"Footed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... another Oracle also divinely enlightened lays out a different path by which these ends may be secured, and then another and another until poor women if they should try to follow these self-appointed divine revealers would not only have to be hydra-headed to see these devious paths but hydra-footed to walk in them." Referring ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... a prospectus of a new life-buoy, by means of which one can pass over the Seine dry-footed. This other pamphlet is the report of the Institute on a garment by wearing which we can pass through flames without being burnt. Have you no scheme which can preserve marriage from the miseries ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... forgetting herself, living again youthful hours. Still she did not forget him. She waited for him at the bad places, lent him a strong hand, and sometimes let it stay long in his clasp. Tireless and agile, sure-footed as a goat, fleet and wild she leaped and climbed and ran until Shefford marveled at her. This adventure was indeed fulfilment of a dream. Perhaps she might lead him to the treasure at the foot of the rainbow. But that thought, sad with memory daring forth from its grave, was irrevocably linked ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... nigh and the dust clouds came hard by and the troops rode up with banners on high, Zau al-Makan and those with him pushed forward to meet Sharrkan and his men; and when Zau al-Makan saw his brother, he desired to dismount, but Sharrkan conjured him not to do on this wise, and himself footed it, and walked a few paces towards him.[FN381] As soon as he reached Zau al-Makan, the new Sultan threw himself upon him, and Sharrkan embraced him and wept with great weeping and the twain condoled with each other. Then they mounted and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... saw piled up in a long vista before me. I did not stay long without shouting again, and once more the voices of my friends assured me that they were drawing near. My heart was now much lighter, and at length I caught sight of their heads as they crawled up like two four-footed creatures in the distance. I was truly glad when they got up to me; they had been, they owned, not slightly alarmed, and were, they showed, very tired ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... is ready to give the trumpets their cue that hees upon point to enter; for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropt out of ye hangings, to creepe from behind the arras, with your tripos or three-footed stoole in one hand and a teston (i.e., six pence) mounted betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other; for if you should bestow your person upon the vulgar when the belly of the house is but halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... reynard makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of a little dog,—it is so sharply cut and defined! A dog's track is coarse and clumsy beside it. There is as much wildness in the track of an animal as in its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a goat's? What winged-footed fleetness and agility may be inferred from the sharp, braided track of the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah! in nature is the best discipline. How wood-life sharpens the senses, giving a new power to the eye, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... last moment possible. The sea now quite covered two or three of her stepping-stones; fierce surf broke over the rest with each advancing billow, and rendered the task of jumping from one to the other impracticable even for a strong and sure-footed man, far more for a slight girl of Cleer's height ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... what has become of my four-footed friend? I have not seen him for three weeks or more, and his attentions to me were so ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... speed in this exercise it is necessary to support the body on the tips of the toes. Every man who has gained any skill in this art knows full well how incompetent he is if he tries to run with rapidity in the flat-footed manner. The bear cannot essay this method of progression on the toe-tips because its loose-jointed feet cannot be made to support its heavy body. In this way arose the necessity of developing a peculiar kind of foot when that part ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... a thief, and an outrageous robber, but you can go, my four-footed monument to a blasted rogue's perfidy. Five hundred good dollars—now, at it for ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... and pursuit began almost at the same moment. The swift-footed Army of Northern Virginia was racing for its life, and Grant, inspired with more than his habitual tenacity and energy, not only pressed his enemy in the rear, but hung upon his flank, and strained every nerve to get ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... post-surgeon at Fort Howard, on hearing the matter debated, offered me immediately his favorite horse Charlie. "He is very sure-footed," the doctor alleged, "and capital in ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... his order before answering her. "Some oatmeal and bacon and eggs. Yes, coffee. And some hot cakes, Charlie. Did you honest dream about me?" This last not to the Chinese waiter who had padded soft-footed to ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... I saved the skins of all the creatures that I killed, I mean four-footed ones; and I had hung them up, stretched out with sticks, in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and hard that they were fit for little, but others I found very useful. The first thing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... increased as the pain diminished, until I was able to walk without more discomfort than a comparatively pleasant sensation of lameness. For at least two months after my feet first touched the floor I had to be carried up and downstairs, and for several months longer I went flat-footed. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... been herding goats but a few years ago, who had seen what he had seen on nights and at dances, who had felt so naked and helpless before a harsh Government not so very long ago? It did seem that it was he, and he was very grateful. He stole into the church soft-footed, and glided towards the blazing altar. Then he waited, trying to remember what it was best to remember at such an hour. Had he repentance, faith, gratitude, and love? He had so much of the last two surely as to ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... asking everybody he met if he had caught a glimpse of Mr. Fox that night. First he asked a white-footed deer mouse, who pointed behind him and said that he had just seen Mr. Fox "over there." Then Benny put his question to a frightened prairie dog, who claimed that he had noticed Mr. Fox "over there," as he pointed in a direction exactly opposite. And still another reported that he had noticed ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... nature of our gentle clerk, we shall be safe in assuming that he had, as the saying goes, been smitten by her charms in some of those street encounters, where there is more of love's work done than in "black-footed" tea coteries expressly held for the accommodation of Cupid. And that the smiting was a genuine feeling we are not left to doubt; for in addition to the reasons we shall afterwards have too good occasion ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... to blaspheme, and get up," said the master, blowing out a cloud of fiery indignation. "There, sir. Retribution comes at last, leaden-footed but iron-handed. A long catalogue of sins is visited on you to-day, and not only on your shrinking body, but on your conscience too, if you have one left. Let those red marks betoken that your reign is ended. Liar and tempter, you have led boys into the ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... walking in man is similar in all cases to the universal way of walking in four-footed animals, because, just as they move their feet {48} crosswise, like a trotting horse, so man moves his four limbs crosswise, that is to say, in walking he puts forward his right foot simultaneously with his left arm, ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... that he could with difficulty ascend the pole; and after eating his usual breakfast, he expired suddenly. Like many other animals we could name, his greatness was his mortal foe—and as Hume grew too pursy to write, so our four-footed friend became too gross to climb. Toby, with all his ill-treatment and attachment to strong ale, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... of animal stories for children from three to eight years, tells of the adventures of the four-footed creatures of our American woods and fields in an amusing way, which delights small ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the collier ride one of these spare horses; but the strange man had refused, saying that his own legs he could trust, but not those of a four-footed beast. ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... but Amy considered it bad. For Jo sat on the grass, with an encampment of boys about her, and a dirty-footed dog reposing on the skirt of her state and festival dress, as she related one of Laurie's pranks to her admiring audience. One small child was poking turtles with Amy's cherished parasol, a second was eating gingerbread ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... survival of the genteel traditions of the Scientific Age. On a weekday the folk were dingily and curiously hung about with dirty rags of housecloth and scarlet flannel, sacking, curtain serge, and patches of old carpet, and went either bare-footed or on rude wooden sandals. These people, the reader must understand, were an urban population sunken back to the state of a barbaric peasantry, and so without any of the simple arts a barbaric peasantry would possess. In many ways they were curiously degenerate ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... itself, they have made something very special of it. Thanks to them the trenches become a very delightful spot populated by a squadron of nimble footed misses, who, booted, spurred, helmet-crowned and costumed in horizon blue, sing of the heroism and the splendid good humour of the poilu while keeping ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... another fashion. There were no whispers in it; it was more like visions. He saw that girl hanging round the neck of a low vagabond—that vagabond, the vagabond who had just answered his hail. He saw her stealing bare- footed across a verandah with great, clear, wide-open, eager eyes to look at a brig—that brig. If she had shrieked, scolded, called names! . . . But she had simply triumphed over him. That was all. Led on (he firmly believed it), fooled, deceived, outraged, struck, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... was good to him, for the girl approaching down the trail was like some wood sprite, light-footed, slender, and dark, with twin braids of hair to her waist framing an oval face colored by the wind and sun. She was very beautiful, and a great fever surged up through the old man's veins, till he gripped the boards at his side ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... foot comes natural to you to do this act (people are right and left footed as well as right and left handed); let us say your right foot. Stand facing the wall with the right foot advanced to within about two feet of it. Place both hands on the floor, about eighteen inches apart, in front of left foot, fingers open and pointed front, right leg extended ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... strange enterprise of the power of hell the spirit of Aswid was sent up from the nether world, and with cruel tooth eats the fleet-footed (horse), and has given his dog to his abominable jaws. Not sated with devouring the horse or hound, he soon turned his swift nails upon me, tearing my cheek and taking off my ear. Hence the hideous sight of my slashed countenance, the blood-spurts in the ugly wound. Yet the bringer of horrors ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... was somewhat slow-going, sure-footed. He had a gentle or quiet conservative tenacity that so often comes with the inheritance of a moderate income. It at least gave him time to look things deliberately ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... charged down upon us with the greatest fury. Away we all went, helter skelter, through the dry grass, which whistled in my ears, over the hidden rocks, at full gallop, with the elephant tearing after us for about a hundred and eighty yards at a tremendous pace. Tetel was a sure-footed horse, and, being unshod, he never slipped upon the stones. Thus, as we all scattered in different directions, the elephant became confused, and relinquished the chase; it had been very near me at one time, and in such ground I was not sorry when it gave up the hunt. We now ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... other, "but 'a did not think to have a hard- footed knave trample all over my poor toes as though they were no more than so many ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... worry. We know all about that sort at home," said Sidney, touching her hand for a moment. "My word, that was a hot one! The flat-footed Johnnie is obviously bewildered. The last game ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... past the policeman at the Cross (slower at this point); up the steep gradient of the High Street; right through a flock of geese (illustrious bird! who not only warnest great cities of impending ruin, but keepest thyself out of harm's way better than any four-footed beast of the field), we drove our headlong course; and, in less time than this paragraph has taken to write I stood on the doorstep, of the doctor's house. In another minute I had seen him ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... have new clothes, good leggings, the best of shoes, and a warm overcoat for every man; but in order to get these things you'll have to march to Milan, where they are." So we marched. We were only thirty thousand bare-footed tramps, and we were going against eighty thousand crack German soldiers—fine, well equipped men; but Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte then, breathed a spirit of—I don't know what—into us, and on we marched, night ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... as it does all that appeals to our nature. And there is much that is lovely in this idea of nature—for do not the seasons dance, and is it not in that ancient measure we have already spoken of, the trochaic? Long Winter comes with heavy foot, and Spring is the light-footed. Again, Summer is long, and Autumn short and cheery; and so our phrase begins again and again. We all know with what periodicity everything in nature dances, and how the smallest flower is a marvel of recurring ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... Occasionally the dogs would bark furiously: "There they are!" cried everybody, and rising to their feet, with bated breath and wildly-beating hearts, they would listen until convinced that their four-footed friends had given a false alarm. Those of the women-servants who had no husbands begged every night to sleep "in de house." They were terrified. Their mattresses strewed the floors, and it really seemed as if they were a kind of protection, although they always fell asleep ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... was barking at something," replied Scott, with a grin. "Might have been a plain, four-footed one, and it might have been a human puss. If you don't mind, I reckon I'll tie him to the front door down here. ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... however, no confirmation can be obtained of the startling rumor that The Spectator has been purchased by the proprietors of The Kennel Gazette, and will henceforth be devoted to the interests of our four-footed friends, the supplements being restricted to purely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... shoulders; the material of the former we may perhaps presume to have been linen." The mural paintings at Chichen show that the Mayas sometimes used the same costume; and that dress is used to-day by the aborigines of Yucatan, and the inhabitants of the Tierra de Guerra. They were also bare-footed, and wore on the head a band of cloth, highly ornamented with mother-of-pearl instead of camel's hair, as the Chaldee. This band is to be seen in bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, inthe[TN-18] mural paintings, and on the ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... dusky little bird about the size of a robin, that sings in sweet fluty song all winter and all summer, in storms and calms, sunshine and shadow, haunting the rapids and waterfalls with marvelous constancy, building his nest in the cleft of a rock bathed in spray. He is not web-footed, yet he dives fearlessly into foaming rapids, seeming to take the greater delight the more boisterous the stream, always as cheerful and calm as any linnet in a grove. All his gestures as he flits about amid the loud uproar of the falls bespeak the utmost simplicity and confidence—bird ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... across the lake and inspects the too picturesque tombs of Savoy’s sovereigns, or walks in the wonderful old garden, with its intermittent spring, the suspicion occurs, in spite of one’s self, that the whole scene will be folded up at sunset and the bare-footed “brother” who is showing us around with so much unction will, after our departure, hurry into another costume, and appear later as one of the happy peasants who are singing and drinking in front of that absurdly operatic little inn you pass on the ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... word well expressed the character and habitual pose of mind of the singer, whose views of earthly matters were as different from the views of ordinary working mortals as those of a bird, as he flits and perches and sings, must be from those of the four-footed ox who plods. The "sobriam ebrietatem spiritus" was with him first constitutional, as a child of sunny skies, and then cultivated by every employment and duty of the religious and artistic career to which from childhood he had devoted himself. If perfect, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... SIGMA}, or species, on the contrary, meant appearance, and comprehended all such things as had the same form or appearance, whether they had a common origin or not, as if we were to speak of a species of four-footed, two-footed, horned, winged, or ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... her and went upon his errand. She was cool now; weary-footed, sick at heart, and yearning to be alone. But in these days women do not tear their hair and make scenes, though their hearts may ache and burn with the same sharp suffering as of old. Till her brother came she knew she must bear it, and make no sign. She did bear it, ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the Colonist passengers wash their children's clothes. It was, he thought, rather a striking scene—the great train standing in the rugged wilderness, the wide stretch of gleaming water running back among the firs, and the swarm of jaded immigrants splashing bare-footed along the beach. Their harsh voices and hoarse laughter broke discordantly on ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... the congregation, and had withdrawn to a cloister to pray in silence and unceasingly for the soul of her deceased husband. At first he used to appear to her in her dreams, with furious gestures, accompanied by centaurs and goat-footed creatures, and had desired her to go home to her children and leave his soil in peace, for that he was in very good quarters with the jolly devils; but soon after she had seen him again with scorched limbs, and he lead implored her to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... says the record, "the other encombred with a yong childe, we took. The olde wretch, whom divers of our Saylors supposed to be eyther the Divell, or a witch, had her buskins plucked off, to see if she were cloven-footed; and for her ougly hewe and deformitie, we let her goe; the young woman and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... at noon, the air saddenly resounded with, wild shouts, whistling, jeering, hooting, and laughing. An immense crowd of young boys, artisans, and laborers was on the march. The whole city was obstructed by the "bare-footed brigade." [1] The destruction of Jewish houses began. Window-panes, and doors began to fly about, and shortly thereafter the mob, having gained access to the houses and stores, began to throw upon the streets absolutely everything that fell into their hands. Clouds ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... reached his home in a hungry condition. He was tired and dead broke, so he had resolved to forage. He had listened for two or three, perhaps five, minutes in the hall of his boarding-house; then he went, soft-footed, to Mrs. Hallam's pantry on the second floor. He was sure that it was open, he was equally sure that it contained something edible on its hospitable shelves. Ah! who has not his bread at midnight stolen, ye heavenly ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... exact miniature duplicate of the image of the same god, in the same posture, with the same expression of serene and holy calm. A number of young priests were moving about placing fresh flowers before these idols, and in the temple was a group of dusty, tired, hungry, half-naked and sore-footed pilgrims, who had come a long way with packs on their backs bearing their food and seeking no shelter but the shade of temples or trees. Here at last they found rest and relief and consolation, and it seems a beautiful religion that requires nothing more ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... take her eyes from her cousin after that. It seemed to be a race between Rafe and the charging log, to see which should first reach the foreman. Rafe, reckless and harebrained as he was, flew over the logs as sure-footed as a goat. Nan felt faint. Her cousin's peril seemed far greater to her than that ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Tenney. "I dunno's I be. What's the use o' shootin' down four-footed creatur's? T'other ones'll do ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... you!" he began, with fascinating fluency. "You thousand-legged, double-jointed, ox-footed truck horse. Come on out of here and I'll lick the shine off your shoes, you blue-eyed babe, you! What did you get up for, huh? What did you think this was going to be ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... smoothness into the service of Communist doctrine. These pictures have, too, an oriental flavour: there are brown Madonnas in the Russian churches, and such an one illustrates the statistics of infant mortality in India, while the Russian mother, broad-footed, in gay petticoat and kerchief, sits in a starry meadow suckling her baby from a very ample white breast. I think that this movement towards the Church tradition may be unconscious and instinctive, and would perhaps be deplored by many Communists, for whom grandiose bad ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... determination until he measured himself at length upon the ground. The laugh which succeeded was one of effectual discomfiture, and the helpless barrister made good his retreat from a field so unpromising by a pursuit of the swift-footed negro, taking care not to ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the service of the rich Rodelbauer. She still goes bare-footed, but she is the life of the inn, and everybody requires her services.—It is St. Paul's day and the farmer's wife promises Amrei that she may join in the dancing like the other girls. While Amrei goes into the house to adorn herself for the festival, Dami comes to take leave of his ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... golden. In all the wide farm-place the person most human. You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering, With whinnying, snorting, contorting and prancing, As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance, With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces, O broncho that would not be broken ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... own interests—well, let him beware! Some one might carry off his daughter right from under the ducal nose. Then let the Burgundian follow at his peril. Castle Hapsburg would open his eyes. He would learn what an impregnable castle really is. If Duke Charles thought he could bring his soft-footed Walloons, used only to the mud roads of Burgundy, up the stony path to the hawk's crag, why, let him try! Harmless boasting is a boy's vent. Max did not really mean to boast, he was only wishing; and to a ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... sped light-footed down the staircase to the lower hall, he at her elbow. Here the uproar was loudest—deep enough to drown whatever sounds might have been made by two pairs of flying feet. For all that they fled on tiptoe, stealthily, guilty shadows in the night; and at the newel-post swung ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... much interested in his old guide, Coutet, with whom I had many climbs. He liked to go with me, he said, because I was very sure-footed and could go wherever he did. He was a famous crystal-hunter, and many of the rarest specimens in the museum of Geneva were of his finding. There was one locality of which only he knew, where the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... hit. He seemed to bear a charmed life; in all his fights he was wounded but once. That was in the attack on the strongly fortified port of Stroemstad, in which he was repulsed with a loss of 96 killed and 246 wounded, while the Swedish loss footed up over 1500, a fight which led straight to the most astonishing chapter in his whole career, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... the English side? Row-footed outlaws, stand!" quo' he; The nevir a word had Dickie to say, Sae he thrust the lance through ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... of answering her, but sped down the narrow path leading into the valley, and through it up towards Brudenell as fast as the dark night, the falling snow, and the slippery ground would permit; but it was too late; the fleet-footed Nora was far ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... wind and falling levels. Far out on its surface he saw two black dots that were a pair of ravens, walking in dignified fashion and pecking at some indistinguishable treasure trove. At the summit of the rise he clicked again and the dogs went on faster, the man running behind with the tireless, flat-footed gait of the trained traveler of ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... inspiration the sore-footed and jaded lads made good time going down the slope. Then another rivulet was encountered, in which they bathed and by which they rested a spell. Alan would have been glad to pass the night here, but Ned urged him on, and as night fell again the hungry, exhausted ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... Dinah came light-footed to join him, all her grievances forgotten. Her hair, notwithstanding its waywardness, clustered very prettily about her face. There was a bewitching dimple near one corner of ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... (where the Palmiped, With leathers 'twixt his toes, paddles his marsh, Amphibious) saw a rising cloud of hats, And heard a faint, far sound of distant cheers Below the swell of the horizon. "Lo," Cried one, "the President! the President!" All footed webwise then took up the word— The hill tribes and the tribes lacustrine and The folk riparian and littoral, Cried with one voice: "The President! He comes!" And some there were who flung their headgear up In emulation of the Southern mob; While some, more soberly ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... over the slightest obstruction in the path. Why is it? Simply that he is weak-minded, an idiot. In other words, a falling state of mind is productive of a falling condition of the body. To be sure minded is to be sure footed. To be uncertain in mind is to be ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... it but to get out the tow-ropes and wait—for a remorqueur, as the French call any four-footed beast strong enough to tow an automobile at the end of a line. (They also call a tug-boat the same thing, but as an automobile is not an amphibious animal it was a land ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... impression on Effi, who had never thought of danger, and when she was alone with Roswitha, she said: "I can't well take you with me, Roswitha; you are too fat and no longer sure-footed." ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... fur supper," retorted the outraged divinity. "Wat you reckon Miss Mitty wants wid car'ots fur 'er supper? Dey is hern, dey ain' mine, but ef'n dey 'us mine I'd lamn you twel you couldn't see ter set. Hit's bad enough ter hev ter live erlong in de same worl' wid de slue-footed po' white trash widout hevin' dem a-snatchin' de car'ots outer ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Angels above! Of course I know it. Don't you suppose I've been watching you slowly winning back to your old dear self—tired, weary-footed, desolate, almost hopeless, yet always surely finding your way back through the dreadful twilight to the dear, sweet, generous self that I know so well—the straightforward, innocent, brave little self that grew at my ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... with nipped feet and hands, which a cup of hot coffee, 'with,' speedily corrected, and were en route at 4.30 A.M. Formerly animals were left at the lower estancia; now they are readily taken on to Alta Vista. My wife rode a sure-footed black nag, I a mule which was perfect whilst the foot-long lever acting curb lay loose on its neck. Returning, we were amazed at the places they had ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... fair warning, and I'll practise the accustomed and essential reel. Upon my soul, I haven't danced since Lady Mary left, unless you call it so that foolish minuet. You should have seen her Grace at St. James's last month. Gad! she footed it like an angel; there's not a better dancer in London town. See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; let her dance and sing and play the harpsichord or the clarsach—they are charms that will last longer than her good looks, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... soup hanging to a chain, took up a large share of the remaining space. I sat upon a rickety chair beside a long table that had seen much service, but was capable of seeing a great deal more, for it had been made so as to outlast generations of men. Bare-footed children ran about upon the black floor, and a thin, gaunt young woman, who wore very short petticoats, which revealed legs not unlike those of the table, busied herself with the fire and the pot. She was the sister of the children, and had been left in charge of the house while her father ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... were graven the symbols of the Invisible One, but all around was shadow. It fell on the shaven head, on the white robe, on the cedar staff of priesthood at his side, and on the ivory of the lion-footed chair; it showed the mighty brow of power, the features cut in kingly mould, the white eyebrows, and the dark hollows of the deep-set eyes. I looked and trembled, for there was about him that which was more than the dignity of man. He had lived so long with the Gods, and so ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... death. It is not death but crime that it is difficult to avoid; crime moves faster than death. So I, old and heavy as I am, have allowed myself to be overtaken by death, while my accusers, light and vigorous, have allowed themselves to be overtaken by the light-footed crime. I go, then, to suffer death; they to suffer shame and iniquity. I abide by my punishment, as they by theirs. All is according to order.' It was the same fidelity to duty that made Socrates refuse to escape from prison, in order not to violate the laws of his country, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... to thee!" said the stranger again; and he reached forth his hand, and seized two flasks that lay on a side table, and which they had been using in the convivialities of the day. These he placed upon the table with a loud clank; and, laying hold of a three-footed creepy, he sat down right opposite the trembling pair, and proceeded to empty out the red liquor into the flasks, which he did in the most flourishing and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... darted in and out, with the sentry, now beginning to blow hard from his unusual exertion, hot on my trail. In my mad rush I upset some of my companions, but they, instantly guessing something unusual was afoot as they caught sight of my flying coat-tails and the heavy-footed soldier chasing me, at once entered into the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... three sides of the original work are left unburied by the mass of added wall. Each side has a bird, one web-footed, with a fish, one clawed, with a serpent, which opens its jaws, and darts its tongue at the bird's breast; the third pluming itself, with a feather between the mandibles of its bill. It is by far the most beautiful of the three capitals decorated ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... while the goal was yet before them, The faithless guides began to stray; Impatience of their task came o'er them, Then one by one they dropped away. Light-footed Fortune first retreating, Then Wisdom's thirst remained unstilled, While heavy storms of doubt were beating Upon the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... is not considered a sagacious animal, except in one particular. It is said that he always knows which way the wind blows, quick as any of the four-footed swinish multitude. Report says also that he has the instinct of a rat in quitting a falling house. An incredible power was once attributed to him, by one from Ireland, of being able at pleasure to turn ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine, Had panicked down the trench that night the mine Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried To get sent home; and how, at last, he died, Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care Except that lonely woman ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... world's treasure-caves came trooping. The Lamp of Aladdin and all the dreams of the Arabian Nights seemed tame and passive before the incredible fact on which he gazed. Back of that marvellous vision he saw the figure of a bare-footed boy of the poor white trash of the South rising to a world empire. The very mention of his name now sent a thrill of hate, of envy or of admiration to the hearts of millions. Surely the age of the warrior, the priest, and the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... useful. All thy delights are under notice to quit. The Noah's arks are packed one within another, with clockwork horses harnessed to them; the soldiers, knapsack on back, are kissing their hands to the dear foolish girls, who, however, will not be left behind them; all the four-footed things gather around the elephant, who is overful of drawing-room furniture; the birds flutter their wings; the man with the scythe mows his way through the crowd; the balloons tug at their strings; the ships rock under a swell ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... remained in their friends' chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those who, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym Yeobright would go to no church ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... idea that he had returned to town to denounce her. She believed this would make no difference now—she had done what she had done. She had somehow a stiff faith in Mrs. Churchley. Once that so considerable mass had received its impetus it wouldn't, it couldn't pull up. It represented a heavy-footed person, incapable of further agility. Adela recognised too how well it might have come over her that there were too many children. Lastly the girl fortified herself with the reflexion, grotesque in the conditions and conducing ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... Captain Bayard, the surgeon's memoranda enclosed, and a quarter of an hour afterwards fleet-footed Sancho was flying over the sixty miles to Fort Whipple as fast as Private Tom Clary could ride him. Three days later a pack-train arrived, with a laundress from the infantry company, Frank Burton, and Mary Arnold, and with stores and supplies necessary ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... their neighbours. When John looked back on his boyhood, his prevailing impressions were of a large house set low in a valley, belted with sombre dripping elms and haunted by Roman Catholic priests—some fat and rosy—some lean and cadaverous—but all soft-footed; of an insufficiency of light in the rooms; and of a sad lack of fellow-creatures willing to play with him. His parents were old, and he had been born late to them—twelve years after Philip, his only brother and the heir. From the first his mother had destined him ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to be light-footed, in my youth," said Philemen to the traveller. "But I always found my ...
— The Miraculous Pitcher - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... happenings before the year closed, that caused me to think a great deal. Grandpa spent less time at the shop; he bought himself a fleet-footed horse which he named Antelope, and came home oftener to talk to grandma about money they had loaned Major Prudon to send to China for merchandise, also about a bar-room which he was fitting up near ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... with goodwill; but the path was so steep and the way so long, that when about half way up the mountain they were fain to follow the example of their four-footed companion, and rest themselves. They sat down on the ground. They had warmed themselves with walking, but the weather was as chill and disagreeable and gusty as ever; every now and then the wind came sweeping by, catching ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... horses, just like the Chinese horses, are more like spirited little ponies. They have hard mouths, but when they know you and are well treated, they obey well. Some day, when you ride over the hills on one, you will see how sure-footed they are on the trails; as safe as mountain goats. Your larger horses would tumble ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... be a recognition of this factor and its value which has led so many writers of nature stories into the error of over-humanising their four-footed or feathered heroes and heroines. The exaggeration is unnecessary, for there is enough community of lot suggested in the sternest scientific record to constitute a natural basis for sympathy on the part of the human animal. Without any falsity of presentation whatever, the nature ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... a sound like a sob, he dropped to the ground, and stood listening, his tail dropping and head raised. Then he turned and began softly pacing up and down, like some velvet-footed sentinel at ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... I mean a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If you had been born such, would you have been here now? ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... volunteer statement. The picture, though his intentions were far from designing it so, had to Richard, whose perception of humour was infinitely keener, a horrible chaw-bacon smack about it. Visions of a grinning lout, open from ear to ear, unkempt, coarse, splay-footed, rose before him and afflicted him with the strangest sensations of disgust and comicality, mixed up with pity and remorse—a sort of twisted pathos. There lay Tom; hobnail Tom! a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! and yet a man; a dear brave ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ascending and descending, moved other than angels—the friezejacketed Buerschen, Grisons bears, rejoicing in their exercise, exhilarated with the tingling noise of beaten metal. We reached the first room safely, guided by firm-footed Christian, whose one candle just defined the rough walls and the slippery steps. There we found a band of boys, pulling ropes that set the bells in motion. But our destination was not reached. One more aerial ladder, perpendicular in darkness, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Sepharvaim, the city of the sun, all the ancient, mediaeval, and modern records, and build a ship and embark in it with his kindred and his nearest friends. He was also to take food and drink into the ship, and pairs of all creatures winged and four-footed. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... pretty, the eyes are well opened, and the ears are small; the form also is good, but the original Arab breed has degenerated in the new climate. They are soft, docile, and—like all other animals in this part of the world— timid: the habit of climbing rocks makes them sure-footed, and they show the remains of blood when forced to fatigue. The Gudabirsi will seldom sell these horses, the great safeguard against their conterminous tribes, the Eesa and Girhi, who are all infantry: a village seldom ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... and possibly to Africa, its native country. Observe its wonderfully long and slender legs. They are so formed as to enable it to wade into morasses, or even rivers, in quest of food, but it can also swim, when so disposed, being perfectly web-footed. The beak of the flamingo is not less remarkable than its legs, and it seems puzzling, until we know the truth, how the bird can gather up its food from mud and water, with that awkward turned-in bill. But the fact is, ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... the river, than our efforts could attain. There is a certain governor, of whom we personally can remember only, that he found the Fresh Pond heronry, which we sought in vain; and in memory the august sheriff of a neighboring county still skates in victorious pursuit of us, (fit emblem of swift-footed justice!) on the black ice of the same lovely lake. Our imagination crowns the Cambridge poet, and the Cambridge sculptor, not with their later laurels, but with the willows out of which they taught us to carve whistles, shriller than any trump of fame, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... dwelt in the cave, with this four-footed Chiron from the time that he was an infant only a few months old, until he had grown to the full height of a man. He became a very good harper, I suppose, and skilful in the use of weapons and tolerably acquainted with herbs and other doctor's stuff, and above all, an admirable horseman; ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... Page could not be gainsaid, and led the way upstairs to a sitting-room with a bay window overlooking the windings of the Torridge, which was crammed with quaint carved furniture of all sorts. There were buffets, cabinets, secretaries, delightful old claw-footed tables and sofas, and chairs whose backs and arms were a mass of griffins and heraldic emblems. Old oak was the specialty of the landlady of this New Inn, it seemed, as blue china was of the other. ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... other, and then, at a low whistle from the young captain, the adventurers went swarming up the towering sides of the galleon, as noiselessly as a drifting mist wreath, and in over the lofty bulwarks, in the shadow of which they formed up, bare-footed, as they came. Within a minute all hands, with their scanty baggage, were out of the boats, and the latter were cast adrift, while thus far not a Spaniard had been seen. Then, choosing half a dozen men to follow him, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... clear idea, of course, what a naval action was like. A confused recollection of pictures seen in childhood only suggested stalwart men, stripped to the waist and bare-footed, working round the smoking guns of ships whose decks blazed up in flame to taunt the quiet heavens; while the ships' ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... morning or sundown, and I have noticed that as they shifted from place to place they moved with a slow kind of hop, gathering their hind legs under them at each stride. When Bunny is on his own ground he is one of the fastest of four-footed things. He lays himself down to the ground, and travels at such a terrific pace for about forty yards that he looks like a mere streak on the ground. I never yet saw a terrier that could turn a rabbit ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds eggs were suspended above ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... they were ready to take to flight; and amid these, a sprinkling of red-breeched soldiers, the pitiful remnant of a division cut down in a great battle; somber artillerymen, side by side with nondescript foot-soldiers; and, here and there, the gleaming helmet of a heavy-footed dragoon who had difficulty in keeping up with the quicker pace of the soldiers of the line. Legions of irregulars with high-sounding names "Avengers of Defeat," "Citizens of the Tomb," "Brethren in Death"—passed in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Rachel, soft-voiced, light-footed as a sister of mercy, moved about in her pale gray woollen gown, with a few snowdrops in her breast, her face more thoughtful and sad, yet sweeter than I had ever seen it. She had a work-basket beside her, and a book, while she sat by the head of my bed, but I saw that ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... if we will let Him. The only thing that we have to do is to gaze, with our hearts in our eyes and faith in our hearts, on Him, as He is lifted on the Cross and the throne. But we must so gaze, or we die, for none but He can cast out the coursing venom. None but He can arrest the swift-footed death that is intertwined with our ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... pitching; or picture Major DE BOOTS waiting patiently on the short stop for a chance to put Captain ABSOLUTE out on his second base. The experience of these gentlemen before the footlights may have made them light-footed, but from mere force of habit they are all pretty sure to be caught out in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... in Newbern he had not once felt the wander-bidding; never, as Dave Cowan put it, had he been itchy-footed for the road. Then, with the war, he had crept up to look over the top of the world, and now, unaccountably, in the midst of work he had looked forward to with real pleasure, his whole body was tingling ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... offered; from the instant that they had set foot down at the hacienda it was to be known that here Zoraida did as she pleased and accounted to none. Two tall fellows, looking pure-bred Yaqui Indians, served perfectly, soft voiced, softer footed, stony eyed. During the meal Kendric fell into the way of chatting with young Escobar, seeking to draw him out and failing, while Barlow and Rios talked together, Rios regarding Barlow intently. When they rose from table Barlow accepted an invitation from ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... unbalanced hoofs to divert the lower bones of young legs from their proper direction, and, therefore, to cause them to be moved improperly, with loss of speed and often with injury to the limbs, we might hope to see fewer knock-kneed, bow-legged, "splay-footed," "pigeon-toed," cow-hocked, interfering, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... a little from me, I suppose," Colonel Hare had once answered to a query, "for I've always had a way with four footed things. But I think Ahmed is right. Kathlyn is heaven born. I've seen the night when Brocken would be tame beside the pandemonium round-about. Yet half an hour after Kit starts the rounds everything quiets down. The gods ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks. I turned and footed it. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... went to him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand. Still fondling the dog,—without looking at the artist,—the older man continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I suppose? Or, will we lunch ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... railing at Grumbo—any colored individual, that is, in bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing him as a dog too wanting in the milk of human kindness to be allowed a place in human society, unmuzzled, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... here a little to study the quaint architecture, and the aspects of humble life. The peculiarities of dress, habits, and general appearance of the people differ materially from other continental towns. Half-clad, bare-footed boys and girls of twelve or fourteen years of age abound, many of them with such beauty of face and form as to make us sigh for the possibilities of their young lives probably never to be fulfilled. Under favorable auspices what a happy future might fall to ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Goth exulted. In addition to these natural endowments for a brave soldiery, they were good riders and famous marksmen—hunters, that knew the woods almost as well by night as by day—could wind about and through the camp of an enemy, as free from suspicion as the velvet-footed squirrel, who, from the lateral branches of the pine, looks over their encampment. They possessed resources of knowledge and ingenuity, while in swamp and thicket, not merely to avoid the danger, but, in not unfrequent instances, to convert it to their own advantage. Nothing but the training and ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... he comes back he is a man, has notions of his own, has seen the world and cares no more about his native village and the narrow cottage where he used to run in and out bare-footed, bare-chested, bare-headed and comfortably ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... sitting in front of a loosely made bark gunyah, bare-footed, and with their shoes and well-worn stockings placed upon a scorching sheet of rock to dry. The wallet was empty, for they had made a hearty meal; after which Nic had been piling up all the words he could think of to express his admiration for ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... telephonic communication between the hotels and the stables, these agents can provide in a surprisingly short time saddle-horses for a ride down one of the many bridle-paths, turnouts for a drive along the shady roads near the rim, or sure-footed animals for a descent into the Canyon on Hermit Trail (now nearing completion), or ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... of the meanest worm, then travels for a space beside the fish, then journeys along with the bird and the reptile for his fellow travellers; and only at last, after a brief companionship with the highest of the four-footed and four-handed world, rises into the dignity of pure manhood. No competent thinker of the present day dreams of explaining these indubitable facts by the notion of the existence of unknown and undiscoverable adaptations to purpose. And ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... saw they could not prevail on Saw-ge-maw, nor could withstand an adversary so formidable and such well prepared warriors, they endeavored to flee, but they were overtaken and slaughtered. Only the swift-footed young men escaped, taking the sad message to other villages of Mush-co-desh, and as fast as the news reached them they fled with their women and children toward the south along the shore of Lake Michigan, and continued ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... leaping six feet into the air and smacking a defenseless tennis ball with such vigor that it started right off in the general direction of Sioux Falls at the rate of upwards of ninety miles an hour, and coming down flat-footed without having jostled so much as a hairpin out of place. You may worship them, all right enough, but it is safer to do so at ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... do the years nibble in! how pussy-footed and how cocksure the crow's-feet! One morning, and the first gray hair, which has been turning from the cradle, arrives. Another, the mirror shows back a sag beneath the eyes. That sag had come now to Mrs. Ross, giving her ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... of a great artist in verse. He has harmony without melody; he invents and executes marvellous variations upon verse; he has footed the tight-rope of the galliambic measure and the swaying planks of various trochaic experiments; but his resolve to astonish is stronger than his desire to charm, and he lets technical skill carry him into such excesses of ugliness in verse as technical skill carried Liszt, and sometimes ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Thus, like the sad-presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings, Vexed and tormented runs poor Barabas With fatal curses towards these Christians. The incertain pleasures of swift-footed time Have ta'en their flight, and left me in despair; And of my former riches rests no more But bare remembrance; like a soldier's scar, That has no further comfort for his maim.... Now I remember those ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... eggs, together with one of the parent birds, of the Strong-footed Bush-Warbler were sent me from Sikhim. Both nests were found in thick brushwood or low jungle, at elevations of 5000 to 5500 feet—the one at Lebong on the 12th June, the other on another spur of ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... character by economic observances as irrefutable as the laws of Nature. The horses of out dry, stony uplands have already developed hoofs in shape and texture well adapted to the country over which they roam, and have become surer-footed and more active and durable. Conditions and circumstances which in a few generations effect desirable changes in horses will assuredly be influential in respect of the physique and stamina and moralities of man. North ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... listened. They heard neither one nor the other—neither voice nor footstep. Now and then came the note of a bird or the cry of some four-footed creature prowling through the glades; but not uttered in accents of alarm. The hunters must have wandered far in their search for game. They ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Romans knew the truth when they described one of its symptoms as cold feet. "Clino-pedalis, ad venerem invalidus, ab ea antiqua opinione, frigiditatem pedum concubituris admondum officere." Hence St. Francis and the bare-footed Friars. See Glossarium Eroticum Linguae Latinae, Parisiis, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... a crack which could never be suspected from below. Chance, that had sported with him of late, now directed him to a probable hiding-place. Again he laid aside his rifle, and, removing boots and belt, he began to walk up the steps. Like a mountain goat, he was agile, sure-footed, and he mounted the first bench without bending to use his hands. The next ascent took grip of fingers as well as toes, but he climbed steadily, swiftly, to reach the projecting corner, and slipped around it. Here ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the trees, and rob them of their valuable fruits and nuts, and cast down the vessels that are placed for collecting the sap from which wine is made. There are serpents also of prodigious size, their bodies being as thick as those of swine, with heads like those of boars; these are four footed, and grow to the length of four cubits, and breed in the marshes[82]. The inhabitants say that these have no venom. There are three other kinds of serpents, some of which have such deadly venom, that if they draw ever so little blood death presently follows, as happened ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... our guides pointed out to us the formidable barrancas at some distance, and expressed their opinion, that, with great caution, our horses being very sure-footed, we might venture to pass them, by which means we should save three leagues, and be enabled to reach an hacienda within six leagues of the cave that night; and after some deliberation, it was agreed that the attempt should be made. These barrancas (the word literally means a ravine or mountain ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... branches he saw the stars come out one by one, the darkness deepened, and the dim outline of tall trees over the dark hill came out sharply. The moments dragged, each one an hour. He heard a whippoorwill call, lonely and dismal; then an owl hoot monotonously. A stealthy footed animal ran along the log, sniffed at the boughs, and then scurried away over the dry leaves. By and by the dead silence of night fell over all. Still Joe lay there wide awake, listening—his heart on fire. He was about to rescue Nell; to kill that hawk-nosed renegade; to fight ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... walked carefully, picking his steps by the aid of the flashlight. Evelyn and Jack, more careless, stumbled frequently, but still the girl, light as a feather, flitted on, swift and sure footed. ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... passed leaden-footed. It was silent and still in that wild spot, as if theirs were the only two human hearts beating in a dead world. It seemed as though neither could bring it upon himself to terminate the interview. Charles was the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... leap, a run. But in golf half your time was spent in solemnly walking—toddling, she chose to call it—from point to point. This was, no doubt, excellent for the health, but she preferred swiftness. But then she was only a light-footed girl, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Helga. She was a daughter of Thord Longbeard, who was the son of Hrapp, who was the son of Bjorn the Rough-footed, who was the son of Grim, the Lord of Sogn in Norway. Gizur's mother's name was Olof. She was a daughter of ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... just finished his work in time; for the widow having been summoned to her guests in the Lust Haus, had left Vanslyperken alone, and the lieutenant thought this a good opportunity to look after his four-footed favourite. He came out into the yard, where he found Smallbones, and he had ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the open-air merchants, and settling themselves on the pavement, in shady corners, to eat, Grichka Tchelkache, an old jail-bird, appeared among them. He was game often hunted by the police, and the entire quay knew him for a hard drinker and a clever, daring thief. He was bare-headed and bare-footed, and wore a worn pair of velvet trousers and a percale blouse torn at the neck, showing his sharp and angular bones covered with brown skin. His touseled black hair, streaked with gray, and his sharp visage, resembling a bird of prey's, ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... to what is wrong. But we all know that training, though never perfect, can make the difference between a decently right and happy life and a bad, corrupt half-life or no life. What does training do for the nimble-footed young beauties of the London ball-room? It makes them nimble-footed, we ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... fervently. "I never was so glad in all my life as when I found out you were here. The letter was forwarded to me at the beach. We're at Wildwood for the summer. Maybe I didn't pick up my things in a hurry. To use slang, which you know I can't resist using occasionally, I hot-footed it for the station the minute ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... Mrs. Jo G.'s catlike eyes glittered,—"he said as how t' his mind a gossiper was like a jellyfish, sort o' slimy an' transparent, an' when you went t' clutch it, it stung! I asked him right out flat footed what he meant, an' he told me ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... with them. To have power and humility at once is sometimes sufficient to make a leader among men. Humility prevents us from rushing headlong along the paths of our own dogmatic errors; it enables us further to deal with other people who would be simply antagonized by our flat-footed insistence on every detail of our own initial position. The history of great statesmanship is in part, at least, the history of wise compromise. Nor does this mean sordid temporizing and opportunism. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... cheer, echoed again and again, and then half-a-dozen fleet-footed boys started for Stokebridge with the news that some of the imprisoned pitmen ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... in the air, but must alight and start again. It appears to sail and steer much like a hawk when the latter does not flap its wings. The little striped chipmunk, no doubt, has heaped up its store of nuts in the hole there that opens from the ground into the tree, and the pretty white-footed mouse, with its large eyes and ears, has had its apartment in the decayed recesses that exist in ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... same genus would occasionally exhibit reversions to long-lost characters. As, however, we do not know the common ancestor of any natural group, we cannot distinguish between reversionary and analogous characters. If, for instance, we did not know that the parent rock-pigeon was not feather-footed or turn-crowned, we could not have told, whether such characters in our domestic breeds were reversions or only analogous variations; but we might have inferred that the blue colour was a case of reversion from the number of the markings, which are correlated with ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin |
