"Askew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... artisan sometimes finds that he has made a failure of some cherished bit of work, but he does not cease to pursue his vocation because of that. So it was with Mrs. Upton, and when some of her plans went askew, and two young persons whom she had designed for each other chose to take two other young people into their hearts instead, she accepted the situation with a merely negative feeling of regret. But when she realized that it was she who had brought ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... the outlying streets of Moscow, in a gray 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 ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... near by the pleasant sound of falling water and, drawn by this, came to a flowery thicket, and forcing my way through, paused suddenly, as well I might, for before me, set in the face of a rock, was a door. All askew it hung and grown over with a riot of weed and vines; and behind the weatherworn timber I saw the gloom of ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... mess and muddle like this,' came the smothered voice, as the figures pulled and pushed with increasing energy.' And my tarpaulin skirt is all askew. The winds are at it ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... were considered very favourable to the Royalists, the admiral consented, and Sir John, with his corsair companions, were put on board Admiral Askew's squadron to be ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 better ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... 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 ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... a smallish gentleman, in an old-style Inverness opera-coat that cloaked him to his ankles, with an opera hat set jauntily a wee bit askew on his head, a mask of crimson silk covering his face from brows to lips, slipped silently like some sly, sinister shadow through the Fifth Avenue portals of the Bizarre, and shaped a course by his wits across the lobby to the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... half-familiar voice, shouted, 'What the blazes do you go to sleep in the middle of the bally road for, eh?' I couldn't see anything at all until I had reached the grass at the side of the road, when I made out a long automobile standing askew across the road and panting. There was a low, semicircular seat with a man in it behind a large steering wheel, a seat so slanted that its occupant was practically recumbent. He had ear-flaps and monstrous goggles. I had a momentary mental picture of him ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... life, estimated him temperately as a mixture of Adonis, Apollo, and Hercules. He caught sight of his friend now and a merry look came into his eyes. Miss Mehitable's mental perturbation and physical weariness had given her plump face a troubled cast, accented by the fact that her hat was slightly askew. The young man hurried forward and was in time to ease his portly friend down the last step ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... And as he went across the cold fields and saw how the stars were paling out, and cast long looks at the moon setting across the smooth snow, the lad's eyes filled so that the moon twinkled and shot rays askew in his sight. He thought how the good times of Oyster-le-Main were ended, and he thought of Miss Elaine so far beyond the reach of such as he, and it seemed to him that he ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... 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, mounted it, and from the extra elevation sipped the last drop with a chuckle ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... little 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 narrow habitable belts about it, which, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... in the void, like the rope which the Indian conjurer is fabled to throw up into the air till it hooks itself on to nothingness. If we are to believe in him as a lever for the righting of a world that has somehow run askew, we want to know something of his fulcrum. Is it possible thus to dissociate him from the Veiled Being, and proclaim him an independent, an agnostic God? Do we really get over any difficulty—do we not rather create new difficulties,—by saying, as Mr. Wells practically ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... as that. This young lady managed the whole family, even a little the small beflounced sister, who, with bold pretty innocent eyes, a torrent of fair silky hair, a crimson fez, such as is worn by male Turks, very much askew on top of it, and a way of galloping and straddling about the ship in any company she could pick up—she had long thin legs, very short skirts and stockings of every tint— was going home, in elegant French ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... bough. He was nervous and less expert than when he had climbed up the tree. He lost his grip once, and crashed from one branch to another, scratching himself handsomely in the operation. The owl, emboldened by his retreat, flew awkwardly down upon the scaffold, and perched there, its head turned askew, and its great, round ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... muddy, 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
... back." She breathed heavily, and moved restlessly in the old four-poster. As Peter stood up he saw that the patched quilts were all askew over her shapeless bulk. Evidently, she ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... progress except at one point, near a Methodist 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
... published it abroad, yelling with utter abandon, their black eyes puckered up, their mouths distended into squares, from which came such a measure of sound as to rack the ears and burden the air heavily with sadness. Poleon was going away! Their own particular Poleon! Something was badly askew in the general scheme of affairs to permit of such a thing, and they manifested their grief so loudly that Burrell, who knew nothing of Doret's intention, sought them out and tried to ascertain the cause of it. They had found the French-Canadian at the river with their father, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... hat" was rakishly askew upon her red curls, for Fay had frequently grabbed at it in her rage, and the beautiful green linen gown ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... first I knew CH-RL-S ST-RT, 'Twas in a happier day, The Jaunting Car he drove in Went gaily all the way. But now the Car seems all askew, Lop-wheel'd, and slack of spring; Myself and WILL, in fear of a spill, Feel little disposed to sing, As we sit on the Jaunting Car, The drivers at open war, Seem little to care For a Grand Old Fare, As they fight for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... observation and my experience is that if others were as good as they are in the ratio of their advantages, Mr. Peck needn't go to them for his ideal. But their conditions warp and dull them; they see things askew, and they don't see them clearly. I might as well expose myself to the small-pox in hopes of ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... men from the Van jacks are flying, Which makes them look kinder askew, For they see they are joining the standard ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... and mellow, Ere the current of life ran askew, The backs of our novels were yellow, Their hearts were of Quaker-like hue; But now, when extravagant lovers Their hectic emotions parade, In sober or colourless covers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... a scream, and my old friend came flying towards me, her cap (with lilac trimmings) shaken askew by ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... and the cabin on its further bank. This was a roomier building to see than common, and a hay-field was by it, and a bit of green pasture, fenced in. Saddle-horses were tied in front, heads hanging and feet knuckled askew with long waiting, and from inside an uneven, riotous din whiffled lightly across the river and intervening ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... she said, pushing her round black hat askew on her shaggy little head. "I know I've kept you all ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... shawl 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 ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... 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 half a score of monks to right ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Elder Harricutt walked to Economy every day to his office in the Economy bank. He said it kept him in good condition physically. His wife was small and prim with little quick prying eyes and a false front that had a tendency to go askew. She wore bonnets with strings and her false teeth didn't quite fit; they clicked as she talked. She kept a watch over the road at all times and very little ever got by ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... he be a duke—tends to wear his hat tilted a little over the right eyebrow, and a piece of hair is pulled coquettishly down just below the brim. His collar is high, and a very large bow is worn slightly askew. This may be either cream-coloured or deep blue, with spots of white, or it may be red, or buff, but not green, because of badinage. The Blade of the middle class displays a fine gold watch-chain, and his jacket and vest may be of a rough black cloth or blue serge. The trousering may be ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... eye had been travelling over the wall, reached over her shoulder to one of the dozen pictures hanging at intervals from the bottom to the top of the staircase, and pulling it away from the wall, on which it hung decidedly askew, revealed a round opening through which poured a ray of blue light which could only proceed from the vault of ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... you take a baby up? What does it like to eat? Do you put rusks in a feeding cup? Have you to mince its meat? Haven't I heard them speak of pap? Isn't there caudle too? How do you keep the thing on your lap? Why are its eyes askew? Is it a touch of original sin Causes an infant to squall, Or trust misplaced in a safety-pin Lost in the depths of a shawl? When do you "shorten" a growing child (Is it so much too long)? Should ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... crinolines in the land. Further, his hair was black, his face rosy, and his eye a fiery brown; and his coat was chiefly of grease upon a basis of velveteen. And his pipe had a bowl of china showing the Graces, and his spectacles were always askew, the left eye glaring nakedly at you, small and penetrating; the right, seen through a glass darkly, magnified and mild. Thus his discourse ran: "There never was a man who could stuff like me, Bellows, never. I have stuffed elephants and I have stuffed moths, and ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... is still before my mind: the bare, shining floor, the unpainted table, the chimney-shelf, and a clock, the successful working of whose machinery demanded a crazily tilted attitude; a Bible on the shelf, too, and Grandma's spectacles lying askew. Then, a commodious lounge of exceedingly simple construction set up straight against the wall and extending the whole length of the room. The original framework of this lounge, by the way, disclosed itself in many bold and striking instances, under ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Lull and Daniels, 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 ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... gave the stranger his startling and admirable appearance—the breeches and his face. For directly under the hat, which was worn askew, was one round, greenish eye, set at the upper end of a nose that was like a triangle of leather. The eye held the geographical center of the whole countenance, this because its owner kept his head tipped, precisely as if he had a stiff neck. Under the leathery nose, which seemed ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Art not thou the man that I once saw crying under a sermon, that I once, heard cry out, What must I do to be saved? and, that some time ago I heard speak well of the holy word of God? how askew will they look upon one; or if they will acknowledge that such things were with them once, they do it more like images and rejected ghosts, than men. They look as if they were blasted, withered, cast out, and dried to powder, and now fit for nothing but to be cast into the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... as a ramrod, a look of perplexity screwing her wrinkles all out of shape. Her bonnet had got somewhat askew from her constant effort to keep an eye on those unsupported galleries, and there was a general air of discomfort about her, which was the first thing that struck Nannie when, as the curtain fell upon the first act, she turned ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... up to receive her ladyship, who fatly rolled in, her tarnished hat askew, her torn thrice-dingy silks clutched ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... came in five hundred feet above the Mall, and he could see cracked pavements sprouting grass, statues askew on their pedestals, waterless fountains. At first he thought one of them was playing, but what he had taken for spray was dust blowing from the empty basin. There was a thing about dusty fountains, some poem he'd ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... Bob Askew was killed, Vashti was one of the first who got to Bob's wife; and when Billy Luck disappeared in a battle, Vashti gave the best reasons for thinking he had been taken prisoner; and many a string of fish and many a squirrel and hare found their way into the ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... nose between his knees, An' he shakes hisself while a-hangin' in the air; Then he hits the earth so solid that it somewhat disagrees With the usual peace an' quiet of your hair. You imagine that your innards are a-gittin' all askew, An' your spine don't feel so cussed firm an' stout, When you're up agin a broncho that has got it in fur you Doin' of his level ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... in Madrid, 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 ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... this chair," he said shortly, as he stepped to the one where she had been sitting when he first came to the room. From it he commanded not only a complete view of her, but also out of the window, for the blind, pulled down to the full extent, was slightly askew, and left a space between it and the window-pane. Through that space he could see across the yard to the fence running round the allotment, and beyond it to the dark line of the bush, rendered the darker at the moment by the soft sheen of the rising ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... down with a fulness almost of skirts about the small determined legs. The accompanying dog was a very sympathetic, blunt-nosed, round-headed, curly-coated type, whose whiteness, which positively invited the stroking hand, was broken by two great black blotches set all askew on the back, and by a black patch which ringed the left eye and completely smothered the cocked-up left ear. The child carried a stick, which nearly reached to his shoulder, and which ended in a long and narrow crook. The happy dog, like ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... stood up, lifted his arms high above his head to stretch his healthy young muscles, pulled his face all askew in a yawn, rumpled his hair again and reached for his papers and tobacco. He knew that Mary V never noticed or cared if a fellow smoked; she was too thoroughly ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... humor I stumbled across the room, tripping and barking my shins over various malignant hassocks, tables, and chairs. Finding the switch at last, I flooded the room with light, and saw myself in the mirror, with tie and coat askew. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coat askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. "What in the world is up with me?" he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before leaving the room to put his private papers in order. The green morocco desk that held them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table. Tied ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... elbows raised, that the curtain fell. Both Emmy and Alf rose in the immediately successive re-illumination of the theatre; and Emmy looked so pretty with her arms up, and with the new hat so coquettishly askew upon her head, and with a long hatpin between her teeth, that Alf could not resist the impulse to put his arm affectionately round her in leading ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... 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: "Tea, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... 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
... twist of his bridle-rein the gray's chunky neck arched slightly askew, and he pranced now and then from side to side of the trail as if guided ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... She must have been wet almost to those unfractured bones which she had been feeling; her black silk dress, with its white ruching about the neck, was torn and bedraggled; her black hat, with its jet ornaments, was crushed and hung askew over one ear; nevertheless, Miss Pringle conveyed at once and definitely an impression of unassailable respectability and ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... My periwig's askew, my ruffle stained With grease from my new telescope! Ach, to-morrow How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows Almost as bad as I, who cannot leave My work-shop for one evening. I must give One last recital at St. Margaret's, And then—farewell to music. Who ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... on askew," Mrs. Vervain said for greeting to Ferris. "How do you do, Don Ippolito? But I suppose you think I've kept you long enough to get it on straight for once. So I have. I am a fuss, and I don't deny it. At my time of life, it's much harder to make yourself shipshape than ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... men in the cabin were forgotten; 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 Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... business way. She had met men who ran to polysyllables and pompousness, but she had never known the polysyllables to accompany so simple a manner. She had seen men slouching around in old straw hats-and shoddy gray trousers and negligee shirts with the tie askew, and the clothes had spelled poverty or shiftlessness. Whereas they made Holman Sommers look like a great man indulging himself in the luxury of old clothes ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... bent, devious, deformed, tortuous, sinuous, winding, flexuous, curved, curvilinear, spiral, labyrinthial; distorted, awry, askew, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... this; he was 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 moment ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... unusually smart to-night," she approved. "London clothes don't set so well on many Americans. But your tie is askew. Wait. Let me ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... said Miss Aldclyffe; 'why, it is only another name for slaughter-house—in surgical cases at any rate. Certainly if anything about your body is snapt in two they do join you together in a fashion, but 'tis so askew and ugly, that you may as well be apart again.' Then she terrified the inquiring and anxious maiden by relating horrid stories of how the legs and arms of poor people were cut off at a moment's notice, especially in cases where the restorative treatment was ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... He looked 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 ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... to see that everything is in order, and at last rings for the servant to take away the clothes and shoes that need cleaning. The subtle analyst would argue from all this that Lushington was one of those painfully orderly persons, who are made positively nervous by the sight of a hair-brush lying askew, or a tie ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... was askew on her hastily knotted-up curls, and she gathered about her the voluminous folds of a billowy, blue silk affair, that was her latest acquisition in the way ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... the Evans case. It's a case of a girl." The judge scowled at his gaiters and pushed his hat askew. "Hang it, I don't ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... been but a few hours ago the scene of a large dinner-party. Glasses, dessert-plates, dishes of fruit, decanters empty and half empty, cumbered the great mahogany table as dead and wounded, guns and tumbrils, might a battlefield. Chairs stood askew; crumpled napkins lay as they had been dropped or tossed, some on the floor, others across the table between ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... feet; from the rakish angle to which his hat tumbled, to his square shoulders, braced far back even when the rest of his body fell limp, and to his feet which he moved as though avoiding the swing of a scabbard. A military cape slipped askew from his shoulders. All these details were indelibly traced in Wilson's mind as he ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... instead of—" but saw he was paying no attention to me, so I headed for the Main Room to get another card. I had no sooner reached the entrance when I was confronted by the little bearded man again. His mouth was agape with distress, his loud-checked bowtie askew. He waved the book in my face. "Didn't you find anything in ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... the master replied as he put pencil and drawing-pen into a japanned folding box. "It is just right now, and you need not do anything more to it. As for you, Nicolinka," he added, rising and glancing askew at the Turk, "won't you tell us your great secret at last? What are you going to give your Grandmamma? I think another head would be your best gift. But good-bye, gentlemen," and taking his ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... at making new figures, all this is granted, but speak of Chopin as path-breaker in the harmonic forest—that true "forest of numbers"—as the forger of a melodic metal, the sweetest, purest in temper, and lo! you are regarded as one mentally askew. Chopin invented many new harmonic devices, he untied the chord that was restrained within the octave, leading it into the dangerous but delectable land of extended harmonies. And how he chromaticized the prudish, rigid garden of German harmony, how he moistened it with flashing changeful waters ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... church. But while still in the transept it 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 ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... may be 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
... face was going a ghastly white; and, as Wes watched, he groaned, tried to raise his sword arm for another blow—and could not. He staggered, legs askew, lurched crazily forward, stumbled, and at last pitched down on the ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... our first mother fair, - But Clovis Eve, a binder true; Thither does Bauzonnet repair, Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup! But never come the cropping crew That dock a volume's honest size, Nor they that "letter" backs askew, Within that ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... on a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a suspicion that it ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... folks, at John, Stood quizzing him askew, 'Twas John's red face that set them on, And then they ...
— Harrison's Amusing Picture and Poetry Book • Unknown
... curtains of its parlour window. The home of the Jones's had a geranium, and so was different from one neighbour with a ship's model in gypsum, and from the other whose sign was a faded photograph askew in its frame. On warm evenings some of the women would be sitting on their doorsteps, watching with dull faces their children at play, as if experience had told them more than they wanted to know, but that they had nothing to ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... a rickety trapdoor, which opened into the hogpen; the cover of the trapdoor was turned askew and hung down into the dark hole. Beside the hole lay a heap of freshly pulled turnips, with the ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way towards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and his big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Though scattered, instead of being arranged in regular rows, these appeared to Chichikov's eye to comprise well-to-do inhabitants, since all rotten planks in their roofing had been replaced with new ones, and none of their doors were askew, and such of their tiltsheds as faced him evinced evidence of a presence of a spare waggon—in some cases ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 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
... his hair, and his beard, They paint as black as my shoe With burnt stick, but they spoil his nose, For they stick it rather askew. ...
— King Winter • Anonymous
... it,' said Honor cheerfully; then sighing, 'But do you know, Mr. Askew wishes his curates to visit at ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appeared in a cap all askew and hair loose, up-turned sleeves and scorched arms, with cheeks crimson from the kitchen fire. She confessed to the concoction of a dish of beef a la mode softened by calf's foot jelly and strengthened ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... astride that street. But the line of approach, for most of the multitude certain to come to gaze on the temporary addition to civic beauty, was along Broadway; and the arch built squarely across the avenue would seem askew to all who first caught sight of it from the other street. To avoid this unfortunate effect the designer devised a colonnade, extending north and south, up and down the avenue. Thus he corrected the apparent slant by emphasizing the fact that it ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... hair," said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew at Monsieur Goupille's peruque. "Grandmamma said her papa—the marquis— used yellow powder: it must ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... 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 ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... 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
... caught his cheek in my grip, my thumb inside the cheek-pouch, and my fingers outside. I felt a hot thrill of joy as my nails sank into his cheek inside and out, and he cringed. I held him at arm's length, helpless, and with his head drawn all askew; and still keeping my unfair hold, I rolled him over, and coming on top of him, thrust the other thumb in the other side of his mouth, frenziedly trying to rip his cheeks, and pounding his head on the deck. We rolled back into the corner, where he jerked my thumbs from ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... lady was very 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 ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... down; but cattle know nothing of drop by drop, and you cannot pin 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 Arizona—silent, ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... harvest-folks, and John, "Came in and look'd askew; "'Twas my red face that set them on, "And ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... fortune; stranger the links in the chain of life. CLAUDE and ALICE ASKEW, who wrote popular serial novels in the daily papers, lived in a rambling old home at Wivelsfield Green, in Sussex, known as "Botches." This they enlarged and modernised; they developed the gardens and filled the grass with bulbs. Then came the War. Mr. and Mrs. ASKEW ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... sun sank in no time at all. Mariana, crying. The girl ought to go to her mother, and not come out to him, an old man, with her intimate troubles. "A name I never repeat," Charlotte had said. That was just like her. Small sympathy there, and no more understanding. He knotted his tie hurriedly, askew; and gathered the ends once more. It tired him a little to dress in the evening; often he longed to stay relaxed, pondering, until Rudolph called him to dinner. But every day something automatic, tyrannical, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... up hope of finding her, when he turned his head and saw her off to one side, lying half concealed by a clump of low rose bushes. She was not unconscious, as he had thought, but was crying silently, with her face upon her folded arms and her hat askew over one ear. He stooped and touched her ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... it often comes handiest to hold the stuff askew, and there is a natural inclination to pull it in that direction. This temptation must be resisted, or ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... aboard the yachts he was accustomed to fit out, had just been reported as missing, and so the unopened letter was tossed on top a barrel of sperm-oil to await his convenience. But it was when Stephen caught sight of the small cramped writing scrawled over the cheap yellow envelope, the stamp askew, his own name and address crowded in the lower left-hand corner, that the supreme moment really arrived, for at that instant—had Felix been there—he would have seen Carlin slit the covering with his thumb-nail, lay aside his invoice, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... floor, cheap woodwork, painted in an unsuccessful imitation of 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, but the fact that the poverty was so genteel, so self-respecting, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the division, within a day of the water-parting where the land falls southward to Burgundy and the sun in what they call "The Slope of Gold." From this village a priest, William, had come to Paris in 1423. They gave him a canonry in that little church called "St. Bennets Askew," which stood in the midst of the University, near Sorbonne, where the Rue des Ecoles crosses the Rue St. Jacques to-day. Hither, to his house in the cloister, he brought the boy, a waif whom he had found much at the time when Willoughby capitulated and the French recaptured the ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... 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 ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... after extinguishing the light, and closing her eyes, she would lie motionless for hours on her little bed, not to sleep, but to feel with Perpetua the wild bull's horns, to hang with St. Maura on the cross, or lie with Julitta on the rack, or see with triumphant smile, by Anne Askew's side, the fire flare up around her at the Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form of Thurnall's; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy in agonies of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... friendship's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew. It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field; Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield. Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew, Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too. Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth: So at last with a faith ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... at the 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 shell at ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... Edmund William Gosse; Gossip of the Caribbees, William R. H. Trowbridge, Jr.; Gossip from Paris During the Second Empire, Anthony North Peet; Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign, Jane West; Gossip of the Century, Julia Clara Byrne; Gossiping Guide to Wales, Askew Roberts and Edward Woodall; Gossip with Girls and Maidens Betrothed and Free, Blanche St. John Bellairs. Yet no one has ever thought of writing about gossip for its own ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... is a line of small 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 all built of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... 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
... their night-gear. The whole tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would start into public view with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth, with his King James' ruff fastened askew, and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good Father Wilson too, after spending half the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thou turned, Credo thou to say hast learned; Willing art now bold to view Plates of ham—no more askew. Mass thou hearest, Church reverest, Genuflexions makest, Other alien customs takest. Now thou, too, mayst persecute Those poor wretches, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... 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 ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... nowadays John Campbell's wear but kerseymore knee-breeches. He had a figured vest strewn deep with snuff that he kept loose in a pocket (the regiment's gold mull was his purse), and a scratch wig of brown sat askew on his bullet head, raking with a soldier's swagger. He had his long rattan on the table before him, and now and then he would lift its tasseled head and beat time lightly to the chorus of Dugald MacNicol's song. Dugald was Major once of the 1st Royals; ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... th' engagement in which my true love fought, And cruel was the cannon-ball as knock'd his right eye out; He used to ogle me with peepers full of fun, But now he looks askew at me, because he's only one. Sing ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... he had realized that his optic nerves, punished and preyed upon by constant and unwholesome brilliancy, were nearing the point of collapse, and that all the other nerves in his body, frayed and fretted, too, were all askew and jangled. Cognizant of this he still could see no hope of relief, since his fears were greater than his reasoning powers or his strength of will. With the fear lifted and eternally dissipated in a breath, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be seen to-day that Senta was her own and not the Dutchman's saviour; and if (as it apparently does) it depends upon both Dutchman and Senta, then, at a performance at least, one can merely feel that something in the drama is very much askew, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... gentleman of distinguished family, was brought to trial for high treason. He had held a high military office under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but "made himself obnoxious to the Papists, by his adherence to some of the persecuted Reformers." With his two brothers he attended Anne Askew to her martyrdom when she was burnt for heresy, where they were told to "take heed to your lives for you are marked men." He was brought to trial April 17th, 1554, the first year of Bloody Mary. Of course he was allowed no counsel; the ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... 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 ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... figure disappeared bodily within the swooping arms; she was squeezed, hugged, rocked to and fro, and pelted with kisses until she was speechless and gasping for breath. When she was released her cap was askew, and the muslin folds in the front of her gown crumpled out of recognition; but for a marvel she spoke no word of reproach, and Darsie saw, with a sobering thrill, a glitter as of tears in the old eyes, and the mental question ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the lash of a whip back into striking readiness ... a brutal nose broken askew, a blaster burn puckering across cheek to misshapen ear ... that, evil, gloating grin of anticipation. Flick, flick, the slight dance of the lash in a master's hand as those thick fingers tightened about the stock of the whip. In a moment it would whirl up to lay a ribbon of fire about Shann's defenceless ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... 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
... grief, because 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, and subjective impressions. I admit that I am less fortunate, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... him dictate a Bible, let him fill the world with cathedrals if he can. But he must not be allowed to write a history of England; or a history of any country. All history was conducted on ordinary morality: with his extraordinary morality he is certain to read it all askew. Thus Carlyle tries to write of the Middle Ages with a bias against humility and mercy; that is, with a bias against the whole theoretic morality of the Middle Ages. The result is that he turns into a mere turmoil of arrogant German savages what was really the most complete and logical, ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... 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
... varied—some liked tumbling best; some the slack-rope; some bareback-riding; some the feats of tossing knives and balls and catching them. There never was more than one ring in those days; and you were not tempted to break your neck and set your eyes forever askew, by trying to watch all the things that went on at once in two or ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... of support, so that they are sensitive to the slightest movement. The wall goes from east to west, or the other way about, it makes no difference. Now, every morning when I wake, I find these works of art a little askew, the left corner inclined down and the right up!" I came upon that passage in Sylva Sylvarum, the first book of Strindberg's I ever read, and it pleased me so much that I believe I ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... showed up with cruel distinctness the ravages made in stone-work and wood-work by the clawlike hand of Time. A capital of one of the pillars of the still handsome portico had crumbled, several of the pillars were broken and askew; the great door was blistered and cracked by the sun; evidently no paint had touched the place for years. The stone balustrade of the broad terrace had several gaps in it, and the coping and the pillars were lying where they had fallen; ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... were: old Hauser with his three-cornered hat, the ex-mayor, the ex-postman, and others besides. They all seemed depressed; and Hauser had brought an old spelling-book with gnawed edges, which he held wide-open on his knee, with his great spectacles askew. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... wounded leg, with Narcissus in close attendance, and the others standing respectfully apart—Mudge, the two footmen (in their shirt sleeves), an under-gardener named Best, one of the housemaids, and Corporal Zeally by the door in regimentals, with his japanned shako askew and his Brown Bess still in his hand. Behind his shoulder, three or four of the women servants hung about the doorway and peered in, between curiosity ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his daughters had, in course, a good deal to see to themselves. So I thought I'd turn over and take another snoose; and do you know, Squire, that is always a dreamy one, and if your mind ain't worried, or your digestion askew, it's more nor probable you ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... hue of fire, he cocked his eyebrows askew and attempted to laugh unconcernedly to hide his bitter shame. "I've led you out of the fryingpan into the fire, and I don't know what to do! Please ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... a little archway, apart from other lawyers; and the other lawyers seemed to me to shift themselves, and to look askew, like sheep through a hurdle, when ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... a kind Kangaroo, Whose bonnet was always askew; So they asked her to wait While they put it on straight And ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... first book ever printed in England, from a stall 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 ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... love and terror he instilled in women. One bitterly cold and stormy day he came to give the young countess her lesson; she was especially eager to please him, but grew so anxious that her playing went all askew. He was under the obsession of one of his savageries. He grew more and more impatient with her, and finally struck her hand from the keys, and rushed out bareheaded ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... not be the same room that he had seen so short a time before. He looked about him, in horrified disbelief. Before him there lay the very essence of dirt and disorder. Furniture was broken, overturned. Rugs were askew, wrinkled. The desk, upbearing broken bottles and a cluttered mess of paper, letter and debris of all description, was scratched and dented. Pictures sagged drunkenly upon the walls; hangings were torn, and draggled, and over all lay a pall of dust, ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... Sir LYTTON wrote "Richelieu" in a harlequin's jacket (sticking pirate's pistols in his belt, ere he valorously took whole scenes from a French melo-drama): we penned our last week's essay in a suit of old canonicals, with a tie-wig askew upon our beating temples, and are at this moment cased in a court-suit of cut velvet, with our hair curled, our whiskers crisped, and a masonic apron decorating our middle man. Having subsided into our chair—it is in most respects like the porphyry piece of furniture ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... of the horses disappearing among the trees that galvanised him into action. Running back into the shack, he satisfied himself with a hasty glance in the mirror, stuck a jaunty stiff hat askew on his head, and sped away up the path his feet had worn through the months straight to ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... with Judy. Miriam guessed when she heard her ask for Brodchen that she was Scotch. She sat slightly askew and ate eagerly, stooping over her plate with smiling mouth and downcast heavily-freckled face. Unless spoken to she did not speak, but she laughed often, a harsh involuntary laugh immediately followed by a drowning flush. When she was not flushed ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... you if I don't feel like cutting up!" said Gypsy, on the way to school. Gypsy didn't look unlike "cutting up" either, walking along there with her satchel swung over her left shoulder, her turban set all askew on her bright, black hair, her cheeks flushed from the jumping of fences and running of races that had been going on since she left the house, and that saucy twinkle in her eyes. Joy was always somewhat more demure, but she looked, too, that morning, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... 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 |
