"Gnome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more gladly glide, Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide! Along the margin, many a shining dome, White as the palace of a Lapland gnome, Brightened the wave;—in every myrtle grove Secluded bashful, like a shrine of love, Some elfin mansion sparkled through the shade; And, while the foliage interposing played, Lending the scene an ever-changing grace, Fancy would ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... himself, and gone out wandering among the farmhouses and huts and castles to try if he could hear some tidings of it, and get it if possible into his power. The moment he heard Hulda mention her gold wand, he became excessively anxious to see it. He was a gnome, and when his malicious eyes gleamed with delight they shot out a burning ray, which scorched the hound who was lying asleep close at hand, and he sprang up and barked ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... the trepidation which might have overpowered the modest Frenchman, on finding himself in the act of writing to so great a man, I shall not dare to determine. A few Notes are added by Your servant, GNOME. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was making its way down the middle of Main Street. A thick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like a drunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the cold steel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went on to the end of the block ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... had some very peculiar characteristics,—among others, he was a gnome. Living underground for the greater part of his time, he had ample opportunities of working out curious and artful riddles, which he used to try on his fellow-gnomes; and if they liked them, he would go above-ground and propound his conundrums to ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... the imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical efficacy. Unluckily, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... of two kinds, either lyric or gnomic, i. e. subjectively emotional or sententiously didactic, the former belonging to the active or stirring, and the latter to the reflective or quiet, periods of Hebrew history, and whether expressed in lyric or gnome rises in the conscience and terminates in action; for Hebrew thought needs to go no higher, since therein it finds and affirms God; and it seeks to go no farther, for therein it compasses all being, and requires no epic and no ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... place as Cleave approached it. It seemed a solitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave, coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it like a gnome, his eyes upon the jewelled hollows, his lips working. Jim rose. "De gineral, sah? De gineral done sont de staff away ter res'. Fo' de Lawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah,—ober dar in de ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... looking like a gnome in his mask with its wheezing rubber nosepiece, was walking up and down ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... was soon answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully fresh and green-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,—then a step in the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in the presence of the formidable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... spotless and grand, as I thought, in every part; ay, cosey enough, with good company well-met within, the risen wind clamoring through the night, the rain lashing the black panes, the sea rumbling upon the rocks below, and, withal, a savory smell abroad in goodly promise. My uncle, grown fat as a gnome in these days, grotesquely fashioned, miscellaneously clothed as ever, stood with legs wide upon the black wolf's-skin, his back to the fire, his great hands clasped over his paunch, lying as upon a shelf; regarding the direct ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... and a little, old, brown face, with a fringe of fluff round the chin, appeared in the aperture—a walnut of a face, with a pair of shrewd, twinkling eyes, and a pipe in a slit of a mouth. Another call brought on deck a figure which matched the face; and on deck Mr. Paasma (it looked like a gnome, but it could be no other than the caretaker) evidently intended to remain until ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the tight-lipped, elderly face, like the face of a wise and distrustful gnome, and held the pen uncertainly ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... as the strange creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of gnome and savage, half daemon, half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: it is as if the use ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... from a great carved chair. He had a thin, leathery face with an exaggerated nose, stretched out as though from sniffing for curios in dusty dim corners. When he smiled his eyes shut and his mouth twisted until he looked like a jolly little gnome. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... only then that he realized the almost superhuman cunning and pertinacity in this guileless-eyed cellar plotter called Heeney. He could see the hours of patient labor it had involved, the days and days of mole-like tunneling, the weeks and weeks of gnome-like burrowing and carrying and twisting and loosening and piling, the months of ant-like industry which one blow of the Law's heel would ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Toby would do with the Indians if he found them; but he and Shorty are in perfect accord. They have been associated together ever since Toby was a pup and Shorty went into the hermit business, and that was ten years ago. Sitting cross-legged on a flat rock like a little gnome, with his puckered eyes squinting off at space, Shorty told us how once upon a time he came near ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... soul which each of them contains. The appearance of these souls differs according to the appearance and the character of the trees which they represent. The soul of the ELM, for instance, is a sort of pursy, pot-bellied, crabbed gnome; the LIME-TREE is placid, familiar and jovial; the BEECH, elegant and agile; the BIRCH, white, reserved and restless; the WILLOW, stunted, dishevelled and plaintive; the FIR-TREE, tall, lean and taciturn; the CYPRESS, tragic; the CHESTNUT-TREE, pretentious and rather ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his long chin, stared into the flames. With his deformity, his earth-stains, his blue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he had the look of some strange gnome crouching there. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass for it is Transylvanian gold; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that may be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does it, ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... all look round, as well they may To see a horrid sight! The blackest gnome Stands there alone, ...
— The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' • Bertha Upton
... but without motion; just a wide opening of the eyes upon the darkness, and a swift beating of the heart, but not the movement of a muscle. It was as though some inward monitor, some gnome of the hidden life had whispered of danger to her slumbering spirit. The waking was a complete emergence, a vigilant ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The Elysians, indeed, being highly refined and gifted, for they comprised in their order the very cream of terrestrial society, were naturally a liberal-minded race of nobles, and capable of appreciating every kind of excellence. If a Gnome or a Sylph, therefore, in any way distinguished themselves; if they sang very well, or acted very well, or if they were at all eminent for any of the other arts of amusement, ay! indeed if the poor devils could do nothing better ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... he cried, as he entered the steeple, "They've hanged him at last, the righteous people! His swollen tongue lolls out of his head! Hoo! hoo! at last the old brute is dead! There let him hang, the shapeless gnome, Choked with a throatful ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... followers:—[Greek: ho eschatos Kyrios eis pn. zo.] Dial. ubi supra. [Greek: edei gar autous, ei ge ta euangelia etimon, me peritemnein ta euangelia, me mere ton euangelion exyphelein, me hetera prosthenai, mete logo, mete idia gnome ta euangelia prosgraphein.... prosgegraphekasi goun hosa beboulentai, kai exypheilanto hosa kekrikasi.] Titus of Bostra c. ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... a little gnome who lived in the Bye-bye Meadow, in a fine new house which he loved. To live in the Bye-bye Meadow was sometimes a dangerous thing, for all the big people lived there. Wee-Wun might have lived on the other common with the other gnomes and fairies if he had liked; but he did not. He liked better to ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... forest fear While pillared darkness hatched malicious life At either elbow, wolf or gnome or knife And wary slid the glance ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... free-and-untrammeled spaces of nature, and well you know it. But you'll go to-morrow and you'll keep on going until you find out what is behind those brown-green goblin spectacles. If only he didn't look so like a gnome!" ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... said he; "and according to the card, she would do better, if it were not for the gnome or wood-spirit, our grumbling friend of ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... his pleasures by taste, accompanies them with decency, and enjoys them with dignity. Few men can be men of pleasure, every man may be a rake. Remember that I shall know everything you say or do at Paris, as exactly as if, by the force of magic, I could follow you everywhere, like a sylph or a gnome, invisible myself. Seneca says, very prettily, that one should ask nothing of God, but what one should be willing that men should know; nor of men, but what one should be willing that God should know. I advise you to say and do nothing at Paris, but what you would be willing ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... arteries throbbing under the almost hairless skin of my temples—the transparent, bluish skin that denotes a thoroughbred? It's atrocious! The veins on my forehead are like writhing vipers, and I don't know what gnome forges in my brain! Oh, be quiet! Or at least speak so low that the coursing of my agitated blood may drown the sound of ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... But, on the other hand, not a gnome, witch, Norna's Head, or other intimation of the underworld. The shore looked like many other Italian shores. It looked not very unlike what we Yankees call salt-marsh. At all events, we should not break our heads against a wall! Nor will I draw out the story of our anxieties, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... deep guttural voice at this juncture, and Louis Gigue came out from the dark embrasure of the Manor's oaken portal into the full splendour of the moonlight—"Et la belle Mademoiselle Vancourt is ze adorable fantome of ze night! Et milord Roxmouth ze what-you-call?—ze gnome!—ze shadow of ze lumiere! Ha-ha! C'est joli, zat little chanson of ze little rose- tree! Ze music, c'est une inspiration de Cicely—and ze words are not so melancolique as ze love-songs made ordinairement en ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... down in a moment, clad in a scarlet kimono, her hair hanging in thick braids. With her large round forehead exposed she looked not unlike a gnome, but curiously young. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... "I got hold of that man Mullens that works for Swain's, the motor people. He worked in an aeroplane factory in France once, he says, for nearly a year. He does not know much about the actual planes themselves, but he knows a lot about the Gnome engine. He says he has invented an aeroplane engine that will lick them all when he gets it right. He is not hard to get going, but he won't stay on the point much. I have been at him half a dozen times altogether, but I wanted to get a few things quite clear ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... by the Odjibwas under the name of Weeng.[88] The power of the Indian Morpheus is executed by a peculiar class of gnome-like beings, called Weengs. These subordinate creations, although invisible to the human eye, are each armed with a tiny war-club, or puggamaugun, with which they nimbly climb up the forehead, and knock the drowsy person ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... that is too equivocal a position, whether in modern mythology, or Hoffman's tales. I should choose to be a gnome. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... above Hudson's yard, still stood aloof. It had towered there ahead of them as they jerked and toiled across the interminable flat in their accompanying cloud of dust. The great circle of the world had dwarfed them to a bitter insignificance: a team of crickets, they seemed, driven by a gnome. The hushed tone of Thatcher's voice made unconscious ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... fell in with her nurse's humour, and the two proceeded to "have a night of it." Ziza said she'd be a real fairy and tell him what to do, and Willie said he'd be a gnome or a he-fairy ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... a silence that was more complimentary than the wildest applause; for he had done what few orators do: he had set his audience to thinking. Only one of the Twelve had a remark to make for some time, and that was a small-framed, big-spectacled gnome called "History." He leaned over and said ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... timepiece, there came to his ears out of the darkness just ahead, a voice, a rich and throaty tenor, singing softly. The sweet sounds pierced his preoccupation. He looked, and some thirty or forty paces distant perceived a gnome-like figure perched atop a fire hydrant, at the edge ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... that are carved on everything from the mahogany chests to the soup tureens. It is all like some old fairy-tale. I shall make few changes; it seems such a perfect setting for Ulrich and his busy old gnome ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... table, attending to the needs of the diners. He was an admirable servant, deft and handy, but his blue-lined face and squat figure together with the obtrusively golden halo, rather worried Mrs. Jasher. And, indeed, in spite of custom, Lucy also felt uncomfortable when this gnome hovered at her elbow. It looked as though one of the fantastical idols from the museum below had come to haunt ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... dim white faces, reaching back and up, up further than she dared lift her head to see. From down below somewhere sounded the weird tinkle of elfin music, and tiptoeing out from every tree and bush came a green-clad gnome, dancing in stealthy silence in the sleeping forest. Quite unconsciously Nance began to keep time. It was such glorious fun playing at being animals and fairies in the woods at night. Without realizing what she was doing, she dropped into ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... advance by standing leaps, keeping both feet together. The only thing he seemed quite incapable of doing was to use his feet, one after the other, as ordinary people do when they are walking. Indeed, this strange guardian of the enchanted castle of Bradwardine looked like a gnome or fairy dwarf. For he was clad in an old-fashioned dress of grey, slashed with scarlet. On his legs were scarlet stockings and on his head a scarlet cap, which in its turn was surmounted by ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... faced east, and the following morning, at a very early hour, he began to have most unpleasant dreams. He thought a hobgoblin was seated on his chest, and several brownies were pulling him where he did not wish to go, and finally that a gnome of enormous dimensions was dragging him into a dark cavern, where he could never again behold the daylight. At last, in great perturbation, he opened his dazed eyes. The sight he saw seemed at first to be a continuation of his dream, but ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... earthquake, who 60 Reply to them in lava—cry halloo! And call out to the cities o'er their head,— Roofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead, Crash through the chinks of earth—and then all quaff Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. 65 This quicksilver no gnome has drunk—within The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin, In colour like the wake of light that stains The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains The inmost shower of its white fire—the breeze 70 Is still—blue Heaven smiles ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... some of their traditions; and the custom of exchanging simple gifts upon Christmas Day had come down to them as a result of a combination of the church legend of the good St. Nicholas, patron of children, and the Scandinavian myth of the fairy gnome, who from his bower in the woods showered good children with gifts.[148-A] But to celebrate the day quietly was altogether a different thing from introducing to the American public the character of Santa Claus, who has become ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... a l'instant, vieil gnome rechigne, Va d'une aile pesante et d'un air renfrogne Chercher en murmurant la caverne profonde, Ou loin des doux raions que repand l'oeil du monde La Deesse aux Vapeurs a choisi son sejour, Les Tristes Aquilons y sifflent a l'entour, Et le souffle mal sain de leur aride haleine Y porte aux environs ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef of gold,—the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... the Elm, who was a sort of short-winded, paunchy, crabby gnome; the Beech, an elegant, sprightly person; the Birch, who looked like the ghosts in the Palace of Night, with his white flowing garments and his restless gestures. The tallest figure was the Fir-tree: Tyltyl found it very difficult to see his ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... once, while I stared up at it, the moon changed itself into a great, big face; but I didn't mind a bit, 'cause it was a very nice sort of face,—rather like a gnome's face, only without the beard, you know. An' while I looked at it, it talked to me, an' it told me a lot of things,—an' that's how I know that you are—going away, 'cause ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... sinking—still floated round him. The trembling gleam of his lantern fell red and wild upon his livid countenance. His shaggy hair floated in the cold breezes that blew by him. At this moment he would have appeared from a distance, like a phantom of fire perishing in a mist of darkness; like a Gnome in adoration in the bowels of the earth; like a forsaken spirit in a solitary purgatory, watching for the advent of a glimpse of beauty, or ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... sugar, as the case might be; and again, after one of those mysterious periods of silence which are of most ominous significance in nursery experience, he would rise from the demolition of her indigo-bag, showing a face ghastly with blue streaks, and looking more like a gnome than the son of a respectable mother. There was not a pitcher of any description of contents left within reach of his little tiptoes and busy fingers that was not pulled over upon his giddy head without in the least seeming to improve its steadiness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... and home enjoyment; of money spent not for show, but for comfort. Thick crimson curtains descend in heavy folds over the embrasures of the windows, and the ample hearth and wide fireplace speak of the customs of the good old times, ere that gloomy, unpoetic, unsocial gnome—the air-tight—had monopolized the place of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... poll began to shine with minute beads of perspiration. He looked over the bib of his voluminous apron like a bewhiskered gnome very busy at some mysterious task. Louise noticed that his movements about the kitchen were ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... five hundred francs a year, for his inn, until he could buy him out, trusting to an agreement he had made with Monsieur Brunet to pay these costs by notes on stamped paper. By trade a journeyman tool-maker, this gnome worked for the wheelwrights when work was plentiful, but he also hired himself out for any extra labor which was well paid. Though he possessed, unknown to the whole neighborhood, eighteen hundred francs now in Gaubertin's hands, he lived like a beggar, slept ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... better after the gnome-like influence of Mrs Grace had ceased; but we must now hasten to introduce our readers to Mrs. Fanshaw. Mrs. Fanshaw was a card-playing lady, who had been educated at a time when it was not thought necessary for women to have any knowledge, or any taste for literature. As she advanced ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... gnome-like picture he presented as he poked and pried in those dim regions, by the dim rays of the lamp. Spiders, roaches and a great gray rat or two were ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... over his shoulder, seamed with smiles that spoke of some common understanding between him and the daughter of his master; and once, when she thrust more directly at her father, the little servitor deliberately winked to the back of his master's head—a very gnome of slyness. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... be nign' ap'a thegm gnat g'no'mon cam paign' di'a phragm rogue' for'eign ar raign' psy'chic al gnaw dough'ty op pugn' sac'cha rine gnash haugh'ty re sign' rheu mat'ic gnarl chron'ic de light' rhap'so dy gnome daugh'ter ex pugn' rhet'o ric phlegm ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... relationship, with all their immeasurable bliss, their immeasurable woe, into the playthings of an idle dialectic. It is pleasanter, and for us English not less instructive than pleasant, to see this dreaming, restless, thrice ingenious spirit, half Titan of the skies, half gnome of the lower earth, entering joyously or pitifully into the simple charm and natural tenderness of life as it comes and passes. Nothing delights him more than to hear or to tell such a story as this of Madame D'Epinay. She had given a small lad eighteen sous ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Winchester and his little band had been working at nothing else. A spell of fine weather favouring them, the work flew. Master and men worked feverishly, but for once in a way, without relish. The industry of the gnome was still there, but it ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... of spleen-wort, a species of fern, (Asplenium trichomanes) into the hand of a gnome as a protection from evil influences in the Cave ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... long, low, dimly-lighted room for the guide we had bespoken, two gendarmes and a peasant sat listening to, or rather looking at, a vivid account of some shooting adventure given in extraordinary pantomime by a deaf and dumb huntsman. In time a withered gnome trundling a wheelbarrow took possession of us and our light belongings, and led us forth into the night. We traversed the valley, mounted the hill on the other side, and at last entered the deeper night of a lampless village, and began to thread its steep, black streets. The only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... tadpoles, then backs itself into its underground world by means of the boring machine on its hind feet, to be heard no more that season, and seen no more, unless some one chance to dig it out, just as Hans in the story dug out the mole-gnome. ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... side. On the tomb are various coats of arms, and over it rises an arch ornamented with high stone tracery. A curious screen between the tower and the church has been made from the old carved bench-ends. Most of the subjects are grotesque, and on some of the panels are gnome-like heads, with long beards, big ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... country maid, Prizing his taste, or damsel highly born To judgment came, and anxiously displayed For him submission as for others scorn. Then, peering keenly from his peat-roofed home, Calm in his power he scanned her as he chose, And, if she pleased, the swart and twisted gnome Gave ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... Betsey's son, have been condemned by Parson Inch. It is said that the Fraddam family has witchcraft in its veins. Anyhow, it is well known that Betsey was regarded as a witch, while Eli, her son—but of the poor gnome I will tell ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... poet who flourished in the 7th century B.C.; dealt in gnome and satire, among the latter on the different classes ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... be noticed that the Gnome motor is unusually light, being about three pounds to the horse power produced, as opposed to an average of 4 1/2 pounds per horse power in other makes. This result is secured by the elimination of the fly-wheel, the engine itself revolving, thus obtaining the same effect ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... controlling power; and when I turned in with my watch, my sleep was undisturbed by any fear of wind or water, though it was full of troubled dreams. Now a lovely form in royal vesture beckoned to me from a lattice; anon the gleam of a lantern flickered across the terribly familiar face of a gnome, bearing out of a dark cavern an armful of the most precious jewels, which had a wild appealing in their light that puzzled me; while the roaring of the sea pervaded it all with a ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... sing on, praise her with all, thy might!! My turn to laugh will come some day. Me hath she jilted once, you the same trick she'll play. Some gnome her lover be! where cross-roads meet, With her to play the fool; or old he-goat, From Blocksberg coming in swift gallop, bleat A good night to her, from his hairy throat! A proper lad of genuine flesh and blood, Is for the damsel far too good; The greeting she shall ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... was to visit the Gnome King, with whom he made a bargain to exchange three drums, a trumpet and two dolls for a pair of fine steel runners, curled beautifully at the ends. For the Gnome King had children of his own, who, living in the hollows under the earth, in mines ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... People living in the neighbourhood fancied for a considerable period that this place was haunted; they could see a light in it periodically; they couldn't account for it; and they concluded that some headless woman or wandering gnome was holding a grim revel in it. But the fact was, a small band of Catholics debarred from open worship, and forced to secrete themselves during the hours of devotion, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... when the fair in all their pride expire, To their first elements their souls retire: The sprites of fiery termagants in flame Mount up, and take a Salamander's name. Soft yielding minds to water glide away, And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea. The graver prude sinks downward to a gnome, In search of mischief still on earth to roam, The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... French flights. Wilbur Wright at Le Mans. Competitions and prizes. Bleriot's cross-Channel flight. Grahame-White and Paulhan. Glenn Curtiss. The Circuit de l'Est. Aviation meetings. The Champagne week. The Gnome engine. Blackpool and Doncaster. Chavez flies across the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Cyrus thanked his vncle, and praised the maide, but for mariage he answered him with thies wise and sweete wordes, as Xen. 8. Cy- // they be vttered by Xenophon, o kuazare, to ri. Pd. // te genos epaino, kai ten paida, kai dora boulomai de, ephe, syn te tou patros gnome kai [te] tes metros tauta soi synainesai, &c., that is to say: Vncle Cyaxeris, I commend the stocke, I like the maide, and I allow well the dowrie, but (sayth he) by the counsell and consent of my father and mother, I will determine farther of thies matters. Strong Samson also in Scripture saw ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... went into the deep forest, his brain aching for a rhyme with pine. As he was hurrying along, a gigantic man, with a pole as big as a mast over his shoulder, appeared from behind the pine-trees. Peter was filled with terror, for he felt that it was none other than the giant-gnome, Michael ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove; And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg Were about me ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... relates to an episode in Peer Gynt's life when, in exploring the mountain, he came upon one of the original owners of the country, quite in the manner that happened later to Rip Van Winkle in the Catskills of New York. The gnome took him into the cavern in the mountain where his people had their home, and it is the queer and uncanny music of these humorous and prankish people that Grieg has brought out in this closing movement of the suite. It is ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... at the reporter's table lifted their eyebrows, smiled faintly, and leaned back to watch how she took her scolding. One with the appearance of a bald little gnome yawned agonizingly. They had got all this down already—they heard the substance of it now for the fourteenth time. The stipendiary would have done it ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... as awaking from his reverie, he stood opposite to that wild and magnificent gloom of Nature which frowned on him from the canvas, the very leaves on those gnome-like, distorted trees seemed to rustle sibylline secrets in his ear. Those rugged and sombre Apennines, the cataract that dashed between, suited, more than the actual scenes would have done, the mood and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... If Celia was not there, and if he did not care to fish, the boy still longed for the Perdu, and was more than content to lie and watch for he knew not what, amid the rapt herbage, and the brooding insects, and the gnome-like conspiracies of the moisture exuding ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... an hour before nightfall, the dwarf appeared at the mouth of the cave, looking more like a gnome than a man against the lurid background of the angry sky. A buck was tied across his enormous shoulders, and in his hand he held a large bunch of the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... vast under-world the mountain Gnome Ruebezahl was lord; and busy enough the care of his dominions kept him. There were the endless treasure chambers to be gone through, and the hosts of gnomes to be kept to their tasks. Some built strong barriers to hold back the fiery rivers ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... hanging from the ceiling. The extent of the caves is quite unknown: eleven acres (I was told) have been surveyed and mapped, while there are six avenues still unexplored, and you may already wander for twenty-four hours through the discovered provinces of the gnome king." This is not to be compared with Kentucky, perhaps not quite with Derbyshire; but it seemed to me marvellous at the time. Let this much suffice as hinted reference to those early journals, which, if the world were not already more ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... cheeks, nose, chin, forehead, and part of the brim of his hat and shoulders were brought into brilliant light, while the rest of him was lost in the profound darkness of the level behind, and the flame of his candle rested above his head like the diadem of some aristocratic gnome. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... The fireplace may also be a little dubious. It has been hacked out of a thick wall which may have been there when the other walls were not, and is presumably the cavern where Lob, when alone, sits chatting to himself among the blue smoke. He is as much at home by this fire as any gnome that may be hiding among its shadows; but he is less familiar with the rest of the room, and when he sees it, as for instance on his lonely way to bed, he often stares long and hard at it ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... reached the gate on their return, a second dwarfish figure, a man, pigeon-chested, short-necked, and asthmatic—a strange, gnome-like figure, came from the lodge to open it. Every body in ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... beauty closes, When the weary are at rest, When the shade the sunset throws is But a vapour in the west; When the moonlight tips the billow With a wreath of silver foam, And the whisper of the willow Breaks the slumber of the gnome,— Night may come, but sleep will linger, When the spirit, all forlorn, Shuts its ear against the singer, And the rustle of the corn Round the sad old mansion sobbing Bids the wakeful maid recall Who it was that caused the throbbing Of her ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... Hop-About Man, by Agnes Herbertson, in Little Folks Magazine, is a very pleasing modern romantic fairy tale for little children. Wee Wun was a gnome who lived in the Bye-Bye meadow in a fine new house which he loved. As he flew across the Meadow he had his pockets full of blue blow-away seeds. In the Meadow he found a pair of shoes, of blue and silver, ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... She missed Polly's fertile brain and imaginative suggestions. Polly was always able to discover fairy dells and gnome-frequented caves. It was she who invented the plays which were the most delightful. Mary was rather tiresome when it came to anything more than sober facts. She would play very nicely with the dolls, but, when it came ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... been a little man, Uncle William would still have run hither and thither through the crowd, a kind of gnome of usefulness. But his great frame gave him advantage. He was like a mountain among them—with the breath of winds about it—or some huge, quiet engine at sea, making its way with ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... not developed to the same high point in this country as the Liberty motor is the rotary engine, of which the Gnome Monosoupape or Clerget are perhaps the best-known types. These were favorites with airmen flying fighting scout-planes. They weighed practically nothing, for an engine. A one-hundred-horse-power motor weighed only two hundred and ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... not yet, heart's wonder! A little hour we'll stay, And thou wilt give me grace of dawn For travelled, dusk array. This gown of mottled years, By noon and gnome-light spun, Enchant me to surrender To Ariel ministers; Here poised with thee before Thy summer world's wide door, And glory that is hers; This soft, unclamorous sky That makes a lotus ship of every eye Upventuring; song's sail that pilotless Drifts ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... gaiters. He had blue eyes, his hair was cut very short, his head looked hard and rather military: he would have been taken for an Austrian officer, or even a German, had it not been for the peculiar Italian sprightliness and touch of grimace in his mobile countenance. He was rather like a gnome—not ugly, but odd. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... back in her mouth and began to smoke fiercely. The candle wick burned long, and was topped by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to wink at us like an impish gnome. The most grotesque shadow of Peg flickered over the wall behind her. The one-eyed cat remitted his grim watch and went to sleep. Outside the wind screamed like a ravening beast at the window. Suddenly Peg removed her pipe from ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... both sexes who never make confidences; who are never tempted by momentary circumstances to disclose their secrets. But such are generally dull, close, unimpassioned spirits, 'gloomy gnomes who live in cold dark mines.' There was nothing of the gnome about Eleanor; and she therefore resolved to tell Charlotte Stanhope the whole story about ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... aeroplanes, whether of the single or double type, the propeller, or propellers, are directly connected to the motor. In some monoplanes the motor, especially the Gnome, itself rotates, carrying the blades with it. In biplanes, such as the Burgess, Wright or Curtiss, it is the custom to operate the propellers directly from the motor, either by means of a ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... sat looking from her window like Daniel praying toward Jerusalem, her constant custom now, even when there was no moon to show what lay before her, did think she heard strange sounds come faintly through the night from the valley below—even thought she caught shadowy glimpses of a shapeless, gnome-like train moving along the road; but she only wondered if the Highlands had suddenly gifted her with the second sight, and these were the brain-phantasms of coming events. She listened and gazed, but could not be sure ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... said the gnome, "that must make your grave respected in a certain sense, for at least such a period as your immortal part may require for perfect exhalation. The immunity I accord is not conceded to your sanctity, but extorted by your scent. The sepulchres ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... that are purely and unmistakably Indian; yet after all Unk-to-mee, the sly one, whose adventures are endless, may be set beside quaint "Brer Fox" of Negro folk-lore, and Chan-o-te-dah is obviously an Indian brownie or gnome, while monstrous E-ya and wicked Double-Face re-incarnate the cannibal giants of our nursery days. Real children everywhere have lively imaginations that feed upon such robust marvels as these; and in many of us elders, I hope, enough of the child is left to find pleasure in a literature so vital, ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... received a shock; she was much more inclined to take things prosaically. But it was very difficult to explain matters. I think the dwarf at the first moment was more inclined to take her for something supernatural than she was now to imagine him a brownie or a gnome. For she was a pretty little girl, with a mass of golden fair hair and English blue eyes; and with her hat half fallen off, and her cheeks flushed, she might have sat for a picture of a fairy who had ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... Flying Corps from pre-war conditions to their present state of high efficiency. When the Haldane-Asquith brotherhood were caught napping, the Flying Corps possessed a seventy odd (very odd) aeroplanes, engined by the unreliable Gnome and the low-powered Renault. Fortunately it also possessed some very able officers, and these succeeded at the outset in making good use of doubtful material. One result of the necessary reconstruction was that a large section of the original corps seceded to the Navy ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... near. He had limped up on his stick. He spoke like an elderly, affectionate gnome, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mingle With the maple's modest red, And sweet arbutus wakes at last From out her winter's bed, 'T would not seem strange at all to meet A dryad or a gnome, Or Pan or Psyche in the woods ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... pioneers whiten as monuments of failure. In the guise of a green-kirtled enchantress, with wild poppies and primroses wreathed above her starry eyes, Science was luring him through the borderland of her kingdom, toward that dark, chill, central realm where, transformed as a gnome, she clutches her votaries, plunges into the primeval abyss-the matrix of time—and sets them the Egyptian task of weighing, analyzing the Titanic "potential" energy, the infinitesimal atomic engines, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the earl went down the stair She yielded to her fears. Gave way at last to grim despair, And melted into tears: When suddenly, from out the wall, As if he felt at home, There pounced a singularly small And much distorted gnome. He smiled a smile extremely vapid, And set to work in fashion rapid; No time for resting he deducted, And soon ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the Prince had been journeying in this direction for quite a long time, taking things easily, and seeing everything that was to be seen. His mother had died when he was quite young, and his father had lately married the daughter of a gnome, probably because their estates joined,—his stretching for many miles over the surface of the earth, while hers lay immediately beneath them. The Prince did not like his gnome step-mother (who was, you know, ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... 2: thespizomen ton hagiotaton tes presbyteras Rhomes papan proton einai panton ton hiereon.... te gnome kai orthe krisei tou ekeinou sebasmiou thronou katergethesan. Nov. ix. init.: Pontificatus apicem apud eam (Romam anteriorem) esse nemo est ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... European war was brewing, its violent emotion would quickly have reached the House. Paul Visire was not uneasy. The European situation was in his view completely reassuring. He was only irritated by the maniacal silence of his Minister of Foreign Affairs. That gnome went to the Cabinet meetings with a portfolio bigger than himself stuffed full of papers, said nothing, refused to answer all questions, even those asked him by the respected President of the Republic, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... fighting with a large mouser of the neighborhood, that I had seen for several afternoons previous, walking leisurely along the garden wall, as if absorbed in deep meditation, and forming some libertine resolve. In fine, they each seemed saturate with the spirit of the Gnome king, Umbriel, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... startled and wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a child striving to remember a forgotten lesson. One hand clutched a handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the chair back. She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the centre of the floor. "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye about," was his introduction, but her eyes ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... lost articles. They take it for granted at the first blush that you mean to accuse them of stealing. "Have you seen a brown veil lying about anywhere?" asked Crene, her sweet bird-voice warbling out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't seen nothin' of it," says Gnome, with magnificent indifference. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... The father gnome was very much alarmed at this sight, for what could he, no taller than a tulip, do against two such monstrous creatures? Their thumbs alone were as big as his whole body. All that was left to be done was to appeal to Tamara, and each in turn, and both together, the ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... know what that means," cried Fink; "you are in the plot; you are the gnome of this queen. If there be no magic here, let me sleep out the rest of my days. One wave of that wand, and the beams of this great bird-cage will open, and you fly with your whole suite out into the sunshine. Doubtless your palace is on the summit of the fir-trees ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... infinitude of beauty is lost to him. And when Sordello takes up his incomplete song, finishes it, inspires, expands what Eglamor thought perfect, he sees at last that he has only a graceful talent, that he has lived in a vain show, like a gnome in a cell of the rock of gold. Genius, momentarily realising itself in Sordello, reveals itself to Eglamor with all its infinities; Heaven and Earth and the universe open on Eglamor, and the revelation of what he is, and of the perfection beyond, kills him. That ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... the light of a husband. Girls often married for other than sentimental reasons. Of that she was well aware. Self-interest was at the bottom of most marriages. Cupid, guileless as he seems, is often a shrewd, calculating little gnome in disguise. If a girl has no means, no friends, no way of earning a living, what is going to become of her unless she seeks refuge in marriage? Her first instinct is to find a husband, a man sufficiently well off to support both. There was, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... at her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while the gnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. It was a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the hut could remember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her instinct of obedience ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... murky smiddy in the face, showing such gloomy holes and corners in it, and such a lot of horse-shoes hung up close to the roof, ready to be fitted for unbelievable horse-wear; and making the smith's face and bare arms glow with a dusky red, like hot metal, as if he were the gnome-king of molten iron. Then he stooped, and took up some coal dust in a little shovel, and patted it down over the fire, and blew stronger than ever, and the sparks flew out with the rage of the fire. Annie was delighted to look at it; but there was ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Gnome-wrought of moonbeam fluff and gossamer, Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest Mab or king Oberon; or, haply, her His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.— O for the herb, the magic euphrasy, That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah, me! And ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... more deep we rode into the gloom, though the sunset yet clung in a girdle of fire round the horizon, casting red blades of light between the tree trunks; and Pierrebon's cheek grew pale, for goblin and gnome and fay lived to him, and even I, who did not believe, felt if my sword played freely in my sheath. And then I ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... a long time deeply interested many men, and though the subject must now be looked at from a somewhat different point of view from what was formerly the case, it is not on that account rendered less interesting." This is mused forth as a general gnome, and may mean anything or nothing: the writer of the letterpress under the hieroglyph in Old Moore's Almanac could not be more guarded; but I think I know what it ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... standing by a window on the upper floor of a house situated in a narrow street. The blind was let down, but she had drawn it a little aside, and was looking out. By the fireside was seated a thin, vague, gnome-like figure, perched comfortless on the edge of a rush-bottomed chair, with its shadowy knees drawn up till they nearly touched its shadowy chin. There was something about the outline of this figure so indefinite and unsubstantial, that you might ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shocked by his artfulness, but it succeeded with Lady Davenant: it was in vain to say more about it to her, so Helen let it pass. When she mentioned it afterwards to Lady Cecilia, she said—"I am sorry, for your sake, Helen, that this happened; depend upon it, that revengeful little Portuguese gnome will work you mischief some time or other." Helen did not think of herself—indeed she could not imagine any means by which he could possibly work her woe; but the face was so horrible, that it came again and again before her eyes, and she was more and more determined ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... rule of the establishment that at midnight the household went to bed, and the host and his guests looked after themselves thereafter. The friends of De Lancy Scovel called him "Cupid," because of his cherubic face, but he was more gnome than cherub at heart. Having come into his fortune by being a henchman to abler men than himself, he was almost over-zealous to retain it, knowing that he could never get it again; yet he was hospitable with the income ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it came to canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself to the new conditions of his life—I was kept too busy in getting ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... told the gnome, putting the money in his palm and reaching for the rail. McCord lent me a hand on my wrist. Then when I stood squarely on the deck beside him he appeared to forget my presence, leaned forward heavily on the rail, and squinted ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... Pollen's own eyes of golden brown a little spark slowly burst into flame. It was exactly as if a gnome had lighted a lantern at the back of an unknown cave. Mrs. Ennis inwardly shuddered, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... elsewhere exiled, Was absent, whether some distemper'd spleen Kept him and his fair mate unreconciled, Or warfare with the Gnome (whose race had been Sometime obnoxious), kept him from his queen, And made her now peruse the starry skies Prophetical, with such an absent mien; Howbeit, the tears stole often to her eyes, And oft the Moon ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... I am not mistaken (and I indicated the gnome, who grinned from dusty face), distinctly said ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... rotary engine will affect the longitudinal stability when an aeroplane is turned to right or left. In the case of a Gnome engine, fitted to a "pusher" aeroplane, such gyroscopic action will tend to depress the nose of the aeroplane when it is turned to the left, and to elevate it when it is turned to the right. When fitted to a "tractor" aeroplane, the engine is reversed so that a reverse ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... dainty toes, for the amusement and instruction of a small tame jackal—the only one I ever saw thoroughly domesticated. A charming little beast it was, with long gray fur and bright twinkling eyes, mischievous and merry as a gnome's. From a broad blue ribbon round its neck was suspended a small silver bell that tinkled spasmodically, as the lively little thing sprang from side to side in pursuit of the ball, alighting with apparent indifference on its head ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... came running round the back of the wagon, quick and eager as a gnome. He snatched up the whip and let the lash curl outward with a hissing rush. It flashed like the flickering dart of a snake's tongue, struck, and the horses sprang forward. It curled again, hung suspended for the fraction of ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... Empty space was luminous beyond that cave. Becoming used to the gloom I saw chains and cordage hanging from the unseen roof. What was faintly like the prow of a boat shaped near. Then out from the lumber and suggestions of things a gnome approached me. "Y' want ole Pascoe? Nex' dore, guv'nor!" At that moment, in the square of bright day at the end of the darkness, the apparition of a ship silently appeared, and was gone again before my surprise. That open ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... unlaid ghost, a | |gnome, a goblin, a swart fairy at the | |least, who has settled down for the | |winter in a perfectly respectable cellar | |over in Brooklyn and whiles away the | |dismal hours of the night by chopping | |spectral cordwood with ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... both forms are possibly due to folk-etymology. A coat of mail was called in English a jack and in French jaque, "a jack, or coat of maile" (Cotgrave); hence the diminutive jacket. The German miners gave to an ore which they considered useless the name kobalt, from kobold, a goblin, gnome. This has given Eng. cobalt. Much later is the similarly formed nickel, a diminutive of Nicholas. It comes to us from Sweden, but appears earliest in the German compound Kupfernickel, copper nickel. Apparently nickel here means something like goblin; ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... from behind a clump of rock. The next second, he let out a Texas whoop, bounded from cover like an over-sized gnome, and sent his ten-gallon hat sailing ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... were led through a mysterious network of narrow passages and vaulted rooms, all lit with electric lamps, and striking cold and cellary. We saw the big hospital, not very busy just then, and the clean, empty operating theatre, and gnome-caverns where munitions were stored in vast, black pyramids. When there was nothing left to see in the citadel, our hosts asked if we would like to pay a visit to the trenches—old trenches ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wandering, dear Mrs. Jameson, in the land of romance, the birthplace of wild traditions, the stronghold of chivalrous legends, the spell-land of witchcraft, the especial haunt and home of goblin, specter, sprite, and gnome; all the beautiful and fanciful creations of the poetical imagination of the Middle Ages. You are, I suppose, in Germany; intellectually speaking, almost the antipodes of America. Germany is now the country to ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... in a way to stupefy the innocent peasant-girl. For the first time in her life she saw ferocity in that face. The moonlight seemed to heighten the effect of it. The savage Breton, holding his cap in one hand and his heavy carbine in the other, dumpy and thickset as a gnome, and bathed in that white light the shadows of which give such fantastic aspects to forms, seemed to belong more to a world of goblins than to reality. This apparition and its tone of reproach came upon Francine with the suddenness of a phantom. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... that she had been defiled by an evil genius—an enemy of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. This put Madame d'Urfe fairly on the way, and she added on her own account that the girl must be with child by a gnome. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... But these eight groups are far too few to supply examples of either ancient or modern superstition. Hahn endeavoured to group the folk-tales of Europe under forty heads, and Baring Gould has followed his example. In every corner of Christendom some form of kelpie, sprite, troll, gnome, imp, or demon has a place in the mind of the people, much the same as ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... amid a flare of gasolene torches that gave a weird aspect to the plain. The yellow lights; the moving, shadowy forms of the workmen and horses; the cries and shouts—all made a scene gnome-like in character. Frost gleamed upon the earth in a silvery sheen under the torches' smoky flames. The headquarters building and the mess tents now glowed from dusk until dawn. Fires where workmen could warm their cheeks and hands were ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... and property. Look, your majesty, at our young lieutenant, Von Trenck: in the midst of the crowd, his rich, gold-embroidered scarf has been adroitly removed; in his zeal for your service, he forgot himself, and the merry gnome,—whom Trenck should have kept in order, has made our officer the target for his sleight of hand. This jest, sire, caused the loud laughter ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... witches, wizards, prophets, seers and fortune-tellers, but there was a perfect army of fairies which overran the whole land, and the myths concerning which would have filled volumes could they ever have been gathered. The gnome-like spirits of the mountains had peaked heads, and were of a vicious, impish disposition, but were powerless to injure any one who carried a ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... full of curly fruits. The aggravating Hilda, the indefinite Eunice, and the smooth Edna, seeing the proper Cricket" [another howl] "struggling in the water with the contrary Will, immediately jumped out after them, leaving the rough Archie and forlorn auntie in command of the boat. Suddenly a bold gnome popped up his dainty head from behind a rock, saying, 'Welcome, Englishmen! You are in the cave of accident. Look out for yourselves.' As he spoke, his watery head fell off. He felt around but could not find it, since his eyes had gone with his head, so he said, politely, 'Will some of you ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... Legends of the South of Ireland, ed. Wright, pp. 135-9. In the original the gnome is a Cluricaune, but as a friend of Mr. Batten's has recently heard the tale told of a Lepracaun, I have adopted the better ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... as good a wife as you, Aunt Catherine," said Roger with a little whimsical smile that gave him the look of an amused gnome. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... shortcomings; then she went down the slight incline from the furnace hearth to the open stretch of molding-sand; there was a pile of rusty scrap at one side, and here, in the soft April darkness under the stars, she seated herself, looking absently at the furnace and the black, gnome- like figures of the helpers. She was thinking just what Parks had thought, that Nannie had none of her blood in her. "Afraid!" said Sarah Maitland. Well, Blair had never been afraid, she would say that for him; he was a fool, and pig-headed, and a loafer; but he wasn't a coward. He had even ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Sedgwick, "and we were neither of us handsomely attired. I thought he was a gnome; he thought me ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... Goose" came to New York saw the introduction of a French troupe of Pantomimists, known as the Ravels. In imitation of these performers Fox introduced in the 'fifties ballet Pantomimes, and several Ravelsque pieces like "The Red Gnome" and "The Schoolmaster" with ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent |
