"Shabby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... facts concerning her were rather shabby ones. She had been unceremoniously dumped into his arms by a delegate from the Foundling Asylum, who had found him the most convenient receptacle nearest the door; and he had been offered the meager information that she belonged to no one, was wrong somehow, and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... strewn with ashes and dotted by blackened stumps, ran along the track, and at its end were three or four shabby frame houses. A rudely painted board on one stated that the building was the Strathcona Hotel. Agatha felt very forlorn. Except for a week or two with Thirlwell, and once with a band of merry companions at a summer camp she had not seen the rugged bush, and now it daunted her. She was not going ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... courage, as if Mr. Stickney had been present, and liable to take offence at this conclusion. A few minutes more brought him in front of Mrs. Wagstaff's, where Mr. Tryan lodged. He had often been here before, so that the contrast between this ugly square brick house, with its shabby bit of grass-plot, stared at all round by cottage windows, and his own pretty white home, set in a paradise of orchard and garden and pasture was not new to him; but he felt it with fresh force today, as he slowly fastened his roan ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... very threshold of Casa Valdu, Odo perceived that unwonted preparations were afoot. The shabby liveries of the servants had been refurbished and the marble floor newly scoured; and he found his mother seated in the drawing-room, an apartment never unshrouded save on the most ceremonious occasions. As to Donna Laura, she had undergone the same process of renovation, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... general occupied with his own special branch, in which Tuke, through his long connection with book-lovers possessing small cherished libraries, was able to bring him almost as many jobs as he could undertake. The fact that a volume could be so repaired, stimulated the purchase of shabby books; and part of what was saved on the price of a good copy was laid out on the amendment of the poor one. But however much the youth delighted in it, he could not but find the work fidgety and tiring; whence ensued the advantage that ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... for that matter. And, as I was saying, if I had known your ladyship to be your ladyship, I would as soon have burnt my fingers as have affronted your ladyship; but truly where gentry come and spend their money, I am not willing that they should be scandalized by a set of poor shabby vermin, that, wherever they go, leave more lice than money behind them; such folks never raise my compassion, for to be certain it is foolish to have any for them; and if our justices did as they ought, they ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Review," the rival to that of Griffiths, readily made him a small advance on receiving three articles for his periodical. His purse thus slenderly replenished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant; wiped off the score of his milkmaid; abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby first floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey; there to await the time for his migration to the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... common and most visible signs of modesty, and it might easily be supposed that they had thrown out of the window something more than orange-peels. Pepe Rey felt profound pity for them. He noted their shabby dresses, made over, mended, trimmed, and retrimmed, to make them look like new; he noted their broken shoes—and once more he put his hand in ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... haggard with illness and anxiety, tall but bent with age, leaning on his staff and wrapped in black velvet cloak—an imposing magisterial figure; the florid, plethoric Prince in brown doublet, big russet boots, narrow ruff, and shabby felt hat with its string of diamonds, with hand clutched on swordhilt, and eyes full of angry menace, the very type of the high-born, imperious soldier—thus they surveyed each other as men, once friends, between whom a gulf ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with a bright, well-dressed wife, he sees what an "old frump" his mother is. She is shabby and old-fashioned, clinging to obsolete forms of speech, hysterical and emotional. When the mists of love have cleared from her boy's eyes, she may just as well give up, because there is no return, save in that ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... and these trinkets dangled outside and over the riband of the bonnet, which passed under her chin. In her large hands, covered with tight black gloves, she carried a dark red parasol and a somewhat shabby little black leather bag with steel fastenings. The stout lady's face was of the type common among the Roman women of the lower class—very broad and heavy, of a creamy white complexion, the upper lip shaded by a dark ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... adopted sonorous Slav substitutes. But they were most unscrupulous peculators, incapable of taking an interest in the scientific aspect of such matters, and hypnotized by the dreams of lucre which the opportunity evoked. One has only to call to mind some of the shabby transactions in which the Semitic Dictator of Hungary, Kuhn, or Cohen, and Braunstein (Trotzky) of Petrograd, took an active part. The former is said to have offered for sale the historic crown of St. Stephen of Hungary—which to him was but a plain gold headgear adorned with precious ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... it," conceded Mrs. Hattie complacently. "Poor Maggie! She always did contrive to make the most of everything she had. But she's never been ambitious for really nice things, I imagine. At least, she always seems contented enough with her shabby chairs and carpets. While I—"She paused, looked about her, then drew a blissful sigh. "Oh, Mr. Smith, you don't know—you CAN'T know what it is to me to just look around and realize that they are all mine—these ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... his office clasping a hand-valise. "I am about to go away by your train," he said, without waiting for me to speak or remarking my shabby-genteel expression of heroism. He added, as he handed me a great sealed envelope, "There is your passport. Nothing imperative requires my stay here: I shall accompany you, then, as far as the station ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... shabby-looking nests, obviously made of dead materials, old withered and partially-decayed grass, and not with fresh grass; they seem to have measured 3 inches in diameter, and 2.5 in height externally; the cavity was perhaps 1.5 to 1.75 in diameter, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... knows how often—into Little Britain, and Eastcheap, and Green Arbour Court, and Westminster Abbey. I should like to travel with you, outside the last of the coaches down to Bracebridge Hall. It would make my heart glad to compare notes with you about that shabby gentleman in the oilcloth hat and red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back-parlour of the Masons' Arms; and about Robert Preston and the tallow-chandler's widow, whose sitting-room is second nature to me; and about all those delightful places and people that I used to walk about and dream of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... able to keep servants. You'll have to wear old clothes, and I'll go so shabby that you'll be ashamed of me. We'll forget what a bottle of wine looks like, and if we were ever to see a decent dinner, we ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... admirable co-operation of the performers, the potency of trained gesture and studied facial expression. The music, which was written by Victor Holoerder, is excellent in its harmony and appropriateness. The decorative quality of even the shabby scenery used in America is striking. It achieves an artistic, oriental effect without gaudy, ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street a sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are putting you off your guard, there will pass you a woman—more likely two or three—of ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... of learned antiquarian societies or born reliquaries troubled themselves to acquire ancient articles of historic interest because they were old, and served to form the sequence in the fairy tales of Time. Anything "old" was ruthlessly destroyed, as being either past wear, shabby, or old-fashioned, and countless treasures, both in ecclesiastical and secular art, have at all periods been recklessly destroyed for the sake of their intrinsic value in gold or jewels. In the early days of my life I was allowed to pick out the corals and seed-pearls ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... querulous authoritative voice, all revealed a man whom Jean repelled at every point. Years had not refined, they had vulgarized him. His clothing careless and not quite fresh, offended her taste; in fact, his whole appearance was of that shabby genteel character, which is far more mean and plebeian than can be given by undisguised working apparel. As Jean was taking note of these things a girl, with a flushed, angry face, spoke to him. She was evidently making a complaint, and Gavin answered her in a manner which made ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... carefully preserved, very soon gets a shabby tarnished appearance. Where the coachman has a proper harness-room and sufficient assistance, this is inexcusable and easily prevented. The harness-room should have a wooden lining all round, and be perfectly dry and well ventilated. Around the walls, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... from the upper terrace came three figures. There was something familiar about them all, but to see them together made them more than strange. Besides, the two she knew best were strange in another way. Their habit was to be shabby, though neat; now, there was no one on the terrace as beautifully dressed as this tall young woman and the slim little girl. No, it couldn't be Madame Clifford and her petit choux; and yet—and yet—as they came nearer, near enough for Mademoiselle to recognise the man ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... queer. His clothes were worn threadbare and, although he had money in his pockets, he did not buy new ones. In the evening when he went through the town streets and saw the smartly dressed clerks standing before the stores, he looked at his own shabby person and was ashamed to enter. In his boyhood Sarah Shepard had always attended to the buying of his clothes, and he made up his mind that he would go to the place in Michigan to which she and her husband had retired, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... the square, as he swung along toward the Academy Theatre that evening, he found himself suddenly confronted by a man who, lounging against the fence of a shabby dwelling, straightened dramatically at his approach and bent a sharp gaze upon him. He was a tall, shambling fellow with a white cloth swathed about the top of his head; and Varney, in the act of passing, suddenly recognized him as the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... all my sorrows. Accordingly a young chap wearing his hat over the left eyebrow, some clerk I suppose,—there must have been clerks in the business, though the house was as still as a house in a city of the dead,—came from somewhere up-stairs, and led me forth. He was shabby and careless, with ink-stains on the sleeves of his jacket, and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe of an old boot. It was a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed a drink, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... "In mourning—rather poor, almost shabby. But—yes—with extraordinary beauty." I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by stroke, brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed this. "Oh, handsome—very, very," I insisted; "wonderfully handsome. ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... performances of feats of strength and rope-dancing. You have seen this kind of women with sharp, yellow, prematurely-aged faces, creatures that are shattered by brutality, poverty, and miserable vices, and who always over-dress in shabby velvet and dirty red. There you have his crew. I don't understand our friend's passion. It is true that his fiancee met with a horrible death, but that does not explain the matter. I must still tell you how he left us. We had a fair a few miles ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... thought, this simple society had its own social habits. If he did not take this well-meant advice, he must justify himself by his own method. He made up his mind to go to the next meeting of the medical society. His clothes were a trifle shabby, but as the meeting was in the evening, he could go in his evening dress—drop in casually, as it were, from an evening entertainment. That silly bit of pride, however, angered him with himself. He went in his shabby everyday suit. The experience was the most ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... valuable papers contained in his wallet. Besides, he had reason to doubt whether any in his line of business lived on that aristocratic street. He took his way to Mott Street, which is considerably less pretentious, and halted in front of a shabby brick lodging-house kept by a Mrs. Mooney, with whose ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... shabby trick was perpetrated by the friends of John W. Angell, which was certainly anything but "angelic," and which ought to consign the parties who ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... in New Orleans about the effect of Dr. C.'s fine presence on the Confederate officials there came to my mind. They are influenced in that way, I thought; I look rather shabby now, I will dress. I made an elaborate toilet, put on the best and most becoming dress I had, the richest lace, the handsomest ornaments, taking care that all should be appropriate to a morning visit; dressed my hair in the stateliest braids, and took a seat in the parlor ready ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... When people are very poor for their position in life, they can only keep out of debt by stinting on many occasions when stinting is very painful to a liberal spirit. And it requires a sterner virtue than good nature to hold fast the truth that it is nobler to be shabby and honest than to do things handsomely ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... and looked after him. He was only waiting for the processions to start. His coat was beginning to be rather shiny; it was carefully brushed, but shabby; in the left lapel was fastened securely a little silk bow in the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... The question barked out, brusque and sharp, but never had a voice sounded more welcome in Elliott Cameron's ears. She turned around in joyful relief to encounter a pair of gimlet-like black eyes in the face of an old woman. She was an ugly little old woman in a battered straw hat and a shabby old jacket, though the day was warm, and a faded print skirt that was draggled with mud at the hem. Her hair strayed untidily about her face and unfathomable scorn looked out ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... frequently leads, it is to the credit of the inhabitants of the country that he is not often robbed. It is also to his own credit that he is said to run any risk rather than fail to deliver his mail-bag at its destination. His appearance, as he ambles along in shabby attire with his letter-bag over his shoulder, is not calculated to inspire confidence. But the Yerandawana letters are picked up in the evening by one of these primitive post-runners, and no instance is on record of any letter failing to ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... left off work and were refreshing themselves with lunch and conversation. There was one old worker who had not stirred from his place, but he had put down his brush, and had taken from his pocket a small book, which was like its owner—thin and shabby of covering. He seemed to find pleasure in reading it, for he turned over its pages with all the tenderness characteristic of one who loves what he reads. Now and again he glanced at his unfinished copy of the beautiful portrait of Andrea del Sarto, ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... dingy apartment, with a single large horse-hair chair and half a dozen small wooden dittoes, placed with mathematical precision along the walls. A square table in the centre and a shabby mirror over the mantelpiece completed the furniture. With the instinct of an old campaigner the major immediately dropped into the arm-chair, and, leaning luxuriously back, took a cigar from his case and proceeded to light it. Ezra Girdlestone seated himself near the table and twisted his dark ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... honest warmth, that cold applause Which counteracts the fostering breath of praise, And shades with cypress the young poet's bays: Pale and dejected, mark, how genius strives With poverty, and mark, how well it thrives; The shabby cov'ring of the gentle bard, Regard it well, 'tis worthy thy regard, The friendly cobweb, serving for a screen, The chair, a part of what it once had been; The bed, whereon th' unhappy victim slept And oft unseen, in silent anguish, wept, Or spent in dear delusive dreams, the night, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... a surprisingly pretty sight met my eyes. The dim, cool, little interior was set out and richly adorned with an abundance of fruit and vegetables, yellow gourds, apples and plums and golden wheat sheaves, great loaves of bread, and garlands of September flowers. A shabby-looking old clergyman was standing on the top of a step-ladder, finishing the decorations, when I entered. As soon as he saw me he came down, and I spoke to him, praising the decorations, and raising my voice a little, for I noticed ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... the administrationists have used him shamefully, especially in view of their professions and of the chief source of their political strength. Grant went into the White House by means of colored votes, and his shabby treatment of the first member of the dusky army who reached the point of graduation in the country's military school, is a sore disappointment ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... duty to perform, yet all their labours are lofty. But what a fate is ours on this low earth! For, from the cradle to the grave, we are watched by these spiritual spectators—watched with unflinching interest, unhesitating regard. O Angelic Spirits, what is there in the poor and shabby spectacle of human life to attract your mighty Intelligences? Sorrow, sin, pride, shame, ambition, failure, obstinacy, ignorance, selfishness, forgetfulness—enough to make ye veil your radiant faces in unpierceable clouds to hide forever the sight ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... est." The aptness of the quotation will be appreciated by the reader who is in at the death of the Louisiana. We accomplished our object of getting down to the forts about seventy miles below the city, thanks to the current and our two transports; but our artillerists were in a shabby plight while trying to work ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... a shabby little village but a few miles from Florence. In another village near by was born Leonardo. "Great men never come singly," says Emerson. And yet Angelo and Leonardo exercised no influence upon each other that we can trace. The younger man never came under the spell of the older ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... of Cainbury House, a large office building let out to numerous small tenants, and harbouring, as the indicator on the tiled wall of the vestibule testified, some thirty different professions. The man was evidently poor, for his clothes were shabby and his boots were down at heel. He was as evidently a foreigner. His clean-shaven eagle face was sallow, his eyes were dark, his ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... till you are lying flat on your back at the end of your time," he retorted, jumping off the footboard after the other. "Your scurvy, shabby, mangy little bit of time," he continued across the street, and hopping ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... known him since he was a child, and was indeed his foster father. So he was eager to go with Leif upon this adventurous voyage. Tyrker was very little and plain. His forehead was high and his eyes small and restless. He wore shabby clothes, and to the blue-eyed, fair-haired giants of the North he seemed indeed a sorry-looking little fellow. But all that mattered little, for he was a clever craftsman, and Leif and his companions were glad to have ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... black velvet jacket and dark silk skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender, finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its fascinations to the ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... in order that he might bear such outward signs of inward grace as would appeal to the perceptions of the Senatus, got a new hat, and changed his shabby tail-coat for a black frock. His shirt ceased to be a hypothesis to account for his collar, and became a real hypostasis, evident and clean. These signs of improvement led to inquiries on the part of the Senatus, and the result was that, before three months of the session were over, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the whole aspect of the streets was changed. Every few yards one met men in khaki and putties. This cloth looks fairly smart when it is new and the buttons and badges are burnished; but, after a very few weeks at the front, khaki uniforms become as shabby as possible. No one who is going into the firing line has any wish to draw the enemy's fire by the glint of his buttons or his shoulder-badges, and so these are either removed or left to tarnish. Nor does ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... improving the gardens, without allowing any addition to the building, or any change in the furniture, which was very shabby, and remained, in 1789, in the same state as during the reign of Louis XV. Everything there, without exception, was preserved; and the Queen slept in a faded bed, which had been used by the Comtesse du Barry. The charge of extravagance, generally made against ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... ever so many flannel shirts we may be rich by-and-by. I should give mother a new bonnet first of all, for I heard Miss Kent say no lady would wear such a shabby one. Mrs. Smith said fine bonnets didn't make real ladies. I like her best, but I do want a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... to go. The last she saw of him, as she went up the rue Dauphine, was one broad shoulder still bending over the table, and clad in the shabby, caped coat all covered with snow like an old ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... shabby room, and found a poor old woman, lying on a miserable bed. The room was bare and cheerless except for the bright fire burning in the small stove, beside which lay a neat pile of wood. The doctor did what he could to ease the poor woman s sufferings, and then asked who lived with ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... thing to notice about those curbs is that you will often find on them the paint, sometimes red and sometimes black or yellow, scratched off the wheels of these carriages that are so anxious to cut corners. And the wheels that cut corners soon get to looking shabby from lack ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... married—I told Billy how, when we were at the watering-place, I insisted that it seemed a shame not to be engaged, and how we fixed it to be engaged for a week, and it made him furious! But as good a fellow as I've been, the way you took our joke was shabby. You people may ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... enjoyed its hospitality, but he neglected to invite Lord John to any of his banquets; and this is the cutting comment which the youthful future statesman recorded in his diary: "The Infantado, notwithstanding the champagne and burgundy he got at Woburn, has not asked me. Shabby fellow! It is clear he is unfit for the government of a ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... a plump fresh-faced jesuit and an elderly man, in shabby blue clothes, were dabbling in a case of paints and chalks. The boys who had been painted walked about or stood still awkwardly, touching their faces in a gingerly fashion with their furtive fingertips. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... of young Russia. His clothes are shabby and neglected; he walks with a shuffling, tired movement. But his face is startling. It seems to light up the path with some kind of spiritual fervour. His hair is long and golden, his beard suggests an ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... are going on, —passing from the things which surround us,—advancing into the undefined future, into the unknown land. And I think that sometimes we all have vivid flashes of such a conviction. I dare say, my friend, you have seen an old man, frail, soured, and shabby, and you have thought, with a start, Perhaps there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... old, brown-eyed milliner, her dissipated face hollow and drawn from worry and lack of sleep and an insufficient quantity of nourishing food, while near her a white-haired old lady in shabby black was tightly grasping two quarters, her entire worldly possession. Just across sat a well-dressed woman restaurant keeper, a young eastern star and half a hundred others, above all of whom shone the yellow haired madam of the Peoria Street resort, the star patron of that great gambling ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann
... to save money to buy him smart cloaths, and let him go to the Opera, and Ranelagh, and such sort of places, that he might keep himself in fortune's way! and now you see the end of it! here he is, in a little shabby room up two pairs of stairs, with not one of the great folks coming near him, to see if he's so ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... once turned player, and no one must have been more amused thereat than the Oldfield. It happened during the summer of 1723, when the poet, who was in his customary state of (theatrical) destitution, determined to replenish his shabby purse by bringing out a tragedy. While this play, "The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury,"[A] was in rehearsal at Drury Lane, Colley Cibber kept the author in clothes, and the Laureate's son Theophilus, then a very young ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... have I fallen!" soliloquized Wellington Bunn, wiping his heated brow. He was wearing a slouch hat, instead of his beloved silk one, and was attired in shabby garments, as befitted his character of a farmhand. "The idea of a man who has played the immortal Shakespearean characters falling so low as to consort with wild bulls. Ah, it is pitiful—pitiful!" ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... it?" cried Chet, jumping to his feet from where he had been kneeling with Billie, examining the shabby trunk. ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... wandering musicians, playing very respectably, as German street-musicians always do. They converted the dark esplanade and the shabby inn-parlour into a fairy picture ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... when Rakitin and Alyosha entered her rooms, yet they were not lighted up. Grushenka was lying down in her drawing-room on the big, hard, clumsy sofa, with a mahogany back. The sofa was covered with shabby and ragged leather. Under her head she had two white down pillows taken from her bed. She was lying stretched out motionless on her back with her hands behind her head. She was dressed as though expecting some one, in a black silk dress, with ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... big, stoutish man, with a fat face, a frock-coat tightly buttoned up, a large umbrella, and a rather shabby hat of the shape called chimney-pot. A somewhat incongruous object, amid that rural scene, and not a very prepossessing one; but apparently a gentleman, though scarcely of the stamp of St Aubyn. ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... you meant," said he, gravely, "more shame for you. It showed some pluck to hang the master; but to hang the poor servant, who only thought to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought upon him, was a shabby trick,—so little like the lads of Hazeldean, that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never born in the parish. But let bygones be bygones. One thing is clear,—you don't take kindly to my new pair of stocks! The stocks has been a stumbling-block and a grievance, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as scored with ruts. His long hair and flowing beard were the color of matured hay. His dress was simple and in keeping with his face; moleskin trousers, worn and soiled, a blue serge shirt, a shabby black jacket, and a fiery handkerchief about his neck, while a battered prairie hat adorned the back ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... sepulchre—huddled away from contact with Europe, a narrow street ran like a bridge connecting West with East, to-day with yesterday. Near the entrance to this street, where it started from a fine open place of great shops and cafes, the Hotel Schreiber stood humbly squeezed in between two dull buildings as shabby ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... cancelled all my anxieties. I did not suspect you in earnest. Modest again! Because I don't do a very shabby thing, it seems, I 'don't fear your competition.' If it were reduced to an alternative of preference, I should dread you, as much as Satan does Michael. But is there not room enough in our respective regions? Go on—it will soon be my turn to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... it paltry, but as I was asked to pay for printing the Diploma [from a Society of which he had been made an honorary member], I did not like to refuse, so I send 1 pound. But I think it a shabby proceeding. If a gentleman did me some service, though unasked to do it, and then demanded payment, I should pay him, and think him a shabby dog; and on this principle I send my ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... press has helped me wear out ol' clo'es. I ain't never had on that frock-coat sence I was married in it seventeen year ago; but, sir, ever sence I've knew the moths had chawed it up, th' ain't been a day but I've felt shabby. ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... thatching his well-modelled head, his sanguine colouring, friendly blue eyes and mobile lips suggested Irish lineage; and his hands which, though thin and clouded with smears of ink, were strong and graceful (like the slender feet in his shabby shoes) bore out the suggestion with an added hint of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... at last into a shabby street, recognizable even in the twilight of the scattered lamps as being a place for cheap lodging-houses. There was a light burning in the second-floor windows of No. 19; but all the rest of the front was in darkness. I paid Simmons and dismissed him, saying I would walk home. By the time I ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... about that. Maybe you have and maybe you haven't; I don't remember. How did you teach Brother Bear to keep his hair roached and parted? Mostly when I used to know him, he went about looking mighty ragged and shabby." ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... seems to fill the whole place; it sinks even into the opaque water. Behind the wall is a garden, out of which the long arm of a white June rose—the roses of Venice are splendid—has flung itself by way of spontaneous ornament. On the other side of this small water- way is a great shabby facade of Gothic windows and balconies— balconies on which dirty clothes are hung and under which a cavernous-looking doorway opens from a low flight of slimy water- steps. It is very hot and still, the canal has a queer smell, and the whole place ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... place beside the driver to kiss the old lady again and to wave a general good-bye to Florrie and Chess and the group on the porch. As smoothly as if she were launched in air the great car sprang into motion; the storm-blown cottages, the battered dooryards, the great shabby trees over the little post office all swept by. They passed the turning that led to Clark's Bar, and a weather-worn sign-post that read "Quaker Bridge, 1 mile." It was not a dream, it was all wonderfully true: this was Greg beside her, and they were ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... that portion of his life, save the forty sketches, or thereabouts, included in these volumes. Much more, indeed, he wrote; and some very small part of it might yet be rummaged out (but it would not be worth the trouble) among the dingy pages of fifteen or twenty year old periodicals, or within the shabby morocco covers of faded Souvenirs. The remainder of the works alluded to had a very brief existence, but, on the score of brilliancy, enjoyed a fate vastly superior to that of their brotherhood, which succeeded in getting through the press. In ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... gentleman who kept much to their room and paid well in advance for everything; and after that, in the hot rainy night, the flight afoot across weary miles of soaking cross streets and up through ill-lighted, shabby avenues to the one place of refuge left open to them. They had learned from the newspapers, at once a guide and a bane, a friend and a dogging enemy, that the place was locked up, now that the police had got through searching it, and that the coroner's people ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... He wears a black beard, a hat pulled far over his eyes, and old, rough clothes and a very shabby U.S. Army cloak; he has a pack on his back: he looks about, sees only the family, throws down the pack, tearing off his ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... shrugged. "In the White Turret," he said; then, with a short laugh: "Oy Dieus, yes! The girl has been caterwauling for this shabby rogue all day. She would have me—me, the King's man, look you!—save Hugues at the peril of my seignory! And I protest to you, by the most high and pious Saint Nicolas the Confessor," Reinault swore, "that sooner than see this ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... passage, was to unpack the animal and put him up in the stable which he had built opposite his own cabin door; and it was fully an hour before, having seen the beast comfortably installed, he turned into his own room and struck a light. Here there was only one living thing to greet him, and that was a shabby little black cat that leaped off the bed in the corner and came purring to meet him. One morning he had found this cat lying on his claim with a broken leg and carried it back to his cabin, where he had set the leg and nursed the miserable little creature into ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... the piano. Someone handed Miriam a shabby little paper-backed hymnbook. She fluttered the leaves. All the hymns appeared to have a little short-lined verse, under each ordinary verse, in small print. It was in English—she read. She fumbled for the title-page and then her cheeks flamed with shame, "Moody and Sankey." She was ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... when both boys were surprised by a shabby-looking man suddenly crossing from the other side of the street and taking up his stand directly in their path. The stranger wore a battered brown hat, no necktie, and a suit of clothes which he might ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... back, he locked the door again behind him. He bustled about the room as if preparing to move. He had little to pack; a few shabby clothes were thrown into a small trunk, a pile of letters and papers were hastily torn up and pitched into the untidy grate. All this while he muttered to himself as if to keep himself in company. He said: "I had to take the other shoot—he hadn't the sand to help—I couldn't tell him any ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... or Reformer, who hesitates at becoming a bore, is unworthy of his high office; and Larry, like most of his class, required but little encouragement. He produced a large book, old and shabby, the green and gold of its covers stained and faded, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... from candidates approved by the clergy. The latter insisted more strongly on orthodoxy than on competence. The position of the village schoolmaster was not brilliant. His house usually consisted of two rooms, one for the school and one for the family; his books were few, his clothes shabby. He was paid in part by the scholars, at the rate of three or five sous a month for reading, higher for writing and arithmetic. In some cases a tax of a hundred and fifty livres was laid on the parish for his benefit. But school was ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... shall; but recollect, Peter, that you are an officer and a gentleman—you surely would not be so shabby as to go away without treating us. What money have you got in your pocket?" and, without giving me time to answer, she felt in my pocket, and pulled out my purse, which she opened. "Why, Peter, you are as rich as a Jew," ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... has been merely a shabby causeway with waterways and draws. Shabby,—let me here pause to say that in Virginia shabbiness is the grand universal law, and neatness the spasmodic exception, attained in rare spots, an aeon beyond their Old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... are. I didn't notice it, though, until we came here into this bright Rome. We seem to have come all at once into spring sunshine and the atmosphere of new clothes; and, Betty, I believe I do feel shabby. I know you have been thinking the same thing, too; for everybody else seems to have new spring dresses, and they are so fresh and pretty that ours look doubly worse. Oh, ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... of paddling away—away from the concert of false notes in the vulgarised hall, away from the amiable American families and overfed German porters. He had in each case made terms for a lodging more private and not more costly, and he recalled with tenderness these shabby but friendly asylums, the windows of which he should easily know again in passing on canal or through campo. The shabbiest now failed of an appeal to him, but he found himself at the end of forty-eight hours forming views in respect to a small independent quartiere, far down the Grand Canal, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... We're just coming to him. It was on the third day that there came a little personage, without horse or carriage, walking quite merrily up to the castle. His eyes sparkled like yours; he had fine long hair, but his clothes were shabby." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... tone relapsed; it was now conspicuous for its want of "success waves"; it seemed to imply a definite cognizance of personal uselessness. He who had brightened a moment before now spoke like an automaton. Mr. Mackintosh looked at him and his shabby garments. He had a contempt for ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... by rail. You saw the town before anything was done and in early spring. You would not know it now. It is green where it was brown, clean where it was dirty, trim where it was shabby. It begins to look like a great park, and the cottages are really ornamental, as well as comfortable. Our homes are to overlook the town and face the park at its broad end—you know it is triangular in shape—and ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... seventy-five. Thus, if I am not an exquisite—which I distinctly am not—I am exceedingly well dressed, and I am glad to be so. If I did not have a fur coat to wear to the opera I should feel embarrassed, out of place and shabby. All the men who sit in the boxes at the Metropolitan ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... so the trio gazed eagerly around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish mechanic, who shifted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed collar scraped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... prices. And as the exciting days wore on, uneasily in her room at night she would sit down with pencil and paper and ask, "How much did I spend today?" Her father had left her nothing but the shabby old frame house. This she had sold to a friend of his, and the small fund thus secured she had resolved ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... Fortunately the man on the adjoining chair, and the haughty matron, were so engrossed in their conversation that they did not notice that the air in their immediate vicinity was being polluted by the presence of a man in shabby clothes and heavy boots. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... attention to something else that was being read, convinced that her son's interests were still under discussion. There was talk of elections, of counting ballots, and the poor mother, leaning forward over the rail in her shabby cap, knitting her thick eyebrows, would have listened religiously to the report on the Sarigue election to the very end, had not the usher who had admitted her come to tell her that it was all over and that she ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... with many of the boards in the porch floors and steps showing decay. The trees in the orchard were older and more gnarled with here and there gaps in their ranks. The fences showed many repairs. The little schoolhouse was almost shabby and, with the wood cleared away, looked naked and alone. The church, too, was in need of a fresh coat of white. And there were many new graves in the cemetery on the hill. As time had wrought changes in the man himself, even so had it altered the scenes ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... in a shabby straw hat, was engaged in feeding the chickens before the threshold, and he performed even that occupation with a maundering lack-a-daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains almost one by one from his ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various |
