"Elbowing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he lowered his arms, I observed sundry hands descend quickly, and, as I thought, kindly, lest he should lose his hat, upon the crown of it, until it encased more of his head than could be deemed either fashionable or comfortable. Presently, however, he was again seen viciously elbowing and writhing his way back to me, which after immense exertions he performed, in the full receipt of numerous anathemas and jocular insults. As he neared me, I inquired what he had been doing; why he had left me for such a short, difficult, and unprofitable journey—which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... home he asked guests and made a feast, but the meat was to be boiled in the new pot, and so he took it up and set it in the middle of the floor. The guests thought the King had lost his wits, and went about elbowing one another, and laughing at him. But he walked round and round the pot and cackled and chattered, saying all in ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... wide-spreading irruptions from New-England. Word has been continually brought back to Communipaw, by those of the community who return from their trading voyages in cabbages and oysters, of the alarming power which the Yankees are gaining in the ancient city of New-Amsterdam; elbowing the genuine Knickerbockers out of all civic posts of honor and profit; bargaining them out of their hereditary homesteads; pulling down the venerable houses, with crow-step gables, which have stood since the time of the Dutch rule, and erecting, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... who had traveled through the Eastern and Northern States of America, asked me one day in Berlin, if it were really true that the male editors, lawyers, doctors and lecturers in the United States were contemplating a hegira, in consequence of the rough elbowing by the women, and if I could inform him at what age the New England girls generally commenced writing learned articles, and affixing LL.D., F.E.S., F.S.A., and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of discipleship yet more plainly put with loving, faithful plainness, that a characteristic incident happened.[49] A young man of gentle blood and breeding, and influential position, came eagerly, courteously elbowing his way through the crowd that gathered thick about. Our Lord had just risen from where He had been sitting teaching, when this young man, in his eagerness, came running to Him. With deep reverence of spirit he knelt down in the road, and began ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... it!" cried Marny, when we touched the sidewalk, elbowing our way among the crowd of loafers who always swarm about a place of this kind. (He was as much absorbed in the girl's future, when he heard her story, as I was.) "Aunt Chloe lives within two blocks of us—let's hunt her up. She ought to be at home ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... end soon after. To the delight of Melchitsedek Pinchas, Gideon, M.P., intervened at the eleventh hour, unceremoniously elbowing Simon Wolf out of his central position. A compromise was arranged and jubilance and tranquillity reigned for some months, till the corruptions of competitive human nature brought back the old state of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... He was, for the first time, his gay self again—at least on the surface. It was as though, knowing what he was going into, he would leave with Sara Lee no feeling, if he never returned, that she had inflicted a lasting hurt. He was everywhere in the little house, elbowing his way among the men with his cheery nonsense, bantering the weary ones until they smiled, carrying hot water for Sara Lee and helping her now and then with a ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mounting the scarp Napier and his men must have carried the inner breach. At the top we thronged to squeeze through the narrow entrance, for all the world like a crowd elbowing its way into a theatre: and as I pressed into the skirts of the throng it seemed to suck me in and choke me. My small ribs caved inwards as we were driven through by the weight of men behind. The pressure eased, and an explosion threw a dozen of us to earth between the fausse braye ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... undeceive them, that my visits to this temple of the people were expeditions of Haroun Al Raschid in the back streets of Bagdad or adventures of Prince Florizel in Rupert Street; but of a truth I have climbed the gallery stairs in sober boyish earnestness, elbowed of the gods, and elbowing, and if I did not yield to the seductions of "ginger-beer and Banbury" that filled up clamantly the entr'actes, 't was that I had not the coppers. "Guy Fawkes" was my first piece, in the days when the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... exhibition, swung to and fro in the uncertain light, like rows of attenuated pirates. At every corner was a great public-house with glittering windows, and a crowd of slatternly women and jersey-clad men elbowing each other at the door. At the largest and most imposing of these gin-palaces the mate and Dimsdale ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and distant time of his boyhood, six months before, he would have been wild with delight and enthusiasm. Now he jogged along with Gascoyne, gazing about him with calm interest at open shops and booths and tall, gabled houses; at the busy throng of merchants and craftsmen, jostling and elbowing one another; at townsfolk—men and dames—picking their way along the muddy kennel of a sidewalk. He had seen so much of the world that he had lost somewhat of interest in new things. So he did not care ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... had an odd feeling as if it were she who had made a mistake, not those groups of merry, hungry holiday-makers, who elbowed one another good naturedly, in order to find a seat at the crowded tables. Mrs. Stark wasn't used to elbowing or being elbowed, and she gathered her silken train in her hand to preserve it from contact with the oil-cloth covered floor of the lobby, while her face gathered ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... her to appear before the bar of the Assembly in reply to the accusations of Viard, informed him of their peril, and implored him to hand her letter to the president. The messenger, M. Roze, took the paper, and, elbowing his way through the throng, disappeared. An hour elapsed, which seemed an age. The tumult within continued unabated. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... elbowing his way among the throng that crowded the sidewalk, the scene in the garret the night he parted from Olivia took possession of him—the one scene in all their past relation on which he never allowed himself to dwell. He recalled the tones of her voice, the outline of her figure crouching ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... himself some time, for his long ride had made him very weary, he rose, and, changing his apparel, went to the Greyfriars church, where the clergy were assembling, and elbowing himself gently into the heart of the people waiting around for admission, he got in with the crowd when ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... M. Radisson, elbowing a saucy spark from the wall for the tenth time in as many paces. "Pardieu, you can't hear yourself think! Shut up to you!" he called to a bawling 'prentice dressed in white velvet waistcoat like a showman's dummy to exhibit the fashion. "Shut up ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... position thus held presently became known as the Clifton-Berryville line. While worthless for defence, it had the double advantage of covering the short roads to Washington through Snicker's Gap and Ashby's Gap, and of elbowing Early out of his favorite position at Bunker Hill, at the same time that by throwing back the right flank toward Clifton, Sheridan's road to Charlestown and Harper's Ferry was made safe. Early quietly let go his hold on the Baltimore ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... enormous pots of the cook-shops are only for the Christians. The children abounded; the law is not so stringent upon them, and many wandering merchants were there selling figs (in the name of the Prophet, doubtless) for their benefit, and elbowing onwards with baskets of grapes and cucumbers. Countrymen passed bristling over with arms, each with a huge bellyful of pistols and daggers in his girdle; fierce, but not the least dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, who had come in with the caravans, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... widow's open field; the rough, grassy margin of the creek suited him better, and its proximity to the murmuring, eddying, rocky current appealed to us all, albeit it necessitated our mess-tent being pitched astride a shallow gully, and our individual tents elbowing one another in the narrow spaces between the boulders. But wild Nature, when you can manage her, is what the camper-out wants. Pure elements—air, water, earth—these settle the question; Camp Horseshoe Run had them all. It was here, I think, that I got ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Lance so that he could land a blow. Lance, looking out across the crowd, caught Belle's glance and nodded toward the schoolhouse. Belle hurried away to find the musicians and set them playing, and a few couples strayed after her. But there were men who stayed, pushing, elbowing to see what would happen when Lance Lorrigan loosened his hold ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... reticent of speech and swift of action, light-hearted and altogether human. They were the adventurous and unfettered spirits of hundreds of communities whom the restrictions of respectable society had galled. Here they were, elbowing each other in a little corner of sagebrush country where there was little to do and much whiskey to drink; and the hand of the law was light and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... heavy basket, heaved it against his breast, and made his way down the long line of troughs. The sheep crowded about him, shoving and elbowing each other like so many human beings, callously and selfishly. His first basket did not go far, as he shovelled it in great handfuls into the troughs, and Kit came back for another. It was tiring work, and the day was dawning grey ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... so insistent I could not refuse, although as I glanced about I felt convinced there was no danger in this assemblage, not a familiar face meeting mine. At the instant Grant came up, elbowing his way through the press, and staring insolently into my eyes, even as he bowed politely to ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... watched hourly for the approaching fleet. Days passed and weeks passed, yet it did not appear. Meanwhile Vaudreuil held council after council to settle a plan of defence, They were strange scenes: a crowd of officers of every rank, mixed pell-mell in a small room, pushing, shouting, elbowing each other, interrupting each other; till Montcalm in despair, took each aside after the meeting was over, and made him give his ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... with the crowd and appeared to take a peculiar interest in the punishment about to be inflicted. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety kept the wearers of petticoats and farthingales from elbowing their way through the densest throngs to witness the executions. Those wives and maidens of English birth and breeding were morally and materially of coarser fibre than their fair descendants, who would swoon at the thought ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... thoroughly enjoying the balmy weather, the crowds, and the charm of it all. About four o'clock hundreds of government clerks streamed out sluggishly from the side streets. At the crossings fakirs were busy, their customers good-naturedly elbowing each other in their eagerness to be swindled. And violets everywhere! The air was filled with the scent of them. Men, women, and children with trays piled high with the tiny purple and white flowers were ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... President to be inaugurated in the newly built capital), dressed like any country gentleman, but, when he dismounted to take the oath, tethered his horse with his own hands. More really significant was the presence of the populace that elected him—the great heaving, unwashed crowd elbowing the dainty politicians in the very presence chamber. The President's inaugural address was full of a generous spirit of reconciliation. "We are all Republicans," he said, "we are all Federalists." Every ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... lacelike frill of foam. The bathing-machines too were being pulled up by horses, and along the planked way which formed the promenade running along the shore from end to end, there was now an increasing flow, slow and dense, of well-dressed people in two opposite streams elbowing and mingling. Pierre, made nervous and exasperated by this bustle, made his escape into the town, and went to get his breakfast at a modest tavern on the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... this afternoon, for Mr. Carlyle had just concluded his address from the Buck's Head, and the crowd who had been listening to him came rushing up to swell the ranks of the other crowd. They were elbowing, and pushing, and treading on each other's heels, when an open barouche drove suddenly up to scatter them. Its horses wore scarlet and purple rosettes; and one lady, a very pretty one, sat inside of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... individuality. Mix up a lot of pebbles together, and the result would be hardly affected by the order of the arrangement, but mix up a lot of people, and the result would be greatly affected by the fact of who is elbowing who. It seems the same among the mysterious atoms, as if some complemented or stimulated those next them, or had an opposite effect. But can we think of the atoms in a chemical compound as being next one ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... was, he told them nothing whatever about it. The better sort of men are given to these crablike ways of appearing to move away from what they intend to move towards. It simply seemed as though he were forgetting them a little—then, more and more; elbowing them aside to clear the way ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... should like a bun now," said Marion, and she took one herself and handed some to the rest of the party, who were pushing and elbowing their ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reception, an event properly festooned with smilax and properly jostled with the elbowing figures of waiters tilting their plates of dark-meat chicken salad, two olives, and a finger-roll in among the crowd, a stringed three-piece orchestra, faintly seen and still more faintly heard, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... court, sir," said one of the guards, elbowing his way through the passing crowd, and raising his hand to ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... hub about the hitch-racks of the Square were jammed buggies, surries, spring wagons and other country equipages. The court-room was packed an hour before the trial, and in the corridor were craning, straining, elbowing folk who had come too late. In the open windows—the court-room was on the ground floor—were the busts of eager citizens whose feet were pedestaled on boxes, the sale of which had been a harvest of small coin to neighbouring grocers; and in the trees without youths of simian habit ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... unhappy Braintop received an indication that he must depart. As he left the hall he brushed past the chief-clerk of his office, who soon appeared bowing and elbowing among the guests. "What a substitute for me!" thought Braintop bitterly; and in the belief that this old clerk would certainly go back that night, and might undertake his commission, he lingered near the band on the verge of the lawn. A touch at his elbow startled him. In the half-light he discerned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a meeting!—in the midst of men and women, elbowing, crowding, embracing, exclaiming, rejoicing, chaffing, weeping! It was an awkward state of things, but as every one else was in the same predicament, and as all were more or less swallowed up in their own affairs, Miles and his mother were fain to make the best ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... smaller towns and cities of America; "something besides the show places," she said. So they made visits ashore here and there, though not many. As they grew to feel more at home on the yacht, the more reluctant they were to spend their time on land. Why have dust and noise and elbowing people, when they might be cutting through the blue waters with the wind fresh in their faces? The weather was perfect; the thrall of the sea ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... orgies cast forth, the turn which characters have taken as they became abased, the trace of prostitution in souls of which their grossness rendered them capable, and on the vesture of the porters of Rome the mark of Messalina's elbowing. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... as the Countess was leaving the church, she saw a crowd of boys hustling and elbowing each other, and giving vent to peals of joyous laughter. When, seated in her carriage, she was able to overlook the throng, she discovered that the cause of this tumult was a poor cat to whose tail the little wretches ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... morale. I wish he might have seen how abysmally he failed to do it. Down our narrow valley, like a flight of arrows, the shells screamed and whistled. Where they struck, the ground looked like Resurrection Day with the dead elbowing their way into daylight and forcing back the earth from their eyes. There were actually many dead just beneath the surface and, as the ground was ploughed up, the smell of corruption became distinctly unpleasant. Presently the shells began to go dud; we realised that they were ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... wits to watch the money that was pushed under his little wicket and to make change without mistake. There was elbowing and contention and bad language, but the troublesome crowd was finally disposed of, and when the last of the line had left the ticket window the waiting-room was pretty well cleared. There remained only a black-bearded man half-asleep in a chair by the stove, and in one ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... officer had recovered himself, and was no longer listening. At this moment Rogojin appeared, elbowing through the crowd; he took Nastasia's hand, drew it through his arm, and quickly led her away. He appeared to be terribly excited; he was trembling all over, and was as pale as a corpse. As he carried Nastasia off, he ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clambered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a consideration also, for the interior of a ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... forgotten, in hearing good papa Haydn's music, that he lived in the fine old world when stately men and women went through life in the grand manner with a languid pulse, when the earth and the days were alike empty, and hurry to get finished and proceed to the next thing was almost unknown, and elbowing of rivals to get on almost unnecessary. For fifty years he worked away contentedly as bandmaster to Prince Esterhazy, composing the due amount of music, conducting the due number of concerts, taking his salary of some seventy odd pounds per annum ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Rooney, with a start, for in diving operations Life and Death frequently stand elbowing ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... a few minutes; and the two women went along, elbowing their way through the stream of fashionable people pouring out of Cardinal meadow, and being nearly ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... having to share it with a companion. A bed on the floor in a public sleeping-room! Think of that; a public sleeping-room!—men, women, and children, only divided by a paltry curtain. Oh, ye gods! think of the snoring, squalling, grumbling, puffing; think of the kicking, elbowing, and crowding; the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, with their infernal buzzing—and you will form some idea of the misery I endured the first night of my arrival in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... they charge to democracy. What its critics now affirm is that its preferences are inveterately for the inferior. So it was in the beginning, they say, and so it will be world without end. Vulgarity enthroned and institutionalized, elbowing everything superior from the highway, this, they tell us, is our irremediable destiny; and the picture-papers of the European continent are already drawing Uncle Sam with the hog instead of the eagle for his ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... lost in the wind, but Gregory, following her frightened glance, saw Robert Clinton elbowing his way through the crowd, forcing his progress bluntly, or jovially, according to the nature of obstruction. He did not see them and, by dodging, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the gathering dusk the possessor of that voice being raised hurriedly upon the shoulders of those who stood nearest him in the throng, and in that precarious position he remained for a few minutes haranguing the turbulent mass of people. Suddenly he sprang down, and, elbowing his way through the crowd, he entered the Cafe de l'Ecole, followed by as many as could squeeze themselves into the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... was right, Merrick had seen them. He was greatly amazed, for he had not dreamed of their being in that vicinity. He left his seat in a hurry, and, elbowing his way through the crowd, started for the entrance to the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... face! Why, sir, you make amends. Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go Drink out this quarter-florin to the health Of the munificent House that harbors me (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 30 And all's come square again. I'd like his face— His, elbowing on his comrade in the door With the pike and lantern—for the slave that holds John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... was just touching the topmost ridge of No Man's Mountains, stood the tall, grizzly-haired, dark-faced old-timer, Texas Joe; the heavy-shouldered, bull-necked Irish gladiator, Pat; and the lean, sinewy, iron-nerved man of the desert, Abe Lee; while quietly pushing and elbowing their way to the front were the men ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... side by side, Mercer and I started off. The people struggled back before our advance, striving to make a path for us. At times the press of those behind made it impossible for them to give us room. We did not hesitate, but shoved our way forward, elbowing them away roughly. ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... Elbowing our way through the crowd, we reached their side, and immediately called upon them to push their way towards the big doors; but before this man[oe]uvre could be executed, some one had given an order in Arabic, and we were all borne back against ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... street toward that delicious splash of green—like a verdant spray thrown up from some unseen river of trees. There is, in reality, no river of trees; it is only Christopher Street Triangle, elbowing Sheridan Square. Subway construction is going on around us, but there clings still an old-world feeling. Ah, here we are—59 Grove Street. It is a modest but a charming little red-brick house with a brass knocker and an air of unpretentious, small-scale prosperity. It has only been built ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... adventurer hesitated, with the sudden consciousness of one but newly embarked in such enterprises as that in which he had so recently enlisted, when he first saw these signs of commotion; nor did he determine to proceed until he caught a glimpse of his aged confederate, elbowing his way through the mass of bodies, with a perseverance and energy that promised to bring him right speedily into the very presence of her who uttered such loud and piercing plaints. Encouraged by this example, the young man advanced, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... who heard were some who, while they sat as though under a spell, nevertheless were resolved past conversion to stand by their king. Among them Rodney saw Squire Danesford elbowing his way through the door, his face purple with rage, and, once outside, he mounted his horse and rode away at a mad gallop, followed ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... hot tea. An oasis in the desert could not have been more welcome. We entered the large tent; it was very full, and a long line was patiently awaiting the turn for purchasing. There was no shouting, no pushing or elbowing to get up to the front and be served first. The tent was really and truly a haven of peace—such a welcome port of call. On the small tables were magazines and 'Blighty' newspapers, paper and envelopes were given for the asking, and ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... think its influence most pernicious. Men of real merit will, if they persevere, at last reach the station to which they are entitled, and intruders will be ejected with contempt and derision. But it is no small evil that the avenues to fame should be blocked up by a swarm of noisy, pushing, elbowing pretenders, who, though they will not ultimately be able to make good their own entrance, hinder, in the mean time, those who have a right to enter. All who will not disgrace themselves by joining ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of God is man in the image of his [1] Maker; the last infirmity of evil is so-called man, swayed by the maelstrom of human passions, elbowing the con- cepts of his own creating, making place for himself and displacing ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... remember our legs wedged into those uncomfortable sloping desks, where we sat elbowing each other; and the injunctions to attain a free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after, with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be apparent in this manuscript; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... our worldly-minded middie of river-boat memory and "Spring Chicken," his colleague; both talking very loud, and the latter exhibiting a bowie-knife half as long as himself. By considerable talk and more elbowing, we made our way to the boys; and, with the aid of a friendly stoker, got them both ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... as much in it as Maggie's, to be described and to be pitied. Tom is a clumsy and cruel lout, with the making of better things in him (and the same may be said of nearly every Englishman at present smoking and elbowing his way through the ugly world his blunders have contributed to the making of); while the rest of the characters are simply the sweepings ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... carriages dashing up at a gallop, filled with people afraid of being too late, and going off more leisurely after the passengers were deposited on the wharf. People were bustling hither and thither, elbowing their way to one place, merely to find out where to elbow it to the next; friends were bidding each other adieu; and in particular, a stout lady from the country, in yellow ribbons, from the upper part of the boat was sending a confidential ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... wall beyond. Something has strangely vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the head, he turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated officer of the old French war; and there comes the shop-keeping Pyncheon of a century ago, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... passed the one or two young men of the place entertaining the three or four young women, who were elbowing and jerking on a settee in the lobby, he heard a voice inquiring quickly, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... rude and unmerciful to each other. They push and trample one another under foot; veils and dresses are torn; ladies faint away in the scrimmage, and only the strongest and most unscrupulous get in. I have heard some say, who have been in the pellmell, that, not content with elbowing and pushing and pounding, some women even stick pins into those who are in the way. I hope this latter is not true; but it is certain that the conduct of most of the women is brutal. A weak or modest or timid woman stands no more chance ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... disturbance, or sight of an enemy, until we came nearly to the edge of the town and saw the glistening roof of the church appear above the foliage,—where sat sundry carrion-loving buzzards, elbowing each other, shuffling to and fro with outspread wings, and chuckling, doubtless, over the promise of glorious times. As we go on, suddenly heads appear over the bushes less than a hundred yards in front, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Mahdi's men," said Torpenhow, elbowing himself into the crush of the square; "but what thousands of 'em there are! The tribes hereabout ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... now, on the run, all of you! I'll show you what to do." She took instant charge of the situation, and when Dave refused to leave the carriage and began to fight off his friends, gabbling wildly, it was she who quieted him. Elbowing Blaze and her husband out of the way, she loosed the young man's frenzied clutch from the carriage and, holding his hands in hers, talked to him in such a way that he gradually relaxed. It was she who helped him out and then ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... had frequently heard of the character of a dance-house in the far west, and here was an opportunity to view one in full blast. Elbowing their way through the crowd, Manning and his companion soon found themselves in a large, brilliantly lighted room, almost entirely bereft of furniture. At one end was a raised platform, on which were seated the ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... brain tissues and make your muscles mushy, a similar mental and moral condition will develop. And then, when you go out into real life, you will find some sturdy young barbarian, with a Spartan training and a merciless heart, elbowing you clear off ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... with her children, Schlegel, and Sismondi. So eager was everybody to see her and hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her correspondence with Goethe: "The gentlemen stood around the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in French, 'Your adorers quite ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... was one fellow,—named Randall, I think,—a round-shouldered, bulky, ill-hung devil, with a pale, sallow skin, black beard, and a sort of grin upon his face,—a species of laugh, yet not so much mirthful as indicating a strange mental and moral twist. He was very riotous in the crowd, elbowing, thrusting, seizing hold of people; and at last a ring was formed, and a regular wrestling-match commenced between him and a farmer-looking man. Randall brandished his legs about in the most ridiculous style, but proved ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the Siberian wilds—from Greenland to the Chinese wall,—there is not a spot of earth but would feel the sensation. The factories of Europe would fall with a concussion that would shake down castles, palaces, and even thrones; while the "purse-proud, elbowing insolence" of our Northern monopolist would soon disappear forever under the smooth speech of the pedlar, scourging our frontiers for a livelihood, or the bluff vulgarity of the South Sea whaler, following the harpoon amid storms and shoals. Doubtless ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... find so much fault with one another, and grudged each other every little bit of praise wrung from the world's cold, death-doomed lips. It is to me pathetically absurd to see gifted persons all struggling along, and rudely elbowing each other out of the way to win—what? A few stilted commonplace words of approbation or fault-finding in the newspapers of the day, and a little clapping and shouting from a gathering of ordinary minded persons, who only clap and shout because it is possibly the fashion to do ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... entrance, and other soldiers lounge close by. The life of the city seems to be compressed and made more intense by this barrier; and on passing within it you do not breathe quite so freely, yet are sensible of an enjoyment in the close elbowing throng, the clamor of high voices from side to side of the street, and the million of petty sights, actions, traffics, and personalities, all so squeezed together as to become ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had walked a long time, with rapid and irritated step, elbowing the passers-by that he need not deviate from a straight line, his great fury against her began to change into sadness and regret. After he had repeated to himself all the reproaches he had poured upon her, he remembered, as he looked at the women that passed him, how ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... Avenue express service had grown increasingly slow. Nor did the evening papers contain half the interesting news of his early married life, and he could barely wait until the train had stopped at One Hundred and Sixteenth Street before he was elbowing ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... quite in keeping with the Oriental filth around, unredeemed by the usual Eastern colour and romance. On fine mornings the Market Place presents a curious and interesting appearance, for here you may see the Celestial in flowery silk elbowing the fur-clad Yakute and Bokhara shaking hands with Japan. The Irkutsk district is peopled by the Buriates, who originally came from Trans-Baikalia, but who have now become more Russianised than any other Siberian race. The Buriat dialect is a kind of ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... another noisy group, elbowing each other in their haste to reach a cabaret, where they could drink away their week's wages. These fellows were followed by some shabby men who were swearing under their breath at the trifle they had received, having been tipsy and absent more than ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... unheeded. The people were thronging up the street, elbowing each other, treading on each other's toes, yelling, booing, forgetful of all save the strange coincidence that, on this evening of all others, the banquet in honor of Clive, the Indian hero, had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a live ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... lane to Papalangi Mativa's quarters behind the Southern Cross Bakery. I suppose Silver Tongue thought our man was hurt, or something, for he came running after us with a bottle of square-face and a packet of first aid to the wounded, elbowing his way excitedly through the crowd to where we had deposited To'oto'o at the feet of Papalangi Mativa. He was the most astonished baker in the South Seas as he saw who lay there in the jumble of beef and biscuit, and for a moment was too stupefied ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... length of the street in front of them the pilgrims were elbowing and fighting their way to the Sanctuary, where they were to win pardon for ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... sake; bankers for Cayrol's; and the aristocrats and foreign nobility for the Prince's. An assemblage as opposed in ideas as in manners: some valuing only money, others high birth; all proud and elbowing each other with haughty assurance, speaking ill of each other and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the habit of going to the beer houses, where the continual elbowing of the drinkers brings you in contact with a familiar and silent public, where the heavy clouds of tobacco smoke lull disquietude, while the heavy beer dulls the mind and calms the heart. He almost lived there. He was scarcely ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of young girlhood in the straight open stare of worldly wisdom with which some of them looked at him, and, passing, turned to look again. It made him shiver. They ought to be at school, these children; why were they here, jostling, elbowing, and fighting their way through this crowd? A floor walker passed, holding a pretty girl's arm. His position was unmistakable. No other man strolls through the world with just his step and just his elevation of chin—a chin that will ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... Panoramas, had made them open the corridor which led from the porter's lodge to the entrance hall of the theater. Along this narrow alley little women were racing pell-mell, for they were delighted to escape from the men who were waiting for them in the other passage. They went jostling and elbowing along, casting apprehensive glances behind them and only breathing freely when they got outside. Fontan, Bosc and Prulliere, on the other hand, retired at a leisurely pace, joking at the figure cut by the serious, paying admirers who were striding up and down the Galerie des Varietes at a time ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... knew so many hours pass so pleasantly as in this tribune, surrounded by those whispering, elbowing, plunging, veiled women in black, under the wall painted with Perugino's Charge of St. Peter, and dadoed with imitation Spanish leather, superb gold and blue scrolls of Rhodian pomegranate pattern and Della Rovere shields ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... plunged into the first opening he saw, elbowing his way manfully. I followed in his wake, his tall bright head making as good an oriflamme as the king's plume at Ivry, but when at length we came out far down the street we had seen no ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... matters to Worcester the other prisoner was elbowing his way into the crowd around the Fifth Form notice-board, whereon were pinned the final lists. Jim Cotton was planted squarely before the board, eyeing the contents with huge delight, and when he caught sight of the struggling Gus he ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... a bowing acquaintance with Napoleon, Washington, Wellington, Prince Charlie, Henry of Navarre, Paul Revere, and Stonewall Jackson, but as these gallant gentlemen stand on the printed page, so they stood shoulder to shoulder, elbowing one another in her pretty head, made prettier by a wealth of hair, Marcel-waved ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... not,' roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it. 'Ain't you, though—ain't you?' said the young man, appealing to Mr. Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process of elbowing the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... faintly, and the boy came to her, elbowing. 'I want some of that pop-corn so much! I could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket.' The youth laughed, but for the sake of 'making a trade' set down his basket and took the 'enfant terrible.' There was an instant attack ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... pawn, against Miss Bags' three-per-cents. And so two or three funny little games were going on at Baden amongst our immediate acquaintance; besides that vulgar sport round the green table, at which the mob, with whom we have little to do, was elbowing each other. A hint of these domestic prolusions has been given to the reader in the foregoing extract from Miss Ethel Newcome's letter: likewise some passions have been in play, of which a modest young English maiden could not be aware. Do not, however, let us be too prematurely proud of our virtue. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one is not a "vox et praeterea nihil," but with a considerable corporality attached which requires feeding, and so while my inner man is continually indulging in these anchorite reflections, the outer is sedulously elbowing and pushing as if he dreamed of nothing but gold medals and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... was aware of her intention, she had slipped away. At the same moment Judge Fulsom made his appearance, elbowing his smiling way through the crowd, a brimming saucer of vari-colored ice ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the judge playing to the gallery, the politician adopting the methods of the cheap-jack, the duchess vying with the puffing draper; it shows how even true genius submits itself to conditions that are accepted and excused as "modern," and is found elbowing and pushing in the hurly-burly. It shows how the ordinary decencies of life are sacrificed to the paragraphist, the interviewer, and the ghoul with the camera; how the home is stripped of its sanctity, blessed charity made a ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... settles would rock and overturn without some such security. The thunder of bowls echoed from the backyard; swingels hung behind the blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers, whom squires had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each other—men who in past times had met in fights under the moon, till lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss of favour and expulsion from service on the other, brought them here together to a common level, where they sat ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... interruption came from a short, stout, dark, but very handsome, and very well-dressed person, who, in great excitement, was elbowing and pushing her way up the center aisle toward the chancel at which the startled ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... being able to make up his mind either way; but as his wife is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell—there is a buzz as of a hive overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... timid country girl shrunk through the crowd that hurried up and down the streets, giving way to the press of people, and clinging closely to Ralph as though she feared to lose him in the throng; and how the stern and hard-featured man of business went doggedly on, elbowing the passengers aside, and now and then exchanging a gruff salutation with some passing acquaintance, who turned to look back upon his pretty charge, with looks expressive of surprise, and seemed to wonder at the ill-assorted companionship. But, it would have been a stranger contrast ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... and I fairly blushed myself down the street, pushing my way between the ranks of the market stalls and the elbowing farmers. ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... would fix the zigzagging part of it, and, telling his hospital steward to have a special eye out for the very sick man, went into the chart house and proceeded to explain the zigzagging stuff. He paused to recall all he had ever learned while elbowing the 352's navigator over the chart-table; also the answers he had got to ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... assemblage which now surrounds us it would be difficult to attempt a picture. The pencil of a Cruikshank or a Rowlandson might indeed convey some idea; but all weaker hands would find the subject overpowering. A mob of manufacturers, melting hot, elbowing one another into ill-humour, by their anxiety to teach their offspring the fashionable vice of gaming; giving the pretty innocents a taste for loo, which generally ends in loo-sening what little purity of principle the prejudice ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... you can't get in; there's no room for'ards!" But a couple of javelin-men at the door were knocked down right and left, and through the dense and suffocating crowd, a black-whiskered fellow, elbowing his way against their faces, spite of all obstruction, struggled to the front behind the bar. Then, breathless with gigantic exertion (it was like a mammoth treading down the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sage may say, "Oft have I seen him, in his fortune's dawn, When at his levees elbowing their way, Peer's ermine might be seen ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... We fled from Fano after three days, and finding ourselves cheated out of our dream of summer coolness, resolved on substituting for it what the Italians call "un bel giro". So we went to Ancona—a striking sea city, holding up against the brown rocks, and elbowing out the purple tides—beautiful to look upon. An exfoliation of the rock itself you would call the houses that seem to grow there—so identical is the colour and character. I should like to visit Ancona again when there is a little air and shadow. We stayed a week, as it was, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... they were due to the inherited qualities of the race, to the political or social history, or to external circumstances, I need not ask. They were the qualities which had especially impressed foreign observers. The fierce, proud, intractable Briton was elbowing his way to a high place in the world, and showing a vigour not always amiable, but destined to bring him successfully through tremendous struggles. In the earlier part of the century, Voltaire and French philosophers admired English freedom ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... German revolution and a correlated step forward towards liberal institutions on the part of Russia, then the whole stage of Eastern Europe would clear as fever goes out of a man. This age of international elbowing and jostling, of intrigue and diplomacy, of wars, massacres, deportations en masse, and the continual fluctuation of irrational boundaries would come to an ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... defence that might be offered if attacked; he told me he was quite deserted, but if matters came to the worst he would make an attempt to defend the prison. From the Arsenal I went directly to the headquarters of the rebel General. Here elbowing my way amid a host of armed brigands and people of the lower and lowest class of Genoese I found the general, Avezzana, seated at a table in a moderate sized room. As soon as I was offered a seat at his table, a crowd of armed folk filled the room and pressed ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... cries the coachman, elbowing his way among them—and, remounting the box, he takes the whip and reins out of Mr. Jorrocks's hands, cries "All right behind? sit tight!" ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... one became dimly conscious of an electrical condition of the social atmosphere which any trifle might stimulate into a thunderstorm. Blouses gathered and muttered about the street-corners, scowling at and elbowing the German soldiers as they strode to buy sausages to stay them in the homeward march. The gamins, always covertly insolent, no longer cloaked their insolence, and wagged little tricolour flags under the nose of the stolid German sentry on the Pont ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... his country which Dante entertained as well as Dino. And beyond this interest there is the social picture of the Florence of the fourteenth century itself, its strange medley of past and present, the old world of feudalism jostling with the new world of commerce, the trader elbowing the noble and the artisan the trader, an enthusiastic mystical devotion jealous of the new classicalism or the scepticism of men like Guido Cavalcanti, the petty rivalries of great houses alternating with large schemes of public policy, the tenderest poetry with brutal outrage ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... you see that the survival of the fittest must succeed in elbowing your ideal, for the present at least, out of existence? Look here, Ernest, you're going the wrong way to work altogether for your own happiness and comfort. It doesn't matter to me, of course; you can do as you like ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... cannot fail to approach accuracy. Faith is a first element in all great undertakings. It removes mountains at Mont Cenis, as it walked the waves with Columbus. In our century even faith is progressive, and does not shrink from elbowing its way through what Bunyan ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... in the hands of the overflow crowd outside the hall; his own name was already in every mouth, continually coupled with that of the world-renowned Hilda Bouverie. It did not deter the convict from elbowing his way through the mass that gloated over his deed exactly as they would have gloated over his destruction on the gallows. "I have my ticket; I have been detained," he told the police; and at the last line of defence he whispered, "A guinea for standing-room!" ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... to get his bearings, and while they waited for him to go on Brown nudged Jaune to look at the delightfully picturesque frame house, set in a deep niche between two high brick houses, with the wooden stair elbowing up its outside to its third story. It came out wonderfully well in the moonlight, but Jaune was too much excited even ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the mechanism of her fan with a demure expression on lips shaped for happiness. A dark young man was elbowing his way through the mixed ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... asked the elbowing helper who came through the crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the silver for them. "Who is this speaker who says ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... with their eternal smoke; no policemen looking like so many knaves of clubs; no cabs or omnibuses splashing the mud to the right and to the left; and, above all, none of your punctual men of business hurrying to their appointments, blowing like steam-engines, elbowing everybody, and capsizing the apple-stalls. No; there is none ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... corporation was not without its alarms. Twice I had seen Kellow at a distance, and once I had stood beside him at the hotel counter where he had been examining the registered list of names at a moment when I, all unconscious of his presence until I was elbowing him, had stopped in passing to ask a question of the clerk. That near-encounter showed me that I was neither better nor worse than the man who had stood, loaded weapon in hand, on the sidewalk in the heart of a June night, coldly deliberating ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... room—Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office—a little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... crowded. All the folk he had ever known were there. He saw the white hair and stern features of Sir Richard Devine, and beside him stood, wringing her thin hands, his weeping mother. Then Frere strode forward, and after him John Rex, the convict, who, roughly elbowing through the crowd of prisoners and gaolers, would have reached the spot where stood Sir Richard Devine, but that the corpse of the murdered Lord Bellasis arose and thrust him back. How the hammers clattered in the shipbuilder's yard! Was it a coffin they were making? Not for Sylvia—surely ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... difficulty through the stream of loiterers in the nave, Giles the younger elbowing and pushing so that several of the crowd turned to look at him, and it was well that his kinsman soon astonished him by descending a stair into a crypt, with solid, short, clustered columns, and high-pitched vaulting, fitted ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... thinking what a queer fish he was, and then elbowing in to the table started afresh ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... much as in England; the servants handing round tea, coffee, and cakes, on broad silver salvers. But we all sat and took our refreshments at leisure, instead of standing with cups in our hands, and elbowing our way through crowds of persons, who all look as if they were bound on some particular business, and could scarcely afford time to recognise their passing acquaintance. We then adjourned to the music-room, where the music-master[103] attended to accompany the ladies, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... their traps, they gathered into a surly group and swore their discontent at the whole expedition. Into the midst of this Stubbs stamped and under pretence of gruff greeting to this one and that, together with much elbowing, broke the circle up into three parts. A dozen questions were shot at him, but he answered them with an assumption of authority that had a wholesome effect. In another minute he had picked out three of the most aggressive men and stationed them at different points on the island to look out ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... by dint of much elbowing, we made our way into a crowded booth where, for the modest consideration of two sous per head, might be seen a Boneless Youth and an Ashantee King. The performances were half over when we went in. The Boneless Youth had gone through his feats of agility, and was lying on a mat in a corner ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... men, who have wives but of doubtful virtue, considered this matter duly, I believe their inordinate ardour after gain would be a good deal cooled, when they could not be certain (though their mates could) for whose children they were elbowing, bustling, griping, and perhaps cheating, those with whom they have concerns, whether friends, neighbours, or more certain next-of-kin, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... caw. A single pair of blue jays nest in the Park, but the English starling occupies every box which is put up and bids fair to be as great or a greater nuisance than the sparrow. It is a handsome bird and a fine whistler, but when we remember how this foreigner is slowly but surely elbowing our native birds out of their rightful haunts, we find ourselves losing sight of its beauties. The cowbird, of course, imposes her eggs upon many of the smaller species of birds, while our beautiful purple ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... and come, elbowing and disappearing behind each other. The waiters worm their way through with their fragile and sparkling burdens—green, red or bright yellow, with a white border. The grating of feet on the sanded floor mingles with the exclamations of the regular ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... forwards, talking in a loud voice. But the crowd condenses itself between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Solitude has something terrible about it just now. People congregate together for the pleasure of elbowing each other, of trying to believe they are in great force. Quite a crowd collects round a little barefooted girl, who is singing at the corner of a street. A man seated before a low table is burning pastilles; another offers barley-sugar for sale; another ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... Ascending to the dress circle, he stood for a little time gazing around upon the audience and occasionally upon the stage in his usual graceful manner. He was subsequently observed by Mr. Ford, the proprietor of the theater, to be slowly elbowing his way through the crowd that packed the rear of the dress circle toward the right side, at the extremity of which was the box where Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and their companions were seated. Mr. Ford casually ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... They were elbowing the crowd now. Here were men from the small clearings in homespun and butternut or fringed hunting-shirts, with their women folk trailing after them. Here, too, in lesser numbers, were the lords ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... was the smell of tar and of merchandise, and narrow alleys full of sea-going men and raucous-voiced women, and queer nooks and corners, and ships being laden and ships being stripped of their cargoes and such noise and confusion and inextricable mingling and elbowing that Copplestone thought it was as likely to find a needle in a haystack as to make anything out relating to the ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher |
