"Oldish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whom I talked a good while to my great content: and so to other places, among others, to my tailor's; and then to the belt-maker's, where my belt cost me 55s. of the colour of my new suit; and here understanding that the mistress of the house, an oldish woman in a hat, hath some water good for the eyes, she did dress me, making my eyes smart most horribly, and did give me a little glass of it, which I will use, and hope it will do me good. So to the cutler's, and there did give Tom, who was with me ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... stood hesitating in the doorway. James saw an oldish man, gray and stooped with a rather wistful lost-dog expression ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... sinister-looking house the Garden of Flowers? He assured me that it was, and seemed very sure of the fact. We knocked at a large door which opened immediately, slipping back in its groove. Then two funny little women appeared, oldish-looking, but with evident pretensions to youth: exact types of the figures painted on vases, with their ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... the village there stood a hut which was larger and a little cleaner than the others around it. An oldish man with a grey beard was seated on a stone bench beside the door. If tobacco had been known to the tribe, he would probably have been smoking. In default of that he was thrown back upon meditation. Apparently his meditations were not satisfactory, for he frowned portentously once or twice, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to be made, during which he was overtaken. He is a stupid idiotic sort of man, so that the natives have not deemed him worthy of receiving the honours of their ceremonies, and still call him a boy, or youth, although he is an oldish man. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... tumbled off the train, stiff, weary, and disappointed, we were regarded curiously by a small group of people who worked in the mines. They were a heavy looking lot—oldish men with beards, and dull, stolid women. They regarded us with sullen hostility, but there was no fire in their antagonism. Some of the men spat and muttered ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... figure of whom it was natural to ask who that was, it so surely looked like Somebody—though Mrs. Hawthorne had very likely asked because, merely, in her eyes he was queer. It was an oldish man, dressed with marked elegance, white tie, white waistcoat, white flower at his lapel. The whole of worldly wisdom dwelt in his weary eye. He had yellow and withered cheeks, black hair with a dash of white above the ears, and a mustache whose thickest part curved over his mouth like a ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... came four on together, whereof one, a gaunt, oldish man, was saying: It is not so much how long we shall be getting there, but what shall betide when we get there. For this is not like lifting a herd of neat, whereof sharing is easy, but with this naked-skinned, two-legged cattle, which forsooth ye can eat and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... Wright he steps up to one of the tables where a fellow is setting with eyeglasses and chin whiskers—oldish sort of man; and you knowed he looked older than he was. He didn't please me. He sizes us up. We was still wearing the clothes we bought in Cheyenne at the Golden Eagle, which we thought was good enough; but this man, all he ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... ten years after James Batter's tragedy—Mr Cursecowl was an oldish man—he is gathered to his fathers now—and was considerably past his best, as his wife, douce, honest woman, used to observe. His dress was a little in the Pagan style, and rendered him kenspeckle to the eye of observation. Instead of a hat, he generally wore a long red Kilmarnock nightcap, with ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... occupied with drafting and signing documents in the midst of the uproar that raged on all sides. It was not long before Bakunin too put in an appearance, principally in search of a good officer—who was not, however, forthcoming. The commandant of a large contingent from the Vogtland, an oldish man, raised Bakunin's hopes by the impassioned energy of his speeches, and he would have had him appointed commandant-general on the spot. But it seemed as if any real decision were impossible in that frenzy and confusion, and as the only hope of mastering it seemed ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... mother a hump," returned the plain-spoken and matter-of-fact hunter. "Nobody shud never go to promise wot they can't perform. I've lived, off an' on, nigh forty years now, and I've obsarved them wot promises most always does least; so if you'll take the advice of an oldish hunter, you'll give ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... and wore the usual waist-cloth in front, and ornaments on their heads and arms. Several, when they saw us, came forward, and began to shake their spears and vociferate loudly. Before we could understand their meaning, they were joined by a tall oldish-looking man, who seemed to be their chief. After he had made a long harangue, Donald answered him; but I saw by his gestures and those of his followers that no satisfactory arrangement had been arrived at. Donald began to ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the changed quality of Gower's tone. The amused expression had vanished. Gower leaned forward a little. There was something very like appeal in his expression. MacRae was suddenly conscious of facing a still different man,—an oldish, fat man with thinning hair ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... they were ladies; at all events, they was dressed like it. Oldish, both of 'em. One was a foreigner. I know that because I heard her speak; and it wasn't English. The other one spoke back to her in the same way, but I heard her speak English too. And she was the one as sat ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... become the Company's ryott in accordance with the wish, he said, of the Dupha Gam; but when I told him he ought to send or go to the Suddiya Sahib, or Political Agent, he said he wanted to see the Dupha first: he was accompanied by a very loquacious oldish man, who had just returned from Hook-hoom, to which place he had gone with the Dupha. They left apparently not much pleased at my being ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... truly a tired, oldish Trudy speaking. In the last sentence Trudy had touched the greatest depths of which she was capable—causing Mary to hint ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... was the name of this creature. He was an oldish and wicked man, born on the Bowery. He had been a heavy-weight prize-fighter in the days of John L. Sullivan; then he had met John, and been, ever since, an honest crook who made an excellent living by conducting a boxing-school in which the real work was ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... oldish fellow in a fur coat." And the young man wished to enter upon a narrative, when ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... succeeded to the estate of Elston, and died there at the age of ninety-two, a bachelor. He had a strong taste for poetry, like his youngest brother Erasmus. Robert also cultivated botany, and, when an oldish man, he published his 'Principia Botanica.' This book in MS. was beautifully written, and my father [Dr. R.W. Darwin] declared that he believed it was published because his old uncle could not endure that such fine caligraphy ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Sunday school purposes, for an Orange Lodge, for temperance and magic lantern itinerant lectures, and for local hops. Now, with the dead body of Harding laid out upon an improvised table of rough boards on trestles, it assumed the most solemn aspect it had ever exhibited. Three oldish men were there, whom people called Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins; they were all the summoned jurors who had responded. Soon, from the other side, the waggon came in sight, and when it came forward, the remains ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... oldish, broad, silent Oscarina, who was suspicious of her frivolous mistress for a month, so that Juanita Haydock was able to crow, "There, smarty, I told you you'd run into the Domestic Problem!" But Oscarina adopted Carol as a daughter, and with her as faithful to the kitchen as Bea had been, there ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... for the worst offences: solitary confinement in darkness at first. There are many young offenders; the governors say they are horrid plagues, for they are not allowed to flog them, and they are little influenced by darkness and solitary confinement: oldish men much afraid of it. The disease most common in this prison is scrofula; and it is a curious fact that those who work with their arms at the mills are free from it, those who work with their feet at the tread-mills ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... thing to be attended to is, your demeanor towards a young wife. As to oldish ones, or widows, time and other things have, in most cases, blunted their feelings, and rendered harsh or stern demeanor in the husband a matter not of heart-breaking consequence. But with a young ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... if after all it turns out he knows nothing of importance. I received a visit from my old friend Captain Maitland. He came over in his boat from North Maven. He bears his eighty winters wonderfully well. I used to think him an oldish man nearly thirty years ago. How time flies. Though I say come when you can, I would not for a moment draw you away from your duty. You know that so well that I need not have said so. I shall be looking soon for your promotion. I met Captain Courtney while ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... his name, but said he was a "sort of an oldish man," with white hair, and spent all his time in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells, and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels, full of them. I thought over everybody who would be likely to be there, but could fix upon no one; when, the next ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... position, but she heard the clatter of horses' hoofs from without, and presently the little procession passed the vicarage pew, and she could indulge her curiosity without sacrifice to pride. First of all came Lord Darcy, a thin, oldish man, with a face that looked tired and kind, and faintly amused by the amount of attention which his entrance had attracted. Then his wife, a tall, fair woman, with a beautiful profile, and an air of languid discontent, who floated past with rustling silken skirts, leaving an impression of elegance ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... sailed. The second mate of the Pilgrim told me that they had an old gentleman on board who knew me, and came from the college that I had been in. He could not recollect his name, but said he was a "sort of an oldish man,'' with white hair, and spent all his time in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels full of them. I thought over everybody who would be likely to be there, but could fix upon no one; when, the next day, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... oldish man," he said, "and—yes, there is no use in denying that I am comfortably off. I want a wife; or rather, my neighbors seem bent upon finding me one; and, if the worst has to come to the worst, I prefer to choose for ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... more in a good while after that; and June curiously watched her, with immense reverence. The thin pale little face, a little turned from the light, so that she could see better; the intent eyes; the wise little mouth, where childish innocence and oldish prudence made a queer meeting; the slim little fingers that held the book; above all, the sweet calm of the face. June would not gaze, but she looked and looked, as she could, by glances; and nearly worshipped ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... at the station steps together. Ashton jumped out, and ran to meet George; but blank was his astonishment to see an oldish lady and her attendant alight from the vehicle, which he had imagined ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... said Ole despondingly. "No, no, Hans, give her up, boy, give her up. It is the advice of an oldish ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... you see them around everywhere?—the women dressed like girls of sixteen to eighteen—and some of them are that, and younger. They go hopping and laughing about—and they seem to please the men and to have no end of a good time. Especially the oldish men. Oh, yes, you know a squab on sight—tight skirt, low shoes and silk stockings, cute pretty face, always laughing, hat set on rakishly and hair done to match, and always a big purse or bag—with a yellow-back or so in it—as a kind ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... been roommates for five years at college, and never once did we have a shadow of a disagreement. Of course we occasionally got in a kind of penumbra. Once I remember when I was touchy because you called Professor Edwin Green an oldish person, but my pettishness only lasted "like a cloud's flying shadow," and that ought ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... of propriety and general historical authenticity there are of course parents in the story. And one or two other oldish persons. But they all go away just as early in the narrative as I can manage it.—Are obliged to ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... gone, there came in his place as curate an oldish man, grey-haired and meagre; a great adorer of Archbishop Laud and of King Charles the First, 'the Royal Martyr,' as he would say; but for all his half Popish notions, he was blameless, nay, austere in his life; and he had thriven so ill in the gay ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... discharging my firearms. Consequently we at length succeeded in causing a rout, and driving the enemy away. There were a great number of natives in the bushes, besides those who attacked us. There were not many oldish men among them, only one with grey hair. I am reminded here to mention that in none of my travels in these western wilds have I found any places of sepulture of any kind. The graves are not consumed by the continual fires that the natives keep up in their ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... I had a feeling that the man at the other table was gazing at me. I glanced at him, but seemed to have been mistaken. He was looking absently at the sky over my head. I now took thought of what a very silent, motionless, undemonstrative man this was. He was thin and oldish, and of moderate stature, with a narrow face, pale eyes, and a very long nose. He was dressed in dull brown cloth, and was in all respects—save his length of nose—one of those persons of whom nobody ever takes much note. And he in turn did not seem to take ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to the conclusion that the last headmaster had thought that the Sixth Form would probably make less fun and take fewer liberties with him than any other form, and that when the present Chief had come he had not had the heart to remove a school institution. Mr Finnemore was an oldish man, getting on for sixty, and his hair was white. He had a long moustache, his clothes carried the odour of stale tobacco, his legs seemed hung on to his body by hooks that every day appeared less likely to maintain the weight attached to them. His face ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... the outside of the bar suggests that the oldish man will get into trouble. But the bartender says: "No; he will go home all right. But he won't sing all the way there. About the time he gets home he'll realize what money he has spent, and you would not like to be his ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... days between Macquarie Harbour and Hobart Town. "I am afraid that is rather stiff, Blunt," said Frere. "That's one of the best billets going, you know. I doubt if I have enough interest to get it for you. Besides," he added, eyeing the sailor critically, "you are getting oldish for that sort of ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... handful of loose pearls out of a jar and handed them round in a casual way for us to look at. The stewards opened bottles and we all sat down for a drink and a smoke. I spoke to one captain—an oldish man—and he grinned amiably, but did not answer. Another captain leaned over to me and said, 'Don't take any notice of him, he's boozed ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... there was no danger of that. Was pleased to hear of our settlement behind his land and hoped it would help to bring him customers. Turning from his door, I made straight for a lawyer's office, to make sure whether the owner of vacant land could not be forced to open a road. The lawyer, an oldish man, listened to my story and told me to give up the idea of compelling the making of the road we needed. You are a stranger and ignorant of how matters stand. The law is straight enough, that whenever the government ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking. They were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn't slept. To one, an oldish man with a white beard, his uniform studded with decorations, who was pointed out as the Colonel, we ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... that hides the of him. On most days it will be "The Times", on Wednesday it may be "Punch", and on Saturdays "The Spectator." "That is a gentleman's reading," he says. When the paper is lowered, as he turns a page, you behold one of those oldish gentlemen with a rather pleasant bad temper who really only mean to demand by it that young people shall pay them the compliment of "getting round" them. As the time of the performance draws near he is apt, at each lowering of the paper, to count you up as you sit there waiting, and if there ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... and said that he had to come to the colonel and be identified. The colonel was in the back room of a little cottage on the other side of the road. I made my way through the garden and entered the house. The colonel, an oldish (p. 085) man, was sitting at a table. In front of him was an empty glass and an empty whisky bottle. It struck me from a superficial glance that the colonel was the only full thing in the room. He seemed surprised at having so late a visitor. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... strength enough to handle a telescope; the second, aged, and something of an invalid; the third, for fighting purposes, scarce worth thinking of. His fidelity might be depended upon; but he is also an oldish man, and would count for little in a conflict, with such desperadoes as those who design making themselves masters ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Lootenant Morshed going to the Mess tent to call on his uncle and raise a drink; but all hands had gone to the front. We thought we 'eard somebody bathing behind the tent, and we found an oldish gentleman tryin' to drown a boy in knickerbockers in a horse-trough. He kept him under with a bicycle, so to speak. He 'ad nearly accomplished his fell design, when we frustrated him. He was in a highly malleable condition and full ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... that is all. The poor destitute children who were picked up by kindhearted Boers, after the extermination of their parents, were apprenticed to farmers till they came of age. It is a remarkable fact that these children never attained their majority. You might meet oldish men in the Transvaal who were not, according to their masters' reckoning, twenty-one years of age. The assertion that slavery did not exist in the Transvaal is only made to hoodwink the English public. I have known men who have owned slaves, and who have ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... One of the officers on duty was determined to make sure this time, and stopped the passing of the message. He made his way along the trench where the men by this time had assumed their gas helmets, until he came to one stolid, oldish man who was on sentry, staring truculently out in front without his gas protection on. "Jones," said the officer, "can you smell pineapples?" "What, sir," he grunted, "I could if I had a tin of 'em under ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... enough for the postal authorities, the cabman had some difficulty in finding it, and went wrong before he went right. It was a dingy street, and not very long; it had an unimportant, apologetic sort of air, as if it were quite used to being overlooked. The houses were oldish, and very narrow, so that a good many were packed into the short length; the pavement was narrow, too, and so were the windows; they, for the most part, were carefully draped with curtains of doubtful hue. Some were further guarded from prying eyes by sort of gridirons, politely ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... twenty years and more ago now. He was oldish even then as a young man, just as he is oldish still in middle age. Long may his industrious elderliness flourish for the good of the world! He lectured a little in conversation then; he lectures more now and listens less, toilsomely disentangling what you already understand, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Dr. Cox, was extremely good to me. He is an oldish man, with a keen, clever, wrinkled face; he is of middle-size, and walks very slowly and deliberately; he is a fervent Catholic. He is very sharp and businesslike, but there is an air of wonderful goodness and kindness about him; he takes one by the arm in a very pleasant manner; I have seen ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... I met two of our camp companions with packs on their backs following the wagon trail, and we stopped and had a short talk. They were oldish men perhaps 50 years old, one a Mr. Fish of Indiana and another named Gould. They said they could perhaps do as well on foot as to follow the slow ox teams, but when I told them what those ahead of them were doing, and how they must go, they did not seem to be entirely satisfied, as ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... about to put on his dressing-gown, changes his mind, and wraps it round SHAWN as well as he can. CARVE then puts on an oldish coat.) ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... Near her sat an oldish woman with an almost toothless mouth, who was chattering to her in a tone that Letty knew to ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... threatened soon to disfigure her entirely. And yet, from habit, and through passive obedience to routine, Maria-Jose continued to dress like a young girl of eighteen, in brightly colored gowns, thin waists and white hats that ill became her frail and oldish face. ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... Lord Mulross, a respectable troglodytic peer, who represented the one sluggish element in a swiftly progressing Government. He was an oldish man with bushy whiskers and a reputed mastery of the French tongue. A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's councils, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... he answered. "I told you my lungs were my weak point. I am turned down—and I am going abroad. It's not very pleasant to find oneself staying on in London, going to a little dinner party here and there where all the men are oldish, when all ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... maids were hysterical. But Frank and Della, with a few sharp-spoken words, shamed the women and brought them to their senses. However, it was not to be wondered at that hysteria prevailed, as there were few men about to give protection in case of an attack on the house, the butler being an oldish and timorous man and the ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... speech, perhaps a trifle oldish in its way for a wee lassie of less than eight, acted like magic upon the heart of the desolate boy, who had known no home ever since his mother passed over to the Far Beyond; he then and there mentally vowed that he would settle this business before he turned in that night; ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... gentleman whom I knew ten years ago, brisk, active, vigorous, with a kind of fire of physical well-being and cheerful spirits glowing through him. Now, after a course, I presume, of rather free living, pale, thin, oldish, with a grave and care or pain worn brow,—yet still lively and cheerful in his accost, though with something invincibly saddened in his tones. Another, formerly commander of a revenue vessel, —a man of splendid epaulets and very aristocratic equipment and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "There's a tenpun' note missing," said he. "Don't play them tricks on me, lass; I'm getting an oldish man. Where hast hidden it? I mun go to th' ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett |
