"Lean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long. The women fasten their heavy burdens to this strap, which goes around the forehead; the weight of the burden falls upon the head and back. This occasions the figures of the Indian women to stoop, since they necessarily lean forward in order to preserve their balance.] went to a hill just above the village, and deliberately made her preparations for hanging, as coolly too as if she had been used to being hung for a long time. But when, after having doubled the strap four times to prevent ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... speaking. We had all gone along so with the story, that the stout seafarer, as he wrought the whole scene up about us, seemed instinctively to lean back and brace his feet against the ground, and clutch his net. The young woman looked up, this time; and the cold snow-blast seemed to howl through that still summer's noon, and the terrific ice-fields and hills to be crashing against the ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... pulling Adan with him. "Come," he said; "follow me, and run as if you were as lean as a ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... companion led into great buildings and a place of offices where excited officials stood in knots about news-casting cones; then they were in a quiet room, in the presence of a lean-bodied man whose hawklike face turned flinty at some request the ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... and self-restraint, and the temper of the times was now altered. If Philip was sustained by the Roman law and its interpreters, whose counsels he gladly followed, Boniface, on the other hand, could lean upon the system of ecclesiastical or canon law, which had long been growing up in Europe, and of which the Canonists were the professional expounders. The vast wealth of the clergy had led to enactments for keeping it within bounds, like ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... imagination a creature fashioned in the likeness of a man, and yet its eyes shone as I had never seen human eyes shine, and the face was terrible to look upon. The thing held up its hands, and I saw that they were long and lean. He uttered a cry. "No, no, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... LXXIII Pale, lean, and wrinkled was the face, and white, And thinly clothed with hair Alcina's head; Her stature reached not to six palms in height, And every tooth was gone; for she had led A longer life than ever mortal wight, Than Hecuba or she in Cuma bred; But thus by practice, to our ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... his steed, won, so they tell, From Denmark's monarch, hight Grosselle; He slew the king and took the steed The beast is light and built for speed; His hoofs are neat, his legs are clean, His thigh is short, his flanks are lean, His rump is large, his back full height, His mane is yellow, his tail is white; With little ears and tawny head, No steed like him was ever bred. The good archbishop spurs a-field, And smites Abyme upon the shield, His emir's shield, so thickly sown With many a ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... rocking—not in a rocking-chair—just rocking and expressing his inmost thoughts. And Mr. Briggs pretends to scowl and mutters: 'Hook him over the ropes, George. 'E ain't got no friends!' Take a peep, Iole. You can just see them if you lean over and hang on to ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... cut up some rugged footway between the loops of the road. Perspiring, even as I sat, in the blaze of the sun, I envied the boy his breath and muscle. Now and then he slaked his thirst at a stone fountain by the wayside, not without reverencing the blue-hooded Madonna painted over it. A few lean, brown peasants, bending under faggots, and one or two carts, passed us before we gained the top, and half-way up there was a hovel where drink could be bought; but with these exceptions nothing broke the loneliness of the long, ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... the idler. "Only, you mustn't lean too heavily on me, you know. I'm the most uncertain quantity you ever experienced. But here comes Uncle Sidney, with a cowed and brow-beaten Kenneth in tow—say your prayers, and get ready for the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... shallows across the meadow beyond the old garden where the robins and blue birds were house-hunting. Friend Barton's trouble stirred with the life-blood of the year, and pressed upon him sorely; but as yet he gave it no words. He plodded about among his lean kine, tempering the winds of March to his untimely lambs, and reconciling unnatural ewes to ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... been better if I had brought her with me," he said, as he read extracts; "she's a little thing, Gordon, but she's a wonder. And she's the prop on which I lean." ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... This morning passed by,—the time of our stay in Brattleboro, and we neither saw nor heard anything of our Governor. We suppose he could not or would not help us. So as we go down to our trial we have no arm to lean upon among all men; but why dost thou complain, oh, my Soul? Seek thou that faith that will prove a buckler to thy breast, and gain for thee the protection of an arm mightier than the arms ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... about seven o'clock. There was a good deal of canned stuff in the galley, and Bjoernsen wasn't a bad hand with a kettle—a thoroughgoing Square-head he was—tall and lean and yellow-haired, with little fat, round cheeks and a white moustache. Not a bad chap at all. He took the wheel to stand till midnight, and I turned in, but I didn't drop off for quite a spell. I could hear his boots wandering around over my head, padding off forward, coming back again. I heard ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... a step forward but faltered, staggered, and was obliged to lean against the mountain for support. Stains of travel were on her dress; lines of fatigue and pain, and traces of burning passionate tears, were on her face; her black hair flowed from beneath her gaudy bonnet; and, shamed out of his brutality, Rand placed ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... shall be dear To her, and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty, born of murmuring sound, Shall pass ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... below was waving at him. While Hanson looked down, the slave called to another, got a shoulder to lean on, and walked his way up the side of the block, pushed from below and helped by Hanson's hands above. He was panting when he reached the top, but he could still talk. "Look, it's your skin, but you're going to be in trouble ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... he doing, that he could not trouble to write? A murmur of voices in the road made her lean from the window. A cavalryman of the little garrison in the town was talking to Kami's cook. The moonlight glittered on the scabbard of his sabre, which he was holding in his hand lest it should clank inopportunely. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... car for some slight repairs, there rose up from a deserted trench, a lean cat with a kitten in her mouth. Oh, such a starved old cat, Jean, gray and war-worn. And her kitten was little and blind, and when she had laid it at our feet, she went back and got another. Then she stood over them, mewing, her eyes big and hungry. But she ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... possessions but the name, and nothing of his position but the burden! Stand up, Adam Schwarzenberg, for I love to see you erect and stately at my side, and to be able to look up to you as to a staff on which I may lean, and which is strong ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... here, son!" I heard her cry. And to my wonder now I saw the long, lean figure of Andrew Jackson McGovern come forward, a carbine clutched in his hand, while from his mouth came some sort of eerie screech of incipient courage, which seemed to give wondrous comfort to his fierce ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... white linen trousers. And it was pleasant to get out in the great big spectacular Prussian station with the hammered bronze ornaments and the paintings of peasants and flowers and cows; and to hear Florence bargain energetically with the driver of an ancient droschka drawn by two lean horses. Of course, I spoke German much more correctly than Florence, though I never could rid myself quite of the accent of the Pennsylvania Duitsch of my childhood. Anyhow, we were drawn in a sort of triumph, for five marks without any trinkgeld, right ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... went to the house and got dinner, and the men drove up the buffalo into the barnyard and fed them hay, and we went out and played with the buffaloes, and Pa found his bull hadn't a scratch on him, and that he would lean up against Pa and rub against him just like he was ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... new marks of tenderness and duty, he felt returning love forcing itself into his eyes; but not less ashamed of feeling remorse towards one against whom he was inwardly meditating a yet more bitter outrage, he curbed the yearnings of his heart, and did not dare to lean even towards pity. The next transition of his soul was ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... feeding of those small birds, called turdi, was among the ancient Romans. Varro and Columella assure us, that it was a most profitable article. The fattening of ortolans, birds of passage which arrive lean in the country, is said to be so in some parts of France. If venison continues in fashion, and the wealth and luxury of Great Britain increase as they have done for some time past, its price may very probably rise still higher than it ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... native boy!" said Deschard, contemptuously. He was a tall, lean-looking, black-bearded man, with even a more terrifying and savage appearance than any of his ruffianly partners in crime, tattooed as he was from the back of his neck to his heels in broad, perpendicular lines. As he fixed his keen eyes upon the countenance of Corton his white ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... will come an eve to a longer day', That will find thee tired',—but not of play'! And thou wilt lean, as thou leanest now, With drooping limbs, and aching brow, And wish the shadows would faster creep, And long to go to thy quiet sleep. Well were it then, if thine aching brow Were as free from sin and shame as now! Well for thee, if thy lip could tell A tale like ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... a rushing in his ears through which pierced sharp, ringing clip-clop of iron hoofs. He could see only the corner of the street. But suddenly into that shot lean-limbed dusty bay horses. There was a clattering of nervous hoofs ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... office with his gadget, I heard him out, trying to appear both interested and co-operative—which is good business. But I am forced to admit that neither Howley nor his gadget were very impressive. He was a lean, slope-shouldered individual, five-feet-eight or nine—which was shorter than he looked—with straight brown hair combed straight back and blue eyes which were shielded with steel-rimmed glasses. The thick, double-concave lenses indicated a degree of myopia that must have ...
— ...Or Your Money Back • Gordon Randall Garrett
... deceive him. This has made him the terror of criminals, who have come to regard an arraignment before him as equivalent to a conviction, which is generally the case. At the same time he is kind and considerate to those who are simply unfortunate. As a man, he is kind-hearted, and inclined to lean toward ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that ever was worth a rap,' he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. 'They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here, he's—' Snap! The lean brute flashed up, the white ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... he will die. He told me to look through every train that came in. He was sure I would find some one.' Reaching at once for my grip and coat I rushed to the home of the Pastor. The home was the lean-to vestry of the old log church. In one corner Father Belmond lived; another was given over to the vestments and linens. Everything was spotlessly clean. On a poor bed the priest was tossing, moaning and delirious. Only the boy had attended ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... senseless hurrahs the programmers are going through your blessed pockets and exploiting your holy dollars? No; you feel secure; "power is of the People," and you can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege—to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap! But then you are not "subjects;" you are "citizens"—there is much in that Your ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... League of the three Emperors continued in more or less effective existence, and condemned France to isolation. In the apprehension of the French people, Germany, gorged with the five milliards but still lean and ravenous, sought only for some new occasion for war. This was not the case. The German nation had entered unwillingly into the war of 1870; that its ruler, when once his great aim had been achieved, sought peace not only in word but in deed the history of subsequent years ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... easily digested. The best quality will have clear, hard, white fat, and a good deal of it; the lean part will be juicy, firm and of a rather dark red color. When there is but little fat, and that is soft and yellow and the meat is coarse and stringy, you may be sure that the quality is poor. Mutton is much improved by being hung in a cool place for a week or more. At the North a leg will keep ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... grave-digging. The staff of life, naturally beautiful, oftentimes suggested the grave-digger's spade. Men and boys, and in those days even women and girls, were cut down while cutting the wheat. The fat folk grew lean and the lean leaner, while the rosy cheeks brought from Scotland and other cool countries across the sea faded to yellow like the wheat. We were all made slaves through the vice of over-industry. The same was in great part true in making hay to keep the cattle and horses through the long ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... on a low foot-stool, her feet were sometimes on the ground, and moreover her throne was subject to sudden earthquakes, which made her, nothing loth, cling to his neck, draw his arm closer round her, and lean on his broad breast, proud that universal consent declared her his likeness in the family; and the two presenting a pleasant contrasting similarity—the open honest features, blue eyes, and smile, expressive ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Before the boat could pull clear of the scene of disaster, a vicious, crested wave, so hollow that the lean quarters of the whaler were unable to rise to it, poured ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... normality about him. You find him in towns, ancient with chateaux and wonderful with age; he is absolutely himself, keenly efficient and irreverently modern. Everywhere, from the Bay of Biscay to the Swiss border, from the Mediterranean to the English Channel, you see the lean figure and the slouch hat of the U.S.A. soldier. He is invariably well-conducted, almost always alone and usually gravely absorbed in himself. The excessive gravity of the American in khaki has astonished the men of the other armies who ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... he quite knows how it happens in comes another soft subtle inrushing flood-tide of grace that seems to displace all again. Some temptation comes, some sore need, some tight corner. You look to Him; lean on Him; risk all on His response. He responds; and in ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... hired to help his poor old dad and who spends his time cuttin' monkeyshines with a dorg. You take that collie over to the truck, and ask his boss to look after him and to see he don't pester us while we're aworkin'. On the way back, stop at the lean-to and catch me that bag of cookin' things I left there. The's just room for ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... had been sick three days, and attributed it to the inhaling of white paint from his study window. I did not think much of it at the moment, as we were very social; but while we walked through Leicester-square he suddenly fell into a white, hot, sick perspiration, and had to lean against the railings. Then, at my urgent request, he was to let me put him in a cab and send him home; but he rallied a little after that, and, on our meeting Russell, determined to come with us. We three went down by steamboat that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Crucifixion, by Fra Angelico, surrounded with a border or pictured framework, in which are represented the heads of saints, prophets, and sibyls, as large as life. The cross of the Saviour and those of the thieves were painted against a dark red sky; the figures upon them were lean and attenuated, evidently the vague conceptions of a man who had never seen a naked figure. Beneath, was a multitude of people, most of whom were saints who had lived and been martyred long after the Crucifixion; and some of these ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but there was a new building where the main tent had been. This was obviously a hasty construction job, thrown together of rocks and tree trunks, without the use of magic. It was more of an enormous lean-to than a true building, but it was the best protection now available. Hanson could see Sather Karf and Sersa Garm waiting outside, together with less than a ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... the same particles, but on something else. For in them the variation of great parcels of matter alters not the identity: an oak growing from a plant to a great tree, and then lopped, is still the same oak; and a colt grown up to a horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse: though, in both these cases, there may be a manifest change of the parts; so that truly they are not either of them the same masses of matter, though they be truly one of them the same ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... of unharnessing the horse, leading it away, as soon as it was clear of the shafts, to a lean-to shed at the side of the hut where he hung up the harness and ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... She had seen many rough-and-tumble fights in the history of Limasito, but the clean-cut scientific way the two lean, lithe, well-matched figures sprang ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... of th' creditors has died since," piped up a lean youth who was smoking a very large cigar. "I s'pose th' children of all such would come in for their ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... contrast to her shadowy, thin old grandfather. About the preparation of her father's tea she moved with a sort of brooding stolidity, out of which would suddenly gleam a twinkle of rogue-sweetness, as when she stopped to stroke the little cat or to tickle the back of her grandfather's lean neck in passing. Having set the tea, she stood by the table and said slowly: "Tea's ready, father. I'm goin' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... considered as general gods of the nation. They consider all things as created for their sole use, and do not therefore think themselves cruel or unjust in wasting and destroying the surrounding nations, whom they esteem rebels against their legitimate authority. Their bodies, though lean, are hardy and strong, with broad chests, and square high shoulders, strong, well knit joints and firm sinews, thick and large thighs, with short legs, so that, being equal to us in stature, what they want in their legs is supplied in the upper part of their bodies. Their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... walls were red That now are seen To be overspread With a mouldy green, A fresh fair head Would often lean From the sunny casement And scan the scene, While blithely spoke the wind to ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... them paralysed. The Whigs were fatally divided, and discredited in the eyes of the country by their antagonism to Pitt. Pitt on the other hand was suddenly removed from the stage. The ministry was without support in the country; and for Parliamentary support it was forced to lean more and more on the men who looked for direction to the king himself. At a moment when all hope of exerting any influence seemed crushed by the return of Chatham to power, George found his influence predominant ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... you now, lean or fat, I know what games you were always at, And told you before what harm you would hatch: Now the old Gentleman's found you out, He'll clap us all in the round-about; Let us be off, ere they call ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... face and bruised his hands, but at last he was on the top. Soon he had chopped down the tree and had cut a straight pole ten feet long and as big around as his arm. He went down, sliding and jumping and tearing himself on the sharp stones. With a last leap he landed near his skees. As he did so a lean wolf jumped and snapped at him, snarling. Harald shouted and swung his pole. The wolf dodged, but quickly jumped again and caught the boy's arm between his sharp teeth. Harald thought of the spear-point in his belt. ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... lain there on the snow for hours, he heard a noise, and looking along the trail he saw a little red dog bounding straight toward him. How often had he spurned just such a cur with his foot, on the city streets, but never did any creature seem so good to Sinclair as did that lean canine specimen before him. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... how, when Johnny returned, they stood aside and let Johnny and the sheriff fight it out. How the sheriff beat Johnny to the draw, but was wounded in the left arm while Johnny fired a second shot as he lay dying on the floor of the lean-to. How the sheriff's wound was dressed by the companions of the dead Johnny, and how he was safely dismissed with honor, as between brave men, and how afterwards he hunted those same men down one ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... the equinox, The wild wind blew him to my swinging door, With flakes of tawny foam from off the shore, And shivering spindrift whirled across the rocks. Flung down the sky, the wheeling swallow-flocks Cried him a greeting, and the lordly woods, Waving lean arms of welcome one by one, Cast down their russet cloaks and golden hoods, And bid their dancing leaflets trip and run Before the tender feet of this ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... "Lean upon me, Miss Tavistock, and permit me to conduct you to your cabin," replied the doctor; "the extreme delicacy of your constitution," continued he, whispering, as they left the cuddy, "is not equal to the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... her task was Christie, that she forgot herself till the discomfort of her position reminded her that she had a body. Fearing to wake the poor girl in her arms, she tried to lean against the basin, but could not reach a cushion to lay upon the cold stone ledge. An unseen hand supplied the want, and, looking round, she saw two ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... lives. "Humphrey, my boy," she had said as she placed her hand on my arm and led me, like one in a dream, from the place, "it is God who has taken—He will surely also give. Shall I count all lost, with a stalwart arm like this to lean upon?" Then she kissed me, and I, for very shame, dried my eyes and held up my head. Ah me! that was but a year before; the world had still moved on, the grass covered his grave, and still my ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... he was your image of modern power—the lean, hungry, seamed face, surmounted by a dirty-gray pall. He was clawing his way to the top of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... help me with the love That casteth out my fear; Teach me to lean on Thee, and feel That Thou art very near: That no temptation is unseen, No childish grief too small, Since Thou, with patience infinite, Doth ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... right. There was a loud muttering among the fowls at roost. Solomon laid back his ears and twitched the skin of his back as if he meant to kick when Dick went near the lean-to shed supported on posts, thatched with reeds and built up against an old stone wall in which there were the remains of ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... McTurk's lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him like this save once in a sad time of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... one or two houses by the roadside, but they were lone and dark. No lean Virginia dogs howled at them and the solitary and desolate character of the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... from dreams of thee I cannot eat but little meat I come from haunts of coot and hern I come, I come! ye have called me long I knew an old wife lean and poor I lov'd a lass, a fair one I'm lonesome since I cross'd the hill I'm sitting on the stile, Mary In going to my naked bed In good King Charles's golden days In her ear he whispered gaily In the merry month of May In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... massive staircases, lofty vestibules, and spacious, resounding rooms. That given to the Queen was like an alcove, decorated by six large marble caryatides, joined by a handsome balustrade high enough to lean upon. The four-post bed was of azure blue velvet, with flowered work and rich gold and silver tasselling. Over the chimneypiece was the huge Bleink-Elmeink coat-of-arms, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... beautiful a prospect is here!"—Bicknell's Gram., Part ii, p. 52. The pronominal adjectives which follow the article, are few, former, first, latter, last, little, one, other, and same; as, "An author might lean either to the one [style] or to the other, and yet be beautiful."—Blair's Rhet., p. 179. Many, like few, sometimes follows the article; as, "The many favours which we have received."—"In ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... terrifying to the Hermit, for he recalled how often the demon, in tempting the Desert Fathers, had taken the form of a woman for their undoing; but he reflected that, since there was nothing pleasing to him in the sight of this female, who was brown as a nut and lean with wayfaring, he ran no great danger in looking at her. At first he took her for a wandering Egyptian, but as he looked he perceived, among the heathen charms, an Agnus Dei in her bosom; and this so surprised him that he bent over and called on ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... themselves, they were often seen caressing each other in the most tender manner, and their snouts often met together, as if they were kissing. They come ashore on these uninhabited spots to breed; they do not, however, breed during their stay on shore, which sometimes lasts several weeks, but grow lean, and swallow a considerable quantity of stones to keep their stomach distended. We were surprised to find the stomachs of many of these animals entirely empty, and of others filled with ten or a dozen round heavy stones, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... with blue eyes and fair hair, dressed in knickerbockers and a sailor cap, was also keenly interested in the surroundings. It was Saturday, and the little two-wheeled carts, drawn by a steer or a mule; the pigs sleeping in the shadow of the old wooden market-house; the lean and sallow pinelanders and listless negroes dozing on the curbstone, were all objects of novel interest to the boy, as was manifest by the light in his eager eyes and an occasional exclamation, which in a clear childish treble, came from his ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... majority has in such countries become the only recognized source of legitimate authority. "There is no fulcrum outside of the majority, and therefore there is nothing on which, as against the majority resistance or lengthened opposition can lean."[179] This statement was made with reference to France, but it would apply as well to England, Switzerland, and all other countries in which the principle of majority rule has received ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... the treaty at Camp Moultrie, which was made by great men, and not to be broken, had secured them for twenty years; that seven years of that treaty are still unexpired. I am no half breed, and do not lean on one side. If they tell me to go after the seven years, I say nothing. As to the proposition made us by the agent about removing, I do not say I will not go; but I think that, until the seven years are out, I give no answer. My family I love dearly and ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Sandstone of the British Isles (see Figure 494). In the same formation are found the fern (Figure 496) and the Lepidodendron (Figure 495), and other species of plants, some of which, Professor Heer remarks, agree specifically with species from the lower carboniferous beds. This induces him to lean to the opinion long ago advocated by Sir Richard Griffiths, that the yellow sandstone, in spite of its fish remains, should be classed as Lower Carboniferous, an opinion which I am not yet prepared to adopt. Between the Mountain Limestone and the yellow sandstone in the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... rough Dane was fain to turn away and lean arms and face against a tree trunk, weeping as weeps a child that ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... and others who, although the real coursing season had not yet begun in our neighbourhood, had been asked by Grampus to come to try their greyhounds upon his land. Those of them who walked for the most part held two long, lean dogs on a string, while one or two carried dead hares. They were dreadful-looking hares that seemed to have been bitten all over; at least their coats were wet and broken. I shivered at the sight of them, feeling sure that I was going to be put to ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... be understood who was the him. And then Herbert walked on so rapidly that at length his strength almost failed him, and in his exhaustion he had more than once to lean against a gate on the road-side. With difficulty at last he got home, and dragged himself up the long avenue to the front door. Even yet he was not warm through to his heart, and he felt as he entered the house that he was ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... comparatively of little value. Now, if you will punch together some of the coals and get me a big dinner, I'll be off. There's a blizzard coming up, and as they generally come from the south-west, I would advise you to put up a lean-to with its back that way," said ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... Lively to severe Livery of heaven Lives, lovely and pleasant in their Lobster, boiled like, a Local habitation and a name Locks, never shake thy gory Lodge in some vast wilderness Loins be girded Look, a lean and hungry —before you leap —, longing, lingering Looker-on here in Vienna Looks, the cottage might adorn Lord hath taken away —, bosom's, sits lightly —of himself though not of lands —Fanny spins a thousand such a day Lords, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes; And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles: He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd North; (I had him sit next me at table—my firelock lean'd ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... once become alienated, the past friendship would be remembered by him as involving a kind of humiliation, and therefore supplying additional keenness to his resentment. And yet it is plain that throughout life he was always anxious to lean upon some stronger nature; to have a sturdy supporter whom he was too apt to turn into an accomplice; or at least to have some good-natured, easy-going companion, in whose society he might find repose for his tortured nerves. And therefore, though the story of his friendships ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... country, all the way to Ispahan, six days journey from Persepolis, is exceedingly arid, having very few trees and little water, yet it is fertile in grain and other provisions. The king seemed to me about seventy years of age, of large stature, with a pleasant countenance, and very lean. His eldest son, named Ogurlu Mohamed, was much spoken of when I was in Persia, as he had rebelled against his father. He had other three sons; Khalil Mirza, the elder of these was about thirty-five years old, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... have been pardoned a few tremors. "It's a good thing you're not a girl," said I to the Little Pal, across my shoulder, holding back a particularly obstinate branch which would have liked to push us over the precipice, with its lean black arm. "You would be screaming, and I shouldn't know ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... He came home a lieutenant; he did not get to be admiral. And he and my father were such friends! My father took him into every house in the parish, he was so proud of him. He never walked out without Peter's arm to lean upon. Deborah used to smile (I don't think we ever laughed again after my mother's death), and say she was quite put in a corner. Not but what my father always wanted her when there was letter-writing or reading to be done, or anything ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the picture. The artist who painted this picture, Jean Baptiste Corot, tells us that when he was a small boy he used to lean out of his window at night, long after his mother and father thought him safe in bed, to watch the clouds, the sky, and the trees. He continued this study as a young man, and soon made friends with three other young men, all artists (Rousseau, Daubigny, and Dupre) who were also studying nature. ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter
... excited preparing for her guests. School had become much more interesting to her since Betty's arrival. Martha was also a sort of rock of comfort to lean upon. Margaret, of course, was always charming. Margaret Grant was Margaret Grant, and there never could be her second; but the two additional members gave undoubted satisfaction to the others—that is, with the exception of Fanny Crawford, who had, however, been most careful not to ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... to show in the Borough of Southwark, or throughout lordly London, those carrying coals. No, it is a long box, painted green or red, a perfect parallelogram, with two seats in it, composed of single boards, and occasionally the luxury of an open-work back to lean against; which boards are fastened to an ash frame on each side, thus affording an apology for a spring seat. This is the body; the soul, or carriage, by which said body is moved, consists of four narrow wheels, the fore ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and this was a primitive Belford, kin of the Roger de Belfourd who had established the fortunes of the house. The eyes behind the pince-nez were hard and bright; the fine nostrils quivered with the joy of the chase; and the long, lean neck, protruding from the characteristically low collar, was strung up ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... gathered in the light and I saw the Albertus Magnus for a moment. Then it changed to Ombos, himself.... A lean and grim form with dim mocking features, and yellow eyes ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... churches & there guarded night and day. I cant paint the horable appearance they make—it is shocking to human nature to behold them. Could I draw the curtain from before you; there expose to your view a lean Jawd mortal, hunger laid his skinny hand (upon him) and whet to keenest Edge his stomach cravings, sorounded with tattred garments, Rotten Rags, close beset with unwelcome vermin. Could I do this, I say, possable ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... pound of finely chopped lean mutton, including some of the bone, one pint cold water, pinch of salt. Cook for three hours over a slow fire down to half a pint, adding water if necessary; strain through muslin, and when cold carefully remove the fat, adding more salt if required. It may be fed warm, or ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... glanced back. For a moment the lean figure of Sosra the Egyptian stood framed in the narrow doorway. The next the door had slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... buckskin thongs, the other ends of the pole being imbedded in the ground. Other smaller saplings were trimmed and laid across the slanting poles, and on them were piled layer after layer of fan-like palmetto leaves. In a short space of time they had completed a lean-to which would protect them from any storm they were likely to experience at this ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... first shot "off hand," for we had seen him level the piece. Perhaps it was fortunate for us he had not taken aim over a "lean;" but fortune from that source was not going to favour us any farther; for we now observed Ijurra stick two lances obliquely in the ground, so that they crossed each other at a proper height, thus forming as perfect a rest as ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... their rubber suits and hastened into the glen. 'The chasm,' he writes, 'in which the brook, in any freshet I had heretofore seen, was still only a deep-down stream, now seemed too small for the torrent. Those giddy precipices on which the sky seems to lean as you stand below were the foam-lashed sides of a full and mighty river. The spray broke through the tops of the full-grown willows and lindens. As the waves plunged against the cliffs they parted, and disclosed the trunks and torn branches of the large trees ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... tavern or in enjoying the more substantial culinary delights of the Boston hotels. Thus though I made no shabby friends I acquired few genteel ones, and I began to feel keenly the disadvantages of a lean purse. I was elected into none of the clubs, nor did I receive any invitations to the numerous balls given in Boston or even to those in Cambridge. This piqued my pride, to be sure, but only intensified my resolution to become a man of fashion on my own account. If ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... would be anxiously waiting us on the steps. Despite the coldness of the morning, she would be bareheaded and lightly clad, with her black jacket open, showing her withered, old bosom. She carried the dog-collars in her lean, ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... right; I smell the lemon-blossoms. Beware of the old wilding that bears them; it may catch your veil; it may scratch your fingers! Pray, take care: it has many thorns about it. And now, Leonora! you shall hear my last verses! Lean your ear a little toward me; for I must repeat them softly under this low archway, else others may hear them too. Ah! you press my hand once more. Drop it, drop it! or the verses will sink into my breast again, and lie ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Val. But I never finished. It would be so nice just to lean back and nuzzle up to her, down in the sand. So nice. I ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... the wall a foot wide and four feet from the ground. On it I placed my cloak, my fine suit, and my hat trimmed with Spanish paint and adorned with a beautiful white feather. The heat was great, and my instinct made me go mechanically to the grating, the only place where I could lean on my elbows. I could not see the window, but I saw the light in the garret, and rats of a fearful size, which walked unconcernedly about it; these horrible creatures coming close under my grating without shewing the slightest fear. At the sight of these I hastened to close up the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... attention. Beneath one of the largest of the trees, upon the grass, was a kind of low tent or booth, from the top of which a thin smoke was curling; beside it stood a couple of light carts, whilst two or three lean horses or ponies were cropping the herbage which was growing nigh. Wondering to whom this odd tent could belong, I advanced till I was close before it, when I found that it consisted of two tilts, like those ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... moment of all joy in the coming of John Kars. But her love was deep and real, and, for all her sorrow, she had neither power nor desire to deny it. In her darkest moments there was a measure of comfort in it. It was something on which she could lean for support. Even in her greatest depths of suffering it buoyed her, all unknown, ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... did not deceive Jack, and in an instant his purse was being forced into her unwilling fingers. "The fall in our paper money gives a leftenant-colonel a lean scrip in these days, but what little I ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... unsettle any human judgment. General Webb speaks well and with authority to this matter: "The dilemma lay here,—whose plans and advice should he follow, where it was necessary for him to approve and decide?... Should he lean implicitly on the general actually in command of the armies, placed there by virtue of his presumed fitness for the position, or upon other selected advisers? We are bold to say that it was doubt and hesitation ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... in his company that she had never felt before. She trusted him, now that all her bearings were lost. The fear of the city, and the strangeness of her experiences, made her turn to him as her only prop upon which she could lean; and she clung to his arm as they drove along, the cab rattling over the stones and through what seemed to Mysie ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... me have men about me that are fat: Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. SHAKESPEARE: Julius Caesar, act ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... sighing.— [Soft music. 'Tis somewhat to my humour: stay, I fancy I'm now turned wild, a commoner of nature; Of all forsaken, and forsaking all; Live in a shady forest's sylvan scene, Stretched at my length beneath some blasted oak, I lean my head upon the mossy bark, And look just of a piece as I grew from it; My uncombed locks, matted like misletoe, Hang o'er my hoary face; a murm'ring ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... if for an instant this exclamation seemed to him to sound the infernal note, and it is not on record that her motive for discharging such a shaft had been of the clearest. He oughtn't to stride about lean and hungry, however—she certainly felt THAT for him. "God forgive you!" he murmured between his teeth ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... joining Mark's name with that of her son. It took away all the bitterness of the rebuke, and made the subject one on which even he might have spoken without difficulty. But now, seeing that she was so gentle to him, he could not but lean the more hardly ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... not remember leaving the cell. The first thing I realized they were placing me in a chair in the kitchen, and allowed me to lean my head upon the table. They gave me some gruel, and I soon revived so that I could sit up in my chair and speak in a whisper. But it was some hours before I could stand on my feet or speak loud. An Abbess was in the kitchen preparing ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Jones, the actual murderer, now long since vanished into the obscurity from which he came. On the one hand stands a public convinced of Patrick's guilt, and on the other the convicted "lifer" pointing a lean finger at the valet Jones and ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... in the saddle, Esmeralda! Lean back a little, bring your left knee up against the pommel, keeping the lower part of the leg close against the saddle; keep your right knee in place and your right foot and the lower part of your right leg close to the saddled; guide your horse, but do not otherwise exert yourself. How do you ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... say it, for it occurred to him that he was a poor stick for any body to lean on in the present state of his fortune, and that the woman before him was at least as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tomato and a little bit of mutton fat and a sardine and a bit of cheese, and he brought up a dish that you never saw equalled. Delicious! I shouldn't a bit wonder if Robert began breathing-exercises soon. There is one that makes you lean and young and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean, the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters, betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youth named to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they were sweet-mannered, fluent, gay, ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on his breast I lean my head, And breathe ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... hardships of life in the deserts and steppes discourage obesity. The Koko-Nor Mongols of the high Tibetan plateau are of slight build, never fat.[1138] The Bedouin's physical ideal of a man is spare, sinewy, energetic and vigorous, "lean-sided and thin," as the Arab poet expresses it.[1139] The nomadic tribesmen throughout the Sahara, whether of Hamitic, Semitic or Negro race, show this type, and retain it even after several generations of settlement in the river valleys of the Sudan. The Bushmen, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... closer, until he stood beside the window, his back against the wall. He had only to turn and lean forward and look her in the face. His eyes searched the wide stretches of the lawn in vain for a sign of life. The stable was dark, the house was silent. Only he and Lena were awake. No thought of pity for her softened his heart at that moment. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... hours), he eats it from choice during the rest of the year. Every day in the season of drought, when fishing is most abundant, he scrapes his balls of poya, and mingles a little clay with his other aliment. It is most surprising that the Ottomacs do not become lean by swallowing such quantities of earth: they are, on the contrary, extremely robust. The missionary Fray Ramon Bueno asserts that he never remarked any alteration in the health of the natives at the period of the great ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... pardon, my lady," whimpered Widow Anne, who looked more lean and rusty and dismal than ever; "but has my Sid come? I saw the cart and the coffin. Where's ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... by astronomers. Of course it may be that the phenomena that we shall now consider are not angels at all. We are simply feeling around, trying to find out what we can accept. Some of our data indicate hosts of rotund and complacent tourists in inter-planetary space—but then data of long, lean, hungry ones. I think that there are, out in inter-planetary space, Super Tamerlanes at the head of hosts of celestial ravagers—which have come here and pounced upon civilizations of the past, cleaning ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... from the deeper shadows in which the lean-to was bathed, and stood at the angle of the house. He paused, and a flurrying of the snow at his feet warned him that he had stepped close to the burrow of one of Nick's huskies. He moved quickly aside, and the movement brought him beyond the angle. Then he stood ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum |
