"Ell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good for sore eyes—who'd a-thought of his turning up there!" Splendidly inflated Martin was when he spoke of "his servants." This thing was entertaining until he grew presumptuous. If you are polite to some people they are familiar, and want to take an ell for every inch you have conceded. And then you have to tell them to keep their place. But Martin, with the instincts of his race, saw in time when it was coming to that. What a misery it must be for a coloured gentleman ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... carefully inspected, and a special apartment connected with the kitchen, finished in hardwood, handsomely decorated, and hung with rich tapestries, was provided for the cook, in the vain hope that she might be induced permanently to occupy her position. The Queen Anne wing and Elizabethan ell were constructed, the latter to provide bowling-alleys and smoking-rooms for the probable cousins of possible culinary queens, and many there were who accepted the office with alacrity, throwing it up with still greater alacrity before the usual fortnight passed. Then the Bangletops saw ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... Lombardy and Venetia are nothing more than an outspread sheet of deep Alpine mud. Well, there is nothing so good for incredulity, don't you know, as capping the climax. If a man will not swallow an inch of fact, the best remedy is to make him gulp down an ell of it. And, indeed, the Lombard plain is but an insignificant mud flat compared with the vast alluvial plains of Asiatic and American rivers. The alluvium of the Euphrates, of the Mississippi, of the Hoang Ho, of the Amazons would take in many Lombardies and half-a-dozen Venetias ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... feenerty, fickerty, feg, Ell, dell, domun's egg; Irky, birky, story, rock, An, tan, toose, Jock; Black fish! white troot! "Gibbie ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... doth he but turn round with such a look about the long lip of him as my Lord of Buckingham might have if his scullion made free with him. His aunt, the Duchess of Savoy, is a merry dame, and a wise! She and our King can talk by the ell, but as for the Emperor, he speaketh to none willingly save Queen Katharine, who is of his own stiff Spanish humour, and he hath eyes for none save Queen Mary, who would have been his empress had high folk held to their word. And with so tongue-tied ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... your savings on a dress suit?" Cappy exploded. "Whadja mean by courting my Florry, eh? Tell me that! Give you an inch and you'll take an ell! ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... one end became so at the other. Von Guericke's experiments were made upon a linen thread with his sulphur globe, which, he says, "having been previously excited by rubbing, can exercise likewise its virtue through a linen thread an ell or more long, and there attract something." But this discovery, and his equally important one that the sulphur ball becomes luminous when rubbed, were practically forgotten until again brought to notice by the discoveries of Francis Hauksbee and Stephen Gray early ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... experience, that three quarters of a Pound of Thread worth 12 d. per Pound spinning, will make one Ell of Cloth worth 2 s. per Ell; which Three quarters of a Pound two Spinners may spin in one ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... Will Scarlett; "we will call a feast, and henceforth, because he is full seven feet tall and round the waist at least an ell, he shall be called Little John." And thus it was done; but at the feast Little John, who always liked to know exactly what work he had to do, put some questions to Robin Hood. "Before I join hands with you, tell me first what sort of life is this you lead? How am I ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... would do so, and never again be summoned for a similar offence. He left the Court and returned to his cure, and as soon as he came there, he called the draper and the tailor, and he had a gown made which trailed three quarters of an ell on the ground; for he told the tailor how he had been reproved for wearing a short gown, and ordered to wear a ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... and he began building without delay. The result was not a mansion, by any means, being still of the one-story pattern, but it was more commodious than the tiny two-room affair. The rooms were larger, and there was at least one ell, or extension, for kitchen and dining-room uses. This house, completed in 1836, occupied by the Clemens family during the remainder of the years spent in Florida, was often in later days pointed out as Mark Twain's birthplace. It missed ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... upon record, that his great surprise was, that so small a pistol could kill so big a man. These are the words of that venerable biographer, whose trade had not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell. "He," (Francis Gordon) "got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which notwithstanding ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... lads," shouted Erling, who was gasping by this time, "come back and jump in! Push off an ell or so. Steady!" ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... deeds like his with whom he came, He weens the mob expects to see him known. So that it now behoves his valour flame More clear than light, or they, to censure prone, — Errs he a finger's breadth — an inch — will swell His fault, and of that inch will make an ell. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... "We-ell. I don't want to believe it," he agreed. "But, look here!" and in desperation he pulled something from his pocket. "You know that, ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... if you pull yourself forth, you'll find your gown in rags by the time you're at home. I do hope, neighbour, you deal not with Simpkinson, in the Strand; that rogue sold me ten ells of green stamyn, and charged me thirty shillings the ell, and I vow it was scarce made up ere it began a-coming to bits. I'll give it him when I can catch him! and if I serve not our Seth out for dinting in the blackjack last night, I'm a Dutch woman, and no mistake! Black jacks are half-a-crown apiece, and so I told him; but I'll give him a bit more ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... showed me the traces of his footsteps in the dew, and pointed out the spot where I should find him. "You have nothing more to do than go softly down behind him," said he, "which you can do to within an ell of him, without being seen; then rush upon him, and throw him from his seat, where there is neither footing nor hold. I will go, meanwhile, and amuse his sight by some exhibition in the contrary direction, and he ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... hempseed, costing 2s., sowed about 10 perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. of tow when dressed and fit for spinning. A dozen pounds of tow made 10 ells of cloth, worth generally about 3s. an ell. Thus a good crop on 10 perches of land brought in L4 10s. 0d., half of which was nett profit. The hemp was pulled a little before harvest, and immediately spread on grass land, where it lay for a month or six weeks. The more rain there was the sooner it was ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... them that help themselves. Give a thief rope enough, and he'll hang himself. Give him an inch, and he'll take an ell. Go farther and fare worse. Good wine needs no bush. Handsome is that handsome does. Happy as a king. Haste makes waste, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between the good-man and his wife. He cannot say boo to a goose. He knows on which ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... "We-ell," Sammy admitted slowly, "she was busy cutting out something on the dining-room table and her mouth was full of pins. I had to ask her two or three times before ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... Storks, snow-queens, moor-wives, ell-women—how the names thrill one! What was your Hans Andersen like? Mine was light blue and gold with wonderful coloured pictures, but it was the frontispiece I studied, and which held me frightened yet ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... Its benches, hideously hacked and thick with grime, were as hard and uncomfortable as when I first saw them, and the windows remained unshaded and unwashed. Most of the farm-houses in the region remained equally unadorned, but Deacon Gammons had added an "ell" and established a "parlor," and Anson Burtch had painted his barn. The plain began to take on a comfortable look, for some of the trees of the wind-breaks had risen above the roofs, and growing maples softened the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... process bore, And blessed her stars that Andrew's risk was o'er That she had thus the dire return received, And saved the man for whom her bosom grieved. So much emotion William seemed to feel, No grace he gave, but all performed with zeal; Retaliated ev'ry way so well, He measure gave for measure:—ell for ell. How true the adage, that revenge is sweet! The plan he followed clearly was discrete; For since he wished his honour to repair:— Of any better way I'm ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... au moulin, Pour y faire moudre son grain, Ell monta sur son ane, Ma p'tite mam'sell' Marianne! Ell' monta sur son ane ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... called 'Good Xcuse' Stockins, cos they giv the blushin weerer a good xcuse, for not gettin her skurts wet & muddy. The mouse looks orful naturel, and sum of these days, we'll heer of sum gallant corndocktor of the Ell R. R. gettin a kik in his stummik, for grabbin hold of one, wile he labers under the impresshun, that he is re-leevin the fare weerer, of ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... finest that could be procured, that the woollen stuffs she used were almost as costly as silk, and that when she wore a white collar round her neck, it was of real lace, worth a couple of dollars an ell. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that if you give some men an inch they will take an ell, I induced the Governor to let me pursue my study of Italian. First he allowed me a Grammar, then a Conversation Book, then a Dictionary, then a Prose Reading Book, and then a Poetical Anthology. These volumes, being an addition to the two ordinary ones, gave my little domicile ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... soon dug out of the ground; which had been particularly noted to be plain and level, and ploughed just before; but where it was now found to have made a great fissure, or cleft, an ell wide, whilst it singed the earth on ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... a hornet's nest when they come here this time, though, they sure did!" Tom stood in the door, looking into the darkening room and at the figure sprawled across the bed. "He-ell's a-goin' to pop now!" he said again, in slow words scarcely ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... Ortega was a very long adobe house one story in height and one room deep, except in an ell where a number of rooms were bunched together. The Senora had it whitewashed every year, and the red tiles on the roof renewed when necessary; therefore it had none of the pathetic look of old age peculiar to the adobe ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... thin end of the wedge meant, and, being in a far better position than we are to judge of the significance and importance of many a casus belli which now seems but trivial, they never dreamed of giving an inch for the other side to take an ell. So they went to law, and enjoyed it amazingly! Sometimes however, there were disputes which were not to be settled peaceably; and then came what University men in the old days used to know as a ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... your sakes, though he deserves it too, for he is perfectly good-natured and tractable; but he is not beautiful, like his " god-dog,(633) as Mr. Selwyn, who dined here on Saturday, called my poor late favourite; especially as I have had him clipped. The shearing has brought to light a nose an ell long; an as he has now nasum rhinocerotis, I do not doubt but he will be a better critic in poetry than Dr. Johnson, who judged of harmony by the principles of an author, and fancied, or wished to make others believe, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... which gradually increased to the size of my wrist in the middle, and then as gradually decreased till it terminated in a point again at the contrary extreme; all which spiral, if it were fairly extended in length, might be a yard or an ell long. I surveyed this strange vegetable very attentively; it had a rind, or crust, which I could not break with my hand, but taking my knife and making an opening therewith in the shell, there issued ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... painted between two windows, of a bright red colour. The windows being closed, Signor Orazio concluded that a band of soldiers were carousing at table just between them and behind the sun. So he said to me "Benvenuto, if you think that you could hit that wall an ell's breadth from the sun with your demi-cannon here, I believe you would be doing a good stroke of business, for there is a great commotion there, and men of much importance must probably be inside ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to sun themselves in their new-found sun, and the new-poor, and others who are quite used to poverty, swear at them in secret. Oh, yes, indeed! If the Clerk of the Weather has a left ear it must surely at this moment be as 'ot as 'ell! Nobody likes February—it is the step-child of ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... 'We-ell, ye-es,' he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfied with the phrase: 'or perhaps I might say, if it was in him. Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he would find your mother an inestimable companion. But if he had ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore, There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore; An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell, You drop some tallow in your socks an' that will make 'em well. For it's ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... reached the head of the little cross street on which the Atkinses lived, she turned into it with relief. The Atkins house was a tiny cottage, with a little kitchen ell, and a sagging piazza across the front. On this piazza were shadowy figures, and the dull, red gleam of pipes, and one fiery tip of a cigar. Joe Atkins, and Sargent, and two other men were sitting out ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ever since!" old Jasper would croak triumphantly. "Oh! 'e were a gen'us were my bye Jarge. 'Ell come a-marchin' back to 'is old feyther, some day, wi' 'is pockets stuffed full o' money an' bank-notes—I knaw—I knaw, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... that the youth grew hot with the joy of fighting and sought to deal with him roughly and bigly. Then he cast aside his spear and drew sword, and as Martimor walloped toward him, he lightly swerved, and with one stroke cut in twain the young fir-tree, so that not above an ell was left in ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... travel another ell over the atrocities they call roads here," Mrs. Winscombe declared. "I expect to die returning to England as it is, and I won't put up with any more preliminary torment. You'll have to ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as the angle where the ell joined the main body of the house. So far as he could see every door and window was closed and there were no signs of life. However, he stepped to the door, a green-painted affair of ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use{114} his own words, further, he said, "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;" "he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "if you teach that nigger—speaking of myself—how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave;" ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,—first, in his egotism, eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... was called, a large white house with a piazza in front and a long, low ell, stood in the midst of the primitive little settlement, and was a favorite retreat of the lumbermen whenever they had the good fortune to get out of the woods, as well as the stopping-place of the overseers and the men ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... without adequate reward. Why, even if her Majesty would give you a fat living or appoint you to the imperial council which directs musical affairs in the Netherlands! Pardon me, Sir Wolf! But give people an inch, and they take an ell, and your ever ready obligingness will injure you, for the harder it is to win a thing the higher its value becomes. You made yourself too cheap at court here people will surely know how to put a higher value upon a man who is equally skilful in Netherland, Italian, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "We—ell, Petrick, I'll tell ee my plan. I ain't got it straightened out yet, but I hope to hev it all right by the time we're on t'other side the mountings—leastwise before we ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... allure the conversation, By many windings to their clever clinch; And secondly, must let slip no occasion, Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch,[mt] But take an ell—and make a great sensation, If possible; and thirdly, never flinch When some smart talker puts them to the test, But seize the last word, which no doubt's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Corne, who looked at the card, "some of them shall bite dust for that! As for Le Gardeur, poor boy, overlook his fault—pity him, forgive him. He is not so much to blame, Pierre, as those plundering thieves of the Friponne, who shall find that La Corne St. Luc's sword is longer by half an ell than is good for some of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "Why, damn it t'ell, Gord!" exclaimed an individual, with a long, drooping nose, a jaw which hung loosely on a corded, bare throat; "it ain't three weeks ago but you got a suit, and it ain't the one you ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... already decided, from small signs of assurance, that this Western child was bold. "Give her an inch, and she'll take an ell," she had said to herself. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... boys was sitting writing a letter with his ground-sheet under him in the mud. The sissified one blurted out: "Holy gee! but I'm perspiring profusely." The kid writing the letter looked up and sarcastically answered, "Wouldn't sweatin' like 'ell be more to the point." Later in my military career I had a chat with the commander of the company to which the "sissy" belonged, and he incidentally remarked that the lad had turned out to be one of the most reliable and plucky fellows in the battalion. I have often wondered ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... Baxter's "Saints' Rest" and Young's "Night Thoughts." The fireplace flue so seldom held a fire that the swallows utilized the chimney for their nests. Back of this was the dining-room, in which we lived. It had a large brick oven and a serviceable fireplace. The kitchen was an ell, from which stretched woodshed, carriage-house, pigpen, smoking-house, etc. Currant and quince bushes, rhubarb, mulberry, maple, and butternut trees were scattered about. An apple orchard helped to increase ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Luther had written: "It matters nothing to me whether King Heinz or Kunz, the Devil or Hell itself, has composed this book. He who lies is a liar—therefore I fear him not. It seems to me that King Henry has provided an ell or two of coarse stuff for this mantle, and that the poisonous fellow Leus (Leo X), who wrote against Erasmus, or someone of his sort, has cut and lined the hood. But I will help them—please God—by ironing it and ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... unpopular name, and appealing to the linen-draper's feelings of hospitality; whereupon the linen-draper, utterly forgetful of all party rancour, nobly responded to the appeal, and telling his wife to conduct his lordship upstairs, jumped over the counter, with his ell in his hand, and placing himself with half-a-dozen of his assistants at the door of his boutique, manfully confronted the mob, telling them that he would allow himself to be torn to a thousand pieces ere he would permit ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... at hand: and the practiser, to be by the thing Measured: and so, by due applying of Cumpase, Rule, Squire, Yarde, Ell, Perch, Pole, Line, Gaging rod, (or such like instrument) to the Length, Plaine, ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... turn into all their shapes without discrimination; so as when the freak takes our Monsieurs to appear like so many farces or Jack Puddings on the stage, all the world should alter shape and play the pantomimes with them. Methinks a French tailor, with an ell in his hand, looks like the enchantress Circe over the companions of Ulysses, and changes them into as many forms.... Something I would indulge to youth; something to age and humor. But what have we to do with these foreign ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... "I was trying to do what a better man than I did, and where he hit the mark I missed it by an ell. Twas a pretty scrape I ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... better than card-boxes. They seem to be built of bamboos, with wicker-work and plants. Each of them has a veranda in front, which is a nice place to sit and read, with a kind of ell at each end. I think I should like to live in one of them for a ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... nature gave them birth, in the conception of sensual gratification, and they seek no more. Tens of thousands are overwhelmed by the burdens of craft and trade; by the weight of the hammer, the ell, or the crane, and they are no more. But I know a man, who did seek more; the joy of simplicity dwelt in his heart, and he had faith in mankind such as few men have; his soul was made for friendship; love was his element, and fidelity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... But the fact is, I stayed because I couldn't go away. Of course, it was an abominable position, but I assure you it felt like heaven when it didn't feel like 'ell." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... and was glad that a summons of 'my daughter' from the Princess of Conde interrupted these strange communications. I understood them better when we were called upon to ell the old Marchioness the names of every one whom we had met at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and on hearing of the presence of Mademoiselle de Bourbon she said: 'Ah! yes, a marriage is arranged for the young lady ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... envy the brave Colonel Chartres, Condemn'd for thy crime at threescore and ten? To hang him, all England would lend him their garters, Yet he lives, and is ready to ravish again.[3] Then throttle thyself with an ell of strong tape, For thou hast not a groat to ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... to our place one day a-collectin' for somethin' or other, and Jack, in 'is free-'anded way, 'e give 'er a five-pun' note. Next week she come agen for somethin' else, and stopped and talked to 'im about 'is soul in the passage. She told 'im as 'e was a-goin' straight to 'ell, and that 'e oughter give up the bookmakin' and settle down to a respec'ble, God-fearin' business. At fust 'e only laughed, but she lammed in tracts at 'im full of the most awful language; and one day she fetched 'im round to ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... I tell you, is our jolly Wassel, And for Twelfth-night more meet too: She works by the ell, and her name is Nell, And ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... own house at Amesbury is a plain white painted wooden house, consisting of an upright and ell, like many old-fashioned farm-houses, and surrounded by a picket-fence. It is roomy and comfortable, and the study is a very cosey and attractive place, with its open wood-fire and its well-filled book-shelves. One familiar with its appearance ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... had the luck to have taken up that Rod, 'tis twenty to one he should not have broke my line by running to the Rods end, as you suffered him; I would have held him, unless he had been fellow to the great Trout that is neer an ell long, which had his picture drawne, and now to be seen at mine Hoste Rickabies at the George in Ware; and it may be, by giving that Trout the Rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... if I might give myself the liberty of a very old friend," she answered, straightway taking the ell because he had given her an inch, "there is something I would like to say ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... "We-e-ell," Miss Sessions deemed it necessary to qualify her statement to this fiery and exact young questioner. "You have to want the right thing, of course, John. You have to ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... powerful and valuable life, then, is the life that is first founded upon this great, immutable law of love and service, and that then becomes supremely self-centred,—supremely self-centred that it may become all the more supremely unself-centred; in other words, the life that looks v/ell to self, that there may be the ever greater self, in order that there may ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... a cousin Mary—she's married now and gone—gave what they call a candy-pulling in those days in the West, and they took the saucers of hot candy outside of the house into the snow, under a sort of old bower that came from the eaves—it was a sort of an ell then, all covered with vines—to cool this hot candy in the snow, and they were all sitting there. In the mean time we were gone to bed. We were not invited to attend this party; we were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... jumps on a bench excitedly, gesticulating with a bottle in his hand.] Listen 'ere, Comrades! Yank 'ere is right. 'E says this 'ere stinkin' ship is our 'ome. And 'e says as 'ome is 'ell. And 'e's right! This is 'ell. We lives in 'ell, Comrades—and right enough we'll die in it. [Raging.] And who's ter blame, I arsks yer? We ain't. We wasn't born this rotten way. All men is born free and ekal. That's in the bleedin' ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... and red, and bearing as a present to the delighted foresters a hundred bows of the finest quality, each with its sheaf of arrows, with burnished points, peacock feathers, and notched with silver. Each shaft was an ell long. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the Harlings' when the father was away. If he was at home, the children had to go to bed early, or they came over to my house to play. Mr. Harling not only demanded a quiet house, he demanded all his wife's attention. He used to take her away to their room in the west ell, and talk over his business with her all evening. Though we did not realize it then, Mrs. Harling was our audience when we played, and we always looked to her for suggestions. Nothing flattered one ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... are still existing for the purchase and transportation of the brick. A later form of many houses was two stories or two stories and a half in front, with a peaked roof that sloped down nearly to the ground in the back over an ell covering the kitchen, added in the shape known as a lean-to, or, as it was called by country folk, the linter. This sloping roof gave the one element of unconscious picturesqueness which redeemed the prosaic ugliness of these bare-walled houses. Many lean-to ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... that my rules should be broken. Karen has many privileges. She must learn not to take, always, the extra inch when the ell ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... "mark well when I say that my time will come, and a day when the best of them will bow to me. And every ell of that triumph shall be ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... your fan, Trust it not to youth or man; Love has filled a pirate's sail Often with its perfumed gale. Mind your kerchief most of all, Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; Shorter ell than mercers clip Is the space from ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... surprise, real or feigned, to see P. Sybarite take the seat by his side. "What t'ell? Who's payin' you to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... his soul to heav'n God bare. That Emperour to Rencesvals doth fare. There was no path nor passage anywhere Nor of waste ground no ell nor foot to spare Without a Frank or pagan lying there. Charles cries aloud: "Where are you, nephew fair? Where's the Archbishop and that count Oliviers? Where is Gerins and his comrade Gerers? Otes the Duke, and the count Berengiers And Ivorie, and Ive, so ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... a go!' he cried dropping half a cup of boiling coffee down another chap's neck, as 'is smile broadened, 'it's a 'ell of a time ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... "We-e-e-ell," he drawls, half chucklin', half sing-songy, "I wisht I could get you to kind of look around for a young fellah in thayah,—sort of a well favored, upstandin' young man, straight as a cornstalk, and with his front haiah a little wavy. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... was the white farmhouse, nestling among the apple trees, the front to the west and facing on the lane that led up to a farm above. The house had a one-story ell on the end toward him, containing the kitchen and pantry—this ell projected back almost to the smokehouse. On the opposite side, but hidden from his view, there was a wide porch running the full length of house and ell, ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... came," answered the chief. "Okematan, with the two boys, will lead. Dan-ell an' Fergus ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... "We-ell," Little drawled, lazily lighting a cheroot, "anything you say suits me, but I'll tell you my idea right now: That Goring woman came here ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... 'appiness everywhere. She told 'er he was thinking of 'er every day and every hour and watching and waiting for the day she would come to 'im. Now wasn't that worth fifty cents of any woman's money? And the man may be in 'ell for ...
— The Thirteenth Chair • Bayard Veiller
... low and long, with a piazza, and a long corridor ran through the whole building. All this announced an inn. The windows in the part of the house assigned to guests were dark. In the others, situated opposite the piazza, and not higher than half-an-ell from the ground, which was covered with straw and hay and all kinds of rubbish, the lights of Sabbath shone forth ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... some sign might be given, to testify to all ages that God had delivered the kingdom into his hands. Whereupon he was commanded to strike the basaltic rock with his sword. This did he, and the blade sank into the rock "as if it had been butter," cleaving it asunder for "an ell or more." As the cleft remains to the present hour, in testimony of this miracle, why, of course, cela va sans dire.—Rymer, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... William Knox and of —- Sinclair, his wife, {2a} unlike most Scotsmen, unlike even Mr. Carlyle, had not "an ell of pedigree." The common scoff was that each Scot styled himself "the King's poor cousin." But John Knox declared, "I am a man of base estate and condition." {2b} The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has been ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... appearance is enough. A "mighty big head," or an abnormally thick head and neck, is in Germany deemed sufficient credentials from Fairyland; while in a case from Lapland, where the hand and foot grew so rapidly as to become speedily nearly half an ell in length and the child was unable to learn to speak, whereas she readily understood what was said to her, these deviations from the course of nature were looked upon as conclusive evidence.[75] A reputed changeling shown to Waldron in the Isle of Man early in the last century ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... days were magnificent! Noblemen then wore costumes weighted with embroidery. At Lyons, material was sometimes sold for as much as six hundred francs an ell. One ought to read the by-laws and regulations of the Guild of Master Workmen, where it is laid down that 'The embroiderers of the King have always the right to summon, by armed force if necessary, the workmen of other masters.' . . . And then ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... chamber, crossed the sitting room, and went into the ell-kitchen with his shoes in his hand. When he opened the back door he faced the west, but even the sky at that point of the compass showed the glow of the false dawn. Down in the cove the night mist wrapped the shipping about in an almost opaque veil. Only the lofty tops ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,—I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... Lokiec means an ell in Polish. King Wladyslaw was of the family Piasts, but he was called Lokietek on account ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... gave orders that he was to be found whatever happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... grump-like that only for your bloomin' 'arf-quid I'd 'a' seen you blowed fust 'fore I'd answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic like if I'd like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to 'ell?" ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... was another door. Duvall stole over to it, listened carefully, then slowly opened it and looked within. The room proved to be the doctor's private office, and he saw at once that it was built in a sort of ell, and could not be entered except through the room in which he stood. There was a door, it is true, in the right-hand wall, which had once given entrance to the hall, but against this a heavy instrument case, with glass doors, ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... the tavern office after breakfast; he smoked two cigars, himself, and gave a cigar to each of the early citizens who dropped in through the front way after they had received certain information from Files, who excitedly had beckoned them to come to him at the ell door. Mr. Britt frankly exposed his new sentiments about living and doing. When he put on his overcoat and went forth, Prophet Elias popped out of the door of Usial's cot like the little gowned figure of a toy barometer. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... go to New South Wales, Nor hunt for glory at the Pole— To feed the sharks, or catch the whales, Or tempt a Lapland lady's soul. I'll never willing stir an ell Beyond old England's chalky border, To steal or smuggle, buy or sell, To drink cheap ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... so felt the charm of her room as on this morning; never had it seemed so set apart from the world and so personal. It was the breadth of the ell and the size of her father's library and bedroom combined. The windows could hardly be called windows in a Northern sense, for there was no glass. It was unnecessary to seal up the source of light and ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... will see the chorus people, male and female, asleep two and two on the seats. The exhausted woman's head rests on the shoulder of her companion, the man's arm around her to hold her steady. What do you suppose happens when a thing like that is kept up for awhile? Aw! W'at t'ell." ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... class of men, Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity, No fancied claims or woes fictitious pen, But wrongs ell-wide, and of a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... mingled colour, and the blue shot into the green, and the green lightened from the blue, as the colours play in the ocean between deeps and shallows: she thought she could endure to live no longer and not wear it. There was a bracelet of an ell long, wrought like a serpent and with fiery jewels for the eyes; she saw it shine on her white arm and her head grew dizzy with desire. "Ah!" she thought, "never were fine lendings better met with a fair wearer." And she closed her eyelids, ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... looked earnestly in my face. I feared that she would kiss me before the others and durst not look at her. "Yes," I heard her say, in a low voice, "it is Edmund's own boy." She led the way into the house, through the long wood-shed and ell. Supper was waiting; and after a hasty wash at a long sink in the wood-shed, I followed grandfather through the kitchen to the room beyond it, where the large round table was spread. The family all came in and sat down. I still felt very strange ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... little children, winked and nodded as they all came in together, and made a jocose remark about "handsome couples"; then she trundled off to get the ice-cream, leaving them in the saloon. This "saloon" was an ell of the toll-house; it opened on a little garden, from which a flight of rickety steps led down to a float where half a dozen skiffs were tied up, waiting to be hired. In warm weather, when the garden was blazing with fragrant color, Mrs. Todd would permit ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... length, and shaped almost in the forme of an axle-tree of a cart, a quantitie of thickness in the middest, and somewhat smaller at both ends. The former part which he shootes forth as a necke, is supposed to be about an ell long, with a white ring as it were of scales about it. The scales along his backe, seeme to be blackish, and so much as is discovered under his bellie, appeareth to be red: for I speak but of no nearer description than a reasonable ocular ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... goodness of a shore life. As the close of each watch came round the same spirit of discontent prompted the question of the relief, officer or man. On the poop it was, "Well, Mister! How's her head now? Any sign of a slant?" On the foredeck, "'Ere! Wot th' 'ell 'ave ye bin doin' with 'er? Got th' ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... put young Bassett back instead of him. Sey-mour's. Buck up, Seymour's. We-ell played! There, did you ever see anything like ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... and even? If thou stand on Will's haw [hillock], the oak on thy right hand is the largest tree; if thou stand on Dick's, it shall be the beech on thy left. And thine ell-wand reacheth ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... us intirely he has,—the black-hearted crather; an' may the cuss O' Crom'ell stick to him day an' night, an' turn his sleep to wakin', an' his mate to pizen, till all I wish ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... neuf divines pucelles Gardent ta gloire chez elles; Et mon luth, qu'ell'ont fait estre De leurs secrets le grand prestre, Par cest hymne solennel Respandra dessus ta race Je ne scay quoy de sa grace ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... AULNAGE (from Fr. aune, ell), the official supervision of the shape and quality of manufactured woollen cloth. It was first ordered in the reign of Richard I. that "woollen cloths, wherever they are made, shall be of the same width, to wit, of two ells within the lists, and of the same goodness in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Israelites. Those who had antagonized Mendel from the first, now were furious at his attempt to force intelligence upon them. They prophesied that these were but the stepping-stones to more radical changes and stubbornly refused to yield an inch, lest the proverbial ell might be seized. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... about everything if we only insist—and it's our own fault if we don't insist; for, of course, if they find us complying and ready to oblige, why, there's no end to their audacity. "Give 'em an inch, and they take an ell." However, they do try to keep us down as much as they can. Now there's that very exercise of riding that they are so proud of. They get us a side-saddle, as they call it, of enormous weight and inconvenience, on ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... said the squire to himself, as he sat calmly smoking his pipe after the bustle of the arrival was over; "not much like a Hallam, but t' eye as isn't charmed wi' her 'ell hev no white in it, that's ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... abruptly at a side door of the dark-red pile of building which boasted the illuminated tower-clock and a jutting ell with barred windows. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... with macron [a,] a with ogonek (tail) ['c] c with acute accent [vc] c with caron [-e] e with macron [ve] e with caron [e,] e with ogonek [)e] e with breve [-i] i with macron [)i] i with breve [/l] ell with stroke ['m] m with acute accent ['n] n with acute accent [vn] n with caron [-o] o with macron [vr] r with caron [.r] r with dot over ['s] s with acute accent [vs] s with caron [-u] u with macron ['z] z with acute accent [.Z] Z with dot over ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... I thought 'im jist a stiff-necked fool Before the war; but, as I sez to Poole, This war 'as tested more than fightin' men. But, say, 'e is an 'oly terror when Friends try to 'elp 'im earn a bite an' sup. Oh, there'll be 'Ell to pay when 'e ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... "We-ell?" she drawled in her most pronounced accent, "if I've got to think of 'em, I might as well talk of 'em, and I'm bound to think of 'em!" She relaxed the grasp of her knees, and lay back against the trunk of a tree, chuckling softly in retrospective triumph. "I've had such heaps of fun! ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... labors, as that the composer should neglect beat, measure and rhythm, in his effort to realize a well-developed and intelligible design in the whole, or any part, of his composition. The beats and measures and phrases are the barley-corn, inch and ell of the musical draughtsman, and without these units of measurement and proportion, neither the vital condition of Symmetry nor the equally important condition of well-regulated Contrast could be ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... was a fairly large one, situated in an ell at the rear of the building. Of its two windows, one, as has already been pointed out, overlooked the court between the apartment building and the house next door. The other faced toward the rear. Duvall placed his kit of tools upon the floor, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... tearing out the front door almost knocked over Gertie who was just coming in. He quickly righted her with a smile—he was fond of little Gertie who never bothered. The momentary delay gave the girls a start and Ernest saw Katy's flying skirts disappearing round the kitchen ell, with Chicken Little close behind her, as he turned ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Glossary, at the word Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women of Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear poulaines." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... appena in Siena sen pispiglia, Ond'era sire, quando fu distrutta La rabbia Fiorentina, che superba Fu a quel tempo si com'ora e putta. La vostra nominanza e color d'erba Che viene e va, e quei la discolora Per cui ell'esce ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... ch ick wh at th at sh ell ch ild wh en th is sh y ch air wh y th ese sh ore ch ill wh ere th ose sh ine ch erry wh ich th ere sh ow ch ildren th en th eir sh e ch urch th ey th ey sh all ch ase sh ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... "We-ell, we've got to go somehow—and trust to somebody," Bess said reflectively. "I wonder should we go to that hotel where we stayed that week with mother? They would take us in ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... "W—ell. That is hardly possible, Mrs. Barnard. Cadets are admitted only in June or September, and only then when there's a vacancy in their congressional district. But, pardon me. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... door, the foot-path which his unwilling and weary feet had helped to trace more definitely for nearly forty years. The house was a small cottage of the humblest New England type. It had a little cobbler's-shop, or what had formerly been a cobbler's-shop, for an ell. Besides that, there were three rooms on the ground-floor—the kitchen, the sitting-room, and a little bedroom which Henry and Sylvia occupied. Sylvia had cooking-stoves in both the old shop and the kitchen. The kitchen stove was kept well polished, ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is well enough; I must say it is a noble hall,—a hall for a queen to sit down in. And I stuffed an arm-chair with horse-hair on purpose, feathers over it, swan-down over them again, and covered it with scarlet cloth of Bruges, five crowns the short ell. But her highness came not hither; she was taken short; she had ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... the Word of God; and the longer they have been so, the worse for them. Princes and emperors have granted the pope vast privileges, by which in course of time he has become their master, till now all men bow down and kiss his feet. Where he was given an inch, he has taken an ell.... Christ told Saint Peter to feed his lambs. But the popes with their satellites have long since ceased to feed Christ's lambs, and for centuries have done naught but fleece and slaughter them, not acting like faithful shepherds, but like ravening wolves."[147] This vehement language ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... he in reply to the chairman's indignant questioning, "what could I do? I was werry busy at the time. So when the gentleman says as his name was Luscombe, I could do no better than tell him to go to h'ell for his luggage, and he'd have found it ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope |
