"Postman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the postman pushed the door open and handed in a letter, saying: "Here is a letter from Dreux, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... house this picture haunted me. At night I lay awake thinking about it—so much so, that I rose early the next morning, and went to a bookseller's shop, where I bought a large sheet of tracing-paper and pencil, and sent them out by the postman, with a note to my friend, begging him to give me a tracing of the ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... a note from Strong congratulating her enthusiastically, and prophesying a great success for the Jocelyn family. She spent a restless day waiting for the postman, afraid to leave the house for fear she would miss a wire. She grew so nervous that she scolded Ardelia and fussed at the Professor. Night found her entirely discouraged. Something had happened. Frohman had changed his mind, or Jarvis had refused. She had known all along that it was too ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... and the boy bounded off full of fun, greeting the postman with such a burst of merry apostrophe, that the man ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... arrived at Armine in the afternoon. As Ferdinand, nervous as a child returning to school, tardily regained home, he recognised the approaching postman. Hah! a letter? What was its import? The blessing of delay? or was it the herald of their instant arrival? Pale and sick at heart, he tore open the hurried lines of Katherine. The maiden aunt had stumbled while getting out of a pony phaeton, and experienced a serious accident; ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... simpler than to say: "We were all overjoyed to hear from you this morning," or, "Your letter was the most welcome thing the postman has brought for ages," or, "It was more than good to have news of you this morning," or, "Your letter from Capri brought all the allure of Italy back to me," or, "You can't imagine, dear Mary, how glad I was to see an envelope with your writing this morning." And then you take ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... afterwards as occasion might offer, one way or other. But that which mortified me most was, that Amy did not write, though the fourteen days were expired. At last, to my great surprise, when I was, with the utmost impatience, looking out at the window, expecting the postman that usually brought the foreign letters—I say I was agreeably surprised to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived, and my woman Amy alight out of it and come towards the door, having the coachman ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... he was postman to the gods, so he is put on stamps now. The Prussians wear helmets, but they have spikes like the old Roman fellows. I like Prussians ever so much; they fight splendidly, and always beat. Austrians have a handsome ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... declined with thanks by adamantine magazine editors, like a certain short story which I had lately written, and which contained the germ of "Lady Audley's Secret." Indeed, at this period of my life, the postman's knock had become associated in my mind with the sharp sound of a rejected MS. dropping through the open letter-box on to the floor of the hall, while my heart seemed to drop in sympathy with that ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... same ground, each leaving his cans of milk here and there in a sporadic fashion as haphazard as a bee among the flowers. Contrast, says the socialist, the wasted labors of the milkman with the orderly and systematic performance of the postman, himself a little fragment of socialism. And the milkman, they tell us, is typical of modern industrial society. Competing railways run trains on parallel tracks, with empty cars that might be filled and with vast executive organizations which do ten ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... D. postman making his rounds, came to Amos Vick's shortly after noon that day. He volunteered a bit of information. Rosabel had given him a letter when he stopped the day before. It was addressed to Caleb Vick. She asked him how long he thought it would take the letter to reach ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... a great sheaf of roses came for Mary with the card of James Farraday, and on its heels a bush of white heather inscribed to them both from McEwan. The postman contributed several cards, and a tiny string of pink coral from Miss Mason. "How kind every one is!" Mary ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... he passed upon his brilliant fellow-Hebrew Heine, as "rather scorbutic." He preferred to talk about the little matters of common incident and experience. He amused himself with such things as the mystification of the postman of whom he asked his way to Phillips Avenue, where he adventurously supposed his host to be living. "Why," the postman said, "there is no Phillips Avenue in Cambridge. There's Phillips Place." "Well," ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the ensuing weeks, the same scene reenacted itself with endless variations. Lizzie, after the first sharp spasm of disappointment, made no effort to conceal her anxiety from Miss Macy, and the fond Andora was charged to keep a vigilant eyeupon the postman's coming, and to spy on the bonne for possible negligence or perfidy. But these elaborate precautions remained fruitless, and ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... persons contributing for a wage, to the convenience of everyday life in these latter times, is more waited and watched for, and brings more of joy, and more of sorrow when he comes, than the postman. ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... more valuable the target must be. Besides, firing a cannon had become as commonplace a function to both French and German gunners as getting up to put another stick of wood in the stove or going to open the door to take a letter from the postman. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... was one glad moment for her—the arrival of the postman. He was late, of course, but when he did come he brought her a budget of letters and parcels that convinced her she was not forgotten by her absent schoolgirl friends. With a hasty glance over them, she put them on one side until after dinner, when, her ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... lame Mary, the postman's wife, for she is always longing to see the fields," they answered; "but these roses are for you, dear little boy; they are all for you," and putting them into his hands they went ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... But the postman, who brought, with increasing frequency, letters that were big and heavy, like the writer, was the man whom Lottie most doted ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... letters from the postman, and carried the morning paper up to Mr. Morris's study, and I always put away the clean clothes. After they were mended, Mrs. Morris folded each article and gave it to me, mentioning the name of the ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... much beautiful as sound In heart and limb; not always strong When nose and eyes impel to wrong, Nor always doing just as bid, But sterling as the minted quid. And I have loved thee in my fashion, Shared with thy face my frugal ration, Squandered my balance at the bank When thou didst chew the postman's shank, And gone in debt replacing stocks Of private cats and Plymouth Rocks. And, when they claimed the annual fee That seals the bond twixt thee and me, Against harsh Circumstance's edge Did I not put my fob in pledge And cheat the minions of excise Who otherwise had ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... room and so fettered him.) He found himself able to use his hands to write, and, happily, discovered writing material and stamps upon a table. He would write a letter and throw it on the porch below, where perhaps the postman would find it and send it to its destination. He asked help. His friends must come that night. The doctor would be on guard, and who could say he would not call in others? The doors and windows were all well secured, all but a cellar window on the east side. (Of this, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... later, and before she had had time to form any plans, the postman brought a letter with the postmark of St. Louis. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Christina into the parlour while Jeannie tidied up. Presently the door bell rang, and Jimsie rushed to meet the postman. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... following day, with my friend the minister, for Rum, where he purposed preaching on the Sabbath. To have lost a day would have been to lose the opportunity of exploring the island, perhaps forever; and, to make all sure, I had taken a seat in the mail gig, from the postman who drives it, ere going to bed, on the morning of my arrival; and now, when it drove up, I went to take my place in it. The postmaster of the village, a lean, hungry-looking man, interfered to prevent me. I had secured my seat, I said, two days previous. Ah, but ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... reasons. He goes out in the morning upon our errands. It is part of our contract with him that he shall stop the night in town with his family and return the next day early. He is really our caterer and postman. But Anton—Anton is 'bound.' And Anton needs watching. Lad, do you promise that if I let you take a horse and ride to camp you'll do the lady's errand right and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... peaks. I should much have liked to get as far as Erzeroum, in the heart of Asia Minor. But as time failed me I contented myself with travelling at full speed for one day, along the road leading thither, with the Tartar or postman who carried the mails, so as to obtain some idea of the country. When I say road I speak figuratively. It was not even a path. It was a mere track across the woods and rocks and ravines of that mountainous region, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... canvassed as seemed most expedient by interviews, letters or return postals. Every woman personally solicited her neighbor, her doctor, her grocer, her laundrywagon driver, the postman and even the man who collected the garbage. It was essentially a womanly campaign, emphasizing the home interests and engaging the cooperation of home makers. The association published and sold 3,000 copies of The Washington Women's Cook Book, compiled by the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... rights she wants; and even women, I am ashamed to say, tell us so. They mistake the politeness of men for rights—seats while men stand in this hall to-night, and their adulations; but these are mere courtesies. We want rights. The flour-merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all these, then, indeed, we find the difference. Man, if he have energy, may hew out for himself a path where no mortal has ever trod, held ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the adjective. Every man has some portion of self-love. So his next effort was a passionate denial that he was nice. When should he meet her? The postman brought him a letter which contained one word—Nimmer! He sent her four pages, a frank and witty description of himself and friends, his past and ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... weeks, but there was some slight uncertainty about the address or the contents, so they are yet unmailed. They have not done either me or anybody else any good yet. They will never accomplish anything until I let them go out of my hands and trust them to the postman and the mail. ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... bookshop in London, an old man sat reading Gibbon's History of Rome. He did not put down his book when the postman brought him a letter. He just glanced indifferently at the letter, and impatiently at the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be interrupted when he was reading Gibbon; and as he was always reading Gibbon, an ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... in his clammy grasp; he had to cover it with a handkerchief to get a firm hold. He turned discreetly, and the door was pushed open in perfect stillness, except for that dreadful husky thumping of his own heart. At this moment the postman's hard knock at the door nearly made him cry out aloud. Then he entered; a dreadful visitor, had anyone seen him. She did not see him; she was asleep, sound asleep; in the dirty brown twilight of a London winter day, he could make out that much. He did not ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... two, Jo behaved so queerly that her sisters were quite bewildered. She rushed to the door when the postman rang, was rude to Mr. Brooke whenever they met, would sit looking at Meg with a woe-begone face, occasionally jumping up to shake and then kiss her in a very mysterious manner. Laurie and she were always making signs to one ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turning. The weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... point out and explain, Lavinia Cortright began to jot down name and quantity, and then, stopping, said: "No, you must write it out as the first record for The Garden, You, and I. I make a motion to that effect." As I was about to protest, the postman brought some letters, one being from Mary Penrose, to whom Mrs. Cortright stands as aunt by courtesy. I opened it, and spreading it between us we began to read, so that afterward Lavinia declared that her motion was ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... for people to be coming to the door, and lifting the latch and looking straight in at me as I sit at work—just the same as in any cottage in the country. I think William rather forgets that I never was accustomed to this kind of thing at home. Last night even, when the postman came; if he had not been so anxious to read his letter, he might have noticed how the draught from the open door made the candle flare, and the tallow ran down all over my nice bright candlestick. The letter was from his father, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... It was the postman's insistent knocking at eight-thirty that woke her from a dreamless sleep, and, half-awake, she dragged herself into her dressing-gown and ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... big books of his that he presses his bits of chickweed and groundsel in do hold the dust is awful. If you wished to do him some kindness you'd get him away for a bit, so that I could turn his rooms inside out. Postman, sir." ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... in the ways of life, and steeled with his boasted stoicism, this epistle threw him into such an agony of vexation, that a double proportion of souring was visible in his aspect, when he was visited by the author, who, having observed and followed the postman at a proper distance, introduced a conversation upon his own disappointments, in which, among other circumstances of his own ill-luck, he told him, that his patron's steward had desired to be excused ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... after the postman had gone away from Belton, so that there might be no possibility of any recall of her letter, 'I have something to tell you which I ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... this Captain Jan; a man who knew the forty miles of underground workings in Botallack as well, I suppose, as a postman knows his beat; a man who dived into the bowels of the earth with the vigour and confidence of a mole and the ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... the laws of sequence, our correspondence should have been brought to a standstill. I calculated, however, that when the postman delivered my phantom communication next morning Phyllis would not remain twiddling her thumbs ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... knows the postman collects at six o'clock. Well, I s'pose she is hiding somewhere, reading a book. Won't I give it to her when I catch her! For she said she'd come out here, ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... America—of sending around Christmas cards, dainty things with lovely pictures and hearty verses upon them. Friends and lovers send them to one another, children send them to their parents, parents to their children, and the postman, as he flies from house to house, fairly glows ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... of the mail was something of a ceremony in the early days of Cooperstown. Toward evening the sound of the postman's horn was faintly heard as he rounded the slopes of Mount Vision; the blasts grew louder as he descended the hill and approached the village; then the thunder of the four post-horses as they crossed the bridge was heard, and the postman drew up with a flourish at the post office, ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... become the favourite pursuit of all classes, and the postman is probably the only man who leaves letters for the vulgar pursuit of lucre! Even the vanity of servant-maids has undergone a change—they now study 'Cocker' and neglect ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... history, more especially if he, or she, has ever had the misfortune to pass through such a time in their own proper persons. The day of any one's departure is always wretched, but much more is it wretched, when the person departing is a lover, whose face will not be seen and of whom no postman will bear tidings ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... cup which My FATHER hath given me, shall I not drink it?" How the tendency to resentment and a wrong feeling would be removed, could we take an injury from the hand of a loving FATHER, instead of looking chiefly at the agent through whom it comes to us! It matters not who is the postman—it is with the writer of the letter that we are concerned: it matters not who is the messenger—it is with GOD that His ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... rare and unlooked for at the cottage, that the postman never included it in his rounds; and the contents of the pigeon-hole appropriated to them at the office was seldom inquired for, except on mail-days, when there might be an off-chance of an English letter for Miss Opie. Even Bluebell, who for the first fortnight after her banishment from ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... two curious things occurred: one, the postman brought a letter for the late owner of River Hall, and dropped it in the box; another, Mrs. Stott asked me if I would allow her and two of the children to take up their residence at the Uninhabited House. ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... passed on, but still there came no answer from Paul. Every morning, for a fortnight, Jeanne had gone along the road to meet the postman, and had asked, in a voice which she could ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... Oh, I know it's nothing to boast of even on earth. Up here, it's simply contemptible. Now that you gods are too old for your work, you've made me the miserable drudge of Olympus—groom, valet, postman, butler, commissionaire, maid of all work, parish beadle, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... builder. He no longer dares come out and fight in the open, for he knows that public sentiment is against him. The people understand—to what an extent is shown in a report of a Tenement House Committee in the city of Yonkers, which the postman put on my table this minute. The committee was organized "to prevent the danger to Yonkers of incurring the same evils that have fallen so heavily upon New York and have cost that city millions of money and thousands of lives." It sprang from the Civic League, was appointed by ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... boy to college—that is, I promised him fifty dollars a year. He died in his junior term, however. Sisters of Mercy, the postman, a beggar selling pencils or shoelaces—almost anybody, in short, that actually comes within range—can pretty surely count on something from me. But I confess I never go out of my way to look for people in need of help. I have ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... repression. And yet one must doubt whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'[19] would have been a little scandalised by some of the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... it's the right kind of name. It's the way most of the farms all over England once were named—after their owners, and where the owner was a man of character and force the name persisted. Call it 'Buckler's' and you will help everyone, from the postman to the strange guest who might otherwise tour the neighbourhood for miles searching for you long after lunch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... the still, small voice of realism, intense longing is always followed by disappointment. Nothing should have happened that summer, and Providence should not have come disguised as the postman. It was a sultry day in early September-which is to say that it was comparatively cool—a blue day, with occasional great drops of rain spattering on the brick walk. And Honora was reclining on the hall sofa, reading about Mr. Ibbetson and his duchess, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... suddenly appeared in the distance. At the same time a sweep, a postman, and a servant ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... who brings the coal Claims his customary dole: When the postman rings and knocks For his usual Christmas-box: When you're dunned by half the town With demands for half-a-crown,— Think, although they cost you dear, Christmas ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... "It was the postman with a money-order." (Henriette, the servant, comes in, upper left, with a hat-box on her arm and a little tray of letters which she ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... I were just starting off to the office, after having finally made our submission to Mrs Nash, and induced her, with a promise "never to do it again," to withdraw her threat to turn us out, when the postman ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... in the daily mails, no hopeful looking forward if one failed to come, no cheery saying to one's heart, "Never mind, it will surely come to-morrow." This state is infinitely better than the hopeless glance one bestows upon the postman, realizing ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... most about this," he said, "is the revelation of your shortcomings as a wife. You ought to think me the picture of manly beauty. Baby does. She thinks that, next to the postman, I am ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... knew. At any rate, it was no concern of hers, and she was about to dip a pen when her ear was caught by the sound of a step upon the stone staircase. She followed it past Mr. Chippen's chambers; past Mr. Gibson's; past Mr. Turner's; after which it became her sound. A postman, a washerwoman, a circular, a bill—she presented herself with each of these perfectly natural possibilities; but, to her surprise, her mind rejected each one of them impatiently, even apprehensively. The step became slow, as it was apt to do at the end of the steep climb, and Mary, listening ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... not by herself, as soon as the opportunity presented itself. She was, in fact, a woman on whom the police might do worse than keep an eye; but, reflected Gimblet, he was not the police, and the dishonesty of this scheming widow was really no concern of his. As he reached his door, a postman was leaving it, and two or three letters had been pushed through the flap. He let himself in and took them out of the box. They were not of great importance. A bill, an appeal for a subscription to some charity, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... did, I meant to water it as soon as I had finished my letter. He has never been able to bring this home to me, he says, because he burned my correspondence. As if a business man would destroy such a letter. It was yet more annoying when Gilray took to post-cards. To hear the postman's knock and then discover, when you are expecting an important communication, that it is only a post-card about a flower-pot—that is really too bad. And then I consider that some of the post-cards bordered upon insult. One of them said, "What about chrysanthemum?—reply ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... either," he returned, laughing; "you can have the postman who delivered the letters here—nothing ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... London for a copy of The Chorus in Green, as the author had oddly named the book. He wrote on June 21st and thought he might fairly expect to receive the interesting volume by the 24th; but the postman, true to his tradition, brought nothing for him, and in the afternoon he resolved to walk down to Caermaen, in case it might have come by a second post; or it might have been mislaid at the office; they forgot parcels sometimes, especially ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Hivohitee's postman held no oral communication with the sentries. Dispatched round the island with divers bits of tappa, hieroglyphically stamped, he merely deposited one upon each altar; superadding a stone, to keep the missive in its place; and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the few cottage chimneys. Here he heard a quick, familiar footstep in the path ahead of him, and, turning the corner of the bushes, confronted the foot- post on his way to Welland. In answer to St. Cleeve's inquiry if there was anything for himself the postman handed out one letter, and ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... The postman's time for passing was just after Melbury's men had assembled in the spar-house; and Winterborne, who when not busy on his own account would lend assistance there, used to go out into the lane every morning and meet the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... library"; another, because she "saw it was a nice place to come to on a rainy day." Still another frankly avows that "it was the fad among the boys and girls of our neighborhood; we used to meet at the library." A postman reported that he entered the library first in the line of his duty, but was attracted by it and began to take out books. A clergyman had his attention called to the library by requests from choir-boys that he should sign their application blanks; ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... interrupted by the appearance of Koku, who came out of the shop with a letter the postman ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... me to transfer this leaf from the book of his experience: "Not long ago the postman brought me a letter of a rather touching kind. The unknown writer, lately a widow, and plainly a woman of refinement, had just suffered a new affliction in the loss of her little girl. My correspondent asked me to copy for her ten or a dozen lines from a poem ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... landlady and the boy at' Child's." There is another allusion to the house in the Spectator. "Sometimes I"—the writer is Addison—"smoke a pipe at Child's, and while I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room." Apart from such decided lay patrons as Addison, Child's could also claim a large constituency among the medical and learned men of ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... our door a postman was delivering letters. One of them was for the Reverend Mother and I saw in a moment that it was in my father's handwriting. She read it in silence, and in silence she handed ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... effect of "Ship-Bored" upon others, its publication has exerted a very definite effect upon me, or rather upon the character of my daily mail. Instead of letters the postman now leaves little packages containing pills which, according to the senders, will prevent the casting of ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... without: the waterman, seated on his empty bucket, contemplates the untrodden pavement between his feet, and is at rest. The blue butcher's boy trots by with empty cart, five miles an hour, instead of full fifteen, and stops to chat with the red postman, who, his occupation gone, smokes with the green gatekeeper, and reviles the Czar. Along the whole north pavement of the square only one figure moves, and that ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... know; but he was for no dispute with Bess and kept his want of knowledge to himself. Yes; Richard was to write Dorothy every day; and she, for her sweet part, was likewise to write Richard every day. The good Bess, like an angel turned postman, would manage the exchange of ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a mother watches, Her eyes with weeping dim, Or sweetheart waits the postman In vain for news of him. While snow of winter freezes, And April violets thrust Sweet blossoms through the grasses ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... loud cheers raised for Marlborough, for Wolfe, for Nelson, or for Wellington, while overhead the church bells are ringing loudly in the old grey tower. These were the days of the highwaymen, and even as late as 1830 a postman was robbed near the moorland village of Lockton, on his way to Whitby. The driver of the mailcart at that time used to carry a large brass-mounted cavalry pistol, which was handed to him when he had mounted his ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... felt more nervous than usual. I had expected a letter from America for some days past, and none had arrived. On this evening I knew the mail was due, and I waited anxiously for the last ring of the postman at ten o'clock; but I was doomed to listen in vain. There was the sharp, loud ring next door, but not at ours; and I went to my room earlier than the others, really to give way to a few tears that ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... on earth since she's lost confidence in that cousin of her mother's because he didn't come to her wedding. She hasn't an idea that he never got her note asking him to give her away. Thank heaven I got hold of that before it reached the postman! If that old granny had been here we should have had trouble indeed. I had an experience with him once just before I married Betty's father, and I never want to repeat it. But we must look out what gets in ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... taste of Epsom salts; We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,— Its central dimple holds a drowning fly Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, And blunted dulness verebrates in vain! —The door-bell jingles,—enter Richard Fox, And takes this ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Post-Office department has many surprises in store for the American tourist. Mail delivery everywhere free, even in a rural commune remote from the railroad he may see a postman on his rounds two or three times a day. When money is sent him by postal order, the letter-carrier puts the cash in his hands. If he wishes to send a package by express, the carrier takes the order, which soon brings to him the postal express wagon. A package sent him is delivered ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... the present time, Mr. Vollmar had had unusual success, but circumstances were soon to change. One morning as the family was breakfasting, the postman delivered a letter containing the information that the ship which carried a valuable cargo belonging to Mr. Vollmar had been lost ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... to the aged at last, however, even in Oldport. We have lately lost, for instance, that patient old postman, serenest among our human antiquities, whose deliberate tread might have imparted a tone of repose to Broadway, could any imagination have transferred him thither. Through him the correspondence of other days came softened of all immediate solicitude. Ere it reached you, friends had died or recovered, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... say to Bridget, "'tis for marrying us he'd be, if he knew how it was with us, same as he married off Rose to the postman and gave them a cottage; and that new girl isn't up to Rose's work yet, nor ever will be, ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... came in, at about half-past three, the mail was just being distributed, and Mrs. Cope was waiting as usual to pounce on her letters; you know she was always watching for the postman. She was standing so close to me that I couldn't help seeing a big official-looking envelope that was handed to her. She tore it open, gave one look at the inside, and rushed off upstairs like a whirlwind, with the director shouting after her that she had left all her other letters behind. I ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... Billy trotted up to the smiling postman and received the letter in his mouth. Once or twice he capered round Lucy, who had followed to the gate, and then, standing quite still, he held up his head as if proud of his achievement, and allowed the letter ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... irreligious men. There are rudimentary moral principles which they that know not God nevertheless acknowledge and obey. It was so in Christ's time; it is so still. The popular American ballad, "Jim Bludso," and Ian Maclaren's touching story of the Drumtochty postman, are familiar illustrations of self-sacrificing virtues revealed by men of coarse and vicious lives. Nor ought we to deny the reality of such virtues; still less ought we to follow the bad example of St. Augustine and call them "splendid ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... go beyond that corner, but he could look and see what was coming, and perhaps he could see the postman ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... the hours of postal delivery, and listened with throbbing heart to the double knocks at neighbouring houses. When the last postman was gone by, she sat down, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... its male inhabitants. Like that fabulous realm of Tennyson's Princess, it is a realm inhabited by women; and the only male voice left in the land is the voice of the milk-boy on his rounds, the necessary postman, and the innocuous grocer's tout. There is something of the 'hushed seraglio' in these miles of trim houses, from whose doors and windows only female faces look out. An air of sensible bereavement lies upon ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... that after mailing a letter he would often linger about the box until the postman arrived, and ask permission to inspect his letter, ostensibly to see if he had put on the stamp, but in fact to reassure himself that he had really mailed the missive, although he knew perfectly well that ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... his first two accepted stories had not arrived. Neither had a loan which, sorely against his will, he had been driven to request from the only man he could think of—an old schoolmate, far away in Scotland. He had listened for the postman's knock, hoping it would bring relief, for four long days—and not one letter had come, and he was despairing and ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... and by an enlightened philanthropy that won him the respect of all parties. When he was named as director of the post-office in 1822, many people of his circle blamed him for taking a place beneath him. "Congratulate me," he said, laughing, "that I have not been offered that of postman; I should have taken it just the same if I had thought I could be useful." And he added: "It was thought that it would be a sinecure for me. Far from that, I gave myself up wholly to my new employment, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... postman, Goguelat carries all the news of the countryside, and a good deal of practice acquired in this way has made him an orator in great request at up-sittings, and the champion teller of stories in the district. Gondrin looks upon him as a very knowing ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... cotter or small farmer who is his cousin. I wish you could see him walking into his cousins' curds and cream, and into their dairies generally! Yesterday morning, between eight and nine, I was sitting writing at the open window, when the postman came to the inn (which at Loch Earn Head is the post-office) for the letters. He is going away, when Fletcher, who has been writing somewhere below-stairs, rushes out, and cries, 'Halloa there! Is that the Post?' 'Yes!' somebody answers. 'Call him back!' ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... further speculation for the moment by a knock at the door. The postman entered with two letters, for one of which, as it was registered, John had to sign. When he had tipped the postman and was alone again, he put his registered letter on the dressing-table (with a view to disciplining ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... he had been in such a hurry, so all was forgiven, and he went on playing fireman. He was in the midst of putting out a make-believe blaze in the village church when the doorbell rang, and the postman's whistle ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... Anthea, who consequently missed half the performance. Then there was the time when, Nurse having gone to tea with a friend out Ivalunk way, they were playing 'devil in the dark'—and in the midst of that most creepy pastime the postman's knock frightened Jane nearly out of her life. She took in the letters, however, and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer, so that they should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them again ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... difficulty in finding In den Zelten. I had to ask the way, once of a postman and once of a wounded soldier who was limping along with crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off a corner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... thoroughly converted to the marvels of the high Alps, he reached the Kursaal side by side with the postman who brought the chief English mail about six o'clock ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... lord, I beg your pardon for so long a silence in the late reign; I knew nothing worth telling you; and the great event of this morning you Z, will certainly hear before it comes to you by so sober and regular a personage as the postman. The few circumstances known yet are, that the King went well to bed last night; rose well at six this morning; went to the water-closet a little after seven -, had a fit, fell against a bureau, and gashed his right temple: the valet de chambre heard a noise and a groan, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole |
