"Cripple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the better able to defend himself,—a strong man with nothing but his fists, or a paralytic cripple encumbered with a ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it—not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field—the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... peculiarity about the Adjutant. At uncertain times he suffers from acute attacks of the fidgets or cramp in his legs, and though he is more virtuous to behold than any of the cranes, who are all immensely respectable, he flies off into wild, cripple-stilt war-dances, half opening his wings and bobbing his bald head up and down; while for reasons best known to himself he is very careful to time his worst attacks with his nastiest remarks. At the last word of his song he came to attention again, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... little cripple, leaning over her work, started upon one of those long journeys to the land of chimeras of which she had made so many in her invalid's easychair, with her feet resting on the stool; one of those wonderful journeys from which she always returned happy and smiling, leaning ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... women fled when the white men charged for the boat, which now was seen to be endowed with an incredible, uncanny rocking movement of its own. Looking beneath, they saw a huge cripple straining himself, Atlas-like, to heave it over. In spite of inferior legs, his brawny shoulders had almost accomplished the feat when he was unceremoniously interrupted. While he sprawled away, a mob of blacks rushed ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... only plunging into yet another arm of the maze. But when a few hundred yards farther on he stood still again to listen, his heart stood still also, for he heard from that space of rugged stones the clinking crutch and labouring feet of the infernal cripple. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... till he wanted to rise, when he would turn his head slowly, as if with difficulty, to the right and to the left, and then they would catch him under his armpits and help him up. For all that, there was nothing of a cripple about him: on the contrary, all his ponderous movements were like manifestations of a mighty deliberate force. It was generally believed he consulted his wife as to public affairs; but nobody, as far as I know, had ever heard ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... now grown so much a part of me, That life would, in the cure, endangered be: At least, it like a limb cut off would show; And better die than like a cripple go. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... need them," said the other; "you can always chatter those of other people, by merely showing yourself. For my part, I should be content with some light employment: would erect a cheap palace, transport a light-weight princess, threaten a small cripple—or jobs of that kind. What are the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... not so entangled and had escaped on the other side. She noticed his walk. "Oh, don't you get up," she said. "This gentleman," she indicated my convulsive struggles to free myself, "will do that. I did not see that you were a cripple." ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... a cripple with a tree leg who vaunted of his wickedness, was another of this hellish crew, (for so I may by this time call them). His leg did not hinder him from running, or rather riding up and down the country oppressing and killing God's people. In Clydesdale he uplifted 1500l. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... his office irregularly in view of the AElian law, has been relieved from the provisions both of the AElian and Fufian laws, in order to enable him to propose his law on bribery, which he promulgated with correct auspices though a cripple.[107] Accordingly, the comitia have been postponed to the 27th of July. There is this novelty in his bill, that a man who has promised money among the tribes, but not paid it, is not liable, but, if he has paid, he is liable for life ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... stood with a more uncompromising sincerity for law and peace—but Hump Doane viewed life through the eyes of one who has suffered the afflictions and mortification of a cripple in a land that accepts life in physical aspects. His wisdom was darkened with the tinge and colour of the cynic's thought. He trusted that man only who proved his faith by his works, and believed all evil until it was disproven. Like a nervous shepherd who tends wild sheep he feared always ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... night operator, however, had made less than half a dozen voyages on the Doraine. He was an Englishman, a cripple; twice he had been rescued after vessels on which he sailed were sent to the bottom by German submarines. His credentials were flawless. He was on duty during the night just past, and had picked up several indistinct, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots; Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue, Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... of you boys thought at all about what's going to happen to Anton, when he grows up? His father hasn't money enough to send him to college, or anything like that, especially since he lost so much by the flood, and, being a cripple, Anton's not going to have much of ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... I think I love him more because he is—so weak. Like a poor child that is a cripple, he wants more love than those who are strong. I shall never change. And look here, Papa; I know it is my duty to obey you by not marrying without your consent. But it can never be my duty to marry any one because you or Mamma ask me. You will ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... mischievous purposes, found but too much justification in the inefficiency and corruption of many both of the bishops and clergy, and in the rapacious and selfish policy of the government, forced to starve and cripple the public service, while great men and favourites built up their fortunes out of the prodigal indulgence of ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Montegut, Eddie McCall, Alex Washington and Henry Turner were up for failing to move on. Martin proved that he was at the scene to assist the police and was discharged. Montegut, being a cripple, was also released, but the others were fined $25 ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... this, you must also believe that I have absolute power over you," rejoined Mistress Nutter, "and might strike you with sickness, cripple you, or kill you if I ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "All I can. It's a big venture, and, if it fails, will cripple me, but I seem to feel, apart from any reason I can discern, that wheat is going up again, and I must go through with this plowing. Of course, it does ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... bit worse off than Tom Green, Nicholas, and he has not got your money, and Tom is as jolly as anything, and everybody loves him, though he is a hopeless cripple, and can't even look decent, as you will be able to in a year or two. There is no use in having this sentiment about war heroes that would make one put up with their tempers, and their cynicism! Everybody is in the same ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... angel out of his belt and threw it to him. The cripple collapsed upon the top of the piece of money and groped vainly for it with eager, outspread fingers in the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... asked Sidney calmly. "What is this mania for keeping up an effete ism? Are we to cripple our lives for the sake of a word? It's all romantic fudge, the idea of perpetual isolation. You get into little cliques and mistaken narrow-mindedness for fidelity to an ideal. I can live for months and forget there are such beings ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... men who started when I did, and some of 'em went ahead of me, but some of 'em didn't, after all. I've tried to be honest, and to do just about as nigh right as I could, and you know there's an old sayin' that a cripple in the right road will beat a ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... You have dared to attack the foreign Pashas, and you—Mohammed Abbas—!" The shopkeeper fell trembling to his knees. "Your filthy shop shall be pulled down about your ears. You make it a trap—your feet shall be bastinadoed until you are a cripple for life!" Then his rage choked him, and, wheeling, he walked over to Benton, contemptuously kicking the prostrate body of ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... such a commander-in-chief. Unless the governor-general recalls Lord Gough to the provinces, the chances ate he will not only lose the splendid army under his command, which he has already done his best to cripple and weaken, but he will so compromise the government that the most serious apprehension may be entertained as to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... woman who lives in a little village near here. She had two sons—one has been killed in the war, the other a helpless cripple for eighteen years and is not able to move out of his chair. He makes baskets sometimes, but now there is no one to buy the baskets. The mother goes out by the day but can earn so little. I gave him five francs, one of the De Monts dressing gowns and some warm underclothes. He was so grateful, ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous
... feeling and conscience—so be it. But you cannot go utterly alone. Alas! that I am too old to be of any use. Cripit verba dolor, my dear Prince, at the thought that I am over seventy and of no more account in the world than a cripple in the church porch. It seems that to sit at home and pray to God for the nation and for you is all I am fit for. But there is my son, my youngest son, Peter. He will make a worthy companion for you. And as it happens he's staying with me here. There has not been for ages a Prince S————- ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... embarrassment, and exclaimed in a modest, beseeching tone: "But, uncle, do not you, too, feel that it would be cruel and unjust to make this honest fellow a cripple in return ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... year of which I write, those two valiant Turkey merchantmen of London, the Merchant Royal and the Tobie, with their three small consorts, to cripple, off Pantellaria in the Mediterranean, the whole fleet of Spanish galleys sent to intercept them, and return triumphant through the Straits ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... years before, when she and Clem—then a child of four—had spent a long day riding to and fro in the hay waggons. Now Mrs. Rosewarne for the last few years of her life, and indeed ever since Myra could remember, had been a cripple, confined to the house or to her small garden, save only when she entered an ancient covered vehicle (called 'the Car') and was jogged into Liskeard to visit her dressmaker, or over to Damelioc to attend one of Lady Killiow's famous rose fetes. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... human duty? Don't you know that the voluptuous fumes it spreads over the cities results in the general corrosion and consumption of men's hearts? Don't you know that of every five hundred so-called artists, four hundred and ninety-nine are nothing but the cripple guard of God above? Therefore he who does not come to music with the holiest fire burning in the depths of his soul has his blood in time transformed by it into glue, his mind into ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... lads," the skipper said. "There is just one chance yet. She will run by us. The instant she is past, up sail again. We shall be a mile away before they can get her round into the wind again. If she doesn't cripple us with her shot, we may weather her yet. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... still occupied his shed undisturbed, had been ailing for some time. An attack of rheumatic fever in the summer had left him little better than a cripple. He crawled abroad still when he was able, and would do so, in spite of what Mr. Hillary said; would lie about the damp ground in a lawless, gipsying sort of manner; but by the time winter came all that was over, and Mr. Pike's career, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... boy in bad Egyptian, "for two reasons. First, because I am a cripple, see," and he held up his left arm which was withered and thin as a mummy's, "and therefore cannot work quickly. Secondly, because my mother, whose only child I am, is a widow and lies sick in bed, so that there ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... always go over his words, and feel vexed with myself, and upset even. I can't tell why. (He speaks French badly and isn't ashamed of it—I like that.) I always think a lot about new people, though. As I talked to him, I suddenly was reminded of our butler, Vassily, who rescued an old cripple out of a hut that was on fire, and was almost killed himself. Papa called him a brave fellow, mamma gave him five roubles, and I felt as though I could fall at his feet. And he had a simple face—stupid-looking even—and he took ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... that all his efforts should end in such sufferings! how exasperating it was to feel himself powerless, and to see those whom he loved and who were as innocent as himself suffer and die by reason of his own suffering and death! Ah! poor old man, cripple that he was, ending like some beast of burden that has foundered by the roadside—that goal of labour! And it was all so revolting and so monstrous that he tried to put it into words, and his desperate grief ended ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Smith recovered his usual health, though the injury to his hand and knee made him a cripple for the rest of his life. The trial was another terrible experience for Patty, and Fanny thought she would have died when she saw the prisoners stand forward in the dock to receive sentence. "Five years' penal servitude," said the judge, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... what that meant. I'd seen him cripple animals before; but that was when I first came. Since then I'd had another year to grow and to get hard and tough. I was going on eighteen and as big as I am now almost; and I wasn't afraid of him then or ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... Absence of standards, absence of amusements, the lack of contrast, these are a few of the causes that contribute towards the self-centred existence led by most inhabitants of rural communities. To prove this, one has but to think of a cripple, or a dwarf, or a drunken man, or a maniac; also, to revert to pleasanter images, of an unusual flower or animal, or of convincing and conspicuous personal beauty. What is a cripple in the city? He is passed by without a glance, for there ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... 'by far the greatest philosopher' and 'acutest thinker' of his own age, would, doubtless, be at least on a level with the greatest philosophers of the present age if he were living now. The veriest cripple that can manage to sit on horseback may contrive to crawl some few steps beyond the utmost point to which his steed has borne him, and, if those steps be uphill, may, by looking back on the course he has come, perceive where the animal has deviated from the right road. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... I could never lay abed without Aurelia's gettin' sick too. I don' know 's she could help fallin', though it ain't anyplace for a woman,—a haymow; but if it hadn't been that, 't would 'a' been somethin' else. Aurelia was born unfortunate. Now she'll probably be a cripple, and Rebecca'll have to nurse her instead of earning a good income ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that poor cripple in here amongst decent lookin' wimmen; if they pictured her at all they ought to pictured her as ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... of money to spare, and this he spent very freely for the good of the poor. When his former friends asked why he no longer cared for his riches, he pointed to a poor cripple near by, and said that money was of importance only to unhappy men like that one, who ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... cripple comes into view, start circling around her. Get into a tight circle above her." He turned back to the man in the screen. "If we can get ourselves slowed down enough, we'll do all ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled—this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's sake, give ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... sufficient to justify belief in the early success of his plans. Then there suddenly arose another sinister figure which threatened to upset all our calculations—namely, a well-timed revolt of the railway workmen, calculated to cripple our communications and make the movement of troops and ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... that he could not deceive them with open sin alone. So it seems to me that this incarnate demon is doing who has written you under colour of compassion and in holy style, for the letter purports to come from a holy and just man, and it does come from wicked men, counsellors of the devil, who cripple the common good of the Christian congregation and the reform of Holy Church, self-lovers, who seek only their own private good. But you can soon discover, father, whether it came from that just man or not. And it seems to me that, for the honour ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... had struck him in the hip and glanced off at a peculiar angle, rendering his recovery precarious and long delayed, and causing the old doctor to shake his head with the fear that he must pass the rest of his life a cripple. Still, normal youth is buoyant and vigorous and mocks at physicians' fears, and after a time, what with heart at rest, with loving and unceasing care on his mother's part, and rigorous supervision on his father's, Peter Junior did at length recover ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... to have a few people in the house to this day. I'm used to their company like, an' feel there's nothing goin' on or doing without them. Well, I grew up in time. I can't say it meself, but them as knew me then could tell you I wasn't disfigured in any way or a cripple, an' had no lack of admirers. Me an' me two sisters had 'em by the score waitin' till we grew old enough to be married. I can tell you there was some smart fellers among 'em. Those were the times! Me sisters made what is called ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... girl with the rose-colored bonnet, whom you saw riding in the carriage, is a poor little cripple. You saw her fine dress and pretty pale face, but you didn't see her little shrunken foot, dangling helplessly beneath the silken robe. You saw the white gloved coachman, and the silver-mounted harness, and the soft, velvet cushions, but you didn't see the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... sauntered back to the living-room, they made a wide detour, rather than risk crossing the space beneath the brilliant chandelier with its innocent adornment. The host, after carefully depositing the cripple in the easiest chair, smiled ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... Washington's drive to cripple and stamp out socialism-communism was accepted and followed particularly by the states with fascist leanings. Since many western states had large and influential socialist minorities and since several of them had been governed by coalitions in which socialists-communists played a substantial role, ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... mistake on their part might prevent, might spoil or cripple it. The depth and softness of his tone warned them. They stared and waited. He gathered them closer to him with both arms. Even Maria wriggled slightly ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... resolutions of vigor and exertion are so often broken or procrastinated in the execution, I think we may be excused, if we are not very punctual in fulfilling our engagements to indolence and inactivity. I have, indeed, no power of action, and am almost a cripple even with regard to thinking; but you descend with force into the stagnant pool, and you cause such a fermentation as to cure at least one impotent creature of his lameness, though it cannot enable him either to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to solace himself in his favourite element, when she immediately seized him by the leg, and took him under water; but the timely interference of Mr Dormer prevented any further mischief than making a cripple of the young duck. At another time a full-grown drake approached the well, when Mrs Fish, seeing a trespasser on her premises, immediately seized the intruder by the bill, and a desperate struggle ensued, which at last ended in the release of Mr Drake from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... trait of Gus's character, as of so many others in our luxurious age of self-pleasing, was weakness; and yet one must be insane with vanity to be at ease if he can do nothing resolutely and dare nothing great. He is a cripple, and, if not a fool, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... here to where we're goin—Goldpan. He held up some fellers that's got a mine called the Craw Door, or somethin' like that. Fetched three of his pals from Denver with him. They called 'emselves miners! God! Miners nothin'! They'd worked around Cripple Creek long enough to get union cards, but two of 'em was prize fighters, and the other used to be bouncer at the old Alcazar when she was the hottest place to lose money that ever turned a crooked card. I remember ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... saying he had no idea it was so late," he hazarded. "If I thank you for what you have said I am afraid it must be as the patient thanks the surgeon for the knife-stroke which leaves him a cripple ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... my father was too easily content with such teachers as the different places of my residence could supply, and it might now be apprehended that I should continue for life an illiterate cripple; but as I approached my sixteenth year, nature displayed in my favour her mysterious energies: my constitution was fortified and fixed, and my disorders ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Infidell in loue, When I doe speake of thy diuinitie, May blaspheme thus, and say I flatter thee, And onely write my skill in verse to proue. See myracles, ye vnbeleeuing! see A dumbe-born Muse made to expresse the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One by thy name, the other touching thee. Blind were mine eyes, till they were seene of thine, And mine eares deafe by thy fame healed be; My vices cur'd by vertues sprung from thee, My hopes reuiu'd, which long in graue had lyne: All vncleane thoughts, foule spirits, ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... there had come upon the little village street the inevitable hush which preceded Hyldebrand's hour for exercise, I espied the village cripple making for his home with the celerity of an A 1 man. He glared reproachfully at me, and, with an exclamation of "Sacre sanglier!" vanished in the open doorway of the local boulangerie, that being nearer than his cottage. Then came Hyldebrand, froth on his snout and murder in his little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... of my mind. The picture of the mate and the cripple facing each other keeps leaping up under my eyelids. This is different from the books and from what I know of existence. It is revelation. Life is a profoundly amazing thing. What is this bitter flame that informs Mulligan Jacobs? How dare he—with no hope of ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... didactic and gibbering in his madness. Then the boat-hook he wielded with a circular sweep began to take grotesque shapes in my heated fancy; now it was the antenna of a groping insect, now the crank of a cripple's selfpropelled perambulator, now the alpenstock of a lunatic mountaineer, who sits in his chair and climbs and climbs to some phantom 'watershed'. At the back of such mind as was left me lodged two insistent thoughts: 'we must hurry on,' 'we are going wrong.' As to the latter, take a link-boy through ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... beauty and brightness that God has given us, I want to tell you the story of Jennie Casseday and what she did to bring beauty and gladness into the world. You may think that Jennie couldn't do very much, because she was a poor little cripple girl. She lived at Louisville, Kentucky. When she was small, she was just as lively and happy as any other little girl; but one day she suffered from a terrible accident and from that time she was helpless. I am going to draw a picture of Jennie's crutch to represent her suffering ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... have scorned the suggestion. In Siegfried he goes by no means so far; but he goes quite far enough. Siegfried is no idiot; but he certainly is an unamiable, truculent savage. He has been reared by a dwarf and cripple, Mime, and the first we see of him is on his entry with a wild bear in leash, which beast he drives at his terrified foster-father. The justification is that he feels instinctively that Mime is bad, low and cunning—and it does not ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... gruff voice greet The cripple with "On time to-night?" Then, as he handed out the sheet, The Youngster's answer-"You're all right. My other reg'lars are a little late. They'll find I'm short one paper when they come; You see, a strange guy bought one in ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... face She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space, Then slowly falls—'tis I who feel that touch. And when she sudden shakes her head, with such A look, I soon her secret meaning trace. So when she runs I think 'tis I who race. Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch I am if she is gone; and when she goes, I know not why, for that is a strange art— As if myself should from myself depart. I know not if I love her more than those Who long her light have ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... yet degenerated into lawlessness—the constitution combines the advantages of the monarchical and republican forms of government—the Legislative Assembly, to a great extent, represents the people—religious toleration is enjoyed in the fullest degree—taxation and debt, which cripple the energies and excite the disaffection of older communities, are unfelt—the slave flying from bondage in the south knows no sense of liberty or security till he finds both on the banks of the St. Lawrence, under ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... after the capture of the notorious robbers, a poor cripple hobbled up to the porter's lodge, dragging himself painfully along by the aid of a stick in one hand and a ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... [Obs.]; failure &c 732. helplessness &c adj.; prostration, paralysis, palsy, apoplexy, syncope, sideration^, deliquium [Lat.], collapse, exhaustion, softening of the brain, inanition; emasculation, orchiotomy [Med.], orchotomy [Med.]. cripple, old woman, muff, powder puff, creampuff, pussycat, wimp, mollycoddle; eunuch. V. be impotent &c adj.; not have a leg to stand on. vouloir rompre l'anguille au genou [Fr.], vouloir prendre la lune avec les dents [Fr.]. collapse, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... strong for the deed, and a desperate blow fell upon the wrist of the lord, and his hand was nearly severed from the arm. An awed silence followed the doughty deed. Then out spoke the lord: "Let no man touch the pair. Of all warriors this cripple is the greatest, because in his weakness he has dared ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... to the selfsame God For His blessing on battle and murder and corpse-strewn, blood-soaked sod. Oh, fools! if God were a woman, think you She would let kin slay For gold-lust and craft of gamesters, or cripple that ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... he and the drovers were yet dressing, they were alarmed by a discharge of guns, which killed one and wounded another of his party. The others endeavored to save themselves by flight; but Carpenter being a cripple (because of a wound received some years before) did not run far, when finding himself becoming faint, he entered a pond of water where he fondly hoped he should escape observation. But no! both he and a son who had likewise ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the Russians in the Principalities the avowed cause of war, had in reality other intentions than the mere expulsion of the intruder and the restoration of the state of things previously existing. It was their desire so to cripple Russia that it should not again be in a condition to menace the Ottoman Empire. This intention made it impossible for the British Cabinet to name, as the basis of a European league, that single definite object for which, and for which alone, all the Powers were in May, 1854, ready to unite ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... concentrates her whole starboard broadside. The effect is startling and terrible. Confusion prevails on board the enemy—almost panic, indeed; and this lasts long enough for the frigate to sail back on the other tack. Jack's object is to cripple her, and with this object in view he concentrates his larboard broadside again in the stern of the seventy-four, and her rudder is a ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... freedom in the shepherd tribes finds an ally against aggression in the trackless sands, meager water and food supply of their wilderness. Pursuit of the retreating tribesmen is dangerous and often futile. They need only to burn off the pasture and fill up or pollute the water-holes to cripple the transportation and commissariat of the invading army. This is the way the Damaras have fought the German subjugation of Southwest Africa.[1109] Moreover, the paucity of economic and political possibilities in deserts ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... childless lady; that he had run away with three horses he was in charge of; had been lost for a whole year, and no doubt, convinced by experience of the drawbacks and hardships of a wandering life, he had gone back, a cripple, and flung himself at his mistress's feet. He succeeded in a few years in smoothing over his offence by his exemplary conduct, and, gradually getting higher in her favour, at last gained her complete confidence, was made a bailiff, and on his mistress's death, turned out—in what way was ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... jeering crowd he past, One pitying look old Hiram cast; "Go it, ye cripple, while ye can!" Cried out unsentimental Dan; "A Fast-Day dinner for the crows!" ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... hero to every one who knew of his coolness and pluck, in spite of his recognized weakness—had returned to his father's house on Kennedy Square on crutches, there to consult some specialists, the leg still troubling him. As the cripple's bedroom was at the top of the first flight of stairs, the steps of which—it being summer—were covered with China matting, he was obliged to drag himself up its incline whenever he was in want of something he must fetch himself. One of these necessities was a certain squat bottle like ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... welcome to the half-reclaimed moorland; ague and typhus were frequent visitors, and disabling rheumatism a more permanent companion to labourers exhausted by long wet walks in addition to the daily toil. At an age less than that of the Earl himself, he beheld a bowed and broken cripple. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in frantic joy, seems to her more precious than a pearl collar is to the mistress of a prince-bishop of Cologne and Salzburg. To really understand our spiritual and true interests we should rather envy the life of that cripple who crawls towards us on his hands than that of the King of France or the Emperor of Germany, Being equal before God, they perhaps have peace in their hearts, which the other has not, and the invaluable treasure of innocence. But hold up your petticoats, mademoiselle, for fear ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... thought fit to give him a Writ of Ejectment, and afterwards drown him out of Possession I know not what would have been the Case, he might have kept his Hold for ought I know till the Seed of the Woman came to bruise his Head, that is to say, cripple his Government, Dethrone him and Depose his Power, as has been fulfill'd in ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... and assures the success of the spectacle. The curtain falls in a gust of applause, is stormed up again, Demas comes forward and makes a neat speech, announcing the author. Que salga! roar the gods,—"Trot him out!" A shabby young cripple hobbles to the front, leaning upon a crutch, his sallow face flushed with a hectic glow of pride and pleasure. He also makes a glib speech,—I have never seen a Spaniard who could not,—disclaiming all credit for himself, but lauding the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... stampede they'll go anyhow, so we may as well take our medicine with a good grace. The loss of even a hundred men would cripple us." ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... irreconcilable conflict with the other, and each of whom speaks from the grave today to a concourse of followers. These two poets did not "flourish" in the twentieth century, because the disciple of the bodily Pan was a cripple, and the disciple of the spiritual Christ was a gutter-snipe; but they both lived, lived abundantly, and wrote real poetry. I refer to William Ernest Henley, who died in 1903, and to Francis Thompson, who ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... an old cripple, with a trumpet at his ear, and in this trumpet a person in a bag-wig roars in a manner that cannot much gratify the auricular nerves of his companions; but as for the object to whom the voice is directed, he seems totally insensible to sounds, and if judgment ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... more time in exploring this region; but the sea-stores of his vessel were exhausted, he was suffering from a difficulty with his eyes, caused by overwatching, and was also a cripple from gout. He resisted the temptation, therefore, to make further explorations on the coast of Paria, and passed westward and northwestward. He made many discoveries of islands in the Caribbean Sea as he went northwest, and ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... Carter is a cripple. In 1933 he fell and broke his right thigh-bone and since that time he has walked with a crutch. He stays up quite a lot and is always glad to welcome visitors. He possesses a noble character and is admired by his friends and neighbors. Tall, straight, lean of body, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... The papers are in the barouche." After that he seemed to take it into his head that I was going to assault him again. He bolted out of sight, and I was left facing the admiral. He stared at me contemptuously. I was streaming with perspiration and upbraiding him for assaulting a cripple. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... about twenty years of age, with a gentle, interesting countenance, but, to the irrepressible grief of his father, is a hopeless cripple. His left leg is miserably deformed, and he is quite unable to walk without the assistance of a stick. It is obvious that the father's life is bound up with that of his son; his devotion is unceas- ing; every thought, every glance is for Andre; he seems to anticipate ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... the truth, for they could have no wish to deceive each other, and no fear of eaves-droppers not to be born till centuries afterwards. These conversations have revealed to us that the Lord Treasurer and three of his colleagues had been secretly doing their best to cripple Leicester, to stop the supplies for the Netherlands, and to patch up a hurried and unsatisfactory, if not a disgraceful peace; and this, with the concurrence of her Majesty. After their plots had been discovered by the vigilant Secretary of State, there was a disposition to discredit ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... busy life were over; a heavenly calm had ensued—solemn, serene, peaceful—no agony of prayer, no ecstasy of spirit, no shouts of transport, no fiery trials. Her infirmities accumulate, but still she rejoices in sacred, hallowed peace. She becomes a cripple, almost confined to her bed, and continues so for years; but her mind retains its strength and serenity, and her whole heart rejoices in God, her ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... stealing jewelry nearly ever since we came here and the police have been watching him but he did not know this and so he had grown quite foolhardy, and this morning in broad daylight he went into some sort of jewelry or pawn shop where there was only a boy watching the shop, and the boy was a cripple. Cousin Willie had planned to hide the things under his coat and to sneak out but the boy saw what he was doing and cried out, and when Cousin Willie tried to break out of the shop he hobbled to the door and threw himself in the way. And then it was ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... fallen awry, Like an old cripple's bones, And Eldred's tools were red with rust, And on his well was a green crust, And purple thistles upward thrust, Between the ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... have been sitting back planning the future of men and women as they planned the cards of their sniggering skat games, would awake to a sun dripping blood." He paused for a moment. "And as for that psychiatric cripple, their mouthpiece," he concluded sombrely, "that maimed man who broods over battle-fields, he would find a creeping horror in his brain like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... personage was bent and seemingly old, but he was younger than he looked, though he was not extremely fair to look upon. He had a shock of grizzled hair, a short, stiff, unpleasant beard, and the condition of one of his legs made him a cripple of an exaggerated type. He could hobble about and on great occasions make a journey of some length, but he was practically debarred from hunting. The extraordinary curvature of his twisted leg was, as usual in his time, the result of an encounter with some wild beast. The limb curved ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... arrested deputies were united. Couthon, who was a cripple, had gone home. The others sent for him, and Robespierre signed a letter by which he was informed that the insurrection was in full activity. This message, and the advice which he forwarded from his shelter with the police prove ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Cripple's purty good. Foot all tied up in bloody rags, arm an' hand tied up, a couple o' old crutches. I could lend the clo'es. They'd be short fer yeh, but that'd be all the better gag. We cud swap an' I'd do the gen'lman act a while." He looked covetously ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the title it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... husband?" he asked. She was not very willing to talk; but it appeared at last that Mike was her husband, and that having become a cripple through rheumatism, he had not been able to work on the roads. In this condition he and his should of course have gone into a poor-house. It was easy enough to give such advice in such cases when one ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... sister like you'd ketch a woodchuck; you've stuck your fingers into my business in her name—but that's jest about as fur as you can go with me. There was only one man ever tried to advise me about gitting married—and he's still a cripple. There was no man ever tried to recite love poetry to ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... happen, he would be left without resources. Ten thousand dollars! Could he raise the amount? Possibly. But to pay it out to a blackmailer! To be held up thus in road-agent fashion, without a single means of redress! Would it not cripple him financially? Genslinger could do his worst. He, Magnus, would brave it out. Was ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... says he, clapping the pistol to my ear again. "Though a fool in many ways, Marty, you're proper enough man to look at and 'twill be pity to cripple ye! Aye, there won't be much left when Sam is done wi' you, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... a thousand feet, three rockets rose into the air and burst into three showers of stars, one red, one white, and the other blue. It was the Tricolour in the air, and the signal from the French Admiral to commence the attack. Castellan's orders were to cripple or sink the battleships of the Reserve Fleet which was moored in two divisions in ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the flame of war. The United States was now almost the only nation neutral in Napoleon's wars. To cripple English commerce, Napoleon forbids neutral nations trading at English ports. By way of retaliation England forbids neutral nations trading with French ports; and the United States strikes back by closing American ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... through the bodies of the wounded soldiers, I was helping to drive home the attack upon our enemy. By our enemy I do not mean anything as concretely commonplace as the German nation. One scarcely considered Germany as a definite personality. One was resolved to cripple its power because one believed that power to be a menace to the helpless, the innocent, the lovers of truth and beauty; but that resolve, although it never altered, seemed (the nearer one approached the citadel) in some ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... girls who all make a point of 'casting' shoes and stockings when they get to the country in summer, and declare they are much happier without. Their father and mother should be so, any way, considering the saving in hosiers' and shoemakers' bills. But in the case of my poor little cripple it was pitiful; for the weather was so cold, and the thin legs and feet so red, and the poor twisted-up one looked so ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... a cripple, even in my business," demurred Mern. "I have flashes of decency," he continued, dryly. "You seem to be particularly set on getting to the lumberjack, Latisan. Can't you do him up, and then let Flagg have half a show ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... was nearly over. The glowing slug in the machine was now obviously trying to capture the remaining men alive for further use. Instead of slaying, its lashing arms fought only to stun and cripple. ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... of you please be good enough to hand me my crutch and cane. Dear me, what a thing it is to be a cripple!" ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... veins of melancholy by which both character and life were crossed. That glittering prince of circumstance as he had once foreseen him, was still enshrined in memory and fancy; but the real man was knit to the cripple's inmost heart. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... belligerency from the moment they decided to speak; but they could not but be supremely anxious concerning the expression of that belligerency, since their international position had for years been such that a single false move might cripple them. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... well as run the risk of lots of other troubles which are always present when sailing under water," observed Mr Damon, who wandered about the submarine like the nervous person he was. "Bless my shirt-studs! Can't we blow them up, or cripple them in some way? They have no right to go ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... said Fausta, 'there must be some evil influence abroad that shall cripple the powers of others yet more. However, let me try; for I have promised to prove to our Roman friend that the women, of Palmyra know the use of arms not ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... racers on the track of earth. The king, the millionaire, the statesman, the lawmaker, the beggar, the laborer, the cripple, we are all in the dark. The only thing is to trust the hand of the Master, and ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... active-looking man was heard advising earnestly from a distance. He was in the pink of condition for his age, and even the texture of his long frock coat had a character of elastic soundness, as if it were a living tissue. "The man is virtually a cripple," ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... does in not a few instances, just in consequence of our religious differences. Are there millions of the people sinking into brutality and ignorance, and do our rulers originate a scheme of education in their behalf?—our religious differences straightway step in to arrest and cripple the design. Are there whole districts of country subjected to famine, and are we roused, both as Britons and as Christians, to contribute of our substance for their relief?—our religious differences immediately interfere; and ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller |
