"Gargoyle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great gate of the Wolfsberg was open now, and, leaving behind him the hushed and darkened town, the master rode into his castle. The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's wife trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over the leads by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard the clamor of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's invitation to meet him ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... he said, with a scarcely perceptible grin. Looking at Barter, and observing that he sat with his eyes still bent upon the book of rules, and head dejected, he allowed the grin to broaden. Barter, suddenly looking up at him, saw him smiling like a gargoyle, with a look of infinitely relishing cruelty ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... rail was the convulsed countenance of Captain Candage. Choler seemed to be consuming him. The freakish light painted everything with patterns in arabesque; the captain's face looked like the countenance of a gargoyle. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... regular encyclopaedia about the place," laughed Bryce. "I suppose you know every spout and gargoyle!" ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... pick his way carefully over the slimy, ice-glazed cobble stones of the Cowgate. He could see nothing. The scattered gas-lamps, blurred by the wet, only made a timbered gallery or stone stairs stand out here and there or lighted up a Gothic gargoyle to a fantastic grin. The street lay so deep and narrow that sleet and wind wasted little time in finding it out, but roared and rattled among the gables, dormers and chimney-stacks overhead. Happy in finding his master himself ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See what it is to be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe—pardon, Hal—says I am the very image of a head for a gargoyle.' ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... upon this duty, it came on to rain in a manner worthy of the tropics. The vault reverberated; every gargoyle instantly poured its full discharge; we waded back to the inn, ankle-deep in impromptu brooks; and the rest of the afternoon sat weatherbound, hearkening to the sonorous deluge. For two hours I talked of indifferent matters, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not so much a culture as a temperament, and Bladery—if the thing may have the name—a code of sentiments rather than a ritual. It is the rococo school of behaviour, the flamboyant gentleman, the gargoyle life. The Blade is the tribute innocence pays to vice. He may look like a devil and belong to a church. And the clothing of the Blade, being symbolical, is a very important part of him. It must show not only a certain tastiness, but also decision in the accent, courage ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... all minor prophets," he would say carelessly. "I think Mr. So-and-So would be interested to hear how you came by these names." And thus encouraged, Malachi would twist his face knowingly, until it resembled a gargoyle rather than a human face, and start away as though he ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... widened out and came abruptly to an end. A canyon, woody below, red, rocky, and naked overhead, was here walled across by a dump of rolling stones, dangerously steep, and from twenty to thirty feet in height. A rusty iron chute on wooden legs came flying, like a monstrous gargoyle, across the parapet. It was down this that they poured the precious ore; and below here the carts stood to wait their lading, and carry it millward ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a narrow fluted pilaster of red marble, and the sculpture was reserved always, as in Greek and Roman work, for the plane surfaces of the building, with, as far as I recollect, two exceptions only, both in St. Mark's; namely, the bold and grotesque gargoyle on its north-west angle, and the angels which project from the four inner angles under the main cupola; both of these arrangements being plainly made under Lombardic influence. And if any other instances occur, which I may ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... this I was told referred either to the many sieges which the town suffered, or a pestilence which depopulated the whole region. A huge gilt clock face shone below the upper gallery, at each corner of which sprang a stone gargoyle. ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... of his home in Baalbek. And once in a pinch,—they are labouring under a peltering rain,—he stops as is his wont to remind Shakib of the Arabic saying, "From the dripping ceiling to the running gargoyle." He is labouring again under a hurricane of ideas. And again he asks, "Are you sure we are better ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... says; "afternoon, walk in Park, sometimes ride. Night, theatre or music-hall." He grins like an amiable gargoyle. In his own country African law-student must be quite a lady-killer—a sort of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... electric button was installed there, beneath a now merely ornamental knocker in grotesque gargoyle form. I pressed it, peering through the iron latticework at the stately court. The answer was prompt. Down the steps of the hotel came a white-headed majordomo, gorgeously arrayed, and so pictorial that ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... forward, driven by the madness that twisted his face into gargoyle hideousness. But Allan's ray-gun stabbed at him, and ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... as black as an abyss outside. With a mute prayer David launched himself much as he had seen the bags and boxes sent out. He fell with a thud in a soft blanket of snow. He looked up in time to see the Little Missioner flying out like a curious gargoyle through the door; the baggage-man's lantern waved, the engineer's whistle gave a responding screech, and the train whirred past. Not until the tail-light of the last coach was receding like a great red firefly in the gloom did David get up. Father Roland was on his feet, and down ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... horrendous, watchful gargoyle, the Nipe crouched motionlessly on the shadowed roof of the low building. A short projection from the air-conditioning intake was wide enough to keep him from being seen from the air, and the darkness of the roof prevented anyone on the street from seeing the four violet eyes ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... chain-gang trailed after with the luggage, and needed to be overawed), walked Professor Schillingschen and Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon. They seemed in love—or at any rate the professor did, for he ogled and smirked like a bearded gargoyle; and she made such play of being charmed by his grimaces that the Syrian maid fell behind to ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... strange note half pathetic, half jeering. Her father tended to a supercilious, sneering tone. In Vina it came out in mad bursts of hilarious jeering. This made Miss Frost uneasy. She would watch the girl's strange face, that could take on a gargoyle look. She would see the eyes rolling strangely under sardonic eyelids, and then Miss Frost would feel that never, never had she known anything so utterly alien and incomprehensible and unsympathetic as her own beloved Vina. For twenty years the strong, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... boisterously, for the host's face, on which was a mixture of fear and doubt, was as comical as a gargoyle. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... reached to my hips, so there was no bravery in the feat, and I felt a fool as I went wading out to the spot where, by this time, the dog's head had again appeared among the water-lily pads, the living image of a gargoyle. But as I hauled him out, with a word of encouragement, the poor chap's gratitude repaid me. Looking like a vert-de-gris statue of a dog, he licked such portions of me as he could reach with a green tongue, and blessed me ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... night of pouring rain. Great drops beat on the little window, a gargoyle poured a noisy stream of water, and a loud sea cried off the land and broke upon the outer edge of the rock of Doom. A loud sea and ominous, and it was hard for Count Victor, in that welter of midnight voices, to hear the call of an ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... which makes it even more striking; it changes the giants to dwarfs and makes gnomes of the Cyclops. With like originality, it substitutes for the somewhat commonplace Lernaean hydra all the local dragons of our national legends—the gargoyle of Rouen, the gra-ouilli of Metz, the chair sallee of Troyes, the dree of Montlhery, the tarasque of Tarascon—monsters of forms so diverse, whose outlandish names are an additional attribute. All these creations draw from their own nature that energetic and significant expression ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... a plaid smoking-jacket and oxblood slippers. On the tabouret close to his hand lay a half-smoked cigar. There was a grewsome suggestion in the tilt of the head and the gargoyle grin that this was a hideous and shocking jest he was ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching the drops running off the end of her little red nose, which played the part of a gargoyle to the rest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... imagination and fancy, find expression in its statues and its carvings, its calm saints and martyrs now at rest forever in the seclusion of their canopied niches, and its wanton grotesques thrusting themselves forth from every pinnacle and gargoyle, so in Dante's poem, while it is as personal and peculiar as if it were his private journal and autobiography, we can yet read the diary and the autobiography of the thirteenth century and of the Italian people. Complete and harmonious ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the light-headedness, thought Maggard, but instinctively he continued to simulate unconsciousness. This man had been his steadfast and self-forgetful friend. So the wounded man fought back the sense of clear and persistent reality, which had altered kindly features into a gargoyle of vindictiveness, and lay unmoving until Rowlett rose and turned ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... massive, lined, hard, weather-beaten face might have been a sneering gargoyle's, carved out of ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... in the keeping of Alcott. I imagined his slightly stooping, yet tall and well-grown figure, clothed in black, and with a picturesque straw hat, twining itself in and out of forest aisles, or craftily returning home with gargoyle-like stems over his shoulders. The magic of his pursuit was emphasized by the notorious fact that his handiwork fell together in the middle, faded like shadows from bronze to hoary pallor; its longevity was a protracted death. In short, his arbors broke under the weight of a purpose, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... friends—maybe because we was so opposite, don't you think? Looking at the Hallowe'en mask that I call my face when I'm shaving seemed to give Fergus pleasure; and I'm sure that whenever I heard the feeble output of throat noises that he called conversation I felt contented to be a gargoyle ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... little side-door, found his key, and entered the Cathedral, leaving the gargoyle to grin after him, growing more alive, and more malicious too, with every fading ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... I'll hobble around all right. It isn't that, it's my face. Oh I know I'm a hideous sight, Hardly a thing in place; Sort of gargoyle, you'd say. Nurse won't give me a glass, But I see the folks as they pass Shudder and turn away; Turn away in distress . . . ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... ran away, and the saint, seizing a stick, pursued him. They ran through the halls, turning round the pillars, running up the staircases, galloping along the cornices, jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle. The poor devil, who was woefully ill, was running about madly and trying hard to escape. At last he found himself at the top of the last terrace, right at the top, from which could be seen the immense bay, with its distant towns, sands ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Archbishop of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... not asked. The other had been not merely forbidding, not merely repugnant, but alternately forbidding and repugnant—in daylight, an impeccable burgher sitting tall and righteous under a tall hat; in tunnels, a hunchbacked gargoyle picking its nose ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... expressions, and certain faces made me think of certain words. The words had no connection with these except sometimes by accident. The instances I give are few and ridiculous. When I think of the word Beast, it has a face something like a gargoyle. The word Green has also a gargoyle face, with the addition of big teeth. The word Blue blinks and looks silly, and turns to the right. The word Attention has the eyes greatly turned to the left. It is difficult ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... I-knew-him-when. They all lied. It had been Augustin Daly, dead these many years, who had first recognized in this boy the genius for discovering and directing genius. Daly was, at that time, at the zenith of his career—managing, writing, directing, producing. He fired the imagination of this stocky, gargoyle-faced boy with the luminous eyes and the humorous mouth. I don't know that Sid Hahn, hanging about the theatre in every kind of menial capacity, ever said to himself ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... think of them," she answered obediently, her eyes straying into the shadows of wynd or close, or tracing out the detail of some carved gargoyle on ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... alone for a while upon the fallen tree-trunk, humming a contented little tune. Never in his life had he been happier. He did not venture to suppose that any creature so adorable could love such a sickly hunchback, such a gargoyle of a man, as he was; but that Sarah was fond of him, he knew. There would be no trouble in arranging with her father for their marriage, most certainly; and he meant to attend to that matter this very morning, and within ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... dining alone. How's my handsome brother? Naughty boy! It's the first time you've looked yourself in weeks. They work him too hard down there, Mrs. Penny. I tell my fat brother he's become little more than an ornamental gargoyle. It's too sordid for this boy, and now you running away from him just when I had hoped the time was ripe for him to dabble in some of the things he's set his heart on. The kind of plays he reads all night ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... church which is furnish'd with mullion and gable, With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin, The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable, The odour ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various |
