"Postman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the post-office clerks care to receive letters? I have my doubts. They get into a dreadful habit of indifference. A postman, I imagine, is quite callous. Conceive his delivering one to himself, without being startled by a ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... cabman sleeps within his cab, the horse without: the waterman, seated on his empty bucket, contemplates the untrodden pavement between his feet, and is at rest. The blue butcher's boy trots by with empty cart, five miles an hour, instead of full fifteen, and stops to chat with the red postman, who, his occupation gone, smokes with the green gatekeeper, and reviles the Czar. Along the whole north pavement of the square only one figure moves, and that is ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... although an unwilling guest at all these entertainments. He would fain have refused Mrs. Barton's hospitalities, but so pressing was she that this seemed impossible. There were times when he started at the postman's knock as at the sound of a Land Leaguer's rifle. Too frequently his worst fears were realized. 'Mon cher Marquis, it will give us much pleasure if you will dine with us to-morrow night at half-past seven.' 'Dear Mrs. Barton, I regret ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... postman appeared around the corner he came to her gate and lifted the latch. It was not time for her small bank dividend. The letter must be from her husband's sister-in-law, who wrote to her about twice a year. As Mrs. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... that man, Q., as you come away from the palace," said Mrs. Quiverful, pointing to an angry call for money from the Barchester draper, which the postman had left at the vicarage that morning. Cormorant that he was, unjust, hungry cormorant! When rumour first got abroad that the Quiverfuls were to go to the hospital, this fellow with fawning eagerness had pressed his goods upon the wants of the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... about their business in the old fashion, and their occupations had not changed. It was just as if he had wound up a clockwork toy before leaving England, and had returned after many years to find it still working. Here came old Dymond, the postman, with the usual midday delivery, light as ever, and the well-remembered dot-and-go-one gait. The maids who came out to take the letters were different; in one of them the Emigrant recognised a little girl who had once sat facing him in the Wesleyan day-school; but ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... after that, Asenath called her up-stairs. The postman had rung five minutes before, and Kate had ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... He had a few shillings in his possession, and wrote at once to a bookseller in London for a copy of The Chorus in Green, as the author had oddly named the book. He wrote on June 21st and thought he might fairly expect to receive the interesting volume by the 24th; but the postman, true to his tradition, brought nothing for him, and in the afternoon he resolved to walk down to Caermaen, in case it might have come by a second post; or it might have been mislaid at the office; they forgot parcels sometimes, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... you partake of the activity with which all seem as much possessed as if a general apprehension prevailed, that the great clock of Time would strike the doom-hour before their tasks were done. But I must stop, for the postman with his bell, like the betherel of some ancient "borough's town" summoning to a burial, is in the street, and warns ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... appearance. But we had better go in to your mother now, she must be told. I will go in first and break it to her. Of course there is nothing else that can be done until we get Edgar's letter. I will send a man off on horseback to the post-office, we shall get it an hour earlier than if we wait for the postman to bring it." ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... Service, my lad!" responded a hearty voice; and the postman, supplementing this information with a friendly good-night, wobbled up the hill and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... the drawing-room, and sat watching the sun shining on marriage-garments and marriage-faces, all as bright as bright could be,—including the mother's. It had clouded over for a few moments when the postman's ring was heard; but she said at once that it was most unlikely Guy would write—she had told him there was no need to write. So she stood content, smoothing down the soft folds of her beautiful shawl, which Guy meant her to wear to-day. This, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... came one afternoon when I had returned from the club earlier than usual. I took it from the postman myself, and as father had not come home yet from the shop, I placed it beside his plate at the supper table. I noticed the postmark—'Brooklyn'—but it didn't make any particular impression upon me; it was ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... interest all round when, the day before Christmas, the postman came along the bleak and flimsy street and left a letter for him. Cope was away from the house, and Rosalys, studying the envelope's penmanship and even its postmark, found vague confirmation of her theory: some ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... class wore a curious solemn look. But what surprised me most of all was to see at the end of the room, on the seats which were usually empty, a number of the village elders seated and silent like the rest of us; old Hansor with his cocked hat, the former mayor, the old postman, and a lot of other people. Everybody looked melancholy; and Hansor had brought an old spelling book, ragged at the edges, which he held wide open on his knees, with his big spectacles laid ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... drawing-room, and has managed to envelope a boa-constrictor in a lawn-tennis net, yet, as five full-grown Bengal tigers, and about thirty other wild beasts of a miscellaneous character are at large in the village, and have, to his knowledge, already devoured the Postman, the Curate, a School Inspector, and both the horses of the Local Railway Omnibus, he feels that no time ought to be lost in replying to his appeal. One or two Experts, armed with Hotchkiss Guns, would be of use, and might write. Would be glad to hear from a Battery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... I don't—that's flat. I wish, on the whole, she'd taken her departure! And yet I feel rather a toad for saying so. She is splendid in some things—yes, she is! And the Rectory people take the most rose-coloured view of her—it's too late to tell you why, for the postman is ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know not: nor the postman—nor the correspondent, who riseth in his wrath and curseth over my ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... extraordinarily quiet. But what surprised Franz the most was to see at the back of the room, seated on the benches which were ordinarily empty, the people of the village. There was an old soldier with his tri-colored flag, the old mayor of the town, the postman, and many others. Everyone seemed sad. And the old soldier had a spelling book, ragged on the edges, that he held open on his knees, as he followed the ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... told me, on the sides of both North and South. He was first pressed into service while travelling with a circus. The request was put to the whole company, who 'listed as one man, and joined the Confederate Army. Spencer was put in as express rider, his duty being to act as mounted postman from one camp to another. It was while on one of these journeys that he was made a prisoner. He had a large amount of money in notes upon him, but this he managed to hand unnoticed to a civilian friend. As a prisoner he was taken to Washington. Being a first-class ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... enlightened philanthropy that won him the respect of all parties. When he was named as director of the post-office in 1822, many people of his circle blamed him for taking a place beneath him. "Congratulate me," he said, laughing, "that I have not been offered that of postman; I should have taken it just the same if I had thought I could be useful." And he added: "It was thought that it would be a sinecure for me. Far from that, I gave myself up wholly to my new employment, and I worked so hard at it, than in less than a year my eyes, previously excellent, were ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... I have some things which may be useful. Now I will tell you something which will help to explain my haste. When first I saw Hassen and Prince Alexis together I understood that we must change our plans, and I sent for your bag. Your rooms were then being watched front and back. My servant bribed a postman to go to your door and ask for you. He discovered that a gentleman was already in your rooms waiting for you. They are very much in earnest, these people, my Prince. It will need all our ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... was too much for Jimmie. He reeled where he sat and then, the postman opportunely arriving, sent word to Mrs. Jimmie that duty would keep him from her ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... gardener, a weaver, etc. That may make a fine observation, if you think it worth finishing; but I have not time. Is not this a terrible long piece for one evening? I dined to-day with Patty Rolt at my cousin Leach's,(22) with a pox, in the City: he is a printer, and prints the Postman, oh hoo, and is my cousin, God knows how, and he married Mrs. Baby Aires of Leicester; and my cousin Thomson was with us: and my cousin Leach offers to bring me acquainted with the author of the Postman;(23) and says he does not doubt but ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... he met the postman, who gave him a letter; and before he opened it it checked his enterprise. For the address was in his mother's handwriting, and though it was still black and exquisite, like the tracery of bare tree-boughs against the sky, it was larger ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... The postman only came once a day to Hunters' Brae, and the letter-bag was always taken straight to her uncle's study; so, although Marjory watched carefully for any sign, she did not know whether a reply had been received to that letter her uncle had ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Mercury as a Postman and Cupid as a Link-Boy are companion pieces, painted from the same model,—a mischievous young street boy, whose simulated gravity is irresistibly droll. The artist's keen sense of humor is seen again in that most captivating little rogue, Puck. The saucy elf is perched ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... had no chance to get in its work. In vain Virginia looked from the dining-room window for its curling smoke. In vain did the invalid sister of Miss Kitty, the dressmaker, dream of the beautiful young lady who brought her roses. In vain did the postman and the market-man inquire of Nancy when Miss Bentley was coming back. To the Miser alone, who from his study window had also noted the deadness of the Little Red Chimney, was the privilege of a word with ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... where all men must join the army, the left-behind is not an indifferent being; he is a father, a brother, a son, or a friend; he is that feverish creature who impatiently waits the coming of the postman, who lives in a perpetual state of agony, trembles for his dear ones, and at the same time continues his business, often doubling, even trebling his efforts so as to replace the absent, and still has sufficient sense ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... string and crumpled paper from hastily opened parcels and shining scraps of tinsel from the tree. There were no stockings hanging on the mantle. At breakfast, there would be a few friendly gifts and, later, the postman would bring letters and cards with the season's greetings. That ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... has little Harrison been to complain, that the printer I recommended to him for his Tatler is a coxcomb; and yet to see how things will happen; for this very printer is my cousin, his name is Dryden Leach; did you never hear of Dryden Leach, he that prints the Postman? He acted Oroonoko, he's in love with Miss Cross.—Well, so I came home to read my letter from Stella, but the dog Patrick was abroad; at last he came, and I got my letter; I found another hand had superscribed it; when I opened it, I found it written all in ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... impatient. A mother's logic. The postman's whistle makes Hal nervous. "Who is Ad Interim?" Uniforms are ready. A surprise for Mrs. Overton. "Lieutenants" ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... committee of awards acted like a wireless-telegraphy message throughout the country and brought applications from "would be" jurors or recommendations from friends of "would be" jurors until the files of the board room were filled to the limit, and the colored postman of the free-delivery postal service in the southern home of the chairman thought he had relapsed into a "previous condition ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... silver Upon her matron brow; The years were eight-and-twenty Since we breathed our marriage vow, And our grandchildren were playing Hunt-the-slipper on the floor, When they saw the postman standing ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... always absent. I live here a perfect dream life; when I awake, it is with pain. Nothing attracts or holds me, or rather what attracts and holds me, is in the distance. How can I avoid being deeply melancholy? It is only the post that keeps me alive; with the most passionate impatience I expect the postman every morning about eleven. If he brings nothing or brings something unsatisfactory, my whole day is a desert of resignation. Such is my life! Why do I live? Often I make unheard-of efforts to get something from abroad; lately, for instance, I had my new ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... postman while Persis was busy with a fitting, gave Joel time to examine the mail and frame a withering denunciation of Mrs. Warren's plan. He sprung the same upon his sister with ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... again did not get up;—nor did she hear, or if she heard she did not recognise, the step of the postman who brought a letter to the door. Early, before the widow's breakfast, the postman came, and the letter which he brought was ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... remained from his conversation but the general criticism he passed upon his brilliant fellow-Hebrew Heine, as "rather scorbutic." He preferred to talk about the little matters of common incident and experience. He amused himself with such things as the mystification of the postman of whom he asked his way to Phillips Avenue, where he adventurously supposed his host to be living. "Why," the postman said, "there is no Phillips Avenue in Cambridge. There's Phillips Place." "Well," Harte assented, "Phillips Place will do; but there is a Phillips Avenue." He entered ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... dressed something like the guard of a mail. He touched his hat to me, and called for a glass of whiskey. I gave him the sele of the evening and entered into conversation with him in English. In the course of discourse I learned that he was the postman, and was going his rounds in his cart—he was more than respectful to me, he was fawning and sycophantic. The whiskey was brought, and he stood with the glass in his hand. Suddenly he began speaking Welsh to the people; before, however, he had uttered two sentences the woman ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Dowler fell fast asleep while he waited. It was a very windy night and the sedan-carriers, who brought the lady home, knocked in vain at the door. Mr. Dowler did not wake, though they knocked like an insane postman. ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... put into her own hand by the postman on his morning rounds. She flushed down to her neck on receipt of it, and turned it over and over. 'It is ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... old sinner, little suspecting that he was to be the dupe of his own artifice: "You get the husband invited out to dinner, have him well ply'd with wine by your friends: You assume the dress of a Postman—give a thundering rap at her door, which always denotes either the arrival of some important visitor or official communication; and when you can see her, flatter, lie, and swear that her company is necessary to your existence—that life is a burden without her—tell ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... postman," answered Ted. "He's taking a letter into our house. Hey, Mr. Brennan!" he called, as he saw the gray-uniformed mail carrier entering the yard. ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... while Lily Dale was staying with Mrs Thorne in London, there was brought up to her room, as she was dressing for dinner, a letter which the postman had just left for her. The address was written with a feminine hand, and Lily was at once aware that she did not know the writing. The angles were very acute, and the lines were very straight, and the vowels looked to be cruel and false, with their sharp points ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... qualities in the Englishman: his bravery and his common sense. We know that the Englishman is true to his given word, and that even in the antipodes he never changes his habits. As I write, the postman brings me a letter from the front, dated Oct. 17. The cavalryman who sends it tells of our Allies. "We are fighting the enemy's cavalry," he writes, "and for two days my brigade was in action with the British. They know how to fight and they astonish ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... later she came round and thanked me with tears in her eyes. The puma had suddenly struck real mid-season form. It clawed the elevator-boy, bit a postman, held up the traffic for miles, and was finally shot by a policeman. Why, for the next few days there was nothing in the papers at all but Miss Devenish and her puma. There was a war on at the time in Mexico or somewhere, and we had it backed off the front ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... and drenches The benches; It jumps into pumps and comes out with a roar; It pounds like a postman at lodges— Then dodges And runs up the lane ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... the other branches of human knowledge he remained at the lowest grade; for he could with difficulty be made to write his name, and he had not the slightest idea of arithmetic. Thus, for example:—once, when he had to pay the postman six kreuzers for a letter, and Madame Freudenberger gave him the money in two silver pieces, he positively refused to take them and carry them down, affirming that two pieces were not enough; and, though his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... them very much, and it would always be a grief, she thought, that she and Knight had not been married by her old friend. Every night she prayed for a letter, waking with the hope that the postman might bring one: and five days after the sending of her telegram her heart leaped at sight of a fat envelope addressed in Mrs. Smith's ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... much easier said than done," returned his captain; "forward, Mr. Amphibious, you can walk like a postman—move to the front, and proclaim the magical word, 'loyalty;' 'tis a standing countersign, ready furnished to my hands by mine hosts the colonel; your road is then ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... door. It is the postman. (I hope he did not see that I had the lid of the kettle in my ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... dock postman (dear old Postie, who cadges sticks of hard tobacco and cigars from us when he brings good news) is standing on the quay while the ship is being moved into her new berth, and he waves a batch of letters when he sees me looking ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... these blots or dark smudges. So, you see, someone has been found at the Montmartre, even if it is not Betty Blackwell herself, who has interest enough in the case to open a letter to her before handing it back to the postman. That shows us that we are on the right trail at least, even if it does not tell us who is at the end of the trail. Here's another thing; This 'Marie' is a new one. We must ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... clock. One ministrant is sewing a button on to his boot, another with blotting paper and hot iron is removing a stain from his coat, divested for the purpose; one is pouring out his coffee, another is cutting his bread, a third is watching for his newspaper by the postman. And suddenly he whirls everything into a whirlpool just as men, if Rosalie watches them long enough, always whirl everything ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... blotting-book, because it was the door-mat on which the thoughts of his last book had wiped their sandals before they went in; and his remark that to ask a literary man to write a letter after his day's work was like asking a penny-postman to take a walk in the evening ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... home or the well-remembered meadow at Tewkesbury. That was his plain of Troy, his Field of Cressy, his lists of Ashby de la Zouche. The high road at the back of the towans crossed a stream, by a ford and a footbridge; and the travelling postman, if he had any letters for the Parsonage, would stop by the footbridge and blow a horn. He little guessed what challenges it sounded to the small boy who ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is provoked. But more things provoke an Irish terrier than one might imagine. The postman provoked my old one so much that it bit the letters out of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... Next morning the postman arrived quite laden with parcels and letters addressed to "Miss Diana Hewlitt". As Mrs. Fleming had prophesied, everything came at once, and her young guest spent a busy and ecstatic half-hour opening her various packages. ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... at the doors of highly-decorated villas, amiably performing their tasks while the mighty slept; fishermen and fat fisher-girls, industriously repairing endless brown nets on the other side of the parapet of the road; a postman and a little policeman; a porcelain mender, who practised his trade under the shadow of the wall; a few loafers; some stable-boys exercising horses; and children with adorable dirty faces, shouting in their high treble as they played at hopscotch. I felt very closely akin to these ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... moment the postman came in, blowing his whistle and rapidly sorting out a pile of letters, which he dropped ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... sina Tona had had any word from Tonet. As time went on, the three women from the old hulk there on the shore followed all the voyages and stops of the schoolship Villa de Madrid with Tonet on board as able seaman. And how excited they would get when the postman would throw down on the wet counter a narrow envelope, sometimes sealed with red wax and then again with bread dough, and a complicated address written all over it in huge fat letters: "For sinora tona The Woman who keeps The little ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... these events the postman brought a letter for Goneril. This was such a rare occurrence that she blushed rose red at the very sight of it and had to walk up and down the terrace several times before she felt calm enough to read it. Then she went upstairs and knocked ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... and she was about to dip a pen when her ear was caught by the sound of a step upon the stone staircase. She followed it past Mr. Chippen's chambers; past Mr. Gibson's; past Mr. Turner's; after which it became her sound. A postman, a washerwoman, a circular, a bill—she presented herself with each of these perfectly natural possibilities; but, to her surprise, her mind rejected each one of them impatiently, even apprehensively. The step became slow, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... Association Phonetique Internationale, may be instanced. Systems concocted in a hurry, in a half-commercial or wholly commercial and in a wholly presumptuous manner, pushed like religious panaceas and advertised like soap—Pitman's System, Barnum's System, Quackbosh the Gifted Postman's System, and all that sort of thing—do nothing but vulgarize, discredit, and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Folkestone, and all the people on the pier smiled at us. We scuttled ashore and shook ourselves for delight. There was a policeman, a postman. Who are these fussy fellows with badges on their arms? Special constables, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... the corner of the church to see the facade, she found herself before the post-box, which was so dusty and rusty that it seemed as if the postman never came near it. She put her letter in it under the ingenuous gaze of ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... costly luxury of regular correspondence, would obtain assurance of each other's well-being by transmission through the post at stated intervals of blank papers duly sealed and addressed: the arrival of the postman with a missive of this kind announced to the recipient that all was well with the sender, so the unpaid "letter" was cheerfully left on the messenger's hands. Such an incident, coming under the notice of Mr. Rowland Hill, impressed him with a sense of hardship and wrong ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... resumed her occupation of making worsted lattice-work in the carpet, anxiously listening to the twopenny postman, who was hammering his way down the street, at the rate of a penny a knock. The house was as quiet as possible. There was only one low sound to be heard—it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen's boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... forwarded to Audley, from Lansmere Park, Nora's last letter. The postman had left it there an hour or two after he himself had gone. The wedding-ring fell on the ground, and rolled under his feet. And those burning, passionate reproaches, all that anger of the wounded dove, explained to him the mystery of her return, her ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Postman, which appeared three days in the week, written by M. Fonvive, a French Protestant, whom Dunton calls "the glory and mirror of news writers, a very grave, learned, orthodox man." Fonvive had a universal system of intelligence, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... second-hand bookshop in London, an old man sat reading Gibbon's History of Rome. He did not put down his book when the postman brought him a letter. He just glanced indifferently at the letter, and impatiently at the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be interrupted when he was reading Gibbon; and as he was always reading Gibbon, an interruption ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... come within that time, to start at once for Windermere. Fortunately his anxiety was relieved and the journey rendered unnecessary by the receipt, next day, of a long letter from his son. It was Mirpah who took it from the postman's hand, and Mirpah took it to her father in high glee. She knew the writing and deciphered the post-mark. For once in his life Mr. Madgin was too agitated to read. He put his hand to his side, and motioned Mirpah to ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... should not worry, child. The delay is not at all surprising. Besides, if the Moel postman has nothing for you, that which didn't come by the way of Christiania may come by the way of ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... were pitted against each other at cricket or football. [Footnote: Sunday cricket so shocked Snyman that he threatened to fire upon it if it were continued.] The monotony was broken by the occasional visits of a postman, who appeared or vanished from the vast barren lands to the west of the town, which could not all be guarded by the besiegers. Sometimes a few words from home came to cheer the hearts of the exiles, and could be returned by the same uncertain and expensive means. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not think of the blank and dreary future, but lived from hour to hour, watching for the mails. When the postman stopped on his daily round at the foot of Storm Hill, she was always waiting for him. Sometimes she met him down the road, in her eagerness. But there was never a letter for her, except now and then a line from the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... rare intervals on an ass's back to Ruscino, the ass and his rider, with a meal sack half filled by the meagre correspondence of the district, making the rounds of that part of the province with an irregularity which seemed as natural to the sufferers by it as to the postman himself. "He cannot be everywhere at once," they said of ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... head, kept venting a howl of such energy and duration that the animal seemed to be howling for a handsome wager; while another, cutting in between the yelpings of the first animal, kept restlessly reiterating, like a postman's bell, the notes of a very young puppy. Finally, an old hound which appeared to be gifted with a peculiarly robust temperament kept supplying the part of contrabasso, so that his growls resembled the rumbling of a bass ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... letargio. Letter, capital granda litero. Letter (alphabet) litero. Letter (epistle) letero. Letter (registered) rekomendita letero. Letter of advice ricevavizo. Letter of exchange kambio. Letter-box posxta kesto, leterkesto. Letter-carrier (postman) leteristo. Letter-case leterujo. Lettuce laktuko. [Error in book: latuko] Level (instrument) nivelilo. Level nivela. Level (flat) ebena. Lever levilo. Levity malseriozo. Lewd malcxasta. Lexicon leksikono. Liable responda. Liability respondeco. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... history begins at all, the camel was known in Egypt, somehow that useful animal seems to have disappeared from the land for many hundreds of years. The Pharaohs and their adventurous barons never used the queer, ungainly creature that carries the desert postman in our picture (Plate 12), and the ivory, gold-dust, and ebony that came from the Soudan had to be carried on the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... letters from the postman, and carried the morning paper up to Mr. Morris's study, and I always put away the clean clothes. After they were mended, Mrs. Morris folded each article and gave it to me, mentioning the name of the owner, so that I could lay it on his bed. There was ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... Presently Postman Ruthie came down the path. She opened the box and took out the fragrant "letter." Then she laid something inside, drew down the ...
— The Goody-Naughty Book • Sarah Cory Rippey
... had not recovered her spirits; and Susan said she was afraid that if anything should happen to Harry it would bring her to her grave. This of course made us more than ever anxious to hear again from Jerry. At last one day the postman brought a letter to our door and demanded three shillings for it, which I willingly paid, for I saw at a glance that it was from my old shipmate. I have it still ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... pathos and a power, which she never attained before or since. But he was sorry when she stopped, for he had to come out of a most wonderful castle in the air and say "Thank you." When she went away he looked vaguely at her and let her hand fall, as was only natural. How we listen for the postman when we are longing for a letter and sick with hope deferred! But who thinks of him when he has dropped it into the box and is going down the street? Horace felt almost sure as he said good-bye that Love had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... are kept. The letter-box is in the MacAlisters' kitchen, which is at the same time their shop, and where every one goes in and out. The box is never locked; and after the letters are sorted they often lie on the table for hours, waiting until the postman comes to take them away. Any one who was not honest could easily slip into the kitchen when Mrs. MacAlister's back was turned and do what they liked with the letters; but such a thing has never happened ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... all the next day without getting any message. It was only on the following day, at about ten o'clock in the morning, as he was starting to call on M. Deschamps, the notary, that he received from the postman a small billet, which he knew to be from Valentine, although he had not before seen her writing. It was to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been delivered and the postman was already whizzing his way down the drive on his scarlet-painted bicycle as Lady Gertrude unlocked the private post-bag appertaining to Trenby Hall. This was one of the small jobs usually delegated to her niece, but for once the latter ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... will watch with your pretty eyes many days for the postman before that he bring you this lettre. And why? Because I am going to be very generous. You have gif me ze diamond: I will give you ze lesson. But it is not safe to gif it too soon; so I leave this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... with which he may be in contact. Deaf children rapidly become abnormally sensitive to vibrations, which are to them what noises are to us. A rather smooth, not too shrill, whistle is one excellent sound to use. Not a fluttering whistle like the postman's, nor a heavy tone like an organ pipe or bass horn. Clapping the hands is a good initial test of a crude nature; then a moderate whistle, varying the pitch, for sometimes high sounds are perceived, ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... in the middle of July, he was coming out of his hall-door, when the postman handed him two letters, one of which was directed to his sister. Suspecting the party from whom it came, and that a knowledge of its contents might lead to some discovery useful to him in frustrating the writer's ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... "Ship-Bored" upon others, its publication has exerted a very definite effect upon me, or rather upon the character of my daily mail. Instead of letters the postman now leaves little packages containing pills which, according to the senders, will prevent the casting of ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... off directly, with her long hair streaming in the wind, when her mother called to her to put something on; and she came back, snatched her garden-hat and holland cape from their peg, and flew away again. Yes, the old postman was standing gossiping with Mrs. Giles at her garden gate, just as Mr. Cunningham had foreseen. When Jessie breathlessly inquired if there were any letters for the Rectory, the old man answered composedly, ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... laying his letters on the table and beginning to draw on his gloves, "don't forget to give these to the postman when he comes; and tell Miss Wycliffe I ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... to street, covering the same ground, each leaving his cans of milk here and there in a sporadic fashion as haphazard as a bee among the flowers. Contrast, says the socialist, the wasted labors of the milkman with the orderly and systematic performance of the postman, himself a little fragment of socialism. And the milkman, they tell us, is typical of modern industrial society. Competing railways run trains on parallel tracks, with empty cars that might be filled and with vast executive ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... day I reported at Fulham. More hours of waiting. I discovered an old postman who had also enlisted in the R.A.M.C., and as he "knew the ropes" I stuck to him like a leech. In the afternoon an old recruiting sergeant with a husky voice fell us in, and we marched, a mob of civilians, through the London streets to the railway station. ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... kitchen door and wiping her hands, could not tell. The midday post or else the three o'clock. There were no others. Come to think of it, she had heard a postman's knock when she was dishing up the dinner, but had supposed it to be next door. It sounded ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... out hunting," remarked an elder sister, "and you know yourself, mamma, that the last time she came was when she stole the postman's pony, and he had to run all the way to Drinagh, and you said yourself she was to be kept in the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... forestall them and be resigned to it. Besides, it's the right kind of name. It's the way most of the farms all over England once were named—after their owners, and where the owner was a man of character and force the name persisted. Call it 'Buckler's' and you will help everyone, from the postman to the strange guest who might otherwise tour the neighbourhood for miles searching for you long after ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... Toward evening the postman brought a letter—in Alice's hand. Alice! How could he have forgotten her! His first duty should have ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... did not know; but he was for no dispute with Bess and kept his want of knowledge to himself. Yes; Richard was to write Dorothy every day; and she, for her sweet part, was likewise to write Richard every day. The good Bess, like an angel turned postman, would manage ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... The postman stopped at the little green gate next morning, and Ida flew to receive his packet. It was a letter for her—a bulky letter—in a hand she knew well, and her heart seemed to stop beating as she looked ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... golden evening, fit for October, and I was watching (with regret) a lot of little black pigs being turned out of my garden, when the postman handed to me, with a perfunctory haste which doubtless masked his emotion, the Declaration of Futurism. If you ask me what Futurism is, I cannot tell you; even the Futurists themselves seem a little doubtful; ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... go beyond that corner, but he could look and see what was coming, and perhaps he could see the postman ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... great statesman, and, when we are fortunate, a field postcard, are to-day our full literary deserts. Is it surprising that catalogues of old books do not come our way? We do not deserve them. Hope faintly revives, when the postman cheers us with an overdue field postcard, of a morning to dawn when the abstraction we name the "average intelligence" and the "great heart of the public" and the "herd mind," will not only regret that it made a ruinous fool of itself ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... not finish the sentence: the postman's knock came to the door, and she bounded off to see what he had brought, leaving Miss Dasomma in fear lest she should appropriate a letter not addressed to her. She returned with a look of triumph—a look so wildly exultant that ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... she thought that did not look quite polite; so she scratched out "isn't mouse" and changed it to "I hope it will be fine," and she gave her letter to the postman. ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... at eight o'clock in the evening that the explanation came, from a source as natural as it was unexpected. A letter was delivered by the postman for Madame de Clericy, who at once recognized her husband's unsteady handwriting. She crossed the room, and stood beside me while she opened the envelope. Lucille, seeing the action, frowned, as I thought. I was still under displeasure—still learning that the better sort of ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... of reason and affection, without undue stimulus or undue repression. And yet one must doubt whether Cowper would have felt himself quite at ease in the family of the Wolmars. The circle which gathered round the hearth at Olney to listen for the horn of the approaching postman, and solaced itself with cups 'that cheer but not inebriate,'[19] would have been a little scandalised by some of the sentiments current in the Vaudois paradise, and certainly by some of the antecedents of the party assembled. Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, and even their more fashionable ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the house, asked for pen, ink and paper, and dictated, in a low voice, to his boy, who was a tolerably good scribe, a letter, which he ordered him to put directly into the Shrewsbury post-office. The boy ran with the letter to the post-office. He was but just in time, for the postman's horn ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... to lame Mary, the postman's wife, for she is always longing to see the fields," they answered; "but these roses are for you, dear little boy; they are all for you," and putting them into his hands they went ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... out of the old tree on the green, with perhaps to secure portrait the old POSTMAN sitting there with his bag a la an ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... the harbor shed, with some waterside workers, looking on. His time was long ago over. The eldest apprentice had not had the pluck to leave the island; he was now a postman in Sudland and cobbled shoes at night in order to live. Now Peter stood on the deck above, while Jens and Pelle stood below and looked up at him admiringly. "Good-bye, Pelle!" he cried. "Give Jeppe my best respects and tell him he can ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and finally I accomplished my letter. It seemed odd to put a postage-stamp on birch bark, and I smiled to think how surprised the home-people would be to get such a letter. They were surprised, and they told me afterward that the postman laughed ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... of her young companions in the gardens of Strelitz, and that the young ladies' conversation was, strange to say, about husbands. "Who will take such a poor little princess as me?" Charlotte said to her friend, Ida von Bulow, and at that very moment the postman's horn sounded, and Ida said, "Princess! there is the sweetheart." As she said, so it actually turned out. The postman brought letters from the splendid young King of all England, who said, "Princess! because you have written such ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in, at about half-past three, the mail was just being distributed, and Mrs. Cope was waiting as usual to pounce on her letters; you know she was always watching for the postman. She was standing so close to me that I couldn't help seeing a big official-looking envelope that was handed to her. She tore it open, gave one look at the inside, and rushed off upstairs like a whirlwind, with the director shouting after her that she had left all her other letters ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... watched him out of sight; then, the moment he had vanished, said:—"Now I come to think of it, Cissy Tuttle that was here has married a postman, and the young lady that's took it over may not know my name." His speech had not the appearance of a sudden thought, and the less so that he began to get rid of his oilskin incumbrance almost before he ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... I had sent a telegram to Estafetta. I told him I had. He then informed me that Estafetta had not received it. But the train was already beginning to move, so there was no further chance to get information. The comical part of the matter was that "Estafetta" merely means a post or postman, and that the directions, as Struve had given them, were to have the dispatch sent by postman from the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... was the morning which would bring the answer from the publisher in London. The rector's study was on the ground floor, and when he heard the postman's knock, being especially anxious that morning about his correspondence, he went out into the hall to receive his letters the moment they ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Felix continued his visits to Stephen as he should have done, he would, one December afternoon, have found the ship-chandler standing in the door, spectacles on his nose, checking off a wagon-load of manila rope which had just been discharged on his pavement, stopping only to nod to the postman who had brought him a letter. The delay in breaking the seal was due entirely to the fact that a coil of light cordage, used aboard the yachts he was accustomed to fit out, had just been reported as missing, and so the unopened letter was tossed on top a barrel of ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was in the carrier's hand. Struck by the look on De Young's face, the postman did not turn, but stood near by watching. The exile, once the immovable, seized the missive feverishly, then paused to examine. It was a man's writing he held, and he winced as at a blow, but with a hand that was nerved too ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... that I'm a fierce bad postman," Rupert dryly acknowledged. "But I ain't likely to confuse ladies on the way downstairs. You're ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... to him my position of diplomatic postman, hunted like a wild beast, and the brave gentleman in his quality of royalist claimed the danger over Chessel of receiving me. As we came in sight of Clochegourde the past eight months rolled away like a dream. When we entered ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the old nurse was to be trusted, and therefore told her story and her secret. "Even now," she said at the end of her story, "the postman is riding from London with the warrant in his bag. I must stop him and make him give it up to me, or my father's head is ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... familiar footstep in the path ahead of him, and, turning the corner of the bushes, confronted the foot- post on his way to Welland. In answer to St. Cleeve's inquiry if there was anything for himself the postman handed out one letter, and ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the usual pile of notes on my plate from duchesses, publishers, money-lenders, actor-managers and what-not, I find, likely enough, an envelope in Margery's own handwriting. Not only is my address printed upon it legibly, but there are also such extra directions to the postman as "England" and "Important," for its more speedy arrival. And inside—well, I give you ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... startled by a voice; it was only that of old John MacIntyre, the postman, who was glad enough to get into this ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Frobisher. "Is what you have just mentioned your idea of a snack? It sounds to me more like the menu of an aldermanic banquet. By the way, I didn't know the parcel-postman had arrived ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... palpitations of Fleet Street disturb us, and the rumours of the war come to us like far-off echoes from another world. The only sensation of our day is when, just after darkness has fallen, the sound of a whistle in the tiny street of thatched cottages announces that the postman ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... Mr. DROWSE, desires to know where you get all your funny things for PUNCHINELLO? He knows they are there, does Mr. DROWSE; for he gets my copy of the penny postman, and he keeps it, too. It is the only good taste my neighbor has displayed of late years. I tell Mr. DROWSE that you make your fun. He further asks, Where? I tell him in the attic—up there where they keep the salt. He desires to know the size of attic. Of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... Tashildar, one Sarishtedar (clerk who reads papers), one Judicial Moharrir, one Kanungo (revenue clerk), three patwaris, one accountant in treasury and one treasurer, one chaprassi, one petition writer, one levy moonshee, one post and telegraph master, one postman, one hospital assistant, one compounder, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of primroses jostled each other in the postman's cart, on their way to cheer patients on their beds of ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... about it, waiting for me in the hall. One of the immense advantages which women have over our sex is, that they actually like to read these letters. Like letters? O mercy on us! Before I was an editor I did not like the postman much:—but now! ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a sign of shuddering assent. Her daily Tribuna, which the postman brought her, had in fact contained that morning a letter describing the burial—after three months!—of the remains of the army slain in the carnage of Adowa on March 1. For three months had those thousands of Italian dead lain ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I was looking down the dingy street from behind the curtains of my little window at the postman who was working his way slowly from side to side delivering his messages of hope and fear, and was wondering whether I was among those to whom he bore tidings of joy or sorrow. I had few correspondents, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... comes, though,' said Gillian; and in due time the locked letter-bag was delivered to Lady Merrifield, and Primrose waited eagerly to act as postman. ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... carry all of their messages for themselves or send them by other persons. The messenger would often run for miles without resting so as to deliver the letters as soon as possible. At last the people decided to give all of their letters to a postman who would ride on horseback from place to place with the mail. Stagecoaches were next used. It took a week for a coach to go as far as a train can go now in a few hours. Our mail is now carried from one place to another by trains or vessels, and then the letter carriers deliver it at our city houses ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... the same in his manner and behavior, apparently engrossed in pleasure parties; but, in reality, his only thought was the mail. He always managed to be at the door when the postman came, so that he was the first to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... the Acton magistrate, "are not allowed to bite people they dislike." All the same there have been times when we have felt that it would have been an act of supererogation to explain to the postman that our dog ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... gloom fell upon the table. Jacob was helping himself to jam; the postman was talking to Rebecca in the kitchen; there was a bee humming at the yellow flower which nodded at the open window. They were all alive, that is to say, while poor Mr. Floyd was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... miseries of the epicure, and Mrs. Totty those of the dyspeptic, in words of eloquence which made milk-and-sugar-and-water a liquid of priceless moral value, though they never succeeded in strengthening its nutritive effects. While the eldest Totty had answered the postman's summons, Mr. Totty was exhorting his youngest son to avoid butter to his bread as a pitfall through which he must eventually come to a state of depravity too dreadful to be put in words. He opened the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... there!" said the Hole-keeper, peevishly, resuming his walk again; "don't keep it up forever. By the way, you're not the postman, are you?" ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... exceedingly unpopular in Ballymoy. The Resident Magistrate hated being obliged to enforce unnecessary laws such as that which forbids cyclists to ride on footpaths, and that which ordains the carrying of lighted lanterns on carts at night. The postman, at the other end of the official scale, liked loitering on his rounds, and had adopted a pleasant habit of handing on letters to any wayfarer who might be supposed to be proceeding in the direction of the place to which ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... forward, and put his hand on the shoulder of an ordinary passing postman who had bustled by them unnoticed under ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... her crazy, she was expressing Gilbert's taste as well as her own for a certain simplicity of life. Social position neither excited nor irritated him. He liked or disliked an aristocrat exactly as he liked or disliked a postman. Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton really were, as Conrad Noel said, personally unconcerned about class. They had, however, a principle against the position of the English aristocracy which will be better ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... letter. He has never been able to bring this home to me, he says, because he burned my correspondence. As if a business man would destroy such a letter. It was yet more annoying when Gilray took to post-cards. To hear the postman's knock and then discover, when you are expecting an important communication, that it is only a post-card about a flower-pot—that is really too bad. And then I consider that some of the post-cards bordered ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... "When the postman passes he puts the papers and letters in the box, doesn't he? He rings the bell and goes away? Then the servant opens the letter-box and takes whatever she finds there to Mademoiselle Prefere ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... I sat there, who should come along but the postman, as is my second cousin by the mother's side, and, 'Well, Polly,' says he, 'times do change. They tell me young Alderton is biding ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... postman had gone away from Belton, so that there might be no possibility of any recall of her letter, 'I have something to tell you which I hope ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope |
