"Elbow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... structure would have compensated him, I dare say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really few to bear, beyond the compound of flavours I have already mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn't room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... most extraor-rdinary affair," said a voice at my elbow, and I turned with a start to see that the chair just behind me had been taken by a man who was also reading an account of the crime. He laid the paper down, and caught my eye. "A most extraor-rdinary affair!" ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and her elbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell of grass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird's five-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like some new, gigantic kind of grasshopper, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... straightened her back and looked ice at him. But the butler was at her elbow, whispering. "Colonel Boyce?" she repeated. "What Colonel ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... from the case, the doctor cut open the shirt from the neck to the elbow. The shoulder was terribly swollen and inflamed, and a little exclamation of pain ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... great knock. After that he walks round the house, north about. It happened that Hrut was awake. He sprang up at once, and put on his jerkin and pulled on his shoes. Then he took up his sword, and wrapped a cloak about his left arm, up as far as the elbow. Men woke up just as he went out; there he saw a tall stout man at the back of the house, and knew it was Thiostolf. Hrut asked ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... action, I am not one to turn back. Warner drove me; he was plainly disgusted, and he steered the livery horse as he would the Dragon Fly, feeling uneasily with his left foot for the clutch, and working his right elbow at an imaginary horn every time a ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... talking, one foot on the rail, his elbow resting on the bar, and with his head turned he was looking back at Tenison, who stood directly opposite him behind the bar. Laramie submitted to the dictation without further protest: "A man will try anything once," was his ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... nights the lightnings in the sky over five mountains, and as they came to the summit of the last, they saw a valley beneath them, and lo! the gods. For there the gods sat, each on a marble hill, each sitting with an elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his hand, and all the gods were smiling about Their lips. And below them there were armies of little men, and about the feet of the gods they fought against each other and slew one another for the honour of the gods, and for the glory of the name of ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... exactly because it will not be cruel, that we intend to do it,"—here I nudged Rupert with my elbow, as a hint that I wanted assistance; but he made no other reply than an answering nudge, which I interpreted into as much as if he had said in terms, "You've got into the scrape in your own way, and you may get out of it in the same manner." "Yes," ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... of his head raised the cloth an inch at a time, and despite Sykes' efforts to hold the garment with his elbow, it slipped back time and again. McGuire straightened at intervals to draw a choking breath and ease the strain upon his tortured wrists; then back again in his desperate contortions to worry at the cloth and pull and hold—and try again to raise the heavy pocket where ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... such confusion that, amongst the number of faces, he could scarcely distinguish one from another; but he felt somebody at this moment pull his elbow, and, to his great relief, he heard the friendly voice and saw the good-natured face of ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally; that ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... be silent, thou knowest not what thou {81} sayest; this picture gratifies a nobler sense than thy work, which is for the blind. Give me an object which I can see and touch and not only hear, and blame not my choice in having placed thy work beneath my elbow, while I hold the work of the painter with both my hands before my eyes, because my very hands have chosen to serve a worthier sense than ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... Del Bishop and surveyed the sodden confusion on the table. Then he walked over and threw himself down on his bunk. Bishop leaned an elbow on the table and pulled at his wheezy pipe. The lamp smoked, flickered, and went out; but still he remained, filling his pipe again and again ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... now in her native mood. He saw before him the true child of the prairie such as she really was. She was clad in a blue dungaree habit and straw sun-hat, and he marveled at the ravishing picture she made. He raised himself upon his elbow and stared at her, and a sensation of delight swept over him as he devoured each detail of face and figure. Then, suddenly, he was recalled to his senses by the abrupt fading of the smile from the face before him; and he flushed with a rueful ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... favourite haunt of the girl's, for as he crossed the adjoining meadow he saw her in front of him, lying flat upon a carpet of wild flowers, now shadowed by the trees, her chin resting in one palm and her elbow upon the ground. In her right hand she held a brush, which now and again she applied with apparent carelessness to a drawing lying on the grass before her, but without ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... gave a stifled gasp. It seemed to him that Harper's arm vanished at the elbow as it stabbed forward, then reappeared. Once again ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... a shame for young wives to show their uncovered hair and feet to the male relatives of their husbands. On the other side, the male relatives of the husband ought to avoid showing to the young wife the body uncovered above the elbow or the sole of the foot, and they ought to avoid indecent expressions and vulgar vituperations in her presence.... That these observances are not the result of a specially delicate modesty, is proved by the fact that even young girls constantly ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Here was an open space of an acre or more, in the centre of which was a low, altar-like structure of stone. At the end of the narrow path, being still within its shelter, I stopped to make a careful survey of the ground before me; for I realized that in what I was doing Death stood close at my elbow, and that, unless I acted warily, he surely would have me in his grasp. Coming out of the shadows of the woods and the deeper shadows of the sunken path to this wide open space, where the light of the brilliant sunset was reflected strongly from ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... subject. But late that night he sought his sister. She was sitting on the stone balcony which led from her own suite of rooms, her elbow upon the worn balustrade, her clear, beautiful face clouded with thought. For the first time Nicholas noticed a change in her. She was thinner, and there were dark lines under her eyes. A vague trouble was in ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... to your elbow! an may your shadda never be less! for you're the broth of a boy intirely. An how can I help you? Command me to the last dhrop o ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... on the table, unconscious. His right arm was shattered midway between the shoulder and elbow. I thought he had fainted from loss of blood, but the next moment I saw plainly enough ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... spectacles again he turned to the patent reading-desk, which immediately, as his elbow came against its arm, gave a coquettish squeak and deposited the paper, with all its diagrams in a dispersed and crumpled state, on the floor. "By Jove!" said Mr. Bensington, straining his stomach over the armchair with a patient disregard of the ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... him. The following are several of his replies: (1) "A woman sitting on a man, seems like she's got a little weaving in her hand; a little stick, sticking out from the weaving, seems like the man's elbow is sticking out back of the shawl." (2) "It seems to me I have seen a volcano that looks like that. I think it is a ship out at sea. I can see the lifeboats lashed to the side, several ripples of water behind." (3) "A figure of a woman with ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... so before I came to the turn in my road the forest withdrew on both sides, yielding space to the fields and elbow-room for the wind to unfold its wings. As soon as its full force struck the cutter, the curtains began to emit that crackling sound which indicates to the sailor that he has turned his craft as far into the ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... is here, though! Jones junior, put your elbow through that window! This champagne is boiling. What a tiresome time we shall have to-morrow, when the Frenchmen are gone! Ah, Count, there you are at last! Ready for the German? Come for me? Just primed and up to anything, and so ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... point there can be little doubt. Sir Charles H. Knowles gives us to understand that Howe still had Hoste's Treatise at his elbow, and with Hoste for his mentor we may be sure that, in common with other tactical students of his time, he soon convinced himself that Rodney's manoeuvre was usually dangerous and always imperfect. Knowles himself in his old age, though ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... peasant woman in short skirt, heavy shoes and big apron, her arms bared to the elbow, a saucepan in one hand, a ladle in the other. She ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... probably, or maybe they are imps—whose business in life seems to be to catch up any needed trifle—a suddenly dropped needle, the very leaf in the morning paper that the reader held a moment ago and that holds "continuations," the scissors just now at his elbow, his collar button—and to hide it until the loser swears ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... men Were in their place that morn; And Corporal Dick, who yester-noon Stood six brave fellows on, Now touched my elbow in the ranks, For all between ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... the heat of the rays of the sun. He taught him to notice the chamois, in order to learn from them how to jump, so as to alight steadily upon the feet. If there was no resting place in the clefts of the rock for the foot, he must know how to support himself with the elbow, and be able to climb by means of the muscles of the thigh and calf, even the neck must serve when it is necessary. The chamois are cunning, they place out-guards—but the hunter must be still more cunning and follow the trail—and he can deceive them by hanging his coat and hat on his ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it —a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side. The blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... into a seat before a secretaire, and shielded his eyes from the sun. A burnt-out candle stood at his elbow; and in a line before him were ranged such images as remained to him of his dead—a dozen or more daguerrotypes, of various sizes: Emma and he before marriage and after marriage; Emma with her first babe, at different stages of its growth; Emma with the two children; Emma ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... other, and seemingly inconsistent, tendencies of the emperor, which yet seemed all to point to a like disquieting conclusion. For Madame de Krudener was not the only influence behind the throne; and, though Alexander had declared war against the Revolution, Laharpe was once more at his elbow, and the catchwords of the gospel of humanity were still on his lips. The very proclamations which denounced Napoleon as "the genius of evil,'' denounced him in the name of "liberty,'' and of "enlightenment.'' A monstrous intrigue was suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... walking about and talking to Bevan and other fellows dressed like himself in midshipmen's uniforms; and then he went into the berth, and took his seat among the others at dinner. It was just as Jack had described it; not very large, but, till the rest of the mess had joined, with just sufficient elbow-room. They had plenty of good things, for the caterer, old Higson, was something of an epicure; and Tom tasted grog for the first time, which he thought very nasty stuff, though he did not say so, as he knew that ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... faces were lifted from the table. Bonnithorne sat with head bent. Drayton leaned an elbow on ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... goes into the garden, and his people follow; and he sees a goodly gentleman reclining on a cloth of silk and leaning on his elbow; and a maiden was sitting before him reading out of a romance, I know not whose the story. And to listen to the romance a lady had drawn near; that was her mother, and he was her father, and well ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... my knife-stroke by a desperate wrench, but the blade ripped his right arm to the bone from shoulder to elbow, laming it absolutely. Even as it was, he lowered his weapon and fired it instantly as it was seized. An Englishman named Williams was struck through the body and lived but a moment afterward. Chips now had the weapon by the barrel, and ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... was cross-chiselled in a delicate but deep design, picked out with rough gems, set with cunning irregularity; the guard, a hollowed disk of steel, graven and inlaid in gold with Kufic characters; the blade, as long as a man's arm from the elbow to the wrist-joint, forged of steel and silver by a smith of Damascus, well balanced, slender, with deep blood-channels scored on each side to within four fingers of the thrice-hardened point, that could prick as delicately as a needle or pierce fine mail like a spike driven by ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... comfortable. He was smoking one of my best cigars, and a whisky and soda stood at his elbow. He looked up from behind the ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... new regiment was breathless with horror. "Gawd! Saunders's got crushed!" whispered the man at the youth's elbow. They shrank back and crouched as if compelled to ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... answering calls, containing a scarcely concealed note of encouragement. At a window in the kitchen there appeared a head and arm thrust out. Eddring saw it and pointed. "Why don't you shoot, man?" said the slow voice of Bowles at his elbow. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... him with a nod, unsmiling and curt, and the elevator-boys at the Pratt building were careful not to elbow him. He had the greed of a wolf and the temper of an aging bear, and yet his business ability admittedly commanded respect. Everything he did had a certain sweep. He was not penurious or mean in his wars. On ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... girl, in an earnest tone of entreaty; "don't, oh, don't swear so. It is awful to think that God hears you, is near you— at your very elbow—while you thus insult ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... drop it also and sink down, struck by the bullet which drilled through the window. Johnny let out a yell of rage, grabbed his Colt, and ran to the door in time to see Edwards slowly raise up on one elbow, fire his last shot, and ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... explanation flashed upon us both, simultaneously, and with a cry of baffled rage Smith leaped along the passage to the second door. It was wide open. I stood at his elbow when he swept its emptiness with the ray of ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Middelburg are more comely and winsome than any in Holland. Their lace caps are like driven snow, their cheeks shine like apples. But their way with their arms I cannot commend. The sleeve of their bodices ends far above the elbow, and is made so tight that the naked arm below expands on attaining its liberty, and by constant and intentional friction takes the hue of the tomato. What, however, is to our eyes only a suggestion of inflammation, is to the Zeelander a beauty. While our impulse is to recommend cold cream, ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... man they wished to see, had left his shop before they reached it, and was sitting in an open room at the back of his house eating his dinner. His red flannel shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, showing his coarse, sinewy arms; and his hair was all in a tangle; but the moment Mr. Curtis saw him, he stepped forward, and shook hands as cordially as if they had ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... accepted. The men ranged along the bar, elbow to elbow; the bartenders served and, with a nod toward the man who stood treat, poured their own red wine. Even Ortega, though he made no attempt toward a civil response, drank. The more liquor poured into a man's stomach ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... have been suffering intense pain from his wound, his features were calm and composed. He tried to rise as the hunters entered, but could not raise himself even on his elbow. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... stood, and was soon performing a conveniently noisy German march. Vincent sat still for some moments watching Mabel. He wished to keep in his memory the impression of her face as he saw it then, lighted up by the soft glow of the heavily shaded lamp at her elbow; a spirited and yet tender face, with dark-grey eyes, a sensitive, beautiful mouth, and brown hair with threads of gold in it which gleamed in the lamplight as ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... many faculties are practically lost for want of use. "The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.... Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things.... The priest becomes a form; the attorney a statute book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... really greatly obliged to you, and I shall read the REPORT with genuine interest. More power to your elbow! Faithfully yours." ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... had hardly begun to string his beads when Little John commenced to elbow a path for himself through the crowd. He roughly thrust the soldiers aside as if they had been so many children, and came up to the edge of the cart. "I pray you, Will, take leave of your true friend here before ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... divine the "Sources" and the inspiration of The Age of Bronze than to place the reader au courant with the literary and political causerie of the day. Byron wrote with O'Meara's book at his elbow, and with batches of Galignani's Messenger, the Morning Chronicle, and Cobbett's Weekly Register within his reach. He was under the impression that his lines would appear as an anonymous contribution to The Liberal, and, in any case, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... old Dill protested that Mr. Carlyle was engaged until he could protest no longer. He went in, deprecatingly. Mr. Carlyle sat yet with the newspaper before him, and the letters unopened at his elbow. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... years a delicate, sickly creature, and many a night his mother trembled lest the feeble light of his life should be extinguished before dawn. At such times she would sit in the dark, low bedroom, leaning her elbow on the edge of his little bed, gazing with feverish eyes at his little thin body, which was painfully ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... her husband in the side with her elbow, and whispers—"The dairy-mother," but the carl would not utter a word. So she screamed ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... have thought that his purpose was to carry the position by storm; for, whether moved by the influence of spring, or whether moved by a push from behind, he pressed forward with such desperate resolution that his elbow caused the Commissioner of Taxes to stagger on his feet, and would have caused him to lose his balance altogether but for the supporting row of guests in the rear. Likewise the Postmaster was made to give ground; whereupon he turned and eyed Chichikov with mingled astonishment and subtle irony. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... all beauty and commodity; and while operating on it laboriously, and drawing quick returns, the American began to drink in inspiration from it aesthetically. At the same time, in so broad a continent, he had elbow-room. His neighbours helped more than they hindered him; he wished their number to increase. Good will became the great American virtue; and a passion arose for counting heads, and square miles, and cubic feet, and minutes saved—as if there had been anything to save them for. How strange to ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... no hat on, the sleeves of her cotton blouse were rolled up over her elbow, and she wore still the big rough apron she had donned for scrubbing. It struck her, as she crossed the river, that the wind was very cold, and that the day was grey and cheerless, now the clouds had ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... the strength of my having let fall some casual remark—simply by way of saying something and keeping the conversation going—to the effect that I wondered what Anatole was going to give us for dinner, she said that I was too material and ought not always to be thinking of food. Material, my elbow! As a matter of fact, I'm ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... citizens, had adopted this singular panoply, which had the advantage of being soft, and warm, and flexible, as well as safe. And he now sat in his judicial elbow-chair—a short, rotund figure, hung round, as it were, with cushions, for such was the appearance of the quilted garments; and with a nose protruded from under the silken casque, the size of which, together with the unwieldiness of the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... little distance away, where he stood with his arms folded, looking out to sea. He seemed much too occupied with something of personal interest to concern himself with a woman's fainting-spell. The girl lifted herself slowly to her elbow, and then, before Gordon could assist her, rose with a quick, graceful movement and stood erect upon her feet. She placed a detaining hand for an instant on the ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... A tennis-elbow-like fatigue syndrome resulting from excessive use of a {WIMP environment}. Similarly, 'mouse shoulder'; GLS reports that he used to get this a lot before he ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... as to confront her fully, his elbow struck from the table, a bronze paper-weight which rolled just beyond his reach. Instinctively she stooped to pick it up, and in restoring it, her fingers touched his. Leaning suddenly forward he grasped her wrists ere she was aware ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... distinctly a submarine device which is worthy of brief description. It is, in effect, a long tube, with an elbow joint at the top and a similar one at the bottom. At the elbow joints at both ends are arranged reflectors. The reflector in the upper end catches the object which comes within the range of vision, and reflects the image down the tube to the mirror at the lower elbow, where the pilot ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... plucked from the slime of the gutter, set apart from all sweetening influences of loving contact with, womankind, should be able so gallantly and respectfully to guide the young girl through the darkness, touching her little elbow distantly, tactfully, reverently, exactly as the college president helps his wife across the road on Sabbath to the church? Is it only instinct, come down from some patrician ancestor of gallant ways and kind, or have you watched and caught the knack from ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... minute in the kitchen, where his wife, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, now resumed the interrupted washing of the breakfast dishes—perhaps with vague visions of that ever-receding time to come when they might have a hired girl to do such work. Then he wandered off into ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Trojan warrior smote King Agamemnon on the mid-arm, below the elbow, and the point of his spear went clean through. Still he went through the ranks of the Trojans, slaying with spear and sword. And then the blood dried upon his wound and a sharp pain came upon him and he cried out, "O friends and captains! It is not possible for me to ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... expression instantly melted, but she did not smile—she grinned. Bobby knew precisely the cause of that amused expression, but if he had needed an interpreter, he had one at his elbow in the person of Biff Bates, who looked up at him with a reflection ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... "cuts" home upon their backs to the distant town. All was so bright in this little cottage,—so tidy and serene,—that the very air seemed clearer there than in the open street. The humble furniture, good of its kind, was all shiny with "elbow grease," and some parts of it looked quaint and well-preserved, like the heirlooms of a careful cottage ancestry. The well polished fire-irons, and other metal things, seemed to gather up the diffuse daylight and fling it back in concentrated radiances that illuminated the shady cottage ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... that Place for his great Wisdom and his Broad Band. He contracted his Mouth with much Gravity, and, that he might dispose his Mind to be more serious than ordinary, began the Tune of The Children in the Wood, and went through part of it with good Success; when on a sudden the Wit at his Elbow, who had appeared wonderfully grave and attentive for some time, gave him a Touch upon the left Shoulder, and stared him in the Face with so bewitching a Grin, that the Whistler relaxed his Fibres into a kind of Simper, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the dreariness did not last. Mrs. Dodge had provided a home-made banquet, and the happy company sat down to it, twenty strong, or more. Then the thing happened which always happens at large dinners, and is always exasperating: everybody talked to his elbow-mates and all talked at once, and gradually raised their voices higher, and higher, and higher, in the desperate effort to be heard. It was like a riot, an insurrection; it was an intolerable volume of noise. Presently I said ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... old, when I Woke in my mother's lap; for since I died The past lay bare, even to the dreaming shy That shadowed my yet gathering unborn brain. And, marvelling, on the floor I saw, close by My elbow-pillowed head, as if it had lain Beside me all the time I dreamless lay, A little pool of sunlight, which did stain The earthen brown with gold; marvelling, I say, Because, across the sea and through ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of them he observed a clear space beside the singer. The night was dark, features could not be discerned, even forms were not easily recognisable. He glided into the open space, and silently but promptly sat down on the deck beside Aileen. His elbow even touched one of the folds of her garment. He went straight into ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... rifle against the stonework of the window-frame and shot with care until his magazine was empty. Behind him a man, simply grazed on the elbow, was wildly sobbing like a girl. "Damn it, shut up!" said Morton, without turning his head. Before him was a vista of a garden, fields, clumps of trees, woods, populated at the time with little ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... the street was virtually empty, when a girl who had looked at him sharply in passing turned and followed him, and after a glance about to see that no policeman was in sight, stepped to his side and touched him on the elbow. Peter paused, and his heart contracted. He had seen among the negroes the careless unmorality as of animals. There was nothing of the prude in him, but, perhaps because all his life there had been a Vision before his eyes, he had retained a ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... He just imagined it. I used to grab hold of his arm, to shake him awake mornings, and I'd happen to hit his funny bone in his elbow. You know how it is when you hit your elbow in a certain place—it makes it feel as though pins and needles were sticking ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... Sosthene, without turning his eyes. But the next moment an unusual sound at his elbow drew his glance upon Zosephine. "Diable!" He glared at her weeping eyes, his manner demanding of her instant explanation. She retreated a step, moved her hand toward the approaching ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Tim was doing with his arm, it is impossible to conjecture, but he knocked his elbow against that part of the window which was quite on the other side of Miss La Creevy; and it is clear that it could have ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... captain. "Yes, sir, and yer mother, too. And when Captain Price Bottom says he know'd a man, he means it. Your father and me was rivals!" Here he touched Tite on the elbow, and winked significantly. "That is—well, it's rather a delicate subject—he courted yer mother, and so did I! There, sir, there's just what it is. She was as trim a young craft then as ever spread sails, and as full of goodness and ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... "Right on his—his elbow," Bunny answered, pointing to the middle part of Toby's leg, where it bent. "There's a fly right on ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... 66 stitches, and knit 78 rows: this is for the coloured part, and in sewing it together at the elbow, it must be rather tightened; and for the cuff, which is done in white, cast on 18 stitches and knit 66 rows, and sew it very nicely ...
— Exercises in Knitting • Cornelia Mee
... boasted of rings, on her fingers and bells on her toes, would find her glory vanish in a twinkling should she visit India. Not content with these preliminary beginnings of adornment, the barefooted Hindu woman wears—if she can afford it—a band or two of anklets, bracelets halfway from wrist to elbow, armlets beyond the elbow, ear-rings of immense size, a necklace or two, toe-rings and a bejewelled nose-ring as big around as a turnip. Sometimes the jewelry on a woman's feet will rattle as she walks like the trace-chains on a plow-horse on the ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... beard, passed little gentle smiles, but whose deep sunk grey eyes were burnt and bright; on his right, a girl in a high grey frock, almost white, just hollowed at the neck, with full sleeves to the elbow, so that her slim arms escaped; her short fair hair a little tumbled; her big grey eyes grave; her full lips shaping with a strange daintiness round every word—and they not many; brilliant red shades ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... long you will be away? There can't be any dreadful secret in that. And I shall want to know what to get for your dinner when you come back." She was standing now at his elbow, and he was holding her by the arm. It was to him almost as though she were already his wife, and the feeling to him was very pleasant. Only if she were his wife, or if it were positively decided among them that she would become so, he ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... lying raised on his elbow, his eyes, intent and searching, fixed upon her. Abruptly, in a different tone, he spoke. "In other words, quit fooling and play the game!" he said. "All right, I will—to the best of my ability. First of all, may I tell ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... that there being no more standing left for our Souldiours, because we making our vaimures more thicke, our standing began to waxe narrower, the which presently we of necessitie enlarged with boords as a scaffolde to the vaimure, whereby we might haue more elbow room to fight. Captain Maggio also made one mine vnder the sayd Brey, to the intent, that we being not able any longer to keepe it, the same might be left to our enemies to their great hinderance. [Footnote: It is accounted a good warlike shift, to leaue that to our enemies with ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... old story; the company smile with innocent joy. He rejoins the ladies and leers kindly on a pretty woman; she forgives herself a month of indiscretions. He touches Lieutenant the Hon. Jupiter Smith on the elbow and inquires after his mother; a noble family is gladdened. He is thus a source of harmless happiness to himself and to those ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... Oh, yes!" The prone body became semi-upright, leaned on an elbow. "Yes! What I want to know is, why—why, in the name of all the jumping angels, everybody seems to think there's a lot of mystery connected with this brutal, vulgar, dastardly crime! It passes my comprehension, utterly!—Jarvis, stop clicking your finger-nails ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Walter Raleigh, and most of the older theologians, such as Shuckford and Hales, that the Noachian cubit was what is known as the common or natural cubit, "containing," says Sir Walter, "one foot and a half, or a length equal to that of the human fore-arm measured from the sharp of the elbow to the point of the middle finger;" others contending that it was the palm-cubit, "which taketh," adds my authority, "one handful more than the common;" yet others, the royal or Persian cubit of twenty-one inches; and so on; for there are, it seems, five ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... seeing her little hand tremble to such a degree that at times it was difficult for her to reach her mouth. She made use only of her left hand, for her right arm seemed to be fastened to her chest. When she had finished, she almost broke the cup, which she caught again by an awkward movement of her elbow. ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... was struggling to rise on his elbow, and, though gasping and dying, he muttered, "Water," but when it was brought to his lips from the nearby stream he was dead. His body was carried to my outpost headquarters, thence later by ambulance to Reynolds' headquarters at camp. Washington's name or initials were on ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... I've been unfortunate in my bringing up, that's all." He turned on his side and leaned upon his elbow so he ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... we keep him at off-fighting—and that was a gush of blood from his smeller. "How do you like that, Ben?" Giving his head, with a mad rush, he makes a plunge with his heavy left—for he was ker-handed—at our stomach. But a dip of our right elbow caught the blow, to the loud admiration of Bob Howie—and even the Mad Dominie, the umpire, could not choose but smile. Like lightning, our left returns between the ogles—and Ben bites the snow. Three cheers from the School—and, lifted on the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... planed deal that his father had given him, and some sticks of charcoal, and he would draw a hundred things he had seen in the day, sweeping each out with his elbow when the children had seen enough of it and sketching another in its stead—faces and dogs' heads, and men in sledges, and old women in their furs, and pine-trees, and cocks and hens, and all sorts of animals, and now and then—very reverently—a Madonna and Child. It was all ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... grave," said the coastguard simply. He pointed up at the old graveyard on the cliff above us. Then, touching my elbow, he turned away with me toward the little ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... was all removed and two scratches were found on his right arm. One scratch begins just below the elbow and extends almost to the wrist. It is almost three inches long. The other scratch is much shorter ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... buckle or enamelled clasp of elaborate workmanship. These bracelets were also occasionally composed of gold or silver thread; and it was not unusual for a series of them to ascend from the wrist to the elbow. From the clasp, or other fastening of the bracelet, depended a delicate chain-work or netting of gold; and in some instances, miniature festoons of pearls. Sometimes the gold chain-work was exchanged for little silver bells, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Egyptian smock, or kamis—of dark linen, open in front from belt to hem, disclosing a kilt or shenti of clouded enamel. His head-dress was the kerchief of linen, bound tightly across the forehead and falling with free-flowing skirts to the shoulders. The sleeves left off at the elbow and his lower arms were clasped with bracelets of ivory and gold. His ankles were similarly adorned, and his sandals of gazelle-hide were beaded and stitched. His was a somber and barbaric presence. This was Atsu, captain of chariots ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... have studied the Russian people even in the most distant cities where champagne is sold, will tell you that over any table of hors-d'oeuvres, and will regulate the whole question of the Revolution between two little glasses of vodka, swallowed properly, quickly, elbow up, at a single draught, in the Russian manner. Simply an affair of digestion, they tell you. Who is the fool that would dare compare a young gentleman who has well digested a bottle of champagne or two, and another young man who has poorly digested the lucubrations ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... town of Pezenas they still show an elbow-chair of Moliere's (as at Montpelier they show the gown of Rabelais,) in which the poet, it is said, ensconced in a corner of a barber's shop, would sit for the hour together, silently watching the air, gestures, and grimaces of the village ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... hinges" of the elbow without cessation, many a time and oft, and all the vices—as they usually do—followed en train. One of the oldest names in the Carolinas had been dragged in the dust by this latest and most degenerate scion thereof. Nay, in that dust Lacy had ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a man who has just awakened out of sleep, and is half turning on his couch before getting up. One of his legs is stretched out, the other is bent and partly drawn up as in the act of rising. The lower part of the body is still unmoved, but he is raising himself with difficulty on his left elbow, while his head droops and his right arm is lifted towards the sky. His effort was suddenly arrested. Rendered powerless by a stroke of the creator, Sibu remained as if petrified in this position, the obvious irregularities of the earth's surface being due to the painful attitude ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... taken much time to tell the others what they were wanted for, because he quickly appeared again at Ned's elbow, bringing Jimmy, Teddy ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... as I look on at thy indomitable working, which neither death, nor press of life, nor grief, nor gladness out of doors will influence one jot, I seem to hear a voice within thee which sinks into my heart, bidding me, as I elbow my way among the crowd, have some thought for the meanest wretch that passes, and, being a man, to turn away with scorn and pride from none that bear ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... in she had on her regimentals, the stove was brushed, the room swept, and she was elbow-deep in the dishpan. "Hullo, Mother! ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... self-critical persons, though rather fertile in ideas, never accomplish much in the way of invention because they cannot let themselves go. Criticism is always at their elbow, suggesting doubts and alternatives and preventing progress in the creative activity, instead of biding its time and coming in to inspect the completed result. For a similar reason, much of the best inventive work—writing, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... quick work, shuffled the teacup into his left paw, and the meringue plate into the crook of his elbow, so he was ready for the old gentleman's salutation. Mr. Beagle senior was indeed very old: his white hair hung over his eyes, he spoke with growling severity. Gissing's manner to the old merchant was one of respectful reassurance: he attempted to ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... of our "disease of ignorance" concerning the Senior Service is due to the modesty of Naval men. If he will please go on correcting that ignorance, and in the same inspiring style, I wish an even greater access of power to his elbow. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... Leonard put his elbow on the table, mumbling to himself, "And these of Eustace's be the courtly manners my father would have me learn; they cost a great deal ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... standing by the fire-place, with her elbow on the chimney-piece, and her head, resting on her hand. I stopped just inside the door, waiting to hear what she had to say. In this position her side-face only was presented to me. It was a ghastly face. The eye that I could ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... then adopted by the court, and of which the form was even fixed by an edict, set off the ivory of her arms, bare to the elbow, and ornamented with a profusion of lace, which flowed from her loose sleeves. Large pearls hung in her ears and from her girdle. Such was the appearance of the Queen at this moment. At her feet, upon two velvet ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Reynolds, and he soon drew a chair near mine, and from that time I was never without some friend at my elbow. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... says that she will receive the visitor in the yard, near the pump. Then, casting carelessly over her shoulder that web-like shawl without which no woman nor spider is complete, she arranges her lips in the glass for the last time, and, with a garden-hat hanging from the elbow latest singed, goes down, humming un-suspiciously, into the open-air, with the guileless bearing of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... quickly lowered his gun as I lurched unsteadily into sight. Greatly to my relief, as soon as he obtained distinct view of his unexpected visitor, he returned the piece carelessly to his shoulder, and leaned back, his elbow against the arm-rack. He was a good-natured-looking fellow, with round, boyish face, upon which streamed the full glare of a swinging-lamp suspended from a chain fastened to an upper beam. His unsuspicious appearance served greatly to ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... came to meet me. From the steps I entered the ante-room. An old pensioner, seated on a table, was busy sewing a blue patch on the elbow of a green uniform. I ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... We elbow our way through the pressing, distressing multitudes, following Ahmed Bey into the Mosque, while the Army Officer mounts a platform in the court and dispenses to the crowd there of his Turkish blatherskite. We stand in the Mosque near the heavy tapestried square which is said to be the sarcophagus ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... had taught those people these things, he started off again, travelling north, until he came to where Bow and Elbow rivers meet. There he made some more people, and taught them the same things. From here he again went on northward. When he had come nearly to the Red Deer's River, he reached the hill where the Old Man sleeps. There he lay down and rested ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... girl, and hardly a day passed that she did not accompany her father in his excursions. When the contending armies came in sight, Teague and his comrades spent a good deal of their time in watching them. Each force passed around an elbow of the mountain, covering a distance of nearly sixty miles, and thus for days and weeks this portentous panorama was spread out before these silent watchers. Surely never before did a little girl have two armies for her playthings. The child saw the movements of the soldiers, the glitter of the ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... slightly, but he answered with coolness, thrusting his elbow into the cushions and smoking hard: "But, no, he is not dead. Selamlik Pasha has as great an instinct for a bargain as for revenge. Also Selamlik Pasha would torture before he kills. Is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... isn't it?" he heard at his elbow. He turned and saw Davray, the painter. The man had been pointed out to him in the street; he knew his reputation. He was inclined to be interested in the man, in any one who had a wider, broader view of life than ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... my poor little wife away from this room, laid her on a couch in the living room, and then telephoned the police. Miss Crain stood at my elbow, urging me to hurry, so that she might ring you—as she did. Your line was busy, and she lost about five minutes before ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... the curve of the other's elbow Miss Smith hurried her to the study door masked beneath the broad stairs, and opening it, ushered her ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... was wakened by the far-off plaintive song: he roused himself, leaning on one elbow, listening with a half-smile. It was Naomi they sang, he thought,—an old-fashioned Methodist air that Floy had caught from the negroes, and used to sing to him sometimes. Every night, down at home, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... have, sir?" asked old Peder, who sat smoking at his elbow. "Are there not eleven couple? Oddo told me there were eleven couple; and I think I counted so many pairs ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... immense gold rings, with pearls and emeralds suspended all round in large strings, the pearls increasing in size. She had a nose ring also with large round pearls and emeralds; and her necklaces, &c., were too numerous to be described. She wore long sleeves, open at the elbow; and her dress was a full petticoat with a tight body attached, and open only at the throat. She had several persons to bear her train when she walked; and her women stood behind her couch to arrange her head-dress, when, in moving, her pearls got entangled in the immense robe of scarlet ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... been an hour in camp before he began the story of his wanderings, and at first, lying propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face, he spoke slowly and ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... worthy deemed To walk, as thou hast said the people thought, Arm in arm with the high-souled philosopher:— And yet the people sometimes are quite right, The devil's at our elbow oftener ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... back his hand, the prince chanced to let it fall on that of the princess of China. He opened his eyes, and was exceedingly surprised to find lying by him a lady of the greatest beauty. He raised his head, and leaned on his elbow, the better to observe her. Her blooming youth and incomparable beauty fired him in a moment with a flame of which he had never yet been sensible, and from which he had hitherto guarded himself with the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... give Uncle Sam de name of Shadrock. When he reach Uncle Aleck, he 'low: 'I adds to your name Aleck, two fine names, a preacher's and a scholar's, Porter Ramsey.' 'Bout dat time a little runt elbow and butt his way right up to de front and say: 'Marse Henry, Marse Henry! I wants a big bulldozin' name.' Marse Henry look at him and say: 'You little shrimp, take dis then.' And Marse Henry write on de slip of paper: Mendoza J. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... display. Cousin Molly Belle raised herself upon her elbow; I doubled tightly under me what I now let myself think of as my legs, and spread both hands flat on the grass, to lean over the arena. In the hush that followed the onslaught the babbling song Bud crooned to himself as he crawled over ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... formerly to be spelt 'pygmy', and so long as it was so, no Greek scholar could see the word, but at once he knew that by it were indicated manikins whose measure in height was no greater than that of a man's arm from the elbow to the closed fist{241}. Now he may know this in other ways; but the word itself, so long as he assumes it to be rightly spelt, tells him nothing. Or again, the old spelling, 'diamant', was preferable to ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... to invite her to pass through into the restaurant with him. Then the memory of that forged order still in his pocket, flashed into his mind. He hesitated. A cold, familiar voice at his elbow intervened. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had surmounted the acclivity, I was about to withdraw my arm from his, but by a slight tightening of the elbow was tacitly informed that such was not his will, and accordingly desisted. Discoursing on different subjects, we entered the town, and passed through several streets. I saw that he was going out of his way to accompany me, notwithstanding ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... fewer and fewer; though the earth still shook and throbbed like a living thing, and at last it seemed to Vane that the raid was over. He was lifting himself on his elbow preparatory to going outside and exploring, when an ominous whistling noise seemed to pierce his very brain. He had just time to throw himself on to the girl beside him so that he partially covered her, when the last bomb came. He heard the top of ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... morning as the sun rose, Lord Chetwynde waked. He looked around the room. He lifted himself up on his elbow, and saw Hilda asleep on the sofa near his bed. He felt bewildered at this strange and unexpected figure. How did she get here? A dim remembrance of his long sickness suggested itself, and he had a vague idea of this figure attending upon him. But ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... greater thing. What it is—what it is"—With a sudden movement he rested his elbow on the table and regarded Rand from under the shelter of his hand. "And so," he said at last, in an altered voice,—"and so you will not be Governor. Well, it is an honourable post. This is late August, and in November you ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... before. It was accomplished and, as might have been expected, the result was a curious composition; a religious olla-podrida in which the profound wisdom of Zoroaster and the childish superstition of western barbarians, grand morality and monumental absurdity elbow each other like specters in a delirium—in which is heard both "the still small voice" of Omnipotent God and the megalophanous bray of ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann |
