"Old man" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... winter garden, its clock said ten minutes past ten, but she knew it must be fast. Only one of the four musicians had arrived—the man who played the drums, cymbals, triangle and xylophone—a fat, discouraged old man who knew how easily he could be replaced. Neither Lange nor his wife had come; her original friend, the Austrian waiter, was wiping off tables and cleaning match stands. He welcomed her with a smile ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... an ill-mannered old man!" quoth Norah, with her nose tilted. Which seemed to end the matter, so far as ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... afraid to meddle directly. He knew something more about the history of Myrtle's adventure than any of his neighbors, and, among other things, that it had given Mr. Byles Gridley a peculiar interest in her, of which he could take advantage. He therefore artfully hinted his fears to the old man, and left his hint to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to conduct me to the summit of the pyramid—one an old man, and the other about forty, both of a mould, which for combination of strength and agility, I never saw surpassed. We soon turned to the north, and finally reached the outer casing on the west side. All this was very laborious to be sure, though not very dangerous; but here was an obstacle that ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Jackson had returned the opera-glass to Lawrence Lefferts. The whole of the club turned instinctively, waiting to hear what the old man had to say; for old Mr. Jackson was as great an authority on "family" as Lawrence Lefferts was on "form." He knew all the ramifications of New York's cousinships; and could not only elucidate such complicated questions ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... interrupted them, smilingly. "I should like to inquire, just as a matter of curiosity, what form of investment each one of you expects to make with the sum you receive? Don't think me too inquisitive please. It's just an old man's curiosity!" ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... the wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert Blatchford asked him what he wanted. "The old man leaned upon his spade and looked out across the black peat fields at the lowering skies. 'What is it that I'm wantun?' he said; then in a deep plaintive tone he continued, more to himself than to me, 'All our brave bhoys and dear gurrls is away an' over the says, an' the agent has taken the ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... did old Thomas, so said he, 'Where do you intend to go master?' 'Me,' said the old man, scratchin' his head, and lookin' puzzled 'nowhere.' 'Oh, I thought you intend to leave, said Thomas for I don't.' 'Very good that, Thomas, come I like that.' The old knight's got an anecdote by that, and nanny-goats aint picked up every day in the ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... he exclaimed, and before I could draw back he had caught my hand and was shaking it hard in his own. "Let's be friends a little longer, old man," he went on. "I know you'll change your mind about the little girl and me when ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... thy car! Thou'lt sail by the lustre of morning's bright star; Away!' And I rose from the bosom of Time, And fled through the gates of that shadowy clime; My car sped along on the wings of the wind, While Winter, old man! tottered ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, As the hands kept creeping, creeping,—they were creeping round to four, When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for storming: It 's the death-grip that's a coming,—they will try the works ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... visited the ones along the river, they were often jokingly greeted by the words 'Oh, you rebels!' and in that way the path through the woods got its name. Of course, that was long ago, and few people know about it now. An old man once told me about it, and it always stuck in ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... hold the drum-sticks as if to the manner born, and after a short rehearsal of the music to be played on the festival, the old man felt an immense load ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... to their seats; and Joan had found an out-of-the-way pew from where she could command a view of the whole church. They were chiefly poor folk, the congregation; with here and there a sprinkling of faded gentility. They seemed in keeping with the place. The twilight faded and a snuffy old man shuffled ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... old man the book calls 'the judge,' and he's coaxed me to break my rules and dine with him, at his home ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... to prepare," said the old man, his eyes flashing. "Five years since, we were ready. But we had to wait three more before the bargainers were ready to complete the trade. They had to buy and collect the ships. They had to design and build the machinery we would need. They had to collect the food supplies. Two ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... "Vigilant" from Shanghai, with the admiral on board, brought our stay at charming Nagasaki to a close. During the absence of our band with the "Vigilant," one of its members, Henry Harper, a feeble old man, and far advanced in consumption, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... Creek, in the next cove but one, said that he would take charge of the boy. Nathan did not wait for the burial, but went back home for his wagon, leaving word that Chad was to stay all night with a neighbor and meet him at the death-stricken cabin an hour by sun. The old man meant to have Chad bound to him for seven years by law—the boy had been told that—and Nathan hated dogs as much as Chad hated Nathan. So the lad did not lie long. He did not mean to be bound out, nor to have Jack mistreated, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... said. "I have no reason for feeling one spark of regret at what has befallen him. He was the cruel persecutor of my parents, and did his best to get me removed. There is but one obstacle now to obtaining my father's release, and as he is neither a relation nor an old man I shall be able to deal ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... was allowed not only to have no legal adviser, but also was forbidden access to any books of reference or to any papers or to make any notes. It was thus hoped that, having to trust entirely to his memory, the old man might be led into self-contradictions or to making damaging admissions against himself. De Groot and Hoogerbeets had to undergo a similar, though less protracted, inquisition. Such was its effect upon Ledenburg that ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... arises in the mind of everybody in thinking of reconstruction is, What is to be done about the negro? After the war is over, there will be our Old Man of the Sea, as ready to ride us as ever. If we only emancipate him, he will not let us go free. We must do something more than merely this. While the suffering from them is still sharp, we should fix it in our minds as a principle, that ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... clever hunter, but he wouldn't do a thing like that. Neither would Old Man Coyote or anybody else who wears fur or feathers. They might hide and try to catch some one by surprise. That is all right, because each of us is supposed to be on the watch for things of that sort. Oh, dear, what's to be done? It is time I was getting home to the Green Forest. ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... Castleford's weak partiality. That old Mr. Frith had, Clarence used to say, a perfectly venomous way of accepting his salute, and seemed always surprised and disappointed if he came in in time, or showed up correct work. Indeed, the old man was disliked and feared by all his subordinates as much as his partner was loved; and while Mr. Castleford, with his good-natured Irish wife and merry family, lived a life as cheerful as it was beneficent, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rapidly, without concluding the sentence. "I love him as a woman of his House must love the hero who forms its proudest boast. But if, for any personal grudge, any low ambition, any rash humour, the son of my father Salisbury could forget that Margaret of Anjou placed the gory head of that old man upon the gates of York, could by word or deed abet the cause of usurping and bloody Lancaster,—I would—I would—Out upon my sex! I could do nought but weep the glory of Nevile and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... service as often as you please it. He has lived for twenty years in the house of Prince Lobkowitz, and during a great part of that time he received no salary; he is now obliged to vacate his rooms without receiving any compensation whatever. The position of the poor deserving old man is hard, and I should have considered myself equally hard, had I not ventured to lay his case before you. Count Troyer will request an answer from Y.R.H. As the object in view is to brighten the lot of a fellow-creature, pray ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... the young should be Shamefaced, because since they live at the beck and call of passion they do much that is wrong and Shame acts on them as a check. In fact, we praise such young men as are Shamefaced, but no one would ever praise an old man for being given to it, inasmuch as we hold that he ought not to do things which cause Shame; for Shame, since it arises at low bad actions, does not at all belong to the good man, because such ought not to be done at all: nor does it make any difference ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... a bit soft, old man," he said. "Why, hang it all, you wouldn't have us let him go after shooting a ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Confus'd; the Greeks' protecting wall o'erthrown. As heaves the darkling sea with silent swell, Expectant of the boist'rous gale's approach; Nor onward either way is pour'd its flood, Until it feel th' impelling blast from Heav'n; So stood th' old man, his mind perplex'd with doubt, To mingle in the throng, or counsel seek Of mighty Agamemnon, Atreus' son. Thus as he mused, the better course appear'd, To seek Atrides; fiercely fought the rest With mutual slaughter; loud their armour ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... noteworthy from the fact that it is one of the last papers that came from his prolific pencil. Having finished a translation of 'Hall's International Law' (begun before the siege), I showed it to Li Hung Chang not two weeks ago. The old man took a deep interest in it, and returned it with a preface in which he says 'I am now near eighty; Dr. Martin is over seventy. We are old and soon to pass away; but we both hope that coming generations will be guided by the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... her way too. Miss Swan, as nearly as he could explain, was studying art for the fun of it, or the excitement, for she was well enough off; her father was a lawyer out there, and Berry believed that a rising son-in-law in his own profession would be just the thing for the old man's declining years. He said he should not be very particular about settling down to practice at once; if his wife wanted to go to Europe a while, and kind of tender foot it round for a year or two in the art-centres over there, he would let the old man ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... flaxen, The old man's once were gray, But now, they were white as the snow-drift That lay on the ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... mother had to go after him, or some of the neighbours were so good as to bring him home. It took all the money to pay the publican's bills, and Gertie was ashamed to be seen abroad in the nice clothes which grannie sent, as the neighbours said the Melvyns ought to pay up the old man's bills instead of dressing like swells; and she couldn't help it, and she was sick and tired of trying to keep up respectability in the teeth of ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... An old man, Sirawia, one of Ian's under-chiefs, then said, "Miaki and Nouka say that the land on which Missi lives was theirs; though they sold it to him and he has paid them for it, they all know that it was ours, and is yet ours by right; but if they let Missi ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... leave these drunken fellows," he said with disgust. "Come on, old man. Our partners are waiting in the ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... that a miserable log-house, or rather hut, could afford was at her service. This kind, good family consisted of father, mother, one son and one daughter. Mr. Troyer, the father, was a fine-looking old man with a flowing beard, and was known for many years throughout the Long Point settlement as 'Doctor Troyer.' He possessed a thorough knowledge of witches, their ways and doings, and the art of expelling them, and also the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... here—Now, now!" he remonstrated as the highly excited young man took up his winnings, added them to the money which he held in reserve in his left hand, and placed the whole amount upon the table. "Now you're a comin' it purty strong! Go easy, young feller, and give a old man with only one eye and a game leg a chance. But you won't do it; I can see that in the cast of your eye; you're bound to clean me out at one smack; that's what you're bound ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... only,' the old man rejoined, looking at him with a particularity and speaking with an emphasis which attracted our attention, 'but those of many others, who I can assure you will very shortly yield them up to you, whether they will ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... to go crazy again, with the shock and bewilderment. Forty years! A lifetime lost. My friends would be dead, or old, old people who had long forgotten me. Of what use would all this wealth be to me an old and forgotten friendless man. Old! yes, I must be an old, old man myself. And yet, now the fever had gone, I felt strong and vigorous indeed, the doctor had said that I was exceptionally strong and that I was not forty and the Consul too had said I was a ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... replied Will, as he glanced at the old man who was driving. A straw hat covered his gray head, and his untrimmed gray beard as well as his somewhat rough clothing could not entirely detract from the keen twinkle ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... much left but the old creaky machinery. It used to make me think of an old rickety house with the blinds flappin' in the wind. It mortified us terrible to have any of the Methodists or Babtists come to our church. We was sort o' used to the old man's capers, but people that wasn't couldn't keep a straight face when the singin' begun, and it took more grace than any of us had to keep from gittin' mad when we seen people from another ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... without looking at her, I was aware of her sorrowful, sorrowful eyes, and I would burst into tears and rush to embrace her. I had tutors come to me; I had music lessons, and was called 'miss.' I dined at the master's table together with my mother. Mr. Koltovsky was a tall, handsome old man with a stately manner; he always smelt of ambre. I stood in mortal terror of him, though he called me Suzon and gave me his dry, sinewy hand to kiss under its lace-ruffles. With my mother he was elaborately ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... soon gave him the same sad account of their school-fellow, Congreve, that he had given to Mr. Hector[1390]; adding a remark of such moment to the rational conduct of a man in the decline of life, that it deserves to be imprinted upon every mind: 'There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse[1391].' Innumerable have been the melancholy instances of men once distinguished for firmness, resolution, and spirit, who in their latter days have been governed like ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... concern, while thy pipe is soothing thee, some cows are said to have strayed unobserved into the plains of Pylos.[79] The son of Maia the daughter of Atlas, observes them, and with his {usual} skill hides them, driven off, in the woods. Nobody but an old man, well-known in that country, had noticed the theft: all the neighborhood called him Battus. He was keeping the forests and the grassy pastures, and the set of fine-bred mares of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... I did never see any part of them, but one very old man who is buried here did tell me shortly before he died that he had seen one very old man who had seen of dem one ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... starve." So Uncle Sam's boys built the boats for Mr. Bull, and the two old gentlemen got on amicably, for there was business enough for them both, and the Dutchman did not interfere with them a great deal. The few carpenters among Mr. Bull's relations did not like this very well, but the old man said to them squarely, "Look you here, now, d'ye think I'm going to let fifty of my relatives stand still because two or three of you, who can't build boats as well as Sam's people, are growling about it? That's not ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... pushed her way to the front, and with awed faces the villagers drew back to let them pass. At the open door Sam Jones, the village constable, an old man who had known Joan in her very young days, put ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... subdued, and dispositions so gentle and affectionate, as readily to fall under subjection to the wild Arab, or any other race of men. Hence they are led about in gangs of an hundred or more by a single individual, even by an old man, or a cripple, if he be of the white race and possessed of a strong will. The Nigritian has such little command over his own muscles, from the weakness of his will, as almost to starve, when a little exertion and forethought ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... as on the exterior may be seen fragments of sculpture which show much refinement. In one of the rooms of the tower a monumental mantel carved in stone bears in its centre the bust of an old man having in his hand a globe surmounted by a cross, the imperial emblem. This may be the portrait of one of the founders of ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various
... gloomy or morbid: the edges of the cloud of life are turned to gold by faith and hope. Of the poems of this class, "Thanatopsis," of which we have already spoken, is one of the best known. Others are the "Hymn to Death," "The Old Man's Funeral," "A Forest Hymn," "The Lapse of Time," "An Evening Reverie," "The Old Man's Counsel," and "The Past." This last is one of the noblest of his productions, full of solemn beauty and melancholy music, and we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... a simple one. On the southern shore of Michillimackinac, in the romantic days of the first exploration of the great lakes by the Courreurs de Bois and pioneer priests, had settled good Pere Ignace, a devoted Jesuit missionary. The old man was revered and loved by the Indians among whom he dwelt. His labors blossomed in a little village, called from his patron saint the mission of St. Ignace, that displayed its cluster of white huts and wigwams like the petals of a water-lily ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... That was the hell of it! Archulera was the one man of all men whom he could least afford to offend. And he knew just how hard to appease the old man would be. For among the Mexicans, seduction is a crime which, in theory and often in practice, can be atoned only by marriage or by the shedding of blood. Marriage is the door to freedom for the ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... overwhelming defeat could not have attracted more attention than those two old warriors. Heads popped out of every door and window, and before he was halfway home he had a train of small boys following him. I declare, when I saw the old man, he was almost crying. When I went up to him and patted the dog's head, he said, brokenly, 'He's all I've got, and now they've even ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... graveyard, in New York City, an old man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000,000, gambles every day with all the excitement of youth. The fluctuations in his game bring to his sallow cheeks the color that no other human emotion ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... very strange," said the old man. "He has not been at home since last Sunday, at dinner-time. ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... this subject, the reader must excuse an old man's propensity to gossip, if I say a word on the general question of the right of search. As for the pretence that was set up by some of the advocates of impressment out of neutral ships, which laid down the position, that the belligerent being on board in the exercise of an undoubted right ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... I never felt better in my life except for twinges occasioned by my nitrogen experiment. But still I hear a voice calling to me, as my mother often did, when I was a boy 'Peter, Peter, it is about bed-time,' and I have an old man's presentiment that I shall be ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... old man and had occupied seven years in the conquest. His work was over, and now he had only to take steps to secure the completion by others of the triumph which he would never see. This incident has many applications to the work of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Charles X. is dead, it is said of the cholera. I regret him; few people were ever kinder to me than the good old man. He was blinded by certain absolute ideas, but a good man, and deserving to be loved. History will state that Louis XVIII. was a most liberal monarch, reigning with great mildness and justice to his end, but that his ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Rome." Customers might please themselves about coming: Zerviah Holme had never cared about amassing money, and now he cared even less than before. A frugal breakfast, a frugal dinner, a box full of snuff, and a shelf full of Gibbon were the old man's only requirements: an undemanding life, and therefore a loveless one; since the less we ask for, the less ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... persons, the latter being the schoolmaster of her father. As showing her power of local coloring, Miss Mathilde Blind relates this incident: "On its first appearance, Adam Bede was read aloud to an old man, an intimate associate of Robert Evans in his Staffordshire days. This man knew nothing concerning either author or subject beforehand, and his astonishment was boundless on recognizing so many friends and incidents of his own youth portrayed with unerring fidelity, he sat up half the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... before, with the commander of the frigate. It had also landed the troops it had on board, consisting of a company of colonial soldiers. The command of the camp was confided to Mr. de Fonsain, a respectable old man, who died there the victim of his zeal. What procured him this fatal distinction was the resolution taken by the Governor to go and reside in the island of Goree, to be able to superintend the camp, and the ships, and doubtless for ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... the family group that was bidding Madelaine de Livilier good-bye, was not the Prime Minister Maurepas, who was not "only a few months returned from exile," and who was not then "at the pinnacle of royal favor"; for these matters were of earlier date, and this "most lovable old man in the world" wasn't any longer in the world at all, and had not been for eight years. He ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... with him, a person whose exact social status some of Percival's friends were never able to fix with any desirable certainty. Thus, Percival had presented the old man, the morning after his arrival, to no less a person than Herbert Delancey Livingston, with whom he had smoked a cigar of unusual excellence in the cafe of ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... West, that the bank is the heart of the business system? From it and to it, in endless flux and reflux, the life blood goes. It is flowing in now. It will flow out again in the morning;" and pleased with his little conceit, the old man passed ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... whined low; on the doorway sill, With his cane to his chin, The old man sat; and the chore-girl still Sung to the ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... Abbot, An old man, broken with the storms of state, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye: Give him a little ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... our friend came up to my shack, and having visited a while he said: 'Old man, you're up against it hard, ain't you?' I replied, 'Yes, I am, just up to the limit.' 'Well, let's pray about it.' I told him I didn't believe in prayer. 'All right,' said he, 'I do, and I'll pray any way.' You should have heard the prayer he made. ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... that his skin shivers; I am angry also, but if one thinks carefully, what else could he do? Since he belonged to the other girl, he was obliged to go. He is a nobleman. But I tell you this; if the Germans do not kill him, then he will come back; and he will come back not only to me an old man, not only to Bogdaniec, but to you, because he ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... to my old Trade again, fetch and carry my Lady's Lovers; I was afraid when she had been married, these Night-works wou'd have ended; but to say truth, there's a Conscience to be used in all things, and there's no reason she should languish with an old Man when a Young Man may be had.—The Door ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... contained the head, and placing it at the end of one of the trenches, hurriedly produced a hammer and nails to fasten the lid before letting it down, when it was found that the box was too shallow at the narrower extremity. The lid was removed for a moment and showed the figure of an old man in a threadbare black coat, white pantaloons, and boots. The negroes who bore it beat out the bottom with the hammer, so as to allow the lid to be fastened over the feet. It was then nailed down firmly with coarse nails, the coffin was swung into ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... all other trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance. When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to Jupiter, and asked him if he thought he could climb it. The old man seemed a little staggered by the question, and for some moments made no reply. At length he approached the huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and examined it with minute attention. When he had completed his ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... to soothe the old man, and on his part the old man tried at one and the same moment to apologize for his granddaughter and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently neither of them heard or ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... on Lauman got up, and he gave a sigh of relief. "Say, yuh darned cowpunchers don't have no mercy on an old man's carcass at all," he groaned, in exaggerated self-pity. "Next time yuh want to congratulate me, I wish you'd put it in writing and ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... the wind and sea protect us, and may the god o' the mist cover us!" said the old man, as the young Esquimau sat down on a dead seal beside him. "Is it true that you saw ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... alleged moonshiner, though, as he said, "Yes, I did make some whiskey, but I never sold none!" "How're you feeling, Joe?" I would say; and he would reply, with his pathetic smile, and his high, soft voice, "Pretty well—pretty well, for 'n old man!" with a drawling emphasis on the "old." He was about seventy, with the soft brown hair of youth, but bent and stiff and wrinkled with hard years and rheumatics; and if I questioned him more closely, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... with my aunt at Barcelona, And thought, ere this, you had been married to The rich old man, Don Estevan ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... and true. It was his good fortune to stand to Mozart and Beethoven in the role of master. Both were in many ways his superiors, yet both revered him, the one until his own life went out in the freshness of his youth; the other until when an old man, having stood upon the very Pisgah tops of the tone world, full of honors, he spoke of the old master, Haydn, with affection, in his very last days. Higher testimony than this it would be impossible to quote. For, in the nature of the case, ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... but too sensible, that he had no other course but that of submission to superior force; but ere he left the apartment, he kneeled down to receive his father's blessing, which the old man bestowed not without a tear in his eye, and in the emphatic words, "God bless thee, my boy; and keep thee good and true to Church and King, whatever wind ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... citizen of South Carolina was more indignant than he at General Jackson's Proclamation. He said that, if the people did not rouse themselves to a sense of their condition, and "put down this wretched old man," the country was irretrievably ruined; and he spoke of the troops despatched to Charleston as "mercenaries," to whom he hoped "no quarter would be given." The "wretched old man" whom the people were to "put down" was Andrew Jackson, not ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the west, because it was there that Gaoh, who had the bent figure and weazened face of an old man, always sat, Manitou having imprisoned him with the elements, and having confined him to one place. In the beautiful Iroquois mythology, Gaoh often struggled to release himself, though never with success. Sometimes his efforts were but ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... hat over-jauntily cocked was all but shaken from his head. "I mind me the last time we met, I played you an unfair trick," said he. His tone bespoke the very highest good-humour. He slipped his arm through Richard's. "Never bear an old man ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... not at all," he disclaimed. "Cocks'n, if you'll be so kind as to go forward, I'll take the tiller. Tom, old man! don't stand there all day. You'll get your ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... fixing a penetrating glance upon the old man, "was not the only one who looked at La Mode. Was there no other person in the tavern ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... upon his forehead. She had done that repeatedly during the past day, and each time the effect had been marvelously soothing to the old man. Now at the touch he drew a ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... hearing them. It was on just such a sort of evening as this, when I was a little girl, and my aunt as brought me up took me to hear a good man preach out of doors, just as we are here. I remember his face well: he was a very old man, and had very long white hair; his voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any voice I had ever heard before. I was a little girl and scarcely knew anything, and this old man seemed to me such a different sort of a man from anybody ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... sound. Thus he quotes approvingly a derivation of the name Themis from an assumed verb them, "to speak," whereas it is notoriously derived from tiqhmi, as statute comes ultimately from stare. His reference of hieros, "a priest," and geron, "an old man," to the same root, is utterly baseless; the one is the Sanskrit ishiras, "a powerful man," the other is the Sanskrit jaran, "an old man." The lists of words on pages 96-100 are disfigured by many such errors; and indeed the whole purpose for which they are given shows how sadly Mr. Gladstone's ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal,—and there was very little else to look at,—he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomeness of his system, and his ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... already? That old man has betray'd me to the Emperor. What say'st thou? Thirty years have we together Lived out, and held out, sharing joy and hardship. We have slept in one camp-bed, drunk from one glass, One morsel shared! I lean'd myself on him, As now I lean me on thy faithful shoulder. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... violence upon those of nature by an unseasonable marriage." Such disorder is never to be suffered in a commonwealth, nor such unseasonable and unloving and unperforming marriages, which attain no due end or fruit; any provident governor or lawgiver might say to an old man that takes a young wife what is said to Philoctetes in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... these man's-size schemes any longer. Peddling oranges in a push-cart is about the suitable graft for me. When I said ten thousand, I swear I thought I had sized up that brown man's limit to within two cents. He'd have melted down for fifteen thousand just as easy. Say—Carry—you'll see old man Keogh safe in some nice, quiet idiot asylum, won't you, if he makes a ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... sit there!" He then commenced breakfast, without telling Father Becton to sit down, although a third plate had been laid for him. Father Becton stood behind his old pupil's chair apparently confounded at his violence. The scene produced such an effect on the old man that he became incapable of discharging his duties at Compiegne. He retired to Rheims, and his intellect soon after became deranged. I do not pretend to say whether this alienation of mind was caused by the occurrence I have just related, and the account ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... it is well that you die now. And I promise you, in the long days to come when I turn your head in the smoke, no man of the tribe shall come in to disturb us. And I will tell you many secrets, for I am an old man and very wise, and I shall be adding wisdom to wisdom as I turn your head ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... history," the Duke said, "are unknown to me. But if the advice of an old man is in any way acceptable to you, I should strongly recommend you to accept any offer of friendship which Sir Michael may make. He is an old man, and he is possessed of considerable wealth. Further, I gather that you ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... characters; others in the Ionic dialect; some in the Arabic, Agarenian, Slavonian, and other tongues; of which Epistemon took an exact account. In the interim, Panurge said to Friar John, Is this the island of the Macreons? Macreon signifies in Greek an old man, or one much stricken in years. What is that to me? said Friar John; how can I help it? I was not in the country when they christened it. Now I think on't, quoth Panurge, I believe the name of mackerel (Motteux adds, between brackets,—'that's a Bawd in French.') ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... wish I had known that, for he led me a long chase, often over-shoes in water. However, it was the cause of my falling in with an old man and a boy who were cutting and piling up turf for fuel, and I had a good deal of talk with them about the manner of preparing the turf, and the price it sells at. They gave me, too, a creature I never saw before—a young viper, which they had just killed, together with ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... in his own room; he always rings the great bell which calls the men to milking; he rouses up Betty, our maid; as often as not he gives the horses their feed before the man is up—for Jem, who takes care of the horses, is an old man; and father is always loth to disturb him; he looks at the calves, and the shoulders, heels, traces, chaff, and corn before the horses go a-field; he has often to whip-cord the plough-whips; he sees the hogs ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... said the old man, in a whisper that Sol could hear perfectly well. "He'll be havin' a ship of his own, one o' these days soon. What does ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... with a very worthy old man, from Lyons, named Monsieur Duvivier, who had been employed at the Visa, under the regency, and for want of other business, now assisted at the Survey. He had lived in the polite world, possessed talents, was good-humored, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... "lame sovereignty." But Agesilaus had not yet abandoned all hope; and he now directed his views towards the east as the quarter from which Spartan power might still be resuscitated. At the age of 80 the indomitable old man proceeded with a force of 1000 hoplites to assist Tachos, king of Egypt, in his revolt against Persia. He died at Cyrene on his return to Greece. His body was embalmed in wax ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... thought,—child-like Marie with her dependence and her loving heart. But Marie, to whom she had been all things, was safe in the care of Henri. There remained only the dream of the Whispering Hills and the illusive figure of a man,—an old man, sturdy of form and with blue eyes ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... for Jane to think about it, Eleanor slipped out, bonnet in hand, and went softly down stairs. The old man was already gone to bed in a little inner chamber; the old mother sat dozing by the fire. Standing behind her Eleanor put on the bonnet, and then gently opening the house door, with one step was in the road. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... a little awed by the old man's unexpectedly solemn manner, ventured further. "Have you ever witnessed any of these unaccountable doings which ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the shores of time, a cheery, lovable old man, loved and respected by all; a welcome guest in every home. Soon after Iola's marriage, Robert sold out his business and moved with his mother and sister to North Carolina. He bought a large plantation near C——, which he divided into small homesteads, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... was Mr. Ketch, coming to lock up the cloisters. As the boys had no wish to be fastened in, themselves, they gathered up their books, and waited in silence till the porter was close upon them. Then, with a sudden war-whoop, they sprang past him, very nearly startling the old man out of his senses, and calling forth from him ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... soldiers is easily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been carefully selected by competent surgeons. They were physically perfect, or nearly so. They were in the bloom of early manhood or the strength of middle age—not an old man among them, not a diseased man among them, not a broken-down constitution among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by conscription, were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too young. Said our General ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... was captain only by courtesy. He was an old man, past eighty, and blissfully ignorant of the sea and its ways; but he was the owner of the vessel, and hence the honorable title. Of course the sailing-master, who was really captain, was a thorough-going seaman. The mate, whose post ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... they make, those beggarly fellows—it's some deputy of the convention I take it. The thieves want for nothing, they live like so many kings, and we are all a hundred times worse off than ever."]—"Tais toi, tais tois," ["Be quiet, I tell you."] (says the old man, who seemed the least garrulous of the two.)—"Ne crains rien, ["Never fear."] (replied the first,) c'est de braves gens; these ladies and gentlemen I'm sure are good people; they have not the look of patriots."—And with this compliment to ourselves, and ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... cries and lamentations of the mothers and other female relatives, who, in their excess of grief, mutilate themselves by cutting gashes into their thighs, so that they bleed profusely. The boys are, in the meantime, carried to some out-of-the-way place, where an old man, perched on a tree or some rising ground, through the means of a musical instrument made of a deal-board and human hair, announced that the rite is in process of performance, so that neither women nor children might approach. Tufts of moss are placed in the axilla and on the pubis, to represent ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... me gratification, was a source of keen annoyance and vexation to me whenever I heard it. It related to a boy who on one occasion had the good fortune to meet, in the depths of the forest, a little old man in red cap and green jerkin—a gnome or fairy, of course—who with the utmost good-nature offered to gratify any single wish that boy might choose to express. Here was a glorious chance, the opportunity ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... lingering, to the way they all three went, and quickly thereafter—for they made good speed—arriving at the poetical habitation, they found the jolly old man, albeit in the agony of his departure from this world, looking cheerfully, with an open countenance, splendid aspect, and behaviour full of alacrity. After that Panurge had very civilly saluted ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... mentions a very whimsical instance of the interference of the laity in every possible way. He says, that being at church one Sabbath, there was one reverend old man, certainly a leader among them, who literally, as the preacher went on with his sermon, kept up a sort of recitation with him as, for instance, the preacher continuing ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... but understood and went to work. Howard, when he met them all at supper long after dark, noted how their sunburned eyes turned upon him speculatively. And he knew that in their own parlance every mother's son of them was ready to go the limit if the old man set the pace. That night, when the others trooped off to bed, he detained Chuck Evans and Plug Oliver and Dave Terril for a brief conference. To them he gave in what detail he could his latest plans. Also, since they were friends as well as hired hands, he told them frankly of his ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... and for which Mr. Hicks, who was Commanding Officer, brought him to the Gangway and gave him a Dozen lashes with a Catt of nine Tails. The rest of the people seem'd not displeased at it when they came to know what it was for, and some old man beat the fellow after he had got into his Canoe; however, soon after this they ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... dine tete-a-tete with Rogers; I have persuaded him to come down with me to Burnham. Poor old man! he is very much broken and altered, very deaf, very sad. This last year has taken from him Sydney and Bobus Smith; and now, the day before yesterday, his old friend Lady Holland died, and he literally stands as though his "turn" were next—it may ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... imprisonment in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair, of the flowery land of Beulah, lying beyond the valley of the Shadow of Death, through which a deep, cold river runs, and of the city of All Delight on the other side. This story still has absorbing interest for human beings, for the child and the old man, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... did not forget the old custom of shaving all the men who had never crossed the line before. Our captain was a jolly old man, and uncommonly fond of "sky-larking." He gave us leave to do what we liked the day we crossed the line; so, as there were a number of wild spirits among us, we broke through all the ordinary rules, or, rather, we added on new ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... in the absence of other indication, they ought to follow the suggestion, and told Burton to guide them to the place as rapidly as possible. After half an hour's sharp riding, they came in view of the camp,—or rather of a rising ground behind which it lay in the hollow. The other servant was an old man, who had been whipper-in to a baronet in the next county, and knew as much of the ways of wild animals as Burton did of those of his horses; it was his turn now to address my father, who had halted for a moment to think what ought ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... oil on the buckler. Hah! hah! I can see reflected there an old man who will be accused ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... Jung-Stilling had found no purchaser. There came a day when I was in funds. I see myself hastening to Holywell Street (in those days my habitual pace was five miles an hour), I see the little grey old man with whom I transacted my business—what was his name?—the bookseller who had been, I believe, a Catholic priest, and still had a certain priestly dignity about him. He took the volume, opened it, mused for a moment, then, with a glance at me, said, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing |
