"Round-shouldered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in dungaree trousers, a striped shirt, and a jacket baize—green in parts from the influence of sun and salt. A typical old shell-back, round-shouldered, hooked of finger; a figure with strong hints of a crab ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... plainly the yellow sand-hills under his feet, and the village lying below, its roofs half hidden in the lilac and mauve of bared branches, its columns of smoke rising straight up in the frosty air. He saw the sturdy round-shouldered form in the old shooting coat, the lined brown lean face, the white moustache and the eyebrows, the kindly twinkling eyes squinted against the western light. He heard again Mr. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... by the irreverence of Degas. What hard sayings were his! Poor Bastien-Lepage, too, came in for a scoring. Barricaded in his studio, it was a brave man who attempted to force an entrance. The little, round-shouldered artist, generally good-tempered, would pour a stream of verbal vitriol over the head of ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow in mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea over-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... few moments a drum was produced and the fifer, a round-shouldered, good-natured fellow, who stood six feet tall, made his appearance. Upon being introduced to the lad, he stooped down, resting his hands on his knees, and, after peering into the little fellow's ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... the reason why the little South London side-street was called Baker's Terrace, though it might well seem so; for Baker was the name of the builder, a worthy gentleman whose years and virtues may still be deciphered on a doddering, round-shouldered stone in a deceased cemetery not far from the ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... little, simple, round-shouldered Jock you never saw, unless it was his poor old grandfather. He could keep step with the best of them; but unfortunately he had no decent clothes. This was a great drawback, but Mrs. Parlin and Mrs. Lyman took pity on the boy, and made him ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... hair and beard long, and seemed to stoop badly, or was round-shouldered, but the form otherwise was the same, so were the eyes and shape of the head, and he had a round gold filling the size of a pin's head in one ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... looked far from well. Round-shouldered he sat upon the sofa, head in hands—a pallid face beneath a beaded brow staring out ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... of the bones of his skull had to be removed, and from this time forth he never dared to remain long with his head uncovered. When he was fifty-nine he swallowed a certain corrosive poison, which did not kill him, but left him toothless. He was likewise round-shouldered, a stammerer, and subject to constant palpitation of the heart; but in compensation for these defects he had eyes which could see in the dark and which needed not spectacles ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... nothing at all, but becomes exceedingly round-shouldered, and pretends to read his paper with rapt attention. Generally, Sharpeye directs our observation with a look, to the prints and pictures that are invariably numerous on the walls. Always, Trampfoot and Quickear are taking notice on the doorstep. In default of Sharpeye ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... subjects for men, and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin. Mrs. Archer had been born a Newland, and mother and daughter, who were as like as sisters, were both, as people said, "true Newlands"; tall, pale, and slightly round-shouldered, with long noses, sweet smiles and a kind of drooping distinction like that in certain faded Reynolds portraits. Their physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly embonpoint had not stretched ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... legs and feet to maintain an erect position. If the desk is too high, the elbow can rest on it only by curving the spine and raising the shoulder. The work is brought too close to the eyes and causes extra strain. If the desk is too low, the child stoops over it and becomes round-shouldered, and there is a ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... Neversink was a somewhat odd specimen of a Troglodyte. He was a little old man, round-shouldered, bald-headed, with great goggle-eyes, looking through portentous round spectacles, which he called his barnacles. He was imbued with a wonderful zeal for the naval service, and seemed to think that, in keeping his pistols and cutlasses free ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the street, helter-skelter on a sweating thoroughbred, came Maharajah Gungadhura Singh just in time to see the back of the carriage as it rumbled in through the gateway and the iron doors clanged behind it. Scowling—altogether too round-shouldered for the martial stock he sprang from—puffy-eyed, and not so regal as overbearing in appearance, he sat for a few minutes stroking his scented beard ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... line with the laden sacks of mail, and realized that when the winter really set in we would never be able to make it. So Dave Dykstra was appointed mail-carrier. He was a homesteader who taught the McClure school that winter, a slim, round-shouldered chap, rather frail in physique. Dave would never set the world on fire, but he would keep it going around regularly. Blizzard, rain or sun, he came to the post office every morning those short winter days before it was light. At night Ida Mary, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... conspirators. A fisherman called Etienne Horne gave some valuable details of this arrival. He had noticed particularly the man who appeared to be the leader—"a fat man, with a full, rather hard face, round-shouldered, and with a slight ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... poor white "cracker" population that we saw, seemed indigenous products of the starved soil. They suited their poverty-stricken surroundings as well as the gnarled and scrubby vegetation suited the sterile sand. Thin-chested, round-shouldered, scraggy-bearded, dull-eyed and open-mouthed, they all looked alike—all looked as ignorant, as stupid, and as lazy as they were poor and weak. They were "low-downers" in every respect, and made our rough and simple. minded East Tennesseans look like models ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... term remitted and to be allowed to go, and he told me that he had spent over two hundred roubles on telegrams. He sold his land and mortgaged his house to the money-lenders. His hair went grey, he grew round-shouldered, and his face got yellow and consumptive-looking. He used to cough whenever he spoke and tears used to come to his eyes. He spent eight years on his applications, and at last he became happy again and lively: he had thought ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... shop to the left (as you faced the lectern and the vestments) displayed school furniture and school fittings bearing the characteristic "F.E. & S." stamp. Here were adjustable desks for boys at which no boy could possibly sit round-shouldered, which could be adjusted upwards for tall boys and downwards for short boys, and the seats of which could be advanced for boys afflicted with short legs and retired for boys in the possession of long legs. It was believed by those who had seen the full range of "F.E. & S." desk models that, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... old lady, who expressed a hope that I would now make a long visit. About an hour after I had arrived, Colonel Delmar made his appearance: he was a cousin of Lord de Versely's, but I certainly should not, from his appearance, have supposed him to be a Delmar: for he was short, round-shouldered, and with a fat, rubicund face, apparently about forty years of age. I observed, after our introduction, that his eyes were very often directed towards me; but his manner was courteous, and, although his appearance at ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... commonplace. Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him novel and romantic things, but not trenches and airplanes which were the whole world's property. But he could scarcely fit his neighbour into even his haziest picture of war. The young man was tall and a little round-shouldered; he had short-sighted, rather prominent brown eyes, untidy black hair and dark eyebrows which came near to meeting. He wore a knickerbocker suit of bluish-grey tweed, a pale blue shirt, a pale blue ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... over the wide strath of Dee. Cairnsmuir and Ben Gairn stood out south and north like blue, round-shouldered sentinels. Castle Thrieve rose grey in the midst of the water-meadows, massive and sombre in the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Large, round-shouldered, and clean-shaven like a chef, Virubov was for ever hitching up breeches which had slipped from a stomach ruined with surfeits of watermelon. And always were his fat lips parted as though athirst, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... entered the hall, Mr. Archibald looked at him with some surprise, for he was not the conventional tall, gaunt, wiry, keen-eyed backwoodsman who had naturally appeared to his mental vision. This man was of medium height, a little round-shouldered, dressed in a gray shirt, faded brown trousers very baggy at the knees, a pair of conspicuous blue woollen socks, and slippers made of carpet. His short beard and his hair were touched with gray, and he wore a small jockey ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... of the cathedral and saw the old woman speak to a middle-aged, round-shouldered, bespectacled ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sparkling rings upon his fingers, instead of gloves, you might have almost mistaken him for a gentleman. His companion presented the most striking contrast. His face, shaded by a torn, slouched hat, was dirty and coffee-colored. Of short stature, slight build, and round-shouldered, he followed his master, with an humble, abject look, and from his tread, you would almost have imagined that he was anxious not to leave any track behind, of his footsteps on the gravel walk. A velvet cloak, so worn and patched that a lazzaroni would only have yielded to the temptation of stealing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-toe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... so closely that no one could doubt they were brothers-twin brothers, probably. Both were above middle height; both had olive-brown complexions, black eyes, hooked noses, pointed chins, a slightly projecting lower lip; both were round-shouldered, though this defect did not amount to disfigurement: the whole personality suggested strength, and was not destitute of masculine beauty. So strong a likeness is hardly ever seen; even their ages ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered body, with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the eye he had lost, Kutuzov walked with plunging, swaying gait into the crowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with an accustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his hand, and bowed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... spinal column is weakened by this unnatural posture, its vertebrae become so sensitive and distorted that they cannot easily support the weight of the body or sustain its equilibrium. It is generally believed that persons of sedentary habits are more liable to become round-shouldered than any other class of individuals. Observation shows, on the contrary, that the manual laborer, or even the idler, often acquires this stooping posture. It can be remedied, not by artificial braces, but by habitually throwing the shoulders ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... of 'em about Christmasse. After a Time, alle but he and I went up, and out on the Leads, to see the Comet; and we two sitting quite still, and Father, doubtlesse, supposed to be alone, I saw a great round-shouldered mannish Shadowe glide acrosse the Passage, and hearde the Front-door Latch click. Darted forthe, but too late, and then into the Kitchen; with some Warmth chid Betty for soe soone agayn disobeying Orders, and threatened ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... was being fixed. Gustave said it would be ready in a half-hour. He slipped the microscope over his eye and, bending in his heavy round-shouldered way above the small watch, began to pry with his thick fingers. A pair of tiny pincers, a fragile-looking screwdriver and a set of things that looked ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... de masters of de dawgs dey get angry, and fire four tousand pistole at de four tousand dawgs, and make my bed shake wid the trembling of mine vrow. My vamily is with diamonds infected. Dey vill not vork. Dey takes long valks, and always looks on de ground. Mine childre shall be hump-backed, round-shouldered, looking down for diamonds. Dey shall forget Gott. He is on high: dere eyes are always on de earth. De diggers found a diamond in mine plaster of mine wall of mine house. Dat plaster vas limestone; it come from dose kopjes de good Gott made in His anger against man for his vickedness. I zay so. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... me out! Come you and drag me out!" And threatening variously with his pistol, Leary pointed directly at what seemed to be a new leader, a man with a revolver. "And let me tell you"—he pointed to the armed man—"whoever you are, you round-shouldered, glue-eyed squid you, whoever goes, you go first. Mind that—whatever happens, you go first. I've got you, you pop-eyed, slit-mouthed ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... just starting for the South, and apparently in high spirits. Everywhere some insignia of soldiership were to be seen,— bright buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, and sometimes a round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire uniform. They require a great deal to give them the aspect of soldiers; indeed, it seems as if they needed to have a good deal taken away and added, like the rough clay of a sculptor as it ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... man, with the scholar's stoop and the scholar's near-sighted, peering gaze—the sort of man who has never been really young and will never be old, looking at forty-five much as he looked at twenty, a little grayer, perhaps, a little more round-shouldered and ineffectual, but no more mature. His most marked characteristic was a certain shy amiability, which endeared him to his classes and his friends, even while it failed to command their respect. Beneath ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... as they sat themselves down before Agamemnon and their lords. Upon all but one did silence fall. Thersites, bandy-legged, round-shouldered, lame of one foot, with ugly head covered with scanty stubble, most ill-favored of all men in the host, would not ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... was in truth below the middle height, somewhat round-shouldered, with long arms, and small, well-shaped hands. His hair was plentiful, grizzled, and cut short. His head was large and his forehead wide, with overhanging brows; his eyes were small, dark, and brilliant; his nose had ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... will probably give your muscles all the exercise needed, but if you are suffering from defects of any kind and you are desirous of remedying them some special exercises adapted to your individual needs should be taken with religious regularity. If you have a flat or sunken chest, if you are round-shouldered, if there is one shoulder higher than the other, if there is a spinal curvature, or if the muscles of the stomach or abdomen are weak, it will be necessary to give special attention to such parts through systematic movements intended to have a corrective influence. In another part of this ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... like a raw recruit. Richard had a drill-sergeant from the nearest barracks down for him, to give him a proper pride in himself, and marched him to and fro with immense satisfaction, and nearly broke his heart trying to get the round-shouldered rustic to take in the rudiments of letters: for the boy had unbounded hopes for Tom, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a score of women were turned upon Dan, as he was daily seen, round-shouldered and hollow-chested, toiling along the snowy country roads to and from school, coughing as he went. The topic was not an uncongenial one to the members of the sewing-circle, who had really very little to talk about. So absorbed were they, indeed, in the discussion of poor ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... two weeks, but never longer. Their course was invariably the same—they would leave without notice; nor could any inducement be offered which would persuade them to remain. The Baron of Peddlington became, first round-shouldered, then deaf, and then insane in his search for a permanent cook, landing finally in an asylum, where he died, four years after the demise of his employer in London, of softening of the brain. His last words were, "Why did you ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... called Powell because after his father's death his mother married a white man of that name[1]) was not more than thirty years of age. He was slender, of only average height, and slightly round-shouldered; but he was also well proportioned, muscular, and capable of enduring great fatigue. He had light, deep, restless eyes, and a shrill voice, and he was a great admirer of order and technique. He excelled in athletic contests and in his earlier years had taken delight in engaging in military practice ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... with a jewelled shaft. We couldn't hear what she said, but the movement of her lips and the play of her features were full of charm, full of interest, expressing both audacity and gentleness. She spoke with fire without raising her voice. The man listened round-shouldered, but seeming much too stupid to understand. I could see now and then that he was speaking, but he was inaudible. At one moment Dona Rita turned her head to the room and called out to the maid, "Give me my hand-bag ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... A lantern-faced, round-shouldered man, whose ill-fitting clothes, low collar several sizes too large, and undecided manner suggested that he was a visitor from the rural districts, happened to be starting for the young girl's table at the ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... a short, round-shouldered man, made still shorter by the bend which he had acquired by the operation of boot-closing; his eyes were small, and sunken in his head; his nose wide and flat, as if in his early youth he had fallen on the edge of a pewter pot, and he too had the ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... origin, introduced by Mr. John G. Waite, a seed-merchant of London. As figured and described, it is of large size, very richly colored, and remarkably smooth and symmetrical. At the crown, it is broad and round-shouldered, and measures about six inches in diameter; which size is nearly retained to a depth of eight or nine inches, when it contracts in a conical form to a tap-root. Color of upper portion, clear purple, richly clouded, and contrasting finely with the yellow ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr |
