"Ell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his feet for a good start, "at 'alf past six you go to 'ell!"—and he was off like a flash and around the corner. The bishop, flushed and furious, his watch dangling from its chain, floundered wildly after him. But as he rounded the corner he ran plump into the outstretched arms of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... you, is our jolly Wassel, And for Twelfth-night more meet too: She works by the ell, and her name is Nell, And she dwells in ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... appeared in different places, or of that strange rain, when a sulphureous matter, like starch in appearance, fell from the air (item, a snow-white pike was caught at Colzow in Wellin, seven quarters long, and half an ell broad, with red round eyes, and red fins), a stranger wonder than all was seen at Wolgast; for suddenly, during a review held there, one of the soldier's muskets went off without a finger being laid on it, and the ball went right through the princely Pomeranian standard with such precision, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... in wait at the proper places, 15,000 Russians waylaying. Winter comes early, and unusually severe: such marchings, such endeavorings and endurances,—without success! For darkness, cold, grim difficulty, fierce resistance to it, one reads few things like this of Colberg. 'The snow lies ell-deep,' says Archenholtz; 'snow-tempests, sleet, frost: a country wasted and hungered out; wants fuel-wood; has not even salt. The soldier's bread is a block of ice; impracticable to human teeth till you thaw it,—which is only ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Grizell Cam'ell's drawers as lang she had use for ony; but what for ye sud say puir till her, I dinna ken, 'cep' it be 'at she's gane whaur they haena muckle 'at needs layin' in drawers. That's neither here nor there.—Div ye tell me 'at Jean was intromittin' wi thae drawers? They're ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... as I know of, but few that remain of the remnant of the giants; and though they boast as if they were higher than Aga, yet these pillars are higher than they. These pillars are the highest; you may equal them; and an inch above is worth an ell below. The height therefore of these pillars is, to show us what high dignity God did put upon those of his saints whom he did call to be apostles of the Lamb: for their office and call thereto is the highest in the church of God. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... enough what the thin end of the wedge meant, and, being in a far better position than we are to judge of the significance and importance of many a casus belli which now seems but trivial, they never dreamed of giving an inch for the other side to take an ell. So they went to law, and enjoyed it amazingly! Sometimes however, there were disputes which were not to be settled peaceably; and then came what University men in the old days used to know as a "Town and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... been regarded by the whole Yankee race as the modern land of promise, and themselves as the chosen and peculiar people destined, one day or other, by hook or by crook, to get possession of it. In truth, they are a wonderful and all-prevalent people; of that class who only require an inch to gain an ell; or a halter to gain a horse. From the time they first gained a foothold on Plymouth Rock, they began to migrate, progressing and progressing from place to place, and land to land, making a little here and a little there, and controverting the old proverb, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... asleep two and two on the seats. The exhausted woman's head rests on the shoulder of her companion, the man's arm around her to hold her steady. What do you suppose happens when a thing like that is kept up for awhile? Aw! W'at t'ell." ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... confessed, Though but a famulus of the master-wizard, The horrible old Moses of Mayence, He had flung such pouches in the Rhine, the Elbe, The Oder, Danube—in a hundred brooks, Until the wholesome air reeked pestilence; 'T was an ell long, filled with a dry, fine dust Of rusty black and red, deftly compounded Of powdered flesh of basilisks, spiders, frogs, And lizards, baked with sacramental ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... William's and Queen Anne's reigns) were cut however after this fashion; and if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing)—so much the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length, so that allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to do what ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Haughty, nor Ambitious. They are parsimonious in their Diet, as the Holy Fathers were in their frugal life in the Desert, known by the name of Eremites. They go naked, having no other Covering but what conceals their Pudends from publick sight. An hairy Plad, or loose Coat, about an Ell, or a coarse woven Cloth at most Two Ells long serves them for the warmest Winter Garment. They lye on a coarse Rug or Matt, and those that have the most plentiful Estate or Fortunes, the better sort, use Net-work, knotted at the four corners in lieu of Beds, which the ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... farmer living near. This is his description of it: "The lair stands in the upper part of a slip of stones beneath some sheer rocks. It is built up of stones, straight as a line, four and three-quarter ells long and ten inches wide, and is within the walls seven-eighths of an ell deep. Half of it is roofed over with flat stones; small splinters of stone are wedged in between these to fill up the joints, and these are so firmly fixed that they could not be removed without tools. One stone in the south ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Jerry Longworthy she would have gone at once but Jerry Longworthy was very apt to forget that she preferred work to love. If she went to his back yard he would be sure to think that her coming was an inch and proceed to make an ell out of it. It would be far wiser to stay away. So she shook her head. "Not now, Mary Rose," she said gently. "Some ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... each stray word, you for each inch take an ell. Lightly all laws and ties trammel me, I am ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... likely to be something else. Three minutes later the second bus in trouble turns tail. Its engine has been missing on one cylinder since the start, and is not in a fit state for a trip over enemy country. Again I call to the leader, and again hear a word ending in "ell." The two remaining machines close up, and we continue. Very suddenly one of them drops out, with a rocker-arm gone. Its nose goes down, and it glides into the clouds. Yet again I call the flight-commander's attention to our dwindling numbers, and this time I cannot mistake ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... falsam ulnam castigavit adhibita brachii sui mensura." See also William of Malmsbury in Vita Hen. I., and Spelm. Hen. I. apud Wilkins, 299., who inform us, that a new standard of longitudinal measure was ascertained by Henry I., who commanded that the ulna, or ancient ell, which answers to the modern yard, should be made of the exact length of his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... scarce stir out of it. He will come and eat Carrion with the Dogs and Jackals, and will not be feared away by them, but if they come near to bark or snap at him, with his tayl, which is about an Ell long like a whip, he will so slash them, that they will run away and howl. This Creature is ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the being to the youth, "what the 'ell time did I tell you to have that car cleaned by, and you ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... along comes some un and says, "'Ello, Billy, 'ave a smile," it hain't picters nor magazines 'ud stop un then. Picters and magazines! Gawd 'elp the man as hain't nothin' but picters and magazines to 'elp un w'en 'ee's got a devil hinside and a devil houtside a-shovin' and a-drawin' of un down to 'ell. And that's w'ere oi'm a-goin' straight, and yer bloomin' League, wisky or no wisky, can't help me. But,' and he lifted his trembling hands above his head, 'if ye stop the wisky a-flowin' round this camp, ye'll stop some of these ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... from the other place over here day in an' day out. An' when his Uncle Nat died, two year ago, then was the time for him to come over here an' marry 'Mandy an' carry on the farm. But no, he'd rather hang round the old place, an' sleep in the ell-chamber, an' do their chores for his board, an' keep on a-runnin' over here.' An' when young Nat married, I says to myself, 'That'll make him speak.' But it didn't—an' you 're a laughin'-stock, 'Mandy Green, if ever ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... from the table, rushed through the pantry and up the back stairs. She didn't know why she fled. She only knew that she couldn't face Eleanor, who would sit with Maurice while he bolted a supper for which—though Edith didn't know it!—all appetite had gone. In her room in the ell, Edith shut the door, and, standing with her back against it, tried to answer her ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... "We-ell, I dunno as he's a boom companion exactly, but Nebraska and his bunch spend a pile of money in the Starlight, a pile of money. A feller would be safe in saying that Rack Slimson's sympathy is ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... "We-ell," Sammy admitted slowly, "she was busy cutting out something on the dining-room table and her mouth was full of pins. I had to ask her two or three times before she ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... very long adobe house one story in height and one room deep, except in an ell where a number of rooms were bunched together. The Senora had it whitewashed every year, and the red tiles on the roof renewed when necessary; therefore it had none of the pathetic look of old age peculiar to the adobe ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... comes up, and the tide goes down, And ever I hear a song, As the moaning winds, through the moss-hung oaks, Sweep surging ever along: "O massa white man! help de slave, And de wife and chillen too; Eber dey'll work, wid de hard worn hand Ef ell gib 'em ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... is dead; his soul to heav'n God bare. That Emperour to Rencesvals doth fare. There was no path nor passage anywhere Nor of waste ground no ell nor foot to spare Without a Frank or pagan lying there. Charles cries aloud: "Where are you, nephew fair? Where's the Archbishop and that count Oliviers? Where is Gerins and his comrade Gerers? Otes the Duke, and the count Berengiers And Ivorie, and Ive, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... narrow ell ran back from the main part of the house to form one side of the courtyard. The ground floor of this contained the old slave quarters and kitchens, while the second was cut into bedrooms which had housed the ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... better next time. Honest to God, I will. That's enough for today. Just let's love now. T'ell ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... a house on Cap'tol 'ell (Capitol Hill)—seex t'ousand tollars it costet. Eef I got id feeften 'undret—could haf borrowed dot much—I vould haf bought id, but I couldn't get dot feeften 'undret, and now I am glat. It vould have costet seexty fife tollars a mont to leeve and den I haf to geeve ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... answered the chief. "Okematan, with the two boys, will lead. Dan-ell an' Fergus will ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... grief could be agitating the mind of the usually imperturbable little Jean. When she caught eight of Grace, she threw up her arms with a loud, bitter wail that rang among the old elms, echoing through their arching branches, and startling the birds that had just gone to roost. "Oh, Miss Cam'ell! Geordie, Geordie!—he's hurt; he's dyin'; Blackie's gotten hold ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... sorrows of a class of men, Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity, No fancied claims or woes fictitious pen, But wrongs ell-wide, and of a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... ell-lang wee thing then I ran Wi' the ither neeber bairns, To pu' the hazel's shining nuts, An' to wander 'mang the ferns; An' to feast on the bramble-berries brown, An' gather the glossy slaes, By the burnie's side, an' aye sinsyne I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of excellent plaster over the adobe, and this plaster had never been renewed. With the attrition of time and the elements, it had worn away in spots, through which the brown adobe bricks showed, like the bones in a decaying corpse. The main building faced down the valley; from each end out, an ell extended to form a patio in the rear, while a seven-foot adobe wall, topped with short tile, connected with the ell and formed ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... bearers," the bearers of gold, men, that is, Helgi and Grim. (3) "Byrnie-breacher," piercer of coats of mail. (4) "Noisy ogre's namesake," an allusion to the name of Skarp hedinn's axe, "the ogress of war." (5) Twelve ells, about twenty-four feet (the Norse ell being something more than two feet), a good jump, but not beyond the power of man. Comp. "Orkn. Saga", ch. 113, new ed., vol. i., 457, where Earl Harold leaps ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... grapes in the press, to its own profit? Does it not exercise its rights upon the waters of the river, the fire that bakes the poor man's bread of grass and barley, on the wind that turns the mill? The peasant cannot take a step upon the road, cross a crazy bridge over a river, buy an ell of cloth in the village market, without meeting feudal rapacity, without being taxed in feudal dues. Is not that enough, M. le Marquis? Must you also demand his wretched life in payment for the least infringement of your sacred privileges, careless of what widows or orphans you ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... balance existing between France, Italy, and Spain." "The king my master," said Count de Bethune, quite openly, "has obtained from England all he could; it is no use to wait for more ample conditions, or to measure them by the Spanish ell; I have orders against sending off any courier save to give notice of concession of the dispensation: otherwise there would be nothing but asking one thing after another." "If we determine to act like Spain, we, like her, shall lose everything," said ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... abodes, secure In its own tale of light. As once of old, Bearing all heaven in words of promising, The Angel of the Annunciation came, It carried all the spring into that house; A pot of mould its only tie to Earth, Its heaven an ell of blue 'twixt chimney-tops, Its world henceforth that little, low-ceiled room, Symbol and child of spring, it took its place 'Midst all those types, to be a type with them, Of what so many feel, not ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... up and down the street, was two stories in height, twenty-five feet by forty in the main, with a one-story ell running back. Without doubt there was a parlor, sitting room, and four chambers in the main, with dining room ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... or two. Then he said: "We-ell, Maud, you see those kittens got to be kind of a nuisance. They was cunnin' and cute and all that, but they was so everlastin' lively and hungry that they didn't give me much of a chance. I was only one, you see, and they had a majority vote every time on who should ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the armsize. The question of sleeves sorely vexed the colonial magistrates. Men and women were forbidden to have but one slash or opening in each sleeve. Then the inordinate width of sleeves became equally trying, and all were ordered to restrain themselves to sleeves half an ell wide. Worse modes were to come; "short sleeves whereby the nakedness of the arm may be discovered" had to be prohibited; and if any such ill-fashioned gowns came over from London, the owners were enjoined to wear thick linen to cover the arms to the wrist. Existing portraits show ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... touchingly with the dingy, faded yellow of his robe. Just over the region of the heart lay a coil of unspun cotton thread, which, being divided into seventy-seven filaments, was distributed to the hands of the priests, who, closely seated, quite filled the ell, so that none could have moved without difficulty. Before each priest were a lighted taper and a lily, symbols of faith and purity. From time to time one or other of that solemn company raised his voice, and chanted strangely; and all the choir responded in unison. These were the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... "We-ell that is even a more roundabout relationship than that between Aunt Alvirah Boggs and me. Poor old soul, she is nobody's relation, as she ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... has his soul in heaven. To Ronceval the Emperor has come. There, neither road nor any path is seen, Nor vacant space, nor ell, nor foot of land That mounds of mangled bodies cover not, Pagans or French.—The Emperor exclaims: "Fair nephew, where art thou? The Archbishop, where? And Olivier, alas, where are they all? Gerin, Gerier, the two companions, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... and that it had many utraisings[57] because I seimed to sie as lively as ever I saw any thing pillars coming furth and standing out wt a great deal of prominency from that which seimed to be the skie, that at least I judged it halfe a ell farder out; yet it was but a mistake; for its certainly knowen that the broad is as smooth and aequall as can be. We also went out wtout the yeard to the back of the wall, wheir by the back and sydes of the broad we discerned it to be of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... similar to those of the natives of the Philippines. The men have no other dress than a kind of girdle which covers their loins and thighs, and which is wound several times about their bodies. They have upon their shoulders more than an ell and a half of coarse cloth, of which they make a kind of hood, which they tie in front, and allow to hang carelessly behind. The men and the women are dressed in the same fashion, except that the women have their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... heart was melted with self-love. There was a kirtle of a mingled colour, and the blue shot into the green, and the green lightened from the blue, as the colours play in the ocean between deeps and shallows: she thought she could endure to live no longer and not wear it. There was a bracelet of an ell long, wrought like a serpent and with fiery jewels for the eyes; she saw it shine on her white arm and her head grew dizzy with desire. "Ah!" she thought, "never were fine lendings better met with a fair wearer." And she closed her eyelids, and she thought she saw herself among the company ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vestibule which opens into the nave of the Cathedral. The interior of Saint-Etienne is dark and somewhat gloomy, but that is an inherent trait of a fortress-church, for every added inch of window-opening brought an ell of danger. The nave is unusually low and broad, and its buttressed piers are of immense weight, ending severely in a plain, moulded band. On these great piers rest the cross-vaults of the roof and the broad arches of the wall. The north aisle, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... thus set up continued long after its origin had been relegated to the scrap-heap of memory, and not only continued, but was interpreted in a sense much broader than its royal originator ever intended it should be. This tendency to take an ell in lieu of the stipulated inch was illustrated as early as 1705, when Lieut. Thomson, belonging to the Lickfield, chancing to meet one Richard Bullard, fiddler, "persuaded him to go as far as Woolwich with him, to play a tune ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... "T'ell I ain't! Ye answer me straight—see?—or I'll punch yer face in," tightening his grasp. "What wuz ye a-doin' when de circus come out—an', anoder t'ing, what's dis cologne yer got on yer coat? Maybe next time ye climb a fence ye'll keep from spillin' ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... on a bench excitedly, gesticulating with a bottle in his hand.] Listen 'ere, Comrades! Yank 'ere is right. 'E says this 'ere stinkin' ship is our 'ome. And 'e says as 'ome is 'ell. And 'e's right! This is 'ell. We lives in 'ell, Comrades—and right enough we'll die in it. [Raging.] And who's ter blame, I arsks yer? We ain't. We wasn't born this rotten way. All men is born free and ekal. That's in the bleedin' Bible, maties. But what d'they care for the Bible—them ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... them smooth as any ox-bow. And then he'd crow as if he thought that child's play— The only fun he had. I've heard them say, though, They found a way to put a stop to it. He was before my time—I never saw him; But the pen stayed exactly as it was There in the upper chamber in the ell, A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter. I often think of the smooth hickory bars. It got so I would say—you know, half fooling— "It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail"— Just as you will till ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... gain an inch, mate, or he'll soon gain an ell," said old Mat. "He is doing Satan's work, and that's what Satan is always trying to do—trying to make us do a little wrong—just to get in the sharp edge of the wedge; he knows that he shall soon be ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... so I got a piece of ice about as big as a raisin box, just zactly like one of Ma's feet, and laid it right against the small of Pa's back. I couldn't help laffing, but pretty soon Pa began to squirm and he said, 'Why'n 'ell don't you warm them feet before you come to bed,' and then he hauled back his leg and kicked me clear out in the middle of the floor, and said if he married again he would marry a woman who had lost ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... since!" old Jasper would croak triumphantly. "Oh! 'e were a gen'us were my bye Jarge. 'Ell come a-marchin' back to 'is old feyther, some day, wi' 'is pockets stuffed full o' money an' bank-notes—I knaw—I knaw, old Jasper bean't ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... stroke Merrihew swung forward his body. The end of the race came sooner than any one expected. A police barge nosed round an ell; by the time Pompeo was off again, the ferrule of the pursuing gondola scraped past Pompeo's blade. Pompeo called and Achille answered. There was a war of words, figure of a dog, name of a pig. Achille was in the wrong, but ten lire were ten lire. And ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... all kinds of words,—short ones and long ones. Some were very long. This one—we-ell, maybe it wasn't so long, for when you're nine you don't of course mind three-story words, and this one looked like a three-story one. But this one puzzled you ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... I argued. But the fact is, I stayed because I couldn't go away. Of course, it was an abominable position, but I assure you it felt like heaven when it didn't feel like 'ell." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... about getting a fresh breakfast for the three men he said to Mead, "It's mighty lucky you've come 'ome, sir. There's been merry 'ell 'erself between our boys and the Fillmore boys, and they're likely to be killin' each other off at Alamo Springs to-day. They 'ad shots over a maverick yesterday, and the swearin' they've been doin' 'ad enough fire and brimstone in ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... miss you, Jasper, at the "Alternate Musical Wednesdays" to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night. God bless you! "Tell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell me; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo- o-ora-a pass this way!"' Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle thus delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws his amiable face ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... directly over the basement kitchen, jutted in an ell off the rear of the house so that from the back parlor it was not difficult to precede the immediate overhead response to that bell. A black-faced genii of the bowl and weal, in a very dubiously white-duck coat thrust on hurriedly over clothing reminiscent of the day's window washing ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... stocking-maker, and a perfumer. I spent thirty sequins in what I considered necessary, but then I noticed that there was no English point on her mask, and burst out again. The father brought in a milliner, who adorned the mask with an ell of lace for which I paid twelve sequins. Irene was in great delight, but her father and mother would have preferred to have the money in their pockets, and at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... one fold upon another, which gradually increased to the size of my wrist in the middle, and then as gradually decreased till it terminated in a point again at the contrary extreme; all which spiral, if it were fairly extended in length, might be a yard or an ell long. I surveyed this strange vegetable very attentively; it had a rind, or crust, which I could not break with my hand, but taking my knife and making an opening therewith in the shell, there issued out a sort of milky liquor in great quantity, to at ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... a post was simplicity itself: One long, log trading-room with an ell for a storehouse, and a room—two at the most—in the rear for the accommodation of the three women. The whole to be erected in the centre of the clearing, and surrounded ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... stand it! Blow you to 'ell they do! Look at me! I'm slathered in blood! I can't stand it! They ain't no man can ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... "How'n 'ell did he git here—the doctor?" he demanded, making a great effort to hold his voice down to a whisper, and forgetting now and then. "How'd he know Brit rolled off'n the grade? Us here, we never knowed it, and I ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... PE ELL is a town of 1,000 people on the South Bend branch of the Northern Pacific railway, chiefly engaged ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... and I recall it well, When my whole frame was but an ell in height; Oh! when I think of that, my warm tears swell, And therefore in the mem'ry ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... longitude, span; mileage; distance &c 196. line, bar, rule, stripe, streak, spoke, radius. lengthening &c v.; prolongation, production, protraction; tension, tensure^; extension. [Measures of length] line, nail, inch, hand, palm, foot, cubit, yard, ell, fathom, rood, pole, furlong, mile, league; chain, link; arpent^, handbreadth^, jornada [U.S.], kos^, vara^. [astronomical units of distance] astronomical unit, AU, light- year, parsec. [metric units of length] nanometer, nm, micron, micrometer, millimicron, millimeter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... against Gelfrat. I know not who held their horses. Hagen and Gelfrat were both on the ground. They ran at each other, and their attendants helped them and fought by them. For all Hagen's fierce onset, the noble Margrave hewed an ell's length from his shield, that the sparks flew bright. Gunther's man was well-nigh slain. Then he cried aloud to Dankwart, "Help! dear brother. I perish by ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... opening my bundles one day in my chamber, I heard her in another room, and called her in with a kind of familiar way. There I showed her some of my fine clothes, and having among the rest of my things a piece of very fine new holland, which I had bought a little before, worth about 9s. an ell, I pulled it out: "Here, my friend," says I, "I will make you a present, if you will accept of it;" and with that I laid the piece ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... still at her task. Then she rose, holding a bulb in her hands, and said: "It's a funny kind of relation. Her father and mother egging her on—and you know that kind of a man; give him an inch and he'll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got." She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. "Those are the nice big yellow ones I'm saving for Mrs. Barclay. But I'm sure of one thing, Molly has no notion of marrying Brownwell." She continued: ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... was a serviceable blade, half an ell long, and as broad as a man's three fingers under the straight cross- hilt, and as sharp as a razor on both edges, for Dunstan was a master at whetting. Gilbert cut the string and then the laces, and slipped the seal into his ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... "We-e-e-ell," he drawls, half chucklin', half sing-songy, "I wisht I could get you to kind of look around for a young fellah in thayah,—sort of a well favored, upstandin' young man, straight as a cornstalk, and with his front haiah a ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... "We-ell, I don't know that I ever thought of that side of it; but you can imagine the feelings of the people in the farmhouse, who went to bed beside the ripples of a smiling little lake, and woke to find themselves ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... acknowledged the men have their share in dress, as the times go now, though, it is true, not so antic and gay as in former days; but do we not see fine wigs, fine Holland shirts of six to seven shillings an ell, and perhaps laced also, all lately brought down to the level of the apron, and become the common wear of tradesmen—nay, I may say, of tradesmen's apprentices—and that in such a manner as was never known ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... been some queer, new bird, and, says he, 'Lud!' says he,' there's a world o' harmless sport in you yet, Sir Lupus, but you don't spell your title right,' says he. 'Change the a to an o and add an ell for good measure, and there you have it,' says he, a-drawling. With which he minced off, dusting his nose with his lace handkerchief, and I'm damned if I see the joke yet in spelling patroon with an o for the a and an ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... known by experience, that three quarters of a Pound of Thread worth 12 d. per Pound spinning, will make one Ell of Cloth worth 2 s. per Ell; which Three quarters of a Pound two Spinners may spin in one day; ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... to me a d—n, if you say so! I was jus' askin' myself what a man would look for if he los' it here. Since I strike this 'ell of a place the very groun' been chewed up and spit out reg'lar, one hundred times a ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... the man, "but I'll tell you what I'll do with you,—I'll lay you two to one, in fives or fifties if you like, that you knew before you axed, and that Thunderbolt don't win the Riddlesworth." "Really," said Mr. Jorrocks, "I'm not a betting man." "Then, wot the 'ell business have you at Newmarket?" was all the answer he got. Disgusted with such inhospitable impertinence, Mr. Jorrocks turned on his heel and walked away. Before the "White Hart" Inn was a smartish pony phaeton, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... over'auled by our sub-lootenant, navigatin' under forced draught, with his bearin's 'eated. 'E had the temerity to say I'd instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an' 'e was peevish about it. O' course, I prevaricated like 'ell. You get to do that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an' readjusted Antonio. You may not 'ave ascertained that there are two ways o' comin' out of an 'ammick when it's cut down. Antonio ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... said the squire to himself, as he sat calmly smoking his pipe after the bustle of the arrival was over; "not much like a Hallam, but t' eye as isn't charmed wi' her 'ell hev no white in ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... against undue ostentation at dinner, and Copley, obeying an imperious glance from a pair of gray eyes, followed his aunt to the veranda. She led the way to one end of it, and there turned the corner into an ell that had been screened and glassed against the mosquitoes of summer and the frosts of winter. With comfortable wicker chairs and quantities of soft cushions, it was a cosy nook that had become Miss Ocky's favorite ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... says: "They have no lime, but make a mixture of ashes, soil, and of charcoal, which replace it very well; for although they raise their houses to four stories, the walls have not more than half an ell in width. They form great heaps of pine [thym] and reeds, and set fire to them; whenever this mass is reduced to ashes and charcoal, they throw over it a large quantity of soil and water, and mix it all ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... were insufficient. Bonaparte was therefore in absolute distress. Junot often used to speak of the six months they passed together in Paris at this time. When they took an evening stroll on the Boulevard, which used to be the resort of young men, mounted on fine horses, and displaying ell the luxury which they were permitted to show at that time, Bonaparte would declaim against fate, and express his contempt for the dandies with their whiskers and their 'orielles de chiene', who, as they rode Past, were eulogising in ecstasy the manner in which Madame Scio ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... about "skewered like stuck pigs." The others hung back. They had seen man after man struck down at the gun, they could hear the hiss and whitt of the bullets over their heads, the constant cracker-like smacks of others that hit the parapet, and—they hung back. "Why th' 'ell don't you do it yerself?" demanded one of them, angered by Bunthrop's goading and in some degree, no doubt, by the disagreeable knowledge that they were ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... nature gave them birth, in the conception of sensual gratification, and they seek no more. Tens of thousands are overwhelmed by the burdens of craft and trade; by the weight of the hammer, the ell, or the crane, and they are no more. But I know a man, who did seek more; the joy of simplicity dwelt in his heart, and he had faith in mankind such as few men have; his soul was made for friendship; love was his element, and fidelity his strongest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... of Siwan the waters began to abate, a quarter of an ell a day, and at the end of sixty days, on the tenth day of Ab, the summits of the mountains showed themselves. But many days before, on the tenth of Tammuz, Noah had sent forth the raven, and a week later the dove, on ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... our place one day a-collectin' for somethin' or other, and Jack, in 'is free-'anded way, 'e give 'er a five-pun' note. Next week she come agen for somethin' else, and stopped and talked to 'im about 'is soul in the passage. She told 'im as 'e was a-goin' straight to 'ell, and that 'e oughter give up the bookmakin' and settle down to a respec'ble, God-fearin' business. At fust 'e only laughed, but she lammed in tracts at 'im full of the most awful language; and one day she fetched 'im round to ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... "What t'ell they got agin him? Ain't he the biggest man in this country to-day? Didn't he lick Spain and England both at Pensacola and didn't he finish the Red ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the manner of those of the lower tribunes, and forming two galleries, one over the other, placed on a richly decorated cornice, the upper gallery being covered. The rain-water shall be carried off the cupola by means of a marble channel, one third of an ell broad, the water being discharged at an outlet to be constructed of hard stone (pietra forte), beneath the channel. Eight ribs of marble shall be formed on the angles of the external surface of the cupola, of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... as for Mr. Patrick Walker, he has left it upon record, that his great surprise was, that so small a pistol could kill so big a man. These are the words of that venerable biographer, whose trade had not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell. "He," (Francis Gordon) "got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which notwithstanding ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... piece: it will not vitiate the agreement,' cried the master. It was done. Fear and grief are among the thirsty passions, but add little to the appetite. It seemed, however, as if every sigh had left a vacancy in the stomach of the canonico. At dinner the cook brought him a salted bonito, half an ell in length; and in five minutes his reverence was drawing his middle finger along the white backbone, out of sheer idleness, until were placed before him some as fine dried locusts as ever provisioned the tents of Africa, together with olives the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... showed bunches of great radishes—not the short kind—surrounded by long, green leaves and tied with a yellow cord; while on mine were roses as big as a baby's head, interlaced with leaves and buds and gathered into bouquets graced with a blue ribbon. It was ten dollars an ell; but, as the petticoats were very short, six ells was enough for each. At that time real hats were unknown. For driving or for evening they placed on top of the high, powdered hair what they called ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... in the roomy, rambling, white-painted house on Locust Avenue. She knew intimately every detail of its being. She had, at various points in her childhood, personally supervised the addition of the ell and of the broad porch which ran round three sides of the house, the transformation of an upstairs bedroom into a regular bathroom with all the pleasing luxuries of modern plumbing, the installation of hardwood floors into the "front" and "back" parlours. She knew every ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... if this ain't a go! 'Ere I be, innercent as a lamb, an' 'ere you be, lost all o' your top 'amper an' out o' your reckonin', run me foul an' goin' to rake me into 'ell-fire. You ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... what is fair and even? If thou stand on Will's haw [hillock], the oak on thy right hand is the largest tree; if thou stand on Dick's, it shall be the beech on thy left. And thine ell-wand reacheth not. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... was a Home Ruler, and yet unlike the rest. He said: "I am a Home Ruler because I think Home Rule inevitable now the English people have given way so far. Give Paddy an inch and you may trust him to take an ell. We must have something like Home Rule to put an end to the agitation which is destroying the country. It is now our only chance, and in my opinion a very poor chance, but we are reduced so low that we think ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... costly and marvellous cunning pageant by the merchants of the Stilyard, wherein was the Mount Parnassus, with the Fountaine of Helicon, which was of white marble; and four streams without pipe did rise an ell high and mette together in a little cup above the fountaine; which fountaine ran abundantly with Rhenish wine till night. On the mountaine sat Apollo, and at his feet sat Calliope; and on every side of the mountaine sate four Muses, playing ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... Sturleson.—"The old Norwegian ell was less than the present ell; and Thorlasius reckons, in a note on this chapter, that Harold's stature would be about four Danish ells; viz. about eight feet."—Laing's note to the text. Allowing for the exaggeration of the chronicler, it seems probable, at least, that Hardrada exceeded ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... didn't care what in thunder I did to the house. It looks sweet. I've put white fluttery muslin curtains most everywhere. And you've got a new solid-gold-looking bed in your room. And the Kiddie and I have fixed up the most scrumptious light blue suite for ourselves in the ell. Pink was wrong for the front hall, but it cost me only $29.00 to find out. And now ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... you may believe me, as I am the elder of us two, timidity is a great sin against love. But did you not see that that beggar had holes in her stockings and a seam of filth and mud, half- an-ell high, on the bottom of ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... amphitheatre." The author, however, having in part tamed this wild audience by his flattery, secured ultimately its absolute favour by humouring its prejudices after the grossest fashion. He brought upon the stage a figure "with black eyebrows, a ribbon of an ell long under his chin, a bag-peruke immoderately powdered, and his nose all bedaubed with snuff. What Englishman could not know a Frenchman by this ridiculous figure?" The Frenchman was presently shown to be, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... arranged it to look as nearly as I could as that other might have done. I used to sit here sometimes and pretend that my shadows were real. You will laugh at me, but I even have in my desk plans for an addition, an ell, containing a ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... i' my sins gien he be onything but a bastard Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal scorn. "Yer dautit (petted) Ma'colm's naething but the dyke-side brat o' the late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik for a sant 'cause she grat an' said naething. I laid the Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (scarecrow) ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use{114} his own words, further, he said, "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;" "he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "if you teach that nigger—speaking of myself—how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for the duties of ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... thought 'im jist a stiff-necked fool Before the war; but, as I sez to Poole, This war 'as tested more than fightin' men. But, say, 'e is an 'oly terror when Friends try to 'elp 'im earn a bite an' sup. Oh, there'll be 'Ell to pay when 'e ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... bore, And blessed her stars that Andrew's risk was o'er That she had thus the dire return received, And saved the man for whom her bosom grieved. So much emotion William seemed to feel, No grace he gave, but all performed with zeal; Retaliated ev'ry way so well, He measure gave for measure:—ell for ell. How true the adage, that revenge is sweet! The plan he followed clearly was discrete; For since he wished his honour to repair:— Of any ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... powerful and valuable life, then, is the life that is first founded upon this great, immutable law of love and service, and that then becomes supremely self-centred,—supremely self-centred that it may become all the more supremely unself-centred; in other words, the life that looks v/ell to self, that there may be the ever greater self, in order that there may be the ever ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... talking again. "Hi 'eard 'im sy in the Knitting Swede's 'ow 'e was shipping in this ship just to ryse 'ell." ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... a with ogonek (tail) ['c] c with acute accent [vc] c with caron [-e] e with macron [ve] e with caron [e,] e with ogonek [)e] e with breve [-i] i with macron [)i] i with breve [/l] ell with stroke ['m] m with acute accent ['n] n with acute accent [vn] n with caron [-o] o with macron [vr] r with caron [.r] r with dot over ['s] s with acute accent [vs] s with caron [-u] u with macron ['z] z with acute accent [.Z] Z with dot ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... other purposes, take root familiarly in moist grounds, and become trees; and divers have essay'd with extraordinary success the trunchions of the boughs and arms of elms cut to the scantling of a man's arm, about an ell in length. These must be chopp'd on each side opposite, and laid into trenches about half a foot deep, covered about two or three fingers deep with good mould. The season for this work is towards the exit of January, or early ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Robin, but taller was the stranger by a head and a neck, for he was seven feet in height. Broad was Robin across the shoulders, but broader was the stranger by twice the breadth of a palm, while he measured at least an ell around ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... in the Round Room. If his language was less vehement at Westminster than it had been in Dublin, his opinions were no less thorough. He had his party here, as well as on the other side of the Irish Channel; and his party applauded him. Here was a statesman and a landowner willing to give an ell, where Mr. Gladstone's Land Act gave only an inch. Hibernian newspapers sung his praises in glowing words, comparing him to Burke, Curran, and O'Connell. He had for some time been a small lion at evening parties; he now began to be lionised at ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... states it at 11 spans, or more than the modern report. [Ibn Khordadhbeh at 70 cubits.—H.C.] Marignolli, on the other hand, says that he measured it and found it to be 2-1/2 palms, or about half a Prague ell, which corresponds in a general way with Hardy's tradition. Valentyn calls it 1-1/2 ell in length; Knox says 2 feet; Herman Bree (De Bry ?), quoted by Fabricius, 8-1/2 spans; a Chinese account, quoted below, 8 feet. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... computation will Never afford us a standard by which we may judge of proportions. No one will ever be able to determine by an exact numeration, that an inch has fewer points than a foot, or a foot fewer than an ell or any greater measure: for which reason we seldom or never consider this as the standard of equality ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... might go too far, and then—well, I reckon ye know just what might happen, being as Trunnell has told you what a gentle, soft-hearted fellow I am. He's a rum little dog, that fuzzy-headed fellow, Trunnell. Did ye ever see sech arms in anything but an ape? 'Ell an' blazes, he could squeeze a man worse than a Coney Island maiden gal. Speakin' of maidens, jest let me hint a minute in regard to the one aboard here. She's a daisy. An out an' out daisy. An' if there's a-goin' to be any ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... "Um—we-ell, that's accordin' to what you call comf'table. I was aboard the Hog's Back lightship, that's ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... who is to pay the penalty. But whoever may object or disapprove, I intend to lie upon this bed and repose there at my ease." Then he at once disrobed in the bed, which was long and raised half an ell above the other two, and was covered with a yellow cloth of silk and a coverlet with gilded stars. The furs were not of skinned vair but of sable; the covering he had on him would have been fitting for a king. The mattress was not made of straw or rushes or of old mats. At midnight there descended ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... quartermaster's corral, began his soldier song; and so, alert, cheery, reassuring, the sentries sent their deep-voiced assurance on its unbroken round to the waking guardian at the southwest angle, and as his final "A-a-a-ll's W-e-ell" went rolling away over bluff and stream and prairie, Ray lifted a grave and anxious face from the ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... and their personal attendants in a manner suitable to the position they held. Those who had from time to time been elected members appear to have abused this privilege—where a yard had been given, they had literally taken an ell—and it was now thought to be high time to take steps to check the abuse in future. Accordingly it was ordained by the mayor and aldermen, on the 12th August of this year (and the ordinance met with the approval ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... never ordered the dog to be destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, she declared that such an ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... selected, and the ram is slaughtered amid the cries of the sorcerer directed towards the sunrise, and the diligent sprinkling of milk for the benefit of the Spirits of the Air. The flesh is eaten, but the skeleton with a part of the fat is burnt on a turf altar erected on four pillars of an ell and a half high, and the skin, with the head and feet, is then hung up in the way practised by the Buraets." (Sammlungen, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the red-hot dottel of his pipe on the back of the hairy fist. 'They say 'Ell's 'otter than that,' said he, as Mulvaney swore aloud. 'You be warned so. Look yonder!'—he pointed across the river to a ruined temple—'Me an' you an' 'im'—he indicated me by a jerk of his ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... services rendered by the holy maiden, the councillors of the captive Duke Charles of Orleans, gave her a green cloak and a robe of crimson Flemish cloth or fine Brussels purple. Jean Luillier, who furnished the stuff, asked eight crowns for two ells of fine Brussels at four crowns the ell; two crowns for the lining of the robe; two crowns for an ell of yellowish green cloth, making in all twelve golden crowns.[1223] Jean Luillier was a young woollen draper who adored the Maid and regarded her as an angel of God. He had a good heart; ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, "Well!" until Uncle Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing "We-ell!" At last the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... of course, that the New York Express Company would, if necessary, have carried the goods much further for the same charge of forty cents a package. The limit of distance I do not know: it is probably something like twenty miles. But a potential ell does not reconcile me to paying an exorbitant price for the actual inch which is all I have any use for. This method of simplification—fixing the minimum payment on the basis of the maximum bulk, weight, and distance—seems ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... hazelin mote, There's a braggotty worm with a speckled throat, Nine double is he; Now from nine double to eight double And from eight double to seven double-ell." ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... "Aw, t'ell with your Kodak!" Bob snorted. "Can't yuh carry this layout in your head? I've got a picture gallery in mine that I wouldn't trade for a farm; I don't need no Kodak in mine, thankye. You just let this here view soak into your system, Bud, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... much in boats. These they call quintans, as the West Indians call their canoas. They make them with one tree, by burning and scraping away the coals with stones and shells till they have made them in the form of a trough. Some of them are an ell deep and forty or fifty foot in length and some will transport forty men, but the most ordinary are smaller and will ferry ten or twenty, with some luggage, over their broadest rivers. Instead of oars, they use paddles and ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... your fan, Trust it not to youth or man; Love has filled a pirate's sail Often with its perfumed gale. Mind your kerchief most of all, Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; Shorter ell than mercers clip Is the space ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... walk. Already men had noted that quick, alert, soldierly gait of the new officer. But "shut up" was repeated when audible murmurs were made. "There's more fellows a-horseback up yonder. Who in 'ell's out to-night?" queried the citizen with the keenest ears. "Jimmy, boy, run up there and scout—I'll ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... sudden stop. There was a solemn pause, and then the clerk was seen to make his way to the front of the singing gallery, and was heard addressing the vicar in a loud tone, saying, "Please, sor, an-ell 'as coom off." The handle had come off the instrument. At another church, in Huntingdonshire, the organ was hidden from view by drawn curtains, behind which the clerk used to retire when he had given ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Upon this occasion she wore a skirt vast in width, of a pattern then much in vogue. The sleeves also were preposterously large, in accordance with the custom of the times. About her neck a beautiful white linen ruff stood out at least the eighth part of an ell. The day had been damp and cold, and the room in which she had been sitting was chilly. For that reason, most fortunately, she had thrown over her shoulders a wide sable cloak broad enough to enfold her many times and long enough ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... so as when the freak takes our Monsieurs to appear like so many farces or Jack Puddings on the stage, all the world should alter shape and play the pantomimes with them. Methinks a French tailor, with an ell in his hand, looks like the enchantress Circe over the companions of Ulysses, and changes them into as many forms.... Something I would indulge to youth; something to age and humor. But what have we to do with these foreign butterflies? In God's name, let ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various |
