"Top-boots" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be contrived—a difficult matter with only the school theatrical box to draw upon—and ten coons to be turned out in uniform garb. The usual stock properties, such as the brigand's velvet jacket, the Admiral's cocked hat, or the hunting top-boots, were utterly useless, and the girls had to set their wits to work. They decided to wear their best white petticoats with white blouses, and to make hats out of stiff brown paper trimmed with rosettes of scarlet crinkled paper ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... without having begun another to go on with in the morning. It was wonderful how much cleaner Maggie managed to keep her hands; but then to her fell naturally the lighter work for women and children. She declared herself ambitious, however, of one day making with her own hands a perfect pair of top-boots. ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... him to stir. He's been there since he was born. But she don't know anything. I'll fetch your waterproof and some top-boots.' ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Harcourt Talboys was the last person in this world with whom it was possible to associate the homely, hearty, rural old English title of squire. He neither hunted nor farmed. He had never worn crimson, pink, or top-boots in his life. A southerly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme indifference to him, so long as they did not in any way interfere with his own prim comforts; and he only cared for the state of the crops inasmuch as it involved the hazard of certain rents ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... stroked. 'No, pussy!' said I, 'if you have any conscience you ought not to expect that!' And then a thought struck me; and I rang the bell for my maid, and sent her to Mr Hoggins, with my compliments, and would he be kind enough to lend me one of his top-boots for an hour? I did not think there was anything odd in the message; but Jenny said the young men in the surgery laughed as if they would be ill at my wanting a top-boot. When it came, Jenny and I put pussy in, with her ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... boy-scout, wearing tortoise-shell spectacles, and a field kit of dangling bags, water-bottles, maps, cooking utensils, and other material suitable for life on a desert isle? Or what could they say to a lady in breeches and top-boots, with a revolver stuck through her belt, and a sou'wester on her head, who was going to nurse the wounded in a voluntary hospital at Nice? Contingents of remarkable women invaded the chief tea-shops in Boulogne and caused a panic among the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... fearfully and wonderfully attired: the men wear high top-boots, polished from the sole to the uppermost hair's breadth of leather; black, broad-brimmed felt hats, frequently with a peacock's feather a yard long stuck through the band, the stem protruding forward, and the end of the feather behind; and their coats and waistcoats ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... on his glossy beaver with enormous brim, high curved; his blue coat with brass buttons; his white waistcoat, gray breeches, and top-boots; and marched up to the chateau of Beaurepaire, and sent in his card with ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... "the beggar would make a good stage marshal, wouldn't he? . . . with that Bret Harte, forty-niner's moustache and undertaker's mug, and top-boots and all, what?" ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... that it is doing harm to a very just and proper cause. We are arguing for more work for our poor sisters who have neither father, husband, brother, nor fortune to depend upon; and these French comic scribblers describe us as unsexed brawlers, who want top-boots. I want no manly rights for women. I am content with the old position, that her head should just reach the height of a man's heart; but I do see where she is not well used—where she is left to genteel dependence, and a life in the darkest corner of the drawing-room, ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... cork-wood forests of San Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers. The barking of dogs, the cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest of a hill. I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of "The Rock" ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the women groaned, the Jews spat on the ground; only Jasiek, the son of the rich peasant Gryb, lighted an expensive cigar and smiled. He put his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat, stuck out first one foot, then the other, to display his elegant top-boots that reached above his knees, sucked his cigar, and continued to smile. The men looked at him with aversion, but the women, although shocked, did not think him repulsive. Was he not a tall, broadshouldered, graceful lad, with a complexion like milk ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... great farm, with grandpapa, Aunt Peeps, and Nan, and Will. I have a pair of top-boots, so I can play out doors in wet weather. I was glad when grandpapa brought them home; and the first thing I did was to find a good large mud-puddle, and oh! didn't I have fun, ...
— The Nursery, August 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... was a white lawn scarf in the fashion of a man's hunting-stock, close fitting, and sinking into a gold-buttoned waistcoat of snowy twill. As she sat with the long skirt across her left arm her tiny black top-boots appeared underneath. Her gauntleted gloves were of white buckskin; her riding-whip was plaited of white leather, topped with ivory and ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... John Englishman says my virtue is the genuine virtue. And John Chinaman says my virtue is the genuine virtue. And I say Yes to one, or No to the other, and am just as much bewildered about it in the case of John with the top-boots as I am in the case of John with the pigtail. Ah, nice little Mousey! come, kiss me. What is your own private notion of a virtuous man, my pret-pret-pretty? A man who keeps you warm, and gives you plenty to eat. And a good ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... hair was then combed back into an elegant queue. His eye of hazel was bright and restless. His chin was still beardless. He wore a frock-coat of light blue cloth, yellow breeches, silk stockings, and top-boots. Great was the love he bore his horses, which were numerous, and as good as Virginia could boast. It is amusing to notice that the horse upon which this pattern aristocrat used to scamper across the country, in French-Revolution times, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... in point of intellect, though without its cunning or sensuality; the face meaningless, pale, and sallow, with low forehead, and nothing striking but a pair of enormous black eyebrows. The figure is dressed in a dirty brown surtout, blue plush trousers, and dirty top-boots. It begins to speak. The voice is loud and clear, and marches on with academic stateliness and gravity, and even something of musical softness mixes with its notes. Suddenly the speaker turns to a side. It is to spit, which act is repeated every second sentence. You now see in his hands a twisted ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... rode up through our guns. Looking neither to the right nor the left, he rode straight to the front, halted, and seemed gazing intently on the enemy's line of battle. The outfit before me, from top to toe, cap, coat, top-boots, horse and furniture, were all of the new order of things. But there was something about the man that did not look so new after all. He appeared to be an old-time friend of all the turmoil around him. As he had done us the honour to make an afternoon call on the artillery, I thought ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... men go about in what we were used to call top-boots, and even little boys have them, with the upper part variously coloured, but mostly red, a ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... to look for the art by which it is recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see the people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... importance and assumed intelligence, bidding with a trembling voice and palpitating heart, lest it should be knock'd down to him. Do you see that dashing fellow nearly opposite to us, in the green frock-coat, top-boots, and spurs?—do you mark how he nourishes his whip, and how familiar he seems to be with the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of one of his farmers, a small servant aged fourteen, thick-set, and named Babylas. The lion dressed his tiger very smartly—a short tunic-coat of iron-gray cloth, belted with patent leather, bright blue plush breeches, a red waistcoat, polished leather top-boots, a shiny hat with black lacing, and brass buttons with the arms of Soulas. Amedee gave this boy white cotton gloves and his washing, and thirty-six francs a month to keep himself—a sum that seemed enormous to the ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... guessed he might be some farmer, and the tweed jacket suggested he was out to pay a visit to friends. Then, quite abruptly, he changed his mind, and further increased his pace. He had detected the city-fashioned top-boots the man was wearing. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... performance of divine service, the Rev. Dr. Masham dined with the family, and he was the only guest at Cherbury Venetia ever remembered seeing. The Doctor was a regular orthodox divine of the eighteenth century; with a large cauliflower wig, shovel-hat, and huge knee-buckles, barely covered by his top-boots; learned, jovial, humorous, and somewhat courtly; truly pious, but not enthusiastic; not forgetful of his tithes, but generous and charitable when they were once paid; never neglecting the sick, yet occasionally following a fox; a fine scholar, an active magistrate, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... of it in that light. On the next evening, the last they were to spend at Mariana, the lieutenant was rowed ashore attired for sporting, with top-boots and a double-barrelled fowling piece. Terrence, who claimed to be an experienced hunter, advised him to "kape their intintions sacrit," as too many might want to go, and that would spoil the sport. Ducks could best ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... war. But then, finding how elegant the new tunic was, how closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously, with the lateral bustles of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips; when they realized the brilliant potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured. Abolish these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack-cloth and mackintosh, you ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... that the establishment is grievously in need of funds, and without any further parley hands to the startled but gratified official bank-notes to the tune of five hundred pounds. He then vanishes without giving name or address. This unknown benefactor is dressed in top-boots, riding breeches of honourable antiquity, a black coat green with age and a "Cup Final" cap. At the same time (this too on The Times' authority) there is an oddly and obsolescently attired lady going about who also makes London hospitals her hobby. She begins by asking the secretary if she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... you were never coming," said Reg, as they met at the door. "Short, thick-set man, wearing soft felt hat, black coat, riding breeches, and top-boots; drives a hansom with a ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen; among them a member of his Majesty's Council for the Province, a Governor or so, one or two Doctors of Divinity, a member of Congress, not later than the time of top-boots with tassels. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... who looked very trim in their short velvet jackets embroidered with gold and covered with endless buttons. They wore white breeches, long top-boots, black-velvet caps over their white wigs, and their little pigtails, tied with a black bow, hung down their backs, flapping up and down ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... came and word was sent up that her escort had arrived, Rose ran down, devoutly hoping that he had not come in a velveteen jacket, top-boots, black gloves, or made any trifling mistake of that sort. A young gentleman was standing before the long mirror, apparently intent upon the arrangement of his hair, and Rose paused suddenly as her eye went from ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... glimpse did they get of the fox, although they knew very well that he must be only a very short way ahead for the scent to be so strong. And then Wat Danbury heard a crash and a thud at his elbow, and looking round he saw a pair of white cords and top-boots kicking out of a tussock of brambles. The whip's horse had stumbled, and the whip was out of the running. Danbury and the huntsman eased down for an instant; and then, seeing the man staggering to his feet all right, they turned and settled into ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... saloons, and the circuit of the second was only half finished when the First Consul entered without being announced. He was dressed in a very plain uniform, with a tricolored silk scarf, with fringes of the same around his waist. He wore close-fitting pantaloons of white cassimere, and top-boots, and held his hat in his hand. This plain dress, in the midst of the embroidered coats loaded with cordons and orders worn by the ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, presented a contrast as striking as the toilette of Madame Bonaparte compared with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... excuse of the old gentleman who sold salve in the costume of Washington's time; one could not take pleasure in him as in the negro advertiser, who paraded the grounds in a costume compounded of a consular chapeau bras and a fox-hunter's top-boots—the American diplomatic uniform of the future—and offered every one a printed billet; he had not even the attraction of the cabalistic herald of Hunkidori. Who was he? what was he? why was he? The mind played forever around these questions in ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... there's not a singer in the Papal choir who can at all approach him. Accordingly he looks down upon our old Frescobaldi[2.16] with contempt; and when the Romans talk about the wonderful charm of Ceccarelli's voice, he informs them that Ceccarelli knows as much about singing as a pair of top-boots, and that he, Capuzzi, knows which is the right way to fascinate the public. But as the first singer of the Pope bears the proud name of Signor Odoardo Ceccarelli di Merania, so our Capuzzi is greatly delighted when anybody calls him Signor ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... clothing is in vogue. We had an example of this at a feast our English friend gave to a number of chiefs and their relations. Some of the gentlemen had on uniform coats, with nankeen trousers too short for them, and coloured slippers. Others had top-boots, red shirts, black breeches, sailors' round jackets, and cocked hats. Some had high shoes and buckles, and others had no shoes at all; but all had shirts and trousers, or breeches. Some, indeed, were in complete costume: shoes, stockings, trousers, waistcoat, coat, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... stood in the doorway a rubicund-nosed gentleman, in a green coat and huge wonderfully gay coloured cravat, leather breeches, and top-boots, with a hunting-whip under his arm, a peony in his buttonhole, and a white hat which he flourished in his right hand, while he kept scraping with his ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... Tillyriach, was perhaps the most remarkable among all the cattle-dealers of the time. He was a very large tall man, with tremendously big feet—a great man for dress—wore top-boots, white neckcloth, long blue coat, with all the et-ceteras, and used hair-powder. He was, withal, very clever, and had an immensity of mother-wit. He rode the best horse in the country, kept greyhounds, and galloped a horse he called the "Rattler." The rides he took with this animal are the talk ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... commenced tracing on the top thereof, with the red-hot poker, what he was pleased to term a "design from the antique," which consisted of a spirited outline of that riddle-loving female the Sphinx, as she appeared when dressed in top-boots and a wide-awake, and regaling herself with a choice cigar! He was giving the finishing touch to a large pair of moustaches, with which he had embellished her countenance, and which he declared was the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... invariably returning at ten with one unfortunate snipe, which was preserved on ice, with much ceremony, till wanted. At this rate it took them a week to shoot a breakfast; but to see them sally forth, splendid in velveteen and corduroy, with top-boots and a complete harness of green cord and patent-leather straps, you would have imagined that all game-birds were about to become extinct in that region. Their dogs, even, recognized this great-cry-little-wool condition of things, and bounded off joyously at the start, but came home crestfallen, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... thrown among the strangest social conditions that the latter-day world has perhaps seen.... Amid rushing waters and wildwood freedom, an army of strong men, in red shirts and top-boots, were feverishly in search of the buried gold of earth.... It was a land of perfect freedom, limited only by the instinct and the habit of law which prevailed in the mass.... Strong passions brought quick climaxes, all the better and worse forces of manhood being in ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Top-boots are very pretty wear for men of the right height and right sort of leg when they fit perfectly—that is difficult on fat calves—and are cleaned to perfection, which is also difficult unless you have a more than ordinarily ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... did), and being devoured by the white ants. And there's Sabine, the loveliest of them all; ah! it was like a star rising when she came into the room. And that's Miriam, in her coachman's cloak, with all the little capes on, and she wore great top-boots underneath. You young people may say you're unconventional, but you're nothing ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the Rue des Bourdonnais to ask for a tradesman's address," cried Coralie. "Do you intend to patronize a young man's bootmaker? A nice young man you would make! Do keep to your own top-boots; they are the kind for a steady-going man with a wife ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... possible, to make a show not only as a refined but, more especially, as a wealthy man. His features are coarse; his predominant expression is one of stupid cunning. He wears a green jacket, a gay velvet waist-coat, dark trousers and patent-leather top-boots. His head-covering is a green forester's hat with a cock's feather. His jacket has buttons of stag's horn and stag's teeth depend from his ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... had made up my mind to go to Cairo, and I was coming up to say farewell to you and mother. For I like not Beirut, where one in winter must go about in top-boots, and in a dust-coat in summer. I wonder what Rousseau, who called Paris the city of mud, would have said of this? Besides, a city ruled by boatmen is not a city for gentlemen to live in. So, I made up my mind to get out of it, and quickly. But yesterday morning, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... jolly, jostling crowds. As they were nearing the river, they saw coming along the narrow sidewalk a burly French-Canadian, dressed in the gayest holiday garb of the shantymen.—red shirt and sash, corduroys tucked into red top-boots, a little round soft hat set upon the back of his black curls, a gorgeous silk handkerchief around his neck, and a big gold watch-chain with seals at his belt. He had a bold, handsome face, and swaggered along the sidewalk, claiming it all with an assurance fortified by whisky enough to make ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... "I think it's about business." How well I can recollect Doctor Chowne! A little fierce-looking stoutish man, in drab breeches and top-boots, and a very old-fashioned cocked hat that looked terribly the worse for wear. He used to have a light brown coat and waistcoat, with very large pockets that I always believed to be full of powders, and draughts, and pills on one side; and on the other ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... faith, with polished-steel quoits glistening on the cone of his tall blue turban, stalked past, returning from a visit to one of the independent Sikh States, where he had been singing the ancient glories of the Khalsa to College-trained princelings in top-boots and white-cord breeches. Kim was careful not to irritate that man; for the Akali's temper is short and his arm quick. Here and there they met or were overtaken by the gaily dressed crowds of whole villages turning out to some local fair; the women, with their babes on their hips, walking behind ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... But money is money, And who has got tenpence To spare? Then came forward Pavloosha Varenko, The "gentleman" nicknamed. (His origin, past life, Or calling they knew not, But called him the 'Barin'.) 330 He listened with pleasure To talk and to jesting; His blouse, coat, and top-boots Were those of a peasant; He sang Russian folk-songs, Liked others to sing them, And often was met with At taverns and inns. He now rescued Vavil, And bought him the boots 340 To take ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... Jury is God known"—his hat off, and the rain streaming down at his nose as from a gable-spout. But he, too, vanished. Occasionally a dripping umbrella hurried past, showing nothing but thin legs in tights and top-boots, or thick ones in worsteds and pattens. At one o'clock the milkman passed along the street silently, and with a soberer knock than usually announces the presence of that functionary. I counted him at number 45, 46, 47, 48—number 49 was beyond the range ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... and tried on the coat. It fitted admirably; the waistcoat could be made to button by ripping up the back, and the trousers were perfect; but below were the ragged boots. The German was not disconcerted. Going to the beam where a pair of top-boots hung, he took them off, dusted them carefully, and put them down before Bonaparte. The old eyes now fairly brimmed over ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... and turrets and an imitation moat—and everything about the place named out of Sir Walter Scott's books and redolent of royalty and state and style; and all the richest girls keep phaetons, and coachmen in livery, and riding-horses, with English grooms in plug hats and tight-buttoned coats, and top-boots, and a whip-handle without any whip to it, to ride sixty-three ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a solid bar of wrought iron, begins to curve! See how gently he leans over the filly's neck; while the chesnut's rider turns his eyes, like a boiled lobster, almost to the back of his head! Oh, he's awake! he still keeps the lead: but the grey filly is nothing but a good 'un. Now, the Top-boots riding her have become excited, and commence tickling her sides with their flashing silver spurs, putting an extra foot into every bound. She gains upon the chesnut! This is something like a race! The distance-post is reached! The Top-boots on the grey are at work again. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... Jorrocks, found himself shivering under the Piazza in Covent Garden about seven o'clock, surrounded by cabs, cabbages, carrots, ducks, dollys, and drabs of all sorts, waiting for his horse and the appearance of the friend who had seduced him into the extraordinary predicament of attiring himself in top-boots and breeches in London. After pacing up and down some minutes, the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard turning down from Long Acre, and reaching the lamp-post at the corner of James Street, his astonished eyes were struck with ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... a caricature of freedom, as the empire was of glory; and what they borrow from foreigners undergoes the same process. They take top-boots and mackintoshes from across the water, and caricature our fashions; they read a little, very little, Shakespeare, and caricature our poetry: and while in David's time art and religion were only a caricature of Heathenism, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... distance. I forget whether he followed us out of the quadrangle into the roadway where we had the advantage of some picturesque army wagons, and some wagoners in red-faced jackets and red trousers, and top-boots with heavy fringes of leathern strings. Yet it must have been he who made us aware of a high-walled inclosure where soldiers found worthy of death by court martial could be conveniently shot; though I think we discovered for ourselves the old woman curled up out of the wind in a sentry-box, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... prices fixed before the shearing agreement is signed. Hence, it is entirely their own affair whether their mess bills are extravagant or economical. They can have anything within the rather wide range of the station store. PATES DE FOIE GRAS, ortolans, roast ostrich, novels, top-boots, double-barrelled guns, IF THEY LIKE TO PAY FOR THEM—with one exception. No wine, no spirits! Neither are they permitted to bring these stimulants "on to the grounds" for their private use. Grog at shearing? Matches in a powder-mill! It's very sad and bad; but our Anglo-Saxon industrial or ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... hint, 'he might go in a kilt and top-boots, like Satan in my grannie's copy o' the Paradise Lost, for onything I ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Immediately after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not of course eat with the alien, but he came in at dessert, all six feet of him, with the blue-and-silver turban atop, and the big black top-boots below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt of his saber, in token of fealty, for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of "Rung ho! Hira ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... complexion, his penetrating eyes, his firm lip, his dark hair, and uniform coat buttoned to his chin—the man to fight and die rather than surrender. Near him lay Fitz Lee, the ardent and laughing cavalier, with the flowing beard, the sparkling eyes, the top-boots, and cavalry sabre—the man to stand by Gordon. On a log, a few feet distant, sat the burly Longstreet, smoking with perfect nonchalance—his heavily bearded face exhibiting no emotion whatever. Erect, within ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... extremely pretty girl she is, too, with her frock-coat coming to her knees, her top-boots coming to the coat, and now and then, when the wind blows, a glimpse of loose knickers. She tells me that she's never had a man stare at her since she appeared in the new livery, although women have been curious about it and even critical of it. ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... off, but now it is on again, and again. The fiddler toils to finer and finer heights of enthusiasm; slippers twinkle, top-boots flash, the evens come in (to the waltz) and the odds, out on the veranda, tell one another confidentially how damp they are. Was ever an evening so smotheringly hot! Through the house-grove, where the darkness ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... ridden in these saddles, when a rider has a difficulty in getting down to the weight; but all jockeys wear boots which have thin, and, consequently, very pliable soles. Fashion dictates that ladies' top-boots should be as high as those worn by men, which is very absurd; because they are not seen, and the hard, unyielding leather of a high top-boot pressing either on the breeches buttons, or on the under part of the right leg is apt to cause great pain and ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... unaided making. Her eyes, of the one deep Tasmanian blue, were still open very wide, but no longer with the same apprehension; for a step there was, but a step that jingled; nor did they recognize the silhouette in top-boots which at length stood bowing ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... It was a little town of only between one and two thousand inhabitants; but to Lincoln it seemed a metropolis. "There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here," he wrote; there were also social distinctions, and real aristocrats, who wore ruffled shirts, and even adventured "fair top-boots" in the "unfathomable" mud of streets which knew neither ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... ago, Lacheneur was a poor devil like myself; now, he is a grand gentleman with fifty thousand livres a year. He wears the finest broadcloth and top-boots like the Baron d'Escorval. He no longer works; he makes others work; and when he passes, everyone must bow to the earth. If you kill so much as a sparrow upon his lands, as he says, he will cast you into prison. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... dove-house on the post in the Kohlers' garden. The sand hills looked dim and sleepy. The tamarisk hedge was full of snow, like a foam of blossoms drifted over it. When Thea opened the gate, old Mrs. Kohler was just coming in from the chicken yard, with five fresh eggs in her apron and a pair of old top-boots on her feet. She called Thea to come and look at a bantam egg, which she held up proudly. Her bantam hens were remiss in zeal, and she was always delighted when they accomplished anything. She took Thea into the sitting-room, very warm ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the late Sir John Shelley came into Hoby's shop to complain that his top-boots had split in several ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... child till further orders, and Ralph Rattlin Brandon were to be my usual appellations. Two decent persons being required, Joe Brandon, not having done any work for a couple of months, thought, by virtue of idleness, he might surely call himself one, to say nothing of his top-boots. The other godfather was a decayed fishmonger, of the name of Ford, a pensioner in the Fishmonger's Company, in whose alms-houses, at Newington, he afterwards died. A sad reprobate was old Ford—he was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... bidding adieu to his wife. It is the dusk of an October evening. His equipment is a drab greatcoat, a hat covered with an oil-cloth, top-boots, an umbrella in one hand and a small portmanteau in the other. He has informed Mrs. Wakefield that he is to take the night-coach into the country. She would fain inquire the length of his journey, its object and the probable time of his ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... later three troopers came cantering through Diamond Gully, looking very smart in their Bedford cords and shining top-boots, and the diggers yelled derisive orders, and greeted them with cries of contempt, jeering them from every hole along the lead. 'Jo!' was the favourite epithet hurled at the troopers and all representatives of constituted authority. Done never discovered the origin of the term, but into it ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... question not to be put without a shudder. The fact is, that Hawthorne had succeeded only too well in misleading himself by a common fallacy. That pestilent personage, John Bull, has assumed so concrete a form in our imaginations, with his top-boots and his broad shoulders and vast circumference, and the emblematic bulldog at his heels, that for most observers he completely hides the Englishman of real life. Hawthorne had decided that an Englishman ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... slip, m'lady, I thought as 'ow I'd better—wait a bit. So I waited, I did." And here, again, Milo of Crotona touched the peak of his cap, and looked from Barnabas to Cleone's flushing loveliness with eyes wide and profoundly innocent,—a very cherub in top-boots, only his buttons (Ah, his buttons!) seemed to leer and wink one to another, as much as to say: ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose box for those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, and warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim little maid brings in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room: Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Sunday morning opened as leaden and dark as a February day could be, and there was no cessation of the showers of whiteness that were rapidly building up on the ground a formidable barrier to our operations. As I was wearing rather low brogans, having discarded top-boots as too close-fitting and uncomfortable around camp, I now made for myself a pair of leggins out of pieces of a common but heavy seamless sack. When these were buttoned in place they answered perfectly to protect ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Gibson, 'and if you will excuse me, squire, I really must go now, and then you'll be at liberty to send your wits afield uninterrupted.' This time he was at the door before the squire called him back. He stood impatiently hitting his top-boots with his riding- whip, waiting for the interminable ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the freightage! Non-Admiral Duke de Chartres (not yet d'Orleans or Egalite) flies to and fro across the Strait; importing English Fashions; this he, as hand-and-glove with an English Prince of Wales, is surely qualified to do. Carriages and saddles; top-boots and redingotes, as we call riding-coats. Nay the very mode of riding: for now no man on a level with his age but will trot a l'Anglaise, rising in the stirrups; scornful of the old sitfast method, in which, according to Shakspeare, 'butter and eggs' go to market. Also, he can urge the fervid ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... blacks in uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped - standing at their heads now - is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We have seen more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere, in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow silks and satins! ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... landlord—the latter of whom felt, no doubt, that his loss on food was more than counterbalanced by his gain on drink. Among the guests there were Gauchos of the Pampas, and the head men of a band of peons, who had just arrived with a herd of cattle. As these danced variously, in camp-dresses, top-boots, silver spurs, ponchos, and shirt sleeves, and as the ladies of the town appeared in picturesque and varied costumes with mantillas and fans, Lawrence felt as if he were witnessing a fancy dress gathering, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... hour, with only two inside passengers—to wit, our friend the stranger and a wealthy stock-farmer from the same parish. He was a large, big-boned, good-humored fellow, dressed in a strong frieze outside coat or jock, buckskin breeches, top-boots, and a heavy loaded whip, his ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... occupant. The bed bore signs of having been occupied. The valise was lying there open. Upon the toilet-table was a pocket-book, and hanging from the screw of the looking-glass was his watch. His riding whip and gloves and top-boots ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... be," responded a man sitting at a small table in the corner, with two half-emptied glasses and a bowl of arrack punch before him. Opposite to mine host was a thick-set man of about forty, attired in a brown suit and heavy top-boots, both of which bore the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... original, and characteristic, she was somewhat disturbed to find that to-day he presented certain other qualities which clearly did not agree with her preconceived ideas of his condition. He had abandoned his usual large top-boots for low shoes, and she could not help noticing that his feet were small and slender as were his hands, albeit browned by exposure. His ruddy color was gone too, and his face, pale with sorrow and ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... and, with the departure of the hounds, Major Dick's interest in the stables had died too; his tall, grey horse was ending his days in bondage to the outside car; the meanest of the underlings who had grovelled beneath Charles' top-boots, was now in sole charge, and had grown a moustache, unchecked; and Christian's only mount was a green four-year-old filly, in whom she had invested the economies of a life-time, with but a dubious ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Pomphrey dressed as a gentleman of France in riding apparel; his overhanging top-boots displaying a leg of strength and fine proportions; the curls of his periwig sweeping his broad shoulders; his hands, half-hid by rare lace, gleaming white and be-jewelled; a mustachio so flattened with ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... long felt the greatest sympathy for this man; and then the pretty uniform and all that—only a child, you know—and so on. It was a dark green dress coat with gold buttons—red facings, white trousers, and a white silk waistcoat—silk stockings, shoes with buckles, and top-boots if I were riding out with his majesty or with ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... at the trouble so to disguise them. What can be the theory of such a costume? The simplest thing in the world—it consisted of the fragments of apparel nearest at hand. Had chance thrown to him a court single-breasted coat, with a bishop's apron, a kilt, and top-boots, in these he would have ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the usher of the court for the time being—a hoarse-voiced man in top-boots with a huge saber buckled to his side, and a bludgeon in his hand. "Silence for the Citizen President!" he reiterated, striking ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... this is a trifle, for she habitually wore top-boots. Upon them, and beneath the short skirt of a red flannel petticoat, she had indued a pair of cricket-guards. Above the red flannel petticoat came, frank and unashamed, an ample pair of stays; above them, the front of a yet ampler chemise and ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the youth. "He hath on the English top-boots of narrow make. 'Twas by them that he was so easily traced. Of late we of the states have manufactured our own boots, and all citizens wear them save the macaronis. They are not so well finished," he glanced at his own boots as he spoke with something of regret, "but 'tis ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... They eloped together from Ireland, were overtaken and brought back, and then a second time decamped—on this occasion in masquerade, the elder dressed as a peasant and the younger as a smart groom in top-boots. Escaping pursuit, they settled in Llangollen in 1778 at the quaint little house called Plas Newydd, and lived there together for a half century. Their costume was extraordinary, for they appeared in public in blue riding-habits, men's neckcloths, and high hats, with their hair cropped short. They ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... knee breeches and powdered wigs who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the Constitution—the soldiers in blue-and-buff, top-boots and epaulets who led the armies of the Revolution—were what we are wont to describe as gentlemen. They were English gentlemen. They were not all, nor even generally, scions of the British aristocracy; but they came, for the most part, of good ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... keep from untwisting the morning-glory, only be willing to let the sunshine do it! Dickens said real children went out with powder and top-boots; and yet the children of Dickens's time were simple buds compared with the full-blown miracles of conventionality ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... wished she could see him looking as well and cheerful as in old days, though she felt naturally proud that her husband should always be dressed like a gentleman, namely, in a blue coat, red waistcoat, and top-boots. ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... he exclaimed, kicking out his sturdy legs, and contemplating with some satisfaction the yellow hide top-boots which he had bought at the Army and Navy Stores. (I know the boots well, and—avoid them.) "Gad! doctor, you should see that gun on the war- path. Travels as light as a tricycle. And when she begins ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... was tall and spare; his weather-beaten face seemed set like a dark mask; only his eyes moved, and they had a quivering alertness and a brilliancy that made them hard to look into. He wore a wide sombrero, a blue flannel shirt with a double row of big buttons, overalls, top-boots with very high heels, and long spurs. A heavy revolver swung at his hip, and if I had not already known that Jim Williams had fought Indians and killed bad men, I should still have seen something that awed me ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... three women were entertaining a distinguished guest at the evening meal of tinned rabbit and dates. Their visitor was none other than F. Ainslie-Barkleigh, the famous English war-correspondent. He was dressed for the part. He wore high top-boots, whose red leather shone richly even in the dim yellow of the lantern that lit them to their feast. About his neck was swung a heavy black strap from which hung a pair of very elegant field-glasses, ready for service at a moment's call. He could sweep a battle-field ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... Krool turned towards the house, eyes showing like flames under the khaki trooper's hat, which added fresh incongruity to the frock-coat and the huge top-boots. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... perusing, with the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were lounging about. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... could not find any feminine garments to please her fancy, but there was a boy's jacket, out at elbows and ragged round the edges, which she proudly donned, and as a finishing touch she popped her long slim legs, old shoes and all, into a worn-out pair of man's top-boots that reached ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... carbuncles; he wore a broad slouching hat, and was dressed in a grey coat, cut in a fashion which I afterwards learnt to be the genuine Newmarket cut, the skirts being exceedingly short; his waistcoat was of red plush, and he wore broad corduroy breeches and white top-boots. The steed which carried him was of iron grey, spirited and powerful, but covered with sweat and foam. The fellow glanced fiercely and suspiciously around, and said something to the man of the tent in a harsh and rapid voice. A short and hurried conversation ensued in the strange tongue. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... two great, long-limbed fellows, wearing top-boots, came stumbling into the tavern, more noisily because of their clumsy efforts at gentleness. Nancy knew them as former friends of Tom Piper, so she led them in at once. The men took the limit of the time usually spent there, and yet they ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... Indeed on no subsequent line did George Stephenson take the sights through the spirit level with his own hands and eyes as he did on this railway. He started very early—dressed in a blue tailed coat, breeches, and top-boots—and surveyed until dusk. He was not at any time particular as to his living; and during the survey, he took his chance of getting a little milk and bread at some cottager's house along the line, or occasionally joined in a homely dinner at some neighbouring farmhouse. ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... and, as Baptiste had taken pains to lower the carriage-steps as close as possible to the door, he sprang into the post-chaise without being seen by the postilion. Baptiste slammed the door after him; then, addressing the man in the top-boots: ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... young men, ugly and impudent, and at the same time careful of the impression they were making, hurried by. Pyotr, too, crossed the room in his livery and top-boots, with his dull, animal face, and came up to her to take her to the train. Some noisy men were quiet as she passed them on the platform, and one whispered something about her to another— something vile, no doubt. She stepped up on the high ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of palaces and tombs, and then wheeled away toward the banks of the Zerafshan. Our four days' journey of 180 miles along the regular Russian post-road was attended with only the usual vicissitudes of ordinary travel. Wading in our Russian top-boots through the treacherous fords of the "Snake" defile, we passed the pyramidal slate rock known as the "Gate of Tamerlane," and emerged upon a strip of the Kizil-Kum steppe, stretching hence in painful monotony to the bank of the Sir Daria river. This we crossed by ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... thither. Early in the morning the whole house was astir; large hampers were packed, ladies and gentlemen were clad in gay midsummer attire, and, soon after breakfast, huge carriages with four horses, and postilions with red coats and top-boots, after the fashion of the olden time, were drawn up before the door. Presently we were moving lightly over the road, the hop-vines dancing on the poles on either side, the orchards looking invitingly cool, the oast-houses fanning with their wide arms, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... book there—written by a friend of mine," Lionel said, as he was helping his dresser to get off the glittering top-boots. "She wants me to do what I can for her with the press. What do I know about that? Still, she is a very particular ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the church attendants of olden times it is unnecessary to speak with much detail. The goodmen with their heavy top-boots or jack-boots, their milled or frieze stockings, their warm periwigs surmounted by fur caps or beaver hats or hoods; and with their many-caped great-coats or full round cloaks were dressed with a sufficient degree of comfort, though they did not ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... at this time a member of the Durham company, and though he began his career there by reciting Collins's "Ode to the Passions," attired in a pea-green coat, buckskins, top-boots, and powder, with a scroll in his hand, and followed up this essay of his powers with the tragic actor's battle-horse, the part of Hamlet, he soon found his peculiar gift to lie in the diametrically opposite direction of broad farce. Of this he was perpetually ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... they will call me out with the reserves. The French were fitting out no volunteer army that I could get on the track of, and nobody was paying the passage of fighting men. The end of it was that, after pawning my revolver and my top-boots, the only valuable possessions I had left, to pay for my lodging, I was thrown on the street, and told to come back when I had more money. That night I wandered about New York with a gripsack that had only a linen duster and ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... answered cheerfully, suspecting that his young, gentlemanly-looking customer required the things for a fancy-dress entertainment or theatricals. In two or three minutes he had produced for inspection a jersey, thick trousers—commonly called 'fear-noughts'—heavy top-boots, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Lord Cornwallis, sir," said the boys, "battling with his shoemaker about the price of a pair of top-boots." ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... white-handed, yet looking as if he could deliver well from 'the left shoulder and floor his man: I will not be so much of a tailor as to trouble your imagination with the difference of costume, and insist on the striped waistcoat, long-tailed coat, and low top-boots. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Christmas, when the Major came down as usual to Fairoaks. Pen had a very good mare, and rode her with uncommon pluck and grace. He took his fences with great coolness, and yet with judgment, and without bravado. He wrote to the chaps at school about his top-boots, and his feats across country. He began to think seriously of a scarlet coat: and his mother must own that she thought it would become him remarkably well; though, of course, she passed hours of anguish during ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hotel, and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage one day, and another the next. His jockey stands behind his cabriolet in top-boots, and his coachman wears a grand fur coat in summer. His own clothes are always new, sometimes in the most accurate type of a groom, sometimes in that of a dandy. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... must needs tie them to his knee to keep from falling over them; he wore soles without uppers,—alas! poor devil, how often in all ages has he approximated wearing uppers without soles!—and he went in for top-boots splendidly belegged and coquettishly beautified with what, had he been a lady, he might have described as an insertion of lace. At last came the boot-blacking parlor, late nineteenth century, commercial, ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren |
