"Instep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... measure seventeen inches long, smoothed it out, knelt down, wiped his hand well on his apron so as not to soil the gentleman's sock, and began to measure. He measured the sole, and round the instep, and began to measure the calf of the leg, but the paper was too short. The calf of the leg was ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... without rudeness; and indeed the girls' feet were already jigging; and Lizzie giving herself wonderful airs with a roll of learned music; and even while Annie was doing my collop, her pretty round instep was arching itself, as I could see from the parlour-door. So I took little Ruth, and I spun her around, as the sound of the music came lively and ringing; and after us came all the rest with much laughter, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... and he saw wrath flash into the general's face as he recognized the enemy. "Shoot them—shoot them—" he shouted. But the gray line vomited its smoke first, and the boy felt his foot afire. The general dropped from his horse, and as the boy looked down, he saw a red blot coming out on his instep. In the same instant he saw Captain Ward rush to the falling general, and saw the bodyguard gather about him, and then the blackness came over the child and he fell. He did not see them bear General Lyon's body into the brush, nor ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... exceedingly meager man, dressed in a rusty suit of black—the pantaloons tight at the calf and ancle, and there forming a loose gaiter over thick shoes buckled high at the instep; an old cloak, lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry; a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless; a profusion of raven hair, in waving ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... now began to imagine that he was an agent of Bonaparte; and their suspicion that he was a Christian spread far and near. It was 302 discovered also that he had corns on his feet, excrescences unknown to Muselmen, whose shoes are made tight over the instep, and loose over the toes, so that the latter being unconfined and at ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... bows—she is distinguished by her neat dress, her clean plaid head-dress, and her upright carriage. It would be well for some of our young ladies to carry burdens on their heads, even to the risk of flattening the instep, if by that means they could get the straight ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... the people is mostly white, homespun flannel "bawneens," and sandals of cowhide, fastened across the instep, ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... she was thin and slender, but delicately shaped. She had pretty feet, more remarkable for the grace of her instep and ankle than for the more ordinary merit of slenderness; her gloved hands, too, were shapely. There were flitting patches of deep red in a pale face, which must have been fresh and softly colored once. Premature wrinkles had withered the delicately modeled forehead ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... small toes wuz twisted right under the ankle, and the broken, crushed bones of the foot pressed right up where the instep should be. The pain must have been sunthin' terrible, and very often a toe drops off, but I spoze they are glad of that, for it would make the little lump of dead flesh they call their feet smaller. They wear bright satin shoes, all embroidered and painted, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... wave in her straight, ash-blond hair softened greatly her prominent cheek bones, and a frill of lace partially hid the peasant hand that had so frequently distressed him. Her high-heeled slippers shortened and gave an instep to her long, flat foot. He smiled a little at the prim dignity which she unconsciously took on with her clothes; but that at which he did not smile was the air of cool toleration with which she listened to his few ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... of game with the waves, choosing one station after another, and challenging them to catch him there. If the edge of froth failed to reach his toes, he won. But once or twice the water caught him fairly, and ran rippling over his instep and about ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... men—a likeness accentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face, was now seen to extend even to their feet. When the stranger stood up at length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steel buckles lying comfortably over the instep, the back of the uppers closing round the hollow of his ankle like ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had a short upper lip, and sweet teeth; by Jove, they were pearls! and she showed them too, pretty often. Her figure was well-rounded, plump, and what the French call nette. To complete all, her instep and ankle were unexceptional; and lastly, her jointure was seven hundred pounds per annum, with a trifle of eight thousand more that the late lamented Boggs bequeathed, when, after four months of uninterrupted bliss, he left Derry ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... disdainful motion she kicked off a heavily clumsy slipper—her instep arched narrowly to a delicate ankle, the small heel was sharply cut. "In silk," she said, "and a little brocaded slipper, you would see." She replaced the inadequate thing of leather. The animation died from her countenance, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... stood five inches over six feet in his flat sandals but it was only in his unusual height and his enormous strength that he showed the blood of his Jovian father. His feet were small and shapely with a high-arched instep and his whole form was graceful and symmetrical. Crisply curling yellow hair surmounted a head which Praxiteles would have reveled in as a model for his youthful Hermes. As he faced the Viceroy, his usual pleasant smile was gone and his face was set in grim lines, his clear blue ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... into the middle of the floor, cocked my gun, set the muzzle against my left instep, and pulled the trigger. The shot passed through the middle of the foot and pierced the floor. Asop gave a ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... person be free, genteel, and easy; let the attitudes of the bending turn be agreeable; his chest be neither too full nor too narrow; his sides clean made, strong, and well turned; his knees well articulated, and supple; his legs neither too large, nor too small, but finely formed; his instep furnished with the strength necessary to execute and maintain the springs he makes; his feet in just proportion to the support of the whole frame; all these, accompanied with a regularity of motion; and yet all these, however essential, constitute but ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... the unanatomic contortions by means of which they are made to express their emotions. Often one sees elbows bent the wrong way to emphasize the gesture of denunciation, or a foot stepping quite across the instep of its mate in order to suggest speed of motion. Early Gothic work in England is usually bas-relief; one does not find the statue as early as in France. In 1176 William of Sens went over to England, to work on Canterbury Cathedral, and after that French ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... are to dance together, thou wilt put on thy fine white socks, and thy Spanish leather shoes—the pair that have the bright buckles on the instep. Yes, thou wilt do ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Declaratory act. Upon the whole, it was a noble debate. The ministry were violent beyond expectation, almost to madness. instead of recalling the troops now there, they talked of sending more. My father has had no pain, but is lame in one ankle near the instep from standing so long. No wonder he is lame: his first speech lasted above an hour, and the second half an hour; surely, the two finest speeches that ever were made before, unless by himself!" Dr. Franklin too, who ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... one of her little white-stockinged feet over the other. She had on the neatest of sandals, with black ribbons, which crossed over the instep. It was one of Zachariah's weak points, she considered, that he did not seem to care sufficiently for cleanliness, and when he came in he would sometimes put his black hand, before he had washed, on the white tea-cloth, ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... an equally great variety as of clothing, {11} but the majority of men, women, and children (in muddy weather at least) have compromised on the "getas," a sort of wooden sole strapped on the foot, with wooden pieces put fore and aft the instep, these pieces throwing the foot and sole about three inches above ground. It looks almost as difficult to walk in them as to walk on stilts, but away the people go, young and old, and the muddy places marked by the ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... dressing-gown as elegant as the robe in which he had disported himself, a penniless young cornet, in his luxurious garrison quarters, some fifty years before. His loose white locks were crowned with an embroidered smoking-cap; his patrician instep was set off by a dainty scarlet slipper. He had put away the Gospel, and all thoughts of that dread reckoning which he had really some shadowy desire and hope to settle satisfactorily, by some poor dividend which might discharge ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... for want of the lost hairpin, perhaps, and looking like a wreathing coil of—Shame on such fancies!—to wrong that supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush of shining black hair, which, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, like Godiva, from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the fissure or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, and that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show that so far it was not ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... went, Marse Rupert," said Matt, much roused. "I foun' out whar he is dishyer ve'y instep. He's in Hamlin County, keepin' sto' an' post-office at Talbot's Cross-roads; an', frum what I heah, Marse Tom De Willoughby de mos' pop'larist gen'leman an' mos' looked up ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hammocks had been piped down. How well do I remember the old fellow's appearance!—his neat white frock and trowsers, his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... position about the middle of the island the two extreme points of Wrangel island bore southwest and west-by-south respectively. In shape, Herald island is something like a boot with a depression at the instep, and at the westernmost extremity, near which it may be climbed with considerable ease, are found a number of jagged peaks and splintered pinnacles of granite, some of which resemble the giant remains of ancient sculpture, all the ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... lifted the machinery up to examine its constitution and by-laws, and about two and a half pounds of wrought iron fell off and landed on my instep. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... slobberous head, Its filamentous chaps her ankles brushing; Her twice-five roseal toes are cramped in dread, Each maidly instep mauven-pink ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... should only be as the frame to my pictures; they should be material to the mythology which I am writing." But only rarely are his facts significant, or capable of an ideal interpretation. Felicitous strokes like that in which he says, "No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep as the birch," ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... of the coquette in her. Quite the contrary, there was something grateful, even gravely maternal, in the smile hovering on her lips for the rough trooper who took fright like a girl over a revealed instep. Still, the interest was not altogether maternal as she watched him doing the same service for Berthe. Perhaps he was too far away, or perhaps practice brought indifference, but at any rate, his neck was no longer tinged in that ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... staring. "Nothing that I can see." He seized it, heel in one hand, instep in the other, and gyrated it. Scaramouche screamed in agony, until Climene caught Binet's arm and ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... and soft and round as a child's. The chair in which she reclined, was of massive oak, inlaid richly with ivory, and canopied with purple velvet, embroidered with, flowers of gold. Her foot-encased within the smallest shoe in Burgundy, and ornamented with a flashing jewel upon the instep-rested upon a footstool of massive oak, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... was mamma's reply, "but her figure was slender, with small and well-shaped hands and feet. It was her pride that water could flow under the arch of her instep; and her fingers, notwithstanding the hard toil of daily life, remained so flexible, that, when fifty years old, she could still bend them backwards to ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... measuring a full mile round, and from fifty to two hundred yards in width. It was in the shape of a man's shoe, the heel facing west like the house, but projecting beyond it, the narrow part representing the hollow of the instep, being exactly opposite to it, and the sole swelling out in ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... the particular juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were speeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious revellers became aware ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the ankle and upon the instep, make them often appear as if they wore the elegant Eastern sandal. The sides of the legs are sometimes tattooed from the ankle upward, which gives the appearance of wearing pantaloons with ornamental seams. From the lower part of the back, a number of straight, waved, ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... whenever I turned, they seemed rather more curious than fearful, and once or twice when I stopped for a few moments they approached my feet closely. One athletic young soldier caught the loose end of the string of one of my buskins, as it hung over my instep close to the ground and pulled himself up hand over hand, amid the ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... had almost stumbled upon the truth merely through the magic of one upward glance of the eye of the wearied slave; why, then, might she not have unconsciously revealed herself to him by even a wave of the hand or a turn of the instep, or by some other apparently trivial and unimportant motion? And if so, at what instant might he not forget his fallen condition, and disregard not only his safety but her reputation, by pressing into the palace and claiming ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thinking especially of that straight, strong profile. Is it really godlike, or is this impression the result of association? But any suggestion or reminiscence of it in the modern face at once gives one the idea of strength. It is a face strong in the loins, or it suggests a high, elastic instep. It is the face of order and proportion. Those arches are the symbols of law and self-control. The point of greatest interest is the union of the nose with the brow,—that strong, high embankment; it makes the bridge from the ideal to the real sure and easy. All the Greek's ideas passed readily ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... time there was little girl, pretty and dainty. But in summer time she was obliged to go barefooted because she was poor, and in winter she had to wear large wooden shoes, so that her little instep ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... cut. Sam and Willis Murch had been splitting four-foot logs, when Sam's axe, glancing from a log, had buried the blade in his instep; the very bones were cut. There were four of us boys at work together. We ran to him, tied a handkerchief round his ankle, and twisted it tight with a stick; but blood flowed profusely. We did not know ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... pleasantly with her youthful expression and laughing, kissable mouth. She is straight and lissome as a young ash tree; her hands and feet are small and well-shaped; in a word, she is chic from the crown of her fair head down to her little arched instep... ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... natural surfaces, with his feet unprotected by any artificial defences, calls the action of these arches into full play at every step. The longitudinal arch is the most strikingly marked of the two. In some races and in certain individuals it is much developed, so as to give the high instep which is prized as an evidence of good blood. The Arab says that a stream of water can flow under his foot without touching its sole. Under the conditions supposed, of a naked foot on a natural surface, the arches of the foot will commonly maintain their integrity, and give the noble ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... calf-skin; like their great "godfather," they are perfect as a whole; from the binding at the top to the finish at the toe, there is a beautiful unity about their well-conceived proportions: kindly considerate of the calf, amiably inclined to the instep, and devotedly serviceable to the whole foot, they shed their protecting influence over all they encase. They are walked about in not only as protectors of the feet, but of the honour of the wearer. Quarrel with a man if you like, let your passion get its steam up even to blood-heat, be magnificent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of healths; Who begat Goliah of Secondille, Who begat Offot, that was terribly well nosed for drinking at the barrel-head; Who begat Artachaeus, Who begat Oromedon, Who begat Gemmagog, the first inventor of Poulan shoes, which are open on the foot and tied over the instep with a lachet; Who begat Sisyphus, Who begat the Titans, of whom Hercules was born; Who begat Enay, the most skilful man that ever was in matter of taking the little worms (called cirons) out of the hands; Who begat Fierabras, that was vanquished by Oliver, peer of France and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... wrinkle or a pucker, the broad and amply rounded chest. Then a belt of brown leather, with an anchor clasp, and empty loops for either fire-arm or steel, supported true sailor's trousers of the purest white and the noblest man-of-war cut; and where these widened at the instep shone a lovely pair of pumps, with buckles radiant of best Bristol diamonds. The wearer of all these splendors smiled, and seemed to become ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... hair in the morning was all tumbled pell-mell about his face and whitened with the feathers of the pillow, whose strings came untied during the night. He always wore thick boots that had two long creases over the instep running obliquely towards the ankle, while the rest of the upper continued in a straight line as if stretched on a wooden foot. He said that "was quite ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... jimpsome is her shapely waist, Her arms, her instep queenly; And her sweet parting lips are graced With rows of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the world by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle. It was an inch long and five inches broad. "It covered almost the whole instep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot." A sweet invention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. At his first appearance at a Court ball, we read that "his coat was pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, embroidered with various-coloured foil, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sand-strewn path to church in a white or blue dress, with a dark shepherdess hat on her head, a little white pocket-handkerchief folded behind a very large old hymn-book, and white stockings, and shoes with a band crossed over the instep. I did not think there could be a prettier costume in the world than Susanna's ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... remained on her memory only as a disagreeable dream. She imbibed her new monitor's ideas of simplicity of dress, assimilating her own with that of the peasant-girls in the neighbourhood: the black hat, the blue gown, the black stockings, the shoes, tied on the instep. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... an exquisitely moulded thing; even the slender arch of the instep had been preserved in unbroken line and curve, and yet Constans wondered vaguely why it should seem so beautiful to him. He put out his own foot and compared the two, laughed, half understood, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... wears wrought steel spurs, inlaid with silver and gold; price, anything you please. If he flourish a true Brummel of the plains his leggins will be fronted from instep to belt with the thick pelt, hair outside, of a Newfoundland dog. These "chapps," are meant to protect the cowboy from rain and cold, as well as plum bushes, wire fences and other obstacles inimical, and against ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... near to the noble lady, and curtsying low she said, 'Should this bad maiden be indeed my daughter, as I do think she is, she will have between her shoulders a mark like a violet, and this mark also you will find on the instep of her left foot. Let the maiden come ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... are seated on a carpet, or, what is better, the floor of the play-room, and undergo the operation of "trussing." This is performed as follows:—The hands are first tied with a handkerchief at the wrists. The ancles are tied in the same manner. The Cock then has his hands brought to his instep, while his knees pass between his arms, and a short stick is thrust in under the knees and over the joints of the elbow, and secured in this situation. The fight now begins by each Cock advancing towards his enemy, and when they ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... held his hands behind his ears that he might hear the better. The emir paid no attention at all. On his head was a conical turban; about it were loops of sapphire and coils of pearl. He wore a vest with scant sleeves that reached to the knuckles, and trousers that overhung the instep and fell in wide wrinkles on his feet; both were of leopard-skin. Over the vest was a sleeveless tunic, clasped at the shoulders and girt at the waist. His hair was long, plentifully oiled; his beard was bushy, blue-black, ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... near over. The clock will chap twelve in ten minutes, and I'm going to my bed. I'm feared you won't sleep much, Mother. You look awake to your instep." ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... the door, painted mauve within and not without, mannequins, so pink finger-tipped, so tilted of instep, and so bred in the thrust to the silhouette, trailed these sleazy products of thick ringers across mauve-colored carpet and before the appraising eyes ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... but she now folded the toe artfully down, and the big girl discovered the hole in time to abet her attempt at concealment. She caught the slipper from the shoeman and harried it on; she tied the ribbons across the instep, and then put on the other. "Now put out youa foot, Clem! Fast dancin' position!" She leaned back upon her own heels, and Clementina daintily lifted the edge of her skirt a little, and peered over at her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a curious glance. Then he pulled a small case from his pocket, knelt in the sand and lifted Rhoda's foot in one slender, strong, brown hand. The instep already was badly swollen. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... shirt should always be lettered with the name or initials of the team. Baseball shoes are usually provided with steel plates or leather knobs. Spikes are very dangerous and should not be permitted. The regulation baseball shoe reaches just under the instep. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... narrow skirt of her satin gown, flowered in palest pink and silver, revealed every line of a most exquisite figure down to the little foot extending backward from her skirts and showing the high arch of the instep in its ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... accustomed to the darkness, begin to distinguish outlines; the gleaming object defines itself gradually as a Foot, an immense golden Foot, and I perceive the hem of a golden robe undulating over the instep. Now the other foot appears; the figure is certainly standing. I can perceive that we are in a narrow but also very lofty chamber, and that out of some mysterious blackness overhead ropes are dangling down into the circle of ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... found. The place we looked over was where the town of Garota now stands. We concluded to go back, have a council, and go somewhere else. On our way back we stopped to get dinner. While I was around the fire, barefooted, I felt something crawl up my instep, and it proved to be another of those piojos of Williams'. I now thought these torments must ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... a man in a leather garb, and wearing a kind of gaiters bound to the legs by strips of hide which went across and across from the instep to far above the knee. There was a leathern girdle about the waist, and one hand was slightly raised, as if it had held a staff or spear, but no remains of these were to be seen. Probably the head had once been covered, but it was bare now, and a quantity of long shaggy hair still clung to ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... "par." The game starts with the back at a given distance from the line. After each player has "overed," the back places one foot with the outer edge on the line on which he has been standing, puts the heel of the other foot against the instep so that the second foot will be at right angles to the first, and marks a new line at the point where the toes come. The new line is thus the length of one foot in advance of the first line, plus the width of the other foot at the instep. The players then leap again ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... you a bad wound, too," said Mr Rawlings, who by this time had managed to take off Seth's boot and disclose the extent of the injury, a pretty deep cut right across the instep, which would probably lame the ex-mate for life, as ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... friend's athletic figure, clad in its loose but well-cut yachting suit of white flannel, ornamented with silver anchor buttons, and taking a comprehensive glance from the easy pose of the fine head and handsome face, down to the trim foot with the high and well-arched instep, "very much like a thief? I wonder I haven't noticed it before. Any London policeman would arrest you on the mere ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... supplemented by certain gifts of chance—a graceful figure, distinction of feature, a certain ring in the voice. All these, so important trifles, David lacked, while Nature had bestowed them upon his friend. Of gentle blood on the mother's side, Lucien was a Frank, even down to the high-arched instep. David had inherited the physique of his father the pressman and the flat foot of the Gael. Lucien could hear the shower of jokes at David's expense; he could see Mme. de Bargeton's repressed smile; and at length, without being exactly ashamed of his brother, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... summertime; her teeth white and small; so slim was her waist that you could have clipped her in your two hands; and so firm were her breasts that they rose against her bodice as if they were two apples. The daisies that bent above her instep, and broke beneath her light tread, looked black against her feet; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... smiled, as houris smile, adown from Turkish skies, And beams of cruel kindness shone within her hazel eyes; "Stranger," she said, "or rather say, my nearest, dearest friend, There's something in your eyes, your air, and that high instep's bend, That tells me you're of Arab race,—whatever spot of earth, Cheapside, or Bow, or Stepney, had the honor of your birth, The East it is your country! Like an infant changed to nurse By fairies, you have undergone a nurtureship perverse; ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... a slave! That to a Yorke, and from a Yorke! This fellow," he added, standing up at the table, and pointing across it to Matthew—"this fellow forgets, what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of our house have that arched instep under which water can flow—proof that there has not been a slave of the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... to the yards of lawn that swathed the throat, that of the weaker sex, in the days of the Empire, was admirably fitted for August weather. Above pale, thin stuffs, girdled beneath the breast and falling straight and narrow to the instep, rose bare white neck and arms, while each charming face looked forth from an umbrageous bonnet of fine straw. Bonnet and large fan appeared the only ample articles of attire; even the gloves were but mitts. By ones and twos, or in larger knots, the wearers of this ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the door in a dressing-gown. He had a candle in his hand and the dressing-gown was all the clothing he had on—except an expression of unwelcome which was so thick and so large that it extended all down his front to his instep and nearly obliterated the dressing-gown. But Orion didn't notice that this was an unpleasant expression. He merely walked in. The old gentleman took him into the parlor, set the candle on a table, and stood. Orion ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... base, bottom, extremity. Associated Words: chiropody, chiropodist, pedicure, orthopedy, orthopedic, orthopedist, pedal, plantigrade, bastinado, taligrade, palmigrade, cloven, ball, instep, phalanges. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... both by Hajji Mahomed and by Shah Rukh's people. The latter say: "In this city of Kanchu there is an Idol-Temple 500 cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length which measures 50 paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the instep is 21 cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of Bakshis as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that you would think they were alive." These great recumbent ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... fact that my back hair was now in fashionable order was of greatest comfort to me. If only my trousers had not continued their distressing habit of climbing up my boot-tops I would have been almost at ease but every time I rose from my seat it became necessary to make each instep smooth the leg of the other pantaloon, and even then they kept their shameful wrinkles, and a knowledge of my exposed ankles ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... them what they were grieving for; they told her that nothing was the matter and sent her to draw water in her new water-pot from the dry tank. Directly the girl drew near to the bank the water began to bubble up from the bottom; and when she went down to the water's edge it rose to her instep. She bent down to fill her pot but the pot would not fill though the water rose higher ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... before a mirror he was invisible but there), but he was no longer featureless. His eyes shone through a black vizard with one unwinking, glittering, ceaseless threat. He wore a slashed doublet with long hose reaching to the upper thigh, and he had a rosette on each instep. I can see quite clearly now the peculiar dull cold gleam the razor-edged axe wore as he stood in some shadowed place behind me, and the brighter gleam it had in daylight in ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... from that which was adopted when the running-up shot was being played. Now the man comes more behind the ball, and the right foot goes forward until the toe is within 8 inches of the A line, while the instep of the left foot is right across B. The feet also are rather closer together. An examination of Plate L. will give an exact idea of the peculiarities of the stance for this stroke. Grip the club ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... often of broadcloth or velvet, is sometimes added, especially among the higher classes. On the feet, when dressed, are worn sandals of wood or cowhide, covered with cloth, and held on by straps, one of which passes over the instep, the other over the great toe. On entering a house, these are ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... with his lacings. Ivra stopped jumping and went down on her knees in the snow to straighten them out for him. Eric's fingers were awkward with knots, and besides, now, they were numb with the cold. But Ivra had everything right in a minute. She crossed the strings over his instep and tied them snugly above his ankle almost before he could think. Then they ran on. In starlit spaces Eric caught glimpses of hurrying figures, so swift and light he could not tell whether they walked or flew. Their cloaks sparkled white in starlight ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... they bore up the folds of her bodice as they had been two walnuts; so slim was she in the waist that your two hands might have clipped her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet and ankles, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern-gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... abruptly, went to the window, and looked gloomily into the garden. Clearly something was agitating his consciousness, something that needed deciding. Kirsha quietly walked up to him, stepping softly upon the white, warm floor with his sunburnt graceful feet, high in instep, and with long, beautiful, well-formed toes. He touched his father on the shoulder, quietly rested his ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... their breasts; [12]and they had curved shields with sharp, chiselled edges around them and spears as long as the pillars of a king's house in the hand of each man.[12] Fine, long, silken tunics [13]with hoods[13] they wore to the very instep. Together they raised their feet, and together they set them down again. "Is that Cormac, yonder?" asked all. "Aye, it is he, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... steamer to New Zealand. Here at Apia my ankles were badly bitten by mosquitoes, and I confess to having scratched the bites—as I had a thousand times before. By the time I reached the island of Savaii, a small sore had developed on the hollow of my instep. I thought it was due to chafe and to acid fumes from the hot lava over which I tramped. An application of salve would cure it—so I thought. The salve did heal it over, whereupon an astonishing inflammation set in, the new skin came off, and a larger sore was exposed. This was repeated ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... at my boots—a pair of Russia leather, and his face seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he said: ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Mr. Archer Wavy hair dancing wave ... Morris dance Mr. Morrison Black eyes white ... snow ... pure as snow Mr. Virtue Retreating chin retiring ... home-bird Mr. Holmes High instep high boots ... mud ... peat Mr. Peat Crooked legs broken legs ... crushed Mr. Crushton Apprehension suspension ... gallows Mr. Galloway Sombre sad ... mourning ... hat-band Mr. Hatton Music stave ... bar Mr. Barcroft Violinist violin ... high note ... ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... the foot which is behind take a step forward in this manner: With the toe describe on the ground a semi-circle that bends inward toward you; this will cause the heel to pass over the instep of the other foot. The other foot now takes a straight step forward, and you pause in a respectful attitude before the personage of importance whom you wish to salute. Several steps may be taken in succession before the final ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... flags and plates to beg money for the churches, and returning at night with feet suspiciously unsteady; saw the feet-washing, on Maundy-Thursday, of twelve old men, each having a square inch of the instep washed, wiped, and cautiously kissed by the Vicar-General, after which twelve lemons were solemnly distributed, each with a silver coin stuck into the peel; saw and felt the showers of water, beans, flour, oranges, eggs, from the balcony-windows during Carnival; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... the midst of which they writhed still more horribly. Then seizing a good, stout, brightly- glowing brand from the fire, he coolly sat down and applied the almost white-hot end to the wound, which was in his left instep. I do not think I ever saw anything more heroic than this act of the savage, for though the flesh hissed and smoked and gave forth a most horrible odour of burnt flesh, the man never winced, but calmly and deliberately cauterised the bite with as much ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... in a large tumbler as if he were drinking the evening sunshine. This was bad, but not the worst. The worst was, that with his big blue eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, and his bottle-green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his easy shoes easily crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance of having in his extensive benevolence made the drink for the human species, while he himself wanted nothing but his own ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... sat thus waiting for the explosion he did not know, but he opened his eyes at length to find the foot still intact, and the muzzle of the weapon pointing directly at his instep. He altered his aim hurriedly, when, without warning of any sort, a man's figure ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... foot. Across the instep and at the base of the toes ran two rows of tiny round punctures from which the blood was oozing. I looked ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... been added to the number of spectators. This was a young man, dressed in the height of the fashion, that is to say, in a be-frogged and be-laced frock coat with a standing collar, a pair of cossack pantaloons tapering down to the foot with a notch cut in the front for the instep, and a hat about twice as large at the crown as at the rim, much resembling in shape an inverted sugar-loaf, with the smaller end cut away. He had a reckless, dare-devil, good humored look, and very much the air of what is called ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... shape and vigor of the feet. Each foot consists of two springy, living arches of bone and sinew, which are also used as levers, one running lengthwise from the heel to the ball of the toes, and the other crosswise at the instep. These arches are built largely of bones, but are given that springy, elastic curve on which their health and comfort depend, and are kept in proper shape and position, solely by the action of muscles—those of the lower part of the ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... as any girl would; and who is going to blame her? Not I! A girl doesn't know her privileges who was never just a little vain,—just a little glad to be pretty when John is by. Lizzy looked at the crimson merino, and at the smart slippers on the door with a shining black bow on each instep. There, too, on a little low table, was a green box; somebody had left it open,—mother, perhaps,—so she saw on its cotton bed a red coral bracelet, that came from Roxbury, or thereabout, last year at this time. Lizzy shut up the box, and went ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... of the colour of blackberry juice, when it has a sweetish taste—and is eaten, made into cakes with the flour of the mandioca root. From it also is formed the favourite beverage of the people. To obtain the fruit, the native fastens a strip of palm-leaves round his instep, thus binding his feet together, to enable him to climb the slippery trunk, which he does with wonderful rapidity, to obtain ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... tale. My last advice, however, to you, my old friends, before leaving you to the tender mercies of a scribbler, is not to answer all the questions he thinks proper to put. Please don't tell him what you heard or saw after leaving the football field clinging to my sole and instep, of my love intrigues, my stolen interviews with blue-eyed Annie, and when she jilted me and got married to Charlie Quilter, who played "left wing" in the Flying Blues. Charlie must have regretted what ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... on the bare upper surface of the foot by two thongs, of which one was usually carried within the great toe, and the other in many circumvolutions round about the ankles, so that both finally met and tied just above the instep. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... she had collected her senses and was behaving splendidly. While Graves fetched a lantern and water she sat down on the porch, her back against the house, and undid her garter, so that I could pull the stocking off her bitten foot. Her instep, into which Bo's venomous teeth had sunk, was already swollen and discolored. I slashed the teeth-marks this way and that with my lancet. And Mrs. Graves kept saying: "All right—all right—don't mind me—do ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... front, which snake was the first thing I caught sight of, as of course it would be, sir. Also the dress she wore was so thin that through it I could see her shape and the sandals on her feet, which were fastened at the instep with ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... with much pomposity, that it was the far-famed Arabian foot, the instep of which arched so beautifully that water could flow beneath it without wetting the skin. Just at present, though, he thought a little water might run over it to advantage, instead of under, the sand being a trifle mucky. And why would no one else have done such a thing? And ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... Nick still bent over the footprint. The delicate shape, the deep hollow of the ball of the foot, the round cup which marked the heel, and, between them, the narrow, shallow indentation which formed the high-arched instep. In fancy he built over the marks the tall, lithe, straight-limbed creature Victor had told them of. He saw the long flowing hair which fell in a shower upon her shoulders; and the beautiful eyes blue as the summer sky. In a moment his tanned face ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum |
