"Crutch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could not understand was that some people—without wanting bloodshed—might prefer it to Home Rule. He left me, still I fancy relying on my well-known moderation. No man ever relied on a more utterly useless crutch. Moderation has never been of the slightest use anywhere in Ireland and was certainly a vain thing in Belfast ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... wife stepped on a rusty nail, running it through the shoe sole and her foot. The next morning Brother Christaphersen came and she asked him to make her a crutch, since I was in Europe at the time. She had to walk with her knee on a chair and he said he would. He went out and in a few minutes he came back and said, "The Lord does not want me to make you a crutch. ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning on a crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... with his other conduct, I continu'd to refuse. So he swore he would make me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him head-foremost into the river. I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him; but before he could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had with a few strokes pull'd her out of his reach; and ever when ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his thread-bare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... generous and obedient, you really wouldn't have known her. She loved everybody, forgave her playmates all their sins against her, let Nelly take such of her precious treasures as she liked, and pensively hoped baby would remember her when she was gone. She hopped about with a crutch, and felt as if she was an object of public interest; for all the old ladies sent to know how she was, the children looked at her with respectful awe as one set apart and doomed to fits, and Cy continually begged to know if ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... evening, as was his wont, to a larger crowd than usual, he went home. As he walked a passer-by could have seen that he was lame; he used a crutch. With the winter rain beating on him he looked insignificant. Presently he found the house where he had a room, went up the stairs, and entered, opening the door with a latch-key. A fire was burning here, and a small paraffin lamp with a red shade over it ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... sigh followed the words, and Belle put her own plump hand on the delicate one that held the crutch, saying, in ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... swept his aged breast; The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay. Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away; Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... clock struck three, the Emperor entered—a decrepit man who, although numbering only thirty-five years, looked much older. With one arm he leaned on the shoulder of a tall and graceful youth, while his other rested on a crutch. His hair was white, close-cropped, and bristly, his beard grey and shaggy, his eye dark blue, his forehead spacious, and his nose aquiline, but crooked; while his under lip was heavy and hanging, the lower jaw projecting so far beyond the upper, that he could with difficulty ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... next interesting impressions I gained of the doctor was that of seeing him hobbling about our town on crutches, his medicine case held in one hand along with a crutch, visiting his patients, when he himself appeared to be so ill as to require medical attention. He was suffering from some severe form of rheumatism at the time, but this, apparently, was not sufficient to keep him from those who in his judgment probably needed his services more ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... of La Nuit du 23 octobre 1812 appeared in the church, and no sooner had he done so than he was everywhere at one and the same moment—in the nave, under the porch, and in the choir. Like the Diable boiteux he must, bestriding his crutch, have soared above the heads of the congregation, to pass as he did in the twinkling of an eye from Morlot, the deputy, who, being a freethinker, had remained in the parvis, to Marie-Claire kneeling at the foot ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... this morning, father?" asked Fred Stanley as his parent came slowly into the dining-room, leaning heavily on a crutch. ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... chief butcher enter the bathing house alone, while his followers waited at the gate: upon which I went to a slaughter-house, poured over my back the blood of a sheep, dabbed it with plaisters of cotton, and leaning on a crutch, as if in agony of pain, repaired to the bath. At first the butchers refused me admittance, saying their chief was within; but on my entreating their compassion for my miserable condition, they at length permitted me to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... little above the hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind—legs, he used, in order to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders, like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then. After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute or two, it ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... acceptance according to promise of this autograph of our English Theocritus, Bloomfield. He is in my opinion our best Pastoral Poet. His "Broken Crutch," "Richard and Kate," &c. are inimitable and above praise. Crabbe writes about the peasantry as much like the Magistrate as the Poet. He is determined to show you their worst side; and, as to their ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... below the mouth of the cave. Jack slipped his foot into the crutch where a bough struck away from the parent stem, swung himself up, and tumbled into the hollow, which was an irregular circle about nine feet across. The Panthays at once followed him, and all three pushed ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... water-bed of India rubber gives ease to his mangled frame, and enables him to endure the wearing tedium of an unchanged posture. Bandages and supporters of India rubber avail him much when first he begins to hobble about his ward. A piece of India rubber at the end of his crutch lessens the jar and the noise of his motions, and a cushion of India rubber is comfortable to his arm-pit. The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which excludes the drafts from doors and windows, his pocket-comb and cup and thimble are ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... that would poison a rat—put into Grimsby one day, an' the crowd went ashore. They kicked up a shindy with some bar-loungers, an' the fur flew. When the police came, old Peg-leg, the skipper, you know, was the only man left in the place, havin' unshipped his crutch for the fight. 'What have you bin a-doin' of here—throwin' grapes about?' asked the peeler, gazin' at the floor, suspicious-like. 'Grapes,' said Dot-an'-carry-one, 'them ain't grapes. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... gloves invested the hands, whose horny, reticulated skin reminded me of the black fowl, or the scaly feet of African cranes pacing at ease over the burning sands. Each dandy had his badine upon whose nice conduct he prided himself; the toothpick was as omnipresent as the crutch, nor was the 'quizzing-glass' quite absent. Lower extremities, of the same category as the hands, but slightly superior in point of proportional size, were crammed into patent-leather boots, the latter looking as if they had been stuffed with some ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... take to caves and the vampires to outhouses and dark crevices in the rocks, but most of the monkeys and apes would soon become extinct, while a chimpanzee or orang-utan would become a cripple, swinging ever painfully along between the knuckles of crutch-like forearms, searching, searching forever for the trees which gave him his form and structure, and without which his life and that of his race ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... volley of oaths as shocked even his hardened ears. Turning gingerly around so as not to lose his footing, he faced this masked battery that had opened so unexpectedly upon him, and saw a white-haired old man balancing himself on one crutch and brandishing the other ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... s'pose so, of course," he laughed in answer, as he pulled his tall silk hat more tightly down on his head, fastened on his glasses and took his red, white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... upwards of a year his mental powers suffered. There was no morbid illusion of the fancy, but there was utter prostration of the intellect.... In September, 1767, Junius spoke of Lord Chatham as 'a lunatic brandishing a crutch.'"[108] ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... coming along on his crutches, and then when Giant Despair had been slain and Doubting Castle demolished, taking Despondency's daughter Much-afraid by the hand and dancing with her in the road? "True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well. Also the girl was to be commanded, for she answered the musick handsomely." In Bunyan's pictures there is never a superfluous detail. Every stroke tells, and helps to the completeness of ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... you also devise a subject representing "Master Humphrey's Clock" as stopped; his chair by the fireside, empty; his crutch against the wall; his slippers on the cold hearth; his hat upon the chair-back; the MSS. of "Barnaby" and "The Curiosity Shop" heaped upon the table; and the flowers you introduced in the first subject of all withered and dead? Master Humphrey being ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in the passage outside, and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an arm-chair on the opposite side of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... your bear's head, and I saved him from falling!" Quita explained triumphantly. "I wanted him to try without the crutch, because Dr Courtenay takes him in to dinner to-night; and he hardly had to lean ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... crutch hath spiteful age Dealt me a blow full sore: I stumbled o'er a yawning grave, Why ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... matter?" The girl, scenting danger, faced it. She swung herself down from the saddle-crutch, picked up her skirt, and taking Madcap's rein close beside the curb, walked slowly up to the verandah. "Have they been bullying you, dear?" she asked in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... just then were exhausted. Desmarets no longer knew of what wood to make a crutch. He had been to Paris knocking at every door. But the most exact engagements had been so often broken that he found nothing but excuses and closed doors. Bernard, like the rest, would advance nothing. Much was due to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a true story. Mrs. B—— is a cripple woman who walks with a crutch. Years ago she was converted and later was wholly sanctified. Her husband was a wicked man who gave her a great deal of trouble and at last died and left her with several children. They were miserably poor. She took her ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... now in the quiet Haidehof. The father could hobble about the house and garden on a crutch, but he had grown much too lazy to wield the sceptre again. Paul did not know what else to do for him, except to have his favorite dishes cooked, not to measure his rations of ginger and aniseed too sparingly, and to present him ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... with us a great deal, and I believe he did both Bigley and me a vast deal of good from being so cantankerous. He would do anything for us; fetch, carry, or turn himself into a crutch for Bigley to lean upon, as he hopped down the garden to a chair; but he must be allowed to snarl and find fault, ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... he called, "one of you please be good enough to hand me my crutch and cane. Dear me, what a thing it is ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... after this, Lawrence found himself able, by the aid of a cane and a rude crutch, which Uncle Isham had made for him and the top of which Mrs Keswick had carefully padded, to make his way from the office to the house; and, after that, he took his meals, and passed the greater part of his time in the larger edifice. Sometimes, he ransacked the old library; sometimes, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... the old gentleman rabbit, as he leaned on his crutch. "I ought to go on to the office, but—ah!—er—well, as long as you have no one else to umpire for you, I suppose I will have to do it, but I really ought to go to the office. Who is going to play?" he asked, and he seemed ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... put their shoulders to the wheel, and show a certain amount of intimacy with their textbooks. A nodding acquaintance with French verbs or the rules of Latin Grammar might suffice to shuffle through the ordinary lessons in form, but would be a poor crutch when confronted with a pile of foolscap paper and a set of questions, and likely to lead to disparaging items ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... my two hands, though perhaps my left shoulder hurts too much to play often. My one eye aches when I read for too long, and the stump below the knee is too tender still to fit the false leg on to, and I cannot, because of my shoulder, use my crutch overmuch, so walking is out of the question. These trifles are perhaps, the cause of ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... pistols more. He had, in truth, in the devouring universalism of his soul, a positive love for inanimate objects such as has not been known since St. Francis called the sun brother and the well sister. We feel that he was actually in love with the wooden crutch that Silver sent hurtling in the sunlight, with the box that Billy Bones left at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut angularity which ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... roast. And then, let me see,— He had two,—perhaps three Cups, with sugar and cream, of strong gunpowder tea,— But no matter for that— He had called for his hat, With the brim that I've said was so broad and so flat, And his "specs" with the tortoise-shell rim, and his cane. With the crutch-handled top, which he used to sustain His steps in his walk, or to poke in the shrubs Or the grass, when unearthing his worms or his grubs; Thus armed he set out on a ramble—a-lack! He set out, poor dear soul!—but ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... spend it. A man like you don't want stocks or fancy investments, for you couldn't look after them. A man like you don't want diamonds and jewellery, nor a gold-headed cane, when it's got to be used as a crutch. No, sir. What you want is suthin' that won't run away from you; that is always there before you and won't wear out, and will last after you're gone. That's land! And if it wasn't that I have sworn never to sell or give away this house and that ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... it, my dear. No one knows what I have had to bear. Another year of it would kill me. His language has become worse and worse, and I fear every day that he is going to strike me with his crutch." ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... lived frugally, they were told that their parsimony must necessarily have enriched them; if their method of living were splendid and hospitable, they were concluded to be opulent on account of their expenses. This device was by some called Chancellor Morton's fork, by others his crutch. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... thither with a great concourse of people, for my Eggert had excused himself, saying he was sick, though, methinks, I know what sickness he had—namely, the hare's sickness; and Jobst admonished the witch, who hobbled along in her white shift and black cap, leaning on a crutch, not to accuse his poor cousin falsely, for let her think where she would stand in a few moments. There was the pile before her eyes, an image of the eternal hell-fire. But she held by her first confession, and even after the executioner made her ascend the ladder, she turned round at the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... round and walk backward, so as to be able to watch for and avoid future compliments of the same kind. Many such were sent after him without effect. But just as he was getting beyond reach, Alick, in a last violent effort to throw far enough, overbalanced himself, one crutch slipped from under him, and he fell forward on his face in ...
— The Old Castle and Other Stories • Anonymous
... outside element to aid discipline or to inspire morale. It had all to come from within. It had all to spring from the men themselves and from the example set by their officers. The enemy fought against them, the elements fought against them, the place itself was as cheerful as a crutch. The clay climbed from their feet to their hips, was ground into their uniforms, clung to their hands and hair. The rain chilled them, the wind, cold, damp, and harsh, stabbed through their greatcoats. Their outlook was upon graves, their resting-places dark caverns, at which even ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... these two Khaki Boys and they started back over the ground won at such terrible cost. Already, though, gallant stretcher-bearers were searching among the dead to succor the living. And then, to their unutterable delight, Roger and Bob saw Franz limping toward them, using his rifle as a crutch. ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... that he could not understand unless some man guided him. But when Philip is caught away, he does not bewail the loss of his guide. He went on his road with joy, though his new faith might have craved longer support from the crutch of a teacher, and fuller enlightenment. What made him able to do without the guide that a few hours before had been so indispensable? The presence in his heart of a better one, even of Him whom Jesus promised, to guide His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... what was going forward and a glance at the redoubtable Calros. I was particularly struck by the eagerness displayed by one man, a cripple, who, in spite of the entreaties of his wife, mixed with the crowd, and having lost his crutch, hopped forward on one leg, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... saw him, and everybody else, and old Mr. Bows, the little first fiddler of the orchestra (which was this night increased by a detachment of the band of the Dragoons, by the kind permission of Colonel Swallowtail), looked up from the desk where he was perched, with his crutch beside him, and smiled at the enthusiasm ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I made merry—then how he would strive To show his joy; "Good master, let's to play, The world is ours," that gladsome bark would say; "Just yours and mine—'tis fun to be alive!" Our world ... four walls above the city's din, My crutch the bar that ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... months more Coupeau walked with a crutch and after a while was able to get into the street and then to the outer boulevard, where he sat on a bench in the sun. His gaiety returned; he laughed again and enjoyed doing nothing. For the first time in his life he felt thoroughly ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious eyes, The good child's wistful charities, And crippled changeling's hunch to make Dance on his crutch, for good ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... is dead That we haue made so much on. I had rather Haue skipt from sixteene yeares of Age, to sixty: To haue turn'd my leaping time into a Crutch, Then ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... motley, and so, in despite of my repugnance now to reassume that garb, I had no choice but to array myself in one of these. I selected the least garish one—a suit of black and yellow stripes, with hose that was half black, half yellow, too; and so, leaning upon the crutch they had left me, I crept forth into the sunlight, the very ghost of the man that I had been a ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... return to find Burrill still here. He is able only to crutch about the house, but will probably return to Brook Farm with me during the latter part of next week, which ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... mystery, he rows to the piazza, orders his bark to wait, meets his goddess in the crowd, and vanishes from all beholders. Surely, Venice is the city in the universe best calculated for giving scope to the observations of a devil upon two sticks. What a variety of lurking-places would one stroke of his crutch uncover! ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... rough stuff, or even talk raw. It was said he juggled you out the door like you were an empty beer keg. Down by the riverside was another saloon for that sort of thing, kept by Pegleg McCarron, who would sell whisky to any one that could buy, liked rough stuff and with his crutch would participate in it. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... General Webb was to give me a visit: he goes with a crutch and stick, yet was forced to come up two pair of stairs. I promised to dine with him, but afterwards sent my excuses, and dined privately in my friend Lewis's lodgings at Whitehall, with whom I had much business to talk of, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Rather than render back, out with your knives, And cut your trusters' throats! bound servants steal! Large-handed robbers your grave masters are; And kill by law! maid, to thy master's bed; Thy mistress is of the brothel! son of sixteen, Pluck the lined crutch from the old, limping sire; With it beat out his brains! piety, and fear Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth, Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighborhood, Instruction, manners, mysteries, and ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... is not greatly impressed by testimonials. The man who has the most testimonials generally needs them most to keep him from rattling. A testimonial so often becomes a crutch. ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... and still larger ones. Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made for me—on a yet larger pattern. They still grew and grew in size. Within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have used it as a crutch. It now seemed to me that a one-cigar limit was no real protection to a person, so I knocked my pledge on the head ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... chicken-coops and the cattle—we had what was called "horse billiards." Horse billiards is a fine game. It affords good, active exercise, hilarity, and consuming excitement. It is a mixture of "hop-scotch" and shuffleboard played with a crutch. A large hop-scotch diagram is marked out on the deck with chalk, and each compartment numbered. You stand off three or four steps, with some broad wooden disks before you on the deck, and these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... blue aprons. Two figured conspicuously in the van of the party. One, a little dapper strutting man with a turned-up nose; the other a broad-shouldered fellow, distinguished no less by his demure face and cat like, trustless eyes than by a wooden leg and stout crutch. There was a kind of leer about his lips; he seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing; his whole air was anything but that of a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Mary's husband wor upstairs confined to bed wi rhumatics, but th' dowters had tell'd him all abaat Burt's adventure, an' as he could hear all 'at wor sed, he furst began to feel uneasy, an' then to loise his temper, soa he seized his crutch an' ran daan stairs like a lad o' sixteen, an' laid abaat him reight an' left, an' i' less nor a minit Burt, th' cunstable, an' owd Mary ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... "Alwyn! Good Heavens! it is Alwyn!"—and the next moment the heavy crutch-handled stick fell from the old man's trembling hand with a ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... for the pumps and dressing-pens. Then came the nests of dories lashed to ring-bolts by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubs and oddments lashed all around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boom in its crutch, splitting things length-wise, to duck ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... gun for a crutch!" he demanded of the Widow; and Mrs. Huff, who had been surveying her work with awe, passed over the shotgun in silence. "All right, now," he went on, turning to Death Valley Charley, who had been patiently holding his lantern, "just show me the trail and I'll get out of camp ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... an idea among us, I think," said Alice, with a melancholy smile, "we four, that Miss Grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy, and would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick, and give the child a bad gift? Was there anything of that sort? ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens
... She picked up her crutch and walked to the door. It was no use; the rain warned her back. She sat down again by the window to watch ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... take my advice, Mr Lorton, you would remain so. I've heard it frequently said by some of your penny-a-liners—I believe that is what you literary gentlemen call yourselves—that, authorship reaps very poor pay. It makes a very good stick, but a bad crutch; and I don't think you can expect to increase your income very largely from that quarter! The only author I ever knew personally, sank into it, poor fellow, because he could do nothing else; and, he led a wretched existence from hand to mouth! He was never recognised afterwards ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... cushion against the red tiles. The houseleek, however, is a singular plant, worthy of examination; it has an old-world look, as if it had survived beyond its date into the nineteenth century. It hides in odd places and gables like a relic of witchcraft, and a black cat and an aged woman with a crutch-handled stick would be its appropriate owner. The houseleek is still used for the cure of wounds and cuts. A leaf—the leaves are rather like portions of the plant than mere leaves—is bruised to pulp, and the juice and some of the pulp mixed with cream. They say it is efficacious. They ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... sustain'd She battled onward, nor complain'd Though friends were fewer: And, cheerful at her daily care, A little crutch upon the stair Was music ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... on his grave, and some hot-headed vindictive rebel should get on his ear and say that the man who laid that bouquet on the Yankee's grave would have to take it off or fight. The professor, if he laid there and heard it, would feel like getting out of the grave, and taking a crutch and mauling the liver ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... injuries of nerves are met with. One of the best known is the compression paralysis of the nerves of the upper arm which results from sleeping with the arm resting on the back of a chair or the edge of a table—the so-called "drunkard's palsy"; and from the pressure of a crutch in the axilla—"crutch paralysis." In some of these injuries, notably "drunkard's palsy," the disability appears to be due not to damage of the nerve, but to overstretching of the extensors of the wrist and fingers ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... upward, perhaps—that we have. The trouble is that so many of 'em work in harness, and it is pretty sure to chafe somewhere. They feed us on canned meats mostly. They cripple our instincts and reason, and give us a crutch of doctrine. I have talked with a great many of 'em, of all sorts of belief; and I don't think they are quite so easy in their minds, the greater number of them, nor so clear in their convictions as one would think to hear 'em lay down the law in the pulpit. They used to lead the intelligence ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He was a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures (with the half-butt as an engine of public opinion) till the rumour went abroad that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the Staff Corps had many and varied trials to endure. However, a regiment has just as much right to its ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... fortnight at the island, during which my wound was healing rapidly, and I was able to hop about with a crutch. Cross also was out of bed, and able to sit up for an hour or two on the verandah, in the cool of which I spent the best part of the day, with my wounded limb resting upon a sofa. From the veranda we had ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... his two daughters, Catherine and Marie, went into the woods at certain seasons twice a-day, and came back laden with fagots which overhung the crutch of their poles at least two feet beyond their heads. Though dried sticks were placed on the outside of the heap, the inside was made of live wood cut from young trees. In plain words, Tonsard helped himself to his winter's fuel in the woods of Les Aigues. Besides ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... of scurrying about among the deck-hands, and swearing among the mates, they sent the yawl ashore, and bustled the passenger on board. In the case which my boy seemed to remember, the passenger is a one-legged man, and he is standing in the yawl, with his crutch under his arm, and his cane in his other hand; his family must be watching him from the house. When the yawl comes alongside he tries to step aboard the steamboat, but he misses his footing and slips into the yellow river, and vanishes softly. It is all so smooth and ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... forgotten that anybody was by. Her face was drenched with tears and her lips were quivering. Behind her was a gray-haired woman with a skewey blouse and a faded dark blue serge skirt too long for the prevailing fashion. The tears were trickling down her cheeks also; and an old man with a crutch, and a little round-eyed girl, seemed to belong to the party. The old man's lips were set and he was looking at the boys with ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... his brother's good health, I am sorry to say.' And here Michael gave a short sketch of Kester's boyish accident, and the results that followed. 'He can walk very fairly now,' he continued, 'and will soon lay aside his crutch; but I fear he will ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the pair on the cinder pavement. The man was asking Barbara about her home folks, and seemed particularly interested in hearing about mother's pale looks and many sighs; and also how sister Lucy seemed to be able to walk better lately than at any time in the past; though she did have to use a crutch; but she hoped to be able to go to school in the fall ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... quiet, realising that the team was but a pretext. The elder girl found her cloak, picked up a bucket and left the room. Marylyn shrank into the dusk at the hearth-side. Lancaster was hobbling up and down, his crutch-ends digging at the packed dirt ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... like drawn parchment. I was taken, too, with a sickness, that racked me violently, and if one of the greater and more dangerous beasts had come upon me then, he would have eaten me without a fight. With the fall of darkness I managed to haul myself up into a tree, and there abode in the crutch of a limb, in wakefulness and ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... don't see what it's got to do with it, anyway. What I know is this: if there is sich a thing as a Author, I'm his favourite chara'ter. He does me fathoms better'n he does you—fathoms, he does. And he likes doing me. He keeps me on deck mostly all the time, crutch and all; and he leaves you measling in the hold, where nobody can't see you, nor wants to, and you may lay to that! If there is a Author, by thunder, but he's on my side, and ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... whilst at anchor I was ordered to row the dinghy ashore. It was very wet and dark, and in the act of climbing down the painter which attached the boat to the boom, it was so slippery that I lost my grip and fell. My shoeless feet came in contact with the boat's crutch (an instrument with two arms into which the oar fits); my right foot bled profusely, as one of these arms had pierced the flesh deeply. I managed to get on board to the sick berth, and after the steward's treatment it ceased bleeding. ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... under the arched gateway, with the portcullis over her head, fitly framing her, stood the tall, gaunt figure of the lady, grayer, thinner, more haggard than when Grisell had last seen her, and beside her, leaning on a crutch, a white-faced boy, small and stunted for six ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... faded into twilight, and twilight into something like night, when Charles was crossing the hall, with the aid of Amy's arm, Charlotte carrying the crutch behind him, and Mrs. Edmonstone helping Laura with her perspective apparatus, all on their way to dress for dinner; the door opened and in came the two Morvilles. Guy, without, even stopping to take off ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness; —yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long wanderer, whose ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... at the baronet's removed to the playhouse accordingly, and Harley took his usual route into the Park. He observed, as he entered, a fresh-looking elderly gentleman in conversation with a beggar, who, leaning on his crutch, was recounting the hardships he had undergone, and explaining the wretchedness of his present condition. This was a very interesting dialogue to Harley; he was rude enough, therefore, to slacken his pace as he approached, and at last to make a full stop at the gentleman's back, who was ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... sword, Is there no place for a wayfaring man in the courts of your lord? A couch, and a crust, and a song, and a flagon of wine? Haggard, begrimed though I be, and out at heel, A lean, grey hop-and-go-one with a crutch of steel, Brother-at-arms ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... a worn-out broom is an excellent substitute for a wood crutch, especially when one or more crutches are needed for a short time, as in cases of a sprained ankle, temporary lameness, or a hip that ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... huddled in the chintz rocker, his crutch on the floor, his thin, idle hands clasped in his lap. He wore his uniform, poor fellow! It gave him a sense of dignity. His eyes, accustomed to the dimmer light, took in the situation first; he ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... strong Necessity of loving, have removed Antipathies—but to recur, ere long, Envenomed with irrevocable wrong; And circumstance, that unspiritual god And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, Whose touch turns hope to dust—the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is a gallant thing, It cheers the spirits of a king; It makes a dumb man strive to sing, Aye, and a beggar play! A cripple that is lame and halt, And scarce a mile a day can walk, When he feels the juice of malt, Will throw his crutch away. Cho. Be ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... did not die; he had lived long on the open range and he was pretty tough and hard to kill. He went back to his beloved Flying U, with a crutch to help him shuffle from bed to easy chair and ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... replied Mrs. Andrews, now looking out of the door. "He ought to be in sight somewheres. He's walkin' with a crutch." ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... a belief in the strange and occult! The Christian Science organization is an expediency. It is an intellectual crutch. The book is a necessity. It is a scaffolding. Yet he who mistakes the scaffolding for the edifice is ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... mothers," he said, "who try to frighten their children with bogies. A doctor is a good crutch to lean upon when one is quite lame, but I shall be glad to dispense with my crutch as soon as my ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... the cottage where he knew that he was to meet Mrs. Temple and her daughters. When he entered the cottage, the first object that he saw was Helen, sitting by the side of a decrepit old woman, who was resting her head upon a crutch, and who seemed to be in pain. This was the poor woman who had been ridden over by Lady Di. Spanker. A farmer who lived near Mrs. Temple, and who was coming homewards at the time the accident happened, had the humanity to carry the wretched ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... English country house—they heard a good deal of noise in the passage, and the Prince came in. He was followed by a sturdy boy of eight, and carried in his arms a tiny girl, whose poor small body looked wizened, while in her little arms she held a crutch. ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn |
