"Muss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very much as if Horace were really turning over a new leaf. He was still quite trying sometimes, leaving the milk-room door open when puss was watching for the cream-pot, or slamming the kitchen door with a bang when everybody needed fresh air. He still kept his chamber in a state of confusion,—"muss," Grace called it,—pulling the drawers out of the bureau, and scattering the contents over the floor; dropping his clothes anywhere it happened, and carrying quantities of gravel up ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... of the ring at the afternoon performance, and the Russians went in, right near the dressing-room. I asked pa not to mix in it, but keep away in the animal tent. Pa said, not much, he wouldn't be away, and he told all the managers, and they all got around the dressing-room to stop the muss, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... world spoils the average girl so quickly and so surely," said Mrs. Comstock. She raised her voice. "Elnora, fasten up that tag of hair over your left ear. These bushes muss you so you remind me of a sheep poking its nose through ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... might have had of her, he was in the thick of his spectacular and intensely bitter fight with the Coastwise Steam Navigation Company, and the Hawaiian, Nicaraguan, and Pacific-Mexican Steamship-Company. He stirred up a bigger muss than he had anticipated, and even he was astounded at the wide ramifications of the struggle and at the unexpected and incongruous interests that were drawn into it. Every newspaper in San Francisco turned upon him. It was true, one or two of them had first intimated ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... do, Tom?" Jack called out hurriedly. "If we retreat, like as not he'll muss things up around here, and maybe ruin our ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... "'Fraid I'll muss it up, hey?" Azalea laughed, "Well. I s'pose I am a terror! But honest to goodness I can't stand for those ticklers. They get in ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... three long weeks you've been, O House, As noiseless as the well-known mouse, As silent as the tomb. And you've stayed neat, with none on hand To track your floors with mud and sand, To muss ...
— Bib Ballads • Ring W. Lardner
... don't, the first thing you know some plain-clothes bull with fallen arches and his neck shaved 'way up high in the back will be coming round asking us to go riding with him down town into the congested district, and if we declines the invitation, like as not he'll muss our clothes all up. Do you seem to get ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... "I won't muss it. I'm just going to take it home and sew the buttons on. There's two off. Mother always sewed 'em on; he pays two ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... leave the master be. It's the fine sense he's gettin' the now. It would hearten the mistress could she see how he does be pickin' up. Always that gentle I d' know, as if the sorrow had been a broom sweepin' his soul all free of the moilder an' muss was in it long by. Only yesternight, whilst I was just washin' off me table afore layin' me cloth, into the kitchen he steps an' sits himself down by the door, lookin' out toward Fairacres. It was as soft ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... nur muss man sich nicht allzu aengstlich quaelen, Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen, Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten zeit sich ein. Mit Worten laesst sich trefflich streiten, Mit Worten ein System bereiten. An Werte ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... no idea what a muss it kicks up in heaven to have anybody swim on Sunday. It fills all the wheeling worlds with sadness to see a boy in a boat, and the attention of the recording secretary is called to it. In a voice of thunder they say, "Upset him!" It sought to annihilate ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the Pans And screamed a Chinese chant at us, the while a Hippopotamus Shook tables, book-shelves and divans With vast Terpsichorean fuss . . . Some Oriental kind of muss ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... going down fighting. And by the way, I started the fight this afternoon. I whaled the wadding out of that bucko woods-boss of Pennington's, and as a special compliment to you, John Cardigan, I did an almighty fine job of cleaning. Even went so far as to muss the Colonel up ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... murmured wanly, "you'll muss them. I'm sorting, and I know you'll step in them. Everything ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was a tough deal, all right. It was some jay that stirred up all the muss, howlin' for his coin that he thought he'd lost. But look at the hole I'm in, after bein' so brash to Mr. Pepper about stayin' on the lid, and him lettin' me write my own valuation ticket! How do I square it with him when he comes back and finds I've stood around ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... &c (unconformity) 83; anarchy, anarchism; want of method; untidiness &c adj.; disunion; discord &c 24. confusion; confusedness &c adj.; mishmash, mix; disarray, jumble, huddle, litter, lumber; cahotage^; farrago; mess, mash, muddle, muss [U.S.], hash, hodgepodge; hotch-potch^, hotch-pot^; imbroglio, chaos, omnium gatherum [Lat.], medley; mere mixture &c 41; fortuitous concourse of atoms, disjecta membra [Lat.], rudis indigestaque moles [Lat.] [Ovid]. complexity &c 59.1. turmoil; ferment &c (agitation) 315; to-do, trouble, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thought so—perhaps, the best for myself. I had no idea of being pursued in this manner. It seems I have been a fool. I let that Simon Girty make me believe he was an awkward countryman, and lead me into this muss." ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... when Tom appeared, "don't muss his nice clean clothes. Be careful he doesn't get into anything. Be a good boy, Bobbie, and the choo-choo ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... "MADAME NANCANOU: I muss oblige to ass you for rent of that house whare you living, it is at number 19 Bienville street whare I do not received thos rent from you not since tree mons and I demand you this is mabe thirteen time. And I give to you notice of 19 das writen in Anglish as the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... "I'm afraid we can't hold 'em direct—no use blowing a bank of tubes. We'll try relaying through Mars—we can hold them there, I think. It will muss up reception some, but it will probably be better than direct, at that. Point oh five three six ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... Ich muss auf sein, Die Armen sind verstoeret, Ihr Seufzen dringt zu mir herein, Ich hab' ihr' Klag' erhoeret. Mein heilsam Wort soll auf dem Plan, Getrost und frisch sie greifen an Und sein ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... young oak and beech which came right down to the edge of the chaussee. The ground was deep in withered leaves which, with the rain and the water draining from the road's high camber, were soft and soggy. Robin went full length into this muss with a thud that shook every bone in his body. His left leg, catching in a bare gorse-bush, acted as a brake and stopped him from rolling farther. He sat up, his mouth full of mud and his hair full of wet leaves, ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... harder still, not to revisit the abbey church of Vezelay, beautiful in itself, so celebrated in history; so majestically placed on a ridge overlooking the two departments of the Yonne and the Nievre, but Goethe's invaluable maxim must be that of the conscientious traveller, 'An der Naechste muss man denken' (We must think of the nearest, the most important thing). Time did not now admit of a two days' halt here. As I have described Avallon and Vezelay fully elsewhere, [Footnote: I allude to several papers contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette whilst under the editorship of Mr. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... pieces would soil my claws and blunt my teeth," he said. "I'm glad I didn't muss myself up this afternoon ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... said Ellen, throwing them back; "and you oughtn't to crack them there, Nancy; you'll make a dreadful muss." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... said aloud, though he was alone. "That'll bring 'em both up here, roaring like lions. They'll muss up the furniture, and then I can tell the reporters all about it. Even Walford can't ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... father," he said, "an' hov the money ready tull hus hond so uf I'm ot sea when the land offers he wull no muss the chance tull buy. An' then the owners can guv me the sack uz soon uz they like. Ut will be all night un, an' I wull be wuth you, Annie, an' the sea can go ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... delight the children clamored to help, or "muss" a little in their own way, a privilege often given them at such times. But Annie sent them out-of-doors again with a tone and manner that caused them to tip-toe back past the parlor with a scared look on their faces, and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... corridor Gale stopped long enough to pull on a pair of heavy gloves, to muss his hair, and disarrange his collar. Then he stepped into the restaurant, went through, and halted in the door leading into the saloon. His five feet eleven inches and one hundred and eighty pounds were more noticeable ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... water over her face. She had taken off her blue travelling-gown and flung it in a heap over a chair. Sylvia straightened it out carefully, noting with a little awe the rustle of its silk linings; then she hung it in the closet. "I'll hang it here, where it won't get all of a muss," said she. Already she began to feel a pleasure which she had never known—the pleasure of chiding a young creature from the heights of her own experience. She began harshly, but before she had finished her voice ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... clearing up after the fair," she explained, as she joined Mrs. Solomon Black. "It didn't seem no more than right; for even if Ann Whittle doesn't use her parlor, on account of not having it furnished up, she wants it broom-clean. My! You'd ought to have seen the muss we swept out." ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... taking his usual afternoon siesta instead of putting himself to the trouble of going below and turning into his bunk, as was his usual wont after luncheon. "A fit! Wa-al I guess I'm on. I allers likes to hitch in with a muss!" and, so saying, the lanky American was soon scrambling down the poop-ladder and making his way forward, followed by all the remainder of the passengers—Mrs Major Negus, of course, going to look after her darling boy, while Frank Harness accompanied Kate Meldrum, as he ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... dirty-minded lump, I ain't much of a fighter, but I'm going to muss you up so's you can't find your ears if you don't apologize ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... declared he was "without schemes or plans, hopes, desires, or fears for the future, that need trouble anybody so far as I am concerned."[665] Nevertheless, he had scarcely reached the capital before he discovered that he was charged with being the author of Weed's compromise policy. "Here's a muss," he wrote, on December 3. "Republican members stopped at the Tribune office on their way, and when they all lamented your articles, Dana told them they were not yours but mine; that I 'wanted to make a great ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in California. He's run off with you—kidnapped you, thet's shore.... An' Gulden swears he shot his own men an' was in turn shot by you. Thet bullet-hole in his back was full of powder. There's liable to be a muss-up any time.... Shore, miss, you'd better sneak off with me tonight when they're all asleep. I'll git grub an' hosses, an' take you off to some prospector's camp. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... together that way, one fellow having his left leg fastened to his partner's right. It's a great sight to see how they blunder along, and fall all over themselves. I know some fellows who have been practicing the stunt; but even then, in the excitement they're apt to get into a terrible muss." ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... shall prefix, for the sake of those who read the German, yet are not likely to have dipped often in the massive folios of this heroic reformer, the simple, sinewy, idiomatic words of the original. "Denn man muss nicht die Buchstaben in der Lateinischen Sprache fragen wie man soll Deutsch reden: sondern man muss die Mutter in Hause, die Kinder auf den Gassen, den gemeinen Mann auf dem Markte, darum fragen: und denselbigen auf das Maul sehen wie sie reden, und darnach dolmetschen. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... brought shouts of encouragement—to the villain. "Kill him!"... "Shoot one to his kidneys!"... "Ahhhhh," as the villain hit the hero in the stomach.... "Muss his hair. Attaboy!"... "Kill the skunk!" And finally groans of despair when the hero won ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... have I kept myself in readiness for death. As for you, save yourselves, if you can. It were in vain for you to attempt to save my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of God." Obedient to his directions, all that were with him, save Nicholas Muss or de la Mouche, his faithful German interpreter, fled to the roof, and escaped under ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Germans used to have a most tiresome way of expecting girls to be like lambs in spring, always in the mood to frisk and caper: so that a quiet or a delicate girl had a bad time with some of them. Ein junges Maedchen muss immer heiter sein, they would say reproachfully. But it does not follow that you are always heiter just because you are not twenty yet; especially in Germany, where girls are often anaemic and have headaches. However, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... enough, Lizzie, to keep me from a scolding, I guess. Here, won't you please hold the book open at aimer, so I can get that muss a little straight, in case madam calls ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott |
