"Strutting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... corresponding hour in the morning. If you listen at this time near the places of his resort, he will soon reveal himself by a lively peep, frequently uttered, from the ground. While repeating this note, he may be seen strutting about, like a turkey-cock, with fantastic jerkings of the tail and a frequent bowing of the head; and his mate, I believe, is at this time not far off. Suddenly he springs upward, and with a wide circular sweep, uttering at the same time a rapid whistling note, he rises in a spiral course ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... obtained the general great credit as a disciplinarian; but it is hinted that he was ever afterwards subject to bad dreams and fearful visitations in the night, when the grizzly spectrum of old Keldermeester would stand sentinel by his bedside, erect as a pump, his enormous queue strutting ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... as big as if a thaasand giants wor to live in it, an' th' stooans an' timbers wor soa heavy wol they ommost sank under ther looads; an' at times they seemed soa worn aght 'at aw thowt they'd be foorced to give it up. But th' little king coom strutting raand wi' his sceptre, an' they lifted him up i' ther arms, one bi' one, an' he patted' em o' ther cheeks, an' then they set him daan agean an' went on wi' ther wark, an' he went back to his velvet cushions an' ligged daan an' laff'd. But ther Iooads kept ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... matter. Honest ale and Scotch whisky will serve well enough. Understand me; I'm not going in for debauchery, and I'm not going to play the third-rate swell. There's no enjoyment in making a beast of oneself, and none for me in strutting about the streets like an animated figure out of a tailor's window. I want to know the taste of free life, human life. I want to forget that I ever sat at a desk, drawing to scale—drawing damned machines. I ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... that is well! The King of Sumatra needs a new crown!" cried the wild man, strutting up and down in front of the cabin. "Give it to me, that I may see if it fits." And he held out his ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... remark and ridicule. Years back, at the American theatres, spectators in the pit were often gravely asking each other, whether the sovereign of England was really accustomed to appear in the London streets, wearing a similar wonderful costume to that in which Mr. Lucius Junius Booth was then strutting and ranting as Richard the Third; the fact of the Drury Lane copies of the dresses worn at the coronation of George IV. having been taken to the other side of the Atlantic, and The Coronation performed at most of the chief cities, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... hole in the fence, when, just as had happened on the preceding day, there came that strange cry. Will thought it might be the screech of a peacock, though he could not remember having seen such a fowl strutting ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... Its preliminary stage was that of an idle pleasure-seeker; its more progressive, that of an artful husband hunter, and its summit—ah! its summit was where she stood herself, and where a deplorable percentage of our society wives and mothers are standing or strutting about with their brilliant plumage expanded, airing their silly pride and lisping out in self-laudatory accents the story of their empty achievements ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair, And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade, And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware That she lives no ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... repulse in spite of themselves the sons of the Greeks from Troy. But to him aged Priam had promised her, and pledged himself[424] to give her; therefore he fought, trusting in these promises. But Idomeneus took aim at him with his shining spear, and hurling it, struck him, strutting proudly; nor did the brazen corslet which he wore resist it, but he fixed it in the middle of his stomach. And falling, he gave a crash, and [the other] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... fresh black earth. Carl stalked him. As always happened, the gopher popped into his hole just before Carl reached him; but it certainly did seem that he had nearly been caught; and Gertie was jumping with excitement when Carl returned, strutting, cocking ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... home in the evenings to be milked, satisfied and comfortable as a minister; wee calves shy as babies; donkeys with the cross of Christ on their back; goats would butt you and you not looking; hens a-cackle, and cocks strutting like a militiaman and him back from the camp; quiet horses had the strength of twenty men, and scampering colts had legs on them like withes. Up here was nothing, but you never ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... sense of smell have been much better catered to than that of hearing, owing to the "singeing of pigs and burnt crackling of over-roasted pork." Once within the enclosure he saw all sorts of remarkable things, including the actors, "strutting round their balconies in their tinsey robes and golden leather buskins;" the rope-dancers, and the dirty eating-places, where "cooks stood dripping at their doors, like their roasted swine's flesh." Ward also looked on at several comedies, or "droles," being enacted in the grounds, and, after coming ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Proudly strutting onward and crowing, Coquerico at last arrived at Rome, the place to which all roads lead. Scarcely had he reached the city when he hastened to the great Church of St. Peter. Grand and beautiful as it was, he did not stop to admire it, but, planting ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... the great ones of the world will go strutting up and down the streets sometimes, it makes me wonder. Surely they look upon themselves to be the only happy men; but it is because they judge according to outward appearance; they look upon themselves to be the only blessed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Massinissa put his troops in motion, and the patriot party in Carthage also prepared for the struggle. But Hasdrubal, who was placed at the head of their army, was one of the usual army-destroyers whom the Carthaginians were in the habit of employing as generals; strutting about in his general's purple like a theatrical king, and pampering his portly person even in the camp, that vain and unwieldy man was little fitted to render help in an exigency which perhaps even the genius of Hamilcar and the arm of Hannibal could have no longer averted. Before ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... dishonesty, and even impudent dishonesty;—brazen insensibility to lying and to making others lie; total oblivion, and flinging overboard, for the nonce, of any real thing you can call veracity, morality; with dextrous putting-on the cast-clothes of that real thing, and strutting about in them! What Legislating can you get out of a man in that fatal situation? None that will profit much, one would think! A Legislator who has left his veracity lying on the door-threshold, he, why verily he—ought to be sent ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... remembering that although cheated in all these transactions we were not duped. Mr Foster, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons—in those days the Speaker actually spoke, a whimsical Irish custom—tore the cloak off Lord Castlereagh's strutting statesmanship, and laid bare his real motives. Speaking on the first Union proposal in ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... I sat down close to poor Tom as he lay upon the deck, and roared with laughter to see his miserable yellow face, and the way in which he screwed up his eyes. But it was only three days before when I was really ill that Tom was strutting about the deck ridiculing sea-sickness, and telling me what a poor sort of a fellow I was to knuckle under to a few ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... nationalities and types on the Zone, enumerating would have become more than monotonous. But the enumerated took care to break the monotony. There was the wealth of nomenclature for instance. What more striking than a shining-black waiter strutting proudly about under the name of Levi McCarthy? There was no necessity of asking Beresford Plantaganet if he were a British subject. Naturally the mother of Hazarmaneth Cumberbath Smith, baptized that very week, had to claw out the family Bible from among the bed-clothes and ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... cried, waving her battered old felt hat at the clucking cluster of hens eddying around her legs as she plowed through the flock towards the chicken house. "Scat. You, Solomon," she called out, directing her words at the bobbing comb of the big rooster strutting at the edge of the mob. "Don't just stand there like a satisfied cowhand after a night in Reno. Get these noisy females outta my way." She batted at the hens and they scattered with angry ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... peculiar smile plays upon the lips. This complex of symptoms is seen in an exquisite way in lunatic asylums, which always contain some patients who are literally mad with conceit, and whose fatuous expression and absurdly strutting or swaggering gait is in tragic contrast with their lack of any valuable personal quality. It is in these same castles of despair that we find the strongest examples of the opposite physiognomy, in good people who think they have ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... ominously, like a great pigeon, purple and congested with rage. Strutting to the new-comer, he glared insolently up into his ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... minor poet, tainted with decadence—above all these, Delcasse loomed as a Gulliver among Lilliputians. But greatness has its penalties. While the Minister of Foreign Affairs spent his days in collecting plaques, and the Minister of War his in strutting about the boulevards, and the Minister of Commerce his in composing verses, Delcasse laboured to save his country—laboured as a colossus labours, sweating, panting, throwing every fibre of his being into the struggle—which was all the more trying, all the more terrific, because he ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... obeyed. While Ormond was waiting impatiently for the answer, his horse, as impatient as himself, would not stand still. A groom, who was sauntering about, saw the uneasiness of the horse, and observing that it was occasioned by a peacock, who, with spread tail, was strutting in the sunshine, he ran and chased the bird away. Ormond thanked the groom, and threw him a luck token; but not recollecting his face, asked how long he had been at Annaly. "I think you were not here when I was here ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... back yard Polly was strutting, proud as a peacock, in her scarlet sash. The ends swept the ground, and she glanced back over her shoulder at them every step. Roberta burst out laughing, ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... knows the pretty fool that there is nothing nobler, nothing more delightful, than for loves to be conferring and receiving obligations from each other. In this very farm-yard, to give thee a familiar instance, I have more than once seen this remark illustrated. A strutting rascal of a cock have I beheld chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck-ing his mistress to him, when he has found a single barley-corn, taking it up with his bill, and letting it drop five or six times, still repeating ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... God, the steady burning of a flame keen and hard. So on an afternoon of weather serene beyond all belief of the North, mild, tired, softly radiant, still as a summer noon; as he sat with Bertran in a courtyard where were lemon-trees and a fountain, and above the old white walls, and above the strutting pigeons, a square of blue, he began to speak of his affairs, of what he had done and ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... he must be going. He hadn't time to stay here any longer. He intimated that he had important business to look after. He was going to make a kite ten feet tall, and, with the snobbishness of a plutocrat, he went strutting away. He was almost beyond earshot when he volunteered ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... of comment. It had gone on all the afternoon. From the Columbia Theatre corner, which formed one boundary of "the line," to the Sutler Street corner of Kearney, five blocks away, certain of these peacocks had been strutting back and forth since two o'clock. The men who corresponded in the social organization to these paraders of vanity lined the sidewalks or lolled in the open-air cigar stands, as did these two young adventurers in life—Bertram Chester, now a year and a half out of college, ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... congratulated herself on having really done very well for Ellen, though during the first weeks she missed her sister terribly. She missed their quarrels and caresses—she missed Ellen's daintiness at meals, though she had often smacked it—she missed her strutting at her side to church on Sunday—she missed her noisy, remonstrant setting out to school every morning and her noisy affectionate return—her heart ached when she looked at the little empty bed in her room, and being sentimental she often dropped a tear ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of a carpenter shingling a roof, and sat by his door to see who rode by, or shouted his jeer, and, diving into his house, thrust his face out at the window. Sometimes, far beyond us, a pheasant walked across the road, strutting as straight as a harnessed brigadier,—an outlaw of the Hills who had sworn by the feathers on his legs that he would eat no bread of man, and kept the oath. Splendid freeman, swaggering like a brigand across the war-paths ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... it was no goat. Bunny saw a big bird, with his wings dragging along on the ground, his feathers all puffed up, and with what looked like a red tassel hanging dangling, dangling down over his beak, strutting toward Sue. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... army came pouring down the street in the pale moonlight, and halted in front of my compound, which chanced to face the house at that time occupied by Tungku Indut, the door of which abutted on the main thoroughfare. Tungku Aminah led the van, strutting along with an arrogant and truculent swagger most laughable to see. She was dressed for the occasion after the fashion of the Malay warrior. Her body was encased in a short-sleeved, tight-fitting fighting jacket, which only served to emphasise the femininity of her bust. She wore ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... Boyton's forehead. A young officer was in command who posed as a strict disciplinarian and acted up to his idea that there was very little else in the world for him to learn. He critically examined the paper and then looked into the saddle bags that were swung over the mule's back. Then strutting ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... perennial. It is often called Oswego tea, because the Indians are supposed to have used it for tea. Then, again, you will hear it called Indian's plume. This name seems most suitable. I can just imagine a chief strutting around with this gay plume on his head. It likes a somewhat secluded, moist, shady, cool place. I think it would be possible for some of you to make it grow at home. For colour it would be invaluable. The cardinal ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... stair. He was before her, standing on the verandah directly in front of the doors. His back was to her. She saw that he was very tall and thin, not unlike her uncle in build, but with a distinction that gentleman did not possess. Her father was strutting up and down the drive, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... avoid this subject; but he was so notoriously good at condolences that he had to say it. He had thought it out, you may remember, a year ago, but hesitated to post it; and since then it had lain heavily within him, as if it knew it was a good thing and pined to be up and strutting. ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... of humility. Would our Lord have put such language, into the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its lowliness, its conscious destitution of all merit, and deep sense of all ill desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... this moment for years," he said; "you don't know how I've watched you Sunday after Sunday strutting about this lovely place, happy in your own conceit. Your very pride has been an insult to the God you pretend to serve. I don't know whether there's a God or no— there can't be, or things wouldn't happen as they do—but ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... does it strike you?" asked the woodchuck, strutting up and down the gravel walk before her and swinging his ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... the wings. Beyond a gate in the court-yard wall the flower-garden drew its dark-green squares and raised its statues against the yellowing background of the park. In the borders only a few late pinks and crimsons smouldered, but a peacock strutting in the sun seemed to have gathered into his out-spread fan all the summer glories ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... at transferring the long end of the load to the strutting deppities who hung around the Temple of Luck met with less success. "Long as you stays Soopreem enough to wrassle wid de financial department, us leaves you run it. You is soopreem now. ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... and sometimes pity, check the sallies of mirth, it would not be a disagreeable entertainment, my lords, to observe, in the park, the various appearances of these raw commanders, when they are exposing their new scarlet to view, and strutting with the first raptures of sudden elevation; to see the mechanick new-modelling his mien, and the stripling tottering beneath the weight of his cockade; or to hear the conversation of these new adventurers, and the instructive dialogues of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... she was so kind. He had never experienced kind treatment in all his life. So it was no wonder that when the little girl entered the fifth boudoir she was followed by the parrot, the lamb, the cat and the dog, who all stood beside her and watched her feed the peacock, which she found strutting around and mewing like a cat for his dinner. Said ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... twinkling of an eye Vandy's importance was snatched from him, and the prophet's mantle had fallen upon Adele. Where, but a moment before, he had been strutting in all the pride of a proprietor, she held the stage. More. Neither our discomfited host nor his sisters could divine what was toward, and the fact that their guests crowded eagerly about Adele, encouraging her to "let them have it," was ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... near enough to distinguish the forms of the birds, they saw they were two old "gobblers" and a hen. The gobblers were strutting about with their tails spread like fans, and their wings trailing along the grass. Every now and then they uttered their loud "gobble—obble—obble," and by their attitude and actions it was evidently an affair of rivalry likely to end in a battle. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... bush town Tanungamanono; the affair was over, the victorious force, on the march back, was there celebrating its victory by the way. Presently after, it marched through Apia, five or six hundred strong, in tolerable order and strutting with the ludicrous assumption of the triumphant islander. Women who had been buying bread ran and gave them loaves. At the tail end came Brandeis himself, smoking a cigar, deadly pale, and with perhaps an increase of his usual nervous manner. One spoke to him by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... details of some little service rendered. For to my horror I was stopped by his mother, whom I subsequently learned to love and honour above most people, and actually kissed while walking in the open quad—strutting like a peacock, I suppose, for I remember feeling as if the bottom had suddenly fallen out of the earth. The sequel, however, was an invitation to visit their home in North Wales for the Christmas holidays, where there was ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... in his melancholy black. The doublet sat close, making him stout and vulgar, the knee-breeches seemed to exaggerate the commonness of his thick, rather short, strutting legs. And he carried a long black rag, as a cloak, for histrionic purposes. And he had on his face a portentous grimace of melancholy and philosophic importance. His was the caricature of ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... stream, quiet houses and a few tall-stemmed tropical trees. An indescribable, deeply-significant calm and stillness reigned there. The land was populated and thickly settled, but enwrapped in a universal breathless consecration of peace and joy. I saw light-blue peacocks quietly strutting about in the sun, their images reflected by the water. The colors, the pure atmosphere, the pretty, quiet house, the solemn silence, the presence, felt but not seen, of thousands of peaceful, happy human beings, the light horizon with the mighty sun-lit mountain ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... out. Jack Kilmeny, in evening dress, was jesting in animated talk with India when the engaged couple reentered the room. He turned, the smile still on his face, to greet Joyce as she came forward beside Verinder. The little man was strutting pompously toward Lady Farquhar, the arm of the young ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... ready packed in the provision baskets (this was of great importance to us afterwards). That evening we all met out walking, on the only riding-road there was in those days. Rajah spoke to the school-children, and we all amused ourselves with the little Middletons, boys of four and five, strutting along with turbaned hats and long walking-sticks. It was a dull evening, and we all felt unaccountably gloomy. We fancied it was because Rajah was not well enough to come and dine with us, as he had purposed in the morning; but during dinner I remembered ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... week of idleness within the confines of Les Trois Pigeons; and reclining among cushions in a wicker long- chair looking out from my pavilion upon the drowsy garden on a hot noontide, I did not much care. It was cooler indoors, comfortable enough; the open door framed the courtyard where pigeons were strutting on the gravel walks between flower-beds. Beyond, and thrown deeper into the perspective by the outer frame of the great archway, road and fields and forest fringes were revealed, lying tremulously in the hot sunshine. The foreground gained a human (though not lively) interest from the ample figure ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... in, for instance, The Three Black Pennys and Java Head. The one goes as far back as to colonial Pennsylvania for the beginning of its chronicle and the other as far as to Salem in the days of the first clipper ship; and yet by no paraphernalia of languid airs or archaic idioms or strutting heroics does either of the novels fall into the orthodox historical tradition. They have the vivid, multiplied detail of a contemporary record. And this is the more notable for the reason that the characters in each of them stand against the ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... of most note within and beyond the walls: the gleaming ruins, and fresh, uncontaminated daisies that trustfully throve beside some of them; the little fountains, with their one-legged or flat-nosed statues strutting ineffectually above them,—fountains either dry as dead revelers or tinkling a pathetic sob into a stone trough; the open views where the colors of sunlit marble and the motions of dancing light surrounded the ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... everywhere, from the great black crows, strutting over the red hills of newly planted corn, to the tiny gray sparrows, that slipped through the dusty ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... time an old red hen Went strutting 'round with pompous clucks, For she had little babies ten, A part of which were tiny ducks. "'T is very rare that hens," said she, "Have baby ducks as well as chicks— But I possess, as you can see, Of chickens ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... is far from being able to lay a claim to such dramaturgic merit. At 'haphazard he took certain individualities from the idly gossiping crowd that congregated in the central nave of St. Paul's Church, and put them on the stage. Whoever had been strutting about there to-day in his silken stockings, proudly displaying the nodding feathers in his hat, his rich waist-coat and mantle, and boasting a little too loud before some other gallant of his love adventures, ran great danger—like all those whose demeanour in St. Paul's gave rise ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... that unite us one and all; whether by the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like to choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some perhaps whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts: 'Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest imaginable Glass bell,—what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... opposite, and wanted me to talk about him during the acting." I agreed to carry out his wishes, and my worthy friend, Howard, and I, having been supplied with the "matter," commenced to rehearse the scene we had prepared expressly for Jacky. There were two figures strutting about the stage. "Good morning, Mr Catgill" said one of them. "Why, you are smart this morning." "Well, you know it is Addingham Feast," was the reply of the other figure. "Are you in want of a sweetheart?" "No," said Jacky's double; "I came here to buy some cattle." ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... She sat down in one of the inner recesses and looked out on the row of ivy-covered studies and the little gate that led down to the town. A tame jackdaw was hopping among the stones, and a couple of fan-tail pigeons were strutting near him. The mellow brightness of the October sunshine seemed to flood the whole court. Oh, how peaceful it looked, how calm and still! and then Audrey suddenly put down her face on her hands and cried like a baby. 'Oh, if it were only not my fault!' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the latter, a goose was strutting importantly at the head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow goslings, whilst driving the brood were two little girls—the one a child but little larger than the goose itself, dressed in a red frock, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... peacocks strutting along the terraces in the sun were partly responsible for this impression of mediaeval grandeur. It was for that very purpose that Madam Chartley, the head of the school, kept the peacocks. That was one reason, also, that she proudly retained the coat of arms in the great stained glass ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... it. Through the busy market place, amid the baskets and barrows of market day, under the painted wooden sign of the Green Dragon, up a dark side entry, under an arch, and through a tangle of crooked cobbled streets the two threaded their way, the square, strutting figure in front and the lean, lounging figure behind him, like his shadow in the sunshine. At length they came to a brown brick house with a brass plate, on which was Mr. Gryce's name, and that individual turned and beheld ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... Boats sailing Blowing bugle Blowing up a balloon Climbing a steep hill Imitate a steam engine Smell the pretty rose Galloping horses Hammering Rabbits jumping Ducks waddling Skating Raking garden Rowing boat Bouncing ball Throwing snowballs Elephant's walk Giant striding Goose waddle Turkey strutting Indian walking Walk like a dwarf Crow like a rooster Breathe in the fresh air Blow a ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... says that the old maids and bachelors of the Canada goose move off by themselves during the courting of the younger birds. In order to succeed in love, fear must be overcome in the male as well as in the female. Courage is the essential male virtue, love is its outcome and reward. The strutting, crowing, dancing, and singing of male birds and the preliminary movements generally of animals must gorge the neuromotor and muscular systems with blood and put them in better fighting trim. The effects of this upon the feelings of the animal himself must be very great. Hereditary tendencies swell ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Chester, in contempt. "We would make a couple of fine-looking officers, strutting around without ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... little silver-topped bottles on his table, the crease in his trousers, his shining neat hair, the pearl pin in his black tie, his precise and careful speech, the way that he said "Nu tak... Spasebo... gavoreet... gariachy..." She was never tired of imitating him; and very soon he caught her strutting about the dining-room with a man's cap on her head, twisting a cane and bargaining with an Isvostchick—this last because, only the evening before, he had told them with great pride of his cleverness in that especial direction. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... flowed a lack of perception of the fitting that often made him speak loosely, even when men and women were by to whom such a style gave positive pain. No doubt much of his coarseness, like that of every humorist, was based on honesty and hatred of shams. When he saw silly peacocks strutting about and trying to fill the horizon with their tails, he could not help ruffling their feathers and making them scream, were it only to let the world know how unmelodious were their voices. It was generally in the presence of prudes that he referred to unnamable things; and he ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... stick in my hand, saying, "If a robber comes, let him come! We'll have a struggle." Leaving the town I scanned the faces of the passers-by apprehensively, and said "Good-morning" or "Good-evening" very meekly to all dangerous-looking persons, but a fortnight later I was even strutting on the road with a smile almost ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... should arrive at the fair at last. I did not know that we were already in the middle of it. I remember, however, having a confused sight of booths, and canvas theatres, and actors in fine clothes strutting about and spouting and trumpeting and drumming; of rope-dancers and tumblers with painted faces; and doctors in gilded chariots selling all sorts of wonderful remedies for every possible complaint; and the horsemanship, with men ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... his little dreadful air of fervid solemnity—and I don't know whether I dreamed it or whether it was really there—very spruce and strutting about the lawns of Amerley Park at that garden-party they took ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... crockery reached us faintly through the high windows. There was a burst of voices, and several men came out in high good-humour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth stepping softly on long legs was being chaffed by a strutting and rubicund globe-trotter about his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really—do you think I've been done to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. The band moved away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminating for a second faces without ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... there hung sometimes about his Eminence's sumptuous hotel a Flavour, not alone of the Opera Side-Scenes, but of the Ballet-Dancers' Tiring-room. However, let that pass. I took the ten Louis with many Thanks, and six hours afterwards was strutting about in a suit of Black, full trimmed, with a little short Cloak, for all the world like ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Indians declared that the sea lay only ten 'sleeps' distant. One of the chiefs said that he had himself seen white men, who were great 'tyees,' because 'they were well dressed and very proud and went about this way'—clapping his hands to his hips and strutting about with an air of vast importance. The Indians told Fraser of another great river that came in from the east and joined this one some distance below. He had passed the site of the present Lillooet and was {96} approaching ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... our horses? Is he nice? What did he say? But I could never imagine a turkey like that flying. I always think of turkeys as strutting around a farmyard with their heads held back and all puffed out in front. This one is heavy! I can't see how he could even ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... went at will, occasionally pausing to ask a question which was so guarded, that no one could suspect that he was interested in any particular subject. One day, as he was passing the statehouse, Giles Peram, who, with the powdered wig, lace, and ruffles of a cavalier, was strutting before some of the court officials, turning his eyes with an ill-bred stare on the stranger as ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... find it answers right: Scorn torments them more than spight. All the vices of a court Do but serve to make me sport. Were I in some foreign realm, Which all vices overwhelm; Should a monkey wear a crown, Must I tremble at his frown? Could I not, through all his ermine, 'Spy the strutting chattering vermin; Safely write a smart lampoon, To expose the brisk baboon? When my Muse officious ventures On the nation's representers: Teaching by what golden rules Into knaves they turn their fools; How the helm is ruled by ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... right when he stated that Soma was the man that Leith had picked as first assistant. The big Kanaka was placed in charge of the other five carriers, and he immediately imitated Leith by shrieking out orders and strutting about in a manner that was ludicrous. Professor Herndon was bubbling over with excitement. The stories which Leith had fed to him continuously concerning the remains of an extinct civilization had worked him up to a pitch that bordered on insanity, and it was pitiful to watch him as he ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... this strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober Boston streets!—was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what "fop-tackle" did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston at that date? He walked home from the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... fence, into holes no larger than his head, into chicken coops and out, in amongst the other fowls, squawking and gurgling as he went. Then all of a sudden he was relieved of his rider, for Peter-Kins leaped from his back onto a turkey gobbler that was strutting around the yard all swelled out with pride, every feather spread out to its fullest extent. Now another race began, the turkey gobbling and the monkey chattering ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... bought Denson out?" Cal Emmett asked of no one in particular, as the children went strutting off to the store to spend the dollar which little Sary clutched so tightly it seemed as if the goddess of liberty must surely have ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... incredulously, and passed on. The insulted bird reddened in the wattles with indignation, and strutting up to the patriarch of the entire barn-yard, repeated his assertion. The patriarch nodded gravely, as if the feat were an every-day ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... at the predicament of the public which paid them for its protection against precisely the kind of thing which they openly tolerated and encouraged; yes, and even the militia, the guarantee of law and order, Broadcastle's own command, were decked out in tinsel and pipeclay, strutting to music in a palpable bid for applause and admiration. And yonder—the tide of anarchy was slowly but surely rising about the Rathbawne Mills, presaging riot, bloodshed, God alone knew what!—but one thing, inevitably,—the absolute downfall of dignity ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... and his life runs through and pervades theirs, just as the life of our Creator flows through us. In Him we live and move and have our being. And I submit that the writer of a tragedy is not cast down or undone at the time he pictures his heroic situations and conjures forth his strutting spirits. When the play ends and the curtain falls on the fifth act, there is still one man alive, and that is the author. He may be gorged with crime and surfeited with blood, but there is a surging exultation in his veins as he views the ruin that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... rapidly. Among the land-birds, the grouse, pigeons, quails, larks and various blackbirds walk. The swallows walk, also, whenever they use their feet at all, but very awkwardly. The larks walk with ease and grace. Note the meadowlarks strutting about all day in ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... in a circle round them, watched their hops and steps with absorbed interest. Immensely pleased with himself, the young dancer would fluff out his feathers, so as to look as big as possible, and after strutting about, would suddenly shoot out a leg and a wing, first on one side and then on the other, then spring high into the air, and do a sort of step dance when his feet touched the earth again. Endless ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... coach, his red-heeled shoes: Him, like the miller, pass with caution by, Lest from his shoulder clouds of powder fly. But when the bully, with assuming pace, Cocks his broad hat, edged round with tarnished lace, Yield not the way; defy his strutting pride, And thrust him to the muddy kennel's side; He never turns again nor dares oppose, But mutters coward ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... instinct in the human. In the animal world the male has the plumage and does the strutting and fascinating act; but in the human animal the female is the bird with ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... in the matter of clothing takes a very living interest in it; indeed the adornment of person and the minute care devoted to details of the toilet by young people of both sexes remind one irresistibly of the preening of the feathers, the strutting and other antics of birds before ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... on, a herd of buffaloes came strutting up to look at their oxen, and only by shooting one could they be made to retreat. Shortly afterwards a female elephant, with three young ones, charged through, the centre of their extended line, when the men, throwing down their burdens, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... feet thick, and a thick and solid wall nearly twenty-four feet high protects an inner court, where even in January the turf is firm, springy, and close. At the farther end, on steps leading into the garden, a peacock looks wonderfully appropriate, and some white fantails strutting in front of the heavy walls add very much to the picture. There is scarcely any sign of the old 'pleasaunce,' except a low and fairly broad box-hedge, which runs each side of a path in the present garden, where a few violets and one or two strawberry-blossoms are ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... miraculous "finds" of Spode or Wedgwood in old junk-shops, or the most authentic information as to why the Palfreys had no cards to Mrs. Livingstone's kettledrums, while Jane listened with a quizzical gleam in her eyes, as she did to the little bantam hen outside cackling and strutting over its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... day, everybody who was anybody, and unmarried, promenaded the west side of this street, from the Battery to St. Paul's Church, between the hours of twelve and half-past two, wind and weather permitting. There I saw Rupert, in his country guise, nothing remarkable, of a certainty, strutting about with the best of them, and looking handsome in spite of his rusticity. It was getting late, and he left the street just as I saw him. I followed, waiting until we got to a private place before I would speak to him, however, as I knew he would ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibration these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards towards ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... my heart conceal another; nay, and in all things I am so true to my principles, that I cannot be so much as counterfeited, even by those who challenge the name of wits, yet indeed are no better than jackanapes tricked up in gawdy clothes, and asses strutting in lions' skins; and how cunningly soever they carry it, their long ears appear, and betray what they are. These in troth are very rude and disingenuous, for while they apparently belong to my party, yet among the vulgar they are so ashamed of my relation, as ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... and the devil. I mean on a Wagner night! Here is the inspiration of a sainted poet, here is ecstasy unthinkable, flung wide and glorious as the dawn; and here is all the sodden and brutal vulgarity of wealth, deaf, blind, and strutting in its ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... he said, still staring. Minnie felt absolutely convinced now that he was mad, and directed the cabman home on her own responsibility. "Put on my shoes? Certainly, dear," said he, as the cab began to turn, and hid the strutting black figure, now small in the distance, from his eyes. Then suddenly something grotesque struck him, and he laughed. Then he remarked, "It is really very ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the old logbooks I found no men to compare with the Rev. Luther Meeker; or Petrak, the little red-headed beggar; or Long Jim or Buckrow or Thirkle. I never found in their pages a cabin-boy like Rajah the Malay, strutting about with a long kris stuck in the folds of his scarlet sarong, or a mate whose truculence equalled the chronic ill-humour of Harris, who learned his seamanship as a fisherman on the Newfoundland Banks. And in all his log-books I ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... no such thing," replied the mistletoe. "When your leaves are withered and fallen and you stand strutting with your bare branches in the snow, mine will be just as fresh and green as now. I am evergreen you must know: green in winter and ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... looked at the strutting, cruel-faced cut-throat who was our guard, and who shoved his bayonet at us and shook his dirty fist in our faces to try to frighten us. I looked at his stupid, leering face and heavy jowl, and the sloped-back forehead which the iron ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... surmounted by a helmet with barred visor, another smothered with brocade and skins hastily tossed over it. Amongst this heterogeneous still life, several speckled and white pigeons were perched or strutting, too tame to fly at the entrance of men; three corpulent toads were crawling in an intimate friendly way near the door-stone; and a white rabbit, apparently the model for that which was frightening Cupid in the picture ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... we? But you mark my words, the People won't put up with this state of things much longer—keepin' a set of 'ired murderers in luxury and hidleness. I tell yer, wherever I come across one of these great lanky louts strutting about in his red coat, as if he was one of the lords of the hearth, well—it makes my nose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... could trust myself to speak respectfully of any privileged class or person who had not distinguished himself in some good way and therefore earned the right to public respect. There was still the sneer behind for mere pedigree—"he is nothing, has done nothing, only an accident, a fraud strutting in borrowed plumes; all he has to his account is the accident of birth; the most fruitful part of his family, as with the potato, lies underground." I wondered that intelligent men could live where another human being was born to a privilege ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... wakes: Unto which the tribes resort, Where the business is the sport. Morris-dancers thou shall see, Marian, too, in pageantry, And a mimic to devise Many grinning properties. Players there will be, and those Base in action as in clothes; Yet with strutting they will please The incurious villages. Near the dying of the day There will be a cudgel-play, Where a coxcomb will be broke Ere a good word can be spoke: But the anger ends all here, Drenched ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... be at another, and looked down lovingly on her mother's face, and was horrified by its extreme ugliness. There was no longer any gallant Tom Thumb wit strutting about her eyes and mouth, no little tender cheeping voice to distract the attention from the hideous ruin time had worked in her. Age diffused through her substance, spoiling every atom, attacking its contribution to the scheme of form and colour. It had pitted her skin with round pores and made ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... seemed too purposely ornamental. A house designed to look well, even age has not taken from it its artificiality. Neither is there any cone nor cart-horses about. Why, even a tall chanticleer makes a home look homely. I do like to see a tall proud chanticleer strutting in the yard and barely giving way as I advance, almost ready to do battle with a stranger like a mastiff. So I prefer the simple old home by ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... a finger at her and laid it on his lips. But the old Squire did not hear. He sat glum, pulling a whisker and keeping a sour eye on the bird, which was strutting about in rather foolish bewilderment at the ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... magnificent, radiant in her beauty, before the rose-hedge, with the white pigeons furling and unfurling, strutting and pecking all round, I seemed to see suddenly the whitewashed room of last night, the big crucifix, that poor thin face under the yellow waxlight. I felt glad for Father ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... night. At first the rumour spread that the bird was mortally wounded; its thigh fractured, its liver penetrated. But about midday public alarm was allayed by the news that the invaluable creature could be seen strutting about and stiffening its feathers as usual. It had not even suffered from shock. The second shot went through Sir Henry Rawlinson's office, which he had just left, and shattered the Headquarters' larder, depriving the Staff of butter for the rest of the ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down ...
— The Plague • Teddy Keller
... pleased with the contempt expressed for his personal appearance by his lengthy associate, and impressed with a keener sense than ever of the crimes of his coat and the vices of his other garment,—"Oh, breathe not its name!"—followed doggedly and sullenly the strutting steps of the coxcombical Mr. Pepper. That personage arrived at last at a small tavern, and arresting a waiter who was running across the passage into the coffee-room with a dish of hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing anticipation of a similar pendulous catastrophe) a plate of the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
