"Stark naked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quite unlike those we have in Norfolk, were gloomy and forbidding in the extreme; but when we came to one of the people of the country's villages, and saw the men dressed in gay turbans, the women walking about with curious earthen vessels on their heads, and the stark naked black children playing in the water, I was altogether bewildered, and could scarcely credit that I, who saw these things and had come to dwell amongst them, was the same boy who had been bred up so peacefully in that English village among the flat meadows ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... man of God was lamenting the deplorable state of the church of Vervignole in the cloister of the cathedral, his meditations were disturbed by strange shrieks, and he saw a woman, stark naked, walking on all fours, with a peacock's feather for a tail. As she came nearer, she barked, sniffed, and licked the ground. Her fair head was covered with mud, and her whole body was a mass of filth. In this unhappy creature the holy Bishop Nicolas ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... the next instant she had the book in her hands. The title-page—Professor Somebody's ANATOMY—carried no information to her mind; so she began to turn the leaves. She came at once upon a handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece—a human figure, stark naked. At that moment a shadow fell on the page and Tom Sawyer stepped in at the door and caught a glimpse of the picture. Becky snatched at the book to close it, and had the hard luck to tear the pictured page half down the middle. She thrust the volume into the desk, turned the key, and burst ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... instinctively towards the open part of the hut and looked across towards the village. Up from the little open space in front of the King's dwelling-house leaped a hissing bright flame; they had kindled a fire, and black forms of men, stark naked and wounding themselves with spears, danced around it and made the air hideous with discordant cries. The King himself, too drunk to stand, squatted upon the ground with an empty bottle by his side. A breath of ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... should immediately draw a tooth: after which they have gone in a body and smoked a cobler. The same company at another night has each man burned his cravat, and one, perhaps, whose estate would bear it, has thrown a long wig and laced hat into the fire. Thus they have jested themselves stark naked, and run into the streets and frighted the people very successfully. There is no inhabitant of any standing in Covent Garden, but can tell you a hundred good humours where people have come off with a little bloodshed, and yet scoured all the witty hours of the night. I know a gentleman ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... we had been taught by an old sailor, who gave lessons to the school, and at last I could pick up an egg from the bottom of the overfall, a depth of about ten feet. I have also been upset from my boat, and had to lie stark naked on the grass in the sun till my clothes were dry. Twice I have been nearly drowned, once when I wandered away from the swimming class, and once when I could swim well. This later peril is worth a word or two, and I may as well say them now. I was staying by the sea-side, ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... hees startled: come, he shall to taverne with us and confess all. If he do not strip his soule stark naked to us, say I am no fortune teller.—Please you to honour our society: we are going to indulge at the taverne ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... masterpieces. During the revolution their character as a class became materially worse. There are more than ten thousand of them who do literally nothing, possess nothing, and lie about the streets stark naked, with the exception of a tattered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... we stayed until the 28th. The weather remained hot and fine, except for two very heavy showers in the middle of one day, when most of the officers could be seen making furious efforts to dig drains round their bivouacs from inside, while the other ranks stood stark naked round the field and enjoyed the pleasures of a cold shower-bath. We spent our time training and providing working parties, one of which, consisting of 400 men under Capt. Jeffries, for work at Zillebeke, proved an even greater fiasco than its predecessor in May. For on this occasion, not only was ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Frezier says of Bahia, "Who would believe it? there are shops full of those poor wretches, who are exposed there stark naked and bought like cattle, over whom the buyers have the same power; so that upon slight disgust they may kill them, almost without fear of punishment, or at least treat them as cruelly as they please. I know not how such barbarity can be reconciled to the maxims of religion, which makes them ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... at last we was able to get a pretty clear view, the sight we saw was enough to freeze a man's blood. They'd got all our chaps lashed to stakes set up in a clear, open space in front of the village, and one of the pore unfort'nit fellers was stripped stark naked and bein' tormented by a crowd o' niggers what was puttin' burnin' splinters between his fingers, and stickin' 'em into his flesh, and pourin' red-hot cinders into his mouth, what they'd prised open by thrustin' a thick stick in between his jaws; and the ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... and her brother Lazarus is also on show when required. Lazarus, too, is many single gentlemen rolled into one. He is the resurrected man, the young man who was told to sell his property and give the proceeds to the poor, and the young man who fled stark naked at the arrest of Jesus, leaving his clothes in the hands of his pursuers. This is a very convenient plan. It is history made easy, or the art of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... 'Slan, go raimh math agut!' (Pretty well, thank you,) says the bear. The people were surprised to hear how plainly he spoke—but the mayor ordered him directly to be ripped up; and after some opposition, and a good deal of difficulty, Pat stepped forth stark naked out of the bear's-skin wherein he had been fourteen or fifteen days most cleverly stitched. The women made off—the men stood astonished—and the mayor ordered his keepers to be put in goal unless they satisfied him; but that was presently done. The bear afterwards told O'Leary that ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... lamp into the midst of them and smashed it, then, in darkness, strode along the tunnel muttering and cursing as he went— stark naked. ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... 'Ermitaj' and when they were all good and drunk, one of Vladimir's guests, Prince Galitzin, bet the host the price of the supper and a champagne bath for all, that he could induce the famous danseuse Mshinskaya to descend the stairs stark naked and walk among the tables below without ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... groped along the dusky passage, pushed open a door and looked in on the kitchen, where, amid clouds of vapour, Mrs. Mayow and her daughter Cherry were washing the children. Each had a tub and a child in it; and three children, already washed, skipped around the floor stark naked, one with a long churchwarden pipe blowing bubbles which the other two pursued. In the far corner, behind a deal table, sat Mr. Mayow, and patiently tuned a fiddle—a quite hopeless task in ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of steps whither the ladies of the palaces used to resort in the hottest weather. Evening was drawing on and the profundities of this cavern were forbiddingly gloomy; nor was the scene rendered more alluring by the presence of three white-bearded old men, almost stark naked and leaner than greyhounds, who shivered and grimaced, and suggested nothing so much as fugitives from the grave. They were, however, not only alive, but athletically so, being professional divers who earned an exceedingly ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... of dreams and an illusion of Hashish and he was vexed and said to him who had aroused him, "Would thou hadst waited till I had put it in!" Then said the folk, "Art thou not ashamed, O Hashish-eater, to be sleeping stark naked with stiff standing tool?" And they cuffed him till his neck was red. Now he was starving, yet forsooth had he savoured the flavour of pleasure in his dream. When Kanmakan heard the bondwoman's tale, he laughed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... hard matter to convince them that this was rather indelicate. Finally the missionaries provided them with long, loose calico robes, and that ended the difficulty—for the women would troop through the town, stark naked, with their robes folded under their arms, march to the missionary houses and then proceed to dress!—The natives soon manifested a strong proclivity for clothing, but it was shortly apparent that they only wanted it for grandeur. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... put up a liberal supply of bread and relishes in a small linen bag, obliterated all traces of our meal and presence and went into his dressing-room, where he stripped stark naked and rubbed himself down with a rough towel, carefully disposing of his ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... link, between a living man and his skeleton; and not only a link between them, but a grim caricature of both. Some have been coated with varnish. They glisten infamously. Picture a decrepit and rather gaunt relative of your own, writhing in a fit, stark naked, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... a-going, goes Like one undestined to repose. 'Tis LIFE to revel down the road, And QUEER each o'erfraught chaise's load, To rave and rattle at the GATE, And shower upon the gatherer's pate Damns by the dozens, and such speeches As well betokens one's SLANG riches: To take of Deady's bright STARK NAKED A glass or so—'tis LIFE to take it! To see the Hurst with tents encampt on; Lurk around Lawrence's at Hampton; Join the FLASH crowd (the horse being led Into the yard, and clean'd and fed); Talk to Dav' Hudson, and Cy' Davis ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... admirable! here I ha' stolen one of Doctor Faustus' conjuring-books, and, i'faith, I mean to search some circles for my own use. Now will I make all the maidens in our parish dance at my pleasure, stark naked, before me; and so by that means I shall see more than e'er I ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... approaching at some distance. He said to himself, "That is not a horseman, nor an emu, nor a native companion, nor a swagman, nor a kangaroo." He could not make it out; so he fetched his binocular, and then perceived that it was a human being, stark naked. His first impression was that some unfortunate traveller had lost his way in the wide wilderness, or a station hand had gone mad with drink, or that a sundowner had become insane with hunger, thirst, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... douar,—for such is the title of an Arab encampment,—with as much unwillingness as Sailor Bill had done but an hour before. Equally sans ceremonie, or even with less ceremony, did they enter among the tents, and certainly in a less becoming costume,—since all three were stark naked with the exception of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... which gave it birth, until it became senseless, vacant-eyed, unreasoning, incurable melancholy, when the victim would lie for hours, without speaking a word, except to babble of home, or would wander aimlessly about the camp—frequently stark naked—until he died or was shot for coming too near the Dead Line. Soldiers must not suppose that this was the same class of weaklings who usually pine themselves into the Hospital within three months after their regiment enters the field. They were as a rule, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and found myself behind the hansom. A happy thought saved me, and as this drove slowly along I followed in its immediate wake, trembling and astonished at the turn of my adventure. And not only trembling, but shivering. It was a bright day in January and I was stark naked and the thin slime of mud that covered the road was freezing. Foolish as it seems to me now, I had not reckoned that, transparent or not, I was still amenable to the weather and ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... magnificent. And yet nevertheless, if we will give credit to Procopius and Agathias, the Persians were never wont to bury their Dead Bodies, so far were they from bestowing any Funeral Honours upon them: But, as these Authors tell us, they exposed them stark naked in the open fields, which is the greatest shame our Laws do allot to the most infamous Criminals, by laying them open to the view of all upon the highways: Yea, in their opinion it was a great unhappiness, if either Birds or Beasts did not devour their ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... oyster-shell, which when open to the tide, his mouth very much resembled. As for his neck, it was so long that no portion of dress at that time discovered was capable of covering more than one third of it; so that there were always two parts out of three left stark naked, and helplessly exposed to the elements. Whenever he smiled he looked as if he was about to weep. As the squire said, he was dreadfully round-shouldered—had dangling arms, that kept napping about him as if they were moved by some machinery that had gone out of order—was close-kneed—had the true ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... led him to a room and told him to strip for a bath; after which he had to walk down a long gallery, past the grated cell doors of the inmates of the jail. This was a great event to the latter—the daily review of the new arrivals, all stark naked, and many and diverting were the comments. Jurgis was required to stay in the bath longer than any one, in the vain hope of getting out of him a few of his phosphates and acids. The prisoners roomed two in a ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... and row (or paddle as we call it) away. I should have observed, that for an hour or more before they went off they were dancing, and I could easily discern their postures and gestures by my glass. I could not perceive, by my nicest observation, but that they were stark naked, and had not the least covering upon them; but whether they were men or women I ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... their own clothes and their own cloth. They would not let the slaves have anything much. To keep them from being stark naked, they'd give them a ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... to the table where sat the two officers with the paper forms. "Name?" "Sabre." The officer nearer him drew a form towards him and poised a fountain pen over it. Sabre felt it extraordinarily odd to be standing stark naked before two men fully dressed. In his rejection at Tidborough the time before this ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... He was stript stark naked in the Morning at Sunrising, and bound to a Post, so that he could not stir Hand nor Foot, but as he was mov'd; and was placed with his Face Eastward against the Sun. In the Afternoon they turned his Face toward the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... telling me they were a rude, unmannerly people, that would not give civil respect or honour to their superiors, no not to magistrates; that they held many dangerous principles; that they were an immodest shameless people; and that one of them stripped himself stark naked, and went in that unseemly manner about the streets, at fairs and on market ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... pleasure, all he did was to retire to the Pena Pobre in company with a hermit, and there he took his fill of weeping until Heaven sent him relief in the midst of his great grief and need. And if this be true, as it is, why should I now take the trouble to strip stark naked, or do mischief to these trees which have done me no harm, or why am I to disturb the clear waters of these brooks which will give me to drink whenever I have a mind? Long live the memory of Amadis and let him be imitated so far as is possible ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Spanish privateers, and eventually rose to being a pirate captain, making his headquarters in Madagascar. From here he sailed out to the East Indies, and preyed on the ships of the East India Company. Several times he was wrecked, once he was the only survivor, and swam ashore at Madagascar stark naked. The unusual sight of a naked Englishman spread terror amongst the natives who were on the beach, and they all fled into the jungle except one, a woman, who from previous personal experience knew that this was but a human being ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... overheard by another madman, who was in an opposite cell; and raising himself up from an old mat, whereon he had thrown himself stark naked, he demanded aloud, who it was that was going away ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the body, a set of the head (God knows what it is, how little and how much); but for all that—a new creature! A thing like nothing that lives by bread! Now just look at that policeman at the corner, for instance; not only is he stark naked—everybody is like that—but he's perfectly different from the sturdy, good-humoured, red-faced, puzzled man you and I know. He is thin, woefully thin, and his ears are long and perpetually twitching. He pricks them up at the least thing; or lays them suddenly ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... folk, all with rings in their ears and dead, brown eyes; they were almost naked, with just a strip of cotton cloth or plaited leaves round the middle, and the women had also a short petticoat of cotton stuff to cover them. All the children went about stark naked night and day, with great big prominent bellies simply ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... to reason was to apply yourselves to the true source of all our opinions and the only motive to all our conduct! Now, it seems, you think yourselves affronted, because a few of us express some indignation at the minister who has thought fit to strip us stark naked, and expose the true state of our poxed and pestilential habit to the world! Think or say what you will in Ireland, I shall ever think it a crime hardly to be expiated by his blood. He might, and ought, by a longer continuance or by an earlier meeting of this Parliament, to have given us ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... into a little cove on the north side of the creek, and held up a long pole, with a white bit of cloth on it, for a signal of peace to them. We found they understood us presently, for they came flocking to us, men, women, and children, most of them, of both sexes, stark naked. At first they stood wondering and staring at us, as if we had been monsters, and as if they had been frighted; but we found they inclined to be familiar with us afterwards. The first thing we did to try them, was, we held up our hands to our mouths, as if we were to drink, signifying that ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... second year after the War. Mother's mother was left in Jackson, Tennessee. Mother was sold at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Father's mother was left at Pittsburg, Virginia. Father was brought to Lake Providence and sold to Master Ross and Mr. Coleman was his overseer. He was stripped stark naked and put up on the block. That was Nigger Traders Rule, he said. He was black as men get to be. Mother was three-fourths white. Her master was her father. He had two families. They was raised up in the same house with his white family. Master's white wife raised her and kept her ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... drowning. Its terrible progress was marked by a layer of mud a foot thick, dotted with rocks, trees, wrecks of houses, machinery, furniture, barrels, mattresses, carcasses of animals, and dead bodies, most of them stark naked, the raging flood having torn their clothes off ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... face with his horny, grimy palm. "I never saw anything like it before." Most of the men were clothed in dirty, discoloured rags. The women wore simply a cloth tied loosely over the loins, while male and female children fourteen or fifteen years old ran about stark naked. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... for two months, said to me: "I cannot tell you how they abused my father, the terms are unpronounceable." Schmidt himself spoke to me sobbingly of the painful treatment meted out to him by the officers.... For twenty-four hours the two of them, father and son, were kept stark naked and without food, under a fierce electric light, on the open deck. They lay together, pressing against each other so as to warm themselves, and everyone who passed looked at them, and those who wanted, abused them. When Schmidt, being wounded, asked for a drop of water, the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... performed at Labuan Deli, in Sumatra, on the Chinese New Year. A Chinaman of the coolie class was squatted stark naked on the roadside, holding on his knees a brass pan the size of a wash-hand basin, piled a foot high with red-hot charcoal. The heat reached one's face at two yards, but if it had been a tray of ices the man couldn't have been more unconcerned. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... one of the Cauldrons, but upon hearing the Name of Jesus they cou'd not prevail. Whereupon they quit this House, and Carry the Soldier to an exceeding high Mountain, where they show him a Number of Men and Women far beyond any of the former. These Wretches sat Stark Naked with their Toes bent, and look'd towards the North, as if they expected every minute to expire that way. And while the Soldier stood wondering what they waited for, one of the Devils said unto him: Possibly thou wondrest what ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... home—he had determined to give me a thrashing, and he had with him a piece of oak stick just suited for the purpose. After we had taunted each other for some time, as we went along, he flung his stick on the ground, and stripped himself stark naked. I took off my hat and my neck-cloth, and took his stick in my hand, whereupon running to the hedge he took a stake, and straight we set to like two furies. After fighting some time, our sticks were shivered to pieces and quite short; sometimes ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... stark naked excepting my shoes, and I tell you it was no easy task letting one's self down over the sharp edges of the rock. Every moment I expected one of the knots to give way, and I shall never forget the feeling which came over me as I swung myself clear of the ledge ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... and I promise you I was never more deceived in my life, if my niece be not most desperately in love."—"How! in love!" cries Western, in a passion; "in love, without acquainting me! I'll disinherit her; I'll turn her out of doors, stark naked, without a farthing. Is all my kindness vor 'ur, and vondness o'ur come to this, to fall in love without asking me leave?"—"But you will not," answered Mrs Western, "turn this daughter, whom you love better than your own soul, out of doors, before ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... little pikes that had no steel about them, but were ivy-wreathed like themselves, and toy bucklers that tinkled at a touch; they took the tambourines for shields, you see; and then there were a few bumpkins among them, stark naked, who danced wildly, and had tails, and ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... anything but free from difficulty. Here, again, if we have recourse to the comparison of ceremonies, we may obtain some light. Among the tribes of the Gold Coast of Africa the wives of men who have gone to war make a daily procession through the town. They are stark naked, painted all over with white, and decorated with beads and charms. Any man who is found in the town is attacked and driven away. And on the occasion of a battle the women imitate the actions the men are thought to be performing, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... his own home. But his violence (if it ever existed) had already spent itself, and had come to be nothing more than an utter incapacity to obey. His offence was that he was too weak to attend to his common wants. The day after his arrival, shortly before noon, he lay stark naked and helpless upon the bed in his cell. This I know, for I went to investigate immediately after a ward-mate had informed me of the vicious way in which the head attendant had assaulted the sick man. My informant was a man whose word regarding an incident of this character I would take ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... his master, "you have never seen all your secret weaknesses and petty meannesses stripped stark naked, have you?" ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... drawn to a slumbering negress, partly disclosed through the lacework of some rigging, lying, with youthful limbs carelessly disposed, under the lee of the bulwarks, like a doe in the shade of a woodland rock. Sprawling at her lapped breasts, was her wide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black little body half lifted from the deck, crosswise with its dam's; its hands, like two paws, clambering upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually rooting to get at the mark; and meantime ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... with filthy garments, thy sins cover thy face with shame: nor hast thou in, from, or of thyself, any defence from, or shelter against the attempts, assaults, and censures of thy ghostly enemies, but art now in thine own eyes, though in the temple, cast forth into the open field stark naked, to the loathing of thy person, as in the day that thou was born, and there ready to be devoured or torn in pieces for thy transgressions against ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... snapped, "—pose for an artist! I'd as soon think of rushing stark naked through ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... the surf that I do not understand, and that is why witches always walk stark naked along the beach by it at night, and eat sea crabs the while. That such is a confirmed habit of theirs is certain; and they tell me that while doing this the witches emit a bright light, and also that there is a certain medicine, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to his opinion, and in moral value, but in real effect commonly rob, sometimes murder, ever exceedingly wrong his neighbour. It is often the sole reward of a man's virtue and all the fruit of his industry; so that by depriving him of that, he is robbed of all his estate, and left stark naked of all, excepting a good conscience, which is beyond the reach of the world, and which no malice or misfortune can divest him of. Full then of iniquity, full of uncharitableness, full of all wickedness is this practice; and consequently full it is of folly. No man, one would ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... fishing, and other matters; and all of them, men, women, and children, are able to resist the extremity of cold better even than the wild beasts; for we have seen them in the extremest cold, which is most amazingly severe, come stark naked to our ships over the ice and snow, which must appear incredible to those who have not witnessed such hardiness. During winter, when the whole country is covered with ice and snow, they take great numbers of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... these preparatory digressions are the idle digressions and fastidious commentaries which certain unbelievers compel a man to wind about a tale, swaddling clothes about an infant when it should run about stark naked. May the great devil give them a clyster with his red-hot three-pronged fork. I am going on with my story ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... grief hath made my heart and me a pair of balance, as heavy as lead. Every night I dream I am a town top, and that I am whipped up and down with the scourge-stick of love and the metal of affection; and when I wake,[442] I find myself stark naked, and as cold as a stone. Now judge how I am tumbled and tossed; poor Grim the collier hath wished himself ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the surgeon, was called out, and made his appearance in the field, stark naked, to the astonishment of the challenger, who asked him what he meant. "I know," said H., "that if any part of the clothing is carried into the body, by a gunshot wound, festering ensues; and therefore I have met you thus." ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Andramark, stark naked and still bleeding in many places, sat cross-legged in the cave, at the very rim of the medicine-spring. His head hung forward on his chest. All his muscles were soft and relaxed. After a while the hangings ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... pine splinters; for rural Honduras has not yet reached the candle stage of progress. For a half-real I bought thirty cigarettes of the size of a lead-pencil, made of the coarse leaves more fitted to cigars. The man and wife, and the child that had been stark naked ever since my arrival, at length rolled up together on a bundle of rags on the dank earth floor, the daughter of eighteen climbed a knotched stick into a cubbyhole under the roof, and when the pine splinter ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... condemned cells, pent-up and pitchy, where, by a refinement of cruelty, the ceiling has been built low so that no man can stand upright. Here fifteen or twenty were crowded together, and, in the burning atmosphere, they stripped themselves stark naked, so that when in the morning the cell-doors were opened, they came forth as from the grave, begging for death. There are women's cells too; for this great and valiant government recognized women as belligerents, and locked them up close to a sentry's cartridge, so that, in the bitterness of solitude, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... some intercourse with these people. Nevertheless I laid the boat close to the rocks and beckoned to them to approach but none of them would come within 200 yards of us. They were armed in the same manner as the people we had seen from Restoration Island; they were stark naked, their colour black, with short bushy hair or wool, and in their appearance were similar to them in every respect. An island of a good height bore north half west four miles from us, at which I resolved to land and from ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... Then, having sponged his chin, he ordered Manasseh to lay out his bathing-dress, retire, find a back way to the beach and, having opened all doors, attend him below. He indued himself in his bathing-dress very deliberately, standing up for a minute stark naked in the sunshine flooding through the open window—a splendid figure, foretasting ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Protests in a number of languages arose from all parts of The Enormous Room. Rockyfeller gave a contemptuous look around him and proceeded with his conversation. A curse emanated from the darkness. Up sprang The Fighting Sheeney, stark naked; strode over to the bed of the curser, and ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... with it and reached the opposite shore a quarter of a mile below the bateau. Here he waited for a time, while the thickness of the clouds broke, and a gray light came through them, revealing dimly the narrow path of pebbly wash along the shore. Silently, a stark naked shadow in the night, he came back to the bateau ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... and daughters by the side of each other, and took position themselves behind them, all singing in the manner I have described before. Suddenly all the wives and daughters proceeded to throw off their robes of skins, presenting themselves stark naked, and exposing their sexual parts. But they were adorned with matachiats, that is beads and braided strings, made of porcupine quills, which they dye in various colors. After finishing their songs, they all said together, Ho, ho, ho: ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... morning of the 26th, the boat and pinnace went ashore well armed to fetch in our davy, which is a piece of timber by which the anchor is hauled up; and a little beyond it, they found the body of Harrington stark naked, which they buried in an island near Pemba. The natives of this island seemed well disposed towards us; for, at our first coming, they made signs to us, as if warning us to take care of having our throats cut, which we then paid no ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... a typically unpleasant day. It started with a touch of comedy, Weatherby arriving stark naked in my room at 6.30 A.M., just when I was shaving, saying, "I say, sir, may I finish my dressing in here? They're shelling the bathroom!" He had a towel and a few clothes on his arm, et praeterea nihil. (He, M.-B., and St Andre, though sleeping in different ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... to put back the devil into hell, whereto he had condemned him. The girl asked him how this might be done; and he, 'Thou shalt soon know that; do thou but as thou shalt see me do.' So saying, he proceeded to put off the few garments he had and abode stark naked, as likewise did the girl, whereupon he fell on his knees, as he would pray, and caused ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... lock up a man or a woman who walked stark naked in the street? and why is no one shocked by absolutely nude statues, by pictures of the Madonna and of Jesus that may be seen in ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... looked at some inward vision. 'It was not at the great milliner's. It was at the Hotel-Dieu, in Bouchereau's department. A rough, white-washed cell, an iron bedstead with all the clothes thrown off, and on it, stark naked, covered with sweat and foam, contorted and twisted like a clown with sudden springs and with yells that re-echoed through the fore-court of Notre Dame, a madman in the last agony. Beside the bed two women, one on either side, the Sister, and one of Bouchereau's little lady-students, both ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... thirty year agone. I am old now, no sweet thing to see; By God, though, when I think thereon, And of that good glad time, woe's me, And stare upon my changed body Stark naked, that has been so sweet, Lean, wizen, like a small dry tree, I am nigh mad ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... preposterous excess the Indian notion, that insanity is endowed with a mysterious and superhuman power. Their country was full of pretended maniacs, who, to propitiate their guardian spirits, or okies, and acquire the mystic virtue which pertained to madness, raved stark naked through the villages, scattering the brands of the lodge-fires, and upsetting everything ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt and trowsers, drenched, unshorn, and deathlike, was roasting a joint of meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, sat opposite to him, squatting on his hams, more like a large bull—frog than a man, and fanning the flame with a palm leaf. In the dark corner of the hut half a dozen miserable sheep shrunk huddled together. Through the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... with flinging over his shoulders the skins of the animals he had killed. He prepared these skins with flint scrapers, and sewed them together with bone needles. In hot weather man probably roamed about stark naked. Shame is not a natural instinct; education alone develops it. Writing in 1617, Fynes Morison speaks of having seen at Cork young girls quite naked, engaged in crushing corn with a stone. The Tchoutchi women, says Nordenskiold, wear no clothes when in their tents, however ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... E McGinnis, received over the ship's communicator when they arrived at the scene of the crime, to stand clear of the planet. What policeman moving in to make an arrest for an illegal act—and certainly running around stark naked, posing in lewd and indecent postures in full view of the public, was an illegal act—would pay any attention to the request of an onlooker which amounted to "Aw, let 'em ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... telling me that in the desert he came across some tribe, stark naked, utterly poor, but all on apparently affectionate terms. He was much impressed with the love shown by the children of all ages for their parents, and inquired what the latter did to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... not very much is seen of a ghost; he is "something of a shadowy being". Yet we very seldom hear of a ghost stark naked; that of Sergeant Davies, murdered in 1749, is one of three or four examples in civilised life. {69b} Hence arises the old question, "How are we to account for the clothes of ghosts?" One obvious reply is that there is no ghost at all, ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... buccaneer who knew the coast of Central America well. Under his pilotage they anchored on the first of November close to the Isthmus of Darien. One of the greatest princes of the country soon came on board. The courtiers who attended him, ten or twelve in number, were stark naked; but he was distinguished by a red coat, a pair of cotton drawers, and an old hat. He had a Spanish name, spoke Spanish, and affected the grave deportment of a Spanish don. The Scotch propitiated ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in the woods near Singapore, we found them busily engaged, the children running about stark naked, the parents clothed in the usual loose rags. Our party attracted great attention. We asked our guide to tell the people that we came from a country where the water in such a pond as that before us would become ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... the punishment for treason was, to be stripped stark naked, and with the head held up by a fork to be whipped ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... (op. cit., p. 6 f.) relates that on a certain occasion when his party was driven from its wagons by a swarm of bees, a Nandi man appeared, announced that he was of the bee totem, and volunteered to restore quiet, which he did, going stark naked into the swarm. His success was doubtless due to his knowledge ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... the sunshine and noisily trafficking, amid jars of black olives, pots of honey, bags of spices; and great heaps of cigars; huge fires were roasting whole sheep, basted with butter; in open air slaughter-houses stark naked Negroes, with ruddy arms and their feet in gore, were cutting up kids hanging ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... difficulty by single combat, and the weapons to be used were war-clubs and short knives. A suitable place was selected. The whole village of the Tetons emptied itself to witness the combat. Men, women, and children swarmed about the arena. The two youthful combatants made their appearance, stark naked, and took their positions about thirty yards apart. Just when the signal was given, Do-ran-to's eye caught that of his betrothed Ni-ar-gua in the crowd. Then said his heart, “Be strong and my arm big!” There was no fear ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... with the famous statue of the dead Christ in his mother's lap, by Michael Angelo. The figure of Christ is as much emaciated, as if he had died of a consumption: besides, there is something indelicate, not to say indecent, in the attitude and design of a man's body, stark naked, lying upon the knees of a woman. Here are some good pictures, I should rather say copies of good pictures, done in Mosaic to great perfection; particularly a St. Sebastian by Domenichino, and Michael the Archangel, from a painting of Guido Rheni. I am extremely fond of all this artist's pieces. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... been aggravated by intemperance. At a dinner which a wealthy Alderman gave to some of the leading members of the government, the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor were so drunk that they stripped themselves almost stark naked, and were with difficulty prevented from climbing up a signpost to drink His Majesty's health. The pious Treasurer escaped with nothing but the scandal of the debauch: but the Chancellor brought on a violent fit of his complaint. His life was for some time thought to be in serious danger. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at the beginning of the winter, under the pretext that it was falling into tatters, and that it required repose in the basket of a rag-picker. What is one to do? Civilization has not yet arrived at the point where one can go stark naked, as ancient Diogenes wished. Add that a very cold wind was blowing, and 'tis not in the month of January that one can successfully attempt to make humanity take this new step. This garment presented itself, I took it, and I left my ancient black smock, which, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... time, been exposed stark naked to the sun for over five hours. I felt and no doubt looked like a raw beefsteak. Maclean's foot had got severely hurt in the course of his adventure, and he was much ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch, where a man and his daughter (the rest of the family being, as I suppose, carried away before by the dead cart) were found stark naked, one in one chamber and one in another, lying dead on the floor, and the clothes of the beds (from whence it is supposed they were rolled off by thieves) ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... there and get it the women sometimes shook their hands to him, and the boys laughing and hooping. A few more trifles were here given to them. A little before this all our people got out of the boat stark naked as was desired and walked somewhat near the natives, on which the old man sent the boys away to the women, and he, after having been in a great passion, made signs for us to go to the boat, began to retire with his face to us and brandishing ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... their medical ideas. One evening the Captain heard a fine caterwauling and drum beating over in the quarters, and sallied forth to investigate. In one of the huts he found four men sitting on the outspread legs and arms of a fifth. The latter had been stripped stark naked. A sixth was engaged in placing live coals on the patient's belly, while assorted assistants furnished appropriate music and lamentation. The Captain put a stop to the proceedings and bundled the victim to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... ancients made use of every day before they went to dinner, and as frequently as we wash our hands, they at first only bathed their arms and legs; but afterwards, and by a custom that has continued for many ages in most nations of the world, they bathed stark naked in mixed and perfumed water, looking upon it as a great simplicity to bathe in mere water. The most delicate and affected perfumed themselves all over three or four times a day. They often caused their hair to be pinched off, as the women ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... she zee'd 'em come in—that they was dressed finer by half nor any of the family, with all their neckses and buzoms stark naked ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... politeness still further, and showed our good breeding in endeavouring to accommodate ourselves to the tastes and habits of those we were about to visit. "Do at Rome as the Romans do," is the essence of all politeness. As our friends were accustomed to be in naturalibus—vulgice, stark naked, we adopted their Adamite fashion, and, undressing, in we plunged. Our success was greater with the finny, than was that of any exquisite with the fair tribe. We captivated and captured pailfuls. We drove our entertainers into the narrow creeks in shoals, and then ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... whilst the bargains were in progress, they were kept entirely without food. It was no wonder then, every man of the Brisk who first looked upon them did so with a feeling of loathing and abhorrence of such a trade. All over the vessel, but more especially below, old women, stark naked, were dying in the most disgusting "ferret-box" atmosphere; while all those who had sufficient strength were pulling up the hatches, and tearing at the salt fish they found below, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... me to remain insensible to her lascivious caresses which again roused the fire within me. My staff of love started up proud and erect as if eager to exhibit its full proportions to her ardent gaze. Upon me the effect was most delicious. To find myself lying there stark naked before a lovely girl and undergoing the delightful touches with which she covered every part of my person as she explored my most secret charms, and at the same time to gaze on all her splendid beauties which ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... the place and see them; and did so, and Friday's father with them. When they came into the hut, there they sat, all bound; for when they had brought them on shore they bound their hands that they might not take the boat and make their escape; there, I say, they sat, all of them stark naked. First, there were three comely fellows, well shaped, with straight limbs, about thirty to thirty-five years of age; and five women, whereof two might be from thirty to forty, two more about four or five and twenty; and the fifth, a tall, comely maiden, about seventeen. The women were well-favoured, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... no answer came, except that now the mocking din of the baboons seemed to jeer at us. They appeared to be gathered near us, all together. As we ran towards the sound the moon burst through a rift in the clouds. There ahead of us, stark naked, and running swiftly towards the baboons, we saw the figure of Hector, his body gleaming white in the moonbeams, and by his side the grey ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... there with him all that night; but as soon as it was day, I beckoned to him to come with me, and let him know I would give him some clothes; at which he seemed very glad, for he was stark naked. As we went by the place where he had buried the two men, he pointed exactly to the place, and showed me the marks that he had made to find them again, making signs to me that we should dig them up again, and eat them. At this I appeared very angry, expressed my abhorrence of it, made as ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... turned on herself and began tearing off her clothes, and at last by biting got off her little jacket and taking it in her mouth stuffed it into a hole in the ice where he could not get it. Then she ran hither and thither a stark naked vixen, and without giving a glance to her poor husband who stood silently now upon the bank, with despair and terror settled in his mind. She let him stay there most of the afternoon till he was chilled through and through ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... with horror something worse than the worst she had feared. It was an awful face glaring at her,—a something made of devil, man, and beast in their most dreadful, forms. It was like a haggard old man, with wolfish eyes; he was stark naked; his shoulders and lips were gnawed away, as if, when mad with hunger, he had eaten his own flesh. He carried a bundle on big back. The woman had heard of the terrible Chenoo, the being who comes from the far, icy north, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... would pass a Hindoo woman of low caste, one of the street sweepers, in dirty rags, but loaded down on ankles and arms by heavy silver bangles and painted in the center of the forehead with her caste mark. She was followed by a poverty-stricken Mohammedan leading a little boy, stark naked, while a girl with brilliant cap held the boy's hand. A naked Tamil, with only a dirty loin cloth, brushed elbows with three Parsee girls, beautifully dressed. And so this purely democratic human tide flowed on for hours, rich and poor showing a childlike ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... minutes they released us. They had taken the packs, the rifle and ammunition, our medicine kit and the few instruments we had brought with us down the shaft, even our clothing. They turned us loose stark naked. Ray's face and neck went beet-red when he saw Mildred standing ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... very amusing. This morning four of them stripped stark naked under my window, put off in a boat, and thirty yards from the shore fished for cockle fish, which they do by diving like ducks, throwing their feet up in the air as the ducks do their tails. The creatures are perfectly amphibious; they don't care who ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... August noonday, the sun cannot find its way by a chink, and babies lie stark naked in the cavernous shade, Allen Street presents a sort of submarine and greenish gloom, as if its humanity were actually moving through a sea of aqueous shadows, faces rather bleached and shrunk from ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... struck his only son dead, and tore his heart out before his father's eyes. Hardly any man or woman survived, except by accident. A body of some hundred burghers made their escape across the snow into the open country. They were, however, overtaken, stripped stark naked, and hung upon the trees by the feet, to freeze, or to perish by a more lingering death. Most of them soon died, but twenty, who happened to be wealthy, succeeded, after enduring much torture, in purchasing their lives of their inhuman persecutors. ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the remains of crude paving. All else was a morass. Single palm trees shot up straight, to burst like rockets in a falling star of fronds. Men and women, clad in a single cotton shift reaching to the knees, lounged in the doorways or against the frail walls, smoking cigars. Pot-bellied children, stark naked, played everywhere, but principally in the mudholes and on the offal dumps. Innumerable small, hairless dogs were everywhere about, a great curiosity to us, who had never even heard of such things. We looked into some of the interiors, but saw nothing in the way of decent furniture. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... offering to touch them. There were a score more of sick, shrieking and knotting themselves in their agony. The survivors were in two sorts of panic—the comatose, and the madly violent. A crowd of yelling dancing negroes, most of them stark naked, had set up a ju-ju on a barrel of the fore-deck winch, and were sacrificing to it a hen which they had stolen from one of the coops. The little wooden god I knew: it was one that I had picked up in the Kasai country, and I was taking it home as a curiosity. It had been lifted from my own state-room ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... summer-time, and between the heat, her passions, hunger, and wretchedness, her head was turned, and she became so mad that she went out of the house stark naked, and ran up and down St. Peter's Place, asking those who stopped her to take her to my house. This sad story went all over the town and caused me a great deal of annoyance. The poor wretch was sent to an asylum, and did not recover her reason for five years. When ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... civilisation aforesaid, that my only surprise was I had not reached them before. Walking about were Europeans in the usual dress of the Australian prospector. Suddenly a strange feeling of shyness and hesitancy came over me. Almost stark naked and darkened as I was—a veritable savage, in fact—I realised I could not go and introduce myself to these men without proper clothing. I knew the value of caution in approaching so-called civilised men, having had bitter experience with the Giles expedition. Returning to my blacks, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... were two men, stark naked, who had been bathing near by. About fifty or sixty people soon collected, and some time passed before it occurred to any one to remark that these two men had ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... were sailing along, we saw people stand on the shore looking at us: we could also perceive they were black and stark naked. I was inclined to go on shore, but Xury cried, "No, no:" however, I approached nearer, and I found they run along the shore by me a good way. They had no weapons in their hands, except one, who held a long stick, which Xury told me was a lance, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... black; that the man and woman appeared to be very old, being both grey-headed; that the hair of the man's head was bushy, and his beard long and rough; that the woman's hair was cropped short, and both of them were stark naked. Mr Monkhouse the surgeon, and one of the men, who were with another party near the watering-place, also strayed from their companions, and as they were coming out of a thicket, observed six Indians standing together, at the distance of about fifty yards. One of them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... to agriculture; that planters and peasants alike are even more than usually poor; that in whole districts the blacks are destitute, their children up to the age of ten or twelve years from absolute necessity going about stark naked, and their men and women wearing only rags and streamers, which do not preserve even the show of decency;—and is there not sufficient reason, not indeed to justify murder and arson, but why a whole race of suffering and excitable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... tip of his tail and sways about in empty space, vaguely feeling for something, he knows not what. And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up a leaf for garment and food, and preys on his own case and shelter until he has literally eaten himself stark naked; after which he rolls up a second leaf, and so on progressively. Thus in his larval life does he symbolize some restless nation that makes itself many successive constitutions and forms of government, in none of which it abides long; but afterwards some higher ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... sponges on the platform outside, and had for this reason not been at his brother's house, where he slept, when that domicile was searched, was called in, and while his official master rested, was made to strip himself stark naked, and turn his few slight garments—the clothing of a Moro is always an uncertain quantity—inside out to show ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing—a nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... was heart-sickening. Children began their life in the coal mines at five, six, or seven years of age. Girls and women worked like boys and men, they were less than half clothed, and worked alongside of men who were stark naked. There were from twelve to fourteen working hours in the twenty-four, and these were often at night. Little girls of six or eight years of age made ten to twelve trips a day up steep ladders to the surface, carrying half a hundred weight of coal in wooden buckets on their backs at each ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... other way of putting it—is grossly indecent. A woman has a sense of modesty about her body. It would be considered an outrage to strip her and leave her stark naked in the middle of the room. I cannot see why a man should not be credited with some feeling of modesty about his soul. I detest having my last garments plucked from me in public. Complete spiritual nudity ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... resting or taking refuge from the sniping. From the trenches that ran along the crest a hot fire was being kept up, and swarms of bullets sang through the air, far overhead for the most part, to drop into the sea that lay around us. Yet all the time there were full five hundred men fooling about stark naked on the water's edge or swimming, shouting and enjoying themselves as it might be at Margate. Not a sign to show that they possess the things called nerves. While we were looking, there was an alarm, and long, lean figures darted out of the caves on the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... Burity it rained heavily, and next day the rain continued. In the morning the mules were ferried over, while the oxen were swum across. Half a dozen of our men—whites, Indians, and negroes, all stark naked and uttering wild cries, drove the oxen into the river and then, with powerful overhand strokes, swam behind and alongside them as they crossed, half breasting the swift current. It was a fine sight ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... several large earthenware pots of native make, full of water. Standing behind rocks, one at each side of the inner entrance to the passage, which was evidently that communicating with the pathway indicated by Ghamba as the one they were to approach by, were two powerful-looking men, stark naked, and as black as ebony, their skins shining in the light of the fire. Each man held a coiled thong in his hands, after the manner of a sailor about to heave a line. While they were looking, a woman, somewhat younger in appearance than any of those ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... West Africa, between the Niger and the Gaboon (especially on the Cameroon River, at Old Calabar, and in the Niger Delta), it is, or was, customary for young women to go about completely nude before they were married. In Swaziland, until quite recently, unmarried women and very often matrons went stark naked. Even amongst the prudish Baganda, who made it a punishable offense for a man to expose any part of his leg above the knee, the wives of the King would attend at his Court perfectly naked. Among the Kavirondo, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... been of as much use to the one as the stripping off of breast-plates, greaves, and buff-coat to the other. But because the soldier is better without his armour it does not exactly follow that it is desirable that our defenders should strip themselves stark naked; and it is not more apparent why laissez-faire—great and beneficial as it may be in all that relates to the accumulation of wealth—should be the one great commandment which the State is to obey in all other matters; and especially ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... natives, stark naked, and smeared with wood ashes, came as usual to beg for corn. I have given strict orders that on no account shall corn be exchanged in purchases from the natives—otherwise our supply will be stolen ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. Zero not wishing to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The patching up of everything with big words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a dancer is a professor, an acrobat is a gymnast, a boxer is a pugilist, an apothecary ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... public affairs, the conducting of armies, and the government of states; and, by necessary consequence, ought to be trained up in the same exercises as men, as well for the forming of the body as the mind. Nor does he so much as except those exercises, wherein it was customary to fight stark naked, alleging(1001) that the virtue of the sex would be a sufficient ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... said. "Well, all I've got to say is this, Miss Bab. You'll last just twenty days at the rate you are going, and will have to go stark naked all year." ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... talk of robbers on the road," he said. "Northward, through the Circassian Gates, or eastward it's all the same. There's a man in a room across the way who was stripped stark naked and beaten because they thought he might have money in his clothes. When he reached this place without a stitch on him he still had all his money in his clenched fists! Quite a sportsman—what? Imagine his juggling with it while they whipped ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... covered the abode of a woman with a nursing baby. They were the only persons at home. The three boys and a father comprised the remainder of the family. We soon found the two small boys. They were practically stark naked, but fat as curlews, being full of wild berries with which their bodies were stained bright blues and reds. They were a jolly little couple, as unconcerned about their environment as Robinson Crusoe after five years ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Champlain, when compared with his drawings, suggests that we cannot always take artistic representations as exact. In his designs only a few Algonquins and one Iroquois carry the huge shields; the unshielded men are stark naked, as on the Mycenaean silver vase. But in his text Champlain says that the Iroquois, like the Algonquins, "carried arrow-proof shields" and "a sort of armour woven of cotton thread"—Homer's [Greek: linothoraex] (Iliad, II. 259, 850). These ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... mention, we found no inhabitants in this the most easterly route. Whilst passing through the plain I espied a little black something moving about. In getting up to it, to my astonishment it was a little child stark naked! Our people were as much amazed as myself. I thought within myself, if this be the way in which the Touaricks bring up their children, exposed to cold and heat, rain and wind, in such terrible plight in open desert! no wonder then they ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... for a raid, broke from their fastenings and poured down upon the culinary department like an army of devouring fiends. We were all in bed at the time except Henry; but Toolooah, well knowing the state of our larder, slipped out under the end of the tent, stark naked, from his sleeping bag, and poured such a shower of stones upon the dogs as to send them away howling. Fortunately they got nothing but some blubber, of which we have a good supply, and which is chiefly used to ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... Sometimes we sighted a canoe a short distance ahead of us; whereupon our men, with song and chorus, would exert themselves to the utmost to overtake it. Upon observing our efforts, the natives would bend themselves to their tasks, and paddling standing and stark naked, give us ample opportunities for studying at our leisure comparative anatomy. Or we saw a group of fishermen lazily reclining in puris naturalibus on the beach, regarding with curious eye the canoes as they passed their neighbourhood; then we passed a ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... two weeks since the last one was shot outside the Japanese lines at night, and now there is nothing but regular soldiery encamped around us. This last Boxer was a mere boy of fifteen, who had stripped stark naked and smeared himself all over with oil after the manner of Chinese thieves, so that if he came into our clutches no hands would be able to hold him tight. The most daring ones have always been boys. He had crept fearlessly right ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... sleep; but at midnight was awakened by a feeling of great warmth, and, to my surprise, found myself covered by a large deerskin, under which lay my friend, his two wives, and their favourite puppy, all fast asleep and stark naked. Supposing this was all according to rule, I left them to repose in peace, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... kept them there, standing at attention, stark naked, so that they were half-frozen when the gray, cold light of the dawn began to show behind them in the east. And then the Germans laughed, and told their prisoners ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... are stark naked; but it must be allowed that their nudity is not so startling as would be that of an European without clothes, for the faces, arms, and generally every part of their bodies are tattooed. Sometimes the taste of these designs is really wonderful. They ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... battering-rams breached the wall and found new walls rising just within. The besieged fished with iron hooks from the top of the walls, and hauled the captured Crusaders alive to their death at the summit. Stripped, they were used as stones for catapults, and stark naked were fired back into the Christian camp. A Goliath among the Saracens being killed, the Crusaders were greatly heartened, and, having gained some advantages, redoubled their attack. The enemy's supplies by way of the lake were cut off, and their resistance ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... grew, and hotter yet, till at last we could scarcely breathe, and the perspiration poured out of us. Half an hour more, and though we were all now stark naked, we could hardly bear it. The place was like an antechamber of the infernal regions proper. I dipped my hand into the water and drew it out almost with a cry; it was nearly boiling. We consulted ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... of this Order who lead the most ascetic life in the world, going stark naked; and these worship the Ox. Most of them have a small ox of brass or pewter or gold which they wear tied over the forehead. Moreover they take cow-dung and burn it, and make a powder thereof; and make an ointment of it, and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... for him. "What," said he, "should be done to a certain person who has deceived everyone?" and he proceeded to relate the whole story, ending up with, "Now what sentence should be passed?" Then the false bride answered: "She deserves to be put stark naked into a barrel lined with sharp nails, which should be dragged by two white horses up and down the street till she ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... credulity, the heresy of the Priscillianists would be found to include the various abominations of magic, of impiety, and of lewdness. [56] Priscillian, who wandered about the world in the company of his spiritual sisters, was accused of praying stark naked in the midst of the congregation; and it was confidently asserted, that the effects of his criminal intercourse with the daughter of Euchrocia had been suppressed, by means still more odious and criminal. But an accurate, or rather a candid, inquiry will discover, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... and even the means of procuring some land; which ought to be the utmost wish of every person who has health and hands to work. I knew a man who came to this country, in the literal sense of the expression, stark naked; I think he was a Frenchman, and a sailor on board an English man-of- war. Being discontented, he had stripped himself and swam ashore; where, finding clothes and friends, he settled afterwards at Maraneck, in the county of Chester, in the province of New York: he married ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... made his plea and complaint to the emperor in the hearing of all, but they consider him an idle babbler because he says that he has seen the empress stark naked. All the town is stirred thereat; some, when they hear this news, esteem it mere folly, others advise and counsel the emperor to go to the tower. Great is the uproar and the tumult of the folk who set out after him. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... said. 'Oh—did you want towels?' And stark naked he went out into the hall, striding a strange, white figure between the unliving furniture. He came back with the towels, and took his former position, crouching seated before the fire ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... A few whites, stark naked, ran about miserably in the midst of this pandemonium. On a litter was being borne the nude body of a stout man, in whose breast a dagger was sticking as a cross is stuck ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... time, especially for Rul, but I had not. About dusk I brought to, just off the Cape, and dropped them over the side one after another—only just realising, ten minutes previously, that I was still stark naked! ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Then, the baby lying stark naked on her lap, she studied the fair, little face, the penciled eyebrows and fringed eyelids,—dark like her own,—the firm, rounded arms, the rosy-palmed hands, their dainty fingers and finger-nails, the well-proportioned and well-nourished body, without smallest mark or blemish upon ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a fool, Anicza. A girl cannot come in here, because everyone has to strip himself stark naked before he goes out, before the watchman, and then dress himself again. So you see ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... was lying stark naked upon the floor of my cell. My head was racking and throbbing like a hammer. Raising my hand to my forehead I sharply withdrew it. It was quite wet, and as I looked more closely, I saw that it was blood. I felt again and found my face clotted and my hair reeking wet from a ragged ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... without making a wry mug. The Costermonger illumines his ideas with a flash of lightning.' The hoarse Cyprian owes her existence to copious draughts of Jacky. The Link-boy and Mud Larks, in joining their browns together, are for some Stark Naked. And the Out and Outers, from the addition of bitters to it, in order to sharpen up a dissipated and damaged Victualling Office, cannot take any thing but Fuller's Earth. Much it should seem, therefore, depends upon a name; and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle |
