"Broomstick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so pleasant You would never think to fear him; And you can not, must not hear him. He's so particular, you know, He'd just pick up his traps and go If but one little eye should peep That he thought was fast asleep. Searching broomstick, nails, and shelf, Till he finds the little stocking— Softly lest you hear his knocking— Smiling, chuckling to himself, He fills it from his Christmas store, And out he slips to ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out you're not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London, where ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,—a woman a good ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy. The murdered woman,—more a match for the man, certainly, in point of years—was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... the track of Burns, the Gray Dragon dashed up and down short, steep, switchbacked hills (which must have tried any steed of ancient days except a witch's broomstick) and whisked us into Sanquhar, the "sean cathair" or "old fortress" of earliest Gaelic times, now snappily called "Sanker." There Queen Mary rested, going to Dundrennan after the terrible battle of Langside; ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of our two lodgers; the elder because I suspect him; the youngster, because he is too pretty. They neither of them seem to me to keep Christian company. The boy is ever staring at the moon, the stars, and the clouds, like a wizard watching for the hour when he shall mount his broomstick; the other old rogue certainly makes some use of the poor boy for his black art. My house stands too close to the river as it is, and that risk of ruin is bad enough without bringing down fire from heaven, or the love affairs of a countess. I have ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... regretted that he did not write an account of his travels in France; for as he is reported to have once said, that 'he could write the Life of a Broomstick[1155],' so, notwithstanding so many former travellers have exhausted almost every subject for remark in that great kingdom, his very accurate observation, and peculiar vigour of thought and illustration, would have produced a valuable work. During his visit to it, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... of the tenement opened upon the housekeeper trundling another barrel just as the first one fell and rolled across the sidewalk, with the goat capering about. Then was the air filled with bad language and a broomstick and a goat for a moment, and the woman was left ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... wi' heaven, I doubt, considering wha I carry ahint me—and as for hell, it will fight its ain battle at its ain time, I'se be bound.—Come, naggie, trot awa, man, an as thou wert a broomstick, for a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... perfect gravity, "if we should be lucky enough to find a supply for your winter's store, it would be too much for you and me to bring home, Miss Fleda, unless you have a broomstick in the service ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Green, he was a damn lucky fellow to be able to do it," cried Vane, taking the kindly old hand in both his own. "If I wasn't afraid of him coming for me with a broomstick, I'd do the same myself. . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... 'I'll see if he's willin' to say anyting to-night.' And down he set into a chair. Well, you'd have died! In a bit his head and legs begun to jerk like he had St. Vitus dance, and then he straightened out, stiff as a broomstick. It was the silliest thing ever I seen. I felt real sorry for Doc, he was so dead ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... were appointed to "help teacher." This helping consisted in marching proudly out from behind a screen of bushes, carrying three gay little May poles, decked with flowers and colored paper streamers. They had been made by swinging a barrel hoop from a broomstick handle, by means of a number of ribbon-like strips of cloth. Of course the hoops were wound with the cloth, and besides that were trimmed with apple blossoms ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... ought to be out at Riverdale Park, perhaps. Riverdale Park!" she repeated, with scornful emphasis. "There isn't any river; there isn't any dale; there isn't any park. Nothing but a lot of wooden houses scattered over a flat prairie, and a few trees no bigger than a broomstick, and no more leaves on them either. In the morning the men all rush for the train, and the rest of the day the nurse-girls trundle the babies along the plank walks, while 'society' amuses itself. Society consists ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... behind him from the vineyard). We were watching her riding up to the moon on your broomstick, Giuseppe. You will never see ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... started out to see Donner Lake, which reposes between Summit, the highest point on this trip across the Great Divide, and Truckee. We were in a sleigh drawn by a team of huskies: real Alaskan dogs. I have ridden pretty much everything from a broomstick to a bronco, but this was my first experience with huskies. I thought it was going to be hard work for the dogs, but they frolicked about in the snow with their pink tongues out, showing all their teeth as though they were laughing in fiendish glee and enjoying ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door with ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... detested by everybody for his cruelty to American prisoners in his charge. Mrs. Day had often seen him. He stormed, and swore, and tugged in vain at the halyards, for they had become entangled; and Mrs. Day applied her broomstick so vigorously that the blustering Provost-Marshal was finally compelled to beat a retreat, leaving the American flag floating in triumph in the crisp November air over the well-defended ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... like the merried state, and it suits me. Men-folks is like pickles, some; women-folks is the brine they're pickled in; they don't keep sweet without 'em. Besides, it's terrible lon'some on a farm, now I tell ye, with none but hired help, and them so poor you can't tell 'em from the broomstick hardly, except for ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... a witch, not mounted on a broomstick, but on the respectable household cat, changed for that night into a flying fury; finally, along with my brothers, being captured, washed, and dressed, to join with other spirits worse than ourselves in "dooking" for apples ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... know that it is the awful magic mountain where the old witch who eats little children dwells?—and do you not know that she rides on a broomstick. I may need one to follow her, in case she has ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... gender feminine, number singular, person first, case always possessive, that's the standard bearer; a broomstick from the top of which floats a petticoat, that's the standard. Under that standard march in the U.S. at least 20,000,000 feminines, and—horrible to relate—gal children are ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... good to zee un! Now thiccy trough, thee zany, and tak thee girt legs out o' the wai. Wish they wud gie thee a good baite, mak thee hop a bit vaster, I reckon. Hit that there girt ozebird over's back wi' the broomstick, he be robbing of my young zow. Choog, choog, choog! and a drap more left ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Kitten. Wait until you see the old fairy godmother unload her pumpkin. Or did she carry the dress on a broomstick? I forget the details. At any rate, while I'm thinking of a way to appease the wrath of Jane's father by not dishonoring his scholarship, it is the very least you can do to get ready for the dance. I know where you can hire a love of ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... to get his stable lanthorn, and came back with it alight, and looking very pale and sickly, while he bore a stout broomstick in the other hand. ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... with his cap more on one side than ever, sat watching the proceedings with extraordinary unconcern. He had never been heard openly to express his disbelief in witches, but had often cut such jokes at their expense as left it to be inferred; publicly stating on several occasions that he considered a broomstick an inconvenient charger, and one especially unsuited to the dignity of the female character, and indulging in other free remarks of the same tendency, to the great ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... hieroglyphics, sir; storks and coffins, and appropriate moldings above: I brought some from Fountains Abbey the other day. Look here, sir; angels' heads putting their tongues out, rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a broomstick, and the devil looking on from the mouth of an alligator, sir.[32] Odd, I think; interesting. Then the corners may be turned by octagonal towers, like the center one in Kenilworth Castle; with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with cross slits for arrows, battlements ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... up her petticoats and started to run home; but she had only gone a little way when she heard the witch-woman coming after her on her broomstick. Now the apple tree she had helped to stand straight happened to be quite close; so she ran to it ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... pretty card to admire it further, and she scrutinized closely the funny old witch riding on a broomstick, after the approved habit ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman—a true woman! Would you have had one of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... although her 'Somnambulist' gained a prize, Miss Ries left Moscow for Paris, but on her way stayed in Vienna, studying under Professor Hellmer. One year later, at the Vienna Spring Exhibition, she exhibited her 'Die Hexe.' Here is no traditional witch, though the broomstick on which she will ride through the air is en evidence. She is a demoniac being, knowing her own power, and full of devilish instinct. The marble is full of life, and one seems to feel the warmth of her delicate, powerfully chiselled, though soft ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Little Juozapas, who was near crazy with hunger these days, had gone out on the street to beg for himself. Juozapas had only one leg, having been run over by a wagon when a little child, but he had got himself a broomstick, which he put under his arm for a crutch. He had fallen in with some other children and found the way to Mike Scully's dump, which lay three or four blocks away. To this place there came every day many hundreds of wagonloads of garbage and trash from ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... no cockle-burs. She forthwith nailed a horseshoe on the door to keep the witches out, and she never liked the shawl so well after she had projected a mental picture of a lady wearing it, riding on a broomstick, and sporting also ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... of war, did he confine himself to his own kind. His huge strength and indomitable courage made him the match of almost anything that moved. Long Kirby once threatened him with a broomstick; the smith never did it again. While in the Border Ram he attacked Big Bell, the Squire's underkeeper, with such murderous fury that it took all the men in the room to pull ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... you, I certainly shall," said he quite soberly. "But—must we go this minute? Surely you can sit out one number, and I'll promise after that to stand on my head and dance with a broomstick if it ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... batter'd broomstick! take ye This old seedy coat, and wear it— Ah, thou household drudge, I'll make ye Do my bidding; ay, and fear it. Stand on legs, old tramper! Here's a head—I've stuck it— Now be off—hey, scamper With the water-bucket! Bubble, bubble; Fast and faster! Hear your master, Hear his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... between the bed-room and the now unused dining room beyond. Just who were the housebreakers no man present could say; but Mistress McGann that afternoon communicated her suspicion to her sore-headed spouse, and did it boldly and with the aid of a broomstick. "It's all along," she said, "av your shtoopin' to dhrink wid them low lived salvages at Hay's. Now, what d'ye know ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... therefore continued to play with very small children. The bigger children of the neighborhood, from four to seven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not learn their songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which he used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he would ride on that broomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing peals of laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason of his noise; and I had to tell him that he must find another ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... after me and said I'd dropped something. So I had. It was a rose. I was going to disclaim it, with all the haughty grace of a broomstick, when suddenly I remembered that it was my carte d'identite, so to speak. The Dragon had prescribed it in his last letter to Madame de Maluet about meeting Ellaline. As there might be difficulty in recognition if she came to the station with a chaperon as strange ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... twenty minutes ago," replied Hugh; "but you will overtake him within ten miles, at farthest. But, if mortal man could recover the girl, that fellow would do it, even if he had no better nag than a broomstick, like ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... soul, with rosy cheeks, and a resolute expression of countenance. She looked redder and firmer than usual as she drove the broomstick through the handles of the colander, whilst the boy was at the other side of the pond with the Water-Soldier, whose maiden-blossom shone white ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... old acquaintances of theirs! There—grinning and brandishing his stick—was the Little Black Man who had worried Rudolf many a night as far back as he could remember. There was the Old Witch on the Broomstick, whom Ann had often described to him. There again, were other Bad Dreams that made the children almost smile as they remembered certain exciting times. The Angry Farmer—Rudolf had seen him before; he remembered his fierce expression, ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... chairman's indigestion had vanished with his sudden assumption of responsibility, and he showed no trace of drink in his bearing. Beneath a lamp one was binding four-foot lengths of cotton tent-rope to a broomstick for a knout, while others, whom Lee had appointed, were drawing lots to see upon whom would devolve the unpleasant duty of flogging the captive. The matter-of-fact, relentless expedition of the affair shocked Burrell inexpressibly, and seeing Poleon and Gale near by, he edged towards them, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... ought not to be buried in consecrated ground; but as the old lady had left money to the church, her tombstone was erected after all in the little churchyard. The village boys declared that they had seen her riding on a broomstick over the church spire; but the Count did not believe such tales. He wondered what had become of the child; she was the prettiest, as well as the most mischievous and ill-behaved ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... She says that one hour after the thing was born the happy father was caught by the doctor and nurse seeing if it could hold its own weight up on a broomstick, like a monkey. She says he was acutely distressed when these authorities deprived him of the custody of his child. Wouldn't that fade you? Trying to see if a baby one hour old could chin itself! Quite all you would wish to ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... were you, Morris," said Flatt, "I'd shut up. A man who lets his wife lick 'un, and is afeared to go home because she'd pull his hair or broomstick 'un, shouldn't talk to other men about being cowards. I'd like to see my ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... little better record than any of them. But they say he has not won a single aerial handicap since that American professor of yours harnessed him to a one-hoss shay. That seemed to break his spirit, somehow; and I'm told he would shy now even at a broomstick train." ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... his wrists tied together with a handkerchief, and his legs secured just above the ankles with another handkerchief; his arms are then passed over his knees, and a broomstick is pushed over one arm, under both knees, and out again on the other side over the other arm. The "cocks" are now considered ready for fighting, and are carried into the center of the room, and placed opposite each other with their toes just ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... flames with the sorcerer!—to the fire with the broomstick-rider!—to the fire with the comrade of the infernal spirits!' cried others; and one threw at him a half-burnt log of the St. John's fire, which, striking him on the forehead, sent the unfortunate Cagot reeling to the foot of a tree, against ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the door was the Wake of Gold. Klara bounded through the opening and ran. She turned back after a few moments and there was the old lady with her cat and her broomstick standing in the doorway. But the old lady's face had grown very ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... disappeared one night about three years ago. There was at once great excitement in the neighbourhood, because it was rumoured that the faeries had taken her. A villager was said to have long struggled to hold her from them, but at last they prevailed, and he found nothing in his hands but a broomstick. The local constable was applied to, and he at once instituted a house-to-house search, and at the same time advised the people to burn all the bucalauns (ragweed) on the field she vanished from, because bucalauns ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... and round and round, faster and faster, growing smaller every second, until at last she was nothing but her real self, an ugly shriveled witch running round and round on a broomstick. With a loud shrill scream she mounted into the air and was away out of sight in an instant, leaving everybody staring open mouthed at ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... Eve's first fire he has a cinder; Auld Tubalcain's fire-shool and fender; That which distinguished the gender O' Balaam's ass: A broomstick o' the witch of Endor, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... when people were more afraid of the Devil and of witches than they are now, they liked to have a priest or a minister somewhere near to scare 'em off; but nowadays, if you could find an old woman that would ride round the room on a broomstick, Barnum would build an amphitheatre to exhibit her in; and if he could come across a young imp, with hoofs, tail, and budding horns, a lineal descendant of one of those "daemons" which the good people of Gloucester fired at, and were fired at by "for the best part of a month together" in the year ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... it. Then, when he comes home, a little the worse for wear, she ups an' reproaches 'm, which, God knows, that ain't no time to argue with a man. You don't want to argue with a fella when he's so. You just want to tellm'. Tell'm with the help of a broomstick if you want to, but tell'm, or leave'm alone. An' it's bad for the childern—all this is—it's bad for Cora an' Francie. What idea'll they get o' the holy estate o' matrimony, I should like to know? That the man has ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... worth our while to stop a moment before passing that old broken wagon, and see whether we could not find as much in it as Swift found in his 'Meditations on a Broomstick'? I have been laughed at for making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who dared compare the lilies of the field to ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... have come to the conclusion that he who judges of a man's character by his penmanship makes a very poor guess. The boldest specimen of chirography I ever received was from a man whose wife keeps him in perpetual tremor, he surrendering every time she looks toward the broomstick. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... smartest one in the family. She was fluent and voluble. She had an unabashed forehead and a bitter and defiant tongue. It was her hobby to declaim against the popular idea of the existence of the human spirit apart from the body. With her this was equivalent to a witch riding on a broomstick or going to heaven on a moonbeam. Spirit is breath—so she dogmatically affirmed—and when a man breathes out his last breath his spirit leaves his body. But it was her especial delight to declaim against the Pagan notion of the immortality of the soul, and to affirm that the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Welshman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy came to my house, and stole a piece of beef; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not at home; Taffy came to my house, and stole a marrow-bone. I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed, I took up a broomstick and flung ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... my lord count; for I was threatened with a broomstick when I tore it from the hands of the woman, who vowed I should not have a single potato. I dashed two ducats at her feet and made off with all speed; for the hour was almost up, and I had exhausted all my manners in the ten houses, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... is there?" roared the water-carrier; "is it you, ye bankrupt vagabonds, who have annoyed me? Begone; or by the sword of the Prophet, I'll impale you all three on my broomstick." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... spectacle of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson carefully picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant who had worked for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the wings on the traditional broomstick! From that moment until the final transformation scene, when scintillating sea-shells yielded up one by one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness and a rather Hebraic Cupid descended from an invisible ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... shades, but both subdued by a neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, listless, torpid,—an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given our generals so much trouble,—"Secesh prisoners," as a bystander told us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they were tabooed to the common visitor, and it was necessary to get ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to the Pasiegos, (52) are the best cudgel-players in Spain, and in the world. Francisco held in his hand part of a broomstick, which he had broken in the stable, whence he had just ascended. With the swiftness of lightning he foiled the stroke of Chaleco, and, in another moment, with a dexterous blow, struck the sword out of his hand, sending it ringing against ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... She took her broomstick. Then, slinging all the empty bags across it, and balancing the cat on the other end, ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads and broomstick handles—more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a substantial hickory handle and an iron shank fitted to it at the machine-shop in Fairbanks. ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... Edward learned from her that the dark hag, which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of his master's avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick, but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day. She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way to the spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were prevented by the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... earnest, and when their surroundings of castles and donjons, savage landscapes and half-savage peoples, were in keeping; but those doings gravely reproduced with tinsel decorations and mock pageantry, by bucolic gentlemen with broomstick lances, and with muffin-rings to represent the foe, and all in the midst of the refinement and dignity of a carefully-developed modern civilisation, is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to meet those little black, steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, soft, all-soothing hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that three-footed step—the flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, and the padded end of the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful and restless and thought-driven, to have another's story given one. God, depend upon it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each with a mission of balm ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... and I am not going to let you say so. If you don't promise not to, I will tell Mr. Ludlow myself that you were always perfectly true, and you couldn't help being true, any more than a—a broomstick, or anything else that is perpendicular. ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... the rest made faces at each other; it was simply excruciating. Then the rector asked me if I didn't think I could dress more simply; said I set an example, and so on. I told him I was dressed like a broomstick then, as far as simplicity was concerned, and so I was, simply and positively like a broomstick; only my dress—it was a rose-colored foulard, the most angelic shade you ever saw, girls; just like a sunset cloud, somebody said—happened to have ruffles ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... I got hold of a broomstick, and gave her a good lesson, in order to get something for the ten sequins which I had been foolish enough to pay in advance. But I have broken none of her limbs, and I took care to apply my blows only on her posteriors, on which spot ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... supposition. To Bob, at that time, it seemed that if ever any one did in reality have dealings with the evil one, that one was the old hag behind him. To him she seemed a witch; he thought of her as a witch; and if she had at that time put on a peaked hat, straddled a broomstick, and flown off through the air, it ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... Revolutionary officers with three-cornered cocked hats, and queues longer than their swords. A bright-complexioned, dark-haired, vivacious little gypsy, with a red shawl over her head, went from one group to another, telling fortunes by palmistry; and Moll Pitcher, the renowned old witch of Lynn, broomstick in hand, showed herself prominently in the midst, as if announcing all these apparitions to be the offspring of her necromantic art. But Silas Foster, who leaned against a tree near by, in his customary blue frock and smoking a short pipe, did more to disenchant the scene, with his look ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... He is a capital fellow in his way, but as hot as pepper. His name is Peter McDonald, and he is considerable well to do in the world. He is a Highlander; and when young went out to Canada in the employment of the North-west Fur Company, where he spent many years, and married, broomstick fashion, I suppose, a squaw. Alter her death he removed, with his two half-caste daughters, to St John's, New Brunswick; but his girls I don't think were very well received, on account of their colour, and he came down here and settled at Ship Harbour, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... angels was wings, and the ability to fly. If we come down to the mythology of more recent times we find our pious ancestors in New England thoroughly convinced that the witches they flogged and hanged were perfectly able to navigate the air on a broomstick—thus antedating the Wrights' experiments with heavier-than-air machines by ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... her and she of me at the end of forty days (I had almost said of forty minutes) than I knew of my mother at the end of forty years. A contemporary stranger is a novelty and an enigma, also a possibility; but a mother is like a broomstick or like the sun in the heavens, it does not matter which as far as one's knowledge of her is concerned: the broomstick is there and the sun is there; and whether the child is beaten by it or warmed and enlightened by it, it ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... broken in the middle, and doubled down so as to form a tongs; and gathered up in a corner was a truss of straw, covered with a rug and a thin old blanket, which had constituted a wretched substitute for a bed. That, however, which alarmed Barney most, was an old broomstick with a stump of worn broom attached to the end of it, as it stood in an opposite corner. This constituted the whole ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... mother disappeared, with her potent broomstick, behind the hedge of evergreens that shut off the backyard from our garden, in the wake of father and Jenny, who, being more speedy in their movements, ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... enchanted pitcher does duty here for the witches' broomstick and the fairies' rush of European tales, but a similar conveyance is, I think, not unknown ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stakes about five feet apart and four feet to the crotches. Across them lay a green stick (lug-pole) somewhat thicker than a broomstick. Now cut three or four green crotches from branches, drive a nail in the small end of each, or cut a notch in it, invert the crotches, and hang them on the lug-pole to suspend kettles from. These pothooks are to be of different ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... abuses, (if indeed we may speak of the abuses of what is in itself an abuse,) sinless? I am aware, that Prof. Hodge says, that it was so: and, when he classes despotism and slavery with adiaphora, "things indifferent;" and allows no more moral character to them than to a table or a broomstick, I trust no good man envies his optics. May I not hope that you, Mr. Smylie, perceive a difference between despotism and an "indifferent thing." May I not hope, that you will, both as a Republican and a Christian, take the ground, that despotism has a moral character, and a bad one? When our ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... had doubtless ridden on her broomstick from her Norfolk home, appeared and pronounced ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... him, is little more than synthesized fear.... I venture that many a vote for prohibition comes from gentlemen who look longingly through swinging doors—and pass on in propitiation of Satan and their alert consorts, the lake of brimstone and the corrective broomstick.... ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... extraordinary woman, that could inspire the dean to write so finely upon her.' Mrs. Johnson smiled, and answered, 'that she thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known the dean could write finely upon a broomstick.'" ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... and a broomstick he beat out the fire, and went for a run to warm up. But when he came back there was more wind, so that he could not keep warm in the tent, and more rain, so that he could not find shelter in the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... she explained, opening a little box. "See the caldron and the bells on the handle? I got this in Denmark. That's from Andersen's tale of the swineherd's magic kettle, you know. Kitty's is from Tam O'Shanter's town. That's why there is a witch and a broomstick engraved on it. This spoon for Elise came from Berne. I think that's a darling little bear's head on the handle. What did you get, Betty?" she continued, turning to her suddenly. "You haven't ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mortal doubt of the matter. She fondles a black cat, her familiar, and straddles a broomstick for a sky-ride when ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... is the ambition of almost every boy. There have been few who did not dream, while doing those stunts in the haymow on Mother's broomstick, of the glory that should be theirs when they grew up and performed in ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... A broomstick dost thou not at least desire? The roughest he-goat fain would I bestride, By this road from our ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... other's back. Three other boys were engaged in the fascinating game of blowing bubbles—one making the lather, another blowing the bubbles, while a third was trying to catch them. There were also three more boys—one of them apparently pretending to be a witch, as he was riding on a broomstick, while another was giving a companion a donkey-ride upon his back. All had the appearance of little cupids or angels and looked so lifelike and happy that we almost wished we were young again and could join them ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... said Dian to Femmetia. So the old slave and the young girl went out together. They carried a gun and a broomstick. The moon was shining. They took great pains not to let the soldiers see them. First they dodged behind a great walnut tree. Then, when they were sure the soldiers did not see them, they ran behind the corncrib. Their next march brought them behind the wagon house, and then ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... very important, the lady who drove up in the open cab did not notice that he was even more solemn than usual. When she appeared, he gave one more glance at the spot he had been sweeping, and then grounded his broom like a musket, folded his hands on the end of the broomstick and looked at her as if he wondered what on earth had brought her to the palace at that moment, and wished that she would take herself off again ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... indeed, I set no value On the May-dew, though the women Like to wet with it their faces. I have never seen a soul yet Who by it improved her beauty; Have no faith in arts of witchcraft In the night of St. Walpurgis, Nor in broomstick-riding squadrons. Notwithstanding there belongs a Magic to the month of May. My old weary bones have suffered Many painful gouty twinges From the chilly winds of April. Now these pains are quite ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... the thistles would be dead, and their huge hollow stalks as dry and light as the shaft of a bird's feather—a feather-shaft twice as big round as a broomstick and six to eight feet long. The roots were not only dead but turned to dust in the ground, so that one could push a stalk from its place with one finger, but it would not fall since it was held up by scores of other ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled for it if she had done nothing worse; but, she did something worse still, as you shall learn. For, she got astride of an official broomstick, and muttered as a spell these two sentences, 'On Her Majesty's service,' and 'I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient servant,' and presently alighted in the cold and inclement country where the army of Prince Bull were encamped ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... turnspit? Bob is gone, And dinner must be drest by one: Where is that cur—(and I am loth To say that Betty swore an oath)— The sirloin's spoiled: I'll give it him!"— And Betty did look fierce and grim. Bob, who saw mischief in her eye, Avoided her—approaching nigh: He feared the broomstick, too, with physics ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... sixth member who discovered, after the committee meeting, that the address on the forsaken broomstick's collar was: Number 100 ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... small swing-gate to keep out the chicks that come pilfering crumbs of bread steeped in cider on the threshold. But the courtyards grow narrower, the houses closer together, and the fences disappear; a bundle of ferns swings under a window from the end of a broomstick; there is a blacksmith's forge and then a wheelwright's, with two or three new carts outside that partly block the way. Then across an open space appears a white house beyond a grass mound ornamented by a Cupid, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... who paced the walls, had been closely questioned, but declared they had seen nobody, nor had they heard any unusual sound. For his part he believed there was magic in it, and that some of the old Indian witches had spirited the prisoner up the chimney, and flown away with him on a broomstick. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... discourse for the pleasure of readers in the Underground Railway, I fear he will often have to forget Mr. Pater. It may not be literature, the writing of causeries, of Roundabout Papers, of rambling articles "on a broomstick," and yet again, it may be literature! "Parallel, allusion, the allusive way generally, the flowers in the garden"—Mr. Pater charges heavily against these. The true artist "knows the narcotic force of these upon the negligent intelligence to which any diversion, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... announced that her mother did not want her to take part and that she did not care to herself, as she was to have the fun of entertaining them all at her house, and moreover, she "couldn't act any more than a broomstick." ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... squeaked Peppe, who had entered unobserved. "Patrona mia, you should have seen this paladin," he continued, coming forward. "Why, Orlando was never half so furious as he when he stood there telling them what manner of dirt they were, and bidding them to bed ere he drove them with a broomstick." ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... recommend if he was among us; but I believe we all allow we are sinners more or less, and after all do daily the things we should not do. Still if anybody wanted my help, I should hate to have 'em chase me with a broomstick, for I couldn't do a thing for 'em if they did; and if we think anybody is going into a ditch of a wrong idee, we'd better not scare 'em to death hollerin at 'em, it would be apt to send 'em in head first, while if we could kinder creep along behind, and speak a few words kindly, they ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... look on as a fault of promise. There is always a chance that luxuriance may be pruned, but none short of a miracle that a broomstick may be made to blossom. There is, however, one absolute, and not relative fault in the book, which we find it harder to forgive, since it is one of instinct rather than of Art. The author seems to us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... let it bite me!" cried the old gentleman rabbit, and he tried to get out of the way, but he slipped on his broomstick crutch and fell down, and a piece of prickly holly fell on him and tickled him so ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... without one friendly Plank to assist them to Shore. In short, he left me sick, in Debt, and without a Penny; but as I begin to recover, and have a little time to Think, I can't help considering myself, as one whisk'd up behind a Witch upon a Broomstick, and hurried over Mountains and Dales through confus'd Woods and thorny Thickets, and when the Charm is ended, and the poor Wretch dropp'd in a Desart, he can give no other Account of his enchanted Travels, but that he is much fatigued in Body and Mind, his Cloaths torn, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the current. I might not get my salmon; but it was worth the price of fly and leader just to raise him from the deeps and see his terrific rush downstream, jumping, jumping, as if the witch of Endor were astride of his tail in lieu of her broomstick. ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... her stocking, hung it over the broomstick, and marched around the breakfast table singing to the ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... however, wholly prepared for what happened next. The man in green, riding the frail topmost bough like a witch on a very risky broomstick, reached up and rent the black hat from its airy nest of twigs. It had been broken across a heavy bough in the first burst of its passage, a tangle of branches in torn and scored and scratched it in every direction, a clap of wind and foliage had flattened it like a concertina; nor can ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the company. 'Now, guess who wrote that!' he said. Zelter rose from his place beside the pianoforte, and, looking over Felix's shoulder, cried out: 'Why, it is Beethoven's writing! One can see that a mile off! He always writes as if he used a broomstick for a pen, and then wiped his sleeve over the ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... Mostly he only got a jeer in reply. The fellow would sit drinking These-an'-That's cider and laughing with These-an'-That's wife, until the pair, very likely, took too much, and the woman without any cause broke into a passion, flew at the little man, and drove him out of doors, with broomstick or talons, while the gamekeeper hammered on the table and roared at the sport. His employer was an absentee who hated the Parson, so the Parson groaned in vain over ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had done blessing her, a great noise was heard in the courtyard, and word was brought that the thirteenth fairy was come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a broomstick in her hand: and presently up she came into the dining-hall. Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her revenge. So she cried out, 'The king's daughter shall, in her fifteenth year, be wounded by ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... place,' he said to himself, as the house grew plainer; 'rebuilt at the worst time, by a man with no more taste than a broomstick. Still, he was the sixteenth owner, from father to son. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... somebody else, not Polly Mahony. Her dislike of things that creep and crawl was, it is true, inborn, and persisted; but nowadays if one of the many "triantelopes" that infested the roof showed its hairy legs, she had only to call Hempel, and out the latter would pop with a broomstick, to do away with the creature. If a scorpion or a centipede wriggled from under a log, the cry of "Tom!" would bring the idle lad next door double-quick over the fence. Polly had learnt not to summon her husband on these occasions; for Richard ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... mass of pleasant anecdote they recall, the ghosts of far-off delights they summon, are either too obvious to be worth the trouble of description or too evanescent to be expressed in dull prose. Swift, we are told (perhaps a little too frequently), could write beautifully of a broomstick; which may strike a common person as a marvel of dexterity. After a while, the journalist is apt to find that it is the perfect theme which proves to be the hardest to treat adequately. Clothe a broomstick with fancies, even of the flimsiest ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... blotches. The boy laughingly exclaimed, "Who could ever read such writing as that?" Zelter rose and came to the piano to look at this curiosity. "Why, it is Beethoven's writing; one can see that a mile off! He always wrote as if he used a broomstick for a pen, then wiped his sleeve over the ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a broomstick, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... two words," replied Wamba—"'Pax vobiscum' will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, 'Pax vobiscum' carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a broomstick to a witch, or a wand to a conjurer. Speak it but thus, in a deep grave tone,—'Pax vobiscum!'—it is irresistible—Watch and ward, knight and squire, foot and horse, it acts as a charm upon them all. I think, if they bring me out to be hanged to-morrow, as is much to be doubted ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the lane it came to the gate which shut it off from the road, and took the gate in a flying leap. But the animal never came down again. It was getting quite dark then, but she could still plainly see that a witch was upon its back, belaboring it with a broomstick. And she knew very well who that witch was. It was the "spectre" of Dulcibel Burton—for it had a scarlet bodice on, just such as Dulcibel nearly always wore. They two—the mare and its rider—went off sailing up into the sky, ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... fair-haired lady? No one knows. At the cry of Yvon she disappeared; but it was said that a wretched old hag was seen flying on a broomstick over the castle walls, chased by the dogs; and it was the common opinion among the Kervers that the fair-haired lady was none other than the witch, the godmother of the giant. I am not sure enough of the fact, however, to dare warrant it. It is always prudent to believe, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... struggled to her feet, muttering: "She is still the same. May God guard her from all harm!" Then she waddled toward Katharina, took her slender hand in her own broad palm, and added: "Take good care of my treasure, your ladyship. Up to now, I have taken the broomstick every evening, before going to bed, and thrust it under all the furniture, to see if there might not be a thief hidden somewhere. You will have to do that now. A great treasure, great care! And, your ladyship, when you shall have in your house such a little chemise and petticoat, with ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions." The prophecy may yet be fulfilled. Franklin remarks that a short while ago the idea of "witches riding through the air upon a broomstick and that of philosophers upon a bag of smoke would have appeared equally impossible and ridiculous." Yet in the space of a few months he has seen the philosopher on his smoke bag, if not the witch on her broom. He wishes that one of these very ingenious inventors would immediately ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... we contributed would have sickened any man enjoying those blessings. But at that time we were out of 'em. You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the cove in twelve hours," said Paul, "if this breeze lasts; it's blowing a gale out at sea, and the 'Polly' 'll fly like a witch on a broomstick." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... Capt. Tiller, "pair off with Miss Betsy, Doctor, and I'll pair off with Miss Sally (the older daughter of Capt. F.), and now what say you? Let's make up a wedding-party—let's jump the broomstick!" ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... we were quietly reading a prosaic modern novel, and somewhere in the middle it turned without warning into a fairy tale. We should be surprised if one of the spinsters in Cranford, after tidily sweeping the room with a broom, were to fly away on a broomstick. Our attention would be arrested if one of Jane Austen's young ladies who had just met a dragoon were to walk a little further and meet a dragon. Yet something very like this extraordinary transition takes place in British history at the end of the purely Roman period. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... especially when, as in the present case, the balance of convenience is decidedly on the part of fashion. The ordinary custom among well bred persons, is as follows:—soup is taken with a spoon. Some foolish fashionables employ a fork! They might as well make use of a broomstick. The fish which follows is eaten with a fork, a knife not being used at all. The fork is held in the right hand, and a piece of bread in the left. For any dish in which cutting is not indispensable, the same arrangement is correct. ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... command of lyric metre hardly inferior to the command displayed in that masterpiece. In fact, if ever there was a poet who could write, and write, perhaps beautifully, certainly well, about any conceivable broomstick in almost any conceivable manner, that poet was Drayton. His historical poems, which are inferior in bulk only to the huge Polyolbion, contain a great deal of most admirable work. They consist of three divisions—The Barons' Wars ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... fog. Two paces away from the curb a headlight became an effulgence. Indeed, there were a thousand lights jammed in the street, and the fog above absorbed the radiance, giving the scene a touch of Brocken. All that was needed was a witch on a broomstick. He counted five vehicles, and stopped. The door-window ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... people to hold out the idea that it may be necessary to execute the laws at the point of the bayonet. "If an old woman," cried a disgusted member of the minority, "was to strike an excise officer with a broomstick, forsooth the military is to be called out to ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... where should we be?" inquired the Signora Pandolfi. "I see him, my husband, coming back and finding that nothing has been done! He would tear his hair! He would kill us! He would bring his broomstick of a lawyer here to marry you this very afternoon, and what should we have gained then? It needs judgment, Lucia, my heart—judgment, judgment!" repeated the fat lady, tapping ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... figures. The house itself is constructed of sweets and creams. Attracted by its delicious fragrance and toothsomeness, the hungry children break off a piece and are nibbling at it, when the old witch within surprises and captures them. After a series of incantations, and much riding upon her broomstick, which are vividly portrayed in the music, she prepares to cook Gretel in the oven; but while looking into it the children deftly tumble her into the fire. The witch waltz, danced by the children and full of joyous abandon, follows. To a ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... broomstick-witch in the clouds could not be thinner and stranger: Lord Romfrey had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... supposed to come down the chimney, our stockings were pinned on a broomstick, laid across two chairs in front of the fireplace. We retired on Christmas Eve with the most pleasing anticipations of what would be in our stockings next morning. The thermometer in that latitude was often twenty degrees below zero, yet, bright and early, we would run downstairs in our bare ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... by standing up and letting someone read the ceremony to them. My master was a Christian. There wasn't no jumpin' over a broomstick on my master's place. The white folks didn't have no nigger preacher for their churches. But the colored folks had 'em. They preached out of these little old Blue Back Spellers—leastways they was little blue ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... always felt for the melodious minstrelsy of the ancient bards. Whittier thought that the "Chambered Nautilus" was "booked for immortality." In the same list may be put the "One-Hoss Shay," "Contentment," "Destination," "How the Old Horse Won the Bet," "The Broomstick Train," and that lovely family portrait, "Dorothy Q——," a poem with a history. Dorothy Quincy's picture, cold and hard, painted by an unknown artist, hangs on the wall of the poet's home in Beacon Street. A hole in the canvas marks the spot where one of King ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various |
