"Lank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whom and the County Leitrim-man, there had early commenced a warfare of tricks and petty annoyances; a warfare that was perfectly defensive on the part of O'Hearn, who did little more, in the way of retort, than comment on the long, lank, shapeless figure, and meagre countenance of his enemy. Joel had not been seen to smile, since he engaged with the captain; though three times had he laughed outright, and each time at the occurrence of some mishap to Michael O'Hearn ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... office of George Wythe, and absorbed all that Fauquier had to offer, and grew wise in the companionship of Doctor Small. From a red-headed, lean, lank, awkward mountaineer, he developed into a gracious and graceful young man who has been described as "auburn-haired." And the evolution from being red-headed to having red hair, and from that to being auburn-haired, proves he was the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... of about thirty, though at first sight he seemed older, from his exceedingly worn and sickly appearance. His lank black hair fell about his thin, sallow face; he wore what we now call the Byron collar and Byron tie—for it was in the Byron era, when sentimentalism and misery-making were all the fashion. Certainly the poor captain looked miserable enough, without ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... opinion went, and would have no fear as to expressing his opinion to his brother clergyman. So she sent for Mr. Crawley. In appearance he was the very opposite to Mark Robarts. He was a lean, slim, meagre man, with shoulders slightly curved, and pale, lank, long locks of ragged hair; his forehead was high, but his face was narrow; his small grey eyes were deeply sunken in his head, his nose was well-formed, his lips thin, and his mouth expressive. Nobody could look at him without seeing ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... tardy-gaited night Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp So tediously away. The poor condemned English, Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires Sit patiently and inly ruminate The morning's danger, and their gesture sad, Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats, Presenteth them unto the gazing moon So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold The royal captain of this ruined band Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!' For forth he goes and visits all his host, Bids ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... the presence of the newcomers and met them at the door. Isaac was of a decidedly Jewish cast of countenance, slightly gray, not very tall, and quite round shouldered. He put out a lank hand toward Roseleaf, when that young gentleman was named as a matter of introduction, but put it down again when Mr. Weil curtly said handshaking was out of date. Archie had seen a disinclination ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... pencils attracted nobody. I imitated Punch and his bells, and now I have two hundred depots in Paris. I dine at the best cafes, drink the best wine, live on the best of everything, while my defamers get poor and lank, as they deserve to be. Who are my defamers? Envious swindlers! Men who try to ape me, but are too stupid and too dishonest to succeed. They endeavor to attract notice as mountebanks, and then foist upon the public worthless trash, and hope thus to succeed. Ah! ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... a frenzied passion, He is lean and lank and crusty; Naught he cares for dress or fashion And his ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... old vehicle carried only one passenger, a rather elderly man dressed in black, who sat on one of the side seats with his back toward the boys. A bag of mail was on the front seat alongside the driver, a lank, slab-sided individual, in a linen duster that had evidently seen better days. He held the reins listlessly over the horses, who moved slowly along, as though they were half asleep. Coach and horses and ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... pa, poor child," she had told Trudy confidentially. "Lean and lank as a clothes pole! And those gray eyes that look you straight through. I wish she didn't think so much of the office and would get a nice young man. I'd like to know what it is in those books she finds so fascinating. Can you tell me? I tried to read Omar Canine myself but it ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... with Kentucky wolf hounds, to combine speed with endurance. The mail-carrier from Fullerton to Winnipeg found that combination very desirable. With us, however, it did not succeed. The pups were lank and weedy and not nearly so capable as the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... groupe that had been collected for this purpose was brought together in the morning, it was impossible not to regard it with an eye of pity. Most of them consisted of infirm and decrepit old men, and the rest were such lank, sickly-looking, ill-clothed creatures, that the whole groupe appeared to be much fitter for an hospital than for performing any kind of labour. Our companions pretended to say that every farmer, who rented lands upon ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... resemble real life.' In fact (he writes), 'Nash does not only possess the merit of learning how to observe the ridiculous side of human nature, and of portraying in a full light picturesque figures—now worthy of Teniers and now of Callot—some fat and greasy, others lean and lank; he possesses a thing very rare with the picturesque school, the faculty of being moved. He seems to have foreseen the immense field of study which was to be opened later to the novelist. A distant ancestor of Fielding, as Lilly and Sidney appear to us to be distant ancestors ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... hidden fire, a ripeness like that of the grape and the peach which grows in the soft air and the sun. And they wither, like grapes that hang upon the stem. I have never seen a handsome, scarcely a decent-looking, old woman here. They are lank and dry, and their bones are covered with parchment. One of these brown-cheeked girls, with large, longing eyes, gives the stranger a start, now and then, when he meets her in a narrow way with a basket of oranges on her head. I hope he has the grace to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... irreproachably rural was the new entry. A lank, disconcerted, hesitating young man it was, flaxen-haired, gaping of mouth, awkward, stricken to misery by the lights and company. His clothing was butternut, with bright blue tie, showing four inches of bony wrist and white-socked ankle. He upset a chair, sat in another one, curled a foot ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... sun Cochise and his followers were traveling hard away off there to the northward. The turbaned warriors came on first, half-naked, armed some of them with lances, some with bows and poisoned arrows, and a goodly number bearing rifles. Their lank brown legs moved ceaselessly in rhythm with the trotting of the little ponies; their moccasined heels thudded against the flanks ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... bringing a string of dried snaps from the outhouse, called to him to hurry before the cloudburst. She was a lank, colourless girl, with bad teeth and small pale eyes. Jubal, at the churn in the hall, rested from his labours as Nicholas entered, and grinned as he pointed to his mother in the kitchen. Marthy Burr was ironing. As Nicholas crossed the threshold, she stopped in her ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... truth in the observation, this is certain, that business did not prosper: it has been surmised that Jonathan's tall, lank, lean figure injured his custom, as people are but too much inclined to judge of the goodness of the ale by the rubicund face and rotundity of the landlord, and therefore inferred that there could be no good beer where mine host was the picture of famine. There certainly is much in appearances ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... five years old at the time, vividly do I remember that our front room used, on those occasions, to be filled to overflow, with kneeling fanatics, old Ford in the centre of the room, and a couple of lank-haired hypocrites, one on each side of the reprobate, praying till the perspiration streamed down their foreheads, to pray the devil out of him. The ohs! and the groanings of the audience were terrible; and the whole scene, though very edifying to the elect, was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... by the overhanging boughs and branches of the park trees on the opposite side, and the half- decayed trunks of former monarchs of the forest that filled its bed—a ditch covered with a superstratum of slimy, green water, lank weeds, and rank vegetation; and wherein, at flood time, urchin anglers could fish for eels and sticklebats, and, at ebb, the village ducks disport ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... came I to a land I knew no man had ever seen, A haggard land, forlornly spanned by mountains lank and lean; The nitchies said 'twas full of dread, of smoke and fiery breath, And no man dare put foot in there for ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... in storms, Rising like islands from beneath, And snorting through the angry spray, 70 As the frail vessel perisheth In the whirls of their unwieldy play; Look down! Look down! Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark, That waves its arms so lank and brown, Beckoning for thee! Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark Into the cold depth of the sea! Look down! Look down! Thus, on Life's lonely sea, 80 Heareth the marinere Voices sad, from far and near, Ever singing full of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... never been a beauty, but people always liked to look at her, and the young people declared she grew prettier every year. Mrs. Means was tall and weedy, with a figure that used to be called willowy, and was now admitted to be lank; her once fair complexion had faded into sallowness, and her light hair had been frizzed till there was little left of it. Her eyebrows had gone up, and the corners of her mouth had gone down, so that her general effect was ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... chip of shale next to this you brought this evening would satisfy me. This is evidently an original fossil foot-mark: no work of Indians. I'll go with you,"—gathering his dressing-gown about his lank-legs. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... leaning over it and fixing his eyes carelessly upon her, asked what she wanted to look at. His tone and manner struck Ellen most unpleasantly, and made her again wish herself out of the store. He was a tall, lank young man, with a quantity of fair hair combed down on each side of his face, a slovenly exterior, and the most disagreeable pair of eyes, Ellen thought, she had ever beheld. She could not bear to meet ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of this inscrutable conundrum, a lank and tall girl of some fifteen summers, arose and said, not without something of the sublime air becoming a solitary intelligence: "It's ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... considering how he is off for soap,—would you believe it,—has just returned from abroad, and has long been justly celebrated for his conversational talents in all the coteries and courts of Europe. If that lank-and-leather-jawed gentleman, with complexion bespeaking a temperament dry and adust, and who has long been sedulously occupied in feeling the edge of his fruit-knife with the ball of his thumb—do not commit suicide before September,—Lavater ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at the top, with huge ears, large green ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... had made investigation and had interested in her project the lank mountain-woman who presided at the counter, she lost fear of the result. Together they made careful study of the fashion-papers which the woman had preserved and which the girl had, the night before, remembered with such vividness. Through discussion and reiterated ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... never seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East. They wore turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfin faces at me,—faces with protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes. They had lank black hair, almost like horsehair, and seemed as they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen. The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height, sat a head below any one of the three. I found ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Whitefoot moved like a lank and ghostly wolf through the tall grass and crops, skirting the barer places and keeping close in to the dusky verges of the hedges. All went well with him till he took the ha-ha ditch at his usual racing pace, and was instantly wrapped up by a net into ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... of the frontal sinuses; the ears are large and gradually tapered to a point from their broad bases, and they have the ordinary fissure towards their posteal base; the head is broad; the teeth large and strong; the body long and lank, the limbs elevated and very powerful; the brush extends to half-way between the mid-flexure (os calcis) of the hind limbs and their pads, and is as full as that of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... to live with Uncle Henry Lidderdale at Slowbridge, he was large for his age, or at any rate he was so loosely jointed as to appear large; a swart complexion, prominent cheek-bones, and straight lank hair gave him a melancholic aspect, the impression of which remained with the observer until he heard the boy laugh in a paroxysm of merriment that left his dark blue eyes dancing long after the outrageous noise had died down. If Mark had occasion to relate some episode that appealed ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... drawling dull indifference, the lank, hatchet-faced servitor of the master servitor of the grave read off ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... off that haunch of venison yet!—Bring me the lamb, a glass of currant jelly, and a clean plate. A hob-nob, sir." "With all my heart." "Two bumpers of Madeira!—Love, health, and ready rhino, to all the friends that you and I know."—On the contrary, these lank looks form the half-famished face. [Puts on the Methodist ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... Every man was a boy—I trust I shall not be contradicted—it is really so. Wouldn't you like to turn Time backward, and see Abraham Lincoln at twelve, when he had never worn a pair of boots?—the lank, lean, yellow, hungry boy—hungry for love, for learning, tramping off through the woods for twenty miles to borrow a book, and spelling it out crouching before the glare of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Pity 'twas they died! (For Chil! Look you, for Chil!') Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride. (Chil! Vanguards of Chil!) Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red, Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead. Here's an end of every trail—and here my hosts ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... may not be mentioned; you leave an excellent representative behind you, sir," cried the soldier, taking in the lank figure of Mr. Dillon in a sweeping glance, that terminated with a settled gaze on his decanter. "Make my devoirs to the recluses, and say all that your own excellent wit shall suggest as an apology for my impatience, Mr. Dillon, I meet you ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... governor, who believes it better to sell all poor whites into slavery. 'Tain't a free country where ye don't have the right to sell folks what don't provide for number one. I likes to hear our big folks talk so"-Anthony's face brightens-"'cause it gives a feller a chance for a free speculation in them lank, lean rascals; and, too, it would stop ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... three days for the milk-journal advertisement to work. On the afternoon of August tenth, a lank, husky-voiced teamster called at the office of the Ad-Visor and was passed in ahead of ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... from the crowd in which Berry joined heartily, rolling his eyes and contorting his limbs so as to show in the completest manner the striking contrast between his lank, stringy, meanly-clad frame and the full, round, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... were lined up in front of the bar. One was a tall, lank person, hatchet-faced and sallow. He had a cast in his eye that gave him a sinister expression. The second was slender and trim, black of hair and eye and mustache. His clothes were very good and up to date. The one farthest from the door was a heavy-set, ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... himself, rising from his chair to his full height of more than six feet, in a lank and alarming indignation. "There," he said, striding up and down the room. "That's it! That's just it. These people have been telling us that you were obeying the law—all of you—in every instance—and would always obey it. ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Gaunt, gray skinned, lank haired, hollow of cheek and eye, with thin, cruel lips so tight drawn that the teeth behind seemed to show through, ribs projecting, clawlike hands resting on bony knees, his whole frame motionless as that of a man long dead, the head man of the bone-dyeing tribe was the antithesis of both the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... labour pains, till at length, she and her husband became the standing joke of the parish; and this infatuated couple could scarce be prevailed upon to part with their hope, even when she appeared as lank as a greyhound, and they were furnished with other unquestionable proofs of their having been deceived. But they could not for ever remain under the influence of this sweet delusion, which at last ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... good case," said he, winking significantly, "and won't flinch at seeing service: she has laid by long enough to refit and be made tight. And pray how does poor Monseer Doleful do? Is he as lank-jawed as ever?" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... shoulders seemed uninjured; but as Key lifted the shawl, he saw that the long, lank figure appeared to melt away below the waist into a mass of shapeless and dirty rags. Key hurriedly replaced the shawl, and, bending over him, listened to his hurried respiration and the beating of his heart. Then he ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neck-cloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... nobody would think it, in this lump," said he, looking at a fat, rolled up, heavy breathing sleeper; "but what signify brains to such a lazy dog? I might kick him for my football this half hour before I should get him awake. This lank jawed harlequin beside him is a handy fellow, to be sure; but, then, if he has hands, he has no head—and he'd be afraid of his own shadow too, by this light, he is such a coward! And Townsend, why, he has puns in plenty; but, when there's any work to be done, he's the worst fellow to be near ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... as though worn for a period of time by one suddenly and sorely stricken in the midst of health. The bride's once well-coifed hair hung in lank disarray about a face that was the color of prime old sage cheese—yellow, with a fleck of green here and there—and in her wan and rolling eye was the hunted look of one who hears something unpleasant stirring a long way off and fears ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... some hours in silence with his long, thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly malodorous product. His head was sunk upon his breast, and he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with dull grey plumage and a ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a long, lank fellow, who never exerted himself any more than was absolutely necessary, so he simply unwound one of his arms, which was twisted around one of the posts of the bed, and blindly felt above till he found the article ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... reply, so while the men talked, she let her mind dwell upon that scene of years ago. She saw again the lank awkward lad who was so concerned about her accident. While helping to carry her home, he had been much at his ease, and his eyes glowed with a sympathetic light. But when once in the house, his natural shyness had come upon him, and he did not know what to do with ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... minnie—it did not please her That he should "gae sae far frae hame:" "Thou'lt reap less in yon Abiezer Than thou wilt glean in this Ephraim; For there's a proverb faileth never; A lintie safe within the hand, Though lean and lank, is better ever Than is a fat finch on ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... inclinations, and you had best look into the matter! You and I were both prisoners—" Hurry could recall that circumstance now—"you and I were both prisoners and yet Judith never stirred an inch to do us any sarvice! She is bewitched with this lank-looking Deerslayer, and he, and she, and you, and all of us, had best look to it. I am not a man to put up with such a wrong quietly, and I say, all the parties had best look to it! Let's up kedge, old fellow, and move nearer to this p'int, and see ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... French and British armies. Portions of their attire had probably been worn at the siege of Louisburg, and the coats of most recent cut might have been rent and tattered by sword, ball, or bayonet, as long ago as Wolfe's victory. One of these worthies—a tall, lank figure, brandishing a rusty sword of immense longitude—purported to be no less a personage than General George Washington; and the other principal officers of the American army, such as Gates, Lee, Putnam, Schuyler, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... carts, on two solid wheels, and drawn by four or six oxen, hauling the cut cane. But the villages they passed, single streets of unrelieved squalor in a dusty waste, they decided were immeasurably depressing. No one who could avoid it walked; lank men in broad straw hats and coat-like shirts rode meagre horses with the sheaths of long formidable blades slapping their miserable hides. Groups of fantastically saddled horses drooped their heads tied in the vicinity of a hands-breadth of ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... tall, lank officer, with a thin, black mustache. The village policeman, Fedyakin, appeared at the bedside of the mother, and, raising one hand to his cap, pointed the other at her face ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... proportion less will hurt them. A country fellow at the pleugh, His acres till'd, he's right eneugh; A country lassie at her wheel, Her dizzens done, she's unco weel; [dozens] But gentlemen, an' ladies warst, Wi' ev'ndown want o' wark are curst, [positive] They loiter, lounging, lank, and lazy; Though de'il haet ails them, yet uneasy; [devil a bit] Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless; Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless. And e'en their sports, their balls, and races, Their galloping through ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... not yet to her knowledge set eyes on the shabby, lank, loosely-put-together figure sitting opposite her, with its small freckled face and big grey eyes almost disappearing under a smashed-down wet-weather hat, and she gazed at her a moment without answering. She was reading about the mediaeval castle and the wisteria, or rather had read ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... himself that the bills had not been marked, and pocketed his jeweller's glass, pushed back his lank blond hair. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... lank Sergeant with the big feet, and the hair that stood up where it shouldn't, who dared to dream the most preposterous dream of them all. For, as he sang there in the firelight, a little god was busy lighting the tapers in the most sacred shrines of his being, until he felt like a cathedral at high ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... a trying season! In less than three minutes the sidewalk was swarming with dirty-faced children. I might as well have been in a wasps' nest. The spiteful imps buzzed around me so—little girls, with lank hair falling over their eyes; lazy boys, swaggering like drunken men, and swearing like troopers; and a woman—the boy who smoked called her mother—who stood on a doorstep, with a hand on each hip, scolding like fury. I kept my finger up. They would not hear a word ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... an ancient family, and his ancestors had for centuries resided on their estates in Norfolk. Sir Lionel, who came to his majority and his fortune at the same time, went up to London at the age of twenty-one, a raw, uncouth sort of young man, in a green coat and lank hair. His friends in town were of that set whose members are above ton, whenever they do not grasp at its possession, but who, whenever they do, lose at once their aim and their equilibrium, and fall immeasurably below it. I mean that set which I ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Droom v/as middle-aged. His lank body and cadaverous face were constructed on principles not generally accredited to nature as it applies to men. When erect, his body swayed as if it were a stubborn reed determined to maintain its ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... and caressed. Gentle as a slave, so was she an affectionate mother and dutiful wife. Some twelve months passed pleasantly at their new home, when there came to the city a Jew of the name of Salamons Finch. This Finch, who was "runner" to a commercial firm in the city of Charleston (he was lank of person, with sallow, craven features), knew Annette when but a child. Indeed, he was a clerk of Graspum when that gentleman sold the fair slave to Gurdoin Choicewest; in addition to which he had apartments at Lady Tuttlewell's most ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... existing in regard to dress, showed at any rate his pretensions to nobility. This proud cavalier was followed by one servant only, who carried a capacious wallet, not over-well replenished with provision, as was apparent from its long lank shape and attenuated proportions. His master's cloak was slung on the other shoulder; and his belt displayed some implements that appeared alike formidable as means ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... even more plainly than he, and had the same spirit of neglectful elegance. She was big, too, for a woman; somewhat lank but well muscled, and decisive in her motions as if she normally abounded in strength. What grace she had was an athlete's, but she looked overtrained or undernourished. Seeing that she did not ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... with the etiquette of fashionable life, although we question whether the most fashionable fete, of them all ever produced half so much happiness. Farmers had come from a distance in the country, mounted upon lank horses ornamented with incrusted hips, and caparisoned with long-straw back-suggauns that reached from the shoulders to the tail, under which ran a crupper of the same material, designed, in addition to a hay girth, to keep this primitive ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... admitted none of such kind in the epigrams of Martial which we have subjoined to this treatise, and a good many epigrams that we have run across we have put aside, such as Buchanan's in which he depicts the unattractive and unpleasant picture of a lank old man: ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... not the least token of having suffered by the feat it had performed. He then took the king's hand, and looking on the size and muscular strength which it exhibited, laughed as he placed it beside his own, so lank and thin, so inferior in ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... ground-glass panes, then swung to the right, where the darky bowed him into a big, handsomely furnished room flooded with the morning sun. A tall, gray man, faultlessly dressed in a gray frock suit and wearing white spats, turned from the breezy, open window to inspect him; the lean, well groomed, rather lank type of gentleman suggesting a retired colonel of cavalry; unmistakably well bred from the ends of his drooping gray mustache to the last button on his ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... The lank lad returned with Robert, though he left part of his men at that point to guard against surprise, and the bulk of the force, under Willet, crowded behind the grape arbor awaiting the onslaught of Tandakora who, they knew, would come in caution ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and lank, with grey bushy eyebrows meeting over his nose, wandered, with the gait of a heedless pair of compasses, across from his own shop to Redford the bookseller's, at whose door a small ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... class—some who had merely dropped in for a pipe of chandu, or a jolt of opium; and Shafto noticed quite a number of Europeans and, among them, at present asleep, a man whom he knew and frequently met on the Strand. He had sometimes wondered at his dried-up, withered skin and lank, dead-looking ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... was a ragged, lank, starved-looking man, whose appearance was on this occasion rendered ludicrous by the feathers sticking all over him, and by an expression of dejection which would draw down the corners of his miserable mouth and roll ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Stepney's, met the Milmans, Mrs. Norton, Rogers, Sydney Smith and others—among them poor, dear Jane Porter. She told me she was taken for me the other night, and talked to as such by a party of Americans! She is tall, lank and lean and lackadaisical, dressed in the deepest black, with rather a battered black gauze hat and the air of a regular Melpomene. I am the reverse of all this, and without vanity the best-dressed woman wherever I go. Last night I wore a blue satin trimmed fully with magnificent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... brought about a great change for the better in the life of the mountain woman. Once we saw her lank, slatternly, meek, stoic—mother of a dozen or more, obeying with patient fortitude the will of her man. We saw too the pitiable child-bride marrying perhaps a man three times her age because he could take care of her. There being so many in the family Pappy and Mammy were ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... Lord Robert is an impressive or at least a striking and unusual figure; he is tall, lank, and ungainly, almost Lincolnesque in the carelessness of his apparel and the exceeding awkwardness of his postures and manners. His angular features, sharp nose, pale face, and dark hair suggest the strain ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... house. But it is the largest house with which this story has dealings, and must always be thought of with respect. It was built about the year 1800, and favoured the architecture of ancient Rome—chiefly by means of five lank pilasters, which stretched from the top of it to the bottom. Between the pilasters was the glass front door, to the right of them the drawing room windows, to the left of them the windows of the dining-room, above them a triangular area, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... seen. It reared and bucked and kicked, trying to escape from two lassoes. In front of the largest store were a number of mustangs all standing free, with bridles thrown over their heads and trailing on the ground. The loungers leaning against the railing and about the doors were lank brown men very like Naab's sons. Some wore sheepskin "chaps," some blue overalls; all wore boots and spurs, wide soft hats, and in their belts, far to the back, ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... turning of the road, So near that, slipping back into the shade Of a thick hawthorn, I could mark him well, 390 Myself unseen. He was of stature tall, A span above man's common measure, tall, Stiff, lank, and upright; a more meagre man Was never seen before by night or day. Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth 395 Looked ghastly in the moonlight: from behind, A mile-stone propped him; I could also ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the traveler hugs her fluttering cloak, And staggers o'er the weary waste alone, Beneath a pitiless heaven, they flap his face, And wheel above, or hunt his fainting soul, As, with relentless greed, a vulture throng, With their lank shadows mock the glazing eyes Of the last camel of the caravan. And Faith takes forms and wings on such a night. Where love burns brightly at the household hearth, And from the altar of each peaceful heart Ascends the fragrant incense of its thanks, And every pulse with sympathetic throb ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... "Say," said a tall, lank cowman, "if you'll go in and sleep till daylight, usn'll scour this part of the desert with a fine-tooth comb. So you all won't lose a minute by taking a little rest. An' if we find the Injun we'll string him up and save you ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... any set of men, but most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... men in the canoe. One squatted forward, another rested his body on his heels in the after end. These two were swarthy, stockily built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats crowning lank, black hair long ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was a lank, rather cadaverous man, with a face like granite and eyes like polished steel. Few men had anything to say against him. No one ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... He shook it with the more surety, because of his old-time memories of Brenton, the lank, ill-nourished youth with the crude manners and the lambent eyes. One did not tell things to a man like that; one merely listened, and then gave advice. That was really all. And then, his telephoning finished, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... grey light when Guapo climbed up to the rock. Against the sky his tall, lank form could be traced in all its outlines. For some moments he sat in a serious and reflective mood—evidently busy with thoughts about the "poison-trees." His appetite, however, soon got the better of him; and he set to work ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... altogether imaginary. The habit of living in this peaceful manner soon united me tenderly to my cousin Bernard; my affection was more ardent than that I had felt for my brother, nor has time ever been able to efface it. He was a tall, lank, weakly boy, with a mind as mild as his body was feeble, and who did not wrong the good opinion they were disposed to entertain for the son of my guardian. Our studies, amusements, and tasks, were the same; we were alone; each wanted a playmate; to separate would in ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... clear, ringing sound of an ax on the frosty morning air, wielded by the powerful arm of some hardy chopper. Looking along shore Paul discovered the wood cutter just about the same instant that worthy discovered him. The tall, lank West Virginian eyed the strange looking creature far a second, dropped the ax and started in a lope for his cabin. Suspecting that the curious landsman was going after his rifle, as it is customary for them to shoot at anything in the water they cannot understand, Boyton sounded a lusty blast on ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... A large, lank, muley or polled cow used to annoy me in this way when I was a dweller in a certain pastoral city. I more than half suspected she was turned in by some one; so one day I watched. Presently I heard the gate-latch rattle; the gate swung open, and in walked the old buffalo. On seeing ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... with his cross-flowing course, The water Nymphs that in the bottom plaid, Held up their pearled wrists and took her in, Bearing her straight to aged Nereus Hall, Who piteous of her woes, rear'd her lank head, And gave her to his daughters to imbathe In nectar'd lavers strew'd with Asphodil, And through the porch and inlet of each sense Dropt in Ambrosial Oils till she reviv'd, 840 And underwent a quick immortal change Made Goddess of the River; still ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... sound came but faintly. The crowd hushed its breathing, and the air was unwholesomely still. A dog yelped, and an Indian silenced it with a kick. Each paddle-stroke threw the canoes into sharper relief, and we could distinguish lank arms, and streaming hair. The prisoner's voice echoed as clear as if he were in some great playhouse, and were singing to gain the plaudits of a ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... to make an imposing appearance. The main guard was turned out as soon as possible, equipped to the best advantage in the few suits of regimentals, which had to do duty, by turns, with the whole garrison. One tall, lank fellow appeared in a little man's coat, with the buttons between his shoulders; the skirts scarce covering his bottom; his hands hanging like spades out of the sleeves; and the coat linked in front by worsted loops made out of a pair of red garters. Another ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... reckoning. Down to his bridge was coming another and a larger procession than that of Black Angus. First, and even now entering through the gate, he saw Jimmy Wright leading a lank young moose cow, whom he recognized as Susan. Close behind was old Billy Smith with the two white cats, Melindy and Jim, in his arms; and then Baldy Fallen, with a long blanket bundle under his arm. Behind them came the rest of the mill hands, their faces beaming welcome. MacPhairrson, shaking all ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... front of the Glossop residence, about which a curious collection of morbid-minded people had gathered. There alighted therefrom, first the superintendent, and then the over-dressed figure with the lank, fair hair and the fresh-coloured, insipid countenance of as perfect a specimen of the genus sap-head as you could pick up anywhere between John o' Groat's and Land's End. A flower was in his buttonhole, a monocle in his eye, and the gold head ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... other; 'I saw him there this morning, with no panel or furniture upon him of any kind, and so lank that it was grievous to behold him. I would have driven him before me and brought him to you, but he is already become so shy that when I went near him he took to his heels and fled to a distance from me. Now, if you like it we will both ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... about the love affair I had once had with some Charlotte Holmes here. She declared you had told her about it yourself. I confess I flamed up. I'm a peppery chap, and I thought—I thought—oh, confound it, it might as well out: I thought you were some lank old maid who was amusing herself telling ridiculous stories about me. When you came into the room I knew that, whoever was to blame, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he had known; not the ignoble, tawdry France of the moment, misruled by women, rakes, confessors, and valets, but the France of his dead Sun King; and it seemed to Louis de Soyecourt that the memory had brought back with it the youth of his father for an instant. Just for a heart-beat, the lank man towered erect, his cheeks pink, and every ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... usual with them to be bribed on the one side, and then to take a fee of the other; to plead weakly, and to be bribed and rebribed on the one side, then to be fee'd and refee'd of the other; till at length, per varios casus, by putting the case so often, they make their clients so lank, that they may case them up in a comb-case, and pack them home from the term, as though they had travelled to London to sell their horse only; and, having lost their fleeces, live afterward like poor ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Like a strong swimmer, bore me up against The howling sea of my adversity. At length o'er Sana, in the act to swoop, I stood like a young eagle on a crag. The traveller passed me with suspicious fear: I asked for nothing; I was not a thief. The lean dogs snuffed around me: my lank bones, Fed on the berries and the crusted pools, Were a scant morsel. Once, a brown-skinned girl Called me a little from the common path, And gave me figs and barley in a bag. I paid her with a kiss, with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... naughty wink—I'll bet he sells coffins and undertakers' supplies," mused Emma McChesney. "And the other one— the tall, lank, funereal affair in black—I suppose his line would be sheet music, or maybe phonographs. Or perhaps he's a lyceum bureau reader, scheduled to give an evening of humorous readings for the Young Men's Sunday Evening Club course at the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... mentioned that Ithuel would not consent to trust himself near the Proserpine without disguising his person. Raoul being well provided with all the materials for a masquerade, this had been effected by putting a black curling wig over his own lank, sandy hair, coloring his whiskers and eyebrows, and trusting the remainder to the transformation which might be produced by the dress, or rather undress, of a Neapolitan waterman. The greatest obstacle to this arrangement had been a certain queue, which Ithuel habitually wore in a cured ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the trail, and in a moment caught sight of a tall, lank, ungainly mule coming galloping ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... he gained quickly, like tall beanpole boys, and though big, his bones were shapely, and the muscles began to stand out on his lank, handsome body. At six months he was a stripling youth, two thirds pup, one third grown dog. Though he still romped with the others, it was plain to the practised eye that he was different. Sometimes he lay in the shade a long ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... to remain in the interior of these mountains at least two thirds of the year where the suffered as we then saw great heardships for the want of food sometimes living for weeks without meat and only a little fish roots and berries. but this added Cameahwait, with his ferce eyes and lank jaws grown meager for the want of food, would not be the case if we had guns, we could then live in the country of buffaloe and eat as our enimies do and not be compelled to hide ourselves in these mountains and live on roots and berries as the bear do. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... bright colours like a cobweb, but now she was radiant again; it was as if a wind had blown through her hair, which always changed with her moods as a cat's coat changes with the weather, and had been lank since morning. He was not used to variable women. His two wives, Annie and Christian, had always looked much the same. He remembered that when he went in to see Aggie as she lay in her coffin he had examined her face very carefully because he had heard that people's faces altered when they ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Theron!" she called again; and in obedience to the summons the tall lank figure of her husband appeared in the open doorway behind her. A long loose, open dressing-gown dangled to his knees, and his sallow, clean-shaven, thoughtful face wore a morning undress expression of youthful good-nature. He leaned against the door-sill, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... is our shop, Nickleby." It was a crowded scene. A bare and dirty room, with a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being stopped up with old copybooks and paper. Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, little faces, which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering. There was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone and its helplessness alone remaining—truly an ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... is settled quietly at home again; and for the next twelve months little passes worthy of record in these pages. Yeo has installed himself as major domo, with no very definite functions, save those of walking about everywhere at Amyas's heels like a lank gray wolf-hound, and spending his evenings at the fireside, as a true old sailor does, with his Bible on his knee, and his hands busy in manufacturing numberless nicknacks, useful and useless, for every member of the family, and above ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... perplexity the objects of pursuit have to lie in ambush and await the course of events. Their military pursuers are now wending their way in the opposite direction until they are almost lost to view. Now is the time for a last desperate effort. They rush for the shore, and there accost a sallow lank-looking boatman followed by a negro, on the lookout for custom, in their marine calling. A request is made for their boat and services, for conveyance to the ship. At first the man looks suspicious and sceptical, but on expostulation that there was the utmost necessity for ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... faculty of Apemama. They came in a body, all in their Sunday's best and hung with wreaths and shells, the insignia of the devil-worker. Tamaiti I knew already: Terutak' I saw for the first time, a tall, lank, raw-boned, serious North-Sea fisherman turned brown; and there was a third in their company whose name I never heard, and who played to Tamaiti the part of famulus. Tamaiti took me in hand first, and led me, conversing agreeably, to the shores of Fu ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... maiden lady while setting her shop in order for the public eye. She stole on tiptoe to the window, as cautiously as if she conceived some bloody-minded villain to be watching behind the elm-tree, with intent to take her life. Stretching out her long, lank arm, she put a paper of pearl-buttons, a jew's-harp, or whatever the small article might be, in its destined place, and straightway vanished back into the dusk, as if the world need never hope for another glimpse of her. ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... laboring among their sprouting vegetables, turned sun-dazzled eyes to watch us as we clattered by; where ragged children, climbing on the stockades, called out to us in little, shrill voices; where feeding cattle lifted sober heads to stare; where lank, yellow dogs rushed out barking and snapping till a cut of the whip ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... lank-haired, chubby boy, who would be hunched and punched by every body; and go home with his finger in his eye, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Jackson as he first saw him in his seat in the House: "A tall, lank, uncouth looking individual, with long locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, while a queue hung down his back tied in an eelskin. The dress of this individual was singular, his manners and deportment that of a backwoodsman." Bartlett's ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... these half-moon lines of blocky men, to the lank, slouch-hatted, low-collared country delegates—farmers, school teachers, country doctors and country lawyers—who filled the seats behind them and on beyond them. To the one group politics was a business in which there was money to be made and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... the sky. Away to the north, just clear of a stretch of heaven-high peaks, the scintillating shafts of the northern lights shuddered convulsively, like skeleton arms outstretched to grasp the rich gems which hung just beyond their reach. The moving shadows had changed to material forms. Lank, gaunt, hungry-looking beasts crowded just beyond the fire-lit circle; shaggy-coated creatures, with manes a-bristle and baleful eyes which ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... until a lank bell-boy, in a brown uniform that was some sizes too small for him, had ceased to take any interest in the game of chess which Bauer and Merkle, the champion firemen chess-players, were contesting on the walk before the open doorway of the engine-house. The proprietor of the Burke House had originally ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... The young breeds run to extremes of good looks or ill; and in his case it was the latter. In downright English he was hideous. A shock of intractable, lank hair hung over what he had of a forehead; and underneath rolled a pair of whitey-blue eyes, with a villainous cast in one of them. Some accident had carried Nature's work even further, for one swarthy cheek was divided ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... delicate comparison, but exceedingly apt besides rhyming to "Baltiyah." The cauda of the "five-quarter sheep, whose tails are so broad and thick that there is as much flesh upon them as upon a quarter of their body," must not be confounded with the lank appendage of our English muttons. See i. 25, Dr. Burnell's Linschoten (Hakluyt Soc. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... as the wolf-dog sprang, staggering back from the weight of its lank body hurled against his breast, and fired again as he felt the beast's vile breath in his face as it ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... who stood six feet four in his shoes, and was proportionably broad, was chosen to act the part of Neptune, and the cooper's mate, who was as wide as he was high, that of his wife. The armourer took the part of the barber, and the carpenter's mate, who was lank and tall, the doctor. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... contrast they presented,—the German, erect, well-poised, plainly a soldier in spite of his ill-fitting clothes; the American, lank and stomachless, yet taller than the other in spite of his bent shoulders. His tawny beard was guiltless of care. Of all his slack body only his eyes showed alertness as they looked sidewise from under his old ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... the cab door for them himself, and gave them the gaze of wondering approval which he reserved for these fair daughters. To him their growth, development, and beauty seemed something magical, incomprehensible. He had left them in the lank, homely, tooth-shedding period, at the time he placed them in school, and when he returned to see them graduated, here were two blooming maidens on the very borderland of charming womanhood. The usual love ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... quickened the minute it was disturbed. So I moored myself on the railing about three yards from Freedham. This could easily be managed, Freedham being one of those boys who were always alone. For a little I pretended to watch the game and then stole a furtive, sideways glance at his lank profile. I had immediate cause to wish I had done nothing of the sort, for he turned his unholy eyes on mine and so disconcerted me that I swung my face back upon the cricket field and affected complete indifference. I even hummed a little ditty to show that if any ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... was hooked, her eyes were bleared, Her locks were lank and white; Upon her chin there grew a beard; She was a ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle |
