"Nankeen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for his surgeon O'Meara to come to him. He was introduced into Napoleon's bed-chamber, a description of which is thus given: "It was about fourteen feet by twelve, and ten or eleven feet in height. The walls were lined with brown nankeen, bordered and edged with common green bordering paper, and destitute of skirting. Two small windows without pulleys, one of which was thrown up and fastened by a piece of notched wood, looked towards ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... shall see," responded Gavrila; "any way, we won't take off the guard. Here you, Eroshka!" he added, addressing a poor fellow in a yellow nankeen coat, who considered himself to be a gardener, "what have you to do? Take a stick and sit here, and if anything happens, run to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... individual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long, thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of the evil-disposed. His nether garment was a yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of which ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... superciliously in answer to Nim's shout, and utterly declined to take charge of the team, intimating his opinion that it was very good employment for 'swallow-tail' himself. Which remark alluded to the coat worn by Mr. Nimrod—a vesture of blue, with brass buttons, rendered further striking by loose nankeen continuations, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... possessed with an intense desire to feel the edge of the axe. His thin fingers twitched and fumbled about his pockets, his lips moved, and he shook his head from time to time. This old gentleman was clad in nankeen trousers of ancient cut, a velvet waistcoat and a blue swallow-tail coat, all greatly too large for him. His scant locks were crowned by a cheap straw hat of the newest make, his shoes and gaiters were of a twenty-year-old pattern. Altogether, he was not ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... was distinguished by a pliant grace and courtesy unknown to the present generation. The attire of this gentleman was composed of a many-folded white cravat, a close-buttoned blue dress-coat, and nankeen trousers with gaiters to match, ridiculous to the present generation. The talk of this gentleman ran in an easy flow—revealing an independent habit of mind, and exhibiting a carefully-polished capacity for satirical retort—dreaded and disliked by the present generation. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to gaze at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... call in valedictory addresses the Rose of Rosemont. She spent a few moments with them, holding John's more than willing hand, and then called in the principal's first assistant, Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew, a smallish man of forty, in piratical white duck trousers, kid slippers, nankeen sack, and ruffled shirt. Irritability confessed itself in this gentleman's face, which was of a clay color, with white spots. Mr. Pettigrew presently declared himself a Virginian, adding, with the dignity of a fallen king, that he—or ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... large surface of white is present, such as the shirt front, or lady's handkerchief, a piece of dark cloth (a temporary bosom of nankeen is best,) may be put over it, but quickly withdrawn when the process is about two ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... general appearance was quite in keeping. How delightful he must have looked! Why have we no such types nowadays? Wearing a "white merino frock-coat, nankeen trowsers, a large-brimmed straw hat, and white shoes," he must have been a fairly conspicuous object in the landscape. That hat alone will have alarmed the peasantry who to this day and hour wear nothing but felt on their heads. And note the ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... o' my sark-breast wadna lie in the position in which I wanted it! For the first time my very hair rose in rebellion—it wadna lie right; and I cried, 'The mischief tak' the barber!' The only part o' my dress wi' which I was satisfied, was a spotless pair o' nankeen pantaloons. I had a dog they ca'ed Mettle—it was a son o' poor Rover, that I mentioned to ye before, Weel, it had been raining through the night, and Mettle had been out in the street. The instinct o' the poor dumb brute was puzzled to comprehend the change that ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... an omnibus, and walks back from the City for exercise. I have known some who have had maid-servants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look as florid and rosy as any British squire who has never left his paternal beef and acres. They do not wear nankeen jackets in summer. Their livers are not out of order any more; and as for hookahs, I dare swear there are not two now kept alight within the bills of mortality; and that retired Indians would as soon think of smoking them, as their wives would of burning themselves on their husbands' bodies ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... before we got into the river, by hosts of sharks, and in a few minutes we had hoisted five of the huge fishes on board. Then no sooner had we cast anchor before Freetown, than a gentleman of a certain age, in a blue coat and white nankeen trousers and a top hat, appeared, asking speech of the captain. He was sent to me. "Captain," said he, "I've come to know how many ladies will be ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... in a queer nankeen coat lay asleep on a bamboo lounge under the great cherry-tree, with a purple silk handkerchief half over ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... a fine view of all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium in the streets, the aspect of the savage mob, the wanton firing of shots at quiet spectators, the hoisting of Louis Philippe's nankeen trousers on the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began to come through my windows, I thought it time to be off while it was still possible. Then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts, &c., belonging to the East ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... prove fatal. There were Mongols—of middle height, with black hair plaited into pigtails, which hung down their back; round faces, swarthy complexions, lively deep-set eyes, scanty beards—dressed in blue nankeen trimmed with black plush, sword-belts of leather with silver buckles, coats gayly braided, and silk caps edged with fur and three ribbons fluttering behind. Brown-skinned Afghans, too, might have been seen. Arabs, having the primitive type of the beautiful Semitic ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... out, but not even the dog showed himself; the lackey again prepared to leap down, and again shouted: "Hey!" The decrepit barking was renewed, and, a moment later, a man ran out into the yard, no one could tell whence,—a man in a nankeen kaftan, with a head as white as snow; shielding his eyes with his hand, he stared at the tarantas, suddenly slapped himself on both thighs, at first danced about a little on one spot, then ran to open the gate. The tarantas drove into the yard, the wheels rustling ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... can, the sensations which this instantaneous transformation produced. Appearances are wonderfully influenced by dress. Check shirt, buttoned at the neck, an awkward fustian coat, check trowsers and bare feet, were now supplanted by linen and muslin, nankeen coat striped with green, a white silk waistcoat elegantly needle-wrought, cassimere pantaloons, stockings of variegated silk, and shoes that in their softness, pliancy, and polished surface vied with satin. I could scarcely forbear looking back to see whether the image in the glass, so well proportioned, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the sun shines on his bare, shaved head, where only one lock of hair is left; that is braided into a long, thick tail, and hangs far down his back. He is very proud of it, and nothing would induce him to have it cut off. Now it hangs down over his loose blue nankeen jacket, but when he goes to work he will twist it round upon the crown of his head, and tuck the end under the coil to keep it out of the way. Isn't this a funny way for a man to wear his hair? Pen-se has hers still in little soft curls, but by and by it will be ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... Mrs Jiniwin. 'Do you think they WERE crooked?' said Brass, in an insinuating tone. 'I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Kusminskoie about noon. In everything simplifying his life, he did not wire from the station of his arrival, but hired a two-horse country coach. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen regulation coat, belted below the waist, sitting sidewise on the box. He was the more willing to carry on a conversation because the broken-down, lame, emaciated, foaming shaft-horse could then walk, which these horses ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... so different from the cadaveric mob in dress and habits. In honour of his exalted functions he exhales an odour of musk; he bears a red tuft at the tip of his antennae; his breast is covered with nankeen; and across his wing-cases he wears a double, scalloped scarf of vermillion. An elegant, almost sumptuous costume, very superior to that of the others, but yet lugubrious, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Captain strode by, with his sword clattering as if it did not know whose head to cut off first. But he did not call for Miss Jane that time. He went on to the Green, where he came so suddenly upon the eldest Master Johnson, sitting in a puddle on purpose, in his new nankeen skeleton suit, that the young gentleman thought judgment had overtaken him at last, and abandoned himself to the howlings of despair. His howls were redoubled when he was clutched from behind and swung over the Black Captain's shoulder; but in five minutes his tears were stanched, and he was ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... not so far wrong in his surmise. Five minutes later, Ivan Nikiforovitch's nankeen trousers appeared, and took nearly half the yard to themselves. After that she fetched out a hat and a gun. "What's the meaning of this?" thought Ivan Ivanovitch. "I never knew Ivan Nikiforovitch had a gun. What does he want with it? ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... red face—red in spots—close-clipped gray hair that stood up on his head like a polishing brush, gold eyeglasses attached to a wide black ribbon, and a scissored mustache. He was dressed in a faultlessly fitting serge suit enlivened by a nankeen waistcoat supporting a gold watch-chain. The fingers of one hand clutched a palm-leaf fan; the fingers of the other were extended toward Jack. He had known Jack's governor for years, and so a ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the door, and a ruddy old face looked in. It is the Cavaliere Trenta, in his official blue coat and gold buttons, nankeen inexpressibles, a broad-brimmed white hat and a gold-headed cane in his hand. Whatever speck of dust might have had the audacity to venture to settle itself upon any part of the cavaliere's official blue coat, must at once have hidden its diminished head after peeping at the cavaliere's ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the haymakers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks and ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... say, since leaving the front steps, accumulated an increased amount of clothing. The upper half of the familiar butternut suit—the coat—still clung to him, but the middle and lower half had been supplanted by another waistcoat and trousers of faded nankeen, the first corrugated into wrinkles and the second flapping about ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith |
