"Instep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... natural surfaces, with his feet unprotected by any artificial defences, calls the action of these arches into full play at every step. The longitudinal arch is the most strikingly marked of the two. In some races and in certain individuals it is much developed, so as to give the high instep which is prized as an evidence of good blood. The Arab says that a stream of water can flow under his foot without touching its sole. Under the conditions supposed, of a naked foot on a natural surface, the arches of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... beneath her silk riding skirt, and to my surprise it was devoid of hosiery. The skin was like polished velvet, and was of a pinkish gold of an exquisite tint. It was shod with a slipper of satin or silk, embroidered in color and had an arched instep which made the foot all the more charming ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... luminousness disappeared, and we beheld a beautiful young lady clothed in a dazzling white costume. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and about her neck there was a necklace of what appeared to be very brilliant diamonds. Her feet were encased in white slippers, with straps across the instep. In her ears and hair glistened and shimmered beautiful diamonds. Her face and arms were as alabaster, and altogether she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever beheld. She was recognized by a lady and gentleman present as their daughter. They had met her here ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... felicity of the lines, the arms penciled downward from the shoulders and meeting in the delicately contoured buckle of her ten fingers, the thigh springing in a suave arc from the confluent planes of her torse, the straight shin to the curve of instep and toe and heel. Her hair was an altogether ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... toes wuz twisted right under the ankle, and the broken, crushed bones of the foot pressed right up where the instep should be. The pain must have been sunthin' terrible, and very often a toe drops off, but I spoze they are glad of that, for it would make the little lump of dead flesh they call their feet smaller. They wear bright ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... two men—a likeness accentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face, was now seen to extend even to their feet. When the stranger stood up at length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steel buckles lying comfortably over the instep, the back of the uppers closing round the hollow of his ankle like ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which pleads Ever for his guardian watch and Government, Though men may bear the open signs of rule. Humility is safety! could men learn The law, "ne sutor ultra crepidam," And the sagacious cobbler, at his last, Content himself with paring leather down To heel and instep, nicely fitting parts, In proper adaptation, to the foot, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... hold of the ship, or somewhere out of my reach. I held the muckluks in my hands, and slowly turned them round. Suddenly a bright thought came. I would pull them on over my shoes. I did it. They went on easily. I drew the strings attached at the back of the ankle forward over the instep, crossed them, carried them back, crossed them a second time and tied them in front, in order to use up the strings so they would not trip me in walking. Just below the knees I pulled a woolen drawstring which was run into the green flannel, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Mr. Hoopdriver, striking a match on his instep and beginning to feel hot at the new responsibility he had brought ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... garden, dressed in a clinging gown of some light, fluffy material, with a red umbrella over her head; and upon her tiny feet, of all things in the world, ebony sabots, bearing her monogram in silver upon the instep. It was a short visit, made up of the chatter and gossip of Paris. Little Jacquemin's article upon Prince Zilah's nautical fete had created a furore. That little Jacquemin was a charming fellow; Marsa knew him. No! Really? ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... healths; Who begat Goliah of Secondille, Who begat Offot, that was terribly well nosed for drinking at the barrel-head; Who begat Artachaeus, Who begat Oromedon, Who begat Gemmagog, the first inventor of Poulan shoes, which are open on the foot and tied over the instep with a lachet; Who begat Sisyphus, Who begat the Titans, of whom Hercules was born; Who begat Enay, the most skilful man that ever was in matter of taking the little worms (called cirons) out of the hands; Who begat Fierabras, that was vanquished by Oliver, peer of France and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... short upper lip, and sweet teeth; by Jove, they were pearls! and she showed them too, pretty often. Her figure was well-rounded, plump, and what the French call nette. To complete all, her instep and ankle were unexceptional; and lastly, her jointure was seven hundred pounds per annum, with a trifle of eight thousand more that the late lamented Boggs bequeathed, when, after four months of uninterrupted bliss, he left Derry for ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... from the subscriber, on Saturday night, 22d instant, WILLIAM TRIPLETT, a dark mulatto, with whiskers and mustache, 23 to 26 years of age; lately had a burn on the instep of his right foot, but perhaps well enough to wear a boot or shoe. He took with him very excellent clothing, both summer and winter, consisting of a brown suit in cloth, summer coats striped, check cap, silk hat, &c. $50 reward will be paid if taken within thirty ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... I that Foot hid in those shoos, (Proportion'd to my height) Short Heele, thin Instep, euen Toes, A Sole so wondrous straight, The Forresters and Nimphes at this Amazed all should stand, And kneeling downe, should meekely kisse The Print left ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... white, puffed shirt an enormous diamond, held in place by side gold chains, flashed forth; while glittering on his fingers was another stone almost as large. Below his trousers could plainly be seen the highly-polished boots; the heels and instep being higher than those generally in use. In a word, it was impossible not to get the impression that he was scrupulously immaculate and careful about his attire. And his voice—the voice that tells character as nothing else does—was smooth and drawling, though fearlessness and sincerity ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Grimbal noted how the flutter of past tears shook her round young breast, marked the spring of her step, the freedom of her gait, and the trim turn of her feet and ankles. After the flat-footed Kaffir girls, Phoebe's instep had a right noble arch ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... make out by the aid of strong glasses. From our position about the middle of the island the two extreme points of Wrangel island bore southwest and west-by-south respectively. In shape, Herald island is something like a boot with a depression at the instep, and at the westernmost extremity, near which it may be climbed with considerable ease, are found a number of jagged peaks and splintered pinnacles of granite, some of which resemble the giant remains of ancient sculpture, all the worse for exposure to the ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... as an ornament. Although among the other ornaments which they used were to be found articles of considerable interest and curiosity which could be described, there is one practice which seems more worthy of attention than the others—namely, that of wearing rings upon the instep of the foot. This seems to be precisely the same custom that the ancients wrote about when they mentioned nations who used gold for fetters and chains, especially among the nobles. Their ornamenting the teeth is also worth notice, although it is a barbarous practice to deprive them of their natural ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... better for knowing her. Yet Daisy was not faultless. She had a wild little will of her own—none the worse for that, however. She could put her foot down—and a sweet little foot it was!—a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot—high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot!—But I daren't ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to their nobler companionship by occasionally acting as long-stop or short-stop (stop of some sort was undoubtedly my title) in insufficiently manned or boyed games of cricket: once, while nervously discharging this onerous duty, I received a blow on my instep from a cricket ball which I did not stop, that seemed to me a severe price for the honor of sharing my brothers' manly pastimes. A sport of theirs in which I joined with more satisfaction was pistol-shooting at a mark: I had not a quick eye, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of fishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... a sort of heirloom among the children of the family, and were regarded with reverence and pride. They were of a peculiar shade of pink silk, with clockwork up the sides and sprays of white flowers embroidered over the instep. A long time ago they had belonged to Cousin Mary, who was quite a big girl now, and she had sent them to Uncle Robert's boy up in Ohio. He learned to waltz in them, and in time sent them to little Agnes in Virginia, who wore them for ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... inches over six feet in his flat sandals but it was only in his unusual height and his enormous strength that he showed the blood of his Jovian father. His feet were small and shapely with a high-arched instep and his whole form was graceful and symmetrical. Crisply curling yellow hair surmounted a head which Praxiteles would have reveled in as a model for his youthful Hermes. As he faced the Viceroy, his usual pleasant smile was gone and his face was set in grim lines, his clear blue ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... inside and reaching to the knee, where they tie. Over these come a pair of shoes of the same material; next a pair of dressed seal-skin boots perfectly water-tight; and over all a corresponding pair of shoes, tying round the instep. These last are made just like the moccasin of a North American Indian, being neatly crimped at the toes, and having several serpentine pieces of hide sewn across the sole to prevent wearing. The water-tight ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... the public, Sir Harry Wildair came and stood beside Mr. Vane. Her bright skin, contrasted with her powdered periwig, became dazzling. She used little rouge, but that little made her eyes two balls of black lightning. From her high instep to her polished forehead, all was symmetry. Her leg would have been a sculptor's glory; and the curve from her waist to her knee ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... rather tall; she was thin and slender, but delicately shaped. She had pretty feet, more remarkable for the grace of her instep and ankle than for the more ordinary merit of slenderness; her gloved hands, too, were shapely. There were flitting patches of deep red in a pale face, which must have been fresh and softly colored once. ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... meanwhile, the gallant Captain seemed to experience as much distress of mind, as if some stain had lain on his own most unblemished of reputations. He went up and down upon the points of his toes, rising up on his instep with a jerk which at once expressed vexation and defiance—He carried his nose turned up in the air, like that of a pig when he snuffs the approaching storm—He spoke in monosyllables when he spoke at all; and—what perhaps ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... A moment, and my eyes, becoming more accustomed to the darkness, begin to distinguish outlines; the gleaming object defines itself gradually as a Foot, an immense golden Foot, and I perceive the hem of a golden robe undulating over the instep. Now the other foot appears; the figure is certainly standing. I can perceive that we are in a narrow but also very lofty chamber, and that out of some mysterious blackness overhead ropes are dangling down into the circle of lantern-light illuminating the golden feet. The priest lights ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... and easy; let the attitudes of the bending turn be agreeable; his chest be neither too full nor too narrow; his sides clean made, strong, and well turned; his knees well articulated, and supple; his legs neither too large, nor too small, but finely formed; his instep furnished with the strength necessary to execute and maintain the springs he makes; his feet in just proportion to the support of the whole frame; all these, accompanied with a regularity of motion; and ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... shod in miner's brogans, and half-soled. Nor was that all. The half-soling had evidently been home work, and the supply of pegs had been exhausted. In lieu of them, three square-headed hobnails had been driven into the center of the seam holding the patch of leather to the under part of the instep, or palm of the foot. They were off like a pack of bloodhounds, with the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... imbibed her new monitor's ideas of simplicity of dress, assimilating her own with that of the peasant-girls in the neighbourhood: the black hat, the blue gown, the black stockings, the shoes, tied on the instep. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... people is mostly white, homespun flannel "bawneens," and sandals of cowhide, fastened across the instep, which they ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... medium height," was mamma's reply, "but her figure was slender, with small and well-shaped hands and feet. It was her pride that water could flow under the arch of her instep; and her fingers, notwithstanding the hard toil of daily life, remained so flexible, that, when fifty years old, she could still bend them backwards to form ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... is her shapely waist, Her arms, her instep queenly; And her sweet parting lips are graced With ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... servitor a little dryly, and yet with a smile puckering his face as he put an opposing toe of a coarse unbuckled brogue under the instep of the stranger. The accent of the reply smacked of Fife; when he heard it, Count Victor at a leap was back in the port of Dysart, where it shrank beneath tall rocks, and he was hearing again for the first time with an amused ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... able to hold a needle she was taught to knit, and at the age of four or five commonly made excellent mittens and stockings. A girl of fourteen made in 1760 a pair of silk stockings with open work design and with initials knitted on the instep, and every stage of the work from the raising and winding of the silk to the designing and spinning was done by one so young. Girls began to make samplers almost before they could read their letters, and wonderful were the birds and animals and scenes ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... conscious that, at any rate, the room was not entirely unfurnished. The floor was carpeted. I have had my feet on some good carpets in my time; I know what carpets are; but never did I stand upon a softer one than that. It reminded me, somehow, even then, of the turf in Richmond Park,—it caressed my instep, and sprang beneath my tread. To my poor, travel-worn feet, it was luxury after the puddly, uneven road. Should I, now I had ascertained that—the room was, at least, partially furnished, beat a ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... reveal the divine shape of your angelic bosoms), your legs, perfectly naked, would be visible amongst a mass of folds of muslin, and would be covered by little open-work stockings of rose-coloured silk, fastened at the instep by bows, like the dress, and on your tiny virgin feet you would have little satin shoes, without soles. To pass into the dining room, so as to avoid catching cold, and also prevent the servants revelling in the sight of my treasure, you would envelope yourself from head to foot in a long veil. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the world by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle. It was an inch long and five inches broad. "It covered almost the whole instep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot." A sweet invention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. At his first appearance at a Court ball, we read that "his coat was pink ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... took his good yew bow in his hand, and placing the tip at his instep, he strung it right deftly; then he nocked a broad clothyard arrow and, raising the bow, drew the gray goose feather to his ear; the next moment the bowstring rang and the arrow sped down the glade as ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... prettiness and pleasure and gliding over the grass in that rustle of delicate mourning which made the endless variety of her garments, as a painter could take heed, strike one always as the same obscure elegance. She seated herself on the floor of my mother's chair, a little too much on her right instep as I afterwards gathered, caressing her stiff hand, smiling up into her cold face, commending and approving her without a reserve and without a doubt. She told her immediately, as if it were something for her to ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... of the door, painted mauve within and not without, mannequins, so pink finger-tipped, so tilted of instep, and so bred in the thrust to the silhouette, trailed these sleazy products of thick ringers across mauve-colored carpet and before the appraising eyes ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... as to the Declaratory act. Upon the whole, it was a noble debate. The ministry were violent beyond expectation, almost to madness. instead of recalling the troops now there, they talked of sending more. My father has had no pain, but is lame in one ankle near the instep from standing so long. No wonder he is lame: his first speech lasted above an hour, and the second half an hour; surely, the two finest speeches that ever were made before, unless by himself!" Dr. Franklin too, who heard the debate, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... catch him," said Beetle, cross-legged on the floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton's instep. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... prove my power before I read your destiny, I will. You have a large mole beneath your right shoulder. (Lucy starts.) You have a scar on your instep by falling over a sickle in your infancy. Nay, more. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... to a Yorke, and from a Yorke! This fellow," he added, standing up at the table, and pointing across it to Matthew—"this fellow forgets, what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of our house have that arched instep under which water can flow—proof that there has not been a slave of the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... curved shields with sharp, chiselled edges around them and spears as long as the pillars of a king's house in the hand of each man.[12] Fine, long, silken tunics [13]with hoods[13] they wore to the very instep. Together they raised their feet, and together they set them down again. "Is that Cormac, yonder?" asked all. "Aye, it is he, [14]this time,[14]" Medb ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... feature, in the passionate eagerness of her body; yet the line from the forehead to the chin, and the firm shapeliness of the chin itself, gave promise of great strength of will. From the glory of the crown of hair to the curve of the high instep of a slim foot it was altogether a personality which hinted at history—at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said, "in which we would all be draped in Greek style, in sheets, and wear sandals and flesh colored hose, covered from neck to instep, and with long speeches in blank verse to mouth. That is the sort of a ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... contact with his body, was the ultimate beauty, to know which was almost death in itself, and yet for the knowledge of which he would have undergone endless torture. He would have forfeited anything, anything, rather than forego his right even to the instep of her foot, and the place from which the toes radiated out, the little, miraculous white plain from which ran the little hillocks of the toes, and the folded, dimpling hollows between the toes. He felt he would have died rather ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... to women, and as he looked he knew that every line of her was faultless; the hands slender and beautifully high-born; the fingers tapering with that artistic slope of the tips, all so plainly visible now that they were at work. One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high instep. He flushed with pride of her—his eyes brightened and he smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... staring. "Nothing that I can see." He seized it, heel in one hand, instep in the other, and gyrated it. Scaramouche screamed in agony, until Climene caught Binet's arm and made ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... appeal to every man in England not beyond his grand climacteric, and with two eyes in his head, for the correctness of our views in what we are going to assert:—a lady's shoe, worn with crossing sandals, gently curving over the instep and round the ankle, is immeasurably superior to the plain, quaker-like, old-maid affair, worn with the old-fashioned tie or button. Did women but know how much these slender lines of riband add to their appearance, how well the contrast ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... by chance or calculation that a fold of her dress disarranged displayed the slender foot, with its arched instep—set off by the delicate brodequin, a labor of love to the Parisian Crispin—and the straight, beautifully-turned ankle, cased in dead-white silk? The latter, I think; for Flora knew how to fall as well as Caesar or Polyxena, and had studied her part to its minutest ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of raven locks, the sunrise of golden ripples, or the moonshine of pale, interclouded, fluffy cirri—lichenous all on the ivory-white or damp-yellow naked bone. I looked down and saw the daintily domed instep; I looked up and saw the plump shoulders basing the spring of the round full neck—which withered at half-height to the fluted shaft of ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... Massa, but dat are a wrinkle. Oh, how missus would a lubbed you. It was loud all down sout dere was a great deal ob 'finement in her. Nobody was good nuff for her dere; dey had no taste for cookin'. She was mighty high 'mong de ladies, in de instep, but not a mossel of pride to de niggars. Oh, you would a walked right into de cockles ob her heart. If you had tredded up to her, she would a married you, and gub you her tree plantations, and eight hundred niggar, and ebery ting, and order dinner for you ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... every fold shall but display the perfect handiwork of nature, yet add to it the further grace of art. Makers of tiny slippers and such dainty bootlets as show forth and enhance the separate beauty of each inch of outline of rounded ankle, arched instep, and slender length of foot, shall lend their help. And if envious Time have something done to blur the bloom upon the cheek, or blot the clear transparent purity of skin,—sunt certa piacula,—there are not wanting means for helping a mortal Diva to some ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... skated for years, having spent all my winters in Italy, but on the principle that you never forget anything that you know well, I thought I would try, and will say that the first half-hour was absolute suffering. It was in the old days when one still wore a strap over the instep, which naturally was drawn very tight. My feet were like lumps of ice, as heavy as lead, and I didn't seem able to lift them from the ground. I went back to the dressing-room to take my skates off for a few minutes, and when the blood began to circulate again, I could have cried with the pain. A ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... coming down to just below the calf; the patches, still much larger than in the modern dress, are arranged symmetrically; the hat is soft, with a brim and a small plume; the shoes are of the ordinary seventeenth century shape, with the bow of ribbon on the instep. The wooden sword remains, as well as the half-mask, but with a moustache in the place of ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... willing. The shirt should always be lettered with the name or initials of the team. Baseball shoes are usually provided with steel plates or leather knobs. Spikes are very dangerous and should not be permitted. The regulation baseball shoe reaches just under the instep. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... LILY and kneels to her. She extends her left foot and he kisses her instep and puts her foot into her slipper. She rewards him by lightly boxing his ears. He makes way for DE CASTRO, handing him the other slipper, and DE CASTRO performs the same ceremony with LILY'S right foot. She upsets DE CASTRO'S balance by a ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... For heaven's sake, Corydon, look here! Just now a bramble-spike Ran, there, into my instep—and oh how deep they strike, Those lancewood-shafts! A murrain light on that calf, I say! I got it gaping after her. Canst ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... the least afraid of Eliza. She kissed that ferocious head in spite of the glare of that steady yellow eye; and yet all with an air of trusting to Anthony's protection. She tore her silk stocking across the instep in a bramble and scratched her foot, without even drawing attention to it, as she followed him along one of his short cuts through the copse; and it was only by chance that he saw it. And then this gallant girl, so ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... off. Tiny, slim, delicately chiseled, her feet were of a china whiteness, except where, at the tips, the toes showed a rose-flush or where, over the instep, the veins meandered in a ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... granite, and of admirable workmanship. Unfortunately, the face is entirely obliterated. It lies upon its back, and in its fall has destroyed all the temple within reach. It measures more than sixty feet round the shoulders, the breadth of the instep is nearly seven feet, and the hieroglyphical figures engraven on the arm are large enough for a man ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... he said. "You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a June ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... never was made on a Yankee last," observed he. "I know enough of shoemaker's craft to tell that. French manufacture; and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in it! There never was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than Zenobia did. Here," he added, addressing Hollingsworth, "would you like ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had the advantage of a real gracefu' teacher, as ye have had; and troth, if he listed to tak some lessons, I think I could make some hand of his feet, for he is a souple chield, and has a gallant instep of his ain; and sic a laced hat hasna been seen on the causeway of Middlemas this mony a day.—Ye are standing laughing there, Dick Middlemas; I would have you be sure he does not cut you out with ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... thing; even the slender arch of the instep had been preserved in unbroken line and curve, and yet Constans wondered vaguely why it should seem so beautiful to him. He put out his own foot and compared the two, laughed, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... A spaniel was frightened with something on the bed, and fell from it, and cried very much. The instep, or wrist, of the right leg, before was evidently bowed, and there was considerable heat and tenderness. It was well fomented on the two following days, and then set, and adhesive plaster was tightly applied, and a splint ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... belt of brown leather, with an anchor clasp, and empty loops for either fire-arm or steel, supported true sailor's trousers of the purest white and the noblest man-of-war cut; and where these widened at the instep shone a lovely pair of pumps, with buckles radiant of best Bristol diamonds. The wearer of all these splendors smiled, and seemed to become them as ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... there is an equally great variety as of clothing, {11} but the majority of men, women, and children (in muddy weather at least) have compromised on the "getas," a sort of wooden sole strapped on the foot, with wooden pieces put fore and aft the instep, these pieces throwing the foot and sole about three inches above ground. It looks almost as difficult to walk in them as to walk on stilts, but away the people go, young and old, and the muddy places marked by the strange footwear look as if the corrugated wheels of a hundred mowing-machines ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... your Left-hand on your Pike, even with the Top of your Shoulder, keeping your Fingers strait, and bring your Pike right before you with a swift Motion; drawing your Right-heel into your Left-instep, and so keep the ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... back to bed, and get up again, putting the right foot out first, he continued in the same unhappy state of mind. He made, as was his wont, a hasty toilet before breakfast. He wore an old shirt, and a pair of pantaloons that did not reach much above his hips. One of his slippers had no instep; the other was without a heel. His grizzly beard made him look like a wild man of the woods; a certain sardonic expression of countenance contributed to this effect. He planted his chair on its remaining hind leg at the cabin ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... where, allusively to the flight of Astrae—ultima Coelestum terras reliquit—we pronounced—in reference to the stockings still—that Modesty taking her final leave of Mortals, her last blush was visible in her ascent to the Heavens by the tract of the glowing instep. This might be called the crowning conceit; and was esteemed ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... very small tight-fitting hood of dark blue cloth, hemmed with silver. Her shoes were red; but the roan petticoat and hose prepared the spectator's mind for the shock, and they set off the arched instep and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... thus waiting for the explosion he did not know, but he opened his eyes at length to find the foot still intact, and the muzzle of the weapon pointing directly at his instep. He altered his aim hurriedly, when, without warning of any sort, a man's figure ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... again, eh," he remarked, as he noticed a slight wobbling on the part of Anderson. "Here," to an assistant, "give me that tape." And with the skill of a surgeon he applied strips of adhesive tape along each ligament, leaving a narrow space down the instep free from bandaging to allow free circulation of the blood. And when he got through, the "phony" ankle was so protected that it was practically impossible for it to turn under ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... eyes. And Martha's glance, in modest overwhelming of modesty by what she saw, dropped down the splendid breast of her and generously true lines of body to the feet, silken clad, high-heeled-slippered, small, plump, with an almost Spanish arch and faultlessness of instep. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... skin dressed with the hair on and turn the hair inwards as the Mandans Minetares and most of the nations do who inhabit the buffaloe country. the mockerson is formed with one seem on the outer edge of the foot is cut open at the instep to admit the foot and sewed up behind. in this rispect they are the same with the Mandans. they sometimes ornament their mockersons with various figures wrought with the quills of the Porcupine. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... my legs are never tired. It is my poor back." Whereupon she slowly, gracefully straightened out one of her legs, and without changing the position of her body, raised it, with toes and instep on a perfect line, until the heel was some three feet from the floor. Then she swung it slowly backward, twisting her body sinuously to one side. A moment later the foot was stretched out behind her and she lifted herself steadily, without apparent exertion, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... and attired themselves in the two white vestments El Ihram.[Footnote: A mantle and skirt of white cloth unsewn.] The change of apparel was for the better. Finally the votaries put on sandals peculiar in that nothing pertaining to them might cover the instep; then they stood up in a row faced toward Mecca, and repeated the ancient formula of dedication of the Ihram to the Almighty slowly intoned for them ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Beze wore the dress of a courtier, black silk stockings, low shoes with straps across the instep, tight breeches, a black silk doublet with slashed sleeves, and a small black velvet mantle, over which lay an elegant white fluted ruff. His beard was trimmed to a moustache and virgule (now called imperial) and he carried a sword at his side and a cane in his hand. Whosoever knows ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... her a curious glance. Then he pulled a small case from his pocket, knelt in the sand and lifted Rhoda's foot in one slender, strong, brown hand. The instep ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... child's. The chair in which she reclined, was of massive oak, inlaid richly with ivory, and canopied with purple velvet, embroidered with, flowers of gold. Her foot-encased within the smallest shoe in Burgundy, and ornamented with a flashing jewel upon the instep-rested upon a footstool of massive ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... to—called the tarsus—corresponds to the instep of the human foot, that is, the foot proper, while the joint which extends backward, forming an angle with the next large bone, is really the bird's heel. Thus you perceive that most birds walk with their heels high in the air. What most people call the bird's "leg" is in reality the bird's ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the team turning somersaults, and all I remember after that was being seized by a crowd of alumni who rushed out upon the field, and hearing my brother Ned shout, 'You damned lucky kid, you have licked them again.' I kicked the ball with my instep, having learned this from Charlie Young of Cornell, who was then at Princeton Seminary and was playing on the scrub team. The reason I did this was because Lew Palmer and myself wore light running shoes with light toes, not kicking ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... you can find nothing better than brogans reaching above the ankles, and fastening by laces or buttons as you prefer, but not so tight as to bind the cords of the foot. See that they bind nowhere except upon the instep. The soles should be wide, and the heels wide and low (about two and three-quarter inches wide by one inch high); have soles and heels well filled with iron nails. Be particular not to have steel nails, which slip so ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... brown—a deep, deep brown— Her hair was darker than her eye; And something in her smile and frown, Curled crimson lip and instep high, Showed that there ran in each blue vein, Mixed with the milder Aztec strain, The vigorous vintage of old Spain. She was alive in every limb With feeling, to the finger tips; And when the sun is like ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... smiled, and shifted one of her little white-stockinged feet over the other. She had on the neatest of sandals, with black ribbons, which crossed over the instep. It was one of Zachariah's weak points, she considered, that he did not seem to care sufficiently for cleanliness, and when he came in he would sometimes put his black hand, before he had washed, on the white ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... combustible as tinder, and there were flames shooting out among the stones. Sceptics had affirmed that the skin of a Fijian's foot being a quarter of an inch thick, he would not feel a burn. Whether this be true or not of the ball and heel, the instep is covered with skin no thicker than our own, and we saw the men plant their insteps fairly on ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... lantern over the area, peered down and saw the broken flower-pot. I knew lying was more than useless and, as the truth had always served me well, I said, giving my father's servant, who looked sleepy, a heavy kick on the instep: ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... in the Warden's drawing-room had just struck eight, and already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white bearskin hearthrug. So slim and long were they, of instep so nobly arched, that only with a pair of glazed ox-tongues on a breakfast-table were they comparable. Incomparable quite, the figure and face and vesture of him ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... not the worst. The worst was, that with his big blue eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, and his bottle-green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his easy shoes easily crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance of having in his extensive benevolence made the drink for the human species, while he himself wanted nothing but his own milk ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... troubled me for days; a pain settled in the arch of the instep, and caused me intense agony when resuming the march after a short halt; at night I would suddenly awake from sleep to experience the sensation of being stabbed by innumerable pins in ankle and toes. Marching in future, I felt, would be a monstrous futility, and I decided that my case ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... hand for his, and then sat down, displaying one of the fascinating slippers, and the openwork instep of her silk stocking, through the meshes of which the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... another half-league away. I shall not readily forget the noble charity of one of those boys, who, seeing the inflammation set up by the thorn in my foot, ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and bound it round the instep—my first experience of the magnanimity of the poor, but by no ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Elastic Support is, they are made to fit and conform perfectly with ankle, giving free instep movement recommended ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... those who are the very lowest of all; and a Protestant cobbler, debased by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone that the peer, whose footman's instep he measures, is able to keep his chaplain from a gaol. This disposition is the true source of the passion which many men, in very humble life, have taken to the American war. Our subjects in America; our colonies; our dependents. This lust of party power is the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... graceful figure, distinction of feature, a certain ring in the voice. All these, so important trifles, David lacked, while Nature had bestowed them upon his friend. Of gentle blood on the mother's side, Lucien was a Frank, even down to the high-arched instep. David had inherited the physique of his father the pressman and the flat foot of the Gael. Lucien could hear the shower of jokes at David's expense; he could see Mme. de Bargeton's repressed smile; and at length, without ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... head and body should be carried upright, yet perfectly free and easy, with the shoulders thrown back, the knees should be straight, and the toes turned out. In the walk or march, the foot should be advanced, keeping the knee and instep straight, and the toe pointing downward; it should then be placed softly on the ground without jerking the body; and this movement should be repeated with the left foot, and the action continued until it can be performed with ease ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... they passed in the lamp's rays, officers smooth-shaven and powdered, wearing blue and yellow, and their long boots; soldiers with black queues in eelskin, tiny mustaches turned up at the waxed ends, and long black, buttoned spatter-dashes strapped at instep ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... pain and with one leg numb to the thigh, from an adroit smiting of his instep. The little assailant's heel had come down with trained force on this nerve center. And, for the moment, Roke was not only ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... button demanded entrance into a practicable button hole. Or the boots themselves were mere shoes with many buttoned spats drawn over them. All the boots had high heels and the woman walked so as to put a severe strain on her arched instep in order that she might bring on by degrees ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Old Whitey was sprawled out in the middle of the lane, "with his nostrils all wide," and more than a dozen bullet holes in his body. Near his carcass I saw a bloody yarn sock, with a bullet hole square through the instep. I made up my mind then and there, that if ever I happened to get into the cavalry I would, if possible, avoid riding a ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... mortals) and she told her not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce |
