"Ankle-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stairway a door stood open. This she entered, and found herself in the general editorial room, ankle-deep with dirt and paper. The air of the place told that the day's work was done. In one corner a telegraph sounder was chattering its tardy world-gossip to unheeding ears. In the centre at a long table, typewriters before them, three shirt-sleeved young men sprawled at ease reading ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... oyster-shells, fish heads and bones, potato-skins, and cabbage-stalks littered the roads; but dirty was a word which does not give the faintest description of the almost impassable state in which I found them, when I waded through them ankle-deep in mud some ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... said Gettysburg, remaining ankle-deep in the mud. "Don't you know this here is the 'Laughin' Water' claim, which was ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... out on a very black night in a steady downpour, and everyone was quickly wet through. The trenches filled with water and the men had first to wade through deep sludge and then over rain-sodden ground ankle-deep in mud. The men's clothes became caked with the mud from the sides of the trench, which increased the weight ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... degenerate into something that is neither pleasant to the eye nor good for food. I believe in a rotation of crops, morally and socially, as well as agriculturally. When you have taken the measure of a man, when you have sounded him and know that you cannot wade in him more than ankle-deep, when you have got out of him all that he has to yield for your soul's sustenance and strength, what is the next thing to be done? Obviously, pass him on; and turn you "to fresh woods and pastures new." Do you work him an injury? By no means. Friends that are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... it impossible for an elephant to descend. Once within the river the fun began in earnest. After a march in the hot sun, it was delightful to bathe in the deep stream of the Brahmaputra, and the mighty forms splashed and disported themselves, sometimes totally submerged, with the drivers standing ankle-deep upon their hidden backs, which gave them the appearance of walking upon the surface. A tip of the trunk was always above water, and occasionally the animal would protrude the entire head, but only to plunge once ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... was plunthering on, ankle-deep in snow, towards the vicarage, when Mr. Aubrey (who had sent home his carriage with word that he should presently follow) came up with him, and greeting him with unusual fervor, said that he would accompany ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... other—"Oh dear" said Isabel, seized with a great disposition to laugh. Lawrence was not amused. His boots were full of mud and water and he had an aching sense of injured dignity. The bog was not even dangerous: and ankle-deep, calf-deep, knee-deep he waded through it and got out on the opposite bank, bringing up a cloud of little marsh-bubbles on his heels. Isabel would have given all the money she had in the world—about five shillings to go away and laugh, but ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... love of flowers, and, utterly heedless of all but the joy of seeing them, she ran down the slope, and only stopped when she found herself ankle-deep in the marsh below, in ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, the deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked satins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water, warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the state sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty box and wore his gloves ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the toil, the torment of the trail. It had no dangers, but it abounded in worriments and disappointments. As I look back upon it now I suffer, because I see my horses standing ankle-deep in water on barren marshes or crowding round the fire chilled and weak, in endless rain. If our faces looked haggard and worn, it was because of the never ending anxiety concerning the faithful animals who trusted in us to find them food and shelter. Otherwise we suffered little, slept ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... innumerable bubbles of gas arise, loathsome to the smell. We became aware also that the pitch was soft under our feet. We left the impression of our boots; and if we had stood still awhile, we should soon have been ankle-deep. No doubt there are spots where, if a man stayed long enough, he would be slowly and horribly engulfed. 'But,' as Mr. Manross says truly, 'in no place is it possible to form those bowl-like depressions round the observer described by former travellers.' What we ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... to brace himself. Already he was ankle-deep in the quicksand. It flashed across his mind that he could not fight his own way out without abandoning Charlton. For one panicky moment he was mad to get back to solid ground himself. The next he was tugging with all the strength of his arms ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... roofs too low for them to stand upright, often so low as to compel them to creep on all- fours in the black slime of the floors. Some with laden baskets on their backs climbed many times a day up steep ascents. Some stood ankle-deep in water from morning till night in the depths of the pit, wearing out their little lives at ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... banks of the river Glenelg,[5] and well fitted, if properly drained, for the abundant growth of useful and valuable produce, was found, during the rainy season, to be in the state of a foul marsh, overgrown with vegetation, choking up the fresh water so as to cause a flood ankle-deep; and this marshy ground, being divided by deep muddy ditches, and occasionally overflown by the river, offered, as may be supposed, no small hindrances to the progress of the travellers. In some places it was quite impossible, from the thickly-timbered character of its ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... seemed to be following obscure paths, but as often there was no sign of a track, and the thick, tropical vegetation made progress difficult. For an hour or two they climbed up the half-dry bed of a mountain torrent, and more than once they were ankle-deep in swampy ground. The Moritos passed through the jungle with the agility and noiselessness of cats, but the three white men floundered along as best they could. Their captors uttered never a word and would not allow them ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... when Napoleon I. threatened to invade England; and on January 31, 1803, by some mistake, the fire on Hume Castle, in Berwickshire, was lighted; other beacons responded, and ere morning dawned thousands were marching ankle-deep through the dense mud of the winter roads to their appointed stations. The mistake was not without its uses, as Napoleon saw that England was ready, and did not venture to attack our shores. A similar accident took place in the reign of Henry ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... our spirits rose. We straightened in our saddles, we breathed deep, we joked. The country was scorched and sterile; the wagon-trail, almost paralleling the mountains themselves on a long easy slant toward the high country, was ankle-deep in dust; the ravines were still dry of water. But it was not the Inferno, and that one fact sufficed. After a while we crossed high above a river which dashed white water against black rocks, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... exacts money, or rather amusement, because if you don't let other folks have the benefit of your money, Society will take no account of it. But have money and spend it well (that is, let Society live on it, gorge with it, walk ankle-deep in it), and you may be anything and do anything; you may have been an omnibus conductor in the Strand, and you may marry a duke's daughter; you may have been an oyster-girl in New York, and you may entertain royalties. It is impossible to ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida |
