"Askance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance— ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... the surname with a touch of malice. She coloured, but replied "Good-morning" with a sweet composure. He eyed her askance, but had no opportunity for more words, as old Hugo just then clambered up into the dog-cart, and took the reins of the rather skittish young mare ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... I am Judith. I am Jael. I am Vashti. I am Godiva. I am all the heroic women of all the ages rolled into one, not for the shedding of blood, but for the saving of suffering." They did not understand her a bit, however, they were so dazed, and they all looked askance at her. "I see," she said; "I shall have to save you in spite of yourselves." But when she had looked a little longer, and seen men, women, and children crowding like loathsome maggots together, she was disheartened. "All this filth will breed a pestilence," she said, "and I shouldn't be ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... his contemporaries, he had "avoided the snares of infidelity" hitherto, but his religion had been of a conventional type. During the child's illness he underwent an old-fashioned religious conversion. The miracle has happened before, to greater men, and the world has always looked askance. Boston in 1863, and later, was ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... askance at this sudden outbreak of the clergyman, for it verged upon lunacy, and lunacy is to them a fearsome and supernatural thing. One of them rode forward and spoke with the Emir. When he returned he said something to his comrades, one of whom closed in upon each side of the minister's camel, so as ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "subtle reason" at which she had hinted to Diana. Life had harried April too much for her few years. Obliged to travel its highways alone and unprotected, some of the adventures encountered there had cut her to the quick. While women looked askance at her, men looked too hard, and too long. Doubtless she had met the wrong kind. Lonely young girls without money or connections do not always find the knightly and chivalrous gentlemen of their dreams! Naturally pure-hearted and high-minded, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... saw a change in the behavior of his hosts. They looked on him askance, cold, sullen, and suspicious. There was one Omawha, a chief, whose favor he had won the day before by the politic gift of two hatchets and three knives, and who now came to him in secret to tell him what had taken place at the nocturnal ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... sunbright lie whose name was France Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as fire Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance. ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I made haste to plunge into intellectual conversation to smooth over the defects of my attire." Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced askance at him. "What is the matter with him today? Why such a conquering hero?" he thought. He did not know that Levin was feeling as though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his words and that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the only ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... bow to Mme. de St. Cyr, the gleam askance of his black eye, the absurd simplicity of his dress, did not particularly please me. A low forehead, straight black brows, a beardless cheek with a fine color which gave him a fictitiously youthful appearance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Dumollard looked askance at Bonzig (between whom and himself not much love was lost) and walked off, jauntily twirling his mustache, and whistling a few bars of a very ungainly melody, to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... say nae mair," said Cluny, and pointed me to a bed of heather in a corner of the Cage. For all that he was displeased enough, looked at me askance, and grumbled when he looked. And indeed it must be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them, smacked somewhat of the Covenanter, and were little in their ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Duerer's cuts, rises at a distance as if within walls. I stand in the roadside alone, deserted, the sole traveller set down. The train has flown on into the night with a shriek. The sleepy porter wonders, and looks at me askance. ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... him askance. "Why, that seems to me his only fault—that one can't pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know everything, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... hard, and now had a snake-like glitter as he looked at them askance with a gloomy scowl. He seemed thinking over the situation in which he ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Sulla, did not forgive the patrician family of the Julii for having connected itself with that bitter foe, who had made so much mischief. Consequently, during the period of the reaction, all its members were looked upon askance, and were suspected and persecuted, among them young Caesar, who was in no way responsible for the deeds of his uncle, since he was only a lad during the war between ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... old school, in close contact and I suppose not afterwards far apart. Lincoln was prepared to execute the Fugitive Slave Law, while Fillmore was devoted to the Union, and probably would have admitted at the end that Lincoln's course throughout was good. My father's church was looked on somewhat askance. "It's lucky," said a parishioner once, "that it has a stone face." Would Lincoln go to the Unitarian church? Promptly at service-time Mr. Fillmore appeared with his guest, the two historic figures side by side in the pew. Two or three rows intervened ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... at her, askance. He remembered distinctly when she had climbed up the ivy on the county jail to see her father. Then she had been a child. Now she was a woman. Being a good-hearted man, he hated his task, and a moment later ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... what to think, and let the King stand with his hand stretched out, while he looked askance at his own lord and baron, who wagged his head at him grimly as one who ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... 'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen, And now I find report a very liar; For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous, But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers. Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance, Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will, Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk; But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers; With gentle conference, soft and affable. Why does the world report that Kate doth limp? O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... usually do, they hung back and showed the whites of their eyes in a way I've never seen before. I actually had to whistle to them sharply several times before they came, and then it was in a slinking manner, taking good care to put Ethne and me between themselves and Moeran, and looking askance at him the ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... It could never be called a flower of speech: it is an over-ripe fruit rather: heavy-stoned, thin-fleshed—an essentially practical term. It is eminently suited to its purpose, and so widely used that my friend the editor must accept it; not looking askance as he did at my definition of a vampire as a vespertilial anaesthetist, or breaking into open but wholly ineffectual rebellion, at the past tense of the verb to candelabra. I ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... a discomfited air into a corner, where he seated himself on a stool, and eyed the porter askance, as if meditating some terrible retaliation. Secretly apprehensive of this, and thinking it becoming to act with generosity towards his foe, Blaize marched up to him, and extended his hand in token of reconciliation. To the surprise ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... now moved to erect many reasons for an immediate return. It was plain that he had no stomach at all for this business, and that he wished himself safely back on the other side of the river. Coleman looked at him askance. When these men talked together Coleman might as well have been a polar bear for all he understood of it. When he saw the trepidation of his dragoman, he did not know what it foreboded. In this situation it was not for him to say that the dragoman's fears were ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... the gilded portals, as usual,—aliens, and yet always with the port of conquerors here in Paris. Their nonchalant indifference and soldierly bearing always remind me of the sort of force the Emperor has at hand to secure his throne. I think the blouses must look askance at these satraps of the desert. The single jet fountain in the basin was springing its highest,—a quivering pillar of water to match the stone shaft of Egypt which stands close by. The sun illuminated it, and threw a rainbow from it a hundred feet long, upon ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... progressive steps enumerated above have been taken since 1883. When it is remembered that less than twenty years ago women were virtually ostracized if they attempted any kind of occupation outside the home, even teaching being looked upon askance, the changes ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... quite a distinguished agronomist or horticulturist that I had never seen a walnut tree growing in the open, whether it was in the blue grass region or outside of a blue grass region that did not have blue grass growing under it. He looked at me askance, and I said, "Do you believe it?" "Well, I ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... of a little grassy hill. It was an old male bird, very wise and very cunning. He greeted his cousin Cormorants cordially, but, ruffling up the crest of curled feathers on his head, and shaking his half-folded wings angrily, he looked askance at the Bittern. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... up the walk, looking neither to right nor left, mounted the steps where many a night he had sat with Rosabel beside him, and after passing a group of low-voiced neighbours, knocked on the closed door. He was admitted by an elderly woman who looked askance at this well-dressed stranger. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... four francs fifty centimes," she said, her eyes full of tears, while the farmer's wife, who was looking at her askance, asked in much surprise: ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... their now flurried, disgraced state of mind) take to flight again, worse than before; rush quite through Wilkersdorf this time, into the woods, and can hardly be got together at all. Scandalous to think of. No wonder Friedrich "looked always askance on those regiments that had been beaten at Gross Jagersdorf, and to the end of his life gave them proofs of it:" [Retzow;—and still more emphatically, Briefe eines alten Preussischen Officiers (Hohenzollern, 1790), i. 34, ii. 52, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... drink at a long, thirsty gulp, watching the young man askance with his impressive eyes. Rainham noticed for the first time that he had a curious trick of smiling with his lips only—or was it of sneering?—while the upper part of his face and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... sideways; it was not that he did not look you in the face, but he always looked at you with a sidelong glance, never choosing to have you straight in front of him. And the more eager he was in conversation—the more anxious he might be to gain his point, the more he averted his face and looked askance; so that sometimes he would prefer to have his antagonist almost behind his shoulder. And then as he did this, he would thrust forward his chin, and having looked at you round the corner till his eyes were nearly out of his head, he would close them both and suck in his lips, and shake ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... sound to be her summons and obediently left her seat by the window. As she went down she looked askance at the tall dark clock which, even as she passed, chimed the half hour melodiously. Certainly her important grandfather lived in a wonderful house. She paused to hear the last notes of the bells, but catching sight of the figure of Mrs. Forbes waiting ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... wonder Old Crompton was looked at askance by the simple-living and deeply religious natives ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... in bonds! Gracious spirits, seen or unseen, will minister to you now, where otherwise they would have passed without a sign! But from the day Fenelon met Madame Guyon his fortune began to decline. People looked at him askance. By a grim chance he was made one of a committee of three to investigate the charges brought against the woman. The court took a year for its task. Fenelon read everything that Madame Guyon had published, conversed much with her, inquired into her history and when asked for his verdict said, "I ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... praiser of the past is now marriage, with discreet hints about the birth-rate. The praiser of the past is going to have a magnificent time with the subject of marriage. The first moanings of the tempest have already been heard. Bishops have looked askance at the birth-rate, and have mentioned their displeasure. The matter is serious. As the phrase goes, "it strikes at the root." We are marrying later, my friends. Some of us, in the hurry and pre-occupation of business, are quite forgetting to marry. It is the duty ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... eyes indeed look from the head The sun has burnt, and wind and rain has beat, Well may he find her slim brown fingers sweet. And he—methinks he trembles, lest he find That song of his not wholly to her mind. Note how his grey eyes look askance to see Her bosom heaving with the melody His heart loves well: rough with the wind and rain His cheek is, hollow with some ancient pain; The sun has burned and blanched his crispy hair, And over him hath swept a world of ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... of the Jews in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries deteriorated, and freedom and toleration were succeeded by persecution and expulsion, the Jews became more zealous for their own spiritual heritage as distinguished from foreign importations; philosophy and rationalism began to be regarded askance, particularly as experience showed that scientific training was not favorable to Jewish steadfastness and loyalty. In suffering and persecution those who stuck to their posts were as a rule not the so-called enlightened who played ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... he muttered a few embarrassed words as to the weather and the lateness of dinner, walking meanwhile so fast that she had to hurry after him. 'Good heavens, why she is a perfect chess-board!' he thought to himself, looking askance at her dress, in a sudden and passionate dislike—'one could play draughts upon her. What has my Aunt ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... still askance, puzzled, inquiring. Suddenly his great beautiful eyes opened to preternatural wideness, as if trying to grasp a new thought. He started, shifted his feet to and fro, his arms straight down by his sides, his fingers clutching after ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... was most expedient on the whole, And usual—Juan, when he cast a glance On Adeline while playing her grand role, Which she went through as though it were a dance, Betraying only now and then her soul By a look scarce perceptibly askance (Of weariness or scorn), began to feel Some doubt how much of Adeline ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the morning the stage pulls up for us, and it rains—no gentle sizzle-sozzle, but a sod-soaker, yea a gully-washer! The accusing newness of those raincoats is to come off at once. Expansive Kennedy looks askance at the tenderfoots who climb over his wheel. His Majesty's Royal Mail Stage sifts through the town picking up the other victims. We are two big stage-loads, our baggage marked for every point between ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... no longer white!) to the hut of the chief. Bukawanga was received somewhat coldly at first. The chief, a large, fine-looking old man, named Thackombau, with an enormous head of frizzled hair, looked askance at the newcomers, and was evidently disposed to be unfriendly. Observing this, and that the warriors around him scowled on them in a peculiarly savage manner, most of the prisoners felt that their lives hung, as it were, upon a thread. The aspect of things changed, however, when their friend ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... ways of some of our fellow-traders. "We are dealing with new lands," I would say, "and there is need of new plans. It pays to think in trading as much as in statecraft," There were plenty that looked askance at us, and cursed us as troublers of the peace, and there were some who prophesied speedy ruin. But we discomforted our neighbours by prospering mightily, so that there was talk of Uncle Andrew for the Provost's ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... more in dread of them, than my young brother Norman, who had just joined our circle, fresh from mother's surgery, and with his arm in a sling. For Norman's bump of benevolence was not as large as that of some other members of the family, and he was inclined to look askance upon uncle Rutherford's demands upon his heart and his purse. These, to tell the truth, were not infrequent; for our uncle, believing that young people should be led to the exercise of active and unselfish charity, and seeing that Norman was inclined ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... he inquired, mightily contemptuous. There was a snigger from some in the crowd that pressed about them, and even Monsieur Gaubert looked askance. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... to what a deplorable condition the people of Quiquendone were reduced. Their heads were in a ferment. They no longer knew or recognized themselves. The most peaceable citizens had become quarrelsome. If you looked at them askance, they would speedily send you a challenge. Some let their moustaches grow, and several—the most belligerent—curled ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... Terry Sheehan a semiprofessional tone. The more conservative of her townspeople looked at her askance. There never had been an evil thing about Terry, but Wetona considered her rather fly. Terry's hair was very black, and she had a fondness for those little, close-fitting scarlet turbans. Terry's mother had died when the girl was eight, and Terry's father had been what is known as ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... well how matters stood, and bitterly resented the attitude of his own nation. Accorded a princely welcome across the Manche, his work worth its weight in gold on the other side of the Atlantic, in France he was looked at askance, even as a painter ignored. He regarded himself as shut out from his rightful heritage, and the victim, if not of a conspiracy, of a cabal. His school playmates and close friends, Taine, Edmond About and Th. Gautier, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... on her askance. "Truly," said she, "the things are for no use but to be shown." So she fetched a chest and opened it. Here was a cloak of the rare scarlet laid upon with silver, beautiful beyond belief; hard by was a silver brooch of basket work ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the rights of every people to independence and self-government. He and the allies have now changed sides. They are parcelling out among themselves Poland, Belgium, Saxony, Italy, dictating a ruler and government to France, and looking askance at our republic, the splendid libel on their governments, and he is fighting for the principles of national independence, of which his whole life hitherto has been a continued violation. He has promised a free government ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was a beautiful woman and half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? While such whims and chimeras were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs. Bullfrog, almost expecting that the transformation would ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wet in it, and by some miraculous fate it left a track all along the wood-path, and into the house, and on the stone steps of the threshold, and up into his chamber, all along; and the servants saw it the next day, and wondered, and whispered, and missed the fair young girl, and looked askance at their lord's right foot, and turned pale, all of ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the wits of sundry people. I'm told that the idea still holds good in certain quarters, and that if the wind is east and the moon shows a horn on which you can hang a flatiron, certain persons are looked upon askance and the children cautioned to ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... young sirs,' said the Mayor, looking a trifle askance, as I thought, at the baronet, who had drawn out his pocket-mirror, and was engaged in the brushing of his eyebrows. 'I trust that during your stay in this town ye will all four take up your abode with me. 'Tis a homely roof and simple fare, but a soldier's wants are few. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... confidential clerk was talking with the sexton as he hesitatingly mounted the granite steps, and he saw that dignified functionary, who seemed in some way made to order with the church over which he presided, eye him askance while he lent an ear to what was evidently a bit of his history. Walking quietly but firmly up to the official, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... so heavy that he would have preferred for the time being a complete solitude to the best of company. But any company would have been preferable to the doctor's, at whom he had always looked askance as a sort of beachcomber of superior intelligence partly reclaimed from his abased state. That feeling led ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the system of habitual or customary conduct, ethical rather than legal, which embraces all those obligations of the citizen which it is "bad form" or "not the thing" to disregard. Indeed, regard for these obligations is frequently enjoined merely by the social penalty of being "cut" or looked on askance. And yet the system is so generally accepted and is held in so high regard, that no one can venture to disregard it without in some way suffering at the hands of his neighbors for so doing. If a man maltreats his wife and children, or ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in no favour even with his own party, though Lauderdale found after trial that he could not dispense with his support. Even the moderate Presbyterians, who regarded the uncompromising Covenanters as the real cause of their country's troubles, looked askance upon Sharp, as the man whom they had chosen out of their number to save them and who had preferred to save himself. By the Covenanters themselves he was assailed with every form of obloquy as the Judas who had sold his God and his country for ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... thereabouts. Signs painted in the characters of his race, not of his accidental nationality, abound on every side. Here a synagogue occupies the story above a shop; there Masonic symbols are exhibited between the windows in a similar location. Jewish faces of the least prepossessing type look askance into eyes which they recognize as both unfamiliar and observant. Women, unkempt and slouchy, or else arrayed in dubious finery, brush against one. At intervals fast growing greater the remains of an extinct domesticity and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... eyes, With blushing cheek and courtesy fine 575 She turned her from Sir Leoline; Softly gathering up her train, That o'er her right arm fell again; And folded her arms across her chest, And couched her head upon her breast, 580 And looked askance at Christabel— Jesu, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a reluctant hand and eyeing him askance with mingled aversion and indignation.] ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... and I have never told you anything but the truth. But you must come and be happy, my dear. I want you, yourself, and not a grave, reticent creature who has gone about the house the last few days, looking at me askance, as though I had committed some ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... fixed his goal, and reached it. He belongs to the ruling class,—men with slow, measuring eyes and bull-dog jaws,—men who know their own capacity to an atom's weight, and who go through life with moderate, inflexible, unrepenting steps. He looks askance at me when I cross his path; he is in the great market making his way: I learned long ago that there was no place there for me. Yet I like to look in, out of the odd little corner into which I have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... sultriness. Leaning his head against a cushion, and folding his arms on his breast, Lavretzky gazed at the strips of ploughed land, in fan-shape, which flew past, at the willow-trees slowly flitting by, at the stupid crows and daws gazing with dull suspicion askance at the passing equipage, at the long strips of turf between the cultivated sections, overgrown with artemisia, wormwood, and wild tansy; he gazed ... and that fresh, fertile nakedness and wildness of the steppe, that verdure, those long hillocks, the ravines with stubby oak bushes, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... years usually ends in constraint and indifference. If she felt slightly bored, she certainly looked it. Neither of them resembled the childish recollections or preconceived notions of the other. They found themselves inspecting one another askance, as though furtively attempting to surprise some familiar feature, some ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... personal interests which had enabled Mr. Shackford to acquire a fortune thus early caused him to look askance at a penniless young kinsman with stockings down at heel, and a straw hat three sizes too large for him set on the back of his head. But Mr. Shackford was ashamed to leave little Dick a burden upon the hands of a poor woman of no relationship whatever to the child; so little ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... miss, thank you. If you want anything at all, miss, I'm right dere at de end of de cah." He goes out by the narrow passage-way beside the smaller enclosed parlor. Miss Galbraith looks askance at the sleeping gentleman, and then, rising, goes to the large mirror, to pin her veil, which has become loosened from her hat. She gives a little start at sight of the gentleman in the mirror, but arranges her head-gear, and returning to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... striving to staunch the blood that spurted from a bullet wound in his leg, while near at hand lay a French bluejacket, as white and motionless as though dead. Another Frenchman had a broken arm, while several others on both sides looked askance at their enemies from blackened eyes and ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... talking of Jesus' early life in the cenoby, and of his knowledge of flocks and suchlike, Hazael led Joseph through the long house and up some steps on to a rubble path. The mountain seems to be crumbling, Joseph said, and looked askance at the quiet room built on the very verge of the abyss. Where thou'lt sleep when thou honourest us with a visit, Hazael said, which will be soon, we trust, he continued; for we owe a great deal to thee, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... otherwise; and thus was evolved an atmosphere in which I was brought up, not only passively absorbing, but to a certain degree actively impressed with love for France and the Southern section of the United States, while learning to look askance upon England and abolitionists. The experiences of life, together with subsequent reading and reflection, modified and in the end ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... and Rebekah had deserted her, for at the first mention of the evil eye they had looked askance, and now they never came to play nor to entertain her with ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... riot and devilry, he sat silently puffing at his pipe, with a set face and a smouldering eye. It was generally supposed that his misfortunes had shaken his wits, and his old friends looked at him askance, for the company which he kept was enough to ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of white hair falling over his ears and neck, who was generally occupied with some cobbling work, and who from time to time, as he drew out the thread, would make some remark aloud, as if he thought he still had the partner of his life for audience. The look askance over his brass spectacles with which he greeted any casual stranger who might come into the house had very little welcome in it, and an expression about his sunken mouth and sharp chin said plainly ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... in an asperate tone from the now trembling and frightened maid. His Lordship heard it and saw her turn white and tremble. Slowly he walked to the hearthstone, eyeing her askance, then he swept his brow where the cold perspiration lay in beads;—then turned to her again with a world of love for her in his eyes and a great crushing self-pity; and the menials looked away from the abject misery they beheld in their lord's face; Tompkins fumbled ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... he seemed to be partly both; and that one who so loathed and hated the Norsemen could be made to serve his enemies at a word, seemed to point to a power beyond the ken of ordinary man. Helgi, too, was evidently struck, for he looked askance from one to the other, ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... female line. The sovereign profession among bees and ants is always female, and publicans also descend on the distaff side. You will have noticed that every publican has three daughters of extraordinary charms. Lacking these signs we would do well to look askance at such a man's liquor, divining that in his brew there will be an undue percentage of water, for if his primogeniture is infected how ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, I, sir; you and your companions mend yourselves when ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... thus their work went on with lucky speed, And reared rams their horned fronts advance, The Ancient Foe to man, and mortal seed, His wannish eyes upon them bent askance; And when he saw their labors well succeed, He wept for rage, and threatened dire mischance. He choked his curses, to himself he spake, Such noise wild bulls that softly ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... accelerated by the fact that I had nearly slain a man in a quarrel, for my temper was fiery, and I was apt to forget my own strength when enraged. There was no legal action taken in the matter, but the papers yelped at me, and folk looked askance when I met them. It ended by my cursing them and their vile, smoke-polluted town, and hurrying to my northern possession, where I might at last find peace and an opportunity for solitary study and contemplation. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... come to him again, fairest Princess! I said all Germany would consent to this marriage. Poland, too, would rather invest the Catholic imperial house with the Prussian crown than the reformed Elector, and prefer an Austrian neighbor as friend to a Russian; only two European powers would look askance upon this union, and consequently do all they possibly could to prevent ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... what the young lady might do next. On entering the breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the energy and life gone from ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Yura clearly felt something of the holiday in the decisive way in which the coachman splashed the water from the bucket with his sinewy arms, on which the sleeves of his red blouse were rolled up to his elbows. Yevmen only glanced askance at Yura, and suddenly Yura seemed to have noticed for the first time his broad, black, wavy beard and thought respectfully that Yevmen was a ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known something of such silence—but never such intensity as this. Larry felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow, felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of ice within them, watched the channel ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... whispered one to another that the reigning beauty of Newport quite surpassed herself to-night—that even the buds had better look to their laurels. The maids and the matrons, even the gentlemen, looked askance when they saw Victor Lamont and young Mrs. Gardiner dance every dance together, and the murmur ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... sometimes political, and seem for the time to carry everything before them. We are passing through such a period now, a period of intense unrest, of revolt against conditions that we ourselves made, against methods that we ourselves created and sanctioned. I advise you to look askance upon every movement that in the language of the day is called popular. Do not accept a theory or a doctrine because it is popular, but on the other hand do not reject it for that reason. Do not permit yourselves ...
— Morals in Trade and Commerce • Frank B. Anderson
... the neighbours at first. The women looked rather askance at her, and thought her little better than a fool, even if she had contrived to make one of Jacques De Arthenay. She never seemed to understand their talk, and had a way of looking past them, as if unaware of their presence, that was disconcerting, when one thought well of oneself. But ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... not likely to be intimate friends. Garrick's rapid elevation in fame and fortune seems to have produced a certain degree of envy in his old schoolmaster. A grave moral philosopher has, of course, no right to look askance at the rewards which fashion lavishes upon men of lighter and less lasting merit, and which he professes to despise. Johnson, however, was troubled with a rather excessive allowance of human nature. Moreover he had the good old-fashioned contempt for players, characteristic ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... for pleasure there; but it would be little short of madness to attempt such a thing here. At present things have got to such a state that for any man to seem richer than another is, in itself, a crime. Here all must be on an equality. Were you to ride out, every man you pass would look askance at you. At the first village through which you rode you would be arrested, and to be arrested at present is to be condemned. There are no questions asked, the prisoners are brought in in bunches, and are condemned wholesale. I say nothing against ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... Gnome engine, in which the cylinders rotate bodily round a fixed crank-shaft. This engine was built by the brothers Louis and Laurent Seguin, who had a small motor factory in Paris. Most of the regular aviators looked askance at it, but Seguin offered to instal it in a Voisin biplane of the box-kite pattern which had just been won as a prize by Louis Paulhan. In the result the old box-kite flew as never box-kite flew before, and produced a great ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... days you might have looked in tobacconist's shopwindows all day and never seen a cigarette. It was a foreign fashion at which sound smokers looked askance. Mossoos might smoke it, but good, solid John Bull suspected it of being a kick-shaw not unconnected with Atheism. He stuck to his pipe chiefly. Nevertheless, it was always open to skill to fabricate ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... settled these holdings in fee tail on the oldest son in accordance with the law of primogeniture. This produced a class described by Jefferson who said: "There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and lowest, a seculum of beings called overseers, the most abject, degraded and unprincipled race, always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them for furnishing material for ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... industry, and again at a rate of a chapter a day, I finished Treasure Island. It had to be transcribed almost exactly; my wife was ill; the schoolboy remained alone of the faithful; and John Addington Symonds (to whom I timidly mentioned what I was engaged on) looked on me askance. He was at that time very eager I should write on the characters of Theophrastus: so far out may be the judgments of the wisest men. But Symonds (to be sure) was scarce the confidant to go to for sympathy on a boy's story. He was large-minded; 'a full man,' if there was one; but the very name ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... benches, a table, many prints of famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of dead lions than all the living dogs of ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... none had she to share Burdens that grew almost too great to bear, For Redstar sometimes seemed to look askance, And sought, they said, to win another breast. Winona feigned to laugh, but in her heart The rumor rankled like a poisoned dart. Sometimes she almost thought the Raven guessed The guilty secrets that her thoughts oppressed, And sought, ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... gradually fell silent. Her head drooped. Her eyes looked at Polly askance and wistfully. She did not defend herself; but she ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... covert irritation, and greatly enjoyed the sight of it, producing her money as slowly as possible, as though, indeed, her silver had got lost amongst the coppers in her pocket. And she glanced askance at Gavard, relishing the embarrassed silence which her presence was prolonging, and vowing that she would not go off, since they were hiding some trickery or other from her. However, Lisa at last put the parcel in her hands, and she ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... countenance as I spoke, with a sharp and anxious eye; and then he looked down, and read the pattern of the carpet like bad news, for a while, and looking again in my face, askance, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the storm subsides to calm: They see the green trees wave 85 On the heights o'erlooking Greve. Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 As they cannonade away! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This is Paradise for Hell! ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... point of leaving, when, relenting, perhaps, a little, she said aloud, 'Come again soon, and I shall be all right.' To pass this unnoticed would have been impolite; yet I did not like to remain there any longer, especially under such circumstances: so, looking askance, I said— ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the best of all with monks. The Jacobins changed their mind. The Prior, accompanied by some of the notabilities of the convent, went to Harlay with excuses, and said he was at liberty, if he liked, to make the door. Harlay, true to his character, looked at them askance, and replied, that he had changed his mind and would do without it. The monks, much troubled by his refusal, insisted; he interrupted them and said, "Look you, my fathers, I am grandson of Achille du Harlay, Chief-President of the Parliament, who so well served the State and the Kingdom, and who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... over here on this continent. We would not all of us put it in just this way. But our singing is the main thing we can do, and a government that is trying to improve us feebly, that is looking askance at us and looking askance at our money, and at our labour, and that does not believe in us and join in with us in our singing does not know ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... animadversion Mary found she was looked upon as a sort of alarming character by the whole family. Lord Courtland seemed afraid of being drawn into a religious controversy every time he addressed her. Dr. Redgill retreated at her approach and eyed her askance, as much as to say, "'Pon my honour, a young lady that can fly in her mother's face about such a trifle as going to church is not very safe company." And Adelaide shunned her more than ever, as if afraid of coming in contact with a professed Methodist. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Gray came here to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o't, On blythe Yule night when we were fou, [drunk] Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, [cast, high] Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, [askance, very skittish] Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; [Made, aloof] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... departments which are useful for life, and for girls especially on things which make the home. The same thing is wanted in middle-class education, though parents of the middle-class still look a little askance at household employments for their daughters. But children of the wealthier and upper classes take to them as a birthright, with the cordial assent of their parents and the applause of the doctors. It is for ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... cliques and the artistic hangers-on coincided in the affair to that extent that soon the existence of the gilded hammock was established and from that time Miss De Grammonts' popularity was on the wane. Dowagers looked askance and matrons posed in a patronizing manner, the flippant correspondents of society journals and the compilers of sonnets in which that very hammock had been eulogized and metaphored to distraction now ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... all, my dear; Heaven forbid that I should ever forget a jot of the real happiness of any portion of my life. When you and I, dear Sook (an awful scowl, and a sudden change of her position, on her costly rocking chair. Fitz looked askance at Mrs. Fitz, and proceeded); when you and I, Susan, lived in Dowdy's little eight by ten 'blue frame,' down in Pigginsborough; not a yard of carpet, or piece of mahogany, or silver, or silk, or satin, or flummery of any ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... a little askance. It was perfectly understood between them that Cicely was more or less acquainted with her brother's plight, and since her engagement to Marsworth had been announced it was astonishing how much more ready Farrell had been to confide in her, ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... soon with alter'd looks askance They view his sable face and form, When they perceive the scornful glance Of the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Claire, cowering and hiding her face. She wore her gingham apron with an unaccustomed air, and had looked askance at the sweeping cap, before she had followed the example of the other girls, and pulled it over her soft, brown hair. "Please don't take my picture," she implored in a doleful whimper. "I ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... claret, I glanced askance at my neighbors; on my left sat my cousin Dorothy Varick, frankly absorbed in a roasted pigeon, yet wielding knife and fork with much grace and address; on my right Magdalen Brant, step-cousin to Sir John, a lovely, soft-voiced girl, with ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... sacraments. In the last war the college of Malua, where the picked youth are prepared for the ministry, lost but a single student; the rest, in the bosom of a bleeding country, and deaf to the voices of vanity and honour, peacefully pursued their studies. But if the church looks askance on war, the warrior in no extremity of need or passion forgets his consideration for the church. The houses and gardens of her ministers stand safe in the midst of armies; a way is reserved for themselves along the beach, where they may be seen in their white kilts and jackets openly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting down his needle; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or making any answer, he went on busying himself with his needle, which he had not yet threaded. I waited before him for three minutes with my arms crossed A LA NAPOLEON. My temples were ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... eyed the toad askance. "Of course, if it's accustomed to being a pet—but it looks perfectly ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... open one of the shells and ate the contents hastily, keeping one eye askance against the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... "met every one" there—so we naturally thought when we met each other. Between our hostess and Ray Limbert flourished the happiest relation, the only cloud on which was that her husband eyed him rather askance. When he was called clever this personage wanted to know what he had to "show;" and it was certain that he showed nothing that could compare with Jane Highmore. Mr. Highmore took his stand on accomplished work and, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... countenance and silver-gray locks. On the chimney-piece of his painting-room, among other curiosities, was a beautiful preparation of an infant cranium, presented to the painter by his old friend, Surgeon Cruickshanks. Fowler, without moving his position, continually peered at it askance with inquisitive eye. "Ah! Master Fowler," said the painter, "that is a mighty curiosity." "What might it be, sir, if I may be so bold?" "A whale's eye," replied Gainsborough. "Oh! not so; never say so, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... bearing he was a poor fellah. His dark face brightened wonderfully when he heard what the priest required of him. He seized his staff and called out all the neighbours, who burst out laughing when they learned the nature of his business. When Iskender joined them, however, there were looks askance; one said to another, "Is not this the Brutestant, the son of Yacub? What hand has he in this affair? It were a sin for us to vex a true believer for the pleasure of a child of filthy dogs," till the ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... why could he not catch and eat some of those half-tame antelopes? Ha! He lay in wait hours—hours, near the torrent to which they came betimes to slake their thirst: but their beautiful keen eyes saw him askance—and when he rashly hoped to hunt one down afoot, they went like the wind for a minute—then turned to look at him afar off, mockingly—poor, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... back what I have said about my determined purpose." In repeating this, she looked up at him askance. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had brought in to decorate the dinner-table—Marilla had eyed that decoration askance, but had said nothing—propped her chin on her hands, and fell to studying it ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... should be ready to fly at one another's throats, is one of the things that those who are outside the Nationalist circle cannot understand. But the Clerical leaders, who do their utmost to further the operations of the League, look askance at Sinn Fein; its ultimate success therefore is ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... sinewy frame, and keen, piercing, hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were traveling for signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the dense thicket, or into the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy. The reader will recognize in this man the pioneer Boone, at the head of ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... much of Jim Horscroft's opinion; for he was not over warm to this new guest and looked him up and down with a very questioning eye. He set a dish of vinegared herrings before him, however, and I noticed that he looked more askance than ever when my companion ate nine of them, for two were always our portion. When at last he had finished Bonaventure de Lapp's lids were drooping over his eyes, for I doubt that he had been sleepless as well as foodless for these three days. It was ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not arrived yet, but he put in an appearance a few moments later. He manifested no surprise at sight of his son, but he eyed Hal askance. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... continent. Ahead he saw a man carrying a gun under his arm, a man in a soft black hat, a blue blouse, and black trousers, and with a broad round-fat face quite innocent of goatee. This person regarded him askance and heard him speak with ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... his face askance, and smiled. "Yes, these are more to Hereward's taste than gold and jewels. And he shall have them. He shall have them as a proof that if Torfrida has set her love upon a worthy knight, she is at least worthy of him; and does not demand, without being ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... in the atmosphere of the museum which seemed to help her. She liked the perfect stillness, she liked the presence of all the books. Above all, too, she liked the consciousness of possession. There was no narrow exclusiveness about this place, no one could look askance at her here. The place belonged to the people, and therefore belonged to her; she heretic and atheist as she was had as much share in the ownership as the highest in the land. She had her own peculiar nook over by the encyclopedias, and, being always an early comer, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... old house seemed to crouch close, to regard him askance from under lowering eyes, as though through all its timbers ran the message that ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... pleasant and prejudiced Old looks askance at the noisy and intruding New, before which, it is forced to retreat—always without undue or undignified haste, however, and always unpainted and unreconstructed. It is a town where families live in houses that have sheltered generations of the same name, ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... The Lord Lion King-at-Arms was high-table company, but he was absent, and the inferior royal pursuivant was entertaining two of his fellows, one with the Douglas Bloody Heart, the other with the Lindsay Lion on a black field, besides two messengers of the different clans, who looked askance at one another. ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... became the lion of the evening, and was requested to give a narrative of my cruise in the "patriot service." I noticed that some of the gang looked on me askance with an incredulous air, while others amused themselves by smoking and spitting in a very contemptuous way whenever I reached what I conceived to be a thrilling portion of my story. At its conclusion, I arose and deposited ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... phrensy. 'The White Whale—the White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the whole career ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... days of Ta-te-psin are brief. Once more by the dark-rolling river Sits the Chief in the warm, dreamy haze of the beautiful Summer in Autumn; And the faithful dog lovingly lays his head at the feet of his master. On a dead, withered branch sits a crow, down-peering askance at the old man; On the marge of the river below romp the nut-brown and merry-voiced children, And the dark waters silently flow, broad and deep, to ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... to see this same personification troubling the educated preacher as well as the unlearned fisherman. The Rev. William Farrar, when left alone with the unwelcome coin, looked askance at it. He did not like to see it on his desk, he had a repugnance to touch it. Then he forced himself to lift the sovereign, and by an elaborate fingering of the coin convince his intellect that he had no foolish superstition on the subject. Anon he took out his purse ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy precision through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting barracks in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked askance, and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. "God damme!" he exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye know what his sisters call him? By God! they call him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, where there was a review and a great dinner, the Duchess ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... affability as if the town were theirs, and it was their part to be hospitable to strangers. Many donkeys likewise accosted us with braying; children, growing more uncleanly every day they lived, pestered us with begging; men stared askance at us as they lounged in corners, and women endangered us with slops which they were flinging from doorways into the street. No decent words can describe, no admissible image can give an idea of this noisome place. And yet, I remember, the donkeys came up ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... He looked askance at us, as he could not make out who we were, what we were doing up that river, where we could have come from. At last he signed to me that he had something to whisper in my ear. He asked me if I was a runaway cashier from a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... note, as odd and unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she shot askance from ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wondrous fascination Isaacs exercised over every one who came near him, and the circumstances of his spotless name and reputation for integrity in the large transactions in which he was frequently known to be engaged, it is certain that Mr. Ghyrkins would have looked askance at the whole affair, and very likely would have broken ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... ridge askance, The Saxon stood in sullen trance, Till Moray pointed with his lance, And cried—'Behold yon isle! See! none are left to guard its strand, 535 But women weak, that wring the hand; 'Tis there of yore the robber band Their booty wont to ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. No challenge sends she to the elder world, 400 That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... touch more precise and dainty than a pianist's. The taste for machinery was one that I could never share with him, and he had a certain bitter pity for my weakness. Once when I had proved, for the hundredth time, the depth of this defect, he looked at me askance. 'And the best of the joke,' said he, 'is that he thinks himself quite a poet.' For to him the struggle of the engineer against brute forces and with inert allies, was nobly poetic. Habit never dulled in him the ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson |
