"Middle-aged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cut in two by dividing railings, marched westward and skirted the restricted districts with the formality of an army flanking. Grand Avenue, once the city's limit, now girded its middle like a loin-cloth. The middle-aged inhabitant who could remember it when it was a corn-field now beheld full-blasted breweries, cinematograph theaters, ten-story office-buildings, old mansions converted into piano-salesrooms and millinery emporiums, business ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... seemed to take a new lease on life. Decrepit, drawn-faced, hump-shouldered and dried up before their time, the few who reached the age when the law made them their own masters, looked not like men and women who stand on the threshold of life, but rather like over-worked middle-aged beings of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... of the speaker sparkled, but otherwise she looked round with challenging serenity on the English and Americans around her. Madame Variani—stout, clever, middle-aged, and disinterested—had a position of her own in Rome. She was the correspondent of a leading French paper; she had many English friends; and she and the Marchesa Fazzoleni, at the Ambassador's right hand, had just been doing wonders for the relief of the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in most cases they receive three per cent. of the purchase money, but that is a very poor sinking fund to provide for a middle-aged gentleman, who has probably a family to support; and absolute bankruptcy must be the result if there is, as on several large properties, an agent with a ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... straightway sets to work to learn. Then, too, the Backfisch is the ideal German maiden, cheerful, docile, and facetious; and constantly on the jump (springen is the word she uses) to serve her elders. Middle-aged Germans used to have a most tiresome way of expecting girls to be like lambs in spring, always in the mood to frisk and caper: so that a quiet or a delicate girl had a bad time with some of them. Ein junges Maedchen muss immer heiter ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... are in clover when their proprietor happens to be a good and sensible woman, but are to be pitied when they get into the hands of the selfish or the foolish. As very young men, they too often fall victims to bad-tempered chorus girls or to middle-aged matrons of the class from which Pope judged all womankind. They make capital husbands when well managed; treated badly, they say little, but set to work, after the manner of a dissatisfied cat, to find a kinder mistress, generally succeeding. The Earl of —- adored ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... had followed the law of such middle-aged groups of familiars, and separated by sexes. The men drifted over to the piazza, lit cigars, hoisted their knees, and talked, first, of the prune picking, their trouble with help, the rather bootless effort of a group ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... always wondering about something. One day it was, "Do fishes love Jesus?" followed by "What is a soul?" The conclusion was, "It's the thing we love Jesus with." When they first come to us they invariably think that mountains grow like trees: "Stones are young mountains, aren't they? and hills are middle-aged mountains." Later on, every printed thing on a wall is a text. We were in a railway station, on our way to the hills: "Look! oh, what numbers and numbers of texts! But what queer pictures to have on texts!" One was specially perplexing; it was a well-known advertisement, and ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... are blind, and deeply pitted, others but lightly marked. Apparently the disease has worn itself out, for only the oldest members of the tribes have suffered. None seem to have it now, nor are the marks of the disease to be seen on the middle-aged men. The ravages of this scourge must have been confined to the coast tribes, as no evidence of its having been amongst the natives of the interior is to be found. The belt of dry country separating ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... ball given by some society people for charity. He had known her at once for an American, and finally had obtained an introduction. Her name was Kate Gilbert, and she lived in New York. It was understood that she was of a wealthy family and traveling for her health. She was accompanied only by a middle-aged maid, a giant of a woman who seemed to be maid and chaperon and general protector ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... eyes.' And he said, 'You wouldn't make it a handsome face, would you?' and she says, 'A very handsome face.' And says he, 'Middle-aged?' and says she, 'Twenty-nine.' And I mind him saying, 'A little bald on the top?' and she says, says she, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... passed, but the Secretary was in and would see Senator Rickrose. He came forward to meet him—a tall, middle-aged, well-groomed man, with sandy hair, whose principal recommendation for the post he filled was the fact that he was the largest contributor to the campaign fund in his State, and his senior senator ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he answered Clarke and faced him, there was ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... without as much as a glance at the dead man, he left the room, and again visited the telephone box. He was engaged in it for a few minutes. When he came out he heard steps coming up the staircase, and looking over the banisters he saw the senior partner, Eldrick, a middle-aged man. Eldrick ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... puzzled a little by the somewhat convulsive gurgle that burst from Anne's lips. "I beg your pardon. I just happened to think of something." She turned away to say good-bye to the last of her remaining visitors,—two middle-aged ladies who had not made her acquaintance until after her marriage to Templeton Thorpe and therefore were not by way of knowing Mrs. Wintermill without the aid of opera-glasses. "Do come and see ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... process of 'tying' it is impossible to explain on paper; but I can assure my readers it afforded great scope for taste and ingenuity. Few, indeed, could do it properly, though the singles of some were very neat. The best 'tyer' in our party, and indeed in the district, was a little, middle-aged woman, who was a diligent, rapid gatherer, and generally the first to finish her handful. Her singles were perfectly round, and as flat at the top as if laid with a plummet. Having finished tying, we laid down our singles according to order, so that no difficulty might be felt in collecting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... man in the doorway, a short, sturdy, middle-aged Frenchman, with strong features, a tuft of grey beard, heavy eyebrows, and dark, prominent eyes, with a hot, shining ...
— "Fin Tireur" - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... both for physical and sentimental reasons, this last experience quite demoralized Miss Dwyer, and she sat down and cried. Now, a few tears, regarded from a practical, middle-aged point of view, would not appear to have greatly complicated the situation, but they threw Lombard into a panic. If she was going to cry, something must be done. Whether anything could be done or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... left the Bardon house, he saw a middle-aged man entering the Langmore mansion. The man was well dressed ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... Kaiserin Elizabeth, more than 300 men, who had left Tsing-tau by railroad before Austria decided to join her ally in the Far East as well as in Europe, hurried back in small groups and in civilian clothes to escape detection. Squads of the Landsturm, the last reserve, middle-aged men who had left their families and their business in all parts of China joined the ranks and went to drilling in preparation for the hard fighting expected as soon as the invading fleet passed the outer defenses ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... tumblers in California and the tin-type man somewhere on the plains. But David was a friend of his of years' standing, and he was a dog I should call naturally gifted, and with that of a friendly nature, sober, decent, middle-aged, comfortable, and one who took things as they came. But Flannagan had hair that was wild and red, and his complexion was similar. He was large and bony. His voice was windy, his manner oratorical, and his nature ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... child, who went willingly with Harold, and was soon ushered into the large upper room, which was used as both nursery and school-room, for Mrs. Tracy could not allow her two sons, Tom and Jack, to come in contact with the boys at school; so she kept a governess, a middle-aged spinster, who, glad of a home, and the rather liberal compensation, sat all day in the nursery and bore patiently with Tom's freaks and Jack's dullness: to say nothing of the trouble it was to have the three-year-old Maude toddling about ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... cheapest paper for the YOUNG, MIDDLE-AGED, and OLD, now published. Full of splendid Stories, Sketches, Incidents, Anecdotes, Scientific Articles, and Puzzles. A Brilliant Serial Story now commencing. Only 40 cents a year, postpaid. Specimen ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... to play a joke on some of our family for being jealous and wanting to get him caught by Mr. Painter—whatever it was, that medicine had an awful power and did even more than he said it would. When every one had taken a good swallow, except the last one in line—he being a middle-aged person named Waters, who had to take what was left, which was only about a spoonful and very disappointing to Mr. Waters—they all felt the curling sensation begin, and commenced the new muscle-practice ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... kindred-looking girl with darker hair on the right of Mr. Direck who impressed him at the very outset as being still prettier, and—he didn't quite place her at first—somehow familiar to him; there was a large irrelevant middle-aged lady in black with a gold chain and a large nose, between Teddy and the tutor; there was a tall middle-aged man with an intelligent face, who might be a casual guest; there was an Indian young ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... start now," said the middle-aged man, "for I am lame, and it will take me all night to ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... there between the few chinks left in the barrier I could catch glimpses of the Hall, and once I saw a rough-looking, middle-aged man standing at a window on the lower floor, whom I supposed to be Israel Stakes, the coachman. There was no sign, however, of Gabriel or of Mordaunt, and their absence alarmed me. I was convinced that, unless they were under some restraint, they would have ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The middle-aged lover stood bending forward, his face impatiently eager and his attitude as stiffly alert as that of a bird dog when the quail scent strikes ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... deterred from the course that she fully believed to be the just and true one. Of the great leaders in this movement she alone remains.... Spanning a distance of forty years stood at her side Mrs. Catt, the younger woman who has taken up the battle, and grouped around were earnest young girls and middle-aged women fired with her enthusiasm and looking up to her with a reverence that was very beautiful and a most gracious tribute from youth to old age. When Miss Jean Gordon advanced to present her with a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... to be so carried away by their feelings, as to be jealous of a submissive looking little man like this. Yet, having fallen in love with him once herself, and forgetting that youth had flown, and that the husband of her youth was only a plodding, middle-aged family man, it was not so very remarkable that a naturally jealous woman, like Mrs. Charles Burton, should imagine that her especial property was coveted by all those of her own sex who ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... covered the coffin with their laurels. The ceremony was at an end. The torches were extinguished; the crowd dispersed. But, by the light of two candles still burning on the altar, might be seen the form of a small, now middle-aged woman who had flung herself upon the bier, whilst a pale young man ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... must not expect middle-aged men to be as demonstrative as very young ladies; but he has as much real affection for you as ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... said, with a calm, middle-aged self-possession. "It is the thing Peter and I like best in ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged young women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle in Belgium and up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Two middle-aged couples. Business partners, from Trenton, and their wives. We got the names from him and checked. They really are partners, in a used-car business. Sorry, Rick. Looks like another dead end. The Coast Guard drew a blank ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... urbane, a wonderful type of the supreme success of mediocrity; a couple of young soldiers, light-hearted and out for a good time, of whom Julian took charge; an Oxford don, who had once been Lord Maltenby's tutor; and last of all the homely, very pleasant-looking, middle-aged lady, Princess Torski, followed by her niece. There were a few introductions ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her feet and rang the bell, and Burden came in and led her along the broad corridors and across the main hall. A middle-aged woman in a stiff, black dress stood waiting for her, and gave her ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... the Molly Swash," as they called themselves; not more than a dozen, including those aft, as well as those forward. A peculiar feature of this crew, however, was the circumstance that they were all middle-aged men, with the exception of the mate, and all thorough-bred sea-dogs. Even Josh, the cabin-boy, as he was called, was an old, wrinkled, gray-headed negro, of near sixty. If the crew wanted a little in the elasticity of youth, it possessed the steadiness and experience of their time of life, every ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... appearance, was almost the exact reverse of Mr. Hamilton. He was a middle-aged man with the iron gray hair and piercing dark eyes that go to make up what is perhaps the handsomest type of Americans. He was a tall man, strong, lean and sinewy, with a bearing of dignity and decision. Both these men were well-dressed to the point of affluence, and, as near ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... got far from the shore before the tide swept us clean out into the Atlantic. We were shortly in a situation sufficiently perilous for the heroic. There we were, three lads, whose united years would not have made up those of a middle-aged man, in a very little boat, in a very high sea, with a strong gale that would have been very favourable for us, if we had wished to steer for New York. As we could not make head at all against the combined strength of an adverse wind, tide, and sea, we left off pulling, and threw all ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Americans, and at the time of this story were middle-aged people and very fond of seeing in each other's company whatever there was of interest or beauty around us. We had a son about twenty-two years old, of whom we were also very fond; but he was not with us, being at that ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Pamela—especially if during the interval she had bettered her social condition—with what ardour must she have hailed the advent of what, with all its shortcomings, was a book worth gold. Perhaps she went to Vauxhall with it in her muff, and shook it triumphantly at some middle-aged lady of her acquaintance. Perhaps she lived long enough to see one great novel after another break forth to lighten the darkness of life. She must have looked back on the pompous and lascivious pages of Eliza Haywood, with their long-drawn palpitating intrigues, with positive ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... dancing on the floor. Each man had an Indian woman. One was middle-aged; the other, a comely young girl with heavy silver earrings, was laughing noisily as her companion dragged her to a standstill in front ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... saw a middle-aged man sitting in the kitchen doorway, with a lad of ten or twelve years leaning against his knees. She could tell little of his appearance, save that he had a high forehead, and hair that waved well back from it in rather an unusual fashion. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at the Adelphi Hotel, at Liverpool, was a very respectable middle-aged man, with a white neck-cloth; he looked like a Methodist parson. He waited upon us for five days with great gravity, and then another waiter told us that we could give our waiter what we pleased. We were charged L1 for 'attendance' in the bill, but I very innocently gave half as ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... irritated by continued scratching that secondary lesions, such as papules and slight thickening and infiltration, may result. It is much more common in advanced life—pruritus senilis. In such cases, as well as in those cases in younger and middle-aged individuals in which the itchiness develops at the approach of cold weather and disappears upon the coming of the warm season (pruritus hiemalis), the pruritus is usually more or less generalized, although not infrequently in the latter the ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... had strayed through the trees close to the outskirts of another picnic party. Mr. Charles immediately ran to ask some fair volunteer to come to the assistance of Mrs. Wimbush, who had fainted. At hearing the name, an active middle-aged lady sprang up and followed him. It was Mrs. Marrables. The sight of her mother brought Mrs. Wimbush round quicker than any smelling bottle could have ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Dain, the solicitor who practised at Hanbridge. Stanway's cob, always quicker to start than to stop, had been pulled up with difficulty, drawing his cart just clear of the other one, so that the two portly and middle-aged talkers were most uncomfortably obliged to twist their necks in order to see one another; the attitude did nothing to ease the obvious asperity of the discussion. She thought the spectacle undignified and silly; and she marvelled, as all women marvel, that men who conduct themselves so magisterially ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... place, I'm thinkin', you're that thick, (There is a noise from the stairs in the hall.) Whisht! It's the doctor comin' down from Eileen. What'll he say, I wonder? (The door in the rear is opened and Doctor Gaynor enters. He is a stout, bald, middle-aged man, forceful of speech, who in the case of patients of the Carmodys' class dictates rather than advises. Carmody adopts a whining tone.) Aw, Doctor, and how's Eileen now? Have you got her cured of ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... being prisoners burnt alive, after being scalped, their nails pulled out by the roots, and other torments; one of these latter supposed to be of a rebel clergyman; his band being fixed to the hoop of his scalp. Most of the farmers appear by the hair to be young or middle-aged men; there being but sixty-seven grey heads among them all, which makes ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... the Mercers had come to Avonlea in the spring—the Maxwells. There were just Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell; they were a middle-aged couple and very well off. Mr. Maxwell had bought the lumber mills, and they lived up at the old Spencer place which had always been "the" place of Avonlea. They lived quietly, and Mrs. Maxwell hardly ever went anywhere because she was delicate. She was ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the feelings with which he took his wife home, they were at least those of a gentleman; and it were a good thing indeed, if, at the end of five years, the love of most pairs who marry for love were equal to that of Cosmo Warlock to his middle-aged wife; and now that she was gone, his reverence for her memory was something surpassing. From the day almost of his marriage the miseries of life lost half their bitterness, nor had it returned at her death. Instinctively he felt that outsiders, those even who respected him ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and pointing to the tent, said, 'Oh, sir! my dying mother!' 'What?' said his Majesty, dismounting, and fastening his horse up to the branches of the oak, 'what, my child? tell me all about it.' The little creature now led the king to the tent; there lay, partly covered, a middle-aged female Gipsy in the last stages of a decline, and in the last moments of life. She turned her dying eyes expressively to the royal visitor, then looked up to heaven; but not a word did she utter; the organs of speech ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... urgent demand for belief. Sometimes indeed (as I have observed before with Mr. J.E. BUCKROSE) the characters themselves are more credible than the way in which they carry on. Thus while Mr. Tubbs, the middle-aged and high-principled champion of distress, is both human and likeable, I was never persuaded that any more real motive than regard for an amusing situation would compel him to saddle himself with the continued society of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... the world. Yet Veronica had observed that he was critical of looks in other women, and she thought his criticisms generally just and in good taste. For her part, however, if he chose to consider her middle-aged aunt lovely, Veronica would not contradict him, for she was cautious in a certain degree, and in spite of herself she distrusted ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... know him; what is to be done?" C—— insisted that he should know him by instinct; and so after we reached the depot, we told him to sally out and try. Sure enough, in a few moments he pitched upon a cheerful, middle-aged gentleman, with a moderate but not decisive broad brim to his hat, and challenged him as Mr. Sturge; the result verified the truth that "instinct is a great matter." In a few moments our new friend and ourselves were snugly ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the approach of the victim of the pursuit of knowledge. As for him, he would have liked to caress and fondle her. To him there was always present a remembrance of her early beauty and the golden mist of memory shone before his eyes and he did not see that she was a heavy, middle-aged woman with coarse features and coarse figure. Animal beauty she had once had. The beauty had utterly flown, but the animal all remained. She had a shifty and wandering eye, burned out and lusterless, that told of dreams that were of men, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... the increasing substitution of steam for water, prove that the monster has now entered on the final stage of its career; for here, as on the terraces, we are surrounded by specimens of life, decay, and death. The young, the middle-aged, the old, the dead,—they ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... him, never dream of him, as anything more than a mere acquaintance? I don't wish for a lover or a husband—at least not yet," with a gasp; "I don't wish to leave home, and go away from all of you, though you are so unkind and teasing—not for a long, long time, till I am quite a middle-aged woman. I don't see why I should be plagued about it when Annie here, who is two years older than I am, and ever so much prettier, as everybody knows, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... new inmates were added to the manor house family. Young Cecil Vyvyan, a cousin of Anna's, who was of the same age as herself, and his tutor, Dr. Strickland, a grave, middle-aged Scotch doctor of philosophy. The boy's parents were in India, which caused the widow to suggest to them that he should, for a few years, make his home with her, in order that she might watch over his ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... persuaded that I edit it myself!"[179] Truly Lowell had a good company: Emerson, Parkman, Curtis, Norton, James, Eliot,—all teachers in various ways. Through their lectures, books, and speeches, they influenced college students at an impressible age; they appealed to young and to middle-aged men; and they furnished comfort and entertainment for the old. It would have been difficult to find anywhere in the country an educated man whose thought was not affected by some one of these seven; and their influence on editorial writers for newspapers was ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... done what he could to mend the matter, and the time had come for philosophical submission. It was now his duty to keep up Miss Graham's spirits. They were both Americans, and from the national standpoint he was simply the young girl's middle-aged bachelor friend. There was nothing in the situation for him ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... welcome news that the Governor-General would grant us an interview. Accompanied by an aide-de-camp, we drove to the Palace on the banks of the Angara, and were ushered into the presence of the Tsar's Viceroy, who governs a district about the size of Europe. General Panteleyeff was a middle-aged man, with white moustache, light blue eyes, and a spare athletic figure, displayed to advantage by a smart dark green uniform. The General is a personal friend of the Emperor, and the cross of St. Andrew and a tunic covered with various orders bore witness ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... came up and then they all approached me and almost kissed me. My heart was filled with joy, but my attention was especially caught by a middle-aged man who came up to me with the others. I knew him by name already, but had never made his acquaintance nor exchanged a word with him ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... think of nothing further to say. The thing was incomprehensible to her, appalling, yet strangely touching. This twenty-year-old girl, groping her way toward safety, that refuge of the middle-aged, as eagerly as other young things grasp at happiness, at romance!—She recalled phrases spoken by another startled mother to another girl quite as headstrong: "You are only a child! He is twice your age! ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... entered, and took a seat well toward the front. The room was half filled with people, and the mass of them were elderly and middle-aged women. There were rows of their homely, faded, and strong-lined faces set in sober bonnets, a sprinkling of solemn old men, a few bright-ribboned girls, and in the background a settee or two of smart young fellows. Right in front of Mrs. Field sat ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... He was a middle-aged man of most pleasant features—benign, good-natured, and yet shrewd. He dressed well for a cowman, and from his pink, bald crown and gray chin whiskers down to his neat shoes, he looked the part ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... number remained, grouped around the honorable Tarbox. They were St. Pierre, Bonaventure,—Maximian detaining a middle-aged pair, Sidonie's timorous guardians,—and two others, who held back, still waiting to ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the plot sat, in state, Dick and Mary, March and the vision in leather, their respective thrones being empty flour-casks. Around them danced the youth and beauty of the settlement. These were enclosed by a dense circle, composed of patriarchal, middle-aged, and extremely juvenile admirers. The background of the picture was filled up with the monstrous fire which saturated that spot in the forest with light—bright as the broadest day. The extreme foreground was composed of the trunk of a fallen tree, on which sat our friend the artist, delineating ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... arm. And though there would have been glory in that, the other glory was more to her taste. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen a Cabinet Minister, and I think that she was a little disappointed at finding him so like other middle-aged gentlemen. She had hoped that Mr. Monk would have assumed something of the dignity of his position; but he assumed nothing. Now the bishop, though he was a very mild man, did assume something by the very facts of his apron ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... [Enter a middle-aged Arab, dressed in the most indescribable rags and in the last stage of exhaustion. He is followed at long intervals by his family to two generations, who watch his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... as they passed within the deep shadows they became erect again and their faces grew more youthful. It was a marvelous transformation, but Harry read their secret. All the rest of the Invincibles were lads, or but little more, and they two middle-aged men felt that they were responsible for them. In the face of defeat and irretrievable disaster they recovered their courage, and refused ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fifteen!" "O true believers, here is a Syrian steed which will give renown to the purchaser!" Strolling loosely about were dealers in sugar-cane and pea-nuts, which are called gooba in Africa as in America, pipe peddlers and venders of rosaries, jugglers and minstrels. At last we came to a middle-aged woman seated on the ground behind a basket containing beads, glass armlets, and such trinkets. She was dressed like any Arab-woman of the lower class, but was not veiled, and on her chin blue lines were tattooed. Her features and expression were, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... the greatest donkey in the entire collection, it is obvious that we shall find him in the middle-aged party of 1936, who is gadding about in inflated trunks and with a fan in his hand. If it were not for the gloves and polka-dot neck-wear we should assume that this costume was a particularly fantastic bathing-suit. The youth of the ensuing year, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... introduce you to Pompey," said he. "Pompey is the pride of the local draghounds—no very great flier, as his build will show, but a staunch hound on a scent. Well, Pompey, you may not be fast, but I expect you will be too fast for a couple of middle-aged London gentlemen, so I will take the liberty of fastening this leather leash to your collar. Now, boy, come along, and show what you can do." He led him across to the doctor's door. The dog sniffed round for an instant, and ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ale-glasses, with a plate of tobacco, sat some half-dozen men, enjoying their pipe and glass. In the chimney corner sat Thomas Dickons, the faithful under-bailiff of Mr. Aubrey, a big broad-shouldered, middle-aged man, with a hard-featured face and a phlegmatic air. In the opposite corner sat the little grizzle-headed clerk and sexton, old Hallelujah—(as he was called, but his real name was Jonas Higgs.) Beside him sat Pumpkin, the gardener at the Hall, a very frequent guest at the Aubrey ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... impressions, apparently of GLOSSOPTERIS BROWNII. On descending to the camp, I was informed that the cattle-watering party came suddenly upon two natives, one of whom was a placid old man, the other middle-aged. Corporal Graham did all he could to allay their fears, and convince them that they were in no danger from such strangers. The elder at length handed his little bundle to the younger and sat down, on seeing the Corporal's green bough; meanwhile the other walked ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... of the men who hemmed the table in. Every type of face presented itself—the fleshy cheeks of middle-aged Jews, of pale clerks and salesmen, prosperous-looking men who might have been commercial travellers, and here and there a ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... who slept soundly on, asking no questions. But to the old men he had died a youth, full of promise. They remembered well the eager buoyancy with which he and his comrades had set out for the gold fields. Middle-aged men and women remembered his school days in Reedsville, when he was one of them, when they were all healthy, merry boys ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... citizen of London, healthy, middle-aged, successful in business, whose interest in golf is as keen, according to his lights and limitations, as the absorption of Rembrandt in art. Suppose this citizen, having one day a loose half-hour of time to fill in the neighbourhood ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... Bay neighbourhood, four modes of disposing of the dead obtain, according to Mr. Meyer:—old persons are buried; middle-aged persons are placed in a tree, the hands and knees being brought nearly to the chin, all the openings of the body, as mouth, nose, ears, etc. being previously sewn up, and the corpse covered with mats, pieces of old cloth, nets, etc. The corpse being placed in the tree, a fire is made underneath, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... announcement that this is the identical "little cot where she was born." Inside is an ordinary tent, with a rough platform at the further end, whereon is an empty chair, at which a group of small Boys, two or three young Women, and some middle-aged Farm-labourers, have been solemnly and patiently staring for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... raucously and swerved around him. The driver leaned out to curse and Malone waved at him, dimly recognizing a private eye he had once known, a middle-aged man named Archer. Wondering vaguely what Archer was doing this far East, and in a jeep at that, Malone watched the vehicle disappear down the street. There were more cars coming, but what difference did that make? Malone didn't care about cars. After all, ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a little start of surprise. A tall, middle-aged man, with a single streak of white hair through the brown, was gazing at ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... Urania, lounging on the deck-chairs, having luncheon, or dinner or supper, or lost in the smoke of cigars in the smoking room. This elusiveness made the personality of the traveller puzzling and interesting, and we bestowed the title of "Our American" now on one, now on another of the middle-aged American gentlemen. Of course, we marked as candidates the more interesting and typical figures. The Urania had been on the ocean for quite some time when my friend at last said to me: "I have found out which American is ours. Here ...
— The Shield • Various
... wife out of the cab, and they passed through into the broad, vaulted passage which connected the street with the courtyard of the hotel. By the dim light afforded by an old-fashioned hanging lamp Nancy Dampier saw that three people had answered the bell; they were a middle-aged man (evidently mine host), his stout better half, and a youth who rubbed his eyes as if sleepy, and who stared at the newcomers ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... crowd a strong-looking, middle-aged man, dressed very well, very snugly in a grey overcoat, grey silk scarf, thick gloves and dark felt hat, marched up and down, twirling his folded umbrella. He seemed to be the leader of the little crowd on the wharf and at ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... young and middle-aged, who dare not be seen by day, for whom the police hold "warrants," for they have absconded from wives and children, leaving them ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... gala night; the elderly fairies, as I said before, were chatting among the honeysuckles; the young were flirting, and dancing, and making love; the middle-aged talked politics under the mushrooms; and the queen herself and half-a-dozen of her favourites were yawning their pleasure from a little mound covered with the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out of his mournful eyes and murmured, "Patienza, lieber Herr." Then spying a vacant place behind the chairs at the baccarat table, he darted thither, and I followed in his wake. There must have been about a couple of hundred louis in the bank, which was held by a dissipated, middle-aged man who, having once been handsome in a fleshy way, had run to fat. His black hair, cropped short, stood up like a shoebrush, and when he leaned back in his chair a roll of flesh rose above his collar. I disliked ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... dissipations, and with the gift of fascination, whatever that may mean, in place of the simpler attributes of a few decades ago. And the heroine!—There is no more book-muslin and innocence. She has, as a rule, green eyes; she is middle-aged, and if she has not been married before, she has had her affairs. Everything obvious in life, from politics to mutton-chops, is absolutely barred by anyone with any pretensions to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... airs of you and the racket of you tire me, I want to be done with you, and to be back in quiet Quality Street, of which I am a part; it is really pleasant to me to know that I shall wake up to-morrow slightly middle-aged.' With the entrance of CAPTAIN BROWN, however, she is at once a frivol again. He frowns ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... half concealed by heavy curtains. But the occupants were by no means youthful spinsters or bachelors; they were generally married women, guests of the hotel, receiving other people's husbands whose wives were "in the States," or responsible middle-aged leaders of the town. In the elaborate toilettes of the women, as compared with the less formal business suits of the men, there was an odd mingling of the social attitude with perhaps more mysterious confidences. The idle gossip about them had never affected Barker; rather he had that innate ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... to a tent or to the lighthouse or anywhere to sleep. Much sleep could not be expected for some time to come. He saw the boat land with the ladies on board; he took off his hat as they walked past. There were old ladies, middle-aged ladies, young ladies. Well, there always is this combination. Then he went on with his work. But he had a curious sensation, as if something of the past had been revived in his mind. It is, however, not an ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... spoke with deliberation and coldness—occasionally with a sort of sarcastic brusquerie, carefully avoiding the least movement of hands or head during converse. This was exceedingly difficult of attainment to me, and took me an infinite deal of time and trouble; but I had for my model a middle-aged Englishman who was staying in the same hotel as myself, and whose starched stolidity never relaxed for a single instant. He was a human iceberg—perfectly respectable, with that air of decent gloom about him which is generally worn by all the sons of Britain while sojourning in a foreign ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... crew. A Martian hovered in the background, and Lancaster didn't notice him at first. Berg introduced the humans casually. There was a stocky gray-haired man named Friedrichs, a lanky space-tanned young chap called Isaacson, a middle-aged woman and her husband by the name of Dufrere, a quiet Oriental who answered to Hwang, and a red-haired woman presented as Karen Marek. These, Berg explained, were the technicians who would be helping Lancaster. This end of the space station was devoted to the labs and factories; for security reasons, ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... middle-aged woman with a middle-aged woman's comprehension. There are heaps of things I loathe more and more each day, meanness, for instance, and an evil tongue. But, for the other sins, more and more I see the case for compassion. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... resignation to the will of God, seems to have been throughout, since the introduction of Christianity, a characteristic of the Irish people. It is often witnessed in our own days, and manifested, equally by the young, the middle-aged, or the old. The young, closing their eyes to that bright life whose sweetness they have as yet scarcely tasted, never murmur at being deprived of it, though hope is to them so alluring; the middle-aged, called away in the midst of projects yet unaccomplished, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... canoe being among these islands seeking for game, espied a drove of these men swimming from one island to another; for they have no boats, canoes, or bark-logs. They took four of them, and brought them aboard; two of them were middle-aged, the other two were young men about eighteen or twenty years old. To these we gave boiled rice, and with it turtle and manatee boiled. They did greedily devour what we gave them, but took no notice of the ship, or any thing in it, and when they were set on land again, they ran away as fast as ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... occasionally, of "Homes for Aged Women," and more rarely "Homes for Aged Men." The question sometimes suggests itself, whether it would not be better to begin the provision earlier, and see that homes are also provided, in some form, for the middle-aged and even the young. The trouble is, I suppose, that as it takes two to make a bargain, so it takes at least two to make a home; and unluckily it takes ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... knocked. I peeped out, and it was Sally—quiet, unassuming little Sally, with her middle-aged airs—looking like one of Stan's Gaiety Girl photographs, in a short, low-necked dress of bright poppy colour, with silk legs as shiny as an Archdeacon's, only with quite a ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... not only his hands, but even his head, far below the sill of this window, nor could anyone so support themselves, without something to hold on to. But all that is beside the question. The people in the apartment below are friends of Mrs. Morton's, a middle-aged man and his wife, with two young children. They are eminently respectable people, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... you say, Catherine? If you did not love a man at all, if he was absolutely nothing to you, would you give yourself to him? Yourself? That means all your life, all your days, your young days, your middle-aged years, your old age, always, till death parts you. Would you do that, Catherine? Speak for yourself; ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... your pigs so little? They are vastly engaging at the age. I was so myself. Now I am a disagreeable old hog, A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half; My faculties (thank God!) ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... monotonous sameness; or, if they brought mutation, it was of a slow, and decaying, and depressing kind. Old Peggy died. Her silent sympathy, concealed under much roughness, was a loss to Susan Dixon. Susan was not yet thirty when this happened, but she looked a middle-aged, not to say an elderly woman. People affirmed that she had never recovered her complexion since that fever, a dozen years ago, which killed her father, and left Will Dixon an idiot. But besides her gray sallowness, the lines in her face were strong, and deep, and hard. The movements of her ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Throckmorton went to her middle-aged repose, I sat up and went through imaginary scenes, and reviewed the situation a hundred times, and tried to convince myself of what I wanted to believe, and ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... me just like a querulous, vulgar, middle-aged woman in her talk; she repeats herself in the same scolding sort of way; and she's so eager to blame somebody besides Bartley for Bartley's wickedness that, when she can't punish herself, she punishes ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... castle. I don't care what Mr. Jerry said," she told Aunt Kate as they went up the steps and into the principal's office where a pleasant-faced middle-aged lady looked questioningly at Mary Rose and ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and Prejudice. Every one does not get a Bingley, or a Darcy (with a park); but a good many sensible girls like Elinor pair off contentedly with poor creatures like Edward Ferrars, while not a few enthusiasts like Marianne decline at last upon middle-aged colonels with flannel waistcoats. George Eliot, we fancy, would have held that the fates of Elinor and Marianne were more probable than the fortunes of Jane and Eliza Bennet. That, of the remaining characters, there is certainly none to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... nineteen, who abstained from food from April, 1874, until December, 1877, although continually using morphia. Throughout her fast she had periodic convulsions, and voided no urine or feces for twelve months before her death. There was a middle-aged woman in England in 1860 who for two years lived on opium, gin, and water. Her chief symptoms were almost daily sickness and epileptic fits three times a week. She was absolutely constipated, and at her death her abdomen was so distended as to present the appearance of ascites. After death, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... gymnasium-instructor to make them, what they would never be, men; for some one to give them an aim and an ideal beyond cigarettes, socks, and giggling "gels" or "gals" or "garls" or "gyurls" or "gurrls" according to their social sphere. Vast-stomached middle-aged men of all classes, and all crying aloud in fat-lipped silence of indulgence, physical sloth, physical decay before physical prime should have been reached, of mental, moral, and physical decadence from the great Past incredible, and who would ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... The master was middle-aged, about the same height and weight as his valet. He wore a full dark beard, something after the style of the early eighties of last century. His was also a serious countenance, tanned, dignified too; but his eyes were no match for his valet's; too dreamy, introspective. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... up, but again the heavens were bare and clear. Then he looked down and saw walking near them a heavy, middle-aged, bearded man to whom all the German officers paid great deference. The man's manner was haughty and overbearing, and John understood at once that in the monarchical sense he was ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... might never meet, for her to know. Or one day in the Alps they might meet, a middle-aged couple, he famous, she regretful only to have fallen below his lofty standard. "For, Mr. Whitford," says she, very earnestly, "I did wish at that time, believe me or not, to merit your approbation." The brows of the phantom Vernon whom she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... carriage suddenly drove up and stopped a few paces in front of him. The footman sprang down and opened the door. Two ladies got out; they were dressed in evening costume, and were returning from a ball. One was middle-aged, the other young and rather pretty. They stood for a moment on the pavement, the ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... which the modern house-decorator endeavors to protect the doors of more elegant apartments by glass "finger-plates." A grating, almost stopped up with some compound similar to the deposit with which a restaurant-keeper gives an air of cellar-bound antiquity to a merely middle-aged bottle, only served to heighten the general resemblance to a prison door; a resemblance further heightened by the trefoil-shaped iron-work, the formidable hinges, the clumsy nail-heads. A miser, or a pamphleteer at strife with the world at large, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... for hard work and long work, whether in the hunting-field or Indian campaign, like a broad seated English hunting saddle, there is no doubt that its smooth slippery surface offers additional difficulties to the middle-aged, the timid, and those crippled by gout, rheumatism or pounds. There can be very little benefit derived from horse exercise as long as the patient travels in mortal fear. Foreigners teach riding on a buff leather ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... name he had never before heard, and when he reached the door he looked inquiringly at the middle-aged gentleman who ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... is a boy who wants board," announced Dick, as he threw open a door. Then the pair entered a living room, where a middle-aged woman sat by ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... sufferer, whose distress seemed to receive a sudden calm from the sympathy the young princes betrayed, the Hakim led the way to another part of the town, where he entered a house of rather better description, in a small room of which they found a pale, middle-aged man, who was engaged in making a coarse sort of netting for trees. Hearing the noise of the entrance, he looked up, and asked who it was, but with no change of countenance, or apparent recognition of anyone there. But as soon as the Hakim had uttered the words 'It is I,' a ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... Melville with a striking chapter. Discussing the matter in my presence once, the captain of a frigate said, "There is one reply to objectors; if they do not wish to conform, they can leave the service." Clearly, however, a middle-aged man cannot throw up his profession ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... been about a year and a half after the marriage of his daughter—Felix Millsap was on his way home from work, a middle-aged figure, moving with the clunking gait of a tired laborer who wears cheap, heavy shoes, his broad splayed hands dangling at the ends of his arms as though in either of them he carried an invisible ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... which of you boys was it that had the idea of keeping a middle-aged woman perishing on a doorstep before daylight ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... heard that afternoon surpassed my comprehension. I knew that artistic matters were at a low ebb in New York, yet I never realized the lowness thereof until then. I was introduced to a half-dozen smartly dressed men, some beardless, some middle-aged, and all dissipated looking. They regarded me with curiosity, and I could hear them whispering about my clothes, I got off a few feeble jokes on the subject, pointing to my C-sharp minor colored collar. ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... we returned to the divan, and while pipes and coffee were handed round, a noise in the court yard denoted a visiter, and a middle-aged man, with embroidered clothes, and silver-mounted pistols in his girdle, entered. This was the Natchalnik, or local governor, who had come from his own village, two hours off, to pay his visit; he was accompanied by the two captains under his command, ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... of a big man, as tall as he and far heavier of build: a magnificent big head, heavily marked features, a short-cropped black beard that gave him dignity. A middle-aged man, about forty-five, and still in the prime ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... 7. If middle-aged gentlemen are musical or political, they can dislocate a tune in something between a bark and a grumble, or endeavour to provoke an argument by declaring very loudly that Lord R—— or the Duke "is a thorough scoundrel," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various
... seemed to me that many thousands of people were passing along that road towards the country. Parties of laughing boys and girls pedalled northwards on bicycles, swerving in and out through the traffic. Stout, middle-aged men, with fat, middle-aged women beside them, drove sturdy ponies, or lean, high-stepping horses, in curious old-fashioned gigs. Motor cyclists, young men with outstretched chins and set faces, sped by us, outstripping our car. Others we passed, riders who had side cars attached to their ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... or of unhappiness might befall her. If she allowed herself to be taken to a new home at Basle she could still work and eat and drink,—and working, eating, and drinking she could wait till her unhappiness should be removed. She was sufficiently wise to understand that as she became a middle-aged woman, with perhaps children around her, her sorrow would melt into a soft regret which would be at least endurable. And what did it signify after all how much one such a being as herself might suffer? The world would go on in the same way, and her small troubles ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... others) that very charming young man, Prosper Vane—known locally as Alfred Briggs until he took to the stage. Prosper played the young hero, Dick Seaton, who was actually wooing Winifred. Mr. Levinski himself took the part of a middle-aged man of the world with a slight embonpoint; down in the programme as Sir Geoffrey Throssell, but fortunately still Mr. Levinski. His opening words, as he came on, were, "Ah, Dick, I have a note for you somewhere," which gave the audience an interval in which ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... great "parlor chambers" of the boarding-house, at about eight o'clock that evening, a middle-aged gentleman and lady, with a fair, sweet-faced girl of about nineteen, were sitting near an open window, very much as if they ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... single mule team haul it in places over those cursed mountain roads. That's why we worked in crews. On the average we worked eighteen hours a day. In summer this was long, in winter it seemed perpetual; but I was in it and I was going to stick—or thought I was. The other three in my gang were middle-aged men,—hard drinkers, good swearers, tough as oak themselves. The boss was a little tobacco-eating, bow-legged Irishman. I never, before or since, knew a man who could swear as he could, or drink so when he struck town. It seems to go with the logging business; ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... you to just anger was the spectacle of wealthy people making money and so taking the bread out of the mouths of people who needed It. The only apparent blots on existence at Putney were the noise and danger of the High Street, the dearth of reliable laundries, the manners of a middle-aged lady engaged at the post office (Mrs. Challice liked the other ladies in the post office), and the absence of a ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... ranging in age from sixteen to twenty, when Mason caught sight of her pretty, fatigued, but resolutely courteous face, and came instantly to her rescue. He was very fond of Blanche, and teased and petted her with almost cousinly freedom. He felt himself a middle-aged man beside her, and admired her sweet face, and gentle unselfishness as unreservedly as he would have done those of a child. Moving her draperies aside with a kindly, if unceremonious hand, he ensconced himself beside her right willingly and devoted his best energies to ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... carried out in harlequin flannel surmounts a full brim of restful willow-green. Garnished with intertwined laurel and St. John's-Wort, and decorated with the tail feather of a Surrey fowl, it makes a comfortable and distinguished headdress for a middle-aged gentleman. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... of a twitter," this pretty but rather faded middle-aged little mother of Penny's. A gentle dignity and patient sadness, which Dundee was sure were habitual to her, lay in the faded blue eyes and upon ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... bottom of the window, and they looked in. The rain blurred the pains on the outside, and the moisture had condensed within, so that it was not easy to see clearly; but they made out that a Creole woman was singing to a group of topers who sat by the fire in a corner of the room. She was middle-aged, but sang sweetly, and was accompanied on the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Robert Wynn. 'What a peculiar accent he has! and the national swagger too.' And Mr. Wynn, feeling intensely British, left his box, and walked into the midst of the room with his newspaper, wishing to suggest the presence of a third person. He glanced at the American, a middle-aged, stout-built man, with an intelligent and energetic countenance, who returned the glance keenly. There was something indescribably foreign about his dress, though in detail it was as usual; and his manner and air were those of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... she would have returned to the charge, but was prevented by the immediately following entrance of the Rev. Clement Sclater—the minister of her parish, recently appointed. He was a man between young and middle-aged, an honest fellow, zealous to perform the duties of his office, but with notions of religion very beggarly. How could it be otherwise when he knew far more of what he called the Divine decrees than he did of his own heart, or the needs and miseries of human ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... anything that she should command.... There followed then the strangest life for me. Lovers in the fullest sense we were and yet it was different from any love that I had ever known. When I ask myself why, in what, it differed I cannot answer. Two old grey middle-aged people who happened to suit one another.... Not romantic.... But I think in the end of it all the reason was that she never revealed herself to me entirely. I was always curious about her, always felt that other people knew more of her than I did, always ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... her, a sad-faced mulatto, middle-aged and respectable- looking, went patiently round the room, doing or seeming to do some trifles of business, then stood still and looked at the child, who was intent ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... rushed a girl—such a girl! One of those radiant creatures who explain the cult of womanhood; who make it difficult even for sober-minded, middle-aged men and matrons to realize that this is nothing but flesh and blood like themselves; one of those beautiful creatures who claim worship as a right and who repay it with kindness and brightness ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... be, but it has ceased to be," he answers coolly. "Trix, go out like a good child, and get me the evening paper. Among my other staid, middle-aged habits, Lady Catheron, is that of reading the Post every evening religiously, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... a pair of middle-aged pantaloons. It is needless to say that girls who may have a literary tendency will find ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Her rooms were cheerful and elegant; a motherly, middle-aged woman had been engaged to remain with her as companion and nurse during her husband's absence; she had an abundance of money at her command, and Dr. Knox had promised to look in upon her every day. Surely she had nothing to complain ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... spite of a splendid arrangement of magic lanterns, then a novelty, got up regardless of expense) Arbaces swore like an intoxicated mariner, rather than a necromaunt accustomed to move in the highest circles and pentacles. Nancy, Miss Broughton's heroine, tells her middle-aged wooer, among other things, that she accepts him, because "I did think it would be nice for the boys; but I like you myself, besides." After this ardent confession, he "kissed her with a sort of diffidence." Many men would have preferred to go out and ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... confession should be forced from me!—of winning the heart of any maiden, whether native or Italian; and as for such delicacy of imagination as to work up a lovely damsel out of the withered remnant that forty odd years of Italian life can spare, I can assure my middle-aged friends, (and it may serve as a caveat,) I can lay no claim ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... be liable to relapse in matters of prudence, seemliness, or in any of the highest cares of his functions; and by way of return for these benefits to the pupil, it will often happen that the zeal of a middle-aged or declining incumbent will be revived, by being in near communion with the ardour of youth, when his own efforts may have languished through a melancholy consciousness that they have not produced as much good among his ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... SIR,—As a middle-aged mother I do not appeal for your sympathy, I merely wish to describe my position, the difficulties of which might no doubt be paralleled in hundreds of other households. I have three children whose characteristics may be thus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... impertinence of whose presence many of us have had painful proof, is the third or last molar, so absurdly misnamed the wisdom tooth. If there be any wisdom involved in its appearance it is of the sort characterized by William Allen White's delicious definition: "That type of ponderous folly of the middle-aged which we term 'mature judgment.'" The last is sometimes worst as well as best, and this belated remnant is not only the last to appear, but the first to disappear. In a considerable percentage of cases it is situated so far back in the jaw that ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... these fine mornings. As they are now, I have to look along every shelf in the search for the book which I want. To come to Keats is no guarantee that we are on the road to Shelley. Shelley, if he did not drop out on the way, is probably next to How to Be a Golfer Though Middle-aged. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... fellow looked up with so much perplexity in his face at the idea of this grave, middle-aged gentleman asking advice of him, that Mr. Middleton hastened ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... at any rate, he assuredly informed his friends and neighbours, who had been absent from that performance, that they had missed very much indeed, and had by no means seen Thespis at his best. Even nowadays, middle-aged playgoers, old enough to remember the late Mr. Macready, are trumped, as it were, by older playgoers, boastful of their memories of Kemble and the elder Kean. And these players, in their day and in their turn, underwent disparagement ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... middle age except a depth of expression in her eyes, the features having become thickened by age. Some among those who, like Dickens, first saw her in her later years and still looked for the semblance of a heroine of romance, failed to find the muse Lelia of their imaginations under the guise of a middle-aged bourgeoise. But such impressions were superficial. Her portrait in black and white by Couture, engraved by Manceau, seems to reconcile these apparent discrepancies. Beauty is not here, but the face is so powerful and comprehensive that we perceive there at once the mirror of a ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... know," said the doctor; "some people change very much, from boys to middle-aged manhood, others alter ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... dreamily. Mrs. Cunningham's "at home" was of no particular interest. The guests were all middle-aged people whom the M.P. had known in his boyhood and Margaret, in her presumptuous youth, thought it would be a very prosy affair, although it had made quite a sensation in quiet little Murraybridge, where people still called an "at home" ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... so bad as that, however. Farmer Eames turned in at the farmyard gate and led the two strangers into a good-sized kitchen, where the table was already set, in a homely fashion, for dinner. A stout, middle-aged woman, with a rather sharp face, turned from the fire, where she was superintending ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... round the chamber. Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles—who for a wonder was at home— and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter came in just after ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... was the bitterest truth. Where on this wide earth with its forth-shooting fruits and grains, its fragrant lands and shining seas, could this dwarfed, bent, broken, middle-aged woman go? Nobody wanted her, nobody cared for her. But the wind kissed her drawn lips as readily as those of the girl, and the blooms of clover nodded to her as if ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... honourable offices, in his due place on the right of the present baronet, the latter figured in a character so strange and so incongruous that it seemed as if one day the dignified array of Landales—old, young, middle-aged, but fine gentlemen, all of them—must turn their backs upon ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle |
