"Crumple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... ink the seams of his small-clothes, and darken his elbows with a blacking brush, ere he sallied forth to follow borrowed plumes; and when he returned from his public performance (oft rehearsed) Master Sighmon did innocently crumple his crapes, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... boys time to take a tighter grip with their fingers on the boards to which they were clinging, when the whole string of freight cars seemed to crumple up like a ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... face and blazing eyes rushed on at the side of the tall Southern giant, heard a dull thud. Then came a sort of gasping, choking cry that was audible even above the horrid din of battle. Jerry, in a glance, saw his big comrade crumple up in a heap, the whole front of his body torn away by a piece of shell. And for one terrible instant Jerry felt that he, himself, must fall there, too, so terrible was the sight. But he nerved himself to go on, and a backward glance showed that Bob had to leap over the dead body of ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... over, her sturdy fuselage refusing to crumple. Stan's one thought was of fire. He pawed aside what was left of his hatch cover and heaved himself upward and out. Staggering free of the wreckage, he found himself enveloped in a choking pall of smoke. Off to his left, a heavy explosion shook the ground. Dirt and sticks and bits of ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... the reserve; because we're going to crumple them up," said the Brigadier, who was an extraordinary Brigadier, and did not believe in the value of a reserve when dealing with Asiatics. Indeed, when you come to think of it, had the British Army consistently waited for reserves in all its little affairs, the boundaries of ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... go to drive," he proposes, and the two ladies agree. Madame is in something white and soft, a mass of lace and a marvel of fineness. She has the rare art of harmonious adjustment, of being used to her clothes. She is never afraid to crumple them, to trail them over floors, to use them, and yet she is always dainty, delicate, never rough or prodigal. She is superlatively lovely to-night. As she sits in the carriage, with just the right poise of languor, just the faint tints of enthusiasm that seem a part of twilight, she ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... seen Falcon's eyes twinkle, and I have seen his mouth work—times without number. I have seen him thrust a decanter upon the sideboard and disappear shaking from the apartment. But never before have I seen his self-control crumple as a ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... of his uniform for paper and a pencil to leave a note in case Izzy came back. His fingers found the half notebook cover instead. He drew it out, scowling at it, and started to crumple it. Then he stopped, staring at the piece of imitation leather and paper that ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... the indiscriminate stores of the circulating library gave the last aggravation to all the unwholesome particulars of his life. "Conceive what I must have been at fourteen," he exclaims. "I was in a continual low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every object of present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny corner and read, read, read; fancy myself on Robinson Crusoe's island finding a mountain of plum-cake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating it into the shapes of tables and chairs—hunger, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... to the breaking of the Russian lines and the consequent Russian retreat toward the Narew River, particularly as the German advance between the Pissa and Vistula rivers threatens to crumple the right flank positions ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... time when there were no newspapers, nothing for father to read at breakfast-time, and no old newspapers to crumple up and light fires with. The first real printed English newspaper was called the Weekly News. It was published in 1622, while King Charles I ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... sagging loop to gave the anchor from loosening. He fired twice again at the balloon bag, and Pauline, clinging to his shoulder saw the monster that had held her a slave to its elemental power, that, like some winged gorgon had held her captive in the labyrinth of air, crumple and wither and fall at the prick of a bullet; saw it collapse into a mass of tangled leather and rope and slide in final ruin down ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... found himself that day in the sand dunes before Fort Fisher. Red, reeking carnage rioted all about him. Hail, fumes, lightning and thunder of battle rolled over him and sickened him. He saw his own Massachusetts troop hurl itself up against the Confederate breastworks, crumple up on itself, and fade away back into the smoke. He lost it, and lost himself in the smoke. He wandered blindly over the field, now stumbling over a dead man, now speaking to a living stricken one: Here straightening a torn ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... feared he would reveal, that secret which old Hastings was blundering after—that secret, Mr. Crown, was such a danger to him that, to escape the questioning of even stupid old Hastings, he could do nothing but crumple up on the floor and feign illness, prostration. Why, don't you see, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... against a turning movement on to the lofty wooded ridges of Monte Cristo and Cingolo and the neck joining these two features. Sir Redvers Buller's determination was to turn this widely extended position on its extreme left, and to endeavour to crumple it from left to right. As it were, a gigantic right arm was to reach out to the eastward, its shoulder at Gun Hill, its elbow on Hussar Hill, its hand on Cingolo, its fingers, the Irregular Cavalry Brigade, actually ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... into the next room!" he whispered. "You shall be called immediately if she wakes and wants you. But you'll crumple up if ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... born to a gentle family in the Calendar of Monteith, and was celebrated even in boyhood for his feats of strength and daring. While still at school he could hold a hundredweight at arm's-length, and crumple up a horseshoe like a wisp of hay. The fleetest runner, the most desperate fighter in the country, he was already famous before his name was besmirched with crime, and he might have been immortalised as the Hercules ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... sir," was the answer. "We'd brought the gun under cover—there wasn't a chance of being hit by direct fire, you'll understand—and the black seemed to crumple up suddenly. Never said a word, but just pitched on his face. I'll do my ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... came to submit my work to him, and request him to publish it, should he, after looking over it, deem it worthy of the indulgence or favor of cultivated minds. M. Didot nodded, smiled kindly, but somewhat ironically, took my manuscript between two fingers, which seemed accustomed to crumple paper contemptuously, and putting down my verses on the table, appointed me to return in a week for an answer as to the object of my visit. I took my leave. The next seven days appeared to me seven centuries. My future prospects, my favor, my mother's consolation ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... is one hundred and eighty miles. The 1010's tank is good for one hundred with a train, or a possible hundred and sixty, light. There is about one chance in a thousand that Callahan's crown-sheet won't get red-hot and crumple up on him in the last twenty miles. Let's take a car and go down to yard limits. We can sit in the office and hear what goes over the wires, even if we can't get a finger in to help Patsy out of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Leonard lifted the rifle, aimed and fired. The report rang out clearly on the silent air, and was echoed from krantz and kloof and mountain side, and from above answered the thud of the bullet. For a moment the smitten bird swayed upon its wide pinions, then they seemed to crumple beneath its weight, and it fell heavily and lay flapping and striking at the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... company's listings. So rapidly did the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation go ahead that the other real-estate men in town began to sit up and gasp. They had given the "mushroom outfit" anything from a week to six weeks in which to crumple up, but they rapidly withdrew the time-limit, contenting themselves with wait-and-see, wise-acre nods of ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... book." What emphasis he put on those words! "It shows you what you have at the bank. Don't fold it. Don't crumple it. Don't get it dirty. But above all things don't lose it, or let it be stolen from you. If you do, you may lose your entire deposit. We cannot remember you all. Whoever brings your book here may draw out your money. So put this book ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... bite and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you, Captain Roland; for you start and change color,—you suppress a cry as you break the seal; you breathe hard as you read; and the letter seems short—but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it up, crumple it, thrust it into your breast-pocket, and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, but rather of fear, agitation, bewilderment. Yet the eyes are bright, too, and ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... years.—The artist draws one tolerably distinct and two faint lines, perpendicularly between the eyebrows. Ten years.—The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon and recovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in the same creases, on smiling or other change of feature.—Hold on! Stop that! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of that interesting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... For an instant he stood swaying on his feet, a puzzled face showing under the trickling blood. Then he flung out his hands a little, and they flapped loosely at the wrists, like wet clothes hung in the wind to dry, and Billy seemed to crumple up suddenly, and slid down upon the grass in ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... Though there was no noise, smoke nor flame, the steel plate seemed to crumple up, and collapse as if it had been melted in the fire. There was a jagged hole through the center, but some frail boards back of it ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... substances which we have mentioned, to form the elaborated sap or plant-material which is now ready to be carried from the leaves to all parts of the plant or tree, to nourish it and continue its growth. Such is the important and wonderful work of the leaf, the tender, delicate leaf, which we crumple so easily in our fingers. It builds up, atom by atom, the tree and the great forests which beautify the world and provide for us a thousand comforts and conveniences. Our houses and the furniture in them, our boats ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... of the room with a single candle, and pass the hand in which you hold the paper several times slowly over the candle until the paper takes fire; then immediately blow the candle out, and presently pass your hand over the snuff and relight it with the paper. You may then crumple the paper, at the same time extinguishing the flame, by squeezing it suddenly, without burning yourself. If this trick be performed dextrously, it is a very good one. It is not necessary for the performance of this trick ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... ideas were suddenly shaken and scattered by a man's name, as a bolting horse will crumple into confusion a crowd of people. So this was the way his John Brown had come home to roost. He lifted the empty whiskey-glass to his lips and drained air. He was terribly thirsty; he needed something to pull himself together. Five years of dissipation ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... executed with brilliant success. Hancock's line was smashed and driven back on his second defenses. Wardsworth at the head of his division was mortally wounded and fell into Longstreet's hands. At the height of his triumph in a movement that must crumple Grant's army back on the banks of the river, Longstreet fell, shot by his own men. In the change of commanders the stratagem failed in its ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... the last words the paper slipped from Josiah's nerveless hands, and for many minutes he sat as one stricken blind and dumb. Then his poor, plebeian figure seemed to crumple up, and with an inarticulate cry of rage and despair he fell forward, with his head upon his out-stretched ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... embarrassment, Harris struggled for a word. But his distress was not observed by the detective. His eyes, suspicious and accusing, still were fixed upon Hemingway, and under their scrutiny Harris saw his friend slowly retreat, slowly crumple up into a chair, slowly raise his hands to cover his face. As though in a nightmare, he ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... on almost of its own accord, so long as foreign affairs are quiet and unbroken," wrote Mirabeau after Frederick's death. "But at the first gunshot or at the first stormy situation the whole of this little scaffolding of mediocrity will topple to the ground. How all these underling Ministers would crumple up! How everyone, from the distracted chief to the convict-gang, would shout for a pilot! ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... just looked in to ask if you are coming to polo on Tuesday: we want you badly to help to crumple up the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to outflank them, crumple them up, roll them back on the impassable Delaware, and ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... called forth greater animation, but no one thought of departing. Some got up and talked standing; some continued to talk sitting; others began to cry and take leave. The young man continued to crumple the bit of paper, and he made such a good effort to remain calm that his face seemed to bear an angry expression. His mother, hearing that the visit was over, fell on his shoulder and began to sob. The girl with the sheep eyes—Nekhludoff involuntarily followed ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... Rata were laughing at the smart policy of their Admiral, and rejoicing in the near prospect of a turning of the tables—(for could they once get the Englishman betwixt them and the Duke of Parma's fleet, which was waiting on the Dutch coast, they would crumple him up like chaff between two mill-stones)—already, I say, they were counting on seeing the enemy run past them, down the wind; when, lo, with a derisive shot or two into the air, the Englishmen put about quietly, and after ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... saying, this strong, desperate man, armed with a revolver, allowed you to walk across the room and strike him in the face, causing him to crumple up and fall to the floor as if struck by a—well, someone like Jack Dempsey. Isn't ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... and enormously powerful was wrapping his waist with a vise-like grip that threatened to cut him in two. He felt a leg go up and crumple back, almost breaking under the force of a lashing blow. He was squeezed in, caged, compressed, by a score of tough, encircling tentacles, and his whole body was drawn toward a wide, flexible, black-lipped mouth yawning in the center of the monster he had thought a stump. Moving with loathsome ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... the river of Bull Run had been sharply repulsed; therefore their generals determined, instead of making a direct attack on the 31st against the Confederate position, to take a wide sweep round, cross the river higher up, and falling upon the Confederate left flank, to crumple it up. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... gentleman's bite; and he fancied his defence had been correct. Perceiving a crumple of the lips of Mr. Durance, he took the attitude of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the leaping cat seemed to crumple up in the air. It turned completely over, as though by the impact of something that had struck it. And when it reached the ground it lay ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... they gazed at the craft which had so nearly, either by accident or design, wrecked them, they saw one of the big side planes crumple up, as does a bird's broken wing. Either the supports had given way, or a sudden gust of ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... applicant dive a hand into his hip pocket and draw out a roll of money. He heard the crumple of paper as he counted out a number of bills. Then, in a moment, his whole attention was diverted to the entrance door of the room. The swing door was thrust open and two ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... circumstances few would be found to believe it. At the very best there must be a terrible and shocking scandal, and Beatrice would lose her good name. He placed himself in the position of counsel for the petitioner in a like case, and thought how he would crush and crumple such a defence in his address to the jury. A probable ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... table-cloth won't look over tidy at tea if you crumple it up like that. Now, Milly, bring me that tray of bread and the little bundle of salt; and, Olly, bring me that bit of butter over there, done up in the green leaves, but mind you carry it carefully. Now for some knives too; and there are the cups and saucers, Milly, look, in ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for the lightest hint," said Pilar. "If she has a note for you, she'll show it behind her fan. Then I'll motion her to crumple it up and throw it on the floor as she goes out. If you don't appear in our society, the Duke will think perhaps that ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge DID crumple up I'd want to SEE it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... must be wishing in his heart just then could only be realized, no doubt the leading biplane would crumple up, and drop to the ground like ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... other. She ought to know he wasn't sorry she was there. Why, of course she knew that! The girl wasn't a fool, and she must know a fellow would be plumb tickled to have her around every day. Well, anyway, he wasn't going to begin by letting her lead him around by the nose, and he wasn't going to crumple down on his knees and tell her to please walk ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... absolutely at his mercy because she loved the children. "Never let him blackmail you," Peter had said. "Stand up to him always, and he'll probably crumple up." ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... containing two acres all his own. It is a mile and a half southeast of Winnsboro, S. C. He lives with an anaemic daughter, Maggie, whose chief interests are a number of cats, about the premises, and a brindled, crumple-horned cow that she ties out to graze every ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... army into France, and the French to make a new offensive alignment. It will forever remain a brilliant page in war annals. In a military estimate it proved that forts constructed on the lastest scientific principles, but unsupported by an intrenched field army, crumple under the concentrated fire of long-range, high-power ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... bar, with failing force but still deadly effect, on the loathsome face of the nearest Rogan, grunting with satisfaction as he saw it crumple into a shapeless mass. He thrust it, spear-like, into ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... Wally. It'll take a long time. And you don't understand me. I want to get away from Jimmy. That's why I'm going away now, while he isn't there. That's what I mean by burning my boats. If I go back to him—if I see him—I shall never get away. I shan't have the courage. I shall just crumple up with the first sight of him—with the ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... grows balmier and softer on the cheek. Out in the garden, ranks of yellow-green pikes stand stiffly at "Present. Hump!" and rosettes of the same color crumple through the warm soil, unconsciously preparing for a soul tragedy. For an evening will come when a covered dish will be upon the supper-table, and when the cover is taken off, a subtle fragrance will betray, if the sense of sight ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... two stared at each other. She was about to make a defiant reply and let come what might, when a sort of spasm distorted his face. His mouth opened gaspingly, his eyes rolled back in his head like a dying man's. He seemed to crumple up, and she caught him as he fell. Her terrified shriek brought Hoichi, who took instant charge of the situation. He made the unconscious man comfortable on a divan, applied such restoratives as were at hand, and directed a frightened ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... mustn't crumple your shirt-front. Perhaps it removes? Ah, allow me. (He detaches it and hastily substitutes the other one for it.) Ah, thank you so much. Here is your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... to go larking over it all when I was only a cub myself. Confound it! I'm not up to much to-day. I suppose I'm getting old, you know; or I'd strike off here at right angles to the left, and make for the bridge at Crumple's Corner. I should lose the hounds though, I fear. I wonder what ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... wymps," cried Molly; "you never tread on my toes now, nor crumple my pinafore, nor pull my hair. I do not want to go away from you, but it is time for me to go back to the other side of the sun. Will you please show me how to ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... violence. Someone was counting backward. When he reached zero, the first stage engine burst into life, the rocket lifted off its platform, slowed, began to tilt slowly to one side and settled back into the stand. No, it kept right on going through the stand. The rear section began to crumple. Then there was a horrible burst of flame which engulfed the lower part of the rocket and then, with perfectly savage violence, erupted in great billowing bursts of fire until only the extreme tip of the missile was visible. ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... of exultation rose from the watching Germans, who knew that an explosion close to an aeroplane is often sufficient, through the force of air concussion alone, to crumple the flimsy wings and bring it down, even though none of the flying shrapnel from the bursting bomb actually touch the operator or ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... a time that will be no one can say. It was formerly believed that whenever a nation reached the limit which Germany has reached it would crumple up. But Germany fails to crumple. Instead of breaking up, she fights harder and more desperately. Why can she do this? The answer is simple: Because the German people believe in their Government and the Government knows that as long as it can convince the people that ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... Mrs Enticknapp, "you shall not do any lessons, and while I am busy with Nanna and Margaretta you may amuse yourselves quietly. After dinner you shall all go out for a walk. If you crumple up your pinafore in that way, Sophia Jane," she added, "you ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... e'er mishap Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, In shape of prowling thief, or trap, Or coarse bull-terrier—I should die. But ah! disasters have their use, And life might e'en be too sunshiny; Nor would I make myself a goose, If some big dog ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... be led would be openly fallacious and give proof positive that the foundation, the psychology upon which as a basis the Freudian system of interpretation and analysis has been erected, was defective to such an extent that it would crumple into disintegrated portions under the heavy load of the unsupported superstructure. This method has by no ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... it is!" she said with a voice that shook a little. "It took a lifetime of discipline and two weak men to make me hard. I know now, very well, that Louis has been softened, weakened by me. To save him I think I must crumple up." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... their motive power is nullified, and down they fall. Crash! The Slavs are wiped out. Our troops charge forward in a grand attack; the Slavs, with no armament, no reinforcing troops, no supply of tanks and flame throwers, crumple. The invasion of America is ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Whitely, and Sinclair supporting them with bare fists. It seemed that Bradley was doomed when, apparently out of space, an arrow whizzed, striking Schwartz in the side, passing half-way through his body to crumple him to earth. With a shriek the man fell, and at the same time Olson and Brady saw the slim figure of a young girl standing at the edge of the jungle coolly fitting ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... as he was sitting there quietly reading, I heard him utter a sort of yell. And when I looked at him, I saw his face was as white as chalk. And then he began to crush and crumple the paper, and to tear it into a thousand shreds. But he did ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... pants I gun Mistuh Cohen fo' dollars fer three years ago; an' w'en I looked in my closet dis mawnin', suh, befo' I got ready ter sta't fer Belleview, dere wuz my clo's layin' on de flo', all muddy an' crumple' up, des lack somebody had wo' 'em in a fight! Somebody e'se had wo' my clo's,—er e'se dere'd be'n some witchcraf, er some sort er devilment gwine on dat I can't make out, suh, ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... reserve; because we're going to crumple them up,' said the Brigadier, who was an extraordinary Brigadier, and did not believe in the value of a reserve when dealing with Asiatics. Indeed, when you come to think of it, had the British Army consistently waited for reserves in all its little affairs, the boundaries of Our Empire would ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... gossup: listen you to no gossup. 'And Mr. Wilfrud, my dear, he sends me on the flat o' my back, laughin'. And Ad'la she takes and turns me right about, so that I don't see the thing I'm askin' after; and there's nobody but you, little Belloni, to help me, and if ye do, ye shall know what the crumple of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on skates are to the observers, especially if such be school-girls, subjects for unalloyed mirth. The nine girls choked and turned their backs and even giggled aloud as Miss Hyle went prone, now backward with a whack, now forward in a limp crumple. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... she stared, the glaze of death stealing slowly over her wide-opened eyes; and yet, dimming as they were, they saw in the sleeping infant a strange and troublous thing—though it was but a few hours old 'twas not as red and crumple visaged as new-born infants usually are, its little head was covered with thick black silk, and its small features were of singular definiteness. She ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a few prefer to thoroughly crumple it in the hands or napkin, under the impression that they thus make it more ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... beginning to feel upon him, night and day, the crushing weight of popular scorn. He called the idea envy, but it was not envy. It was the idea working in the world, and the weight of the scorn was beginning to crumple his soul; for this idea that the people were thinking was finding its way into newspapers, magazines, and books. They were beginning to question the divine right of wealth to rule, because it was wealth—an idea that Barclay could not comprehend even vaguely. The term honest ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... I taught school in the hills of Tennessee, where the broad dark vale of the Mississippi begins to roll and crumple to greet the Alleghanies. I was a Fisk student then, and all Fisk men think that Tennessee—beyond the Veil—is theirs alone, and in vacation time they sally forth in lusty bands to meet the county school commissioners. Young and happy, I too went, and I shall ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... particulars, in the past and the future, would the early Christians have cursed Nature herself. So utterly did they condemn her, as to find the Devil incarnate in a flower. Swiftly may the angels come again, who erst overwhelmed the cities of the Dead Sea! Oh, that they may sweep off, may crumple up as a veil the hollow frame of this world; may at length deliver the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... your thumb and pull out a plum and say: 'What a good boy am I!' Yet, to be just, you are a boy of excellent parts in many ways, which encourages us to hope that we may yet be able to bring out the good that is in you, and, at the same time, bring out the evil; at any rate, crumple it up where it is, which amounts to the same. How this desirable end is to be attained is not yet quite clear to my own mind. So you will have to go home with us to-night, where you shall make the acquaintance of our cubs, who will gladly share their bed with you. And pleasant bed-fellows ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... German on reconnaissance. He dived and the German turned toward his own lines, opening fire from a long distance. Rockwell kept straight after him. Then, closing to within thirty yards, he pressed on the release of his machine gun, and saw the enemy gunner fall backward and the pilot crumple up sideways in his seat. The plane flopped downward and crashed to earth just behind the German trenches. Swooping close to the ground Rockwell saw its debris burning away brightly. He had turned the trick with but four shots and only one German bullet had struck his Nieuport. ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... last hour dispersed; Mrs. Merton was in her own room, making to herself gratuitous and unnecessary occupation in seeing her woman pack up. It was just the kind of task that delighted her. To sit in a large chair and see somebody else at work—to say languidly, "Don't crumple that scarf, Jane; and where shall we put Miss Caroline's blue bonnet?"—gave her a very comfortable notion of her own importance and habits of business,—a sort of title to be the superintendent of a family and the wife of a rector. Caroline had disappeared, so had ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... less in flux; but in feathers, after their formation, the attraction of aggregation remains constant, and by means of it their particles continue fixed in their places, not only with the life of the bird, but long after. Nay, you may even crumple them up, and toss them away as worthless, and yet if you expose them to the vapour of steam, they will not only recover their form, but they can be made to ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... his forehead. He was playing a lost game, and he was not the sort of man who plays lost games well. The Waring type is dangerous when it is winning, but it is apt to crumple up against ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and such events are impossible. Some of the old mythologies recognised this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and Odin, there lay the unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or other, would crumple up them and the world they ruled to give place to a new order ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... right herself—plenty of proofs," said Guerchard brutally. "What chance has a silly child like that got, when we really start questioning her? A delicate creature like that will crumple up before the end of ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... feeling as if the paper were burning his fingers—common paper, but pink and smelling of cheap perfumed soap—an anonymous letter, faugh! What had this trash to do with them? He was about to crumple it up when Kate's voice called to him from the bed: "What have you got there, Paul? A letter? ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... a pillowcase (he could not bear to crumple and tear for his purpose that precious marriage newspaper), he made his way to the door of the little girl's home. "This is yours," he told her, stripping off the case and holding out the gift. She heard him, but looked only at Edwarda. "Gratzia!" ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... the latter case I would announce to the passers-by the glad news that I had struck a miraculous bargain at a wholesale bankruptcy sale, for instance, and exhort them not to miss their golden opportunity. I also learned to crumple up new underwear, or even to wet it somewhat, and then shout that I could sell it "so cheap" because it ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... go so far as to assert that a man can be a hero in war and still be a coward at heart. He can at least meet the test of heroism amid the fury of armed combat, with some degree of success, when he would crumple up before this test, like a rotten lance against a shield, under every other condition. Indeed, we have only to strip away the trappings, the artificial characteristics of militarism, in order to see how the heroism produced by war, even at its highest and best, is of an inferior ...
— Heroes in Peace - The 6th William Penn Lecture, May 9, 1920 • John Haynes Holmes
... were left alone together, and then everything was changed. Day by day, and all day, he was confronted by her automatic obedience, by her dumb despair. She rose up and lay down—she spoke or was silent at his bidding; neither a loosened hair, nor a crumple in the dress, giving token of resistance; he might have strangled her without her making a sign. She eloped from him, yet he could not surprise her in the commission of a sin: and he returned from ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr |
