"Astraddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the custom with such gentry, who, when they see a likely man sitting, are allowed by custom to ride astraddle upon his knees with most suggestive movements, till he buys them off. These Ghawazi are mostly Gypsies who pretend to be Moslems; and they have been confused with the Almahs or Moslem dancing- girls proper (Awalim, plur. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think of one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. There was a possibility that the bull ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have nothing to hold myself on by," said our hero, now fairly astraddle of his strange steed, though pressing as ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... declaring 'if you ever enter into that high office, you must go into it unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to be drawn from your whole life, character and conduct,' so much resembles a lottery vender's sign, with the goddess of good luck sitting on the car of fortune, astraddle of the horn of plenty, and driving the merry steeds of beatitude, without reins or bridle, that I cannot help exclaiming, 'O, frail man, what have you done that will exalt you? Can anything be drawn from your LIFE, CHARACTER OR CONDUCT that is worthy of being held up to the gaze of this nation ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... still looking backward with all his eyes, Ting-a-ling stepped quietly up before him, and slipped the bridle over his head! It was of no use for the grasshopper to struggle and pull back, for Ting-a-ling was astraddle of him in a moment, kicking him with his heels, ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... under the other bank, I would hold the canoe while Billy, astraddle the other end for the purpose of depressing the water to within reach of his hand, would bail away the consequences of our crossing. Then we would make up the quarter of a mile we ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... trying to bite it. Instead it sank in behind the dog's forelegs, the beast's own weight tearing a deadly gaping wound the length of its body. It was still alive when it hit the ground, but Rhes was astraddle it, pulling back the bony-plated head to cut ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... reached for the scepter, though he had not loosed his grip on the gouge. You will know him here and hereafter by his everlasting grip on the gouge. He will take that gouge to Tophet with him. Then it will be heated red-hot and he will prance around hell astraddle of it. But in the meantime he is hot after the honors of this world. Give him his crown, say we. He has prepared a nice, new hair mattress on his brow where the diadem will rest easy. Under his coat of arms—to wit, a yellow he-goat rampant in a field of purple ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... by Punch by four-and-thirty years (p. 53, Vol. XXXV., August 7th, 1858). Leech's "Mistress of the Hounds," too—how fantastic the idea was thought in those days, and laughed at accordingly!—has since become a hard, astraddle, uncompromising fact; and the lady's safety riding-skirt, that attached itself to the saddle when the lady lost her seat, anticipated by thirty years the patent for a similar contrivance taken out in 1884. Indeed, Punch's picture of November, 1854, was put in as evidence before ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... was given to march, and, headed by the pipers, who commenced their inspiring skirl to the beat of the drums, they moved away over the rough, broken ground, the general standing astraddle and watching it all through his monocle with critical eye, and keeping up a fire of sarcastic ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux |
