. "But Cloacina, goddess bright, Sleek——claims her as his right; And Smedley,[35] flower of all divines, Shall sing the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Four sleek cows filed out of the barnyard when Pat opened the gate, and Ben drove them down the road to a distant pasture where the early grass awaited their eager cropping. By the school they went, and the boy looked pityingly at the black, brown, ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Athena's owls, the knave at the oars is a sleek Syrian, and his master and the boy from the East too. What business around our war-fleet? Row ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... windows there still gleamed patches of crimson, orange, blue, and palest violet; for the rest, the choir had been gutted, the floor leveled, paved, and drained according to the most approved fashion, and a line of loose boxes erected in the middle: a soft light fell from the upper windows on sleek brown or gray flanks and haunches; on mild equine faces looking out with active nostrils over the varnished brown boarding; on the hay hanging from racks where the saints once looked down from the altar-pieces, and on the pale golden straw scattered or in heaps; on a little white-and-liver-colored ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... leave the house without encountering Mrs. Heron and Kitty. He was easily persuaded to stay for a little time. It cost him no effort to make himself agreeable. He was like one of those sleek-coated animals of the panther tribe, sufficiently tamed or tameable to like caresses; and very few people recognised the latent ferocity that lay beneath the velvet softness of those dreamy eyes. He could bask in the sunshine like a cat; but he ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... courtesy withdrawn—tell me, if you were a bridegroom, soon to be happy, and if you could do the "double roll" with loaded guns and no danger to your bowels, and if while so engaged you should see within easy range this black, sleek pig, with its tail curled tightly, egotistically, contemptuously, over its back, what, as a man, would you do? What, as a man, could you do in a case like that, in a land where there was no law, where never a court had sat, where never such a thing as a ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... confidence of the vain and empty-headed Jeames, Bucket declares that his own father was successively a page, a footman, a butler, a steward, and an innkeeper. As Bucket moves along London streets, young men, with shining hats and sleek hair, evaporate at the monitory touch of his cane. When there is a big job on the tapis "Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under consideration the fat forefinger seems to rise to the dignity of a familiar demon. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... lacquer ware and choice pieces of satsuma and cloisonne appeared in the windows. In quiet, padded shoes, the sallow-faced, almond-eyed throng shuffled by, us; here a man with a delicate lavender lining showing below his blue coat, there a slant-eyed woman with her sleek black hair rolled over a brilliant jade ornament, leading by the hand a little boy who looked as if he had stepped out of a picture book with his yellow trousers ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and whirr ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... United States, and in both the Canadas, and has had a thousand opportunities, if he had chosen to embrace them, to leave me. Excuse me, Mr. Mendenhall, for saying that my slaves are as well fed and clad, look as sleek and hearty, and are quite as civil and respectful in their demeanor, and as little disposed to wound the feelings of any ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... orioles and thrushes and bluebirds, big chattering jays, sleek brown sparrows, and red-capped woodpeckers; but not a bird in the garden was so gay and sweet and loving as the mocking bird, who could sing everybody's song ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... the fresh-sprinkled straw, The young pettitoes scampered away; And they rooted and burrowed and hid, Then all quiet a minute they lay: Soon their pink-pointed, noses peeped out; Then their bodies, so plump and so sleek. Oh the glad little piggies, the mad little piggies— How they ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... "I am glad to see you again. I need not ask you how you are, you look so extremely sleek and prosperous. Adrian's wide acres are succulent, hey? I should have known you anywhere; though to be sure, you are hardly large enough for the breed, you have the true Landale stamp on you, the unmistakable Landale style of feature. Semper eadem. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... see the first sign of real war, and the sign of it that won and that gave general satisfaction, even to the man who lost, was a group of German soldiers sweeping the streets of St. Pol. They were guarded only by one of their own number, and they looked fat, sleek, and contented. When, on our return from the trenches, we saw them again, we knew they were to be greatly envied. Between standing waist-high in mud in a trench and being drowned in it, buried in it, blown up or asphyxiated, the post ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... clothes all day long, eat indigestible food, go to bed late, get up later, and have Esmeralda's maid to do my hair. You'd think it would need an effort to change into a fine lady all at once, but it doesn't; you just slip in, and feel like a sleek, stroked cat. My dear, I was born to be a ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... to the pool of the sea lion. That sleek, brown animal was swimming about like a big fish, now and then stopping under one of the pipes where the water ran into his pool, and holding his mouth under the little stream as though taking a drink. Now and then he ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... who had evidently just left his bed, came riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied by two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked smart ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... idea that a wolf was constantly in a starving state, and therefore ready to eat anything, was as far as possible from the truth in this case, for these freebooters were always sleek and well-conditioned, and were in fact most fastidious about what they ate. Any animal that had died from natural causes, or that was diseased or tainted, they would not touch, and they even rejected anything that had been killed by the stockmen. Their choice and daily food was the tenderer ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... boarding-school miss.' I could never succeed in forcing myself to smoke. I studied—why conceal my shortcomings?—very lazily, especially at the beginning of the course. I went out a great deal. My aunt had bestowed on me a wide sledge, fit for a general, with a pair of sleek horses. At the houses of 'the gentry' my visits were rare, but at the theatre I was quite at home, and I consumed masses of tarts at the restaurants. For all that, I permitted myself no breach of decorum, and behaved very discreetly, en jeune homme de bonne maison. I would ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... bearing strongly upon the present one, in 'Snifter and Snivell's Reports,' vol. 86, page 1480, in which an old woman, who was too poor to purchase a Bible, stole one, and was prosecuted for the theft. The counsel for the prosecution and the defence were both equally eminent and able. Counsellor Sleek was for the prosecution and Rant for the defence. Sleek, who was himself a religious barrister, insisted that the locus delicti aggravated the offence, inasmuch as she had stolen the Bible out of a church; but Rant maintained that the locus delicti was a prima facie evidence of her innocence, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... see him too, without letting Barty know. I did not like the man—he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was even to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... yards of the side of a fat sleek animal, and slowly raised his pistol. The trappers held their breath, and Bertram uttered a low groan of anxiety. One moment more and a white puff was followed by a loud crack, and a bellow, as the horror-stricken buffaloes tossed up their heels and fled wildly from the spot, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... polished circles where wit and talent sparkled. The Vicomte D'Haberville, a French d'Argentenaye, took us to a reception—not too proud of us I daresay, for the gloss of his shoes and the magnificence of his cravat outshone us as the sleek skin of a race-horse does a country filly. Especially did he eye Quinet a little coldly, so that I could scarcely persuade the proud ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... turned arm in arm into the gallery to retrace their steps, they came suddenly face to face with a slim, sleek gentleman, who bowed profoundly, a smile upon h is crafty, shaven, priestly face. In a smooth voice and an accent markedly foreign, he explained that he, too, sought the cool of the terrace, not thinking to intrude; and upon that, bowing again, he passed on and effaced ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... early. As he stood there pawing the mat impatiently, and mewing in a minor key, Mrs Williamson felt that here was the cat for her. He certainly was good to look upon. His black heart was hidden by a sleek coat of tabby fur, which rendered stroking a luxury. His scheming brain was out of sight in ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... bold camp-robber was hopping in front of the cabin door picking up morsels of food which were occasionally cast forth. Stephen was preparing dinner, and the appetizing smell drifted out upon the air. Not far away, perched upon the branch of a tree, a sleek squirrel was filling the air with his noisy chattering and scolding. His bright little eyes sparkled with anger at the big strange intruder into his domain, causing him to pour forth all the vitriol of the squirrel vocabulary. Suddenly his noisy commotion ceased, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... to the hostler connected with the Wadsworth estate, and now this man brought to the front of the mansion a fine, big sleigh drawn by a pair of sleek-looking, high-stepping steeds. The sleigh was well provided with heavy robes to protect its ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... old camp where their things were buried. Here they went into camp again while the Seminole scoured the woods for their ponies. He returned triumphant the second day riding one of the horses and driving the others. The animals were sleek and fat from ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... friendly and full of life, but let 'em attempt to come an inch farther than she wants, and then see! Sometimes I'm inclined to wish she's be a little more genteeler; but then I look around an' see some of them sleek things, an' it's always them as are no good, an' I'm glad then she's what she is. There's some girls here in town,"—the old lady grew choleric,—"you'd think butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, an' they try to sit on Dawn. It's because they're jealous ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... A fat, sleek, prosperous male, clad in expensive garments, and wearing a derby hat and too much jewellery, became somehow personified in this tirade. I was led to picture him a residuary legatee who had never done a stroke of work in his life, and believed that no one else ever did except ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson |
