"Limp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the two elder—Barbara and Made line were their seductive names—had good looks. Barbara, perhaps twenty-two years old, was rather colourless, somewhat too slim, altogether a trifle limp; but she had a commendable taste in dress. Madeline, a couple of years younger, presented a more healthy physique and a less common comeliness, but in the matter of costume she lacked her sister's discretion. Her colours were ill-matched, her ornaments awkwardly worn; even ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... peculiar disposition, and was unfortunate in the training of her son. She alternately petted and quarrelled with him, and taught him to emulate her irregularities of temper. On account of an accident at his birth, he had a malformation in one of his feet, which, producing a slight limp in his gait through life, rendered his sensitive nature quite unhappy, the signs of which are to be discerned in his drama, The Deformed Transformed. From the age of five years he went to school at Aberdeen, and very early began to exhibit traits of generosity, manliness, and an imperious nature: ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... locker and donned his diving armour, stepped over the side, adjusted his weights, and quietly disappeared beneath the surface of the water. A lapse of perhaps a minute occurred, when the ladder was found to be hanging limp and loose; a bright white light flashed upward through the water for a moment, as a signal from the professor that he had reached the bottom all right; and then the luminous beam was seen moving slowly forward over the bottom in the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Brown to a young and rather stylishly-dressed woman who was approaching—a tall, good-looking girl with a slight limp, whose hat encountered unspoken feminine criticism at every step. Their eyes met as she came up, and recognition flashed ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Bouchenton, my brother. I will not forget it. And I saw, too, your aching, useless left arm, which you had been obliged to abandon in order to have a hand to give, hanging by your side like a limp rag. ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... look behind at Bonbright huddled there with the ribbon of moonlight pointing across the lake at his limp body, but half staggered, half ran to his waiting car.... A snarled word, and the engine started. Ruth, choking, helpless, was carried away, leaving ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... I knew he would be, but in the same characteristic, lazy attitude I'd found him in, the day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted 'way forward, cigar in the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He didn't even turn to look at us as we came ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... sing something— but this is all— I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull As though they were damp, and the echoes fall Limp and unlovable. ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... seen him chastise a servant. She did not know what the man's fault had been, but the punishment seemed out of all proportion to anything that could be imagined, and she had watched fascinated with horror, until he had tossed away the murderous whip, and without a second glance at the limp, blood-stained heap that huddled on the ground with suggestive stillness had strolled back unconcerned to the tent. The sight had sickened her and haunted her perpetually. His callousness horrified her even ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... right into the arms of the policeman and fell on top of him, amid a roar of applause. Then it was that the strange actor gave that celebrated imitation of a dead man, of which the fame still lingers round Putney. It was almost impossible to believe that a living person could appear so limp. ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed the Bozra ever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor; the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men the keleustes ceased ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... an embarrassment to him of late. It was beginning to be what is known as a false position, since Headley the butler could now look after Aylmer. Except for a limp, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... His one son, is it? May I meet him with one tooth and it aching, and one eye to be seeing seven and seventy divils in the twists of the road, and one old timber leg on him to limp into the scalding grave. (Looking out.) There he is now crossing the strands, and that the Lord God would send a high wave to ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... Holy War: wherefore Diabolus had a kindness for him, and coveted to have him for one of his great ones, to act and do in matters of the highest concern. Bunyan represents him as having been wounded in the leg, during the seige. 'Some of the prince's army certainly saw him limp, as he afterwards walked ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in the ship's side admitted sufficient light to enable him to discern his comrade backing from one of the cabins. Shrap was preceding him, while Vernon was dragging something limp and heavy. It was the body ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... indistinct blur. The sudden blast of wind sent clouds of dust eddying toward the hangar, but ahead lay the cool, fresh, dew-washed green of the field. McGee turned to look once more at the wind sock which, for want of a breeze, hung limp along its staff. He nodded to the men at the wheel chocks, waved his hand to Larkin and ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... session 1823-4. The fact that there was no notice of the 'Arts' seems to suggest that they stood in the same intermediate position as they do now—the epitome of student- kind. Mr. Tatler's satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, and has not grown superannuated in ALL its limbs. His descriptions may limp at some points, but there are certain broad traits that apply equally well to session 1870-1. He shows us the DIVINITY of the period—tall, pale, and slender—his collar greasy, and his coat bare about the seams—'his ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had been intense in the little chapel, and we were in that limp and exhausted state that one experiences in a ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... a strange hand lying at my side, Limp and cool. I touched it and knew it mine. A murmur, and I remembered how the wind died In the near aspens. Then Strange things were no more strange. I ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... stately figure of the stern deputy, Lord Grey of Wilton, a brave and wise man, but with a naturally harsh temper, which had been soured still more by the wound which had crippled him, while yet a boy, at the battle of Leith. He owed that limp to Mary Queen of Scots; and he ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... in her corner. Against the dark upholstery her hair shone like pale gold in the half-light; her eyes were closed and she held a handkerchief to her lips; the other hand lay limp. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... bare-headed, down the sandy road. The rain swished in Gerda's golden locks, till they clung dank and limp about her cheeks and neck; it beat on Barry's glasses, so that he took them off and blinked instead. The trees stormed and whistled in the southerly wind that blew from across Merrow Downs. Barry tried to whistle down it, but ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... to the one and must be withheld from the other. For David, as I have noticed, loves to splash in his bath and to slip back into it from the hands that would transfer him to a towel. But Porthos stands in his bath drooping abjectly like a shamed figure cut out of some limp material. ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... nation(255) astir from the ends of the earth, The bow and the javelin they grasp, 23 Cruel and ruthless, The noise of them booms like the sea, On horses they ride— Arrayed as one man for the battle On thee, O Daughter of Sion! We have heard their fame, 24 Limp are our hands; Anguish hath gripped us, Pangs as of travail. Fare not forth to the field, 25 Nor walk on the way, For the sword of a foe, Terror all round! Daughter of My people, gird on thee sackcloth 26 And wallow in ashes! Mourn as for an only-begotten, Wail of the bitterest! ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... gave the name of sword leaves. These he brought home to play with, and then, when he grew tired of them, threw them down. As they lay on the floor, Fritz took some of them in his hand, and found them so limp, that he said he could plait them, and make a whip for Frank to drive the sheep and goats with. As he split them up to do this, I could not but note their strength. This led me to try them, and I found that we had now a kind of flax plant, which was ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... the present time, are made clever simpletons; their brains are worked with useless knowledge, which totally unfits them for every-day duties. Their muscles are allowed to be idle, which makes them limp and flabby. The want of proper exercise ruins the complexion, and their faces become of the colour of a tallow candle! And precious wives and mothers they make when they do grow up! Grow up, did I say? They grow all manner ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... entered the kitchen, he saw a little figure on the floor in a limp heap, with the dog frantically licking its hands, which were very small and brown and piteously outspread, as ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... left her to dress for dinner, at which meal she was able to rejoin them, walking with a slight limp but otherwise recovered from her accident. To their surprise, young Jones appeared as they were entering the dining room and begged for a seat at their table. Uncle John at once ordered another place laid at the big round table, which ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... experience been called upon to deal with a man such as Borrow. To apply to him the customary rules of procedure was to bring upon "the House of Interior Affairs" a series of visits and demands that must have left it limp with astonishment. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... coarse bully was speaking! That what he said was probably true—Evelyn herself had admitted much—did not in the least ease the blow that had crushed his pride and self-respect. He lay back in his chair, limp and panting under Gilmore's strong hands. Where was his own strength of heart and arm that he should be left powerless in this ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... few seconds it lay dormant; then one red feeler shot out, then another, and another, and it began to edge its way across the carpet to the chair. Cleek lay still and waited, his heavy breathing sounding regularly, his head thrown back, his limp hands lying loosely, palms upward. Nearer and nearer crept the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Hadding, flinging his spear by the thong, pierced him through. But Asmund lacked not comfort even for his death; for while his life flickered in the socket he wounded the foot of his slayer, and by this short instant of revenge he memorized his fall, punishing the other with an incurable limp. Thus crippling of a limb befell one of them and loss of life the other. Asmund's body was buried in solemn state at Upsala and attended with royal obsequies. His wife Gunnhild, loth to outlive him, cut off her own life with the sword, choosing rather to follow her lord in death than to ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the wagon into an empty box car, with his full guard in attendance. As the train pulled out he heard a little whimper beside him and there, panting for breath after his long run, and with one ear hanging limp and bloody, cowered Corporal. Phelan's hands were not at his disposal, but even if they had been it is doubtful if he would have denied Corp the joy for once ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... is pretty or ugly. Provided she is active and industrious, minds the house well, and brings up the children as they ought to be brought up, has good principles, is trustworthy, and even-tempered, he is not particular as to color or form, and can even be brought to tolerate a limp or a squint. Given the great foundations of an honorable home, and he will forego the lath and plaster of personal appearance which will not bear the wear and tear of years and their troubles. The solid virtues ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... miracle was wrought at that time on Declan through the intercession and prayers of Patrick for as Declan was walking carelessly along he trod upon a piece of sharp iron which cut his foot so that blood flowed freely and Declan began to limp. Ailbe of Emly was present at this miracle and Sechnall a bishop of Patrick's and a holy and wise man, and he is said to be the first bishop buried in Ireland. The wound which Declan had received grieved ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... she stooped a little when she walked (she had always done that,) but her eyes did not seem so large; and though she never had any colour, her skin had lost the earthy look it had. They walked down to the sea. Philip, remembering he had not walked with her for months, grew suddenly conscious of his limp and walked stiffly in the attempt to ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... seem to expect any answer—a fact which, when I recognised it, gave my pleasure, I hardly knew why. He paused for a while, sitting with his chin in his hand, his eyes staring at vacancy, whilst his brows were fixed. His cigar was held limp between his fingers; he had apparently forgotten it. In an even voice, as though commencing exactly where he had left off, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... taint the blessed air, he would not look as wholesome, let alone that it would be unwarrantable murder. And so, when he came nosing under the very tree where I was sitting, I suddenly jumped up, threw my hat at him and gave a Comanche yell. He tumbled over in a limp heap, grunting and whining for very terror, gathered himself up, got up headway and disappeared with wonderful speed— considering the length ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... as limp as you can, please,' he said, 'the mouth wide open, as you have it now, the legs careless—in ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... perchance in consonance with his new doctrine concerning man's grip on life eternal, perchance by reason of his greater enjoyment of life temporal, Brenton grew stronger, infinitely more alert, infinitely more virile in his magnetism. The old, limp husk, partly of heredity, in part of starved existence, was falling off from him. More and more plainly, as it fell, there stood revealed to all who had the eyes to see, the nervous figure ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... boom, swinging rapidly from side to side, swept Simpkins' hat (a stiff-brimmed straw hat) into the sea. He made no effort to save it; but the Major, grabbing the boat-hook, got hold of it just before it floated beyond reach, and drew it, waterlogged and limp, into the boat. Simpkins expressed no gratitude. Meldon hauled the punt alongside, and asked Miss King if she would like to go ashore. She assented with a feeble smile. There was no use consulting Simpkins. His wishes were taken for granted, and he was deposited, ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... on after the orange flare. The base of one of the latticed supporting columns loomed vast in the eery twilight gloom, and he leaned a moment against one of its vine-wrapped members. The girl was exhausted and hung limp in his circling right arm. Still the orange beacon danced on. If only Dantor would ease up a bit. Couldn't he give them ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... great black cat, though it bit and tore at his hands, he gained his feet. In the darkness he could see nothing but two blazing eyes, and not until the last spark died in them did his fingers relax. Then, with a savage joy, he threw the limp body against the altar of Isis, and turned to see what had become of Mrs. Athelstone. She lay quite still where he had left her, a huddled heap of white ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into space. Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic landing. Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at length, seizing Somerset's hand in both ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trying to scrape some of it off his clothes. His cap was gone and great patches of mud clung to his face and hair. He was a distressed looking object indeed. While they watched, he glanced up and saw them standing there. He shook a fist at Bobby, and began to limp slowly off ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... chick or a child. Old women with children can afford to tumble downstairs, but not my kind of old women. John is real good. He wants me to stay here, but I can't—I can't, I can't, my dear! I've got to be where I can limp out to the old pump and the gate and the orchard, on my crutches—I've got to see the old hills I was born in, and Old '61 marching past the house, and the old neighbors—I've got to die at home, my dear. So John can't keep me. I ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... chapel, followed again by the employees of the Company, to whom he had granted a holiday, he suddenly found his hand taken possession of, and looked up to see himself confronted by a dissipated-looking person in plain clothes. His hand became so limp that it was dropped as if it had put forth a sting, and he narrowed his eyes and demanded with a bend of his mouth that brought the blood to the ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Abel, metaphorically speaking, touched her. Louis Wilkottle, her cavalier, slipped away from her he could not tell how: he merely knew that Abel Newt was in attendance, vice Wilkottle, disappeared. So Wilkottle floated about the rooms upon limp pinions for sometime, wondering where to settle, and brushed Fanny Newt ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... going to speak to you about that this evening. I wish to tell you the reasons which oblige me to sign the bill," he answered. Lyons's manner was subdued and limp. Even his phraseology had ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl. She spoke—in sonorous, reverberating monosyllables—and I was set upon my feet; I leaped to the side of the Irishman. He lay limp, with a disquieting, abnormal sequacity, as though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the antithesis of the rigor mortis, thank God, but terrifyingly toward the other end of its arc; a syncope I had never known. The flesh was stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled; ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... to her own room and put her to bed. She had dinner for both sent upstairs, but Harriet would not eat; neither would she speak. She lay in the bed, half on her face, as limp as the newly dead. Occasionally she sighed or groaned. Betty tried several times to rouse her, but she would not respond. Finally she ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Fellow and La Robe Noire peering through the dark, and felt wet beads start from every pore in my body. Both of us were panting like fagged racers. One of us was fighting blindly, raining down aimless blows, I know not which, but I think it must have been Hamilton, for he presently sank in my arms, limp and helpless as a ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... did limp away, and it is allowable to hope that they suffered no serious dismantling of their vital organs. Still, I cannot approve of these bicycle contentions, which are veritable provocative ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... the color of the shoes, and a hay rope tied for comfort about his waist; in one hand he also held a straw rope, that depended from the hind leg of a pig which he drove before him; in the other was a cudgel, by the assistance of which he contrived to limp on after it, his two shoulder-blades rising and falling alternately with a shrugging ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... which shook so, that we hardly knew what we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down. The water was so muddy I could not see anything, but I felt around among the hoop poles, and presently grasped a limp wrist which gave me no response—and if it had I should not have known it, I let it go with such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... A stun-pistol. The figure seemed to climb more frantically. More cracklings. Half a dozen—a dozen sharp, snapping noises. They were stun-pistol charges and there were tiny sparks where they hit. The dangling figure seemed convulsed. It went limp, but it did not fall. More charges poured into it. It hung motionless halfway up the ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... wherever chance might direct. At this table might have been seen the famous professor of moral philosophy, stripped to his shirt and pantaloons, the former open in front, and displaying a vast, hirsute chest, while a slovenly necktie kept the limp collar from utter loss of place. This was his favorite state for composition, and was in true keeping with the character and productions of his genius. When in public, the professor was still a sloven; but his heavy form and majestic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... which leg I'd pepper if he tried to sneak anything away. Well, p'raps we may run across the critter again, and I'll just keep it in mind that it was the left leg I chose—he's got somewhat of a limp in the right one now, and you see that'd sort of even things up. I don't like to see ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... up straight, and, tearing the muffler away, started the machine. His hands trembled as he sank back in his chair, limp with excitement. He allowed the record to grind its way out to the very end, then he ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... "That second movement—oh, exquisitely rendered!... No one has ever read Chopin so divinely.... How his family must idolize him!... They say.... That exquisite concerto!... Hasn't he the most stunning hair.... Those staccato passages left me actually limp—I'm starting Myrtle in Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take stenography, but I tell her.... Did you think the preludes were just the tiniest bit idealized.... I always say if one has one's music, and one's books, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... more than ever like a charming, if not very good little boy, and dressed beautifully, if incongruously, in a trailing limp gown of champagne color and wistaria most wonderfully blended, when her face, her figure, the way she wore her hair, seemed to cry aloud for knickerbockers; and there was Bea Habersham in velvet, of the ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... fever in his veins meantime, went and came a vision of that limp inert figure of the man being carried into the haunted house as it stood out in the flare of the flash light, one arm hanging heavily. What did that hand and arm remind him of? Oh—h! The time when Mark ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... very limp in the taxicab: he perceived that he had allowed his enthusiasm to carry him away with the result that he had been hopelessly duped. It was indeed mortifying, the more mortifying that he could not blame any one but himself—himself and nature. The more carefully ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... overcome He felt a trifle limp, What joy within his vacuum To stow the passing shrimp, And afterwards to sink and snooze, Soft-cradled on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... diversion had no effect on the marksman within. He fired again; this time at the Texan crawling in the blue stem, and the half-hidden man, almost lifted from the ground by the blow of the bullet, dropped limp. Meantime the first cowboy in his dash for safety was making a record still unequaled in mountain story. He jumped like a broncho and zig-zagged like a darting bird, but faster than either. The efforts of his companions to divert attention from him were constant. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... put aside his whitest shirt, and Heathcote had even gone to the expense of a lofty masher collar, and had forgotten all about the ghost in his excitement over the washing of a choker which would come out limp, though he personally devoted a cupful of starch to ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... on and on, until you could no longer count the welts, until the whole back of Michael Dubin was a mass of raw and bleeding flesh. The screams of Michael Dubin died away, and his convulsive struggling ceased, and his head hung limp, and he sunk lower and lower ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... being held in the room adjoining the kitchen. The court, which ended at the gate of the cottage, was fringed for several yards on each side by rows of squalid, wondering children, who understood it that Coroner Whidden was literally to sit on the dead body,—Mr. Whidden, a limp, inoffensive little man, who would not have dared to sit down on a fly. He had passed, pallid and perspiring, to the scene ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... she entered the house. Mrs. Tully was a stout, low-browed woman, with grayish yellow hair of that dry and lifeless texture which shows declining health or want of care. Her blue eyes looked faded in the setting of her tanned complexion. She sat in a low chair, her knees wide apart, defined by her limp calico draperies, rocking a child of two years, a fat little girl with flushed cheeks and flaxen hair braided into tight knots on her forehead, who was asleep in the large cushioned rocking-chair in the middle of the room. The room was somewhat bare, for ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... get crackly just because you're a Buffalo bill," says the fiver. "You'd be limp, too, if you'd been stuffed down in a thick cotton-and-lisle-thread under an elastic all day, and the thermometer not a degree under ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... jumped at him, but he got another one with the whip that made him pause, and then Dad caught him and shook him like a rat. Mr. Swaggie was limp ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... the comet stood still and the tail swung around it, and Anne, who represented the very tip of the tail and who hardly reached to Julia Crosby's shoulder, felt herself carried along with such velocity that the breath left her body, her knees gave way and she fell down in a limp little bundle. Julia Crosby instantly let go her hand and the impetus of the rush shot her like a catapult far over the ice into the midst of a crowd ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... sitting at breakfast the very morning after this conversation had taken place at Melcombe. No less than four of his children were waiting on him; Gladys was drying his limp newspaper at a bright fire, Barbara spreading butter on his toast, little Hugh kneeling on a chair, with his elbows on the table, was reading him a choice anecdote from a child's book of natural history, and Anastasia, while he poured out his coffee with ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... knees, and placed her all limp and powerless in an arm-chair. To her frenzy had now succeeded a sickness and feebleness like ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... little man swung awkwardly away from the window, toward the door. Many years ago, a racing whale line had snarled his left leg and whipped away a gout of muscle; and this leg was now shorter than its fellow, so that Asa walked with a pegging limp. He hitched across the big room, and took Joel's arm, and led the young man ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... and from the farmhouse eaves The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves Limp with the heat—a league of rutty way— Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves— Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, In thirsty meadow or on burning plain, That thy ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... two years ago, when I was on business in a certain English town, and in a quarter of it into which few but its own denizens penetrate, I met for one moment, at a slum corner, a great raw-boned Irishwoman who noticed my bit of a limp, and turned her eyes for an instant to give me a sharp look that won as sharp an answer. And there may have been mutual understanding and sympathy in the glance we thus exchanged—certainly, when it had passed between us, we continued on our ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... the day wore away, and the polo match—very badly played—was over, and the votaries of lawn-tennis were worn out with running up and down, and the flowers and the fruits in the show-tent began to look limp and dusty. The farmers and those people of small importance who had only been invited "from two to five," began now to take their departure, and their carriage wheels were to be heard driving away in rapid succession from the front door. Then the hundred or so ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... acting engine has many advantages over the belt. The atmosphere is always very moist about a whizzer, and there are frequently injurious fumes. The belt will be alternately dry and wet, stretched and limp, and wears out rapidly and is liable to sever. In all machines in which the shaft oscillates, if the center of oscillation does not lie in the central plane of the belt, the tension of the latter is not uniform. This affects badly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... came all limp and wet out of his pocket, and Francie made him let her dry them and copy them out; and she is so delighted with them. It really is well it is too late to ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... distance off, by her peculiar springy gait; at each step, she rose slightly on the front part of her foot, as if her heels were on springs. As before, she was indifferently dressed; a small, close hat came down over her face and hid her forehead; her skirt seemed shrunken, and hung limp about her ankles, accentuating the straightness of her figure. But below the brim of the hat her eyes were as bright as ever, and took note of all that happened. On seeing Maurice, she professed to remember him "perfectly," beginning to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... second or two was he subjected to this torture. Suddenly Ziffak ran toward the Xingu and then let go of the ankles. The black, limp object went spinning far out in the air, as if driven from ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... will be a strong pull from the stone in an outward direction, and the string will remain tight all the time that the stone is being whirled. If, however, we gradually slacken the speed at which we are making the stone whirl, a moment will come at length when the string will become limp, and the stone will fall back ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... of these exotically plumed bipeds, whose fine feathers were already bedrabbled by sand and growing limp in the sea breeze, was somewhat dissonant with the rudeness of sea and sky and shore. A few gulls screamed at them; a loon, startled from the lagoon, arose shrieking and protesting, with painfully extended legs, in obvious burlesque of the younger gentleman. The elder lady ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... spirits are naturally damped by their disappointment, and their holiday garments by a summer shower; and though the ducks of the gentlemen take the water as favourably as possible, every white muslin presently assumes the appearance of a drab, and, becoming a little limp and dirty, looks as miserable as a ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Chantel; and the shoulders moved, the line shifted, as the boatman answered. Chantel pitched the bundle over the lantern, and leapt on board. Rudolph came slowly, carrying in his arms the woman, who lay quiet and limp, clasping him in a kind of drowsy oblivion. He felt the flutter of her lips, while she whispered in his ear strange, breathless entreaties, a broken murmur of endearments, unheard-of, which tempted him more than the wide, alluring darkness of ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... shoulder, lay limp in his arms. He lay on his back, in ecstasy, his legs apart, showing the soft, cream-white fur of his stomach. Nicky rubbed his face against ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... too soon, either; for as I reaches up he topples toward me, as limp as a sack of flour. I was fieldin' my position well for an amateur; for I gathers him in on the fly, slides him down head first with only a bump or two, and stretches him out on the rug. It's only a near-faint, though, and after a drink of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... something. He was a pitiful sight as he rose and confronted Augusta Goold. There were blotches of purple red and spaces of pallor on his face; his hands twisted together; a sweat had broken out from his neck, and made his collar limp. His words were a stammering ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... thickets of young winter-bare cypresses were budding yet more vividly than the willows, while in the depths of those overflowed forests, near and far down their lofty gray colonnades, the dwarfed swamp-maple drooped the winged fruit of its limp bush in pink and flame-yellow and rose-red masses until it touched its own image ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... determination of all her New England grandmothers, to the task of scrubbing and soaping and squeezing and combing the dirt out of the long, thick hair. Three tubs of water were barely sufficient for the process, but finally David emerged, subdued but clean, looking very limp and draggled, and so much smaller because of his wet, close-clinging coat, that for a moment Mrs. Nancy thought, with a pang, that she might have washed away a part of the original dog. Later, however, when the sun had dried the fluffy hair, and ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... his best. Kneeling behind the old man, he heaved him into a sitting position, and propped him there, as the tumult of waters sluiced about them. Over the limp legs, up the great chest, the wave swept greedily; but the badger-grey head stayed above ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... his attention. At first he saw only an excited group gathered at the lake's edge, and then his eye caught sight of a tell-tale hat, floating on the surface. With a few bounds he was in the water, to emerge soon with a little limp body in his arms. He laid his burden down gently on the pebbly bank and then gave place to a man who pushed his way through the crowd with the brisk professional air a doctor is wont to assume. In a few moments the sturdy ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... League," said Tayoga, "that warriors have gone many days without food, when plenty of it was ready for their taking, merely to test their strength of body and will. Their sufferings were acute and terrible. Their flesh wasted away, their muscles became limp and weak, their sight failed, pain stabbed them with a thousand needles, but they would not yield and touch sustenance ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... so daunted in all my life: he was not able to do as he was wont; and some say that he also received a wound in the leg, and that some of the men in the Prince's army have certainly seen him limp, as he afterwards walked ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... reaching the saloon, sank into our seats only to leave again hurriedly when a steward approached to know if we would have porridge or kippered herring! I know you are never sea-sick, unlovable creature that you are, so you won't sympathize with us as we lay limp and wretched in our deck-chairs on the damp and draughty deck. Even the fact that our deck-chairs were brand-new, and had our names boldly painted in handsome black letters across the back, failed to give us a thrill of pleasure. At last it ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... rules and regulations, they would be like that too. Happy thought! If the man bucked up and cut short the peroration, there would be time for a bathe in Cove Reservoir. Those of the corps who had been to camp in previous years felt quite limp with the joy of the thought. Why couldn't he get through with it, and give a fellow a chance of getting ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... her pleading, the little Francette, with her misty eyes and the frank tears on her cheeks; and McElroy went to the river and filled his cap with water. This he poured into the open jaws and sopped over the blood-clotted head, wetting the limp feet and watching for the life she ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... man rose from the garden chair, slowly, dragging himself with an invalid air. His eyes stared, groping, blurred films that trembled between the pouch and droop of the lids; long cheeks, deep grooved, dropped to the infirm mouth that sagged under the limp ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... while in a trice one of the greyhounds, having seized him by the hind-leg, stretched him out, and the others were biting his undefended belly. The snarling and yelling of the worry made a noise so fiendish that it was fairly bloodcurdling; then it gradually died down, and the second wolf lay limp on the plains, killed by the dogs, unassisted. This wolf was rather heavier and decidedly taller than either of the big dogs, with more sinewy ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... strange sympathy, he went to the little family burying ground. It was one of the mild, dim days that come sometimes in early November, when the pale sunlight is like the pathetic smile of a sad face, and he sat for a long time on the limp, frost-bitten grass beside ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... One of many such. Only the day before I had helped to lift the limp body of Paddy from the floor of an observer's cockpit. He had been shot over the heart. He fainted, recovered his senses for ten minutes, and kept two Huns at bay until he died, by which ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... in his own style. Early the next morning he had a corporate farewell Mass for all his servers and his family. And this is the true story how Major Hardy chanced to limp ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war, thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the ground and remount ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... yet. The pictures on the walls are mostly studies done at school, and include the well-known windmill, and the equally popular old lady by the shore. Their frames are of fir-cones, glued together, or of straws which have gone limp, and droop like streaks of macaroni. There is a cosy corner; also a milking-stool, but no cow. The lampshades have had ribbons added to them, and from a distance look like ladies of the ballet. The flower-pot also is in a skirt. Near the door is a large ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... would have been upon him, but Peggy jerked the rifle she had selected to her shoulder and fired into the midst of the savage horde. With a howl of anguish one of the creatures leaped high in a death agony and came toppling down among his mates, a limp, inanimate mass. This checked the surging onrush for an instant, and in that instant Roy was on his feet and sprinting ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... would be well that the cripple should limp like Hephaistos: it would be well that the madman should indulge in all the fury of Ajax, that the incestuous woman should repeat the crimes of Phaedra, that the traitor should betray, that the rascal should lie, and the murderer kill, and when the piece ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... as I get up, Mr. Luce," begged Dick, and the coach was only too quick to help the boy to his feet. Then, with the aid of Luce's arm, Dick was able to show his parents that he could walk without too much of a limp. ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw hat; with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a rather gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, of small shipping which ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the shoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neck broken and dead as his pal." Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, began hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... went out of Hank Kuran. Until now the tenseness had been greater than he had ever remembered in life. Now he was limp. ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... not mine. Mine is Murano,—Carlotta Murano. Good-by." She moved away, then stopped suddenly and said, "I'm comin' again some time when the thing is working," and with a nod of her head, ran away. He looked after her; could see the outlines of her youthful figure in her slim cotton gown,—limp and clinging in the damp sea air, and the sudden revelation of her bare ankles ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... straightened himself it was to meet the other man's eyes blazing into his—savage, challenging eyes, like those of a tiger robbed of its prey. For an instant the two men remained staring straight into each other's faces, while on the ground between them lay Ann's slender, white-limbed body, limp and unconscious. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... giant, his hands hanging limp now, and his eyes staring into vacancy, repeated in the same ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... paid some attention to the totally limp form in my arms; and a few minutes later, amid an insane crowd, a pitifully embarrassed and nerve-shaken dirigible navigator was helping me lift my heavily-wrapped, shivering brother from the gondola, while the mechanics turned their attention to the overdriven ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... boat alongside the chief, and four of the sailors, directed by Dick, gently raised him from the water and laid him on the bottom of the boat. Blood was flowing freely from an ugly gash in his face, and it was evident from the manner in which his left arm hung limp, as they lifted him up, that either the shoulder or the arm itself ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... slumber which was more torpor than sleep. Her yellow, old-ivory face was faintly tinged with color; her thin lips were relaxed, and seemed a trifle fuller, so that Mary thought she looked better in sickness than in health; but the limp arm lying on the patchwork quilt seemed to be more skinny than thin, and the hand was more ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... justice to the last speaker had left the free and independent electors at the back of the hall slightly limp. The bank-manager's opening remarks were received without ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... completely off his guard that there was no need for me to use my gun. I got one hand on his throat in the most approved style of the garrotte and just pressed. He wriggled a little at first, but I kept up the same even pressure, and presently he went limp. I knew then that he was harmless for the next ten minutes, so I released my hold, slipped my useless Colt into my pocket, and made to stand up. But at that precise moment the electric light in the hall went on, and a silvery voice said, "Hands ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... children into the world to be blown to pieces on the field of battle, or a burden to their women throughout interminable years? No! For a generation at least the world shall be ours, and then it may limp along with a depleted population or go ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... The limp dead body was dropped at the edge of the sidewalk and from there dragged to the muddy roadway by half a hundred hands. There in the road more shots were fired into the body. Corporal Trenchard, a brother-in-law of Porteus, led the shooting into ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... rupees was the price agreed upon; here it is," he said, taking out a thick bundle of notes that occupied the whole inside of the poor, limp pocket-book; and as the old woman stretched out a skinny claw for them and began to slowly count them, he turned his gaze away, on to the upturned face of the girl ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... cat-like footsteps of the savage, as he approached. His long arm was already stretched forth to clasp her, when the door was darkened, a form leaped into the room, and with the quickness of lightning, dealt the savage a tremendous blow that stretched him limp ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... last word. He went limp suddenly and slid out of Hollister's grasp. And they let him lie, a dead man beside the dead woman on the floor. They stood up themselves and stared at the bodies with that strange incredulity men sometimes feel in the ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... your style be flowery—I should say florid—never mind a false epithet or two in a page, they will never be observed. A great deal depends upon the first two pages—you must not limp at starting; we will, therefore, be ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... huddled close up to the face of the mother, who when she realized their terrible fate had evidently raised it to her lips to imprint upon its lips the last kiss it was to receive in this world. The sight forced many a stout heart to shed tears. The limp bodies, with matted hair, some with holes in their heads, eyes knocked out and all bespattered with blood ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... carrying two boxes of oranges and a crate of California cabbages in out of the sun, and a limp individual in blue gingham shirt and dirty overalls had shouldered the mail sack and was making his way across the dusty, rut-scored ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... She was lying limp and motionless on the edge of the pool, and the receding tide was still lapping over the shelf of the rock where the sea ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... world's best music rose and fell in throbbing sweetness on the desert stillness, music which told beyond peradventure that some cataclysm in the player's life had shaken him from his rightful niche. It proclaimed this travel-stained sheepherder in his faded overalls and peak-crowned limp-brimmed hat another of the incongruities of the far west. The sagebrush plains and mountains have held the secrets of many Mysteries locked in their silent breasts, for, since the coming of the White Man, they have been a haven for civilization's ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... your head ever spun round and round at some of the confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot forbear to ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... in a sharp voice that had a terrible shake in it. "Crailey! Crailey, I want you to hear me!" He took one of the limp hands in his and began to chafe it, while Mrs. Tanberry grasped ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... the strip in dispute, however, preferring to wait until he was ready with his plans. Paddy was slowly getting better, and Mr. Ford went back to Deepdale, to look after matters there, arranging to come back as soon as Paddy could limp around. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... pile of furs; it was evident that every new motion revealed a new bruise to her, but she set her white teeth and held her chin high in the air. When she had taken leave of the trader, she walked out without a limp and vaulted into her saddle unaided. The sunlight, glancing from her silver helm, fell upon her floating hair and turned it into a golden glory that hid rents and stains, and redeemed even the kirtle, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... that ole snake had hooked on to my jeans. He sounded right mad, singin' lively, back in there. My laigs feel kind of limp, right now." ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... from Viceregal Lodge in the mists of the evening, they met a temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily mad horse, swinging round the corners, with her eyes and her mouth open, and her head like the head of the Medusa. She was stopped by a man at the risk of his life, and taken out of the saddle, a limp heap, and put on the bank to explain herself. This wasted twenty minutes, and then she was sent home in a lady's 'rickshaw, still with her mouth open and her hands ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... floor with blood. Then down he went shuddering to his death. The young men shouted loud their applause in honor of Herod's son. While the beast was dying slaves came and sanded the floor. Then, presently, they swept up the red sand, and tying a rope to the legs of the limp tiger, dragged him away. They had done this kind of work before, and each knew his part. Presently Antipater called ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... blood, and bound my feet with tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut from the bark of a Monguba tree. He went about his work in a very gentle way and with much skill, but was so sparing of speech that I could scarcely get answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done I was able to limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian when he performs a service of this kind never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness in negro slaves or half-castes. We had to wait two hours for the return ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... called Levantines. A strange race of obese Creoles, connected with our society by naught save language and dress, but enveloped by the Orient in its stupefying atmosphere, the subtle poisons of its opium-laden air, in which everything becomes limp and nerveless, from the tissues of the skin to the girdle around the waist, ay, even to the mind itself and ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... must! She shuddered at the thought of what would happen if she did not get away at once. She strained at the buttons on her soft white gloves and pulled the fingers off, slipping her hands out and letting the glove hands hang limp at her wrists. Then with a quick glance backward at a flicker of light that appeared wavering beyond the glass door, she gathered her draperies again and fled down the long stone walk. Silently, lightly as a ghost ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... minutes both were absorbed in seating their dolls about the table, for some of the dear things were so limp they wouldn't sit up, and others so stiff they wouldn't sit down, and all sorts of seats had to be contrived to suit the peculiarities of their spines. This arduous task accomplished, the fond mammas stepped back to enjoy the spectacle, which, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... too, and there seemed to be shots from the second boche. My own particular duelist dropped back limp after my first shot, although I got off four in ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... their seats and gathered round during the foregoing dialogue. They were highly delighted with this speech. One very lank gentleman, in a loose limp white cravat, long white waistcoat, and a black great-coat, who seemed to be in authority among them, felt called upon ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... away into the woods or on the moor, and find the way to the places he had loved. One day, when Philip and Charles came in from a drive, they overtook her in the court, her cloak over her arm, her crape limp with spray, her cheeks brightened to a rosy glow by the wind, and a real smile as she looked up to them. When Charles was on his sofa, she stooped over him and whispered, 'James and Ben Robinson have taken ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... let himself fall into a chair in the attitude of a dying hero. I saw his eyes fill with tears, and his hair—until then flamboyant and erect upon his head—fall down in limp ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... sickening doubt, to feel that her limbs were limp in the agony of fear. She heard the thunder of the man-eating stallion's hoofs just behind her and she butted blindly, as she sank down, into some one who held bravely her hand as she fell, and the next ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... so bad as Clare thought: the scuffling came from quite another cause. It suddenly ceased, and a sharp scream followed. Clare turned with the baby in his arms. Almost at his feet, gazing up at him, the rat hanging limp from his jaws, stood the little castaway mongrel he had seen in the morning, his eyes flaming, and his tail wagging with wild homage and the delight of presenting the rat to one he ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... 1915. Imbros. Very hot; very limp with the prevalent disease but greatly cheered up by the news of yesterday evening's battle at Helles. The Turks must have got hold of a lot of fresh shell for, at 5.30 p.m., they began as heavy a bombardment as any yet seen ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... and that pushing, silly little Lucy Marsh. I never saw any two look smaller or poorer than those two when they skedaddled out of her room. Yes, that's the word— they skedaddled to the door, both of them, looking as limp as a cotton dress when it has been worn for a week, and one almost treading on the other's heels; and I do not think Prissie will be worried ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade |
