"Crumpled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or was it three? She was standing at the window looking down the road toward the Saxon cottage and wondering if she wanted to go down and hunt for Billy when she saw Miss Saxon coming up the street and turning in at the gate, and her face looked wan and crumpled like an old rose that had been crushed and left on the parlor floor ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... the story of what happened. The trawler was sinking, but not quite fast enough, so we finished her off with a couple of lyddite shell on the waterline. In the meanwhile, as you probably know, for it was officially announced at the time, two destroyers had been in collision. The rammer crumpled her bows up a bit, but could still steam, but the ship rammed was rather badly damaged, and had to be taken in tow. It was in the middle of this operation that many hostile seaplanes, stirred up like a wasps' nest ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... how the Orchids have delighted me. They came safe, but box rather smashed; cylindrical old cocoa- or snuff-canister much safer. I enclose postage. As an account of the movement, I shall allude to what I suppose is Oncidium, to make CERTAIN,—is the enclosed flower with crumpled petals this genus? Also I most specially want to know what the enclosed little globular brown Orchid is. I have only seen pollen of a Cattleya on a bee, but surely have you not unintentionally sent me what I wanted ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... left M. Pigeonneau to his international comparisons. Among other things, I went in the course of the morning to the banker's, to draw money for my journey, and there I found Mr. Ruck, with a pile of crumpled letters in his lap, his chair tipped back, and his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that he had got better news from home; whereupon he gave me a look in which, considering his provocation, ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... his eyes upon a broken wall, a crumpled motor car, and an undamaged motor cyclist in the aviator's cap and thin oilskin overalls dear to motor cyclists. Mr. Direck stared and then, still stunned and puzzled, tried to raise himself. He ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... behind, covering the saddle and donkey's back in large folds; for most things in Corea, as in other parts of the world, are done for the sake of appearance. What a dreadful thing it would be, were he to ride about with his gown crumpled up under his seat! It would be the cause of lifelong unhappiness, remorse and shame, and no doubt cost his servants a sound flogging ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... see no reason why it shouldn't be," answered the other, glancing down again at the crumpled paper he held, and which the old Moqui was regarding with the greatest of pride on his ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... and to evil; that it was exceedingly useful to poets, who often touched him, and to actors, who did not; but in real every-day life he had rarely, if ever, seen it. The people with whom he associated were rich, well born, well trained; a crumpled rose leaf here and there was the worst trouble in their easy, conventional, luxurious lives. Of course he had met men on the road to ruin who swore and drank and gambled and generally disgraced themselves. Such cases, however, did not affect him much; he only touched such characters ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... its sombre foliage. There were neither birds nor insects, and the only travellers we encountered in the solitude compelled us to give them a wide berth, for they were a drove of half wild random cattle, led by a lean bull of hideous aspect, with crumpled horns. Two picturesque native vaccheros on mules accompanied them, and my flagging spirits were raised by their news that the volcano was quite active. The owner of these cattle knows that he has 10,000 head, and may have a great many ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... were held in the ballroom of the Allen House. In an anteroom was the office of the chairman of the executive committee. He was the busiest man in the convention; he was so busy that he got nothing done whatever. He sat at a marquetry table, in a room littered with crumpled paper and, all day long, town-boosters and lobbyists and orators who wished to lead debates came and whispered to him, whereupon he looked vague, and said rapidly, "Yes, yes, that's a fine idea; we'll do that," and instantly ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Guard, had beaten back German patrols from the place. Had the British now landed an army at Ostend, Von Kluck, between the Belgian and British forces, would have been in serious danger of annihilation. With the German right wing thus crumpled, the whole of their offensive would have broken down. But the British did not come, and so the Belgians were left to fight it out single handed. This fighting went on for three weeks, with accurate details lacking. Mainly it was upon the line Aerschot-Dyle Valley-Termonde, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... from you!' she exclaimed, rising and confronting me with the utmost suddenness, while her eyes flashed, and her little hand crumpled the mask beyond future usefulness. 'It was taken from you, sir!' she repeated, her voice and her whole frame trembling with anger and disdain. 'Then I thank you, I prefer my version. Yours is impossible. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... chair, doubling it up like crumpled paper, hurling me headlong, not to the floor of the cage, but straight through the sliding-bars which Speed had just flung open with a shout. As for me, I landed violently on my back in the sawdust, the breath knocked clean ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... strange sound. At first the farmer thought it the moaning of a trapped animal. Holding the lantern overhead he stumbled on a few yards to find Chester Fugate in a pool of blood that stained the snow all about the crumpled figure. Bleeding profusely from thirteen gunshot wounds, Chester survived long enough to give the names of at least six ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... powerful, brutal, and unexpected, throws him into convulsions. Audacity—boldness of all kinds—repels him. This Athenian of the Roman time is a true disciple of Epicurus in all matters of sight, hearing, and intelligence—a crumpled rose-leaf disturbs him. ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... equipped himself with stationery, and selected a new point for a pen. Half a dozen times he made a start and as often threw a crumpled sheet into the waste-paper basket. It took him nearly an hour to compose an epistle that suited him. What he had finally to content ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... all, indeed, lay in their crumpled paper poor Dora's fatal gifts, treasured, no doubt, as probably her last; and there, in a deep leathern pocket, was another little parcel with Viola's crystal cross, which her mother had made her return. She might have ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... untidy supper-table with the misshapen figure of Elia sitting on the far side of it, calmly devouring his evening meal. The rest of the room was shadowy, except where the light from the cook-stove threw its lurid rays upon the white face and crumpled figure of Eve lying close beside it upon the floor. Her eyes were closed, and a great wound upon her forehead, with blood oozing slowly from it, suggested death ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Apache lay. They moved as noiselessly as shadows until they stood directly by the inanimate form. Then, while Tom Hardynge began adjusting his outer garments, Dick Morris stooped over and drew forth the blanket which was crumpled ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... entrusted Mrs. Schomberg with a message for Davidson—a few lines in pencil on a scrap of crumpled paper. It was to the effect: that an unforeseen necessity was driving him away before the appointed time. He begged Davidson's indulgence for the apparent discourtesy. The woman of the house—meaning Mrs. Schomberg—would ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... into Casey's saloon wan starry July avenin' an' staggered into his familyar seat, holdin' in his hand a bit iv soiled paper which he tore into fragmints an' hurled into th' coal scuttle. On that crumpled parchmint findin' a sombre grave among th' disinterred relics iv an age long past, to wit, th' cariboniferious or coal age, was written th' iver-mim'rable pome: "Ode to Gin." Our frind had scribbled it hastily at th' dinner iv th' Betther-thin-Shakespere ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... sandals, and sped away from Pieria. One man alone saw him, a very old man, who was working in his vineyard on the sunny plain of Onchestos. To him Hermes went quickly, and said, "Old man, thou wilt have plenty of wine when these roots come all into bearing trim. Meanwhile keep a wise head on thy crumpled shoulders, and take heed not to remember more than may ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... meant for it, too, and, by now, there would have been children in the old house, pattering back and forth upon the stairs, lisping words that meant no more than the bubbling of a fountain, and stretching up tiny hands that looked like crumpled rose-petals, pleading to be taken up ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the hall, Loo Motlamelle crouched over a uniformed, crumpled body. He looked up at Hank Kuran's approach, startled, a fighting man at bay. His lips thinned back over his teeth. A black thumb did something to the weapon he ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... I got on me," said Tex ruefully, as he smoothed out three or four crumpled bills and capped the pile ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... distressing," she said when he got round to her, and for a time she could tell him nothing more. She was having tea and she gave him some. She fussed about with cream and cakes and biscuits. He noted a crumpled letter thrust under the edge ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... in a few broken words, he thanked Miss Herbey and myself for the kindness we had shown him. A crumpled letter fell from his hand, and in a voice that was scarcely audible from ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... I could only have done something simple like that!" the defeated, unsatisfied artist soul within her cried. "That free, arrested stride, how splendid! and the hat crumpled in his hand, and his bare head and strong brows in the sunlight, and the damp points of hair clinging to his temples! No, he is not bald,—that was only a tonsure of white light on the top of his head; still, he must be hard on forty. It is the end of summer with him, too; and ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish, as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the matter of wine, persisted in declining ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... It made one dizzy. He crumpled dresses a good deal, and he had no particular plan about the work—at first—except to put each article into the trunk it didn't belong in. But he soon reformed, in this matter. Not entirely; for, to the last, he would cram into the satchel sacred to literature ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the crumbled wall and climbed 'round. There I found Tonnison standing within a small excavation that he had made among the debris: he was brushing the dirt from something that looked like a book, much crumpled and dilapidated; and opening his mouth, every second or two, to bellow my name. As soon as he saw that I had come, he handed his prize to me, telling me to put it into my satchel so as to protect it from the damp, while he continued his explorations. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... through the rain, which still fell thick and resonant, to reach a lavatory on the other side of the court. There were three basin-stands, and a few crumpled towels and pieces of wet soap, white and slippery like fish; nor should I forget a looking-glass and a pair of questionable combs. Another Scots lad was here, scrubbing his face with a good will. He had been three months in New ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the victory came north by telegraph. Then followed letters from correspondents, giving details of the battle, when, one morning, Helen Manly ran home in a glow of excitement, bringing a damp and crumpled newspaper. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... first night in prison, would come to the door of my cell, with his Irish humor and cordiality shining in his eyes. "Say, Mr. Hawthorne, there's a dividend been declared!" and out of some surreptitious receptacle he would produce three or four crumpled cigarette papers—of all contraband articles in the prison the most prized. "No—take 'em—I got no end ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... high. She did not seat herself in a decided, queenlike manner, and after sitting down pottered too much with her drapery, arranging her petticoats. That footstool was much too high! her knees were crumpled up, and her figure, short enough already, was foreshortened as she sat, and her drapery did not come to the edge of the stool: as my neighbour Miss Fitzhugh whispered, "Bad effect." However and nevertheless, the better half of her looked perfectly ladylike and queenlike; her head finely ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... grew more and more sobered and intelligent—a blankness overspread his face—his hands trembled, and finally, his apprehensions, whatever they might have been, having seemingly undergone full confirmation, he crumpled the villanous scrawl in his hands, and dashing it to the floor in a rage, roared out in quick succession volley after volley of invective and denunciation upon the thrice-blasted head of the pedler. The provocation must have been great, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... and was speeding away with it. He ran only for a few steps, however. An exposed root from one of the big maple trees that lined the sidewalk caught his foot; he tripped, was thrown violently forward, and fell sprawling on his face. He did not relax his hold on the paper, however. It was crumpled, but he held it tightly ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... streete about Charing Crosse walking, which I am glad to see and spoke to him about his mustering business, I being now to give an account how the several muster-masters have behaved themselves, and so home to dinner, where finding the cloth laid and much crumpled but clean, I grew angry and flung the trenchers about the room, and in a mighty heat I was: so a clean cloth was laid, and my poor wife very patient, and so to dinner, and in comes Mrs. Barbara Sheldon, now Mrs. Wood, and dined with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... unremitting fire. The geography of the great Mole, with its railway line and its many buildings, hangars, and store-sheds, was already well known, and the demolition parties moved to their appointed work in perfect order. One after another the building burst into flame or split and crumpled ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... and almost silently to his assigned duty, it being that of an organ-grinder. He had picked up somewhere a villainous specimen of this instrument of torture, and with it had retired into a corner, wearing the ragged and faded clothes of an impecunious veteran of the wars, with his visorless, crumpled cap pulled over his eyes, and with a face which for unadulterated melancholy could not be duplicated. Hardly any one took notice of him, and his physiognomy grew sadder and sadder. At last, however, he left his organ ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... through the intervening door with a bound, and an instant later had burrowed under the crumpled papers. The shifting of the sun had left this corner of the repair shop in shadow, but I was scarcely outstretched in my hastily improvised hiding place, when I heard the blacksmith calmly open his outer door, where he stood ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... which comprised an alpaca coat with a crumpled tail, must have been the shabbiest he had, while the glistening new white sailor hat had probably been procured at the last moment in the vain imagination that, dress as he would, it was not evident at a first glance that he had had ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... out on the devoted heads of their opponents. They wiped out the stigma of the day before and paid their debt with interest. It was a "slaughter grim and great," and before their furious attack the scrub line crumpled up ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... his gloves, looked at the crumpled despatch lying under the lamp. He was, like most travellers, superstitious. Perhaps this despatch had arrived in the nick of time to prevent him from ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... of that crumpled ball of slatey-blue paper brought back to Robin's mind with astonishing vividness every detail of the scene in the library. Once more he looked into Hartley Parrish's staring, unseeing eyes, saw the firelight ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... voluptuous lips are drawn apart, Curving in fine repose, and maiden pride; Her creamy breast,—its mantle brushed aside Swells with the long pulsation of her heart: One languid arm rests on the coverlid, And one beneath the crumpled sheet is hid, (Ah happy sheets! to hide an arm so sweet!) Nor all concealed amid their folds of snow, The soft perfection of her shape below, Rounded and tapering to her little feet! Oh Love! if Beauty ever left her sphere, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... he drew breath, deep and slow through the nose; again the vague memory—again the elusive association. Was the scent—sweet as well as musty—was it in the curtain? But as he stooped, he saw what made him forget that vague odour: a crumpled bunch of the soft linen had been squeezed together, and was not yet recovered from the strain of some violent compression. Gently stretching the stuff, and bringing it closer to the light, he found the almost regular marks, above and below, as of some serrated, semi-trenchant ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... darkness had gone and the night light had been taken out into the hall. In the faint glow, he could see the objects in his room distinctly, during the brief intervals of wakefulness. A flower dropped from its vase, a book lying half open, a crumpled handkerchief upon his chiffonier, the pervading scent of attar of roses and dried petals—all these brought him a strange sense of nearness to Rose, as a perfume may be distilled from ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... brighten, and he twisted sideways to escape a heavy blow that Corrigan aimed at him. He only partially evaded it—it struck him glancingly, a little to the left of the chin, stunning him, and he fell awkwardly, his left arm doubling under him. The agonizing pain that shot through the arm as he crumpled to the floor told him that it had been broken at the wrist. A queer stupor came upon him, during which he neither felt nor saw. Dimly, he sensed that Corrigan was striking at him; with a sort of vague half-consciousness he felt that the blows were landing. But they did not hurt, and he laughed ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a little stir of consternation among the listeners; and it did not help matters that the man on horseback ambled up at the moment and drew rein behind the doctor's vehicle. Ford's hands were gripping the reins until the stiff leathers were crumpled into strings; but it was Alicia's touch on his arm that enabled him to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... clinched her hands. She felt as if she could spring at this other woman with her gentle murmurings and soft foldings, and shake her into her own meaning of life. If her impulse had had the power of deed, Elvira Gordon's little cap of fine needle-work would have been a fiercely crumpled rag upon her decorous head, her sober bands of gray hair would have streamed like the locks of a fury, the quiet clasp of her long fingers would have been stirred with some response of indignant defence if nothing else. Madelon, with ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of flame wafted over the surface of the sphere. Then it lashed out like a whip toward the trembling man. His entire body glowed like a torch, then crumpled to the floor in ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... further reduces the crumpled report to fragments and tosses them into wastebasket.]. I don't know how I managed to keep still as long as I did. I wanted ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... drain the rival egg, of which it occupied the top part, high up above the honey. The extermination soon becomes perceptible. You can see the Osmia's egg turning muddy, losing its brilliancy, becoming limp and wrinkled. In twenty-four hours, it is nothing but an empty sheath, a crumpled bit of skin. All competition is now removed; the parasite is the master of the house. The young grub, when demolishing the egg, was active enough: it explored the dangerous thing which had to be got rid of quickly, it raised its head to select and multiply the attacking-points. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... tell ye, did I? The doctor had this telegram yesterday, an' brought it over to me. Ye know he was here last night. Read it." And she pulled from her pocket a crumpled slip of paper. ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... doin', partner," he hissed in a disappointed tone, "thought I did get a little ruslin' sound, like paper bein' crumpled up when you're a'makin' a fire, but don't ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... morning she was aware that it was a most beautiful winter's day and that there was something strange in the air. There came to her then very slowly a sense of her father. She saw him on the one side, persistently as she had found him in his room, strange, shapeless, with a crumpled face and a dirty beard that seemed to be more dead than the rest of him. On the other side she saw him as she had found him in the first days of her ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... mobilized as infirmier. A good one too, and very tender and gentle with the patients. He comes from the ward next door, Salle II., and is giving extreme unction to the man in that bed, back of the red screens. Peek through the screens and you can see Henri, in his shirt sleeves, with a little, crumpled, purple stole around his neck. No, the patient has never regained consciousness since he's been here, but Henri says it's all right. He may be a Catholic. Better to take chances. It can't hurt him, anyway, if he isn't. ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... a row of large black portfolios on low supports, a sewing bag spilled its contents from a chair, a table bore a tin tobacco jar and the empty skin of a plantain. Then his gaze rested upon the floor, on a thin, inanimate body in crumpled alpaca trousers and dark jacket, with a peaked, congested face upturned toward the pale ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... a much wrinkled tough skin, too large for the included cotyledons; so that out of 30 peas which had been soaked for 24 h. and allowed to germinate on damp sand, the radicles of three were unable to escape, and were crumpled up in a strange manner within the skin; four other radicles were abruptly bent round the edges of the ruptured skin against which they had pressed. Such abnormalities would probably never, or very rarely, occur with forms developed ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... discovered in the field were tried next. A purse (containing a sovereign and a few shillings), a pipe, a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, and a little drinking-cup of horn were produced in succession. The next object, and the last, was found crumpled up carelessly in the breast-pocket of the coat. It was a written testimonial to character, dated and signed, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... tired of feasting his eyes upon that stately flower, shall begin to unfold the crumpled draperies of the great Mexican poppy, dotting the hillsides and the mesa with white, as far as the eye can reach. Meanwhile, the earth itself shall suddenly turn to pink, and a close look disclose a tiny, low-growing blossom, sweet as the morning, with the glow of the sunrise ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... opened his hand. In his palm was a soiled and crumpled scrap of tough, parchment-like paper about the size of an ordinary playing-card, so frayed and creased that one had difficulty in deciphering the writing on it. There clung to it a ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... in the greatest anguish of mind looked round him on every side, and at last, about twenty paces behind him, he perceived the blessed envelope. He pounced on it like a falcon on its prey. The envelope was certainly a little dusty, and rather crumpled, but at all events the letter itself was found again. D'Artagnan observed that the broken seal attracted the soldier's attention a good deal, but he finished apparently by consoling himself, and returned the letter to his belt. "Go on," said D'Artagnan, "I have plenty ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Nettley as Rufus held out the crumpled frills, — "It's to smooth them, — yes sir, my fire is all out a'most, but I can iron them in the oven. I'll do it ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... chance would have it, the morning post brought me an unexpected letter, which helped me not a little in unravelling the problem. It was a crumpled letter, written on rather soiled paper, in an uneducated hand, and it bore, like Hilda's, the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... surface. He says "how much he misses the comfort of his home!" too, and "what delight it will give him to be once more settled in his quiet room;" and he tells her to "take good care of puss for his sake;" and isn't that almost equal to a declaration? The old lady often draws a crumpled paper from her pocket, and carefully adjusting her spectacles upon her nose, goes over the manuscript with the forefinger of her right hand, stopping at "For my sake," and pondering the words very seriously. She doesn't know how it would ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... the three Germans within and the two British sailors spoke almost as one. One of the tars crumpled up in the doorway, while one of the Germans also threw up his hands ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... seat and fell to the ground dead. John's horse crumpled under him, dead also, but he himself was wounded only by a scratch across ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... instead, he devoted himself to the more congenial exercise of the whiplash of his tongue. And he was wise; for David, who was already nigh a head the taller of the two, and comely and strong in proportion, could, if he would, have taken his father in the hollow of his hand and crumpled him like a dry leaf. Moreover, with his tongue, at least, the little man enjoyed the noble pleasure of making the boy wince. And so the war was carried on none ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... hesitate. An expression of surprise came over his face. His body swayed; he took a single step forward, half turned, and then fell in a crumpled heap. ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... dilating with pleasure. The odor of varnish and turpentine had brought back some old memories—as perfumes do for us all. A crumpled glove, a bunch of withered roses, the salt breath of an outlying marsh, are often but so many fairy wands reviving comedies and tragedies on which the curtains of forgetfulness have been rung down these ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the insult shattered Bud Ellis's self-control. Prompted by blind fury, the great fist of the man shot out, hammer-like, and Clayton crumpled at his feet. It was a blow that would have felled the proverbial ox; it was the counterpart of many other blows, plus berserker rage, that had split pine boards for sheer joy in the ability to do so. These thoughts came sluggishly to the inflamed brain, and Ellis all at once dropped ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... me you had come from Orleans;" saying which he crumpled Manicamp's letter in his hand, and thrust it in ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... longing as I strove fitfully to wear away the stubborn strips of leather which held me in bondage. In a doze or dream the action went on. Startled, I awoke to find myself pommelling with inane savagery the poor crumpled body of the wallaby, and to the realisation that the imprisoned foot was ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... took the box and hastened away. I stood an instant, listening. Walter Butler was still singing. I cast my eyes about, picked up a half-written sheet I had discarded for fault of blots, crumpled it, and reached for a candle to burn it. But at that instant I heard the voices of the ladies on the landing below, so quickly opening my wainscot niche I thrust the dangerous paper within, closed the panel, and hastened away down-stairs to avoid ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... note from Rousselet, perused it with an expression of lively curiosity. When he had finished, he crumpled it in his hand, and said, without attempting to dissemble his vexation, "Always nothing but incoherent expression. Not two words together, from which you can draw any reasonable conclusion. One would really think this man had the power to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... appalling, while the excitement and fatigue she had endured, together with the action of the heat upon her chilled system, took her strength away, and into the chair where Morris had so often seen her in fancy, she sank a crumpled heap of cloaks and furs and bonnet, which Morris tried to remove so as to reach the limp, fainting creature which had said: "I am not Wilford's wife, for he had another before me—a wife ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... with a mirror, there was an alarum in unpolished bronze, together with two vases in brown porcelain. And on either side of the mirror hung all sorts of woman's trifles; here, a crumpled glove, there a small satin shoe; and, further, a little rusty iron key. Questioned as to the significance of this last article, the owner called it his talisman. There was also a diminutive framed picture exhibiting ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... and crumpled paper, so greasy from frequent handlings and so much worn by many foldings that the writing could scarcely be deciphered. Home? It was dated from the Union of Liverpool, and had come from his invalid wife and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... hand, which had been swallowed up in one of Mr. Crawford's, and which emerged rosy and crumpled, was proffered gallantly to the girl. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... said Queen Bee, holding up the parcel to Henrietta, who came out to the porch. "Let us look. O, they have vouchsafed a note!" and she took out a crumpled envelope, directed in Aunt Mary's handwriting to Fred, on the back of which Alex had written, "Dear B., we beg pardon, but Carey and Dick are going up to Andrews's about his terrier.—A. L." "Very cool, certainly!" said ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that I had my first experience of seeing death next to me. A soldier of my platoon, while digging in the trench, suddenly leaned back, began to cough like an old man, a little blood broke from his lips, and he crumpled together in a heap and lay quite still. I could not realize that this was the end, for his eyes were wide open and his face wore the stamp of complete serenity. Apparently he had not suffered at all. The ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... a moment that Nick stood hesitating. The next, obeying an impulse that he never stopped to question, he moved straight forward to Will's side; and then saw—what he had not at first seen—a piece of paper crumpled and gripped in one of ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the queen was lying in a flood, and the owls and bats, startled out of their holes, went flying past her in the dark, and frightening her out of her senses. When the morning came there was such a shivering, crumpled up queen sitting on the grass, that even her own ladies would ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... first glimpse of him. He was shorter than his older sons; a crumpled little man, with run-over boot heels, and he carried one shoulder higher than the other. But he moved very quickly, and there was an air of jaunty liveliness about him. He had a strong, ruddy color, thick black hair, a little grizzled, a curly mustache, and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... slip from beneath him, sitting down with greater force than grace, back supported against a gnarled juniper, loosening the clothes at his neck while using his other hand to ply his crumpled hat as ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... "Perhaps you can catch a handkerchief." He flicked a red silk handkerchief from his pocket, crumpled it into a ball and threw; but like the gloves it vanished. "Now where has ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... their purchases. Lloyd followed more slowly, and, dropping her packages on the floor by the radiator, stood trying to warm her fingers through her wet gloves. Presently, in the midst of the exhibition, with her hat still on, she flung herself across her bed, piled up as it was with strings and crumpled wrapping-paper. "Excuse me if I mash your bargains, Kitty," she said, weakly, closing her eyes. "But I'm as limp as a rag! So ti'ahed—I feel as if I were falling to pieces. We tramped around in the wet so long, and ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... silent, for which I was thankful, but the programme in my hand was crumpled into a little ball, and the figures upon the stage moved as though in a mist before my eyes. Isobel noticed nothing, for her whole breathless attention was riveted upon the play. I came to myself with the rich sweet voice of the man, so tender, so infinitely pathetic, ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boy," she commanded. Palmerston obeyed and stood blinking at her—alternately at her and at his handkerchief which he held tightly crumpled into a pad; ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crumpled the poor Touquet Charter in his fist, and flung it in the fire. The paper flashed up. Combeferre watched the masterpiece of Louis XVIII. burn philosophically, and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... As suddenly Thorpe seized both men, one in each hand, and brought their heads together with a crash which the barkeeper described afterwards as "splendiferous." With an amazing display of physical violence, he flung them apart, each falling in a crumpled heap ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... followed. We were soaked through in an instant, and I could feel the water running down my skin. We could scarcely see where to go or what to do; but we had bolted just in time. One end of the shelf-rock washed out like soap, and in crumpled the roof, as a mass of shale and mud! Up the gulch sounded a roaring—another, different roaring from the roaring of the rain and thunder. Fitz grabbed ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... Christmas eve, the most depressed and bored person in the length and breadth of New England. Satherwaite was not used to being depressed, and boredom was a state usually far remote from his experience; consequently, he took it worse. With something between a groan and a growl, he drew a crumpled telegram from his pocket. The telegram was at the bottom of it all. ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... glance over her shoulder, and gathering up her silk skirt, drew out, from the pocket beneath, the few crumpled pages, and passed them without a word to Danton. Lawford kept him plainly in view, as, lowering his great face, he slowly stooped, and holding the loose leaves with both fat hands between his knees, stared into the portrait. Then he truculently ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... judge by her laughter. The curtains stirred and again there was that underlying scent of tulips and hyacinths; and then, from the hall outside, came the muffled thud of a receiver falling to the floor. Adrian waited. The receiver was not picked up. He strode to the door. Crumpled up over the telephone was old ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... lost," Dr. Hosmer interrupted. "Mary Johnson found it and here it is." With which he drew the crumpled document from his breast pocket and laid it ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... towards her, but Lavretsky remained sitting on his willow. "I talk to her just as if life were not over for me," he thought. As she went away, Lisa hung her hat on a twig; with strange, almost tender emotion, Lavretsky looked at the hat, and its long rather crumpled ribbons. Lisa soon came back to him, and again took her stand ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... the old chief fumbled in his jacket, and pulled out a soiled and crumpled paper nearly worn in bits. Enough of it at least remained to show the searchers that when it was written the boys were all alive and well, and were ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... Naturally she hardly might be expected to see the conscienceless boss of Hancock and Greely counties, who handled the money of privilege seekers and bought and sold men gayly as a part of the day's work. Nor could she be expected to see the helpless little man whose face crumpled, whose heart sank and whose courage melted as he stood beside her in the garden, the sad, hopeless little man who, as he went down the hill was captain of the groups that walked under his hat that hour. The amiable Doctor, who was everybody's friend ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... did not know what she was doing, she caught the dispatch from his hand, and tore it open. "Well," she said, "I knew it. He hasn't been there; now I shall go to Wellwater." She crumpled the telegram nervously in her hand, and made a motion ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... drudgery, no more humiliations! Every trace of the old life melted away, every clue to identity buried and forgotten except this"—and she drew from her bosom a black ribbon and locket, and the object attached to it. It was a ring wrapped in an oblong piece of crumpled paper, partly written ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... tidal wave was apparent even above the noise of the auto. Then they saw the crest of the flood appear around the bend and the already heavily burdened waters dashed themselves upon the toll-bridge. It crumpled up and disappeared like a spider-web bridge, and the flood rolled on, the wave widening and overflowing the lowlands ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... apple blossoms in the spring? In the spring? And caught their subtle odours in the spring? Pink buds pouting at the light, Crumpled petals baby white Just to touch them a delight— ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the tree he looked at it with despair. It was indeed very smooth and high,—as smooth as glass, and when he tried his hunting knife upon it the knife bent and crumpled ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... an undertone, the Governor had the cheap, bluish-white envelope in his hand, and with a muttered "Excuse me" to his guests, had cut it across and was reading, with a face of astonishment, the paper that was enclosed. He crumpled it in his hand and threw ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... and frowned. He read it again, crumpled it up, and looked down at the long, slender form of the dead officer. Then, glancing round for Doe and me, and catching our eyes, as we watched him in curiosity, he handed the envelope to us. We smoothed out its crumpled folds, and read: "On His ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... and came forward with an expressive little fist and opening it laid a crumpled paper upon Miss Hill's desk. As Helen returned to her seat she met Bessy Bell's fiery glance and it ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... he could command he scrambled eagerly toward the rocks, carrying the crumpled jacket in his hand. Not once did she take her eyes from the breakers. Tired and faint, he at last came to the edge of the rocky pile. Here his strength failed him and he sank trembling with exhaustion upon the first friendly stone, still a hundred ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... could pay it. But the ruby brooch that had not yet arrived—what would that cost? She hurried to her accounts; she had let them run on for months unlooked at, but she thought she must know the principal articles of expense in dress by her actual possessions. There was a heap of little crumpled bills which, with Felicie's griffonage, Helen had thrown into her table-drawer. In vain did she attempt to decipher the figures, like apothecaries' marks, linked to quarters and three-quarters, and yards, of gauzes, silks, and muslins, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... out of his den, where he was filling a tooth. His spectacles were pushed up over his shaggy brows, and little particles of gold and of ground bone clung untidily to the folds of his crumpled linen jacket. His patients did not belong to the class that ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Thrusting the crumpled bit of paper into David's hand, her eyes steadfastly held against the impulse to look at the satiric figure in the doorway, she ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... body, and a Judge's patella is of more value than a dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This is a tremendous pull against the company, who not only give long, but actually incalculable odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can be crumpled up for two hundred pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in the coupe cannot be even concussed under a thousand; while if the noble Duke in the express carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... letter rapidly, read it again more carefully, and then turned with a perplexed face to a little telephone which stood upon his table. He summoned his manager, an untidy-looking person with crumpled hair and inkstained fingers which he seemed perpetually attempting ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... garden. Darius stood silent and apparently irresolute, with a mournful and even despairing face. He wore his best black suit, and a new silk hat and new black gloves, and in one hand he carried a copy of "The Signal" that was very crumpled. He ignored Edwin. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... threw up his hands with a yell and pitched out of the open door. His companion still kept his post, pumping shots at the prone figure. Twice more the muzzle of Silent's gun jerked up and the second man crumpled on the floor ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... all convinced of this—of brutality, that is, and the clear division between right and wrong. There was a sofa, chairs, a square table, and the window being open, one could see how they sat—legs issuing here, one there crumpled in a corner of the sofa; and, presumably, for you could not see him, somebody stood by the fender, talking. Anyhow, Jacob, who sat astride a chair and ate dates from a long box, burst out laughing. The answer came from the sofa corner; for his pipe was held in the air, then replaced. Jacob ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... FOOTLES, and handed him the letter. FOOTLES took it meditatively, and turned it over in both hands. The post-marks were illegible, and the envelope much crumpled. "Never mind," thought FOOTLES, to himself, "it will dry straight—it will dry straight." He always thought this twice, because it was one of his favourite phrases. At last he decided to open it. As he broke the seal a little cry was heard, and suddenly, before even EMILY ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... for me," muttered the young man, as he descried his own name among the marks left by dirt-stained paws and sharp little teeth. "Humph!" he ejaculated a moment later, eyeing the torn and crumpled sheet of paper which ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... world, it seems, is quite what we want it to be; we ourselves are not all that we could wish; and, whatever shape our summering takes, the crumpled rose-leaf is there to disturb our repose. The only people who have no crumpled rose-leaves under them are those who have no repose, but stay striving on amid the heat of the city while the prey of the crumpled rose-leaf is suffering among ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells |
