"Sleek" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poem, for all these things are inconsistent with the introduction of a shepherd of souls in the character of a shepherd of sheep. A nineteenth-century reader, it may be hoped, finds no more difficulty in idealizing Edward King as a shepherd than in personifying the ocean calm as "sleek Panope and all her sisters," which, to be sure, may have been a trouble to Johnson. If, however, Johnson is deplorably prosaic, neither can we agree with Pattison that "in 'Lycidas' we have reached the high-water mark of English ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... remember having seen him before, and yet he was vaguely familiar. One eye looked at her steadily from beneath a drooping lid, the other blinked like the shutter of a camera and seemed to take intimate photographs of all parts of her grimy person. His sleek hair was curled over his temples with ends pointing up, and she caught, or ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... resume darning, and looks out of window.) Why, as I live, there is Monna Giovanna coming down the hill from the castle. Stops and stares at our cottage. Ay, ay! stare at it: it's all you have left us. Shame upon you! She beautiful! sleek as a miller's mouse! Meal enough, meat enough, well fed; but beautiful—bah! Nay, see, why she turns down the path through our little vineyard, and I sneezed three times this morning. Coming to visit my lord, for the first time ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... times as to the price of those plums, Tota cuddled himself down to sleep. The two sleek, white well-bullocks in the courtyard were steadily chewing the cud of their evening meal; old Pir Khan squatted at the head of Holden's horse, his police sabre across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked like a bull- frog in a pond. Ameera's mother sat spinning ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... poor dumb pilgrims of the road the bullocks are the most terrible to see. They are not patient, but go most unwillingly with lowered head and furtive sideways motion, in their eyes a horror of great fear. The sleek cattle, knee deep in pasture, massed at the gate, and stared mild-eyed and with inquiring bellow at the retreating drove; but these passed without answer on to the Unknown, and ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... convoy of army planes had taken off and was circling over the SF-22 in anticipation of her start. Trim, speedy fighting ships these were, with heavy caliber machine-guns in turrets fore and aft and normally manned by crews of twelve each. The under surfaces of their bodies glistened smooth and sleek in the light from the field, for the landing gears had been drawn within and the openings sealed by the close-fitted armor plate that protected these ordinarily ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... head, Crowned with fire, glowing red, Quaintly carved and softly sleek As Afric maiden's downy cheek. Comrade of each idle hour In forest shade or leafy bower; Lotus-eaters from thy ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... threatened him. He was absorbed in his pursuit, and Marguerite was looking over with her attention not less absorbed than his own, when to their astonishment the magnificent carriage, with the heavy, sleek, overfed horses, of the Count Albrecht, rolled ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... rather ludicrous procession, if such it could be called, consisting of so few persons. The principal individual in the group was a florid, fat, happy-looking gentleman of about fifty, with a profusion of nearly white whiskers, which met at his chin, mounted upon a sleek charger, whose half-ambling, half-prancing pace, had evidently been acquired by long habit of going in procession; this august figure was habited in a scarlet coat and cocked hat, having aiguillettes, and all the other appanage of a general officer; he also ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... five in the afternoon you may see long lines of sleek, well-groomed cows standing in their cement-floored, perfectly drained sheds. The walls and ceilings are spotless from constant applications of whitewash, ventilation is scientifically arranged, doors and windows are screened against the flies. Here ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... remonstrate with the sleek-limbed and lightly draped Martha, who chanced to be passing the tavern, carrying a pail of water, in which, as the poet neatly ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Even silhouetted against the eastern sky, it sparkled and glistened. Impassive it stood, graceful, seeming to strain into the sky, anxious to be off and gone. The loading gantry was a dark, spidery framework beside The Ship, leaning against it, drawing strength from its sleek beauty. ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... heart, they are still savage in countenance, and these boys had faces of wolves and foxes. They followed their visitors into the church, where there was only an old woman praying to a picture, beneath which hung a votive hand and foot, and a few young Huron suppliants with very sleek hair, whose wandering devotions seemed directed now at the strangers, and now at the wooden effigy of the House of St. Ann borne by two gilt angels above the high-altar. There was no service, and the visitors soon quitted the chapel amid the clamors of the boys outside. Some young girls, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... a fine summer's evening in late July, while Dave and Irene drifted in his car over the rich ripening prairies. Everywhere were fields of dark green wheat, already beginning to glimmer with the gold of harvest; everywhere were herds of sleek cattle sighing and blowing contentedly in the cool evening air. Away to the west lay the mountains, blue and soft as a pillow of velvet for the head of the dying day; overhead, inverted islands of brass and copper floated lazily in an inverted sea of azure ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... of the field she spied something that quickened her steps with pleasure. A baby colt, long-legged, sleek of head and altogether "adorable" as Betty would have said, ambled more or less ungracefully about enjoying the shade of a clump of trees and ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... the bell beside the fireplace. Bude answered the summons and was despatched to find Jay. He appeared in due course, a tall, dark, sleek young man wearing a swallow-tail ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... had tartly pointed out that where the saloons were openly vaunting themselves disdainful of public decency, the public was in immediate process of wiping out the saloons. Which citation of fact caused a cold chill to permeate the spines of the liquor interests, and led the large, sleek leader of that clan to make a surpassingly polite and friendly call upon Hal, who, rather to his surprise, found that he liked the man very much. They had parted, indeed, on hearty terms and the understanding that there would be no further objection to the "coke-law" from ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... roots of the willows. We ate for a quarter of the moon's course before we went back around the hard land to see what had become of Taku-Wakin. We fed as far as there was any browse between the sea and the marsh, and at last we saw them come, across the salt pastures. They were sleek as otters with the black slime of the sloughs, and there was not a garment left on them which had not become water-soaked and useless. Some of the women had made slips of sea-birds' skins and nets of marsh grass ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... let this annual election go on undisturbed. Smile and keep your counsel. Let this sleek ferret Ferris, go on and marry the girl, for I, alone, can aid you. Worthington fears me. I know too ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... gifted with a more stirring sympathy for the wants that, in the present iniquitous system of society, reduce him to little less than pining idiotcy, or madden him to what the statutes call crime, and what judges, sleek as their ermine, preach upon as rebellion to the government—the government that, in fact, having stung starvation into treason, takes to itself the loftiest praise for refusing the hangman—a task—for appeasing Justice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... at the foot of the kopje two figures—the one, a dog, white and sleek, one yellow ear hanging down over his left eye; the other, his master, a lad of fourteen, and no other than the boy Waldo, grown into a heavy, slouching youth of fourteen. The dog mounted the kopje ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... coachman went ahead currying the sleek-looking Ajax II, who whinnied with pleasure as the currycomb slid ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... tongue, you fool!" cried Mr. Franks, striking the merchant a tough blow on his sleek sides, as the young lad turned away. "Don't you see the young gentleman a-swabbing his eyes, and note his ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unwieldy appearance, which for a short time completely distanced the horses. But this speed could not be continued, and the Major and Alexander soon found themselves rapidly coming up. The poor animals exerted themselves in vain; their sleek coats first turned to a blue colour, and then white with foam and perspiration, and at last they, were beaten to a stand-still, and were brought down by the rifles of our travellers, who then dismounted their horses, and walked up ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the managing man walked across to the bushes accordingly, and Pat did exactly as he was desired. It was a pretty thing to see the beautiful young animal, with his sleek brown coat shining like a lady's curls, arching his neck, and throwing down his head, in his impatience to start. He was the very picture of health and symmetry; when he flung up his head you'd think the blood was running from his nose, his nostrils were so ruddy bright. He cantered off in ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... a model for all cats,—so sleek, so intelligent, so decorous and well-trained, always occupying exactly her own cushion by the fire, and never transgressing in one iota the proprieties belonging to a cat of good breeding. She shared our affections ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... either for make or figure; but, sorry and rough as is their general appearance, they are, I am informed, capable of bearing much fatigue, and resisting such privations as would soon render our more sleek cavalry unfit for service. That they are active, and surefooted, I can vouch; for, in all their sudden wheelings and evolutions in this confined space, not one of them stumbled. They formed, indeed, a striking contrast to the beautiful white charger that was led ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... lieutenant, who placed a watch in the neighbourhood where the ghost had appeared. The next night, in bodily form, the ghost of Sam Smitch was captured, dirtier than ever, but yet fat and sleek, though rather pallid. Not, however, till he was brought on deck, to be well scrubbed under the superintendence of the master at arms, were the crew convinced that the ghost was no ghost at all, but that dirty Sam, fool as he was, had been bamboozling them effectually, while ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... I mused, "and by what right?—how dared you come to this house, and lay hands on this woman? Who has ordained that she should suffer for you? You array yourself in fine linen, and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble. You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you perorate as warmly in ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... is an ale-house bench, Whereon I sit so jolly; A smiling rosy country wench My saint and patron holy. I kiss her cheek so red and sleek, I press her ringlets wavy; And in her willing ear I speak ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to go out near their waggons one evening, and saw two or three bright-looking maids among them, and it riled me to think that they was going to be handed over to some rich old elder with perhaps a dozen other wives, and I used to feel as it would be a satisfaction to pump some lead into them sleek-looking scoundrels who had them in charge. I did not expect that the gals had any idea what was in store for them. I know them Mormons when they goes out to get what they call converts, preaches ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... next morning, after the father and mother were gone, Tip-Top got on the edge of the nest again, and looked over and saw lovely Miss Pussy washing her face among the daisies under the tree, and her hair was sleek and white as the daisies, and her eyes were yellow and beautiful to behold, and she looked up to the tree bewitchingly, and said, "Little birds, little birds, come down; Pussy wants ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... all about him, including the stable boy, whose hair looked as sleek as the Deacon's horse. For the Deacon has some queer notions about the duties of employers to their servants, and, though the very kindest of men, is generally thought by the neighbors to be "a queer stick." The Deacon's wife, ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... waistcoat of a broad pink-striped pattern, and over that again, a wide-skirted green coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, whereof the two which garnished the waist, were so far apart, that no man had ever beheld them both at the same time. His hair, which was short, sleek, and black, was just visible beneath the capacious brim of a low-crowned brown hat. His legs were encased in knee-cord breeches, and painted top-boots; and a copper watch-chain, terminating in one seal, and a key of the same material, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... would ultimately be expected to give; for though the question of wedding gifts was usually graduated in this way: 'What are you givin'? Nicholas is givin' spoons!'—so very much depended on the bridegroom. If he were sleek, well-brushed, prosperous-looking, it was more necessary to give him nice things; he would expect them. In the end each gave exactly what was right and proper, by a species of family adjustment arrived at as prices are arrived ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... belle! By Jove! how she dances! I despise the girl with her greedy maw, and deuced airs of high gentility when she is a perfect beggar, but it is a second heaven to dance with her. She has the go of a wild animal in her. She is a little like a panther—so round, so sleek, so agile in her spring. I told her just now I should like to paint her—yellow eyes, hair like an aureole, supple form and satin ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Jefferson; conspicuous from his scarlet waistcoat, bright blue coat, with broad, bright buttons, as well as by his quick and penetrating air, and high-boned, Scottish cast of features. There, too, stood General Knox, then secretary of war, in all the sleek rotundity of his low stature, with a bold and florid face, open, firm, and manly, in its expression. But I recollect that my boyish eye was caught by the appearance of De Yrujo, the Spanish embassador. He stood in the rear of the chair, a little on one side, covered with a splendid diplomatic ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... a most elegant restaurant, where their entry created a stir, and it was whispered from end to end of the room who he was. And the girl with him? People shrugged.... Clara's eyes were alight, and she looked from table to table at the sleek, well-groomed men, and the showy women with their gaudy hair ornaments, bare powdered shoulders, and beautiful gowns. She looked from face to face searching eagerly for—she knew not what; power, perhaps, some power which should justify their costly elegance. This ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... reef, with sleek And foaming lips, before the flooded creek Deep-bunched with arrowy weed, its green expanse Wind-wrinkled and translucent ... A bright trance Of sun-flung splendour lay athwart the wide Blue ocean swept with loops of silvern tide Heavily heaving ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... forward, crouching low upon its belly, its tail twitching from side to side, nearer, nearer. Young Matt felt smothered. He loosened the collar of his shirt. The moon—the moon was so bright! He could even see the muscles in the beast's heavy neck and shoulders working under the sleek skin. ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... mine, while you sport, while you dine, While you drink of your wine like a lord, You might curse, one would say, and grow jaundiced and gray, With such guests every day at your board! But you sleek down your rage like a pard in its cage, And blink in meek fashion through the bars of your passion, As husbands like you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... to fly to America. Glasgow and Manchester weavers starved and rioted. The press was gagged and the Habeas Corpus Act constantly suspended. A second rebellion in Ireland, when Castlereagh "dabbled his sleek young hands in Erin's gore," was suppressed with unusual ferocity. In England in 1812 famine drove bands of poor people to wander and pillage. Under the criminal law, still of medieval cruelty, death was the punishment for the theft of a loaf or ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... her pitying apron frill Vespers Over a little trembling mouse When the sleek cat yawned ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... tim'rous beastie, [sleek] O what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! [hurrying rush] I wad na be laith to rin an' chase thee ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... her platter stood plump Bess, And all across the green Came scampering in, on wing and claw, Chicken fat and lean: Dorking, Spaniard, Cochin China, Bantams sleek and small, Like feathers blown in a great wind, They ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... plump alderman, and suck the blood Enriched by generous wine and costly meat; On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud, Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled feet. Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls, The oyster breeds, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... that sweet language which the ladies so well understand, that has neither stops, commas, accents, letters, figures, characters, notes, nor images. The fat bishop, sensual and careful enough of the sleek, ecclesiastical garment of skin for which he was indebted to his late mother, allowed himself to be plentifully served with hippocras by the delicate hand of Madame, and it was just at his first hiccough that the sound of an approaching cavalcade was heard ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... you've kept your word and got the laugh out of us," cried a stout, sleek spirit, with a kindly face, and a row of little saints round his cap and a rosary at his side. "It's very well we are doing this year; the cathedral is full, the flock increasing, and the true faith holding its own entirely. Ye may shake ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... shoal of jolly porpoises came rolling and tumbling by, turning up their sleek sides to the sun and spouting up the briny element in sparkling showers. No sooner did the sage Oloffe mark this than he was greatly rejoiced. "This," exclaimed he, "if I mistake not, augurs well; the porpoise is a fat, well-conditioned fish, a burgomaster ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... survives with a zeal and vitality which only proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their footmarks are as big as those of young puppies (withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids on man and beast alike ally them with the horde Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One morning ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... be a flabby fellow, and lymphatically yellow, that will matter not a mite. If you take yourself in hand, in a way you'll understand, to become a Son of Light. On your crassness superimposing the peculiar art of glosing in sleek phrases about Sin. If you aim to be a Shocker, carnal theories to cocker is the best way to begin. And every one will say, As you worm your wicked way, "If that's allowable for him which were criminal ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... head, he leaned back against the carving of his chair, and fixed his gaze on the portrait of the English ancestress over the mantelpiece. The firelight flickered over his firm, clear-cut features, over the sleek dark hair, which was brushed straight back from his forehead, and over his sombre smoke-coloured eyes in which a dusky glow came and went. Margaret, watching him with her pensive smile, thought that she had never ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... miscellaneous comradeship becomes easy and rather comforting; while extremely aged people are as compatible and as miserable as disabled old eagles, grouped with a few inches of each other's beaks and claws on the sleek perches of a cage. ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... her seat. It was a pitiful and almost terrible sight to see her, all the florid, vulgar ostentation and sleek content dashed out of her, leaving her with pasty cheeks and horror-stricken, staring eyes to face the ruined future. Mrs. Berry burst ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... in slumber, moved occasionally,—grunted, sighed, or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm, black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his sleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose and a tiny tip of ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... camp-robber was hopping in front of the cabin door picking up morsels of food which were occasionally cast forth. Stephen was preparing dinner, and the appetizing smell drifted out upon the air. Not far away, perched upon the branch of a tree, a sleek squirrel was filling the air with his noisy chattering and scolding. His bright little eyes sparkled with anger at the big strange intruder into his domain, causing him to pour forth all the vitriol of the squirrel vocabulary. Suddenly ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... to tramping harvesters and even hoboes along the road; had enjoyed the sight of their duffle-bags stuck up between the sleek fenders and the hood, and their talk about people and crops along the road, as they hung on the running-board. In the country of long hillslopes and sentinel buttes between the Dakota Bad Lands and Miles City she stopped to shout to ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... for thine own glory, but put forth a helping hand in time to avert the sin and shame. The most pitiful failure in all God's universe is the man who succeeds only in making money. A thieving fox will grow fat by predacity while an honest dog starves in the path of duty. And we have too many sleek Reynards prowling 'round the sheep-pens and dove-cotes of this people, too few faithful Gelerts doing stubborn battle with ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... their little, wabbly-legged baby deer to introduce to Sally Migrundy; and she rubbed their sleek sides and talked to them so ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... corn and hay, With oats to tempt him twice a week; I smooth and curry every day Until his coat is bright and sleek; At night he has a cosy stall; He does not seem to care ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... of our bullocks, came frequently to the spot where his late companion had been killed; but finding that he was gone, he returned to his abundant feed, and when I loaded him to continue our journey down the river he was full and sleek. It was interesting to observe how the bullocks on all previous occasions, almost invariably took cognizance of the place where one of their number had been killed. They would visit it either during the night or the next day, walk round the spot, lift their tails, snuff the air with an ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... resolution of Dumbiedikes, from the high hope which David had entertained, that she might one day be mistress of that fair lordship. Just while this disappointment was bearing heavy on his spirits, Butler comes before his imagination—no longer the half-starved threadbare usher, but fat and sleek and fair, the beneficed minister of Knocktarlitie, beloved by his congregation—exemplary in his life—powerful in his doctrine—doing the duty of the kirk as never Highland minister did before—turning sinners as a colley dog turns sheep—a favourite ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to my cost I've found— God made your soul for pleasure, not for use: It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse, Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound Full upon life, and on the rind of things Rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore And all the gamut of satisfied murmurings, Content with that, nor wishes ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... by Jurisprudence, a sleek, rosy-faced dame, fed with fees, and hung about with commentaries—she coughed through a tedious solo; and Chicanery ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... them. The tall buildings of the Academy, the "ready" line of space destroyers and scouts, and the hundreds of maintenance noncoms of the enlisted Solar Guard, their scarlet uniforms spotted with grime, were all reflected back to the Polaris unit as they eyed the sleek ship from the needlelike nose of her bow to the stubby opening of her rocket exhausts. Not a seam or rivet could be seen in her hull. At the top of the ship, near her nose, a large blister made of six-inch clear crystal indicated the radar bridge. Twelve ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... stapler. He has been bred in woods and forests. He has the blood of the Trevlyns in his veins. I trow the shop on London Bridge will have small charms for him. Were it me, I would sooner—tenfold sooner—join myself to one of those bands of freebooters who ravage the roads, and fatten upon sleek and well-fed travellers, than content myself with the pottering life of a trader! Ah, we shall see, we shall see! I will keep my word to my father. But for all that I scarce think that when Cuthbert starts forth again it will be for London Bridge ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... adaptation to theatrical purposes. Nevertheless the world laughed and cried over Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Dan'l Peggotty, and Caleb Plummer, behind the footlights, years after Dolly Spanker, Aminadab Sleek, Timothy Toodles, Alfred Evelyn, and Geoffrey Dalk, their contemporaries in the standard and legitimate drama, created solely and particularly for dramatic representation, were absolutely forgotten. And Sir Henry ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... her anger melted for a moment, and closing her eyes she drew in a deep breath of pleasure. She dropped her arms to her side until they were faintly touching the sleek sheath that covered and suggested her figure. She had never felt her own softness so much nor so enjoyed the whiteness of her ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the South, where the passion for fine horses is universal, of the choicest parentage. He was blooded, and of Arabian, through English, stocks. You might detect his blood at a glance, even as you did that of his rider. The beast was large, high, broad-chested, sleek of skin, wiry of limb, with no excess of fat, and no straggling hair; small ears, a glorious mane, and a great lively eye. At once docile and full of life, he trod the earth with the firm pace of an elephant, yet with the ease of an antelope; moving carelessly as in pastime, and as if he bore no ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to the meeting go, If 'twas for nothing but a show. They lived on thus for several years— One would not think, that many tears Would fall from off that shining face, So sleek and smooth, or he ...
— Amusing Trial in which a Yankee Lawyer Renders a Just Verdict • Anonymous
... across the street at Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza. They were now staring about them in all their perfection of stare: small Charley in a sleek slate-colored suit, as neat as any little barber; Bohm, massive, portentous, his strong shoes and gloves the chief note in his dress, and about his whole firm frame a heavy mechanical strength, a look as of something that did something rapidly ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... house and looked at Benoni. His thin little face was peaceful and happy as if he had found rest and an end of pain. Old Seth Green slouched in after me. Winter pig we used to call him, he was so sleek and fat. He looked at Benoni with a woe-begone expression, and, turning away, helped himself to some liquor which ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... Faust for this poor fiend and all he has to bestow, we read the failure of the plot. Faust may sign a hundred such bonds in his blood with little fear. He knows well enough that a spirit such as his can never be satisfied with what the fiend has to give, nor lie down in sleek contentment to enjoy the earth ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... sleek Canadian horses, sure-footed as goats and strong as little elephants, drew the coach with a long, steady trot up the winding road which led to the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... be pleased to see you, Friend Joseph," said Rosa, with one of her sweetest smiles, which penetrated the Quaker's soul, as sunshine does the receptive earth. Yet, when the carriage had rolled away, he harnessed his sleek horses to the wagon, and conveyed Henriet and her babe to the house of a Friend at White Plains, till he ascertained whether these stylish-looking strangers were what ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... boys pick out some horses for you, too," cried Genevieve, smoothing Pepito's sleek coat in response to his welcoming whinny of delight. "I'm sure they can find something all right ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... me," said the queen to the clown, "and let me stroke your dear cheeks, and stick musk-roses in your smooth, sleek head, and kiss your fair large ears, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... grass have I fed thee and bred thee; provided thee with sweet hay, delicate corn, and fresh litter, that thou mought lie warm, dry, and comfortable. Han't I currycombed thy carcass till it was as sleek as a sloe, and cherished thee as the apple of mine eye? for all that thou hast played me an hundred dog's tricks; biting, and kicking, and plunging, as if the devil was in thy body; and now thou couldst run away with a thief, and leave me to be flayed alive by measter. What canst thou ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Bond stood forth a new creature in the astonished eyes of the sleek attorney. He absolutely quailed before the vehemence and fervour of the usually mild woman. He assured her she was mistaken; that he had not yielded to the point that the will was a forgery; that he never would confess that such was the case; that it should ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... judge a man by his coat. President Lincoln was uncouth and ill-dressed, but he was a wise man and a gentleman in the highest and best sense of that much misused word. On the other hand, Mr. Blank, who represents railway interests in the United States Senate, is sleek, polished and well-dressed, but he is neither very wise nor very good. He is a gentleman only in the conventional, false ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... general thing, yes. The normal being is sleek by nature. It's only when he cramps himself that he gets wrinkled. Cramps himself, I say. Cramping from an outside source never has much effect upon him, unless he chooses to have it. No; that's not Christian Science; it's mere common sense. As a rule, the two things are incompatible. By the way, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... machine shop, where giant cannon were forged into smooth, sleek instruments of death, came noise: unchecked, unmuffled, blasphemous din. But something odd was afoot. There was a sudden hush. It seemed as if a giant hand had covered the metal ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... creeping toward him. It came and rubbed itself against his foot, and, purring with all its might, seemed determined to win some kind of notice from him. The old man stooped down to stroke it, and was just touching its sleek coat when he suddenly withdrew his hand and groaned deeply. He struggled to the recess, and sank back. The stick fell on the stone with a clatter, and the battered hat rolled down beside it, and the white cat fled away in terror; but realising that there was ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... 1860, Lincoln arrived in New York. On Monday his hosts "found him dressed in a sleek and shining suit of new black, covered with very apparent creases and wrinkles, acquired by being packed too closely and too long in his little valise. He felt uneasy in his new clothes and a strange place." Certainly nothing in his previous experience had prepared him to meet with entire ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Steen colour, but it possesses much of Wilkie's dainty touch and keen appreciation of character. Let us call up, he says, the old customers at the 'Southampton' from the dead, and take a glass with them. First of all comes Mr. George Kirkpatrick, who was admired by William, the sleek, neat waiter (who had a music-master to teach him the flageolet two hours every morning before the maids were up), for his temper in managing an argument. Mr. Kirkpatrick was one of those bland, simpering, self-complacent ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to have daylight, is a flat, rather clayey country, dirty-greenish, as if depastured partly by geese; with a big full River Elbe sweeping through it, banks barish for a mile or two; River itself swift, sleek and of flint-color; not unpleasant to behold, thus far on its journey from the Bohemian Giant-Mountains seaward: precisely there, when you have crossed the Bridge, is the south-most corner of August the Strong's Encampment,—vanished now like the last flock of geese that soiled and ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the way to a rough, shed-like building, entered, and a couple of sleek, well-bred horses turned their heads from the posts to which they were haltered, ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... should never looks esteem, Since fools as wise as you might seem. Would you contempt and scorn avoid, Let your vain-glory be destroy'd: Humble your arrogance of thought, Pursue the ways by Nature taught: So shall you find delicious fare, And grateful farmers praise your care; So shall sleek mice your chase reward, And no keen ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... the Nymphs said: "The deer which draw the sledge of Claus will be permitted to bathe in the Forest pool of Nares, which will give them sleek ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... never succeed in forcing myself to smoke. I studied—why conceal my shortcomings?—very lazily, especially at the beginning of the course. I went out a great deal. My aunt had bestowed on me a wide sledge, fit for a general, with a pair of sleek horses. At the houses of 'the gentry' my visits were rare, but at the theatre I was quite at home, and I consumed masses of tarts at the restaurants. For all that, I permitted myself no breach of decorum, and behaved very discreetly, en jeune homme de bonne maison. I would not for anything ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... tummy for two hours in a trench with the shells bursting five yards from me—and never a scratch. You know how I used to wonder what I'd do under such circumstances. Well, I laughed. All I could think of was the sleek people walking down Fifth Avenue, and the equally sleek crowds taking tea at the Waldorf. It struck me as ludicrous that I, who had been one of them, should be lying there lunchless. For a little while I was slightly deaf ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... the lips. Very high, smooth and soft-white the shoulders. Clear-white and lengthy the fingers. Long were the hands. White as the foam of a wave was the flank, slender, long, tender, smooth, soft as wool. Polished and warm, sleek and white were the two thighs. Round and small, hard and white the two knees. Short and white and rulestraight the two shins. Justly straight and beautiful the two heels. If a measure were put on the feet it would hardly have found ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and, with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... very silent as they walked. Willy Cameron was pained and anxious. He knew Akers' type rather than the man himself, but he knew the type well. Every village had one, the sleek handsome animal who attracted girls by sheer impudence and good humor, who made passionate, pagan love promiscuously, and put the responsibility for the misery they caused on the Creator because He had made them as ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... night he lapped his new milk as usual at Uncle Roger's dairy door and then sat blandly on the flat stone before it, giving the world assurance of a cat, sleek sides glistening, plumy tail gracefully folded around his paws, brilliant eyes watching the stir and flicker of bare willow boughs in the twilight air above him. That was the last seen of him. In the ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... marble-carven veiling of drapery. As marble was her back, save that the fine delicate muscles moved and crept under the silken suit as she strove to keep her head above water. Her slim round arms were twined in yards of half-drowned stallion-mane, while her white round knees slipped on the sleek, wet, satin pads of the great horse's straining shoulder muscles. The white toes of her dug for a grip into the smooth sides of the animal, vainly seeking a ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Peter MacGowan cam down the craft, An' rubbit his han's an' fidged an' laugh't; O little thought he o' his wrinkled chaft, When he wanted me to lo'e; He patted my brow an' smooth'd my chin, He praised my e'en an' sleek white skin, Syne fain wad kiss; but the laugh within Came rattlin' out, I trew. O sirs, but he was a canty carle, Wi' rings o' gowd, an' a brooch o' pearl, An' aye he spoke o' his frien' the Earl, And ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... first time since my capture I hated the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not sympathy. But here in Pretoria all was petty and contemptible. Slimy, sleek officials of all nationalities—the red-faced, snub-nosed Hollander, the oily Portuguese half-caste—thrust or wormed their way through the crowd to look. I seemed to smell corruption in the air. Here were the creatures who had fattened on the spoils. There in the field were the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... Topper! so serenely sleek, So beautifully tall, Wherein I decked me once a week Whene'er I went to call,— No more shall now th' admiring maid, While handing me my tea, View her reflected ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... on the Great Day a huge crowd had assembled, including visitors, parents, old boys, and quite a number of Pressmen. Pennybet arrived, invested with all the sleek majesty that Sandhurst could give him: and, seeking out Doe and myself, he lent us ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... possesses for the man who loves her a peculiar and almost reverent interest. There was her fancy work lying where she had put it down on the little wicker table, a book with a paper knife in it, one of his own; by its side an open piano, with a little pile of songs on the stool, and a sleek dachshund blinking up at them from the hearthrug. The appointments of the room were simple enough, and yet everything seemed to speak of a culture, a refinement, and withal a dainty feminine charm which ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... increased gradually, until he was careering around the arena in circles, which became shorter and shorter, until he came to a halt in the centre of the vast place. Then after a few more gentle words and light pats upon the sleek neck, he bent over and suddenly drew the rein. Once, twice, three times he gave that sharp pull, but the horse stood steadfast. Turning in his saddle, he said something to the troopers who had drawn near him, and then sat erect in his place, while three of ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... lit another cigar. Then he rang the bell. Harding rose to his feet. He was not looking in the least like the sleek, opulent gentleman who had entered the room ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... more work that day, I wandered about amid the gaily dressed crowds at hazard; sometimes I contemplated the monkeys; sometimes gazed sadly upon the seals. They dashed and splashed and raced round and round their tank, or crawled up on the rocks, craned their wet, sleek necks, and barked—houp! ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... or from Richmond to Augusta; but John Wesley had made many such rides in the Odyssey of his wonder years. Some of them had been made in haste. But there was no haste now. Sam Bass, his corn-fed sorrel, was hardly less sleek and sturdy than at the start, though a third of the way was behind him. Pringle rode by easy stages, and where he found himself pleased, there he tarried for ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... approached the window, followed by Mammy Jane, who waddled over to join the admiring party. So absorbed were the three women in the baby and the bird that neither one of them observed a neat top buggy, drawn by a sleek sorrel pony, passing slowly along the street before the house. In the buggy was seated a lady, and beside her a little boy, dressed in a child's sailor suit and a straw hat. The lady, with a wistful expression, was looking toward the party ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... a little in awe of such a celebrated personage, laughed heartily. And altogether there was sufficient attention and sufficient laughter to make a very respectable noise. This, being the major's cue for an exit, he rose, one sleek hand raised in sprightly protest as though to shield the invisible ladies, to whose bournes he was bound, from an uproar too masculine and mighty for the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... from the sore heart, or a strange wild note Sung by some foe or fiend. There is a strength Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine, Which has more height than depth, more breadth than length. Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase, Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine— Light but not heat—a flash, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... wrong. I can't exactly say that I pant to be an agriculturist, but I do know that in the main it is an independent, calmly happy sort of life. I can see how the prosperous farmer can go joyously a-field with the rise of the sun, and how his heart may swell with pride over bounteous harvests and sleek oxen. And it must be rather jolly for him on winter evenings to sit before the bright kitchen fire and watch his rosy boys and girls as they study out the charades in the weekly paper, and gradually find out why my first is something that grows ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... "Sir," said the sleek-looking agent, approaching the desk of the meek, meaching-looking man and opening one of those folding thingumjigs showing styles of binding, "I believe I can interest you in this massive set of books containing the speeches of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... merciless tearing of sleep from his soul wrought magic and transformed him into a glowing, jeweled specter. He sprouted toes and long legs; he rose and inflated his sleek emerald frog-form; his sides blazed forth a mother-of-pearl waist-coat—a myriad mosaics of pink and blue and salmon and mauve; and from nowhere if not from the very depths of his throat, there slowly rose twin globes,—great eyes,—which stood above the flatness of his head, as mosques above ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... good-natured, merry individual, who told amusing stories about the negroes and their wonderful ignorance. The negroes of whom she saw most were the domestic slaves, who seemed attached to their masters, and were always willing and obedient, and, being well fed, looked sleek and contented. The most interesting was Martha, the black nurse of Mrs Twigg's children. Her devoted affection for her charges was remarkable; she seemed to have no care or thought for anything besides them, and though she occasionally joined ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... is an English oath. Bright is the steel, arming each clattering hoof! Leather strap and shining buckle, replace musty rope and ponderous knot! The carriage is easier than a Landgravine's,—the horses more sleek,—the driver as civil,—the road is like a bowling green,—the axletree and under-spring, of Collinge's latest patent. But the heart! the heart! that ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... analyser of Shakespeare is that with the man Shakespeare no submitting of himself to the analysis-gymnast would ever have been possible, and with the students of Shakespeare (as students go and if they are caught young enough) the habit of analysis is not only a possibility but a sleek, industrious, and complacent certainty. ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... With the delicate color in her soft cheeks, she looked like a fading tea rose. Yet one knew at a glance that she and bird-like Miss Sarah Drayton were sisters. There was the same oval face—this hollowed and that plump; the same soft brown hair—this wavy and that sleek; the same wide-open hazel eyes—these soft and ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... a sleek silken muslin of lovely lines, snowy shoes and stockings, and a rose-laden hat, she could hold her own with any one. A longing filled her to see Diana Vernilands. She wanted to talk to her, exchange confidences, thank her, bless her, and, above all, to find out what it was she found ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... softly against her dress. The house-cat had come up through the open kitchen door—a large, tawny, companionable cat that purred in high good temper, and followed her for company. She took the animal up in her arms—it rubbed its sleek head luxuriously against her chin as she bent her face over it. "Armadale hates cats," she whispered in the creature's ear. "Come up and see Armadale killed!" The next moment her own frightful fancy horrified her. She dropped the cat with a shudder; she drove it below ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... of sleek fires sprang on the instant into life. We lay imprisoned in a house of glass at the foot of a smooth incline rising behind us to unknown heights. A wall of porous and opaque ice-rubbish, into which our feet had plunged deep, had stayed ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... marriage to make a talk: it wouldn't be like you to bestow so much beauty on a widower. I think there is a certain vulgarity about an elegant girl marrying a widower. She is so refined, and he is generally so sleek and sensual. Did you ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... The fog-banks were high, drifting in from the ocean. Beneath them the air was clear; from somewhere above a hidden moon forced a pale light through the clouds. And over the ocean, close to the water, drifted a familiar shape. Familiar in its huge sleek roundness, in its funnel-shaped base where a soft roar made vaporous clouds upon the water. Familiar, too, in the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... The zebra is conspicuously striped, and stripes cannot afford any protection in the open plains of South Africa. Burchell (40. 'Travels in South Africa,' 1824, vol. ii. p. 315.) in describing a herd says, "their sleek ribs glistened in the sun, and the brightness and regularity of their striped coats presented a picture of extraordinary beauty, in which probably they are not surpassed by any other quadruped." But as throughout the whole group of the Equidae the sexes are identical in colour, we have here ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... outline the brown peaks and beetling crags that rose bleak and bare above the wealth of color, beyond the dark, evergreen stretches of pines and mountain cedars. The gorgeous tail of a peacock spread and gleamed under the cherry-trees in the back yard. A sleek calf was running back and forth in a little lot, and a brindled cow was bellowing mellowly, her head thrown up as she cantered down the road, her heavy bag swinging ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... prairie land, gashed deep where flows the Missouri. Indeed, there are many such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall shipping of beef. At night the coyotes yap quaveringly and prowl abroad after the long-eared jack rabbits, which bounce away at their hunger-driven approach. In winter it is not good to be there; even the beasts ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... His handsome wooden features possessed hardly more character than was expressed by his immaculately starched shirt front, but he was not without a certain wholly superficial attraction, half as of a sleek, well-groomed animal and half as of a masculine conceit, naked ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... as he was used to refined surroundings, found his gorge rising. At some of the little tables furtive, impudent, tattered, sleek men ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... face, and only one hand. His disability hindered him, no doubt. I never saw so much as a sheep-head or a drum lying at his feet. But inwardly, I felt sure, his luck was good. Another was older, fifty at least, sleek and well dressed. He spoke pleasantly enough, if I addressed him; otherwise he attended strictly to business. Every day he was there, morning and afternoon. He, I think, had better fortune than any of the others. Once I saw him land a large and handsome "speckled ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... his sharp blue eye expressed the enduring vigour of his mind. He had buried his wife in Scotland, and had left there a numerous family, that he might become its pioneer at the antipodes. He had thus far worked his way successfully, and was beginning to reap the fruits of his adventurous industry. Sleek cattle filled his stockyard, his fields waved with ripe grain, and I had the satisfaction of learning from him, that he had written for his family, and that he soon expected their arrival in the colony. He immediately gave grain to our horses, and ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... reply at once. He seated himself, curled his tail into a graceful ring around his paws—and stared at the boy. It was a large black cat with one white spot on his chest. His fur lay sleek and soft, and shone in the sunlight. The claws were drawn in, and the eyes were a dull gray, with just a little narrow dark streak down the centre. The cat looked thoroughly good-natured ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... in doubt. With crude, dramatic effect Little Black Fox suddenly appeared from the adjacent woods. He rode into the ring on his black pony, sitting the sleek beast in that haughty manner which is given to the Indian alone, and which comes from the fact that he uses no saddle, and sits with the natural pose of a lithe figure that is ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... judge of racing, but I love the aspect of sleek, slim horses, and I could applaud a skill in which I had no share. I can keep my seat on most four-legged beasts, but my horsemanship is a clumsy, rough-and-ready affair, very different from the effortless grace of your true cavalier. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan |
