"Breeches" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thing, forsooth! He could have used thee no worse, had he picked thee up out of the dirt! Devil take him if thou shalt abide at the mercy of the spite of a paltry little merchant of asses' dung! They come to us out of their pigstyes in the country, clad in homespun frieze, with their bag-breeches and pen in arse, and as soon as they have gotten a leash of groats, they must e'en have the daughters of gentlemen and right ladies to wife and bear arms and say, "I am of such a family" and "Those of ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the lieutenant's bivouac from that quarter. He was more puzzled than ever; nor did the minutest inspection of the walls and floor throw any light upon the subject: one thing only was clear—the breeches were gone! "It is very singular," said ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... him perfect glory; and strengthened him with rich garments, with breeches, with a ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... Besides, we find from Max's "Memoirs," that Charles was not so coarse in his dress as is usually represented, for his clothes were made of fine materials. He always wore a plain blue coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat and breeches, a black crape cravat, and a cocked hat; a waist-belt, and a long cut-and-thrust sword. He never disfigured himself by the full-bottomed wig of the period, but always wore his own brown hair, combed back from his forehead. His camp-bed consisted of a blue silk mattress, pillow and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... up this Road towards us I saw a man dressed in a green coat, riding-breeches and boots and a peaked cap, who held in his hand a hunting-whip. He was a fine-looking person of middle age, with a pleasant, open countenance, bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks, on which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In short a jovial-looking individual, with whom things had evidently ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... every pair that he supplied. The experiment was altogether successful, and when it was heard by the riding men of the City that Mr. Neefit's prices were undoubtedly higher than those of any other breeches-maker in London, and that he had refused to supply breeches for the grooms of a Marquis because the Marquis was not a hunting man, the riding men of the City flocked to him in such numbers, that it became quite a common thing for them to give their ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... represented a sunset, as anyone who looked could see. Then there were a number of little figures, no taller than your hand, but with little wooden faces and arms and legs, just beautifully made little dolls, and these were dressed in kirtles and breeches—all rags mostly—and little coats and wooden shoes. They were massed together in groups with their arms all ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... all that ever he learned of me," he complained to the old nurse, who nodded wisely and said he would soon learn all afresh. And he did, very quickly, learn a great deal, and always it was more like remembering than learning. And a second tutor, very smart in red velvet and gold, with breeches like balloons and a short cloak and a ruff, who was an extremely jolly fellow, came in the mornings to teach him to fence, to dance, and to run and to leap and to play bowls, and promised in due time to teach him wrestling, catching, archery, pall-mall, rackets, ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... the girl's hand and led her gently to the veranda and closed the door upon her. Then he came down the room and regarded his prospective father-in-law with an expression of amused exasperation. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his riding-breeches and nodded his head. "Well," he exclaimed, "you've made a damned pretty mess of it, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... York, I had a very little child for that scene. She was flaxen blond, and her mother had dressed her in bright sky-blue, which was in itself an odd colour for a little boy to wear. Then the small breeches were so evidently mother-made, the tiny bits of legs surmounted with such an enormous breadth of seat, the wee Dutch-looking blue jacket, and the queer blue cap on top of the flaxen curls, gave the little creature the appearance of a Dutch doll. The first sight of her, or, perhaps, I should say ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... put them on. He seemed, however, to have forgotten that he must also take from their width; hence the strange dress that he wears at the present day; the huge turban, the broad girdle, the wide breeches, the blue cloak, all these he has inherited from his father, and worn ever since. The long Damascus dagger of his father, too, he attached to his girdle, and seizing a little staff, set out ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... due respect to the dancing world, or to the world of dancing-masters, we beg leave to anathematize the light shoe or pump; it is an ugly, inconvenient, unsuitable thing, fit for a man with a white waistcoat, gold chain, knee-breeches, &c., but not for a gentleman. The true aesthetical article is either the elastic half-boot of the middle ages; fitting on to the pantaloon, or else the thin Wellington boot of the present day under the trousers. We do not care to see your ribbed and open-worked silk ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... licentious jests: Can it call whore? cry bastard? O, then, kiss it! A witty child! can't swear? the father's darling! Give it two plums. Nay, rather than't shall learn No bawdy song, the mother herself will teach it!—- But this is in the infancy, the days Of the long coat; when it puts on the breeches, It will put off all this: Ay, it is like, When it is gone into the bone already! No, no; this dye goes deeper than the coat, Or shirt, or skin; it stains into the liver, And heart, in some; and, rather than it should not, Note what we ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... to eat and free to all, a boy was sure to have it, although it cost him subsequent patches, whippings and tears. Shall the squirrel hunt for nuts and the little sons of men be forbidden, just to save a new pair of breeches, or an old jacket? But the woes of country boyhood are naught in comparison to its joys, and a day in a berry field, or a morning among the chestnut trees, under the blue sky and a west wind, with merry companions, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... and belt, full brown breeches, deerskin gaiters, cap. Second dress:—Same, but much worn ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... from the gentle toasting of the summer sun, making the fairness of his closely cropped hair even more noticeable. At his side was his long bow, carefully wrapped in water-resistant flying-dragon skin, and from the belt which supported his short breeches of tanned duocorn hide swung a two-foot blade—half wood-knife, half sword. To the eyes of his Terran forefathers he would have presented a barbaric picture. In his own mind he was amply clad and armed for the ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... do not dress up to the women. They confine themselves to a rough trouser suit, generally of dark blue, and a black felt hat. Even amongst the older men of the Hardanger one seldom sees the knee-breeches and stockings which ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... Catholics and then Jesuits. For let there be no illusions about strength of mind, and so on,—this is effected by means of a vast machinery. As, in the old story, the calves were put in at one end of the cylinder and taken out leather breeches at the other, or as glass is cut and wood carved, so does the raw human material, put into the machine of the Catholic Church, become fashioned according to the will of those who guide it. Hulia Protestante! you have a free step and a clear head; but once go into the machine, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... was a tall, fair young man, with gray eyes, and a frank, open face. He wore a slight mustache, and when he smiled, showed a set of white and even teeth. He was mounted on a very handsome and spirited bay mare, was clad in a picturesque costume, of which velvet knee-breeches and a crimson scarf were the most conspicuous features, and displayed a marked skill in horsemanship. At the blast of the bugle his horse started forward, and, after the first few rods, settled into an even gallop. Tryon's lance, held truly and at the right angle, captured the first ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... lace at the stock was tied full and fastened with brilliants; the coat of ivory silk, heavily embroidered with golden filigree, fell over a waistcoat of clouded ivory and gold mesh, fashionably short, and made by Thorne. My breeches were like the coat, ivory silk, buckled with gold; the stockings were white silk, a bunch of ribbon caught by the jeweled buckles at either knee; and upon my double-channeled pumps, stitched by Bass, buckles of plain dull gold. There ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... not return to Yonville, but in the evening went to a masked ball. She wore velvet breeches, red stockings, a club wig, and three-cornered hat cocked on one side. She danced all night to the wild tones of the trombones; people gathered round her, and in the morning she found herself on the steps of the theatre together with five ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches! It is the study of nature, surely, that profits us, and not of these imitations of her. A man, as a man, from a dustman up to AEschylus, is God's work, and good to read, as all works of Nature are: but the silly animal is never content; is ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... heavy blow. The other suit was for wear in the house. It was of dark green cloth of a much finer texture than the riding suit; with cloth stockings of the same colour, coming up above the knee, and then meeting the trunks or puffed breeches. A small cap with turned up brim, furnished with a few of the tail feathers of a black cock, completed the costume; a dagger being worn in the belt instead of the sword. Four woollen shirts, a pair of shoes, and a cloak were added to the purchases; which ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... again, "I have no great riches, Yet take this tunic, take these breeches, My shirt and my vest, take everything, And give due ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... nose. Arered, an eye. Keiotot, a tooth. Mutchatet, the head. Chewat, an eare. Comagaye, a legge. Atoniagay, a foote. Callagay, a paire of breeches. Attegay, a coate. Polleuetagay, a knife. Accaskay, a shippe. Coblone, a thumbe. Teckkere, the foremost finger. Ketteckle, the middle finger. Mekellacane, the fourth finger. Yacketrone, the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... given only for one instant to Osterhaut and his friend. Her gaze became fixed on Tekewani who, silent, and with immobile face, stole towards her. In spite of the civilization which controlled him, he wore Indian moccasins and deerskin breeches, though his coat was rather like a shortened workman's blouse. He did not belong to the life about him; he was a being apart, the spirit ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... detectives, amateur and professional; it's full of hotel keepers, trout fishermen, and private camps which are provided with elevators, electric light, squash courts, modern plumbing, and footmen in knee-breeches; and all of these dinky ginks are hunting for four young and wealthy men who have, at regular intervals of one week each, suddenly and completely disappeared from the face of nature and the awful solitudes of the Adirondacks. I take it for granted that you have ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... appearance we have this picture, from the same chronicler's account of his last fight: a tall dark Welshman of near forty, "Roberts himself made a gallant Figure, being dressed in a rich crimson Damask Wastcoat, and Breeches, a red Feather in his Hat, and a Gold Chain Ten Times round his Neck, a Sword in his Hand, and two pair of Pistols hanging at the End of a Silk Sling, which was flung over his Shoulders, according to the Fashion of the Pyrates" ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... dressed in deerskin shirts, hip-leggings, moccasins, and native blankets. These were superseded by what has been the more universal costume during the present generation: close-fitting cotton or velvet shirt, without collar, cut rather low about the neck and left open under the arms; breeches fashioned from any pleasing, but usually very thin, material, and extending below the knees, being left open at the outer sides from the bottom to a little above the knees; deerskin moccasins with ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... thought, she didn't want to see either of them. She was tired of them, of him with his stiff withdrawals and Dick's young puppyhood. He ran upstairs, snatched some old riding breeches out of a closet, put them on and, without a word to Charlotte, went to the barn. But her eye was on him and she called out of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... know them well enough now to be as funny as we like without having them stare. They are nice when you know them, but you've GOT to know them first. I had a great dinner at Farrar's. All the ecclesiastical lights of England in knee-breeches were there, and the American Minister and Phillips Brooks. It was quite novel and fun. Lots of love. I have all the money ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... this select circle, grouped snugly about the trim little square in front of the inn, appeared the towns-people in general, mixed here and there with the country people, in their quaint German costume, placidly expectant of the diligence—the men in short black jackets, tight black breeches, and three-cornered beaver hats; the women with their long light hair hanging in one thickly plaited tail behind them, and the waists of their short woolen gowns inserted modestly in the region of their shoulder-blades. Round the outer ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... lifted him in his arms, and pulled him into a dirty uniform which had belonged, apparently, to a much larger man—a man who had been killed probably, for there were dark brown marks of blood on the tunic and breeches. When he tried to stand on his feet, Castle Garden and the Battery disappeared in a black cloud of night, just as he knew they would; but when he opened his eyes from the stretcher, they had returned again. It was a most remarkably vivid ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... a leather coat, military breeches and gaiters, with a fur hat with the sign of the Red Army in front, was looking very well, but a strange figure for those who had known him as one of the greatest anti-militarists in Europe. Lenin sat quietly listening, speaking when necessary in almost every European language with astonishing ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... way through a mob of reporters at the station. One fellow told me that since I left New York the papers had published a declaration by me that I meant to be very "democratic" and would under no conditions wear "knee breeches"; and he asked me about that report. I was foolish enough to reply that the existence of an ass in the United States ought not necessarily to require the existence of a corresponding ass in London. He printed that! I never knew the origin of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... are the most picturesque of the Appenzellers. The men wear a round skull-cap of leather, sometimes brilliantly embroidered, a jacket of coarse drilling, drawn on over the head, and occasionally knee-breeches. Early in May the herdsmen leave their winter homes in the valleys and go with their cattle to the Matten, or lofty mountain pastures. The most intelligent cows, selected as leaders for the herd, march ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... lace, likewise did our eyes good; and the large feathers particularly, that waved most splendidly from the hats, which were cocked in the antique style. But what did not please me were the short modern breeches, the white silk stockings, and the fashionable shoes. We should have liked half-boots,—gilded as much as they pleased,—sandals, or something of the kind, that we might have seen ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... among the sleepers. Alec had described to her so minutely the changing scene that she was able to bring it vividly before her eyes. She saw him come out of his tent, in heavy boots, buckling on his belt. He wore knee-breeches and a pith helmet, and he was more bronzed than when she had bidden him farewell. He gave the order to the headman of the caravan to take up the loads. At the word there was a rush from all parts of the camp; each porter seized his ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... him or a cabin-boy." "Ay, ay, sir," says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so in half an hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red breeches and yallow swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines, that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I heard a woman's voice ask at the footman if there was a sailor awaiting below. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... hung in long ragged locks over his forehead, cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a handkerchief, on which were several stains of a brownish black colour. Spots of the same kind were visible upon his leathern jacket, breeches, and mocassins; they were evidently blood stains. His hunting knife, which was nearly two feet long, with a rude wooden handle, was now replaced in his girdle, but in its stead he held a Kentucky rifle in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... are living yet, In strong and hearty German; And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit, And patriot fame of Sherman; Still from his book, a mystic seer, The soul of Behmen teaches, And England's priestcraft shakes to hear Of Fox's leathern breeches. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and dressed in his desert clothes. As he went through his pockets he came upon the little silver crucifix and transferred it, with some loose change, to his riding-breeches. He turned out the light, locked the room from the outside, and ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... when I felt so hungry," muttered the lad, as he thrust his hands into his breeches pockets, and stopped near the sailor, who smiled in the ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... in the tap-room of the Ducrow's Head, you may have forgotten the purport of my observations, I will repeat them here. You were reclining with your back against the table, and a pewter pot of foaming beer resting on the knee of the red stocking-breeches in which you had performed the Crimson Fiend of the Haunted Dell, when, after some preliminary matter, I expressed an opinion—unusual, I grant, but still conscientiously entertained—of the immortal Shakspeare, on which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... HER?' said the gentleman, thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets. 'She'll tell thee so, of course. Most likely he's hired, at so much a day. There. Get ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... loosely hung together, and his immense broad shoulders slightly rounded. In features he was hardly handsome, but a kindly pleasant looking face made ample atonement for want of beauty. He was dressed in knee-breeches, and a great blue coat, with brass buttons, too large even for him, was topped by a broad-brimmed beaver hat, with fur on it half-aninch long. In age, this man was about five-and-twenty, and well known he was to all the young fellows round there ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... her then, this abbess had in bed Good parson John, by kindness thither led, A neighb'ring rector, confessor, and friend; She rose in haste the sisters to attend, And, seeking for her veil, with sense confused, The parson's breeches took for what she used, Which, in the dark, resembled what was worn By nuns for veils, and called (perhaps in scorn), Among themselves, their PSALTER, to express Familiarly, a ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... . . . Half a guinea he used to give me, regular. But the last time—and hard to believe 'twas little more than a month ago—he halts on his way out, and says he, searchin' awkward-like in his breeches' pocket with his left hand, 'Ned,' says he, 'my old friend'—aye, sir, his old friend he called me—'Ned,' says he, pullin' out a fistful o' gold, 'my old friend,' says he, 'I'll compound with you for two ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... people, regarded collectively, felt and acted in this case with as much ingenuousness as did those Tyrolese mountaineers, bred, according to Heine, to know nothing of politics save that they had an Emperor who wore a white coat and red breeches. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Does my breeches-pocket hold: I to pay am really willing, If I only had the gold. Farmers none can I encounter, Graziers there are none to kill; Therefore, prithee, gentle taylzeour, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... following. It is, perhaps, needless to remind you that the tools with which ink is applied to paper, in order to produce writing, are made from goose quills, which quills I am goose enough not to keep a supply of; and not having so much money at present in my breeches pocket as will purchase one, I am forced to betake myself to my pencil; an instrument which, without paying myself any compliment, I am sure I can wield ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of fifty, dressed in a jacket of reddish brown merino, holding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar of an English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a man in knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brim whimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeon plumes rose at its sides. A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossed about on the back of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... as described in Carlyle's "French Revolution," for "breeches of a new kind in this world"; brother of Louis XVI., and afterwards CHARLES X. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... not another bit of magnetized iron in the ship. The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses only the day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of more importance than you will think; it really made me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... in boys the breeches, may give rise during childhood to unwholesome stimulation. Hufeland, in his Makrobiotik, long ago advised against the wearing of breeches by little boys. The Schaumburg-Lippe body-physician, Faust,[75] in a work published in the year 1791, strongly recommended that boys ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... a time when men and women paid great attention to dress. The ladies wore light flowered gowns, and the men brilliant coats and knee-breeches, with lace stocks and white powdered hair. Their manners were of the courts of Europe, polished in the extreme, and they had all been trained to make an art of conversation. Negro servants waited on the table, and ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... obtain the good opinion of his relation, Mr. Stephens, leather-breeches maker of Salisbury, and, from some quality, which it is possible his keen observation had noticed in this Mr. Stephens, he deems it the most effectual way, to flatter his vanity, and accordingly tells him, with great gravity, that he traces his descent from Fitz-Stephen, son of Stephen, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... which disfigured the countenance of the other; nor, though roguish enough, a certain evil expression which that of the other bore, and which the face of the woman possessed in a yet more remarkable degree. For the rest, he wore drab breeches, with certain strings at the knee, a rather gay waistcoat, and tolerably white shirt; under his arm he bore a mighty whip of whalebone with a brass knob, and upon his head was a hat without either top ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a footman, looking very quaint and queer in his livery coat, drab breeches, and white stockings, came to invite me to the table, where I found Mr. B. and his sisters and guests sitting at the fruit and wine. There were port, sherry, madeira, and one bottle of claret, all very good; but they take here much heavier wines than we drink now in America. After a tolerably ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stood. Things were mighty strange, and every darned nigger of them looked so pleased like. To show them manners, I said, ‘How are you?’ and I went to bow, but chaw my last tobacco if I could, my breeches was so tight—the heat way back in the cañon had shrunk them. They were too polite to notice it, and I felt for my knife to rip the dog-goned things, but recollecting the scalp-taker was stolen, I straightens up and bowed my head. A kind-looking, smallish old gentleman, with ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... acquirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress. To instance no more, is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipped down for ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... not of days, but weeks; and they were entertained in the good old style of Virginia's ancient hospitality. Washington, always superbly mounted, in true sporting costume, of blue coat, scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, top-boots, velvet cap, and whip with long thong, took the field at daybreak, with his huntsman, Will Lee, his friends and neighbors." They usually hunted three times a week, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... However, he yielded to their persuasions, and presented himself to his bishop. But the bishop would not ordain him—why is not known, but it was said that he was offended with Goldsmith for coming to be ordained dressed in scarlet breeches. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... governor's table. To match the coat there was a velvet waist-coat of very ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the maple-leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches once worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand.[176-1] The Frenchman had given these small-clothes to an Indian pow-wow, who parted with them ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... empty. "Looking at this inventory," said the curate, "I should imagine the articles to be of no great value. One fur cap, one round hat, one pair of plush breeches, one—; they are not worth a couple of pounds altogether," continued he, stuffing the tobacco into his pipe, which he relighted, and no more was said. Nicholas was the third in, or rather out. "It appears to me," observed he;—but what appeared ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... wheels and pulleys and other gear. As for Ham, the first time Yvon saw him in the mill, he cried out "Mont Blanc!" and would not call him anything else for some time. For Ham was whiter than all the rest, in his working-dress, cap and jacket and breeches, white to begin with, and powdered soft and furry, like his face and eyebrows, with the flying meal. Down-stairs there was plenty of noise; oats and corn and wheat pouring into the hoppers, and the great stones going round and round, and wheels creaking and buzzing, and ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... afterwards became a separate branch of railway business, and was entrusted to a special staff. Indeed on no subsequent line did George Stephenson take the sights through the spirit level with his own hands and eyes as he did on this railway. He started very early—dressed in a blue tailed coat, breeches, and top-boots—and surveyed until dusk. He was not at any time particular as to his living; and during the survey, he took his chance of getting a little milk and bread at some cottager's house along the line, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... would ring through the Senate Chamber like the shrill scream of an angry vixen. He generally wore a full suit of heavy, drab-colored English broadcloth, the high, rolling collar of his surtout coat almost concealing his head, while the skirts hung in voluminous folds about his knee-breeches and the white leather tops of his boots. He used to enter the Senate Chamber wearing a pair of silver spurs, carrying a heavy riding-whip, and followed by a favorite hound, which crouched beneath his desk. He wrote, and occasionally spoke, in riding-gloves, and it was his favorite gesture to point ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... rejoined the tormentor, 'but just wait a bit; I must have a voucher. I'll just cut off the bottom of your breeches by way of voucher.' So saying he pulled out his knife and suited the action to ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... subsisting in the world, but which I have neither time to recollect nor look for," which would give you an idea of the parson's astonishment at Trim's impudence. The emoluments of "Pickering and Pocklington" appear under the figure of a "pair of black velvet plush breeches" which ultimately "got into the possession of one Lorry Slim (Sterne himself, of course), an unlucky wight, by whom they are still worn: in truth, as you will guess, they are very thin by ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... dressed like a sensible Englishman dismayed my father as much as that the other should have a watch, and look as if he had just broken out of Bedlam, or as King Dagobert must have looked if he had worn all his clothes as he is said to have worn his breeches. Both wore their clothes so easily—for he who wore them reversed had evidently been measured with a view to this absurd fashion—that it was ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... a pair of freeze trunk breeches, and a vizor, with a grey beard; and after that time col. Hewson called him 'father grey beard' and most of the army besides, ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... now, skimmin' milk pans, and then runnin' her finger round the rim and lickin' it. She was a Dennison. I've heard her say to her daughters, I'd rather have you lose your virtue than lose your figger'; and my dear grandfather—your great-grandfather—wore knee breeches; he said—well, I suppose you'd be shocked if I told you what he said? He said, 'If a gal loses one, she—' No; I guess I won't tell you. Old maids are so refined! He wasn't an old maid, I can tell you! I brought a chocolate drop for Bingo. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... was poor. He could only boast a bob wig, a base thing, which, for all the show it made, might have been a man's own hair. He wore no sword. His hat lacked feather and lace. His coat and breeches were but black drugget, shiny at each corner of him and rusty everywhere. His stockings were worsted, and darned even on his excellent calves. His shoes had strings where buckles should have been, and mere black heels—and low heels at that. As you know, he ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... leathery, peat faced, with a deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is in effect pathetic—the voice of a man of hard life and many sorrows—comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but now he is dressed respectably in a black frock coat, tall hat, and pollard colored trousers; and his face is as clean as washing can make it, though that is not saying much, as the habit is recently acquired and ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... opinion that the Philadelphians are not, in these latter days, any better than their neighbors. I am not sure whether in some respects they may not perhaps be worse. Quakers—Quakers absolutely in the very flesh of close bonnets and brown knee- breeches—are still to be seen there; but they are not numerous, and would not strike the eye if one did not specially look for a Quaker at Philadelphia. It is a large town, with a very large hotel—there are no doubt half a dozen ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... knowledge, fifteen empty Day and Martin's blacking-bottles in one corner, for I used occasionally to walk over them to keep my feet in practice, and it was in this room that Terence last had conscious possession of the hunting-breeches which were never seen after the Captain's birthday, when Terence threw the clothes-brush after me, because I would not drink the master's health in whisky, and had to take the cleanest of the shoe brushes to his own coat, which was dusty from lying ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the opening beheld a band of men moving in single file along the track they had just left. They were most of them nearly naked, with only short calico breeches which did not quite reach to their knees, but all had muskets on their shoulders and cross-belts on their dark bodies, one of which belts sustained apparently a cartridge-box, the other a bayonet. Their own ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... in his determination to uphold the dignity and unity of the Empire "stood four-square to all the winds that blew," would scarcely have sided with the modern G.O.M. and his satellites, Horsewhipped Healy and Breeches O'Brien. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... of society was inimical to the kind of education that the Earl of Chesterfield prescribed for his son. The earl was well aware of it, indeed, and marked with repugnance divers young bucks of his day with leathern breeches and unpowdered hair, who would exclaim; "Damn these finical outlandish airs, give me a manly resolute manner. They make a rout with their graces, and talk like a parcel of dancing masters, and dress like ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... mind as a kind of tame, necessary and beloved jinn. Being a loyal little soul, the child retained his affection for Auntie Anne, but he was swept off his little feet by his mirific parent. The time came when, if he was not dressed in his tiny woollen jersey and knee breeches and had not his nose glued against the parlour window in readiness to scramble to the front door for Aristide's morning kiss, he would have thought that chaos had come again. And Anne, humouring the child, hastened to get him washed and dressed in time; until at last, so greatly ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches.[3] He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... cover their hips, and left open to show a sort of waistcoat striped with red, yellow, and green, which was closed over the chest by a row of silver buttons attached to one another like the links of a chain. Their costume was completed by a pair of short breeches of the same color as the jacket, tied round the waist by a band ornamented by a large stud of chiselled silver,—a red cravat, and woollen stockings reaching to the knee. In short, below the waist their dress was that of a priest, and above it, that of a harlequin. One of them had coins for ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... acceptance of this verdict on the part of the two little girls, that Van Bibber felt uncomfortable. He looked to the right and to the left, and then said desperately, "Well, come along." The young man in a blue flannel shirt, who did the paddling, smiled at Van Bibber's riding-breeches, which were so very loose at one end and so very tight at the other, and at his gloves and crop. But Van Bibber pretended not to care. The three little girls placed the awful lunch basket on the front seat and sat on the middle one, and Van Bibber cowered ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... three of the transports are returned with this history, and know not what is become of Lestock and the rest of the invasion. The young Pretender is landed in France, with thirty Scotch, but in such a wretched condition that his Highland Highness had no breeches. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... senses were abnormally clear, cold: he saw every detail of the Hatburns' garb—the soiled shirts with buttoned pockets on their left breasts; the stained baggy breeches in heavy boots—such boots as had stamped Allen into nothingness; dull yellow faces and beady eyes; the long black hair about ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... appointments were purchased at their own expense, and they were expected to hold them selves in readiness to assemble whenever their services might be required by the governor. For uniform, they wore a blue coat with white buttons, and buff waistcoat and breeches. Their parade was the Square or Market-place, where they were attended by music, and visited by all the beauty of the place, who animated them by their smiles from the balcony of the town-hall, and if the weather was favourable accompanied them to the exercising ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... them to me—one, two, three, four, five—you shan't touch one of them! no, not one, for your lives!' continued he, exultingly; laying the nest on the ground, and standing over it with his legs wide apart, his hands thrust into his breeches-pockets, his body bent forward, and his face twisted into all manner of contortions in ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... the richer peasants of that day, a coarse but spotless white shirt, very open at the throat, a jacket and waistcoat of stout dark blue cloth, with large and smooth silver buttons, knee-breeches, white stockings, and heavy low shoes with steel buckles. He combined the occupations of farmer, wine-seller, and carrier. When he was on the road between Subiaco and Rome, Gigetto, already mentioned, was supposed to represent him. It was understood that Gigetto was to marry Annetta—if he ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... the accustomed argot of street badinage of the period; and in such matters Georgie was an expert. He had no vest to pull down; the incongruous fact was that a fringed sash girdled the juncture of his velvet blouse and breeches, for the Fauntleroy period had set in, and Georgie's mother had so poor an eye for appropriate things, where Georgie was concerned, that she dressed him according to the doctrine of that school in ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... Bavaria. While occupied in passing my portmanteau through the prying and unutterably dirty hands of the custom-house officials I was accosted by a man dressed in the garb of a Tyrolese mountaineer—short leathern breeches reaching to the knee, gray stockings, heavy hobnailed shoes, a nondescript species of jacket of the roughest frieze, and a battered hat adorned with two or three feathers of the capercailzie and a plume of the royal eagle. Old Hansel was one of the gamekeepers on a large imperial ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Medes, before they conquered the Lydians, had no money. Herodotus [416] tells us, that when Croesus was preparing to invade Cyrus, a certain Lydian called Sandanis advised him, that he was preparing an expedition against a nation who were cloathed with leathern breeches, who eat not such victuals as they would, but such as their barren country afforded; who drank no wine, but water only, who eat no figs nor other good meat, who had nothing to lose, but might get much from the Lydians: for the Persians, saith Herodotus, ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... not afterwards recollect; but it is known that on motion of Peyton Randolph the fifth resolution was that day erased from the record. Mr. Henry was not then present. He had been seen, on the afternoon before, "passing along the street, on his way to his home in Louisa, clad in a pair of leather breeches, his saddle-bags on his arm, leading a lean horse." The four resolutions thus adopted as the deliberate and formal protest of the Old Dominion were as mild and harmless as could well be. They asserted ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... hardly able to govern his own kingdom, assumed the title "king of Denmark," and laid claim to Norway, too; and when she blamed him for it he had answered her disdainfully. In a letter he had used foul and abusive language, calling her "a king without breeches," and the "abbot's concubine" (abbedfrillen), on account of her particular attachment to a certain abbot of Soro, who was her spiritual director. It is, however, true, that her intimacy with this monk gave room for some suspicion that her privacies ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sat up and told his tale. The city was a shambles; every man, woman, or child had been put to the sword. Only the citadel held out; there was no time to lose. No time was lost; for King Richard, in his tunic and breeches as he was, in his deck shoes, without a helm, unmailed in any part, snatched up shield and axe. 'Who follows Anjou?' he called out, then plunged into the sea. Des Barres immediately followed him, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... dry look, too, about his mouth, and a moist one at the corner of his eye, and who knew the attorney well. All were upon him. "Not like!—How not like? Say where is it not like?" "Why, don't you see," said the man, "he's got his hand in his breeches' pocket. It would be as like again if he had his hand in any other body's pocket." The family portrait was removed, especially as, after this, many came on purpose to see it; and so the attorney was lowered a peg, and the farmer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... her straw hat, dyed black for the occasion, she admitted, "It ain't right." Grit had left her nothing, absolutely nothing, but an unpleasant memory of himself—his grimy face and hands, his crooked nose and baggy breeches.... And Great Taylor was willing that every thought of him should leave her forever. "Grit's gone," she told herself. "I ain't going to think ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn, as is the wear of the pastoral Muse. Again, I did not look for a "Rogue in porcelain," with gold buckles on neat black shoes, and highly ornamented stays worn outside her gown. A stalwart young woman, in a khaki smock and sou'- wester, Bedford-cord breeches, and long leather boots, would have satisfied my utmost demands in 1918. Instead, however, my shepherdess was dressed, if her clothes could be called dress, like a female tramp. Long draggle-tailed skirts, some sort of a shawl, and the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... followed, contrasting disagreeably with the deep, rolling thunder of the artillery; then the men were on their feet again, rushing on, no longer in a perfectly straight line, some in advance, others a little behind, with their faces turned towards the sun, beneath whose rays the red breeches flamed in a vivid, bloody hue, and buttons, bayonets, all polished bits of metal ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... voice from the cistern, frightened, then storming in anger. Mormon ran at a sprinter's gait from the cottonwoods, along a side of the corral, through the trees bordering the cistern. The girl was out of the hammock, facing a man in riding breeches and puttees, his face concealed for the moment by his hands. A sleeve of the girl's frock was torn away, the outworn fabric in streamers. The man's hands came down and Mormon recognized him for Jim Plimsoll, owner of the Good Luck Pool ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Chestnut Street they came to Independence Hall and here, blocking the way on their sorrel horses with two white mounted trumpeters, was the First City Troop, sixty-five men under Captain J. Franklin McFadden, in their black coats and white doeskin riding-breeches, in the black helmets with raccoon skin plumes, in their odd-shaped riding boots high over the knee, all as in Revolutionary days—here they were drawn up before the statue of George Washington and the home of the Liberty Bell, resolved to die here, ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... Bracher completed the seven-mile run, and tore into the Grand Place of Furnes, she was greeted by cheers from the populace. And, indeed, she was a striking figure in her yellow leather jerkin, her knee-breeches and puttees, and her shining yellow "doggy" boots. She carried all the air of an officer planning a desperate coup. As she cut her famous half-moon curve from the north-east corner of the Place by the Gendarmerie ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... superfine blue cotton velvet for coat, waistcoat, and breeches, with fine silk buttons to match, and necessary trimmings, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... They speak of the Nationalist members with contempt, and say they would rather be represented by gentlemen. They are very incredulous, and refuse to believe in the honesty of "honest" John Dillon. They say that Davitt is a humbug and Healy a blackguard. They speak of O'Brien's breeches without weeping, and opine that Davitt's imprisonments and Healy's horse-whipping served them both right. These misguided Irishmen affect to believe that the English laws are good, that Ireland is a splendid country, and that things would be far better ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth, and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his lank body by a girdle of colored worsted. On his feet were deer- skin moccasins, ornamented with porcupines quills, after the manner of the Indians, and his limbs were guarded with long leggings of the same material as the moccasins, which, gartering over the knees of his tarnished buckskin breeches, had obtained for him among the settlers the nickname of Leather-Stocking. Over his left shoulder was slung a belt of deer-skin, from which depended an enormous ox-horn, so thinly scraped as to discover the powder it contained. The ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... superfluous flesh on his big bones, his appearance was not impressive. The deerskin hunting shirt, worked in a curious pattern on the breast with red and blue porcupine quills, fitted him tightly, as did his linsey-woolsey breeches; and his thin shanks were covered with gray hose darned clumsily in more than one place. He would have been selected at first sight as a wood-ranger and hunter, and carried his long rifle with more grace than he ever held ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... austere and reverent painting of the elder Cima da Conegliano. As they were leaving the academy, they took another look at the Englishmen behind them—with their long rabbit-like teeth and drooping whiskers—and laughed; they glanced at their gondolier with his abbreviated jacket and short breeches—and laughed; they caught sight of a woman selling old clothes with a knob of grey hair on the very top of her head—and laughed more than ever; they looked into one another's face—and went off into peals of laughter, and directly they had sat down in the gondola, they clasped each other's hand ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... amicable glances. Although differing in position they felt themselves brothers in money, and of the great freemasonry of those who possess, of those who can make the gold jingle when they put their hands in the breeches-pockets. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of the settlement of Jamestown, in 1607, the characteristics of a man of fashion were, to wear velvet breeches, with panes or slashes of silk, an enormous starched ruff, a gilt-handled sword, and a Spanish dagger: to play at cards or dice in the room of the groom-porter, and to smoke tobacco in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... each other curiously, Pagett, in a light grey frock-coat and garments much too thin for the time of the year, and a puggried sun-hat carefully and wonderfully made. Orde in a shooting coat, riding breeches, brown cowhide boots with spurs, and a battered flax helmet. He had ridden some miles in the early morning to inspect a doubtful river dam. The men's faces differed as much as their attire. Orde's worn and wrinkled ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... for ringworm. He was to be found during play-hours often with the knees of his breeches unbuttoned, and his shoes down at the heel, [7] walking to and fro, or sitting on a step, or in a corner, deeply engaged in some book. This had attracted the notice of Middleton, at that time a deputy grecian, and going up to him one day, asked ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... semi-circle lay the fleet of fishing boats. Men and women were sitting at their doors mending nets. He looked at the fishermen, great, sturdy fellows, with rough, weather-beaten faces, huge earrings dangling from their ears. He took note of their quaint costume—black stockings and breeches, the latter more baggy than a Turk's, and the crushed strawberry of their high jackets, cut close to the body. He remembered how he had looked at them with Valentia, and the group of boys and men that she had sketched. He remembered how they walked along, peeping into the houses, where ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... bought tops and marbles of him a thousand times. To be sure you have; and seen his vinegar-visage lighted up with a smile as you flung him the coppers; and you have laughed at his little straight queue and his dimity breeches, and all the other oddities that made up the every-day apparel of my little Frenchman. Ah, I perceive you ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... we lay in the woods, an old man, a shepherd, came with a flock of white sheep which followed close behind him. The old man wore a velvet cloak, knee breeches, and buckles on his shoes, and he had a sheep dog with him—a small-sized tricolored, rough-haired collie. It was exactly like a picture! We were not in any mood to enjoy the beauty of it, for some of the sheep wandered through the wood, almost stepping on us, and when the shepherd came after them, ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung |
