"Corpulent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper region; men, women and children ascended by means of the vine; but when about half the nation had reached the surface of the earth, a corpulent woman who was clambering up the vine broke it with her weight, and closed upon herself and the rest of the nation the light of the sun. Those who were left on earth made a village below where we saw the nine villages; ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... soon found herself approaching two men. One she recognized as the guard. The other was an elderly man dressed in a black suit of broadcloth which, in its time, had been very fine indeed. But it was made for him when he was younger and less corpulent than now, and he bulged it out in a way that was trying to the stitches and the buttons. His silk hat was shiny, but exceedingly worn, and the boots upon his feet, despite his creditable efforts to make them appear at all possible advantage, were ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... sooner ended his sermon, and descended from the huge rock which had served him for a pulpit, than his post was occupied by a pastor of a very different description. The reverend Gabriel was advanced in years, somewhat corpulent, with a loud voice, a square face, and a set of stupid and unanimated features, in which the body seemed more to predominate over the spirit than was seemly in a sound divine. The youth who succeeded him ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... impression of personal acquaintance. Falstaff is the most agreeable and entertaining knave that ever was portrayed. His contemptible qualities are not disguised: old, lecherous, and dissolute; corpulent beyond measure, and always intent upon cherishing his body with eating, drinking, and sleeping; constantly in debt, and anything but conscientious in his choice of means by which money is to be raised; a cowardly soldier, and a lying braggart; a flatterer ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... time and breath on you in an attempt to answer the riddle of the ages, to explain the wanderlust that sent forth the tribes from the Aryan bowl of the birth of the races, my corpulent bean-pot. Your blank eyes and your flattened skull suggest ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... of military service, was engaged in Tashkend in the interest of his father, a wholesale merchant in Moscow. With him we were able to converse either in French or German, both of which languages he could speak more purely than his native Russian. Our good-natured, corpulent host had emigrated, in the pioneer days, from the steppes of southern Russia, and had grown wealthy through ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... do believe I am," said the other apologetically. "I shall probably grow corpulent and lazy, and settle down in Glenoro ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... also arrested and captivated his attention: and already the first volumes were corpulent of what was eventually to become his gigantic herbiary. His brother, about to leave for Vezins on vacation, was told of the specimens which he wanted to complete his collection; for although he had never set foot there since his first departure, he recalled, with remarkable precision, ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... unusual time in office, by an accusation enforced by a thousand purses of gold, he was enabled to produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan's "firman" appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate, very irascible, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... have proved this night that ye are not yet purged of the feelings and prejudices of a vicious education, I will perform this office for you all, and set you an example, by which ye may hereafter profit. To begin, then, with you—(addressing himself to a corpulent man, of a florid complexion, at the lower end of the table:)—As you already have a redundancy of flesh and blood, I assign the soupe maigre to you; while to our mathematical friend on this side, whose delicate constitution ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... smile when a child puts on a man's hat? or what induces us to laugh on reading that the corpulent Gibbon was unable to rise from his knees after making a tender declaration? The usual reply to such questions is, that laughter results from a perception of incongruity. Even were there not on this reply the obvious criticism that laughter often occurs from extreme pleasure or ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... of the young men, ten in number, outstripped that of old Adams, who was in his sixty-fifth year, and somewhat corpulent. He was dressed in a sailor's shirt and trousers, and a low-crowned hat, which he held in his hand until desired to put it on. He still retained his sailor's manners, doffing his hat and smoothing down his bald forehead whenever he was addressed by the officers ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... a small bundle on the deck. It obstructs the approaches to the 'scupper' in front of my cabin door. About to step out and clear this watercourse, I see that 'sorrel-top,' corpulent, garrulous German doctor gently unwind the soaked package and tenderly gaze at an upturned childish face. Apparently not approving of this unorthodox baptismal procedure, the boy is borne away. Curled up ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... of the hideously corpulent king, who, on account of his unwieldy obesity, was unable to let his arms hang by his side, and who thus gesticulated wildly, and perspired incessantly, and had the habit, moreover, of continually addressing his favourite, generally present on these occasions, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Flossie is a charming young lady. No wonder she has many friends. There was one," she continued, "who came here with her this afternoon—but he left almost at once," she added hastily, aware of her indiscretion. "Ah, these stairs! They grow steeper for one so corpulent. ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by 'r Lady, inclining to three score. And, now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Henry, I see virtue in his ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... urge of spirit and responsive to its "drive." So they answer to the helm and steer out into the unknown, while the more sleek, comfortable, and well-fed do not so much as guess that there has been any impulse at all. "H'm," say the corpulent, "why can't they leave well alone and be comfortable?" But it is no part of the great plan that the wheels of progress should ever slow down, it is much more to the point that they should be made to turn more quickly. Spirit is the force behind evolution, the force ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... climbing ashore at the railway pier at Daquiri, marched west along the coast to Siboney, and then plunged inland, each regiment for itself, along the narrow jungle trail leading to Santiago. Shafter himself, corpulent and sick, followed as he could. Before he established his control over the army on land the head of the column had engaged the enemy at Las Guasimas, nine miles from Santiago, on June 24. The First Volunteer Cavalry, under the command of ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... sisterhood of stout and pendulous proportions. It is plain to be seen that the fluffy ruche at the throat-band, and the ruffle at the shoulder, and the spreading bow at the waist, and the trimmed sleeves, add bulkiness to a form already too generously endowed with flabby rotundity. Corpulent women must forego the swagger little basques or any sort of short, flounced effects ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... England. He soon discovered that there was no prospect of this, and that his imprisonment was likely to be for life. He twisted his bed-clothes into a rope, one stormy night in February 1595, and let himself down from the window of his dungeon, situated at the top of a very high tower. Being a corpulent man, the rope gave way, and he was precipitated to the ground. He broke two of his ribs and both his legs; and was otherwise so much injured, that he expired a few ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... would soon be two years a widow. Her husband who had grown so corpulent that he could no longer move, had succumbed to an attack of indigestion on the 3d of September, 1870, on the night of the day on which he had learned of the catastrophe of Sedan. The ruin of the government of which he flattered himself with being one of the founders, seemed to have crushed ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... Probably he had as little principle in political and social life as most of his associates in treason; while his great self-reliance, activity, and mental ability gave him a very high position in their confidence. He was tall and stout, though not corpulent; and was very negligent of his toilet and dress. Self-conceit was written on his countenance, and displayed itself in his arrogant assumptions of superiority. But his method of dealing with his Northern opponents was open and bold, although insolent and overbearing, and not like Hunter, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... was wonderful. I would I could say he was plump; that word does not begin to express his condition. It would be pleasant to call him stout; that would not give the glimmer of an idea of his size. Corpulent would be a refined way of stating it. Alas! corpulent means nothing as far as Mephibosheth is concerned. That animal measured seven feet and twenty-two inches round his body. He weighed—truth is great, and must be spoken—he weighed five hundred and fifty and ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... leanness of our writing men. We have no Chestertons, no Bellocs. I look to Don Marquis, to H.L. Mencken, to Heywood Broun, to Clayton Hamilton, and to my friend here portraited, to remedy this. If only Mr. Simeon Strunsky were stouter! He is plump, but not yet properly corpulent. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... Phrygia, and Mysia, because the inhabitants have no relish for true elegance and politeness, the Orators have adopted (as most agreeable to the ears of their audience) a luxuriant, and, if I may so express myself, a corpulent style; which their neighbours the Rhodians, who are only parted from them by a narrow straight, have never approved, and much less the Greeks; but the Athenians have entirely banished it; for their taste has ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... live many years after the death of his wife. He was several years older than she. In fact, he was now considerably advanced in age. He became extremely corpulent as he grew old, which, as he was originally of a large frame, made him excessively unwieldy. The inconvenience resulting from this habit of body was not the only evil that attended it. It affected his health, and even threatened to end in serious if ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... truly petrified ball-players, we observed, with great interest, that some of them must have been a little above, and others a little below our own height, in their lifetime; that some must have been very corpulent, and others very thin persons; that one of them, having a protuberance on his head remarkably like a night-cap in stone, was possibly a sluggard as well as a Sabbath-breaker, and might have got out of his bed just in time to "hurl;" that another, with some faint resemblance ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... fellow was almost crying. Rachel put her arms about his neck, and pressed his corpulent ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... on discomforts or worries. It is quite possible for a person of this sort to live, and work hard on the Coast for a considerable period, possibly with better health than he would have in England. The full-blooded, corpulent and vigorous should avoid West Africa like the plague. One after another, men and women, who looked, as the saying goes, as if you could take a lease of their lives, I have seen come out and die, and it gives one a sense of horror when ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... professor, but the cheapness of the land. He had built the house himself, and its walls were the fruit of many years of toil. Small and modest as it was, it was his own; he was in debt to no man, and had no rent to pay. This sweet feeling of independence quite made up for the tiring climb that the corpulent little owner had to take twice a day up the steep "River," as the street was called. The road bore this name (as everybody knows who has visited Syra), because it had been the bed of a stream that used to carry the winter rains from the mountain to the sea. In fact, the water ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... for the want of a better; Another believer's apparently trying To help him in telling the truth, or in lying. Two slaves 'neath their burden seem ready to sink, But a sly-looking elephant 'tips us the wink'; His brother behind, a most corpulent beast, Just exhibits his face, like the moon in a mist. On each is a gentleman riding astraddle, With neat Turkey carpets in lieu of a saddle; The camels, behind, seem disposed for a lark, The taller's a well-whisker'd, fierce-looking shark. An Arab, arrayed with a coal-heaver's ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... amusing letter respecting him appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1812. The writer states that 'Mr. John Radcliffe was neither a man of science or learning. He lived in East Lane, Bermondsey; was a very corpulent man, and his legs were remarkably thick, probably from an anasarcous complaint. The writer of this remembers him perfectly well; he was a very stately man, and, when he walked, literally went at a snail's pace. He was a Dissenter, and every Sunday attended the ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... to suit the convenience of a stranger. The Christian Hero never hesitates where good is to be done. Mr. Godfrey instantly turned back, and proceeded to the house in Northumberland Street. A most respectable though somewhat corpulent man answered the door, and, on hearing Mr. Godfrey's name, immediately conducted him into an empty apartment at the back, on the drawing-room floor. He noticed two unusual things on entering the room. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... called Lawyer Pippin to preside over the deliberations of the assembly was unanimous. The gentleman thus highly distinguished, was a dapper and rather portly little personage, with sharp twinkling eyes, a ruby and remarkable nose, a double chin, retreating forehead, and corpulent cheek. He wore green glasses of a dark, and a green coat of a light, complexion. The lawyer was the only member of the profession living in the village, had no competitor save when the sitting of the court brought in one or more from neighboring settlements, and, being thus circumstanced, without ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... He was in his late and corpulent forties and was something of a dandy. If one were captious, one might object to the thickness of his lips. They suggested sensuality. And there was a shade—a bare shade—more of pigment in his skin than the American passes altogether unquestioned. And his hair was wavy.... But he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... was of a very dark brown, nearly approaching to black, and, though a little thin on the top and front, had not a grey hair amongst it. His complexion was a very uncommon one, being of a light sallow colour, differing from almost any other I ever met with. From his having become corpulent, he had lost much of his personal activity, and, if we are to give credit to those who attended him, a very considerable portion of his mental energy was also gone. It is certain his habits were very lethargic while he was on board the ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... He saw a corpulent, well dressed man standing at the foot of the stairs and looking around the spacious room. Obviously, he had not come from the restaurant. He carried his hat, gloves, and stick in his left hand. With his right hand he caressed his chin, and his glance wandered slowly over the little knots ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... corpulent or obese, and the gross or high livers. To treat, raise the head to a nearly upright position; unloose all tight clothes, strings, etc., and apply cold water to the head and warm water and warm cloths ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... in smart jacket and trousers, sash and sarong, or petticoat, a curious penthouse-like hat or shade, and a strange-handled kriss stuck in his girdle. We could scarcely help laughing, when in our drive we met our corpulent Chinese gentleman, in a white dressing-gown-looking affair, smooth head, and a long pigtail, weighing down one side of a very English-looking little pony gig, driven by a smart Javanese boy, with the usual china punch-bowl worn by postilions, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... a clear complexion, a corpulent figure and a full face, thanks to the liberal supply of fat which according to his admirers was the gift of Heaven and which his enemies averred was the blood of the poor, Capitan Tiago appeared ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Mrs. M'Niel's eldest daughter was at Argyle. The black woman seized the two children, fled through the back door into the kitchen, and down into the cellar. Jenny and Mrs. M'Niel followed; but the old woman was corpulent, and before they could descend, a powerful Indian seized Mrs. M'Niel by the hair and dragged her up. Another brought Jenny out of the cellar. But the black woman and the children remained undiscovered. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... All I hear is, that he felt a Gradual Decay, tho' so early in Life, & was declining for 5 or 6 months. It was not, as I apprehended, the Gout in his Stomach, but I believe rather a Complication first of Gross Humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he used no sort of Exercise. No man better bore y'e approaches of his Dissolution (as I am told) or with less ostentation yielded up his Being. The great modesty w'ch you ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... pirouetting, hands across, right and left, like so many devils, all except a great clothes-press, which kept curtseying and curtseying, like a dowager, in one corner, in exquisite time to the music;—being either too corpulent to dance, or perhaps at a loss for ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... first place, there was the factor of individual genius. Altogether too much depended upon the physical and mental strength of one man. Napoleon was undoubtedly a genius, but still he was human. He was growing older, more corpulent, less able to withstand exertion and fatigue, fonder of affluence and ease. On the other hand, every fresh success had confirmed his belief in his own ability and had further whetted his appetite for power until his ambition was growing ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... With corpulent intensity the Cherub melodramatically drew from his pocket the Telegraph clipping and tendered it to Langdon, watching the latter's face closely. "That's the pea, Dick, eh?" ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... would sooner sit in chairs than squat on the floor. More tea was brought, and a plateful of cheroots. After we had sat a little while in the kiosk we were joined by the chief Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Baron de Giers of Burmah, a jovial, corpulent, elderly gentleman who had the most wonderful likeness to the late Pio Nono, and who clasped his brown hands over his fat paunch and kicked about his plump bare brown feet in high enjoyment when anything that struck him as humorous was uttered. He wholly differed ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of a corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxtaposition with his eyes or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman - in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster, from ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... oft-recurring tipsiness of his old gentlemen delighted him, though he was the most abstemious of men. I am now speaking of his middle-class people—those wonderful philistines of either sex; those elaborately capped and corpulent old ladies; those muttonchop-whiskered, middle-aged gentlemen with long upper lips and florid complexions, receding chins, noses almost horizontal in their prominence; those artless damsels who trouble themselves so little about the latest fashions; ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... to breathe, do their worst to annoy you; and then, Phoebus Apollo! how the sleepers snore! There is every variety of this music, from the low wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian grunt of the corpulent and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its tuneful oratory, until the place is vocal. Some communicative free-thinkers talk in their sleep, and altogether, they make a concerto and a diapason equal ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him; the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek; they struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equaling her husband, and corpulent besides; she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike her; he would ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... tea apparatus was duly arranged. The fire was burning its best, and sent out a ruddy glow, which made every bright thing it fell upon look brighter still. Muffins stood in a shining pile upon the fender, and a corpulent teapot on the top of the oven. Around the table sat two young men of about the ages of nineteen and twenty, and three daughters who might range from eighteen to fifteen. Their mother was by the fire preparing the tea for her husband ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... The chemist's wife turned up the lamp and hurried to the door to open it, and now she felt neither vexed nor bored nor inclined to cry, though her heart was thumping. The big doctor and the slender Obtyosov walked in. Now she could get a view of them. The doctor was corpulent and swarthy; he wore a beard and was slow in his movements. At the slightest motion his tunic seemed as though it would crack, and perspiration came on to his face. The officer was rosy, clean-shaven, feminine-looking, and as supple as an ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... assist you to another potato, Mr Murray?" The simple query was offered in the finest parliamentary manner. There were present at the meal the members of the family and one guest beside myself, a Mr Howard, a corpulent, silent gentleman, who accompanied us when we went out into the park again. We recommenced our walk at about two o'clock, and kept it up until the evening shades were growing pretty thick about us. I was inclined to be pretty glad when it was over, for though I was as hard as nails at ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... to those who lived with me, and others who occasionally paid us visits. I persisted, and the next "masterpiece" was the figure of a soldier (afterwards Private Blobs, of "Fragments") sitting up a tree staring straight in front of him into the future, whilst a party of corpulent Boches are stalking towards him through the long grass and barbed wire. He knows there's something not quite nice going on, but doesn't like to look down. This was called "The Listening Post," and the sensation described was so familiar ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... aristocratic planter shrank from contact with Putnam the blunt, and at times perhaps uncouth-appearing, farmer. Writing about that time, a surgeon in the American army said: "This is my first interview with this celebrated hero, Putnam. In his person he is corpulent and clumsy, but carries a bold, undaunted front. He exhibits little of the refinements of a well-educated gentleman, but much of the character of the ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... grown corpulent under his late course of treatment, did not at first raise his lazy, half-shut eyes high enough from the ground to see the desk and open book, which were clever imitations, if not quite facsimiles of forms deeply impressed on his memory, and calculated to produce very stimulating ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... frequently for four and twenty hours they had nothing to eat. Van Braam observes that, owing to the fatigues of the journey, the badness of the victuals, their early rising and exposure to the cold, he lost about five inches in the circumference of his body. Being rather corpulent, and not very expert in performing the Chinese ceremony at their public introduction, his hat happened to fall on the ground, upon which the old Emperor began to laugh. "Thus," says he, "I received a mark of distinction and predilection, such as never Embassador was honoured with before. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... either yielded or perished. Santerre, certain of the issue, preferred to take no part in this affair; he prudently holds back, he shies away, and lets the crowd push him into the council chamber, where the Queen, the young Dauphin, and the ladies have taken refuge.[2548] There, with his tall, corpulent figure, he formed a sort of shield to forestall useless and compromising injuries. In the mean time, in the Oeil de Boeuf, he lets things take their course; everything will be done in his absence that ought to be done, and in this he seems to have calculated ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who appeared desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were exchanged, and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, corpulent, elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander the Sixth, accoutred with the official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, who rose slowly into the air as though he had been inflated ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... incredible what flocking of people there was to behold this old archbishop now a new convert; prelates and peers presented him with gifts of high valuation." Other writers of the period describe him as "old and corpulent," but of a "comely presence"; irascible and pretentious, gifted with an unlimited assurance and plenty of ready wit in writing and speaking; of a "jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... on your behalf!" and then, turning towards those who had accompanied him, said, "Gentlemen, see if each of you cannot obtain as much for these ladies," a remark which was a signal for all to retire. And thereupon a curious spectacle might have been observed; old and corpulent courtiers were seen running after butterflies, losing their hats as they ran, and with their raised canes cutting down the myrtles and the furze, as they would have ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Henry VIII. in the style of Holbein. With broad shoulders and a rich dress, he stands on his sturdy legs quite the figure of Henry. But the face is one beam of boyish laughter, and on the top of the little replica of the body of the corpulent monarch the effect of the childish face is ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... behind in its flight. About two miles from Bombay there is a rock on the promontory of the Malabar Hill, which has a natural crevice, communicating with a cavity below, and opening upon the sea. This crevice is too narrow for corpulent persons to squeeze through, but it is constantly resorted to for purposes of moral purification. Through natural or artificial caverns in India pilgrims enter at the south side, and make their exit at the northern, as ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... perceive that we have not now to consider the question of what is demanded to serve a half-starved and barbarous nation, or set of nations, but what is most applicable, most pertinent, for numerous congeries of conventional, over-corpulent societies, already becoming stifled and rotten with flatulent, infidelistic literature, and polite conformity and art. In addition to establish'd sciences, we suggest a science as it were of healthy average personalism, on original-universal ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... me to come and see the ceremony. I went back into what was the dining-room of the house; on the table lay a rose-wood box, containing a sword, sash, spurs, etc., and round about the table were grouped Mrs. Grant, Nelly, and one or two of the boys. I was introduced to a large, corpulent gentleman, as the mayor, and another citizen, who had come down from Galena to make this presentation of a sword to their fellow-townsman. I think that Rawlins, Bowers, Badeau, and one or more of General ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... de San Francisco de Assis (ibid. 41: 138, et seq.) says: "The nearest nation to our village [Bislig] is that of the Taga-baloyes who are so named from certain mountains that they call Balooy. * * * They are a corpulent race, well built, of great courage and strength, and they are at the same time of good understanding, and more than halfway industrious. Their nation is faithful in its treaties and constant in its promises, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... imperceptible enemy. An Irish boy volunteered to hold the rein, while I paid my respects to the Commander. I encountered him on the threshold of the hut, and he welcomed me in the richest and most musical of brogues. Large, corpulent, and powerful of body; plump and ruddy—or as some would say, bloated—of face; with resolute mouth and heavy animal jaws; expressive nose, and piercing blue-eyes; brown hair, mustache, and eyebrows; ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... to the ladies, added to the uncouth figure of our knight, increased their laughter; consequently he grew more indignant, and would have proceeded further but for the timely appearance of the innkeeper, a very corpulent and therefore a very pacific man, who, upon seeing so ludicrous an object, armed, and with accoutrements so ill-sorted as were the bridle, lance, buckler, and corselet, felt disposed to join the damsels in demonstrations of mirth; ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... compared with the Thames even as to volume of water—viz. the Tiber—has contrived to make itself heard of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached, nor likely to be reached very soon, by any river, however corpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the density of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it is ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... window hung a pot with "creeping Jew" and inchplant, the tendrils at least a yard long. In the other window was a blowzy-looking canary in a cage. A corpulent tortoise-shell cat occupied the turkey-red cushion in one generous rocking chair, There was a couch with a faded patchwork coverlet, several other chairs, and in a glass-fronted case standing on the mantlepiece a model of a brigantine in full sail, at ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... curtain rose upon the second act, there was a knock at his box door. One of the attendants ushered in a short man of somewhat remarkable personality. He was barely five feet in height, and an extremely fat neck and a corpulent body gave him almost the appearance of a hunchback. He had black, beady eyes, a black moustache fiercely turned up, and sallow skin. His white gloves had curious stitchings on the back not common in England, and his silk hat, exceedingly glossy, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... or restricted. The size and shape of an individual, as a whole, as well as of the specialized cell masses composing him, as hands and feet, the nose and ears, and so on, are therefore controlled by them. Whether an organism is to be tall or short, lean or corpulent, graceful or awkward, is decided by their interactions. These, like human covenants, vary with the different reactions of the parties to the contract. And so a great deal depends upon whether they work harmoniously or discordantly, and upon ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... who had it in for Rucker," suggested the fourth member of the group, a man who had not heretofore spoken. This was Dick Blatchford, a round-faced, rather corpulent, rather silent though jovial-looking individual, with a calculating and humorous eye. He was magnificently apparelled, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... A corpulent little gentleman, about fifty years of age, with a kind, good-natured face, small, vivacious eyes, denoting an excellent heart, but little ability, and large, broad lips, which never perhaps had uttered profound truths, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of vast size, powerful, corpulent, with the muscles of a Hercules, and a tiny head on a bull-like neck-and blind—is pushing on in her turn a small, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much larger than Mr. Cave; she walked heavily, and her face was flushed. "That crystal is for sale," she said. "And five pounds is a good enough price for it. I can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... wristlets of polished steel. At such times his intent eyes would film, as the eyes of a caged eagle sometimes do. Sometimes, too, he would smile with the half-pensive Castilian smile of an uncouth and corpulent Cervantes. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... after them all the other members of the family. Afterwards, also, there arrived the lover of music, Madame Belenitsine, a thin little woman, with an almost childish little face, pretty but worn, a noisy black dress, a particolored fan, and thick gold bracelets. With her came her husband, a corpulent man, with red cheeks, large hands and feet, white eyelashes, and a smile which never left his thick lips. His wife never spoke to him in society; and at home, in her tender moments, she used to call him her ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... there was no one to meet him. He passed out of the station—it was just four o'clock—into the clammy November mist. He shivered, and pulled up his coat collar. He was standing on the pavement, undecided where to go, when a cab drew alongside the curb. A corpulent young gentleman jumped out, and immediately uttered ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... the corpulent Whittaker as he left the train, spick and span in tweed and polished shoes appealed to Jerrard's sense of the ludicrous so acutely that the president, following the baggage-laden guide down to the shore of the lake, stopped and looked at ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... evident, was concealed the treasure that had escaped the clutches of the myrmidons and the officers of the Star-Chamber. There was a large open chest at the further end, full of corpulent money-bags, any one of which would have gladdened the heart of a miser. On this chest Mompesson's gaze was so greedily fixed that he did not notice the body of a man lying directly in his path, and well-nigh stumbled over it. Uttering a bitter imprecation, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Draupadi as stake, who is neither short nor tall, neither spare nor corpulent, and who is possessed of blue curly locks, I will now play with thee. Possessed of eyes like the leaves of the autumn lotus, and fragrant also as the autumn lotus, equal in beauty unto her (Lakshmi) who delighteth in autumn lotuses, and unto Sree herself in symmetry ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... patch. A second followed suit—a third, a fourth. A great, raw-boned fellow from some mountain clearing jerked at the lacing of his shoes and in a moment was marching barefoot, the offending leather swinging from his arm. To right and left he found imitators. A corpulent man, a merchant used to a big chair set in the shady front of a village store, suffered greatly, pale about the lips, and with his breath coming in wheezing gasps. His overcoat went first, then his roll of blanket. Finally he gazed a moment, sorrowfully ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... asparagus which seems to have disappeared from England, but of which Herrick boasts in his manifestations of frugality—and strawberries much less than half-way from the small and darkling ones of the woods to the pale and corpulent of the gardens, and with nothing of the wild fragrance lost—these are all Italian things of savage savour and simplicity. The most cultivated of all countries, the Italy of tillage, is yet not a garden, but something better, as her city is yet not a town but something better, and her wilderness ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish as one man. Such was the shrine of St. Kieran, the whole treasures of which the satellites of that corpulent tyrant turned out into the street, pillaged the sacred church of Clonmacnoise, scattered the holy nonsense of the priests to the winds, and burnt the real and venerable crosier of St. Patrick, fresh from the silversmith's shop, and formed of the most costly materials. Modern princes change ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... personage was the first lieutenant, whom Nature had pleased to fashion in another mould. He was as tall as the captain was short—as thin as his superior was corpulent. His long, lanky legs were nearly up to the captain's shoulders; and he bowed down over the head of his superior, as if he were the crane to hoist up, and the captain the bale of goods to be hoisted. He carried his hands behind his back, with two fingers twisted together; and his chief ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... tumultuous riot of inquiry, when underwriters had climbed over desks and each other to hear again of the wreck of the Titan, one—the noisiest of all, a corpulent, hook-nosed man with flashing black eyes—had broken away from the crowd and made his way to the Captain's room, where, after a draught of brandy, he had seated himself heavily, with a groan that came from ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... question is settled down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of Battle-bridge, his distinguishing characteristics being a decided antipathy to washing himself, and the possession of a pair of legs very inadequate to the support of his unwieldy and corpulent body. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... silky-haired, and sharp-nosed, and without your refined expression of keenness without cunning. And after these canine noblemen of the old regime, whither has vanished the countless rabble of mongrels, curs, and pariah dogs; and last of all—being more degenerate—the corpulent, blear-eyed, wheezy pet dogs of a hundred breeds? They are all dead, no doubt: they have been dead so long that I daresay nature extracted all the valuable salts that were contained in their flesh and bones thousands of years ago, and used it for better things—raindrops, froth of the ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... hairdresser himself, that he and his family sat in armchairs, and in cool undresses, on the pavement outside, enjoying the gratification of the passers-by, with lazy dignity. The family had retired to rest when we went to bed, at midnight; but the hairdresser (a corpulent man, in drab slippers) was still sitting there, with his legs stretched out before him, and evidently couldn't bear to have the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... surgeon, but a regular M.D., and with an English diploma. He could appreciate, as much as any man, the value of life; and hard indeed did he struggle to preserve the means of prolonging it. He was a short, round, and very corpulent person, with a monstrously large and pleasantly-looking face, with a very high colour—a colour not the flush of intemperance, but the glow of genuine health. This vast physiognomy was dug all over with holes; not merely pock-marks, but pock-pits. Indeed, his countenance ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... half an hour later a dray drove up to the house with the name of the plant itself. In the summer it required very little care, and in the winter I would cover the little thing up with its name, and it would be safe till spring. One evening we had a free-for-all musicale at my house, and a corpulent friend of mine tried to climb it, and it died. (Tried to climb the plant, not the musicale.) The plant yielded to the severe climb it. This joke now makes its debut for the first time before the world. Anyone ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... bodies! They had enormous stomachs, some of which actually seemed to be artificial. The doctor surprised his companions by informing them that this was the way to pay court to the sultan. The rotundity of the stomach indicated the ambition of its possessor. These corpulent gentry gesticulated and bawled at the top of their voices—one of them particularly distinguishing himself above the rest—to such an extent, indeed, that he must have been a prime minister—at least, if the disturbance he made was any ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... advice of taking this journy. To be short, the Cousins travell together, and Master Coldenough came home so lusty, fat and plump, that all his acquaintance, and especially his hungry wife, admired mightily that he was so fat and corpulent. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... it is good to be alive; more time to go fishing—not fishing for men, but for sure—enough suckers. Here in America if the average mortal aspires to fill a long-felt want with first-class fodder, he's got to chase the almighty dollar on week-days like a hungry coyote camping on the trail of a corpulent jack-rabbit, and spend Sunday figuring how to circumvent his fellow-citizen. Life with the American people is one continental hurry, and rush from the cradle to the grave. We're born in a hurry, live by electricity and die with scientific expedition. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... goodly, portly man, i's faith, and a corpulent: of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by'r lady, inclining ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... support him on the little staircase which led from his cabinet to the corridor. He frequently used to say at this time, "I fear that when I am forty I shall become a great eater: I have a foreboding that I shall grow very corpulent." This fear of obesity, though it annoyed him very much, did not appear to have the least foundation, judging from his habitual temperance and spare habit of body. He asked me who was my physician. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... clubs, bills, or partisans, but a good-looking young woman, with grogram petticoats, tucked up for trudging through the streets, and holding a lantern in her hand. This female ushered in a more important personage, in form, stout, short, and somewhat corpulent; and by dignity, as it soon appeared, a magistrate, bob-wigged, bustling, and breathless with peevish impatience. My conductor, at his appearance, drew back as if to escape observation; but he could not elude the penetrating twinkle with ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a word could be heard in court. Williams got to his coach amidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose curiosity was ungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and indecency of coming to Westminster in order to hear the decision. He was recognised by his sacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, and was hooted through the hall. "Take care," said one, "of the wolf in sheep's clothing." "Make room," cried another, "for the man with the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... only a more or less complete store of honey. Others are hermetically sealed with an earthen lid. The contents of these latter vary greatly. Sometimes we find the larva of a Bee which has finished its mess or is on the point of finishing it; sometimes a larva, white like the first, but more corpulent and of a different shape; at other times honey with an egg floating on the surface. The honey is liquid and sticky, with a brownish colour and a very strong, repulsive smell. The egg is of a beautiful white, cylindrical in shape, slightly curved into an arc, a fifth or a sixth of ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... had its expression—a step in advance or retreat, a wink, a smile, a nod, expressed more in his action, than the greatest talker could explain in words in the course of an hour. He was, says another contemporary, neither corpulent nor otherwise, rather above the middle size, with a noble carriage and well-formed limbs; he walked with dignity, had a very serious aspect, the nose and mouth rather large, with full lips, a dark complexion, the eyebrows black and strongly marked, and a command of countenance ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... the shadow of this forest deep, Into the rock there runs a grotto wide. Here widely wandering, ivy-suckers creep, About the cavern's entrance multiplied. Harboured within this grot lies heavy Sleep, Ease, corpulent and gross, upon this side, Upon that, Sloth, on earth has made her seat; Who cannot go, and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... costumer, and was called "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." Large, portly men with whiskers wore purple velvet opera-cloaks trimmed with fur, and Gainsborough hats with ostrich feathers worth four pounds apiece (sterling). These corpulent warriors, who at Calais shortly before had run till overtaken by nervous prostration and general debility, now wore more millinery and breastpins and slashed velvet and satin facings and tinsel ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... himself a natural adept at the business. The last barber I saw in Holloway Gaol was a coachman, whose only qualification for the work was that he had clipped horses' legs. He wore a blue apron round a corpulent waist, and looked remarkably like a pork-butcher. He walked round the victim like an artist engaged on a bust, and his habit was to work steadily away at one spot until the skin showed like a piece of white plaster, after which he ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... was put in the post of honour, which is always fought for with much acrimony—viz., the right of Mrs ——. After dinner we had numerous songs. Both the General and his nephew sang; so also did Captain Alston, whose corpulent frame, however, was too much for the feeble camp-stool, which caused his sudden disappearance in the midst of a song with a loud crash. Captain Dwyer played the fiddle very well, and an aged and slightly-elevated militia general brewed the punch and made several ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... years of age, who had been addicted to an immoderate use of fermented liquors, and had been very corpulent, gradually lost his strength and flesh, had great difficulty of breathing, with legs somewhat swelled, and a very irregular pulse. He was very much distressed at first lying down, and at first rising from ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... construction and furnishing, and the inhabitants live largely upon tinned and potted viands and such light cooking as comes within the possibilities of oil-stoves and fires of fagots on the banks. Still others—and we often saw their lordly and corpulent owners reading the "Times" upon the handkerchief space which serves for porch or piazza before their front doors—move up and down the river from crack hotel to cracker, taking no note of picturesque ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... them at this moment, and Dr. Ashton went in search of host and hostess. Arthur caught sight of his tall figure, and made a sign at once of recognition and summons. Struggling between a young Episcopal clergyman and a corpulent old lady, Dr. Ashton made his way with difficulty to the spot where his friend ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... plains, and hunted the buffaloes; dressed well; were cleanly; rich in horses; bold, independent, and good warriors. The War-are-ree-kas lived chiefly by fishing, and were found on the banks of the rivers and lakes throughout the country. They were more corpulent, slovenly, and indolent than the Shirry-dikas, and more peaceful. The Banattees, as we have before mentioned, were the robbers of the mountains. They were a wild and contemptible race, and at enmity with ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... Jackson Democratic Representative in the days of the contest between "Old Hickory" and "Biddle's Bank." He was a type of a gentleman of the old school, and he recalled Washington Irving's picture of the master of Bracebridge Hall. The bluff and hearty manner, the corpulent person, and the open countenance of the General, his dress of the aristocratic blue and buff, and his gold- headed cane, all tallied with the descriptions of the English country gentleman of the olden ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... about sixty years of age, short, rotund, corpulent. His head was bullet-shaped and set well down on his shoulders. His clothes were baggy and threadbare, his linen soiled and shabby. He had blue eyes, harsh red hair, and a florid complexion. When he arrived, he brought three valises. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... before the burnished shrine of Tchai. A little saint in the corner presides especially over this department. The devout Russians take off their hats and make a profound salam to this accommodating little patron, whose corpulent stomach and smiling countenance betoken an appreciation of all the good things of life. Now observe how these wonderful Russians—the strangest and most incomprehensible of beings—cool themselves this sweltering hot day. Each stalwart son of the North calls for a portion of tchai, not ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Lindenwald, the honor of entertaining the nation's notables, many of them introduced by Van Buren. Such names as Henry Clay, Washington Irving, Thomas H. Benton, David Wilmot and Charles Sumner head the list. David Wilmot was a notably corpulent gentleman; his introduction by Van Buren to the lady of the house is said to have been put thus wise: "Mrs. Beekman, you have heard of the Wilmot Proviso—Here he ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... Captain. I wonder how the English ever attain to any conception of a future existence, since they so overburden themselves with earth and mortality in their ideas of funerals. A drive with an undertaker, in a sable-plumed coach!—talking about graves!—and yet he was a jolly old fellow, wonderfully corpulent, with a smile breaking out easily all over his face,—although, once in a while, he ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and the uneven street beyond, we gave thanks to the Baptist missionary, who is credited with making an old baby carriage into the first rickshaw, for the convenience of his sick wife. When we saw the little brown men actually run away with our most corpulent representatives, without any apparent effort, we forgot all about "Man's inhumanity to man" and no baby ever enjoyed its first perambulator outing more ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... hollyhocks And marigolds and pinks and phlox Blends with the homely garden scents Of onions, silvering into rods; Of peppers, scarlet with their pods; And (rose of all the esculents) Of broad plebeian cabbages, Breathing content and corpulent ease. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... He advanced with a dignified step, leading by the hand his son, who was not yet three years old. It was long since I had seen him. He had grown very corpulent, and I remarked on his pale countenance an ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... had been poring for a few minutes upon the ground by advantage of his torch, now looked upwards and spoke. He was a brisk, forward, rather corpulent little man, called Oliver Proudfute, reasonably wealthy, and a leading man in his craft, which was that of bonnet makers; he, therefore, spoke ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the Russian pianist, a short, corpulent man, with an apoplectic face and purplish skin, his thick, iron-gray hair tossed back from his forehead. Next to the German giantess sat the Italian tenor—the tiniest of men—pale, with soft, light hair, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... Spectacled the limpid eye, Little will be left of me, In the coming by-and-by! Fading is the taper waist - Shapeless grows the shapely limb, And although securely laced, Spreading is the figure trim! Stouter than I used to be, Still more corpulent grow I - There will be too much of ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... half his stock behind him. By six o'clock, the lords and ladies of Our Terrace are congregated round their tea-urns; and by seven, you may see from one of the back-windows a tolerable number of the lords, arrayed in dressing-gowns and slippers, and some of them with corpulent meerschaums dangling from their mouths, strolling leisurely in the gardens in the rear of their dwellings, and amusing themselves with their children, whose prattling voices and innocent laughter mingle with the twittering of those ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... His second wife was the daughter of a nobleman's steward, who had a considerable fortune, which she took care to retain in her own hands. His stature was diminutive, but he was regularly formed; his appearance, till he grew corpulent, was agreeable, and he suffered it to want no recommendation that dress could give it. His conversation was elegant and easy. The rest of his character may, without injury to his memory, sink into silence. As a writer, he cannot be placed in any high class. There is no species of composition in ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... feel better now that you are more corpulent? I have heard it said that addition to the body is subtraction from the brain. Do you think ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... man of national reputation, but I hardly cared for that, since he was the pleasantest companion I had ever met. I found myself gossiping to him about our village worthies, making him laugh heartily at their sayings passed into tradition and fable among us boys; for our one-eyed shoemaker and our corpulent grocer, like many other country wits to fortune and to fame unknown, surpassed either Douglas Jerrold or Sydney Smith in quip and drollery. And I did not omit George Lenox, for all Belfield except his wife was in the secret of his affairs, and they were our crowning joke, in which poor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... us. He had heard much of my friend Swainson, and greeted him as he deserves to be greeted; he was polite and kind to me, though my name had never made its way to his ears. I looked at him and here follows the result: Age about sixty-five; size corpulent, five feet five English measure; head large, face wrinkled and brownish; eyes grey, brilliant and sparkling; nose aquiline, large and red; mouth large with good lips; teeth few, blunted by age, excepting one on the lower ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... the kitchen, summoned all the servants to his presence, to whom he related the whole story from beginning to end, and proposed that they should drench him with water when he made his appearance under the window. But there happened to be among them a corpulent lady called Betty Devine, who entered a plea of objection to that mode of proceeding on the ground of "waste of water;" that in Edinburgh, where she had served for seven years, they wouldn't think of such waste; and that, if the young master ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... and were harsh enough to make it extremely unpleasant for the dear creatures who were undergoing so much to cast their maiden vote. To add to the delay the Hon. Nathaniel White had planted his somewhat corpulent form directly in front of the ballot-box and stayed the surging tide to shake hands with every woman that voted. Having voted, the men were only too glad to leave the crowded hall and let the anxious crowd rush in. The vote ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... house of Mars, 'and also his joy.' Its natives are strong, corpulent, and robust, with large bones, 'dark curly hair and eyes' (presumably the eyes dark only, not curly), middle stature, dusky complexion, active bodies; they are usually reserved in speech. It governs the region of the groin, and reigns over Judaea, Mauritania, Catalonia, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... and preparing to take his departure. And now Betty discovered, on seeing him more closely, that he was not a humble-bee at all, but just a very corpulent old gentleman dressed in quite an antique fashion, with black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, black patent-leather pumps with large buckles, a most elaborate black velvet waistcoat with yellow and orange ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... gang to the piper danced, Of tatterdemalions all, Till the corpulent butler drove them off Beyond the manor wall. The raggedy piper shook his fist: 'A minstrel's curse on thee, Thou lubberly, duck-legg'd son of a gun, For ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... I looked hard at others I often found them to be very familiar to me, whether from paintings or from mere description. Thus between the first two speakers, who had betrayed themselves as Defoe and Smollett, there sat a dark, saturnine corpulent old man, with harsh prominent features, who I was sure could be none other than the famous author of Gulliver. There were several others of whom I was not so sure, sitting at the other side of the table, but I conjecture that both Fielding and Richardson were among them, and I could swear ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to draw Miss Bonham aside, and her voice, although pitched in a low key, was unusually penetrating. At the same moment the entire party shifted positions to make room for some new arrivals in the waiting-room, and Betty was jostled so that she was obliged to dodge a corpulent woman with a carpet-bag and a lunch-basket. When she recovered her balance she found herself out of range of Doctor Bradford's voice, but almost touching elbows with ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... be full of people, I saw now quite clearly, although just before the whole world had seemed to be dark. I saw our two soldiers standing back by the door; a doctor, whose face I did not know, a very corpulent man, was on his knees on the floor—some sanitars were in a group by the window. In the middle of the room lay Marie Ivanovna on a stretcher. Even as I entered the stout doctor rose, shaking his head. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... zone of female misery and degradation, there was a belt of masculine stupidity and crime; men with corpulent bodies, bull necks, double chins, pile-driving heads; men of shrunken frames, cadaverous cheeks, deep-set and beady eyes—vermin-covered, disease-devoured, hope-deserted. They clung around him, these concentric circles of humanity, like rings around ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the fat figure clad in broadly checked tweed knickerbockers and a rakish cap to match, like the mad tourists who sometimes strayed our way. 'Twas this complacent, benevolent Deity that she made haste to interrogate in my behalf, unabashed by the spats and binocular, the corpulent plaid stockings and cigar, which completed his attire. She spread her feet, in the way she had at such times; and she shut her eyes, and she set her teeth, and she clinched her hands, and thus silently began to wrestle for the answer, her face ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... who have been prepared for a queer volume, will not be disappointed in the diary of our choleric and corpulent colonel. If ever the assurance, which seems to be regarded as indispensable in the preface to works of this class, that the author "wrote the following pages purely for his own amusement," bore the stamp of unequivocal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... colonizationist, I insist upon being consistent: there must be no disagreement between my creed and practice. I must be able to give a reason why all our tall citizens should not conspire to remove their more diminutive brethren, and all the corpulent to remove the lean and lank, and all the strong to remove the weak, and all the educated to remove the ignorant, and all the rich to remove the poor, as readily as for the removal of those whose skin is 'not ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... in with such precipitancy that, hitching his boot in the carpet, and getting his sword between his legs, he came down headlong, and presented a curious little bald place on the crown of his head to the eyes of the astonished company. Nor was this the worst of it; for being rather corpulent and very tight, the general being down, could not get up again, but lay there writing and doing such things with his boots, as there is no other ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... inducements, of the hand of Apocaucus' daughter in marriage. But when Gabalas urged the fulfilment of the promise, he was informed that the young lady and her mother had meantime taken a violent aversion to him on account of his corpulent figure. Thereupon Gabalas, like a true lover, had recourse to a method of banting recommended by an Italian quack. But the treatment failed to reduce the flesh of the unfortunate suitor; it only ruined ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... was cooking supper, and Casey wanted to tell him that he was slicing the bacon twice as thick as it should be. The corpulent man, whom he dimly remembered as a coroner, was talking with a big, burly individual whom Casey guessed was the sheriff. A man came in and announced to the big man that the car was fixed and they could go any time. Mart, who had been staring morosely down at his shackled wrists, lifted his head ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... Mr. Lidgett is a corpulent, excitable man with one eye. The boys describe him as stumbling into the room mouthing some of those tempered expletives irritable schoolmasters accustom themselves to use—lest worse befall. "Wretched mumchancer!" he said. "Where's Mr. Plattner?" ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... was long troubled with a malignant ulcer under the nose. He was injudiciously advised to get rid of it by the use of extract of lead, which proved effectual; but from that time the Dauphin, who was corpulent, insensibly grew thin, and a short, dry cough evinced that the humour, driven in, had fallen on the lungs. Some persons also suspected him of having taken acids in too great a quantity for the purpose of reducing his bulk. The state of his health was not, however, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... they said—I didn't believe it, but they said that you were going to desert the camp, and prance about with corpulent R.A.'s ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they locked and bolted doors? Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... We were deep in our straw and lights had been out for a long time. I couldn't sleep, and as I lay awake I could hear corpulent Z—— snoring in the corner. Outside a wind was whistling mournfully and sweeping through the joists of the roof where the red tiles had been shattered by shrapnel. There was something (p. 132) melancholy and superbly grand ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Whatever prevents the inirritability and insensibility of the system, that is, whatever prevents the approach of old age, will so far counteract the production of grey hairs, which is a symptom of it. For this purpose in people, who are not corpulent, and perhaps in those who are so, the warm bath twice or thrice a week is particularly serviceable. See Sect. XXXIX. 5. 1. on the colours of animals, and ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... sing his song whose bread he had eaten. A "fat militia captain" of the place, one Soyssons, on the other hand, privately informed Willoughby that Maurice and Barneveld were treating underhand with Spain. Willoughby was inclined to believe the calumny, but feared that his corpulent friend would lose his head for reporting it. Meantime the English commander did his best to strengthen the English party in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... so-called "Kitchener" army of a million men ought to have for us a military value of at least three millions as against the Germans—the more so since their best first-line troops have already been used up, and replaced with beardless boys and most corpulent greybeards. This is not a fanciful description; it corresponds with the reports sent home by "Eye-Witness" at Headquarters and other reliable observers; while there is an absolute consensus of statement ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... from one to another. The fatigues of war, especially the forced march of the last days, were very apparent in their persons. Some were tall and slender with an angular slimness; others were stocky and corpulent with short neck and head sunk between the shoulders. These had lost much of their fat in a month's campaign, the wrinkled and flabby skin hanging in folds in various parts of their bodies. All had shaved heads, the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of the "Burton Arms," was of some five and fifty—"or by'r lady," three score years, of a rubicund and hale complexion; and though her short neck and corpulent figure might have set her down as "doubly hazardous," she looked a good life for many years to come. In height and breadth she most nearly resembled a sugar-hogshead, whose rolling, pitching motion, when trundled along on edge, she emulated in ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... convulsed; having latterly lost the power of articulation, his meaning could not be comprehended. He was a native of Belfast, Ireland, and had no family. The survivors found it a difficult task to heave his body overboard, as he was a very corpulent man. ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous |
