"Broomstick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Edward learned from her that the dark hag, which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of his master's avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick, but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day. She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way to the spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were prevented by the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... across her eyes, while a third takes most unwarrantable liberties with the lower part of her attire. Happily, the good dame is no gossamer, but a figure of rotundity and fleshly substance; else would these aerial tormentors whirl her aloft like a witch upon a broomstick, and set her down, doubtless, in ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Green, he was a damn lucky fellow to be able to do it," cried Vane, taking the kindly old hand in both his own. "If I wasn't afraid of him coming for me with a broomstick, I'd do the same myself. . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... like the necromancer's student who set the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose with such furious, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... of seeing a witch, not mounted on a broomstick, but on the respectable household cat, changed for that night into a flying fury; finally, along with my brothers, being captured, washed, and dressed, to join with other spirits worse than ourselves ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a broomstick, carrying grit—plain grit." ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... life; no traffic came down Vere Street, and the cemented space between the pavements was given up to children. Several games of cricket were being played by wildly excited boys, using coats for wickets, an old tennis-ball or a bundle of rags tied together for a ball, and, generally, an old broomstick for bat. The wicket was so large and the bat so small that the man in was always getting bowled, when heated quarrels would arise, the batter absolutely refusing to go out and the bowler absolutely insisting on going in. The girls were more peaceable; they were chiefly ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... barn; 20 acres in cultivation; 60 acres timber land; balance pasture land; well watered. We will sell this place for $1575. Will throw in a cook stove and all the household furniture, consisting of a frying-pan handle and a broomstick; also a cow and a yearling calf; also one bay heifer; also 8400 lbs. of hay, minus what the above-named stock have consumed during the winter; also 64 bushels of oats, subject to the above-mentioned diminution. ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... I to know where all the brats offa junk heaps that witches use in their doin's gets to in the end? Watch the chimney! Maybe it flew outa there on a broomstick. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Swift's favour. She left "Cadenus and Vanessa" for publication, and when someone said that she must have been a remarkable woman to inspire such a poem, Stella replied that it was well known that the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... skulking cur is caught, The sirloin's spoiled, and I'm in fault.' Thus said: (for sure you'll think it fit That I the cook-maid's oaths omit) With all the fury of a cook, Her cooler kitchen Nan forsook. The broomstick o'er her head she waves; She sweats, she stamps, she puffs, she raves. The sneaking cur before her flies: She whistles, calls; fair speech she tries. 50 These nought avail. Her choler burns; The fist and cudgel threat by turns; With hasty ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... in earnest, and when their surroundings of castles and donjons, savage landscapes and half-savage peoples, were in keeping; but those doings gravely reproduced with tinsel decorations and mock pageantry, by bucolic gentlemen with broomstick lances, and with muffin-rings to represent the foe, and all in the midst of the refinement and dignity of a carefully-developed modern ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tall, spectacled creature, gender feminine, number singular, person first, case always possessive, that's the standard bearer; a broomstick from the top of which floats a petticoat, that's the standard. Under that standard march in the U.S. at least 20,000,000 feminines, and—horrible to relate—gal children are ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... replied Douglas, "but there it is. Of course, at Gretna Green, which, as you say, is not far away, the blacksmith used to witness marriages, although his presence was unnecessary. Old stories have it that the contracting parties jumped a broomstick or a pair of tongs, or something of that sort, but whether there were any signatures I really do not know. Anyhow, the law in Scotland, as I have been informed, is that if a man and a girl agree to take each other ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... was harassed by doubts whether the Turks were not in the right, and the Christians in the wrong. Then he was troubled by a maniacal impulse which prompted him to pray to the trees, to a broomstick, to the parish bull. As yet, however, he was only entering the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floated before him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ran through stench and fire, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Ballad of Agincourt is sometimes classed as one) exhibit a command of lyric metre hardly inferior to the command displayed in that masterpiece. In fact, if ever there was a poet who could write, and write, perhaps beautifully, certainly well, about any conceivable broomstick in almost any conceivable manner, that poet was Drayton. His historical poems, which are inferior in bulk only to the huge Polyolbion, contain a great deal of most admirable work. They consist of three divisions—The Barons' Wars in eight-lined stanzas, the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... man felt When he began to melt; Whether he wore his human form and face With any extraordinary grace; If many mortals fell As victims to the spell; Or if, As he stood, stark and stiff, With a bare broomstick in his arms, And not a trace of transcendental charms, That man of snow Grew wise enough to know That the Brook's hopes were but a Poet's dream, And well content to be again a stream, On the first sunny day, Flowed quietly away; Or what the end ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out you're not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... all—through a glazed window between the bed-room and the now unused dining room beyond. Just who were the housebreakers no man present could say; but Mistress McGann that afternoon communicated her suspicion to her sore-headed spouse, and did it boldly and with the aid of a broomstick. "It's all along," she said, "av your shtoopin' to dhrink wid them low lived salvages at Hay's. Now, what ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... he with his pack of presents. Such a grin! but then so pleasant You would never think to fear him; And you can not, must not hear him. He's so particular, you know, He'd just pick up his traps and go If but one little eye should peep That he thought was fast asleep. Searching broomstick, nails, and shelf, Till he finds the little stocking— Softly lest you hear his knocking— Smiling, chuckling to himself, He fills it from his Christmas store, And out he ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... himself was closeted with the Squire, and was convincing him that there had been no Australian marriage at all. 'They didn't jump over a broomstick, or anything of that kind?' asked the Squire, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... appropriate moldings above: I brought some from Fountains Abbey the other day. Look here, sir; angels' heads putting their tongues out, rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a broomstick, and the devil looking on from the mouth of an alligator, sir.[32] Odd, I think; interesting. Then the corners may be turned by octagonal towers, like the center one in Kenilworth Castle; with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with cross slits for ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... given me beauty, riches, and wit, hopped in malevolently upon her crutch and shouted in a disagreeable falsetto: 'He shall have all these, to be sure, but he shall have a poor digestion and the gout!' and whirled away on the evening wind astride her broomstick." ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... taken the broomstick to them," said Kolgrim. "They are hungry, and have put their noses into her ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... regretted that he did not write an account of his travels in France; for as he is reported to have once said, that 'he could write the Life of a Broomstick[1155],' so, notwithstanding so many former travellers have exhausted almost every subject for remark in that great kingdom, his very accurate observation, and peculiar vigour of thought and illustration, would have produced ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... into a Border ballad. I don't know if you ever saw my lovely chieftainess—if you have, you must be aware that it is impossible for any one to refuse her request, as she has more of the angel in face and temper than any one alive; so that if she had asked me to write a ballad on a broomstick I must have attempted it. I began a few verses, to be called the Goblin Page; and they lay long by me, till the applause of some friends whose judgement I valued induced me to resume the poem; so on I wrote, knowing no more than the man in the moon how ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... blowing bubbles—one making the lather, another blowing the bubbles, while a third was trying to catch them. There were also three more boys—one of them apparently pretending to be a witch, as he was riding on a broomstick, while another was giving a companion a donkey-ride upon his back. All had the appearance of little cupids or angels and looked so lifelike and happy that we almost wished we were young again and could join ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... comfortable summer home, bright and bracing, somewhere near the North Pole, on which somebody will find him, may be, one of these days, quietly perched, preening himself, and looking at a distance like a bit of red cloth on a broomstick. If he has found a cozy spot away up there, he's smarter than any Arctic explorer ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... May-time. True, indeed, I set no value On the May-dew, though the women Like to wet with it their faces. I have never seen a soul yet Who by it improved her beauty; Have no faith in arts of witchcraft In the night of St. Walpurgis, Nor in broomstick-riding squadrons. Notwithstanding there belongs a Magic to the month of May. My old weary bones have suffered Many painful gouty twinges From the chilly winds of April. Now these pains are quite forgotten, And I feel as if the old strength Of my ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... said Flatt, "I'd shut up. A man who lets his wife lick 'un, and is afeared to go home because she'd pull his hair or broomstick 'un, shouldn't talk to other men about being cowards. I'd like to see ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... dignity of his vocation. He says nothing of the valiant matron in Chatham Row who, in the impatience of her patriotism, hoisted the American flag over her door two hours before the stipulated moment, noon, and defended it against a British provost officer with her broomstick. Nor does he allude to the great scene at the principal flag-staff, which the retiring garrison had plentifully greased, and from which they had removed the blocks and halyards, in order to retard the hoisting of the stars and stripes. He does not tell us how a sailor-boy, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... they marry? They say they jump the broomstick together! But they had brush brooms so I reckon that whut they jumped. Think the moster and mistress jes havin' a little fun outen it then. The brooms the sweep the floor was sage grass cured like hay. It grows four or five feet tall. They wrap it with string and use that for a handle. (Illustration— ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... concert saloons. He also remembered that this wooden frame was much taller than any of the long procession of frames which followed it, and that, from a hole in the right side thereof, protruded a fist about the size of the boy Bog's, clutching a broomstick, with which the inmate kept a semblance of order among the wilful and eccentric occupants of the frames behind him. "Oh, yes; I have seen you very often, Bog. How do you like ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... out her pretty card to admire it further, and she scrutinized closely the funny old witch riding on a broomstick, after the ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... still too green and full of sap to be easily mastered; and she was in a very bad temper. Good day, Great-Aunt,' I said, I am your Great-Niece Viola.' I have no more use for great nieces,' she snapped, than for little ones.' And she continued to tussle with the broomstick and took no further notice of me. Then I went into the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took out my tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it was ready I took it to her and said, This will teach it its manners'; and she put the bit on the broom, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... withstand the evil-doing and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... it, my lord count; for I was threatened with a broomstick when I tore it from the hands of the woman, who vowed I should not have a single potato. I dashed two ducats at her feet and made off with all speed; for the hour was almost up, and I had exhausted all my manners in the ten houses, which I ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... come de wedder; I jines dis he-male an' dis she-male togedder. Let none, but Him dat makes de thunder, Put dis he-male an' dis she-male asunder. I darfore 'nounce you bofe de same. Be good, go 'long, an' keep up y[o]' name. De broomstick's jumped, de worl's not wide. She's now y[o]' ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... wi' heaven, I doubt, considering wha I carry ahint me—and as for hell, it will fight its ain battle at its ain time, I'se be bound.—Come, naggie, trot awa, man, an as thou wert a broomstick, for a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... one unfortunate place (do they take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and a Turkey-Foot,—which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... hold of a broomstick, and gave her a good lesson, in order to get something for the ten sequins which I had been foolish enough to pay in advance. But I have broken none of her limbs, and I took care to apply my blows only on her posteriors, on which spot I have no ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... were lodged in the potato-field, under the protection of some broken apple-branches dragged thither for the purpose. The cucumbers went down on the sheltered side of a wood-pile. The peas took their chances of life under the sink-nose. The sweet-corn was marked off from the rest by a broomstick,—and all took root ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... venture that many a vote for prohibition comes from gentlemen who look longingly through swinging doors—and pass on in propitiation of Satan and their alert consorts, the lake of brimstone and the corrective broomstick.... ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... drinking These-an'-That's cider and laughing with These-an'-That's wife, until the pair, very likely, took too much, and the woman without any cause broke into a passion, flew at the little man, and drove him out of doors, with broomstick or talons, while the gamekeeper hammered on the table and roared at the sport. His employer was an absentee who hated the Parson, so the Parson groaned in vain ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the village green! And Mrs. Robson carefully picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant who had worked for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the wings on the traditional broomstick! From that moment until the final transformation scene, when scintillating sea-shells yielded up one by one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness and a rather Hebraic Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody a happy New-Year in words appropriately rhymed, there was no halt ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... The broomstick rose up in the air and swirled through the window, which shut down after her with ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... will," the mother says threateningly, "Your 'will' is in your mother's pocket." It is in her pocket that she carries the rope for whipping the child. Another locution is, "Your will is in the corner" (i.e. the corner of the room in which stands the broomstick) (431. II. 81). ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... own suite, and the room was lit by faint yellow flames struggling through the ground-glass globes of four-side brackets. The light from the coals was stronger, and as it fell on her bony austere old face with its projecting beak, Clavering reflected that she needed only a broomstick. He really loved her, but a trained faculty works as impersonally as ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... floor of the Smith building, adjoining us, had their own way of teasing them. Late at night, when everybody would be lying down, and out of the way of shots, a window in the third story would open, a broomstick, with a piece nailed across to represent arms, and clothed with a cap and blouse, would be protruded, and a voice coming from a man carefully protected ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... convenience is decidedly on the part of fashion. The ordinary custom among well bred persons, is as follows:—soup is taken with a spoon. Some foolish fashionables employ a fork! They might as well make use of a broomstick. The fish which follows is eaten with a fork, a knife not being used at all. The fork is held in the right hand, and a piece of bread in the left. For any dish in which cutting is not indispensable, the same arrangement is correct. When you have upon your ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads and broomstick handles—more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a substantial hickory handle and an iron shank fitted ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... with as many colors as Joseph's coat. Those Costas lived 'most any way." Then my aunt added, over her shoulder: "They say the old woman was a gypsy and got married to one-armed Manel jumping over a broomstick. And I wouldn't wonder a mite if 'twas true. She was a queer looking old hag with black, piercing eyes and a proud way of walking. The boys are a wild crew. Why, I remember this girl Deolda, like a little leopard cat with blue-black shadows in her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of easel, made of four uprights. The main front uprights are of strips 5/8" x 1-1/4", and the rear uprights are of 1/2" x 1" material. A thin broomstick will serve as the pivot bar for the upper end. The rest is made of two strips, each 1/2" x 1", nailed together to form an L, and nails or wooden pins will serve to hold the rest in any desired position. The front uprights should be ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... is there?" roared the water-carrier; "is it you, ye bankrupt vagabonds, who have annoyed me? Begone; or by the sword of the Prophet, I'll impale you all three on my broomstick." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... sold to the Wyches of Macon. He cooked for them at their Hotel, "The Brown House" for a number of years, then was sold "on the block" to Mr. Stevens of Upson County. Betsy was sold at this same auction. Betsy and Peter were married by "jumping the broomstick" after Mr. Stevens bought them. They had sixteen children, of which Emily is the next to the last. She was always a "puny", delicate child and her mother died when she was about seven years old. She heard people tell her father that she "wasn't intented to be raised" 'cause she ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... few other fanatics like that, are bound to meddle with other people's consciences, I suppose we'll just have to let them do it. 'If it plazes her, it don't be hurtin' me,' as Mike Cassidy said when Judy hammered him with the broomstick. I hope ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... could stay him the statesman proceeded to enter the cottage. As soon as he had opened the door a broomstick fell upon his shoulders ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the party. One never knew just how she would come, on wings, or on a broomstick. This time she came walking, and dressed in a short red gown and a white apron. Her kind eyes twinkled as she gave her ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... happiness—the withered, dreary wiseacres in opposition to the joy, the daring, the beauty, the reckless vitality of souls still under the spell of spring. When poor Sara could escape from town into the country, mount her horse, and tear through a storm, the neighbours compared her to a witch on a broomstick, and, shaking their heads, would foresee much sipping of sorrow by the spoonful in the future of Lord Garrow. To-day, however, the young lady assumed her most demure expression, and received the guests at luncheon as though she had never learnt the meaning of tears nor ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... but declared they had seen nobody, nor had they heard any unusual sound. For his part he believed there was magic in it, and that some of the old Indian witches had spirited the prisoner up the chimney, and flown away with him on a broomstick. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... after me and said I'd dropped something. So I had. It was a rose. I was going to disclaim it, with all the haughty grace of a broomstick, when suddenly I remembered that it was my carte d'identite, so to speak. The Dragon had prescribed it in his last letter to Madame de Maluet about meeting Ellaline. As there might be difficulty in recognition if she came to the station with a chaperon as strange to him as herself, it would ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... her daughter, when spicy gossip about her doings abroad had been circulated in London, "or I should expect to have it deponed, by several credible witnesses, that I had been seen flying through the air on a broomstick." ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... previously felt and lived. I have no legerdemain to invoke things out of the air, or to make a dry branch bud and blossom before the eyes. I must look into my heart and write, or remain dumb. Robert Louis Stevenson said one should be able to write eloquently on a broomstick, and so he could. Stevenson had the true literary legerdemain; he was master of the art of writing; he could invest a broomstick with charm; if it remained a broomstick, it was one on which the witches might carry you through the air at night. Stevenson had no burden of meaning to deliver ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... proceedings with extraordinary unconcern. He had never been heard openly to express his disbelief in witches, but had often cut such jokes at their expense as left it to be inferred; publicly stating on several occasions that he considered a broomstick an inconvenient charger, and one especially unsuited to the dignity of the female character, and indulging in other free remarks of the same tendency, to the great amusement of ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... the cove in twelve hours," said Paul, "if this breeze lasts; it's blowing a gale out at sea, and the 'Polly' 'll fly like a witch on a broomstick." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... notice that he was even more solemn than usual. When she appeared, he gave one more glance at the spot he had been sweeping, and then grounded his broom like a musket, folded his hands on the end of the broomstick and looked at her as if he wondered what on earth had brought her to the palace at that moment, and wished that she would take herself off again as soon ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... times when I love to gallop through history on Sir Walter's broomstick. At other hours it is pleasant to sit in converse with wise George Eliot. From her garden terrace I look down on Loamshire and its commonplace people; while in her quiet, deep voice she tells me of the hidden hearts that beat and throb ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... in Hobart Town gaol, taken on the Shannon, exhibited these feats of quickness and strength. He would spring up into the air five feet, and reel round and round, with uncommon rapidity. He threw a broomstick, at twelve yards distance, through a hole in the sentry box, of but little larger diameter; and a lath, cast at thirty yards, pierced a hat through and through. They used no throwing stick, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... will marry her without making her his wife," said the priest. "He will jump over a broomstick with her and will ask me to help him,—so that your feelings and hers may be spared for a week or so. Mrs. O'Hara, he is a villain,—a vile, heartless, cowardly reprobate, so low in the scale of humanity that I degrade myself by spaking to him. He calls himself an English peer! ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Witch with Broomstick and Cat Who sputtered and snarled and shook her tall hat When she missed the Goblin with fingers so frail Who hopped with ease over mountain and dale As he chased the Prince so brave and so grand Who sailed over sea and rode over land Till ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... Romans represented the island of Great Britain by the figure of a woman seated on a rock, from a fanciful resemblance thereto in the general outline of the island. The idea is less poetically expressed by "An old witch on a broomstick." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... little the worse for wear, she ups an' reproaches 'm, which, God knows, that ain't no time to argue with a man. You don't want to argue with a fella when he's so. You just want to tellm'. Tell'm with the help of a broomstick if you want to, but tell'm, or leave'm alone. An' it's bad for the childern—all this is—it's bad for Cora an' Francie. What idea'll they get o' the holy estate o' matrimony, I should like to know? That the man has the upper hand? That's a nice notion for a girl to grow up with, nowadays. ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... a dealer in magic and spells; that you've already learned flying on a broomstick and practice it on nights when the moon is full; that you're hideously ugly; that you're wonderfully beautiful; that you live in a tree; that you sleep in a coffin; that you're digging for gold; that you've found the recipe for diamonds; ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... people were more afraid of the Devil and of witches than they are now, they liked to have a priest or a minister somewhere near to scare 'em off; but nowadays, if you could find an old woman that would ride round the room on a broomstick, Barnum would build an amphitheatre to exhibit her in; and if he could come across a young imp, with hoofs, tail, and budding horns, a lineal descendant of one of those "daemons" which the good people of Gloucester fired at, and were fired at by "for the best ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of water and a broomstick he beat out the fire, and went for a run to warm up. But when he came back there was more wind, so that he could not keep warm in the tent, and more rain, so that he could not find shelter in the woods. In the end he discovered a ruined barn, in a corner of which he would sit, wrapped ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... enchanter. What though the tale of The Magic Flute is foolish beyond words. Who cares for the tale? Who thinks of the tale? It is only the wand in the hand of the magician. Though it be but a broomstick, it will open all the magic casements of earth and heaven, it will surround us with the choirs invisible, and send us forth into green pastures ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... and down and round and round, faster and faster, growing smaller every second, until at last she was nothing but her real self, an ugly shriveled witch running round and round on a broomstick. With a loud shrill scream she mounted into the air and was away out of sight in an instant, leaving everybody staring open ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... suspect him; the youngster, because he is too pretty. They neither of them seem to me to keep Christian company. The boy is ever staring at the moon, the stars, and the clouds, like a wizard watching for the hour when he shall mount his broomstick; the other old rogue certainly makes some use of the poor boy for his black art. My house stands too close to the river as it is, and that risk of ruin is bad enough without bringing down fire from heaven, or the love affairs of a countess. I have ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... up her petticoats and started to run home; but she had only gone a little way when she heard the witch-woman coming after her on her broomstick. Now the apple tree she had helped to stand straight happened to be quite close; so she ran to it ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... his work, whether it range from the first volume of Modern Painters to Verona in time, or from The Seven Lamps of Architecture to Unto This Last in subject. If anybody ever could "write beautifully about a broomstick" he could: though perhaps it is a pity that he so often did. But this faculty, and the entire absence of bashfulness which accompanied it, are no doubt grand accommodations for letter-writing; and the reader ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... peculiarities of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and burning them. But the strega, though not as a rule dangerous to mankind, provided she be not disturbed or insulted, has the same supernatural power of transit on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern sister. On many a dark night have the peasants crossed themselves with fear on hearing the witches flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their unholy tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which has ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... minstrelsy of the ancient bards. Whittier thought that the "Chambered Nautilus" was "booked for immortality." In the same list may be put the "One-Hoss Shay," "Contentment," "Destination," "How the Old Horse Won the Bet," "The Broomstick Train," and that lovely family portrait, "Dorothy Q——," a poem with a history. Dorothy Quincy's picture, cold and hard, painted by an unknown artist, hangs on the wall of the poet's home in Beacon Street. A hole in the canvas marks the spot where one of King George's ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... merried state, and it suits me. Men-folks is like pickles, some; women-folks is the brine they're pickled in; they don't keep sweet without 'em. Besides, it's terrible lon'some on a farm, now I tell ye, with none but hired help, and them so poor you can't tell 'em from the broomstick hardly, except ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... to the Pasiegos, (52) are the best cudgel-players in Spain, and in the world. Francisco held in his hand part of a broomstick, which he had broken in the stable, whence he had just ascended. With the swiftness of lightning he foiled the stroke of Chaleco, and, in another moment, with a dexterous blow, struck the sword out of his hand, sending it ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... reluctantly. "Thank you, I certainly shall," said he quite soberly. "But—must we go this minute? Surely you can sit out one number, and I'll promise after that to stand on my head and dance with a broomstick if it will ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... I expect, when he wants to," replied the wrinkled humorist, with a weather-beaten grin. "They do say he whips off on a broomstick about once a month and steers for Bos-ton!" His fashion of utterance was a leisurely sing-song, like the roll of a ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... over the kitchen fire; her skirt and crinoline rolled up round her waist, leaving as sacrifice to custom only her petticoat. Up and down her body sways in rhythmic motion, her hands stroking affectionately her own knees; the while I, with paper knife for sword, or horse of broomstick, stand opposite her, flourishing and declaiming. Sometimes I am a knight and she a wicked ogre. She is slain, growling and swearing, and at once becomes the beautiful princess that I secure and ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... that this nose is far longer than the classic rule admits, and this arm has not the swelling proportions of life,—never seeing, that, though another statue was indeed designed for an Antinoues, this was never meant to be anything but a broomstick dressed in your grandfather's cloak, with a lantern in a pumpkin for a head. Oh, the dreariness of having to explain pleasantry! of appending to your banter Artemas Ward's parenthesis, "This is a goak"! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... showed that she or he was highly wrought up. Dr. Le Grand came slowly up to them, paused and raised his hands for silence. "Why this excitement so early in the morning?" he asked. "We's prepared fer um ter day," said a woman, coming forward and brandishing a broomstick. "Dey says dey gointer kill niggers, but we's gwine ter tek er few er dem long wid us." "Bah!" exclaimed the minister. "What will such a thing as that amount to against rifles? Disperse and go home, or you'll be sorry." This command had but slight effect upon ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... made it disappear in meaningless scribbles 'it spread out and became a bramble-bush like the Church of Rome.' Then rubbing it all out except one straight line, 'Now they have lopped off the branches and turned it into a broomstick arid that is Protestantism.' And so it was, night after night, always varied and unforseen. I have observed a like sudden extreme change in others, half whose thought was supernatural, and Laurence Oliphant records some where or other like observations. I can remember only once finding ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... have not been false, and I am not going to let you say so. If you don't promise not to, I will tell Mr. Ludlow myself that you were always perfectly true, and you couldn't help being true, any more than a—a broomstick, or anything else that is perpendicular. ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... Chook's eyes, was bustling in and out with the airs of a busy housewife, her arms, thin as a broomstick, bared to the elbow. His other love-affairs had belonged to the open-air, with the street for a stage and the park for scenery, and this domestic setting struck Chook as a novelty. Pinkey, then, was not merely a plaything for an hour, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Eve's first fire he has a cinder; Auld Tubalcain's fire-shool and fender; That which distinguished the gender O' Balaam's ass: A broomstick o' the witch of ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the first time, who were old acquaintances of theirs! There—grinning and brandishing his stick—was the Little Black Man who had worried Rudolf many a night as far back as he could remember. There was the Old Witch on the Broomstick, whom Ann had often described to him. There again, were other Bad Dreams that made the children almost smile as they remembered certain exciting times. The Angry Farmer—Rudolf had seen him before; he remembered his fierce expression, yes, and ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... surely to make some use of her power and come out and carry me home on her broomstick steed," she answered, looking up ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... such as Mr. Acland adverted to. Anybody who knows his business in science can make anything subservient to that purpose. You know it was said of Dean Swift that he could write an admirable poem upon a broomstick, and the man who has a real knowledge of science can make the commonest object in the world subservient to an introduction to the principles and greater truths of natural knowledge. It is in that way that your science must be taught if it is to be of real service. ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... to the curtain and agitates it, and bids you to retire on tiptoe. You cannot help being angry with the man for both reasons. But he is the writer society delights in, to show what it is composed of. A man brazen enough to declare that he could hold us in suspense about the adventures of a broomstick, with the aid of a yashmak and an ankle, may know the world; you had better not know him—that is my remark; and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... zee un! Now thiccy trough, thee zany, and tak thee girt legs out o' the wai. Wish they wud gie thee a good baite, mak thee hop a bit vaster, I reckon. Hit that there girt ozebird over's back wi' the broomstick, he be robbing of my young zow. Choog, choog, choog! and a drap more left ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... witch. 'Well, supposing you change this broomstick. You swore blue it was cut on a rainless Tuesday from an ash that had supported a murderer with a false nose. The very first time I used it, it broke at six thousand feet. I was over the sea at the time, and had to ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... old squire, whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd figure, with his bluff, red face,—coarsely red,—set in silver hair,— his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle, using, I believe, a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back of these fat ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not worth our while to stop a moment before passing that old broken wagon, and see whether we could not find as much in it as Swift found in his 'Meditations on a Broomstick'? I have been laughed at for making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who dared compare the lilies of ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... carried a broom, and when he saw the rocking-horse he said nothing, but broke off the handle from the broom and thrust it between his braces and his shirt on the left side. Then he mounted the rocking-horse, and drawing forth the broomstick, which was sharp and spiky at the end, said, "Saladin is in this desert with all his paynims, and I am Coeur de Lion." After a while the other boy said: "Now let me kill Saladin too." But Blagdaross in his wooden heart, that exulted with thoughts of battle, said: ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... to amuse her in the sitting-room, Zo had tried the bedroom next. She now returned to Ovid, dragging after her a long white staff that looked like an Alpen-stock. "What's this?" she asked. "A broomstick?" ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins |
