"Gargoyle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Barnes. Why, a mother-in-law looks to me like something in petticoats that comes creeping up with a catlike tread, carrying in one hand a net and in the other a bale-hook. I can't sit out two dances with a debutante before this nightmare is looking over my shoulder, grinning like a gargoyle and counting up the number of millions you are ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... in to Marraine," she choked. "Gargoyle, my dear," she whispered, "is what she meant—gargoyle. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... me with a look that seemed to have about it all the fragrance of all the lilac-blossoms in the world, mixed with all the piety of all our race's children and the wantonness of all old heathen dreams. It is like Socrates, that head; and like a gargoyle on the ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... dead cheetah was laid at Jill's feet, a huge bull dog, with a face like a gargoyle to be seen on the Western transept of Notre-Dame, and a chest like a steel safe, supported on legs which had given way under the weight, walked across from Sir John Wetherbourne, Bart., of Bourne Manor, and other delectable ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... for some modern master, a chance to picture for generations to come an aspect of a mighty age, an age that may some day be deemed but a grotesque and anomalistic survival of a more ancient logic; a gargoyle carved out of chaos, that bears on its features a resemblance to the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning coal. Its long, savage mouth, which was held half-open, was full of a double row of shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were humped, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hushed and darkened town, the master rode into his castle. The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's wife trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over the leads by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard the clamor of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's invitation to meet him in the Hall ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... dead images, Saint's-head or gargoyle, thou hast seen a sight Shall last thee to the confines of the grave! Ill were thy stars or ever thou wert born That thou shouldst look upon a thing forbid! Now in thine eye shall it forever live, And the ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... erection, had been otherwise decorated than by a narrow fluted pilaster of red marble, and the sculpture was reserved always, as in Greek and Roman work, for the plane surfaces of the building, with, as far as I recollect, two exceptions only, both in St. Mark's; namely, the bold and grotesque gargoyle on its north-west angle, and the angels which project from the four inner angles under the main cupola; both of these arrangements being plainly made under Lombardic influence. And if any other instances occur, which I may have at present ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... wondering if they had been having springs like this all the time he had lived in the city, heard a scuffle outside the door. His wife's voice inquired breathlessly of Wallis, "Can Mr. Allan—see me?... Oh, gracious—don't, Foxy, you little black gargoyle! Open the door, or—shut ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... coarse black hairs clung here and there to his upper lip; his fine brown eyes were embedded in wrinkles, and his swarthy features, though clumsy, were kindly—a good-humoured face, which, at a cheerful word or glance, lit up at once with the grotesque grin of an animated gargoyle. This was the typical old-time tracker of the North; the toiler who brought in the products of man's art in the East, and took out Nature's returns—the Indian's output—ever since the trade first ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... broke in, shaking his pencil at her as he sat perched, like a benign gargoyle, by his study table. "I'll not have Farwell defrauded while he ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... spirit would not fail? Why not, oh, my masters, why not use this inborn passion for wandering abroad of which I write? Why not take that jaded band of youths out across yon fields, take them to the village church, and show them grinning gargoyle and curling finial, show them the deep-cut blocks of stone, show them, on your return, a picture of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge at Rouen? Would your trade ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... possessed an eccentric tree for a time, it was fated to close its existence in the keeping of Alcott. I imagined his slightly stooping, yet tall and well-grown figure, clothed in black, and with a picturesque straw hat, twining itself in and out of forest aisles, or craftily returning home with gargoyle-like stems over his shoulders. The magic of his pursuit was emphasized by the notorious fact that his handiwork fell together in the middle, faded like shadows from bronze to hoary pallor; its longevity was a protracted death. In short, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... an open shaft in the building. I thought I could manage, roofed as it was, to get in by the open side. It was some time before I could find it again; but when I did come upon it at last, I saw that it might be done. By the help of a projecting gargoyle, curiously carved in the days when the wall to which it clung had formed part of the front of the building, I got my feet upon the wooden rail of the gallery, caught hold of one of the small pillars which supported the roof, and slewed myself in. I was almost as glad as when ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... above. Jimmy had forgotten the gallery. He directed his gaze thither, and perceived the heavy face of Ogden hanging over the rail like a gargoyle. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... ground-floor; but the roof, rising steeply, has several projecting windows, with carved spandrels rather elegantly enclosed in oaken frames, and externally adorned with balustrades. Between each of these windows is a gargoyle presenting the fantastic jaws of an animal without a body, vomiting the rain-water upon large stones pierced with five holes. The two gables are surmounted by leaden bouquets,—a symbol of the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... was of the remotest times, and everywhere were represented in stone beasts that have long since passed away from Earth—the dragon, the griffin, and the hippogriffin, and the different species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether material or custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at all of us as we went by, but continued their processions and ceremonies in the ancient city, ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany |
