"Crumple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that his words held a prophecy. Yet the pains recurred with increasing frequency and severity; his malady, angina pectoris, was making progress. And how bravely he bore it all! He never complained, never bewailed. I have seen the fierce attack crumple him when we were at billiards, but he would insist on playing in his turn, bowed, his face white, his hand ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... beast, came on, moving more rapidly than Tom had any idea he was capable of. Hampered by his camera our hero could not arise. The rhinoceros was almost upon him, and Ned, catching up a club, was just going to make a rush to the rescue, when the brute seemed suddenly to crumple up. It fell down in a heap, not five feet from where Tom and Mr. ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... just as he was sitting there quietly reading, I heard him utter a sort of yell. And when I looked at him, I saw his face was as white as chalk. And then he began to crush and crumple the paper, and to tear it into a thousand shreds. But he ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... of orange-peel, inadvertently left upon the floor of the arena, it is doubtful if the Griffin would ever have touched him. As St. George slipped, the Griffin hugged him tightly. Ridgwell held his breath, for it almost seemed as if St. George's armour must indeed crumple up. ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Prince's, and had with difficulty been driven off by the gallant protectors of the law. A man would read some passage which struck him as especially false; he would tell what he had seen or done, and he would crumple the paper in his hand and cry. "The liars! The dirty liars!"—adding adjectives not ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... which he might have put into execution, it was a call backward, a retrogression. He began already to be afraid that he might not be so resolute a second time. But he had no excuse for not going. That fact took the matter out of his hands. There was nothing to do but to crumple the letter into his pocket, take down his evening overcoat from its peg, and leave the house before any one ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... forcible blow, to snatch at some position into which guns and men may be thrust to outflank and turn the advantage of the ground against some portion of the enemy's line. The game will be largely to crowd and crumple that line, to stretch it over an arc to the breaking point, to secure a position from which to shell and destroy its supports and provisions, and to capture or destroy its guns and apparatus, and so tear it away from some town or arsenal it has covered. ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... which we have mentioned, to form the elaborated sap or plant-material which is now ready to be carried from the leaves to all parts of the plant or tree, to nourish it and continue its growth. Such is the important and wonderful work of the leaf, the tender, delicate leaf, which we crumple so easily in our fingers. It builds up, atom by atom, the tree and the great forests which beautify the world and provide for us a thousand comforts and conveniences. Our houses and the furniture in them, our boats and ships, the ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... should e'er mishap Betide my crumple visaged Ti, In shape of prowling thief, or trap, Or coarse bull-terrier—I should die. But ah! disasters have their use; And life might e'en be too sunshiny: Nor would I make myself a goose, If some big dog ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... to a gentle family in the Calendar of Monteith, and was celebrated even in boyhood for his feats of strength and daring. While still at school he could hold a hundredweight at arm's-length, and crumple up a horseshoe like a wisp of hay. The fleetest runner, the most desperate fighter in the country, he was already famous before his name was besmirched with crime, and he might have been immortalised as the Hercules of the seventeenth century, had not his ambition been otherwise ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... man were his two abettors in indecision, William Gazy and Jonathan Crumple. If ever the petition were to be forwarded, now was the time,—so said Mr Finney; and great was the anxiety on the part of those whose one hundred pounds a year, as they believed, mainly depended ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... houses as houses, streets as streets ... and not as something else. Minds that see things as they are and have kept things as they were.... Destroy those minds and the entire foundation of matter, robbed of its regenerative power, will crumple and slip away like ...
— The Street That Wasn't There • Clifford Donald Simak
... and leaned with his back against the wall, bracing his legs which threatened to crumple up under him. With a sort of craven bravado, he inhaled deeply. The end of the cigarette created a passing but none the less comforting glow which died away almost instantly. A jolly brave thing, a cigarette,—No wonder the soldiers smoked them! ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Percy must be wishing in his heart just then could only be realized, no doubt the leading biplane would crumple up, and drop to the ground ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... sharp breath and both his hands clutched at his own breast. He did not stagger and fall in the ordinary manner, but seemed to bend at the knees and waist and literally crumple ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... The boy stared at the girl blankly for a moment, then seemed to crumple as if from a new blow. "I suppose it was common gossip that Nita and Sprague were lovers, and I was the only one she fooled!... My God! To think all of you would stand by and let me marry her—a cheap little gold-digger from Broadway, living ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... beginner on skates are to the observers, especially if such be school-girls, subjects for unalloyed mirth. The nine girls choked and turned their backs and even giggled aloud as Miss Hyle went prone, now backward with a whack, now forward in a limp crumple. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... use your head, first place, and then how to use your hands. He is too heavy for you. He would crumple you up in ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... hair and radiant his face, and had hit his thumb, and jumped, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and had laughed and wrung his hands, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and laughed again. She came to him and saw him wilt and crumple in his chair, and could have sworn she saw the iron of his head, that had been raven, go grey anew and greyer yet. She came to him and she said, "Harry—Benji—an accident—not an accident—on ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... other women Leslie walked up to the little table where several letters were spread out. Millicent watched him as he did it, and there was no doubt that the very way he moved was suggestive of restrained eagerness. She saw him tear open a telegram and crumple it in his hand, after which he seized a second one and ripped it across the fold in his clumsy haste. Then as he put the pieces together his face grew suddenly pale and haggard. Nobody else, however, appeared to notice him, and he leaned with one hand upon the table for a moment or two with his ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... there must be a terrible and shocking scandal, and Beatrice would lose her good name. He placed himself in the position of counsel for the petitioner in a like case, and thought how he would crush and crumple such a defence in his address to the jury. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... down his stern and looked again. He drove up heedless of his direction as he watched. He saw the wind-vanes give, saw the huge fabric strike the earth, saw its downward vanes crumple with the weight of its descent, and then the whole mass turned over and smashed, upside down, upon the sloping wheels. Then from the heaving wreckage a thin tongue of white fire licked up towards the zenith. He was ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... is often not so bad a thing as folks think. It is nature's way of putting us right. Sometimes," he added thoughtfully, "we crumple up in the process, but we can hardly blame the old lady ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... over together. She clasped me tight and held me. She was trembling and almost crazy with joy. She took my head in her hands, and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my face. Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders. Melanie was right, the Mother Superior saw me. She came out of the chapel and came towards us. Sister Marie-Aimee saw her. She stopped kissing me, and put her hand on my shoulder. I put my arm round her, fearing that she would be taken away ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... mind about the child," retorted the woman; "look at him there—the innocent—all in the nasty slops. What'll the mother say to the mess and crumple you've made of ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... the circulating library gave the last aggravation to all the unwholesome particulars of his life. "Conceive what I must have been at fourteen," he exclaims. "I was in a continual low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every object of present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny corner and read, read, read; fancy myself on Robinson Crusoe's island finding a mountain of plum-cake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating it into the shapes of tables and chairs—hunger, and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... shouts, that made poor Larry crumple up as if he wanted to hide in a thimble. He looked around at the dark and angry faces to the right and to the left; and again wished he had thought twice before embarking on this wild scheme ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... impulse of Mary Louise was to crumple up the check and throw it in the man's face, to show her resentment of his base insinuations. But as she glanced at the check she saw it was for ten thousand dollars, and that meant sinews of war—help for our soldiers and our ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... the last words the paper slipped from Josiah's nerveless hands, and for many minutes he sat as one stricken blind and dumb. Then his poor, plebeian figure seemed to crumple up, and with an inarticulate cry of rage and despair he fell forward, with his head upon his ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... dunes before Fort Fisher. Red, reeking carnage rioted all about him. Hail, fumes, lightning and thunder of battle rolled over him and sickened him. He saw his own Massachusetts troop hurl itself up against the Confederate breastworks, crumple up on itself, and fade away back into the smoke. He lost it, and lost himself in the smoke. He wandered blindly over the field, now stumbling over a dead man, now speaking to a living stricken one: Here straightening a torn body ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... appeasements of crude desires,—all these were taken away, and thus stripped it was easy to see how small was his responsibility in the matter of life. He had crushed and injured this other human being, his wife, to whom he had come nearest, just as a dirty hand might soil and crumple a fine fabric. But she no longer reproached him, if she ever had; she understood the sad complexity of a fate that had brought into the hand the fabric to be tarnished. And what she could accept, others must, the world must, to whom the Prestons are ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... between the eyebrows. Ten years.—The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon and recovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in the same creases, on smiling or other change of feature.—Hold on! Stop that! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of that interesting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to Scratching.—In order to test a rubberized fabric to see if it has the necessary strength to stand everyday use, see if it is possible to scratch it with the finger nail. Then crease it and crumple it between the hands. Then spread it out very carefully and notice whether there are any broken places. If there are it ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... mass of the wreckage which dropped off did so upward of an hour after the explosions. It was at this time that the bulkhead began to buckle and the port door and dogging weaken. It was shored with mattresses under the personal direction of the executive. Up to this time and until the seas began to crumple the bulkhead completely, there was only a few inches of water in the two P. O. compartments; and even when the Cassin reached Queenstown, hardly more than three feet. None of the compartments directly under these three on the deck below—handling room, magazine, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... on the silent air, and was echoed from krantz and kloof and mountain side, and from above answered the thud of the bullet. For a moment the smitten bird swayed upon its wide pinions, then they seemed to crumple beneath its weight, and it fell heavily and lay flapping and striking at the stones ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... fired twice again at the balloon bag, and Pauline, clinging to his shoulder saw the monster that had held her a slave to its elemental power, that, like some winged gorgon had held her captive in the labyrinth of air, crumple and wither and fall at the prick of a bullet; saw it collapse into a mass of tangled leather and rope and slide in final ruin down ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... 'than this, that about an hour ago, while Conrad was gone out of the room, my husband was burning something over the lamp. At first I thought it was only tinder, but there was a sudden noise at the room door, and I fancied I heard my husband hastily crumple up a piece of paper, and throw it either under the window-seat or the cupboard. No one entered as my husband seemed to expect; it was only the cat scratching ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... window, and lay there peering in. The sill was just high enough above the roof level to make it necessary to raise himself a little on his hands to see inside, and the position was very trying. Moreover, the tin roof had a tendency to crumple noisily when he moved. He lay for some time, shivering in the chill, and wondering whether it would be safe ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... we've said, so far. That secret which the judge feared he would reveal, that secret which old Hastings was blundering after—that secret, Mr. Crown, was such a danger to him that, to escape the questioning of even stupid old Hastings, he could do nothing but crumple up on the floor and feign illness, prostration. Why, don't you see, he was afraid ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... she went to the nearest flower shop and bought a great mass of the yellow-crumple-leaved roses that Joyselle had once told ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... fire, which is at her back. Of these papers some reach the fire; others, but half consumed, fall back upon the floor. The flames of the wood-fire leap out and seize the papers—now one by one—now as they lie in little heaps. The flames leap up; the burning papers crumple along the floor, in little streaks of fire, catching others that lie, still farther on in the room, still unconsumed. Ere these papers have sunk into ashes, a fresh supply, thrown over her shoulder by the marchesa, have caught the flames. All the space behind ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... the boodle as if it had been chewing gum or a soiled handkerchief, and stuffed it indifferently into his already bulging pocket in a crumple as if it were not worth ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... all at once, but soon his face twisted in all directions in the broadest smile; it seemed as though sparks were flashing from his face and eyes. He squirmed, he doubled together, crumpled up. . . . His portmanteaus, bundles and cardboard boxes seemed to shrink and crumple up too. . . . His wife's long chin grew longer still; Nafanail drew himself up to attention and fastened all the ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... make gold flow, heap up gems; order, make, unmake, raise, destroy; be my mistress, my wife, my queen. I give you Egypt with its priests, its armies, its toilers, its numberless population, its palaces, its temples and cities. Crumple it up as you would crumple up gauze,—I will win other kingdoms for you, larger, fairer, and richer. If the world is not sufficient, I will conquer planets for you, I will dethrone the gods. You are she whom I love; Tahoser, the daughter of Petamounoph ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... face and blazing eyes rushed on at the side of the tall Southern giant, heard a dull thud. Then came a sort of gasping, choking cry that was audible even above the horrid din of battle. Jerry, in a glance, saw his big comrade crumple up in a heap, the whole front of his body torn away by a piece of shell. And for one terrible instant Jerry felt that he, himself, must fall there, too, so terrible was the sight. But he nerved himself to go on, and a backward glance showed ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... peevishly, and was about to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... wonderful. Though there was no noise, smoke nor flame, the steel plate seemed to crumple up, and collapse as if it had been melted in the fire. There was a jagged hole through the center, but some frail boards back of it ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... day the air grows balmier and softer on the cheek. Out in the garden, ranks of yellow-green pikes stand stiffly at "Present. Hump!" and rosettes of the same color crumple through the warm soil, unconsciously preparing for a soul tragedy. For an evening will come when a covered dish will be upon the supper-table, and when the cover is taken off, a subtle fragrance will ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... just looked in to ask if you are coming to polo on Tuesday: we want you badly to help to crumple up the Krab ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the craft which had so nearly, either by accident or design, wrecked them, they saw one of the big side planes crumple up, as does a bird's broken wing. Either the supports had given way, or a sudden gust of ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... to be a helpmate, at arm's length. Gospels of self-culture may take seeming root here and there in the exotic woman; but even in her, at some moment of swift passion or strong emotion, they will crumple up and fall off from her like a withered leaf. James Hinton knew a woman's nature but too well when he said that she would respond to the appeal "Lay down your life" more readily and more surely than to the appeal "Take up your rights." She certainly has a most divine power of flinging ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... kind of house, situated on a plot of ground containing two acres all his own. It is a mile and a half southeast of Winnsboro, S. C. He lives with an anaemic daughter, Maggie, whose chief interests are a number of cats, about the premises, and a brindled, crumple-horned cow that she ties out to graze every morning and ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... only to outflank them, crumple them up, roll them back on the impassable Delaware, and then—God ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... crumpled flowers, and the like. It goes against the principles of any right-minded female to give away tawdry fineries, and yet—and yet—Could I bear to destroy them? To see those little white gloves shrivel up in the flames, the high heeled little slippers crumple and split? It would seem like making a bonfire ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Charley Steele's ideas were suddenly shaken and scattered by a man's name, as a bolting horse will crumple into confusion a crowd of people. So this was the way his John Brown had come home to roost. He lifted the empty whiskey-glass to his lips and drained air. He was terribly thirsty; he needed something to pull himself together. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Northfields in the afternoon. Bright sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same degree of warmth in summer. Oaks,—some brown, some reddish, some still green; walnuts, yellow,—fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath; the footsteps crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees, where green grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed I disturbed multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and they began to hop, hop, hop, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps some presumptuous sin has suddenly revealed its foul face in the life of one of our children. And we are "all at sea!" Our little, neat hypotheses crumple like withered leaves. Our accustomed roads are all broken up, our conventional ways of thinking and feeling, and the sure sequences on which we have depended vanish in a night. It is experiences like these which make the soul ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... next room!" he whispered. "You shall be called immediately if she wakes and wants you. But you'll crumple up ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... care, you mustn't crumple your shirt-front. Perhaps it removes? Ah, allow me. (He detaches it and hastily substitutes the other one for it.) Ah, thank you so much. Here is your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... latter case I would announce to the passers-by the glad news that I had struck a miraculous bargain at a wholesale bankruptcy sale, for instance, and exhort them not to miss their golden opportunity. I also learned to crumple up new underwear, or even to wet it somewhat, and then shout that I could sell it "so cheap" because it was ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... sere now, and thirty feet high, and cast long shadows that stretched out of sight, and the little seeds that clustered in its upper branches were brown and ripe. Its work was done, and it was brittle and ready to fall and crumple under the freezing air, so soon as the nightfall came. And the huge cacti, that had swollen as we watched them, had long since burst and scattered their spores to the four quarters of the moon. Amazing little corner in the universe—the landing ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... peaceful eye of prophecy. Just so would she herself look years hence. Her hair would part sparsely to the wind, like hers, and show here and there silver instead of golden lustres. There would be a soft rosetted cap of lace to hide the thinnest places, and her cheeks, like her aunt's, would crumple and wrinkle as softly as old rose leaves, and, like her aunt, in this guise she would walk ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the rail, riveted by the paralysis of fright, saw her champion stagger back and half crumple to the deck. Then she saw him make a brave and desperate rally, as, though torn with agony, he lurched forward in an endeavor to clinch with the brute before him. Again the mucker struck his victim—quick choppy hooks that rocked Mallory's head from side to side, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... unending circus procession. In the towns at night our inns were besieged by multitudes, so that we got no peace until the soldiers drove them off with lance-pricks and blows. But first Kim would call for the village strong men and wrestlers for the fun of seeing me crumple them and put ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of the soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike. A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken stick made his trembling hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... minute the two stared at each other. She was about to make a defiant reply and let come what might, when a sort of spasm distorted his face. His mouth opened gaspingly, his eyes rolled back in his head like a dying man's. He seemed to crumple up, and she caught him as he fell. Her terrified shriek brought Hoichi, who took instant charge of the situation. He made the unconscious man comfortable on a divan, applied such restoratives as were at hand, and ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... read aright now that my hair is grey, And I can manage the original. At five years old—how ill had fared its leaves! Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite, At least I soil no page with bread and milk, Nor crumple, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... I send two Rampore hounds from my kennel to make the kill of a tiger you may tackle Amir Khan. Even if we could crumple up this blighter it's not cricket—we need those Pindari chaps—but not as dead men. Besides, I ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... should e'er mishap Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, In shape of prowling thief, or trap, Or coarse bull-terrier—I should die. But ah! disasters have their use; And life might e'en be too sunshiny: Nor would I make myself a goose, If some big dog ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... read. Clearly the April Fool had become the object of the most unanimous taboo ever set in motion on a ship. Her name was mud. Even the men did not rally to her aid, though she had been popular enough with them before. There are few men who will not crumple up before a phalanx of women with daggers in their hands and feathers in their hair; even as the big-game hunter thinks it no shame to flee before a horde of singing ants! The only two who behaved with natural decency were ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... is your bank book." What emphasis he put on those words! "It shows you what you have at the bank. Don't fold it. Don't crumple it. Don't get it dirty. But above all things don't lose it, or let it be stolen from you. If you do, you may lose your entire deposit. We cannot remember you all. Whoever brings your book here may draw out your money. So put this book in a safe ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... forward collision-bulkhead. "I want to crumple up, but I'm stiffened in every direction. Ease off; you dirty ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... even yell. But at the second when he seemed to crumple all together, falling as an empty sack falls, some involuntary jerk of his finger sent a bullet zooming into ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge DID crumple up I'd want to SEE it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to act; he would break the back of Northern Consolidated if it took the last share of those four hundred thousand! His courage never wavered; he would charge and keep charging; in the end his cavalry work must tell and the lines of Northern Consolidated crumple up like paper. All it required was dash and confidence, with an underlying grim determination to win or die, and Northern ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... clo's,—de blue coat dat you wo' ter de weddin' fo'ty years ago, an' dem dere plaid pants I gun Mistuh Cohen fo' dollars fer three years ago; an' w'en I looked in my closet dis mawnin', suh, befo' I got ready ter sta't fer Belleview, dere wuz my clo's layin' on de flo', all muddy an' crumple' up, des lack somebody had wo' 'em in a fight! Somebody e'se had wo' my clo's,—er e'se dere'd be'n some witchcraf, er some sort er devilment gwine on dat I can't make out, ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to cut herself free of the fiendish power that was searing her mind and slowly crushing her. She remembered that in her faint, when she lay limp and inert, a thing of dread, she had felt herself crumple up at the touch of Jim—Jim reaching out to her. Now she would cut herself free of him at the very source of his power over her. She would go ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... released from its paralyzing effect by a neutralizing charge from the same gun, while under its power the victim was reduced to a state of mild hysteria. He was able to hear, see, and think, but not to act. When released, it was not unusual to see a man crumple to the floor ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... Rata were laughing at the smart policy of their Admiral, and rejoicing in the near prospect of a turning of the tables—(for could they once get the Englishman betwixt them and the Duke of Parma's fleet, which was waiting on the Dutch coast, they would crumple him up like chaff between two mill-stones)—already, I say, they were counting on seeing the enemy run past them, down the wind; when, lo, with a derisive shot or two into the air, the Englishmen put about quietly, and after ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... I taught school in the hills of Tennessee, where the broad dark vale of the Mississippi begins to roll and crumple to greet the Alleghanies. I was a Fisk student then, and all Fisk men thought that Tennessee—beyond the Veil—was theirs alone, and in vacation time they sallied forth in lusty bands to meet the county school-commissioners. Young ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... right herself—plenty of proofs," said Guerchard brutally. "What chance has a silly child like that got, when we really start questioning her? A delicate creature like that will crumple up before the end of the ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... said, with a fine affectation of aloofness, "we shall have to be rather hard upon you; we shall crumple you up like—" Churchill had been moving his stick absent-mindedly in the dust of the road, he had produced a big "C H U." She had erased it with the point of her ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... Now, I crumple it up at one corner, and tie it to Mr. Balloon's half yard or so of tail, and turn him loose in the room. He rises slowly for a little, and then as slowly settles down to the floor. That won't do. I want to see him ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... "you shall not do any lessons, and while I am busy with Nanna and Margaretta you may amuse yourselves quietly. After dinner you shall all go out for a walk. If you crumple up your pinafore in that way, Sophia Jane," she added, "you will ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... first half-minute, he saw at least fifty compartmented prefabs partly crumple, as explosives tore into them. A dozen, torn open, were deflated entirely. The swimming pool globe was punctured, and a cloud of frosty vapor made rainbows in the sunshine, as the water boiled away. Far out, Nelsen saw the rockets he and his own men had launched, sparkling soundlessly, ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... his bar, with failing force but still deadly effect, on the loathsome face of the nearest Rogan, grunting with satisfaction as he saw it crumple into a shapeless mass. He thrust it, spear-like, into ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... repulsed; therefore their generals determined, instead of making a direct attack on the 31st against the Confederate position, to take a wide sweep round, cross the river higher up, and falling upon the Confederate left flank, to crumple it up. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... growth and decay, the particles are more or less in flux; but in feathers, after their formation, the attraction of aggregation remains constant, and by means of it their particles continue fixed in their places, not only with the life of the bird, but long after. Nay, you may even crumple them up, and toss them away as worthless, and yet if you expose them to the vapour of steam, they will not only recover their form, but they can be made to look as beautiful ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... could be answered, another yell of the most appalling and complex nature rang out upon the night-air, struck them dumb, and seemed to crumple up their ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... situation had become so pressing that on this sector nothing could save them from disaster except a complete and hurried retreat. They were all but outflanked on their right, which was already very seriously bent back; while in the centre General Foch had driven in a wedge which bade fair to crumple up the whole line. ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... will be no one can say. It was formerly believed that whenever a nation reached the limit which Germany has reached it would crumple up. But Germany fails to crumple. Instead of breaking up, she fights harder and more desperately. Why can she do this? The answer is simple: Because the German people believe in their Government and the Government knows that as long as it can convince the people that it is winning ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... Olly, though our table-cloth won't look over tidy at tea if you crumple it up like that. Now, Milly, bring me that tray of bread and the little bundle of salt; and, Olly, bring me that bit of butter over there, done up in the green leaves, but mind you carry it carefully. Now for some knives too; ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... if the building were kneeling to the power of the wind, and the southern portion of the house, though still erect, seemed tottering and rotten throughout and holding together until at a final blow the whole structure would crumple at once. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... revolver went through the heart of the outlaw; but so relentless was the man that, even after that, his twitching fingers emptied the revolver. O'Connor fired only once. He watched his opponent crumple up, fling wild shots into the upholstery and through the roof, and sink into the silence from which there is no awakening on this side of the grave. Then he went forward and looked ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... significance to the breaking of the Russian lines and the consequent Russian retreat toward the Narew River, particularly as the German advance between the Pissa and Vistula rivers threatens to crumple the right flank positions ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... mean by calling England an abstraction. For us, she's the only thing in the world. We're elderly chaps, you and I, Perkins, and the only thing we can do to help her is to keep our heads high. If people like you and me crumple up, the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... wiped his forehead. He was playing a lost game, and he was not the sort of man who plays lost games well. The Waring type is dangerous when it is winning, but it is apt to crumple up ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the bottom of the social scale. It was not a simple matter of ordering pills for them from the pharmacy, or castor oil from the medicine room. I had to sit beside their beds when they heard the truth; I had to see the women crumple up and go limp; I had to tell the blind child's father that he did it, to bolster up the weak girl, to rebuild the wife's broken ideals, to suppress the rowdy and the roysterer, to hear the vows of the boy who was paying for his first mistake, and listen to the stories of ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... seemed to crumple as though all power had suddenly left her, and sank downwards upon the floor, huddling against the bed with agonized sobbing, her black head bowed ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... seat by the table opposite the old smuggler, and saw the latter crumple the letter, and ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you, Captain Roland; for you start and change color,—you suppress a cry as you break the seal; you breathe hard as you read; and the letter seems short—but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it up, crumple it, thrust it into your breast-pocket, and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lackey coughed, choked, clutched his assassin by each shoulder; thus he stood with a bewildered face, shuddering visibly, every muscle twitching. Suddenly he shrieked, with an odd, gurgling noise, and his grip relaxed, and Francis Vanringham seemed to crumple among his garments, so that he shrank rather than fell to the floor. His hands stretched forward, his fingers spreading and for a moment writhing in agony, and then ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... where you are, Orry," murmured Lafe. "There's a Boche after us. We've got out of Archie's range, but I've one of their planes on our heels. Whist! Git down lower! He's going to fire. If he does, I - I'll crumple up. We'll land ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... of 'em, specially guarded, I s'pose, by good influences, got along with no further trouble than the loss of the chin, and the feelin' they must have had inside of 'em, that they wuz liable to crumple right down any minute. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... gratuitous and unnecessary occupation in seeing her woman pack up. It was just the kind of task that delighted her. To sit in a large chair and see somebody else at work—to say languidly, "Don't crumple that scarf, Jane; and where shall we put Miss Caroline's blue bonnet?"—gave her a very comfortable notion of her own importance and habits of business,—a sort of title to be the superintendent of a family and the wife ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and tired. The vision that had seemed so close, so tangible, so ready to be made actual, had suddenly retreated beyond her reach, and she was left as empty of heart and hand as she had been before. For a moment her whole figure seemed to crumple; and then she shook herself together into a ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... match to the letter and watched it crumple to ashes on the rusty stove-hearth. Then he carefully swept the ashes on a newspaper, and, opening his doors again, he scattered them in the dusty main ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... four stories, above ground, though it was the tallest in the city. The trees, like seaweed, floated most of their enormous weight in the dense air, but the buildings under the gravitational acceleration, which was more than one hundred times Earth's gravity, could not be built very high ere they crumple under their own weight. Though one of these men weighed approximately two hundred pounds on Earth, for all their short stature, on this planet their weight was more than ten tons! Only the enormously dense atmosphere permitted ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... she listened, plumed her head as a pigeon would preen its feathers, stood up to see her train sweep the floor, sat down again to watch the stained satin folds crumple themselves about her feet, and was at last so overcome by it all that she threw her arms around Sam, to his intense delight, and kissed him twice, and would have given Nat an equal number had not Felix called to him that the guests were ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Mr. Failing had showed him, and which he would show Rickie now, instead of talking nonsense. Bending down, he illuminated the dimpled surface of the ford. "Quite a current." he said, and his face flickered out in the darkness. "Yes, give me the loose paper, quick! Crumple it into ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... instantly, and cut a way for it across other people's ideas and notions with the impetus and onslaught of a cannon-ball. That Monday his mentality was below—or above—normal. He kept telling himself that he was mixed. His desire to crush Steering, pick him up and crumple him and thrust him aside, stood before him constantly, like the picture of the physical thing. Up to the time that he had seen his daughter run out of the dining-room that morning, her face averted, ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... was smashed and driven back on his second defenses. Wardsworth at the head of his division was mortally wounded and fell into Longstreet's hands. At the height of his triumph in a movement that must crumple Grant's army back on the banks of the river, Longstreet fell, shot by his own men. In the change of commanders the stratagem ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... elements to contend with, and the corruption there has been frightful. I should not be surprised at a big movement there in time. Still, we are doing very well; our forces are becoming well organized, and in another year or so I think the Boches'll begin to crumple up.' ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... you have so often in innocent raillery made it a sort of reproach against me that I possessed such a calm, and, for a woman, cool-headed temperament that I should be like the woman we read of—if the house was threatening to tumble down, I should, before hastily fleeing, stop to smooth down a crumple in the window-curtains—I need hardly tell you that the beginning of your letter quite upset me. I could scarcely breathe; there was a bright mist before my eyes. Oh! my darling Nathanael! what could this terrible thing be that had happened? Separation ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... flung, and closing in upon her before she knew of its existence. An awe of his cleverness, his trickery, gripped her in a clutch of ice. The whole fabric of her own desires and plans and purposes seemed to crumple like the white ash in a dead fire, leaving her nothing. She had been out-witted instead of outfought. One more evidence of the man's ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... the leaping cat seemed to crumple up in the air. It turned completely over, as though by the impact of something that had struck it. And when it reached the ground it lay even beyond the ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Falcon's eyes twinkle, and I have seen his mouth work—times without number. I have seen him thrust a decanter upon the sideboard and disappear shaking from the apartment. But never before have I seen his self-control crumple as a ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... were charging the Germans in the rear with Wilson, Whitely, and Sinclair supporting them with bare fists. It seemed that Bradley was doomed when, apparently out of space, an arrow whizzed, striking Schwartz in the side, passing half-way through his body to crumple him to earth. With a shriek the man fell, and at the same time Olson and Brady saw the slim figure of a young girl standing at the edge of the jungle coolly fitting another arrow to ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... seemed to be in his mind. I assured him that American opinion was optimistic in regard to the chances of the Allies, and strolled away. Hardly had I gone ten feet, when a "seventy-seven" shell, arriving without warning, went Zip-bang, and, turning to crouch to the wall, I saw the sentry crumple up in the mud. It was as if he were a rubber effigy of a man blown up with air, and some one had suddenly ripped the envelope. His rifle fell from him, and he, bending from the waist, leaned face down into the mud. I was the first to get to ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... might be severe and final, he only needed a few weeks for the reorganization of his once formidable cavalry. Then he could vent his rage upon Austria. Then he could overthrow the Hungarian horse, and crumple up the ill-trained Austrian foot. A short truce, he believed, was useless: it would favour the allies more than the French. And, under the specious plea that the discussion of a satisfactory peace must take up at least ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... had been wrapped in a piece of newspaper, which spread out upon his knees, was now doing duty as a tablecloth. Having finished his meal, the man lazily glanced at the paper; but finding its contents, at first, to possess no particular interest, he was about to crumple it up and throw it away, when his eye lighted on a paragraph which induced him to pause. He smoothed out the paper, and raised it nearer ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... flung themselves at Caurobert's artillery, and for aught they knew twenty battalions in front, to save the battered 24th German Infantry, to give time to decide the fate of Vionville, and to learn ere their remnant came back to Flavigay that cavalry can attack and crumple and break unshaken infantry. Whenever he was inclined to think over a life that might have been better, an income that might have been larger, and a soul that might have been considerably cleaner, the Nilghai would comfort himself ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... comes in very nicely just now," drawled Maizie. "Elsie needs a spur to keep her going. Keep her in a rage and she's a fine little mischief-maker. Let her calm down and she's likely to crumple. She really has some idea of principle, only she doesn't know it. I wonder if she'll ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... bumped and I presume bruised, but not hurt. However, I decided to lie still here for a while until I recovered my nerves and disposition. Then I tried to climb back to you for consolation and found that my legs would crumple under me in the most absurd fashion. So I fell to making disagreeable noises so you would come and find me. What are we going to do, Tory? I can't walk and I weigh too much ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... unprotected; so absolutely at his mercy because she loved the children. "Never let him blackmail you," Peter had said. "Stand up to him always, and he'll probably crumple up." ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... was only too pleased to crumple up a crape frill and to smear a black dress with sticky little fingers for the sake of the sugar which ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... run is one hundred and eighty miles. The 1010's tank is good for one hundred with a train, or a possible hundred and sixty, light. There is about one chance in a thousand that Callahan's crown-sheet won't get red-hot and crumple up on him in the last twenty miles. Let's take a car and go down to yard limits. We can sit in the office and hear what goes over the wires, even if we can't get a finger in to help ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... which you hold the paper several times slowly over the candle until the paper takes fire; then immediately blow the candle out, and presently pass your hand over the snuff and relight it with the paper. You may then crumple the paper, at the same time extinguishing the flame, by squeezing it suddenly, without burning yourself. If this trick be performed dextrously, it is a very good one. It is not necessary for the performance of this trick that all ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... one British pilot, flying at 1,000 ft., saw four hostile craft at about 5,000 ft., and dived more than a mile directly at them. As he whirled past the nearest machine he opened fire, and saw the observer crumple up in the fusselage as the pilot put the machine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... men who look as though they were born to wear blue ribbons. It has come, probably, from study, but it seems to be natural. Sir Timothy did not impose on those who looked at him as do these men. You could see a little of the paint, you could hear the crumple of the starch and the padding; you could trace something of uneasiness in the would-be composed grandeur of the brow. "Turveydrop!" the spectator would say to himself. But after all it may be a question whether a man be open to reproach for not doing that ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... poisoning our meat and drink, that they may thereby bury their shameful secret. But I declare their design aloud, so that every man may know it. This girl is Hetfalusy's grand-daughter. This girl is in our power, and if these fine gentlemen so much as crumple a single hair of any of your heads, I will plunge this knife ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... from the watching Germans, who knew that an explosion close to an aeroplane is often sufficient, through the force of air concussion alone, to crumple the flimsy wings and bring it down, even though none of the flying shrapnel from the bursting bomb actually touch ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... wrote Mirabeau after Frederick's death. "But at the first gunshot or at the first stormy situation the whole of this little scaffolding of mediocrity will topple to the ground. How all these underling Ministers would crumple up! How everyone, from the distracted chief to the convict-gang, would shout for a pilot! Who would that ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Crucifix krucifikso. Crucifixion krucumo. Crucify krucumi. Crude kruda. Cruel kruela. Cruelty kruelo—eco. Cruet oleujo. Cruise krozi. Cruiser krozsxipo. Crumb (bread) panmolajxo. Crumble elfali. Crumple cxifi. Crupper postajxo. Crush premegi. Crust krusto. Crustaceous kankrogenta. Crutch lambastono. Cry (call out) krii. Cry (weep) plori. Cry out ekkrii. Cry (of animals, etc.) bleki. Crypt subterajxo. Crystal ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... coin into the envelope again, crumple it up, coin and envelope, wheel round and go straight towards the landlady, who is still keeping an eye on me from the doorway, and throw it in her face. I said nothing; I uttered no syllable—only ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... to avoid: the moment which nature must dominate. Even as she struggled, with an ebbing strength of body and will she realized that in the wild moment of his triumph she was a sharer. If he were to release her now she would crumple down inertly at his feet. Almost fainting under the sweep of emotion, her muscles grew inert, her struggles ended. The ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... trained, but they have no fighting spirit, like the enemy. Their training, it is no more than a form of amusement, a recreation, the following of custom. He taught it, and my people drill, knowing not for what they train. See! Their beautiful ranks crumple and go down before the formless ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... yawn and crumple these sheets together in your hand, saying: 'What ails the man—is he grown doity? I thought he was contented, even if ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... them on his back for bedding. The brambles, too, all hoops and arches, have the air of dying things, though white blossoms still continue to appear, and the fruit is not yet all ripened and many of the leaves are as red and bright as flowers. The edges of most of the leaves have began to crumple: they are victims of a creeping sickness that eats into them and dirties them, and makes bramble and fern together an ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... shattered; the girl lay dead on her dead brothers. Wounded and weaponless, he had been chased by the infuriate horde. "Now you know, inquiring woman," he closes his narrative, "why I do not bear the name of Friedmund!" (Frieden: peace.) With this simple sally, whose bitterness is not enough to crumple the serene forehead, he rises and walks to the hearth, striding to the noble march-measure we know as the motif of the heroism of the Waelsungen,—proud in its first bars, with Siegmund's pride, tender in the last, with Sieglinde's tenderness, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... frown and crumple it up and throw it away, as if you were on the stage, Mr. Bullard," said Teddy. "You were never more in real life than you are now. Take your pen, fill in the blank, sign at foot, and return to me. And listen! The man you lied so well about ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... the leaf out, but this time he did not crumple it. He blotted it carefully, folded it, and ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... said, "rather queer is, I've never seen others that way; I simply don't know what a fear is; I really rejoice in the fray, I guess I'm the champion glarer, my glance seems to wilt all my foes; I've seen fellows crumple with terror before we had got down to blows. This made me so often the victor; no qualms in my bosom I feel; I don't fear a boa constrictor—my heart is an engine ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... always licked them, sir, and always shall do. There was the old days when the Black Prince thrashed them. I am a Canterbury boy and have seen his armor hanging up in the Cathedral many a time; that is how I came to know about him, and then I have heard that Marlborough used to crumple them up whenever he met them; and then there was Wellington again. Why, they have never had so much as a chance with us, and on sea we have licked them worse than on land. Well, it ain't in nature men ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... balance, screeched open; air swooshed past him in its sudden escape from the room. He squeezed himself through, peered carefully about to see a slim spacesuit start to crumple floorward in a ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart |
