"Sprawling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were little attended to, and when foreshortening was not at all understood: this added to the horrible effect, for the executioner's arm and scourge were of tremendous size; Sir Josseline stood miraculously tall, and the Jew, crouching, supplicating, sprawling, was the most distorted squalid figure, eyes ever beheld, or imagination ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... into a laugh,—the first that had been heard,—and when two or three heads popped out from behind their printed screens to inquire into the cause of his mirth, that light-hearted gentleman was seen sprawling his long legs apart and gazing out of the window after the groups ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... into five as homely little objects as ever broke their way out of good-looking eggshells. There was not down on their bodies to make them fluffy and pretty, like Peter Piper's children. They were just sprawling little bits of crow-life, so helpless that it would have been quite pitiful if they had not had a good patient mother and a father who seemed never to get tired of ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... at the thing on the ground at his feet. There was a movement in the scrub and Alice Marcum stood beside him. He glanced into her face. And as her eyes strayed from the sprawling figure to meet his, Endicott read in their depths that which caused his heart to race madly. She stepped toward him and suddenly both paused to listen. The girl's face turned chalk-white in the moonlight. From the direction of the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... found a drama, though of a more grotesque sort. It showed nothing less than his big friend Flambeau in an attitude to which he had long been unaccustomed, while upon the pathway at the bottom of the steps was sprawling with his boots in the air the amiable Atkinson, his billycock hat and walking cane sent flying in opposite directions along the path. Atkinson had at length wearied of Flambeau's almost paternal custody, and had endeavoured to knock him down, which was by no means a ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... soil, they persist in keeping up the pasture lands, however depreciated they may be in value, and the lazy borough, growing away from the plain, has naturally spread riverwards. It is seem from afar sprawling along the banks like a cowherd taking a ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... Newcomes he atones for this in 'Esmond,' if any atonement is needed for sprawling, which is probably only that Thackeray felt that there is nothing so elastic and sprawling as a human person, whether he be a villain or ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... the modern world aims to achieve either beauty or utility. By the Washington monument, if completed, neither would be achieved. An obelisk with the proportions of a needle may be very graceful; but an obelisk which requires an expanse of flat-roofed, sprawling buildings for its base, and of which the shaft shall be as big as a cathedral tower, cannot be graceful. At present some third portion of the shaft has been built, and there it stands. No one has a word to say for it. No one thinks that money will ever again be ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... saying prayers all his leisure hours, it is still reasonable to think out tremendous things the American people can do, in the light of what they have done, without sacrificing any of their native cussedness or kick. It was sprawling Chicago that in 1893 achieved the White City. The automobile routes bind the states together closer than muddy counties were held in 1893. A "Permanent World's Fair" may be a phrase distressing to the literal mind. Perhaps it would be better ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... hand caught the gun-cutter and hurled her end-over-end, sending von Schlichten and Paula sprawling at full length on the deck, still clinging to one another. There was a blast of almost palpable sound, and a sensation of heat that penetrated even the airtight superstructure of the Elmoran. An instant later, there was another, and another, similar shock. Two more bombs ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... into stark immobility, staring with startled eyes at the base of a rocky crag thirty yards away. Something was lurking there in the green-black shadows—a great sprawling black shape of abysmal horror, with a single flaming opalescent eye ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... and amazement, the man shot sprawling over the bank, and landed, half-stunned, in a clump of blueberry bushes. Dazed and furious, he picked himself up, passed a heavy hand across his scratched, smarting face, and turned to see the ram disappearing among the thickets above the road. His disappointment so overcame his wrath that ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... rush up an easy incline towards a turning ahead, and the deep note of the horn; round the corner to the right, close in; the flash of a bicycle coming down on the wrong side, and swerving desperately; a little brittle smashing of steel; then a man sprawling on his face in the road as the motor ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... is what has happened at Tangley and at Crowhurst Place, and in each case the remains of the hall can be traced in the superb oak tie-beams which cross the bedrooms from side to side of the house. The hall is cased by a more modern building, a rich timber framework with the date 1582 carved sprawling on the wood. The garden has every charm that can belong to lichened brick walls, loop-holed and many-gated, and through the garden round the house runs a moat, in which trout swim, or once swam. John Evelyn of Wotton knew the Tangley manor moat and garden; possibly ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... detected one of the Indians crouching beside the canoe, and evidently tampering with its bark covering. Naked as he was, the young fellow bounded to the spot and, ere the Indian was aware of his presence, knocked him sprawling with a single blow. Like a panther the savage sprang to his feet, and, knife in hand, rushed at his assailant. Suddenly he paused, his outstretched arm fell to his side, and he stood like one ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... blether-breeks In a bar at Bellingham: and I recognized Peter's own brother, too; and guessed 'twas Jim: And when they gossiped of Krindlesyke ... Oh, I ken Ladies don't listen: but not being a lady Whiles has advantages: and when he left His crony sprawling, splurging in the gutter, I followed him, full-pelt, hot on his heel, Guessing the hanniel was up to little good. But he got here before me: so I waited Outside, until I heard him blustering; And judged it time to choke ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... lamps! What a joy O ho! Such a lad is Lantern Jack, When he rides the black nightmare Through the fens, and puts a glare In the friar's track. Such a frolic lad, good lack! To turn a friar on his back, Trip him, clip him, whip him, nip him. Lay him sprawling, smack! Such a lad is Lantern Jack! Such a tricksy lad, good lack! What a joy O ho! Follow me, follow me, Where he sits, and you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blood tinged the water and edges of the ice, and while I was lamenting my ill-luck I heard a splash behind me and turned in time to see the seal come up through another hole. He looked awfully sick, and didn't see me until I had him by the flipper, sprawling on his back, at a safe distance from the hole. This was quite good luck for me, for such an opportunity rarely occurs, though I have occasionally known Toolooah to recover a lost one in the ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... indolent attention, and he resumed his reading. Suddenly something in the text suggested a thought which made him start and drop the book for the third time to the side of the sofa, whence, escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the floor, back upward. Brayton, half-risen, was staring intently into the obscurity beneath the bed, where the points of light shone with, it seemed to him, an added fire. His attention was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and imperative. It disclosed, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the dash of the waves, is a dreamy and delightful way of spending a summer day. The beach for miles is strewn with these sand-burrowers in groups of two or three or half a dozen, or single figures laid out like the effigies of Crusaders. One encounters these groups sprawling in all attitudes, and frequently asleep in their promiscuous beds. The foreigner is forced to see all this, because it is a public exhibition. A couple in bathing suits take a dip together in the sea, and then lie down in the sand. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... have seen wild-fowl alone in that island enough to feed them all the year round. I was there in the moulting-time, and saw them take,—one day one hundred, one two hundred; and once, as I am a belted knight, a thousand duck out of one single mere. There is a wood there, with herons sprawling about the tree-tops,—I did not think there were so many in the world,—and fish for Lent and Fridays in every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every old-wife's table; while the knights think scorn of anything worse than ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... over she went headforemost into the ditch! and now, spying Dilsey, who was running with all her might to gain the lumber-pile, he took after her, and catching up with her just as she reached the gin-house, placed his head in the middle of her back, and sent her sprawling on her face. Diddie and Chris had by this time regained their feet, both of them very muddy, and Chris with her face all scratched from the roots and briers in the ditch. Seeing Old Billy occupied with Dilsey, they ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... a note from him a day or two ago, inviting her to some party or other, and his striking, sprawling penmanship was unmistakable. The letter had been opened, and Dolly remembered that Alicia had had several letters in the mail ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... crackling roar, six tongues of flame spat from the thicket and we charged out of our ambush and over the crest of the dunes toward the smugglers' craft and its crew, firing as we ran. The fellow next to me stumbled and fell sprawling in ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... the drowsy heat of the fire that I had replenished, he yawned, stretched, and laying himself down, very soon fell a-snoring, to my no small comfort. As for me, I sat there waiting for the dayspring; the fire sank lower and lower, filling the little cave with a rosy glow falling athwart the sprawling form of the sleeper and making his red face seem purplish and suffused like the face of one I had once seen dead of strangulation; howbeit, he slept well enough, judging from his lusty snoring. Now presently in the surrounding dark beyond the smouldering fire was a glimmer, a vague blur of sloping, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... stood close by the lake, upon a sloping bank which lay below. It did not seem to be more than fifty yards away. The doors and windows were gone. Five or six ill-looking fellows were near the doorway, some sprawling on the ground, others lolling and lounging about. One glance at the men was sufficient to assure him that they were the brigands, and also to show him that they kept no guard or scout or outpost of any kind, ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... day; he was in too great a hurry to dally, as he loved to do, over the bigger stalks of pigweed, the giants which he, with his trusty sword—only it was a hoe—would presently dash to the earth and behead, and tear in pieces. Even the sprawling pusley-stems, which generally played the part of devil-fish and tarantulas and various other monsters, suffered no amputation of limb by limb, but were torn up with merciful haste, and ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... Vulcans and sprawling Satyrs want to display their powers over flesh and muscle, they may find something real and not vulgar among ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the fishy eye in the locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and a pigtail, balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour fireplace. The greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head and pig-tail period: comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and sprawling its four attenuated bow legs in somebody's way; and an obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker's name with a painted garland of sweet peas. In any part of the house, visitors were usually cognizant ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... children were coming along the road towards me, hand-in-hand, through the heat—a boy and a girl; who, drawing near and spying my long legs sprawling out into the dust, came to a stand, finger ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sound of approaching footsteps in the grassy court announced a visitor. It was the ostler from the 'Green Dragon' bringing a letter for Mr. Archer. Nance saw her hero's face contract and then relax again at sight of it; and she thought that she knew why, for the sprawling, gross black characters of the address were easily distinguishable from the fine writing on the former letter that had so much disturbed him. He opened it and began to read; while the ostler sat down to table with a pot of ale, and proceeded to make ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vehemently against the assumption that he was in the habit of sprawling tipsily on ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... description, with a harum-scarum devil of a half-bred, making his way at all risks, at a full gallop, as unmanageable in his career as his driver had been in his speculations; dust flying, women sprawling, men bawling, dogs barking, and the multitude continually increasing. Scouts, Scamps, Lords, Loungers and Lacqueys—Coster-mongers from—To the Hill Fields—and The Bloods from Bermondsey, completely lined the road as far as the eye could reach, both before and behind; it was a day ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... into his pocket. With his remaining hand he closed the hostler's right eye, and sent the flesh about it into mourning. Then he carelessly tapped a little blood from the hostler's nose, gave him a few thumps on the chest as if to test the strength of his lungs, and laid him sprawling in the courtyard. A brother hostler ran out from the stables and gave a ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of refugees arrive, the street-selling is naturally augmented by a more hopeful crowd, and it was possible to see one day little bears with scarlet ribbons round their necks being offered for sale on the pavement, tiny baby-bears with pink noses and sprawling feet, fed with milk from ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... who had abused his patron so much, was there with his portrait, which, notwithstanding his vow never to touch it again, he had finished, and brought home, and with it the sprawling Venus: he was now extremely angry with Mr. Gresham for declining to purchase this chef-d'oeuvre. With the painter was a poet ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... tiny ship sped through the bright morning sky, and Tom was growing uneasy, until suddenly, far to the west and slightly to the north he spotted the plant, nestling in the mountain foothills. It lay far below, sprawling like some sort of giant spider across the rugged terrain. Several hundred cars spread out to the south of the plant, and he could see others speeding in from the temporary village across the ridge. Everything was quiet, orderly. He could see the shipments, crated, sitting ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... you the baby to kiss," I said, unfolding the blanket, and holding up the sprawling little goddess towards the face that ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... shrinking up inside their clothes; unless they die on the instant they have a way of tearing their coats open and gripping with their hands at their vitals, as though to hold the life in; they have a way of sprawling their legs in grotesque postures; they have a way of putting their arms up before their faces as though at the very last they would shut out a dreadful vision. Those contorted, twisted arms with the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... met again the scholars noted that the ink-stains had been carefully washed and scraped from the wall and the floor, and they found Ted McKnight sprawling in his place, his head buried in his arms, dumb and unapproachable. If a mate came too close, moved by curiosity or a desire to offer sympathy, Ted lashed out at him with his heels. For the time being he ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... instant the loud crack of a musket rang upon the still night air. At the same instant Dick Dare fell sprawling upon his face on the ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... took down my rope and caught him before he had gone a hundred yards. As I threw my horse on his haunches to receive the shock, the weight and momentum of the bull dragged my double-cinched saddle over my horse's head and sent me sprawling on the ground. In wrapping the loose end of the rope around the pommel of the saddle, I had given it a half hitch, and as I came to my feet my saddle and carbine were bumping merrily along after Toro. ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... soon listening with deep interest to the eloquent and burning words which fell from the lips of the preacher; and with the harebells nodding at her, the golden coltsfoot staring up into the sky, the laughing babies sprawling about, was it any wonder that sadness fled away, and joy and love sang a paean ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... area extending over ten acres and gave it so much of its solemn dignity was thirty-five feet high and some seven feet thick. The prison proper, which was not visible from the outside, consisted of seven arms or corridors, ranged octopus-like around a central room or court, and occupying in their sprawling length about two-thirds of the yard inclosed within the walls, so that there was but little space for the charm of lawn or sward. The corridors, forty-two feet wide from outer wall to outer wall, were one ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... "this is n't a whine. I 'm not discouraged—it is n't that. I 'm not frightened, nor despondent, nor worried, understand. I know that things will come out all right by the time I 'm fifty, but I shall then be fifty. I 'd like a taste of the jungle now—a week or two of roaming free, of sprawling in the sunshine, of drinking at the living river, of rolling under the blue sky. I 'd like to slash around uncurbed outside the pale a little. I 'd like to do it while I 'm young and strong,—I 'd ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... she was, she had made no attempt to pry into her husband's business, but spent the days preparing for the journey, she and the nut-brown sprawling child of immense girth, who was the ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... tripped headlong and in the long sprawling fall lost his remaining stake. For five minutes he groped in the darkness before he found it, and all the time the panting runners were passing him. From the last corner to the creek he began overtaking men for whom the mile run had been too much. In ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... ballast with the usual disregard of the Harbour Commissioners' bye-laws; and a number of ponderable stones, now barely covered by the tide, encumbered the foot of the landing. On one of these the boat caught her heel, with a jerk that flung the two oarsmen sprawling and toppled Captain Hocken's tall hat over his nose. Mr Tregaskis thrust out a hand to catch it, but in too great a haste. The impact of his finger-tips on the edge of the crown sent the hat spinning forward over the thwart whereon ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... released from her pen, came prancing up to us. We, as usual, made grabs at her horns and tail, and somewhat excited her temper. Now, she began to butt at us, and made us fly, right and left. Miss Susan was capsized, and sent sprawling on the deck; and Nancy, highly delighted at her victory, frisked off to the starboard side, where Mr Lukyn, with all the dignity of a first-lieutenant, was walking the deck with his glass under his arm. Nancy, either mistaking his long legs for the stems of the ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the drunken retort that he drew back as if to strike the man, when the Norwegian smote the foreman a blow that laid him sprawling in the iron dust. Instantly Mr. Hardy stepped up between the two men before Burns could rise. We have spoken of Robert's intense horror of the coarse, physical vices. It seemed totally wrong to him that a workman should degrade himself ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... would not stop me, or cart-ropes hold me—then again I grow as nervous as an old cat with the palsy, and sit moping in a corner like an owl in fits. Last hunting-day I was just as if I was mad—pressed upon the pack when they were getting away—rode over two or three of the tail hounds, laid 'em sprawling on their backs, like spread eagles, till the huntsman swore at me loud enough to split a three-inch oak plank—went slap at everything that came in my way—took rails, fences, and timber, all flying, rough and smooth ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... brought him some folio sheets covered with great pathetically sprawling letters, and when she had ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... forth her hand and, taking the reed pen which Lyga smilingly handed to her, drew it firmly and deliberately through Sachar's sprawling signature. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... Buitzenzorg in the interior of the fertile island of Java. Among the rudest houses shown are those of Celebes, that curious island, larger than Britain, which seems to rival the sea-monster, with its arms sprawling upon the map. One house on stilts is fitted up with a complete equipment of musical instruments, the wooden and brass harmonicons with bars or inverted pans resting upon strings and beaten with mallets. Here also ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... suited for walking. In particular, the femur, by its head projecting freely from the acetabulum, seems to claim a movement of free stepping more parallel to the line of the body, and more approaching to the vertical than the sprawling gait of the crocodile. The large claws concur in this indication of terrestrial habits. But, on the other hand, these characters are not contrary to the belief that the animal may have been amphibious; and the great vertical ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... glanced aside. What was his dismay to see Erwin's slender figure drooping nervelessly, his head sinking, and the emptied sheaf of bombs sprawling neglected in his lap! ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... But the world was so wide and freedom so large that surely everything free ought to fly; so Romulus sprang into the air and made motions with his arms like to those the owls had made with their wings; and the first grievous disappointment which his freedom brought came when he found himself sprawling on ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... again. He presently scrambled up once more, still smiling, made a loose effort to brush the dust off his coat and legs, but a smart pass of his hand missed entirely, and the force of the unchecked impulse stewed him suddenly around, twisted his legs together, and projected him, limber and sprawling, into the lap of the Lord Longlegs. Two or three scholars sprang forward, flung the low creature head over heels into a corner, and reinstated the patrician, smoothing his ruffled dignity with many soothing and regretful speeches. Professor ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... uneasiness. He decided that for his own security, if nothing more, he might better bestir himself to gain a counter-grip upon Mr. Harley. And thereupon Storri began to lie in ambush for Mr. Harley; and at a lurking, sprawling warfare that sets gins and dead-falls, and bases itself on surprise, your savage ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... was stupid; yet, stupider men than he are now sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the authors of their own distinction. He was of a fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined to a cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life; and possibly this attitude of mind was ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had been rescued by the lady of the house; the Dog was once more sprawling on the boards when the man on Jack's trail arrived. He carried, not a gun, but a stout stick, sometimes called "dog-medicine," and that was all that prevented the Dog attacking the enemy of ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... we decided that I meet Peter and Levin on the bank of the river early dawn of day, Sunday, to establish the laws. During our interview, William prostrated on his knees, and face to the ground; arms sprawling; head cocked back, watching for wolves, by which position a man can see better in the dark. No house to go to safely, traveled round till morning, eating hoe cake which William had given me for supper; next day going around ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... is in a position to receive a tremendous whack on the back with the gun, now used as a cudgel, and there is positively no fraud about the manner of his sprawling around. ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... swayed as though under the weight of a man's body—there was a crash and the black came sprawling to earth again,—to lie very quietly ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... spot where she had seen the men fighting in the roadway, she found Jack McCoy bending over the sprawling figure ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... horizontal position; whereupon his struggles, he being under the impression that some wicked conspiracy is being hatched against him, become fearful, and the final picture presented is generally that of an overturned table and a smashed-up dinner sandwiched between two sprawling layers of infuriated men ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... on the smooth surface face and fell sprawling. Each felt, when he fell, that he must rise at once, with all his speed, lest something grasp him and hold him down forever. It was a horrible trapped feeling, ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... few yards from the hitching rack, the seat was suddenly pulled from under him, and he was left sprawling on his back in ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... tail between his legs and his tongue hanging out, go home and stretch himself at full length on the cool tiles of the hall. How wise he was to scorn this pebble-gazing! I would come in half-roasted, as brown as a berry, to find my friend Bull wedged into a corner, his back to the wall, sprawling on all fours, while, with heaving sides, he panted forth the last sprays of steam from his overheated interior. Yes, he was much better-advised to return as fast as he could to the shade of the house. Why does man want to know things? Why is he not indifferent to ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... fear-stricken rovings, Markheim's eyes returned to the body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling, incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... firmaments, that retreat and hover through all the boundless heights, the Nubecula nebula, looking like a bunch of ribbons disposed in a true love's knot, that most awful nebula whirled into the shape and bearing the name of the Dumb Bell, the Crab nebula, hanging over the infinitely remote space, a sprawling terror, every point holding millions of worlds, thinking of these all transcendent wonders, and then remembering his own inexpressible littleness, how that the visible existence of his whole race does not ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... had brooded and the home that his plottings were to disturb. In buoyant spirits—for this was action, and action makes lusty appeal to youth—he trotted or galloped as the descent was easy or sharply inclined; the low hedges he took in great sprawling jumps, the ditches in vast giant strides— arms working as balance-pole, humming ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the blaze, when another sound fetched him upright again. This also was the sound of a horse at a gallop, but now it drew nearer and nearer up the road. It clattered past the courtlage wall, and with that came to a sudden sprawling halt. A man's voice, the rider's, shouted some two or three words the doctor could not catch; but a moment later he heard the latch of the yard gate clink and horse and man lunge through, and had scarcely time to arm himself with one of the guns before three sharp strokes rattled on ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... joined in the chase; Mr Rogers ran as hard as the rest, forcing his pith hunting-helmet down over his head. Coffee got well in front, waving his arms and shouting; but Chicory trod upon a thorn and began to limp. As for Jack, in his excitement he tripped over a stump, and fell sprawling; while Dick had hard work to save himself from a similar mishap. Last of all, whip in hand, came the foreloper, who had left the oxen in his excitement, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... she hastened out to see anew her home valley as it looked from her grove. So it was with something very close to annoyance that she looked at the sprawling figure of the usurper. ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... proposition quite natural. I decked myself out in a dressing-gown of huge sprawling design, which gave me an extremely Pharaohesque appearance; I hurriedly put on a pair of Turkish slippers, and told the Princess Hermonthis that I ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... on deck, blackened and wildly dishevelled. Aglootook was close to the opening at the moment, giving sententious directions to some little boys. Anteek hurled the snow-mass full at his face with the force of an ardent nature intensified by contempt, and sent him sprawling among the children as he leaped over the side to carry out ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... busy over their meal, sitting or sprawling in a shadowed place, the slaves waiting upon them. With a reminder that they must hold themselves ready to ride at any moment, he passed on through a large, wild garden, and at length, where a grove of box-trees surrounded the ruins of a little ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... and senseless in his place, Prone and sprawling on his face, More like brute than any man Alive or dead, By his great pump out of gear, Lay the peon engineer, Waking only just to hear, Overhead, Angry tones that called his name, Oaths and cries of bitter blame,— Woke to hear all ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... shouted Joe. "Got something all jumbled up with static once but couldn't make it out." Rising, he took the receiver from his head and handed it to Curlie. Then, as the craft took a sudden plunge, he leaped for a seat. Missing it, he went sprawling upon the floor. ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... should like to have seen you!" laughed Hinpoha as she painted Migwan sprawling on the ground. "Haven't you some more stuff I can illustrate? There's such a lot of paint mixed up. Oh, here's another one," she ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... bath, the young fellow had two cups ready, one with the poison for Ptoeodorus, and the other for me; but by some blunder he handed me the poisoned cup, and Ptoeodorus the plain; and behold, before he had done drinking, there was I sprawling on the ground, a vicarious corpse! Why are you laughing so, Zenophantus? I am your friend; such mirth ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... understand meant self-control under deep provocation. He would have liked nothing better than to surprise the insolent young snob with a well-directed blow in his pretty face that would have sent him sprawling in the aisle. His hands fairly twitched to give him the lesson that he needed, but he only replied with a slight inscrutable smile in ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... fair-sized river. You have no idea of the dew up here till you have tried it. After a while we struck into the woods, and such woods you never saw—at least I hope so for your sake. Rocks, big and little, generally of the most unchristian shapes—not picturesque, but sprawling; underbrush wherever it had a chance to grow: you could scarcely find a foot of smooth ground. The worst of it was the way the trees lay around loose. The region had not been burned over, at least not for many years; but it did ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... further along the branch, I kicked out in a desperate endeavour to reach the boat, and, the bough swaying with me, caught my toe inside the gunwale, drew it under me, and loosing my grasp, was sprawling upon my hands ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... the other an armillary sphere. On either side, as usual, on an octagonal base are tall twisted shafts, with a crown round the base of the twisted pinnacles which rise just to the level of the spreading arms of the cross. Like the door at Santarem the whole would be sprawling and ill-composed but that here the white-wash of the wall comes down only to the arms of the cross, so as to give it—built as it is of grey limestone—a simple square outline, broken only by the upper arm and ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... mothers' backs or laid sprawling upon the ground for the first two years [26]: they are circumcised at the age of seven or eight, provided with a small spear, and allowed to run about naked till the age of puberty. They learn by conversation, not books, eat as much as they can beg, borrow and steal, and grow up healthy, strong, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... with good liquor, cheerfully we strove To place big stones below and big above; We made too quick work—down the fabric came; It crush'd our vitals: people call'd out shame! But we heard nothing, mute as fish we lay, And shall lie sprawling till the judgment day. From our misfortune this good moral know— Never to work too fast nor ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... but no sound passed my lips. I struggled for breath, and called again with all the power I could muster. I could not hear myself speak. And then I understood! My knees rocked beneath me, the river swirled round me, a rowan tree rushed by me in a flash, and as I fell sprawling on my face among the heather a thousand hammers seemed to pound the hideous sickening truth into the heaving pulp ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... paid a visit to Epsom to see the races. He paid 1s for a stand on a stool, but he had not been in his elevated position many minutes before the stool was kicked from under him, and he was sent sprawling on the ground, this provoking the crowd to great laughter. When Mr Leach looked up he found his stand occupied by another fellow. Smarting from a sense of indignity, the Keighley gentleman "set on" to the intruder, and was struggling to regain possession when the police ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... back of the post, farther up on the hill. It was a large, sleepy house, sprawling against the sunny side of the slope, as if it had sought the southern exposure for warmth, and had dozed off one sultry afternoon and never waked up from its slumber. It was of great, square-hewn timbers, built in the Russian style, the under ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... any kin to the Rennies of-" Of where? The Brazos, the Rio country, West Texas? He had no idea in which part of that sprawling republic-become-a-state the Rennies might have been born and bred. But how he had longed in those first lonely weeks of learning to be a soldier to find one of his ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... that old training saved him. Every time Jan came to his feet, roaring, thrashing his arms like flails, making head-long, bull-like rushes, the Butterfly Man managed to send him sprawling again. Then he himself caught one well-aimed blow, and went staggering; but before slow-moving and raging Jan could follow up his advantage, with a lightning-like quickness the Butterfly Man made a battering ram of his head, caught Jan ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... music of the barrel-organ. And this high pride in being human had lifted him unaccountably to an infinite height above the monstrous men around him. For an instant, at least, he looked down upon all their sprawling eccentricities from the starry pinnacle of the commonplace. He felt towards them all that unconscious and elementary superiority that a brave man feels over powerful beasts or a wise man over powerful errors. He knew that he had neither the intellectual nor the physical strength of ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a sprawling school-girl's hand. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... wild and valiant fighting of the gallant adventurers on sea and land. There were no big moments when I trudged along the street throwing my papers in at doors. But in the saloons, even the sots, stupefied, sprawling across the tables or in the sawdust, were objects ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... gone why don't you come? Why did you leave me yesterday? You leave me crying—I who haven't cried for years and years, and you haven't the sense to come back within the hour, within twenty hours! This conduct is idiotic"—and a sprawling signature of the four magic letters ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... Lily was the encounter, in this latter group, of several of her acquaintances. She had supposed, and not without relief, that she was passing, for the moment, completely out of her own circle; but she found that Mr. Stancy, one side of whose sprawling existence overlapped the edge of Mrs. Fisher's world, had drawn several of its brightest ornaments into the circle of the Emporium. To find Ned Silverton among the habitual frequenters of Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room was one of Lily's first astonishments; ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... was still making the same sprawling movements ahead of me up the street. The sight of this infirm creature constantly in front of me, commenced to irritate me—his journey seemed endless; perhaps he had made up his mind to go to exactly ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... muttered Pepper to himself. "I'll soon stop that!" And he made a leap over the guard-rail of the craft. The ax was raised for another blow, but before it could be delivered, Pepper caught the bully by the shoulders and sent him sprawling on his back. ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... with emotion; 'see it comes to me again; ah, what great favours the fathers of all grant me this day,' and, passing his hand gently over the sprawling animal, he inhaled from his palm deeply and long, at the same time invoking the favour of the gods. Then he leaned his chin upon his hand, and with large, wistful eyes regarded his ugly captive as it sprawled about, blinking its meal-bedimmed eyes, and clawing the smooth floor in memory of its ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... in the loss of horses rather than of men. He was riding again now, and well in front, with Castro and myself behind him. Suddenly, after a scattering volley, I felt my horse slip, and the next instant the poor beast was sprawling on the ground with a ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... falling in the glowing streets like javelins,—they utilized some of the waste hours of the broiling afternoon in sleep, and are fresh as daisies now. The women are not haunted by the thought of lords and babies growling and wailing at home. Their lords are beside them, the babies are sprawling in the clean gravel by their chairs. Late in the small hours I have seen these family parties in the promenade, the husband tranquilly smoking his hundredth cigarette, his placens uxor dozing in her chair, one baby asleep ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... of breeding dropped from her like a cloak and she was again the blacksmith's sister, self-conscious, awed and tongue-tied in the imposing presence of Andy P. Symes. Her prominent knees visible beneath her thin skirt, her flat feet sprawling at an awkward angle, unconsciously added to Symes's anger. She looked, he thought, like a terrified servant that has broken the cut-glass berry bowl. Yet subconsciously he was aware that he was wounded deeper than his vanity by her disregard of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... now, instead of growing straighter, the other man seemed suddenly to collapse. His breath escaped from his lips in a husky groan, and he dropped in a sprawling heap on the ground at ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... Once more he might have been successful, but the keen eye of Sartoris was upon him; the cripple seemed to read his thoughts. Like a flash the invalid chair caught Berrington on the shin, and sent him sprawling across the floor; the chair sped on and there was a sudden click and the room was in darkness. Berrington had a quick mental picture of where different objects were—and he made a dash for the switch. Some great ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... such thorough honest English blows under the ribs of the other two miscreants, that they sent them reeling backwards among the casks and packages which filled the after-hold, and there they lay sprawling, unable to get ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... long campaign. Even the comforts of his club were denied him; everyone knew him and everyone smiled at the little domestic disturbance. So he asked his secretary, young Spencer, to make his home for the present in the sprawling, brand-new "palace" that frowned out on the South Boulevard. Young Spencer accepted, out of pity for the old man; for he wasn't a toady and ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... of string; and had fastened to the end of the string a pellet of tobacco stolen from the old man's pouch. With this bait he had been fishing in the lotus pond; and a frog had swallowed it, and was now suspended high above the pebbles, sprawling in rotary motion, kicking in frantic spasms of disgust and despair. 'Kaji!' ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... claimed exemption from any servile duties of procurement, and had swaggered about the garden while I fetched from the village post-office, and Harold stole a tumbler from the pantry. Our preparations complete, we were sprawling on the lawn; the staidest and most self respecting of the rabbits had been let loose to grace the feast, and was lopping demurely about the grass, selecting the juiciest plantains; while Selina, as the eldest lady present, was toying, in her affected ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... he thought, and tried to find comfort in telling himself that there was no occasion for alarm, with her mother, hard-visaged as she was, within call. Yet as unconsciously he kept glancing back at the lonely roadhouse, sprawling squat and ugly on the desolate sweep of sand and sagebrush, the only sign of human habitation within the circle of the wide horizon, he had the same sinking feeling at the heart which came to him when he had to stand helpless watching a coyote pull down a lamb. It was in vain he argued ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... suddenly burst out laughing at a sight before her. Two men who were rolling a barrel of flour from the storehouse to their own home let it slip from their weakened fingers. It rolled against one of the carpenters who was standing with his back to it, and hitting against his shins, sent him sprawling. It was undoubtedly a funny sight and she was not the only one to be amused. But the ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... 1610[69] and consisting of the tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana, the third being yet another illustration of the Gita Govinda[70]. All three sets of illustrations are in a closely similar style—a style which, while possessing roots in Jain painting is now considerably laxer and more sprawling. The faces are no longer shown three-quarter view, the detached obtruding eye has gone and in place of the early sharpness there is now a certain slovenly crudity. We do not know for whom these manuscripts were made nor even in what particular part of Western India or Rajasthan they were ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... idling; it is not getting on with the Book. A score of men and women are crowding up to these pages waiting to get into the story. And the town of Harvey, how it is bursting its bounds, how it is sprawling out over the white paper, tumbling its new stores and houses and gas mains and water pipes all over the table; with what a clatter and clamor and with what vain pride! Now the pride of those years in Harvey came with the railroad, and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Beth, giving him a great push that sent him sprawling up the passage. This was the kind of attention he understood, so he went to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... political or ecclesiastical change. Indeed there are signs which seem to show that his stock of reforming zeal had already run low. "The New Beer Bill[108] has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those who are not singing are sprawling. The Sovereign People are in a beastly state." He was now past sixty, and a spirit of amiable self-indulgence was creeping ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... over me, but where was I now? Again I opened my eyes, and noted the gay patchwork covering of the bed, and the green paper curtain of the window in the golden wall—green, with a tall yellow flower-pot on it, with sprawling roses of blue and red. Turning with an effort toward the side whence all the brightness came, in a moment two warm arms were round my neck, and a face that I could not see was pressed close ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... where there was no mirror to tell him how loathsome he was? Why had his father not killed him, rather than sell him to his shame? The hot tears poured down his cheeks, and he tore the white rose to pieces. The sprawling monster did the same, and scattered the faint petals in the air. It grovelled on the ground, and, when he looked at it, it watched him with a face drawn with pain. He crept away, lest he should see it, and covered his eyes with his ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... lone woman in a ruined hall, Dreaming of desolation and the shroud; Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed, Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl. The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand, And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web, Smites frantic music in the twilight's ear; And all around, like melancholy sand, Rains dead leaves down—wild leaves, that mark the ebb, In Earth's ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... jagged line of blue-white glimmered and stood upon tip-toes to touch the swimming clouds—touched them and pushed above proudly; those were the Rockies. The Bear Paws stood behind her; nearer they were—so near they lost the glamour of mysterious blue shadows, and became merely a sprawling group of huge, pine-covered hills, with ranches dotted here and there in sheltered places, with squares of fresh, dark green that spoke of ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... supposed. Once or twice the King's weight threatened to drag both the boy and the goat into the well, to keep Rinkitink company. But they pulled sturdily, being aware of this danger, and at last the King popped out of the hole and fell sprawling full ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... monsters such as people a nightmare; monsters akin to spiders, caterpillars, and wood-lice, grown to gigantic proportions, some with bare glaucous skins, others tufted with filthy matted hairs, whilst many had sickly limbs—dwarf legs, and shrivelled, palsied arms—sprawling around them. And some displayed horrid dropsical bellies; some had spines bossy with hideous humps, and others looked like dislocated skeletons. Mamillaria threw up living pustules, a crawling swarm of greenish tortoises, bristling hideously with long hairs that were stiffer ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... with a guilty start, to find himself sprawling prone on the turf with his cap over one eye. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and realised that he had slept. His head was still a trifle heavy. And the chase? He jumped to his feet and stooped to pick up his overturned machine. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... hills began to cast cool shadows down their eastern slopes, there appeared against the velvet green of the distance the sprawling blotch of a little town, ugly, naked, and unashamed in its bustling newness. And nearer, by a mile or more, on a green slope which caught the golden-red rays of the sinking sun, was a little enclosure, naked and ugly as the town itself, but silent and awe-inspiring with the silence and awe ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... furnish out a Stage buffoon of a peculiar sort; a kind of Game-bull which would stand the baiting thro' a hundred Plays, and produce equal sport, whether he is pinned down occasionally by Hal or Poins, or tosses such mongrils as Bardolph, or the Justices, sprawling in the air. There is in truth no such thing as totally demolishing Falstaff; he has so much of the invulnerable in his frame that no ridicule can destroy him; he is safe even in defeat, and seems ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... horizon; they and the lakes the finest landmarks the Pilot can have. And the forests. How can I describe them? The trees cannot be seen separately, but merge altogether into enormous irregular dark green masses sprawling over the country, and sometimes with great ungainly arms half encircling some town or village; and the wind passing over the foliage at times gives the forest an almost living appearance, as of some great dragon of olden ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... the action, and the loathsome sprawling of the trunk of Argus under the chariot, are the essential contributions of Rubens' own Netherland personality. Then the rest of the treatment he learned from other schools, but adopted ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... of the stream, on a tiny hillock formed of logs and the debris of many freshets. It was known as Cuffee's Stone, and the story was that a slave escaping from his master, and hiding in the swamp, had carried the stone there to build his fire upon. Close by, its sprawling roots washed by the running water, was an immense black-gum, in the branches of which the same Cuffee had built himself a covert of branches, from which he watched his pursuers in their vain hunt for him. Had Cuffee's shade, which was ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the sands, above on the bluffs, were set the homes of the summer residents—those whom Gusty Durgin, the waitress at the hotel, termed "the big bugs." On the farthest point visible in this direction was a sprawling, ornate villa with private dock and boathouses, and a small breakwater behind which floated a fleet of small craft. Louise heard the "put-put-a-put" of a motor and descried a swift ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... up, stared, and, moved by some quick impulse of reverence, made a solemn little obeisance before the lama—only the child was so short and fat that it toppled over sideways, and Kim laughed at the sprawling, chubby legs. The child, scared and ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her, clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... flats to the poor. Hilary and his wife were most suitably domiciled therein, environed by a splendid dinginess and squalor, pretentious, tawdry, grandiose, and superbly evading the common. Peggy wrote to Peter in her large sprawling hand, "You dear little brother, I wish you'd come and live with us. We have such fun...." That was the best of Peggy. Always and everywhere she had such fun. She added, "Give my sisterly regards to the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... imp with a snarl, and snorting out a laugh still more frightfully idiotic; 'pay me, first pay what you owe me. I stopped your fine little nag for you; without my help, both you and he would be now sprawling below there in that stony ravine. Hu! from what a ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... her that he was not so awkward in handling the enemies of his country in battle as in handling friends he esteemed in a dance, he gave no quarter to an old maid aunt, whom, in the violence of his gesticulation, he knocked down with his elbow and laid sprawling on the ground. He was sober when ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... down at the sprawling small town with white-painted barracks and a business section and an obvious, carefully designed recreation area that nobody would ever use. The plane was making a great half-circle. The motor noise dimmed as Joe became absorbed in his anticipation of seeing the Space Platform and having ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... lips Clavering fell sprawling on his back, for Hugh had caught his leg with his left arm and thrown him, so that they lay both together ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... helped. He was in a condition now when it would no longer be rash to marry, and he knew now that there was the makings of a domestic man in him. He never could have believed that he would take an interest in the sprawling of the baby upon its mother's knee, and he allowed to himself that it might be sweet to have that scene taking place in a house of his own. Ah! but the baby would have to be Elinor's. It must be ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... him another blow and was preparing, for a third, when the cook, maddened with the pain, struck at him wildly and sent him sprawling. He was up again in an instant and, aided by his wife, who had stopped to make a slight concession to appearances in the shape of a flannel petticoat, threw the cook down and knelt on him. A man came out from the adjoining cottage, and ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... on the head with the shaft of his spear. Numa reared upon his hind feet and struck at the are-man and in return received a cuff on one ear that sent him reeling sideways. When he returned to the attack he was again sent sprawling. After the fourth effort it appeared to dawn upon the king of beasts that he had met his master, his head and tail dropped and when Tarzan advanced upon him he ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the moment lying in a somewhat undignified position on the floor. Half sprawling, half resting on one knee, Robbie was surprised in the midst of an amusement of which the perky little body whom he claimed as his sweetheart had previously expressed her high disdain. This consisted of a hopeless endeavor ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... evidently Noddy's objective point. It appeared he would reach it first, but suddenly he tripped on a croquet hoop and went sprawling. He was up in a minute, but the bear had gained on him. As he rushed up the steps it was only a few ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... about! My pajamas are spread out on the floor as if someone meant to take a pattern of them! My watch is soaking in the wash bowl, and my brush and comb are each in a slipper. My topcoat is out of the window and sprawling in the sun on the roof of this piazza, and every neck-tie I own is hanging from the chandelier! I won't ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... a weapon of offence as well as defence. We had proof of that on the very first day, for as he passed along the deck the second steward had the bad manners to titter. Next moment the umbrella had descended with crushing force on his head, and he lay sprawling in ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... it isn't," he continued. "Lucille has killed it. Nothing to be terrified about.... Oh, chuck it, man! Get up and blow your nose...." He was sent sprawling on his back as Lucille dropped by Dam's side and strove to raise his face from ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... arm shot a blow directly at Jake's jaw. It caught him square on the chin, and Jake went sprawling over the lawn. Jake arose, thoroughly angry. He rushed at Robert like a demon, but Robert quickly stepped to one side and caught Jake with another blow. Jake then closed in on Robert and attempted ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... of the barracks, but there were also large spaces covered with straw, and here men had flung themselves down as they entered, without unstrapping the heavy loads they carried on their backs. They were sleeping soundly. Every bed was occupied by a sprawling figure in his stained, faded, muddy uniform. I saw one superb and turbaned Algerian sitting upright in an attitude of extreme dignity, and as oblivious to war and angels of mercy as a dead man ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and after listening I began to creep along, step by step, close to the starboard bulwark, keeping my hands thereon for a few paces, till becoming bolder I stepped out more, but stumbled directly over something big and soft, and went sprawling ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... this matter to my satisfaction, I explained my intention to Billy that evening, as we sat together under the veranda discussing the events of the day by the light of a glorious full moon, with Kit sprawling as usual at my feet. My intention was to start next day with Billy for a trip to the wreck, where I proposed to remain until I had constructed the punt, which, I believed, could be done in ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... shoulder-play, but the only result was that each obtained a hitch on the arm and breast of the other's shirt. The "flying mare" was now out of the question for Ishmael this round, but with a dexterous twist of his leg he got an inside lock on his opponent's, and the next moment Doughty was sprawling. He was up the second after, and, since his shoulders had not touched the ground, the fall counted for nothing, and this time he rushed in at Ishmael. He ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... already been taken out of the pot and couched on a platter amid vegetables when they arrived. Carhaix, sprawling in an armchair, was ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... marvel of marvels! Gazing thus upon it, focussed by his half-closed eyelids and confused senses—the straggling monogram with its quaint turns and flourishes, lying brown upon the more shining metal, seemed to take exactly the form and aspect of a great sprawling tarantula. "The Sign of the Spider" had been their cry! And these were "The People of the Spider!" What magic, what mystery was this? Lilith's last gift, Lilith's image; even her very name! It had indeed acted as a talisman, as a "charm" to stand between him and the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... "Petruchka" music itself has become a little mannikin in parti-colored clothes, at which Strawinsky gazes and laughs as a child laughs at a funny doll, and makes dance and tosses in the air, and sends sprawling. The score is full of the revolutions of wheels, of delicate clockwork movements, of screws and turbines. Beneath the music one hears always the regular, insistent, maniacal breathing of a concertina. And what in it is not purely mechanistic ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... ground. He fell with so much violence that we feared he must have broken some of his bones, and ran anxiously to his assistance; but fortunately he had fallen on a clump of tangled herbage, in which he lay sprawling in a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... shaking more, till, lo, The sprawling monster was a rock; her brood Were boulders, whereon sea-mews white as snow Sat ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... to the walls. These showed some sense for art in the first builders of the house. But the taste of the inhabitants could not be praised. There were countless gaudy prints of saints, and exactly five pictures of the Bambino, very big, and sprawling in a field alone. A crucifix, some old bottles, a gun, old clothes suspended from pegs, pieces of peasant pottery and china, completed the furniture of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... drifting like a heavy current. The women are seated, by church instinct, all together on the left, with perhaps an odd man at the end of a row, beside his wife. On the right, sprawling in the benches, are several groups of bersaglieri, in grey uniforms and slanting cock's-feather hats; then peasants, fishermen, and an odd couple or so of brazen girls taking their places on the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... had had to stop, for a sudden lurch of the steamer had thrown her against the wash-stand. Bess had gone sprawling on ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... One sprawling, spatulate, clawlike hand lay on the forest moss. The twisted little apelike legs, disproportionately short, were curled up; the feet, prehensile and with a well-marked thumb on each, twitched a little now and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... uncertain whether It were the tree at which they both agreed to meet together. While in this doubtful stound[4] she stood, she cast her eye aside, And there beweltered in his blood her lover she espied Lie sprawling with his dying limbs; at which she started back, And looked pale as any box; a shuddering through her strack, Even like the sea which suddenly with whissing noise doth move, When with a little blast of wind it is but touched above. But when approaching ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... his camera on its three sprawling legs, while Polly tried to gather her pets around her. But by this time Blackie, the cat, was chasing a squirrel (though he did not catch him), and Banty, the hen, was away off scratching for worms; and Gyp, the dog, was barking at a bossy calf down ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... had fallen off his stomach and was lying on the floor. His thick black eyebrows were knitted by a frown, while he looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. And their sideways glance in conjunction with the hooked nose, the whole bulky, ungainly, sprawling person, struck Freya as so comically moody that, inwardly discomposed as she was, she could not help smiling. She did her best to give that smile a conciliatory character. She did not want to ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... rank soil, and our hearts beat a few more pulsations to the minute, as we left the scorching glare of the noon day sun, and plunged into the gloomy fastnesses of the bear and alligator; to these latter gentlemen, whose clumsy forms were sprawling through the mud on every side, we gave no further heed other than to keep without the range of the deadly sweep of their powerful tails, with which they bring their unsuspecting prey within reach of their ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... to cuddle, Such queer little hearts to beat, Such swift round tongues to kiss, Such sprawling, cushiony feet; She could feel in her clasping fingers The touch of the satiny skin, And a cold, wet nose exploring The ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... in the park had a hard crust, which made it just right for skiing. Sahwah and Dick made one descent after another, sometimes tripping over the point of a ski and landing in a sprawling heap, but more often sailing down in perfect form with a breathless rush. "That last leap of yours was a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping, collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous bundle.—If my young friend, whose excellent article I have referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better sermons and an infinitely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... all," he reassured her, pulling his own chair toward him with his foot, and sprawling into it with a grunt of relief. "If you'll draw me a glass of that beer of yours, I'll tell you all about it. It's not a thing for everybody to know, not to be breathed to a human being, for that matter—but you'll enjoy it, and it'll be ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic |
