"All fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Natalie's slight gasp of astonishment, he turned his head; and stared at them agape, with hanging paws, like a great baby. He looked so homely and comical Natalie burst out laughing. At the sound, Bruin promptly fell to all fours; and with a great "woof!" of astonishment and indignation, bundled over the bank ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... self-being of the world, uninjured and undiminished, and would laugh at the destruction of the world as an illusion. This conclusion per impossible may be balanced by the counter-conclusion, which is on all fours with it, that if that last individual were to be annihilated in and with him the whole world would be destroyed. It was in this sense that the mystic Angelas Silesius[1] declared that God could not live for a moment without him, and that if he were to be annihilated ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... town. This grill is high enough for Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered a street-organ—a ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... crept on all fours nearer the window. They could see a man now, an elderly man with white hair and ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... more energetic, till at last he swayed himself into the centre of the hall, and gave expression to the vehemence of his feelings in a complicated sort of movement which he intended for a jump or spring, but which brought him down on all fours, amidst a burst of irrepressible laughter from the young people who were looking on. A little disconcerted, Harry was just recovering his feet, when the parrot, who had learned a few short phrases in times past, principally ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... unique," said Wentworth; "and sometimes he tosses the biscuit in the air when they say 'Trust,' sometimes when they say 'Paid for,' but generally he drops on all fours and eats it before ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... dusk of the morning, a gray figure was seen exerting itself most strenuously. They looked closer, when, behold, there was—what think you?—the cat, pawing away, first with her fore feet, and then with her hind; now touching one note gently, and then dancing with all fours across the keys. There was a solution of the enigma—a bringing to light of ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... on all fours on the hearthrug. "Mercy!" he cried, feebly. "I've meant no offence. Only tell me ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... none think this swathing of the infant is needless to set down, for it is necessary it should be thus swaddled, to give its little body a straight figure, which is most proper and decent for a man, and to accustom him to keep upon his feet, who otherwise would go upon all fours, as most animals do. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... the heart; that is to say, between the temperament, the passions, the habits the caprices, the imagination, and the judgment, assisted by reflection. Nothing is, in fact, more rare, than to find these harmoniously running upon all fours with each other; it is, however, only when they do, that we see speculation influence practice. The most certain virtues are those which are founded upon the temperament of man. Indeed, do we not every ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... great—standing up like suspects awaiting identification, while her eye ranges over them. Chopin tries to edge behind Wagner, a difficult and forbidding person, and Gounod seeks eclipse of Mendelssohn, who suddenly drops and crawls on all fours between Gounod's legs; Sullivan cowers, and even Piccolomini's iron-framed nerves desert him. She extends her hand. There is a frantic rush to escape. Have you ever seen a little boy picking dormice out of a cage? I always see this same nightmare during that dreadful pause, a vision ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... land, out of his well, noticed that the other animals did not leap, but walked on their legs. And, not wishing to be eccentric, he likewise began briskly walking upright on his hind legs or waddling on all fours. ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... barbarous, brutal atmosphere, it will, of course, become brutal. The story is told of a well-born child who, being lost or abandoned as an infant, was suckled by a wolf with her own young ones, and who actually took on all the characteristics of the wolf,—walked on all fours, howled like a wolf, and ate ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... cowboys, but Grace did not hear them, for the pony had dropped to all fours, and no sooner had his feet touched the ground than he leaped clear of it, coming down stiff-legged with a jolt that jarred Grace Harlowe throughout her body in spite of her effort to soften the shock by throwing most of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... brute only took a few strides. Ralph went out to meet him, but, ere he came up, the creature tottered. Then, reeling, it dropped upon all fours, only, the next instant, to roll ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... he had paid the servant of the devil. He had with him two or three Spanish monks whom he had stolen in the Cape Verdes, though what he wanted of them neither he nor they could have guessed. They were having a most unhappy time of it. Now and then the scallawag sailors would force them upon all fours, and sitting astride their backs would compel them to creep about the deck, pretending to be horses, while Condent whipped them smartly with the rope's end. Thinking to save his precious twine, he ordered these monks to pray for favoring ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... much less could I conceive how my friend Thompson would be able to administer clysters, that were ordered for some, in that situation; when I saw him thrust his wig in his pocket, and strip himself to his waistcoat in a moment, then creep on all fours under the hammocks of the sick, and, forcing up his bare pate between two, keep them asunder with one shoulder, until he had done his duty. Eager to learn the service, I desired he would give me leave to perform the next operation of that kind; and he consenting, I undressed myself after his example, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... thousand—what do I say? A million Indians with baskets long and wide on their backs and the baskets filled with gold! The baskets are so great and the gold so heavy that the Indians are bowed down till they go on all fours. Gold,—a mountain of pure gold and every Spaniard in Spain and a few Italians—golden kings—" When we had all we could get, ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... little farther in search of water and was alarmed by a horseman appearing. He made for home on all fours—he ran much on all fours now—and backed into the den. In the prairie grass he was concealed, but the den was on a bare mound, and the horseman caught a glimpse of a whitish thing disappearing down the hole. Badgers were ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... went out of the dormitory they passed into the children's day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at play—some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... in dire extremity, I bethought me of a red flannel hood that Emett had given me, saying I might use it on cold nights. This was indeed a weird, flaming headgear, falling like a cloak down over the shoulders. I put it on, and, camera in hand, started to crawl on all fours toward Spitfire. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Obergatz crawled through the grass upon all fours, leaving a trail of blood behind him after Jane's spear had sent him crashing to the ground beneath her tree. He made no sound after the one piercing scream that had acknowledged the severity of his wound. He was quiet because of a great fear that had crept into his warped ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... was enough for the return party, which clustered together on all fours with their faces approaching and eyes questioning, like so ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... a liking for me, and I think, and hope, I rendered his sojourn at "Alpha House" less irksome than otherwise it might have been. The Reverend Charles' method with the backward was on all fours with that adopted for the bringing on of geese; he cooped them up and crammed them. The process is profitable to the trainer, but ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... I saw Diderot's "Father of a Family," and "The Philosophers" of Palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into a ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... his life, stopped dead short, falling back almost on to his haunches, then reared straight up and in a moment of temper tried to throw her off; indeed, she must have fallen but Ida, always cool at such moments, swept sideways, caught Adonis's bridle and brought him on all fours. Maude was instantly jerked forward on to the horse's neck in a humiliating fashion, but recovering her ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... that he sat down unexpectedly and with much emphasis. That put him between two impulses, and while they battled he stared round-eyed at Bud. But he decided not to cry, and straightway turned himself into a growly bear and went down the line on all fours toward Cash, growling "Ooooooo!" as fearsomely as his baby throat was capable ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... seat, until the cow, seeing she was unable to get rid of her burden, ran for a black walnut tree, which stood near the old pump. She ran close against this tree and Ruth came shooting from the cow's back, much like a big frog jumping into a pond, landing unhurt on all fours on the soft litter of ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... he himself was not well enough to move. At the same time, King went on to prepare a ship to be ready in the Thames in case of another emergency. When they had started, Raleigh was discovered in his bedroom, on all fours, in his shirt, gnawing the rushes on the floor. Stukely was completely taken in; the French quack had given Raleigh, not an emetic only, but some ointment which caused his skin to break out in dark purple ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... the living manifestation of the Deity and to see it disappear before gaining salvation by just touching it! So terrible became the scramble, so extraordinary the confusion, that the Swiss Guards were swept away. And ladies were seen to dart after the Pope, to drag themselves on all fours over the marble slabs and kiss his footprints and lap up the dust of his steps! The tall dark lady suddenly fell at the edge of the platform, raised a loud shriek, and fainted; and two gentlemen of the committee had to hold her so that she might not do herself an injury in the convulsions ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... imply of the hunt, what of the predatory dark? The kitten grows alert at the same hour, and hunts for moths and crickets in the grass. It comes like an imp, leaping on all fours. The children lie in ambush and fall upon one another ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... to her knees and went darting off on all fours like a squirrel into some mysterious, clattery corner of the darkness from which she emerged at last with one little gray flannel arm crooked inclusively around a whole ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Christmas tree and distributed the toys to the children, and a little while afterwards Philpot—who had got a funny-looking mask out of one of the bon-bons—started a fine game pretending to be a dreadful wild animal which he called a Pandroculus, and crawling about on all fours, rolled his goggle eyes and growled out he must have a little boy or girl to ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... his former amusement of story-telling to (what is called) account; by which I mean that he began to write and sell his tales. Here was he, and here were the little people who did that part of his business, in quite new conditions. The stories must now be trimmed and pared and set upon all fours, they must run from a beginning to an end and fit (after a manner) with the laws of life; the pleasure, in one word, had become a business; and that not only for the dreamer, but for the little people of his theatre. These understood the change as ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was full of rents and holes. And just beyond it was a huge pit with fresh soil heaped up in a ring around it. Loose earth and stones and sods were scattered everywhere. Then we saw something move in the darkness—it was a man on all fours, dragging himself painfully along and uttering a groan with every breath. Two bearers arrived with a stretcher. They put it down by his side and helped him on to it. Then they picked it up and disappeared in the gloom. We had hardly walked a few yards further when we saw a light approaching ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... two monstrous prize-cocks were brought on. These were the object of the whole affair; the two bantams having been merely served up as a first course, to collect the people together. Two fellows came into the ring holding the cocks in their arms, and stroking them, and running about on all fours, encouraging and setting them on. Bets ran high, and, like most other contests, it remained for some time undecided. They both showed great pluck, and fought probably better and longer than their masters would have done. Whether, in the end, it was the white or the red that beat, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the young officer; and as he crouched there on all fours he bounded out like a bear, seized the rifle from where it lay, and rushed back, followed by the shouts and bullets of four or five Boers, who saw him, but not quickly enough ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... mutes, which, held out from the body as a bearer holds water in a vessel, had the appearance of floating down the darkness by themselves, we came to a stair which led us to She's ante-room, the same that Billali had crept up upon on all fours on the previous day. Here I would have bid the Queen adieu, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... reconciled to his unattractive spouse. The king was exceedingly fond of this child. One day the Spanish embassador, a dignified Castilian, was rather suddenly ushered into the royal presence at Fontainebleau. The monarch was on all fours on the floor, running about the room with the little dauphin on his back. Raising his eyes, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Then we all rushed Joe into one of the elevators and crowded in behind him, and as I turned to start it down I could hear police sirens from the street and also from the landing stage above. In the hall outside the meeting room, four or five of Ravick's free-drink mercenaries were down on all fours scrabbling for coins, and the rest of the pursuers from the meeting room were stumbling and tripping over them. I wished I'd brought a camera along, too. The public would have loved a shot of that. I lifted the radio ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... bending over some piece of work, is to realize the difference. In few, very few operations is it necessary to-day that men should bend their backs, but in how many household processes is the worker expected to get down on all fours? The free-born American rebels. Perchance it is the unconscious protest over a four-footed ancestry, or it may be that disuse has really weakened the spinal column. Whatever the cause, the fact remains. ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... dug her little heels into his flanks, and flicked him sharply with the morale or elongated lash of the reins. Without hesitation the pony stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid down the precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have had to climb it on all fours. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... stream are represented by the usual network. But how to represent the wooded mountains on this side of the water? The artist has readily solved the question, according to his lights, by showing the near mountains and their trees upside down, a solution which is quite on all fours, in principle, with the plans above described. The hills are projected on each side of the line made by the torrent, so that it runs along their bases, as it does in fact; but in this case the topsy-turviness of the trees and hills ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... prayers. His eyes rolled apprehensively as he looked from one kneeling figure to another, but, obeying Dan's gesture, he knelt beside him, and for ten minutes he stuck it out: then, as the prayer continued to pour in an uninterrupted stream from the Goodman's lips, he quietly crawled out on all fours and disappeared through the door. Dan found him afterwards out by the straw-stack, and as there was a yellow streak on his black face, concluded he had learned his lesson about the hen's nest altogether too well. He was given a hoe and taken to the corn-field at once. Here Daniel showed ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... many minutes of your time to read; I thought them in as many seconds. Indeed, I had not time to form a plan of either defense or escape, when my antagonist, evidently concluding that I was fair game, dropped upon all fours, uttered a loud roar and rushed upon me with open mouth; simultaneously, I turned and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... side of the bowlder opposite that which she had climbed. She drew back hastily, ready to cry with vexation. It was not nearly so high or so steep; and on the slope of the hill a short distance away was set a little farmhouse, with smoke curling up from its rough stone chimney. She dropped to all fours in the tall grass and moved cautiously toward the edge. Flat upon her breast, she worked her way to the edge and looked down. A faintly lined path led from the house through a gate in a zigzag fence and up to the base of her fortress. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... must do nothing of the kind, but it is either do that or have the gentleman next you groping under the table at the end of the meal; and it is impossible to imagine that etiquette should wish to conserve the picture of "gentlemen on all fours" as ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... was different, for it was not still like the others, but went stopping and starting and scuttling like a crab over the grass—sometimes upright like a man and sometimes on all fours like a beast. At last it stood up and ran from tree to tree in a swaying, moving zigzag. I could see then that it was a man, but for the life of me I could not remember where I'd seen his like. Then another cloud ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... 90: Hands and feet together)—Ver. 866. "Quadrupedem." Literally "as a quadruped" or "all fours." Echard remarks that it was the custom of the Athenians to tie criminals hands and feet ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... round for the tenth time to bottle his opponent as before, when he slipped. When the ball came out he was on all fours, and the Ripton exponent, finding to his great satisfaction that he had not been tackled, whipped the ball out on the left, where ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... groan, it relaxed its hold, dropped on all fours, hung its head, and then sunk in a heap upon ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... up to the third storey, and there, in the deep shade of the inner room beyond the room where I had watched over the wounded Mason, ran backward and forward, seemingly on all fours, a figure, whether beast or human one could not at first sight tell. It snatched and growled like some wild animal. It was covered with clothing; but a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... towards the window. Outside on the veranda, crouching on all fours in the dusk, was a dark figure. With a strange, sudden movement it raised itself and stretched out an arm towards the room—standing lank, tall, and ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... hardly secured his victim before a yell from the first hunter startled him, and he ran with his lasso and a spear to his assistance. The old one, badly wounded by the sharp weapon of her enemy, had suddenly dropped upon all fours, and crawled to the man; seizing him by his legs, she set her villanous teeth into the calf of one of them. It looked as though the human was to be ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... quit the shelter which the thick foliage of the wood afforded him. Slowly, almost on all fours, he bore to the right and in this way reached the top of a hillock that rose to the level of the neighboring trees. The walls were taller still. Nevertheless, he perceived the roof of the castle which they surrounded, an old Louis XIII. roof, surmounted by ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... growl of thunder far away, and at this she started up on all fours and listened, like a dog who hears a strange footstep. One result of this strange attitude was to separate her thick black hair into two masses, that fell away on either side of her face and left her shoulders bare; the two witnesses of this singular scene wondered ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... Irish hunters frequently ridden at fences on the curb, and the poor brutes, in order to save their mouths and keep on their legs, throw up their heads and give a half buck over the obstacle, landing on all fours, and then get a cut with the whip for having jumped badly! This is how many refusers are made. Another recipe for making a refuser is to pretend to ride hard at a fence and, at the last moment, turn the animal's head from it, and then loudly rate and "lambaste" him for refusing! ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... Meanwhile, the soldiers, many of whom had borne with the cruelty and insolence of their prisoner, were little inclined to mercy. He struggled, cursing, but they bore him down, binding him hand and knee to an open litter, so he stood, like a beast, upon all fours, for such, indeed, was the order of the king. Then they put on him the skin of a wild ass and carried him up and down, jeering as the long ears flapped. Vergilius, returning, removed the skin of the ass and loosed the fetters a little, and forbade ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... men of great stature. They were twice as long as the footprints we made, and none of us were noted for small feet. On going a short distance into the woods we saw a vast number of huts made of dried grass, so cramped that a man of ordinary size could not creep into them on all fours, yet many of them contained families of pygmies. We afterwards tried to penetrate somewhat farther into the wood, in order to ascertain the nature and situation of the country, when, on coming to an open place, a number of tall savages, none ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... Voltaire; "I thank you for it. You will please men to whom you tell truths about them, and you will not make them any better. Never was so much good wit expended in the desire to make beasts of us; one feels disposed to walk on all fours when one reads your work. However, as it is more than sixty years since I lost the knack, I unfortunately find it impossible to recover it, and I leave that natural gait to those who are better fitted for it than you or I. No more can I embark upon a visit ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fairly astonished the company. Even Master Jock now sprang from his seat, and, resting the palms of both hands on his knees, regarded the new-comer with amazement, while the gipsy went down on all fours and began sniffing around him like ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... loose, but yoked them together, and had a rope fastened to them besides. Thus united they waddled on; not lovingly, for very often they grumbled and growled, and seemed to be making far from pleasant remarks to each other. They kept on all fours, it must be understood. Bears only stand on their hind legs when they have learned to dance, or are going to eat a man, or at all events are standing at bay. On reaching the end of the lake we found that a considerable portion of the day had been spent, but still we had some ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... of in the past tense, as we speak of the dead, was not pleasant to Sir Francis, walking behind Geoffrey on all fours. ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... tortures which we had to undergo in climbing almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor dog, Pamir, panting ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... a stand; she gave a sudden backward leap, raised herself on her hind legs, came down on all fours with a great clatter of hoofs, and began a circular dance over the smooth road. Round she went, stepping as daintily as a maiden at a May-day dance, while the rider clung to the reins, dug his bare heels into the glossy sides of his steed, and yelled ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... and did his best to keep the team in hand. But they proved too much for him, and in an instant more they came down on all fours and started to ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... stripped themselves and jumped into the rivers. They have swooned away by hundreds, worn out with ravings and fits; and of the Barkers, who appeared among the Convulsionnaires only here and there, in single cases of complete aberration of intellect, whole bands are seen running on all fours, and growling as if they wished to indicate, even by their outward form, the shocking degradation of their human nature. At these camp-meetings the children are witnesses of this mad infatuation, and as their weak nerves are with the greatest facility ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and, scuffling across the room to a table, returned with a visiting-card: General Barry had called and, judging by an empty champagne bottle and several cigar-stumps, had been hospitably entertained while waiting. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... a repeating, rifle. It was he who had brought down the camel with a well-judged shot through the lungs, and, with the same venomous accuracy, he now sent a bullet through von Kerber's breast. The stricken man dropped on all fours, and glared up at his murderer. Then, nerving himself for a supreme effort of hate, he raised his own revolver and fired three times at Alfieri. Twice he missed, owing to the restiveness of the horse, but the third shot hit the Italian in the center ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... He had worked his way upward on all fours, his bare feet clinging securely where shoe-soles would have been useless. He approached without noise, save of breaking twigs, until he was close beside them, when Pepita concluded it was ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... undignified to walk with a drunken stagger; but it is fairly undignified to walk at all, for all walking is a sort of balancing, and there is always in the human being something of a quadruped on its hind legs. I do not say he would be more dignified if he went on all fours; I do not know that he ever is dignified except when he is dead. We shall not be refined till we are refined into dust. Of course it is only because he is not wholly an animal that man sees he is a rum animal; and if man on his hind legs is in an artificial ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... is as follows: The J[)e]ssakk[-i]d is provided with four or more tubular bones, consisting of the leg bones of large birds, each of the thickness of a finger and 4 or 5 inches in length. After the priest has fasted and chanted prayers for success, he gets down upon all fours close to the patient and with his mouth near the affected part. After using the rattle and singing most vociferously to cause the evil manid[-o] to take shelter at some particular spot, so that it may be detected and located by him, he suddenly touches ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... window, the panes of which were dimmed by the rain. The children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath Mother Chantemesse's colossal bed. There were also two or three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours. They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening into ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the wild rider came bounding out from among them, and moving now erect, now on all fours, came sideling up to Martin, flinging his arms and legs about, wagging his head, grimacing and uttering whinnying and other curious noises. Never had Martin looked upon so strange a man! He was long and lean so that you could have counted his ribs, and he was stark naked, except for the hair ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them, till at last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his mind becoming clouded. What was that tangle of serpents winding themselves about his feet, in the disguise of innocent grasses? And what sinister demon was that, waiting for him down there, crouching on all fours on a rock, disguised as a bush and ready to jump upon him? Were not the demons waiting for him at the monastery also? Did they not nest in the openings of the great tower? Was there not a black flame flashing in those openings? No, no, not now; now they were ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... these that finally riveted Matthews' attention and brought him to a temporary halt. "Got th' gun down!" he exclaimed. On finding that Lancaster was gone, he had decided not to produce a weapon. Now, however, he quickly felt for one and dropped on all fours. "That biggest gal 'd no more mind pumpin' lead into me than nothin'," he declared, wagging his head wisely. "I could tell that by the shine in her eyes." ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... strike a match, but found the whole box was damp and sodden. I heard a muttering of voices and a curse or two in the outer cavern, and presently the sergeant entered my sanctum on all fours: ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... get up on the top?" I offered to lift him, but he declined rather hastily and said my leg would be all right if I didn't mind putting it out a bit sloping: and he then ran up it on all fours—he was quite a perceptible weight—and got on to the table from my knee ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... by being unable to understand a word said to them in Mechlenberg. An English-speaking foreigner, it is true, would find himself equally nonplussed among the Yorkshire wolds, or in the purlieus of Whitechapel; but the cases are not on all fours. Throughout Germany it is not only in the country districts and among the uneducated that dialects are maintained. Every province has practically its own language, of which it is proud and retentive. An educated Bavarian will admit to you that, ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... gained what should have been the shelter of the woods, the gale had increased so that they gave less than the road had given. The trees rocked above him; leaves and dead twigs beat on his face, and at length the blast forced him almost to creep on all fours. It was dark, too, beneath the swaying boughs. But uppermost in his mind was fear for his love, lest the hut should have given way before the tempest, and she ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... we must stoop very low to pass under a heavy and glutinous bridge that crosses the trench, and we only get through with difficulty. It obliges us to kneel in the mud, to flatten ourselves on the ground, and to crawl on all fours for a few paces. A little farther there are evolutions to perform as we grasp a post that the sinking of the ground has set aslope across the middle of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... back into the tunnel and whispered hoarsely the good news. Men came out on all fours over the bodies of those who could not move. Shorty dragged Dave into the open. He was a sorry sight. The shirt had been almost literally ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... but a vendible commodity,[1] a distinction which Endemann thinks was productive of very important results in the later teaching on the subject.[2] The last question treated in the treatise is the measure of the campsor's profit, and here the contract of exchange is shown to be on all fours with every other contract, because the essential principle laid down for determining its justice is the observance of ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... of Americanism is on all fours with the declarations found in the Bull Moose and regular Republican platforms. The characteristic of all these references to Americanism is vagueness and uncertainty as to what is really meant. I believe that the time has come when the Democratic party should ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... to get to his feet in vain, and after one failure, remained on all fours, holding on. He surveyed the moonlit world to leeward, with the tails of his jacket streaming over his head. "There's something seriously wrong," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And what it is— ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the great stress which you lay on man walking on two legs, whilst the quadrumana go on all fours, permit me to remind you that no one much values the great difference in the mode of locomotion, and consequently in structure, between seals and the terrestrial carnivora, or between the almost ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... bull elephant; this we now carefully followed, and, after many windings, we felt convinced that he was still within the broken ground that formed the Settite valley. After some hours' most difficult tracking, Taher Noor, who was leading the way, suddenly sank gently upon all fours. This movement was immediately, but quietly imitated by the whole party, and I quickly distinguished a large grey mass about sixty yards distant among the bushes, which, being quite leafless, screened the form of the bull elephant, as seen through a veil of treble gauze. I felt quite ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... the fact of my being there, and the rude way I had startled them. Their remarks were neither complimentary nor refined. The old men, in especial, got quite profane, and screamed excited billingsgate. Finally they all stopped at once, dropped on all fours, and loped away, their ridiculous long tails curved in a half arc. Then for the first time I noticed that, under cover of the insults, the women and children had silently retired. Once more I was left to the familiar gentle bird calls, and the vast ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... cat reared and struck a vicious blow at his tormentor with great, bared talons that might well have torn away the ape-man's face had the blow landed; but it did not land—Tarzan was even quicker than Sheeta. As the panther came to all fours again upon the little platform, Tarzan un-slung his heavy spear and prodded at the snarling face, and as Sheeta warded off the blows, the two continued their horrid duet of blood-curdling ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was too late to stop that gorilla-like spring, and Mut-mut, with a glitter of steel flashing in one of his outspread palms, launched himself upon them, landing, like some huge and horrible cat of dreams, on all fours in ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... creating a diversion which might add to the advantage of his surprise. But did the passage mount higher? Or was—? His advancing toes touched something solid. Bending forward, he found steps, and immediately began mounting them on all fours. ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... bear's attention, and with a lurch he was upon it. There was a crackling of ash bows as the snowshoes were crushed in the ponderous embrace. And, seeing his chance, Connie darted forward, for the momentum of the bear's lurch had carried him on to all fours in the soft snow at the edge of the trampled space. As the huge animal struggled, belly deep, the boy brought the bit of his ax down with all his force upon the middle of the brute's spine. The feel of the blow was good as the keen blade sank to the helve. The next instant the ax was jerked from ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... as silently as possible, still hearing the baby-like cry. At last, coming out into a little cleared space, we saw something running along the ground toward where we stood concealed. When it came nearer, we saw it was a female nshiego running on all fours, with a young one clinging to her breasts. She was eagerly eating some berries, and with one arm supported her ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... pushed on for Bukowitza and Shawnik, where the invasion would be stopped with certainty. Half way to Bukowitza there burst on us a terrific thunderstorm, with torrents of rain. One bolt struck so near us that the concussion knocked my perianik down, and my horse jumped up on all fours as I never saw a horse do before, but neither was touched by the lightning, and we arrived at the first house of Bukowitza drenched and tired, having knocked the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... and the second torch gave out but a dim glimmer, as Ali rose, softly as a cat, and going on all fours, began to make what he felt was his final trial to ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... human beings walk erect, and not on all fours, they are liable to suffer from various ailments of pregnancy that quadrupeds escape. Thus the upright posture is the chief factor, at least, in causing such complaints as swollen feet, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, and cramps in the legs. The attention of patients should be called ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... royal cleaning-out, I can tell you. In the afternoon I had Olie down on all fours scrubbing the floor. When he had washed the windows I had him get a garden rake and clear away the rubbish that littered the dooryard. I draped chintz curtains over the windows, and had Olie nail two shelves in a packing-box ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... lazy leisure in the trees, looking idly on while his brother Indians, for their pastime, were dancing a fantastic and wearisome dance, in the course of which they were frequently compelled to go upon all fours and bow their heads in profound obeisance to their bear-masters in ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... if the bear did. I'll larn 'em to mind their business, the sarpints! Henry!" A sharp rap over the bear's shoulder slowed the animal down. A second tap brought him to all fours, with his mistress's hand fastened in the hair ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... with such splendour of effect. The fat sergeant had made pig-noises with multitudinous yells in at least fifteen different keys, and the little cross-eyed driver of the Engineers had dressed up in a real Hun helmet and grey coat. The grand finale in which the Engineer had turned into a pig on all fours and had been mercilessly put to death with the fat sergeant's bayonet, had filled Boudru's soul with joy. He reflected and gloated on the scene far into the night. Then he fell fast asleep and met with most dazzling adventures with a German soldier who had been hiding in the Jacobean ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... feet, and set thy foot on the necks of princes; when earthly dominion, and wealth, and the mind of man bore thy yoke? Exulting in the abasement of humanity, joying to witness the uttermost lengths to which man's folly would go, thou hast bidden thy lovers walk on all fours, and required of them their lands and wealth, nay, even their wives if they were worth aught to thee. Thou hast devoured millions of men without a cause; thou hast flung away lives like sand blown by the wind from West to East. Thou hast come down from the heights ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... quotes as authority for this trivial name a passage from MAJOR FORBES' Eleven Years in Ceylon; and I can vouch for the graphic accuracy of the remark.—"A species of very large monkey, that passed some distance before me, when resting on all fours, looked so like a Ceylon bear, that I ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... devoured by our enemy the sovereign of the forest. I find my pen incapable of describing the terror of that dreadful moment. Our limbs stiffened, our power of speech ceased, and our hearts beat violently, and only a whisper of the same 'Ho hai!' was heard from us. In this state we crept on all fours for some distance back, and then ran for life with the speed of an Arab horse for about half an hour, and fortunately happened to come to a small village.... After this every one of us was attacked with fever, attended with shivering, in which ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the ravine, where the stage-road crossed it, and was about to turn into the road when, on looking up the bank, I saw on the crest of the slope some dark objects. At first I thought they were ponies, for they were moving on all fours, and directly toward the road. I ran up the bank, and had not gone more than ten yards, when I heard voices, and looking around, saw within a dozen steps of me five or six Indians lying on the grass, and talking in low tones. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... rendering in Old and New Testament of words that are synonymous, the reader would have seen what is often now reserved for the student, that all these sayings in the Old Testament about 'trusting in God' run on all fours with 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren |
