"Askant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at his eternal cigar, and looking askant at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be nearing at the moment, 'what you've got to do, you know, is to find the man ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... interrogating? why myself and all drowsing? What deepening twilight-scum floating atop of the waters, Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol? What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your arctic freezings!) Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President? Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons; (With gathering ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... not hoard their money because Straight has so little manual labor. Tougaloo will gladly and wisely use all they have to give. And those who hold that the moral and intellectual training of teachers and pastors is the only proper work of such schools, need not look askant at the workshops of Tougaloo, lest some of their benefactions should be spent for saws or anvils or solder, while Straight is crying out for room to hold those who want exactly that kind ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... observed above that Meredith, unlike most neo-Pagans, did in his way take Nature naturally. It may be suggested, in tones of some remonstrance, that things like "though pierced by the cruel acerb," or "thy fleetingness is bigger in the ghost," or "her gabbling grey she eyes askant," or "sheer film of the surface awag" are not taking Nature naturally. And this is true of Meredith's style, but it is not true of his spirit; nor even, apparently, of his serious opinions. In one of the poems I have quoted he actually says of those ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... Beauty's self implant The freshest garden of her choicest flowers; On which, if Envy might but glance askant, Her eyes would swell, and burst, and melt in showers: Thrice fairer both than ever fairest eyed; Heaven never such a bridegroom yet descried; Nor ever earth so fair, so ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... that belonged to it he had made over in the names of the sisters, a gift for which each of them thanked him after her fashion. Tatiana Markovna wrinkled her forehead, and looked askance at him, but she could not long maintain this attitude, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... mountain's ridge askance, The Saxon stood in sullen trance, Till Moray pointed with his lance, And cried—'Behold yon isle! See! none are left to guard its strand, 535 But women weak, that wring the hand; 'Tis there of yore ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... And among the smaller ones, though not so young as some, was Katie Welwood, a black-haired, black-eyed, evil-tempered little thing, who was the rage among the boys. She had smiled upon Grant Harlson, and smiled upon young Maitland, so early in her years is the female a coquette, and they looked askance upon each other, though they were the best of friends. Had they not together defied the big George Appleton, and vanquished him in running fight, and were they not sworn allies, come any weal or woe! But woman, even at the age of ten, has ever been ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... day there were three such," interrupted one of the younger priests looking askance ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... brought out into relief the large policy of Tiberius, so it was now. They resorted to even lower tricks than accusations of tyranny, and found in the fatuity or dishonesty of Drusus a tool even more effective than Nasica's brutality. The plantation of a colony at Carthage was looked at askance by many Romans. It was the first colony planted out of Italy, and the superstitious were filled with forebodings which the Senate eagerly exaggerated. Such colonies had repeatedly out-grown and overtopped the parent state. The ground had ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... soul, into the spirit of the thing. Instead of going sleepily to his perch as the sun went down, he kept chirping about, hopping hither and thither, flinging off the husks from his seed on the bottom of the cage, or standing on his perch with his head on one side, and eyeing the tea roses askance, as if questioning them regarding this unusual commotion. Then, as if satisfied with the blushing silence of the flowers, he would hop upon his perch and break into a gush of song that made the leaves around him tremble again, having, to all appearances, made up his birdly ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... molecule in a large mass, moved hither and thither without reference to my desires or efforts; and I resented the restoration of independence. Strange contradiction! We crave and struggle for individuality; here was mine restored to me, and I looked at it askance. The tail of the column disappeared round a bend in the road. Was this indeed the end of ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 25 For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; And one eye's black intelligence—ever that glance O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! And the thick, heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... saw her whispered one to another that the reigning beauty of Newport quite surpassed herself to-night—that even the buds had better look to their laurels. The maids and the matrons, even the gentlemen, looked askance when they saw Victor Lamont and young Mrs. Gardiner dance every dance together, and the murmur of ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... peaceful men, not of tyrants and wealthy merchants, to whom they vainly went on a begging errand. "Who will open his door and gladly receive our Muses within his house, who is there that will not send them back again without a gift? And they with naked feet and looks askance come homewards, and sorely they upbraid me when they have gone on a vain journey, and listless again in the bottom of their empty coffer they dwell with heads bowed over their chilly knees, where is their ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... politely nodded, and the Trappist handed a candle to the priest. In all probability neither mother nor daughter was devout, for both glanced askance at their new companion's cassock, and suddenly became serious. Then they all went down and found themselves in a narrow subterranean corridor. "Take care, mesdames," repeated the Trappist, lighting the ground with his candle. "Walk ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of exercise: our colonel having at length arrived in the front of the ranks, he continued to direct his eyes quite to the opposite flank to that in which I was, and I could never catch his eye directed even askance towards me. After a considerable delay, the serjeant pulled out the roll-call, with which he proceeded till he came to the number filled by my name; he passed it over, and began to utter the name of the next man; but the name was scarcely ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... shows no present disposition to quit the house," Sir Giles replied, looking askance at Jocelyn, who just then had moved to another part of the room with Madame Bonaventure, "there is no urgency; and it may be prudent to pause a few moments, as you suggest, good Lupo. But I will ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... little brown, sparrow-like birds twittered in the bushes near, and looked askance, as if they would question the man's right to walk there. One or two active lizards ran across his path, pausing now and then, and glancing upwards as ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... save me from ruin. Tame thy great spirit. Even the gods know how to change, whose honour is greater, and their power. Men in prayer turn them by sacrifice when any hath sinned and transgressed. For Prayers are the daughters of great Zeus; they are halt and wrinkled and their eyes look askance. Their task it is to go after Ruin; for Ruin is strong and sound of foot, wherefore she far outrunneth them all and getteth before them in harming men over all the world. But they come after; whosoever honoureth the daughters of Zeus when ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... the Norman! But I would not, if I could, meddle with thee, my young lord, though thou dost look at me askance, spite of having learnt of me to ride and use thy lance. I am the last of the English line of old Sigfrid the Wormbane, and a childless man, and I trust the land and the serfs will be well with thee, who art English born, and son to Wulfrida of Lexden. And I trust that thou, my ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... askance at the schoolmaster who stood in the doorway surveying the work. He explained that he had received instructions to the effect that all passers-by unknown to this village were to be stopped and asked for their papers. The men and boys who remained were to take turns mounting ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... direction agreeable to the purposes of its institution. In England most of us conceive that it is envy and malignity towards those who are often the beginners of their own fortune, and not a love of the self-denial and mortification of the ancient church, that makes some look askance at the distinctions, and honours, and revenues, which, taken from no person, are set apart for virtue. The ears of the people of England are distinguishing. They hear these men speak broad. Their tongue betrays them. Their language is in the patois of fraud; in the cant and gibberish ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... station the people gathered in little groups, and looked askance at the convict. During the few minutes which elapsed before the train left the platform, a knot of spectators stood before the carriage and peered in at ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... thought your usage would be as the rest, That had more kindness at my hands than you, Yet looked askance, when as they saw ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... board was laid and dressed, and all Sat down to dinner at the baron's call; And Gawayne looked along the room askance, Seeking the lady; and he caught one glance Of laughing eyes—then looked away in haste, But turned again, and wondered why his taste Had erred so strangely, for the lady seemed Not fairer now than others. Had he dreamed? He rubbed his eyes and pondered,—though in sooth Without one ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... make it easy for corporations to go into the federal courts on matters of law that are purely local in nature, and they have availed themselves of the opportunity to the full. For a time the Supreme Court tended to look askance at collusory incorporations and the creation of dummy corporations for purposes of getting cases into the federal courts,[533] but as a result of the Kentucky Taxicab Case,[534] decided in 1928, the limitation of collusion lost much of its force. Here the Black and White ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... largely made up the American immigration of those days. Howbeit, "Atherly" was undoubtedly an English name, even suggesting respectable and landed ancestry, and Peter Atherly was proud of it. He looked somewhat askance upon his Irish and German fellow citizens, and talked a good deal about "race." Two things, however, concerned him: he was not in looks certainly like any type of modern Englishman as seen either on the stage in San Francisco, or as an actual tourist ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... rights; and his own personal attempts at retrenchment, which necessitated the suppression of numerous court offices, had done more than anything else to increase his unpopularity. Even the people, in whose behalf these sacrifices were made, looked askance at his diminished state, and showed a perverse sympathy with the dispossessed officials who had taken so picturesque a part in the public ceremonials of the court. All Odo's philosophy could not fortify him against such ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Alleghanies were densely ignorant about this Spanish province, but they sensed in a vague way that its possession by a power like France would have dragged the United States into the maelstrom of European politics. The Federalists of the Eastern States looked askance at this as at every act of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, without knowing anything about this vast domain beyond the Mississippi. The President himself was not much better informed about Louisiana. ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... that misleading impressions should be given to servants and village people. When the Brents returned to the vicarage, she had observed, with terror, that for some reason they stiffened, and looked askance ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... drew up with a shrill clang of bells the door-keeper came from beneath the great porch without enthusiasm. His was a quiet house, and he did not care for strangers, especially at this time, when every man looked askance at a new-comer and the police gave the dvorniks no peace. He seemed to recognize Cartoner, however, for he raised his hand to his peaked cap when he answered that the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... face grew very grave, and she immediately crossed herself devoutly, looking askance at Unorna as she did so. But ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... not laughing like the rest and he was looking down at Robin. She thought him ugly and wicked looking. Vesey and Harrowby were beautiful by contrast. Before she knew who he was, she disliked him. She looked at him askance under her eyelashes, and he saw her do it before her mother spoke his name, taking her by the tips of her fingers ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... scornful words: "Ill Paris, most fair in semblance, thou deceiver woman-mad, would thou hadst been unborn and died unwed. Yea, that were my desire, and it were far better than thus to be our shame and looked at askance of all men. I ween that the flowing-haired Achaians laugh, deeming that a prince is our champion only because a goodly favour is his; but in his heart is there no strength nor any courage. Art thou ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... a good partner, whatever his pedigree might be, and begged the stewards to introduce Mr. Wilkins to her. After this night his fortune was made with the young ladies of the Hamley assemblies. He was not unpopular with the mammas; but the heavy squires still looked at him askance, and the heirs (whom he had licked at Eton) called him an ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... with books in their wire cages; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints of famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of dead lions than all the living dogs ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Love, as Jupiter On Juno smiles, when he impregns the Clouds 500 That shed May Flowers; and press'd her Matron lip With kisses pure: aside the Devil turnd For envie, yet with jealous leer maligne Ey'd them askance, and to himself thus plaind. Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two Imparadis't in one anothers arms The happier Eden, shall enjoy thir fill Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust, Where neither joy nor love, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... stupefied by the lively and hearty noise of provoking mischiefs and of wild, childish games, Foma picked out two boys from the crowd who at once seemed more interesting to him than the others. One had a seat in front of him. Foma, looking askance, saw a broad back; a full neck, covered with freckles; big ears; and the back of the head closely cropped, covered with light-red hair ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... that little affair is settled forever?" he said, working both hands about the head of his cane, while he eyed the girl askance. ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... boy, never look askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, by God's bread, ay, and you and your companions mend yourselves when ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... manufactured something better than the proverbial ell of very interesting gossip. The reconstructed item reached San Francisco as soon as Madame Nilsson, and was copied from the Tribune into the coast papers on the eve of her opening concert. Now, the madame thought that the American world looked askance at a woman who gambled, and when the article was kindly brought to her attention she flew into one of those rages which, report has said, were the real tragedies of her life. When returning overland ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Front and askance, the assailants smote, and low On earth heads, arms, and severed shoulders lay, Where'er the Christian squadrons were too slow To free the path and break their close array. Whoe'er has seen the passing tempest blow, And of the hill or valley, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... cities have usually swept away the traces of antiquity they once possessed—tortuous streets are straightened and widened, quaint old houses are thrown down, the picturesque makes way for the useful; even the old churches are looked at askance, as occupying ground that might be devoted to warehouses and offices. In these quiet corners of the West such temptations have not presented themselves; population is thin, and there is little call for the destructiveness of ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Allingham's Ballad Book, as truly a vade mecum as Palgrave's lyrical anthology in the same 'Golden Treasury' series, I would speak, perhaps only for sentimental reasons, always with respect, admiring the results of his editing while looking askance at the method, for he mixed his ingredients and left ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... mankind very capable of anything generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who, perhaps, formerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton which I carry perpetually about with me, in order to study the sentiments—the dauntless magnanimity, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... capital of a so-called friendly Power; with our pro forma despatches still being despatched while our real messages are frightened; attempting to weather a storm which the Chinese Government is powerless to arrest. The very passers-by are becoming sheep-eyed and are looking at us askance. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... played upon her. The prospect was bitterly distasteful. Jasper accused himself of selfishness. Because she cared nothing for the world, was a creature apart, he had let the world think what it would. He knew that an askance look would not hurt her; for himself, secure in innocence, he did not care; for Betty, he had thought her cruelly certain ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... uncomfortable people who robbed the clothes-lines and hen- roosts, told fortunes and incidentally intimidated the housewife if unprotected by man or dog. Borrow changed all this. The suspicion remained, so strongly in fact that he himself was looked at askance for consorting with such vagabonds; but with the suspicion was more than a spice of interest, and the Gypsies became epitomised and immortalised in the person of Jasper Petulengro. Borrow's Gypsyism was as unscientific as his "philology." Their ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... or three nervous steps to the right, looking askance at the sock as he moved. It was not really as large as ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... will refuse to see him again," said Grace, dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensed against you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... of first cousins was removed in England by the Marriage Act of 1540,[4] but by this time the idea of the harmfulness of kinship marriage was so thoroughly impressed upon the people that they were very prone to look askance at such unions, and if they were followed by any defective progeny, the fact would be noted, and looked upon as a chastisement visited upon the parents for their sin. Naturally the idea became proverbial, and in some places it ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... the means to get the pipe out of his mouth," said the other, looking askance at the black, as if to express more than he uttered. "Romance and pretty girls play the deuce with our philosophy, in youth, as thou knowest by ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... say he bid his Angels turn askance The poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more From the Sun's axle; they with labour pushed Oblique the centric globe: some say the Sun Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road Like distant breadth—to Taurus with the seven Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins, Up to the Tropic Crab; thence ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... before them and stood with folded hands, as if at his prayers. Consequently he missed the very pretty air of consciousness with which Selvaggia passed him by, the heightened colour of her, the lowered eyes and restless fingers, Also he missed Nicoletta's demure shot askance, demure but critical, as became an expert. A sonnet and a bunch of red anemones went to the Palazzo Vergiolesi that evening; thenceforth it rained sonnets till poor little Selvaggia ran near losing her five wits. It rained ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... I expect You'd better hold your head erect! Please look me squarely in the eye Unless you're telling me a lie. For if you crouch and look askance, Regarding me with sidelong glance, I'll think it is a Goop I see Who is afraid to ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... he cried, slipping his arm through mine. "You have had enough of the garden, for between you and me, my dear Major"—here he looked askance at Miss Felicia—"I think it an admirable place in which to take cold, and that's why—" and he passed his hand over his scalp—"I always insist on wearing my hat when I walk here. Mere question of imagination, perhaps, but ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... priest required of him. He seized his staff and called out all the neighbours, who burst out laughing when they learned the nature of his business. When Iskender joined them, however, there were looks askance; one said to another, "Is not this the Brutestant, the son of Yacub? What hand has he in this affair? It were a sin for us to vex a true believer for the pleasure of a child of filthy dogs," till the priest cried, "Welcome ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... I stared askance at him, in utter silence. Then I smiled half tolerantly. "But father, yesterday they ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... a timeserver and leagued with my Lord Warwick's faction in the Company, he was a jovial sinner. Traveler and student, much of a philosopher, more of a wit, and boon companion to any beggar with a pottle of ale,—while the drink lasted,—we might look askance at his dealings, but we liked his company passing well. If he took half a poor rustic's crop for his fee, he was ready enough to toss him sixpence for drink money; and if he made the tenants of the lands allotted to his office ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of the most famous (and most revolutionary) of aeroplane engines—the rotary Gnome engine, in which the cylinders rotate bodily round a fixed crank-shaft. This engine was built by the brothers Louis and Laurent Seguin, who had a small motor factory in Paris. Most of the regular aviators looked askance at it, but Seguin offered to instal it in a Voisin biplane of the box-kite pattern which had just been won as a prize by Louis Paulhan. In the result the old box-kite flew as never box-kite flew before, and produced a great impression at the Rheims meeting. The Gnome engine ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed—took ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wild-beast traps, and suffered his affairs to fall into neglect; but it was not his failing appetite, or his broken sleep alone that wore upon him. The disappointment with his guest that was spreading through the community, involved Bird, and he thought his neighbors looked askance at him: as if they believed he could have moved Northwick to action, if he would. Northwick could not have moved himself. He was like one benumbed. He let the days go by, and made no attempt to realize ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... their work went on with lucky speed, And reared rams their horned fronts advance, The Ancient Foe to man, and mortal seed, His wannish eyes upon them bent askance; And when he saw their labors well succeed, He wept for rage, and threatened dire mischance. He choked his curses, to himself he spake, Such noise wild bulls that ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... echoed Lady Trevlyn, adding, with a look askance at the old book, "I read that history once, and fancied it must be a romance, such dreadful things are recorded in it. Is ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... create a vast army. But Bismarck was not satisfied, and in his eyes Germany's safety was still unassured; so he appealed to the Reichstag to augment largely their armaments. The deputies looked at him askance, for a vast army meant ruinous taxation; even von Moltke and von Roon shook their heads, well aware though they were that a great European conflict might break out at any time; and, in short, Bismarck's proposal was met by a determined negative ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... profit on his return to old England's shores. Thus up and down the Yorkshire coast men spoke and thought highly of Master Robert Fowler's judgment in all matters pertaining to the sea. On land, too, he seemed prudent and skilful, though some folks looked at him askance of late years, since he had joined himself to that strange and perverse people known ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... his drink at a long, thirsty gulp, watching the young man askance with his impressive eyes. Rainham noticed for the first time that he had a curious trick of smiling with his lips only—or was it of sneering?—while the upper part of his face and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... peach, or plum was allowed to be taken without payment, or at the owner's consent. Fields, orchards, and farmhouses were strictly guarded against depredations. The citizens as a whole looked at us askance, rather passive than demonstrative. The young did not flock to our standards as was expected, and the old men looked on more in wonder than in pleasure, and opened their granaries with willingness, but not with cheerfulness. They accepted the Confederate ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... through the streets he noted a great many empty and shut-up houses. Men were going about with grave and anxious faces. Often they would look askance at some passerby who might be walking a little feebly or unsteadily, and once Joseph saw a man some fifty paces in advance of him stagger and fall to the ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... scornfully asked, "If any man slew the son of a king with a bit of wood, how could this piece of wood be dear to the king?" Their ecclesiastical government was in the main presbyterian, and in politics they showed a decided leaning toward democracy. They wore long faces, looked askance at frivolous amusements, and were terribly in earnest. Of the more obscure pages of mediaeval history, none are fuller of interest than those in which we decipher the westward progress of these sturdy heretics ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... in the air, The strong clean scents of earth, The call of the golden shaft, Ringing across the hills) He takes up his heartening book, Opens the volume and reads, A page of old rugged Carlyle, The dour philosopher Who looked askance upon life, Lurid, ironical, grim, Yet sound at the core. But weariness returns; He lays the book aside With his glasses upon the bed, And gladly sleeps. Sleep, Blessed abundant sleep, Is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sad days for Dainty, for the gay young girls, Miss White's assistants, began to shun her, and to look askance at the form always bundled up so closely from the winter cold. Two hands quit work abruptly and never returned, and the three others held private conversations with their employer, after which she came ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... not an old story? The loss of "quarters," half-days, and days goes on; then Saint Monday comes to be observed; then the spoiled young man and his merry crew begin to draw very short wages on Saturdays; then the foreman begins to look askance as the blinking uneasy laggard enters; and last comes the fatal quiet speech, "You won't be required on Monday." Bad company! As for the heartbreaking cases of young men who go up to the Universities full of bright hope and equipped at all points splendidly, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... it not been for fresh supplies of Saxon, Teuton, Spanish, and Italian blood. It is, in fact, the inter-marriages that have kept the falsely so-called pure races of these human parasites alive. The mixing is continually going on. The gipsies who still stay in their tents, however, look askance upon those who desert them for the roof. Two gipsy women, thorough-bred, came into a village shop and bought a variety of groceries, ending with a pound of biscuits and a Guy Fawkes mask for a boy. They ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... were beginning to look at us askance. Our various attitudes at this discovery were scarcely in accordance with the usually accepted actions of innocent people; on the contrary, with but a grain of imagination, we might be branded as a trio of rascals trying to stall out of a tight place. My apprehension was ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... further I cannot say, for the daughter had immediately bolted the door behind me. I had made it impossible for me to stay longer in the little country village, and although I had paid for my room for a month I preferred to go away two days later. All the people avoided me and looked at me askance. Most of all the people with whom I was stopping! I saw that a stone rolled from their hearts when I departed." At my question, whether she perhaps had been especially attracted by her landlady, she answered: "No, but in fact with another woman of the village. And it ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... the fishermen and seamen. There, amidst riot and devilry, he sat silently puffing at his pipe, with a set face and a smouldering eye. It was generally supposed that his misfortunes had shaken his wits, and his old friends looked at him askance, for the company which he kept was enough to bar him from ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... recommended, with such improvements as the congress may deem necessary. The advantages of a universal uniformity of costumes would be far-reaching. There would be no further occasion for any one to look askance at another, as has frequently happened when some stranger has been seen wearing what was considered an uncomely or unsuitable garb; universal uniformity of costume would also tend to draw people closer together, and to make them more friendly. Uniforms and ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... a rule, did, without knowing why. Basil's reputation was shady, without being actually bad. He was a suspect who had never been convicted. New York contained several husbands who eyed him askance, but could not verify their suspicions, and the apparent hopelessness of ever doing so made them look on Basil as a man who had carried smoothness into the realms of fine art. He was considered too gifted to be wholesome. The men of ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... has a 'cheap John' flavor, which makes careful men view it askance. Who witnessed the assault on Smith? Nobody. He tells of being struck three times on the head with a piece of lead pipe, weighing some four pounds, and has in evidence the terrible weapon. Did his person bear evidence of the murderous assault? No. All who saw him in the ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... perpetuated in the female line. The sovereign profession among bees and ants is always female, and publicans also descend on the distaff side. You will have noticed that every publican has three daughters of extraordinary charms. Lacking these signs we would do well to look askance at such a man's liquor, divining that in his brew there will be an undue percentage of water, for if his primogeniture is infected how ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... animals, as one shoots a bird flying,—both my Cromarty cousin and myself were extremely desirous to visit the scene of such feats and marvels; and Cousin William obligingly agreed to act as our guide and instructor by the way. He did look somewhat askance at our naked feet; and we heard him remark, in an under tone, to his mother, that when he and his brothers were boys, she never suffered them to visit her Cromarty relations unshod; but neither Cousin Walter nor myself ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... when her husband would be called away for one of his hunts, and though there were many Loyalist families in Forfarshire, it was not a time for easy social intercourse, and Jean was conscious that the Carnegies and the rest of them of the old Cavalier stock looked askance at her, and suspected the black Covenanting taint in her blood. Claverhouse, like a faithful gentleman, had done his best to conceal from her the injury which his marriage had done him, but she knew that ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... here to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o't, On blythe Yule night when we were fou, [drunk] Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, [cast, high] Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, [askance, very skittish] Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; [Made, aloof] Ha, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... father had looked askance at the well-dressed young stranger who so constantly had dinner or supper at the restaurant, but ere long, in consequence of secret inquiries he had made of the hall porter of the flats in Shaftesbury Avenue, he had accepted the young man, and had even been gratified by the proposal ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... good looking; Achilles was not such a paragon of grace and vigour when he donned the armour Ulysses offered him. But the citoyenne Rochemaure, once so enraptured by the charms of the young hero of the Commune, now looked askance at him; her mood had changed since the day she was told how the young soldier had been denounced at the Jacobins as one whose zeal outran discretion and that he might compromise and ruin her. Henry ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... 'Thee'st know soon enough,' and the trio sat in silence until Julia entered the room. She was pale, and there were traces of tears on her cheeks, and Samson, as he glanced at her askance from under his heavy eyebrows before he rose, saw that she was struggling to repress some strong emotion. She advanced to kiss him, but he repelled her—not roughly—with his heavy ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... note repaired, taking a morbid pleasure in a fantastic analogy between the instrument and herself. On Friday nights after the Sabbath-hymns she read The Flag of Judah. She was not surprised to find Reb Shemuel beginning to look askance at his favorite paper. She noted a growing tendency in it to insist mainly on the ethical side of Judaism, salvation by works being contrasted with the salvation by spasm of popular Christianity. Once Kingsley's line, "Do noble things, not dream them all ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a dangerous thing to intrust an enterprise of such moment to a youth of twenty-two, with no knowledge of warfare but that he had gained from books. It is perhaps not wonderful that veterans should have looked at him askance, and I would not think of them too harshly. He doubtless made mistakes,—as what man would not have done?—yet I believe that not even the first captain of the empire could have snatched ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... phrensy. 'The White Whale—the White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out before ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... scarcely think at all out of their round of business; They are trained not to think. From the cradle to the grave orthodoxy has them in its clutches. Their religion is settled by priests, and their political and social institutions by custom. They look askance at the man who dares to question what is established, not reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox, that without innovation there could never have been any progress, and that if inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden quarters ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... hidden meaning of the order, Adrian looks at his lady askance, to find that, with eyes closed upon the sight of the grinning faces, she is whispering prayers and fervently crossing herself. When she turns to him again ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... hand and placed it in Cuckoo's. But then, again, a bewilderment seemed to take hold of him, for even as he touched Valentine's hand he looked at him askance, and the eagerness ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... this afternoon, for Mrs. Berridge came in to lay the cloth. She looked askance, I thought, at the figure on the window-sill, but she ventured no remark save to ask if I was ready for ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... how are you?" she asked, bending awkwardly over the bed. In the same instant she looked askance at ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... condition of things we may realise the feelings of an imaginative and sensitive youth of his son's calibre; how keenly he would feel the helplessness and the reproach of his position, especially if—as was no doubt the case—it was augmented by the looks of askance and wagging of heads of the sleek and thrifty wise-ones ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... little of the neighbours at first. The women looked rather askance at her, and thought her little better than a fool, even if she had contrived to make one of Jacques De Arthenay. She never seemed to understand their talk, and had a way of looking past them, as if unaware of their presence, that was disconcerting, when one thought well of oneself. But Marie was ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... timber or not, he would go and see it. For a few weeks he would be alone in the woods, where men would not eye him askance, nor dainty, fresh-faced women shrink from him ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... piazza. Mr. Baron, a stout, bald-headed old gentleman, was fuming up and down the dining-room while his wife sat in grim silence at the foot of the table. It was evident that they had made stiff, old-fashioned toilets, and both looked askance at the flushed face of the almost breathless girl, still in her simple morning costume. Before she could speak her uncle said, severely, "Since we have waited so long, we will still ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Bolden looked askance at the eyes that glowed in the dim interior. He hadn't seen clearly what the creature was and he didn't like the idea of having it loose in the cabin, particularly if he had to fly through a storm. The ...
— Bolden's Pets • F. L. Wallace
... him a look askance under her long fringed lids—a surly yet half- slyly relenting look, because she wanted to get her way of him, and had the cunning wit and ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... same thing in the touch of her hand upon his bridle when she mounted him at the door, and seemed to glance askance at her sideways. ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... prematurely worn-out. These words represent ideas which are theirs only by courtesy and conservatism, like the law-terms of the courts, or the "cant" of certain religious books. We have also a plebeian tongue, whose words are racy, vigorous, and healthy, but which men look askance at, when met in polite usage, in solemn literature, and in sermons. Norman and Saxon are their relative positions, as in the old time when "Ox" was for the serf who drove a-field the living animal, and "Beef" for the baron who ate him; but their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... half-measures—kindly-forgivings, and all the rest of it! If anyone starts forgiving me, I'll lick him! We won't forgive anyone, not even ourselves. We'll go straight ahead on a new tack, and forget everything that's happened. If our friends the enemy look askance at us at first (and we needn't be surprised if they do), that mustn't affect us. Remember this: Scores are Settled. That's our motto; there is to be no more paying off. Chaff them if you like—I fancy they'd think there was something ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... and glanced askance at the mail piled in neat array on his desk; he was not in a frame of mind to handle routine office business. Other clients would have to wait until later in the day. A memorandum pad, bearing a message in Sylvester's precise penmanship attracted his ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... yet, but he put in an appearance a few moments later. He manifested no surprise at sight of his son, but he eyed Hal askance. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... of his accidental nationality, abound on every side. Here a synagogue occupies the story above a shop; there Masonic symbols are exhibited between the windows in a similar location. Jewish faces of the least prepossessing type look askance into eyes which they recognize as both unfamiliar and observant. Women, unkempt and slouchy, or else arrayed in dubious finery, brush against one. At intervals fast growing greater the remains of an extinct domesticity and privacy still show themselves in the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... rough, and coy, and sullen, And now I find report a very liar; For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous, But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers. Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance, Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will, Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk; But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers; With gentle conference, soft and affable. Why does the world report that Kate ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... apparently still orthodox, in their innermost essence the outcome of a personal desire for love, and had therefore abandoned the teaching of the Church and become Protestant. The fact that the so-called Protestant Church looked askance at Mary, and that the rather coarse-minded Luther said, in his annoyance: "Popery has made a goddess of Mary, and is therefore guilty of idolatry," does not contradict my statement. The true Queen of Heaven was a conception of the artist and ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... instinctive determination to try something—anything, I turned about and walked briskly towards town with askance look, all the time, watching the movements of the beast. It crept swiftly along the wall, ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... couldn't have afforded to dress in solid silver-tinsel tights if he had been otherwise. I had the tights assayed before returning them to their owner, and even in a country where free coinage of tights is looked upon askance they could not be duplicated for less than $850 at a ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... with other patients served to corroborate their former conclusions. When it became apparent that in every case the painful experience bore some relation to the love-life of the patient, both doctors were startled. Along with most of the rest of the world, they had been taught to look askance at the reproductive instinct and to shrink from realizing the vital place which sex holds ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... in the pockets of the coat like an amateur pickpocket, and found some letters. He gazed at them askance, turning them over and over, wondering if he ought to peep at their contents. Then he put them back, and went into the smoking-room, where, finding himself alone, he turned up his vest as if it had ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... I know not— I viewed it askance; Conditions of doubt, Conditions that slowly leaked out, May haply have bent me to stand and to show not ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... other curiosities, was a beautiful preparation of an infant cranium, presented to the painter by his old friend, Surgeon Cruickshanks. Fowler, without moving his position, continually peered at it askance with inquisitive eye. "Ah! Master Fowler," said the painter, "that is a mighty curiosity." "What might it be, sir, if I may be so bold?" "A whale's eye," replied Gainsborough. "Oh! not so; never say ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... whom Ernest was sure to be afraid of and yet be taken in by. The style of his dress was very High Church, and his acquaintances were exclusively of the extreme High Church party, but he kept his views a good deal in the background in his rector's presence, and that gentleman, though he looked askance on some of Pryer's friends, had no such ground of complaint against him as to make him sever the connection. Pryer, too, was popular in the pulpit, and, take him all round, it was probable that many worse curates would be found for one better. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Mr. Calamity must have viewed this growth and prosperity with eyes askance. His cane tapped more rapidly yearly as it passed the great newspaper office, notwithstanding that it bore more and more the weight ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... humiliating and chastening experience to the man, who had supported himself by boxing in booths at fairs and show-grounds, to find this "bloomin' dook of a 'Percy,'" this "lah-de-dar 'Reggie'" who looked askance at good bread-and-dripping, this finnicky "Clarence" without a "bloody" to his conversation, this "blasted, up-the-pole[17] 'Cecil'"—a man with a quicker guard, a harder punch, a smarter ring-craft, a better wind, and a tougher appetite ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... Old Crompton was looked at askance by the simple-living and deeply religious natives of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... she say such words?" thought Giselle, whose sense of propriety was outraged by this allusion to love. Fred, too, looked askance and was not comfortable, for he thought that Jacqueline had too much assurance for her age, but that, after all, she was becoming more ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... the natives of the place looked askance at these Christians in their midst, but the bey's orders had been peremptory that no insults should be offered to them. Two days after their liberation one of the principal men of the place sent for them and employed them in digging the foundations for a fountain, and a deep trench of some hundred ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... each other's throats. If they paid for peace by the continuance of foreign rule, it was better to be governed by Pandulf than pillaged by Falkes. The principal events of these years were due to papal initiative.[1] Honorius looked askance on the maimed rites of the Gloucester coronation, and ordered a new hallowing to take place at the accustomed place and with the accustomed ceremonies. This supplementary rite was celebrated at Westminster on Whitsunday, May ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... very long while, had just that instant gone out. I entered at once, as I had been accustomed to do. But as soon as the king my brother perceived me, he, without saying anything to me, began walking about furiously and with long steps, often looking towards me askance and with a very evil eye, sometimes laying his hand upon his dagger, and in so excited a fashion that I expected nothing else but that he would come and take me by the collar to poniard me. I was very vexed that I had gone in, reflecting upon the peril I was in, but still more upon ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... oily calm, seething around the bared fangs of jagged rocks, drawing back with threatening snarl or snatching irritably at the trailing sea-weed; and high aloft the gulls wheeled, clamouring. Old men amongst the fishers looked askance. Why did they not take warning? Alas! The year had been a lean year; the weather latterly had been bad, and for near on a week the boats had been unable to go out. The fish were there for the taking. Prices ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang |
