"Lamp-post" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anchored against the roots of a lamp-post. When Ellis saw the upper half of the lamp-post bent down at right angles, and pieces of glass covering the pavement, he could not believe that he and his dogcart had done that, especially as neither the mare, nor the dogcart, nor its ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Zoe fast to the lamp-post: the night was warm, and hot as she was, she would take no hurt. Then I followed Martha up ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... my traces hard, and set my ashen staff into the snow, and struck out with my best foot foremost (the best one at snow-shoes, I mean), and the sledd came after me as lightly as a dog might follow; and Annie, with the lanthorn, seemed to be left behind and waiting like a pretty lamp-post. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... anyone quite so fluent and so futile, and yet there was a kind of feeble violence in him like a demented sheep. He was engaged in venting some private academic spite against society, and I thought that in a revolution he would be the class of lad I would personally conduct to the nearest lamp-post. And all the while Amos and Macnab and Niven carried on their own conversation about the affairs of their society, wholly impervious to the tornado raging ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... no time to protest that I would keep faith, and my right hand was tethered to his pommel. In the grip of these great arms I was helpless, and in a trice was standing dumb as a lamp-post; while Laputa, his left arm round both of mine, and his right hand over the schimmel's eyes, strained his ears like a sable antelope who ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... heavily against me, and then hurried on in the other direction. I had unbuttoned my coat to look at my watch under the lamp-post, and after he struck against me I clapped my hand to my ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cheering of the population; but the other three sank to rise no more. By this time the coach, with the coachman and guard, had been thrown on the pavement, where the depth of water was less; and there the guard was seen clinging to the top, and the coachman hanging by his hands to a lamp-post, with his toes occasionally touching the box. In this perilous state they remained till another boat came and relieved them, when the guard and the mails were landed in safety. Great indignation was displayed against the obstinacy which ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... memorable and famous days, when the wine was tapped from Ludvig Veyergang's nose in the snow; and even the next day at dinner-time, two or three school classes of interested spectators were searching for traces of red spots in the snow by the lamp-post. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... emerged into another street. He stood by a lamp-post for a few minutes engaged in thought and then he turned and plunged into a small notion and news shop. A red-haired young woman, eating gum-drops, came and looked freezingly at him across the ice-bound steppes ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... coat floating behind him nearly swept the ground so that he seemed to be running on castors. At the corner of the gloomy passage a rigged jib boom with a dolphin-striker ending in an arrow-head stuck out of the night close to a cast iron lamp-post. It was the quay side. They set down their load in the light and honest Ted asked ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... repeated Joshua mockingly. "Does Margaret know her own mind and me? ... Before I forget it here's a list I wrote out against a lamp-post while I was waiting for you to come home. It's the things I must have, so far as I know. The frills and froth ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... throw down the log and liberate our prisoner. But between you and me and the lamp-post, Elmer, I don't believe that's going to happen. 'Cause why? Well, it's my honest belief that this Italiano woman's got all the nerve there is in that crowd. ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... wait till you hear him. We can a' come up here as angry as hell, ready to string him up to the nearest lamp-post; but after he has spoken an' slaivered ower us for a while, we begin to feel differently, an' finally gang awa hame wi' our minds made up that we are the salt o' the earth. Man, it tak's a' the sting oot o' bein' dune, to be dune sae well an' ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... break down, injure, remove, or destroy a milestone, mile-board, or guide-post erected upon a public way, or wilfully deface or alter the inscription on any such stone or board, or extinguish a lamp, or break, destroy, or remove a lamp, lamp-post, railing, or posts erected on a street or other public place; for if you do you are liable to six months' imprisonment or a fine of ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... real, and, in the midst of his fear and agony, he could not help feeling that he was foolish to wish that the Guilford Street police-sergeant, whom he had so often seen stop by one particular lamp-post at the corner to speak to one of his men, would come now, for he had a sensation that this must be quite out ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... it soon became apparent that they had a real grievance, and one which called for immediate satisfaction; moreover, it was made plain that the callers cared little what form that satisfaction took, whether tar and feathers or a rope and a lamp-post. They had been sold, victimized, flimflammed, skinned; the scorpion had stung them and the poison was boiling in their veins. Briefly, the swindle was this: investigation had shown that the land owned by the Desert Scorpion ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... supply his place. "There is only one thing for you to do, my dear Reid. You must get drunk directly." I declared, with reason, that I had drunk too much already, and crept away to my bed, which happily was close at hand. For at least two days after that incident I smelt like a newly-painted lamp-post, but I have always felt grateful to the careless dog of a servant for not having served me up oxalic acid or vitriol in place of the turpentine. After that affair I do not think I ever went back to the Century Club. It was bad enough to be bored by the irrepressible Club Jorkinses, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... a long way before she met any one of whom she liked to ask direction. At last she saw an elderly man standing under a lamp-post, reading a letter. Draxy studied his face, and then stopped quietly by his side ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... told you that one of the very first places I would take you to see after our marriage would be the spot where I had the good fortune to run our mother down. So now I have kept my word. There is the very spot, by the lamp-post, where the sweep stood looking at the thin little old lady so pathetically when I was forced to rise ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the terrible statements I have made had been false, I should to-day be in prison or my body suspended from a lamp-post. I could ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... bonnet I had provided her from her own wardrobe. She had slipped a few moments before from the house with her daughter, whom she had placed in a carriage, which I had ordered to wait for them directly in front of the lamp-post, and had now re-entered as the mistress returning unexpectedly after a departure of five years. All had been done as I had planned, and it only remained to carry on the farce and prevent ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... very wrathful with him (for he had wounded two men), and even called out to those in front, to bring him forth and hang him on a lamp-post. But Gabriel was quite undaunted, and looked from Hugh and Dennis, who held him by either arm, to Simon Tappertit, who ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... doing anything else," he said, with a laugh that sounded uneasy. "She will have nerves until she sees a lamp-post again. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... work of a few minutes for us to jump into a hack, and drive at full speed to the office of the Globe newspaper, where the report was apparently confirmed. A great crowd in a state of eager excitement besieged the doors, and presently a man mounted on a lamp-post read the words, "Sebastopol is taken! The Russian fleet burnt! Eighteen thousand killed and wounded. Loss of the Allies, two thousand five hundred." This news had been telegraphed from Boston, and surely the trembling tongue of steel had never before told ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... man—one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a lamp-post. Want to see?" ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... go to the great city in which my early life was spent, and I love to indulge myself in this whim. The only thing I care about is that portion of the city which is connected with myself. I don't think this passion of reminiscence is debased by the slightest taint of vanity. The lamp-post, under the light of which in the winter rain there was a parting so many years ago, I contemplate with the most curious interest. I stare on the windows of the houses in which I once lived, with a feeling which I should find difficult to express in words. I ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... cant term hangs a tale apropos of the President. Its origin was low, but humorous. A benevolent gentleman pierced a crowd to its center to see there, on the pavement under a lamp-post, a poor woman, curled in a heap, with a satisfied grin on her flushed face, breathing brokenly. "What's the matter?" eagerly inquired the compassionate man. A bystander removed his pipe from his mouth, and with it pointed to a flattened pocket-flask sticking out of her smashed reticule, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... squabble between some soldiers and civilians on the opposite side of the way, and a group of men in blouses were looking on. Barty stood leaning against a lamp-post, and looked on too. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Snivel, each in turn, shake the landlady by the hand, and emerge into the street. They have scarce stepped upon the sidepath when the report of a pistol resounds through the air. The ball struck a lamp-post, glanced, passed through the collar of Judge Sleepyhorn's coat, and brushed Mr. Snivel's fashionable whiskers. Madame Ashley, successor to Madame Flamingo, shrieks and alarms the house, which is ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... covered with ash-heaps and brick-kilns. Here and there the gaudy lights of a drug-store, and the forerunner of suburban civilization, shone from the end of a new block of houses, and the rubber cape of an occasional policeman showed in the light of the lamp-post that he ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... and sage-bushes every night—I'd rather be a miserable little burro, kicked and cuffed by a Mariposa Chinaman—I'd rather be a dog and bay the moon in the city of Oakland, or a toad and feed upon the vapors of a dungeon at San Quentin—I'd rather be a lamp-post on the corner of Montgomery Street, San Francisco, and be leaned against, and hugged, and kissed alternately by every loafer out of the Montgomery saloon—I'd rather be any of these than a human being compelled to live permanently in Europe, with ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... it I came upon him by chance in Holborn. 'You write my sort of poetry,' he said and began to praise me and to promise to send his praise to 'The Commonwealth,' the League organ, and he would have said more of a certainty had he not caught sight of a new ornamental cast-iron lamp-post and got very ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... George look back. If he had had his way with the War Office could Germany have been stopped from reaching Paris and seizing the Channel ports? Moreover, if he had had his way, could he himself have hoped to escape hanging on a lamp-post? Is it not true to say that in saving France from an overwhelming and almost immediate destruction the British Expeditionary Force also saved his neck, the neck of Mr. Winston Churchill, and the necks of all the Cabinet? But if this is so, ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... time, Judge, but you've gone far enough. We'll give you another chance, then, if you don't make good, we'll stretch you to a lamp-post. Take ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from a shower-bath and looks with great ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... daughter's governess. "At the noise of guns," said Mr. Slicer, "we all left the restaurant where we were dining, Mrs. Humphry Ward, George Moore, Asquith, Miss Pankhurst and I, and walked, not ran, into the street, where it was the work of a moment for me to climb a lamp-post, whence I obtained a nearer view of what was going on overhead. Nothing there but blackness." Instinctively I glanced at Mrs. Watkin, upon whose lips the passage of words like "as the proverbial ace of spades" ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... him across the lawn and out to the sidewalk. I don't very often like the things Tom says, but I thought it was clever of him to think of going to ask Harry Goward about the letter, and I told him so to encourage him. He thanked me very politely, and then he stopped and braced his back against the lamp-post on the corner and "fixed me with a ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... against a lamp-post when a charge of grape went through the lamp. Remembering the story in "Peter Simple," and that "lightning never strikes twice in the same place," I remained quiet, when there came at once another, smashing what was left of the glass about two ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... conversing in a patronising manner with the managing clerk of an attorney at the door; and in Curling the wigmaker's melancholy shop, where, from behind the feeble glimmer of a couple of lights, large serpents' and judges' wigs were looming drearily, with the blank blocks looking at the lamp-post in the court. Two little clerks were playing at toss-halfpenny under that lamp. A laundress in pattens passed in at one door, a newspaper boy issued from another. A porter, whose white apron was faintly visible, paced up and down. It would be impossible to conceive ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Cork Street, however, he paid his shilling, picked up a catalogue, and entered. Some ten persons were prowling round. Soames took steps and came on what looked to him like a lamp-post bent by collision with a motor omnibus. It was advanced some three paces from the wall, and was described in his catalogue as "Jupiter." He examined it with curiosity, having recently turned some of his attention to sculpture. 'If that's Jupiter,' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... He would be a Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so soon as he had reached the broad road under Simla Town Hall, he cast about for one to impress. A Hindu child, some ten years old, squatted under a lamp-post. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... away slowly, for he hoped with all his heart that she would call him back. At the next lamp-post he stopped and looked over his shoulder. He thought she might beckon to him—he was willing to forget everything, he was ready for any humiliation—but she had turned away, and apparently had ceased to trouble about him. He ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... than run over us," Mary argued; "but there is no need of planning for Trudy's return. Their home will be in a good part of the city, if it consists in merely hanging onto a lamp-post. You don't realize that Gay is a bankrupt snob and married Trudy only because he could play off cad behind his pretty wife's skirts. Men will like Trudy and the women ridicule and snub her until she finds she has ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... hain't 'Williams,' but it hain't. And maybe you won't think nigh as much o' me when I tell you furder 'at I was obleeged to 'dopt the name o' 'Williams' onc't to keep from bein' strung up to a lamp-post, but sich is the facts. I was so extremely unfortunit onc't as to kill a p'ticular friend o' mine, and he forgive me with his dyin' breath, and told me to run while I could, and be a better man. But he'd spotted ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... studs into their places with firm fingers. Around them surged the traffic of Piccadilly; in front, the gleaming arc of lights around Hyde Park Corner. They had several narrow escapes. Once the brougham swayed dangerously as they cut in on the wrong side of an island lamp-post. A policeman shouted after them, another held up his hand—the driver of the brougham took ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... corners of all the streets and squares and the beginning and end of every bridge and viaduct; the entrance to a palace or a public office; the gateway to a market or a subway, a park or a garden; the foot of a lamp-post or a statue; a curbstone running round an open space, or a wall abutting on a roadway, the same thing is always found for the purpose of keeping off the wheels of vehicles as they roll by,—a round stone: so one finds in the Annals always the same form given ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... her heart, she could almost have felt comfortable. Maurice must die, she knew that, but something else had died before him. She wondered if it were this same heart of hers; and then she noticed her baby's hood was crooked, and stopped at the next lamp-post to put it straight, and felt a vague sort of pity for it, when she saw its face was pinched and blue with cold, and pressed it closer to her, though she rather hoped to find it dead when ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with interest the movements of those about him. Already the lamplighter had started on his accustomed round, and with ladder in hand was making his way from one lamp-post to another. Paul quite marvelled at the celerity with which the lamps were lighted, never before having witnessed the use of gas. He was so much interested in the process that he sauntered along behind the lamplighter for some time. At length his ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... four-storeyed house, they turned again before going in. I leant against a lamp-post near the fountain and listened for their footsteps on the stairs. They died away on the second floor. I advanced from the lamp-post and looked up at the house. Then something odd happened. The curtains above were ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Lucius, pointing a drooping coat-sleeve in the general direction of his domicile. "Come on over here by the lamp-post, Mr. Crow. I got something important I want to say ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... to a stand close to the lamp-post against which the flute-player leaned, but he made no move to open the door. The light flared on his ashen face, showing it curiously apathetic. His instrument ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... found himself in another street he opened the paper under a lamp-post. It contained a caricature of the Crucifixion, the scroll emanating from Mary Magdalene's mouth, in particular, containing obscenities which cannot be ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... made no response to the "Good evening" of Fougas. When the two men were alone in the street, Leon marched along without saying a word, till they reached the next lamp-post. There, planting himself resolutely opposite the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... a bullyragging of me,' he observed to a lamp-post, 'and she's "very much obliged"! And I'm blowed if I know what for, either way! Cracked, poor young things, cracked, the pair on 'em—and no wonder, with such a calamity so recent. Ah, well, I do 'ope as this is the end on it. I 'ope I shan't be ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... shook with fright. "I have a presentiment," he declared emphatically. "It may be that what I am talking about will not occur this morning. It may be put off until tonight but I will be hanged. Everyone will get excited. I will be hanged to a lamp-post on ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... unsettled the alderman. This proved to the alderman that the active use of a revolver incurred serious perils. It proved to him that nearly anything might happen with a revolver. He might aim at a lamp-post and hit the town hall clock; he might mark down a burglar and destroy the wife of his affections. There were no limits to what could occur. And so he resolved never to shoot any more. He would still carry the revolver; but for his old English gentlemanliness he would ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... citizenship, let us a little more soberly and strictly ask ourselves what it actually does keep her out of. It does definitely keep her out of the collective act of coercion; the act of punishment by a mob. The human tradition does say that, if twenty men hang a man from a tree or lamp-post, they shall be twenty men and not women. Now I do not think any reasonable Suffragist will deny that exclusion from this function, to say the least of it, might be maintained to be a protection as well as a veto. No candid person ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... thereafter. The traveller may take the spirit of Sheridan's excellent advice to his son, and say he has touched it, but as a rule he takes the trouble to go down and do it. I was escorted for this festal ceremony by a resident, and leaning against that southernmost lamp-post was a Scot in an abject state of drunkeness, and as Stevenson says of a similar personage, "radiating dirt and humbug." Nigh at hand was another drunkard, sitting pipe in mouth on an upturned petroleum-tin, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... and crossing to the window, he unlatched it stealthily and lifted it high, "if I ain't back inside of ten minutes, bo, nip out through here and hike; wait for me at the lamp-post across the lot over there—it'll be safer. D'ye ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... was, that he would never pass a lamp-post without touching it, and would go back miles upon his way to repair an omission. Surely great wit ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Vernon. He'll, be able to go aloft more nimbly than any of those lamp-post sort of chaps with long legs, who always trip themselves up in the ratlines. Look at me, youngster, I'm not a big man, and yet I've not been the worse sailor on that account, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... she said after a pause; "even that seems queer enough, but Mr. Rivers can explain matters himself to my missis. Here's a nice 'ansom with a steady horse. Stop, driver, please, stop! Draw up here by the lamp-post. Now, miss, shall I get in first and ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... old gentleman navigated unsteadily until he came to a corner. A lamp-post offered safe harbor. He steered for it and took his bearings. On each side of the glimmering stream loomed dark houses. A shadowy blot on the triangle he knew to be a church. Beyond the church was the intersecting avenue. Down the avenue were the small exclusive shops which were gradually encroaching ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... distance away, leaning against a lamp-post, a man was standing. He might have been waiting for a car. Mr. Grimm ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... one hand it led into a dim expanse of darkened country; on the other the lights of the town twinkled. Across the road, a few villas stood back amidst trees, with gates opening on to a footpath, the outlying houses of the town; and the first lamp-post stood a little way down this path. The man crossed the road and turned townwards, walking slowly and apparently at his ease. What seemed to interest him now was not his own need for privacy but the houses and ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... truth, in the saying that second thoughts are best. Animals have no second thoughts; man alone is able to see his own thought double, as a drunkard sees a lamp-post; man alone is able to see his own thought upside down as one sees a house in a puddle. This duplication of mentality, as in a mirror, is (we repeat) the inmost thing of human philosophy. There is a mystical, even a monstrous truth, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... already referred to above. After one of the abscondences or disappearances brought about by his madness, he was found dead—hanging to a balcony, or outside stair, or lamp-post, or what not, in one of those purlieus of Old Paris which were afterwards swept away, but which Hugo and Meryon have preserved for us in different forms of "black and white." Suicide, as always in such cases, is the orthodox word ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... human beings!" the professor said to himself many times a day, with the joy of the scientist. "I'm being first assistant to the world's greatest meddler. That young man is headed for a place as one of the world's leaders, or for a lamp-post and ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... held out for the manufacture of false claims, to be supported by perjury. But it is to lose sight of the real question involved to raise such an issue: for, like the execution of a notorious culprit by the expeditious process of a mob and a lamp-post, instead of the formalities and delays of law and courts, it may be a very good thing for the community to have rid itself of the offender, but the way by which it was accomplished was a heavy blow at the very root of the tree of public ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... running up to the canal. It had a very squalid appearance, and a number of ragged children were running about shouting at their play in it, but it was better than the thoroughfare to rest in, and advancing a few yards, she paused on the edge of the pavement and leant against a lamp-post. A few of the dirty children came near and stared at her, then returned to their noisy sports with the others. A little further on women were standing at their doors exchanging remarks. Presently a thin sad-looking woman, in a rusty black gown, carrying something wrapped ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... have come naturally to the subject of antiques, let us pause here, under a convenient lamp-post, and discuss ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... his back against a lamp-post near, and seemed in no hurry to pursue his journey; Tim was not sorry, for a little conversation beguiled the time, and his remark about Moses showed this to be an intelligent and ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... The gendarme said he had never seen any girls—not in this particular square. Referring casually to the blood of saints and martyrs, he said he would like to see a few girls in that town worth looking at. In the square itself sat six motherly old souls round a lamp-post. One of them had a moustache, and was smoking a pipe, but in other respects, I have no doubt, was all a woman should be. Two of them were selling fish. That is they would have sold fish, no doubt, had ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... and there was something in the manner in which I pronounced this single word that made her try to get a glimpse of my face as we went by the next lamp-post. I threw my head back impatiently into the corner, and exclaimed, "Really, one does get tired to death with this going out night ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the result in the Strand if no pedestrian could stop his progress within three yards, but by anchoring to a lamp-post, and even then swinging round with force. Why, there would be scarcely a coal-heaver who would not be whitened by collision with some baker's boy. Ladies in full sail would be run down, and dandies would be sunk by ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... sailed in through the window on an oar, which she paddled through the air with a parasol, and told her that her (Gypsy's) father had been hung upon a lamp-post by Senator Sumner, for advocating the coercion of the seceded States, and that Tom had set Winnie afloat on the Kleiner Berg Basin, in a milk-pitcher. Winnie had tipped over, and was in imminent danger of ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Manchester paper a new tram, while being tested, jumped the lines and collided with a lamp-post. It is hoped that, when it grows more accustomed to street noises, it will get over this tendency to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... to the mob in 1830. It is the same window where poor Louis XVI. addressed the savages, when he wore the cap of liberty. By the way, I hate the sight of that cap, which always reminds me of the lamp-post executions of the French capital in 1792-3. Its prevalence in our happy country is owing to the French mania which once possessed the people, and has very much died out. The apartments are regal, and some of them, I think, quite superior to those of Windsor Castle. ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... they were well on the pavement, saying some nothing, and keeping the victim's face averted from the avenging angel; and then, when the raised hand was sufficiently nigh, he withdrew two steps towards the nearest lamp-post. Not for him was the honour of the interview;—unless, indeed, succouring policemen might give occasion ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the country for to-morrow," she announced, as she stood panting, safe beyond the flare of the corner lamp-post. "These days are too magnificent to miss, though perhaps I feel them more ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... first pair of shafts had fallen the pantechnicon was doing quite eight miles an hour and the steepest declivity was yet to come. Further, the dropping of the left-hand shafts jerked the van to the left, and Denry dropped the other pair only just in time to avoid the sudden uprooting of a lamp-post. The four points of the shafts digging and prodding into the surface of the road gave the pantechnicon something to think about for a few seconds. But unfortunately the precipitousness of the street encouraged its head-strong caprices, and a few seconds later ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... not move the curtain or they will suspect we are watching them. Look a little to the left, by the lamp-post. The other you can catch a glimpse of if you ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... days at 181a Campden Hill Gardens. It is the house opposite the third lamp-post on the right as you walk east. It was of brick and slate, with a party-wall, and two spikes were wanting to the iron railings. When the telegram came I was sitting in my study writing a discussion on the atomic theory of Krelli ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... across the street at the corner below, clutching a lamp-post for support. He was staring with wide open eyes at ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... put it forth, except in what he considered the side of right and justice. His notions, to be sure, on these points, were occasionally like himself, somewhat eccentric; ha! ha! ha! I remember it as if it were yesterday. Coming up High Street one night, I saw a crowd collected round a lamp-post, not one of your modern iron affairs, but a stout, honest one of timber, with a cross-bar at the top as long as a sloop's cross-jack-yard. Seated with his legs over it was Paddy Hazledine in full rig, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... down. Talking little—Anthony in careless, casual questions, the other two with provincial economy of phrase and burden—they sauntered past another corner, and another. In the middle of a block they stopped beneath a lamp-post. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... I kick, and I hate my life and I hate my driver. He gives me sugar sometimes, too; but that's just because he doesn't want me to run away and dash him off his box, but I shall some day. I shall smash him up against a lamp-post just because I hate everyone. Oh, it's not a fine life, I can tell you. It's all very well when I stand here waiting; but perhaps just when I've got my nose into my bag and begun to eat I hear a sharp whistle twice, ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... for the night he pulled me out, and by the aid of the feeble light of a neighbouring lamp-post, made a hasty examination of my exterior and interior. Having apparently satisfied himself as to my value, he put me and the pipe back into his dreadful pocket, from which, even yet, the fumes of the "soldier" had not faded, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... much money Dick's eyes glistened, and he immediately proceeded to unfold a scheme he had been meditating for some time back for the building of a new theatre. The author listened attentively, and after having dangled about the lamp-post for half an hour, they mutually agreed to eat a bit of dinner together and afterwards go home and read another new piece that was, so said the fortunate author, a clinker. No better excuse than his wife's confinement could be found for fixing the meeting hour at the young man's ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... well-known sights and sounds of the familiar streets came back to him. He saw himself on his rounds of a winter's afternoon, when each lamp had a halo in the foggy air; heard the pit-pat of his four-footer behind him, the bump of the ladder against the prong of the lamp-post. His friend the policeman's glazed stovepipe shone out at the corner; from the distance came the tinkle of the muffin-man's bell, the cries of the buy-a-brooms. He remembered the glowing charcoal in the stoves of the chestnut and potato sellers; the appetising smell of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... from this class of spectators, and took up his station right across the road. He leaned against the lamp-post, and watched ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... rather ruefully, and looked in a rather dubious way at his cigar. "Between you and me and the lamp-post, Jule," he said, with a slow, whimsical drawl, "there isn't a fellow in the world that I wanted to see less than I did him. But since he's here—why, we've got to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... perfectly. A man like Morris draws attention to needs he cannot supply. In after-years we may have perhaps a newer and more daring Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In it we shall not decorate the armour of the twelfth century but the machinery of the twentieth. A lamp-post shall be wrought nobly in twisted iron, fit to hold the sanctity of fire. A pillar-box shall be carved with figures emblematical of the secrets of comradeship and the silence and honour of the State. Railway signals, of all earthly things ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... darkness before I would mistake one for the other. One was elderly and stoutish; the other was young, and had a veil over her face. Between them there was a man in evening dress, whom they were supporting on each side, while his back was propped up against a lamp-post. He seemed beyond taking care of himself altogether, for his head was sunk down on his chest, and he'd have fallen ...
— The Cabman's Story - The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did try it. Many a London lamp-post had he shinned up in his day. The difference did not seem to him very great. The ball, he observed, was made of light bands or lathes arranged somewhat in the form of lattice-work. It was full ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... told me many a tale of those days. He had narrowly escaped, once, by concealing himself under the floor of his room. He said that he felt the pressure, as his pursuers repeatedly passed over him, and could hear their avowed intention to hang him at the next lamp-post,—a mode of execution not uncommon, when hot violence could not wait the slow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... of exultation from the mob, and in another second the wretched Augusta was pressed, together with the lady's maid, who began to scream with fright, right up against a lamp-post, while a crowd of eager faces, mostly unwashed, were pushed almost into her own. Indeed, so fierce was the crowd in its attempt to get a glimpse of the latest curiosity, that she began to think that she would be thrown down and trampled under foot, when timely relief ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... one push. "I can't go! There is no policeman!" But yes, there he was on my side of the street slowly walking toward me. My heart thumped, I could hardly breathe. In a moment with a frantic rush I had reached the nearest lamp-post and was clinging breathless. I could not scream, I shut my eyes in sickening fear and waited for the rushing ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... on the rack before me several hats and canes, indicative of visitors. From the study, however, there fortunately came no murmur, and I found that it was dark. The front-door stood invitingly open; I could see the opposite lamp-post without, and I had made up my mind to dart on and downward, and reach at a bound the pavement, when the door of the first parlor was suddenly thrown back, and left so, by a servant coming out with a tray of wines and fruits which ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... with a closer attention than any driver should give to his companion. The result was a violent swerve to the far side of the road, barely missing a lamp-post. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the way, a tall young figure in a tweed suit marched from one unlighted lamp-post to another; the girl drew back to the staircase, snatching a space for consideration. The next moment she was crossing the street with the air of an art patron anxious to inspect before ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... yellow brick cottages belonging to Captain Hagberd, one inhabited by himself the other by the Carvils. A lamp-post in front. The red roofs of the town in the background. A sea-wall ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... evening I was walking back and forth in front of our house, though I knew it a great risk, when a man overtook me, cleared his throat as if to speak, and passed on to the lamp-post, which had made one limit of my walk. I did not shorten my path, and when I came up to the post he again cleared his throat as if to speak, and next time stepped out, lifted his hat, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... lamp-post in Maida Vale has been knocked down twice by the same bus. If the bus knocks it down once more the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... tried to walk towards the Avenue. Presently he ran into something. "Clumsy," said a lady's voice. "I beg your pardon," said Peter mechanically. A moment later he ran into something again. "I beg your pardon," said Peter, and two well-dressed girls laughed to see a bareheaded man apologize to a lamp-post. He walked on once more, but had not gone ten paces when a hand was rested on ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... of Mr Vanslyperken, as he walked back to the boat. His reverie was, however, broken by his breaking his nose against a lamp-post, which did not contribute to his good-humour. "Yes, yes, Frau Vandersloosh, we will see," muttered Vanslyperken; "you would kill my dog, would you? It's a dog's life I'll lead you when I'm once secure of you, Madame ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... respects resemble the hero to whom he was indebted for his name. Alexander the Great, so the school-books say, was small in stature and mighty in mind. Bilk was small in mind and lanky in stature. They called him "Lamp-post" as a pet name, and as regarded his height, his girth, and the lightness of his head, the term conveyed a very fair idea of our hero's chief characteristics. In short, Bilk had very few brains, and such as he had he ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... saw a newspaper boy fasten a poster upon a lamp-post, and a little crowd had gathered round it in an instant One of them waved his hat in the air; another shouted to a friend across the street. Warner hurried up and caught a glimpse of the poster between ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for its second: to men who may reason calmly it is ridiculous The will of the many, and their interest, must very often differ; and great will be the difference when they make an evil choice. A government of five hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is not good for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was torn, and the bosom of his shirt was in shreds. The short street was deserted, but he fancied that he heard footsteps, and quickly he walked to a corner, and turning, saw Jim standing under a lamp-post not far away. The giant was not looking toward him, and not hearing his easy approach, did not turn his head until Tom was almost within ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... among the tenement-house crowds, carrying my little note-book. I stop at a lamp-post and look at a couple of words and then walk on and learn them! So I ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... Felixstowe, as seen by the local prophet from the neighbouring mountain-peak, does not strike the eye as having anything uncanny about it. At least I imagine that it requires rather careful scrutiny before the eerie curl of a chimney pot, or the elfin wink of a lonely lamp-post brings home to the startled soul that it is really the City of a Fearful Folk. That the inhabitants are not human in the ordinary sense is quite clear, yet it has only just begun to dawn on me after staying a week in the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... broke my umbreller over a lamp-post, and button-hold a passer by, offerin him a $100 if he'd send me to a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... indefinite drizzle; Leicester Square presented a drab and dingy appearance. The blaze of lights from the surrounding theatres shone on wet streets and slippery pavements. A drunken woman who had been ejected from the public-house at the corner stood leaning against a neighbouring lamp-post; her hat had fallen askew, stray, ragged wisps of hair hung about her face, from time to time she lifted up her voice and shouted at the children who had gathered in a ring to watch her antics. Life was horribly, hurtfully ugly at times. Dick would have ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... 'ere for ten minutes," said Mr. Kidd, as they reached the Monument, "and then foller on. When you pass a lamp-post 'old your handkerchief up to your face. And wait for us at the corner of your road till we come ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... rattling in an oddly familiar hack through well-known but half-unrecognizable streets, you are struck by something comical in the names on the shop signs—are American names comical, as Englishmen seem to think?—by the strange fashion of the iron lamp-post at the corner, by peculiarities in the architecture, which you ought to have noticed, but never did notice until now. The candid incivility of the coachman, who does not touch his hat to you, but swears at you, has the vague charm of reminiscence. You regard ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... not yet, however, left the room, when one of the audience, a policeman off duty, stepped forward, and, intimating that he had something to say, was sworn, and went on to tell how he had been leaning against a lamp-post at the extreme of his beat, just resting a bit, in the edge of evening before last, when he saw an old woman that they call Mother Winch come up the street, carrying a bundle, and leading a little girl. He knew she hadn't any child of her own; and the child was dressed very poor; and Mother ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... the age of eighty-four, although subject to fits of giddiness, and although carefully watched by his accomplished daughter, is still in the habit of walking by himself if he can by possibility make an escape. The other day, in one of these excursions, he fell against a lamp-post, cut himself much, bled a good deal, and was carried home by two gentlemen. What said old Rugged-and-Tough? Why, that his fall against the post was the luckiest thing could have befallen him, for the bleeding was exactly the remedy ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic jar against an iron object. The instant after that four men had crawled out from under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean lamp-post that had stood up straight on the edge of the marine parade stood out, bent and twisted, like the branch ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... is more piercinger and crueller than your heyes. Me! to be used so:—Me! as refused the vidder at the Coal Shed! (to be sure she wore a vig and I didn't vant a bald rib!) Me!—but it's o' no use talking; von may as vell make love to a lamp-post, and expect to feed von's flame vith lights! But adoo to life; this 'ere rope, fix'd round the 'best end o' the neck' will soon scrap me, and ven I'm as dead as mutton, p'r'aps you ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... the side street were two-storied, dingy, jammed tightly together, each one exactly like the next. The pavement was of stone, the roadway of some composite, hard as iron; roadway and pavement were overrun with children. At the corner by a dead wall was a lamp-post. Nearly opposite Nellie a group of excited women were standing in an open doorway. They talked loudly, two or three at a time, addressing each other indiscriminately. The children screamed and swore, quarrelled and played and fought, ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... down each to meet the other, the attention of the audience wandered to the occasional laughs and cheers which came from the school play-ground. And when, a few minutes later, Rachel emerged with the stream, she saw Dick standing under the solitary lamp-post speaking earnestly to a little crowd of youths and men. The laughter had ceased. Their crestfallen ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... chagrined. He drew a sovereign from his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off he stopped under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... fell into discussion whether the lamp-post was still the same one that R.L.S. had known. We were down on hands and knees on the pavement, examining the base of the pillar by match-light in search of possible dates. A very seedy and disreputable looking man passed, evidently regarding us with apprehension as detectives. Mifflin, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... did not, in that broken state, bring in enough to pay the compensation to the cabman. I was much annoyed about that. It was true I ran into the horse, but it was not my fault that it bolted and went into the lamp-post. As I said, rather sharply, to the man when I paid him, if his horse had been steady the thing would never have happened. He did not know what to answer, and made some silly remark about my not being fit to ride a mangle. Both then and at the time of the accident his language was disrespectful ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... as the Americans say, "went beyond the limit." I asked the senator how he accounted for Americans, well educated as they are, taking up these strange impostors. "Well," he replied, puffing on a big cigar, "between you and me and the lamp-post it's on account of the kind of schooling they get. I didn't get much myself—I'm an old-timer; but I accumulated a lot of 'horse sense,' that has served me so well that I never have my leg pulled, and I notice that all these 'suckers' are graduates from something; but don't ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... burned to wear Walt Slabberts' betrothal-ring, and the abscess being ripe for the lancet, she had an extra afternoon in the week to get it attended to. She found Walt waiting at the street-corner under the lamp-post, and her heart bounded, for by their punctuality at the trysting-place you know whether they are serious in their intentions towards you, or merely carrying on, and her other young men had invariably kept her waiting. This new one was ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... legs from under him with a swift jerk, and, wriggling to his feet, started off again down the road. Once more, however, desire outran performance. He got as far as the nearest street-lamp, but no farther. The giddiness seemed to overcome him again, for he grasped the lamp-post, and, sliding slowly to the ground, sat ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... one unhappy pedestrian whom Bones had unexpectedly met on the wrong side of the road)—"never goes out, dear old thing. It's out now, I admit, but it's not in working order—Gosh! That was a narrow escape! Nobody but a skilled driver, old Hamilton, could have missed that lamp-post. It is going to create a sensation; there's nothing ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... the lamp-post into which he steered me was poorly rooted. He looked at the wreckage of the glass globe on the grass, and declared he had taken as much of the theory of motoring as he could absorb in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... lashed his horse. I found myself standing up in the cab, screaming like the driver. We were both insane, and the horse must have been of the breed of Pegasus, for I could feel the vehicle gyrating in the air. Now we turned a lamp-post, and the glass splintered somewhere; a dog howled as we drove over his appendage; a woman with a baby gave a short scream and disappeared into the earth; a policeman gave chase, but we ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... me suz! He asked me over 40 questions to a lamp-post, for I counted 'em; and there ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... best employ yourself, Martin, while I am absent. Suppose you were to give me your idea of a monument to a Lord Mayor of London, or a tomb for a sheriff, or your notion of a cow-house to be erected in a nobleman's park. A pump is a very chaste practice. I have found that a lamp-post is calculated to refine the mind and give it a classical tendency. An ornamental turnpike has a remarkable effect upon the imagination. What do you say to beginning with an ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 'blished; (confidentially) fact ish, I'm shuffrin' shli' 'fection eyeshi', an' I 'shure you, can't shee anyshing dishtingly to-ni'. (He cannons against a lamp-post, to which he clings affectionately, as a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... never brought me anything but sorrow and humiliation. I went on, but as I slid on the cobbles, my mind caught an echo of peace, the peace of pine-woods and heather, the peace of the library at home, and, my body trembling with revulsion, I leant against a lamp-post, deadly sick. Then I turned on my heels and walked away from the Meat Market and the school for ever. As I went I cried, sometimes openly before all men, sometimes furtively before shop-windows, dabbing my eyes ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... boots, but I was soon convinced by the evidence of my eyes that their heavy boots were in unison with the rest of the customary apparel of that class. Their evolutions now became gradually narrower, and I, in the same proportion, more anxious and excited. At length they stopped, panting, under the lamp-post which stands in the middle of the market place, and I was once more greeted by those low, hoarse sounds, which I have already mentioned, and it was only by dint of the most attentive listening, that I could distinguish ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... the single turning he came into the full blast of the veering, irresolute storm. The street was solitary and full of the sound of the blown trees, wild and uplifting. Far down the figure of a woman wavered before the wind across the zone of a blurred lamp-post. She was coming toward him. He bent his head and lowered his umbrella and lost sight of her as they approached, she with the storm behind her, driven with hardly more resistance than the last year's blackened leaves that blew with her, he assailed by it and making the best way ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... at night when I entered the principal street in Albany, and, as the lady predicted, a watchman came to me and asked why I was out that time of night. I gave him Mr. Stot's letter. He stood beside a lamp-post and read it, when he seemed satisfied, and said, "I know the man; come with me and I'll take you to his house." I followed him a long way, till at last he stopped before a large house, and rang the bell. Mr. Williams came to the door, and asked ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson |
