"Starched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... games and races for the very little youngsters so that during the morning the beach front was astir with them—bright-eyed, bobbed-haired, starched little girls and tanned, bare-legged boys, trying vainly to elude the watchful care of the mothers and nurse-girls, who made a background for the ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... head is done up in a flashy bandana, the points nicely crosslain, and extending an elaborate distance beyond her ears, nearly covering the immense circular rings that hang from them. Her gingham dress, starched just so, her whitest white apron, never worn before missus come, sets her off to great advantage. Aunty is a good piece of property-tells us how many hundred dollars there is in her-feels that she has ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... and human. The cold indifference, the each-for-himself look in the eyes of the people about her were like stinging slaps in the face. Even the children had nothing real or human in them. They were starched and stiff miniatures of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... time to compose themselves before Paulett came in, looking, as they all thought, grimmer and more starched than ever, and not well pleased to find Humfrey there, but the Queen was equal to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... precedent, the bewitching look produced no effect whatever. The man bowed gravely, pressed a bell-button, and then went over to where Miss Willis was sitting. Before he could speak—if he had any such intention—a girl in starched cap and apron appeared in answer to ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... stiff in his starched cravat, posing "like the Holy Ghost," more didactic and more absolute than Robespierre himself, comes and proclaims to Frenchmen from the tribune, equality, probity, frugality, Spartan habits, and a rural cot with all the voluptuousness of virtue;[3266] this suits admirably ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pantalets, beautifully starched and ironed, that came nearly to the tops of our village-ties, as we called them. We had very fancy ones for Sundays, and plainer ones for every day, but we were very particular about them. Phoebe sat with her feet crossed and actually sticking out in ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... a shadow fell over the floor and looking up I saw Whiskers-on-the-moon, standing in the doorway, dressed up and looking as if he had just been starched and ironed. I shook hands with him, as aforesaid, Mrs. Dr. dear, and told him you and the doctor were ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Sprays of clematis trailed their white bridal beauty from cans rescued from the ashes of a camp-fire. But Alida was a strategist when it came to adorning her home, and the rusty receptacle was hid beneath trailing green leaves. There was at the window a muslin curtain that in its starched and ruffled estate was strongly suggestive of a child's frock hastily converted into a window drapery. The curtain was drawn aside that the lamp might shed its beam farther on the way of the traveller who came not. There was but one other light in the place, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the haberdasher's; "hung it over his back, by a strap fastened to the pommel of his sword in front." Elegant men showed what taste, or sense of poetic beauty, was in them by the fashion of their buckler. With Spanish beaver, with starched ruff, and elegant Spanish cloak, with elegant buckler hanging at his back, a man, if his moustachios and boots were in good order, stepped forth with some satisfaction. Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard; a decidedly truculent-looking ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... behavior, were here so many vices; and his love of ease, liberty, and pleasure, was regarded as the highest enormity. Though artful in the practice of courtly dissimulation, the sanctified style was utterly unknown to him; and he never could mould his deportment into that starched grimace which the Covenanters required as an infallible mark of conversion. The duke of Buckingham was the only English courtier allowed to attend him; and by his ingenious talent for ridicule, he had rendered himself extremely agreeable to his master. While so many objects of derision ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... unhealthful mode of dress, and was strongly recommended in the "water cure" journals. When women began to go into public work, they could not fail to recognize the disadvantages of the unyielding corsets, heavy, quilted and stiffly-starched petticoats, five or six worn at one time to hold out the long, voluminous dress skirts; and to feel that to be consistent they must give freedom to the body. The proprietors of the "water cures" were, for the most part, in touch with all reform movements and their ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the pretty gown which Bumble knew she had brought in her suitcase, was garbed in the complete costume of a trained nurse. A white pique skirt and linen shirt-waist of immaculate and starched whiteness, an apron with regulation shoulder-straps, and a cap that betokened a graduate of St. Luke's Hospital, formed her surprising, but not ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... ranged on both sides down the hospital walls. Large windows, set very high up, opened on to grey skies and a flood of rather cold sunshine. At the foot of her bed, watching her with impartial eyes, stood a man, and beside him two nurses, their neat pink dresses and starched aprons rustling a ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the kitchen, she went to her own room. There she arranged her hair, put a fresh, beautifully-starched ruff around her neck and carefully-plaited lace in the open bosom of her dress, but wore her every-day gown, for her husband did not wish to give the assembly at his house ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cause and effect and of quiet deductions and deliberate conclusions. His coat was seedy, his trousers bagged at the knees, his shoes were old, and there were patches on them, but his collar and linen were white and very much starched, and his awkward, shambling gait was honest to the last footfall. A world of depth and soul was in his strong, fine face, lit up now with an honest, humble smile, but, at rest, full ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... girls were always dressed alike in elaborately simple clothes, with frilly, starched underpinnies, silk stockings, high boots buttoned up slim legs; and across their shoulders, from beneath wonderful lingerie hats, hung shining curls. The latter were not natural, but had each day to be elaborately constructed. They made a ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... days of old, and at such feelings as these. They were real at the time—and most pure, true, and beautiful. What matter, if years sweeping on have swept them all away or merged them into higher duties and closer ties? Perhaps, if you met your beautiful idol of fifteen, you would see a starched old maid of fifty, or a grandame presiding over the third generation; or perchance, in seeking thus, you would find only a green hillock, or a stone inscribed with the well-known name. But what of that? To you the girlish image is still the same—it ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... it as senior cornet. Thou wouldst be like curly-headed David with the spoils of the Philistine drum-major Goliah. Led on by its light we'd march direct to Whitehall, our trumpets sending dismay to the virtue of the starched coifs of the ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... 'tended church or a wedding. At de camp meetings de wimmens pulled off de head rags, 'cept de mammies. On dis occasion de mammies wore linen head rags fresh laundered. Dey wore de best aprons wid long streamers ironed and starched out a hanging down dey backs. All de other darky wimmens wore de black dresses and dey got hats from some dey white lady folks; jes' as us mens got hats from our'n. Dem wimmens dat couldn't git no hats, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... "yallow-kivered" literature,—with several uncomfortable-looking benches, complete the furniture of this most important portion of such a place as "The Empire." The remainder of the room does duty as a shop, where velveteen and leather, flannel shirts and calico ditto,—the latter starched to an appalling state of stiffness,—lie cheek by jowl with hams, preserved meats, oysters, and other groceries, in hopeless confusion. From the barroom you ascend by four steps into the parlor, the floor ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... the face led an ascending policeman to follow his example. A rush of three more gained the top and locked with Bill Totts in a gigantic clinch, during which his scalp was opened up by a club, and coat, vest, and half his starched shirt were torn from him. But the three policemen were flung far and wide, and Bill Totts, raining down lumps of coal, ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... wary as a gray old badger that has often been hunted. To see him on Sunday, so stiff and starched in his demeanor; so precise in his dress; with his daughter under his arm, and his ivory-headed cane in his hand, was enough to deter all graceless ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... in his Morris chair after the tea welcomed the intrusion of Jane Riggs, which dispelled his thought of Mrs. Wilbur Edes. Jane stood beside the chair, a rigid straight length of woman with a white apron starched like a board, covering two thirds of her, and ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... maiden sister of Matthew Bramble, of some forty-five years of age, noted for her bad spelling. She is starched, vain, prim, and ridiculous; soured in temper, proud, imperious, prying, mean, malicious, and uncharitable. She contrives at last to marry captain Lismaha'go, who is content to take "the maiden" for the sake ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... substantiall, like a brush, Which makes a Nat'rall wit knowne by the bush: (And in my time of some men I have heard, Whose wisedome have bin onely wealth and beard) Many of these the proverbe well doth fit, Which sayes Bush naturall, More haire then wit. Some seeme as they were starched stiffe and fine, Like to the bristles of some angry swine: And some (to set their Loves desire on edge) Are cut and prun'de like to a quickset hedge. Some like a spade, some like a forke, some square, Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some starke bare, Some sharpe Steletto fashion, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... smiled at herself in the pier-glass. Johnnie carried a long willow fishing-pole cut from the stream-side. Reel he had none, nor basket; and he did not own a belted outing-suit of hunter's-green, and high buckled boots. He wore a plaid gingham waist, starched so stiff that its round collar stood up and tickled his ears. His hat was of straw, and somewhat ragged. His brown jeans overalls, riveted and suspendered, reached to bare ankles fully as brown. The overalls were provided with three pockets. Bulging one was his round tin drinking-cup ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Mrs. Brewster took her chair at the table. Immediately after giving thanks, the host stood up to carve the roast. Then, to the surprise of all present, it was seen that the rancher had donned his second-best black coat and had taken the trouble to wear cuffs and a starched collar. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... made two beautiful frocks. The calico made another frock and two nice pinafores, the black alpaca some small aprons. Mary trimmed the two worst hats with the ribbon. Last of all, she cut and stitched five narrow bands of the linen, which mother washed and starched, and behold, the class had collars! I don't know which was most pleased at this last decoration, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... had a letter brought him just as Governor Frampton started, and as he cast his eye over it, he first got as red as a carrot, then he turned as pale as a turnip, and bolted off into the library like a lamplighter, where he sits looking as if he had been to the wash, and come back again only half-starched." ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... men for debt ceases; Factory Acts are passed to mitigate sweating; schooling is made free and compulsory; sanitary by-laws are multiplied; public steps are taken to house the masses decently; the bare-footed get boots; rags become rare; and bathrooms and pianos, smart tweeds and starched collars, reach numbers of people who once, as "the unsoaped," played the Jew's harp or the accordion in moleskins and belchers. Some of these changes are gains: some of them are losses. Some of them are not changes at all: all of them are merely the changes ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... be so cruel to me?" he whispered, under cover of a lively chorus. "You've kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day, and now you ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... stood that dusky personage, arrayed not in her usual starched calico and white apron, but in her Sunday dress of ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... six feet two now and I had wasted to a shadow. Perry Thomas had a speech prepared. He is our orator, our prize debater, our township statesman, and his frock-coat tightly buttoned across his chest, his unusually high and stiffly starched collar, his repeated coughing as he hovered on the outskirts of the crowd, told me plainly that he had an address to make. Henry Holmes, indeed, asked me to stand still just one minute, and I divined instantly that he was working ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... her cold domestic life, used to go to the Church of St. Jehan, on the Place de Greve, where, as everyone knows, the fashionable world was accustomed to meet; and while saying her paternosters to God she feasted her eyes upon all these gallants, curled, adorned, and starched, young, comely, and flitting about like true butterflies, and finished by picking out from among the lot a good gentleman, lover of the queen-mother, and a handsome Italian, with whom she was smitten because he was in the May of his age, nobly dressed, a graceful ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... remarkable part of the costume, of decorative properties only, is the head-dress common to a large per cent, of the women in town. From the back of the otherwise bare head hangs to the waist an intricate contrivance of lace and ruffles, snow-white and starched stiff, the awful complications of which no mere male would be able to describe beyond the comprehensive statement that the ensemble much resembles a Comanche chief in full war regalia. Above this they carry their ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... blue cloth coat, white neckcloth, nankeen trousers, patent leather boots, and stiffly starched shirt-frill, was supposed to be a guest, though a late arrival, by the janitor of this new Eden. His alacrity of manner and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... said Selma. The remark was slightly interrogative, but was combative withal. She wished to know if everything, from the Flagg mansion down, was open to criticism, but she would fain question the authority of the censor—this glib, graceful woman whose white, starched cuffs seemed to make light of her own sober, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... primary defects of dress and manner had passed. She was pretty, graceful, rich in the timidity born of uncertainty, and with a something childlike in her large eyes which captured the fancy of this starched and conventional poser among men. It was the ancient attraction of the fresh for the stale. If there was a touch of appreciation left in him for the bloom and unsophistication which is the charm of youth, it rekindled ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... model of the clown both in method and makeup. His stiffly starched bulging trousers disappeared under the stiff ruffles of a three-quarter waist. A broad turnover collar of the nurse style was set off with a large bow of bright red ribbon, and a baker's cap, perched jauntily on one side of the head, completed his merry makeup. This ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... about some four or five and forty, whose complexion was fair, whose chubby cheeks were brilliantly rosy, and whose black eyes were so vividly lustrous, that one might have fancied the delicate cap-border near them, in danger from their fire. Over her full-formed bust, she wore a clear, and stiffly-starched muslin habit-shirt of purest white, a beautiful lace-edged ruff around her throat, over her ample shoulders was thrown a fawn-coloured shawl, and she wore also, a silver gray gown of the material called Norwich crape, with an apron ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... loaded with more or less heavy burdens. He was now very pale and his heart beat painfully as he endeavoured instinctively to smooth his long frock-coat, from which a button had been torn out by the roots in a very apparent place, and to settle his starched collar, which at the best of times owed its stability to the secret virtues of a pin, and which at present had made a quarter of a revolution upon itself, so that the stiffly-starched corners, the Count's ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... get to go anywhere and be anybody, having said as much and more to Mr. Calvin with emphasis; Mrs. Brotherton, mother of George, beaming with pride at her son's part; stuttering Kyle Perry and his hatchet-faced son, the Adamses all starched for the occasion, Daniel Sands, a widower pro tem. with a broadening interest in school teachers, Mrs. Herdicker, the ladies' hatter, classifying the Satterthwaites and the Van Dorns according to the millinery of their womenkind; Morty Sands wearing the first white silk vest exhibited in ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... which her dear foot has kicked! Never! But, perhaps, I will have it ironed. The iron has entered into my soul, and perhaps, it would be doing more good on my hat. Yes, I will have it ironed. It does look a little limp. Ironed or starched—what matter, when my darling is gone, and left me with no information ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... round them, the August morning, like a thing alive, pulsated with warmth and light, and the dancing waves of the bay lapped musically against the walls below. The Commendatore was clad in stiffly-starched white duck, and held a white yachting-cap in his hand. Susanna wore a costume of some cool gauzy tissue, pearl-grey, with white ruffles that ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... In his place I should have thought Mlle. de Chaulieu, meeting me under the limes, a cold, calculating coquette, with starched manners. No, that is not love, it is playing with fire. I am still fond of Felipe, but I am calm and at my ease with him now. No more obstacles! What a terrible thought! It is all ebb-tide within, and I fear to question my heart. His mistake was in concealing the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... imposing with its four legs carved in the shape of lions' paws, and a huge side-board to match, stood in the oblong room, the floor of which had been polished by three men the day before. On the table, which was covered with a fine, starched cloth, stood a silver coffeepot full of aromatic coffee, a sugar basin, a jug of fresh cream, and a bread basket filled with fresh rolls, rusks, and biscuits; and beside the plate lay the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... papered walls. On the latter hung several old-fashioned portraits, one of which was evidently the Judge's, another his wife's, and two more his parents'. Besides, there were one or two drawings, and their pleasing gracefulness and ease formed an agreeable contrast to the prim and starched old relics they hung beside. In the middle of the room was a centre table of the same old-fashioned cast as the pictures, but covered with those little articles of taste that none but a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... in all the splendour of blue coats, brass buttons, and shoulder-straps, with shaven faces, starched shirts, and polished leather boots, the "First Siberian Exploring Party" marched over to the ispravnik's to dine. The Russian peasants whom we met instinctively took off their frosty fur hoods and gazed wonderingly ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... there existed in the families of most unmarried men or widowers of the rank of gentlemen, resident in the country, a certain antiquated female, either maiden or widow, commonly an aunt or cousin. Her dress I have now before me: it consisted of a stiff-starched cap and hood, a little hoop, a rich silk damask gown with large flowers. She leant on an ivory-headed crutch-cane, and was followed by a fat phthisicky dog of the pug kind, who commonly reposed on a cushion, and enjoyed the privilege of snarling at the servants, and occasionally ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... it? If it wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and that—what's his name? George—and all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the pictures look like those he has, and—and everything looks as stiff and starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a Henry. No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy," with a sudden burst of confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If I hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... quaker-like, we can assure our friends that in this, we conform to the newest fashion, and have no doubt of being treated civilly by as large a portion of the public, as if we had appeared with more gay feathers in our cap, with starched ruffles and gilt buttons and trimmings. In this, however, we would not be understood to boast, of any peculiar evidence of taste of our own, as we have been induced in this instance, to submit wholly to that of our tailors, who it must ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... is the older, aims only at speed; the Dutch school cultivates grace as well. The Frieslanders are stiff in their motions; they throw their bodies forward, and hold themselves very straight, looking as though they were starched, and keeping their eyes fixed on the goal. The Dutch skate with a zigzag movement, swaying from left to right and from right to left with an undulating motion of the body. The Frieslander is an arrow, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... Only in the distance, toiling over the dry waves of the sand-dunes towards the steep ascent by which the hilly main street of Herion may be gained, went a white perambulator, canopied with white, and propelled by a nurse in starched white skirts and flying white bonnet-strings—a nurse who kept her head well down, and was evidently reading a novel as she went. Some yards in advance a red umbrella bobbed against the breeze like a giant poppy on a very short ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... fresh blood, though just beginning to coagulate; it was dabbled over his brown serge suit, splotching the neatly starched white cuffs of his shirt. His wife always did them up so nicely with the peasant's ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... do not witness the arrival of these visitors with much pleasure,—the dandies more especially, who shod in varnished leather, always over-dressed, musked, and starched, attract, so they think, too much the attention of the young girls. Fathers, mothers, and, above all, lovers, are at once on the look out. They mistrust these fine gentlemen, whom they always designate by the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... butter and preserved peaches, pumpkin and apple pie, sponge cake and coffee. After dinner came our next neighbours, 'the maids,' Susy and Katy Groff, who live in single blessedness and great neatness. They wore pretty, clear-starched Mennonist caps, very plain. Katy is a sweet-looking woman and, although she is more than sixty years old, her forehead is almost unwrinkled, and her fine hair is still brown. It was late when the farmer's wife came—three o'clock; for she had been to Lancaster. ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... lengthen the meals, and make even the servants and page-boys wear a look of boredom and propriety. The best clothes which every one put on helped the general effect; it seemed that no lady could sit down without bending a clean starched petticoat, and no gentleman could breathe without a sudden crackle from a stiff shirt-front. As the hands of the clock neared eleven, on this particular Sunday, various people tended to draw together in the hall, clasping ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... raining or shining, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the season for dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done "her marketing" well or ill; and she remained dejected, absorbed, attentive to but a single thought, her eyes vague and staring as when one gazes by night at a black and fathomless spot ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the possessor of a hard hat. For two years, I had instinctively longed for something on my head that I could politely remove to a lady. The first night I marched down that village street, shoes well polished, starched linen, and hard hat, I expected the whole town to be there to see me. I had made several attempts at this hat business before. They organized a flute band in the town and I joined it for the sake of the hat. But it was too nice a thing to be lying around when people were hungry, and, ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for his knowing. Ah! that man—that ugly starched hypocrite—after all had he got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain—this pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle—to that canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... themselves no less agitated, were standing up on chairs and benches, splitting their gloves and breaking their fans in their enthusiasm; while every male dancer on the floor—ensigns in their gold-faced uniforms and "rovers" in starched and immaculate shirt-bosoms—cheered and cheered and struggled with one another to shake hands with a man whom two of their number old Yale grads, with memories of athletic triumphs yet in their minds—carried into that ball-room, borne high ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... freckled; properly speaking, it was one freckle from brow to chin. She wore, besides, as I remember, a little muslin tucker (I think the garment is so named) and a little frilled muslin apron; and these articles, together with her old print frock, were washed, starched, and ironed to a degree it hath not entered into the mind of man to conceive. I took off my hat; and something about this young woman moved me thereafter hastily to adjust my cravat and shirt-ruffle. I believe these signs of perturbation (which were entirely genuine) pleased ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... place was airy as a summer-house and odorous with the essence of roses distilled in the sunshine beyond. On the high plastered walls, above the book-shelves, rows of bygone Bassetts looked down on their departed possessions—stately and severe in the artificial severity of periwigs and starched ruffles. They looked down with immobile eyes and the placid monotony of past fashions, smiling always the same smile, staring always at the same spot ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... flickers of gold and silver on the 'Saint at Rest' before the altar, and showering azure and rose patterns through the ancient stained glass which filled the side lancet windows. The stillness became for the moment intense and almost oppressive,—Sir Morton Pippitt fidgeted uneasily, pulled at his high starched collar and became red in the face,—the Reverend 'Putty' forgot himself so far as to pinch one of his own legs and hum a little tune, while the rest of the party waited for the individual whom their host had so frequently called 'the damned parson' ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... curious statement there entered the club a young Hollander immaculate in pipe-clayed topee and freshly starched white linen. ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... shining face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might have been washed over with white of eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched checked turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it, a little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the Big House by way of a massive, hewn- timber, iron-studded door that let in at the foot of what seemed a donjon keep. The floor was cement, and doors let off in various directions. One, opening to a Chinese in the white apron and starched cap of a chef, emitted at the same time the low hum of a dynamo. It was this that deflected Forrest from his straight path. He paused, holding the door ajar, and peered into a cool, electric-lighted cement ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... relations with Peter, a frequent feature of which was an adventurous visit, upstairs, to picture books criticised for not being ALL geegees and walking sticks happily more conformable. The young man's window, too, looked out on their acquaintance; through a starched muslin curtain it kept his neighbour before him, made him almost more aware of her comings and goings than he felt he had a right to be. He was capable of a shyness of curiosity about her and of dumb little delicacies of consideration. She did give a few lessons; they were essentially local, and ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... for me, Wickham, if you was to come. You know how poor my nerves are, and the flutterations I suffer from at the thought of seeing Darcy. Such a stiff, starched man—I don't know how Elizabeth endures him. And the last time I stayed at Pemberley, the airs of her maid sunk my spirits altogether. I have not a gown equal to her black silk. The miseries our marriage has brought upon me—Good God! what a fool ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... "society" of their own,—which had their important men who were heirs to some snug country property, and their gambrel-roofed houses odorous with traditions of old-time visits by some worthies of the Colonial period, or of the Revolution. The good, prim dames, in starched caps and spectacles, who presided over such houses, were proud of their tidy parlors,—of their old India china,—of their beds of thyme and sage in the garden,—of their big Family Bible with brazen clasps,—and, most times, of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... the blow came. A very starched-up little boy with strawberry juice frescoed around his mouth brought in a note from Maybelle and a tightly-rolled manuscript tied with blue baby-ribbon. In the note she said that she thought it would be so romantic to "write up her own wedding—recalling the dear, dead days when ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... in it, because she couldn't find a bag. I'll never get it proper white again, nor the frills starched and made up. And there is ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... in his neighbourhood; and, what with his jokes, his appearance of easy circumstances, and the fluency with which he spoke the language, he became a universal favourite. Many persons who were uncommonly starched in general, and who professed to ridicule the bureau, saw nothing improper in dining at the table d'hote. To those who wished for secrecy he was said to be wonderfully discreet; but there were others who did not affect to conceal their discontent at the single state: for the rest, the entertainments ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was the son of a nobleman. Start not, republican reader, for we mean not a stiff-starched branch of English nobility, but one of America's noblemen,—and hers are nature's! He was a hard-working mechanic; one of God's noblest works,—an honest man! Americans know not, as yet, the titled honors of the Old World; and none, save a few, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... hopelessly involved them in a presentation to me, and between us we contrived to elide Mrs. Ricker and Kitton from all save her perfunctory office, until her voice and lips ceased their trembling. Poor little hostess, in her starched lawn which had seemed to her adequate for her unpretentious role of mother! All her humour and independence and self-possession had left her, and in their stead, on what was to have been her great night, had settled only ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... them pass. She is a demure little lady with a face that makes one think of a blush rose, a little past its prime, but mighty sweet to look upon. She wears a mite of a white sun-bonnet, clean as fresh fallen snow, and starched and stiff as the best pearl gloss cap make it. The cape of this cute little bonnet shades a round white throat, and the strings are tied beneath the chin in a ravishing bow that stands guard over a dimple. She ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... an act of desperation. The lesson in Daboll that day was a hard one; but it was not the lesson, or his short-comings in it,—it was not the hand of the master, which had been heavy on him,—but it was a vague, dismal sense of the dreariness of his surroundings, of the starched looks that met him, of the weary monotony, of the lack of sympathy, which goaded him to the final overt act of rebellion,—which made him dash his leathern-bound arithmetic full into the face of the master, and then sit down, burying his face in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... engineers." There were peasant-lads who had crammed themselves through their Intermediate at a spurt, and now wore the College cap above their rough grey homespun, and dreamed of getting through in no time, and turning into great men with starched cuffs and pince-nez. There were pale young enthusiasts, too, who would probably end as actors; and there were also quondam actors, killed by the critics, but still sufficiently alive, it seemed, "to be engineers." And as the young fellows hurried on their gay and careless way through the town, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... fellow in evening dress, whose bronzed skin, square shoulders and easy stride gave one the idea that he was a good deal more accustomed to the free and easy costume of the Bush or the Veld or the Mining Camp than to the swallow-tails and starched linen of after-dinner Civilisation. ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... carry as the poor mother of the bride. He took two or three steps alone, kicking out his long legs like a jumping-jack, and then he made a sudden resolve. Coming over to Judy, he took off his hat, pressed it to his starched shirt bosom, made a low bow and asked her to take pity on a poor old man who would have to dance alone, as dance he must, unless ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... growing uncertain; the angle of his smart straw hat was becoming aggressive to strangers; his politeness sardonic. And now Sunday morning had come with an atmosphere of starched piety and well-soaped respectability at the rancho, and the children were to be taken with the rest of the family to the day-long service at Hightown. As these Sabbath pilgrimages filled the main road, he was fain to take ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... him into the high grass of the meadow. The act was symbolical not only of his revolt from the power of love, but, in a larger measure, of his rebellion against the tyranny of convention. Henceforth his Sunday clothes might hang in the closet, for he would never again bend his neck to the starched yoke of custom. Everything had been for Molly forever. Her smiles or her frowns, her softness or her cruelty, would make no difference to him in the future—for had not Molly openly implied that she preferred Mr. Mullen? So this was the end of it all—the end of his ambition, of his struggle ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... such persevering affection, and at length Mr. Hardwick gave up the contest, and allowed Caesar to travel when and where he chose. But on Sunday he sat on the front-door step, erect upon his haunches, with one ear dropping forward, and the other upright like the point of a starched shirt-collar; and though on week-days he was fond of paying the usual courtesies to his canine acquaintances, and (if the truth must be told) of barking at strange horses occasionally, yet nothing could induce him either to follow any of the family, or accost a dog, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Lucilla—dissatisfied with himself. "How bitterly," thought he, "the wise Saville would smile at my folly! I have renounced the bliss of possessing this singular and beautiful being; for what?—a scruple which she cannot even comprehend, and at which, in her friendless and forlorn state, the most starched of her dissolute countrywomen would smile as a ridiculous punctilio. And, in truth, had I fled hence with her, should I not have made her through out life happier—far happier, than she will be now? Nor would she, in that happiness, have felt, like an English girl, any pang of shame. ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... souls are struggling in the sea of trouble. I am sharply pulled up. "I thought you would be too immersed in the wretched folly of agitation to understand," she says; "I came to show you the better way." She is followed by the clothes enthusiast. He wears sandals and has discarded the abomination of starched linen. "We are forming a Society for the Revival of Greek Clothing," he announces. "From the aesthetic and the hygienic points of view, nothing is more important than the clothes we wear." I venture on a feeble Teufelsdroeckh joke. He does not condescend ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... place myself entirely at your disposal," explained her youthful and very stiffly starched skipper, Commander Poggi. "I am to go where you desire and to stop as long as you please. ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... be (I don't exactly know what this was) remained unshaken. I have thought that matters of dress and speech should not carry with them so much mistrust in our democracy; thieves are presumed innocent until proved guilty, but a starched collar is condemned at once. Perfect civility and obligingness I certainly did receive from the Virginian, only not a word of fellowship. He harnessed the horses, got my trunk, and gave me some advice about taking provisions for our journey, something more palatable than what food ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir,' whenever a ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... hands are clean, your hair very tidy, and your apron white and starched. Wear silent shoes, and do not clatter the dishes; do not speak to any one, unless you do not understand what to do next, then quietly whisper to your mother. Do not offer anybody a cup of tea or coffee, or a plate of soup, or even a plate with food ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... capped in starched ruffled muslin and black, who admitted them to the somber luxury of the rectory, hesitated in ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Clothes.—Turn the nozzle of the hose to a fine spray and sprinkle the clothes while they are on the line; a very quick and good method. All plain pieces may then be rolled up and laid in the basket as they are taken down, while starched articles need but a little further hand sprinkling on portions ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... and fine French embroidery cotton, connect the flowers and leaves to the inside edges of the diamonds in long twisted stitches, rows of button-hole stitches, or any kind of lace-work. After being washed and starched, the collar ought to be pressed on the wrong side with the head of a round nail ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... light in the works of Inigo Jones and Wren. The Commonwealth was prudish in art as in manners, and the Restoration was a reign of revel and wild license. The social worlds of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, stiff, starched, and formal, left their impress upon the buildings of their day, which were mostly of a domestic character. The Free Classic of the Georgian reigns followed,—more refined in sentiment, delicate but severe in outline, aristocratic, but lacking strength ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... trees a woman had come upon the broad walk bordered with flowers. We could hear the rustle of her starched petticoats and observed the ample spread of her old-fashioned black silk skirt. She looked up, and seeing all these eyes staring at her stopped, frowned, smiled, shook her finger at the General, who was laughing boisterously, and drawing the black lace on her head so as to partly conceal ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... was so starched that she creaked. She glanced at Milt—— Claire didn't make him so nervous that he thought of his clothes, but the maid did. He was certain that she knew that he had blacked his own shoes, knew how old were his clothes. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... then the door opened, and a servant, whose white apron was starched as stiff as cardboard, came in carrying a tray of coffee and unholy liqueurs, which she deposited with a rattle on a ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I might have been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they should care—and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burn first—and then my starched frock would catch fire—and then—everybody would be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, and ran up the passage screaming—silly little fool! That might have made an end of it—once ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... des Brosses," 65, 69, 70, 346.—"Lettres du President des Brosses," (ed. Coulomb), passim.—Piron being uneasy concerning his "Ode a Priape," President Bouhier, a man of great and fine erudition, and the least starched of learned ones, sent for the young man and said to him, "You are a foolish fellow. If any one presses you to know the author of the offence tell him that I am." (Sainte-Beuve, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... now That I had on my mind to ask the first Man that knew anything I happened in with. I'll ask you later—don't let me forget it." The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away. A man? A brute. Naked above the waist, He sat there creased and shining in the light, Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt. "I'm moving into a size-larger shirt. I've felt mean lately; mean's no name for it. I just found what the matter was to-night: I've been a-choking like a nursery tree When it outgrows the wire band of its name ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... the center upon which all eyes were fastened, Vronsky walked up to his mare in that state of nervous tension in which he usually became deliberate and composed in his movements. Cord, in honor of the races, had put on his best clothes, a black coat buttoned up, a stiffly starched collar, which propped up his cheeks, a round black hat, and top boots. He was calm and dignified as ever, and was with his own hands holding Frou-Frou by both reins, standing straight in front of her. Frou-Frou was still trembling as though in a fever. Her eye, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... skirt of gay colours—bright red, green, and white being the common choice. The length of train, and whether the garment be of cotton, silk, or satin, depends on her means. Corsets are not yet the fashion, but a chemisette, which just covers her breast, and a starched neckcloth (panuelo) of pina or husi stuff are in common use. The panuelo is square, and, being folded triangularly, it hangs in a point down the back and stands very high up at the neck, in the 17th century style, whilst the other two points are brooched where they meet at the top of the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... here and there a flash of bright ribbon among the women, and occasionally a parasol of brilliant hue, which the owner fondly clasped, while impatiently awaiting the close of the service that she might proudly parade it. A few of the men wore starched linen shirts, but without collars. The Alcalde, with his numerous family, and the family of Don Felipe Alcozer, sat well in front. The former regarded Jose expectantly, as the priest turned to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... excellent advice, Miss McLeod," Dennis agreed warmly. "Ronald, we'll go and disguise ourselves as ordinary, undisturbed human beings and hide our fears and doubts behind the breastplate of a starched ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... Because she, a methodical, inflexible woman, with that unbendingness which a profound moralist calls the worship rendered to pride by a feelingless soul, because she could not understand the possibility of tastes and habits different to those of ordinary routine, or of her own starched life. Not to be hungry when she was; not to sleep at night, but to write while she was sleeping, and to sleep when she was up; in short, to gratify the requirements of material and intellectual life at hours ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... him, but went with eyes downcast, dragging himself along with as much difficulty as though he were some feeble old man. He had left off his usual picturesque peasant garb on this occasion, and was wearing a black cloth suit and a starched shirt which he had already crumpled. He felt very solemn, yet all the while he ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... swish of starched skirts on the stairs, and the most beautiful woman in all the world (and I am always ready to back this statement with abundant proofs!) rushed down and literally threw herself into ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... observers. Applause long and hearty rewarded his efforts, and also brought Maggie to the rescue. As she pounced upon him and knocked the sputtering candle to the ground, Peter and Perdita, splendid in starched white linen, appeared in the doorway behind "the party" and invited every one to come ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... Barbados negroes with Cockney accents; English engineers in lordly pugrees, and tourists from New England who seem servants of their own tortoise-shell spectacles; comfortable ebon mammies with silver bangles and kerchiefs of stabbing scarlet, dressed in starched pink-and-blue gingham, vending guavas and green Toboga Island pineapples. Carl gapes at Panamanian nuns and Chilean consuls, French peasant laborers and indignant Irish foremen and German concessionaries ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... amused herself by watching the small coteries of stiff and starched Britons scattered throughout the room; she was endeavoring to classify the traveled and the untraveled by varying degrees of frigidity. As it happened, she was wholly wrong in her rough analysis. The Englishman who has wandered over the map is, if anything, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... stern-looking person in a shirtwaist and a high, starched collar. You just couldn't imagine her holding a baby, or one cuddling up against her neck. She said No. 31 was nobody's child. She had been left in an old basket on the steps six years ago. You see, she ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... trouble," I said, quite confidentially, for somehow I seemed to get on with the brave hunter more easily than with the starched minions of society. "I'm bashful, and I'm tired of civilized life. I'm always putting my foot in it when I'm trying the hardest to keep it out. Besides, I'm in love, and the girl I want don't want me. It's either deliberate ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... Here a starched rustling on the stairs betokened the descent of Mandy Calline. Pushing back the door, she stepped down with all the dignity which she deemed suitable to don with her ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the most devout, the most useful. Government gave hospitals and doctors into their hands; they took the whole charge of certain schools. They differed in complexion, some of the newly arrived being delightfully fresh and pink under their starched bandeaux. But they were all official, they all walked discreetly and directly about their business, with a jangle of keys in the folds of their robes, immensely organised, immensely under orders. Hilda, when she had time, had ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... he marry because he was in love with Moyra Dolan? He was in love with her, he conceded that. For what the term was accepted at, he was in love with her. Women he had met in his twenty years, great ladies of the Ulster clans; shy, starched misses from the Friends' School; moody peasant girls; merry women of the foreign ports, and to none of them had he felt that strange yearning he had felt toward Moyra Dolan, the strange pull that sends the twig ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... realize, Theo, that we shall not be having many more of these talks?" observed Mr. Croyden one evening as they sat cozily ensconced before a roaring blaze. "The last of the week we shall be starting back to civilization—to starched collars and cuffs, and the rush and hubbub of city life. For you I suppose it will mean school again; and for me it will be a matter of wading through a mountain of business correspondence that has been accumulating while I have been ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... and before the last appeal was echoed the old lady appeared. She came forward rapidly, her knitting in her hand. She was singularly bright and alert, with rosy cheeks, and snow-white hair under a snow-white cap of clear-starched lace. A snow-white kerchief of lawn was crossed over her breast, and the rest of her dress was so perfectly Dutch that she might have stepped out of one ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... Come here, Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box with your elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel you will find under the clean clothes? Be sure don't touch any of them with your wet hands, for the things at the top are all Starched and Ironed." ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... if her work ever confused or fatigued her, at least she never betrayed the fact. There never were pots and pans awaiting cleaning in Pauline's sink, there never was a teaspoonful of flour spilled upon her biscuit board. Her gingham cuffs were always starched and stiff, her colourless hair smooth. She was a silent, dun-coloured creature, whose most violent expression was an occasional deep, unctuous laugh at Mrs. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... multitude of little curls, which must have taken them no small trouble to get into order. Most wear nothing but a kilt of white linen; but the chief officer has a fine white cloak thrown over his shoulders; his linen kilt is stiffly starched, so that it stands out almost like a board where it folds over in front, and he wears a gilded girdle with fringed ends which hang down nearly to his knees. In his right hand he carries a long stick, which he is not slow to lay ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... school-children had all new clothes for Easter. We worked diligently for three hours every morning. The jackets were made of the Irish gingham I brought from home. This week is holiday, and Julia and I have had a fine wash, and have clear-starched the Bishop's sleeves and ruffles—such a business! My hand aches to-day with lifting the heavy smoothing-iron, which is not iron, but a large brass box, hollow and filled with hot charcoal. We shall get more used to it in time. Mrs. Stahl used to do it. Now she is gone it is quite impossible ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... accepted the Major. He was an old gentleman, in a good deal of highly starched linen, amusing himself by teazing Ann, who liked it, and paid him in impertinence. Adelaide played chess with him. Desmond sauntered in about nine, threw himself into a chair behind the sofa where I sat, and swung his arm over the back. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... luxurious barges, stuffed with cushions soft enough to satisfy the most jaded voluptuary. At shore, a sight awaited them calculated to stir every instinct of patriotism in their noble bosoms. On a richly chased ebon throne sat the viceroy in person, clad in all the panoply of power. A delicate edge of starched white linen, a sight which had not met their eyes for many a weary week, peeped from beneath his gaudier accoutrements; the vice-regal diadem, blazing with the recovered Kimberley diamond, encircled his brow, while his finely ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... paper before him, sketching a rough diagram and scribbling notes; this was Richard Mutimer. He was dressed in a light tweed suit; his fair moustache and beard were trimmed, and the hand which rested on the table was no longer that of a daily-grimed mechanic. His linen was admirably starched; altogether he had a very fresh and cool appearance. His companion was astride on a chair, his arms resting on the back, a pipe in his mouth. This man was somewhat older than Mutimer; his countenance indicated shrewdness and knowledge ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... now ever permitted to see her in disarray, but always, as it seemed to me, fresh from my sister's clever hands, her hair laid smooth and shining, her simple gown starched crisp and sweetly smelling of the ironing board; and when I asked her why she was never but thus lovely, she answered, with a smile, that surely it pleased her son to find her always so: which, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... a wit and a singer, Heine, visited England, and, as he handed a fee to the verger who had shown him around Westminster Abbey, said: "I would willingly give you twice as much if the collection were complete!" To him Napoleon defeated was a greater man than the "starched, stiff" Wellington; and the "potatoes boiled in water and put on the table as God made them" and the "country with three hundred religions and only one sauce were a constant source of amused annoyance. The German ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the latter end of the sixteenth century, tobacco was in great vogue in London, with wits and 'gallants,' as the dandies of that age were called. To wear a pair of velvet breeches, with panes or slashes of silk, an enormous starched ruff, a gilt handled sword, and a Spanish dagger; to play at cards or dice in the chambers of the groom-porter, and smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard or at the play-house, were then the grand characteristics of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... come our philosophers, so much reverenced for their furred gowns and starched beards that they look upon themselves as the only wise men and all others as shadows. And yet how pleasantly do they dote while they frame in their heads innumerable worlds; measure out the sun, the moon, the stars, nay and heaven itself, as it were, with a pair of compasses; lay down the causes ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... into his bedroom, which was divided from the study by a mere tapestry curtain. It was time; for already in the next room could be heard a great rustling of silk and starched petticoats. Mme. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... looking around as he chewed. The spotless brick floor and the starched curtains at the windows, the shining copper pans hung beside the huge fireplace, were proof of ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... de white trash move 'long out o' dat." They were about equally divided on the island for and against me. The man who had made so much fuss over the matter gave it up when he found that I wished to be quarantined, and sent for an all-important half-white, who soon came alongside, starched from clue to earing. He stood in the boat as straight up and down as a fathom of pump-water—a marvel of importance. "Charts!" cried I, as soon as his shirt-collar appeared over the sloop's rail; "have ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... work and get supper ready, and get that out of the way; and by that time the starched clothes will be done, and you can do the rest. I expect the children want their supper by this ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... satisfaction, he selected from the stock of old civilian clothing a respectable riding-suit of English whip-cord, inspected it carefully for spots, and, finding none, donned it. A clean starched chambray shirt, set off by a black-silk Windsor tie, completed his attire, with the exception of a soft, wide, flat-brimmed gray-beaver hat, and stamped him as that which he had once been but was no longer—a California rancher of taste ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... despatched to their mistress, who, after a short period, starched and pinned, her aspect as stiff and unyielding as her disposition, consented to take the lead, and shame the unwillingness and cowardice of her domestics. Immediately behind walked, or rather lagged, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... excitement, triumph, pleasure, which lifted him away from himself. There was a sort of lilt in his very step; his eyes shone, his cheeks were flushed. When he cleared a pile of freshly-ironed, starched things from the end of a table, so as to spread out a score upon it, laid them on the floor where the cat padded them over with dirty feet, and his mother railed at him, as she still did rail—on any subject apart from this of not caring—he glanced up at her with bright, amused ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... her high bed, her Bible and spectacles on the stand beside her, her starched pillows, her soft and highbred voice? Or another Miss Emily, panting and terror-stricken, carrying down her armfuls of forbidden books, her slight figure bent under their weight, her ears open for sounds from the silent house? ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... streets ran with water and then froze. Old Chris no longer came into the parlor in the evening to sit, his hands clasped over his thin stomach, his bald head bent until his chin rested upon the starched neckband ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... bones very clearly defined about the temple and cheek and jaw, a scanty grizzled beard; and he was dressed somewhat farmer fashion, in blue jeans, with his boots drawn high over his trousers, but with a stiffly starched white shirt,—the collar and cravat in evidence, the cuffs, however, vanished up the big sleeves ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... would, and mother and I would stand and listen to him and try not to laugh. 'Lost, stolen, or strayed, a little witch-girl in a clean white frock, rather too much starched; a frilled cape that crackles when she moves, and a pretty broad-brimmed hat.' Well, Fluffy, what does that mysterious look mean? you are very rude to interrupt the old crier," and Fern tried to frown, while Fluff nodded ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... little into our own, I suppose," she remarked. "As for me, I feel a different woman since I stepped out of the made-to-order world. And you—well, don't be angry, but you're not nearly so much of a prig, are you, Julien? You're less starched and more human. Of course we are more companionable. We ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... outside. Dennet had been standing on the steps cleaning her tame starling's cage, when Mistress Headley had suddenly come out on the gallery behind her, hotly scolding her laundress, and waving her cap to show how ill- starched it was. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... crowd an unimaginable assortment of people. The Americans, ignoring the climate, wear black coats and high, starched collars, straw hats, soft hats, and bowlers. The Kanakas, pale brown, with crisp hair, have nothing on but a shirt and a pair of trousers; but the half-breeds are very smart with flaring ties and ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... fell into disgrace, he devised the starched neckcloth, with the design of putting the prince's neck out of fashion, and of bringing his Royal Highness's muslin, his bow, and wadding, into contempt. When he first appeared in this stiffened cravat, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... elapsed since Nobby's scuffle with the apple of Mr. Bason's eye. Life had slipped by uneventfully. The Sealyham had been put upon a strict diet and was thoroughly groomed three times a day: my store of clean starched linen had dwindled to one shirt and two collars, which, distrusting my brother-in-law, I kept under lock and key: and Mr. Bason had been stung by our letter into sending a reply which afforded us the maximum of ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... get through tonight. We're working against time," returned Bradley. Even while speaking he had vanished within the house, returned quickly—having replaced his dark suit by jean trousers tucked in heavy boots, and a red flannel shirt over his starched white one—and, nodding gayly to Mainwaring, stepped from the lower end of the veranda. "The beggar actually looks pleased to go," said ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... cheap severity of abstract ethics! My wife was very plain, never had my ruffs properly starched, and knew nothing about cookery. Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a magnificent pricket, and do you know how she had it sent up to table? However, it is no matter now, for it is all over, and I don't think it was ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... made by the women of Dalecarlia. This is a coarse kind of lace, and is sewn on caps, &c., and, although highly starched, is never washed, for fear of destroying its coffee-coloured tint, which, it appears, is as much prized now by the Swedish rustics as it was by English ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... help see. There is the man of the house and his, shall I say garments, kick themselves about like some staid old deacon having his fling. Then there is the middle-sized bear whose bloomers, billowed by the wind, become a ridiculous fat woman cut off at the waist. And the little bear's starched clothes crack and snap while the revolving tree-horse whirls about like some mad dervish. I often wonder if the family know of the wild actions that take ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... our little friend is making me, not that I need mind mentioning it to you for you must know that there are such things a skirt, and having arranged that a trying on should take place after breakfast is the reason though I wish not so badly starched.' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... thy father. King Powhatan," the Englishwoman said as she showed Pocahontas how to adjust a starched ruff that scratched her neck so that she made a grimace. "They will tell him that thou art here, and then surely in his anxiety to see thee again, he will grant what Sir Thomas desires: that he deliver up our men and the arms he hath taken and ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... little girl he had seen that morning in the garden. She was still dressed in the shabby old frock and pinafore, and as she came creeping in, threading her way deftly amongst the young ladies in starched muslins and gay ribbons who were fluttering about, she made the effect of a little brown moth who had strayed into the midst of a swarm of brilliant butterflies. No one took any notice of her, and she made her way up ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter |
