"Girth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I went to work at the canoe, and waited till he should turn to me. When he did it was with a child's plea for pity, and the abjectness of his tone was horrible, coming from a man of his girth and power. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... men was old, grey-haired, and large of girth, with a huge expanse of snowy shirt, and a head guiltless of hair. The other was comparatively young, not many years past my own age, perhaps, and a curious thrill, which I could not myself have explained, passed through me as I looked, through ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York .. packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter color, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name, is often ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to be empowered to bring it to a practical demonstration. His notion was that the earth was not flat, but round. Therefore the quickest route to the extreme East must be in exactly the opposite direction; the globe, he estimated, could not be much over fifteen thousand miles in girth; Cathay, by the land route, was twelve thousand miles or so east of Europe; consequently the distance west could not be more than three thousand. This could be sailed over in a month or two, and the saving in time and trouble would be immense.—Thus did he argue—shoving ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... marry tall women, and your sons of Anak will select wives of fairy-like proportions. But Mrs. Stump was even shorter than her husband, and so plump withal, that a tape measure round her shoulders might have given her the prize for girth. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... was not a human being nor a house to be seen. I had got up before breakfast was ready that morning, and I was quite anxious to see the smoke curling up from some kitchen chimney. Here, as I mounted a hill-side, the saddle-girth broke, and I jumped off to fix it. Somehow, I don't know precisely how, the horse gave a plunge, jerked the reins out of my hands, and started on a dead ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... from the steepest brae in Thrums and hidden by high garden walls, to the top of which another boy's shoulders were, for apple-lovers, but one step up. Jargonelle trees grew against the house, stretching their arms round it as if to measure its girth, and it was also remarkable for several "dumb" windows with the most artful blinds painted on them. Miss Ailie's fruit was famous, but she loved her flowers best, and for long a notice board in her garden said, appealingly: "Persons who come ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... breathed an air sweet with the smell of thyme and lavender and a thousand other scents, an air fraught with memories of sunny days and joyous youth, insomuch that I clenched my hands and hasted from the place. Past sombre trees, mighty of girth and branch, I hurried; past still pools, full of a moony radiance, where lilies floated; past marble fauns and dryads that peeped ghost-like from leafy solitudes; past sundial and carven bench, by clipped yew-hedges and winding walks until, screened in shadow, I paused to look upon a great ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... dead shot' Westerners call the slap-jacks—in silence. While the old man still pondered mazed and dumb, the Ranger dabbled the cups and plates in the River and recinched the pack saddle, the little mule blowing out his sides and groaning to ease the girth, the bronchos wisely eating to the process of reharnessing. The Britisher's reverence for law dies hard. Wayland saw the wrestle and kept silent. A deep low boom rolled dully through the earth in smothered rumblings ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Jackson coolly dismounted from his horse, and unbuckling the girth, proceeded to deposit the saddle, with the valise attached to it, within the hut the door of which ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... he saw the walking bear still drawing nearer, poor Bumpus managed to push his legs under the lower rim of the tightly stretched canvas. Only the lower half of him could find admittance; the balance was of such larger girth that in spite of his frantic labor he could not push under ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... suggestion of respectable Highland clans, was regarded as the only one adequate to describe a camel at this time of year, and was therefore added to our vocabulary. They are noisy, vicious, unaccommodating and aggravating to a degree. A lance-corporal of the Battalion of great girth and tank-like prowess in the football field was always ready to bear bitter testimony to their man-eating proclivities, and no doubt still regards it as a distinct intervention of Providence that he lost no more than the ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... than peasant huts, what is known as the "German stove" is in use. Each stove is built through the wall to heat two rooms, or a room and corridor. The yard porter brings up ten or twelve birch logs, of moderate girth, peels off a little bark to use as kindling, and in ten minutes there is a roaring fire. The door is left open, and the two draught covers from the flues—which resemble the covers of a range in shape and size—are taken out until the wood is reduced ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... was Sunday. Never had he been forced to work on this day. But he meekly suffered the protrusion of a bit between his yellow teeth, and shuddered but slightly when a blanket and then a heavy saddle were flung across his back. True, he looked up in some dismay when the girth was tightened. Not once in all his years had he been saddled. He was used to having things loose ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... foundation, and I call upon you all to beware you give credence to the malicious inventions of this ramshackle slander-mill that has been doing its best to destroy my character for years, and will grind up your own reputations for you next. I got off to tighten my saddle-girth—I wish I may die in my tracks if it isn't so—and whoever wants to believe it can, and whoever don't can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Big Ben, dismounting. The horse which the trapper had secured, though not his own, was almost equal to it in point of size and strength. He eyed it with evident satisfaction as he tightened the girth, saying that if it wasn't for the difference in colour he would have thought it was the old one. The others having also seen to their harness mounted, and the cavalcade advanced at a walking pace into the plain. When they arrived ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... replied Fran Christine laughing: "It's lucky it happened, because I was just going to take a bath!" But it pleased her to have her husband's companionship, and she did not approach her horse until he had examined the saddle-girth and the bridle ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in shadowy column a troop of fifty horse filed slowly from The Sorrels' big corral and headed straight for the Platte. Swift and unfordable in front of Frayne in the earlier summer, the river now went murmuring sleepily over its stony bed, and Ray led boldly down the bank and plunged girth deep into the foaming waters. Five minutes more and every man had lined up safely on the northward bank. In low tone the order was given, starting as Ray ever did, in solid column of fours. In dead silence the little command moved slowly ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... see how much good was in that gold, how large a fund of blessing was hidden in that crock: Reuben Scott gained health, the family were fed, clad, taught; Susan grew in happiness at least as truly as in girth; and Hagglesfield beheld the goodness of that store, whose curse had startled ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Judas muttered, and got to his feet. The man hurried to them. He was broad of shoulder and of girth, the jaw lank and earnest. His eyes were small, and the lids twitched nervously. He was out of breath, and his garments ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... beyond. This Bhabhur is a formation of sand and shingle filled with boulders, largely covered over with soil, which produces abundant herbage in the rainy season, and is thus good grazing ground in the succeeding months. It has a large extent of forest, composed of trees of great girth and magnificent height. The innumerable streams which come down from the hills flow under the Bhabhur, and make their way into the Turai beyond, where the land becomes water-logged, and the main product is long, rank grass, growing to the height of ten or twelve ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... horse in the brown grass, laid his burden down, threw on the saddle, drew the girth with sudden strength and energy, as if for a long and desperate ride. Then resuming his load, tenderly, as if it were a sleeping infant, he vaulted into the saddle and dashed away for the Sierras, that lay before him, and lifted like a city of snowy temples, reared ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... fed. It has by some authors truly been called the whale of the saurian race, for it is as big and quick in its motions as our king of the seas. This one measures not less than a hundred feet in length, and I can form some idea of his girth when I see him lift his prodigious tail out of the waters. His jaw is of awful size and strength, and according to the best-informed naturalists, it does not contain less than a ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... happened often that we saw divers animals, such as lions, stags, goats, wild hogs, rabbits, and other land animals which are not found in islands, but only on the mainland. Going inland one day with twenty men, we saw a serpent which was about twenty-four feet in length, and as large in girth as myself. We were very much afraid of it, and the sight of it caused us to return immediately to the sea. I oftentimes saw many very ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the design of the architect, we shall usually find that he has conformed in some respects to unmeaning traditions inherited from an earlier period, and further that his work incorporates the remnants of an older, simpler structure. Here are pillars of massive girth altogether disproportionate to the delicate arches which they carry; there an old tower has been buttressed to make it capable of supporting a new spire. For all the builder's cunning, we can yet distinguish ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... rubber blankets with brass eyelets set in along the edges? Then imagine a piece of stout canvas, some four and one-half feet in length, with large and heavy brass eyelets running down both edges. The width of this canvas is never the full girth of the human body it is to surround. The width is also irregular—broadest at the shoulders, next broadest at the hips, and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... on Twinkleheels' back, he buckled the saddle girth and slipped on the pony's bridle. Then he led him out of the barn, clutched the basket, the tin pail, and the reins as well in one hand, mounted, and then reached out his other hand for the pole, which he had leaned against the ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... resumed Porthos, "at seeing Mouston get fat; and I did all I could, by means of substantial feeding, to make him stout—always in the hope that he would come to equal myself in girth, and could then ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... recallin' Pa's, an' feelin' weak in the pit of my stomach frum hunger, I answered back, 'Three dozen!' The gal leaped back a step; then she hauled out a bag 'bout the size of a bushel an' begins shovellin' in round, humpy things, most all hole in the centre but considerable sizable as t' girth. I was up t' city ways by then, an' I warn't goin' t' show any surprise if she'd loaded an ister boat full of cakes on me. So I paid up 'thout a word an' went out of the shop shoulderin' the bag. It took ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... had Mistress Nelly on her biscuit-coloured knees to me before I finally reached the cabin floor on my hands, my toes still clinging to the port-hole. Poor Fred could not possibly equal this feat. His girth would not have ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... in every meadow, and coffee-cups without handles, but of great girth, are some of the objects that soon become familiar to strangers who wander in that part of France which was at one time as much part of England as any of the counties of this island. The ants and the coffee-cups certainly give ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... drove in the park, along the "three-mile walk," and in the by-roads leading from it. The beautiful avenue, the open spaces with scattered trees here and there, made this a most delightful excursion. I saw many fine oaks, one about sixteen feet of honest girth, but no one which was very remarkable. I wished I could have compared the handsomest of them with one in Beverly, which I never look at without taking my hat off. This is a young tree, with a future before it, if barbarians ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... waving goldenrods, ever in tune, singing and writing wind-music all their long century lives. Little, however, of this noble tree-waving and tree-music will you see or hear in the strictly alpine portion of the forests. The burly Juniper, whose girth sometimes more than equals its height, is about as rigid as the rocks on which it grows. The slender lash-like sprays of the Dwarf Pine stream out in wavering ripples, but the tallest and slenderest are far too unyielding to wave even in the heaviest gales. They only shake in quick, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... need stick. Poor Slightly, most wretched of all the children now, for he was in a panic about Peter, bitterly regretted what he had done. Madly addicted to the drinking of water when he was hot, he had swelled in consequence to his present girth, and instead of reducing himself to fit his tree he had, unknown to the others, whittled his tree to make ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... musician to cultivate a high standard of physical health. This does not mean the maximum of nourishment, combined with stimulants to compel a jaded appetite: on the contrary, artistic efficiency demands super-cleanliness and a tolerably rigid self-denial. Girth is no measure of artistic ability. But the body, sound or otherwise, is the instrument through which we play life's little tune, just as the pianist plays through his pianoforte. But when we have closed the pianoforte nobody supposes that we have ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... from Prague, or the Amtmann's nephew from a Bavarian Dorf, may manage to "come through" with his pay, the young Englishman cannot. I can neither piece my own overalls, nor forswear stockings, nor can I persuade my stomach that it has had a full meal by tightening my girth-strap three or ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... of Smith's Circus and Menagerie Combination Company. The ground leading up to the front of the canvas was garnished in the usual way. There were two small parasitic tents near the great one, on which primitive pictures hung of the woman of enormous girth and the calf with six legs. A man stood at the flap entrance of each, inviting people to enter and see these wonders of nature for a moderate sum. Near by was the lemonade wagon, whose proprietor was handing out glasses ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... from the ground, take the pummel with the right hand, place the side of the left foot against the girth, the toe between the horse's elbows, bring the back of the right leg on to the top of the saddle, and let yourself down to the full stretch of your right arm; this is very easy at the halt, still ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... even as all the gleaming girth of stars That wreathe the Illimitable beauteously Quench not the vast of night, so do all joys Life strews along her passing to the grave Prevail not o'er the shadow of sure death. And O Humanity, long-suffering Harp Of passion-strings ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... the scene o'er which the Fire King laughed As he his bowl of frantic pleasure quaffed, Whilst the doomed structure tottered in the girth Of his wild, ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... useful number of feet or inches, which he will always be able to recollect, and refer to as a unit of measurement. The distance between the eyes is instantly determined, and, I believe, never varies, while measurements of stature, and certainly those of girth of limb, become very different when a man is exhausted by long travel and bad diet. It is therefore particularly useful for measuring small objects. To find it, hold a stick at arm's-length, at right angles to the line of sight; then, looking past its end to a distant object, shut first ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... rats were sleeping; We would grimly smoke them out, With a dose of lead for keeping And a fence of flame about; They might wake perhaps from shelter, At our bullets' ghastly pelter, To the brief and bloody rout!— But, next moment, we were wrapt Down to saddle girth and leather In the fire of foes unmapt; We were turned, and fairly ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... was a writhing mass of gigantic coils. It was impossible even to guess at its length, but its girth was such that the mound-shaped monsters that had fastened to it could not entirely ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... comedy riveted the attention of the spectators the duke and his followers had slowly ridden to their side of the inclosure. Here hovered the squires, adjusting a stirrup, giving a last turn to a strap, or testing a bridle or girth. Behind stood the heralds, trumpeters and pursuivants in their bright garb of office. At his own solicitation had the duke been assigned an active part in the day's entertainment. The king, fearing for ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... mind: What shall blood and iron loose that we cannot bind? We who swept each other's coast, sacked each other's home, Since the sword of Brennus clashed on the scales at Rome, Listen, court and close again, wheeling girth to girth, In the strained and bloodless guard set for ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... heavy shafts and his duty seems to be largely that of steering the unwieldy conveyance, while the front horse or horses do most of the pulling. The harness is heavy and the rear horse is protected from sores that might be caused by rubbing, by a heavy and well padded saddle and a heavy girth. It was a common sight to see a woman driving one of these carts and guiding the wheel horse and handling the brakes, while boys were either driving or leading the leaders. These strange and cumbersome rigs, ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... great strength of frame and limb; with a countenance extremely winning, not only from the comeliness of its features, but its frankness, manliness, and good nature. His was the bronzed, rich complexion, the inclination towards embonpoint, the athletic girth of chest, which denote redundant health, and mirthful temper, and sanguine blood. Robert, who had lived the life of cities, was a year younger than his brother; nearly as tall, but pale, meagre, stooping, and with ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... surface.' [PLATE XCIII., Fig. 2.] These cloths encircled the neck, which they closely fitted, and, falling on either side of the body, were then kept in place by means of a broad strap round the rump and a girth under ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... girth and shaken his head dubiously over another, lighted a fresh cigarette and gave a little shiver, for the morning air was keen. He discreetly coughed. He had seen Conyngham breakfasting by the light of a dim oil lamp of a shape and make unaltered since the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and, without ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... if he could," insisted John, with a humorous glance at his old friend, who was much too heavy and huge of girth for quick transit over rough ground. John York himself had grown lighter as ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... incident. Another fire was lighted, and whilst Iris attended to the kitchen the sailor felled several young trees. He wanted poles, and these were the right size and shape. He soon cleared a considerable space. The timber was soft and so small in girth that three cuts with the axe usually sufficed. He dragged from the beach the smallest tarpaulin he could find, and propped it against the rock in such manner that it effectually screened the mouth of the cave, though admitting light ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... old enough to be an equerry, and gave the command of his men to an old cripple, with whom he had knocked about a great deal in Palestine and other places. Thus the good man believed he would avoid the horned trappings of cuckoldom, and would still be able to girth, bridle, and curb the factious innocence of his wife, which struggled like a mule held by ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... horses of the expedition. The former were lowing, the latter neighing, in an unusual manner. The two horses which had already visited the imperilled spot, seemed especially impatient of control; and, in the efforts made by Hendrik to restrain him, the girth of his saddle got loose and was broken. As he dismounted for the purpose of repairing it, the horse broke away from him and galloped back towards the pool, uttering its shrill neigh, as if a signal for ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... half of which are peculiar to the country, have been described and classed. Among the most remarkable is the species of Eucalyptus, or gum tree, that forms some of the largest timber yet discovered, having been seen of the height of one hundred and fifty feet, and thirty to forty in girth near the root. The leafless acacias are also found here, as well as the Nepenthes distillatoria and the Cephalotus follicularis, two remarkable varieties of the monkey-cup or pitcher-plant; while many very beautiful ferns and flowering vines adorn the coasts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... trunk, people laid their sick, hoping for help from the gods. Beneath the oak boughs, also, warriors took oaths to be faithful to their lords, women made promises, or wives joined hand in hand around its girth, hoping to have beautiful children. Up among its leafy branches the new babies lay, before they were found in the cradle by the other children. To make a young child grow up to be strong and healthy, mothers drew them through a ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... had a weak voice, stood slouched over and inerect, was troubled with catarrh, and knew too well what it was to have the stomach and bowels work imperfectly. Most people can not inflate the chest so as to increase its girth over two inches. By steady practice at his little pipe, he in about a year got so that he could inflate five whole inches. But now his chest is noticeably round and full, and he is as straight a man as any in a dozen. His weak voice has gone; indeed, he says he has the strongest ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... establishment greeted them with wheezy cordiality, apportioned to them stable-room and guaranteed especial care of their horses. In appearance that worthy would have made a passable understudy for the elder Weller, being red-faced, generous of girth and short of breath. In addition to his regular calling he filled—or was supposed to fill—the office of "town constable" and pound-keeper. A sort of village "Dogberry." Incidentally it might be mentioned that he also could have laid claim to be a "wictim ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... will sure befall thee, Danger, slaughterous fire— Thou shalt on a charger gallop, Curbing at desire; And a saddle girth all silken Sadly I will sew, Slumber now my wide-eyed darling, ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... went on and on, with the trees seeming to get taller and taller, and of mightier girth. Now and then we caught a glimpse of the blue sky, but only seldom, the dense ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... in less than that time, what's left o' us won't be worth seekin' for," said Joe, tightening the girth of ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... coated and scaly with rust to such an extent, that we were unable to form any idea as to its age or nationality. It would most probably have been a twelve or eighteen-pounder howitzer, for it was about four feet in length, and disproportionately large in girth; but one of the trunnions, and the button at the breech, were broken off, the portion that had lain undermost had entirely disappeared, and the remainder was so honeycombed, that beyond ascertaining that it was a piece of ordnance, we could elicit ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... prominent stockjobber. Handicapped by the frame of a Falstaff, he happily harbours within his girth a susceptibility to panic, which, when appropriately stimulated, more than compensates for his excess of bulk. The distance fixed was from the Green Man to the station, a five-furlong scamper; the start to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... sunlight, penetrating the deep shade, warmed the somberness of the grove. Alluring paths led off among the trees and into cozy nooks made by circles of red columns growing around the dust of vanished ancestors—witnessing the titantic dimensions of those ancestors by the girth of the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... workaday use. In this he trundled his produce to town once or twice a year. For pleasure there was the celeche and the carriole. The celeche was a quaint two-wheeled vehicle with its seat set high in the air on springs of generous girth; the carriole, a low-set sleigh on solid wooden runners, with a high back to give protection from the cold. Both are still used in various parts of Quebec to-day. The habitant made his own harness, often decorating it gaily and taking great pride in ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... noble forests of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, and among them trees which are the wonder of the world. As I stood in their shade, in the groves of Mariposa and Calaveras, and again under the canopy of the commoner redwood, raised on columns of such majestic height and ample girth, it occurred to me that I could not do better than to share with you, upon this occasion, some of the thoughts which possessed my mind. In their development they may, perhaps, lead us up to ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... end of that time she and the mother began, as with a common impulse, to talk. And at the end of five minutes more they had told each other where they were going, where they had been, what their husbands were, the number, age, and girth of their children, and all the adjectives that might most conveniently be used to describe their servants. The adjectives, very lurid ones, took some time. Priscilla shut her eyes while they were going on, thankful to be ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... message from Tyrone, who desired a conference; and a plain near the two camps was appointed for this purpose. The two generals met without any attendants. A river ran between them, into which Tyrone entered to his saddle-girth, but Essex stood ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... by the glare of twenty torches, startled the echoes with infernal clangor. Screaming and huddling together, some fled under the wide skirts of sable, which Darkness, climbing to the roof in fear, drew up after her; some hid with lesser shadows between columns of great girth, or in the remotest murky niches, or down in the black profound of resounding chasms; some, bewildered or quite blinded by the flashes of the co-eternal beam, dashed themselves against the stony walls, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... short distance from Rome—nemus signifying a grove. Julius Caesar had a residence there. See his Life, c. lxxi. The venerable woods are still standing, and among them chestnut-trees, which, from their enormous girth and vast apparent age, we may suppose to have survived from the era of the Caesars. The melancholy and sequestered lake of Nemi, deep set in a hollow of the surrounding woods, with the village on its brink, still ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... set to work; and as we had no axe, we were compelled to break off by main strength, having first deeply notched them with our knives, as many small palms of equal girth as we could collect. We then had to cut up a number into short lengths, to serve as crosspieces. Having collected our materials, we set to work to bind them together with thin sepos. The raft, though rather rough, was ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... assumed a deadly hue, And all the rose to one small spot withdrew, They call'd it hectic; 'twas a fiery flush, More fix'd and deeper than the maiden blush; His paler lips the pearly teeth disclosed, And lab'ring lungs the length'ning speech opposed. No more his span-girth shanks and quiv'ring thighs Upheld a body of the smaller size; But down he sank upon his dying bed, And gloomy crotchets fill'd his wandering head. 'Spite of my faith, all-saving faith,' he cried, 'I fear of worldly works the wicked pride; Poor as I am, degraded, abject, blind, ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... the hair should vanish from my brow, My girth, in time, to great dimensions grow— If youth's sweet-scented "Buds" should pass me by, Accounting me ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... and the whole earth Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;— And then he thought ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as 80 before, He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like bolt from bow. Up starts our plundered man; from his breast though the heart be ripped, Yet his mind has the mastery. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... struggle for existence was published here in plain figures, but it was not, as in our climate, a struggle against climate mainly, but an internecine war from over population. Now and again we passed among vast stems of buttressed trees, sometimes enormous in girth; and from their far-away summits hung great bush- ropes, some as straight as plumb lines, others coiled round, and intertwined among each other, until one could fancy one was looking on some mighty battle between armies of gigantic serpents, that had been arrested at its ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... stockings in the coolest room in the house,—a bedroom with a northern exposure. A white shirt-waist gave a puffy look to a body that could ill endure such appearance of enlargement, and a black belt accentuated the amplitude of girth that it encircled. The good lady sat in an armless rocking-chair, or rather on it, for she was by no means contained therein, but bulged over and beyond at all points. Her feet, shod in heelless black slippers, above which ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... to the dwelling of Hell? What Elf that hath heard the gold growing, but hath heard not the light winds tell That the Gods with the world have been dealing and have fashioned men for the earth? Where is he that hath ridden the cloud-horse and measured the ocean's girth, But seen nought of the building of God-home nor the forging of the sword: Where then is the maker of nothing, the earless and eyeless lord? In the pouch of my net he lieth, with his head on the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four feet eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the outer, being five inches in girth about the middle, where, however, it is strengthened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten inches long, firmly secured by treenails of the same material. At each end of the bow is a knob of bone, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... three-footed bird, which perches on the fu-sang tree [a tree said to grow at the place where the sun rises] in the middle of the Eastern Sea. This tree is several thousands of feet in height and of gigantic girth. The bird keeps near the source of the dawn, and when it sees the sun taking his morning bath gives vent to a cry that shakes the heavens and wakes up all humanity. That is why I ordered Ling Chen-tzu to put it in a cage ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... to me the Odyssey of his terrible night. As he told me the story he pointed to his big leg: "They were as thick as that, Madame. Yes, like that——" And he quaked with fear as he recalled the dreadful girth of the reptiles. I thought that they were about one quarter as thick as his leg, and that would have been enough to justify his fright, for the serpents in question were not inoffensive water-snakes that bite out of pure viciousness, but ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... in such tragic hours Venice keeps up her old tradition of light-heartedness. The cafes round the great piazza are full in the evenings with a cheerful crowd. Moreover, to go into St. Mark's is to enter a sort of neolithic grotto; the pillars, set about with sand-bags, have the girth of the arcades of a Babylonian temple; bulging poultices of sacks protect each fresco; as a building it reminds one of a German student padded for a duel. The Doge's Palace, too, is more hidden with scaffolding ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... that contain the roots of the tusks. I have measured certainly a hundred bull tusks, and I have found them buried in the head a depth of 24 inches. One large tusk, that measured 7 ft. 8 in. in length, and 22 inches in girth, was imbedded in the head a depth of 31 inches. This will convey an idea of the enormous size of the head, and of the strength of bone and cartilage required to hold in position so great a weight, and to resist the strain when the ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... interior becomes more active. The inhabitants of Chili are very dexterous in using the laqui, which they constantly carry with them on their excursions. It consists of a strap of leather several fathoms in length, twisted like a cord, one end of which is fastened to the girth under the horses belly, and the other end terminates in a strong noose, which they throw over any animal they wish to catch with so much dexterity as hardly ever to miss their aim[106]. It is used likewise on foot, in which case one end is fixed to the girdle. The peasants of Chili employed this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... kitchen which penetrated the room seemed especially grateful to the manager who smiled with satisfaction as he conjured up visions of the forthcoming repast. By his Falstaffian girth, he appeared a man not averse to good living, nor one to deny himself plentiful libations of American ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... crest to heel Snow-white have no speck; No curb, no bit her mouth must feel, No tightening rein her neck; No saddle-girth drawn with buckle of steel Shall her mighty ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... was lying there, poring upon that streamlet, that a thought came into my head: for I said to myself: 'If now I be here alone, alone, alone... alone, alone... one on the earth... and my girth have a spread of 25,000 miles... what will happen to my mind? Into what kind of creature shall I writhe and change? I may live two years so! What will have happened then? I may live five years—ten! What will have happened after the five? the ten? I ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... saddling, under any other circumstances, would have brought forth Bill's most scathing contempt. The saddle was set awry upon an ill-folded blanket. It was so far back from the mare's withers that the twisted double cinchas were somewhere under her belly, instead of her girth. Then the bit was reversed in her mouth, and the curb-strap was ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... fowling, and I was more for horses—before I increased so much in girth. Is it for ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Tod's retreating figure for a moment, and bending again over Archie's corpse, stood gazing at the dead face, his hands folded across his girth—as one does when watching a body being slowly lowered ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and our friend (he is a man of girth and with a brow bearing all the candor of a life of intense thought) ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... because of the ragged snowy thatch of the eyebrows the affability of his attention acquired the character of a dark and searching scrutiny. With age he had put on flesh a little, had increased his girth like an old tree presenting no symptoms of decay; and even the opulent, lustrous ripple of white hairs upon his chest seemed an attribute ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... everlastin' road For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load. O the oont, O the oont, O the commissariat oont! With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes; We packs 'im like an idol, an' you ought to 'ear 'im grunt, An' when we gets 'im loaded up 'is blessed girth-rope breaks. ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... who had probably got some of your marks about him, Harry. They got to the postern gate before we could overtake them, and rang the sanctuary bell; the gate opened, and in went they. So they are safe in girth and sanctuary, and we may go to our ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... road with its border of silver stems and the spreading tent-roof of golden green. These stems were so obviously like the pillars of a church that Silvestro ventured to remark as much to her neighbour—a broad-faced, thick fellow, not quite her own height, but twice as big in the girth. His mouth was large, his eyes were small and rather hot. He blinked a good deal, was very sulky, and met her advances with a grunt. "Chi lo sa?" was as far as he would go along with her in the matter ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... broad and his head massive. A short-cut beard concealed his chin, but his mouth was of iron and his eyes were hard and keen. He was of no more than the average stature by reason of his breadth and girth; he seemed even to fall short of it, which was not however the case. A man not easily led or controlled, a man of passions and prejudices, emphatically not a man to be trifled with ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... confess to herself that she had never seen a grander specimen of the natural man than that presented by the chief of the People of the Mist, as he stood before her in her rock prison. The light of the candles fell full upon him, revealing his great girth and stature, beside which those of the finest men of her own race would have seemed insignificant. It shone upon the ivory torques, emblems of royalty, which were about his neck, wrists, and ankles, upon the glossy garments of black goat-skin that hung from his shoulders and middle, and the raven ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... would go in style on the back of "Chestnut Bess." He wanted to show his Uncle Henry and the others what the "little runt" was capable of accomplishing as an equestrian. Accordingly, he placed a good strong bridle upon the mare's head, gave an extra pull at the saddle-girth to assure himself there was no possibility of that failing him, and, taking a hoe, which he wished to use in his work on the farm, in his right hand, he led the mare quietly down the path, out through the gate, and into ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... this protest I have little but praise for the performance itself, though I think Sir HERBERT TREE'S own lethargy was not wholly to be excused by the hampering rotundity of his girth; and that all this deliberate sword-play, where you wait till your enemy has got his right guard before you arrange a concussion between your weapon and his, fails to impose itself as an image of War. But it was no fault of the actors if we suffered a further ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... such as becomes an amateur photographer who loves his calling. "Never have I set eyes on such a majestic king of the woods. I'm sure it will make a splendid picture with you standing alongside, Steve, just to show its enormous girth. The pity of it is that I can't dream of trying to get the whole tree in the picture, for no camera could do that in these dense woods, where you can't get far away from ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... last clouds scattered, drenched in orange and rose, and flames burned in the glass of every window-pane. Up came the tip of the sun's rim, grew to a fiery quarter, to a half; till, bounding free from the horizon, it began to mount and to lose its girth in the ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Cook's crews, the harbor was as a fairy-land. Snow still covered the mountain tops; but a tangled forest of dank growth with roots awash in the ripple of the sea, stretched down the hillsides. Red cedar, spruce, fir,—of enormous growth, broader in girth than a cart and {188} wagon in length,—cypress with twisted and gnarled knots red against the rank green; mosses swinging from branch to branch in snaky coils wherever the clouds settled and rested; islands studding the sea like ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... of the south country, Now shall we go our kin to see! For the lambs are bleating in the south, And the salmon swims towards Olfus mouth. Girth and graithe and gather your gear! And ho ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... wagon with a four-horse team might be on one side, and quite concealed from any one standing upon the other. When I knew it, it was a ruin, the great trunk a mere shell, though the two giant forks,—themselves immense in girth—still had life in them. In one side of the trunk was an opening, about as large as an ordinary door; through this we used to enter, and I have danced a quadrille of eight within with ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... in this case the shells were more or less cracked and broken; and they had considered it simpler, therefore, to bury the entire snail; and had further contrived, in order that circulation in the entrance-hall might not be impeded, a number of galleries exactly proportionate, not to their own girth, but to that of the males, which are almost twice as large as themselves. Does not this instance, and the one that follows, warrant our believing that they would in time discover the cause of the queen's inability to follow them through ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... broken up by heating to facilitate their removal from the mine, and possibly may have been again broken, with the hope of finding copper in them. In the midst of the pile I noticed several stone hammers, or mauls, some of them measuring twenty inches in girth around their grooves, and one I brought away weighing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... was written, I have had opportunity of seeing a Ryu-ja within a few hours after its capture. It was between two and three feet long, and about one inch in diameter at its thickest girth The upper part of the body was a very dark brown, and the belly yellowish white; toward the tail there were some beautiful yellowish mottlings. The body was not cylindrical, but curiously four-sided—like those elaborately woven whip-lashes which have four edges. The tail was flat and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... men consists of a narrow piece of cloth, about three yards long. This they wrap twice round their waist, then passing it between their legs, and through the girth behind, leave the end of it to drag after them[6]. The women wear a piece of cloth, commonly of a blue colour, about a foot wide, fastened round their waist, so as to hang down like an apron, reaching not quite to their knees. They pride themselves upon their fine skin, which ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... beneath a summer moon All swollen to uncanny girth, And hanging, like the sun at noon, Above the center of the earth; But with a sad and sallow light, As it had sickened of the night And fallen in a pallid swoon. Around me I could hear the rush Of sullen winds, and feel the whir Of unseen wings apast ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... came a moment later as he passed the first of the company buildings. There he heard his name pronounced in a voice which halted him, and in an open doorway he beheld a huge, loose- hung man of tremendous girth, with a war-bag in his hand and a wide black hat thrust back ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... his complexion verges upon olive, with patches of violent red in the cheeks, and pure yellow towards the temples and around the eyes. His abundant hair is a dense black, intermingled with threads of silver; it is an astonishing head of hair. In spite of the amplitude of his dressing-gown, his girth appears enormous." And, further on, he gives us this second sketch: "but at the age of forty-nine M. de Balzac ought to be painted rather than sculptured. His keen black eyes, his powerful growth of hair intermingled with ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... to the shore. The paddle the fishermen use is a sort of mongrel between a spade and a shovel. The fact of there being no boats of any size here, must be attributed to the want of material for constructing them. On the route from Kaze there are no trees of any girth, save the calabash, the wood of which is too soft for boat-building. I hear that the island of Ukerewe has two sultans besides Machunda, and that it is very fertile and populous. Mahaya says, "All the tribes, from the Wasukuma ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Chittim), was probably a species of cypress at that time composing the forests which ornamented a considerable portion of the surface. There are two varieties of cypress in the island: that which would have been celebrated grows upon the high mountains, and attains a girth of from seven to nine feet, the wood being highly aromatic, emitting a perfume resembling a mixture of sandal-wood and cedar; the other cypress is a dwarf variety that seldom exceeds twenty feet in height, with a maximum circumference of two feet; this is a totally different wood, and is intensely ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... found guilty, and four days after the murder, on the 5th of July, was taken to the Girth Cross of Holyrood, at the foot of the Canongate, and there decapitated by that machine which rather anticipated the inventiveness of Dr Guillotin—"the Maiden.'' At the same time, four o'clock in the morning, Janet Murdo, the nurse, and one of the serving-women accused with her as accomplices ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... far if one might cross the island; but to go by the west shore, which would be safest, perhaps, in time of war, that is the greater part of the island's girth." ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... an American man to Larut, and he was six foot three, or it may have been four, in his stockings. He came on business from Sacramento, but he stayed for pleasure wi' the Lang Men o' Larut. Less than, a half o' the population were ordinar' in their girth and stature, ye will understand—Howson and Nailor, merchants, five feet nine or thereabouts. He had business with those two, and he stood above them from the six feet threedom o' his height till they went to drink. In the course o' conversation he said, as tall men will, things about his height, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... south, the easternmost point of it south south-east half east, and the south point of Norfolk Isle north-east. The pine trees on this island are of an immense size, measuring from twenty to twenty-seven and even thirty feet in girth, and so tall that it was not easy to form any exact judgment of their height. This place affords vast numbers of cabbage trees, and amazing quantities of fish may be procured on the banks that lie on the west side of the small island; those they got on board the Supply were of the snapper ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... bushels of potatoes were grown on the farm, and in 1847 not enough were grown to supply the table. In addition to the great failure in these two staple crops, at that time the price of beef, pork and butter went down to a very low point. A pair of oxen that would girth from six to six and a half feet could be bought for forty-five or fifty dollars. Pork went down to 4 and 4 1/2 cents per lb., and butter to 12 1/2 cents, or a York shilling. In one of the best settlements in Nova Scotia a majority of the farms were ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... this wholesome evil as shall carry me to a hundred. The next point of consequence is, that the Duke of Cumberland has had a stroke of the palsy— As his courage is at least equal to mine, he makes nothing of it; but being above an inch more in the girth than I am, he is not Yet arrived at skipping about the house. In truth, his case is melancholy: the humours that have fallen upon the wound in his leg have kept him lately from all exercise-. as he used much, and is so corpulent, this must have bad consequences. Can one but pity him? A hero, reduced ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... to him that there ought to be some way of managing it. And in a moment he got the idea. Schmidt was as tired as his horse, or even more so, and by this time he was swaying in his saddle and half asleep, as a trained horseman often does. Fred leaned forward and very quietly cut the saddle girth almost through. He knew that the slightest strain would finish the work. Schmidt was utterly unconscious of what was going on. Fred could tell, from the man's breathing, just what his condition was. He would snore a little and ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... operator of Winesburg, was the ugliest thing in town. His girth was immense, his neck thin, his legs feeble. He was dirty. Everything about him was unclean. Even the whites of his eyes ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... with thick brushwood. Just as the horsemen were about to ford the river, a hare, startled by the sound of the horses' hoofs, started up from the grass and ran towards the thicket. The young Prince pursued the little creature, and had almost overtaken it, when the girth of his saddle suddenly broke in two and he fell heavily to the ground. No sooner had his foot touched the earth than he disappeared before the eyes of ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... touching lightly now and then on his neck—that thrill of generous sympathy which passes between horse and rider. He lost ground steadily and more and more rapidly. Now the outstretched black head was at his tail, now at his flank, now at his girth, now at his shoulder, now they raced nose and nose. Whistling Dan shifted in the saddle. His left foot took the opposite stirrup. ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... as to what's best to be done, an' I've got a noo dress by the firm of Denayrouze, with a speakin'-apparatus, which'll fit you. I got it for myself, and we're much about a size—barrin' the waist, in which I have the advantage of you as to girth. Their noo pump and lamp, too, will interest you. See, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... heard. He was watching Utirupa, who stood by the pony-line where a sais was doing something to a saddle girth. A rangar came up to the prince and spoke to him—a slim, young-looking man, a head the shorter of the two, with a turban rather low over his eyes, and the loose end of it, for some reason, across the lower half of his face. Dick nudged Tess, and she nodded. After that Utirupa appeared ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... heard, such as a man would address to a fidgety horse which declined to have its saddle-girth tightened. The men were laughing and chatting, too, until a stern order rang out, one which was followed by the trampling of horses—so many that the sergeant turned and gave a significant glance ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... me laugh to hear people talk about losing flesh—unless, of course, the decrease in weight is due to illness. No healthy person, predisposed to fat, ever lost any flesh. If that person gets rid of any weight, or girth, or fat, it isn't lost—it is fought off, beaten off. The victim struggles with it, goes to the mat with it, and does not debonairly drop it. He eliminates it with stern effort and much travail of the spirit. It is a job of work, a grueling ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... side, over hidden shale rock and through clumps of bushes that snatched at her clothing like a witch's bony fingers. She had no more than reached the top when Jack stepped out from behind a pine tree as wide of girth as a hogshead. Marion gave a little scream, and then laughed. After that she ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... psalm-singer was right; for if my memory serves me, he said words to that effect. A few handfuls of dust will hide the stains. Now we may jog upon our way without any fear of being called upon to answer for another man's sins. Let me but get my girth tightened and we may soon be out of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their onrush like two bodies hurled from catapults; they struck and grappled and fell and rolled together, one now as they strove, locked in the embrace of death. An embrace in which Brodie's was the greater weight, the greater girth, the greater strength—and Mark King's the greater ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... river there grow vast quantities of great canes, some of which are a foot or a foot and a half (in girth), and these the natives ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... later, while studying a series of German lithographs in the coffee-room, I heard a heavy footstep in the passage and a knock at the door; and Mr. Job appeared, a giant of a man, with a giant's girth and red cheeks, which he sufflated as a ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
