"Hoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... does a man who, shod with well-polished boots, has just stepped into a dirty, stinking puddle. He tried to put away from him the occurrence, and to expand, and to enjoy himself once more. Nay, he even took a hand at whist. But all was of no avail—matters kept going as awry as a badly-bent hoop. Twice he blundered in his play, and the President of the Council was at a loss to understand how his friend, Paul Ivanovitch, lately so good and so circumspect a player, could perpetrate such a mauvais ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... devil. Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires, Why should not we be wiser than our sires? In every public virtue we excel; We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well, And learned Athens to our art must stoop, Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop. If time improve our wit as well as wine, Say at what age a poet grows divine? Shall we or shall we not account him so, Who died, perhaps, a hundred years ago? End all dispute; and fix the year precise When ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Tregenza's comfort philosophically, though her sweetheart's departure had not really caused her any emotion. She visited the larder, drank a cup of milk, and then, fetching an iron hoop and buckets, went to a sunken barrel outside the cottage door, into which, from a pipe through the road-bank, tumbled a silver ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... in the contention of the Lombrosians that genius is akin to insanity, neither do I think that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Lombroso, for that matter, is as old-fashioned today as a hoop skirt. ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... Northern demi-god who drank unwittingly at the ocean from a horn and could not empty it, but nevertheless caused the ebb of the sea, so our toper, if he cannot contain the cask, will bring it down to the third hoop if time and credit will but serve. It would require a ganger's staff to measure his capacity—in fact, the limit of the labourer's liquor-power, especially in summer, has never yet been reached. A man will lie on his back in the harvest field, under a hedge sweet with the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... against entertaining too high an opinion of others, than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time. Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art could afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a new mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of dragoons, who wore, for the first time, his gold-laced hat, jack-boots, and broadsword. I know not whether, like the champion ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... tasks included sheep-herding, ditch-digging, varied by irrigating and shearing in their proper seasons. Under the circumstances, it was not surprising that her wash-tub bore about the same relationship to her real duties as does the crochet needle or embroidery hoop to the lives of less arduously engaged women. It was at once her fad and her relaxation, the dainty feminine accomplishment with which she whiled away the hours after a busy day spent with pick and shovel. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the chair door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, descended. A second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg's gate, and the third, with a low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the gate to the doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, a slight ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... sonnets,—the sonnet, a mighty poor one, I'd made the day before,—and threw them all into the grate. Then she turned to me again, signed adieu with mute lips, and passed out. I could hear the bottom wire of the poor thing's hoop-skirt clicking against each step of the stairway, as she went slowly and heavily down to the street." "O don't—don't, Basil," said his wife, "it seems like something wrong. I think you ought to have ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a bark of intelligence, sprang across her arm, turned on his hind legs, and sprang back again. She crooked her arm so that the tips of her fingers touched her hip, and with another bark he leapt between arm and body as through a hoop. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was wonderfully and artistically gotten up in a back-number silk dress, beneath which was an expansive hoop-skirt, while all around her face were cork-screw curls, meant to be very fetching. As she was somewhat deaf, although she never acknowledged it, she misunderstood ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... operation was to shave them, and accordingly their faces were smeared over with a horrible mixture of shoemaker's wax, train oil and soot, most ungently laid on with a coarse painter's brush. Neptune then performed the office of barber himself, taking a long piece of iron which had once served as the hoop of a tun, he scraped their chins ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... make chocolate, hanging it upon a croquet hoop which she had found in the garden—Philippe's hoop. But Philippe was so powerless, he couldn't even stop his croquet hoop from being heated red-hot in the flames as a kettle-holder ... One must be sensible. He would allow it. ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... from rumour that Eskimos from the Moravian settlements were in the habit of travelling northward for the purposes of barter, (though they had not up to that time travelled so far north as his own tribe), and observing bundles of hoop-iron on the sledges, it did not require much penetration on the part of a quick mind like that of Ujarak to guess whence the strangers had come, and what their object was. Nevertheless, the leader and most of the party who had circled round the wizard and his sledge, opened their eyes in ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... was to fall into the pond on the Common. She was driving hoop down the hill, and went so fast she couldn't stop herself; so splashed into the water, hoop and all. How dreadful it was to feel the cold waves go over her head, shutting out the sun and air! The ground was gone, and she could find no place for her feet, and could only ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... flickered on his cool young face, on his black hair and on his long, strong, surgeon's fingers. It flickered too on his mother's sweet lips, on her tired brown eyes and iron-gray hair. It put high-lights on the cameo at her throat and made a grotesque shadow of her hoop-skirts on ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old enemy of unionism, ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... year round. Last September was as wet a month as ever was known; and yet during those deluges did a young gipsy girl lie in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing over her but a piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel-rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at each end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same condition; yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... declares that he placed an Introduction before it merely because fashion had made it as strange for a book to appear without one as for a man to be seen in church without a neckcloth or a lady without a hoop-petticoat. He congratulates himself and his readers on living in a land flowing with milk and honey, quotes the saw about God sending meat and somebody else sending cooks, and accounts for his omission of pigments by saying, like a gallant man, that his countrywomen little ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... smote Uncle Jim as he emerged by the door of the tap. Uncle Jim, blaspheming dreadfully and with dire stabbing intimations in either hand, came through the splintering paddle like a circus rider through a paper hoop, and once more Mr. Polly dropped his weapon ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... ruin: I 'll not tell thee. Be well advis'd, and think what danger 'tis To receive a prince's secrets. They that do, Had need have their breasts hoop'd with adamant To contain them. I pray thee, yet be satisfi'd; Examine thine own frailty; 'tis more easy To tie knots than unloose them. 'Tis a secret That, like a ling'ring poison, may chance lie Spread in thy veins, and kill ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... "Cawan" we saw two natives fishing in a pond with hoop nets, and Yuranigh went to ask them about the "Culgoa." He returned accompanied by a tall athletic man; the other was this man's gin, who had been fishing with him. There he had left her to take care of his nets, and, without once looking at me or the party, proceeded to conduct us ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... process; and if the adopted be simple enough to reply, the brush is instantly thrust into his mouth. As soon as a sufficient quantity of grease is laid upon the face, Neptune seizes a piece of rusty iron, generally the broken hoop of some water-cask, with which he scrapes off all that has been applied. If the novice take all this patiently, his face is washed, and he is permitted to descend from his throne in peace; but if he lose his temper, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... up by the roots from their high foreheads, over their lofty "systems;" and their long, lank necks rose like towers above their projecting busts; which, with their straight, sticky, tight-laced waists, terminating in the artificial rotundity of a half-dress bell-hoop, gave them the proportions of an hour-glass. They wore grey camlet riding habits, with large black Birmingham buttons (to mark the slight mourning for their deceased brother-in-law): while petticoats, fastened as pins did or did ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... Bromfield did not jump through the hoop. "Oh, go to the devil," he said in irritation, ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... everywhere; I heard her voice at every turn. Now she was the infant I was permitted to drag in her little wagon, the earliest of all my impressions of that beloved sister; then, she was following me as I trundled my hoop; next came her little lessons in morals, and warnings against doing wrong, or some grave but gentle reproof for errors actually committed; after which, I saw her in the pride of young womanhood, lovely and fitted ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... out our pipes and relighted the acetylene lamp, which hung from the middle hoop. Jack turned ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... back one of the end hoops and bore two holes underneath it, one for the air to go in and one for the liquor to come out, and after they get all out they want they put in some spigots and cut them down close to the stave, knock back the hoop again, and there ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his hypercritical comments on this Ode, says: "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself." To which Mitford replies by asking, "Are we by this rule to judge the following passage in the twentieth chapter of Rasselas? 'As they ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... the coast of New Ireland till I made Gerrit Denys Island, where I anchored for a couple of days, the natives being very friendly, and giving me all the fresh provisions I wanted for a little tobacco and some hoop-iron. There was an old white beachcomber named Billy living with them; he seemed to do pretty well as he liked, and had a deal of influence with them, not allowing any one of them to hang about the vessel after sunset, and each night he slept on board with me. I gave him a case of Hollands ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... would rather meet hundreds of them. You could bay'net a few of them, for they are soft, plump sort of chaps; but these 'ere things is as hard as lobsters or crabs, and would turn the point of a regulation bay'net as if it was made of a bit of iron hoop. I sha'n't never forget that, Mr Sergeant Tipsy," he continued, addressing the jungle behind him as he looked in the direction of the cantonments. "The underneath's the tenderest part, is it? Just you come and try it, old 'un. Savage old ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... shooting or hurling through a rolling hoop a stick or gymnasium wand. The hoop may be from six inches to two feet in diameter. The smaller hoop is adapted only to expert players; it is well to begin with a hoop the size ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... the house, a thin but elegant robe or mantle thrown over the shoulders was the only upper garment worn. Both males and females were early taught to dress as men and women; and we had many opportunities of seeing a hoop on a little Donna of three years of age, and a bag and a sword on a Senor of six. This appearance was as difficult to reconcile as that of the saints and virgins in their churches being decorated with powdered perukes, swords, laced ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... a seat at the Alm next to the low wall, across which he could see a vast stretch of undulating country, lighted by a moon that seemed to swing like a silver hoop in the sky, Krayne ordered Pilsner. He was fatigued by the hilly scramble and he was thirsty. Oh, the lovely thirst of Marienbad—who that hath not been within thy hospitable gates he knoweth it not! The magic of the night was making of him a poet. He could see his Tyrolean ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... hung at regular intervals on a round hoop erected on a sort of stage. A rope was attached to each bell after the manner of church bells. At a given signal from their master, they all sprang to their feet, and at a second signal, each advanced to the ropes, and standing on their hind feet, stuck ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... she had succeeded in extricating her rings; and now she dropped them into his open palm:—the gold band of Destiny, and the hoop of sapphires and diamonds that he had chosen with such elaborate care, and presented to her with such awkward, palpitating shyness nearly ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Mesa between 7:20 and 8:30 p.m.; at the same place and time I captured five other bats of four species: Myotis thysanodes, Myotis subulatus, Eptesicus fuscus, and Plecotus townsendii. A piece of mist net attached to an aluminum hoop-net two and one half feet in diameter was used to good advantage in capturing bats rebounding from the larger mist net, and in frightening bats into the larger net when they approached closely. An adult male (69249) was shot at 7:20 ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson
... employed at the operation, each having hold of a different teat, and being moved alternately. The two nearest teats are commonly first milked, and then the two farthest. Handling is done by grasping the teat at its root with the fore-finger like a hoop, assisted by the thumb, which lies horizontally over the fore-finger, the rest being also seized by the other fingers. Milk is drawn by pressing upon the entire length of the teat in alternate jerks with the entire palm of the hand. Both hands being ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... garnish of iron-work entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... came for Charlie. He seized it, carried it to a window, and then called Tita to him. Why need he have any secret about it? It was nothing but a ring—a plain hoop with a row ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it was—five pounds weight, like a hoop of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... head foremost into the wind sail which was let down through the skylight into the little well cabin of the schooner. It so happened that there was a bucket full of Spanish brown paint standing on the table in the cabin, right below the hoop of the canvass funnel, and into it plopped the august pate of Paul Gelid, esquire. Bang had, in the meantime, caught him by the heels, and with the assistance of Pearl, the handsome negro formerly noticed, who, from his steadiness, had been spared to me as a quartermaster, the conch was ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... water. However, early in the morning we took our loads of moose flesh, and set out to return to our wigwams. We had not travelled far before my moose-skin coat (which was the only garment I had on my back, and the hair chiefly worn off) was frozen stiff round my knees, like a hoop, as were my snow-shoes and shoe clouts to my feet. Thus I marched the whole day without fire or food. At first I was in great pain, then my flesh became numb, and at times I felt extremely sick and thought I could not travel one foot ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... informed had devolved to his eldest son who was yet a minor, as is the custom of the country. The name of Tinah's wife was Iddeah: with her was a woman dressed with a large quantity of cloth in the form of a hoop, which was taken off and presented to me with a large hog and some breadfruit. I then took my visitors into the cabin and after a short time produced my presents in return. The present I made to Tinah (by which name I shall hereafter call ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very friendly: she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this. She practised no secrecy in her departure from the shop; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop, and went, having been ready at any moment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that she was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid trees on the road to Turnhill, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... a Confederate officer or bribing the guards a log four or five feet in length is sometimes brought in. Two or three instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop to start the cleaving, and in less time than one could expect such a work to be done with axes it is split fine ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... small and poorly decent, and her hoop and mine filled it. She curtseyed low, as did I, and though she aimed at composure, I could see her lips work. The line between her brows was eight years deeper, her face pale, the bloom faded, and her mouth droopt. Had ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... hard with hair, and sewn up with deer sinews. The ball-sticks, of which each player owned his pair, were also partly made of deerskin, the two scoops or ladles being fashioned of a network of thongs on a wooden hoop, each furnished with a handle of hickory three feet long, worked together with a thong of deerskin to catch the ball between the rackets,—it being of course prohibited to catch the ball in ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of dramatic poetry, there is but one female character which can be placed near that of Lady Macbeth; the MEDEA. Not the vulgar, voluble fury of the Latin tragedy,[121] nor the Medea in a hoop petticoat of Corneille, but the genuine Greek Medea,—the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... thread gives the best results. The outline should be run twice; this keeps the edge firm. An even darning or basting stitches, chain stitches or outline stitch may be used if the space is not too small. The padding may be worked in an embroidery hoop to keep it smooth and even. Scallops may be padded in the same way ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... two or three times, but each time that he came in front of the hoop, instead of going through it, he found it easier to go under it. At last he made a leap and went through it, but his right leg unfortunately caught in the hoop, and that caused him to fall to the ground doubled up in a ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife: 'Love me and leave me not.'" (Merchant of Venice, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... spoiled by the Draconian regulation that it must be devoured between the unholy hours of twelve and two, or have all its courses brought on the table at once. Though the Americans invent the most delicate forms of machinery, their hoop-iron knives, silver plated for facility in cleaning, are hardly calculated to tackle anything harder than butter, and compel the beef-eater to return to the tearing methods of his remotest ancestors. The waiter sometimes rivals the hotel clerk himself in the splendour ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... suggests nothing to Gray which every beholder does not equally think and feel. His supplication to Father Thames to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself. His epithet "buxom health" is not elegant; he seems not to understand the word. Gray thought his language more poetical as it was more remote from ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Katy's involuntary exclamation, while Helen bit her lip with vexation, for the hoop had been an after thought to Aunt Betsy just before going ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... to pack up in the trunk male that stands in my closet; to be sent me in the Bristol waggon without loss of time, the following articles, viz. my rose collard neglejay with green robins, my yellow damask, and my black velvets with the short hoop; my bloo quilted petticot, my green mantel, my laced apron, my French commode, Macklin head and lappets and the litel box with my jowls. Williams may bring over my bum-daffee, and the viol with the easings of Dr Hill's dockwater and Chowder's lacksitif. The poor creature has been terribly ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... "Captain Lee could make that fellow look like an ante bellum picnic in a thunderstorm, all hoop skirts and bombazine, before Count Zeppelin could get ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... depends on the manner in which he has been brought up. So, too, the savage decorates himself after his own savage tastes. His smoky wigwam or his filthy mud hut is no stronger evidence of his barbarous condition than his party-colored face, or the hoop of metal in his nose. Call this desire to enjoy the beauty of the world and to be a part of it the lust of the eye, or whatever name you please, you will find, that, with exceedingly rare exceptions, it is universal in the race, and that its gratification, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... in her best gown, with a long-pointed waist and tight sleeves slashed with purple. Her ruff rivalled the Queen's in thickness and height; and the heavy folds of her lute-string skirt were held out by a wide hoop, which occupied the somewhat narrow doorway as they entered ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... the reformers, who, like all the eclectics, whose number is infinite, give, as the Italian proverb says, one blow to the cask and another to the hoop and do not deny—O, no!—the inconveniences and even the absurdities of the present ... but, not to compromise themselves too far, hasten to say that they must confine themselves to minor ameliorations, to superficial reforms, ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... wrapped in a warm silence, broken only by the distant rumbling which came from behind the railings of the Rue de Rivoli. The scent of all the greenery affected Florent, reminding him of Madame Francois. However, a little girl ran past, trundling a hoop, and alarmed the pigeons. They flew off, and settled in a row on the arm of a marble statue of an antique wrestler standing in the middle of the lawn, and once more, but with less vivacity, they began to coo and ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... covered all these hoops with a netting, the total length of which was about twenty-five feet. They also faced each hoop with a netting, leaving an aperture large enough for the ducts to enter. It was long and tedious work to make the netting, as this was done by cutting the hide of an elk and the hide of a mule deer into strips and plaiting the strips on the hoops. They then had a network ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... Dr. Bard for sawing staves concave on one side and convex on the other. In the year 1834 they obtained a patent for the invention. As a consequence the business of the store was neglected. The invention did not yield a large return in money, as it was soon superseded by other devices. The saw, a hoop-saw, was set up in a mill two miles away, and from time to time I tended the saw, and thus I began a training in mechanics which has been useful to me in my profession as a patent lawyer. Heywood also invented a wheel for ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... with. But his father's house was a long distance from the village, and so he did not often have playmates, and it is poor sport to play marbles or ball by one's self. He did sometimes roll his hoop or fly his kite when alone, but he would soon get tired, and then, if it was a clear day, he would ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... connected, by legend, with feminine attractiveness. A great grandmother on my mother's side had been in her day a famous beauty. And when asked the secret of her charm, as she frequently was (to my infant imagination she appeared as a superhumanly radiant vision who walked about the streets in a hoop-skirt with an admiring throng in her wake, constantly being forced to explain why she was beautiful), she did not utter testimonials for anybody's soap, nor for a patent dietary system, nor even for outdoor exercise. She replied simply, "Peppermints". Great grandmamma ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... is quite wrong. It rests on the primary fallacy that gates are meant to be opened, whereas they are really meant to be kept shut. What actually happens when you want to open one is that you plunge halfway through a deep quagmire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire carrying it on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... winning, and the female, seeing nothing to be shunned in the handsome country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth into the moonlight. She was a dainty little figure with a white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. Moreover, her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom, which triumphed ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... are excused. Those who at once consent to pay tribute are allowed to escape without undergoing any further ceremony, but those luckless wights who refuse or have not the wherewithal to pay are instantly seized on by the Tritons, lathered with pitch and grease, shaved with a rusty hoop, and soused over head and ears in a huge tub, while from all quarters, as they attempt to escape from the marine monsters, bucketfuls of water are hove down upon them. Uproar and apparent confusion ensues; and usually it requires no little exertion ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hussein's third son, commanded it; Lawrence did so well that he became a legend. The result was, Allenby could concentrate his army on this side of the Jordan and clean up. He made a good job of it. The Arabs were naturally cock-a-hoop." ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... their normal values to the child. There is the friendly policeman who finds the lost boy; the heroic fireman who comes to the rescue of the burning home; the little neighbor who would not play "fair;" the little boy who had to learn to roll his hoop, and to care for the typical baby brother who pulled his hair; there are the animals who entered into the joys and sorrows of the Jones family,—altogether, very real animals, children, and "grown-ups," learning in common the lessons ...
— All About Johnnie Jones • Carolyn Verhoeff
... property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It's a man-trap and a handcuff, ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... weight in gold! One washing-eve, the Dame, to rise at four, Sought early rest, and, capped and gowned, did droop Fast as a church, to judge from nasal snore, That broke the silence with a hoarse hor-hoop: When all at once with fitful start she woke; For that same tinkling Dutchman on the stair Had told the hour of four with clattering stroke, And waked the sleeper ere she was aware. "Odd drat the clock!" she sighed; ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... in the entr'acve, while the audience was waiting for Kate Vaughan to appear in a short piece called The Dancing Lesson, the most beautiful solo dance ever seen. I was alone on the stage and, thinking that no one could see me, I slipped off my Moliere hoop of flowered silk and let myself go, in lace petticoats, to the wonderful music. Suddenly I heard a rather Cockney voice say from ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... driver has a thick hoop of woven walrus hide, which he throws over the nose of one of the runners to serve as a drag. Even then, the descent may be rapid and exciting, and not a little dangerous for dogs and men. The driver throws himself on his side on the komatik clinging to it with both hands. His ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... the sword slung over his shoulder, with a bamboo hoop? Well, the tiger's hoop is a ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... Widow Tobin, "them pore creatur's looks as cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they dresses 'em warmer this time o' year. Now, there! look at that one jumpin' through the little hoop, will ye?" ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... table and there abide, and my wife saw the andiron on the table: also I saw the pot turn itself over, and throw down all the water. Again, we saw a tray with wool leap up and down, and throw the wool out, and so many times, and saw nobody meddle with it. Again, a tub his hoop fly off of itself and the tub turn over, and nobody near it. Again, the woollen wheel turned upside down, and stood up on its end, and a spade set on it; Steph. Greenleafe saw it, and myself and my wife. Again, my rope-tools fell ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the old lady was obliged to help him first. When they had been thus refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty stable where the show stood, and where, by the light of a few flaring candles stuck round a hoop which hung by a line from the ceiling, it was to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... fire-tub, nearly filled with water, is to be placed on the deck, alongside the bottom of each chute for returning empty boxes. The top of this tub is to be provided with a stout hoop to ship and unship, with a grating of stout copper wire, the meshes of which are to be made small enough to prevent the passing-box from falling into the water, in case of slipping from the man's hand while being struck ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... washed, Ralph Peden carried water, learning the wondrous science of carrying two cans over a wooden hoop; and in the frankest tutelage Winsome put her hand over his to teach him, and the relation of master and pupil ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Dog" who could light lamps, spell, read print or writing, tell the time of day, or day of the month. He could distinguish colors, was a good arithmetician, could discharge a loaded cannon, tell a hidden card in a pack, and jump through a hoop, all for twenty-five cents. About the same time Mr. Pinchbeck exhibited in the same town a "Pig of Knowledge" who had ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... break its dull monotony—the life of an aspirant certain of his lot, "killing time" till the call should come to enter on his heritage. He was like those noble youngsters of bygone centuries who, graced in their cradles by the rank of colonel from the monarch, played around with hoop and top till they were old enough to join their regiments. He had been born a deputy, and a deputy he was sure to be: for the moment, he was waiting for his cue in the wings ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... night-gown rich Phantasia trails, Olinda wears one shift, and pares no nails: Some in C——l's Cabinet each act display, When nature in a transport dies away: Some more refin'd transcribe their Opera-loves On Iv'ry Tablets, or in clean white Gloves: Some of Platonic, some of carnal Taste, Hoop'd, or un-hoop'd, ungarter'd, or unlac'd. Thus thick in Air the wing'd Creation play, When vernal Phoebus rouls the Light away, A motley race, half Insects and half Fowls, Loose-tail'd and dirty, May-flies, Bats, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... s. taylori were caught in hoop nets in clear deep pools and in the Rio Chiquito. No specimens were collected or observed in marshy situations where the water was shallow or stagnant. Individuals were seen only near dusk and in early morning when a number floated just below the surface with only their heads showing. ...
— A New Subspecies of Slider Turtle (Pseudemys scripta) from Coahuila, Mexico • John M. Legler
... consisted in endeavoring to snatch from each other a small hoop, by means of hooked rods, probably of metal; and the success of a player seems to have depended on extricating his own from an adversary's rod, and then snatching up the hoop, before he had ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... only two costumes in the world that I really enjoy being in—(Combing her hair at the dressing-table.) One's a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the other's a one-piece bathing-suit. I'm quite charming in ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... you. What a void! what a gap in our household! A habit, an attachment of twenty-five years growth, a girl who knew our whole lives and opened our letters in our absence, and to whom we told all our business. When I was a bit of a boy I trundled my hoop with her, and she bought me apple-tarts with her own money, when we went to walk. She would sit up for Edmond till morning, to open the door for him, when he went to the Bal de l'Opera without our mother's knowledge. She was the woman, the excellent nurse, whose hands mother placed ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud. Ours to mould our weakling sons To nobler sentiment and manlier deed: Now the noble's first-born shuns The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed: Set him to the unlawful dice, Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays! While his sire, mature in vice, A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays, Hurrying, for an heir so base, To gather riches. Money, root of ill, Doubt it not, still grows apace: Yet the scant heap ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... and caught her hand. "What a child you are!" he said. "Now let me see this little finger." And he loosened from his watch-chain a half-hoop ring of brilliants. "This belonged to my mother, Thelma," he continued gently, "and since her death I have always carried it about with me. I resolved never to part with it, except to—" He paused and slipped it on the third ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... shifted about from pillar to post, with poverty their one sure companion, they had tasted of the wormwood in advance of their years. Toys such as other lads played with for an hour and cast aside were unknown in their lives, and only the poor substitute for hoop, horse, or gun had been theirs. In the struggle for existence, human affection was almost denied them. A happy home they had never known, and the one memory of their childhood worthy of remembrance was the love of a mother, which arose like a lily in the mire of their lives, shedding its fragrance ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... that way? Rats, you don't want to go tagging after them Willy-boys. Damn dirty snobs. And the girls are worse. I tell you, Milt, these hoop-te-doodle society Janes may look all right to hicks like us, but on the side they raise more hell than any milliner's trimmer from Chi that ever vamped ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... bordered by sweet-smelling box. Giant magnolias filled the air with their fragrance, and climbing roses played hide-and-seek among the railings of the rotting fence. Along the shaded walks laughing boys and girls romped all day, with hoop and ball, attended by old black mammies in white aprons and gayly colored bandannas; while in the more secluded corners, sheltered by protecting shrubs, happy lovers sat and talked, tired wayfarers rested with hats off, and staid old gentlemen read by ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was a large brazier beside which lay an immense pair of pincers. In one corner stood a great oaken frame about three feet high moved by rollers. This was the rack. Upon the wall hung a broad hoop of iron opening in the centre with a hinge—a dreadful instrument of torture called the Scavenger's daughter. The walls and floor were covered with gauntlets, saws and other implements of torture, but the rack caught and held her eyes with ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... this respect. There was but t'other day at Mr. Walton's, that fat fellow's daughter, the London merchant, as he calls himself, though I have heard that he was little better than the keeper of a chandler's shop. We were leaving the gentlemen to go to tea. She had a hoop, forsooth, as large and as stiff—and it showed a pair of bandy legs, as thick as two—I was nearer the door by an apron's length, and the pert hussy brushed by me, as who should say, Make way for your betters, and with one of her London bobs—but Mrs. Dorothy did ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown And unnamed, widens on into desolate lands. While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible hands Dismantled and rent; and reveal'd, through a loop In the breach'd dark, the blemish'd and half-broken hoop Of the moon, which soon silently sank; and anon The whole supernatural pageant was gone. The wide night, discomforted, conscious of loss, Darken'd round him. One object alone—that gray cross— Glimmer'd faint on the dark. Gazing up, he descried, Through the void air, its desolate arms outstretch'd, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... island, says Burney, but the longitude is several degrees out. It is undoubtedly a fact that Europeans had been at the islands previously to Cook's visit, for at least two pieces of iron were found, one being a portion of a broad-sword and the other a piece of hoop-iron. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... the garden-paths they race, In the yellow sunshine, Each with a big round hoop White as ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... Alda justice, there was no greed in her nature, and she even offered Wilmet a turquoise hoop of her own, instead of a little battered ring of three plaited strands of gold, which their mother had worn till her widowhood, and they believed to be the ring of her betrothal. And when Wilmet suggested that the locket would delight Cherry, Alda's ready assent inspired the hope ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and satin new, With hoop of monstrous size, She never slumbered in her pew— But ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... never seen me before, neither wished to see me again. At this I was so startled, such things beings out of my knowledge, that I startled Peggy also with the muscle of my legs, and she being fresh from stable, and the mire scraped off with cask-hoop, broke away so suddenly that I could do no more than turn round and lower my cap, now five months old, to the beautiful lady. Soon I overtook John Fry, and asked him all about them, and how it was that we had missed their starting from the hostel. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... beside his vacant semblance for an hour at night would be comforting. And why had his uncle specified an hour of the night? It was a sentiment, like the request: curious in a man so little sentimental. Yonder crescent running the shadowy round of the hoop roused comparisons. Would one really wish to have her beside one in death? In life—ah! But suppose her denied to us in life. Then the desire for her companionship appears passingly comprehensible. Enter into the sentiment, you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by two competitors, each armed with a dart, in an arena about fifty yards long. One of the players has a hoop of six inches in diameter. At a signal they start off on foot at full speed, and on reaching the middle of the arena the Indian with the hoop rolls it along before them, and each does his best to send a javelin through the hoop before the other. He who succeeds counts so many points; ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... that an attempt by Carrington to relieve the place on August 5th had been beaten back, and that the state of the country appeared so threatening that he had been compelled, or had imagined himself to be compelled, to retreat as far as Mafeking, evacuating Zeerust and Otto's Hoop, abandoning the considerable stores which were collected at those places. In spite of all these sinister indications the garrison was still holding its own, and on August 16th it was relieved by ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... grace the elegant and rich costume of the reign of Louis XV. There, the powdered head, the silk and gold flowered coat, the lace and frills, the red-heeled shoe, the steel handled sword, the silver knee buckles, the high and courteous bearing of the gentleman, the hoop petticoat, the brocaded gown, the rich head dress, the stately bow, the slightly rouged cheeks, the artificially graceful deportment, and the aristocratic features of the lady, formed a strange contrast with the roughness of surrounding objects. It struck one with ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Moses!" he yelled, as he made a frantic but futile effort to regain his hold,—for he felt that the negro had loosened one of his arms though the other was still round him like a hoop ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, but the bodice was close laced a la mode to parade the riches of her bosom. Strong and gloriously alive, and abundantly a woman—so she smiled ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... Confederacy had one want, which overtopped all others. They could make coffee out of beans; pins they had from Columbus; straw hats they braided quite well with their own fair hands; snuff we could get better than you could in "the old concern." But we had no hoop-skirts,—skeletons, we used to call them. No ingenuity had made them. No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Greyhound, the Deer, the Flora, the J. C. Cobb, the Varuna, and the Fore-and-Aft all took in cargoes of them for us in England. But the Bat ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... me," she explained in an undertone. "I turned my ankle as I came across the lawn, and had to wait quite a bit before I could move. I was afraid at first I couldn't come to dinner, but I hated to disappoint Eva. Little Arthur must have left his hoop on the lawn, and I tripped on it. We live in the next house, and always come across lots. Doesn't that sound New England-y?" She laughed softly. "My brother says I'll never drop our Yankee phrases. I say pail for bucket, and path for trail, and ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... saw some swiles under a hummock, an' I ran up swingin' my club; but dey didn't stir, an' den I saw dat dey wasn't swiles. Dey was Huskies, two of 'em, dead an' frozen stiff. Dere lines an' lances lay beside 'em, an' knives of hoop-iron, wid bone hannles, were in dere boots; but dere was no sign of anythin' to ate, an' ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... resigned spirit. These Ajumba seem pleasant folk. They play with their pretty brown children in a taking way. Last night I noticed some men and women playing a game new to me, which consisted in throwing a hoop at each other. The point was to get the hoop to fall over your adversary's head. It is a cheerful game. Quantities of the common house-fly about—and, during the early part of the morning, it rains in a gentle kind of way; but ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... (unfortunately the only one in contact with man's place of habitation) of salt water, one of sugar-cane juice, one of spirituous liquor, one of clarified butter, and one of sour curds. It has, besides, its very great ocean of sweet water. And around all, forming a sort of gigantic hoop or ring, there extends a continent of pure gold. Of all the luminaries that rise over this huge world, the sun is the nearest: the distance of the moon is twice as great; the lesser fixed stars occur immediately beyond; then Mercury, then Venus, then Mars, then Jupiter, then ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... the walls of the tent, hand-drums, pipes and lutes and four tambourines lay on the ground; on the vellum of one slept a cat, whose graceful kittens played with the bells in the hoop of another. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... speaking to you, promise me that when we meet, which will be to-morrow night—' Oh, Joan, can that be true? do you think he means really to-morrow?" then, running her eyes farther on, she continued: "Perhaps he does, for—listen, Joan—'You mustn't split on me to Adam, who's cock-a-hoop about giving you all a surprise, and there'd be the devil to pay if he found out I'd blown ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... full of fire they were, too, but you felt a man back of them—a good man, a real man. You liked him, and it didn't matter that his terminology was at times a little eccentric. Grandfather's theology fitted the last days of his life about as crinoline and hoop-skirts would fit over there on the avenue to-day—but he always made me feel religious. It seemed sweet and good to be a Christian when he talked. With all his antiquated beliefs he never made me doubt as—as I doubt to-day. But it was another thing I wanted to show you—something ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... was a "Charlier"—that is, it was modelled after the hydrogen-inflated balloon built by Professor Charles—and it resembled in shape an enormous pear. A wide hoop encircled the neck of the envelope, and from this hoop the car was suspended by ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... himself, in a moleskin waistcoat with sleeves open three buttons up, knee-breeches usually unlaced, stockings of undyed wool, and slippers with the tongues hanging out—a grim soul, with whiskers like a hoop about his face, and a shaven upper lip as heavy as a moustache, for, when religion like Caesar's lays hold of a man, it takes him first by the mouth. Then Grannie, a comfortable body in a cap, with an outlook on life that was all motherhood, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... had been an inspiration to this gentle girl in her work of mercy was a great joy to me, and all the next day I was constantly bursting into a round of cheerful twitters and I swung myself in my hoop as fast as I could ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... with more taste and elegance. A very considerable quantity of their finest cloth was prepared for the occasion; of this their lower garment was formed, which extended from their waist half down their legs, and was so plaited as to appear very much like a hoop petticoat. This seemed the most difficult part of their dress to adjust, for Tamaahmaah, who was considered to be a profound critic, was frequently appealed to by the women, and his directions were implicitly followed in many little alterations. Instead of the ornaments of ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... suspended from a heavy cross-bar, was a steel rail borrowed from a railroad track, and bent into a hoop. When hit with a sledge-hammer it proclaimed to Fairport that the "consuming element" ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... had I shadowed such a group Of beauties that were born In teacup times of hood and hoop, And when the patch was worn; And legs and arms with love-knots gay. About me leaped and laughed The modish Cupid of the day, And shrilled his ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... twenty-five feet in diameter at the base, and twelve feet high, where the men would play upon the ki-lowty while the women sung in unison. The ki-lowty is a drum, made by stretching a thin deerskin over a huge wooden hoop, with a short handle on one side. In playing, the man grasps the handle with his left hand, and constantly turns it, while he strikes it upon the wooden side, alternately, with a wooden drumstick shaped like ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... a fool of us you'll have to go through the hoop," said the Australian savagely, as the call was taken up along the charging line, which flattened out and ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... pointed out, the cradle is often the "play-house" of the child, and is decked out to that end in a hundred ways (306. 162). Of the Sioux cradle, Catlin says:—"A broad hoop of elastic wood passes around in front of the child's face to protect it in case of a fall, from the front of which is suspended a little toy of exquisite embroidery for the child to handle and amuse itself with. To this and other little trinkets hanging in front of it, there are ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... faster it is made to rotate, the more it will bulge out, so that its equatorial diameter will greatly exceed its polar diameter. The same principle may be illustrated by making a hoop to revolve rapidly on its axis, when a similar effect of bulging out will ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... the favorite and most exciting games of the Dakotas is ball-playing. A smooth place on the prairie, or in winter, on a frozen lake or river, is chosen. Each player has a sort of bat, called "T-ke-cha-ps-cha," about thirty two inches long with a hoop at the lower end four or five inches in diameter, interlaced with thongs of deer-skin, forming a sort of pocket. With these bats they catch and throw the ball. Stakes are set as bounds at a considerable distance from ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... kind, Of Pleasure born, to charm the soul design'd, If it fall short but little of the first, Is counted last, and rank'd among the worst. The Man, unapt for sports of fields and plains, From implements of exercise abstains; For ball, or quoit, or hoop, without the skill, Dreading the croud's derision, he sits still: In Poetry he boasts as little art, And yet in Poetry he dares take part: Liber et ingenuus; praesertim census equestrem Summam nummorum, vitioque ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... tomahawks, knives, hoop-iron, beads, turtles, and bright- coloured cloth. Indeed, so friendly did our intercourse become that parties of our divers often went ashore and joined the Papuans in their sports and games. On one of these occasions I came across a curious animal that bore a striking ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... risen to great importance during the reign of Wilhelmus Kieft. He had, if histories speak true, been second in command to the doughty Van Curlet, when he and his warriors were inhumanly kicked out of Fort Goed Hoop by the Yankees. In that memorable affair Van Poffenburgh is said to have received more kicks, in a certain honorable part, than any of his comrades; in consequence of which, on the resignation of Van Curlet, he had been promoted to his place, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... he proposed to marry, belonged to a family of the Formica species. It sailed through society all a-taut with convention, and was comme il faut from stem to stern. Lily and Osgood had always known each other. They passed through the season of hoop and ball, dancing-school, tableaux, and charades together; sympathized in each other's embryonic flirtations; and were such fast friends that no one ever dreamed of any danger to them from love. But as the wagon that goes from ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... his ear: "If ony thing about Peter Puncheon's place could be airted their way, John [Gibbie] Girder wad mak it better to the Master of Ravenswood than a pair of new gloves; and that he wad be blythe to speak wi' Maister Balderstone on that head, and he wad find him as pliant as a hoop-willow in a' that he could wish ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... strikes us at first sight is the number of them. In ordinary life we meet the great host of children in detail, as it were; we kiss our little ones in the morning, we tumble over a perambulator, we dodge a hoop, we pat back a ball. Child after child meets us, but we never realize the world of children till we see it massed upon the sands. Children of every age, from the baby to the schoolboy; big children and tiny children, weak ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... some crinoline hoop-skirts over their shoulders; others brandished boots and shirts, and one glistening brave swung a banjo at arm's-length over his flying horse's head. Another party of the despoilers discovered a shipment of silks and satins. ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... out many things for himself. He often played ships at the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on the grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he wondered what you play at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they are boats. This hoop always sank at once, but he waded in for it, and sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim of the pond, and ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... movements we followed with considerable curiosity. Divesting himself of his clothing, he repaired to an adjoining scrub, and with his tomahawk cut out a piece of lawyer cane twenty feet in length. Having stripped this of its husk, he wove it into a hoop round the tree of just sufficient size to admit his body. Slinging his tomahawk and a fishing-line round his neck, he got inside the hoop, and allowing it to rest against the small of his back, he pressed hard against the tree with ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... think," answered the Emu airily, "for some of us have had most unpleasant symptoms after picking up morsels at camping grounds. Several have died. We were quite surprised, for hitherto there has been no better cure for Emu indigestion than wire nails, hoop iron, and preserved milk cans. The worst symptoms have yielded to scraps of barbed wire in my own case. But these Emus died in spite ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... the men opens a black hair bag and I slips the crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it wasfive pound weight, like a hoop of ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... the north-east coast are by no means bad-looking, but very inferior to the mountain Dyaks before described. I have seen one or two faces which might be considered as pretty. With the exception of a cloth, which is secured above the hips with a hoop of rattan, and descends down to the knees, they expose every other portion of their bodies. Their hair, which is fine and black, generally falls down behind. Their feet are bare. Like the American squaws, they ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... Walden. The walls were hung with crimson and white damask, and the sofas and chairs also, and it was surrounded by pictures, among others a full length of Queen Charlotte, just opposite the foot of the bed, always saluted me every morning when I awoke, with her fan, her hoop, and ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... tumblers, who with muddy hands and feet were throwing somersets in the open street. I recognized them as old acquaintances of the Rue St. Antoine and the Champs Elysees; but the little boy who cried before, because he did not want to bend his head and foot into a ring, like a hoop-snake, had learned his part better by this time, so that he went through it all without whimpering and came off with only a fiery red face. The exercises of the young gentlemen were of course very graceful and classic, and the effect ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... amounts to one-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
