"Kneed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell us that our bodies are going to rise again, or he should not tell us, or give us to understand, that our minds are going to endure. I suppose he cannot venture to preach the resurrection of the body to this weak-kneed generation; he is too modern and plausible for that. Yet he is too amiable to deny to our dilated nostrils some voluptuous whiffs of immortality. He asks if we are not "led to suppose" that consciousness passes through matter ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... and shame, There is no place for you, Weak-kneed and craven-breasted, Amongst this English crew! Bluff hearts that cannot learn to yield, But as the waves run high, And they can almost touch the night, Behind it see the sky. While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... seem to think that bull-dozing tactics, cute lies and irritable manners make the seller humble, weak-kneed and non-combative. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... me against this Berselius," said Adams to himself, "same as if we were dogs. That's the long and short of it. Yes, I can understand his meaning in part; he's afraid if Berselius engages some week-kneed individual, he'll give the weak-kneed individual more than he can take. He wants to stick a six-foot Yankee in the breach, instead of a five-foot froggie, all absinthe and cigarette ends. Well, he was frank, at all ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... their backs. I used to let them have their freedom for a while on reaching home. And never yet but Peter at least had had a kick and a caper and a roll before they sought their mangers. To-day they stood for a moment knock-kneed, without moving, then shook themselves in a weak, half-hearted way and went with drooping heads and weary ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... undesired, inevitable guest, what sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy portmanteau, rammed with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... shameless?' sez she, bringin' her hands up above her head. 'Thin what are you, ye lyin', schamin', weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son av a sutler? Am I shameless? Who put the open shame on me an' my child that we shud go beggin' through the lines in the broad daylight for the broken word of a man? Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence Mulvaney, that think ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... is sometimes the result of a bruise or contusion, often repeated, inflicted upon himself by a horse addicted to the habit of pawing while in the stable and striking the front of the stall with his knees. Another class of patients is formed of those weak-kneed animals which are subject to falling and bruising the front of the joint against the ground, the results not being ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... neither. We got one of your kidney around here now. Kind o' reckons to fix the old man through the girl. Most weak-kneed fellers gamble a pile on petticoats. Wal, I guess you're right out. Marbolt ain't easy that way. You'll be sorry you fetched him from his bed, or I don't ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... look any further for the rusty-kneed, slow-trotting son of Rona'n," he continued, "but ask me to run your race, and, by this hand, I will ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... through," corrected the patient. "I'm goin' to teach you to play monkey-shines with Pete Dinsmore's teeth." He laid a large revolver on the table and picked up the forceps. "Take that chair, you bowlegged, knock-kneed, run-down runt." ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... not very extensive, but he puts himself to considerable pains to make the most of them. In The Lady Mother we find the same ornaments spread out before us, many of them very tawdry at their best. Glapthorne's editor has striven to show that the weak-kneed playwright was a fellow-pupil of John Milton's at St. Paul's. One cannot think of the two names together without calling to mind the "lean and flashy songs" and "scrannel pipes of wretched ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... fool,' he went on, 'with every old screw in the country. I got broken-winded mares from the ploughs. I collected a regular hospital of spavined, knock-kneed beasts, and he took them from me without a word at thirty pounds apiece. It would have been all right if I had gone no further. But, hang it all! I got to the end of my tether. I declare to you I don't believe there was another screw left in the whole county of Mayo, and ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... portion of its Christmas loaf—the pan calendau—to some friend or neighbour to whom Fortune has been less kind. But, happily, this gift nowadays often is a mere friendly compliment, like the gift of fougasso; for the times are past when weak-kneed and spasmodic charity dealt with real ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... was doing this, I found the tide begin to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on the shore, upon the sand, swim away. As for my breeches, which were only linen, and open-kneed, I swam on board in them and my stockings. However, this set me on rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use, for I had other things which my eye was more upon—as, first, tools to work with on shore. And it was after ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... opinions, and I do not affect concealment. The great defect of the Irish Unionists is want of courage. They dare not for their lives come forward and boldly state their convictions. If Lord Emly or some other Irish Roman Catholic nobleman had come forward earlier, it might have induced weak-kneed members of the party to do likewise. The Unionists do not exercise the great influence they undoubtedly possess. They allow themselves to be terrorised into silence. Let them have the courage of their opinions and they have nothing to fear. The masses of the industrial population ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the crack of doom," Bradley said, in a voice that shook. "You know I'm not the weak-kneed kind. The Bradley stock hold on like bulldogs. When they take a notion to anything they want it, and they keep on till they get it. So look out, Dixie Hart. I'm not to blame; your eyes burn holes in me and set me on fire. The more you turn me down ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... shot himself long ago. That prayer was not answered, and indeed Dick knew in his heart of hearts that only a lingering sense of humour and no special virtue had kept him alive. Suicide, he had persuaded himself, would be a ludicrous insult to the gravity of the situation as well as a weak-kneed ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... of the conquered race of earlier inhabitants, a "Formorian" of huge size and repulsive ugliness coming towards them, leading his horse by the halter, an animal larger, it seems, than six ordinary horses, but broken down and knock-kneed, with jaws that stuck out far in advance of its head. How the heroes, idling pleasantly about in the sunshine, laughed aloud at the uncouth "foreigner" and his ugly raw-boned beast, "covered with tangled scraggy hair of a sooty black." How he came before ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... the way from Broxton to Hayslope, had only broken silence to remark that the grey goose had begun to lay. And as for Mr. Craig, the gardener, he was a sensible man enough, to be sure, but he was knock-kneed, and had a queer sort of sing-song in his talk; moreover, on the most charitable supposition, he must be far on the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... in the Valley, Major Cross had long since supposed his friend to be dead. Conceive, then, the warmth of their greeting, the fondness of their glances, the fervor of the reminiscences into which they straightway launched, sitting wide-kneed by the roaring hearth, steaming glass ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... recruits awaiting to receive their baptism of fire. And the scene was repeated. Little damage was done to the foe but enormous benefit was gained by the Americans, because it took only one or two of these skirmishes to turn a lot of shaky-kneed volunteers into a band of steady soldiers—for they had it all inside. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... forth the horse!" Alas! he showed Not like the one Mazeppa rode; Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, The wreck of what was once a steed, Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; Yet not without his knowing points. The sexton laughing in his sleeve, As if 't were all a make-believe, Led forth the horse, and as ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... all useless. The next morning the first one of us was smitten with the plague—a little nurse-girl in the family of Professor Stout. It was no time for weak-kneed, sentimental policies. On the chance that she might be the only one, we thrust her forth from the building and ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... and corresponding to a similar word signifying a flock. It became in early times applied to a wide-spread tribe of broad-leaved wayside weeds. They all belong to the botanical order of Polygonaceoe, or "many kneed" plants, because, like the wife of Yankee Doodle, famous in song, they are "double-jointed;" though he, poor man! expecting to find Mistress Doodle doubly active in her household [158] duties, was, as the rhyme says, "disappointed." The name "Dock" was first applied to the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... knock-kneed, round-shouldered, swollen-paunched apology for a man, with blistered, cracked lips, jaundiced pig eyes, and the skin of a terrapin, looked her all over, grunted his approval, and with a side-lunge of his fat empty head, indicated ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... after leaving Cape Giradeau, the above was growled out over his shoulder by the Missourian to a chance stranger who had just accosted him; a round-backed, baker-kneed man, in a mean five-dollar suit, wearing, collar-wise by a chain, a small brass plate, inscribed P. I. O., and who, with a sort of canine ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... he had reached home, Windybank was persuaded that treason would bring no grist to his mill. Weak-kneed and inclined to evil, he was yet an Englishman, and in his heart he felt that all the kings that ever ruled in Spain were too feeble a power to hold valiant little England in a conqueror's grip. The Jesuit's plot was feasible, and, as expounded by ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... reminded me of a scene I once saw in our line, where a weak-kneed Captain was ordered to take a party of rather chicken-hearted recruits out on ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... evening I hid myself behind a folding-gate of the fence and caught him in the act. Having his retreat cut off he grappled with me in desperation. He was about two years older than I, and, though weak-kneed, was physically the stronger. While I wallopped him, he pushed his head against my breast and by chance it slipped inside my sleeve. As this hindered the free action of my arm, I tried to shake him loose, though, his head dangled the further ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... possible victory or ransom, or a prospect of some sort, at least, of achieving success. Bayard preferred a stone wall, and thought to show his brains by beating them out against it, and in a sense he could do it. * * * What a pity this senseless, stiff-kneed, light-headed chivalry did not beat its brains out several centuries before Bayard put such an ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... of giving out and going back. Thus, in an emergency she would give all to understand that "times were very critical and therefore no foolishness would be indulged in on the road." That several who were rather weak-kneed and faint-hearted were greatly invigorated by Harriet's blunt and positive manner and threat of extreme measures, there could be ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... t'golden days a Hallamshoir, they sen. An they happen wor, for't mesters. Hofe at prentis lads e them days wor lether'd whoile ther skin wor skoi-blue, and clam'd whoile ther booans wer bare, an work'd whoile they wor as knock-kneed as oud Nobbletistocks. Thah nivver sees nooa knock-kneed cutlers nah: nou, not sooa; they'n better mesters nah, an they'n better sooat a wark anole. They dooant mezher em we a stick, as oud Natta Hall did. But for all that, we'd none a yer wirligig polishin; nor Tom Dockin scales, wit bousters ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... squeaked, 'See here, my sweet Signor barber, my excellent Signor surgeon, my honoured Annibal Caracci, my beloved Guido Reni, be off to the devil, and don't ever show yourself here again, if you don't want your legs broken.' Therewith the cranky, knock-kneed old fool laid hold of me with no less an intention than to kick me out of the room, and hurl me down the stairs. But that, you know, was past everything. With ungovernable fury I seized the old fellow and tripped him up, so that his legs stuck uppermost in the air; and there ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... limiting slavery in the remaining territory south of 36 deg. 30' should be adopted. This compromise was adopted in the Senate, and later, after close votes on amendments, the House also agreed to it. John Randolph and thirty-seven Southern members voted against it, and, but for weak-kneed Northern members, it would have failed. This compromise Randolph said was a "dirty bargain," and the Northern members who supported it he denounced as "doughfaces,"—a coined phrase still known ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... of refusal from you. We have been together some time now, and it isn't my fault if we don't know each other pretty well. I don't care a hang what you have been. I am only concerned with what you are, and whatever that may be, you are not a weak-kneed fool. You have the power to keep straight if you choose, and you are to choose. Understand? I make you this offer with a perfectly open mind, and you are to consider it in the same way. Would you have said because you had once had a nasty tumble that you would never ride again? ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... became more pronounced. "Oh, mamma! am I the only knock-kneed son-of-a-gun in this crowd?" he murmured, and turned disconsolately away. His spine was creepy cold with stage fright; he listened to the sounds beyond the ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... ills—nervous prostration—I was aware, as I dragged over the prairie with the horse at the end of a trailing bridle rein, that something was seriously out of tune. It was daylight before I caught the frightened broncho and no knock-kneed coward ever shook more, as I vainly tried to vault into the saddle, and after a dozen false plunges at the stirrup, gave up the attempt and footed it back to camp. There was a daze between my eyes, which the over-weary know well, and in the brain-whirl, I could distinguish ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the solid earth now, and with the feeling that the court-house and a whole regiment of constables were behind him, he took to his heels. A stiff-kneed gardener, who had observed his exit from the house, attempted to follow him; but he might as well have chased a northwest gale. Noddy reached the Glen, and no sound of pursuers could be heard. The phantom court-house had been beaten ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... bloodshed if that can be done. But it can't be! Unless Pertinax is man enough to strike the blow that shall restore the ancient liberties, then he is better dead before he tries to play the savior! We have a tyrant now. Shall we exchange him for a weak-kneed theorist?" ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... people, in killing a too persistent tiger here or there, in sleeping out in the reeking jungle, or in tracking the Suria Kol raiders who had taken a few heads from their brethren of the Buria clan. He was a knock-kneed, shambling young man, naturally devoid of creed or reverence, with a longing for absolute power ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... to the altered air, and in doing so beheld at the garden gate the humble "growler" in which a few hours before he had seen Mrs. Ryves take her departure. It was unmistakable—he remembered the knock-kneed white horse; but this made the fact that his friend's luggage no longer surmounted it only the more mystifying. Perhaps the cabman had already removed the luggage—he was now on his box smoking the short pipe that derived relish ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... DOLLARS REWARD is offered for the delivery of my old negro carpenter man named BOB, in gaol in Charleston, within a month from this date. The said BOB is a complete carpenter, about sixty-five years of age, has a fine, full, good-natured face, knock-kneed, bald-headed, and ran away about two years ago: he is thought to be harboured in Charleston or James' Island. He was bought of Mr. Ford Fosdick, on behalf of the state. June ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... weak-kneed, white-livered bourgeois too well to be taken in by it. The League talks and Bismarck is silent. Oh, if I had a majority in the Chamber, as they have, I'd leave him ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... local prize-fight is of that which took place in Oct. 1782, for 100 guineas a side, between Jemmy Sargent, a professional, and Isaac Perrins, one of the Soho workmen. Jemmy knuckled under after being knocked down thirteen times, in as many rounds, by the knock-kneed hammerman fiom Soho, whose mates, it is said, won L1,500 in bets through his prowess. Attempts have lately been made to revive the old sport, but the sooner the would-be adepts learn that their occupation is gone the better it will be for them, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... not the only one whom this brute is terrorising," murmured Blakeney once between his teeth; "I marvel that the man ever feels safe, alone in these lodgings, with no one but that weak-kneed Rondeau to protect him. He must have scores of enemies in this city who would gladly put a dagger in his heart or a ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... politicians have a stampede on that is about to swamp everything. The National Committee are here to-day. Raymond thinks a commission to Richmond is the only salt to save us. The President sees and says it would be utter ruin. The matter is now undergoing consultation. Weak-kneed damned fools are on the move for a new candidate to supplant the President. Everything is darkness and doubt and discouragement. Our men see giants in the airy and unsubstantial shadows of the opposition, and are about to surrender without a blow. Come to Washington on the first train. Every man ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... was the crowning miracle of all; and a horse she would ride, and after plaguing Amyas for one in vain (for he did not want to break her pretty neck), she proposed confidentially to Yeo to steal one, and foiled in that, went to the vicar and offered to barter all her finery for his broken-kneed pony. But the vicar was too honest to drive so good a bargain, and the matter ended, in Amyas buying her a jennet, which she learned in a fortnight to ride like ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Miss Biddy, and Miss Winny; 1 Miss Shum, Mary by name, Shum's daughter, and seven others, who shall be nameless. Mrs. Shum was a fat, red-haired woman, at least a foot taller than S.; who was but a yard and a half high, pale-faced, red-nosed, knock-kneed, bald-headed, his nose and shut-frill all brown ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... casual enough, for one thing," said Pembroke, deciding to play along with her for the moment. "You're too tense. Also you're a bit knock-kneed, not that it matters. Is that what you ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle
... man." "Big as you?" "Far bigger." "How bigger? Has he got legs, and heads, and—and things like that?" "We'll see. When I stand on this chair I'm as big as a giant," but it was all of no avail, and only after Teddy had seen a huge, knock-kneed being in a penny show did he understand what a giant could be like. Then he asked for giant stories on ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... they are satisfied with things as they are. Wagner battled, both in music and in literature, for der reine Satz—purity of diction as against the untidy licence which was then and still is fashionable among weak-kneed artists and ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... island, when he heard a splashing in the stream. Presently he saw a solitary horse tramping among the trees. Never in all his life had he seen such a wreck of a horse! He was broken-winded and stiff-kneed and so thin that every rib could be seen under the hide. He bore neither harness nor saddle—only an old bridle, from which dangled a half-rotted rope-end. Obviously he had had ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... next morning he found Killen waiting for him. One glance at the weak defiant face told him that the legislator was again in revolt. The lawyer felt a surge of disgust sweep over him. All through the session he had cajoled and argued the weak-kneed back into line. Why didn't Hardy do his own dirty work instead of leaving it to him to soil his hands with these ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... at one time, that he was going to spoil it all by making love to me, after the manner of young Bud Dyruff, from the Cowen Ranch, who, because I waded bare-kneed into a warm little slough-end when the horses were having their noonday meal, assumed that I could be persuaded to wade with equal celerity into indiscriminate affection. That rudimentary and ingenuous youth, in fact, became ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... therefore—except perhaps as object lessons of "the incorrect method" in reading novels—women, as novel-readers, must be considered as not existing. And, of course, no offense is intended. But if there be any weak-kneed readers who prefer the gilt-wash of pretty politeness to the solid gold of truth, let them understand that I am not to be frightened away from plain facts by any ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... bred out of the Spartan kinde, So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung With eares that sweepe away the morning dew, Crooke kneed, and dew-lapt, like Thessalian Buls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bels, Each vnder each. A cry more tuneable Was neuer hallowed to, nor cheer'd with horne, In Creete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly; Iudge when you heare. But soft, what nimphs are these? ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... however, for the most part slept in the stable with their caballerias, being either arrieros or small peddling merchants who travelled the country with coarse cloth or linen. Opposite to my room in the corridor lodged a wounded officer, who had just arrived from San Sebastian on a galled broken-kneed pony; he was an Estrimenian, and was returning to his own village to be cured. He was attended by three broken soldiers, lame or maimed, and unfit for service: they told me that they were of the same village as his worship, and on that account he permitted them to travel with ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... had seen the French soldier in times of peace had not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step, so carefully taught him—so different from the stately progress of the British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground—his loose trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the ensemble effect of French ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not the drinker have his paradise? The teetotallers have slapped their bosoms and vowed that liquor was the devil's own invention. (Note, by the way, that liquor is a noble word that should not be applied to those weak-kneed abominations that insolently flaunt their lack of alcohol. Let them be called liquids or fluids or beverages, or what you will. Liquor is a word for heroes, for the British tar who has built up British glory—Imperialism is quite the fashion now.) And for a ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... The weak-kneed Swede was about to eagerly clutch this element of strength, but he suddenly jerked his hand away and cast a look of ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... are you, anyway? Answer: the Sailor Poet. There you are! Sea captain's togs for you—double-breasted blue coat, baggy-kneed blue trousers, and a ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... old cuff; an old man. To cuff Jonas; said of one who is knock-kneed, or who beats his sides to keep himself warm in frosty weather; called also ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... station, to our great joy, we met two American doctors from Zaichar. One we had mourned for dead and were astonished to see him, shadow-like, stiff-kneed, and sitting uncomfortably on a chair in the middle of the platform. Months before he had pricked himself with a needle while operating on a gangrenous case, and had since lain ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Dunwody is pretty much his own party, although the Bentonites call him a 'soft Democrat.' Hardly soft he seems, when he gets in action at the state capital of Missouri yonder. Certainly Dunwody is for war and tumult. None of this late weak-kneed compromise for him! To have his own way—that is Dunwody's creed of life. I thank God he is not going with us now. He might want his own way with you, from the fashion of his glances. Did you see? My word!" Young Carlisle fumed ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... add in the Chicago definder that you are in need of labor I write you for full information at once hope you will please give me. I am willing to come & if you kneed any more labor I am sufficient ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... betray is in fact that of undissembled joy in all the successful artifices and tricks of the patriarchal rogue. Of the subordinate figures Esau is drawn with some liking for him, then Laban, and the weak-kneed saint, Lot. Ishmael is drawn as the prototype of the Bedouin, as a wild ass of a man, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... and spirit. It requires nothing but a dull creature like this, and the washing and dressing left to her, to give a child the rickets, and make it, instead of being a strong straight person, tup-shinned, bow-kneed, or hump-backed; besides other ailments not visible to the eye. By-and-by, when the deformity begins to appear, the doctor is called in, but it is too late: the mischief is done; and a few months of neglect are punished ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Military Commission. Colonel O'Grady, although a member of the Commission, shows he sympathizes with Shaun, and twits Feeny, the Gov'ment witness, with being a knock-kneed thief, &c., &c. Mr. Stanton's grandfather was Sec'y of War in Ireland at that time, so this was ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Hamley), and the steadfast endurance of a nation and of its leaders is also a factor of supreme importance. Time occupied in preparation for battle, or in manoeuvring for the "weather gauge," is seldom wasted; but it involves the risk of a weak-kneed executive yielding to popular clamour. Against the strategical and tactical genius of Hannibal, Quintus Fabius Maximus invoked the aid of time to afford him opportunities to strike. His "Fabian Tactics" have become proverbial, and earned for him ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... alcoholic. Another poison also, which I need not name, corrodes the race. To that, to the alcohol, are due the children whom you see there: the dwarf, the one with the hare-lip, the others who are knock-kneed, scrofulous, imbecile. All of them, men and women, young and old, have the ordinary vices of the peasant. They are brutal, suspicious, grasping, and envious; hypocrites, liars, and slanderers; inclined to petty, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... having lived; of having lived hard, brutally, squalidly, and of being worn out. A room of which Ranny said that, go into it when you would, it looked as if it had been up all night. A stained, bleared-eyed, knocked-kneed sinner ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... resolved to die. If he had only known it! Untouched by the contagious malady himself, nevertheless he would have married her if he had had the slightest inkling of what she contemplated. And yet he knew, furthermore, that hers was a certain stiff-kneed pride that would not have permitted her to accept marriage as an act of philanthropy. There had really been no saving her, after all. The love-disease had fastened upon her, and she had been doomed from the ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... of the measure - although pleaded with by weak-kneed Senators to withdraw the bill - insisted upon a vote being taken, when the measure came up on March 15th. This decision compelled Wolfe to make his famous "Fate of the Republican Party" speech, in which he predicted that if the Local ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... said Split, holding up a full-kneed pair of knickerbockers and a belted jacket. "Well!" With a philosophical grin, she began to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... was plain that John Massey was in no haste to obey the summons. In a moment the owner of the voice came jingling and rattling around the corner of the house, the same narrow-faced, gray-eyed man that Oliver had met on the road, driving the same bony, knock-kneed horse. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... sight. Every vehicle that passes he expects is going to run into him; and he never finds himself ascending or descending a hill without immediately beginning to speculate upon his chances, supposing—as seems extremely probable—that the weak-kneed controller of ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... ragged shirt, my rough leathern jerkin and open-kneed sailor's breeches had been a constant reminder of the poor, desperate rogue I had become, my wild hair and shaggy beard evidences of slavedom. Thus I had been indeed what I had seemed in looks, a rude, ungentle creature expectant of scorns and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... to confront the Bonneys, mentally thanking Gail. Up until she'd slapped me, I'd been weak-kneed and dry-mouthed with what I had to do. Now I was just plain angry, and I found that I was thinking a lot more clearly. Jack-High Bonney's wounded left shoulder, I knew, wouldn't keep him from using his gun hand, but his shoulder muscles would ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... Voysey's phrases, I would urge laymen like myself to shun that weak-kneed manikin, the low proteid diet, and unite with me in a long strong pull to get him and others like him out of the rut in which ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... studious reflection in the dubious conclusion that Good Form had something subtly to do with being able to sit cross-kneed and look arrogantly into the impertinent lens of a camp-follower's camera—to be impudently self-conscious, that is—to pose and pose and ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... 'an' let the devil win? That's not the trouble. Yer afeered, that's what's the matter. Yer too weak-kneed, an' hain't got as much backbone as an angle worm.' That's what I said to 'em, right out straight, too. Now kin ye tell me, Mr. Bishop, why the Lord made some people men instead of makin' 'em chickens fer ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... maid; or like to her who tames the Thracian horse, Harpalyce, and flies before the hurrying Hebrus' course. For huntress-wise on shoulder she had hung the handy bow, And given all her hair abroad for any wind to blow, And, naked-kneed, her kirtle long had gathered in a lap: 320 She spake the first: "Ho youths," she said, "tell me by any hap If of my sisters any one ye saw a wandering wide With quiver girt, and done about with lynx's spotted hide, Or following of the foaming boar ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... pike-pole shot out, bit the end of the timber, and towed it to the boom pile. Another man stepped on the log with Darrell. They stood facing each other, bent-kneed, alert. Suddenly with one accord they commenced to birl the log from left to right. The pace grew hot. Like squirrels treading a cage their feet twinkled. Then it became apparent that Darrell's opponent was gradually being forced ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... alien made no move to rise out of his crouch, to come at the Terran. Then Shann saw the fall of rock, the stone which pinned a double-kneed leg to the floor. And in a circle about the prisoner were the small, crushed, furred things which had come to prey on the helpless to be slain themselves by the well-aimed stones which were the Throg's only weapons ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... weak-kneed confession the Baron could hardly withhold an exclamation of contempt, but Essington, ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... come in here and let me look at you. Light up the front room, Harry. Well, I declare! Let me sit down. I'm right weak-kneed. Law! pretty is no ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... it would be very fine to take an ordinary house, a very poor, commonplace house in West Kensington, say, and make it symbolic. Not artistic—Heaven—O Heaven forbid. My blood boils when I think of the affronts put by knock-kneed pictorial epicures on the strong, honest, ugly, patient shapes of necessary things: the brave old bones of life. There are aesthetic pottering prigs who can look on a saucepan without one tear of joy or sadness: mongrel decadents ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... And now one of the pot-bellied little horrors, shambling and bulbous-kneed, was scratching its warty, blue hide with its black claws as it trailed along through the forest. It looked up, grinning and jabbering; Stern saw the teeth that should have been molars. With repulsion he noted that they were not flat-crowned, but sharp like a dog's. Through ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the thumb of each hand into the armhole of his waistcoat, and moves along stiffly, with a knock-kneed gait. His talk was chiefly of hotels, and such matters as a man, always travelling, without any purpose of observation for mental improvement, would be interested in. He spoke of his life as a ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the bell. It was an old-fashioned carriage, with two white horses in it, yet whiter by age than by nature. They looked as if no coachman could get more than three miles an hour out of them, they were so fat and knuckle-kneed. But my attention could not rest long on the horses, and I reached the door just as my housekeeper was pronouncing me absent. There were two ladies in the carriage, one old ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... which I did, finding that street to be only a few paces from the place where Champlain had made a clearing for his "Place Royale" in the midst of the forest three hundred years ago. That beautiful boy, Jacques Jardin, brown-eyed, bare-kneed, in French soldier's cap, is to me the living incarnation of the adventure which has made even that chill wilderness blossom as ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... grounds for this, and that in his conduct in Miss Stewart's room he had been entirely ridiculous. She was rightly resolved against being lightly worn by any man. If anything, the reflection must have fanned his passion. It was impossible, he thought, that she should love that knock-kneed fellow, Richmond, who had no graces either of body or of mind, and if she suffered the man's suit, it must be, as she had all but said, so that she might be delivered from the persecution to which his Majesty had submitted her. The thought of her marrying Richmond, or, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... hope the boy isn't weak-kneed," she said. "I just happened to be passing the west window ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... and clothed three, and previous winter three had free dinners and two had clothes. A school-boy earns. The twins are delicate. There are two lodgers. The eldest child very dirty; the second, glands; the third, knock-kneed, pigeon chest; very feeble, enlarged radices. Three children have died. Housing: nine in three rooms. Evidence from Police, Poor Law Officer, Parish Sister, School Charity, Army Charity, Children's Employment, School Officer, Factor, Pawnbroker ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... halt, blind, and spavined horses that can be raked up by hook or crook in the neighborhood. Such a medley was never seen in any other country. Barnum's woolly horse was nothing to these shaggy, stunted, raw-backed, bow-legged, knock-kneed little monsters, offered to the astonished traveler with unintelligible pedigrees in the Icelandic, which, if literally translated, must surely mean that they are a mixed product of codfish and brushwood. The size has but little to do ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... slogan "Don't Give up Old Home Week." Wise strategy this, in a double sense. It rallied public effort for victory by a definite date, for the Committee on Arrangements, despite the arguments of the weak-kneed among its number, and largely by virtue of the militant optimism of its chairman, had decided to go on with the centennial celebration if the city could show a clean bill of health by August 30, thus giving ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... into a large piece of beechwood, and secured, for the present, with ropes, in a temporary manner. During the short period of one tide all that could further be done for their security was to put a single screw-bolt through the great kneed bats or stanchions on each side of the beams, and screw the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a knock-kneed, sickly looking civilized creature about five feet high, who wore knee breeches, silk stockings and fancy ribbons, as he bowed low in addressing me, "those ungrateful subjects of your majesty, the ignorant common laboring horde whom God in His infinite wisdom has entrusted to your noble guidance, ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... the carriage doors, but they, however, saw to it that they were closed when once the passenger was within, and that was something. All three drove indifferent horses, somewhat uncertain as to footing. When a woman sat behind these weak-kneed, badly shod steeds and realised that Stumps, or Fitzgerald, or Witless was driving with an utter indifference to the tightening of lines at dangerous places, and also realised that it was Friday, some strength of ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... reply; he felt rather sorry for the weak-kneed little youngster perched up on that form, and wondered if Mr Trimble would expect him (Jeffreys) to adopt his method of "taking it out" of his ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... absurdum of the reformed religion, when weak-kneed Catholics sheltered themselves from its pains and penalties under the fairly ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Marsh was at that time President of the twelve apostles, and I think Brigham Young was second and Orson Hyde the third on the roll. The great opposition to our people and Church caused the two pillars, Marsh and Hyde, to become weak-kneed and turn over to the enemy. Col. G. M. Hinkle, Dr. Averard, Judge W. W. Phelps, and others of the "tall" men of the Church followed suit. I remember going with Brother Levi Stewart to some of those fallen angels (in the days of our prosperity they had looked like angels to me) ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... and Billy's quiet but equally sincere pleasure, something of Eileen's own enthusiasm returned, and although her ministrations upon Billy's marred countenance, performed under the critical and painstaking eye of Sister Betty, left her weak-kneed and pale, she took her place at the table with something very much akin to pleasure, if it were not the jubilant delight ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... quit a ship for poor grub quicker than they do for poor pay. For a week after we hit San Francisco I didn't get any further away from the dining-room of the nearest hotel—well, than"—he turned suddenly—"than that fellow there is from here—that fat, knock-kneed chap there who seems to have so much to say about me." The second clerk, who was also the second head wit, yelped like a suddenly squelched concertina ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... New France was bound to prevent this dire blow from falling upon her allies, whose adherence to the pact rested upon the ability of French arms to protect them. But French prestige among the Indians so suffered under the weak-kneed administration of La Barre, that the Iroquois became bolder in contravening the treaty of peace, while the Western tribes were on the point of going over to the English. These circumstances prompted the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... epidemics would seldom reach formidable proportions. But—and here is the national hygienic failing—the first instinct is to conceal smallpox, typhoid, or any other disease that assumes epidemic form. Repeated observations of this tendency have deprived me of that knock-kneed reverence for Business Interests which is the glorious heritage of every true American. As a matter of fact, Business Interests when involved with hygienic affairs are always a malign influence, and usually an incredibly stupid one. It was so in New Orleans, where the leading commercial forces ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various |
