"Lean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sidney is really angry, this time! What could have hap—" She glanced up at the mine buildings perched above the roadway and smothered a little cry. Ford's eyes followed hers. All across the slab-built shaft-house and the lean-to ore sheds was stretched a huge canvas sign. And in letters of bright blue, freshly painted and two feet high, ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... in arm. On the edge of the light, the middle one, a low, thick-set, black-browed fellow, pushed his comrades away, fell drunkenly, and slipped loosely to the street, while the two stood above him in disgust. One of them was a mere boy and the other was a giant, with a lean face, so like Lincoln's that Crittenden started when the ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... laughter went up from those around, whereat the poor boy looked as he would die of shame; but Robin Hood turned sharply to Will Stutely. "Why, how now," quoth he, "is this the guest that thou hast brought us to fill our purse? Methinks thou hast brought but a lean cock ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... near the window. She raised her palms to her temples and stepped back unsteadily until she could lean against the wall. Before her eyes rose a vision of the college campus—another of the care-free dormitory, then the picture dissolved into another and she found herself trembling. Memory was playing ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... body bristled with it, from his stiff and heavy shock of blonde hair parted carefully on the left side, to his high-heeled boots. The few light hairs that stood in lonely abandonment on his upper lip, the rest of his lean visage always well shorn, had no small part in the grand effect ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... she could see his eyes they were closed. She hoped he slept, but sat down in uncertainty rather than risk waking him. In the moonlit garden Aline and Geoffry paced to and fro. To see them his mother would have to stand and lean over the cot, and neither good mothers nor good nurses do that. She kept her seat, anxiously hoping that the moonlight out there would remain soft enough to veil the worn look which daylight betrayed on her son's face whenever he fell ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... what to do, and well I did it; for when I opened my eyes, even without moving them from the cliff-side, I saw that the ledge was little more than a foot wide, and that ever so little a lean of the body would dash me on the rocks below. So I crept on, but spent much time that was so precious in travelling those ten yards to take me round the first elbow of the path; for my foot was heavy and gave me fierce pain to drag, though I tried ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... sweethearts with them had they known the kind of expedition they were engaged for. You bid me choose carefully, picked men who held life and death in such easy balance that they would take whichever happened without a murmur; and now you bring us a lean forester who is good for naught but felling trees, and a lad whose mother might still whip ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... civilization, to depress the sense of the supernatural in man, and fix his thoughts on the present world: and it is generally the sense of trouble alone which can lift men out of themselves, and recall to their remembrance the presence of a God on whom the sorrowing heart may lean ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... the brook and let me bathe your face," Dane suggested. "It is not far, and you can lean on me." ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... in no mental condition to sustain the terrible pressure which it undergoes; it would sink of its own weight. Yet it must be acknowledged that in the making of a race overseriousness is a far lesser failing than its reverse, and even the faults resulting from it lean toward ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... ground, that on all sides Delicious odour breathed. A pleasant air That intermitted never, never veer'd, Smote on my temples, gently as a wind Of softest influence, at which the sprays, Obedient all, lean'd trembling to that part Where first the holy mountain casts his shade, Yet were not so disordered, but that still Upon their top the feathered quiristers Applied their wonted art, and with full joy Welcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrill Amid the ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... kissed the red mouth and looked down upon her with a glance that made his man's face as pitiful as any woman's as he let her lean there happy in the hope given at such cost. For a moment nothing stirred in the room but the soft whisper of the wind. For a moment Warwick's austere life looked hard to him, love seemed sweet, submission possible; for in all the world this was the only woman who clung ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... people gravely; then, turning to the young men, he said, "Anne, lean against the tapestry; it may last ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... moment, fortunately without having heard Lucy's patient speech. "Don't lean your wet, dirty arms on the table, boy," said she with a sharp glance at Tom. "If you must be in, sit on your chair like ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... magnificent creature, centre of those multitudinous and admiring eyes, brave, ready for battle, his attitude a challenge. He sees his enemy: horsemen sitting motionless, with long spears in rest, upon blindfolded broken-down nags, lean and starved, fit only for sport ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... walls and sliding windows, a sort of drying-loft with a stove in the middle, and with stovepipes hanging in wires along the ceiling. The walls are decorated with a number of sketches, painted fans, and palettes; several framed pictures lean against the wainscoting. Smell of paints and tobacco smoke; brushes, tubes, overcoats which the guests had thrown aside; an old rubber shoe filled with nails and junk; on the easel in the corner a large, ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... noble height thou canst not climb; All triumphs may be thine in time's futurity, If whatsoe'er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt, But lean upon the staff ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... raise myself on my hind legs and lean against that blade of grass I'll be able to see you, and you'll be able to look into my eyes. You ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... oddly you hold your feet, my dear,' she said; 'you stick out your toes in such an eccentric fashion, and you lean on your legs as if they were table legs, instead of supporting yourself by my hand. Turn your heels well out, and bring your toes together. You may even let them fold over each other a little; it is considered to have ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... old. There existed no impediment, therefore; and after a decent interval spent in persuasions, Margery consented to plight her vows to the man of her heart before they left the spot. She would fain have had Dorothy present, for woman loves to lean on her own sex on such occasions, but submitted to the necessity of proceeding at once, as the bee- hunter and the missionary chose ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Last's was a lively affair. At the long tables in the eating room the riders gathered, lean, tanned men, young mostly, all alert, quick-eyed, swift in judgment. Their days were full and earnest enough, running Last's cattle on the Lost Valley ranges. The evenings were their own, and they made the most of them. The big house was free to them, and they made it home, smoking, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... Wilderness afforded; although the extreme right rested on no obstacle which superiority in numbers could not overcome. And a heavy force, massed in the clearing at Dowdall's as a point d'appui, was indispensable to safety, inasmuch as the conformation of the ground afforded nothing for this flank to lean upon. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... was a witch, discovered that her daughter had gone off with the prince, and told her husband he must leave his bed and go after them. The king got slowly up, groaning with pain, and dragged himself to the stables, where he saw the lean ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... as architectural interest is concerned, an arid waste. Such a place is Castres, prosperous, industrial, historically dramatic, but actually commonplace. Old houses, picturesque and mouldy, with irregular, overhanging eaves, lean along the banks of the little river as they are wont to line the banks of every old stream of the Midi, and they are nearly all the remains of Castres' Mediaevalism. For her streets are well-paved, trolleys pass to and fro, department ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... foolish, little and loud, Long and lazy, black and proud; Fat and merry, lean and sad, Pale and peevish, red ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... tendency of fallen humanity to run wildly into opposite extremes of error; because the Popish system gives worldly possessions too high a place in the concerns of the soul, we may readily fall into the error of giving them no place at all. We lean hard over against the superstition that expects by alms, and money paid for masses, to smooth the spirit's path to peace beyond the grave; but when we have refused to make money directly the price of our admission into heaven, we have not exhausted our duty in regard to its bearing on our eternal ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... then I might have hardened My soul in misery, and have had comfort. I would have stood far off, quiet though dark, 240 And bade the race of men raise up a mourning For a deep horror of desolation, Too great to be one soul's particular lot! Brother of Zagri! let me lean upon thee. The time is not yet come for woman's anguish, 245 I have not seen his blood—Within an hour Those little ones will crowd around and ask me, Where is our father? I shall curse thee then! Wert thou in heaven, my curse would pluck ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... when a step on the piazza below made him come to the rail again and lean over. It was Phyl. She vanished and then reappeared again, leaving the lower piazza and coming right out into the garden. He waited till the sun had caught her in both hands, holding her against the background of the cherokee roses, ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... fashion among the gentry, but if it comes to be so among tradesmen, we shall soon see that wealthy tradesmen will be hard to find; for they who will not save as well as gain, must expect to go out of trade as lean ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... down his quarry. He who has ever been really hungry, either in the Arctic or elsewhere, will understand this feeling. Sometimes the memory of it rushes over me in unexpected places. I have felt it after a hearty dinner, in the streets of a great city, when a lean-faced beggar has held ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... a minute ago when I said there remained nothing to remind us of the right little, tight little island we had just quit; for we had two Englishmen in our compartment—fit and proper representatives of a certain breed of Englishman. They were tall and lean, and had the languid eyes and the long, weary faces and the yellow buck teeth of weary cart-horses, and they each wore a fixed expression of intense gloom. You felt sure it was a fixed expression because any person with such an expression would change it if he could do so by anything short ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... upon them, occupied the other, giving accommodation to cows, horses, pigs, and chickens innumerable. Immediately before the house was a small potato garden, with a few peach and apple trees. The house was built of logs, and consisted of two rooms, besides a little shanty or lean-to, that was used as a kitchen. Both rooms were comfortably furnished with good beds, drawers, &c. The farmer's wife, and a young woman who looked like her sister, were spinning, and three little children were playing about. The woman told me that they spun ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... waly, up the bank, And waly, waly, doun the brae, And waly, waly, yon burn-side, Where I and my Love wont to gae! I lean'd my back unto an aik, I thocht it was a trustie tree; But first it bow'd and syne it brak— Sae my true love did ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... not lean too hard," he answered. "I don't want your fine, straight back to stoop. I make no demands. I'll not spoil your young life. I'm not worth it. You're free to go when you can't stand me ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... over a Commission on Irish Land Laws. He was a very kind, very lean man, who was wont in old age to walk about London wrapped in a black cape, and was idolised at Harrow, where twenty generations of boys knew him and his brothers and valued their unabated interest in school cricket. Baron Dowse, a judge I have already mentioned, the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... to choose to whom they shall confide their vital interests, i.e., future existence, they prefer to lean on successful German thoroughness, than on Britain's humanitarianism unsupported by the strong arm. At the moment of writing there is wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout the British Empire at the diplomatic failure in Bulgaria and the previous fiasco in Turkey. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... feet in length, and from eight to fifteen feet in circumference. They are extremely fat, so that, below the skin, which is an inch thick, there is at least a foot deep of fat, before coming to the lean or bones, and we experienced more than once, that the fat of some of the largest afforded us a butt of oil. They are also very full of blood; for, if deeply wounded in a dozen places, there will instantly gush out as many fountains of blood, spouting to a considerable distance. To try what quantity ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... a retinue of a hundred warriors, chosen from the different tribes, but with precedence allotted to the Wyandots. These warriors, however, were picked men of the valley nations, splendidly built, tall, lean and full of courage and ferocity. They were all armed with improved rifles, and every man carried a tomahawk and hunting knife. They were also amply supplied with ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was accompanied by much merriment. Our corpulent porter groaned as she "larded the lean earth" beneath her ponderous tread; but, in due course of labor and patience, she sank with her charge on the bamboo ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... I love you, you lean wolf, And love to watch you snuff the air. My friend, There was a time I thought it all ambition With you, a secret itching to be king— And not so secret, either—an open plot To marry a girl who will be Queen some morning. But now at times I wonder. You have a look As of a man that's nightly gnawed ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... quickly abaseth to the utmost wretchedness, making them a foot-stool and a laughing stock for their enemies. Such are its charms, such its bounties. For it is an enemy of its friends, and traitor to such as carry out its wishes: dasheth to dire destruction all them that lean upon it, and enervateth those that put their trust therein. It maketh covenants with fools and fair false promises, only that it may allure them to itself. But, as they have dealt treacherously, it proveth ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... as couches, the centre being left free for the fire. In front, forked stakes support horizontal poles, on which fish or skins are hung to dry; and against others, sheets of bark are placed on the weather-side, forming lean-tos, shelters to larger fires, used for more extensive culinary operations than can be carried on within the hut. On the shores are seen drawn up beautifully-formed canoes of birch-bark of various sizes—some sufficient to carry eight or ten men; and others, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... weary of a world that his chivalrous instincts scorned, Gustavus withdrew his forces into Sweden. Even there he was menaced. The hostilities which Denmark forthwith commenced against England and Sweden exposed his southern coasts; but he now chose to lean on the valour of his own subjects rather than on the broken reed of British assistance, and awaited the attacks of the Danes on the west and of the Russians on his province ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... character, not old age, had worn her out. Cuvier said, the force of her imagination misled her judgment, and made her see things in a light different from all the world. As a proof of this, he mentioned that she makes Corinne lean on a marble lion which is on a tomb in St. Peter's, at Rome, more than twenty feet high. Education was very much discussed. Cuvier said, that when he was sent to inspect the schools at Bordeaux and Marseilles, ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... all I could desire. As we entered the hotel, I saw a certain hackman start and lean forward to look after him. It was the one who had driven Mr. and Mrs. Pope away from the hotel. And when we passed the porter, the wink which I gave him was met by a lift of his eyelids which he afterwards interpreted into ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... into small pieces and boil it in three pints of water with one-fourth pound of lean ham minced; simmer gently for an hour. Strain through a sieve and return to the pan adding one quart of milk, salt and pepper; thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter and two tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed to a paste. Serve with ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... swarthy-visaged, high of cheek bone, with large, dark, deep-set eyes, and a thin-lipped mouth covered by a long and drooping black mustache. Barefooted, he stood six feet two inches tall. Lean as a panther, and as supple, he could clear a five-foot rail fence without the aid of his hand. He ran like a deer. As a woodsman the very deer could have taught him little. With rifle and revolver he was an expert shot, and the weapons he used were ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... cooperation between the government and the IMF and World Bank, growth was strong in 1994-97 and inflation was brought under control. In 1998, El Nino's impact on agriculture, the financial crisis in Asia, and instability in Brazilian markets undercut growth. The following year was again lean year for Peru, with the aftermath of El Nino and the Asian financial crisis working its way through the economy. Political instability resulting from the presidential election and FUJIMORI's subsequent departure from office limited growth in 2000. The downturn in the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Conway, incredibly neat and business-like, her black hair severely braided, her plain black gown fitting a figure grown lean as any grey-hound's, her lace collar a marvel of fine ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... can do it,' said Mary, 'if you put the brake on.' She laid her lean self against the pushing-bar and home ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... store herself, for Mrs. Babbit was afraid to let Tommy go for her, and I've seen her goin' past and stoppin' every two or three steps to rest. Well, I stood it as long as I could, but one day I see her comin' with her arms full and stoppin' to lean against the Babbit fence, and I run out and took her bundles and carried them to her house. Then I went home and never spoke one word to her though she called after me dreadful kind of pitiful. Well, ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... the 4th, we halted at the rancho of Captain Dana, where we procured fresh horses, leaving our wretchedly lean and tired animals, and, proceeding on, stopped for the night at the rancho of Mr. Branch, an intelligent American, originally from the state of New York, who has been settled in the country a number ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... relates that the Assyrian addressed them in severe terms in his master's name: "Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? Behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to all that trust on him." Then, as he continued to declaim in a loud voice, so that the crowds gathered on the wall could hear ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... slowly descended the avenue, along which lean elm trees were placed as landmarks, and Bouvard, when he no longer saw the priest's three-cornered head-piece, expressed his relief; for he hated Jesuits. Pecuchet, without absolving them from blame, exhibited some respect ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... brought up was the only possible path to the top. The day passed off quietly. The heat on the bare rock was frightful, but one of the men, seeing how weak and ill I really was, fetched a thick rug from the storehouse, and with the aid of a stick made a sort of lean-to against the wall, under which I lay sheltered from ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... three years ago; though, as he had seated himself on a low foot-stool, her feet were sometimes on the ground, and moreover her throne was subject to sudden earthquakes, which made her, nothing loth, cling to his neck, draw his arm closer round her, and lean on his broad breast, proud that universal consent declared her his likeness in the family; and the two presenting a pleasant contrasting similarity—the open honest features, blue eyes, and smile, expressive of hearty good-will and simple happiness, were so entirely of the same mould in the plump, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... countenances which once seen are never to be forgotten—the true Napoleonic type, brooding, thoughtful, ominous, beautiful. But not with the serene energy that characterises the head of the first Napoleon when Emperor, and wholly without the restless eagerness for action which is stamped in the lean outline of Napoleon when First Consul: no—in Prince Napoleon there is a beauty to which, as woman, I could never give my heart—were I a man, the intellect that would not command my trust. But, nevertheless, in beauty, it is ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wallet was a card identifying him as a Representative of the Constituency of Southern California to the Supreme Congress of the People of the United Nations of Earth. He was just past his fifty-third birthday, and his lean, ascetic face and graying hair gave him a look of saintly wisdom. Aside from the eight-pointed cross in his lapel, the only ornamentation or jewelry he wore consisted of a small, exquisitely thin gold watch on his left wrist, and, on the ring finger of his left hand, a gold signet ring set with ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... money of their own with which they could purchase goods elsewhere. Some of them may have almost the whole value of their fishing to take in cash at settlement, while others who have families to provide for, and little land, and lean crops, have often very little to get, and are very often in the landlord's debt. However, in an ordinary year, they are not back much. At the present time, so far as I know, the bulk of the men are clear, and most of them, I believe, would have ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... lean brown fist. "Yes," he added, hoarsely, "I was whipped—but they should have tied my hands first. It was not my fault I didn't have that man's life. It was most a minute before three of them pulled me off him, and he was considerably worse to ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... who to my person pay their court: I cough like Horace, and, tho' lean, am short, Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high, 115 Such Ovid's nose, and "Sir! you have an Eye"— Go on, obliging creatures, make me see All that disgrac'd my Betters, met in me. Say for my comfort, languishing in bed, "Just so immortal Maro held his head:" 120 And when ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars; while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient. Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom. Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old faces, but who at times assert their common ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... stand facing a wall and a short distance from it. Keeping his feet in one spot, he should lean forward and place the palms of his hands flat against the wall; from this position he should then make a sudden push and spring backward to an upright position. With some practice, this may be done with a very considerable ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... the stream, Charlie, Dear Charlie, brave Charlie; Come o'er the stream, Charlie, And dine with M'Lean; And though you be weary, We 'll make your heart cheery, And welcome our Charlie, And his loyal train. We 'll bring down the track deer, We 'll bring down the black steer, The lamb from the braken, And doe from the glen, The salt sea ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that she should have come there to stand and lean against the gate, as if to shut him into his self-sought trap; and there was no impatience about this woman—she stood quite still in that dark, desolate place, as though she was perfectly contented to wait and wait—for what? how long?—these were the questions he asked ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... sitting on the upper step of the long flight of stairs which lean precariously against the scarred face of the frame residence upon the second floor front of which the lares and penates of the Shane family are crowded ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd. How like a younker or a prodigal The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind! How like the prodigal doth she return, With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... aggressively in the fashion of a bygone age. ESTHER is a stout, middle-aged woman with the round, unmarked, sentimentally—contented face of one who lives unthinkingly from day to day, sheltered in an assured position in her little world. MARK, her husband, is a lean, tall, stooping man of about forty-five. His long face is alert, shrewd, cautious, full of the superficial craftiness of the lawyer mind. MARTHA kisses the two women, shakes hands with MARK, uttering the usual meaningless greetings in a forced ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... the dense cloud of dust above the lone pedestrian. For when the boy raised his feet with each stride, the man-sized, hob-nailed boots which encased them failed to lift in turn. Indeed, the toes did clear the ground, but the heels, slipping away from the lean ankles, dragged in the follow-through. And the boy's other garments, save for his flannel shirt and flapping felt hat, were of a size ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Likewise, as I came to find out later, she was extremely grateful for small favours and most affectionate by nature. To be sure, being affectionate with a bull about the size and general specifications of a furniture-car had its drawbacks. She was liable to lean up against you in a playful, kittenish kind of a way, and cave in most of your ribs. It was like having a violent flirtation with a landslide to venture up clost to Emily when she was in one of her tomboy moods. I've know' her to nudge a friend ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... through the iron gates of the Copp's Hill burial-ground. You love to stroll round among the graves that crowd each other in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. You love to lean on the free-stone slab which lies over the bones of the Mathers,—to read the epitaph of stout John Clark, "despiser of little men and sorry actions,"—to stand by the stone grave of sturdy Daniel Malcom and look upon the splintered slab that tells the old rebel's story,—to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... XIV.'s light infantry"—a nickname given by the Bonapartists to these venerable survivors of the Monarchy. To do it justice it ought to be made the principal object in the picture, and it is but an accessory. Imagine a lean, dry man, dressed like the former, but seeming to be only his reflection, or his shadow, if you will. The coat, new on the first, on the second was old; the powder in his hair looked less white, the gold of the fleurs-de-lis less bright, the shoulder straps more hopeless ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... Foster brought out, banging his lean fist down upon the table near to him. "And that's Wistons of Hawston. It's been the wish of my heart for years back to bring Wistons here. We don't know, of course, if he would come, but I think he could be persuaded. And then—then there'd be ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... called the catholic remainder of the ancient Church of Scotland, differed in no essential particular from the Church of England except that she did not lean upon apolitical Episcopacy—an Episcopacy directed and controlled by parliamentary legislation. She was now in the lowest depths of depression and adversity. Her bishops had become reduced to four and her clergy to forty, and these ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... carefully chosen language, how the garden had been arranged in his late father's time. But the lady was in reality listening to her husband, for whom she had a most unbounded admiration. Mrs. Aalbom was extremely tall, lean, bony, and angular; her lips were thin, and her teeth ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a silk bag, Clem," confided Phronsie, dropping the little bunch of ribbons in her lap, to lean over to look into the tall girl's face, "and I'm going to ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... impartiality. Both parties furnished an equal number; and at their head was placed Boniface, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, if he were connected with the court from his relationship to the Queen, was also known to lean to the popular faction, through his jealousy of the superior influence of the King's half-brothers. In reality, however, these elections proved the declining influence of the Crown; for, while the chiefs of the reformers ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... DE, a play by Beaumarchais, "issued on the stage in Paris 1784, ran its hundred nights; a lean and barren thing; succeeded, as it flattered a pruriency of the time and spoke what all were feeling and longing ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... are unloaded and driven into pens. From there the fat steers and cows are sent directly to market. The lean ones go to farmers in the Middle West who make a specialty of fattening them for market, doing it ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... other's arrums, an' there was no firing for a long time. Nothin' but knife an' bay'nit when we cud get our hands free: an' that was not often. We was breast-on to thim, an' the Tyrone was yelpin' behind av us in a way I didn't see the lean av at first But I knew later, an' so did ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... it now; lean outwards a little more, and don't bend forward. The weight should be on the centre of ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... stirred. "I could bend you to my will—break you—like that!" His lean fingers snapped. Then his hand dropped, and again he relaxed. "But of what use?... Your respect? I have it now. Respect and fear come to me from everyone. It is something more than that I ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... seemed suffering; probably the privations he had endured had weakened him. Bonjean said to him, "Lean on my arm, it is that of a good friend and a Christian," and added, "La religion d'abord, la justice ensuite." As soon as one name was called a door opened and a prisoner passed out—the Archbishop went first; they descended the dark and narrow steps ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... rejoice in hope. Fur dat lan' ain't 'spressly fur de white man—it am fur de brack man, too; an' ebery one ob us, eben de brackest, kin git to it ef we'll jess foller der road—ef we'll jess do our duty, bear meekly our burdens, an' lean humbly on de arm ob de Lord. I knows it am so, my friends. I knows it am so, fur de oder night, when de deep sleep fell upon me, I dreamed a dream. I fought dar come to my cabin, an' stood aside ob ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... high tides of life spread to everything. Maxwell felt them in his weak pulses where he sat writing at an open window of the farmhouse, and early in the forenoon he came out on the piazza of the farmhouse, with a cushion clutched in one of his lean hands; his soft hat-brim was pulled down over his dull, dreamy eyes, where the far-off look of his thinking still lingered. Louise was in the hammock, and she lifted herself alertly out of it at sight of him, with a smile for ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... jutting rock in the foreground yawned dark mouths that were the entrances of the discovered tombs, and within one of these tombs was another white man. He was conducting his own siftings in high solitude, a lean, bronzed young man, with dark hair and eyes and, at the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... to lean against, sit upon, or unnecessarily shake, or even touch the bed in which a patient lies. This is invariably a painful annoyance. If you shake the chair on which he sits, he has a point by which to steady himself, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... not matter.' But I do say, 'If you are conscious of sin, deep, dark, damning, that makes no barrier between you and God. You may come all the nearer for it if you will let your past teach you to long for His love and to lean on Him.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... abbey a claustral monk, called Friar John of the funnels and gobbets, in French des entoumeures, young, gallant, frisk, lusty, nimble, quick, active, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, lean, wide-mouthed, long-nosed, a fair despatcher of morning prayers, unbridler of masses, and runner over of vigils; and, to conclude summarily in a word, a right monk, if ever there was any, since the monking world monked a monkery: for the rest, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the collars and cuffs were carefully washed and rinsed, and presently Marion, with her hands only a trifle pinker for the operation, was ready to lean against a chair and discuss ways and means. Her long apprenticeship in school-rooms had given her the habit of standing instead of sitting, even when there was no occasion ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... to recuperate from the incessant vigilance of the day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in his lean, desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the green glass drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced newspapermen, he rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of copy paper. He poured himself a draught of ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... as occur between them are just what we should expect in the work of a craftsman who sought first to obtain an accurate likeness of his subject, and then treated the same subject on the lines of numismatic art. The wax shows a lean and subtly moulded face—the face of a delicate old man, wiry and worn with years of deep experience. The hair on head and beard is singularly natural; one feels it to be characteristic of the person. Transferring this portrait ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... her face from the book, closed it, and gave it silently to Ellen. Ellen had noticed her action, but had no suspicion of the cause; she supposed that one of her mother's frequent feelings of weakness or sickness had made her lean her head upon the Bible, and she thought no more about it. However, Ellen felt that she wanted no more of her boxes that day. She took her old place by the side of her mother's sofa, with her head upon her mother's hand, and an expression ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the brakes that passed at trot Read "First past Post" and "Run or Not." The bookie's face was an angry red, His eyes seemed rolling inside his head. His clerk was a lean man, secret, spare, With thin lips knowing and damp black hair. A big black bag much weathered with rain Hung round his ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... openings on to the platform of the pyramid-summit. The interior of the buildings is a singular vault-like construction, covered with roofs of masonry carried by the vaulting. These vaults, however, do not embody the principle of the arch, but rather of the off-set, or lean-to, and are very high in proportion to their width. From the palace group arises a square tower of four storeys, about 40 feet in height, forming the centre of the group of extensive courts, buildings, and facades which surround it, all built upon the summit of a pyramid ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... hand and dragged him, panting and exhausted, to the shore, where he fell weakly on the turf, unable for a moment to utter a word. The man who leaned over him was lean, as dark as an Indian, and in a day when smoothly shaven features were the rule, his face was marked by a tangled growth of iron-gray beard. His hair hung to the fringed collar of his deerskin shirt, and straggled ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... his fingers gracefully together and looking at me. His head was thrown back, I have said, and the lights of the colored windows striking on his gray hair and black skull-cap, caused him to look much more like some lean ascetic ecclesiastic and prince of the church than the chief lawyer of the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... those tongs with me all the way, not knowing why, not wishing to throw them into the briers for they were very old and full of story, and I—was very young and full of—I cannot tell, remembering what little boys are made of. And now here they lean against the hearth, that very pair. I packed them in the bottom of my trunk when I started for college; I saved them through the years when our open fire was a "base-burner," and then a gas-radiator in a city flat. Moved, preserved, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... high-heeled boots were hard to walk in, and every now and then her feet would fail her, and she would utter little cries of fear, and lean against the cliff's side. It was delightful to reassure her, and Montgomery profited by those occasions to lay his hands upon her shoulders and hold her arms in his hands. No human creature was in hearing or in sight, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... already midday. We had halted near some trees and food was being served out. I got under the cart to keep the sun off me, and lay there musing until a trooper had brought my meal. The meal was good, and my thoughts were good—excellent! For had we not been a little troop of lean ghosts, looking for graves to lie in? The talk along the way had been of who should bury us, or who should bury the last man, supposing we all died one by one! Had we not been famished until the very wind was a wall too heavy to prevail against? ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... old boiler lay Elaine, still bound and gagged. If she could only scream! Someone might hear. She must get help. There was water in the tank. She managed to lean up inside it, standing as high as the walls would allow her, trying to keep her ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... brought by the ship Mountjoy of Derry, and the Phoenix of Colerain, at which time they had only nine lean horses left with a pint of meal to each man. By hunger, and the fatigues of war, their seven thousand three hundred and sixty-one fighting men, were reduced to four thousand three hundred, one-fourth part of whom were ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... road and pushed aside the thick underbrush to find a dry spot to place her foot. The gnats danced before her and buzzed in her ears. She brushed them aside and so pushed on until she could see the road again. A lean, yellow horse, tackled to the shafts of a broken top-buggy with bits of rope as well as worn straps, stood in the roadway. The man on the seat, talking to another on the ground, was Mr. Gedney Raffer, the timberman who was contending at law ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... of Trinity, Ye bosky shores untrod, Lean, breathless, to the white-lipped sea And hear the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... a buzz of excitement as the Doctor made his way across the crowded room; and I noticed the nasty lawyer with the long nose lean down and whisper something to a friend, smiling in an ugly way which made me want ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... that something extraordinary had been achieved. Weimar had by this time become the acknowledged centre of German letters, and its modest little theatre now took on fresh glory. Schiller had made himself very useful as a translator and adapter, and Goethe was disposed to lean heavily on his friend's superior knowledge of stage-craft. In order to be nearer to the theatre and its director, Schiller moved over to Weimar in December, 1799, and took up his abode in what is now called the Schillerstrasse. He was already working at Mary Stuart, which was finished the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of examining his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but large-boned, and apparently of great strength. His face, which had not been shaved for several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather, that he might have been taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... was that when he lived he kept me living; and in dying he has taught me to die, not in sorrow and with regret, but with a fervent desire of death. Twenty and six years had he served me, and I found him a most rare and faithful man; and now that I had made him rich, and expected to lean on him as the staff and the repose of my old age, he is taken from me, and no other hope remains than that of seeing him again in Paradise. A sign of God was this happy death to him; yet, even more than ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Sometimes Toby would get very lean and hungry and the few stray sous left in him would clink dismally against his ribs; and again he would be bursting with silver, paper and copper. Sometimes he would have to suspend payment until he could negotiate his I. O. T.'s., and sometimes when the week was ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... doubt that the Major felt very gay. He was fast losing the lean and hungry look he had had when he first appeared in Pleasant Valley. And he became freer than ever as ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the various tribes in this part of the Sierras vary somewhat in physical characteristics, but in general are of medium height, strong, lean and agile, and the men are usually fine specimens of manhood. They are rather light in color, but frequently rub their bodies with some kind of oil, which gives the flesh a much redder and more glossy appearance. The hair is black and straight, and the eyes are black and deep set. The beard is ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... was room for me to force my way through the door, and I was in the act of passing through a little way, so as to lean out and once more snatch the powder-bag in out of danger when I saw that Jarette had snatched the candle out of the lantern held ready for him, and applied the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... before Luke came round, a different Luke, a lean, wan, worn-out shred of a youth. His welcome ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and rest," cried he; "but why will you not lean upon me? surely this is no time for scruples, and for idle and unnecessary scruples, Miss Beverley ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... worship and polity of the Established Church of Scotland. What Church was meant by the two contracting parties? What Church was meant, more especially, by the party to the side of which we ought always to lean, I mean the weaker party? Surely the Church established in 1707, when the Union took place. Is then, the Church of Scotland at the present moment constituted, on all points which the members of that Church think essential, exactly as it was constituted ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a kind little pressure of his arm that promised to take care of her, that Fleda's courage mounted twenty degrees at once. And it rose higher every minute; the horse went very easily, and Mr. Carleton held her so that she could not be tired, and made her lean against him; and before they had gone a mile Fleda began to be delighted. Such a charming way of travelling! Such a free view of the country! and in this pleasant weather, too, neither hot nor cold, and when all nature's features ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Sidney and Jonson no English critic, however, thought through to the logical conclusion that in moral purpose rhetoric and poetic are identical. The others continued to echo Horace, or lean toward allegory, or see profit in poetry from its moral example. For instance in his preface to his second instalment of Homer entitled Achilles' Shield (1598) Chapman dwells at length on the moral value and wisdom contained in the Iliad,[427] and enunciates the same idea in his Prefaces ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... ennoble, will make joyous your lives whilst you live, and will give you a quiet heart in the retrospect when you come to die. Begin right, dear young friends. You will never find it so easy to take any decisive step, and most of all this chiefest step, as you do to-day. You will get lean and less flexible as you get older. You will get set in your ways. Habits will twine their tendrils round you, and hinder your free movement. The truth of the Gospel will become commonplace by familiarity. Associations ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... birthday. This is my appearance as I see it in the glass before me: tall, spare (I don't weigh more than a hundred and forty pounds—the desert has any superfluous flesh that I ever owned, my lot having been, like Falstaff, to lard the lean earth, but in a hot climate); my eyes are brown, my face is long, and I wear a pointed white beard, which matches the white ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... the fire was out, weeping bitterly, and covering her wrinkled face with her hands, as though she quailed before the eyes of the girl she must so deeply grieve. One glance at the woman, and the tears which trickled through her fingers and down her lean arms told Melissa that something dreadful had happened. Very pale, and clasping her hand to her heaving bosom, she desired to be told all; but for some time Dido was quite unable to speak intelligibly. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... prince-patriarch of hungry starvelings, Lean Aurelius, all that are, that have been, That shall ever ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... coming by sea from Whitehaven. Thus Mr. Mushet represents, "at Tintern the furnace charge for forge pig iron was generally composed of a mixture of seven-eighths of Lancashire iron ore, and one-eighth part of a lean calcareous sparry iron ore from the Forest of Dean, called flux, the average yield of which mixture was fifty per cent of iron. When in full work, Tintern Abbey charcoal furnace made weekly from twenty-eight to thirty ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... whose hearts are set To find the way to Sion's gate; God is their strength, and thro' the road They lean upon their helper God. ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... chevalier was playing a role and had assumed your name; this error would serve you—I held my tongue. 'The blow had struck the belt of my father's sword,' said the rascal, in a faint voice as they raised him. 'My lord duke, lean on me,' replied De Chemerant, 'I come to you in the name of the King of France, my master. Mystery is now unnecessary. In two words I will tell you, sir, the object of my mission, and you can then judge whether or not you will return as quickly ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... fancy some lean to and others hate,— That when this life is ended begins New work for the soul in another state, Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins,— Where the strong and the weak this world's congeries ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... cunning cur did mean To eat their mutton (which was lean) Reserv'd for breakfast, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... said, the sunset dilating through her tears, "don't you see that I can bear to think such things only because they're impossibilities? It's easy to look over into the depths if one has a rampart to lean on. What I most pity poor Arthur for is that, instead of that woman lying there, so dreadfully dead, there might have been a girl like me, so exquisitely alive because of him; but it seems cruel, doesn't ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... contrary, not only gives the Achajmenidae their royal rank, but seems to consider Persia as completely independent of Media; Moses of Chorene takes the same view, regarding Cyrus as a great and powerful sovereign during the reign of Astyages. The native records lean towards the view of Xenophon and Moses. Darius declares that eight of his race had been kings before himself, and makes no difference between his own royalty and theirs. Cyrus calls himself in one inscription "the son of Cambyses, the powerful king." It is certain therefore that Persia continued ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... Glen Cairn until dark," he cried; "and the tale is that the castle ovens have never been cool since the word came a week ago! Mother says Eppie McLean has been laying in provisions as if she looked for seven lean years like ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... said to her. She had heard of the language Jeffreys was accustomed to use towards people of all classes, and she did not suppose her sex and youth would enable her to escape. She was glad, however, to lean on Mr Willoughby's arm as they approached the house where the Chief Justice had taken up his quarters. Alice had a letter ready, requesting to see him on an important matter. In a short time the servant, to whom she had given the letter, ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... men laughed again, but the man I had spoken to got up and buttoned his coat. He had to lean against the fence, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... gave the waiting audience time to appreciate the magnificence of his proportions, the length and dagger-keenness of his horns, the rippling of the muscles under the brown satin of his skin, in the great chest and lean flanks. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Mrs. Puffin, a lean little widow of mouldy aspect, opened the door to let them in and exclaimed loudly to see ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... speaking, and for some minutes silence prevailed. Then Bill Santry shifted the quid in his cheek, spat unerringly through the open window, and began to talk. His loose-jointed figure had suddenly become tense and forceful; his lean face ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said that I am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... at this, for his companion, it had indeed its effect, and while he mounted their steps she but stared, without following him, at his opening of their door. Their hall was lighted, and as he stood in the aperture looking back at her, his tall lean figure outlined in darkness and with his crush-hat, according to his wont, worn cavalierly, rather diabolically, askew, he seemed to prolong the sinister emphasis of his meaning. In general, on these returns, he came back for her when he had ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... comes, too, across my recollection, and I beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to enable him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a certain great town. I grant you the periods are very well turned; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, not to mention the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... point at which I so anxiously wish you to arrive. I am sure that all your attention and endeavors will be exerted; and, if exerted, they will succeed. Mr. Tollot says, that you are inclined to be fat, but I hope you will decline it as much as you can; not by taking anything corrosive to make you lean, but by taking as little as you can of those things that would make you fat. Drink no chocolate; take your coffee without cream: you cannot possibly avoid suppers at Paris, unless you avoid company too, which I would by no means have you do; but eat as little at ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... away!" said Mrs. Gerard. But she bent over, kissing each culprit as the file passed out, convoyed by the amply revenged nurses. "No marmalade, remember; and mother has a great mind not to come up at bedtime and lean over you. Mother has no desire to lean ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... and a report, dull and heavy, and something tall seemed to lean toward them from the sky, and there was a mighty rushing sound, and a cold wind in their faces, and an awful fall of masonry on the water, and the water spurted under the stroke. The great chimney had fallen in the river. At this very moment came a sharp, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... whisky could have been kept away from him he might have shone in your profession. Anyhow, he had the makings of an honest man in him, and when the Vulcan enlarged its cliff-painting programme, he cut loose bravely. Then followed ten lean years of odd jobs, with landscape painting as a recreation, and the occasional sale of a canvas on a street corner as a great event. When his need was greatest he consented to earn good wages composing symbolical door designs ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... "And Herr Spencer knows how you should cross your feet and carry your ax, while Karl will see to your foothold. Remember too that you will be at the bottom before I begin the descent, so no harm can come to you. Try and stand straight. Don't lean against the slope. Lean away from it. Don't be afraid. Don't trust to the rope or the grip of the ax. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... lean-to in the corner of what had once been a small, but strongly-built house was a store, a very small store, outside the door of which a crippled negro was sitting. Thinking that this might be one of the old-timers ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... drink. Visiting his cottage one day I found his wife ill, a dead child in the bed, a sick child in her arms; yes, she "was pining; there was no work to be had". "Why did she leave the dead child on the bed? because there was no other place to put it." The cottage consisted of one room and a "lean-to", and husband and wife, the child dead of fever and the younger child sickening with it, were all obliged to lie on the one bed. In another cottage I found four generations sleeping in one room, the great-grandfather and his wife, the grandmother (unmarried), the ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... my readers may say: "But a woman's nervous system is more sensitive than a man's; she needs help and consolation. She needs to have some one on whom she can lean." Now the answer to that will probably be surprising, but an intelligent understanding and comprehension of it would make a very radical difference in the lives of many men and women who have agreed to live together for life—for better and ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... many houses was two stories or two stories and a half in front, with a peaked roof that sloped down nearly to the ground in the back over an ell covering the kitchen, added in the shape known as a lean-to, or, as it was called by country folk, the linter. This sloping roof gave the one element of unconscious picturesqueness which redeemed the prosaic ugliness of these bare-walled houses. Many lean-to houses are still standing in New England. ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... was a lean, sallow, stern-eyed woman of some forty years with a face like bitter herbs; her husband a mild mannered, shiftless man who, encouraged by Mr. Cartwright, had taken to riding through the upper counties as a preacher—a course of conduct of which his wife heartily disapproved. Solicited by her husband ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... may be truly Arabian, his figure, as I have remarked, is a travesty on that of the typical Arabian—the Arab of the boundless and comfortless desert. I have tried to picture him as a lean and haughty mameluke in loose, white robes, mounted on a dust-distributing camel, and, lance in hand, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield |
