"Thickset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... introduce to the notice of my readers some of the odd characters with whom we became acquainted during that period. The first that starts vividly to my recollection is the picture of a short, stumpy, thickset man—a British sailor, too—who came to stay one night under our roof, and took quiet possession of his quarters for nine months, and whom we are obliged to tolerate from the simple fact that we could not ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the great carriage road, but following one of the embowered paths which led through the woods. It went winding up, under trees of great beauty, thickset, and now for long default of mastership, overbearing and encroaching in their growth. A wild beauty they made, now becoming fast disorderly and in places rough. The road wound about so much that their progress ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... came from a thickset man, of about middle age, upon whose upper lip bristled a fringe of reddish hair. His eyes were blue, narrow and evil, and his face was scarred in ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... thickset man with a firm, clean-shaven jaw and a face furrowed by deep lines, but with eyes that oddly enough looked comparatively youthful and capable not only of appreciating humor, but even of manufacturing it. He appeared ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... high class and exclusive, and the Weasel for once looked quite the gentleman, and, for all his sharp, ferret face, not entirely out of keeping with his surroundings—else he would never have got farther than the lobby. The other was a short, thickset, heavy-jowled man, with a great shock of sandy hair, and small black eyes that looked furtively ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... By-and-by, we note a thickset Individual, in round hat and peruke, arm in arm with some servant, seemingly of the Runner or Courier sort; he also issues through Villequier's door; starts a shoebuckle as he passes one of the sentries, stoops down to clasp it again; is however, by the Glass-coachman, still more cheerfully ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... to arrive were the guides of Grindelwald. I uttered a cry of joy when Pierre Bohren appeared, a man of low stature but thickset limbs, and Jean Almer, who was tall and robust. Both were chamois hunters, renowned for their intrepidity. They looked at me with curious attentiveness. They confessed, with the frank cordiality peculiar to these brave mountaineers, that their experience would be of no ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... divers times thereafter he saw her in the distance, faring to and fro from Peter Ferrara's house, out on the trail that ran to the Knob, several times when the sea was calm paddling a canoe or rowing alongshore. Also he had glimpses of the thickset figure of Horace Gower walking along the cliffs. MacRae avoided both. That was easy enough, since he knew every nook and bush and gully on that end of the island. But the mere sight of Gower was an irritation. He resented the man's presence. It affected him like a challenge. It ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... mentioned, but one much smaller, and considerably higher up the valley. The cottage had several dusky outbuildings attached to it, and a paling before it. Leaning over the paling in his shirt-sleeves was a dark-faced, short, thickset man, who saluted me in English. I returned his salutation, stopped, and was soon in conversation with him. I praised the beauty of the river and its banks: he said that both were beautiful and delightful in summer, but not at all in winter, for then the trees and bushes on the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... whether he was truly grateful to the young girl and tried to show it; whether he was emboldened by the childish appeal of the long brown distinguishing braid down her back, or whether he suddenly found something peculiarly provocative in the reddish brown eyes between their thickset hedge of lashes, and with the trim figure and piquant pose, and was seized with that hysteric desperation which sometimes attacks timidity itself, I cannot say! Enough that he suddenly put his arm around her waist and his lips to her soft satin cheek, peppered and salted as it was by ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... who appeared in answer to this summons was a thickset sturdy Norfolk man, with an intelligent face and shrewd dark eyes. On the chief constable informing him that he was to give the gentlemen the details of the Golden Anchor murder, he produced a notebook from his tunic, and commenced the story ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... sun-flecked green, Wound through the thickset trunks on every side, And, toward the west, in fancy might be seen A Gothic window in its blazing pride, 180 When the low sun, two arching elms between, Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumn-dyed With lavish hues, would into splendor start, Shaming the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... glittering steel instruments within. One of them was a youngish man, pale, bald, and with feminine hands and a hard mouth, with a continual and visible contraction of the lower jaw, which was extraordinarily developed. The other was a thickset man of mature years with a freckled face, bushy red beard and the neck of an ox. The one seemed the antithesis of the other, and their disparity excited Sperelli's curiosity and attention. They set out upon a table bandages and carbolic acid for disinfecting the weapons. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... at the office at this time did nothing to remove this sensation of being outside everything that made life worth living. Betty, returning to the office one afternoon, found Smith in the doorway, just parting from a thickset young man. There was a rather gloomy expression on ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... familiar evening. He was continually obliged to step off the pavement into the road, to allow a bunch of merry, chattering girls, their cheeks coloured by the wind beneath the dark fur of their hats, or a line of gaudy capped, thickset students, to pass him by, unbroken; and it seemed to him that he was more frequently off the pavement than on it. He began to feel disconsolate among these jovial people, who were hastening forward, with such spirit, to some end, and he had not gone far, before ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... easy-going hell. My heart sank down as I entered, and wearily there I sat While the chairman strove to end his maunder of this and of that. And partly shy he seemed, and partly indeed ashamed Of the grizzled man beside him as his name to us he named. He rose, thickset and short, and dressed in shabby blue, And even as he began it seemed as though I knew The thing he was going to say, though I never heard it before. He spoke, were it well, were it ill, as though a message he bore, A word that he could not refrain ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... as he came into the school drawing-room was a thing to remember. He was a tall boy, and he looked like his father. Very olive he was—and is—and his blue eyes shone out of the dark face from under the same thickset and long lashes. His father's charm and beauty halted me, but I judged, before I let myself go, that he had also his mother's stability. I have seen no reason since to doubt my judgment. I never had so fine a fishing trip to Canada as that summer, in spite of the fact that John ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... looking like Jephtha's daughter, pale and resigned, but rather more lackadaisical, with a sort of "though-absent-not-forgot" look about her, inexpressibly sentimental and interesting. The contrast was certainly rather strong between old Moreland, who sat there, red-faced, thickset, and clumsy, and the airy slender Staunton, who, for fear of spoiling his figure, lived upon oysters and macaroon, and drank water with a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... morning Bahama Bill presented himself. The boys had been told how he looked, yet they had all they could do to keep from smiling when he presented himself. He was a short, thickset man, with broad shoulders, and legs which were very much bowed. He wore his reddish hair long and also sported a thick beard. He had a squint in one eye which, as Sam said, "gave him the appearance of looking continually over his shoulder. When he talked his voice was ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... to leave the place, two men confronted them at the door. One was Mr. Scully, he of the ground-floor apartment, the other a short, thickset man, who at once announced himself as the janitor of ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... a thickset, jolly looking, curly headed fellow, with a thick neck, a bulldog jaw, and a big voice," replied Talbot. "Of course he tried to bully me, but when that didn't work, he came down to business. We entered ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... with a task which might well tax his astuteness to the utmost. To begin with he made use of one of his favourite weapons,—silence. He sat quite still, studying the situation, and in those few moments Josephine found herself studying him. He was tall, over six feet, with burly shoulders, a thickset body, and legs rather short for his height. He was clean-shaven, his hair was a sandy grey, his complexion florid, his eyes blue and piercing. His upper lip was long, and his mouth, when closed, rather resembled some ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She had read somewhere lately that physical delicacy was apt to react on the mind and make one's ideas too fine-spun and unsubstantial. Here was the advantage which a man like Mr. Lyons had over Wilbur. He was strong and thickset, and looked as though he could endure hard work without wincing. So could she. It was a great boon, an essential of effective manhood or womanhood. These thoughts followed in the wake of the enthusiasm his personality had aroused in her at the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... rage, and flung himself forward at his enemy. He was a shorter man, but very thickset, with arms like steel. He had a knife, rage like a thirst, he was free. Richard, as he came on, hit him full on the chin, and sent him flying. Gurdun picked himself up again, his mouth twitching, his eyes so small as to be like slits. Knife in hand he leaned ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... Markham, Dick and Warner galloped into camp, ahead of the others, a thickset strong figure walked forward to meet them. They leaped from ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... peu de repos, apres, vous verrez, mon general." During my peregrinations I struck the Headquarters of the Mediterranean Brigade under General Vandenberg, who came round his own men with me. A sturdy, thickset fair man with lots of go and very cheery. He is of Dutch descent. Later on I came to the Colonial Brigade Headquarters and made the acquaintance of Colonel Ruef, a fine man—every inch a soldier. The French have suffered severely but are in fine fighting form. They are enchanted to hear ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... The thickset man advanced his face, and the bread became a physical threat in his hand. Denton's mind rushed together to the one problem of ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... still blazed and the hush of the July afternoon lay over the valley. Paragot watched the thickset form of Blanquette disappear into the cafe; he poured out another bottle of beer and addressed Narcisse who was ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... of men and horses broke up at length, scattered in all directions, and within five minutes she looked up to find her husband in the doorway—a thickset man, with more of force than perception in his blunt ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... a stately row; Here, of munificence a thickset grove; There, of wise industry a quickset grew; Here, flourished a dainty copse of love; There, sprang up pleasant twigs of ready wit; Here, larger ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... many days and adventures too numerous to relate, he came to the house of the King of the Gnomes, which was inside a mountain and as thickset with jewels as the grass with ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... that's the new boss at the upper quarries," said one, pointing to a short thickset man making his way up ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... some others besides; had a martial and a swashing exterior, which, on the present occasion, was rendered yet more peculiar, by a patch covering his left eye and a part of the cheek. The sleeves of his thickset velvet jerkin were polished and shone with grease,—his buff gloves had huge tops, which reached almost to the elbow; his sword-belt of the same materials extended its breadth from his haunchbone to his small ribs, and supported on the one side his large black-hilted back-sword, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... above conversation, two respectable individuals called upon me at Mr Clayton's house—the accredited messengers of the church in which my eternal safety was about to be secured. One was a thickset man, with large black whiskers and corresponding eyebrows. His countenance had a stern expression—the eye especially, which lay couched like a tiger beneath its rugged overhanging brow. You did not like to look at it, and you could not meet it without unpleasantness and awe. The gentleman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... sound dies down the stream Till it only clings at the senses' edge Like a half-remembered dream. Doubtless, he in the silence lies, His fair face turned to the tender skies, Starlight touching his sleeping eyes. While his boat caught in the thickset sedge And the waters round it gurgle and sob, Or floats set free on the river's tide, ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... pines six feet in diameter bending like grasses before a mountain gale, and ever and anon some giant falling with a crash that shakes the hills, it seems astonishing that any, save the lowest thickset trees, could ever have found a period sufficiently stormless to establish themselves; or, once established, that they should not, sooner or later, have been blown down. But when the storm is over, and we behold ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... are as a rule stumpy and thickset, with very small hands and feet, broad faces, and projecting cheekbones, a narrow nose without the aquiline bridge of the Amerindian, slanting narrow eyes, and long heads containing large well-developed brains. In disposition the ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... a stout, thickset man with a face bronzed to the color of mahogany and a head of hair as red as a Pittsburgh furnace at midnight. His blue eyes sparkled with good nature and merriment, and a continual smile hovered over his massive mouth. After several hearty greetings to acquaintances on the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... naturally. In the late 1600's a very fair and bright large Oronoco, Prior, and Kite's Foot were mentioned. As the years passed planters came to distinguish other varieties such as Hudson, Frederick, Thick-Joint, Shoe-string, Thickset, Blue Pryor, Medley Pryor, White Stem, Townsend, Long Green, Little ...
— Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - "The Sovereign Remedy" • Melvin Herndon
... Millennial Church," as well as in some other works published by the Shakers, there are recorded details of her life and conversation, from which one gets the idea that she was a woman of practical sense, sincerely pious, and humble-minded. She was "rather below the common stature of woman, thickset but straight, and otherwise well-proportioned and regular in form and feature. Her complexion was light and fair, and her eyes were blue, but keen and penetrating; her countenance mild and expressive, but grave and solemn. Her manners were plain, simple, and easy. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... quantities of gold in their channels. The inland inhabitants, called Monacaboes, are a barbarous and savage people, whose chief delight is in doing injury to their neighbours. On this account, the peasantry about Malacca sow no grain, except in inclosures defended by thickset prickly hedges or deep ditches: For, when the grain is ripe in the open plains, the Monacaboes never fail to set it on fire. These inland natives are much whiter than the Malays of the lower country; and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... to be amused by anything. She stood for a few minutes talking to the two Osmonds; then, catching sight of an acquaintance a little way off, she bade them a hasty good night, much to Brian's chagrin, and hurried forward with a warmth of greeting which he could only hope was appreciated by the thickset, honest-looking mechanic who was the happy recipient. When they left the hall she was still deep in ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... unexpected and momentary, as if no bugle-peal had heralded its onset. Leaning against a tree that juts out over the precipice, clinging by its roots to the earth behind, and affording you only a problematical support, you look down upon a green, translucent pool, lying below rocks thickset with hardy shrubs and trees, up to the narrow fall that hurls itself down the cleft which it has grooved, concentrated and alert at first, then wavering out with little tremors into the scant sunshine, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton |
