"Limp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of two little stockings hanging limp and empty at the fireplace while Santa Claus went by with bulging ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... to say more, for just then the ball was kicked off, and the battle began. I saw him afterward often during that afternoon, always in the front of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately, trying vainly to dissemble the pain ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of simply turning their heads; and when their gowns creak one is tempted to believe that the mechanism of these beings is out of order. Mademoiselle Habert, an ideal of her species, had a stern eye, a grim mouth, and beneath her wrinkled chin the strings of her cap, always limp and faded, floated as she moved. Two moles, rather large and brown, adorned that chin, and from them sprouted hairs which she allowed to grow rampant like clematis. And finally, to complete her portrait, she took ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... they were early afoot, seeking through the suburbs of San Jose the road to San Juan and Monterey. Saxon's limp had increased. Beginning with a burst blister, her heel was skinning rapidly. Billy remembered his father's talks about care of the feet, and stopped at a butcher shop to buy five ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... where we found all the rest of the men afoot to ascertain what was the matter. I went to bed feeling very much bruised and knocked about, but by rubbing myself over plentifully with grease I was next morning tolerably limp and pliable. After breakfast we cut up the bear, but as may be supposed, he was in very bad condition, nearly all sinews and bones, though when in good condition he could not have weighed less than eight hundred pounds. We, however, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... at his side it had seemed to Rachael that she must die, too, of sheer agony of spirit. She put her beautiful head down against the brown little limp hand upon which a rusty stain was drying, and she could have wailed aloud in the bitter rebellion of her soul. Not Derry, not Derry, so small and innocent and confiding—her own child, her own flesh and blood, the fibre of her being! Trusting them, obeying ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... posthumous passion. They lay there like the pathetic nosegays of quickly fading wild flowers, gathered by school children, inconsistently abandoned upon roadsides, or as inconsistently treasured as limp and flabby superstitions in their desks. The chill wind from the Bay blowing in at the window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal. I remember that when one of them was whisked from the window by a stronger gust than usual, and was attaining a circulation it had never known before, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... down, but as he crossed to the chair beside Cappy's desk, the old gentleman noticed that his visitor walked with a slight limp, and that his left forearm had been amputated half way to the elbow. To the observant Cappy, the American Legion button in Mr. ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... into the hospital with blood dripping from their wounds; squads of four follow one another rapidly, bearing stretchers and blankets, on which are limp, motionless, groaning forms. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... Doris thought the child was crying, but she was not. Her limp little body relaxed and the eyes ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... squared as though the impulse was on him to raise his hands against him. But there was such an infinite sadness in Sir Arthur's eyes and such an expression of unspeakable suffering on his hard-set features, that as he looked at him the anger died out of Vane's eyes and his hands fell limp and open ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... stepped off the train—a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the garden too, and as limp as her daughters; in a faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet, in a holland pinafore, in pattens, on a broken chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto measures many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy she is in that ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Herschowitz fired too, and there seemed to be shots from the second boche. My own particular duelist dropped back limp after my first shot, although I got off four ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... with the pain; and we all hurried back to see what was the matter. There we found him, whining and howling, and trying to limp along on three legs; and we just caught sight of the bad boy, running away far down the lane. Miss Dean picked up her poor little darling, and carried ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various
... must have stopped for lunch or maneuvers. For they were just coming through the Place du Marche when I reached there. Only the colonel was on horse. At the turn of the road, the captains stood out of rank to watch their companies wheel. Our soldier of the morning passed. He had forgotten his limp. The sergeant recognized me, and pointed to the soldier. His left upper eyelid came down with a wink, as if to say, ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... limp and lifeless over the saddle. His face, with the sand and dust ground into it, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... than justice, for the cook was paid well; but there was one man in the assembly to whom this did not altogether appeal. The victim was frail and helpless, a watery-eyed, limp bundle of nerves, with, nevertheless, a pitiful suggestion of outward dignity still clinging to him, though his persecutors would have described him aptly as a whisky tank. The former fact was sufficient for Weston, who did not stop to think out the matter, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Prince wore were riveted cruelly upon him, and since there was no lock to them, the magic key was of no avail. At length, however, Florizel managed to work them off; but in doing so, he injured his foot, and found to his dismay that he could only limp along. ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... in the vein,' Sir David went on. 'It's a natural peculiarity—as you might limp or stutter or be left-handed. I believe it comes and goes, like intermittent fever. My son tells me that his friends usually understand it and don't haul him up—for the ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... limp along, as if I had something in my shoe which hurts me. Then I will sit down on a doorstep, close to them, and take off my boot. You can sit down, too, and take some of the bread and cheese which we put in our pockets, because we could ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... count he should now be possessed of two hundred and twelve dollars. And there was the two-dollar bill, a limp, gray thing, abraded almost beyond identification. He placed this down first, knowing that the remaining bills should amount to two hundred and ten dollars. Slowly he counted, to finish with a look of blank, hesitating wonder. He made another count, hastily, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... till the grease melted and the flame leaped again seemed of considerable length. When the lit candle was placed steadily on top of the coffin, and a light, dim, though strong enough to see with, spread around, he stooped and lifted Stephen in his arms. She was quite senseless, and so limp that a great fear came upon him that she might be dead. He did not waste time, but carried her across the vault where the door to the church steps stood out sharp against the darkness, and bore her up into the church. Holding her in one arm, with the other ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... Throppy's exclamation, the other boys joined him, and together they watched the strange craft limp into the cove. As she came nearer they could see that she was old and dilapidated. Her brown canvas was frayed and rotten; tag-ends of rope hung here and there; and her battered sides were badly in need of a ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... was really quite in despair, before the end of the first mile; for I had no money to pay for a lift on the coach, and I knew, besides, that they would not be passing that way for several hours to come. So, with aching back and knees, I made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and ended by sitting down for a couple of hours, and looking about me, in a country which would have seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but a freshly-liberated captive, such as I was. At last I got up and limped on, stiffer than ever from my rest, when ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Now she sat limp before the two men, a wan smile straying from one to the other, exhausted by her suppressed emotions. Suddenly, without a word, she held out her hand to Graydon. In her deepest soul, she loved this manly, strong-hearted young fellow. She knew, after all, he was worthy ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the daily monotony of ship-life, to avoid altogether the young lady whom Fate had thrown in my way. She was a most provokingly good sailor, too. Other women stayed below or were carried in limp bundles to the deck at noon; but Fanny, perfectly poised, with the steady glow in her cheek, was always ready to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... in the limp fingers of the head of the Jenkins' household a yellow-tinted note of a denomination which they had not even known existed; he left them half-doubting its genuineness, until later when there came an opportunity to spend it. And Sarah was waiting at the door ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... had the Mistress tossed out to him his flannel doll, as he had stood in pathetic invitation on the porch, looking in at her as she read or talked. She had laughed at his wild tossings and other maltreatments of the limp doll. He had felt he was scoring a real hit. And this hit ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... cold, limp, trembling hand. He looked wretched, subdued, tearful, and nearly starved, for he had no kinsfolk at hand, and his master was too angry with him, and too much afraid of compromising himself, to have sent him any supplies. Stephen tried to unbutton his own pouch, but not succeeding ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... face. His hands beat the ground like the shuffling wings of a wounded partridge. His fingers gripped the dust, spread convulsively, straightened, and sank limp. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... did he started, pocketed his note- book, and approached. There was a milestone close to where she lay; and he sat down on that and coolly studied her. She lay upon one side, all curled and sunken, her brow on one bare arm, the other stretched out, limp and dimpled. Her young body, like a thing thrown down, had scarce a mark of life. Her breathing stirred her not. The deadliest fatigue was thus confessed in every language of the sleeping flesh. The traveller smiled grimly. As though he had looked upon a statue, he made ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answered by an anxious bray from the fourth member of the party. The mule bearing the trail pack was in ludicrous contrast to his own aristocratic companions. His long head, with one entirely limp and flopping ear, was grotesquely ugly, the carcass beneath the pack a bone rack, all sharp angles and dusty hide. Looks, however, as his master ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... off, one time. Thought better of it, thanks be; patched him up; discharged him from the Army; and sent him home—very groggy, only just able to put the bad leg to the ground, crutches, and going to be a stick and a bit of a limp all his life. Poor old Puzzlehead. Think yourself lucky you were a Conscientious Objector, old man.... ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... grappled with the man, knocking the revolver from his hand upon the bed. A quick, desperate, silent struggle followed. Whitcomb suddenly reached for the revolver; as he did so Darrell saw a flash of steel in the dim light, and the next instant his friend sank, limp and motionless, upon ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... impassable by night, Peter would await my departure from the hospital with his lantern, and generally on very stormy nights with an old horse which he borrowed for the occasion, savagely cutting short my remonstrances with a cross "Faith, is it now or in the mornin' ye'll be lavin'?" He would limp beside me quite to the door of my room, and with a rough "Be aisy, now," in reply to my thanks, would scramble upon the horse ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... questions and answers suddenly ceased; the child had spoken. Limp and motionless, with his head on Aline's bosom and his eyes closed, "Don't let," he brokenly said, "don't ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... putting his horse straight at the embankment, stood for a moment on the top. The daring feat was seen by the whole Confederate line, and a yell went up from the men along the railroad, "Don't kill him! don't kill him!" But while the cry went up horse and rider fell in one limp mass across the earthwork, and the gallant Northerner was dragged under shelter ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... was now well into the grazing-lands, yet scintillating with the rain. The hoofs of his fat little horse were patched with wet sand of the roadway and there was no dust on the prince's modest raiment. Behind the youth plodded two heavy-headed, limp-eared sumpter-mules, driven ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... little bit,—when I brought you Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, as you sat in the wheel-chair, and you read away upon that for hours? Do you remember how, when you were getting well, you used to limp into my room, and I let you hook down books with the handle of your crutch, so that you read the English Parrys and Captain Back, and then got hold of my great Schoolcraft and Catlin, and finally improved your French a good deal, before you were well, on the thirty-nine ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... looked at Anne limp with disappointment—"unless I take it into my head to name you for ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Dixon brought back to her that night—how she actually fondled old gray Switch, and was glad of his friendly purring during that long, dreary night, as she lay cuddled up in the very farthest corner bench—how the night did, after all, go by, and a very gray dawn bring the welcome step or limp of the station agent, only ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... the henpecked!" cried the King with a sudden burst of good-humor, flinging away the culverin from him, as though it had been a reed (it lighted three hundred yards off, on the foot of Hugo de Bunyon, who was smoking a cigar at the door of his tent, and caused that redoubted warrior to limp for some days after). "What, Wilfrid my gossip? Art come to see the lion's den? There are bones in it, man, bones and carcasses, and the lion is angry," said the King, with a terrific glare of his eyes. "But tush! we will talk of that anon. Ho! bring two gallons of hypocras for the King and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stopped and Kennedy moved over toward her car, directing two porters, whom I noticed that he chose with care, to wait at one side. One of them was an old Irishman with a slight limp; the other a wiry Frenchman with a ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... and turned it face downward. The blue-faced baby fought in a supreme effort—again the horrible something—then Dan laid the child, white and motionless, in her mother's arms. She held the limp body close, her ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... shadow of sorrow and disappointment on the face of Dr. Gresham as he rose to leave. For a moment he held her hand as it lay limp in his own. If she wavered in her determination it was only for a moment. No quivering of her lip or paling of her cheek betrayed any struggle of her heart. Her resolve was made, and his words were powerless to swerve her from the purpose ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... limp into a chair on his return home. "A man named Drummond was in the office to-day, my dear," he said. "Some one in the office sent Reynolds a duplicate bill, and ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... met him—a limp man, moaning, borne in the arms of his sweating mates, women trotting alongside and crossing the road, to and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... smilingly said. "Perhaps he wouldn't have died on account of his broken leg, but he'd never walked again without a limp. But look here, don't you say another word ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... cannot carry home even your tail — so farewell!" Off he jumped, and was soon lost to view, leaving us alone — three miserable cripples, far from any shelter, and (so far as I was concerned) not knowing at all how to rejoin our friends. Tip being now able to limp on three legs, and myself upon one, we returned to the unhappy steed, who remained where I had left him, hanging down his head, and looking the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... was naturally of a resolute disposition, acquired courage from this circumstance to examine his monstrous guest, who gave him sufficient leisure for this purpose. He saw, as the lion approached him, that he seemed to limp upon one of his legs, and that the foot was extremely swelled, as if it had been wounded. Acquiring still more fortitude from the gentle demeanour of the beast, he advanced towards him, and took hold of the wounded part as a surgeon would examine his patient. He then ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... plays tennis with laudable zeal in the atmosphere of a stove-house. Chinese and Malay boyhood look on, and listen to the regimental music. The pallid English occupants of the carriages, in spite of diaphanous muslins and fluttering fans, appear too limp and wilted to bestow more than a languid attention to their surroundings, until the sea-breeze, springing up as the sun declines, revives their flagging spirits. The smartest turnout and the finest horses generally belong ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... Dick and he sat down, feeling limp. He was abstemious, and a large dose of strong spirit would, no doubt, have unsteadied him. His companions would notice this, but with the obstinacy that often marks a half-drunk man he would probably have insisted on trying to cross the pipe. Then a slip or hesitation would have ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... catch my eye, when the shoji were pushed apart, the next morning, was a string of the ubiquitous paper fish, dangling limp in the motionless May air from a pole in a neighboring yard; highly suggestive of having just been caught for breakfast. The sight would have been painfully prophetic but for the food we had brought with us; for, of all meals, a Japanese ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... answer back. In a moment it was a quarrel. Abruptly it was a fight. The mate marked Selover beneath the left eye. The captain with beautiful simplicity crushed his antagonist in his gorilla-like squeeze, carried him to the side of the vessel, and dropped him limp and beaten to the pier. And the mate was a good stout ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ones swooped down on us fearlessly, knives drawn, pointed teeth revealed in fiendish grins. But they did not reach us. By dozens, by scores, they went limp and floated slowly to the floor of the ocean. Their bodies covered the streets, they sprawled across the roofs of the houses. And in a few seconds there was not one alive of all the hundreds ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... khaki—at any rate the "drill" variety—improve its beauty by being washed. When one has bargained with a Kaffir lady to wash one's suit for ninepence it comes back with all the glory of its russet brown departed and a sort of limp, anaemic look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen eyes behind ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... subject of rules and regulations, they would be like that too. Happy thought! If the man bucked up and cut short the peroration, there would be time for a bathe in Cove Reservoir. Those of the corps who had been to camp in previous years felt quite limp with the joy of the thought. Why couldn't he get through with it, and give a fellow a ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... at evening recreation, and at supper Diana sat with a thunder-cloud on her face. When she went to bed it burst. She squatted in a limp heap on the ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... so unexpected, his voice so inspiring that she relaxed, sinking to the floor, as Shirley caught her limp girlish form in his arms. He placed her on the couch again, and she regained her composure under his calm urging. Little by little she visualized the details of the gruesome evening and narrated them under the magnetic cross-questions of ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... disregarding the continued struggles of her victim, she lifted it from the ground, curved her abdomen under its body, and darted her sting between the third and fourth segments. From this instant there was a complete cessation of movement on the part of the unfortunate caterpillar. Limp and helpless, it could offer no further opposition to the will of its conqueror. For some moments the wasp remained motionless, and then, withdrawing her sting, she plunged it successively between the third and the second, and between the second ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... brothers were in Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war, thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the ground and remount ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... has too many legs, its head Is far too large—who ever saw A fly like that, so limp and dead, And wings that look as ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... unattainable. The word has its meaning, of course, but the sensation itself is quite another thing. As every one who attended the ball was filled with awe, which he tried to put forward as admiration, the attitude of the guest was no more limp than that of the chronicler. In the second place, I am not qualified by experience or imagination to describe a ball that stood its promoter not a penny short of one hundred thousand dollars. I believe I could go as high as a fifteen or even twenty thousand dollar affair with some ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... save the buzzing of the flies about the casks on that hot midsummer's day, and without the trace of a limp, the man stepped rapidly into the office, but only to dart back again in alarm, for, all at once, there was a loud rattling noise of straps, ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... was hung up finished. Fanny used to keep them on a row of hooks in her bedroom until a dozen were completed, when she carried them to her employer, and Ellen used to look at them with a sense of depression. She imagined worn, patient faces of the sisters of poverty above the limp collars, and poor, veinous hands dangling from ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... trimmin' had faded into so many differ'nt shades. It had been a lady's hat once. And the face under it, in spite of the red tip to the nose and the puffs under the eyes, might have belonged to a lady. Anyway, there was traces of good looks there. But the rusty black cloak that hung limp over the sagged shoulders, only part hidin' the sloppy shirt waist and reachin' but halfway down the side-hiked, draggled-edge skirt—that's the sure mark of a female party. I don't know ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... garden is rather a funny sight, with these pale shapes sprawling over its beds. But it pays. For in the morning, though over in the vegetable garden the squash leaves and lima beans are blackened and limp, my nasturtiums are still pert and crisp. I pull off the papers, wondering what the passers-by have thought, and lo! my gay garden, good for ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... into the house and the rest followed with a limp mass that they laid on the sofa in the shoddy little front parlor. Sloane, with his shoulder punctured, was on another lounge. He was half delirious, and kept calling something about ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... motionless, as though motion terrified her and inertia were salvation. Her dark hair rippled to her waist; her white arms hung limp, yet the fingers had curled till every delicate nail was pressed deep into the pink palm. She was trying to look at him. Her face was as white as ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... had she believed him. But she knew it was not laziness which had drawn certain new lines about the expeditioner's mouth and deepened the old ones on his forehead. It was not laziness which lay behind the strained look in his eyes and the sudden return of his almost vanished limp. These things are not symptoms of indolence. They are symptoms of nerves. And Desire knew something of nerves. What she did not know, in the present case, was their exciting cause. Neither could she understand this new reticence on the part of their victim nor ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Oh, limp and leathery type of Social Sham, And Legislative Flam! Which cunning CUNNINGHAME and MATTHEWS cool (Both prompt to play the fool, In free-lance fashion or official form) Prattled of, 'midst a storm Of crackling laughter, and ironic cheers, And sniggering, "Hear, hears!"— Thou summest well ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... the direct acting engine has many advantages over the belt. The atmosphere is always very moist about a whizzer, and there are frequently injurious fumes. The belt will be alternately dry and wet, stretched and limp, and wears out rapidly and is liable to sever. In all machines in which the shaft oscillates, if the center of oscillation does not lie in the central plane of the belt, the tension of the latter is not uniform. This affects badly both the belt and the running. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... drawn with a kind of gasping effort. The lids with their silken fringe dropped wearily over the lustreless eyes. The head sank lower and lower, until the nose almost touched the floor. The ears, naturally so lively and erect, hung limp and widely apart. The body was cold and senseless. A pinch elicited no motion. Even my voice was at last unheeded. To word and touch there came, for the first time in all our intercourse, no response. I knew as ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... self-styled servants of the Highest Constrained by earthly duress to embrace Mighty imperiousness as it were choice, And hand the Italian sceptre unto one Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin, Professed at first to flout antiquity, Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones, And level dynasts down to journeymen!— Yet he, advancing swiftly on that track Whereby his active soul, fair Freedom's child Makes strange decline, now labours to ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... shirt was ripped open in front. Nothing was to be seen of his chest, however, for it was covered with a mass of black hair, in appearance like the furry coat of a dog. His face and neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with grey, which would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp and draggled and dripping with water. His eyes were closed, and he was apparently unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, his breast, heaving as though from suffocation as he laboured noisily for breath. A sailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as a matter ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... slipped upon the lead; and but for Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into space. Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic landing. Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at length, seizing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the emotions. She did not stop to inquire what she should do after she got Ludlow there, or to ask herself what he was coming for, a little after nine o'clock in the morning; she simply waited his approach in an abandon which exhausted the capabilities of the situation, and left her rather limp and languid when he did appear. If it had been her own affair she could not have entered into it with more zeal, more impassioned interest. So far as she reasoned her action at all, it was intended to keep Ludlow, after she got him there, till Cornelia ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... and completely turned the tables on that vulgar Annie Day and that pushing, silly little Lucy Marsh. I never saw any two look smaller or poorer than those two when they skedaddled out of her room. Yes, that's the word— they skedaddled to the door, both of them, looking as limp as a cotton dress when it has been worn for a week, and one almost treading on the other's heels; and I do not think Prissie will be worried by ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... rose from the garden chair, slowly, dragging himself with an invalid air. His eyes stared, groping, blurred films that trembled between the pouch and droop of the lids; long cheeks, deep grooved, dropped to the infirm mouth that sagged under the limp mustache. That was Robin. ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... least notable for distinctive characteristics; when everywhere there becomes sensible a monotonous levelling of intelligence; when on all hands we discern individualities that are dishevelled, threadbare, limp. I will venture to say that all of them, with their united efforts, are incompetent to give us the hope of that mental renovation to which the world is entitled after this formidable convulsion. We must go ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... of his physical defects were the penalties of his work, and endeared him to the Glen. That ugly scar that cut into his right eyebrow and gave him such a sinister expression, was got one night Jess slipped on the ice and laid him insensible eight miles from home. His limp marked the big snowstorm in the fifties, when his horse missed the road in Glen Urtach, and they rolled together in a drift. MacLure escaped with a broken leg and the fracture of three ribs, but he ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... brooding their chicks. "Too bad!" she muttered over him, by way of requiem; "too bad ye had to go an' git in the road o' that blame gun!" Then, suddenly bethinking herself that a fowl was more easily plucked while yet warm, she carried the limp corpse, head downward, across the yard, fetched a basket from the kitchen, sat down on the doorstep in the moonlight, and began sadly stripping the victim of his feathers. He was a fine, heavy bird. As ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his friend's optimism, Stefan had felt confident enough on leaving Paris, but the discomforts of the journey had soon flattened his spirits, and now, limp in his berth, he saw the whole adventure mistaken, unreal, and menacing. In leaving the country of his adoption for that of his birth, he now felt that he had put himself again in the clutches of a chimera which ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... hunter, Tom flashed the searchlight directly on the heavy door. "There's the door, Jean," he said, his tones thrilling with new hope. "Wait a minute until I limp out of your way. I'm not going to risk further accident. Now; go ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... coarse names, as I tramped up and down my dungeon; I cursed him; impotent contempt was poured out on him; in imagination I held him there before me, and choked him till his eyes burst out and his body grew limp in my arms. The ring of fire in my head scorched and narrowed till I could have shrieked in agony. My breath came short and labored, and my heart felt as though it were in a vise and being clamped to nothing. For an instant, also, I broke out in wild bitterness against Alixe. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have kept you too long, but there is still a question I must ask. You have seen my father in many of his moods, and there is something in the state of limp apathy he occasionally falls into which puzzles me. I cannot help thinking there is another danger of which I do not know. Can ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... a few moments for the men, who had come running at the first sounds of the commotion, to lift the heavy machinery from the limp body and lay the wounded man down under the shade of a large shock of rye. While Luther bent to examine the senseless form, John rushed one of the men frantically off ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... from Miss Jevne the black silk gown, modest but modish. There was no joy in Ray's face. Ten minutes later she emerged in the limp and clinging little frock that toned down her colour and made her plumpness seem but ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... And then Jurgis went limp, and caught himself on the ladder. He stared at her as if she were a ghost. "The new one!" he gasped. "But it ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... allowed to remain a dark secret between these two. With the brisk walking and the warm, sunlit air around them, their clothes were already drying; and when old Robert met them, in the dusky chasm at the foot of the Bad Step, he was far too much engaged with the fish to notice their limp and damp garments; while again, as they resumed their march, he, carrying the fish, lagged in the rear, and thus they escaped his keen eyes. Indeed, by the time they reached the Lodge, and as Miss ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... were exhibited; but the tipplers stood as though transfixed with astonishment or alarm where they had risen, but were rather limp in their attitude. They evidently did not know what to make of the interruption, and they appeared to be waiting for further developments on the ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of the evening, they met a temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily mad horse, swinging round the corners, with her eyes and her mouth open, and her head like the head of the Medusa. She was stopped by a man at the risk of his life, and taken out of the saddle, a limp heap, and put on the bank to explain herself. This wasted twenty minutes, and then she was sent home in a lady's 'rickshaw, still with her mouth open and her hands picking at ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... his duty, and till a man gives up doing that he will certainly be torn. How great would be the temptation to pause here and consider the mangled state of such a man, the wounds and weakness he will suffer from, and how his soul will have to limp through life, if it were not that I must get ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... autumn weather when Moses and his dog, for the first time after the melee, turned out for an afternoon's stroll. Both bore sore evidences of the severity of the struggle, one being bandaged over his forehead, the other following with tell-tale limp ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... heeded. Up went the sure-footed athlete until he had almost reached the topmost peak of the barn. Crash! a board gave way under his feet, and down to the ground he was hurled, landing on his back on a pile of heavy boards. Limp and lifeless he lay there, a strange contrast to the vigorous young man who had climbed up the building only a few moments earlier, and the accident seemed to paralyze the faculties of those who saw ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... our great writers (and there are numbers of them amongst us), he could not resist praise, and began to be limp at once, in spite of his penetrating wit. But I consider this is pardonable. They say that one of our Shakespeares positively blurted out in private conversation that "we great men can't do otherwise," and so on, and, what's more, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cobwebs: but her eyes!— How could he see to do them? Having made one, Methinks it should have power to steal both his, And leave itself unfurnish'd: yet look, how far The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow In underprizing it, so far this shadow Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll, The continent and summary ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... garden ones, gathered fresh, in the early slanting sunlight, still gemmed with dew, still crisp and tender and juicy, ready to carry every atom of savory quality, without loss, to the dining table. Stale, flat and unprofitable indeed, after these have once been tasted, seem the limp, travel-weary, dusty things that are jounced around to us in the butcher's cart and the grocery wagon. It is not in price alone that home gardening pays. There is another point: the market gardener has to grow the things that give the biggest yield. He has to sacrifice quality to ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... turtle, Hawk-Eye laughed and laughed. Limberleg laughed a little, too. Firetop felt pretty sorry for himself, but he wasn't really hurt, and in half an hour he had forgotten to limp. ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... He was too limp mentally to follow for a time the clerks remarks, but light gradually broke upon him. He could henceforth take table d'hote meals, paying sixty cents each for breakfast and luncheon for himself and his wife, and one dollar ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... screamed, diving headlong from his own side of the pool; and between them Ardea was dragged ashore, a limp little heap of saturation, conscious, but with her teeth chattering and great, dark circles ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... big, fair-haired boy, blue-eyed and clean limbed, and as he came down the trail there was a spring to his step that not even a limp could obliterate; and at every stride the great muscles in his chest played and rippled beneath his shirt. He was a fine figure of a man, tall and straight as an Apollo, and yet he was a hobo. Never ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... lay. 'The counsel opposite,' he writes, 'was the celebrated Wight, an excellent lawyer, but of very homely appearance, with heavy features, a blind eye which projected from its socket, a swag belly, and a limp. To him Maclaurin applied ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless, crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp, inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great doorbell, the great bell of the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... seed was give to Clarinda. She hits massa with de hoe 'cause he try 'fere with her and she try stop him. She am put on de log and give 500 lashes. She am over dat log all day and when dey takes her off, she am limp and act deadlike. For a week she am in de bunk. Dat whuppin' cause plenty trouble and dere lots of arg'ments 'mong ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... dirt again, working down to the man's hands. And when he had brushed aside the dirt and stones he lifted up a limp wrist. One look at the identification tag chained around it, ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... light skeleton wagon seemed only a prolonged process of that long, slim body and free, collarless neck, both straight as the thin shafts on each side and straighter than the delicate ribbon-like traces which, in what seemed a mere affectation of conscious power, hung at times almost limp between the whiffle-tree and the narrow breast band which was all that confined the animal's powerful fore-quarters. So superb was the reach of its long easy stride that Rose could scarcely see any undulations ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... the Burman. "Sleep well, child of the Heavens, I understand thee not at all," and with a limp shrug of his shoulders, he slid out of the narrow door ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... from the collapsing man's limp hand and had the other three men covered before the slugged medic had ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... limp!" said Ganimard. And he continued, "Ah, if we could only pick up two or three policemen and pounce upon the fellow! As it is, here's a chance of our ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... tired for a long time and now I began to limp and lag. I wondered what on earth would make Wetherill and the Indians tired. It was with great pleasure that I observed the giant Joe Lee plodding slowly along. And when I glanced behind at my straggling ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the door and said what a lovely time we'd had, and Metta said we must make a practice of dropping in at this hour. Vernabelle called us all comrade and said the time had been by way of being a series of precious moments to her, even if these little studio affairs did always leave poor her like a limp lily. Yep; that's the term she used and she was draped down a bookcase when she said it, trying to look as near as possible like ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... alongside the chief, and four of the sailors, directed by Dick, gently raised him from the water and laid him on the bottom of the boat. Blood was flowing freely from an ugly gash in his face, and it was evident from the manner in which his left arm hung limp, as they lifted him up, that either the shoulder or ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... before him, T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., pale and limp, crumpled, and slid to the ground, senseless; therefore, he failed to hear the roar from the Bannister bench, from the loyal Gold and Green rooters in the stands, as big Beef lumbered across the plate with what proved later to be the winning run. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... London for it. That's what you would say. And I'll tell you more: your heart is saying so this living minute. I can see it in your face. You're thinking, Here's poor friendship for the man I've starved along of, and as for the girl that I set up to be in love with, here's a mighty limp kind of a love that won't carry me as far as 'most any man would go for a demijohn of whisky. There's not much romance to that love, anyway; it's not the kind they carry on about in song-books. But what's the good of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... puzzled and soon was wandering aimlessly about, without any hope of finding the right way. Toward evening they came upon a fine fruit tree, which furnished the children a supper, and at night the little ones lay upon a bed of leaves while the Sawhorse stood watch, with the limp, headless form of poor Jack Pumpkinhead lying helpless across ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... chill, that he was entirely in the shadow. Beyond the meadow he could see a team of oxen turn wearily, with a heavily loaded wagon, toward their little stable. The driver walked with a weary limp. Even the little boy by his side forgot to play and scamper, and rather listlessly put the last touches to a wreath of autumn flowers which he meant to hang about the neck of the marble Faunus at ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... with liquor. With clubbed guns we cleared it again and again, battering mercilessly at every head that fronted us. Then a great giant of a fellow—dead or alive I know not—was hurled headlong through the opening, an inert, limp weight, that bore the two soldiers beside me to the floor beneath his body. With wide sweep of my gun I struck him, shattering the stock into fragments, and swung back to meet the others, the hot barrel falling to right and left like a flail. They were through and on me! Wild ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... heavy vehicle over the roughening road had spoiled the Judge's last poetical quotation. The tall man beside the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through the swaying strap and his head resting upon it—altogether a limp, helpless-looking object, as if he had hanged himself and been cut down too late. The French lady on the back seat was asleep, too, yet in a half-conscious propriety of attitude, shown even in the disposition of the handkerchief which she held to her forehead and which partially veiled her face. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... said. "You always are." And she seized his limp hand in hers and kissed it,—and ran away, leaving him looking ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... out his hand, and then, suddenly realizing the requisition that was to be made on him, realizing that he was to flog Little Lizay, his confidante and sympathizing friend, his hand dropped cold and limp. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... in what Ruggiero felt was oiled canvas as he steadied it down into the stern of the little boat, and neatly hitched round from end to end with spun-yarn, so as to be about the shape of an enormous sausage. The two men lowered it without much caution; it was heavy but rather limp. Then came another exactly like the first, which they also lowered into the boat, and a moment later Don Antonino came over the side as quickly and noiselessly as he had gone up, and shoved off quietly into ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... suddenly, all by herself. "It was my dog that—upset you on Main Street this afternoon. You may remember ...? I thought you seemed to—to limp a little when you came in just now. I'm awfully ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... fix, half past four in the afternoon and me ten miles from home? And to make it worse I wrenched my knee a mite cleaning house this morning." This last statement was strictly accurate though her limp as she advanced toward them was exaggerated. "I don't know what I'd have done," declared Persis, "if ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... good qualities of his mind, his wit and judgment, saw no longer the deformity of his body, nor the ugliness of his face; that his hump seemed to her no more than the grand air of one having a broad back, and that whereas till then she saw him limp horribly, she now found it nothing more than a certain sidling air, which ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... me, and stiff as I was from my wound my attention was fully taken up by Trotto, who was no mean artist, and fought like a cat at bay. But Pierrebon saw, and raised his arquebus. The bravo behind me was about to strike, when there was a flash, a loud report, and he rolled over a huge, limp, and lifeless mass. At the shot Trotto had sprung back with a gasp to the corner of the room, and crouched there like a rat, staring through the smoke at us, for Pierrebon had ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... the hour. The hour of reckoning; the hour in which he, brought face to face with Charles Wilbraham, should expose him before men for what he was. The hour when Charles Wilbraham should face him, reduced at last to impotent silence, deflated to limp nothingness like a gas balloon, and find no word of defence. Shamed and dishonoured, he would slink away, at long last in the wrong. In the wrong himself, after all these years of putting others there. Truly, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... appeal from a young lady next whom, in the hall, I found myself sitting. My position was an accident, but if it had been calculated the reason would scarce have eluded an observer of the fact that no one else in the room had an approach to an appearance. Our philosopher's "tail" was deplorably limp. This visitor was the only person who looked at her ease, who had come a little in the spirit of adventure. She seemed to carry amusement in her handsome young head, and her presence spoke, a little mystifyingly, of a sudden extension of Saltram's sphere of ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... style be flowery—I should say florid—never mind a false epithet or two in a page, they will never be observed. A great deal depends upon the first two pages—you must not limp at starting; we will, therefore, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... lips, he rendered unnecessary the agony of the maternal thimble. It had been done so quickly that Teether himself only nestled a bit closer with a faint moan, and Miss Wingate looked up at the operator with grateful eyes. She hugged the limp baby closer and started to speak, but was interrupted by an anxious ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a leap, disfigured, her hair dishevelled, her eyes sparkling. She tried to speak, stretched her hands out to her husband, but fell limp upon a basket and, bowed down, bathed in tears, she began to repeat the name of her son with an infinite tenderness ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis |
