"Dangle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... labyrinth of Gordian knots, and the flies (which are named Zulus) attached their barbs to my cap and adjacent bushes with well-nigh inextricable tenacity, until at length I had the bright idea to abbreviate the line, so that I could dangle my bait a foot or two above the surface of the water—where a salmon could easily obtain it by ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... crash, O bells that clash Above the chimney-crowded plain, On wall and tower your voices dash, But never with the old refrain; In mart and temple gone astray! Ye dangle bells! Ye jangle bells! ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... which was the badge of the new and the unsophisticated comer. Emmy Lou had quickly learned that, and no one now rejoiced in a fuller assortment of soap, bottle, and rags than she, nor did a sponge longer dangle from the ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... himself for being so weak. He had read stories of woman's subjugation of the famous and the strong and had wondered what sort of lunacy had overtaken such men. Here he was making an invalid's tantrums an excuse to give up his work and dangle at the skirts of an unknown girl; and he knew it was because of the mystery of her real identity and because his jealousy was afire on account of an uncertainty which was now aggravated by her ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... 'I shall dangle round you for a time, and when I come too near you'll chase me away until at last you'll make up your mind that you can stand it no longer, and will refuse ever to see ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... his final cigarette at night—and to drop asleep and burn another hole in his dressing gown, or in the chintz chair cover, or the carpet, as Providence may will it—he wears on his feet a pair of red knitted bedroom slippers with cords that tie around the top and dangle and trip him up. Long years ago they stretched, and they have been stretching ever since, until now each ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... away. The blurred shapes of the pack horses forged ahead, rustling in the dry grass, dry twigs snapping under foot. Obedient to Bill's command, she let the reins dangle, and Silk followed close behind his mates. Hazel lurched unsteadily at first, but presently she caught the swinging motion and could maintain her balance without holding stiffly ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... butchered and the ringleaders executed—the Vicar of St. Thomas' by Exeter, a village we passed through the following morning, who was with the rebels, being taken to his church and hanged from the tower, where his body was left to dangle for ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... moment you'll realize for yourself it's true: you can't drift on forever the way you're doing now. If you weren't engaged it would be different; but you are engaged. Such being the case it implies a responsibility and a big one. To dangle so is unjust to the girl. Let this apply in the ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... eyeglasses dangle from their cord. He was not in the least disturbed. Indeed, he seemed to be approaching ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... down, let his legs dangle over the wall, firmly grasped his instrument, and said to the troopers who ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... wild but confident significance in her manner and language that he deemed it wiser to change his tactics with the woman, and soothe her a little if he could. In truth, her words agitated him so much that he unconsciously pulled out of his waistcoat pocket the key of Lucy's room, and began to dangle with it as he contemplated her with ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... aware very suddenly that somebody was entering or trying to enter the room. First came a draft of cold air, then a scraping, grating sound, then a strange shuffling, and then,—yes, then, all at once, Joel saw a pair of fat legs and a still fatter body dangle down the chimney, followed presently by a long white beard, above which appeared a jolly red nose and two bright twinkling eyes, while over the head and forehead was drawn a fur cap, ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... do wish you would try to conquer that habit of flippancy. It is not ladylike. And I warn you, Sir Redmond is not the man to dangle after you forever. He will lose patience, and go back to England without you—and serve you right! I am only talking for your own good, Beatrice. I am not at all sure that you want him ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... Signor," she said, with a charming smile, and holding up to him the injured member, shaking it as she let it dangle from the slender wrist. "But see! it is really all blushing red from the ardour of your ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... don't know—perhaps I might, and perhaps I might not; but I know you would make a long corpse, and I think you would dangle handsomely enough; you have long limbs, a long body, and half a mile of neck; upon my soul, one would think you were made for it. Yes, I dare say I should like to see you hanged—I am rather inclined to think I would—it's a subject, however, on which I am perfectly indifferent; ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... calculation, a keen eye for a girl's shape, carriage, turn of the head, and other allies of the game she loves and always loses: such things tickled his fancy when they came over his path; he stooped to take them, and let them dangle for remembrances, as you string a coin on your chain to remind you at need of a fortunate voyage. At this particular moment he was tempted, for instance, to catch and let dangle. The chance light of some shy eye had ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... alternating spasms of tenderness and fury, he came at last to the further side of middle pasture and dismounted to let down the fence. It was characteristic of the born and bred ranchman that instead of riding swiftly on and letting the cut wires dangle, he automatically obeyed one of the hard and fast rules of the range and fastened them behind him. He did not pause again until he reached the little sheltered nook in the face of the high cliffs, out of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... struggles, binding me fast, as you see. But, verily, I have delivered unto them the whole truth as revealed unto the saints; have struck and spared not—ay! the very language of the scriptures have I poured forth unstinted upon them, and drawn before their eyes that fiery hell over which they dangle in their sins. It must be their understandings are darkened, for they hearken not unto my exhortations, only lie thus, or dance before me by the hour in unholy worship, snapping their fingers and ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... would be glued to their bones by the downpour, that the water would fill their shoes, that no lashes from the whips would be able to prevent their jaws from chattering, that the chain would continue to bind them by the neck, that their legs would continue to dangle, and it was impossible not to shudder at the sight of these human beings thus bound and passive beneath the cold clouds of autumn, and delivered over to the rain, to the blast, to all the furies of the air, like ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... back into the throng, until we reach, Following the tide that slackens by degrees, 190 Some half-frequented scene, where wider streets Bring straggling breezes of suburban air. Here files of ballads dangle from dead walls; Advertisements, of giant-size, from high Press forward, in all colours, on the sight; 195 These, bold in conscious merit, lower down; That, fronted with a most imposing word, Is, peradventure, one in masquerade. As on the broadening causeway we advance, Behold, turned ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... we therefore order that in the meantime you remain where you are, and that you maintain complete silence—for you are degraded from your rank—until such time as we can attend to your contemptible body, which will shortly dangle from a tree, as a warning to traitors for all time to come. My lords, we will now proceed with our business, and, first of all, the secretary will read the roll-call ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... encouraged state as a free playgoer—a state doubly wondrous while I thus evoke the full contingent from Union Square; where, for that matter, I think, the wild evening must have been planned. I am lost again in all the goodnature from which small boys, on wild evenings, could dangle so unchidden—since the state of unchiddenness is what comes back to me well-nigh clearest. How without that complacency of conscience could every felt impression so live again? It is true that for my present sense ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... so many of the Japs are weak-eyed or totally blind. The children are exposed to the intense rays of the sun, as, suspended on their mothers' backs, they dangle in their straps with their little heads wabbling helplessly. From friends who have kept house many years, I learned that the service rendered by the Japanese is, as a whole, unsatisfactory. Their cooking is entirely different from ours, and they do not willingly adapt themselves ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... patience, he had remained for nearly an hour silent and wan before the door, bringing his disgrace, and waiting until it should please William to open the door to him; it was there that before receiving it the King of Prussia had made the sword of France dangle about in an ante-chamber. Lower down, nearer, in the valley, at the beginning of a road leading to Vandresse, they pointed out to me a species of hovel. There they told me, while waiting for the King of Prussia, the Emperor Napoleon III. had got ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... preference set my heart beating! How proud I was if mine was the arm chosen to lead her to her carriage! How more than happy, if allowed for even one half-hour in the whole evening to occupy the seat beside her own! To dangle after her the whole day long—to traverse all Paris on her errands—to wait upon her pleasure like a slave, and this, too, without even expecting to be thanked for my devotion, seemed the most natural thing in the world. She was capricious; but caprice became her. She was ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle-deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... to love a sweet-fac'd boy, Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels Dangle adowne his lovely cheekes with joy, When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels; If it be sinne to love a lovely lad, Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... riding. But there is no protection from the sun and rain and foreign saddles are scarce. The traveller piles his bedding on the animal's back and climbs on top, sitting either astride or sideways. In either case, the feet dangle unsupported by stirrups. It is hard to make long trips in this way, to say nothing of the consideration that a man feels like an idiot in such circumstances. "The outside of a horse is indeed good for the inside of a man,'' but a mattress on ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... revolutionists, I reckon," he announced. "I can see several who carry big swords that dangle around their heels. And the common soldiers, while they have little if any uniforms, and some of them no shoes, seem to all have guns in their hands. Here, look and tell me what that is on the little rise. I'm afraid our worst fears are ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... who will give a mortal blow to the pride of the Scotch nobility. He is called Lord chief Justice; frequent and sudden executions are his passion. Last winter he had intelligence of a spy to come from the French army: the first notice our army had of his arrival, was by seeing him dangle on a gallows in his mufti and boots. One of the surgeons of the army begged the body of a soldier who was hanged for desertion, to dissect: "Well," said Hawley, "but then you shall give me the skeleton to hang up in the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... conspicuous features about them is that their shape—if they can truthfully be said to have any shape—seems to be a wild, rambling pattern of our own ideas concerning the shape this garment ought to assume. The legs, instead of being gathered, Oriental fashion, at the ankles, dangle loosely about the feet; and yet it is these same legs that are the chief distinguishing feature of the pants. One of the legs, cut off and sewed up at one end, would make the nicest kind of an eight-bushel grain sack; rather too ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... sense, and a hat with too much nap, and too high lustre, a derogatory circumstance. The best coats in our streets are worn on the backs of penniless fops, broken down merchants, clerks with pitiful salaries, and men that do not pay up. The heaviest gold chains dangle from the fobs of gamblers and gentlemen of very limited means; costly ornaments on ladies, indicate to the eyes that are well opened, the fact of a silly lover or husband cramped ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... that you should include among your good resolutions for the New Year the decision not to allow your readers to participate in your special information as to which horse will come in first. Tell them all you like about yesterday's sport, but dangle no more "security tips" before their diminishing purses. If they must bet—which of course they must, as betting is now the principal national industry—let them at least have the fun ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... free. The moment the horses saw Rocinante and the curious position of his master, they went to investigate him, and the unsuspecting Rocinante leaped from under Don Quixote with such suddenness that the poor knight's arm was nearly wrenched from his body. There he was left to dangle, while the shouts that forced their way from his ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... club, and the old man threw his left arm up to shield his head. Conrad recognized Zindau, and now he saw the empty sleeve dangle in the air over the stump of his wrist. He heard a shot in that turmoil beside the car, and something seemed to strike him in the breast. He was going to say to the policeman: "Don't strike him! He's an old soldier! You see he has no hand!" but he could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... day of multi-billion-dollar budgets and farm surpluses that cost forty thousand dollars per hour for warehouse rental, twenty-five hundred dollars is still a tidy sum to dangle before the eyes of any individual. This was the reward offered by Paul Brennan for any information as to the whereabouts ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... built the ark—should just take out legal separation papers in New York. How can the modus vivendi suit her better than divorce? Perhaps she wants to cinch her alimony until she finds another affinity. Then Alice for Dakota. It is foolish to cut your financial string when you might just as well dangle, especially until you ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... or 9," a friend writes, "a servant-maid of our family, who used to carry the candle out of my bedroom, often drew down the bedclothes and inspected my organs. One night she put the penis in her mouth. When I asked her why she did it her answer was that 'sucking a boy's little dangle' cured her of pains in her stomach. She said that she had done it to other little boys, and declared that she liked doing it. This girl was about 16; she had lately been 'converted.' Another maid in our family used to kiss me warmly on the naked abdomen ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... drowned or be shot Is our natural lot, Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end— After all our great pains For to dangle in chains As though we were smugglers, not ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... clearing. As I watched, a dark form shot suddenly above the ferns and dropped back again. Three heavy thumps followed; then the form shot up and down once more. This time there was no mistake. In the firelight I saw plainly the dangle of Br'er Rabbit's long legs, and the flap of his big ears, and the quick flash of his dark eyes in the reflected light,—got an instantaneous photograph of him, as it were, at the top ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... pass the gallows stone, I shall just take a sight with one eye, And think to myself, you may dangle alone, Who now, sir, 's ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... humor to test me and practice on me. This, at least, was the interpretation that I put upon her production of the portrait, for I could not believe that she really desired to sell it or cared for any information I might give her. What she wished was to dangle it before my eyes and put a prohibitive price on it. "The face comes back to me, it torments me," I said, turning the object this way and that and looking at it very critically. It was a careful but not a supreme work of art, larger than the ordinary miniature and representing a young man with ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Red Doublet, and of the Rosettes in my shoes; and although my Loyalty to King George and the Protestant Succession was without stain, I felt that it was somewhat beneath the dignity of a Gentleman Cavalier to dangle all day beneath a Portcullis with a Partisan on one's shoulder, or act as Bear Leader to the Joskins and simpering City Madams that came to see the Curiosities. And I felt my own roaming Fit come upon me as fierce as ever, and longed to be off to Foreign Parts ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... billet-doux to show, Twenty times a day to pass, Before a flattering looking-glass, Twenty times to stop your coach, With twenty words of fond reproach, Twenty days of keen vexation, Twenty opera assignations, Twenty nights behind the scenes, To dangle after mimic queens, Twenty such lovers may be found, Sighing for twenty thousand pounds, But take my word, ye girls of sense, You'll find them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... bear More noble Heroes! Swell, oh, Corpses dear! Rot quick to the green blade of Freedom! Death! Do thy kind will with them! They without breath, Stripped, scattered, ragged, festering, slashed and blue, Dangle towards God the arms French shot tore through And wait in meekness, Death! ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... echo of the first in a staccato yelp. Then the first opened up with a choking whine that lifted steadily into an ecstatic mating-call, and Pat saw a black something, blacker even than the night, leap against the far, faint skyline, dangle seemingly a trembling moment, then flash from view ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... off abruptly as Bogus came to a stop in front of the tents, and, standing up, she proceeded to dangle the snake carefully over the wheel, till it was lowered in safety to the ground. Ordinarily she would have lingered at the ranch until the occupant of every tent had strolled out to admire her trophy, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... is fairly carpeted with the brown scales which they severed, prompted by this clever whatever-it-is that is such an excellent substitute for wisdom, there are plenty still left on the trees where they dangle from the branch tips, their scales gaping and the seeds for the most part gone. Left to themselves they have been flying away ever since September, a few at a time on dry, windy days when their single wings would scull them farthest. One might ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... understood in those days as it has been since, and mine was out of all correctness. I was made to sport an enormous plume of black ostrich-feathers, such as never was worn by any Highland chief, and had a huge tiger-skin sporran to dangle like an apron before innumerable yards of plaid petticoat. The tartan cloak was outrageously hot and voluminous; it was the dog-days, and all these things I was condemned to wear in the midst of a ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the best way, I think," Roger Browne agreed; "and I will come down on to the top of the window and lean over. In the first place your foot might slip, and as you dangle there by the rope he might cut it and let you shoot over, or he might lean out and shoot you as you climb up the roof again; but if I am above with my pistol in readiness there will ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... people could possess, capable of being estimated in silver or copper, so as to afford a basis for a loan, was a problem that still perplexes me. Old clothes-men, likewise, dwelt hard by, and hung out ancient garments to dangle in the wind. There were butchers' shops, too, of a class adapted to the neighborhood, presenting no such generously fattened carcasses as Englishmen love to gaze at in the market, no stupendous halves of mighty beeves, no dead hogs or muttons ornamented with carved bas-reliefs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... mind, and was quite satisfied to see the boy's eager delight, and to hear this exclamations over certain old friends as he came to them. Nat leaned on his shoulder to look, and Demi turned his back to the horses, and let his feet dangle inside the carriage, so that he might join ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... furrow, in a wild race to be first upon the scene—to stake a claim—any claim—to dig—to grovel—to tear up the kindly earth with fingers like the claws of beasts. Wealth, upon which our civilisation has been built, is the surest destroyer of civilisation. What it has given it takes away. Dangle a promise of gold before the young man at the ribbon counter and behold he is become a savage. Whisper it never so gently—and it will sound as the roar of torrents ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... in front of that moving-picture theatre again. "THE DOUBLE LIFE"—his eyes were attracted involuntarily to the lurid, overdone display. It seemed to threaten him; it seemed to dangle before him a premonition as it were, of what the morning held in store; but now, too, it seemed to feed into flame that smouldering fury that possessed him. His life—or Whitey Mack's! Men, women, and the children who turned night into day in that quarter of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the town much richer in relics than the lower, which seems to have been given up to commercial purposes. We sailed close under one of the great monuments in the river, and are at a loss to divine its meaning. Many iron rods still dangle from the tops of each of the structures. As they are in a line, one with the other, we thought at first they might have been once connected and served as a bridge, but we soon saw ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... out blunders, when courage leads to destruction, and when your very fortifications are a stumbling-block. Conjugal love, which, according to authors, is a peculiar phase of love, has, more than anything else, its French Campaign, its fatal 1814. The devil especially loves to dangle his tail in the affairs of poor desolate women, and to ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... ever intend to do for Master Bernard I have done. I give you all notice. If you choose to get him home here, to dangle about, eating you women out of house and home, don't look ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... counsel to light thine own courage. Yon fiery-tempered woman will not be over-nice in her respect to thy vocation. Peradventure she may dangle thy carcase over the walls in defiance of our summons." Morgan would have rebuked him farther, had not Rigby hastily put the message into his hands, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... married, before a week was through, I'd have picked my husband's pocket, to buy rats' bane: Envying the spiders who can gobble up Husbands they've no more use for between meals. But I wasn't born to kick my heels in air For a plaguey husband: and if I'm to dangle, 'Twon't be for that, but something worth putting myself Out of the way for. You say I'll scorn you, woman. Who 'm I, to scorn? You're not my sort: but I ken Too much of life for easy scorn: I've learnt ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... windows to streak the whitewashed wall behind him with a barred pattern of red, like brush strokes of fresh paint, he ate his last breakfast with foul words between bites, and outside, a little later, in the shadow of the crosstree from which shortly he would dangle in the article of death, a stark offence before the sight of mortal eyes, he halted and stood reviling all who had a hand in furthering and compassing his condemnation. Profaning the name of his Maker with every ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... very well," he cried; "but better stop here than dangle in chains. No, my friend; our plan must be a very different one from your proposal. I suppose you want your share of the booty?" said he, snapping ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... hostility to slavery, but even the disposition to acquiesce in the military necessity of its extinction. They sometimes go to the length of talking of 'hanging the secessionists;' but then, you will observe, they always talk of hanging the 'Abolitionists' along with them. They want them to dangle at the other end of the same rope. It is easy, however, to perceive that the hanging of the secessionists is not the emphatic thing—with many not even the real thing, but only an ebullition of vexation at them for having spoiled the old Democratic trade—a figurative ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hapless children in their throes. Ay, and more yet, to sit in the black condemned-cell at Newgate and hold the hand and pour courage into the soul of a shuddering wretch who in the cold grey of morning would dangle ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... their spools of gossamer, To dangle and to dry, And scurried home to the hollow fir Where the ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... meantime nimble youths climb up the trunk and near the top tie two stout and very long Indian canes, letting the ends dangle to the ground. As soon as the tree gives the slightest sign of vacillation the men hurry down, grasp a rattan upon each side and with all their might, rhythmically and simultaneously, pull the vanquished colossus towards the other trees whose ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... brass-flamed astonishers into the clouds. A soft fog of snow makes fuzzy smears of the pinwheels, of the children racing, sparklers in both hands, across the frozen lawn. Dad lights the strings of cannon-crackers—at our house they used to dangle from a wire strung across the porch, like clusters of giant phlox—and they convulse into life, jumping and banging and scattering their red skins onto the snow, filling the air ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... birth, and he had remained, in consequence, plunged in a disconsolate frame of mind throughout the whole day. But, contrary to his expectations, the incident eventually occurred, which afforded him, after all, an opportunity to dangle in P'ing Erh's society and to gratify to some small degree a particle of his wish. This had been a piece of good fortune he so little expected would fall to his share during the course of his present existence, that as he reclined on his bed, his heart ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Herzmann replied. "Do we not all enjoy the thing that presents some hazard? Youth lives it; age thrills to the reports of it. If I fail, I fail. If I succeed, the Fatherland is well served and I've another adventure in my kit. Perhaps even another bit of iron to dangle on my coat, eh? Rawther jolly prospect, what?" He again smiled at his own mimicry, as well he might, for the accent was perfect. "But I won't fail, Herr Hauptmann." He became serious as he drew some papers from the breast pocket of his well tailored, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... have little to do with what in the narrower sense is usually thought of as "news"—such as this morning's happenings in the stock markets or the courts, or the fire in Main Street. The news interest in this restricted sense may dangle from a frayed thread. The timeliness of the contribution may be vague and general. We may not be able to do more than sense it. This is one reason why men of academic minds, who love exact definitions, never feel quite at ease when they attempt to deal with ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... cabin, burning sulphur to make his ship seem more like hell, and industriously scourging the whole Atlantic coast. Charleston lived in terror of him until Lieutenant Maynard, in a small sloop, laid him alongside in a hammer-and-tongs engagement and cut off the head of Blackbeard to dangle from ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... means, and so his bait is the more alluring and dangerous. But when once the hook has been swallowed and struck, then the Academician takes no more notice of the victim, but leaves him to struggle and dangle at the end of the line. You are an angler; well, when you have taken a fine perch or a big pike, and you drag it along behind your boat, what ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... pennant fluttering from one of them. The invisible hull of the latter ship seems to be careened over, so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle loosely from the yards. The flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place, although it floats to and fro with the swell and reflux of the tide, instead of rustling on the breeze. A remnant of the dead ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... right," she said. "I'll row you. You can sit in the stern and let your legs dangle over in the water. I've often done that when Peter Walsh has been rowing. It's quite a ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... Each elephant had to carry two passengers. I, on one side of the animal that bore me, had my weight balanced by that of my courier, who rode on the other side. Each of us was compelled to let his legs dangle over the edge of the howdah. All went well until the elephant came to the narrow part of the road. There he evinced a vicious propensity to plant his feet close to the edge of the precipice. There was indeed a railing beneath me, but, clinging as I was somewhat convulsively to my slippery ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... got to end one of these days. But meanwhile, why be too down-hearted? On the cliffs above my pasture are masses of moss, holding, as a pincushion holds a breastpin, little early saxifrage plants. From the crannies frail hair bells dangle forth. There are clumps of purple cliffbrase and other tiny, exquisite ferns. On a gravel bank beside the State road are thousands of viper's bugloss plants; on a ledge nearby is an entire nursery of Sedum acre (the small yellow stone crop). ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... a survey of the graphic broadsides which dangle from strings upon the wall at Hyde ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of them is to me a strong light thrown on John Gilman. Every time one of these letters comes to me I have the feeling that I would like to reach out through space and pick up the man who is writing them and dangle him before Eileen and say to her: "Take HIM. I dare you to take HIM." And my confidence, Linda, is positively supreme that she ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... That portrait, - smiling as once he smiled on me; that cane, - dangling as I have seen it dangle from his hand I know not how oft; those legs that have glided through my nightly dreams and never stopped to speak; the perfectly gentlemanly, though false original, - can I ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... quite ordinary, then let parental love triumph over pride of dynasty: advise your boy to abdicate at the earliest possible moment. A great king—what better? But it is ill that a throne be sat on by one whose legs dangle uncertainly towards the dais, and ill that a crown settle down over the tip of the nose. And the very fact that for quite inadequate kings men's hands do leap to the salute, instinctively, does but make us, on reflection, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... sword in one hand and revolver in the other, but as the active little man poised for an instant on the top of the parapet and fired into the trench at his feet, he threw up his arms and pitched backward, Dennis dropping his weapon to dangle at his wrist, and catching him as he fell at the foot ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... Berlin, how they hearten the Hun (Oh, dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee;) No matter what devil's own work has been done They chime a loud chant of approval, each one, Till the people feel sure of their place in the sun (Oh, dangle ding dongle dong ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... teapots now," quoth Bertram, before his brother had a chance to reply. "You might dangle the oldest 'Old Blue' that ever was before him now, and he'd pay scant attention if he happened at the same time to get his eyes on some old pewter chain with ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... she goes, and I'm alone again. I miss her, sir, tripping along that court, and coming for her singing lesson; and I've no heart to look into the porter's lodge now, which looks very empty without her, the little flirting thing. And I go and sit and dangle about her lodgings, like an old fool. She makes 'em very trim and nice, though; gets up all Huxter's shirts and clothes: cooks his little dinner, and sings at her business like a little lark. What's the use of being angry? I lent 'em three pound to go ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Harman's virtuous obedience, and so reassured he was able to temper his distrust with a certain contempt. The man was in love with his wife; that was manifest enough, and dangled after her.... Let him dangle. What after all did ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... that. They painted their bodies and tattooed their skins, by pricking figures on the flesh and rubbing in some staining juice when the blood appeared. They even pierced their noses so that bright rings could dangle from them. Many, too, hung bits of metal from their ears in a similar way—but that may not strike my civilized readers as being a ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... young prince, is one of the most sneaking, mild, incestuous queens in history. Such she devils, with heaven in their eyes and face, honeyed words on their lips, and gall and hell in their hearts, are the real seducers of infatuated, willing, ambitious man; and each should dangle at the end of the same rope ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... and prepared another strip, humbly and without any attempt at style. This time, too, I did not consider the line of the ceiling, but conformed to the vertical edge of Westbury's final strip, allowing my loose section to dangle like a plumb-line several moments before permitting it to get its death-grip on the wall. I will not say that this second attempt was an entire success, but it was a step in that direction. With a little smudging, a slight wrinkle or two, and ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... dried herbs and gourds dangle on the walls, but there are no pictures, curtains, or ornaments of ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... which serves to shelter me to a certain, but limited, extent from the brisk showers that come sweeping over from the Lolab Valley. The hollow is so small that it barely contains my tiffin basket, rifle, gun, and self—in fact, my grass-shod and puttied extremities dangle over the rim, whence a steep slope shelves down some 200 feet to a brawling burn, the hum of which, mingling with the fitful sighing of the pines as the breeze sweeps through their sounding boughs, is perpetually in my ears. Across ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... left the willow-tips a-dangle, breaking them with my left hand. I am woodsman enough to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... I yelled. "I've had about enough of this, Mary. You think you can dangle me on the end of a string, like a damned jumping- jack, until you see fit to let me have ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... flour of the flock, I must a say that. The whole country says it. For why, as aforesaid, a who can gain say it? A tell me that! Always a savin and exceptin your noble onnur, as in rite and duty boundin. What, your most gracious onnur, a hannot I had the glory and the magnifisunce to dangle her in my arms, before she was a three months old? A hannot I a known her from the hour of her birth? Nay, as a I may say, afore her blessed peepers a twinkled the glory of everlastin of infinit mercifool commiseration ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... train in a tunnel, or the north wind in a gale against the Hawk's Back might be able to beat it. But then Fellsgarth was not competing; each of the fellows was merely chatting pleasantly to his neighbours. It was hardly a fair trial. And yet it was not bad for the School. When Dangle, who owned the longest ear in the school, could not hear a word which Brinkman, who owned the loudest voice, shouted into it, it spoke somewhat for what Fellsgarth might do in the way ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... aromatic steam; placing them with deft, sure fingers. Once she paused in her haste, edged up to where he stood with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, placed an arm on each of his shoulders and let her hands dangle ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... there is no one whom you will listen to to give the necessary simple orders. And, as a consequence, one boat, chiefly manned by the coal interest, swamped alongside before it could be shoved clear; the forward davit fall of another jammed, and let it dangle vertically up and down when the after fall overhauled; and only one ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... in the bottom of the hole. You see the dibber leaves an awkward little peak there at the bottom of the hole. Water lodges there and stays. The tiny rootlets do not quite reach into the bottom of the hole, and perhaps dangle in the water and begin to decay. A little soil dropped in prevents all this. Now a little plant goes in. Do not place it too low, nor too high in the hole. Have the roots uncramped. Drop soil in gently and finally firm it ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... hostess with greatly mingled feelings; but old Bill entertained but one sentiment for her,—that of unqualified admiration. As we only 'wrought' at the stranded schooner on the high water,—some five hours out of the twenty-four,—he had plenty of opportunity to dangle after his dearie, and did so unremittingly. While the rest of us were either napping, dancing the lively 'straight four,' hunting herns' eggs among the sand-hills, and so on, according to our inclination, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their growth like Spanish friars, and winking, from their shelves, in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustering high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shop-keeper's benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... are sad creatures! They marry a young girl because she is demure and self-contained, and they leave her on the morrow to dangle after a girl who is not young and who certainly is not demure, her chief attraction being that all the rich and well-known men about town have at one time been in her favor. The more danglers she has after her, the more she is esteemed, the more she is sought after, and the more she ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... vether you're to have sixpence or a swig of lamen-table beer. (It does! and cheers.) A man as sifteses his dust is a disgrace to humanity! (Immense cheering, which was rendered more exhilarating by the introduction of Dirk's dangle-dangles, otherwise bells.) But you'll say, Vot is this here to do with Sir Eddard? I'll tell you. It has been my werry great happiness to clear out Sir Eddard, and werry well I was paid for doing it. The Tories knows ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... whether in either case a technical refusal would be officially employed. It is an essential matter that in both cases the authorities could rapidly communicate with the friends and family of the mentally afflicted person. At least, the postmistress would not dangle a strip of tempting sixpenny stamps before the enthusiast's eyes as he was being dragged away with his tongue out. If we made drinking open and official we might be taking one step towards making it careless. In such things to be careless is to be sane: for neither ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... where bending willows swayed, And, from the sun, a greeny twilight made, Sir Pertinax, broad back against a tree, Lolled at his ease and yawned right lustily. In brawny fist he grasped a rod or angle, With hook wherefrom sad worm did, writhing, dangle. Full well he loved the piscatorial sport, Though he as yet no single fish had caught. Hard by, in easy reach upon the sward, Lay rusty bascinet and good broadsword. Thus patiently the good Knight sat and fished, Yet in his heart most heartily ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... tropical forest. Individual struggles with individual, and species with species, to monopolize the air, light, and soil. In the effort to spread their roots, some of the weaker sort, unable to find a footing, climb a powerful neighbor, and let their roots dangle in the air; while many a full-grown tree has been lifted up, as it were, in the strife, and now stands on the ends of its stilt-like roots, so that a man may walk upright between the roots ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... don't you mention gibbets, do you hear, 'cos you might provoke me, and then you would dangle from one of these trees, a scarecrow that would cause old Wright much ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... when to stop and let the bait dangle. He fussed with a fresh cigarette, paying no apparent attention to Johnny, which gave that young man an idea that he was wholly unobserved while he dizzily made a mental calculation. Fourteen hundred a week—go-od golly! In a month—or would ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... seen. Amidst the waves a sudden forest rears Its verdant head, and a new spring appears. 'The god we now behold with open eyes; 110 A herd of spotted panthers round him lies In glaring forms; the grapy clusters spread On his fair brows, and dangle on his head. And whilst he frowns, and brandishes his spear, My mates, surprised with madness or with fear, Leaped overboard; first perjured Madon found Rough scales and fins his stiffening sides surround; "Ah! what," cries one, "has thus transformed thy look?" Straight his own mouth grew ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... of her worst moods, when everything was a grievance. It was a pleasant contrast when the little girl was met by Miss Dorothy's smile as she returned to the parlor, so she settled herself by the side of this new friend, folded her hands and let her feet dangle over the edge of the sofa. It was rather a slippery seat and in time it might be that she would have to wriggle back to a firmer place, but its nearness to Miss Dorothy was its attraction and she felt ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... let it dangle. He sank into the only soft chair in the apartment and watched hypnotically as the phone's receiver limply coiled and uncoiled at ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... azalea, but free from its fragility), large, and with an elusive scent, sweet and yet indefinite. The fruit, smooth and of porcelain whiteness, varies in size and shape, and is said to be edible, though blacks ignore it. A large marble and an undersized hen's egg may dangle together, or in company with others, from the topmost branches of some tall tree, which has acted as host to the clinging vine. The handsome but inconsiderate plant is turned from its purpose of lending fictitious and fugitive charms to quite commonplace but passive ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the tawdry cap she wore seemed to choke her, and she unfastened them with nervous fingers, fumbling long beneath her lifted chin to get them loose. She did not remove the cap, but let the strings dangle by her jaw. The silly bits of cloth waggling and quivering, as she turned her head repeatedly from son to husband and from husband to son, added to her air of helplessness and inefficiency. Once she whispered with ghastly ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... sword and takes command of the company; but a few moments later his heart gives one wild bound, then seems to sink into the ground beneath his feet, when the adjutant drops the point of his sword, lets it dangle by the gold knot at his wrist, whips a folded paper from his sash, and far over the plain his clear young ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... while The arguments prosy and drear,— To lean at full-length in indefinite rest In the lap of the greenery here? Can't you kick over "the Bench," And "husk" yourself out of your gown To dangle your legs where the fishing is good— Can't you arrange to ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... the little girl. "Freddie says he ought to go in head first," she exclaimed, "and you know, Nan, if you stand Snoop on his head he'll get dizzy, like I did when I hung dingle-dangle by my ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... out of his seat, with his very beard bristling with passion. "What is your happiness to me? What have I to do with her that you must dangle her photograph before my eyes?" I almost thought that he was about to strike me in the frenzy of his rage, but with another imprecation he dashed open the door of the cabin and rushed out upon deck, leaving me considerably astonished at his extraordinary ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... even when searching for them, or had brought to me a cocoon of this variety, save the three on one little branch found by Raymond, when he did not know what they were. Because of the length of spinning which these caterpillars use to attach their cocoons, they dangle freely in the wind, and this gives them especial ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... rose shall appear, As if in pure water you dropped and let die A bruised black-blooded mulberry; And that other sort, their crowning pride, With long white threads distinct inside, 380 Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle Loose such a length and never tangle, Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters, And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters: Such are the works they put their hand to, The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to. And these made the troop, which our ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... down to them, and asked why they had concealed themselves there? They answered, "We are three soldiers who have deserted because the pay was so bad, and now we shall have to die of hunger if we stay here, or to dangle on the gallows if we go out." "If you will serve me for seven years," said the dragon, "I will convey you through the army so that no one shall seize you." "We have no choice and are compelled to accept," they replied. Then the dragon caught hold of them ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... jingle, tingle, tinkle, mingle, sprinkle, twinkle, there is implied a frequency, or iteration of small acts. And the same frequency of acts, but less subtile by reason of the clearer vowel a, is indicated in jangle, tangle, spangle, mangle, wrangle, brangle, dangle; as also in mumble, grumble, jumble. But at the same time the close u implies something obscure or obtunded; and a congeries of consonants mbl, denotes a confused kind of rolling or tumbling, as in ramble, scamble, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... leaders of the Commonwealth had to flee for their lives. Some went to America for safety while others were caught and executed. The body of Cromwell was taken from its grave in Westminster Abbey, suspended from the gallows and left to dangle there. Milton was concealed by a friend until the worst of the storm had blown over. Then some influential friends interceded for him, and his blindness probably ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... to all this. I walked slowly into my study and shut the door. Surely I had had enough of picking up loose ends. If there were any more of them I would let them flap, dangle, float in the air, do what they please; I would ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... Dutch mathematician, opened up no end of complications for the early clockmakers. In the first place they could not decide where to put this new article. Some placed the pendulum at the front of their clock, letting it dangle down across the face; others tried to conceal it by hanging it outside the back. Still others made a dial that would project enough at either ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... to the king; I have held office under the crown, and the Great and General Court will confiscate my estate, and we shall be beggars. More than that, I probably shall be seized and thrown into jail. There's no knowing what they will do. Possibly my lifeless body may yet dangle from the gallows, where murderers have paid the penalty of ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... dangle much longer. He hadn't a doubt but that everything was all right and he was in ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... respectable servant, however, turns up her nose at the herrings, and goes in for smoked eel. These fish-stalls are very quaint in appearance, for they are hung with garlands of dried 'scharretje' (a white, thin, leathery-looking fish), which dangle in front, and form a most original decoration. In the towns a separate day and evening are set apart for the servant classes to go to the fair, and there is also a day for ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... him not! I've not that pleasure. But Lady Dangle knows him; she's his friend, He will oblige us with a set of concerts, Six concerts to the set.—The set, three guineas. Your lordship ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... right moment"; but the right moment never arrives. All we are told is that she, Julia, considers that there was never anything degrading in her conduct; and this we are asked to accept as sufficient. It was a daring policy to dangle before our eyes an explanation, which always receded as we advanced towards it, and proved in the end to be wholly unexplanatory. The success of the play, however, was sufficient to show that, in light comedy, at any rate, a secret may with ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... son in air. "Dangle it before him, Andora. If you let him have it too quickly, he won't care for it. He's just ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... and ready to run, we had to be ready right now. Sho! Those stormy nights thunderin' and lightnin'! You could just see the lightnin' all over the steers' horns and your horse's ears and mane too. It would dangle all up and down his mane. It never interfered with you a-tall. And you could see it around the steer's horns in the herd, the lightnin' would dangle all over 'em. If the hands (cowboys) or the relief could get to 'em before they got started to runnin', they could handle 'em; but if they ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... personally involved in any piratical schemes," Dasinger said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have bugged her cabin and the control rooms. If we dangle a few star hyacinths before her eyes, she should be willing to fly us back. If she balks, I think I can handle the Mooncat well enough to get ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... fastest possible speed across the meadows. There is the gate on which Eleanor perched herself the night before their wedding, declaring she would dangle her feet whether she was to be ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham |
