"Knocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bricklayer, in Granada, who kept all the saints' days and holidays, and Saint Monday into the bargain, and yet with all his devotion he grew poorer and poorer and could scarcely earn bread for his numerous family. One night he was roused from his first sleep by a knocking at his door. He opened it and beheld before him a ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Emperor should have arrived, to all who might wish to proceed from Lochias to the city, or from the city to the peninsula, under the orders of Pontius the architect. And till long past midnight not a quarter of an hour passed in which the people whom the architect had summoned to his aid were not knocking at the harbor gates, which, though not locked were all guarded. The little house belonging to the gate-keeper was also brightly lighted up; the birds and cats belonging to the old woman whom the prefect and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of curious maids, lingering on the stairs, ran up the next flight to obey. There was the sound of knocking at panels, a pause, and a cry at which George Brudenell felt his heart turn cold, for he understood what it meant. ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... this was a blind: the clerk of the weather was evidently meditating a stronger blow from the original direction, and had only gone on ahead to seek some of his refractory forces to give us the full benefit of the combination. All sail again, fast and furious we drove through it, and succeeded in knocking "seven and a bit" out of the old "Duke;" 'twould take something like a hurricane to persuade her to more. We tore past Tsu-sima, an island in the Corea strait, and laughingly cleared the run down ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... long embrace, Cries she, 'Oh, dear, that's shocking!' When the doctor's boy, to mar their joy, Just entered without knocking. And when he saw the state o' things, Then down the stairs he hurried, And ran to tell the Doctor's wife,— For Doctor B. was married. So ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... Without even knocking at the door there noiselessly entered our northern home two large, unhandsome Indians. They paid not the slightest attention to the grown-up palefaces present, but in their ghostly way marched across the room to the corner where the two little children were playing on the floor. ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... business to be knocking the towns and factories of our ally, France, to bits in the fashion that we were doing that day— there and at many another point along the front. The Huns are fond of saying that much of the destruction in Northern France has been the work ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... it all the worse in that respect. However, by taking great care he managed to get through the town all right, although he narrowly escaped colliding with several vehicles, including two or three motor cars and an electric tram, besides nearly knocking over an old woman who was carrying a large bundle of washing. From time to time he saw other small boys of his acquaintance, some of them former schoolmates. Some of these passed by carrying heavy loads of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... minutes, and took full possession. Cousin Redfield Bear and I used to walk over that way every day, to observe things, and we happened along just as it was going on. That fellow's wide build didn't help him any against bees. Violet came out first, pawing her nose with one hand, and knocking bees with the other. He stayed to fight a little, but directly he rolled out, scratching and pawing, and five minutes later his own mother wouldn't have known him, he was so swelled. Violet looked at him, and then at me and Cousin ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the Post Office for Louis, and buying him whisky. Marcella ran out of the house, almost crazed with fright, to look for him. When she had only gone a few hundred yards she ran back, afraid he might come in and need her. It was not until after midnight that a violent knocking on the front door roused Mrs. King and sent Marcella down ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... him hand and foot had withdrawn to the farther side of the tiny camp-fire to wrangle morosely over what should be done with him, Evan Blount found it simply impossible to realize that they were actually discussing, as one of the expedients, the propriety of knocking him on the head and flinging his body ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Anglicisms. I certainly find several here for which I can perceive no more precedent in the well of "English undefiled," than for some of ours; for instance, this being "knocked up," which is variously inflected, as, for example, in the form of a participial adjective, as a "knocking up" affair; in the form of a noun, as when they say "such a person has got quite a knocking ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he cried. 'I never looked to see you again in this world. I do nothing but read about you in the papers. What for did ye not send for me? Here have I been knocking about inside a ship and you have been getting famous. They tell me you're ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Smithfield; and, the roads all being clear, our army moved to Goldsboro'. The heaviest fighting at Bentonsville was on the first day, viz., the 19th, when Johnston's army struck the head of Slocum's columns, knocking back Carlin's division; but, as soon as General Slocum had brought up the rest of the Fourteenth Corps into line, and afterward the Twentieth on its left, he received and repulsed all attacks, and held his ground as ordered, to await the coming back of the right wing. His loss, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... glowing with bright diagonal stripes. The early sunlight fell upon them and they were brave to behold. And we said to ourself that it would be a proper thing for one who was connected with the triumphal onward march of a play that was knocking them cold on the one-night circuit to flourish a little and show some sign of worldly vanity. (We were still young, that November, and our mind was still subject to some harmless frailties.) We entered ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... connection was a dull throb at his heart, a queer uneasiness and discomfort. He leaned out of the window. He could hear the river singing between the grass banks at the bottom of the garden behind him. He would hear it through the night. Then came a knocking upon his door, and he did not notice it at once. It was repeated and he ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... reply for her—indeed, no thought of her. Without knocking, he opened the door with rude and powerful hand, and, striding in, closed ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... much by taking my camel to transport a portion of baggage, his own camel knocking up. At first I refused to go on, but on the promise that he would get a bullock at the nearest place I mounted upon the luggage. Fortunately, my gift camel is a good one, not like the horse, and can carry a large weight. I cannot grumble much, as the Sheikh's camels are transporting ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... Billy! Is this your house? I didn't know it when I began to drum. I wasn't knocking; I was drumming. I just ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... it! He could pretend (so long as it suited his purpose, at all events), to have been the man caught and left bound in Higgins' care. Simple enough: the knocking over of the butler would be ascribed to a natural ebullition of indignation, the subsequent flight to a hare-brained notion of running down the thief. And yet even that explanation had its difficulties. How was ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... look over the dark Square below. By the light of the lanterns he can see the wooden candles above the grocer's shop knocking together like ninepins; the street lamps shiver and swing; a high wind has sprung up. Next moment a deluge of rain comes down; the Place empties entirely; such as the fear of the Convention and its dread ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... He was knocking his bare heels together and thinking idly of Major Dabney and certain disquieting rumors lately come to Paradise, when the tinkling drip of the spring into the pool at the foot of his perch was interrupted ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... though we were present here hundreds of years ago: the murderer standing over his victim, the knife driven in and the blood gushing out. If we went further away we should at this same moment be seeing the criminal just arriving and knocking at the door of that house, then going upstairs into the room, and the same terrible scene with all its minutiae would again be enacted. From a point still further removed, we should now see him, say, having lunch at a country inn some ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... right, and we must be thankful for the good stuff we have, as it is. How far will the law bear us out in knocking men on the head in such an undertaking? It's peace for America, and we ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... sign of stirring, he was seized by many hands and boosted over the edge of the pit. He rolled over, knocking down some of the bushes and finally rose to his feet, standing ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... unmerited pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action will come thronging back upon thy memory and knocking ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... 9th, just a week from the German entry, there is another fusillade in the streets. "It is the Zouaves, knocking at the doors, dragging out the conquerors of yesterday, now a humbled remnant, with their hands in ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... way. As for that youth, Clement Lindsay, if he had not taken himself off as he did, Murray Bradshaw confessed to himself that he should have felt uneasy. He was too good-looking, and too clever a young fellow to have knocking about among fragile susceptibilities. But on reflection he saw there ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the Temple, Edgar and Albert went back to Cheapside. The streets were almost deserted. The better class of citizens had all shut themselves up in their houses and every door was closed. On knocking at the door of the mercer the two friends were admitted. The alderman had just returned from a gathering of the city authorities. They told him ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... fifth day of the puppies' lives Desdemona was out and about before the sun, and her hunting took her somewhat far afield. While she hunted—doubtless introducing fear into several rabbit earths, and tragedy into one—Destiny came knocking at the door of her own cave, and left his sign manual there in letters of blood. On her homeward way, the half of a young rabbit gripped between her jaws, Desdemona suddenly picked up a fresh trail close to the cave. In the same instant the half-rabbit fell ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... old stags-horn pickaxes, that crumbled to pieces when we brought them to grass. And they say that if a man will listen of a still night about those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them at working, knocking, and picking, as clear as if there was a man at work in the next level."—Yeast; a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... besides their houses, the beavers take care to have a number of holes in the banks, under water, called washes, into which they can run for shelter, should their houses be attacked. It is the business of the trappers to find out all these washes, or holes; and this they do in winter, by knocking against the ice, and judging by the sound whether it is a hole. Over every hole they cut out a piece of ice, big enough to get at the beaver. No sooner is the beaver-house attacked, than the animals run into their holes, the entrances ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... south, a mile away, in front of the mountains. Something unpleasant once befell me in crossing there. I and another sub. hired a boat for a spree, just because the hummocks of ice were knocking about on the tide, and all prudent people stayed ashore; but we went out in great dreadnought boots, and bearskin caps over our ears, and amused ourselves with pulling about for a while among the floes. I suppose ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... glorious hymn, "Thanks unto God!" Fritz Kober, actuated by the same feelings, joined in the hymn, and here and there a comrade lent his voice to swell the anthem; it became stronger, louder, until at last, like a mighty stream, it passed over the battle-field, knocking at every heart, and urging it to prayer, finding everywhere ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... stooped over quickly, half knocking me down as he did so, and dropped to his knees; and the next instant gave an unsteady ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... occurred to the vacant-faced groom that he must speak now or never if he expected any reward for his speech. So the instant Richard Wood appeared in the inn yard he sidled up to him and began, at the same time knocking his grooming tools, which he still held in his hands, nervously together, an accompaniment to his speech, which seemed to surprise the spy. "I did come from Gainsborough two ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... shoulder, calling her name; but her head fell on one side, as if she had been a horrid dummy made of rags; and still her eyes were staring and her blood-stained lips smiling that foolish, awful smile. It was at this moment that I heard a knocking ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... I don' know. Long time she's gone now." She trailed off into Indian words he could not comprehend, so he pushed past her into the house to see for himself, and without knocking flung Necia's door open and stepped into her chamber. Before he had swept the unfamiliar room with his eyes he knew that she had indeed gone, and gone hurriedly, for the signs of disorder betrayed a reckless ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the ink, pushed back his chair from the table, withdrew the cambric sleeve from his right arm, and smoothed down his wristbands, having first put on his India rubber overshoes. The fact is, he was very anxious to get home, and he could not go without first seeing Mr. Latitat. The idea of knocking at Mr. Latitat's door on business of his own never once occurred to him. He would do that for a client, but not for himself. So he ventured on a series of low coughs, and finding no notice was taken of them, he dropped the poker into the coalhod, the most ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... not knock, not considering herself grand enough for ceremony, and indeed Jess would have resented her knocking. On the other hand, when Leeby visited Tibbie, she knocked as politely as if she were collecting for the precentor's present. All this showed that we were ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... a cocoanut grove at night you can hear a noise like some one knocking. The older people say that the cocoanuts grow so closely together high up in the branches that the wind, when it shakes the tree, bumps them together. But the children know better. They say, "Quicoy is knocking to get out, but he must ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... the house without knocking—there was no need to lock doors in the quiet streets of the little old town, where everybody that passed up and down was known by everybody else, and their business often known better by the everybody ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... to button her gloves, and to readjust her feather boa with which she had been knocking the Easter cards off the counter. Then ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... journey is ended, I have worked out the mandates of fate, Naked, alone, undefended, I knock at the Uttermost Gate— Lo, the gate swings wide at my knocking; Across endless reaches I see Lost friends, with laughter, come flocking To give a glad welcome to me. Farewell, the maze has been threaded, This is the ending of strife; Say not that death should be dreaded, 'Tis but the beginning ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Selden's growing kindness, Gerty would no more have dared to define it than she would have tried to learn a butterfly's colours by knocking the dust from its wings. To seize on the wonder would be to brush off its bloom, and perhaps see it fade and stiffen in her hand: better the sense of beauty palpitating out of reach, while she held her breath and watched where it would alight. Yet Selden's manner ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... there was a tremendous knocking at the door. The priest ran into the room. "We are betrayed," he said; "some one must have carried away the news last night of your arrival here, and it has come to the ears of the French cavalry on the other side. I ordered some men out last night to watch the road across the border, but the enemy ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... go down again, when right atop of the stairs, at the entry of a passage, it occurred to him to make a last try by knocking at the door. It was opened by a woman whose uncombed hair was already getting grey, though she could not be more than forty; while her pale lips, and dim eyes set in a yellow countenance, expressed utter lassitude, the shrinking, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... alligator tore up to Joam Garral, and after knocking him over with a sweep of his tail, ran ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... to continue his explanation at that moment, for before he had time to go on with what he had in mind the sound of excited exclamations came from the corridor, and some one, after knocking loudly on the door, turned the knob and thrust in his head. Teeny-bits and Snubby saw that it was ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... objection is, "Why not do easier work? There are so many who are more accessible, why not go to them?" And there does seem to be point in the suggestion that if there are open doors, it might be better to enter into them, rather than keep on knocking at closed ones. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... recommended the prince to try knocking at Rogojin's once more—not at once, but in the evening Meanwhile, the mother would go to Pavlofsk to inquire at Dana Alexeyevna's whether anything had been heard of Nastasia there. The prince was to come ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the horse and cart, but with the inn-keeper at his heels. He came in without knocking at the door, as ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... stoke-hole. A stonemason working in the churchyard came to my assistance. The verger was in the church and would doubtless open the door if I knocked. I knocked. Nothing happened. The stonemason knocked; indeed, he knocked a great deal. I begged him to stop knocking, for passers-by stayed to see what this thing might be, but he was thoroughly interested, and went on knocking. Perhaps he knocked for a quarter of an hour. A young girl came up to tell us that the door would certainly open ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... girls in here," ordered Dozia, for knocking at the door gave warning of an influx. "There is no need to give everyone this private hearing. We might want to make a real story of it for the 'Blare'—our holiday edition just needs a live feature like this." So the taps were "deflected" and Jane recounted ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... had no part in his slaying,' said Hrut, with a sound of relief in his voice; but as he spoke he drew his sword, which Thiostolf saw, and thrust at Hrut with his axe. Hrut, too, saw, and sprang quickly aside, knocking up as he did so the handle of the axe, so that it fell full on the ground. Turning himself swiftly, Hrut dealt Thiostolf a blow which brought him to his knees, and a stab in the heart finished ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... placid delusion of stormy, mile-wide privacy, her mother's old-fashioned long black skirt drawn up from her dainty toes (of which, of course, the imminent John Fairmeadow was never permitted to be aware), when, all at once, and clamouring above the old wind's howling, there was a tremendous knocking at the door—a knocking so loud, and commanding, and prolonged, that Pattie Batch jumped like a fawn in alarm, and stood for a moment with palpitating heart and a mighty inclination to fly to the bedroom and lock herself in. Presently, however, she mustered ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... found Royal Blondin lounging in the billiard room, and idly knocking balls about. The second thing he said to her was of the gown, the third of her eyes. Harriet stood beside him, raising the eyes in question, and smiling. When she turned and went slowly away, Blondin ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... Isidore had covered the thirty-five or forty miles to La Mailleraie and was knocking at the door of an inn by the waterside. He slept there and, in the morning, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... of prayer had died away. He continued, to kneel, but his mind was filled with the images of results to be felt through all Europe; and the sense of immediate difficulties was being lost in the glow of that vision, when the knocking at the door announced the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the quiet sort, who strike first, and do the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, in the place thereof, a clean, straight, hard hit, which took effect with a spank like the explosion of a percussion-cap, knocking the slayer of beeves down a sand-bank,—followed, alas! by the too impetuous youth, so that both rolled down together, and the conflict terminated in one of those inglorious and inevitable Yankee clinches, followed by a general melee, which make our native fistic encounters ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... rush of the wind was now disturbed by a portentous sound; it was a quick and heavy knocking at the outer door. Pearson's wan countenance grew paler, for many a visit of persecution had taught him what to dread; the old man, on the other hand, stood up erect, and his glance was firm as that of the tried soldier who awaits ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... frozen clouds, still and hard; the slopes of leafless larches seemed withered and brown; the distant plain far down gloomy with the same dull yellowish blackness. At a height of seven hundred feet the air was sharp as a scythe—a rude barbarian giant wind knocking at the walls of the house with a vast club, so that we crept sideways even to the windows to look out upon the world. There was everything to repel—the cold, the frost, the hardness, the snow, dark sky and ground, leaflessness; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... minutes and then knocking again so loudly that the sound reverberated through the empty halls with a sickening clatter, I heard some one fumbling with the bolts. The door opened an ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Marat's career tended to make him the accredited prophet of the reign of suspicion now fast becoming established. He had during many years studied science and philosophy, and had acquired the knack of writing while unsuccessfully knocking at the doors of the academies. The outbreak of the Revolution found him soured, and ready to turn a venomous pen against all detainers of power. A morbid streak fast developed into a mania of persecution and ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... about that time hearing on the Mars Radio that a Triangle Post Office had been knocked over by a gunman. That might have been it. The Patrol would be after anyone knocking over EMV Triangle property. The Earth-Mars-Venus Government supported the Patrol for ...
— Turnover Point • Alfred Coppel
... checking piracy, but doing nothing save overhaul inoffensive junks, that we were all heartily sick of our task. For it was not, as Smith said, as if we were always in some port where we could study the manners and customs of the Chinese, but for ever knocking about wild-goose chasing and never getting ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... and chickens. Eagerly they scanned the sides of the railway embankment as they drew near, looking for signs of what they feared to see. One need not describe the fierce joy with which Sarah Ann Bowles fell upon little Sim, who was presently discovered, safe and dirty, knocking about upon the kitchen floor in abundant company of puppies, cats and chickens. As to the reproaches which she heaped upon her husband in her happiness, it is likewise ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... I heard the knocking of a pair of knees on the floor, followed by a struggling sound, and loud angry exclamations on the part ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... president's room without even the formality of knocking he found himself the object of frowns on all sides, showing that his prolonged absence had been the subject ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... necessary for properly staging the melee. It was prearranged that Theodore, in the sixth or seventh round, was to knock Hill out, but as the battle progressed, Theodore made a false pass and Hill could not desist from taking advantage of it, and the prearranged plan was reversed by Hill knocking Theodore out. And Hill has kept right on taking advantage of the false movements of his adversaries, and is now knocking them out with more adroitness than he did ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... Their singing, though charged with a moral purpose, and their prayers, though directed to a specific end, do not make their warfare a whit more feminine, nor their situation more attractive. A woman knocking out the head of a whisky barrel with an ax, to the tune of Old Hundred, is not the ideal woman sitting on a sofa, dining on strawberries and cream, and sweetly warbling, "The Rose that All are Praising." She is as far from it as Susan B. Anthony was when pushing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... some minutes, hoping to be admitted to the room, but no notice was taken of her knocking—for the ladies were too much absorbed in their own affairs to trouble themselves ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... a fitting illustration, fumbling in imagery's twilight chamber and ransacking the halls of history, when lo! God sent one knocking at the door. I responded to the knock myself, and Geordie Lorimer stood before me. His face seemed strangely chastened, and the voice which craved a private interview filled me somehow with subtle hope and joy. For the voice is the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... suffer, Helen had made her final personal comment. For a day, her thoughts hovered about the distant drama of which Mildred Caniper was the memento, like a dusty programme found when the play itself is half forgotten, and Helen's love grew with her added pity; but more urgent matters were knocking at her mind, and every morning, when she woke, two facts had forced an entrance. She was nearer to Zebedee by a night, and only the daylight separated her from George and what he might demand and, outside, the moor was covered ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... Thorn—a circumstance which made me more ready to be of Michael Texel's opinion with regard to any flighty and irresponsible courting of the maids of the town. For had I not the fairest and the best of them all at home close by me? On this night of which I speak it was almost bedtime when I heard a knocking at the outer port, and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... but I've grown very small; the Wind shook me about till I was only half the size I ought to be, just for knocking down a boy who came in my way. Go on, Paulina; paint away, make no delay, or I shall have to ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of song Stood I, knocking all day long, But the Angel, calm and cold, Still refused ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... presence, though a little inclined to corpulency; social, insinuating, and somewhat specious in his manners, with a strong degree of self-approbation. A long course of solicitation; haunting public offices and antechambers, and "knocking about town," had taught him, it was said, how to wheedle and flatter, and accommodate himself to the humors of others, so as to be the boon companion of gentlemen, and "hail fellow ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... to any one how I pass my time, and I may as well do something useful for once. I know at first sight it seems impossible, but it is nothing of the sort in reality. It isn't the first time I have faked as a native. I am Indian born, and I have spent the greater part of my life knocking about the Empire. The snake-taming business I picked up from an old bearer of mine—a very old man he's now and in the trade himself. I got him to lend me his most docile cobra. The thing was harmless, of course. But all this is beside the point. The point is, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... page, who ran upstairs, and, knocking at the judge's door, said that a Miss Jenkins wanted to speak ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it. I like this knocking around, loose and easy, and making acquaintances and talking. I know an American, soon as I see him; so I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. I ain't ever bored, on a trip like this, if I can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with a broken spear in his withers, the shaft sticking up a foot and a-half from the blade, knocking over a horseman and wounding his horse; receiving two bullets—ten to the pound each—the first in his neck and throat, a very deadly part in all animals; the second breaking his jaw, and fired within a few feet of the muzzle; making good his charge, cutting down ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... in his place, catches beautifully and is off down the field like a whirlwind, dodging one, knocking off another, running round a third, till between him and the goal line he has only the half ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... verbal prejudices, those debris of old perceptions which choke all fresh perception in the soul. Irrational hopes, irrational shames, irrational decencies, make man's chief desolation. A slight knocking of fools' heads together might be enough to break up the ossifications there and start the blood coursing again through possible channels. Art has an infinite range; nothing shifts so easily as taste and yet nothing ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... this time, to be sitting at the back-parlor window, and she heard their voices as they came along the yard. So, supposing the knocking was some of their play, she just looked out of ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... By the aid of a good clasp-knife Matthew severed the cords and secured his little sister, her weight, however, as it came upon him, almost knocking him from his perch. But he held desperately, and in another moment had Mary on the branch beside him. Then George, throwing his legs apart, suddenly loosed his hold of the branches and dropped also astride of the bough, which he grasped tight with ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... caused by the door, which she had carefully closed suddenly opening, and nearly knocking her over. Apparently the visitors did not approve of being left to wait in the passage, and judged it ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him, and though his master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the occurrence till the next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door at a quarter to nine as usual. He received no answer, and, after knocking two or three times, entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine's body leaning forward at an angle from the bottom of the bed. He found that his master had tied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts, and, after making a running noose and slipping it round his neck, the unfortunate ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... Cacklogallinians will fly at the Rate of Twenty Miles an Hour. His Landlord came in less than that Space after in great State. He was preceded by Half a Dozen Servants, who carried large Battens in their right Feet, and made no Ceremony of knocking any on the Head who came in their Way. He was in a sort of Palanquin, covered with fine Cloth, and powdered with silver Stars in Circles, supported by four Cacklogallinians adorn'd with silver Chains. As to his ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... dog loose, and don't go to bed; we have work to do together. At eleven o'clock Cornoiller will be at the door with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen for him and prevent his knocking; tell him to come in softly. Police regulations don't allow nocturnal racket. Besides, the whole neighborhood need not know that I am ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the morrow, what we shall eat or what we shall put on, and on Sundays when the church bell rings we go out, like the Israelites in the wilderness, in clothes which wax not old after forty years. During the rest of the week we watch the blue-bottles knocking their stupid heads against the ceiling, and listen to the grasshoppers whispering in the grass, and fall asleep to the hum of the bees, and awake to the hee-haw of old Neilus's 'canary.' [* Donkey] Such is the dead-alive life we live at ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... and the wreckage was knocking against and around them to such an extent that the coxswain began to fear for the safety of his boat. Yet he was loath to ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... friend, you an't far wide of your reckoning. I've been a matter of some fifteen or twenty years knocking about, off and on, in one way or another, with this same instrument, and pretty's the service now, I tell ye, that it's done me in ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... stood round that most sublime of all the Books of the Bible, the Canticle of Canticles: "Behold, my Beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come.... I sleep, and my heart watcheth; the voice of my Beloved Who is knocking!... My Beloved to me and I to Him Who feedeth among the lilies: till the Day break ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... servant's tooth, and his servant is free—the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same. The objector contends that the loss of the slave's services in the first case is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him; yet God commands the same punishment for even the accidental knocking out of a tooth! Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertently, the loss of the servant's services is only a part of the punishment—mere reparation to the individual for injury done; the main punishment, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... I, knocking my knife against the potato pan to signify bustle. The man's language grew more and more violent as the minutes passed and still I did not reappear, until, having consumed as much time as I thought becoming, I went to ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... and ended with himself. Nobody knew whence he came, and probably nobody cared. His catalogues cover a period of thirty years—1738-1768—and include some very remarkable libraries of many famous men. In stature he is described as short and thick, so that Dr. Johnson's famous summary method of knocking him down[192:A] was not perhaps so difficult a feat as is generally supposed. To his inferiors—including, as he apparently but ruefully thought, Dr. Johnson—he generally spoke in an authoritative and insolent manner. As ignorant as Lackington, he was considerably less aware ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... dear Freddy, how oft, if I would, By the law of last sessions I might have done good. I might have withheld these political noodles From knocking their heads against hot Yankee Doodles; I might have told Ireland I pitied her lot, Might have soothed her with hope—but you know ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... he is "skillful of fence." We should do him great injustice as an antagonist, at least before the tribunal of human passion, if we should suppose that it is merely for the abstract glory of setting up a man of straw, and then knocking it down, that he has mustered all the powers of his logic and unfurled all the splendors of his rhetoric. He has a design in all this, which we shall now proceed ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... stubborn heart With gentle knocking shall He plead, No more the mystic pity start, For Christ ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... suddenly the coming of something acutely impending; I took my courage in my hands and went boldly forward. In another moment I had hold of the mysterious secret of masculine energy, to which all my years of dilirious imaginings had been but as a waiting at the threshold, the knocking on a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that." Gresham was puzzled. "Unless it was young Gillis, after all. He could have been knocking down on Rivers, and ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... 'speak what they know, and testify what they have seen'—testimonies which show, that the slaveholders who wrote the preceding advertisements, describing the work of their own hands, in branding with hot irons, maiming, mutilating, cropping, shooting, knocking out the teeth and eyes of their slaves, breaking their bones, &c., have manifested, as far as they have gone in the description, a commendable ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... riding in great haste, and knocking vehemently at the gate below, which when Sir Lancelot heard, he rose and looked out of the window, and, by the moonlight, saw three knights come riding fiercely after one man, and lashing on him all at once with their swords, while the ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... won't marry!' suddenly shouted one of the two peasants, knocking his bottle on the cask and spitting as far as the shoulder of the beggar man at ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... whooped with the boys. This was little six-year-old 'Lias, one of the two boys in Molly's first grade. At recess time he generally hung about the school door by himself, looking moodily down and knocking the toe of his ragged, muddy shoe against a stone. The little girls were talking about him one day as they played. "My! Isn't that 'Lias Brewster the horridest-looking child!" said Eliza, who had the second grade all to herself, although Molly now ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... too strong. With a wind such as last night's knocking down the chimney at the top and bricks setting dynamite cartridges into action below I only wonder that the old thing is standing at ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... the gates of Sleep were thrown wide open, and my waking ears took in the cause of the disturbing sounds. Waking existence is prosaic enough—there was somebody knocking and ringing at someone's ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... time working over one of the songs in the new piece. Wrote some ripping verses, too. They'll go strong. Best thing I've done. But after I had finished that job I wanted to play golf; practice, anyway. And I was nearly crazy until I found this old boat-hook and began knocking oyster shells into the water. That's how it came to me—the drive. If I can ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... not welcome on the Devil's Tooth range. Tom rode up to the shack, dismounted and let Coaley's reins drop to the ground. He hesitated a minute before the door, in doubt as to the necessity for knocking. Then his knuckles struck the loose panel twice, and he heard the sound of footsteps. Tom pulled his hat down tighter on his ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... of much use. Send in application about your pop-guns, and I will look after it as much as can. You mustn't expect much, as the Department has a way of knocking a thing about for months—sometimes years—and then quietly shelving it. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... How often, how ardently, she had prayed for that day; how many Masses, how many Communions, she had offered to obtain that grace! Many a time I have seen her, after Holy Communion, straining her eyes on the Tabernacle, and I knew she was knocking vigorously at the Heart of Christ; and many a time have I seen her, a Lady of Sorrows, imploring the Queen of Sorrows to take that one trouble from her life. Oh! if men could only know what clouds of anguish and despair their indifference ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... 1890) describes a child of three years and ten months, who had exhibited signs of epilepsy from birth and was of a jealous, irascible disposition. He was in the habit of scratching and biting his brothers and sisters, knocking over the furniture, hiding things, and tearing his clothes, and when unable to hurt or annoy others, would vent his rage upon himself. If punished, he would continue his misdeeds ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... be quick, boys!" shouted one, and the first signs of plunder showed themselves in an indiscriminate chase after various screaming geese and turkeys; while a few of the more steady went up to the house-door, and knocking, demanded sternly ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... never laid eyes before should call him by name. He wondered if she were one of these new-fangled mind-readers he had been hearing so much about. It was also upsetting to find that he had been mistaken about her delay in knocking. There was anything but timidity in the grand air with which she gave him her card, saying, "Announce me to ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... pommel of his sword, keeping up a loud continuous knocking. A minute or two passed, and then a face ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... fiery red, and not even a stunted hakea was to be seen. From this plain we again crossed alternate sand hills and flats, the former covered with spinifex, the latter being quite denuded of all vegetation; but one of the horses at last knocking up, I was obliged to halt in this gloomy region, at the only puddle of rain water we had seen since leaving the grassy plain. I was sure, however, from the change that had taken place, and the character of the country around us, that we were approaching that feature, the continuance ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... Someone was knocking now on the door, thereby rousing Olga's wrath; and Herrick held her firmly by the collar as he went to answer ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... say: change, he knew no more—change, with inscrutable veiled face, approaching noiseless. With the feeling, came the vision of a concert room, the rich hues of instruments, the silent audience, and the loud voice of the symphony. 'Destiny knocking at the door,' he thought; drew a stave on the plaster, and wrote in the famous phrase from the Fifth Symphony. 'So,' thought he, 'they will know that I loved music and had classical tastes. They? He, I suppose: the unknown, kindred spirit that shall come some ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... on absently, knocking out his pipe, and refilling it from a big brown jar of coarse-cut Boer tobacco, "I'll tell it to you if you like: you are going to live in the house, and you may as well know it. I am sure, Captain Niel, that it will go no further. You see I was born in England, yes, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... presence of her God. While on I walked, a comfort seemed to touch A heart that had not been disconsolate: Strength came where weakness was not known to be, 155 At least not felt; and restoration came Like an intruder knocking at the door Of unacknowledged weariness. I took The balance, and with firm hand weighed myself. —Of that external scene which round me lay, 160 Little, in this abstraction, did I see; Remembered less; but I had inward hopes And swellings of the spirit, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... these two baits, "cake" and "stories," Dudley's shyness was overcome, and the two boys were soon walking up a sunny little garden and knocking at the rose-covered door ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... mystery to all; and he was living under an assumed name. To the Chelsea street-boys he was known as 'Puggy Booth,' and by his neighbours he was deemed to be an old admiral in reduced circumstances. His house in Queen Anne Street was closed, terribly out of repair—black with dirt. After much knocking at the door it was opened, if at all, by an old woman, her face half-concealed, owing to some cancerous disfigurement; she had kept the visitor waiting while she assumed a large apron—hung always behind the door on ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... encouraged by Brimmer's beginning, "of his knocking around the Gulf of California, and getting up an expedition to go inland, just because a mail-steamer saw a barque like the Excelsior off Mazatlan last August. As if the Excelsior wouldn't have gone into Mazatlan if it had been her! I tell you what it is, ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... his deanship in very low strains, To others he boasted of knocking out brains, And slitting of noses, and cropping of ears, While his own ass's zags were more fit for the shears. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... you will be able to find a most scientific description of the origin of these bars. I must acknowledge with shame that my ideas on the subject are distressingly vague. I could never appreciate the poetry or the humor of making one's wrists ache by knocking to pieces gloomy-looking stones, or in dirtying one's fingers by analyzing soils, in a vain attempt to fathom the osteology or anatomy of our beloved earth, though my heart is thrillingly alive to the faintest shade of color and the infinite variety of styles ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... threats. The unhappy ferryman was totally unarmed, and only wished to escape. They shot him to death without further parley, under the eyes of his mother and sister, who saw all from their windows. Then they ferried themselves and their horses across, and left the boat on the Virginia, bank, after knocking out two or three of her planks. Naturally there was a great revulsion of popular feeling in the country, and there had been a real emeute round the murdered man's grave. When they had buried him, that day, in Sharpsburg, no one, suspected of Southern sympathies, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... fist caught Mock squarely on the jaw, sending him squarely to earth, though not knocking him out. After a moment Mock was on his feet again, quivering with rage. He flew at Riley, who was a smaller man, hammering him hard. Other soldier-prisoners interfered on behalf of Riley, whereupon Private Wilhelm, a heavily built fellow, ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... Thor!" Claude sprang to his feet, knocking off the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "What do you think I'm ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... must be on fire, but the building stood, and we saw that the glare which lighted up the whole heavens was far away. It was shortly after three o'clock on the morning of October 6th, 1854. Presently our natural agitation was increased by a violent knocking on the front door of the house at that untimely hour. It was the old man who "kept" my father's chapel at Tuthill Stairs, and he brought with him a doleful story. Evidently hysterical from the shock he had received, he told my father, amid his sobs, that half of Newcastle and Gateshead ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Havannahs). Fire me! again I say, while loud hosannas I sing of what we were—of what we now are. Wildly let me rave, To imprecate the knave Whose curious information turned our porter sour, Bottled our stout, doing it (ruthless cub!) Brown, Down Knocking our snug, unlicensed club; Changing, despite our belle esprit, at one fell swop, Into a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... carpenter, who, perceiving how matters stood, alarmed the whole village, who came and belaboured the bear's sides with sticks and hoes and pitchforks, until, mad with rage, he tore his bleeding face and paws from the tree, and rushed blindly into a river that ran close by, knocking into the water with him many of the villagers, and among them, Dame Julock, the parson's wife, for whose sake every one bestirred himself; and so poor Bruin got safe away. After some delay, the bear returned to the court, where, in dismal ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... his melodious voice was heard declaiming anapaests all through the ambrosial night. When the voice of the singer was lulled, three sharp taps were heard in the silence. This noise was produced by the bard's Scotch friend and critic in knocking the ashes out of his pipe. These feasts of reason are almost incompatible with the early devotion which, strangely enough, Shelley found time and inclination ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... those halcyon days of the little wars would come again, when a captain could ride out almost any time at the held of his band of mercenaries and see honest fighting and divide honest spoils! There was much knocking about of men and horses, but very little bloodshed, so we are told. Mr. Bixby will sit on the sunny side of his barns in Clovelly and tell you stories of that golden period with tears in his eyes, when he went to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... glance how many drops of water there were in a bottle of wine. As for Latin and Greek—he could patter them off like his A B C's. Nevertheless, he was not satisfied with the things he knew, but was for learning the things that no schools could teach him. So one day he came knocking ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... life to be seen about the castle, and it was long before the loud, imperious knocking at the gate-way brought any one to open it; and then a man appeared, whose hesitating manner and vacant countenance plainly showed that he had never been gifted with a large share of mother-wit. With some difficulty ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... and investment built up a fair sized fortune. Recently, however, owing to the craze for sky-scrapers, he had placed much of his holdings in a somewhat poorly constructed and therefore unprofitable office building. Because of this error financial wreck was threatening him. Even now he was knocking at the doors of large bonding companies ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... woman this way," said the priest. He led them to a house which he entered without knocking, and asked them to enter. They took the dead woman into a room occupied by two old ladies, and set down their load as Pere Marquee hurriedly told the short story he had heard ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... best naturalists are mere generalizers, and think they have done a vast deal when they classify a species. What should we know about mankind if we had only a naturalist's definition of man? We only know mankind by knocking classification on the head, and studying each man as a class in himself. Compare Buffon and Shakspeare! Alas, sir! can we never have a Shakspeare ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... robbers knocking things about in the cabin. They threw bales of beaver pelts out of the door. Presently Fresno reappeared carrying a buckskin sack in which Slingerland kept his money and few valuables, and the others followed, quarreling ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... reaching for the box of pepper when there was a sudden barking of dogs outside the store and something black and furry, with a long tail, rushed in, leaped up on the counter, and thence to the top shelf, knocking down a lot of ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... bade Jack sit down, and gave him plenty to eat and drink; and he, not seeing anything to make him uncomfortable, soon forgot his fear, and was just beginning to enjoy himself, when he was startled by a loud knocking at the outer door, which made ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry |
