"Instep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... terribly well nosed for drinking at the barrel-head; Who begat Artachaeus, Who begat Oromedon, Who begat Gemmagog, the first inventor of Poulan shoes, which are open on the foot and tied over the instep with a lachet; Who begat Sisyphus, Who begat the Titans, of whom Hercules was born; Who begat Enay, the most skilful man that ever was in matter of taking the little worms (called cirons) out of the hands; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... turned up at the sides, extended in a point far over the forehead. His hose—under which appellation is to be understood what serves us of the modern day both for stockings and pantaloons—were of white cloth; and his shoes, very narrow, were curiously carved into chequer work at the instep, and tied with bobbins of gold thread, turning up like skates at the extremity, three inches in length. His dagger was suspended by a slight silver-gilt chain, and his girdle contained a large gipsire, or pouch, of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Daisy was not faultless. She had a wild little will of her own—none the worse for that, however. She could put her foot down—and a sweet little foot it was!—a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot—high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot!—But I daren't trust ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of her person were as light and buoyant as at all comported with the fullness that properly belonged to her years. The limbs, seen below the folds of a short kirtle of bright scarlet cloth, were just and tapering, even to the nicest proportions of classic beauty; and never did foot of higher instep, and softer roundness, grace a feathered moccason. Though the person, from the neck to the knees, was hid by a tightly-fitting vest of calico and the short kirtle named, enough of the shape was visible to betray outlines that had never been injured, either by the mistaken devices ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... drawing-room had just struck eight, and already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white bearskin hearthrug. So slim and long were they, of instep so nobly arched, that only with a pair of glazed ox-tongues on a breakfast-table were they comparable. Incomparable quite, the figure and face and vesture of him who ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... "par." The game starts with the back at a given distance from the line. After each player has "overed," the back places one foot with the outer edge on the line on which he has been standing, puts the heel of the other foot against the instep so that the second foot will be at right angles to the first, and marks a new line at the point where the toes come. The new line is thus the length of one foot in advance of the first line, plus the width ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of fishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... legs are never tired. It is my poor back." Whereupon she slowly, gracefully straightened out one of her legs, and without changing the position of her body, raised it, with toes and instep on a perfect line, until the heel was some three feet from the floor. Then she swung it slowly backward, twisting her body sinuously to one side. A moment later the foot was stretched out behind her and she lifted herself steadily, without apparent exertion, upon the other knee,—and then stood ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... jam, in their go-to-meetin' clothes, a-doin' nothin'. It's melancholy to think on it. That's the effect of the last war. The idleness and extravagance of those times took root, and bore fruit abundantly, and now the young people are above their business. They are too high in the instep, that's a fact. ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... off. Tiny, slim, delicately chiseled, her feet were of a china whiteness, except where, at the tips, the toes showed a rose-flush or where, over the instep, the veins meandered ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... had collected her senses and was behaving splendidly. While Graves fetched a lantern and water she sat down on the porch, her back against the house, and undid her garter, so that I could pull the stocking off her bitten foot. Her instep, into which Bo's venomous teeth had sunk, was already swollen and discolored. I slashed the teeth-marks this way and that with my lancet. And Mrs. Graves kept saying: "All right—all right—don't mind ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... thrust past me, so that now I found myself no further back than the fourth rank, and at the very foot of the earthwork, up the which our leaders were flung like a wave; and soon I was scrambling after them, ankle deep in the sandy earth, the man with the wen just ahead, grinding my instep with his heel and poking his pike staff between my knees as ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... embroidered with black and gold designs round the neck and down the front, lapped round her and held together by a broad belt of the same material. Her slippers were of the same colour, with black bows at the instep. The white stairs, the deep crimson of the carpet, and the light blue of the dress made an effective combination of colour to set off the delicate carnation of that face, which, after the first glance given to the whole person, drew irresistibly your gaze to itself by an indefinable quality of ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... Ford was trying to forget that a gallon of whisky stood in the right-hand corner of his closet, behind a pair of half-worn riding-boots that pinched his instep so that he seldom wore them, and that he had only to take the jug out from behind the boots, pull the cork, and lift the jug ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was particularly pleasant. But her brother could not recover himself. He still remembered their desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of the Pem eating into his instep. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... my boots—a pair of Russia leather, and his face seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he said: ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... said nothing. He stared before him at Michael's foot, thrust out and tilted by the crossing of his knees. Michael's foot, with its long, arched instep, fascinated Anthony. He seemed to be thinking: "If I look at it long enough I may ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... and white cross striped braid. The moccasins, also, are made of buckskin, of either a yellow or dark red color. They are made to lace high about the lower part of the leg, the lacing running from below the instep upward. As showing what changes are going on among the Seminole, I may mention that a few of them possess shoes, and one is even the owner of a pair of frontier store boots. The blanket is not often worn by the Florida Indians. Occasionally, in their cool weather, a small shawl, of ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... middle of the floor, cocked my gun, set the muzzle against my left instep, and pulled the trigger. The shot passed through the middle of the foot and pierced the floor. Asop gave a short ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... As soon as the little maid was able to hold a needle she was taught to knit, and at the age of four or five commonly made excellent mittens and stockings. A girl of fourteen made in 1760 a pair of silk stockings with open work design and with initials knitted on the instep, and every stage of the work from the raising and winding of the silk to the designing and spinning was done by one so young. Girls began to make samplers almost before they could read their letters, and wonderful were the birds and animals and scenes depicted in embroidery by mere children. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... particular stress on the necessity of riding boots having thin pliable soles, and being easy over the instep; because I once saw a lady dragged by her stirrup and only saved from death by her boot coming off and thus releasing her. I do not think that sufficient attention is paid either by ladies or bootmakers to the fact that a loose riding boot may be the means of saving its ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... his hands behind his ears that he might hear the better. The emir paid no attention at all. On his head was a conical turban; about it were loops of sapphire and coils of pearl. He wore a vest with scant sleeves that reached to the knuckles, and trousers that overhung the instep and fell in wide wrinkles on his feet; both were of leopard-skin. Over the vest was a sleeveless tunic, clasped at the shoulders and girt at the waist. His hair was long, plentifully oiled; his beard was bushy, blue-black, and specked ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... catch him," said Beetle, cross-legged on the floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton's instep. "Don't I ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... teeth white and small; her breasts so firm that they bore up the folds of her bodice as they had been two apples; so slim she was in the waist that your two hands might have clipped her, and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tip- toe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Biaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... upon the scene and hide it two feet deep for months. He looks upon this, then upon the one he left behind. This looks full of luxuriant life, as green as his in May. It has three months' start of his dead and buried crop. He walks across it; his shoes sink almost to the instep in the soft soil. He sees birds hopping about in it without overcoats. Surely, he says to himself, this is a favored land. Here it lies on the latitudes of Labrador, and yet its midwinter fields are as green as ours in the last month of Spring. At this rate the farmers here ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... obeisance to the Duchess, and said, "You give me courage to speak, my noble, worthy lady. I must tell you, that if this ungodly young woman is my daughter, I shall know her by a violet mark between her shoulders, and another on the left instep. If she would but come with me into ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... one of her little white-stockinged feet over the other. She had on the neatest of sandals, with black ribbons, which crossed over the instep. It was one of Zachariah's weak points, she considered, that he did not seem to care sufficiently for cleanliness, and when he came in he would sometimes put his black hand, before he had washed, on the white tea-cloth, or on the back of a chair, and leave behind him a ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... jumping and went down on her knees in the snow to straighten them out for him. Eric's fingers were awkward with knots, and besides, now, they were numb with the cold. But Ivra had everything right in a minute. She crossed the strings over his instep and tied them snugly above his ankle almost before he could think. Then they ran on. In starlit spaces Eric caught glimpses of hurrying figures, so swift and light he could not tell whether they walked or flew. Their cloaks sparkled ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... when she sees everything new about her she will feel a stranger there, and think you better looking than you are, and be angelically sweet.—Oh! madame has not her match, and you may boast of having done a very good stroke of business: a good heart, genteel manners, a fine instep—and a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... "They wuz dretful ornamental to the foot, specially to the instep, and she shouldn't ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... me and, holding his lantern over the area, peered down and saw the broken flower-pot. I knew lying was more than useless and, as the truth had always served me well, I said, giving my father's servant, who looked sleepy, a heavy kick on the instep: ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... been excluded, remained on her memory only as a disagreeable dream. She imbibed her new monitor's ideas of simplicity of dress, assimilating her own with that of the peasant-girls in the neighbourhood: the black hat, the blue gown, the black stockings, the shoes, tied on the instep. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... slave! That to a Yorke, and from a Yorke! This fellow," he added, standing up at the table, and pointing across it to Matthew—"this fellow forgets, what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of our house have that arched instep under which water can flow—proof that there has not been a slave of the blood for three ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... one, then, and rustle for once, if I die for it!" cried Mollie recklessly. "And the boots shall be thin, not thick, with a nice, curved sole to show off my patrician instep. If I have to content myself with usefuls, they shall be as ornamental as possible. Don't you think we might possibly squeeze out net over-skirts to wear with the black silks, sometimes, so as to make them look like two dresses instead ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... haughtiness about her that contrasts curiously but pleasantly with her youthful expression and laughing, kissable mouth. She is straight and lissome as a young ash tree; her hands and feet are small and well-shaped; in a word, she is chic from the crown of her fair head down to her little arched instep... ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... had been added to the number of spectators. This was a young man, dressed in the height of the fashion, that is to say, in a be-frogged and be-laced frock coat with a standing collar, a pair of cossack pantaloons tapering down to the foot with a notch cut in the front for the instep, and a hat about twice as large at the crown as at the rim, much resembling in shape an inverted sugar-loaf, with the smaller end cut away. He had a reckless, dare-devil, good humored look, and very much the air of what is called "a young man about town;" that is, one who ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... flowers, especially of lilies. And the throne is richly adorned with gold and precious stones, and with ebony and ivory. And there are imitations of animals painted on it, and models worked on it. There are four Victories like dancers, one at each foot of the throne, and two also at the instep of each foot; and at each of the front feet are Theban boys carried off by Sphinxes, and below the Sphinxes, Apollo and Artemis shooting down the children of Niobe. And between the feet of the throne are four divisions formed by ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... know which was almost death in itself, and yet for the knowledge of which he would have undergone endless torture. He would have forfeited anything, anything, rather than forego his right even to the instep of her foot, and the place from which the toes radiated out, the little, miraculous white plain from which ran the little hillocks of the toes, and the folded, dimpling hollows between the toes. He felt he would have died rather ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... my instep, my toes, the sole of my foot, the ball, the hollow, the heel, my toe joints, and my toe nails, ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... water, and Margot's face at the hut window was white, and her wool dress white, too. She came down and they rowed out into the fog, in an upward circle because of the stream. Fanny could just see her companion's little blunt boots, the stretched laces across her instep, and above, her pretty face and slant eyes. Hurriedly, in the boat she pulled off the thick stockings, rolled them up, and drew on the silk. A chill struck her feet. She wrapped the ends of her coat lightly round ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... applied leeches to the instep for inflammation occasioned by a bruise. Several very irritable sores were produced with some swelling. I applied the lunar caustic to ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom
... of a hand upon it was torment, I think it had gone hard with me if Rovigo had stood another half-league away. I shall not readily forget the noble charity of one of those boys, who, seeing the inflammation set up by the thorn in my foot, ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and bound it round the instep—my first experience of the magnanimity of the poor, but by no means ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... were protected by sandals, kept in place by ropes or ribbons, passing between the big toe and the next, and between the third and fourth, then brought up so as to encircle the ankles. They were tied in front, forming a bow on the instep. Some wore leggings, others garters and anklets made of feathers, generally yellow; sometimes, however, they may have been of gold. Their head gears were of different kinds, according to their rank and dignity. Warriors ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... you a bad wound, too," said Mr Rawlings, who by this time had managed to take off Seth's boot and disclose the extent of the injury, a pretty deep cut right across the instep, which would probably lame the ex-mate for life, as far as he ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... take one of the charming feet so close to him into one of his hands, and strokes the instep softly with ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... endurance of any but Kamchatkan horses. Finally, in attempting to leap a distance of eight or ten feet across the torrent, I was thrown violently from the saddle, and my left foot caught firmly, just above the instep, in the small iron stirrup. The horse scrambled up the other side and started at a frightened gallop up the ravine, dragging my body over the ground by one leg. I remember making a desperate effort to protect my head, by raising myself upon my elbows, but the horse kicked me suddenly ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... A spaniel was frightened with something on the bed, and fell from it, and cried very much. The instep, or wrist, of the right leg, before was evidently bowed, and there was considerable heat and tenderness. It was well fomented on the two following days, and then set, and adhesive plaster was tightly applied, and a splint bound ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... and adopted the same plan. One of the number, not trusting to his memory, hit upon the singular expedient of writing the whole of his piece and the next on a piece of paper, and wafering it to the instep of his shoe when he went up to his class. Unhappily for his scheme, he was so placed that he dared not expose his foot so as to allow him to avail himself of this delectable assistance, and consequently, after much looking on the floor for ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... sham, buttons, as I used to think, out of swagger; but every button demanded entrance into a practicable button hole. Or the boots themselves were mere shoes with many buttoned spats drawn over them. All the boots had high heels and the woman walked so as to put a severe strain on her arched instep in order that she might bring on by degrees "flat foot" ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... cotton bestowed unevenly in unexpected places. It lay open on his dusky breast, and fell unconfined over full trousers of home-made dark blue linen striped with red, like the gussets under the arms of his white shirt. The trousers were tucked into high boots, slightly wrinkled at the instep, with an inset of pebbled horsehide, frosted green in hue, at the heels. This green leather was a part of their religion, the Tatars told me, but what part they would not reveal. As the soles were soft, like socks, he wore over his boots ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... rounded a clump of laurels to see the lady in question comfortably ensconced in a deck-chair upon the lawn. By her side was Jill, seated upon a cushion, one little foot tucked under her, nursing the other's instep with her slim, brown hand. On a rug at her feet lay Jonah, his chin propped between his two palms and a pipe in ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... bad cut. Sam and Willis Murch had been splitting four-foot logs, when Sam's axe, glancing from a log, had buried the blade in his instep; the very bones were cut. There were four of us boys at work together. We ran to him, tied a handkerchief round his ankle, and twisted it tight with a stick; but blood flowed profusely. We did not know how to apply ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... They are seated on a carpet, or, what is better, the floor of the play-room, and undergo the operation of "trussing." This is performed as follows:—The hands are first tied with a handkerchief at the wrists. The ancles are tied in the same manner. The Cock then has his hands brought to his instep, while his knees pass between his arms, and a short stick is thrust in under the knees and over the joints of the elbow, and secured in this situation. The fight now begins by each Cock advancing towards his enemy, and when they come close to each ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... five inches over six feet in his flat sandals but it was only in his unusual height and his enormous strength that he showed the blood of his Jovian father. His feet were small and shapely with a high-arched instep and his whole form was graceful and symmetrical. Crisply curling yellow hair surmounted a head which Praxiteles would have reveled in as a model for his youthful Hermes. As he faced the Viceroy, his usual pleasant ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... turned her back on her husband, rested one elbow on the mantelpiece and set one foot upon the low fender, drawing up her velvet gown over her instep. But a moment later she heard other footsteps in the room, and turned her head to see Mr. Van Torp enter the room between two big men who were evidently ex-policemen. The millionaire, having failed to shut the door in the face of the three men, had been too wise ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... white costume. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and about her neck there was a necklace of what appeared to be very brilliant diamonds. Her feet were encased in white slippers, with straps across the instep. In her ears and hair glistened and shimmered beautiful diamonds. Her face and arms were as alabaster, and altogether she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever beheld. She was recognized by a lady ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of fierce determination the task persisted, until, quite unexpectedly as it seemed, the boot was free; and then, shoving and squeezing the wallaby as a cushion for my right arm, the sole of the left boot began to rasp away at the instep of the right. In such a constrained position the operation, which could be persevered in by fits and starts only, was exasperatingly slow. The sun sopped up the morning mist and boldly explored the crevice, revealing the marvellous ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... natural surfaces, with his feet unprotected by any artificial defences, calls the action of these arches into full play at every step. The longitudinal arch is the most strikingly marked of the two. In some races and in certain individuals it is much developed, so as to give the high instep which is prized as an evidence of good blood. The Arab says that a stream of water can flow under his foot without touching its sole. Under the conditions supposed, of a naked foot on a natural surface, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... kid shoe that never was made on a Yankee last," observed he. "I know enough of shoemaker's craft to tell that. French manufacture; and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in it! There never was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than Zenobia did. Here," he added, addressing Hollingsworth, "would you like ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fisherman's wife drew near to the noble lady, and curtsying low she said, 'Should this bad maiden be indeed my daughter, as I do think she is, she will have between her shoulders a mark like a violet, and this mark also you will find on the instep of her left foot. Let the ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... master was Tom Smith. Mean? Cose he was mean. Old mistress was sorta good to us but old master was the devil. Used to make the men hold the women while they whipped em. Make em wear old brogan shoes with buckles across the instep. Had the men and women out fore day plowin'. I member they had my mother out many a day so dark they had to feel where the traces was to hitch up ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... though his informants did not know whether it was now occupied. It was, however, a relief to stop among a clump of spruce at dusk. When he had made a fire he examined his foot. There was no sign of injury except that ankle and instep were rather red, and he ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... across the deluged floor, are plainly visible. She was just out of her bed and her feet were bare. They say it shows she had a very small foot with a high arch, the print of the heel, a space where the instep arches over, and then the ball of the foot and the tiny toes. Peasants passing in the field above have heard (provided the night is stormy enough), the agonizing cry, 'God help me, God help me!' seeming to come from the ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... their exaggerated care and precision, and their stiff conventional attitudes presented a picture from a Satsuma vase. Their dresses were of all shades, black, blue, purple, grey and mauve. The corner of the skirt folded back above the instep revealed a glimpse of gaudy underwear provoking to men's eyes, and displayed the intricate stenciled flower patterns, which in the case of the younger women seemed to be catching hold of the long sleeves and straying ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Kesselsdorf is his nearest post to Daun; and the Plauen Chasm for boundary, which was not overpassed by either." In Dresden, and the patch of hill-country to the southeastward of it by Elbe side, which is instep or glacis of the Pirna rock-country, seventy square miles or so, there rules Daun; and this—with its heights of Gahmig, valuable as a defence for Dresden against Austria, but not otherwise of considerable value—was all that Daun this year, or pretty much in any ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... on dinner sofas, on their reclining chairs in their reception rooms, in their homes, in their litters abroad, at the Amphitheatre or at the Circus games, from neck to instep they are muffled up. If one catches a glimpse of a beauty's ankle as she goes up a stair, one is thrilled, one watches eagerly, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... equals length of foot plus one inch; distance AC equals width across instep plus one-half inch; cut DF halfway between B and G; cut EG halfway between A and C. Cut piece reverse of this for other moccasin. Place B of Fig. 2 to B of Fig. 1, and sew overhand with wax cord the edges from B to A and B to C, bringing A and C of Fig. 2 together at A ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... he knew that every line of her was faultless; the hands slender and beautifully high-born; the fingers tapering with that artistic slope of the tips, all so plainly visible now that they were at work. One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high instep. He flushed with pride of her—his eyes brightened and he smiled in the old ironical way, a ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... medium height," was mamma's reply, "but her figure was slender, with small and well-shaped hands and feet. It was her pride that water could flow under the arch of her instep; and her fingers, notwithstanding the hard toil of daily life, remained so flexible, that, when fifty years old, she could still bend them ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... her in surprise. He noticed her low black shoe and the slender instep showing from beneath the skirt as she worked the pedal. She wore thin black stockings, which in some way suddenly impressed the Swiss youth. Her bare blond head shone brightly as it disappeared through the gate into the outer court. He remembered that she had no children; that, too, struck ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... would be better if I were to tell you," said she, regarding attentively the point of her shoe, which projected from her dress as she lay back in her chair. She had tiny pointed French shoes with straps across the instep, through which appeared a blue ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... for the foot was so little he really couldn't see it! Isn't he perfectly great? Of course that's only his way of talking, for after all I only wear a number two, but these French heels and pointed toes do certainly make your foot look smaller, and it's always said a high instep helps, too. I used to think mine was almost a deformity, but they say it's a great beauty. Just put your feet beside mine, girls, and look at the difference; not that I care much, but just ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... invisible but there), but he was no longer featureless. His eyes shone through a black vizard with one unwinking, glittering, ceaseless threat. He wore a slashed doublet with long hose reaching to the upper thigh, and he had a rosette on each instep. I can see quite clearly now the peculiar dull cold gleam the razor-edged axe wore as he stood in some shadowed place behind me, and the brighter gleam it had in daylight ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... his good yew bow in his hand, and placing the tip at his instep, he strung it right deftly; then he nocked a broad clothyard arrow and, raising the bow, drew the gray goose feather to his ear; the next moment the bowstring rang and the arrow sped down the glade as a sparrowhawk skims in a northern wind. High leaped the noblest hart of all the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... some dignity, turned her back upon him, and disappeared down the companion-way, leaving Morris in a state of utter bewilderment as he looked down at the broken steamer chair, wondering if the lady was insane. All at once he noticed a rent in his trousers, between the knee and the instep. ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... willing. The shirt should always be lettered with the name or initials of the team. Baseball shoes are usually provided with steel plates or leather knobs. Spikes are very dangerous and should not be permitted. The regulation baseball shoe reaches just under the instep. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... bed and leave her feet out on the floor, or under a coal stove. This could not be expected. But they can adopt some method to soften the rigors of a hard winter. They can paint their feet a nice warm color or have a summer sunset painted on the instep, or a fire-place on the bottom of their feet. Anything that will make their feet seem warm will be a relief to their rheumatic husbands. A pair of zinc overshoes to wear in bed would help some very cold ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... finally I had to be carried on men's shoulders down the mountain and transported to Geneva, where, thanks to the kindness of friends, I was immediately placed in the best medical hands. On the morning after my arrival in Geneva, Dr. Gautier discovered an abscess in my instep, at a distance of five inches from the wound. The two were connected by a channel, or sinus, as it is technically called, through which he was able to empty the abscess, without the application ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... gave her a curious glance. Then he pulled a small case from his pocket, knelt in the sand and lifted Rhoda's foot in one slender, strong, brown hand. The instep ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... explained, rather to her amusement, that he had written verses which were in the mouths of thousands of his countrymen, and she having read his character and destiny, assured him that his Arabian descent was proved by the high arch of his instep, and that, like every Arab, he was a poet by nature. Lamartine, in return, represents himself as profoundly impressed by his interview with this 'Circe of the East,' denies that he perceived in her any ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... our Elastic Support is, they are made to fit and conform perfectly with ankle, giving free instep movement recommended ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... Nellie said, "in which we would all be draped in Greek style, in sheets, and wear sandals and flesh colored hose, covered from neck to instep, and with long speeches in blank verse to mouth. That is the sort of a performance to ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... of the door, painted mauve within and not without, mannequins, so pink finger-tipped, so tilted of instep, and so bred in the thrust to the silhouette, trailed these sleazy products of thick ringers across mauve-colored carpet and before the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... golden comb that had been worn in Spain by many a beauty of the house of Moraga, and spiked the knot with two long pins globed at the end with gold, while the maid fastened her slippers and smoothed the pink silk stockings over the thin instep above; "what is a lover like? Is it like meeting one of ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... however, I examined, as you remember, the sill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could at once see that someone had passed out. I could distinguish the outline of an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming in. I was then beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what had occurred. A man had waited outside the window; someone had brought the gems; the deed had been overseen by your son; he had pursued the thief; had ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... stockin's, nor yet in Mr. Kimball's entertainin' the whole c'mmunity with 'em. A'cordin' to my manner o' thinkin', a woman as 'll give away four pair o' brand-new hand-knit stockin's for no better reason 'n 't the heels shrunk down under her instep, is doin' a deed o' Christian charity instead o' layin' herself open to all manner o' fun-makin'. 'N' I ain't the only one 's views the thing so serious, either, for Mr. Shores feels jus' 's bad 's I do about it. He come runnin' to catch me the other day, 'n' asked me 'f I had n't mebbe ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... fastened on the bare upper surface of the foot by two thongs, of which one was usually carried within the great toe, and the other in many circumvolutions round about the ankles, so that both finally met and tied just above the instep. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... care of dislocated shoulders; wounds in various parts of the body; sores of the feet and legs; cancerous ulcers in the instep; ulcers of the throat, and dueling wounds. One of the most unusual surgical measures of the period was the application of weapon salve for battle wounds; the salve was applied to weapon, ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... for the making of bricks. This morning I came far to search for it on behalf of a neighbour whose wife is ill in childbed. But towards sundown I slipped and cut myself upon the edge of a sharp stone. See," and holding up her foot she showed a wound beneath the instep from which the blood still dropped, a sight that moved both of us not a little, "and now I cannot walk and carry this heavy straw which I have been ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... streams and damp grass, and among the bushes: they got into my hair, hung on my eyelids, and crawled up my legs and down my back. I repeatedly took upwards of a hundred from my legs, where the small ones used to collect in clusters on the instep: the sores which they produced were not healed for five months afterwards, and I retain the scars to the present day. Snuff and tobacco leaves are the best antidote, but when marching in the rain, it is ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, and what awkward plebeian feet had worn them! The lodger's slim white hands and arched instep, the patrician curve of his aquiline nose, the perfect grace of his apparel, the high-bred modulation of his courteous accents,—all these had impressed Mary Anne's tender little heart so much the more because of his poverty ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... are to dance together, thou wilt put on thy fine white socks, and thy Spanish leather shoes—the pair that have the bright buckles on the instep. Yes, thou wilt do ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... singular nature: sometimes the skin is raised from the flesh for several inches, appearing as if it were filled with wind, and forming a round surface of more than a quarter of an inch diameter. Their bodies are scarred in various parts, particularly about the breast and arms, and frequently on the instep. Nor does the head always escape; one man in particular, putting aside the hair on the forepart of his head, showed a scar, and then pointing to one on the foot, and to others on different parts of ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... have forced her to do otherwise. But coming as the invitation did at the particular juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were speeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious revellers became aware of ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... which I found a most perfect impression near the ditch, where the key was picked up. On these sheets of paper, I have marked in outline the imprint of the foot which I cannot take up, because it is on some sand. Look! heel high, instep pronounced, sole small and narrow,—an elegant boot, belonging to a foot well cared for evidently. Look for this impression all along the path; and you will find it again twice. Then you will find it five times repeated in the garden where no ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... pucker, the broad and amply rounded chest. Then a belt of brown leather, with an anchor clasp, and empty loops for either fire-arm or steel, supported true sailor's trousers of the purest white and the noblest man-of-war cut; and where these widened at the instep shone a lovely pair of pumps, with buckles radiant of best Bristol diamonds. The wearer of all these splendors smiled, and seemed to become ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of the people is mostly white, homespun flannel "bawneens," and sandals of cowhide, fastened across the instep, which they ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... conversation, which, at times, (with the whole earnest manner and sweet expression of the man) presents itself to me, as though I had seen him only last week. The attitude I speak of was that of cherishing one leg over the knee of the other, smoothing the instep with the palm of his hand. In this action I mostly associate him in an eager parley with Leigh Hunt, in his little cottage in the "Vale of Health." This position, if I mistake not, is in the last portrait of him ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... to the nearest fence corner, and laid the shingle on the gnarled roots of a Johnny Appleseed apple tree. Then I set one foot on the arch of the Princess' instep and held up my hands. One second I thought she would not lift me, the next I was on her level and her lips met mine in a touch like velvet woven from threads of flame. Then with a turn of her stout little wrist, she dropped ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... dried tree-fern is as combustible as tinder, and there were flames shooting out among the stones. Sceptics had affirmed that the skin of a Fijian's foot being a quarter of an inch thick, he would not feel a burn. Whether this be true or not of the ball and heel, the instep is covered with skin no thicker than our own, and we saw the men plant their insteps ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... had curved shields with sharp, chiselled edges around them and spears as long as the pillars of a king's house in the hand of each man.[12] Fine, long, silken tunics [13]with hoods[13] they wore to the very instep. Together they raised their feet, and together they set them down again. "Is that Cormac, yonder?" asked all. "Aye, it is he, [14]this ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... he went, Marse Rupert," said Matt, much roused. "I foun' out whar he is dishyer ve'y instep. He's in Hamlin County, keepin' sto' an' post-office at Talbot's Cross-roads; an', frum what I heah, Marse Tom De Willoughby de mos' pop'larist gen'leman an' mos' looked ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his feet. His boots were the finest leather, bench-made by the best of bootmakers, and they fitted the high-arched instep with the elastic smoothness of gloves. The man of the mountain desert dresses the extremities and cares not at all for the mid sections. The moment Doone was off his horse those boots had to be dressed and rubbed and polished to softness and ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... this bat suspended under a big green leaf, wrapped in his black and buff-coloured wings as in a mantle, I forgot my disappointment, forgot the serpent, and was so entirely taken up with the bat that I paid no attention to a sensation like a pressure or a dull pain on the instep of my right foot. Then the feeling of pressure increased and was very curious and was as if I had a heavy object like a crowbar lying across my foot, and at length I looked down at my feet, and to my amazement ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... wear nightcaps, his handkerchief would not keep down over his ears, so that his hair in the morning was all tumbled pell-mell about his face and whitened with the feathers of the pillow, whose strings came untied during the night. He always wore thick boots that had two long creases over the instep running obliquely towards the ankle, while the rest of the upper continued in a straight line as if stretched on a wooden foot. He said that "was quite good enough for ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... moulded thing; even the slender arch of the instep had been preserved in unbroken line and curve, and yet Constans wondered vaguely why it should seem so beautiful to him. He put out his own foot and compared the two, laughed, half understood, and ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... is her shapely waist, Her arms, her instep queenly; And her sweet parting lips are graced With rows ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... its color 'candidissimo.' The leg should be long and not too hard in the lower parts, but still not without flesh on the shin, which must be provided with white, full calves. He likes the foot small, but not bony, the instep (it seems) high, and the color white as alabaster. The arms are to be white, and in the upper parts tinted with red; in their consistence fleshy and muscular, but still soft as those of Pallas, when she stood before the shepherd on Mount Ida—in a word, ripe, fresh, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... publication of the Jewish Protocol and other documents pointing to revolutionary and anarchical Semitic activities, noses will be worn straighter and a la Grecque, and for similar reasons feet will be shorter and with more uplift in the instep. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... absolutely blue;' and the half-fretful belle, who had really exhausted her strength and amiability by a grand pedestrian tour in the Central Park that morning, stretched out demurely her gaiter boots, and drew with an invisible pencil on imaginary paper, the outline of her boldly arched instep. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Almouth House. Her little foot, with its arched instep, seemed too slight and delicate for the pavement. Robert knew that her arm rested upon his, because he felt it trembling. They crossed the threshold together. The doors ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... good-nature and full of fun, 'chaffing' the girls as we pass the villages, and always smiling. The steersman is of lighter complexion, also very cheery, but decidedly pious. He prays five times a day and utters ejaculations to the apostle Rusool continually. He hurt his ankle on one leg and his instep on the other with a rusty nail, and they festered. I dressed them with poultices, and then with lint and strapping, with perfect success, to the great admiration of all hands, and he announced how much better he felt, 'Alhamdulillah, kieth-el-hairack khateer ya Sitti' (Praise be to God ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... smiled, as houris smile, adown from Turkish skies, And beams of cruel kindness shone within her hazel eyes; "Stranger," she said, "or rather say, my nearest, dearest friend, There's something in your eyes, your air, and that high instep's bend, That tells me you're of Arab race,—whatever spot of earth, Cheapside, or Bow, or Stepney, had the honor of your birth, The East it is your country! Like an infant changed to nurse By fairies, you have undergone a nurtureship ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... began to imagine that he was an agent of Bonaparte; and their suspicion that he was a Christian spread far and near. It was 302 discovered also that he had corns on his feet, excrescences unknown to Muselmen, whose shoes are made tight over the instep, and loose over the toes, so that the latter being unconfined and at liberty, they never ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... coffee." Or: "The idiot—now that girl has forgotten to fix my study lamp again." Then there is a draught through the floor and his feet get cold: "Gee, but it's freezing, and those blanked idiots don't even know enough to keep the house warm." [She rubs the sole of one slipper against the instep of the other.] ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... d'Esgrignons, the finely-moulded aquiline nose, the perfect oval of the face, the auburn hair, the white skin, and the graceful gait of his family; he had their delicate extremities, their long taper fingers with the inward curve, and that peculiar distinction of shapeliness of the wrist and instep, that supple felicity of line, which is as sure a sign of race in men as in horses. Adroit and alert in all bodily exercises, and an excellent shot, he handled arms like a St. George, he was a paladin on horseback. ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... equally great variety as of clothing, {11} but the majority of men, women, and children (in muddy weather at least) have compromised on the "getas," a sort of wooden sole strapped on the foot, with wooden pieces put fore and aft the instep, these pieces throwing the foot and sole about three inches above ground. It looks almost as difficult to walk in them as to walk on stilts, but away the people go, young and old, and the muddy places marked by the strange ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... these long spikes, called "luk'-dun," in the trails leading to their dwellings. They are placed at a considerable angle, and would impale an intruder in the groin or upper thigh, inflicting a cruel and disabling wound. The shorter spikes either cut through the bottom of the foot or stab the instep or leg near the ankle. They are much dreaded, and, though ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... and so on, taking one less each time until there are only seven left. This has to be done on both sides of the leg, so as to form the foot. Break off the wool, fasten it on at the top of the leg, then crochet down as far as the instep, and back again, doing one less each time till there are only two stitches left. Then down as far as the instep do an edging of treble crochet, then work another edging (button-hole stitch) all ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... with the hair on and turn the hair inwards as the Mandans Minetares and most of the nations do who inhabit the buffaloe country. the mockerson is formed with one seem on the outer edge of the foot is cut open at the instep to admit the foot and sewed up behind. in this rispect they are the same with the Mandans. they sometimes ornament their mockersons with various figures wrought with the quills of the Porcupine. some of the dressey young men orniment ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... was about half-way down it, the heels of the said individual would be sure to bring up, or stop the bar. The unhappy marine, therefore, who happened to be descending the steps when Jacko let his handspike fall, generally got the skin taken off his heels, or his instep, according as his rear or his front was turned towards the foe. The instant Jacko let go his hold, and the law of gravitation began to act, so that the handspike was heard to rattle down the ladder, off he jumped to the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... fine new confidence, for the clerk merely said, "Certainly, madam"—in the later shops of Newbern they briefly called you madam—and with a kind of weary, professional politeness fell to the work of equipping her. A joyous relief succeeded her panic. She not only declared a moment later that her instep was far too high, but fitted at last in a slipper of suitable shade she raised her skirt again as she posed before a mirror that reached the floor. Winona was coming on. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... heel of one shoe against the instep of the other for three nights in a row. You will dream of your future husband. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... shoe—a block of wood of about four feet long and ten inches thick (the rough trunk of a tree); his left foot had been thrust through a small hole in the log, while a peg driven through at right angles just above the instep effectually secured the prisoner. This was a favourite punishment of the king; the prisoner might thus languish until released by death; it was impossible to sit up, and difficult to lie down, the log ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... father of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the world by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle. It was an inch long and five inches broad. "It covered almost the whole instep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot." A sweet invention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. At his first appearance at a Court ball, we read that "his coat was pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, embroidered ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hundred years ago they dared not wait longer lest the parson be under the table: the grace is said to-day before dessert! I tried three months to persuade my "Boots" to leave off blacking the soles of my shoes under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every "Boots" in the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: "It is now universally conceded by the French and the Americans ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... fierce and swift. Coutlass searched with a thumb for Will's eye, and stamped on his instep with an iron-shod heel. But he was a dissolute brute, and for all his strength Yerkes' cleaner living very soon told. Presently Will spared a hand to wrench at the ambitious thumb, and Coutlass screamed with agony. Then he ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... braided locks falling a little, for want of the lost hairpin, perhaps, and looking like a wreathing coil of—Shame on such fancies!—to wrong that supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush of shining black hair, which, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, like Godiva, from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the fissure or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, and that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show that so far it was not a dream. But between ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... she kicked off a heavily clumsy slipper—her instep arched narrowly to a delicate ankle, the small heel was sharply cut. "In silk," she said, "and a little brocaded slipper, you would see." She replaced the inadequate thing of leather. The animation died from her countenance, she surveyed him with cold eyes, narrowed ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... he remarked, as he noticed a slight wobbling on the part of Anderson. "Here," to an assistant, "give me that tape." And with the skill of a surgeon he applied strips of adhesive tape along each ligament, leaving a narrow space down the instep free from bandaging to allow free circulation of the blood. And when he got through, the "phony" ankle was so protected that it was practically impossible for it ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... are new," he said. "You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had then been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... little girl; a very nice pretty little girl. But in summer she had to go barefoot, because she was poor, and in winter she wore thick wooden shoes, so that her little instep became quite red, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... gleaming, or sparkling, pearl or opal or diamond—under the night of brown or of raven locks, the sunrise of golden ripples, or the moonshine of pale, interclouded, fluffy cirri—lichenous all on the ivory-white or damp-yellow naked bone. I looked down and saw the daintily domed instep; I looked up and saw the plump shoulders basing the spring of the round full neck—which withered at half-height to the fluted shaft ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... RETTENMAYER halts before LILY and kneels to her. She extends her left foot and he kisses her instep and puts her foot into her slipper. She rewards him by lightly boxing his ears. He makes way for DE CASTRO, handing him the other slipper, and DE CASTRO performs the same ceremony with LILY'S right foot. She upsets DE CASTRO'S balance by ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... skated for years, having spent all my winters in Italy, but on the principle that you never forget anything that you know well, I thought I would try, and will say that the first half-hour was absolute suffering. It was in the old days when one still wore a strap over the instep, which naturally was drawn very tight. My feet were like lumps of ice, as heavy as lead, and I didn't seem able to lift them from the ground. I went back to the dressing-room to take my skates off for a few ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... friends, before leaving you to the tender mercies of a scribbler, is not to answer all the questions he thinks proper to put. Please don't tell him what you heard or saw after leaving the football field clinging to my sole and instep, of my love intrigues, my stolen interviews with blue-eyed Annie, and when she jilted me and got married to Charlie Quilter, who played "left wing" in the Flying Blues. Charlie must have regretted what he did ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... and also that there was still mud upon the heels. She had always been rather proud of her feet, and surely there is nothing which sets off the shape of a woman's foot better than the neat little shoe, with its high instep and heel. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... attention to it. From the bosom of his white, puffed shirt an enormous diamond, held in place by side gold chains, flashed forth; while glittering on his fingers was another stone almost as large. Below his trousers could plainly be seen the highly-polished boots; the heels and instep being higher than those generally in use. In a word, it was impossible not to get the impression that he was scrupulously immaculate and careful about his attire. And his voice—the voice that tells character as nothing else does—was smooth and drawling, though fearlessness and ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... with his aspect. He wore a greasy velveteen jacket, loose trousers of the same stuff, and his feet were shod with abarcas—a kind of sandal in common use in some parts of Navarre and Biscay, composed of a flat piece of tanned pig's hide, secured across the instep by thongs. A leathern wallet lay upon the ground beside him, and near it were scattered sundry pairs of shears and scissors, used to clip mules and other animals. The esquilador, or shearer—for such was the profession of the individual just described—had found a subject for the exercise ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... figure of a man in a leather garb, and wearing a kind of gaiters bound to the legs by strips of hide which went across and across from the instep to far above the knee. There was a leathern girdle about the waist, and one hand was slightly raised, as if it had held a staff or spear, but no remains of these were to be seen. Probably the head had once been covered, but it was bare ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... boss had been any other sort of man he would have informed Sophy, sternly, that black princess effects, cut low, were not au fait in the shoe-clerk world. But Sophy's boss had a rhombic nose, and no instep, and the tail of his name had been amputated. He didn't care how Sophy wore her dresses so long as ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... exceedingly meagre man, dressed in a rusty suit of black,—the pantaloons tight at the calf and ankle, and there forming a loose gaiter over thick shoes, buckled high at the instep; an old cloak, lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry; a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless: a profusion of raven hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little toe came through it, but she now folded the toe artfully down, and the big girl discovered the hole in time to abet her attempt at concealment. She caught the slipper from the shoeman and harried it on; she tied the ribbons across the instep, and then put on the other. "Now put out youa foot, Clem! Fast dancin' position!" She leaned back upon her own heels, and Clementina daintily lifted the edge of her skirt a little, and peered over at her feet. The slippers might or might not have been of an imperfect ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... those who are the very lowest of all; and a Protestant cobbler, debased by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone that the peer whose footman's instep he measures is able to keep his chaplain from a jail. This disposition is the true source of the passion which many men in very humble life have taken to the American war. Our subjects in America; our colonies; our dependants. This lust of party power is the liberty they hunger and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... holds a straight-bladed European court-sword, which is correct in i. 527. The spears (i. 531) are European not Asiatic, much less Arabian, whose beams are often 12-15 feet long. Aziz (i. 537) has no right to tricot drawers and shoes tightened over the instep like the chaussure of European moutards: his foot (i. 540) is wholly out of drawing, like his hand, and the toes are European distortions. The lady writing (i. 581) lacks all local colour; she should sit at ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... duchess and said: "Noble and pious lady, you have opened my heart. Permit me to tell you, that if this evil-disposed maiden is my daughter, she has a mark like a violet between her shoulders, and another of the same kind on the instep of her left foot. If she will only consent to go out of the ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... ain't all," Racey galloped on, one toe pressing Swing's instep. "I'm gonna tell him, Swing. He ain't no friend o' Jack Harpe's. If I tell you you won't tell ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... soft and round as a child's. The chair in which she reclined, was of massive oak, inlaid richly with ivory, and canopied with purple velvet, embroidered with, flowers of gold. Her foot-encased within the smallest shoe in Burgundy, and ornamented with a flashing jewel upon the instep-rested upon a footstool of massive oak, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray |
