"Nankeen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the door, and a ruddy old face looked in. It is the Cavaliere Trenta, in his official blue coat and gold buttons, nankeen inexpressibles, a broad-brimmed white hat and a gold-headed cane in his hand. Whatever speck of dust might have had the audacity to venture to settle itself upon any part of the cavaliere's official blue coat, must at once have hidden its diminished head after peeping ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... the Vervelles with an enthusiasm, a joy, a kindliness, a frank bourgeois absurdity which confounded him. It was indeed a day of triumph. The prospective son-in-law was marched about the grounds on the nankeen-colored paths, all raked as they should be for the steps of so great a man. The trees themselves looked brushed and combed, and the lawns had just been mown. The pure country air wafted to the nostrils a most enticing smell of cooking. All things about ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... experience! Ask him these questions about 'scorching and drenching.' Did he never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather? Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? Did he never swim in the sea at noonday with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool? Did he never draw his foot out of too hot water, d——ning his eyes and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... down on the counter, filliped away sundry grains of snuff from his nankeen breeches and looking at Gamelin with an ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... calling up anew the soft September mornings of which I would draw a picture before they fade away, with me also, from men's minds, it is the quaintness of dress which first comes back to me, and I find myself wondering that in nankeen breeches and swallow-tailed blue coats with buttons of brass once lived men who, despite gnarled-rimmed beavers and much wealth of many-folded cravats, loved and were loved as well and earnestly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... countenance is mild, though firm. He is much thinner than he has been in his time, on account of the amputation of his leg, which often produces this effect. His dress is simple. A jacket of yellow nankeen, a striped cotton shirt, with loose cottonade trousers of bright sky colour. A Panama hat, with very broad brim, shades his eyes from the sun, and his shirt is open at the throat, for the day is warm. Thus is the Colonel ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... prove fatal. There were Mongols—of middle height, with black hair plaited into pigtails, which hung down their back; round faces, swarthy complexions, lively deep-set eyes, scanty beards—dressed in blue nankeen trimmed with black plush, sword-belts of leather with silver buckles, coats gayly braided, and silk caps edged with fur and three ribbons fluttering behind. Brown-skinned Afghans, too, might have been seen. Arabs, having the primitive type of the beautiful Semitic races; and Turcomans, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... tailors, shoe-makers, carpenters, smiths, turners, wheelwrights, weavers, tanners, etc. I have seen patterns of excellent coarse woolen cloth made in the country by slaves, and a variety of cotton manufacturers, amongst the rest good nankeen. Cotton grows here extremely well; the plants are often killed by frost in winter, but they always produce abundantly the first year in which they are sown. The cotton from which nankeen is made is of a particular kind naturally ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... He had now, to the latter's quiet amusement, modified his Burmese costume; making it look like that of some of the whites and, indeed, he would have passed without notice as one of the Goa-Portuguese mess waiters, in his suit of white nankeen. When riding, or on any service away from the headquarter camp, he was dressed in a suit of tough brown khaki which he had obtained from one of the traders at Rangoon. The coat differed but little from that of the suit Stanley had handed over to him; except that it was somewhat shorter ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... their feet went twinkling through a series of evolutions which the keenest eye could hardly follow. "Pigeon-wings?" Whole flocks of pigeons took flight from under that scant blue skirt, from those wonderful shrunken trousers of yellow nankeen. They moved forward, back, forward again, as smoothly as a wave glides up the shore. They twinkled round and round each other, now back to back, now face to face. They chassed into corners, and displayed a whirlwind of delicately pointed toes; they retired as if to quarrel; ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... of barking, but not even a dog made its appearance; the groom again made ready for a jump, and again shouted "Hey!" The feeble barking was repeated, and an instant after a man from some unseen quarter ran into the courtyard, dressed in a nankeen coat, his head as white as snow; he stared at the coach, shading his eyes from the sun; all at once he slapped his thighs with both hands, ran to and fro a little, then rushed to open the gates. The coach drove into the yard, crushing the ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... straight, scanty black hair shaded a brow blue and transparent from disease; the tall person and once well-formed limbs were swollen and unwieldy. The sick man's dress would have suited some plain burgher of Madrid, taking his use in his summer-house: it consisted of a light nankeen jacket, a white neckcloth knotted loosely round the throat, linen trousers, and large shoes. He seemed scarcely able to set foot to ground, and the agony each step occasioned him betrayed itself in spasmodic twitchings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... remarkable for its excessive filth. The Chinaman is an enemy of baths and washing; he wears no shirt, and does not discard his trousers until they actually fall off his body. The men's upper garments reach a little below the knee, and the women's somewhat lower. They are made of nankeen, or dark blue, brown, or black silk. During the cold season, both men and women wear one summer-garment over the other, and keep the whole together with a girdle; during the great heat, however, they allow their garments to flutter ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... inclosing a small cultivated patch and a neat farmhouse beyond. Here he paused, and, cowering behind the fence, with extraordinary facial contortions produced a cry not unlike the scream of a blue jay. Repeating it at intervals, he was presently relieved by observing the approach of a nankeen sunbonnet within the inclosure above the line of fence. Stopping before him, the sun-bonnet revealed a rosy little face, more than usually plump on one side, and a neck enormously wrapped in a scarf. It was "Meely" (Amelia) Stryker, a schoolmate, detained ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... to finish up some work there, and just came in for the revolution. From my windows I had a fine view of all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium in the streets, the aspect of the savage mob, the wanton firing of shots at quiet spectators, the hoisting of Louis Philippe's nankeen trousers on the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began to come through my windows, I thought it time to be off while it was still possible. Then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... nankeen sack and skirt, and her little round, brown straw hat. For May had come, and almost gone, and it was a ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... a queer nankeen coat lay asleep on a bamboo lounge under the great cherry-tree, with a purple silk handkerchief half over ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Lucien appeared, half awake and hastily dressed. He was handsome, it is true; but his clothes, his last year's nankeen trousers, and his shabby tight jacket were ridiculous. Put Antinous or the Apollo Belvedere himself into a water-carrier's blouse, and how shall you recognize the godlike creature of the Greek or Roman chisel? The eyes note and compare before the heart has time to revise the swift involuntary judgment; ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... faintness there was a recognizable touch of Mrs. Crupp, when the spasms were engendering in the nankeen bosom of that exemplary female, so also in the maternal confidences volunteered by the same witness, there was an appreciable reminder of another lady who will be remembered as having been introduced at the Coroner's Inquest in Bleak House as "Anastasia Piper, gentlemen." Regarding that ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... stood the hair-dresser in a fashionable suit of nankeen, with lace cuffs and ruffles, hovering like a large yellow butterfly over the emperor, and ready at the signal to alight upon the imperial head ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... back to the living-room of the family, found there Lois busied in arraying old Mrs. Armadale for some sort of excursion; putting a light shawl about her, and drawing a white sun-bonnet over her cap. Lois herself was in an old nankeen dress with a cape, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... greetings were over the captain ushered King Mungo and three of his sable attendants, dressed in old nankeen jackets and tarry trousers, into the cabin. Kate's astonishment was naturally very great when she saw them. His majesty bowed to her with profound respect; and I saw him afterwards, whenever he had the ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... tail coat, his stiff shirt collar, his flat thumbs stuck in the armholes of his nankeen waistcoat, his long flat feet turned inward, his reddish mutton-chop whiskers his hat on the back of his head, and his clean, fresh, blooming, virtuous, English face—the sight of him was not sympathetic when ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... source of curious interest. The fact that the asperities of our summer weather will not permit me to use it but once or twice in six months does not alter my concern for this incongruous ornament. It affects me as I suppose the conscious possession of a linen coat or a nankeen trousers might affect a sojourner here who has not entirely outgrown his memory of Eastern summer heat and its glorious compensations,—a luxurious providence against a possible but by no means probable contingency. I do no longer wonder at the persistency with which ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... I climbed again to the ground-level, I met the head of fresh columns of men. This time they were white troops—French Infanterie Coloniale, in dusty blue suits of torn and discoloured Nankeen. There must have been thousands of them, for after some delay they got into movement, and, enveloped in thick clouds of dust, these solid companies of blue uniforms, crowned with dirty-white helmets, started ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... was distinguished by a pliant grace and courtesy unknown to the present generation. The attire of this gentleman was composed of a many-folded white cravat, a close-buttoned blue dress-coat, and nankeen trousers with gaiters to match, ridiculous to the present generation. The talk of this gentleman ran in an easy flow—revealing an independent habit of mind, and exhibiting a carefully-polished capacity for satirical ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... college loved to call in valedictory addresses the Rose of Rosemont. She spent a few moments with them, holding John's more than willing hand, and then called in the principal's first assistant, Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew, a smallish man of forty, in piratical white duck trousers, kid slippers, nankeen sack, and ruffled shirt. Irritability confessed itself in this gentleman's face, which was of a clay color, with white spots. Mr. Pettigrew presently declared himself a Virginian, adding, with the dignity of a fallen king, that he—or his father, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... classmates, afterward a worthy physician, was a tall man, older considerably than the rest of the class. He used to wear an old-fashioned blue, straight-bodied coat with brass buttons, a buff vest, and nankeen pantaloons which were said to have come down as an heirloom in his family from a remote generation. He was addicted to rather a pompous style of speech. He was very fond of playing the bass-viol, of which he was by no means a very ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... she took one. You can't say that was exorbitant. Which of us wouldn't subscribe a shilling for poor Katy to put into the first trouser pockets that ever she will wear? I remember even yet, as a personal experience, that when first arrayed, at four years old, in nankeen trousers, though still so far retaining hermaphrodite relations of dress as to wear a petticoat above my trousers, all my female friends (because they pitied me, as one that had suffered from years of ague) filled my pockets with half-crowns, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... occurred at home. Opposite our house in Bethel stood the old stage tavern where "man and beast" found accommodation, The stable-man was rather dissipated, but possessed of some humor. On my return I found him parading the streets, and attending in the stable, barefooted, but in a pair of sky-blue nankeen pantaloons—just the color of my uniform trousers—with a strip of white cotton sheeting sewed down the outside seams in imitation of mine. The joke was a huge one in the mind of many of the people, and was much enjoyed by them; but I did not ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... ruling classes of the land; a Boston printer of the days immediately following the Revolution appeared in a costume that surpassed the most startling that Boston of our times could display. "He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small clothes, white silk stockings, and pumps fastened with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot, from instep to toe. His small clothes were tied at the knees with ribbon of the same color in double bows, the ends reaching down ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... see it all belongs to me, kinder," he said, after seating himself, as he rubbed his huge, projecting knees, plainly indicated through his nankeen trousers, with his capacious, horny hands. "I'm not very particular, though, where I sleep on shipboard, but at home ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... had to recount all our adventures; and thus most of the talking was on our side, as Antonio had already told us all that had happened to them. Our Brazilian friend, Senhor Pimento, was a fine burly old gentleman, habited in light nankeen jacket and trousers, with a broad-brimmed hat. He was of a somewhat dark hue, and his wife, who was a slight, active old lady, was considerably darker. Their family consisted of a son, who was away hunting at the ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... with six of his courtiers, came riding to my hut, and told me to follow them. I readily complied. But here a new difficulty occurred. The Moors, accustomed to a loose and easy dress, could not reconcile themselves to the appearance of my NANKEEN BREECHES, which they said were not only inelegant, but, on account of their tightness, very indecent; and as this was a visit to ladies, Ali ordered my boy to bring out the loose cloak which I had always worn since my arrival at Benowm, and told me to wrap ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... Custis as he walked abroad into the Sunday sunshine, that he had never seen a more perfect day. The leaves were turning on the great sycamore-trees, and the maples along the rise in the road wore their most delicate garments of nankeen, while some young hickories, loaded with nuts, and a high gum-tree, splendid in finery, beckoned him out their way, across the Manokin bridge to the opposite hill, where the Presbyterian church ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... ladies were present he always wore his frock-coat. He neither smoked, nor used perfume, nor tried to make himself look younger, but was always spotless, and distinguished in his dress. His clothes were simple but dazzlingly neat. His nankeen trousers were freshly pressed, and his blue frock-coat looked as if it had come straight from the tailor. In spite of his fifty years, he had, with his perruque and his shaven chin, the air of a fresh, rosy-cheeked young man. ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... in which the scene we have just described had taken place on the road between Bellegarde and Beaucaire, a man of about thirty or two and thirty, dressed in a bright blue frock coat, nankeen trousers, and a white waistcoat, having the appearance and accent of an Englishman, presented himself before the mayor of Marseilles. "Sir," said he, "I am chief clerk of the house of Thomson & French, of Rome. We are, and have been these ten years, connected with the house of Morrel ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the answer was, "We only know the prefect by his clothes." Now it had unfortunately happened that M. de Chamans having sent his trunks by diligence they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a green coat; nankeen trousers, and a pique vest, it could hardly be expected that in such a suit he should overawe the people under the circumstances; so, when he got up on a bench to harangue the populace, cries arose of "Down with the green coat! We have enough of charlatans like that!" ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he was three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread and batter in his hand. A very clever woman, who then lived in the house as parlour-maid, told how he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or mother, telling ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... went to meet her husband on his return from sea. Meg lifted them out carefully one by one, and laid them on the bed, smoothing out the creases fondly. There were her own best clothes, too, and the children's; the baby's nankeen coat, and Robin's blue cap, which never saw the light except when father was at home. She had nearly emptied the box, when she came upon ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... will glance at our surroundings. Back of the hall—we are sitting at a table near the centre of the apartment—on a raised platform, is an asthmatic pianoforte, upon which an individual with threadbare coat, colorless vest and faded nankeen pantaloons, is thrumming away for dear life. Out of tune himself, he tortures the poor instrument in a way that threatens its instant dissolution, rending its heartstrings, and causing it to shriek with agony, wailing out ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... floor, Boulevard Haussmann. Furniture like the Tuileries, blue satin on all the walls, pictures, mantel ornaments, curiosities, a genuine museum, I tell you! overflowing on to the landings. Service very stylish: six servants, chestnut-colored livery in winter, nankeen livery in summer. You see those people everywhere,—at the small Monday parties, at the races, at first nights, at ambassadors' balls, and their names always in the newspapers, with remarks as to Madame's fine toilets and Monsieur's amazing chic. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... aghast—for save a regimental button here and there, he would find it hard to recognise the gaunt, hairy, sun-scorched squad for British soldiers. But let who might incline to disown these few war-worn men in their dirty flannel rags and fragmentary nankeen breeches, their foes know them for what they are, and make way for the white sahibs with no dressing indeed in their ranks, but each man with his rifle on his shoulder, the deadly revolver in his belt, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... evening waistcoat he had been wearing had been changed by him within the last few moments for a waistcoat she had not seen before, though she had heard of its arrival from London. It was of cashmere, the latest freak of fashion. She also saw with surprise that his nankeen trousers were stained, as if he had been kneeling on damp ground. He looked very hot, his wavy hair lay damply on his brow, and ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... 'Do you think they WERE crooked?' said Brass, in an insinuating tone. 'I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the Conuco of Bermudez, opposite the Risco del Cuchivano, where tobacco, plantains, and several species of cotton-trees,* are cultivated in the moist soil (* Gossypium uniglandulosum, improperly called herbaceum, and G. barbadense.); especially that tree, the cotton of which is of a nankeen colour, and which is so common in the island of Margareta.* (* G. religiosum.) The proprietor of the farm told us that the Risco or crevice was inhabited by jaguar tigers. These animals pass the day ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... Baths and ablutions have no charm for the Chinaman; he scorns to wear a shirt, and he holds by his trousers until they drop from his body. The men's upper garments reach a little below the knee, the women's about half way down the calf. They are made of nankeen, or dark blue, brown, or black silk. During the cold season both men and women wear one summer garment over the other, keeping the whole together with a girdle; in the extreme heat, however, they suffer them to float as free as "Nora Creina's robes" ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... Lordship in my mind as a tall, sombre, Childe Harold personage, tinctured somewhat with aristocratic hauteur. You may therefore guess my surprise when the door opened, and I saw leaning upon the lock, a light animated figure, rather petite than otherwise, dressed in a nankeen hussar-braided jacket, trousers of the same material, with a white waistcoat; his countenance pale but the complexion clear and healthful, with the hair coming down in little curls on each side ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... general appearance was quite in keeping. How delightful he must have looked! Why have we no such types nowadays? Wearing a "white merino frock-coat, nankeen trowsers, a large-brimmed straw hat, and white shoes," he must have been a fairly conspicuous object in the landscape. That hat alone will have alarmed the peasantry who to this day and hour wear nothing but ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... their head, prefer those which have clean bright legs without any feathers. The full-bred Bantam-cock should not weigh more than a pound. He should have a rose comb, a well-feathered tail, and a proud lively carriage. The Nankeen coloured and the black are the greatest favourites. The Nankeen bird should have his feathers edged with black, his wings bordered with purple, his tail-feathers black, his hackles slightly studded with purple, and his breast black, with white edges to the feathers. ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... "The nankeen—colored one," spoke up again the bell-like and inexorable voice from the other window, "is a yellow Crevecoeur, very well formed and lively-looking: the slate-colored one is a Cochin-China, with only a few of the white feathers lacking from the head. They ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... been turned out of the Bower of Bloom, and now keeps a shop at Tunbridge Wells. Going down thither last year without a razor, I asked a fat seedy man lolling in a faded nankeen jacket at the door of a tawdry little shop in the Pantiles, to shave me. He said in reply, "Sir, I do not practise in that branch of the profession!" and turned back into the little shop. It was Archibald Eglantine. ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... view of the banquet, the trencher cuts, foh! nankeen displays: as intersticed with many a brilliant drop to friendly beck and clubbish hail, to moisten the viands or cool the incipient cayenne. No unfamished livery-man would desire better dishes, or high-tasted courtier better wines. With men that meet to commune, that can converse, and each willing ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... despite the cane wherewith he threatened Micromegas.—And how many there were of them—of those house-serfs—in his manor! And for the most part they were old, sinewy, hairy, grumbling, stoop-shouldered, clad in long-skirted nankeen kaftans, and imbued with a strong acrid odour! And in the women's department nothing was to be heard but the trampling of bare feet, and the rustling of petticoats.—The head valet was named Irinarkh, and Alexyei Sergyeitch ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... noon. In everything simplifying his life, he did not wire from the station of his arrival, but hired a two-horse country coach. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen regulation coat, belted below the waist, sitting sidewise on the box. He was the more willing to carry on a conversation because the broken-down, lame, emaciated, foaming shaft-horse could then walk, which these ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... taken the field in a blue satin waistcoat and nankeen trousers. At the instant we entered the dancing-room, he had commenced lisping to Miss Biddy, in a tender love-subdued tone, a couplet which he had committed to memory for the occasion, when a glance of terrible meaning from Terence's eye met his—the unfinished stanza died in his throat, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... room furnished as modestly as the sitting-room of a provincial gentleman would be likely to be. The wall-paper was gloomy, and the furniture was of dark mahogany upholstered in faded blue nankeen, but there were numerous candles in candelabra upon the tables and in sconces upon the walls which gave an air of festivity even to these sombre surroundings. Out of the large central room were several smaller ones in which card-tables had ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the boy by the arm and laughed. "Let's feel how deep your pants' pocket is," he said; and he put his hand into the pocket of Frank's nankeen trousers and felt; and then, before Mrs. Baker could stop him, he drew a roll of bank-notes out of his own pocket and pushed it into Frank's. "There, it's just a fit! Do you ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... group. He was very gay, but one felt the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality; his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout rattan worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of low buildings, situated at the head of the valley, which descended to the sea,—now for the first time presented to their view since they had quitted Bridgetown. The owner of the estate was at the door to receive them. He was a tall, spare man, dressed in nankeen jacket and trousers, with a large-brimmed straw hat ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old Dux—the Duke of Chivalry—the foremost leader and commander of the people. But instead of chained mail and helmet, he was to be seen every day walking about amongst his people in hoddin-gray coat, nankeen breeches, white vest, and rumpled white hat—plain, easy, manly, and unaffected in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... is well justified. The herb does not seem really to own any qualities for acting medicinally on the liver. More probably the yellow colour of its flowers, which, with the root, furnish a dye of a bright nankeen hue, has given it a reputation in bilious disorders, according to the doctrine of signatures, because the bile is also yellow. Nevertheless, Gerard says: "A decoction of the leaves is good for them that have naughty livers." By pouring a pint of boiling water on a handful of the plant—stems, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... at the highest curve of the moorland road. Annie had put on her Sunday clothes, though she had ripped the feather out of her bonnet as a concession to the spirit of repentance, and she dressed Ishmael with care in the fine little nankeen suit with braided tunic that the Parson's housekeeper had made for him. She oiled his unruly black hair till it looked as though painted on to his bullet head, except for the obstinate forelock that ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised pie for its head; and so, in course of time, they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... went on, turning to Lucien, who stood amazed at this, "you are well made, you have a graceful figure, you wear your clothes with an air, you look like a gentleman in that blue coat of yours with the yellow buttons and the plain nankeen trousers; now I should look like a workingman among those people, I should be awkward and out of my element, I should say foolish things, or say nothing at all; but as for you, you can overcome any prejudice as to names by taking your ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... by. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... her cheeks to a shade. And scattered about it were birds, and butterflies, and snaky, emaciated dragons, with backs like saw-teeth, and prodigious fangs, and claws, and very curly tails, such as they breed in Nankeen plates and used to breed on packages of fire-crackers—all done in gold, the gold of her hair. Moreover, one might catch a glimpse of her neck—which was a manifest favour of the gods—and about it mysterious, lacy white things intermingling ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... nankeen-coloured back and wings, and white breast, with a black crown to the head from which three long fine white feathers project. It is altogether a bird frequenting water, building in trees as the Heron does. It is about the size of a well grown young ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... the brand was hot, and the lovers shook In their several shoes, when by lucky fate A Dragon came, with his tail in a crook,— A Dragon out of a Nankeen Plate,— And gobbled the hard-hearted potentate And all of his servants, and snorted, and Passed on at a super-cyclonic rate,— For these things occur in the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... on this hint, and soon reappeared in a pair of faded nankeen pantaloons, reaching to about the calf of the leg, a very shabby black coat, out at the elbows, a ragged black vest, and, instead of his varnished leather boots, a pair ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... rang out, but not even the dog showed himself; the lackey again prepared to leap down, and again shouted: "Hey!" The decrepit barking was renewed, and, a moment later, a man ran out into the yard, no one could tell whence,—a man in a nankeen kaftan, with a head as white as snow; shielding his eyes with his hand, he stared at the tarantas, suddenly slapped himself on both thighs, at first danced about a little on one spot, then ran to open the gate. The tarantas drove into the yard, the ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... a tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was depressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was attired in a thin fawn-colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as to show the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of nankeen trousers and pumps. ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... received by Ossian. Emilie fancied that she recognized her as a distinguished milady who for some months had been living on a neighboring estate. Her partner was a lad of about fifteen, with red hands, and dressed in nankeen trousers, a blue coat, and white shoes, which showed that the damsel's love of dancing made her easy to please in the matter of partners. Her movements did not betray her apparent delicacy, but a faint flush already tinged her white ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... a man slightly past middle age, yet erect and jaunty, whose costume recalled the early water-color portraits of her own youthful days. His tightly buttoned blue frock coat with gilt buttons was opened far enough across the chest to allow the expanding of a frilled shirt, black stock, and nankeen waistcoat, and his immaculate white trousers were smartly strapped over his smart varnished boots. A white bell-crowned hat, carried in his hand to permit the wiping of his forehead with a silk handkerchief, and a gold-headed walking ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... which this instantaneous transformation produced. Appearances are wonderfully influenced by dress. Check shirt, buttoned at the neck, an awkward fustian coat, check trowsers and bare feet, were now supplanted by linen and muslin, nankeen coat striped with green, a white silk waistcoat elegantly needle-wrought, cassimere pantaloons, stockings of variegated silk, and shoes that in their softness, pliancy, and polished surface vied with satin. I could scarcely forbear looking back to see whether the image in the glass, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... was a shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the baby, being all alive again, was invested by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-colored mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head, and in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse was waiting to ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... and round to the right, and through the iron gate, and up to the huge front door. There, upon the top step, was standing Lord Peterborough, with a billycock hat and a very old shooting coat, and nankeen trousers, which were considerably too short for him. It was one of the happinesses of his life to dress just as he pleased as he went about his own place; and it certainly was his pleasure to wear older clothes than any one else in his establishment. "Miss Rowley," he ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... solicited patronage, he was beckoned into the box where the defendant was sitting, and was offered a shilling for a full-length likeness. This sum the defendant consented to enlarge to fifteen pence, provided the artist would agree to draw him in "full fig:"—red velvet smalls—nankeen gaiters—sky-blue waistcoat—canary wipe—and full-bottomed fantail. The bargain was struck and the picture finished, but when presented to the sitter, he swore "he'd see the man's back open and shet afore he'd pay the wally of a farden piece for sitch a reg'lar 'snob' as he ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... small garden. Here, seated round the table, were a thin lady, with a squint (Mrs. Plaskwith), two little girls, the Misses Plaskwith, also with squints, and pinafores; a young man of three or four-and-twenty, in nankeen trousers, a little the worse for washing, and a black velveteen jacket and waistcoat. This young gentleman was very much freckled; wore his hair, which was dark and wiry, up at one side, down at the other; had a short ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... dress and equestrian appointments. His horse was literally covered with various trappings, in the way of cavesons, martingales, and Heaven knows how many other (to me) unknown inventions. The saddle was a la Hussarde with holsters, in which he always carried pistols. His dress consisted of a nankeen jacket and trousers, which appeared to have shrunk from washing; the jacket embroidered in the same colour, and with three rows of buttons; the waist very short, the back very narrow, and the sleeves set in as they used to be ten or fifteen years before; a black stock, very ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... world again, to find it green. The only change ever known in his outward man, was from a complete suit of coffee-colour cut very square, and ornamented with glaring buttons, to the same suit of coffee-colour minus the inexpressibles, which were then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise shirt-frill, and carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead, and a tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the farmer's destitution, "Martin Culpepper—twenty-five dollars." He stood a moment in the stairway looking into the street; the day was fair and beautiful; the grasshoppers were gone, and with them went all the vegetation in the landscape; but the colonel in his nankeen trousers and his plaited white shirt and white suspenders, under his white Panama hat, felt only the influence of the genial air. So he drew out the subscription paper again and erased the twenty-five dollars ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... look of worry and disgust. He was out for a quarrel, though the surgeon said he was in more need of physic, having the fever of malaria as well as that of war. He stood there, tall and handsome, in a loose jacket of blue nankeen, with no sign of weakness in him, his eyes flashing as he looked up ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... the college the next day with his eyes blacked, and a piece of trousers cloth done up in a paper, and wanted the professor to try and match it with the pants of some of the divinity students, and how he had to put on a pair of nankeen pants and hide his cassimeres in the boat house until the watermelon scrape blew over and he could get ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... which, for that very reason, was all the more active. So the bluff mate, who always thought he did what he pleased, was occasionally made a fool of; and some obnoxious measures which he carried out, in spite of all growlings, were little thought to originate with the dapper little fellow in nankeen jacket and white canvas pumps. But, to all appearance, at least, the mate had everything his own way; indeed, in most things this was actually the case; and it was quite plain that the captain ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the boulevards from the Madeleine to the Château d’Eau, and stopped their ponderous yellow barouches at Tortoni’s, where ices were served to them in their carriages, while they chatted with immaculate dandies in skin-tight nankeen unmentionables, blue swallow-tailed coats, and furry ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... friend, that I was not then exactly thinking of—but breakfast I must, and will. But just tell me, for a minute, where these people come from, that I see down in the Place there, at that corner—the old gentleman in nankeen, with the green shade over his eyes, and the fat little dame by his side; and those young ladies at the door of the large hotel opposite, and the spruce militaire there at the window, and that knot of men in long brown surtouts, one of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... 'beau-knot' in despair. The frill o' my sark-breast wadna lie in the position in which I wanted it! For the first time my very hair rose in rebellion—it wadna lie right; and I cried, 'The mischief tak' the barber!' The only part o' my dress wi' which I was satisfied, was a spotless pair o' nankeen pantaloons. I had a dog they ca'ed Mettle—it was a son o' poor Rover, that I mentioned to ye before, Weel, it had been raining through the night, and Mettle had been out in the street. The instinct o' the poor dumb brute ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... incredulous as to the realisation of von Schalckenberg's sanguine surmises; but, remembering the mammoths, they prudently kept their own counsel, and hastened away to secure their rifles and to make their preparations for a possibly long and tedious stalk. They exchanged their suits of dazzling white nankeen for others of a thin, tough serge of a light greenish-grey tint, which admirably matched the colour of the long grass through which the stalk would have to be performed; and, in about a quarter of an hour from the commencement of their preparations, found themselves ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... cardinal red, which are extremely good for the purpose. Probably these could be bought at wholesale from dealers in chemicals and dyestuffs at much cheaper rates than by the small paper from the druggist or the country store. Copperas gives a fast nankeen-colored dye, and this is very useful in making a dull green by an after ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... and dissatisfied aspect. In his hand, he conducted to church a mysterious child: a child of the feminine gender. The child had a beaver hat, with a stiff drab plume that surely never belonged to any bird of the air. The child was further attired in a nankeen frock and spencer, brown boxing-gloves, and a veil. It had a blemish, in the nature of currant jelly, on its chin; and was a thirsty child. Insomuch that the personage carried in his pocket a green ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... with what eyes a father sees! As I have life, she is the very reverse of all this: as for the dimity skin you told me of, I swear 'tis a thorough nankeen as ever I saw! for her eyes, their utmost merit is not squinting—for her teeth, where there is one of ivory, its neighbour is pure ebony, black and white alternately, just like the keys of a harpsichord. Then, as to her singing, ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... into the room: supporting himself by a thick stick: a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with green. A very small-plaited shirt frill stuck out from his waistcoat; and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end, dangled loosely below it. The ends of his ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the best, cousin Margaret. Such a quantity of nankeen for the ground, and the loveliest chintz for the centre ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... village a few miles from Amiens, where, upon giving security in the usual form, we have been permitted to come for a few days on a visit to some relations of my friend Mad. de . On our arrival, we found the lady of the house in a nankeen pierrot, knitting grey thread stockings for herself, and the gentleman in a thick woollen jacket and pantaloons, at work in the fields, and really labouring as hard as his men.—They hope, by thus taking up the occupation and assuming the appearance ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... evading George the Third's tax and brewing patriotism in every kettleful added a sweetness to the homemade beverage that sugar itself could not impart. The American troops were glad enough to use New Jersey tea throughout the war. A nankeen or cinnamon-colored dye is ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... they did not at first observe that the lane was very dirty; but at last some large splashes of mud on Isabel's clean frock attracted Arnold's notice, and he then perceived that his own white stockings and nankeen trousers were in the same dirty state. What was now to be done? They both felt that it was highly improper to go to a gentleman's house in such a condition; but then Arnold said that his father must know that the road was dirty after so much rain as ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... sort of funeral disposition; and people glided along silently to the market, and read the long placard placed on the door of the Town Hall. It was dismal weather; yet the lean tailor, Kilian, stood in his nankeen jacket which he usually wore only in the house, and his blue worsted stockings hung down so that his naked legs peeped out mournfully, and his thin lips trembled while he muttered the announcement to himself. And an old soldier read rather louder, and at many a word a crystal tear trickled ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... passage on another boat up the Illinois river. There was a very lordly man on the lower deck who was frequently "trailing his coat." He had, in fact, no coat at all, only a grey flannel shirt and nankeen trousers, but he was remarkably in want of a fight, and anxious to find a man willing to be licked. He was a desperado of the great river. We had heard and read of such men, of their reckless daring and deadly fights; but we ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... would be on his legs, brushing the stour from his breeches knees, before the green curtain was half-way down. James Batter himself once told me, that, when he was a laddie, he saw one of these clanjamphrey go in behind the scenes with nankeen trowsers, a blue coat out at the elbows, and fair hair hanging over his ears, and in less than no time come out a real negro, as black as Robinson Crusoe's man Friday, with a jacket on his back of Macgregor tartan, and as good a pair of buckskin ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... not so far wrong in his surmise. Five minutes later, Ivan Nikiforovitch's nankeen trousers appeared, and took nearly half the yard to themselves. After that she fetched out a hat and a gun. "What's the meaning of this?" thought Ivan Ivanovitch. "I never knew Ivan Nikiforovitch had a gun. What does he want with it? Whether ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... cravat, but a turn-down collar with a black ribbon, his hair very long, with a very puny pair of mustachios on his upper lip, and something like a tuft on his chin. Altogether, he was a strange-looking being, especially when he had substituted for his long coat a short nankeen jacket, which was the case at the time ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... and toilette articles which a girl is expected to bring with her; and thus concludes: "The pupils all appear in the same dress. They wear plain straw cottage bonnets; in summer white frocks on Sundays, and nankeen on other days; in winter, purple stuff frocks, and purple cloth cloaks. For the sake of uniformity, therefore, they are required to bring 3l. in lieu of frocks, pelisse, bonnet, tippet, and frills; making the whole sum which each pupil brings with her ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... sky-blue, and his jonquil-coloured waistcoat, give him still more the appearance of a simpleton, and agree admirably with the astonished expression of his gooseberry eyes. He dangles two watch-chains, that hang down his nankeen trowsers, with great satisfaction, and seems struck with admiration at the wisdom of his own remarks. He thinks himself captivating and full of wit. He has the presumption of ignorance, propped up by money. Finally, he is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... articles as he felt were necessary for their welfare. Thus he writes a memorandum of articles sent in seventeen hundred and eighty by "Mr. Bean's Cartel to Miss Betsy Murray:—viz: Everlasting 4 yards; binding 1 piece, Nankeen 4-7/8 yards. Of Gingham 2 gown patterns; 2 pairs red shoes from A.E.C. for boys, Jack and Ralph, a parcel—to Mrs. Brigden, 1 pair silk shoes and some flowers—Arthur's Geographical Grammar,—Locke ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... less than half-an-hour after they were uttered a long-visaged Yankee, in a straw hat, nankeen trousers, and fisherman's boots, came to the spot where they were at work, and seated himself on the trunk of a tree hard by to watch ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... and walks back from the City for exercise. I have known some who have had maid-servants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look as florid and rosy as any British squire who has never left his paternal beef and acres. They do not wear nankeen jackets in summer. Their livers are not out of order any more; and as for hookahs, I dare swear there are not two now kept alight within the bills of mortality; and that retired Indians would as soon think of smoking them, as their wives would of burning themselves on their ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... passage from Calcutta to England. In company with the other officers on board the ship, I paid my respects to the illustrious exile of Longwood, who received us in his garden, where he was walking about, in a nankeen dress and a large broad-brimmed straw-hat, with General Montholon, Count Las Casas, and his son Emanuel, then a little boy; who I dare say does not recollect me, but who nevertheless played with my sword-knot and the tassels of my Hessian boots ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did not go, I sent Luise,' said a hoarse voice at the door, and a little bandy-legged old man came hobbling into the room in a lavender frock coat with black buttons, a high white cravat, short nankeen trousers, and blue worsted stockings. His diminutive little face was positively lost in a mass of iron-grey hair. Standing up in all directions, and falling back in ragged tufts, it gave the old man's figure a resemblance to a crested hen—a resemblance the more striking, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... that given us by Mr. Ireland from the "Boyhood Memories" of Rufus Dawes. His old schoolmate speaks of him as "a spiritual-looking boy in blue nankeen, who seems to be about ten years old,—whose image more than any other is still deeply stamped upon my mind, as I then saw him and loved him, I knew not why, and thought him so angelic and remarkable." That "blue nankeen" sounds strangely, it may be, to the readers ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and laugh as I saw her stand by the half hour before the glass, giving an extra twist to her curl and an additional dash of white powder on her hair—now fretted because the powder was too thick, now fretted because it was too thin? She was as proud in cambric and calico and nankeen as Harriet is to-day in white tulle and organdy. I remember how careful she was when she ran me along the edges of the new dress. With me she clipped and notched and gored and trimmed, and day and night I went click! click! ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... as well for refreshment as ablution, found himself tempted into an indulgence which, it is not improbable, may have had some share in producing the fatal illness that followed. Having put off in a boat to a small rock at some distance, he sent back a messenger for the nankeen trowsers which he usually wore in bathing; and, though the sea was rough and the night cold, it being then the 3d of January, swam back to the vessel. "I am fully persuaded," says his valet, in relating this imprudent ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... by, as she looked, dressed in a complete suit of old-fashioned nankeen. It was apparently one of the days when the state of his health was at the worst. He leaned on Mrs. Lecount's arm, and was protected from the sun by a light umbrella which she held over him. The housekeeper—dressed ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... as large as life, the accursed sentence that made me shut the book with a snap and come home:—"These coats fit me well, though the cut is not fashionable. I shall require also three pairs of trousers, three nankeen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... surface of white is present, such as the shirt front, or lady's handkerchief, a piece of dark cloth (a temporary bosom of nankeen is best,) may be put over it, but quickly withdrawn when the process is about ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... moving. Within its central chamber sat a venerable man, lightly clad in nankeen breeches, a cap of liberty, and a Liberty silk shirt. He was writing cabalistically. He did not know why, nor did he know what "cabalistically" meant. This was his punishment. Why was he to be punished? Those who read shall hear. The walls of the chamber were fitted with tubes, and electric ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... and piles of foreign treasure. Vast coils of cable, like tame boa-constrictors, served as seats for men with large stomachs, and heavy watch-seals, and nankeen trowsers, who sat looking out of the door toward the ships, with little other sign of life than an occasional low talking, as if in their sleep. Huge hogsheads perspiring brown sugar and oozing slow molasses, as if nothing tropical could keep within bounds, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... with the sun round which the earth revolves, that he has never taken any notice of the son that revolves round him; and that he hasn't had a new suit of clothes since he was fourteen; and that he wasn't even taken out of nankeen frocks and trousers till he was quite unpleasant in 'em; and touches on a good many more family matters to the same purpose. To make short of a long story, gentlemen, they all talk together, and cry together, and remind the old gentleman ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... epaulettes of yellow cotton cord, the heavy belt with its brass buckle, the cumbrous boots, plaited and bound with iron like churns were in rather a ludicrous contrast to the equipment of our light and jockey-like boys in nankeen jackets and neat tops, that spin ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the boy, beginning to walk up and down again and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to gaze at us at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... kind now—fashions repeat themselves, wise people say; and so they do in some cases, though not in all. I cannot believe that boys will ever again be buttoned up and choked as they used to be, above all in summer, when their hot, red faces seemed on the point of bursting out of their 'nankeen' suits, held together by ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... and Arabia, the Malay archipelago and China and Europe. The principal exports by the port of Calcutta are piece goods, opium, raw silk, indigo, rice, sugar, cotton, grain, saltpetre, &c.: the principal imports are woollen goods, copper, wine, pepper, spices, tea, nankeen, camphire, &c. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... a London of trim-built wherries and nankeen pantaloons, when The Times cost as much as a dozen oysters, which everyone then ate. I remember backing myself in my humorous way to eat sixty "seconds" in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... contain raw cotton, cotton yarn, sewing cotton, unbleached calico, bleached calico, dimity, jean, fustian, velveteen, gause, nankeen, gingham, bed furniture, printed calico, marseilles, flannel, baise, stuff; woollen cloth and wool, worsted, white, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... before we are weary of the monotonous flow of undiluted criticism. The Diary of a Lover of Literature is at once the pleasing record of a cultivated mind, and a monument to a species of existence that is as obsolete as nankeen ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... a nameless relief of spirits on account of Boldwood's absence, approached her hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the haymakers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... passed through some thick belts of hedge-tree and scrub; the country then opened and became splendidly grassed, with gums and other trees. We also saw, for the first time, a new gum-tree, having a large broad dark-green leaf, and the bark of a nankeen colour, which gave a very pretty effect to the country. At seventeen miles, not finding any water, and having passed five deep holes surrounded with ironstone conglomerate rock similar to Frew's Water Hole, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... a military company of big boys that had real wooden guns, such as the little boys never could get, and silk oil-cloth caps, and nankeen roundabouts, and white pantaloons with black stripes down the legs; and once they marched out to a boy's that had a father that had a farm, and he gave them all a free dinner in an arbor before the house; bread and butter, and apple-butter, and ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... managed; though Percy was somewhat surprised to observe that a man, who had joined the corps that morning, blessed with the most solemn countenance in the world—a fine Roman nose, and a forehead like a sage's—was now dressed in nankeen tights, and a coat without skirts, splitting the sides of the gallery in the part of Tony Lumpkin. But into the heroine, Fanny Millinger threw a grace, a sweetness, a simple, yet dignified spirit of trite love that at once charmed and astonished ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... marched a company of the royal body-guard, in scarlet cutaway coats like those worn by the British grenadiers during the American Revolution, pipe-clayed cross-belts, white nankeen breeches, enormous cavalry boots, extending half-way up the thigh, and curious hats of black glazed leather, of a shape which was a cross between a fireman's helmet and the cap of a Norman man-at-arms. They ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... turkey eggs an' guinea eggs an' sell 'em. I gits ten cents duzen fo' de eggs. Marse and Missus wuz English an' de count money like dis—fo' pence, ha' penny. Whut I do with my money? Chile I saved it to buy myself a nankeen dress." ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... was, in this humdrum world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come rattling down Main Street into the child's heart, sitting with some dignity in his weather-beaten buggy, while instead of shining armour and a glistening helmet he wore nankeen trousers, a linen coat, and a dignified panama hat. Moreover, it is stencilled into her memory indelibly that the colonel was the first man in this wide world to raise ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... wore a look of eager yet doleful anticipation, as of a man going to execution and possessed with an intense desire to feel the edge of the axe. His thin fingers twitched and fumbled about his pockets, his lips moved, and he shook his head from time to time. This old gentleman was clad in nankeen trousers of ancient cut, a velvet waistcoat and a blue swallow-tail coat, all greatly too large for him. His scant locks were crowned by a cheap straw hat of the newest make, his shoes and gaiters were of a twenty-year-old pattern. Altogether, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... party lingered at the breakfast-table, Edith looked up, and saw the tall, thin figure of a woman in a nankeen riding-shirt, and a nankeen corded sun-bonnet, in the act of dismounting from her great, raw-boned ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... we shall see," responded Gavrila; "any way, we won't take off the guard. Here you, Eroshka!" he added, addressing a poor fellow in a yellow nankeen coat, who considered himself to be a gardener, "what have you to do? Take a stick and sit here, and if anything happens, run to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... necessary in the apartments during the month of January, and flannel and cloth dresses are worn; while, on the contrary, the same month on the shores of the Pacific, up to 40 deg., is mild enough to allow strangers from the south, and even the Sandwich islanders, to wear their light nankeen trowsers and gingham round-abouts. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... injudicious attire of the individual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long, thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of the evil-disposed. His nether garment was a yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the costume of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... to make use of their firearms. The burly sovereign of the territory was nowhere to be seen. He probably thought discretion the best part of valour, and had retired again to his capital, to await the results of the contest. At last Jack's eyes fell on a little wizened old Spaniard in a straw hat, nankeen trousers, and a light blue coat, who, as soon as he made his appearance, began to order about everybody in an authoritative and energetic manner, and very quickly brought the confused rabble of defenders into order. Two or three other Spaniards, who from their appearance seemed to be officers, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... ankles, and our dresses were whale-boned down the front, with very long bodices. We had wide flat hats trimmed with wreaths of roses and tied under our chins. We wore low necks and short sleeves summer and winter. I was thin but very tough. My Aunt Knodle[2] made long mittens for me out of nankeen beautifully embroidered; they came up to my shoulders, and were sewn on every day to keep me from spoiling my hands. My hair was braided in front and my everyday gingham sunbonnet sewn to my hair. This was done in the vain hope of keeping off sunburn, for I was dark, like my mother, and my complexion ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... seek other fields to reap, and almost every city in the Union, and many a city across the sea, can point to some eminent merchant, lawyer, or what not, as "a Portsmouth boy." Portsmouth even furnished the late king of the Sandwich Islands, Kekuanaoa, with a prime minister, and his nankeen Majesty never had a better. The affection which all these exiles cherish for their birthplace is worthy of remark. On two occasions—in 1852 and 1873, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Strawberry Bank—the transplanted sons of Portsmouth were ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... three waistcoats, one a brimstone yellow, one a plaid, and the third must be white; furthermore, let there be three pairs of trousers of the most fetching kind—one pair of white English stuff, one pair of nankeen, and a third of thin black kerseymere; lastly, send a black dress-coat and a black satin waistcoat. If you have picked up another Florine somewhere, I beg her good offices for two cravats. So far this is nothing; I count upon you and your skill in these matters; ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... folded over her arm. She did passively as Gypsy told her. When it was all buttoned, she suddenly remembered that Gypsy wore only her thin, nankeen sack, and she offered ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... and down the room; it seemed strange to him to see this beautiful woman in her nankeen dress in the midst of all this poverty. Madam Bovary reddened; he turned away, thinking perhaps there had been an impertinent look in his eyes. Then she put back the little girl, who had just been sick ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert |
