"Gnome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of coal," said the fireman, as he bent his back to the work of shoveling, looking for all the world like a black gnome. ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while the gnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. It was a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the hut could remember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her instinct of obedience sent her to the threshold. Dusk was ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... throne, There sleeps a Ruler carved in stone; Where vultures guard a serpent's home, A quartered warrior tells its tale. Perturbed at dews that drip from dome As wattling apes their horrors groan, The witch forsakes each glozing gnome, Affrighted ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... then backs itself into its underground world by means of the boring machine on its hind feet, to be heard no more that season, and seen no more, unless some one chance to dig it out, just as Hans in the story dug out the mole-gnome. ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... keen annoyance and vexation to me whenever I heard it. It related to a boy who on one occasion had the good fortune to meet, in the depths of the forest, a little old man in red cap and green jerkin—a gnome or fairy, of course—who with the utmost good-nature offered to gratify any single wish that boy might choose to express. Here was a glorious chance, the opportunity of a lifetime! The boy's first thought was for ginger-bread, but ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights were not interminably distant, for they were upon the other shore, and this gnome lake is but a mere drop of water in the mountain mass, its length being three hundred and thirty, and its breadth one ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... man—probably very near his old-age pension. But he carried still with him a look of youth, and he had been a splendid creature in his time. The other was short of stature and of neck, bent besides by field work. A broadly-built, clumsy man, with something gnome-like about him, and the cheerful look of one whose country nerves had never known the touch of worry or long sickness. The name of the taller man was Peter Halsey, and Joseph ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... by Agnes Herbertson, in Little Folks Magazine, is a very pleasing modern romantic fairy tale for little children. Wee Wun was a gnome who lived in the Bye-Bye meadow in a fine new house which he loved. As he flew across the Meadow he had his pockets full of blue blow-away seeds. In the Meadow he found a pair of shoes, of blue and silver, and of course he took them ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... beautiful but ill-fated Antoinette monoplane, which had, through engine failure, let Hubert Latham twice into the Channel during his attempts to make the crossing; with Henry Farman who, fitting one of the first Gnome motors to a biplane of his own construction, flew for more than three hours at Rheims, and created a world's record; and also with M. Voisin, whose biplane was then being flown by ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... was an admirable servant, deft and handy, but his blue-lined face and squat figure together with the obtrusively golden halo, rather worried Mrs. Jasher. And, indeed, in spite of custom, Lucy also felt uncomfortable when this gnome hovered at her elbow. It looked as though one of the fantastical idols from the museum below had come ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Darwin was "a master." The final sentence, about the "weakness of thought and mental anachronism which no one can envy," was especially successful. The reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette just quoted from gave it in full, and said that it was thoroughly justified. He then mused forth a general gnome that the "confidence of writers who deal in semi-scientific paradoxes is commonly in inverse proportion to their grasp of the subject." Again my vanity suggested to me that I was the person for whose benefit this gnome ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... oscitancy of the transcriber, or from the trepidation which might have overpowered the modest Frenchman, on finding himself in the act of writing to so great a man, I shall not dare to determine. A few Notes are added by Your servant, GNOME. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully fresh and green-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,—then a step in the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the single or double type, the propeller, or propellers, are directly connected to the motor. In some monoplanes the motor, especially the Gnome, itself rotates, carrying the blades with it. In biplanes, such as the Burgess, Wright or Curtiss, it is the custom to operate the propellers directly from the motor, either by means of a shaft, or by ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... her expression whether or no she was his accomplice, Josephine hurriedly left her place and, slipping between the gnome and the colossus, went and cowered down at the end ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... as good a wife as you, Aunt Catherine," said Roger with a little whimsical smile that gave him the look of an amused gnome. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... organization of this party. Black Beaver has traveled as no other man ever traveled in Alaska, four times in as many years he crossed the entire country by dog-team in a diagonal way from Dawson to Point Barrow and from Gnome to The mouth of the Mackinzie river. Being able to speak several indian dialects, he was able converse with Siwash, Mucklock, Malimouth and other types getting the most valuable kind of information. You have never read a book written by a trapper. Usually ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... well-met within, the risen wind clamoring through the night, the rain lashing the black panes, the sea rumbling upon the rocks below, and, withal, a savory smell abroad in goodly promise. My uncle, grown fat as a gnome in these days, grotesquely fashioned, miscellaneously clothed as ever, stood with legs wide upon the black wolf's-skin, his back to the fire, his great hands clasped over his paunch, lying as upon a shelf; regarding the direct importation ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... It had towered there ahead of them as they jerked and toiled across the interminable flat in their accompanying cloud of dust. The great circle of the world had dwarfed them to a bitter insignificance: a team of crickets, they seemed, driven by a gnome. The hushed tone of Thatcher's voice made unconscious ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Grant has been shoveling sand all afternoon, building a dam over by the fence, and the water has been rising and rising till—" She waved her hand gloomily at her bedraggled Aunt Phoebe working like a motherly sort of gnome in its shadowy grotto. "Oh, if I were Aunt Phoebe, I should just ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... bedroom faced east, and the following morning, at a very early hour, he began to have most unpleasant dreams. He thought a hobgoblin was seated on his chest, and several brownies were pulling him where he did not wish to go, and finally that a gnome of enormous dimensions was dragging him into a dark cavern, where he could never again behold the daylight. At last, in great perturbation, he opened his dazed eyes. The sight he saw seemed at first to be a continuation of his dream, but after a moment or two he discovered that the person ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... that are carved on everything from the mahogany chests to the soup tureens. It is all like some old fairy-tale. I shall make few changes; it seems such a perfect setting for Ulrich and his busy old gnome of a father. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... reduced to the society of two females who have nothing in common with me but our sex? No one to speak to, no one to see. Jeanne is certainly attractive to look at, but I cannot converse with her. As to Torp, she suits her basement as a gnome suits his mountain cave. She looks as though she was made to repopulate a desert unaided. She wears stays that are ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... back to her room, "the busy haunts of men are more suited to your style than the free-and-untrammeled spaces of nature, and well you know it. But you'll go to-morrow and you'll keep on going until you find out what is behind those brown-green goblin spectacles. If only he didn't look so like a gnome!" ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was, on the whole, a gentlemanly Lysander, Mr. OTHO STUART a dignified Oberon, and Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS quite the best of the village histrions. Miss GRACE GERALDINE was also fanciful in the role of a sort of gnome. But, allowing for the music, and the scenery, and the acting, the piece itself was unquestionably dull. And now, having given you my unbiassed opinion, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... moment the mother awoke. The curtain shook, she looked forth, and fancied she saw a gnome or some other kind of little spectre. 'In Heaven's name!' she cried, and aroused her husband in a frightened way. He opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the brisk little lad. 'Why, that is Bertel,' said he. And my eye quitted the poor room, for I have so much to see. At the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... gardens, I saw the women pouring out from the potbanks, heard the hooters summoning the toilers to work, lost my way upon slag heaps as big as the hills of the south country, dodged trains at manifestly dangerous level crossings, and surveyed across dark intervening spaces, the flaming uproar, the gnome-like activities of iron foundries. I heard talk of strikes and rumours of strikes, and learnt from the columns of some obscure labour paper I bought one day, of the horrors of the lead poisoning that was in those days one of the normal risks of certain sorts of pottery workers. Then ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... wandering among the farmhouses and huts and castles to try if he could hear some tidings of it, and get it if possible into his power. The moment he heard Hulda mention her gold wand, he became excessively anxious to see it. He was a gnome, and when his malicious eyes gleamed with delight they shot out a burning ray, which scorched the hound who was lying asleep close at hand, and he sprang up and ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... through seasons and centuries; laurels, roses, and lilies, and pansies for remembrance. We didn't see those flowers with our bodies' eyes, but what of that? What did it matter that to the Turnours in their splendid glass cage this was just a road, with queer little gnome dwellings scooped out of solid rock to redeem it from common-placeness, with a fringe of deserted cottages farther on, and some ugly brickworks? My spirit's eyes saw the flowers, and they clustered thicker and brighter about Pieverde, where I insisted ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... have, my worthy friend?" asked Kuno, scarcely able to suppress a smile at the wistful way in which the gnome made his complaint. "Tell me, I pray you, how I ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... he; "and according to the card, she would do better, if it were not for the gnome or wood-spirit, our ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... from the depth of the earth to the three daughters of the Rhine; he persecutes them with his loathsome wooing; rejected by one, he turns to the other; laughing and teasing, they all refuse the gnome. Then the Rhinegold begins to glow; Alberich is attracted; he inquires as to its meaning; the girls tell him that they use it as a bright plaything, and that its splendour lights up the depth of the waves with blissful glow, but that he might work many wonders, might ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... darkness.—He stood transfixed, but only for an instant, rather by the stroke of helplessness than by fear; and then, blindly, without plan or foresight, darted down the covered way. The tiny flame of a pith wick, floating in a saucer of oil, showed Heywood's gatekeeper sitting at his post, like a gnome in the gallery of a mine. Rudolph tore away the bar, heard the heavy gate slam shut, and found himself running down the ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... The other little gnome tip-toed up and joined his brother and when they had listened a while they winked at each other and quietly walked back to the beach. After whispering together a moment one of the little gnomes ran up the beach and over ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... seamed with smiles that spoke of some common understanding between him and the daughter of his master; and once, when she thrust more directly at her father, the little servitor deliberately winked to the back of his master's head—a very gnome of slyness. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... asked,—for a gnome of ill was walking up and down in my brain, as we had walked on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... dear friends and the happy days I spent with them. The sweet companionship of their children meant much to me. I joined in all their sports and rambles through the woods and frolics in the water. The prattle of the little ones and their pleasure in the stories I told them of elf and gnome, of hero and wily bear, are pleasant things to remember. Mr. Chamberlin initiated me into the mysteries of tree and wild-flower, until with the little ear of love I heard the flow of sap in the oak, and saw the sun glint from leaf to ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... is too equivocal a position, whether in modern mythology, or Hoffman's tales. I should choose to be a gnome. ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... and ends—photographs, souvenirs, boxing-gloves, a litter of pipes and tobacco, a wardrobe of dust-covered discarded coats and hats, and Blackie in the midst of it all, sunk in the depths of his swivel chair, and looking like an amiable brown gnome, or a cheerful little joss-house god come to life. There is in him an uncanny wisdom which only the streets can teach. He is one of those born newspaper men who could not live out of sight of the ticker-tape, and ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... folk-etymology. A coat of mail was called in English a jack and in French jaque, "a jack, or coat of maile" (Cotgrave); hence the diminutive jacket. The German miners gave to an ore which they considered useless the name kobalt, from kobold, a goblin, gnome. This has given Eng. cobalt. Much later is the similarly formed nickel, a diminutive of Nicholas. It comes to us from Sweden, but appears earliest in the German compound Kupfernickel, copper nickel. Apparently nickel here means something like goblin; cf. Old ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... along the side of the flat, through tall grass and all the brilliant blossoms of a mountain meadow in June. Great, graceful mountain lilies nodded from little shady tangles in the bushes. Harebells and lupines, wild-pea vines and columbines, tiny, gnome-faced pansies, violets, and the daintier flowering grasses lined the way with odorous loveliness. Birds called happily from the tree tops. Away up next the clouds an eagle sailed serene, alone, a tiny boat breasting the currents of the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... whenever country maid, Prizing his taste, or damsel highly born To judgment came, and anxiously displayed For him submission as for others scorn. Then, peering keenly from his peat-roofed home, Calm in his power he scanned her as he chose, And, if she pleased, the swart and twisted gnome Gave her ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... be done for the imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to believe that some theatrical ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... There's a stubborn, unlaid ghost, a | |gnome, a goblin, a swart fairy at the | |least, who has settled down for the | |winter in a perfectly respectable cellar | |over in Brooklyn and whiles away the | |dismal hours of the night by chopping | |spectral cordwood with a phantom ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Peter. The little banker turned to a fantastic caricature of a man. His hatchet face, close-set eyes, harsh, straight hair, and squeaky voice made him seem like some prickly, dried-up gnome a man sees ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... before him, each of which led through the wood. He was hesitating which to choose, when he suddenly beheld two people coming towards him, down the track which lay most to his right. They turned out to be the Prince Gnome and his friend, and the sudden desire to get some news of his sister, Princess Argentine, caused the Invisible Prince to follow them and to ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... moon had risen, giving to Jeff a gnome-like aspect as he dug at the root of the persimmon-tree. The mysterious box soon gleamed with a pale light in his hand, like the leaden casket that contained Portia's radiant face. Surely, when he struck the "open sesame" blow, that beauty which captivates young and old alike would dazzle his eyes. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the garden. With hasty movement he threw back the amado. The wind sighed through the pines; a gentle patter of rain came in gusts. Close by the voice spoke again—as from a yukimido[u]ro, one of those broad capped stone lanterns, like to some squat figure of a gnome, and so beautiful an ornament with white snow cap or glistening with the dripping mirror of ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... satisfied with what he does; he has no aspiration, and all the infinitude of beauty is lost to him. And when Sordello takes up his incomplete song, finishes it, inspires, expands what Eglamor thought perfect, he sees at last that he has only a graceful talent, that he has lived in a vain show, like a gnome in a cell of the rock of gold. Genius, momentarily realising itself in Sordello, reveals itself to Eglamor with all its infinities; Heaven and Earth and the universe open on Eglamor, and the revelation of what he is, and of the perfection beyond, kills him. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... collusion with it. The fireplace may also be a little dubious. It has been hacked out of a thick wall which may have been there when the other walls were not, and is presumably the cavern where Lob, when alone, sits chatting to himself among the blue smoke. He is as much at home by this fire as any gnome that may be hiding among its shadows; but he is less familiar with the rest of the room, and when he sees it, as for instance on his lonely way to bed, he often stares long and hard at it before ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... there was not one of them whom she could bring herself to think of in the light of a husband. Girls often married for other than sentimental reasons. Of that she was well aware. Self-interest was at the bottom of most marriages. Cupid, guileless as he seems, is often a shrewd, calculating little gnome in disguise. If a girl has no means, no friends, no way of earning a living, what is going to become of her unless she seeks refuge in marriage? Her first instinct is to find a husband, a man sufficiently well off to support both. There was, of course, only one word with which to brand ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... Lady Davenant: it was in vain to say more about it to her, so Helen let it pass. When she mentioned it afterwards to Lady Cecilia, she said—"I am sorry, for your sake, Helen, that this happened; depend upon it, that revengeful little Portuguese gnome will work you mischief some time or other." Helen did not think of herself—indeed she could not imagine any means by which he could possibly work her woe; but the face was so horrible, that it came again and again before ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... sanctities of human relationship, with all their immeasurable bliss, their immeasurable woe, into the playthings of an idle dialectic. It is pleasanter, and for us English not less instructive than pleasant, to see this dreaming, restless, thrice ingenious spirit, half Titan of the skies, half gnome of the lower earth, entering joyously or pitifully into the simple charm and natural tenderness of life as it comes and passes. Nothing delights him more than to hear or to tell such a story as this of Madame D'Epinay. She had given ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... proclaimed the place as Cleave approached it. It seemed a solitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave, coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it like a gnome, his eyes upon the jewelled hollows, his lips working. Jim rose. "De gineral, sah? De gineral done sont de staff away ter res'. Fo' de Lawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah,—ober dar in ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... said the gnome, "that must make your grave respected in a certain sense, for at least such a period as your immortal part may require for perfect exhalation. The immunity I accord is not conceded to your ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... of either ancient or modern superstition. Hahn endeavoured to group the folk-tales of Europe under forty heads, and Baring Gould has followed his example. In every corner of Christendom some form of kelpie, sprite, troll, gnome, imp, or demon has a place in the mind of the people, much the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass for it is Transylvanian gold; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that may be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... appearance of the two brought the ghost of a smile to the thin lips of the pale sacristan, who was occupied in renewing the tapers upon one of the side altars. Keyork Arabian might have stood for the portrait of the gnome-king. His high and pointed head, his immense beard, his stunted but powerful and thickset limbs, his short, sturdy strides, the fiery, half-humorous, half-threatening twinkle of his bright eyes gave him all ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... cold-storage rooms that struck a chill, for preserving meats, butter, fruit; the doctors' environ, the dispensary, and roomy hospital; watched from a railing the working engines that fixed the Boodah's position, Hogarth here saying: "There you have a menagerie of gnome-land: observe those two black beetles, sedately nodding; and there is daddy-longlegs, working his legs gymnastically; and the three pairs of gallant grey stallions, galloping grandly neck to neck; and those two ridiculous beings, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... of his features jarred the serenity of the room. His profile showed gnome-like against the nodding heads ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... out of the magic valley of Wind River, through the bastioned gullies and the gnome-like mystery of dry water-courses, upward and up to the level of the huge sage-brush plain above. Behind lay the deep valley they had climbed from, mighty, expanding, its trees like bushes, its cattle like pebbles, its opposite side towering also to the edge of this upper plain. There ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... a sea-green light, As if it had but newly come Up from some subterranean palace, The haunt of fairy or of gnome, With its waxen taper still alight, And beaming in its leafy chalice, That lit the revellers down below, When the nights were long, and the moon was low You might have heard, far-off and sweet, The sound of the elfin revelries, Like a bugle strain blown over seas, ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... able to pay me back for all the expense she has been to me?" He would have grudged her the very food she ate, if it had not been necessary to keep her in the good looks which were some day to bring him his fortune. For he was greedier than any gnome after gold. ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... had some very peculiar characteristics,—among others, he was a gnome. Living underground for the greater part of his time, he had ample opportunities of working out curious and artful riddles, which he used to try on his fellow-gnomes; and if they liked them, he would go above-ground and propound ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... when the earl went down the stair She yielded to her fears. Gave way at last to grim despair, And melted into tears: When suddenly, from out the wall, As if he felt at home, There pounced a singularly small And much distorted gnome. He smiled a smile extremely vapid, And set to work in fashion rapid; No time for resting he deducted, And ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... Croker's Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland, ed. Wright, pp. 135-9. In the original the gnome is a Cluricaune, but as a friend of Mr. Batten's has recently heard the tale told of a Lepracaun, I have adopted ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... pipe back in her mouth and began to smoke fiercely. The candle wick burned long, and was topped by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to wink at us like an impish gnome. The most grotesque shadow of Peg flickered over the wall behind her. The one-eyed cat remitted his grim watch and went to sleep. Outside the wind screamed like a ravening beast at the window. Suddenly Peg removed her pipe from ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gleam of his lantern fell red and wild upon his livid countenance. His shaggy hair floated in the cold breezes that blew by him. At this moment he would have appeared from a distance, like a phantom of fire perishing in a mist of darkness; like a Gnome in adoration in the bowels of the earth; like a forsaken spirit in a solitary purgatory, watching for the advent of a glimpse of beauty, or a ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... got hold of that man Mullens that works for Swain's, the motor people. He worked in an aeroplane factory in France once, he says, for nearly a year. He does not know much about the actual planes themselves, but he knows a lot about the Gnome engine. He says he has invented an aeroplane engine that will lick them all when he gets it right. He is not hard to get going, but he won't stay on the point much. I have been at him half a dozen times altogether, but I wanted to get a few ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... name for bell is "klok." So a wise and gray-bearded gnome was chosen by the high sounding title of klokken-spieler, or bell player, to test the bells for a carillon. They were all hung, for practice, on the big trestles, in a long row. Each one of these frames was called a "hang," for they were just like those on which fishermen's ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... cried, as he entered the steeple, "They've hanged him at last, the righteous people! His swollen tongue lolls out of his head! Hoo! hoo! at last the old brute is dead! There let him hang, the shapeless gnome, Choked with a throatful of ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... at her bow that was Newcastle's best, And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, And a secret her skipper had never confessed, Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride; And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome, The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin. O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home, But nobody knew where Kilmeny ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... an afternoon and a morning playing golf amid the immensities of Banff, or travelling in a swift car along its beautiful roads. There are most things in Banff to make man happy, even a coal mine, sitting like a black and incongruous gnome in the heart of enchanted hills, to provide heat against ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Pe-lung. "In the past Shen Yi provoked the Deities, and to mark their displeasure it was decided to take away his she-child and to substitute for it one of demoniac birth. Accordingly Fuh-sang, being of like age, was moulded to its counterpart, and an attendant gnome was despatched with her secretly to make the change. Becoming overwhelmed with the fumes of rice-spirit, until then unknown to his simple taste, this clay-brained earth-pig left the two she-children alone for a space while he slept. Discovering each other to be the creature of another part, ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... l'instant, vieil gnome rechigne, Va d'une aile pesante et d'un air renfrogne Chercher en murmurant la caverne profonde, Ou loin des doux raions que repand l'oeil du monde La Deesse aux Vapeurs a choisi son sejour, Les ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... any fear of wind or water, though it was full of troubled dreams. Now a lovely form in royal vesture beckoned to me from a lattice; anon the gleam of a lantern flickered across the terribly familiar face of a gnome, bearing out of a dark cavern an armful of the most precious jewels, which had a wild appealing in their light that puzzled me; while the roaring of the sea pervaded it all with a kind of ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... looked as if not daring to touch her, even with his breath. Then, all at once, he would press her forcibly in his arms, against his angular bosom, like his own possession, his treasure, as the mother of that child would have done. His gnome's eye, fastened upon her, inundated her with tenderness, sadness, and pity, and was suddenly raised filled with lightnings. Then the women laughed and wept, the crowd stamped with enthusiasm, for, at that moment Quasimodo had a beauty of his own. He was handsome; he, that orphan, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... 2: thespizomen ton hagiotaton tes presbyteras Rhomes papan proton einai panton ton hiereon.... te gnome kai orthe krisei tou ekeinou sebasmiou thronou katergethesan. Nov. ix. init.: Pontificatus apicem apud eam (Romam anteriorem) esse nemo ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... a moment, clad in a scarlet kimono, her hair hanging in thick braids. With her large round forehead exposed she looked not unlike a gnome, but curiously young. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... reporter's table lifted their eyebrows, smiled faintly, and leaned back to watch how she took her scolding. One with the appearance of a bald little gnome yawned agonizingly. They had got all this down already—they heard the substance of it now for the fourteenth time. The stipendiary would have done it ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... breast, and her golden curls spread in perfect order over the lace-trimmed pillow. Her miniature features, framed in the dim gold of her hair, had the trite prettiness of an angel on a Christmas card; and beside her ethereal loveliness there was something gnome-like in the dark sturdiness of Archibald, who slept on his side, with his fists pressed tightly under the pillow, and the frown produced by near-sightedness still wrinkling his forehead. Though he was not beautiful, he showed already the promise of character in his face, and his personality, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... showing such gloomy holes and corners in it, and such a lot of horse-shoes hung up close to the roof, ready to be fitted for unbelievable horse-wear; and making the smith's face and bare arms glow with a dusky red, like hot metal, as if he were the gnome-king of molten iron. Then he stooped, and took up some coal dust in a little shovel, and patted it down over the fire, and blew stronger than ever, and the sparks flew out with the rage of the fire. Annie was delighted to look at it; but there was a certain fierceness ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... restless soul is driven abroad to roam; {19} Sated abroad, all seen, yet nought admired, The restless soul is driven to ramble home; Sated with both, beneath new Drury's dome The fiend Ennui awhile consents to pine, There growls, and curses, like a deadly Gnome, Scorning to view fantastic Columbine, Viewing with scorn and hate the ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... The pose, startled and wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a child striving to remember a forgotten lesson. One hand clutched a handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the chair back. She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the centre of the floor. "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye about," was his introduction, but her eyes did ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... man, with an immense bald head, as round and smooth and shining as a giant soap-bubble, and a pair of beady black eyes, set close together, so that he resembled a gnome of amazing brain capacity and prodigious power of concentration, sat bent over a writing desk with a huge sheet of cardboard before him, on which he was swiftly drawing geometrical and trigonometrical figures. Compasses, T-squares, rulers, protractors, and ellipsographs obeyed ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the clean-shaven man and the incoherent bear still desperately clutching their respective corners; and upon its arrival was seized with surprising strength by the owner of the child's voice—a fluffy little gnome-shaped man with a sensitive face which had suffered much—and indignantly deposited beside B.'s bed in a space mysteriously cleared for its reception. The gnome immediately kneeled upon it and fell to carefully smoothing ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... told, that merited repair. So Gramarye was to have a new girdle. For the last week Winchester and his little band had been working at nothing else. A spell of fine weather favouring them, the work flew. Master and men worked feverishly, but for once in a way, without relish. The industry of the gnome was still there, but ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... much better after the gnome-like influence of Mrs Grace had ceased; but we must now hasten to introduce our readers to Mrs. Fanshaw. Mrs. Fanshaw was a card-playing lady, who had been educated at a time when it was not thought necessary for women to have any knowledge, or any ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... By this time the gnome began to understand that his antics amused the audience, and he, too, enjoyed them. For the first time an emotion was expressed on his stolid countenance; but it was not an agreeable transformation. The corners ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... full of curly fruits. The aggravating Hilda, the indefinite Eunice, and the smooth Edna, seeing the proper Cricket" [another howl] "struggling in the water with the contrary Will, immediately jumped out after them, leaving the rough Archie and forlorn auntie in command of the boat. Suddenly a bold gnome popped up his dainty head from behind a rock, saying, 'Welcome, Englishmen! You are in the cave of accident. Look out for yourselves.' As he spoke, his watery head fell off. He felt around but could not find it, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... never weary of the treasures attached to her watch-chain. I could not recount to you the gems clustered there,—such as a fairy tiny gold palette, with all the colors arranged; a tiny easel with a colored landscape, quarter of an inch wide; a tragic and comic mask, just big enough for a gnome; a cross of the Legion of Honor; a wallet, opening with a spring, and disclosing compartments just of a size for the Keeper of the Privy Purse of the Fairy Queen; a dagger for a pygmy; two minute daguerreotypes of friends, each as large ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... to make way for the soul which each of them contains. The appearance of these souls differs according to the appearance and the character of the trees which they represent. The soul of the ELM, for instance, is a sort of pursy, pot-bellied, crabbed gnome; the LIME-TREE is placid, familiar and jovial; the BEECH, elegant and agile; the BIRCH, white, reserved and restless; the WILLOW, stunted, dishevelled and plaintive; the FIR-TREE, tall, lean and taciturn; the CYPRESS, tragic; ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... a by-word as the strange creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of gnome and savage, half daemon, half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... forehead, and part of the brim of his hat and shoulders were brought into brilliant light, while the rest of him was lost in the profound darkness of the level behind, and the flame of his candle rested above his head like the diadem of some aristocratic gnome. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... these people about lost articles. They take it for granted at the first blush that you mean to accuse them of stealing. "Have you seen a brown veil lying about anywhere?" asked Crene, her sweet bird-voice warbling out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't seen nothin' of it," says Gnome, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... sing on, praise her with all, thy might!! My turn to laugh will come some day. Me hath she jilted once, you the same trick she'll play. Some gnome her lover be! where cross-roads meet, With her to play the fool; or old he-goat, From Blocksberg coming in swift gallop, bleat A good night to her, from his hairy throat! A proper lad of genuine flesh and blood, Is for the damsel far too good; ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... noticed that the Gnome motor is unusually light, being about three pounds to the horse power produced, as opposed to an average of 4 1/2 pounds per horse power in other makes. This result is secured by the elimination of the fly-wheel, the engine itself revolving, ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... keeping both feet together. The only thing he seemed quite incapable of doing was to use his feet, one after the other, as ordinary people do when they are walking. Indeed, this strange guardian of the enchanted castle of Bradwardine looked like a gnome or fairy dwarf. For he was clad in an old-fashioned dress of grey, slashed with scarlet. On his legs were scarlet stockings and on his head a scarlet cap, which in its turn was ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... like a heavy gnome, through the fallen and flying leaves of the woods of Beaumanoir, caring nothing for the golden, hazy sky, the soft, balmy air, or the varicolored leaves—scarlet, yellow, and brown, of every shade and tinge—that ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... little piece on the Drachenfels. It may be best understood, perhaps, by a symbol. As the sun shines from the serene heavens, dispelling noxious exhalations, and calling forth exquisite thoughts on the surface of earth in the shape of shrub or flower, so gnome-like works the fire within the hidden caverns and secret veins of earth, fashioning existences which have a longer share in time, perhaps, because they are not immortal in thought. Love, beauty, wisdom, goodness are intelligent, but this power moves only to ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... security, warmth, and home enjoyment; of money spent not for show, but for comfort. Thick crimson curtains descend in heavy folds over the embrasures of the windows, and the ample hearth and wide fireplace speak of the customs of the good old times, ere that gloomy, unpoetic, unsocial gnome—the air-tight—had monopolized the ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was not developed to the same high point in this country as the Liberty motor is the rotary engine, of which the Gnome Monosoupape or Clerget are perhaps the best-known types. These were favorites with airmen flying fighting scout-planes. They weighed practically nothing, for an engine. A one-hundred-horse-power motor weighed only ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... reached the room which Abeille knew so well, and her heart beat violently as the gnome carried her over the threshold. By the light of a lamp hanging over the bed Abeille could see her mother, beautiful still, but with a face that had grown pale and sad. As she gazed the sadness vanished, and a bright smile ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... rest from everything, even the beautiful. On the other hand, the grotesque seems to be a halting-place, a mean term, a starting-point whence one rises toward the beautiful with a fresher and keener perception. The salamander gives relief to the water-sprite; the gnome heightens the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... with Percy's new Gnome engine, then, has it; and he blew his horn so about what wonders it was going to do? Huh!" and Andy chuckled in his ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... transformed. An hour ago, perhaps, this carriage was a pumpkin lying on the hearth of the hotel kitchen. The coachman is a good fairy in thin disguise of overcoat and false mustache. I am doubtful of even you. The whole thing is a delusion. It won't last, it can't last! Presently the wicked gnome that must needs dwell in a stalactite cavern somewhere hereabouts will start ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... hands on the carved top of the old pew in front of him, which was fashioned into a laughing gnome with the body of a duck. "And if this should be all a dream," he asked himself again, "if this should all be false too! Good Lord!" he cried half aloud, "I want to be honest now! I want to find the truth. My whole life is on ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... lava—cry halloo! And call out to the cities o'er their head,— Roofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead, Crash through the chinks of earth—and then all quaff Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. 65 This quicksilver no gnome has drunk—within The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin, In colour like the wake of light that stains The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains The inmost shower of its white fire—the breeze 70 Is still—blue Heaven smiles over the pale seas. And in this ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... we rode into the gloom, though the sunset yet clung in a girdle of fire round the horizon, casting red blades of light between the tree trunks; and Pierrebon's cheek grew pale, for goblin and gnome and fay lived to him, and even I, who did not believe, felt if my sword played freely in my sheath. And then I ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... He had limped up on his stick. He spoke like an elderly, affectionate gnome, not ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... being highly refined and gifted, for they comprised in their order the very cream of terrestrial society, were naturally a liberal-minded race of nobles, and capable of appreciating every kind of excellence. If a Gnome or a Sylph, therefore, in any way distinguished themselves; if they sang very well, or acted very well, or if they were at all eminent for any of the other arts of amusement, ay! indeed if the poor devils could do nothing ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... a long nose, wearing a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his ears, sat on one of the boxes which they had succeeded in bringing out: his wife was lying on her face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome—not one of the villagers, though obviously connected in some way with the fire—walked about bareheaded, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare was reflected on his bald head. The village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the ancient gnome, in something between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon metier, ca!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... gnome foraged among his ancient wares, and finally arranged before me some antique bronzes, so-called at least; fragments of malachite, little Hindoo or Chinese idols, a kind of poussah-toys in jade-stone, representing the incarnations of Brahma ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... wandering, dear Mrs. Jameson, in the land of romance, the birthplace of wild traditions, the stronghold of chivalrous legends, the spell-land of witchcraft, the especial haunt and home of goblin, specter, sprite, and gnome; all the beautiful and fanciful creations of the poetical imagination of the Middle Ages. You are, I suppose, in Germany; intellectually speaking, almost the antipodes of America. Germany is now the country to which my imagination ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... eyes of golden brown a little spark slowly burst into flame. It was exactly as if a gnome had lighted a lantern at the back of an unknown cave. Mrs. Ennis inwardly shuddered, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... A strange, gnome-like picture he presented as he poked and pried in those dim regions, by the dim rays of the lamp. Spiders, roaches and a great gray rat or two were his ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... awaking from his reverie, he stood opposite to that wild and magnificent gloom of Nature which frowned on him from the canvas, the very leaves on those gnome-like, distorted trees seemed to rustle sibylline secrets in his ear. Those rugged and sombre Apennines, the cataract that dashed between, suited, more than the actual scenes would have done, the mood and temper of his mind. The stern, uncouth forms at rest on the crags below, and dwarfed by the giant ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of roasting meat in the clear hush of twilight? The sight of that little camp is still in my memory. Elspeth flitted about busied with her cookery, the glow of the sunset lighting up her dark hair. Bertrand did the roasting, crouched like a gnome by the edge of the fire. Grey fetched and carried for the cooks, a docile and cheerful servant, with nothing in his look to recall the proud gentleman of the Tidewater. Donaldson sat on a log, contentedly smoking his pipe, while Ringan, whistling a strathspey, attended ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... man, looking like a gnome in his mask with its wheezing rubber nosepiece, was walking up and down ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... dogwood blossoms mingle With the maple's modest red, And sweet arbutus wakes at last From out her winter's bed, 'T would not seem strange at all to meet A dryad or a gnome, Or Pan or Psyche in the woods Away ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... and so like a gray-whiskered dwarf or gnome that Sara was rather fascinated. He looked at her with his bright eyes, as if he were asking a question. He was evidently so doubtful that one of the child's queer thoughts ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for them to hear, and Sokwenna stood at their side. He talked swiftly. Only Alan understood. There was something unearthly and spectral in his appearance; his hair and beard were wet; his eyes shot here and there in little points of fire; he was like a gnome, weirdly uncanny as he gestured and talked in his monotone while he watched the nigger-head bottom. When he had finished, he did not wait for an answer, but turned and led the way swiftly toward ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood |
