"Askew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is that, there? A milestone? No, it is not a milestone. It is a head, a black head, tanned and polished. The mouth is all askew, and you can see something of the mustache bristling on each side—the great head of a carbonized cat. The corpse—it ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... were mounting the stairway. We passed under the arch—where a door, shattered and wrenched from its upper hinge, lay askew against the wall—and climbed to the platform. From this another flight of steps (but these were of worked granite) led straight as a ladder to a smaller platform at the foot of the keep; and high upon these stood my uncle Gervase directing ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... spinning, askew-axised thing we call a planet—(impertinently enough, since we are far more planetary ourselves). A round, rusty, rough little metallic ball—very hard to live upon; most of it much too hot or too cold: a couple of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... had stuck the pin into the candle he never shut the slide again; and though no wind blew, there was a light breath moving in the morning off the sea, that got inside the lanthorn and set the flame askew. And so the candle guttered down one side till but little tallow was left above the pin; for though the flame grew pale and paler to the view in the growing morning light, yet it burnt freely all the time. So at last there was left, as I judged, but a quarter of an hour to run before the pin ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... things are: yet many of these are askew: You are certainly I: but certainly I am ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... him, rather like the stone images of the Twelve Apostles in the niches round the West Door. Today they jumped in a moment into new life. Yesterday he could have calculated to a nicety the attitude that they would have; now they seemed to have been blown askew with a new wind. Because he noticed these things it does not mean that he was generally perceptive. He had always been very sharp to perceive anything that concerned ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... the idea of confederation was a powerless abstraction. Yet the need of unity existed in the decade before the Constitution was adopted. The need existed, in the sense that affairs were askew unless the need of unity was taken into account. Gradually certain classes in each colony began to break through the state experience. Their personal interests led across the state lines to interstate experiences, and gradually there was ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock. Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat, like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be here ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... a Jonah day for us all through. Everything had gone wrong. Ismay had spilled grease on her velvet coat, and the fit of the new blouse I was making was hopelessly askew, and the kitchen stove smoked and the bread was sour. Moreover, Huldah Jane Keyson, our tried and trusty old family nurse and cook and general "boss," had what she called the "realagy" in her shoulder; and, though Huldah Jane is as good an old creature as ever lived, when she has the "realagy" ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the air of a civilian. In face he was of a type singularly unlike the men about him; thin, high-nosed, gray-eyed, with a slight blond mustache, and long, rather straggling hair of the same color. There was an apparent negligence in his attire. His cap was worn with the visor a trifle askew; his coat was buttoned only at the sword-belt, showing a considerable expanse of white shirt, tolerably clean for that stage of the campaign. But the negligence was all in his dress and bearing; in his face was a look of intense interest ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... machine. The handle was twisted askew again He said something under his breath. He would have to unscrew the ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... canvas screen in front of the door collapsed and the major appeared with his cap askew over his red face and a brass bell in his hand, which he rang frantically as he advanced into ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... natural wood, and walls hung with faded paper of an indeterminate pattern and even more indeterminate color. To-day it was in greater confusion than usual, with white dust thick on table and chair, a window-shade askew, the music-rack disarranged, and a plate of grape-skins which Allison had left last night on the piano still standing there. But it was not the disorder which irritated Allison most, nor the signs of poverty, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... with all that was there, there was not more than two hundred florins' worth. Wherefore Biancofiore, confessing herself outwitted, long lamented the five hundred florins repaid and yet more the thousand lent, saying often, 'Who with a Tuscan hath to do, Must nor be blind nor see askew.' On this wise, having gotten nothing for her pains but loss and scorn, she found, to her cost, that some folk know as ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... seems to run askew; obviously I ought to have been extremely stirred and broadened by this earliest association with a boy of my own age! Yet I cannot truly say that it was so. Benny's mother possessed what seemed to me a vast domain, with lawns winding ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... one of his poorer horses and galloped headlong back through the bush. After ten miles or so, in a little open meadow he came upon the handsome breed boy riding along without a care in the world, hand on hip and "Stetson" cocked askew, singing lustily of Gentille Alouette. Never in his life had Stonor been so glad to see anybody. His set, white face worked painfully; for a moment he could not speak, but only grip the boy's shoulder. Tole was scared ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... chapel, where we caught sight of a gayly painted blue van, lettered over with many texts and mottoes, which my friend explained as one of the vans intinerantly used by extreme Protestants of the Anne Askew persuasion to prevent the spread of ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... tightly together, but it was of no use—off the things had to come. And young Lucretia had put on the prim whaleboned basque of her best dress wrong side before; she had buttoned it in the back. There she stood, very much askew and uncomfortable about the shoulder seams and sleeves, and hung her ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... indeed! Oh, my grief and conscience!" groaned Aunt Hannah, setting her bonnet hopelessly askew on ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... very much awry, and put on her shawl exceedingly askew, Miss Peppy went out into the street, and going straight up to the first man she saw, asked the way to ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... one morning, on "Webster's Unabridged,"—that being the only available seat in an apartment not over-capacious,—and went into a committee of the whole on the state of her boots. The prospect was not inviting. Heels frightfully wrenched and askew, and showing indubitable symptoms of a precipitate secession; binding frayed, ravelled, evidently stubborn in resistance, but at length overpowered and rent into innumerable fissures; buttons dislocated, dragged up by the roots, yet clinging to a forlorn ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... flushed and bright-eyed. Her fair hair was disordered, her hat a trifle askew. She had an air of enjoying unwonted excitements. "All the gold's being hoarded too," she said, with a crow of delight in her voice. "Faber says that probably our cheques won't be worth that in a few days. He rushed off to London to get gold at his clubs—while he can. I had to insist ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... John being himself killed at that time by Daniels. A little later, Frank and Jesse James and Clel Miller killed detective Wicher, of the same agency, torturing him for some time before his death in the attempt to make him divulge the Pinkerton plans. The James boys killed Daniel Askew in revenge; and Jesse James and Jim Anderson killed Ike Flannery for motives of robbery. This last set the gang into hostile camps, for Flannery was a nephew of George Shepherd. Shepherd later killed Anderson in Texas for his share in that act; he also shot Jesse James ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... pictures that pursue the homeless one from house to house—The Huguenot Lovers, The First Quarrel, The Wedding Breakfast, Psyche at the Fountain. The mantel's chastely severe outline was ingloriously veiled behind some pert drapery drawn rakishly askew like the sashes of the Amazonian ballet. Upon it was some desolate flotsam cast aside by the room's marooned when a lucky sail had borne them to a fresh port—a trifling vase or two, pictures of actresses, a medicine bottle, some stray cards out ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... inherent human nature," said the doctor, slowly, "as if we had all knowledge concerning the possibilities of that nature's best and worst. Yet I have sometimes wondered if what we call mentally askew people are not those that possess attributes which society is not wise enough to help them use wisely—mightn't such people be like fine-blooded animals who sniff land and water where no one else suspects any? Given a certain kink in a human brain, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sitting in the control room of the Lancet, his glasses slightly askew on his florid face. He had climbed through the entrance lock ten minutes before, shaking snow off his cloak and wheezing like a boiler about to explode; now he faced the patrol ship's crew like a small but ominous black thundercloud. Across the room, ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... gardener's pretty child, had strayed in from among the servants peeping at a long window in the rear, and established herself near the wedding group, looking like a small ballet girl in her full white frock and wreath pushed rakishly askew on her curly pate. As she stood regarding the scene with dignified amazement, her eye met Sylvia's. In spite of the unusual costume, the baby knew her playmate, and running to her, thrust her head under the veil with a delighted ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the sun next!" exclaimed his Majesty. "Anything may happen. The very laws of gravitation themselves may go askew!" ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... with an impatient damp thumb in her search for Bonnet, when Thomas entered, slipping in around the edge of the hall door on soft foot—with a covert peek nursery-ward that was designed to lend significance to his coming. His countenance, which on occasion could be so rigorously sober, was fairly askew with a smile. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... The largest was bent askew by the force of the crash or an explosion, Joe didn't know which. The smallest was a twisted mass of charcoal. Joe gulped, and dug into ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... end of three hours' flusteration, heat, worry, and good hard work, he had accomplished the following results: A tent, very saggy, very askew, covered a four-sided area—it was not a rectangle—of very bumpy ground. A hodge-podge bonfire, in the centre of which an inaccessible coffee-pot toppled menacingly, alternately threatened to ignite the entire surrounding forest or to go out altogether through ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... reached Robin Hill, however, the unaccustomed airing had made him terribly sleepy; he drove with his eyes closed, a life-time of deportment alone keeping his tall and bulky form from falling askew. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Elizabeth; shaving the Count of Saiym's head; and burning noble ladies almost without trial; Sprenger and his compeers, offering up female hecatombs of the highest blood thoughout Germany; English bishops burning in Smithfield Anne Askew, the hapless court-beauty, and her fellow-courtier Mr. Lascelles, just as if they had been Essex or Berkshire peasants;—all these evildoers were welding the different classes of the European nations, by a community of suffering, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... went, and into an open, path-cut field through which the creek meandered. The palace lay in the farthest corner. It did not even stand. Its old logs, disjoined and askew, were all but on the ground. How the roof managed to hold the chimney was a mystery. Perhaps, after all, it was the chimney which acted as a prop to the roof. A lean-to of poles, sod, and bark served as an entrance, ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... laughed loud when they saw the crown hanging all askew, and the great drops rolling from it into Svend's eyes and down his cheeks, looking like tears: not so Svend; he rose, holding the crown level on his head, holding it back, so that it pressed against his brow hard, and, first dashing the drops to right and left, caught his brother ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... fair hair," said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew at Monsieur Goupille's peruque. "Grandmamma said her papa—the marquis— used yellow powder: it must have ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... is extremely disagreeable business, this of repairs and restoration. I suppose I am doing fairly well considering that I have been more than half a century getting my gearings askew and awry. But I am taking orders now and say "Thank you," when I get them. Just when I shall be well enough to take hold ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... is a pure Georgic—they'll dance." They were dancing already. The line, with dishevelled hair, aprons and kerchiefs askew, had formed into the square of a quadrille. A rude measure was tripped; a snatch of song, shouted amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, and then the whole band, singing in chorus, linked ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... clamour of jeering. But a man called Askew, who knew Travers well, laughed and said: "Come, let's have it!" Travers turned those twinkling little eyes of his slowly round the circle, and ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... knew not whether he stood or sat or floated askew. Feeling died and with it went that delicate motor control that directs the position of muscle and limb and enables a man to place his little finger on the tip of his nose with his ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
... mind as he spoke; I seemed to see red-faced gentlemen in knee breeches, dog's-ear wigs askew over broad foreheads, reading out loud with unction the phrases, "inalienable rights ... pursuit of happiness," and to hear the cadence out of Meredith's The Day of the Daughter ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... uprights, surmounted by hideous knops—the addition of some local carpenter. Between the lozenge-shaped shafts of the choir arches, the worm-riddled parclose screens dripped sawdust in little heaps. Down in the nave, bench-ends leaned askew or had been broken up, built as panels into deal pews, and daubed with paint; the floor was broken and ran in uneven waves; the walls shed plaster, and a monstrous gallery blocked the belfry arch. Upon this gallery Parson Jack had spent most of his careful, unsightly carpentry, for ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the universe. I'm just as much askew with it as you are, only I haven't got the wit to thump it so satisfactorily. You are going it for the two of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... gloomy prognostics were entirely voluntary on the part of Mr. Wilson, that the officer in question was full of zeal, and only too anxious to add horsemanship to his other accomplishments, I did not interfere. As for Wilson himself, it is not a marvel if he should see things a little askew; for some unaccountable reason, he chose to sleep last night in the open air, on the top of a hen- coop, and naturally awoke this morning with a crick in his neck, and his face so immovably fixed over his left shoulder, that the efforts of all the ship's company have not been able to twist ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... horror, and then paced up and down the room, wondering how he should endure life with it continually before his eyes. Some books lay on a side-table, and as he passed he looked absently at them and halted. On his Shelley, slightly askew, as if to preclude all thought of care and design, lay a little volume bound in dingy white and gold. Percival did not touch it, but he stooped and read the title, The Language of Flowers, and saw that—purely by accident of course—a leaf was doubled down as if to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... there was sent one Askew, as resident from the then Governor of England; he lay in a common eating-house where some travellers used to lie, and being one day at dinner, some young men meeting in the street with Mr. Prodgers, a gentleman belonging to the Lord Ambassador Cottington, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... mother church in the town from which Lord Chesterfield's title came has a peculiar steeple, graceful in its lines, but it points askew, from whatever quarter it is seen. The writer of these Letters, which he never dreamed would be published, is the best self-portrayed Gentleman in literature. In everything he was naturally a stylist, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... it happened, that when Nan came to Patty's room next morning, as she often did, she found that coquettish damsel, sitting up in bed, wrapped in a blue silk nightingale, and with a flower-decked lace cap somewhat askew on her tumbled curls. ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... wagons came lumberingly creaking in. It was drawn by two yoke of lean spotted oxen. The wheels had been wrapped with rawhide, for repairs, and the canvas top was torn and discolored and askew. From the puckered front peered a woman and two children; the man of the family was walking ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... harvest-folks, and John, "Came in and look'd askew; "'Twas my red face that set them on, "And then ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... and my old friend came flying towards me, her cap (with lilac trimmings) shaken askew ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... unwholesome wards, with scanty food. Some were weeping, not knowing what might be the result of their trial. It was rumoured, not without reason, that the Queen proposed to crush out the Reformed religion with fire and sword; and they remembered that in King Henry's time, that sweet young lady—Anne Askew—had been burned at Smithfield; and it was evident that Queen Mary had much of the nature of her father. The prisoners were led over London Bridge to the Church of Saint Mary Overy—the very place in which the priest declared that Ernst had been seen ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... flowers? I will not write a sonnet, Singing their beauty as a poet might do: I just detest those on Aunt Nipson's bonnet, Because they are like her,—all gray and blue, Dusty and pinched, and fastened on askew! And as for heaven's own buttercups and daisies, I am not good enough to sing ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... Twenty-four of these are on new topics and seventy-six are additional references on topics included in the first edition. New cross references have also been included when necessary. The new books indexed are Robbins's "High school debate book," the "Debaters' handbook series" and the new edition of Askew's "Pros and cons," also the numbers of the "Speaker" and of the "Bulletin" of the University of Wisconsin issued in the sixteen months since the first edition ...
— Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Debate Index - Second Edition • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
... sentence is bestowed by successive transmission on the last whom it will fit: this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the protestant religion, who, in the time of Henry the eighth, was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the historian of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... hat" was rakishly askew upon her red curls, for Fay had frequently grabbed at it in her rage, and the beautiful green linen ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... all askew to-night, — As if the time were come, or almost come, For their untenanted mirage of me To lose itself and crumble out of sight, Like a tall ship that floats above the foam A little ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... duly prepared by Mr. Askew, Mr. Furze's solicitor; the usual notice was sent round, and the meeting took place in a room at the Bell. A composition of seven-and-sixpence in the pound was offered, to be paid within a twelvemonth, with a further half-crown in two years' time, the ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... her cushions. "It is a great privilege to have Martha. I do hope these dear girls will not put her out. She grows a little set in her ways as she grows older, my good Martha. I don't think that blind is quite half-way down. It makes the whole room look askew, ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites; and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... receive her ladyship, who fatly rolled in, her tarnished hat askew, her torn thrice-dingy silks clutched up in ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... boxes standing about. The sole concession to comfort was a rug of cheap Axminster covering half the floor. The walls were decorated chiefly with miscellaneous clothing suspended from nails, a few maps and blue prints tacked up askew. Straight across from the entering door another stood ajar, and she could see further vistas of bare board wall, small, dusty window-panes, and a bed whereon gray blankets were tumbled as they fell when a waking ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a dreary row of unkempt heads, and bearded anxious faces, and crouching shoulders askew, cleared their throats, and two uncrossed and recrossed their legs, the plank seat creaking ominously with the motion under their combined weight. A shade of disappointment was settling on the coroner's face. This was slight information indeed from the only person who had seen the man ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... gratified, however, to note the slight change effected. One or two of the long branches had fallen to the ground and several others were askew. He was obliged to fling aside the match while he devoted some minutes to straightening them. This was effected so well that when he stepped inside and struck another match he saw not a flake of snow filtering through the crevices, though there was likely to be considerable ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... a sense of rumness. There was something a little rum about the fixtures even, about the ceiling, about the floor, about the casually distributed chairs. I had a queer feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at them straight they went askew, and moved about, and played a noiseless puss-in-the-corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine design with masks—masks altogether ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... and her hat was dented and askew. The little creature looked strangely pathetic as she stood up alongside tall Lollypop ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... picking is with toilsome labor, but yet I shun it not, My maiden curls are all askew, my pearly fingers all be numbed; But I only wish our tea to be of a superfine kind, To have it equal their 'dragon's ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... a thick brogue and a husky temper. She was amiable enough so long as things went to her satisfaction, but when they did not suit her she was a termagant. She was neither beautiful nor graceful, she was not young nor was she very clean. Her usual condition was dishevelled, her face was all askew, and when she dressed up she looked like a valentine. Her greatest weakness was a propensity for smashing dishes, and when reprimanded she would threaten to take her traps and skidoo. This news of the arrival of a daughter failed to fill her with ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... is interesting to stand in the centre of the aisle with one's back to the high altar and look through the open door at the Piazza lying in the sun. The scene is fascinating in this frame; and one also discovers how very much askew the facade of S. Mark's must be, for instead of seeing, immediately in front, the centre of the far end of the square, as most persons would expect, one sees Naya's photograph shop at ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... came up her steps and knocked on her open door. But she was too engrossed to hear. The patch underneath had slipped a little askew. She ripped out some of the stitches and began again. She caught herself ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... empty mean street, emptily echoing to my footsteps—no soul awake and audible but me. Then my halt at the placard. And amidst that sleeping stillness, smeared hastily upon the board, a little askew and crumpled, but quite distinct beneath that cool meteoric glare, preposterous and appalling, the measureless evil of ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... down a hundred head that have found water after three days. So these hundred had drunk themselves swollen, and died. Cracked hide and white bone they lay, brown, dry, gaping humps straddled stiff askew in the last convulsion; and over them presided ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... from the Van jacks are flying, Which makes them look kinder askew, For they see they are joining the standard With ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... was nearer now, so near that it seemed just above him. It sounded like—With a mighty effort he opened his eyes; then full consciousness came. He was on the ground, his head in Diantha's lap. Diantha, bonnet crushed, neck-bow askew, and coat torn, was bending over him, calling him frantically by name. Ten feet away the wrecked automobile, tip-tilted against a large maple tree, ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... outlying streets of Moscow, in a grey house with white columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady, a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of her miserly ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... what thwarts your will? Winged Wit is at your side, your cherished guest, Who quits you never on an alien quest. But what that mystic prism shadows forth Hath menace which auxiliar from the North May scarce avert. The scales of Justice tilt Something askew. The curse of high-placed guilt Is on you, if the warning tocsin's knell, Clanging forth fiercely, hath not force to tell The hearer that Fate's hourglass fast runs out. That spectral Comet flames, beset about With miasmatic mist, and lurid fume, Conquering Corruption threatens hideous doom. Yet, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... before dinner, let's get to the bottom of the prospectus; then we can drink without an afterthought," said Gaudissart. "After dinner one reads askew; the tongue digests." ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... physical configuration of the Universe. Sin and Death built the mighty causeway that connects the orifice of the World with Hell-gates. Provision had to be made under the new dispensation for the peopling of the whole surface of the Earth; so the axis was turned askew, and the beginning ordained of extremes of cold and heat, of storms and droughts, and noxious planetary influences. Night and day were known to man in his sinless state, but the seasons ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... the child's nationality: "Moldo, Wallachian." What a piece of ill-luck that Monsieur the Secretary's attention should have been attracted to that particular child! Oh, that poor little head lying on the pillow, its linen cap askew, with pinched nostrils, and mouth half opened by a quick, panting respiration, the breathing of the newly born, of those also who ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the feeling was between these two. Strikingly contrasted they stood there: Carse, in rough blue denim trousers, faded work-shirt, open at the neck, old-fashioned rubber shoes and battered skipper's cap askew on his flaxen hair; Ku Sui, suavely impeccable in high-collared green silk blouse, full-length trousers of the same material, and red slippers, to match the wide sash which revealed the slender lines of his waist. A perfume hung about the man, the indescribable ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... abuse continued for a couple of minutes. Then the bird stood still while seeming to reflect, with wise head askew after the manner of other thinkers. Hurrying, to its playthings—which happened to be at the far end of the veranda—it selected a matchbox, dragged it clatteringly along, ranged it precisely close to the plate, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... looked over the two heads, the uncovered one of Francis Sales and Henrietta's, with her hat a little askew, and, absurdly, Rose remembered that the child had washed her hair the night before: that was why the hat was crooked and the curl loose, making the scene undignified and funny above the pain of it. Rose ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Parma, are the vestiges of a settlement which, with its defences, covered an area of about forty-three acres. In outline it was four-sided; its east and west sides were parallel to one another, and the whole resembled a rectangle which had been pulled a trifle askew. Round it ran a solid earthen rampart, 50 ft. broad at the base and strengthened with woodwork (plan, B). In front of the rampart was a wet ditch (A), 100 ft. wide, fed with fresh water from a neighbouring brook by an inlet at the south-western ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... sister an' brother to ole man Askew, a slave speculator, an' dey were shipped to de Mississippi bottoms in a box-car. I never heard from mother anymore. I neber seed my brother agin, but my sister come back to Charlotte. She come to see me. She married an' lived dere till ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Uranibourg Observatory, built by aid of the European Governments, under the skilful supervision of the learned Tycho Brahe, was found to be five minutes of a degree askew in its ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... immolation of the Holy Victim, was about to begin. The server took the Missal and bore it to the left, or Gospel-side, of the altar, taking care not to touch the pages of the book. Each time he passed before the tabernacle he made a genuflexion slantwise, which threw him all askew. Returning to the right-hand side once more, he stood upright with crossed arms during the reading of the Gospel. The priest, after making the sign of the cross upon the Missal, next crossed himself: first upon his forehead—to declare that he would never blush for the divine word; ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... believe that in all the world there is only one woman specially created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the haystack? You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it for Tom Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the summer of 189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away with her in ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... must begin to face the fact that you are destined to be one of the immortals, and treat you with proper respect." Her tone was full of lazy amusement and content. "Hereafter, I shall never dare tell you when your necktie is askew, and as for training you in the management of your cuffs!" She paused expressively, and ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... man's wishes and passions, to-day she is free; Free to think and to act; free to do and to be What she pleases. The poor, pining victim of fate And man's cruelty, long ago went out of date. In the mansion of Life there were some things askew, Which the strong hand of Progress has righted. The new, Better plan puts old notions of sex on the shelf. Who is true to a knave, is untrue to herself. Oh, be true to yourself, and have pity on one Who has long dwelt in shadow ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... her most regal array, seemed to have left her dignity downstairs with her opera cloak, for with skirts gathered closely about her, tiara all askew, and face full of fear and anger, she stood upon a chair ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... alone with my wife very comfortably, and so again to church with her, and had a very good and pungent sermon of Mr. Mills, discoursing the necessity of restitution. Home, and I found my Lady Batten and her daughter to look something askew upon my wife, because my wife do not buckle to them, and is not solicitous for their acquaintance, which I am not troubled at at all. By and by comes in my father (he intends to go into the country to-morrow), and he and I among other discourse at ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... like him, nor did I. He must have been a clever, skillful chemist. No doubt he was. But he was, to us, repulsive. A hunchback, with a short, thick body; dangling arms that suggested a gorilla; barrel chest; a lump set askew on his left shoulder, and his massive head planted down with almost no neck. His face was rugged in feature; a wide mouth, a high-bridged heavy nose; and above the face a great shock of wavy black hair. It was an intelligent face; in ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... in Holland for about two groschen, or two-pence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne re-sold this inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr. Askew's sale," continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, "this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value and was purchased by Royalty itself for one hundred and seventy pounds! Could a copy now occur, Lord only knows," he ejaculated ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... a little askew, I must own, but he could not help smiling. . . I gave him an instance in point, which -was the reverse given by Mr. Law to the picture drawn by Mr. Burke of Tamerlane, in which he said those virtues and noble qualities bestowed upon him by the honourable manager were nowhere to be found ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... broken piscina. Above this were chambers, concerning which Gunton[25] has preserved a tradition that they were "the habitation of a devout Lady, called Agnes, or Dame Agnes, out of whose Lodging-Chamber there was a hole made askew in the window walled up, having its prospect just upon the altar of the Ladies Chappel, and no more. It seems she was devout in her generation, that she chose this place for her retirement, and was desirous that her eyes, as well as ears, might wait upon her publick ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... that when the clown came tumbling into the ring to the blaring of the band that night, a girl with the green bow all askew upon her hat and her violet-blue eyes a shade darker and snapping with excitement was perched on one of the front row planks which served as seats, clutching a bag of peanuts and waiting in an ecstasy for the wonders ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... fruit o' mony a merry dint, My funny toil is no a' tint, [not all lost] Tho' thou came to the warl' asklent, [askew] Which fools may scoff at; In my last plack thy part's be in't— [a small coin] The ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... about the same everywhere. First you have the work of putting on the appropriate dress, sometimes wet and chill from the previous bathing. You get into the garments cautiously, touching them at as few points as possible, your face askew, and with a swift draft of breath through your front teeth, punctuating the final lodgment of each sleeve and fold with a spasmodic "Oh!" Then, having placed your watch where no villainous straggler may be induced to examine it to see whether he can get to the depot in ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... breath rasping as though they had been running. A young girl sprang up and ripped the ribbon off the straw bonnet she was wearing; the sharp tearing sound added an alien note to the babel. Then she too, trembling violently, attained the pew and fell on her knees, the despoiled bonnet askew on her bowed head. One after another all those not already converted made their way through the encouraging throng to the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... milk, and claret wine. He has another inmate, in the person of a queer little Frenchman, who has his breakfast, tea, and lodging here, and finds his dinner elsewhere. Monsieur S—— does not appear to be more than twenty-one years old,—a diminutive figure, with eyes askew, and otherwise of an ungainly physiognomy; he is ill-dressed also, in a coarse blue coat, thin cotton pantaloons, and unbrushed boots; altogether with as little of French coxcombry as can well be imagined, though with something of the monkey-aspect inseparable from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... newspapers under the kitchen dresser, and had turned quite hopefully and taken the thing. He put it on. But it didn't feel right. Nothing felt right. He put a trembling hand upon the crown of the thing and pressed it on his head, and tried it askew to the right and then askew to ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... occasion, backed away a few steps and finally turned and marched across the mesa. They had wrecked his outfit. He'd show 'em! Old Montoya knew that something was wrong when the burros drifted in with their pack-saddles askew. He thought that possibly some coyote had stampeded them. He righted the pack-saddles and drove the burros back toward Laguna. Halfway across the mesa he met Pete, who told him what had happened. Montoya said nothing. Pete had hoped that his master would rave and threaten all sorts of vengeance. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in the garden across the way, they looked at each other solemnly. Then they threw back their big heads and laughed till their sides shook and their wigs stood askew. Kerlman laid his fat thumb on the table and regarded it respectfully. "Gott im ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... beating it out, with his head determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their attention between his two auditors, 'outside the door of the Six Jolly Fellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o'clock at midnight—but I will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter as five minutes—on the night when he ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... slowly. He was bending over his wife as they walked. The big parrot, turning its head askew, followed their pacing figures with a round, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... long for a chubby hand, And a voice so sweetly shrill? O Teddy Bear! don't you understand Why the house is awf'ly still? You sit with your muzzle propped on your paws, And your whimsical face askew. Don't wait, don't wait for your friend . . . because He's ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... began their search. At first they were moderately successful; indeed, wherever they dug they found "colour," and once or twice stumbled upon pockets of nuggets. Their hopes ran high, but presently one of the four—Askew by name—sickened and died of fever. They buried him and persevered with varying luck. Then a second member of their party, Johnston, was taken ill. He lingered for a ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... tombs about five feet deep, and on the south a triple line of tombs of the same depth. And apparently of the same system and same age is the mass of tombs marked W, which are parallel to the tomb of Zet. Later there appears to have been built the long line of tombs, placed askew, in order not to interfere with those which have been mentioned, and then this skew line gave the di-rection to the next tomb, that of Merneit, and later on to that of Azab. The private graves around the royal tomb are ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... is, and upland too, And I should like a water-view, D'you think you could contrive one? (Perhaps the pump and trough would do, If painted a judicious blue?) The woodland I've attended to;' [He meant three pines stuck up askew, Two dead ones and a live one.] 'A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 30 To build a house of freestone, But then it is not hard to make What nowadays is the stone; The cunning painter in a trice Your house's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... it,' said Honor cheerfully; then sighing, 'But do you know, Mr. Askew wishes his curates to visit at the asylum ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... depart from the Grand, a crowd that has stuck to the end, young fellows, joyful souls. They saunter down the street with coats wide open, canes held jauntily under the arms, and hats slightly askew. They talk loudly, hum the latest popular air, call jestingly to a lonely, forgotten girl in a boa and ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... through Ussher, Laud, Selden, Rawlinson, Harley, Askew, Drury, Heber, etc., to Sir Thomas Phillipps, whose 30,000 MSS., good and bad, must be the largest mass of such things ever owned by a single collector. But I think I have said enough of the public and private accumulations of this ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... can't another undo? (That's English, you know; quite English, you know.) The Eternal Republic has gone all askew (Not English, you know; not English you know). 'Twill presently get quite incurably queer, And then will the Monarchy promptly appear. I fancy myself that the moment is near. (That's English, you know; quite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... evidently been pulled out askew, and had stuck—as is the way with drawers forming part ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... ruther have a whole band uh tagers than this fighting bunch," Slim affirmed earnestly. Slim was laboring sootily with the stove-pipe which Patsy had struck askew with a stick ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... devious, deformed, tortuous, sinuous, winding, flexuous, curved, curvilinear, spiral, labyrinthial; distorted, awry, askew, wry; dishonest, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... had the assurance to ask for a shade to go with the one they set on the table in all the glaring nudity of a plain chimney. This there was some difficulty in finding, the search resulting in a green paper visor much too small, that sat on askew just far enough not to hide the light. The Japanese called it a hat, without the least intention ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... direction the Binu man rubbed away the accretions of smoke and dirt, and from under his fingers appeared the polished green of jade, the sheen of pearl, and the warm red of Oriental gold. The other head, equally ancient, was a white man's, as the heavy blond moustache, twisted and askew on the shrivelled upper lip, gave sufficient advertisement; and Sheldon wondered what forgotten beche-de-mer fisherman or sandalwood trader had gone to ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... and looked at him. She still wore her hat, now more than ever askew, and some of the dye from the velvet had stained her cheek. She looked rather ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... off. Aboon, above. Abarde, went on. Abread, abroad. Acquent, acquainted. Ae, one. Aff, off. Aften, often. Agley, askew. Aiblins, maybe. Ain, own. Airt, direction, quarter. Aith, oath. Alane, alone. Alang, along. Albeytie, albeit. Alestake, alehouse sign. Alleyne, alone. Almer, beggar. Amaist, almost. Amang, aming, among. An, if. Ance, once. Ane, one. Arist, arose. Ashrewed, accursed. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... bag; the new Babiche, cramped and shaken from her day and night of travel, poked her snubby nose from under the traveling coat and sniffed and squeakingly yawned. Louisa's bonnet had worked itself askew, the sharp wind from the river was flapping the heavy clothing about her slender ankles and displaying the outlandish old "Congress gaiter" shoes. A distressed and ridiculous figure, she stood and shuddered at the roar of the elevated above her and the jangle ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... man I knowed in Minnesota, he tuk a crooked sthick," gobbled Mike, whose speech, as well as his mind had been driven askew by the railroad tie; but Murphy impatiently ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... cooking Peter's meals and dusting his house. I wouldn't mind his bad grammar now. I've learned one or two valuable little things out yonder, and one is that it doesn't matter if a man's grammar is askew, so long as he doesn't swear at you. By the way, is Peter as ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to fix proper clothes. He might have seen what he should have done by looking at Jerry, who had an old felt hat with a bit of candle-end (not lit) stuck in the ribbon, and a bandana tied askew around his neck. But Aunt Ailsa laughed and laughed, which was what we wanted her to do, so neither of us remonstrated with Greg ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... nature. A boat's crew deserted and spread the news of the arrival of the squadron off the English coast. Captain Landais, commander of the Alliance, refused to obey the signals of the flagship, and conducted himself so outrageously that Jones more than suspected his brain was askew. The Bonhomme Richard was old and in bad condition, but Jones told Benjamin Franklin in a letter that he meant to do something with her that would induce his Government to provide him with a better ship. He sailed almost completely around Great Britain, during ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... far, largely seated quietly in his chair at his instrument table, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and, instead of a red bandanna about his forehead, merely the elastic band holding the lens of his image-finder. It caught in the locks of his curly black hair. He pushed it askew; and then, since he did not need it ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... ruddy reflection of the firelight dancing on the panelled wall, when he noticed that a picture placed where the end of the bookcase formerly stood was not truly hung, and needed adjustment. A picture hung askew was particularly offensive to his eyes, and he got up at once to alter it. He remembered as he went up to it that at this precise spot four months ago he had lost sight of the man's figure which he saw rise from the ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... Melton, of Philadelphia," he shouted, and looked back to address them more directly. Alas, the pistols reposed in the pockets of the two prim aprons, the lantern smoked askew at Aunt Sarah's waist, and both women were holding ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... dykes; and little villages, with low hovels under dark and often tumble-down roofs, and slanting barns with walls woven of brushwood and gaping doorways beside neglected threshing-floors; and churches, some brick-built, with stucco peeling off in patches, others wooden, with crosses fallen askew, and overgrown grave-yards. Slowly Arkady's heart sunk. To complete the picture, the peasants they met were all in tatters and on the sorriest little nags; the willows, with their trunks stripped ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... these words, on inspection, were somehow not there. Explain this I cannot, but it is a fact. The same with Whist; I see spades where clubs are, and diamonds for hearts, and a cold world accuses me of revoking and of carelessness, but it is not carelessness. It is something gone askew in phenomena. Thus, when I am a witness as to facts in a trial, perjury is the softest word for my testimony, so the Court thinks, because the Court is blessed with the usual relations between objective facts, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... looked out again, Union Square was small and remote and shattered, as though some cosmically vast giant had rolled over it. The buildings to the east of it were ablaze at a dozen points, under the flaming tatters and warping skeleton of the airship, and all the roofs and walls were ridiculously askew and crumbling as one looked. "Gaw!" said Bert. "What's ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... front of which was entirely open, was most brilliantly illuminated, and filled with numerous tables, covered with a multitude of good things. That it was expected to be the resort of English guests was apparent, from an inscription painted in white letters, rather askew, upon a black board, to the following effect: ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... leaped instinctively to pursue. But the flying thing was bound for a landing in an open square, the same one which not long since had seen the heaviest fighting. It alighted there and toppled askew on contact. Figures tumbled out of it, in torn and ragged garments fashioned in the style of the very best tailors of the ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... manner in which a table is set more than any thing else; and to a person of good taste, few things are more annoying, than to see the table placed askew; the tablecloth soiled, rumpled, and put on awry; the plates, knives, and dishes thrown about, without any order; the pitchers soiled on the outside, and sometimes within; the tumblers dim; the caster out of order; the butter pitched on the plate, without any symmetry; the salt coarse, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... her, wondering at the masterful spirit she had shown. For there was Tom all askew in his chair, his feet one way and his hands another, totally subdued. What was most to the point, he made me an elaborate apology. How she had sobered his mind I know not. His body was as helpless as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wreck of the Cometara. My ship! My first command! So smoothly, confidently rising from the Earth only a few hours ago; and she had come to this. She lay askew in the heavens. The dome was cracked throughout all its length and smashed like a ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... broke out into laughter, soulless, without meaning. Simpson, stung sharply in his stiff-necked pride, sprang up and took one step forward, his fist raised. The boy dropped the oars and writhed to starboard, his neck askew at an eldritch angle, his eyes glaring upward. But he did not raise a hand to ward off the blow that he feared, and that ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... returned at this juncture, with the false front a little askew. "I was just a-sayin'," Mr. Ball continued, "that our niece is ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... her jacket not quite on and her hat clapped askew, Ann 'Lisbeth found herself quite suddenly ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst |
