"Buttons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... those of the people of Saetersdal, a district in the South of Norway, between Christiansand and Telemarken; and, when properly turned out, the men are quite as "dressy" as the women. They wear a pair of trousers buttoned with half a dozen silver buttons tight round the ankles, and coming right up to the armpits. Several broad stripes adorn the legs from top to bottom. And the coat takes the form of a curious little cape, richly embroidered with silver, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... said Mrs. Negget, somewhat sadly. "He used to keep buttons in that box with the lozenges until one night he gave me one by mistake. Yes, you may laugh—I'm ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... to be suited to persons of another sort. Whence, then, comes the one which is not me? Can it be that it is derived from the sayings and writings of others, and is but a spurious spirit only meet to be outcast? Do I, to speak in the vernacular, care any buttons whether we stick to Gibraltar or not so long as men do but live in kindness? And if that is so, have I the right to say I do? Ought I not, rather, to be true to my private self and leave the course of public affairs to those who have louder voices ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fine speeches, but liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,—the jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons and fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed, silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine that surely was never yet so bright,—ten years from now they would still be talking ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... done up in a short cue tied by black ribbons, and on top of all rested a three-cornered cocked hat, heavily laced with gold or silver braid. The coat was light-colored, with a profusion of silver buttons, stamped with the wearer's monogram, decorating the front. Over the shoulders hung a short cape. The knee-breeches, marvellously tight, ended at the tops of gaudy striped stockings, which in turn disappeared in the recesses of pointed shoes adorned with gleaming ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... united. A bit of luck in the City or the West had been achieved, and Happy Jack issued cards for 'At Homes,' and behaved, and looked, and spoke like an alderman, or the member of a house of fifty years' standing. When strangers saw his white waistcoat, and blue coat with brass buttons, and heard him talk of a glut of gold, and money being a mere drug, they speculated as to whether he was the governor or the vice-governor of the Bank of England, or only the man who signs the five-pound notes. That day six weeks, Jack had probably 'come through ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... were worth looking at. He was clad in tightfitting sage-green felt, so it appeared, with a superfluity of straps, buttons, lacings, and harness of all sorts. A conical Tyrol hat garnished with a cock's plume and faded violets was crushed between his back and that of the chair. As his large nervous feet reached for the chairlegs below, one could see an expanse of moss-green stockings, only half concealed ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... MORTENSGAARD comes in softly and quietly, by the door on the left. He is a short, slightly built man with sparse reddish hair and beard. KROLL gives him a look of hatred.) The "Searchlight" too, I see. Lighted at Rosmersholm! (Buttons up his coat.) That leaves me no doubt as to the course I ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... artificial integuments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously-tinted pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber or a stately mansion. And then, the whole visible world, in which Time buttons him up as in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... now Martian soldiers were bursting the buttons off their uniforms in the scrimmage to separate the battlers. Bruised and battered, they were dragged apart. Murray's one eye was now authentically closed, and rapidly coloring up. Unsteadily he got to his feet. With mock delicacy he threw a kiss to ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... contrived, sort of accerdental and off hand like, to let her know them circumstances and I've seen it pleased her immense. I've been layin' out some of my money for clothes, too, since I got back. Vose bought me a coat in Sacramento, blue with brass buttons. I've had a necktie that has been laid away till the proper time comes to put it on. There are three or four yards of silk in it and it will knock a rainbow out of sight. I didn't want to overwhelm her too sudden like, and have ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... there I could kind of see him getting dressed up in a hurry in that old blue coat he had, with the buttons all falling off it, and starting off with his crutch. Maybe he just got his pension ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... would take my coat," said Stephen, fumbling at the buttons as he had fumbled at the bridle. His teeth were chattering as ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... was an olive-coloured great coat over a green uniform, with scarlet cape and cuffs, green lapels turned back and edged with scarlet, skirts hooked back with bugle horns embroidered in gold, plain sugar-loaf buttons and gold epaulettes; being the uniform of the Chasseur a Cheval of the Imperial Guard. He wore the star, or grand cross of the Legion of Honour, and the small cross of that order; the Iron Crown; and the Union, appended to the button-hole of his left lapel. He had on ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... and the ARLA was sliding along through a summer sea toward the wooded ranges of Malaita. The helmsman who so attracted Bertie's eyes sported a ten penny nail, stuck skewerwise through his nose. About his neck was a string of pants buttons. Thrust through holes in his ears were a can opener, the broken handle of a toothbrush, a clay pipe, the brass wheel of an alarm clock, and ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... end of the line. He began to cut the Canadian buttons off his coat and to remove his badges. Several men near by assisted and replaced them with such of their own as they could spare; each man perhaps contributing a button. They had no thread nor time to use it if they had, so tacked the buttons into place by all manner of makeshifts, such as broken ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... unexcited fashion, and it was difficult to say whether he meant the oriental idea or the appearance of the girl who stood before him. She came close and offered the cuff of one of her sleeves to show him the embroidery, lifting a delicate chin to display the jade buttons ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... suggestive as to menu. Luscious grapes and crisp salad, which Belgian gardeners grow with meticulous care, I remember of it. You might linger over your coffee, knowing the truth, and look out at the people who did not know it. When they were not buying more buttons with the allied colours, or more flags, or dropping nickel pieces in Red Cross boxes, they were thronging to the kiosks for the latest edition of the evening ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... therefore great when he saw street-urchins playing on them with buttons and little stones, and he could hardly contain himself when young priests came running and sprang up the eight and twenty steps in a ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... full when we got in, but she didn't take no notice of that. Her idea was that she could walk about all over the place looking for Cap'n Tarbell, and it took three men in buttons and a policeman to persuade 'er different. We were pushed into a couple o' seats at last, and then she started ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... sperrit. There's Master William, now (I can't abear to call him Will, because that was the name as 'is father went by, and I 'old that in a sense it is sacred), there's Master William, though 'e's only jist out o' frocks an' frilled trousers, and noo into blue tights an' brass buttons, there 'e is, goin' about the country on a pony as isn't much bigger than a Noofoundland dog, but goes over the 'edges an ditches in a way as makes my blood to curdle an' my skin to creep, with that dear boy on 'is back and 'is tail flyin be'ind, an' shoutin' with a sort of wild delight that I do ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... were half frightened and half delighted. Lady Fawn and her daughters lived very much out of the world. They also were poor rich people,—if such a term may be used,—and did not go much into society. There was a butler kept at Fawn Court, and a boy in buttons, and two gardeners, and a man to look after the cows, and a carriage and horses, and a fat coachman. There was a cook and a scullery maid, and two lady's maids,—who had to make the dresses,—and two housemaids and a dairymaid. There was a large old brick house to be kept in order, and handsome ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... novitiate, no one being allowed to see it except the Prioress. The great difficulty was to find beads large enough for the eyes, and it threatened to frustrate the making of their beast. But the latest postulant suggested that perhaps the buttons off her jacket would do, they were just the thing,' and the legs of the beast were most natural and life-like; it had ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Nim's shout, and utterly declined to take charge of the team, intimating his opinion that it was very good employment for 'swallow-tail' himself. Which remark alluded to the coat worn by Mr. Nimrod—a vesture of blue, with brass buttons, rendered further striking by loose nankeen ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the panelled entrance-hall with a glow of warm content at toeing at home again that quite eclipsed the mere physical heat produced by her walk from the station. Wherever her eyes fell, those sharp dark eyes that resembled buttons covered with shiny American cloth, they saw nothing that jarred, as so much in London jarred. There were bright brass jugs on the window sill, a bowl of pot-pourri on the black table in the centre, an oak settee by the open fireplace, a ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... And I felt to clinch his throat; But, instead, I shot—to scare him— All the buttons off his coat. Then I pumped two in the corner, Where he'd sunk down on his knees— Slit his ear and cut his collar, Never listening to his pleas. Told him if he didn't mosey I would plant his carcass whole, In a grave I'd dig that evening On the eighty he had stole. ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... the beauty spots looked like demi-semiquavers on a sheet of music. The squaws, and even the papooses, were painted for the occasion, and everyone of the Quackahls were dressed in blue robes, ornamented with striking pearl buttons. ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... case, I think in this room, was exhibited the suit of clothes he last wore; a blue coat with large metal buttons, plaid trousers, and broad-brimmed hat. Around the sides of this room there was a gallery of light tracery work; a flight of stairs led up to it, and in one corner of it was a door which the woman said led to the poet's bed room. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... knob-like character, e.g. button-mushrooms, the button of an electric bell-push, or the guard at the tip of a fencing foil; or which resemble a button in size and shape, as the button of metal obtained in assaying operations. At first buttons were apparently used for purposes of ornamentation; in Piers Plowman (1377) mention is made of a knife with "botones ouergylte," and in Lord Berner's translation of Froissart's Chronicles (1525) of a book covered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, or a contumacious "Buttons," to relieve the gloom by their playful waggeries. He read Tennyson or Owen Meredith, or carefully selected "bits" from the works of a younger and wilder bard, while the ladies worked industriously at their ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... for thinking that brother Martin and I were one and the same person. He is only a year younger than I and people could never tell us apart when we were boys. I remember we used to help them out by wearing sleeve buttons, an M on his and a C ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... costlier goods, and some of the girls of the graduating class were to have them; but Ruth chose something so durable and at so low a price that she hoped Uncle Jabez would not be sorry for his generosity. She saw the goods, and lace, and buttons, and all the rest, made up into a neat package and sent across to the other counter with the bill, and then went out of the store and up Market ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... bridges; clearly they owned the train, and had kindly lent it to the Pennsylvania R.R. Their demeanor expressed a rare sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While very polite, they condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable European "guard"—for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the observation-car, of which institution I had so often heard Americans speak with pride, and speculated why, here as in all other cars, the tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... answered at random, "Yes," she asked, "How did he know? Had he heard that Maddy was that kind of good which lets folks in heaven? Because, Brother Guy," and the little preacher nestled closely to the young man, fingering his coat buttons as she talked, "because, Brother Guy, folks can be good— that is, not do naughty things—and still God won't love them unless they—I don't know what, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... also one Sam Grigg, page-boy, who on particular occasions wore a livery jacket with three rows of plated pill-like buttons, but who was now in the fatigue-dress of rolled-up shirt sleeves and a very dirty apron, while his left-hand was occupied by a boot, the right by a blacking-brush, which seemed to have been applied several times to an itching nose, his chin, and one side of ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... their helmets and the sweat of their brows, some re-fastened bootlaces and putties or unfastened restraining hooks and buttons. One gracefully succumbed to his exertions and fainting fell, with ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... master again. He will never be happy till he is having the Rogues' March played over him, and the buttons that I keep sewed on tighter than those of any man in his company cut off his beautiful uniform, and him drummed out as ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... o' trade—very flat-tasted stuff it was, price half a crown, with a sediment if you let it stand; and after a few days the trouble wore off. They tell me there's a new pupil teacher up to the school can answer questions like that while you're countin' his buttons. I've seen the fellow: a pigeon-chested poor creatur', with his calves put on the wrong way. I'd a mind to tell 'en that with figgers, as with other walks o' life, a man's first business is to look after his own. But I didn't like to, he looked so harmless. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... costume of boarding officers, the dark-blue uniforms being garnished with brass buttons and on their heads were caps with bands across the front bearing the ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... and him (the author) at the end of every scene'. Forthwith he proceeds to offer advice to the actors about their behaviour: 'And this I bar, over and besides, that none of you stroke your beards to make action, play with your cod-piece points, or stand fumbling on your buttons, when you know not how to bestow your fingers. Serve God, and act cleanly.' Always his honesty exceeds his consideration for the feelings of others. Three clowns and three maids have barely ended their rustic jig when he calls out, 'Beshrew ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... the contrast between the appearance of this young artillery sprig and that of his own stout personality, clad as he was in a bulging blue flannel sack-coat, only distinguishable in cut and style from civilian garb by its having brass buttons and a pair of tarnished old shoulder-straps. Ferry was a swell. His shell jacket fitted like wax. The Russian shoulder-knots of twisted gold were of the handsomest make. The riding-breeches, top-boots, and spurs were such that even Waring could not criticise. ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... are constantly at work mending garments apparently unmendable, pressing, steaming, patching, sewing on buttons. The ragged uniforms come out of that big bare room clean and whole, ready to be tied up in new burlap bags, tagged, and placed in racks of fresh white cedar. There is no odour in this room, although innumerable old garments ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the conductor," said Roy to himself. "He has two brass buttons on the back of coat, and this chap hasn't any. I believe he was a thief, after my money. Lucky I didn't put it under my pillow, or he'd have it now. I must be on the watch. No wonder Billy Carew warned me to be careful. I wonder who that ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... resign during the life of Lear and that he will reward Edgar and Kent and all who have been faithful to him. At this moment the news is brought that Edmund is dead, and Lear, continuing his ravings, begs that they will undo one of his buttons—the same request which he had made when roaming about the heath. He expresses his thanks for this, tells everyone to look at something, and ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... believe in luck charms and things of the such. Iffen you is in trouble, there ain't nothing gonna save you but de Good Lawd. I heard of folks keeping all kind of things for good luck charms. When I was a child different people gave me buttons to string and we called them our charm string and wore 'em round our necks. If we was mean dey would tell us "Old Raw Head and Bloody Bones" would git us. Grand mammy told us ghost stories after supper, but I don't remember ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... games in which the invalids were permitted to indulge, made the hours pass much more pleasantly than those spent in the convalescent department. It is true their chess-board was made with chalk upon the floor, the "men" being pieces wrought out of bone saved from their soup, and the "checkers" old buttons ripped from their scanty wardrobe. But these rude implements afforded as much real sport as if they had been constructed of ivory or gold. The scene must at all times have been grimly grotesque in this ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... said Mr. Chamberlain. "You have me beaten, and you'll get the bachelors' buttons; but you had the tide ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... and has sent two sons through college from the Democrat, and the effort has taken the fight out of him. I never saw him resent a joke but once. That was when Pelty Amthorne told him that his wife considered the Democrat to be the best paper she had ever seen. He let Ayers burst a couple of buttons from his vest in his swelling pride before he explained that the Democrat, when cut in two, exactly fitted his wife's pantry shelves, and that she didn't have to trim it a bit. The old man turned on his heel without a word and ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... building, calling the steel frame-work his skeleton and the furnace and power station his digestive organs and lungs, the nervous system would include, with other things, the thermometers, heat regulators, electric buttons, door-bells, valve-openers,—the parts of the building, in short, which are specifically designed to respond to influences of the environment." The second property of nerve-cells which is important in study is conductivity. ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... cherry-stones or carving a colossus. Browning, the creator of men and women, the fashioner of minds, would be a sculptor of figures more than life-size rather than an exquisite jeweller; the attempt at a Perseus of this Cellini was to precede his brooches and buttons. He planned, Mr Gosse tells us, "a series of monodramatic epics, narratives of the life of typical souls." In a modification of this vast scheme Paracelsus, which includes more speakers than one, and Sordello, which is not dramatic in form, find their places. They were preceded by Pauline, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... boxes, which were but another form of the celebrated wooden walls of Old England; they never woke up till it was too late—in which respect you might have thought them very farmers. How is it with the police? Their buttons are made at Birmingham; a dozen of their truncheons would poorly furnish forth a watchman's staff; they have no wooden walls to repose between; and the crowns of their hats are ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... wheel a heavy portmanteau to Moor Park gate, when he told the man to put it down. Foote was taken very ill, was found by old Hill the keeper and taken to Swift's cottage where Hill lived. The union officials took Foote and his heavy portmanteau to the Union. 'It's only buttons inside,' said they. 'It's gold! gold!' exclaimed Foote with his dying breath." ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... pushed the curls away from his forehead. He had his riding-whip in his hand. I took that, too, and snapped it at our little dog, Kip. Father's clothes also pleased me—a lavender-colored coat, with brass buttons, and trousers of the same color. I mentally composed for myself a suit to match his, and thought how well we should look calling at Lady Teazle's house in London, only I was worried because my bonnet seemed to be too large for me. A loud crash ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... shine is, majie! I wish you would put on your grand uniform, and let me see the fire shining on the gold lace and the buttons and the epaulettes and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... as to features, with a clean-shaven upper lip, a short goatee beard, and light hair, slightly touched with grey, worn so long that it came down over the collar of his coat, which was of faded blue cloth, adorned with brass buttons. His trousers were braced up high enough to reveal his ankles, and he wore a pair of ancient red morocco slippers upon his otherwise naked feet. His head was adorned with a peakless cap of what looked like wolfskin, fitted with a pair ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... his thumb, and Rosalind took it from him. She slipped it on her finger, over her glove. Naturally it slipped off—a man's thumb-ring! She passed it up inside the glove-palm, through the little slot above the buttons. Then she got out her purse, and looked in to see what ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... exclaimed, 'Oh, why do you chain up that fine Newfoundland dog, Mr Smith?'—'Because it has a passion for breakfasting on parish boys.'—'Parish boys!' she exclaimed; 'does he really eat boys, Mr Smith?'—'Yes, he devours them, buttons and all.' Her face of horror made me die ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... the smile faded, which was a matter of seconds, did he reach out in the dark and press the first of a row of buttons. There were three rows of such buttons. The concealed lighting that spilled from the huge bowl under the ceiling revealed a sleeping-porch, three sides of which were fine-meshed copper screen. The fourth side was the house wall, solid concrete, through which French ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... child eats any more," said Annie bluntly from the kitchen door, "he must have a pill. 'Tis enough for him to drum away the peace of the Christmas day without stuffin' himself that hard and round ye fear for his buttons. An' to my mind, if he'd talk more and eat less, he'd not be ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... excellent ones are available—" He moved toward the reading table nearby and began punching a selection of buttons. ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... pangs of travail upon an iceberg, which proceeds from an American railway-engine before it commences its work. How we slipped and stumbled, and splashed and swore, rushing along in the dark night, with buttons loose, and our clothes half on! And how pitilessly we were treated! We gained our cars, and even succeeded in bringing with us our luggage; but we did not do so with the sympathy, but amid the derision of the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Lord,—asked for everything they could think of. Old Trull was especially pestered by one woman, who stuck to him with a continuous whine of "Pillitay, pillitay!" He had already given her his jack-knife, and now borrowed it to cut off several of the brass buttons on his jacket. But so far was she from being satisfied with this sacrifice, that she instantly began pillitaying for the rest of them. The old man thought that this was carrying the ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... concerned with getting her charge through the door to notice what was happening at first but as soon as she was fairly out on the porch she looked about her. The bear dropped from her fingers—her eyes grew rounder than buttons and ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... generally regard the men they love, ready to yield judgment itself to his decision. When he did not answer, but stood still before them like a red-faced boy, staring down at the floor, she seemed to shudder, and began despairingly to unfasten the buttons of her thick coat. Jenny darted up and ran to check ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... the civil line, a townsman, or tradesman: a military term, from the mohair buttons worn by persons of those descriptions, or any others not in the army, the buttons of military men being always of metal: this is generally used as a term of contempt, meaning ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Scarlett, if you pull him like that you'll lose him to a certainty. By George, he's a big one!" Doll tore off his coat and turned up his shirt-sleeves. "He's going under the boat. If you let him go under the boat, I tell you, he'll break us. I'm quite ready." Doll was rubbing his waistcoat-buttons against the gunwale. "Bring him in gradually. For goodness' sake, keep your feet off the line, or, if he makes a dash, he'll break you! Give him line. Keep your elbows out. Keep your hands free. Don't let him jerk you. If you don't give him more line when he runs, you'll lose him. He's not half ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... pretty silk workbag, which could be spread out, or gathered up close on its ribbon. When outspread, it showed a store of needles and thread, of buttons, hooks, tapes,—everything a little girl could need to ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... these by-roads which run independently of all advantages of locality, "up hill and down dale," from one little obscure village to another. These roads are generally paved with round broad stones, laid curiously together in longitudinal rows like the buttons on a schoolboy's jacket; Owing to the infrequency of travellers on them, they are quite overgrown with grass, except in one stripe along the middle, which is kept naked by the hoofs of horses and the tread of foot passengers. There ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... cut velvet buttons, on your coat, I believe. Let me see? Yes. Now, lasting buttons are more durable, and I remember very well when you wore them. But they are out of fashion! And here is your collar turned down over your black satin stock, (where, ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... morning I hastened to it in my night-gown, and was confronted by a ghastly spectacle. The crabs lay dead on the bottom, stomachs upward; the prawns hung lifeless and white from the rocks; the soldier-crabs were motionless, half out of their shells; the sea-anemones had contracted themselves into buttons, and most of them had dropped from their perches. Death had been rampant during the night; but ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... coal-grate in the fireplace, which was one formerly used by Archbishop Sharpe, the prelate whom Balfour of Burley murdered. Either in this room or the next one, there was a glass case containing the suit of clothes last worn by Scott,—a short green coat, somewhat worn, with silvered buttons, a pair of gray tartan trousers, and a white hat. It was in the hall that we saw these things; for there too, I recollect, were a good many walking-sticks that had been used by Scott, and the hatchet with which he was in the habit of lopping branches from his trees, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... condemn the waltz. Some sects allow pipe-organ music, but draw the line at the violin; while others, still, employ a whole orchestra in their religious service. Some there may be who regard pictures as implements of idolatry, while the Hook-and-Eye Baptists look upon buttons as immoral. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... unbroken, right across the root of the nose, and a set of large, even, pearl-white teeth gleamed through a well-kept, coal-black moustache and beard. The fellow was attired in a showy, theatrical-looking costume, consisting of blue cloth jacket, adorned with a double row of gilt buttons and a pair of bullion epaulettes upon the shoulders, over a shirt of white silk, open at the throat, a sword-belt of black varnished leather, fastened by a pair of handsome brass or gold clasps, served the double purpose of a support for ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... quoted Browning, and discussed Goethe, and talked Parepa; and they had no lights, and the September moon shone in. Sometimes Mrs. Sharpe had mending to do, and, as she could not sew on her husband's buttons satisfactorily by moonlight, would slip into the dining-room with kerosene and mosquitoes for company. The Doctor may have noticed, or he may not, how comfortably he could, if he made the proper effort, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... a pitcher of hot water outside, she replied, with chattering teeth, "Th-thank y-you, b-but I d-don't ne-need any now." She found it necessary, however, to warm her numb fingers before she could fasten hooks and buttons. And when she was dressed she marked in the dim mirror that there were tinges of ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... emerged from the door of the guard-room a man, whose gait and figure the Count thought he knew, although he was too far distant to discern his features. This man was in a sort of half-uniform; a blue jacket decorated with three rows of metal buttons, coarse linen trousers, and on his head the customary woollen boina. From underneath the latter appeared a white linen bandage, none of the cleanest, and considerably stained with blood. His face was pale and thin, and the Count conjectured him to be a wounded man, recently out of hospital. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with silver buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue leather marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve. The band of his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in silver embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a lustre ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... open. Summoning his followers to his assistance, he made them give him a "back;" and, scrambling up on their shoulders, he at length contrived to raise himself to the level of these openings and to look in. He saw a great many levers, and knobs, and buttons, and short lengths of insulated wire; in fact, he got a glimpse of pretty nearly all the apparatus contained in the pilothouse; but that did not help him in the least, for he had not the most remote idea of what all these things were for; and when he essayed an entrance by one of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... trembled. A telegraphic communication of eyes passed between the other three ladies. The obedient bell in the lower regions began ringing the announcement of the meal. The tolling over, the head of the family thrust his hands into the great tail-pockets of his great blue coat with brass buttons, and without waiting for a further announcement strode downstairs alone, scowling over his shoulder at the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher and ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... 1660. This morning come home my fine Camlett cloak, with gold Buttons, and a silk suit, which cost me much money, and I pray God to make me able to pay for it. In the afternoon to the Abbey, where a good sermon by a stranger, but ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... fashion here, and a great indecorum not to be thread-bare. Every man shews here like so many wracks upon the sea, here the ribs of a thousand pound, here the relicks of so many mannors, a doublet without buttons; and 'tis a spectacle of more pity than executions are. The company one with the other is but a vying of complaints, and the causes they have to rail on fortune and fool themselves, and there is a great deal of good fellowship in ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the lights. The lad held a cotton handkerchief to his face; he appeared to be weeping; all that was seen of his head were his locks of red hair. He seemed a country lad, dressed in a long green coat with silver buttons, and he twirled in his disengaged hand a ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... quit the seat he insisted on having, if he would indulge in views of the passing scenery,—such was the furniture of dens where a refinement of castigation was practised on villain poverty by denying leathers to the windows, or else buttons to the leathers, so that the windows had either to be up or down, but refused to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... but his head drooped low upon his breast, and his hands playing nervously with the buttons of his coat told the whole story more plainly than words could have done. Mr. Lloyd sighed deeply and looked at his wife as though to say: "There's no doubt about it; our boy has been deceiving us," while Mrs. Lloyd's eyes once more filled with ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... shoveling corn into a hopper, of which a sturdy Irishman was turning the crank. The old admiral kept his hired man busy and enjoyed his own work. He was of small figure, always wore an old-fashioned blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, took snuff, and would laugh and shake until his weatherbeaten face was purple over some of his reminiscences of the ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... you ought to been there when Mr. Linktum come down to free us. Policemen aint in it. You ought ter seen them big black bucks. Their suits was so fine trimmed with them eagle buttons and they wuz gold too. And their shoes shined so they hurt your eyes. I tell yo ah cant comember my age but it's been a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... garments, embroidered with gold, the arms of which were tight as far as the elbow, and were then slit open, and hung down. The bare part of the arm was covered by silk sleeves. Round their waists were fastened stiff girdles of the breadth of the hand, ornamented in front with large buttons, and at the sides with smaller ones. The buttons were of gold, and worked in enamel. Mounted pearls, precious stones, and gold coins, decorated the arms, neck, and breast. The head was covered with a small, pretty turban, wound round with gold chains, or gold ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Street. I had some little leaden mice in my hand the size of half-a-dozen pins' heads. Handkerchiefs an inch square, babies' woollen shoes, pinafores, shirts, all of the tiniest, but perfectly made, with buttons and button-holes complete, and even buns with currants no bigger than a pin's point. Sheep, dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs, giraffes—in short, convert the entire Zoo into miniature china knick-knacks, and you have a considerable portion of Mrs. Kendal's ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... shoulder; his mustaches were trimmed with care, and a silk kerchief of gay hues was twisted round a well-shaped but sinewy throat; a short jacket of rough cloth was decorated with several rows of gilt filagree buttons; his nether garments fitted tight to his limbs, and were curiously braided; while in a broad parti-coloured sash were placed two silver-hilted pistols, and the sheathed knife, usually worn by Italians of the lower ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... safe, comfortable house in the best part of town, and there were father and mother and grandpa and Uncle James, Tilly the maid and Billy the hired man to look after him—to say nothing of Mr. O'Brien, the burly policeman in blue coat and brass buttons, who used to stroll up and ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... that they ate rats and chickens and swallowed small stones and potsherds, and once or twice his bunch of keys disappeared down the stomach of an ostrich. In one ostrich's stomach was found nine pounds of "ballast"—stones, rags, buttons, bits of ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he saw a small unpretending box, which he immediately opened. On the top was a paper with the words, "Look—say nothing—forget." Beneath this was some cotton wool, and then—the two buttons and the lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... prepared; they were all taken by surprise. At last, a merry-looking young officer set the example, and said, "If I am to contribute anything which as yet is not to be found in this treasure-chamber, it shall be a pair of buttons from my uniform—I don't see why they do not deserve to go down to posterity!" No sooner said than done, and then a number of persons found something of the same sort which they could do; the young ladies did not hesitate ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... made into lint and bandages for the wounded. Soft white fingers knitted socks, shirts and gloves, to keep the cold from the men in the trenches. Calico was $10 per yard quite early in the strife. Homespun was made upon the old colonial wheels and looms that had been kept as souvenirs and curios. Buttons were obtained from persimmon seeds with holes pierced for eyes. Women plaited their hats from straw or palmetto leaf, and used feathers ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... chemical substance that results in physical, mental, emotional, or behavioral impairment in an individual. Hallucinogens are drugs that affect sensation, thinking, self- awareness, and emotion. Hallucinogens include LSD (acid, microdot), mescaline and peyote (mexc, buttons, cactus), amphetamine variants (PMA, STP, DOB), phencyclidine (PCP, angel dust, hog), phencyclidine analogues (PCE, PCPy, TCP), and others (psilocybin, psilocyn). Hashish is the resinous exudate of the cannabis or hemp plant ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... great soul maintained its purity, its integrity, even in bonds, encouraged and consoled him. "How can they hurt me," he asks, "if spiritually I am far from them, far above them? They can do no more than place gilt buttons on my coat and give me a cap to replace this slouch. Therefore, I will serve. I will be a slave, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... playing idly with a paper knife. His gaze seemed to be directed to the lower buttons of his head clerk's waistcoat. "Interference?" he repeated. "Interference? Mr. Grump, you have a reputation for humor, or so I judge. I've been listening to you trying to bedevil that man out there, but I'm afraid your humor is ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... young folk already assembled about the castle when the Corner House girls arrived. A man in a blue uniform with silver buttons, had just come out of the castle with Joe Eldred and ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... bad looking, clean shaven, well tailored. He swung his eyes to meet my gaze and as he did so that same chill fled along my spine. His eyes—what was the matter with them? They were dark—brown or black—and as shiny as shoe buttons. But there was no gleam of expression in them. Their shine was the ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... the cobbler, already clothed in part of his Sunday best, a pair of corduroy trousers of a mouse colour, having indued an ancient tail-coat of blue with gilt buttons, they set out together; and for their conversation, it was just the same as it would have been any other day: where every day is not the Lord's, the Sunday is his ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... "Zirr" and lit. 'buttons," i.e. of his robe collar from which his white neck and face appear shining ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... inspection every Saturday morning, where the general appearance of the soldier could be thoroughly scrutinized. Clean-shaven, neatly polished shoes, clean uniform with buttons all present and utilized, formed the determining percentage features. When the inspection was mounted, horses and harness had to shine, the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... on the taxpayer at all points with the imperceptible impartiality of air, the hints as to the taxation of neighbours and rivals are of refreshing variety. Among the less obvious are duties on barges, pawnbrokers' takings, toys, theatre and concert tickets, buttons, corks, glass bottles, umbrellas, sheriffs and under-sheriffs, county commissioners and attorneys who keep clerks. On behalf of the last suggestion an anonymous writer points out that it would enhance the dignity of the legal profession. Another correspondent suggests a similar impost ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... John and his friends had somehow been less jovial than usual; they were absolutely dull enough to be talking politics. So, when the boy of many buttons tapped at the door, and meekly brought in Jonathan's message, recounting also how he had got Mr. Jennings in tow for some inexplicable crime, the strangeness of the affair was a very welcome incident: both host and guests hailed ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... priests were checking the authenticity of their disguises. A little apart from the others, a Paratime Policeman, in high priest's robes and beard, had a square box slung in front of him; he was fiddling with knobs and buttons on it, practicing. A big idol of Yat-Zar, on antigravity, was floating slowly about the room in obedience to its remote controls, rising and lowering, turning ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... same men who glory in this great event, even in the midst of a gasconade, turn to a foreigner, and ask him, 'What is the latest fashion in Europe?' He has worn an elegant suit of clothes for six weeks; he might wear it a few weeks longer, but it has not so many buttons as the last suit of my Lord ——. He throws it aside, and gets one that has. The suit costs him a sum of money; but it keeps him in the fashion, and feeds the poor of Great Britain or France. It is a singular phenomenon, and to posterity it will appear incredible, that a nation of heroes, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... our way about in a new country and trying to reconcile all sorts of opposites in a whole new country with new people, whom at first we shan't understand, and who certainly won't understand us; where every man carries a gun with as little thought of it as he has of buttons! Good-bye ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... Martin Poyser, while his family passed into the church. On the outside of this knot stood Mr. Casson, the landlord of the Donnithorne Arms, in his most striking attitude—that is to say, with the forefinger of his right hand thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat, his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his head very much on one side; looking, on the whole, like an actor who has only a mono-syllabic part entrusted to him, but feels sure that the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... me, I shall be happy," said the tinker, smiling, and then he began to feel the buttons on his waistcoat. "Loves me, loves me not, loves me, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... in the cathedral last Sunday, and the quete (the money taken), they said, was a large sum. I doubt it! I know what the quetes are here. Anything that can rattle in the bag is good. Buttons are particularly popular, as no one can see what you put in, and ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court sword; in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... forth its tones like the sighing of the wind among tombs. With regard to his dress, it is in admirable keeping with his countenance. He wears a black coat, fashioned in the mould of other times, with large cloth buttons and flowing skirts; drab inexpressibles, fastened at the knee with brass buckles; gaiters, which, reaching no higher than the calf of the leg, set up independent claims to eccentricity and exact consideration on their own account; creaking, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... living buttons!" he said, reflectively. "Couldn't even wait till my back was turned, but must kiss the maid under my nose!" He paused and rubbed his chin. "Her looked like Polly and her zounded like Polly . . . Dang this dimpsey old light, I've got a good mind to run after'n and ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... me, of passable appearance. I yearn to become a gentleman. If it is not troubling you too much, would you mind telling me how to set about the business? What socks and ties ought I to wear? Do I wear a flower in my button-hole, or is that a sign of a coarse mind? How many buttons on a morning coat show a beautiful nature? Does a stand-up collar with a tennis shirt prove that you are of noble descent, or, on the contrary, stamp you as a parvenu? If answering these questions imposes ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... a sense that these people were strange in a way that was at once unpleasant and yet interesting and exciting. They were both clad in uniforms cut unskilfully out of poor cloth, the man in a short coat with brass buttons, braided trousers, and a circular cap like a sailor's, and the woman in an old-fashioned dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a gored skirt; and round his cap and round the crown of her poke-bonnet were ribbons on which was ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West |
