"Strut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grew. Soon it swooped. With a hoarse croak it lit on the snow at a wary distance, and began to strut back and forth. Presently, its suspicions at rest, the raven advanced, and with eager beak began its dreadful meal. By this time another, which had seen the first one's swoop, was in view through the ether; ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... Dardanelles we got a wonderful view of the stage whereon the Great Showman has caused so many of his amusing puppets to strut their tiny hour. For the purpose it stands matchless. No other panorama can touch it. There, Hero trimmed her little lamp; yonder the amorous breath of Leander changed to soft sea form. Far away ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... wararra poison, or ten times distilled kakodyle, and a layer of honey over all, Dewhurst hurried away, to make no call. He was hard to subdue, and a puppy, whose passion it was to strut, in the perfection of a refined toilette, among fashionable street-walkers. While he was abroad, his cares rankling within were overborne by the consciousness of being "in position." The dog's nose is cold even when ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... "Miss 'Bell needn't strut so big; she got short nappy har's well's I," said Nell, with a broad grin that showed ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... disappoint those who would extract daily profit from Me in the form of miracles, when I lay bare the carefully-concealed thoughts of their hearts, then I am hard. And when I shatter their childish love of the world, their craving for vanities, then I am hard. And when they strut about with their condemnations and their hard-heartedness, trampling the weak underfoot out of greed and malice, haughty as the heathens who bring human sacrifices to their gods, I would fain chastise them with a lash of scorpions. But when the forsaken come to Me, and ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... incidentally involved patching one of half a dozen over-worn tubes—I looked her over more in detail. The customary frame, strut rods, and torsion rods had been supplemented by the most extraordinary criss-cross of angle-iron braces it has ever been my fortune to behold. They ran from anywhere to everywhere beneath that car. I began ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... see the thing, it looks absolutely as though, when that is done, the whole Capitalist system of the world will center right there—focus there, as at a point. Let kings and emperors continue to strut and mouth vain phrases; let our own President and Congress make the motions of governing; even let Wall Street play at finance and power. All, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... be a gentleman. I may strut up and down Market street in fine clothes, switch my rattan about, talk nonsense to silly ladies, swear, and drink wine; but if I don't pay my tailor, I'm ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... against the stink And never stop too long to think. Wars don't change except in name; The next one must go just the same, And new foul tricks unguessed before Will win and justify this War. Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony; And children here will thrust and poke, Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke, With bows and arrows ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... have filled the roads with big puddles, it is great fun, this boy thinks, to walk about on stilts. You see him on page 11. His stilts are of bamboo wood, and he calls them "Heron-legs," after the long-legged snowy herons that strut about in the wet rice-fields. When he struts about on them, he wedges the upright between his big and second toe as if the stilt was like his shoes. He has a good view of his two friends who are wrestling, and probably making hideous noises like wild animals as they try to throw ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... was ten years ago, the expenditure has risen twofold. America is ruining our agriculture; and soon, I suppose, we have to send to China for labourers. Why, those who do not emigrate demand twice as much to-day for half the work they used to do five years ago; and those who return from America strut about like country gentlemen deploring the barrenness ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... public lavishes so perversely on that mincing creature of a Dangeville, who plays so flatly, who walks the stage nearly bent double, who stares affectedly and incessantly into the eyes of every one she talks to, and who takes her grimaces for finesse, and her little strut for grace; or on that emphatic Clairon, who becomes more studied, more pretentious, more elaborately heavy, than I can tell you. That imbecile of a pit claps hands to the echo, and never sees that we are a mere ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... commenced a genuine attempt to make up to the baby for his mother's neglect. Almost without a notion how even to take him in his arms, he would now send for him the moment he had had his tea, and after a fashion, ludicrous in the eyes of the nurse, would dandle and caress him, and strut about with him before his wife, glancing up at her every now and then, to point the lesson that such was the manner in which a parent ought to behave to a child. In his presence she never made any active ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... are, in their own opinion, the Be-All and the End-All of everything! ... as if the Supreme Creative Force called God were incapable of designing any Higher Form of Thinking-Life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and, with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to understand and weigh the whole foundation ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... bloody War, her best Troops ruin'd, incapable to win a Battle, every Campaign carry'd two or three of their best Towns, the Nation dispirited, and Credit sunk, and nothing but a dismal Scene of Poverty and Misery: And yet in the midst of all this Misery, (as the Spanish Beggars are said to strut about in their Cloak and Bilboes at their Side) so this Gasping Monarch had the Assurance not only to talk of making a Descent, but actually equipp'd a small nimble Fleet with a Body of Men, and persuaded the Pretender to go upon the foolish Errand, as if he you'd have any prospect of Conquering ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are now taking, of kings and rulers—and let us profit by it. The colonial king has his "engagement;" it is defined exactly like the actor's. He is to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour in the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not always, of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes seriously in him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some impassioned moment or other like that in which I once knew Othello ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... praecepta pleno effundit penu, ad quae componere vitarn oporteat; in sententiis quanta gravitas, orationis quanta vis, quam probe et meditate cum hominum ingenia moresque novisse omnia testantur." We feel sure that our Umbrian fun-maker would strut in public and laugh in private, could he hear such an encomium of his lofty moral aims. For it is our ultimate purpose to prove that fun-maker Plautus was primarily and well-nigh exclusively ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... git when one o' dem shindigs 'ud come off. I sho' would strut den. De mistis 'ud dress me up an' I'd carry de likker an' drinks' roun' 'mongst de peoples. 'Would you prefer dis here mint julip, Marster? Or maybe you'd relish dis here special wine o' de Judge's. 'Dem white folks sho' could lap up dem drinks, too. De Judge had ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... politics, just futile display of pyrotechnics to amuse the populace and give heroically inclined young men a chance to strut in uniforms—but after the election this fall ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... ours." Here she smiled, then, laying her hand tenderly in the old man's, she added, with calm solemnity: "And now we must go quietly toward our rest, and strut and fret no more the few last minutes ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... STRUT—The upright braces between the upper and lower wings of a machine are called struts. They take the compression of the truss frame of the biplane or triplane. Each wing is divided into truss sections ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper center to a tragick audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the Knight told me that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while he appeared much concerned ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... compression steel is limited to 75,000 to 82,000 pounds. Such a marked advantage occurs from the use of high tension steel in compression members, and the danger of sudden failure of a properly made strut is so little, that future practice will favor the use of hard steel in compression, unless the material should prove untrustworthy. In columns, even as long as forty diameters, steel of 90,000 pounds tenacity will exceed the mildest steel ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... dis las' bunch dat wuz big an' bustin'. He strut bigoty wid his chist stuck out. He walk 'roun' stickin' his sword in de chair cushions, de pictures on de walls an' things like dat. He got powerful mad kaze he couldn' fin' nothin', den he look out de window ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... garden and the Cheshire Cat smiles all over her face. Peace restored, Dimples and the Owlet remember a dead lizard they found in a corner of the verandah, and set off to recover it. These two walk exactly like mechanical toys; and as they strut along hand in hand, or one after the other, they look like something wound up and going, in a Christmas shop window. Presently they return with the lizard. Its tail is loose, and they sit down to pull it off. This is not a nice game, and something else is suggested. Dimple's mouth ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... big with braggart breath, Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust, Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death And wreck three realms to sate his rancorous lust With ruin of them who have weighed and found him dust. Get thee to Wales: there strut in speech and swell: And thence betimes God speed thee safe to hell. ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a political feast, And strut like a peacock, and crow like a bantam, Yet feel at one's back, like a blast from the east, A be-robed and be-wigged and blood-curdling law phantom. Stentorian cheers, and uproarious hear-hears, Though welcome, won't banish the sense of "wet-blanket" (That's INGOLDSBY'S rhyme), when Petition-bred ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... portly little man with a red face and a bald brow. His very strut pronounced him a self-made man. He glared at his son, whose cool nonchalance he ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... can never become a commonplace woman now and there are such a lot of 'em in the world. When I remember all you have done for us it makes me ill to think of some in our town—giggling, silly little flirts, with no higher ambition than to strut down the street in ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... my boy, If you're from Chile or from Illinois; You can't, because you serve a foreign land, Spit with impunity on ours, expand, Cock-turkeywise, and strut with blind conceit, All heedless of the hearts beneath your feet, Fling falsehoods as a sower scatters grain And, for security, invoke disdain. Sir, there are laws that men of sense observe, No matter whence they come nor whom they serve— The laws of courtesy; and these forbid You to malign, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... he went, Sholto's step slowed, and lost its braggart strut and confidence. Behind him Laurence chuckled and laughed, smiting his ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... observations which I have made on scrofula or cancer, their heads are too empty—their ignorance too profound—and their pretensions consequently too barefaced. Relying upon the credulity of the public, they make no scruple in being guilty of glaring plagiarism; they thus strut about in borrowed plumes, and their presumption keeps pace ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... faltered, nearly broke down, then, as if with an effort, raised her voice more shrilly and defiantly, exaggerated her meaningless gestures and looked away. A moment later she finished her song and turned to strut off the stage. As she did so she shot a sort of fascinated glance at the dark man. He took his cigar from his mouth and puffed the smoke towards her, probably without knowing that he did so. With a startled jerk she bounded into ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... "I flatter myself I shall know how to strut about the quarter-deck and order the men here and there as well as the ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the foot of the hill of the Alhambra, and here was always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics, and city functionaries. A beetling bastion of the fortress overlooked the palace and the public square in front of it; and on this bastion the old governor would occasionally strut backward and forward, with his toledo girded by his side, keeping a wary eye down upon his rival, like a hawk reconnoitering his quarry from his nest ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... it. Why; how long had it been since she had left their parish? It was still October, and she had been there just before the murder—only the other day! Captain Walter Marrable! No; he didn't think he had ever heard of him. Some fellow with a moustache and a military strut—just the man that he had always hated; one of a class which, with nothing real to recommend it, is always interfering with the happiness of everybody. It was in some such light as this that Mr. Gilmore at present regarded ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... One end of the assembled framework of aluminum alloy dragged loosely on the ground; the other end swung out and projected above the shaft, swayed for an instant—and then came the first direct knowledge of the enemy's presence. The end of a metal strut, though nothing visible was touching it, grew suddenly white hot, sagged, then broke into a shower of molten, dazzling drops that rained down ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... know his work, and when you have taught him this, you must require it to be done. To get good order, you must make every monitor answerable for the conduct of his class. It is astonishing how some of the little fellows will strut about, big with the importance of office. And here I must remark, it will require some caution to prevent them from taking too much upon themselves; so prone are we, even in our earliest years, to abuse the possession ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... there is apt to be something too much of the magnifico in his demeanour. If people grow presuming and self-important over such matters as a dukedom or the Holy See, they will scarcely support the dizziest elevation in life without some suspicion of a strut; and the dizziest elevation is to love and be loved in return. Consequently, accepted lovers are a trifle condescending in their address to other men. An overweening sense of the passion and importance of life hardly conduces to simplicity of manner. To women, they ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... actor. It was presently suggested that he should appear in his war costume; he gracefully consented; and returned in that strange, inappropriate and ill- omened array (which very well became his handsome person) to strut in a circle of admirers, and be thenceforth the centre of photography. Thus had Moipu effected his introduction, as by accident, to the white strangers, made it a favour to display his finery, and reduced his rival to a secondary role on ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... out, or springs When the mind's flown so far away no spring, Nor loveliness of earth can call it back? I tell you what it is: in early youth The life is in the loins; by thirty years It travels through the stomach to the lungs, And then we strut and crow. By forty years The fruit is swelling while the leaves are fresh. By fifty years you're ripe, begin to rot. At fifty-two, or fifty-five or sixty The life is in the seed—what's spring to you? Puff! Puff! You are so winged and light you fly. For every passing ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... insolent wink at every modest girl, and the coarse joke running along apish mouths—even before dark crime begins, native antipathy is sown and thrives. And now for nearly four years this coast had never been free from the arrogant strut, the clanking spur, and the loud guffaw, which in every age and every clime have been considered the stamp of valour by plough-boys at the paps of Bellona. So weary was the neighbourhood of this race, new conscripts always keeping up the pest, that even the good M. Jalais longed ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... capers nimbly in a Ladies Chamber, To the lasciuious pleasing of a Lute. But I, that am not shap'd for sportiue trickes, Nor made to court an amorous Looking-glasse: I, that am Rudely stampt, and want loues Maiesty, To strut before a wonton ambling Nymph: I, that am curtail'd of this faire Proportion, Cheated of Feature by dissembling Nature, Deform'd, vn-finish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing World, scarse halfe made vp, And that ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... passionate gesture. "Nerves!" he cried bitterly. "Yes, that's what they say when an actor dares to think. 'Go on! Play your part! Be a marionette forever!' That's what you tell us! 'Slave for your living, you sordid little puppet! Squirm and sweat and strut, but don't you ever dare to think!' You tell us that because you know if we ever did stop to think for one instant about ourselves you wouldn't have any actors! Actors! Faugh! What do ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... continued: "Great Britain is to retain the western posts, and with them, the confidence of the Indians; she makes no compensation for the millions spoliated from our commerce, but adds new millions to our already heavy losses. Would Americans quietly see their government strut, look big, call hard names, repudiate treaties, and then tamely put up with new and aggravated injuries? Whatever might be the case in other parts of the Union, his constituents were not of a temper ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... afford room for two or three men to walk abreast between them. Here she had not remained more than a minute or two, when, issuing from the cover of the thorns, and approaching her with something of a stage strut, our friend, Buck English, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to give way before great odds and flee. There nevertheless did Harald receive such hurt that he died, and thereafter Svein was hailed as King of Denmark. In those days Jomsborg in Wendland was ruled by Earl Sigvaldi; he was the son of Strut-Harald who had ruled Skani, and Sigvaldi's brothers were Heming and Thorkel the Tall. At that time Bui the Burly of Borgundarholm & his brother Sigurd were likewise chiefs among the Jomsborg vikings, and with them, too, was Vagn, who was the son of Aki and Thorgunna and the sister's son ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... opinions and liable to be swayed in any course. When he was at Flower De Hundred, living in the atmosphere of liberalists and republicans, he was one of the most outspoken of all. He would strut for hours before any one who would listen to his senseless twaddle and would harangue and discourse on the ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Son now decided to walk, While the Ass marched in front with a strut and a stalk; Yet the people who ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... spread abroad the opinion that these mighty preparations were a colossal bluff which would redound to Germany's advantage. They said that President Wilson had bided his time so that his country might strut as a belligerent for only the last six months, and so obtain a voice in the peace negotiations. He did not intend that America should fight, and was only getting his armies ready that they might enforce peace when the Allies were exhausted and already counting on Americans manning ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... long. Two inches from one end of it make a cross mark with the square, and from the ends of the mark run lines towards the end at an angle of 45 degrees. Cut along these lines, and lay one of the edges just cut up against C, and flush with the outer edge of L1 (Fig. 5). Tack the strut on temporarily to both legs, turn the trestle over, and draw your pencil (which should have a sharp point) along the angles which the strut makes with the legs. This gives you the limits of ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... that he wanted to see you personally. Jay, you did a tremendous thing, man! Damn it, why don't you strut a little? Be—be normal for once! Why, I'd be damned near bursting with pride if one of the Hasturs insisted ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... be told what had become of the manhood of Ascalon, and asked it with contempt. What was the fame of the town based upon but a bluff when one man was able to shut it up as tight as a trunk, and strut around that way adding the insult of his tyrannical presence to the act of his oppressive hand. There were plenty of questions and suggestions, but ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... time when the realization caused him to strut a little, but he'd got over it. He was single, had no ties, wanted none. He had a good job which he took seriously, was doing significant work which he also took seriously, was paid premium wages even for a space captain, which ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... different cut of a coat. It was a silk bag, in which the hair was tied, an old sword, and a dangling pair of ruffles; which none of them suited with the poverty of the dress, and meagre appearance, of a person who seemed to strut and value himself ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing besides,—the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to strut on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a man in this class," replied the Virginian solemnly, "who has been treated unjustly by the others. Lots of you won't see it, and can't be made to reason. But that injustice has put the hoodoo on the Army's athletics, and the hoodoo will strut along beside the present first class all the way through this year. You'll find it out more and more as time goes on. Just wait until next spring, and see the Navy walk away with ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and sell-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.'—Godwin's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... their direction must coincide with the straight line joining the centres of the joints. If the force acting on either extremity of the link is directed towards the other extremity, the stress on the link is called pressure and the link is called a "strut." If it is directed away from the other extremity, the stress on the link is called tension and the link is called a "tie." In this case, therefore, the only stress acting in a link is a pressure or a tension in the direction of the straight ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... worshipped fetishes; and even as thus called already civilized, they sacrificed men to gods,—could our great pro-slavers know all this, they would be more decent in their ignorant assertions, and not, so self-satisfied, strut about in their ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... towards it otherwise than did my father, upon whose middle age it came as a monstrous iron innovation. The locomotive is one of the wonders of modern childhood. Children crowd upon a bridge to see the train pass beneath. Little boys strut along the streets puffing and whistling in imitation of the engine. All that romance, silly as it looks, becomes sacred in afterlife. Besides, when it is not underground in a foul London tunnel, a train is a beautiful thing. Its pure, white fleece of steam harmonizes ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... aside in astonishment, and they watched the wrathful gallant strut down the street, his back as ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... important deeds of adults. Children like to play at being grown-up, whether by wearing long dresses or by smoking, and it makes them feel important to do what the grown-ups do; you can observe how important they feel by the way they strut ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... she neglected to improve any strong points in her own favor—the indifference, as every heart perceived, of despairing grief. Then came the manners on the hostile side—the haggard consciousness of guilt, the drooping tone, the bravado and fierce strut which sought to dissemble all this. Not one amongst all the witnesses, assembled on that side, had (by all agreement) the bold natural tone of conscious uprightness. Hence it could not be surprising that the storm of ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... newly sowed wheat-field we pass through, and we pause to note their graceful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... down upon the flats, and not to be done. But in looking round you may perceive men booted and spurred, who perhaps never crossed a horse, and some with whips in their hands who deserve it on their backs—they hum lively airs, whistle and strut about with their quizzing-glasses in their hands, playing a tattoo upon their boots, and shewing themselves off with as many airs as if they were real actors engaged in the farce, that is to say, the buyers and sellers; when in truth they are ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... style. On week days, when the round of work goes on, a baggy topsail or an ill-trimmed yard may stand till sundown, till the work be done, but Sunday is sacred to keen sailing; a day of grace, when every rope must be a-taut-o, and the lifts tended, and the Mates strut the weather poop, thinking at every turn of suitable manoeuvres and sail drill that will keep the sailormen from wearying on ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... he thought he saw a development. From being a mere humbug, the young Indian seemed to be getting a belief in himself as something genuinely out of the common. His success in creating a party had greatly increased his conceit, and he walked with a strut, and his face was more unsettled and visionary than ever. One clear sign of his mental change was that he no longer respected his father at all, though the lonely old man looked at him often with what in one of our race would have been tenderness. Cheschapah ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... agreed the Belgian. "But philosophy is like courage—easy to assume. We strut and talk big; we call the politicians sharks, the soldiers fools; but does it do any good? The war will go on; the enemy will destroy our homes, separate our families, take away our bread and leave us to starve; but we have the privilege to philosophize, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... three-pence hight. One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean, 10 There with her single person fills the scene. Another, with long use and age decay'd, Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid. Our trusty doorkeepers of former time There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme. Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit, And there's a hero made without dispute: And that, which was a capon's tail before, Becomes a plume for Indian emperor. But all his subjects, to express the care 20 Of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... already As he had been their executioner; And once or twice he was, not knowing it,— Or knowing, being sorry for poor clay And saying nothing.... Yet, for all his engines, You'll meet a thousand of an afternoon Who strut and sun themselves and see around 'em A world made out of more that has a reason Than his, I swear, that he sees here to-day; Though he may scarcely give a Fool an exit But we mark how he sees in everything A law that, given we flout it once too ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... applause, he thought his mind In every courtly art refined; 20 Like Orpheus burnt with public zeal, To civilise the monkey weal: So watched occasion, broke his chain, And sought his native woods again. The hairy sylvans round him press, Astonished at his strut and dress. Some praise his sleeve; and others gloat Upon his rich embroidered coat; His dapper periwig commending, With the black tail behind depending; 30 His powdered back, above, below, Like hoary frost, or fleecy snow; But all with envy and desire, His fluttering shoulder-knot admire. 'Hear ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Cassibelan, who was once at point (O giglot fortune!) to master Caesar's sword, Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright, And Britons strut with courage." ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... made by the most popular artists to enliven the scenes of the pilgrimage; but no colour glows like the enchanting words of Bunyan. No figures are so true to nature, and so life-like. Those eminent engravers, Sturt and Strut, Stothard and Martin, with the prize efforts excited by the Art Union of England, and the curious outlines by Mrs. M'Kenzie, the daughter of a British admiral, have endeavoured to exhaust the scenes in this inexhaustible ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... polite element abroad on polling day. Men are so respectful and hurl such affectionate terms at one another. Even the dogs are upset, and strut about in quite a different manner than on ordinary days, so puffed out with vanity are they, on account of their decorations. The members' wives and their friends are all taking part in the scene too, bringing voters ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... ways fer ter gin 'im a larrupin',' sez Mr. Lion, sezee. 'I'm gwine ter show 'im who de boss er deze neighborhoods,' sezee, en wid dat Mr. Lion, he shake he mane, en switch he tail, en strut up en down wuss'n one ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... birds, besides the yellow blossoms of the wattle-tree and many light-green ferns. In this ingeniously contrived sylvan retreat the feathered architect runs about and holds a sort of carnival, to which others of his tribe gather. Here the little party chirp vigorously, and strut about in ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... lost to honor, that in such a case he will put aside the welfare of a nation for the miserable sake of party popularity? Are we to stand here in the guise and manner of free men, knowing that we are driven together like a flock of sheep into the fold by the howling of the wolves outside? Are we to strut and plume ourselves upon our unhampered freedom, while we act like slaves? Worse than slaves we should be if we allowed one breath of party spirit, one thought of party aggrandizement, to enter into the choice we are about to make. Slaves are driven to their work; shall ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... effort of his whole soul, his terror. For a moment he wavered. He made a hopeless gesture with his hand, took two little steps as though he would run into the hedge amongst the soldiers and hide there, then suddenly walked past me, quickly, towards the wagons, with his own absurd little strut, with his head up, giving his cough, looking, after that, neither to the ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... not myself upon them. Thou wilt say, I have no cause.—Perhaps not. But if I had any thing valuable as to intellectuals, those are not my own; and to be proud of what a man is answerable for the abuse of, and has no merit in the right use of, is to strut, like the jay, in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... read out of school were a Life of Hannibal, the great Carthagenian general, and a Life of Wallace, the great Scottish hero; this last being lent him by the blacksmith. These books excited little Robert so much that if ever a recruiting sergeant came to his village, he would strut up and down in raptures after the drum and bagpipe, and long to be tall enough to be a soldier. The story of Wallace, too, awoke in his heart a love of Scotland and all things Scottish, which remained with him his whole life through. At times ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... assembled in the drawing-room. The Marquess sallied forward to receive his guest with a most dignified countenance and a most aristocratic step; but, before he got half-way, his coronation pace degenerated into a strut, and then into a shamble, and with an awkward and confused countenance, half impudent and half flinching, he held forward his left hand to his newly-arrived visitor. Mr. Cleveland looked terrifically courteous ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Lee, moving, as he spoke, with a sort of accelerated motion like a strut. He was a much shorter man than Carroll, and he made futile hops to get into step with him as they proceeded. "Yes, sir, every train through the twenty-four hours is late ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... nature with more true feeling and love, with a deeper insight into her tenderness; he follows her more humbly, and has produced to us more of her simplicity; we feel his appeal to be more earnest: it is the crying out of the man, with none of the strut of the actor. ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... strut as she made this assertion, shaking her head in a bronco gesture which dashed the dark hair from her eyes and made her look like an unbroken thoroughbred. Never in all his life, even in the magazine pictures of stage beauties which form a conspicuous mural decoration in those parts, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... and see this long train of camels coming up to the king's gate, and the ox-trains from Egypt, gold and silver and precious stones, and beasts of every hoof, and birds of every wing, and fish of every scale! See the peacocks strut under the cedars, and the horsemen run, and the chariots wheel! Hark to the orchestra! Gaze upon the dance! Not stopping to look into the wonders of the temple, step right on to the causeway, and pass up to ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... rank amang farmers I hae muckle pride, But I mauna speak high when I 'm tellin' o't, How brawlie I strut on my shelty to ride, Wi' a sample to shew for the sellin' o't. In blue worset boots that my auld mither span, I 've aft been fu' vanty sin' I was a man, But now they 're flung by, and I 've bought cordivan, And my wifie ne'er ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were "The Life of Hannibal" and "The History of Sir William Wallace." Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life shut in ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... Sir Strut, for so the witling throng Oft called him when at school, And hitch'd him up in many a ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... as still on his square foot of floor as did Ranjoor Singh on his. It was the fact that he did not flinch and did not strut about, but stood in one spot with his arms behind him that confirmed Ranjoor Singh in his reading of the ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... precaution they added Ippolito to their party. He was delighted at the change of duty, because, as Norvin discovered, it brought him to the side of Lucrezia Ferara. Thus it happened that Martel had reason to regret the choice of his bodyguard, for on the very first visit Ippolito began to strut and swagger before the girl and allowed the secret to escape him, whereupon it ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... fellow was Turkey Proudfoot. He loved to strut about the farmyard and spread his tail, which he claimed was the most elegant one ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Capitol, and famous for his witty sayings. Prominent among his bon mots was an encomium of Representative Dawson, of Louisiana, who was noted for his intemperate habits, the elaborate ruffles of his shirts, and his pompous strut. "He came into me place," said Foy, "and after ateing a few oysters he flung down a Spanish dollar, saying, 'Niver mind the change, Mr. Foy; kape it for yourself.' Ah! there's a paycock of a gintleman ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Rabbit done make way wid ole Brer Lion, all de yuther creeturs say he sholy is a mighty man, en dey treat 'im good. Dis make 'im feel so proud dat he bleedz ter show it, en so he strut 'roun' like a boy when he git his ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... Court doorway and was scrutinizing every automobile in sight. Near her was a short, stout woman whose personality seemed to be strangely familiar to Medenham. He never forgot anyone, and this lady was certainly not one of his acquaintances; nevertheless, her features, her robin-like strut, her very amplitude of girth and singular rotundity of form, came definitely within the net of his ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... fact that a connecting rod functions as a strut, it is considered that this part should be only stiff enough to prevent any whipping action during the running of the engine. The greater the fatigue-resisting property that one can put into the rod ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... he watched the little tyrant strut off to his class. How long would he be able to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... position as dwelling on the King's lands, our delusion of possession will vanish, and we shall feel more keenly the pressure of responsibility while we feel less keenly the grip of anxiety. We are for the time being entrusted with a tiny piece of the royal estates. Let us not strut about as if we were owners, nor be for ever afraid that we shall not have enough for our needs. One sometimes comes on a model village close to the gates of some ducal palace, and notes how the lordly owner's honour prompts its being kept up to a high standard of comfort and beauty. We may be sure ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... had waited for. With a strut he marched across the space between them and the target and carried that much further back. He longed for a target bearing an arrangement of letters that he could hit and cause to disappear, as at his boasted Seagirt, instead of a plain ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... off then down the hotel corridor with a strut to his resentment that was bantam and just a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with the gallery opening into the bed- chambers running round; the barbarous peach-coloured drawing-room; the bright look-out through the garden-door upon the grassy lawns and terraces behind, where the soft-hued pigeons still love to coo and strut in the sun,—are described in "Shirley." The scenery of that fiction lies close around; the real events which suggested it took place in the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... I 'clare dey ez jes 'bout gon'. Dey won't wuk, all's stealin' en mabe wuk long 'nuff ter git a few clothes ter strut 'round in. I may be wrong but dat ez mah ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... my own act, and partly with the help of Destiny (the greater jester than I) I have stripped myself of all these garments of life which not only enabled me to strut peacock-fashion in the pleasant places of the world, but also sheltered ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... that his cane, hooked over his arm, swung jauntily, was not entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however, vouchsafed him a gracious smile and a glance of her dangerous eyes; and the colonel, with an embarrassed cough and a slight strut, took his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... against the water plants in their shining bowl. Creepers crept, plants grew, and ferns waved under the care of Nathan Spiderwitz, Monitor of the Window Boxes. There was such a martial swing and strut in Patrick Brennan's leadership of the line that it informed even the timid heart of Isidore Wishnewsky with a war-like glow and his feet with a spasmodic but well-meant tramp. Sadie Gonorowsky and Eva, her cousin, sat closely side by side, ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... out, led, I believe, by a rooster who claps his wings and crows, and then they walk round a old man with a hour glass who strikes the hour on a bell. But the bears lead the programmy and bow and strut round ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... air combats was when Holt, single-handed, and armed only with a rifle, lashed to a strut of his machine, attacked ten Germans near Dunkirk, causing them to drop their bombs in the field and make off to their ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... see yon bird strut by, Thus proud of his array; But human friends we may espy As ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... replied grandpapa. "It shall be the lover. There's nothing in the pockets, and that's very interesting, for that's half of an unfortunate attachment. And here we have the nut-cracker's boots, with spurs to them. Row, dow, dow! how they can stamp and strut! They shall represent the unwelcome wooer, whom the lady does not like. What kind of a play will you have now? Shall it be a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Mrs. Siddons. She was a goddess of the age of fret and fume, of stalk and strut, of trilled R's and of nodding plumes. If we had Siddons now I fear we should hiss; I am quite sure we should yawn. She must have been Melpomene ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... that the mania for great people wishing to strut and fret their four hours and a quarter upon the stage is on the increase—at least according to our friends the constituent members of the daily press. Despite the newspaper-death of the manager of the Surrey, by which his enemies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... Mollie cut into his sentence sharply. "You're just a fool boy chasin' cows' tails for thirty dollars a month. I'm not going to have any of this nonsense. Bear Cat's a law-abidin' place. We're all proud of it. We don't let bad-men strut around an' shoot up our citizens, an' we don't let half-grown punchers go crazy an' start hangin' folks without reason. Now do we?" A persuasive smile broke out on the harsh face and transformed it. Every waif, every under-dog, every sick woman and child within fifty ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... a sudden he saw a splendid camel strut by him quite closely, stretching its long legs and puffing out its throat like a turkey-cock, and that made his heart throb. Camels already, eh? Lions could not be far Off now; and, indeed, in five minutes' time he did see a ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... babble of faces he heard his name called. A rouged young flapper, high heeled, short skirted and a jaunty green hat. One of the impudent little swaggering boulevard promenaders who talk like simpletons and dance like Salomes, who laugh like parrots and ogle like Pierettes. The birdlike strut of her silkened legs, the brazen lure of her stenciled child face, the lithe grimace of her adolescent body under the stiff coloring of her clothes were a part of the blur ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... His merriest time was when the Grand Vizier visited him in the afternoon; and when the Caliph was in particularly high spirits he would condescend to mimic the Vizier's appearance when he was a stork. He would strut gravely, and with well-stiffened legs, up and down the room, chattering, and showing how he had vainly bowed to the east and cried 'Mu...Mu...' The Caliphess and her children were always much entertained by this performance; but when the Caliph went on nodding and bowing, and ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... fashion plates in that day, nor were there any "living models" to strut back and forth before keen-eyed customers; but fully dressed dolls were imported from France and England, and sent from town to town as examples of properly attired ladies. Eliza Southgate Bowne, after seeing the dolls in her shopping expeditions, wrote ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... laid on account of its pride. But we're what the Lord made us, I reckon, and people deceive their looks. My old turkey gobbler is harmless as a hound puppy; but I reckon he'd bust if he didn't up and strut when strangers ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... recently (on the strict Q.T.), at the "Admiral's Head," in the presence of Mr. JOHN B-LL (the famous P.R. referee), between the vaunted "Whopper" and a smart and handy light-weight known as "Quickfire," their owl-eyes might, having been a little opened, and their peacock-strut a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... patronising kindness, he gave them scraps of information upon all subjects of temporary interest, with a funny little air of pompous importance. When by mere force of habit they grew more familiar with him, he would strut up and engage them in long conversations, listen to all they said with consummate good nature, giving his opinion in return. He was wholly unconscious that he looked like a bantam crowing to a group ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... occasion he alighted neatly, suffering no injury, and being rescued by a torpedo boat; but in the second descent, striking the water hard, he was thrown forward in his seat and his head injured by a strut. ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... (I think) probationary classes of "volunteers," instead of being at once advanced to a warrant. Nor will you fail to remark, when you see an English cutter officered by one of those volunteers, that the boy does not so strut and slap his dirk-hilt with a Bobadil air, and anticipatingly feel of the place where his warlike whiskers are going to be, and sputter out oaths so at the men, as is too often the case with the little boys wearing best-bower ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... rot is chargeable the editor, at least of all others, had the power to stop or check it, and failure to meet this great responsibility shows that the strut of this great personage is assumed, and that, like the rest, his necessities have been used by the master to bend and break him till he no longer dare call his ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... perambulate; nomadize^, wander, ramble, stroll, saunter, hover, go one's rounds, straggle; gad, gad about; expatiate. walk, march, step, tread, pace, plod, wend, go by shank's mare; promenade; trudge, tramp; stalk, stride, straddle, strut, foot it, hoof it, stump, bundle, bowl along, toddle; paddle; tread a path. take horse, ride, drive, trot, amble, canter, prance, fisk^, frisk, caracoler^, caracole; gallop &c (move quickly) 274. [start riding] embark, board, set out, hit the road, get going, get underway. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... but then seeing that Helen was gazing at him inquiringly once more he added, gravely, "One could be well content to let vain people strut their little hour and be as wonderful as they chose, if it were not for the painful fact that they are eating the bread of honest men, and that millions are toiling and starving in order that they may have ease and luxury. That is such a very dreadful thing to know that sometimes ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... processions and religious festivals. Almost every day then, and sometimes half a dozen times in a day, the Judge and the baby may see some Italian society parading through the street. Fourteen proud sons of Italy, clad in magnificent new uniforms, bearing aloft huge silk banners, strut magnificently in the rear of a German band of twenty-four pieces, and a drum-corps of a dozen more. Then, too, come the religious processions, when the little girls are taken to their first communion. Six sturdy Italians struggle along under the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... by force. And the lasting impression that those boys are going to leave is this, that they exercise self-control; that they are ready and diligent to make the place where they went fitter to live in than they found it; that they regarded other people's rights; that they did not strut and bluster, but went quietly, like self-respecting gentlemen, about their legitimate work. And the people of Vera Cruz, who feared the Americans and despised the Americans, are going to get a very different taste in their mouths about the whole thing when the boys of the ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... to be Acquainted with Irish Secretaries. I saw much of little Charles Abbot—afterwards Speaker—and at last Lord Colchester. He was a pompous dwarf; yet of an analytical head. Nothing could be more amusing than to see him strut up the House of Commons to take the chair; nor was the amusement less to listen to him, when he delivered his edicts, or the thanks of the House from the chair. His sonorous voice issuing from a diminutive person, and the epigrammatic points of empty sentences, formed with great artifice, were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... come strutting it finely," said the innkeeper, in a mocking tone. "And dost thou strut now? Nay, verily; but thou art as meek as any whipped cock. And since it was by thy strut that men did recognize thee, how shall they make thee out when thy fine strut is gone? Wherefore serve the ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... a moment's silence, pondering; while, without, the voices of empty heaven whistled by, from strut and wire, brace and stay. The wild mystery of that outer night, excluded by the close-drawn curtains, contrasted strongly with the light and the warm comfort of the cabin with its snug berth, its aluminum furniture, its shining walls where were ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... dancing set has a James like this. The man and the greyhound are the same witless breed, the kind that achieve a result by their clean-limbed elegance alone. Van Dyck has painted the two with what might be called a greyhound brush-stroke, a style of handling that is nothing but courtly convention and strut to the point of genius. He is as far from the meditative spirituality of Rembrandt as could ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... his cleanly best, John's pockets are an integral part of his personality. He feels after his pocket instinctively while yet in what corresponds in the genus homo with the polywog state in batrachia. The incipient man begins to strut as soon as mamma puts pockets into his kilted skirt—a stride as prophetic as the strangled crow of the cockerel upon the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland |
