"Squat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work together, the head of the family, the elder, the young men, the boys, everyone gives a hand to the best of his capacity. When they have finished, the oldest of the company lie down to doze and chew tobacco or sirih, the other men squat themselves about to chat and prepare poisons or make blow-pipes and arrows, whilst the children play and the women ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... sidewalk, showed occasional bullet scars on the rough red brownstone surface. Green outside shutters lay inertly back from dull leaded panes which reflected metallically the orange glow of the setting sun, and over the door, which was squat and low and level with the pavement, an ancient four-sided lantern, hung from a bracket of rusty black iron, was gathering cobwebs in disuse. All this lay within Mary Louise's field of vision from the summerhouse and yet she saw it not. She was staring abstractedly at a wary robin ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... held a candle in a hand that wavered and strewed tallow broadcast; the light from this for a moment dazzled the visitors. Then the draught of air extinguished it, and looking over the servant's shoulder—he was short and squat—Mr. Thomasson's anxious eyes had a glimpse of a spacious old-fashioned hall, panelled and furnished in oak, with here a blazon, and there antlers or a stuffed head. At the farther end of the hall a wide easy staircase rose, to branch at the first landing into two flights, that returning formed ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... her kindness to this squat, snub-nosed adherent of his whose lonely heart had driven him two thousand miles to find his friend. It would have been very easy to slight him, but Beatrice had no thought of this. The loyalty of the little man touched her greatly. Her hand went out instantly. A smile softened ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Tall trees lined the open lane down which he was riding. Presently in the gray gloom he saw low, square houses with flat roofs. Ladd turned off to the left down another lane, gloomy between trees. Every few rods there was one of the squat houses. This lane opened into wider, lighter space. The cold air bore a sweet perfume—whether of flowers or fruit Dick could not tell. Ladd rode on for perhaps a quarter of a mile, though it seemed interminably long to Dick. A grove of trees ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the cedar, soak it as one soaks hemp, and when it is drawn out into fibres, work it into a fringe; then with a strong cord they bind the fringes together. With so poor a vestment they contrive to satisfy the requirements of modesty; when they stand it drapes them fairly enough; and when they squat down in their manner, it falls between their legs, leaving nothing exposed but the bare knees and thighs. Some of the younger women twist the fibres of bark into small cords, knotted at the ends, and so form the petticoat, disposed in a fringe, like the first, but more ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... peace and sunshine—of droning bees and the nameless fragrance of summer fields it was! And the struggling nomads of the dusty road! Diane felt a kindred thrill of interest in each one of them. Now a Syrian peddler woman, squat and swarthy, bending heavily beneath her pack amid a flurry of dust from the sun-baked roads her feet had wearily padded for days; now a sleepy negro on a load of hay, an organ grinder with a chattering monkey or a clumsy bear, another sleepy negro with another load of hay, and a picturesque ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... three aisles, and making no pretensions, he says, to antiquity. It was built in Henry VII.'s reign, is perfectly plain and unadorned, and without painted glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. Within it, however, are low, squat, thick pillars supporting the roof, which he thinks are Saxon and upheld the roof of a former church, which, falling into decay, was rebuilt on these massive props because their strength had preserved them from the injuries of time. They support blunt Gothic arches. He ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... so, the creature must have been a right loathly monster. Some think him to have been akin to lizards; but the usual opinion is that he was a cousin of frogs and toads. Looking at his hands and other remains, one pictures him to oneself as a short, squat brute, as big as a fat hog, with a head very much the shape of a baboon, very large hands behind and small ones in front, waddling about on the tide flats of a sandy sea, and dragging after him, seemingly, a short tail, which has left its mark on the sand. What his odour was, ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... low class and not pleasant. The Christian gentlemen are very pleasant, but the low are low indeed compared to the Muslimeen, and one gets a feeling of dirtiness about them to see them eat all among the coals, and then squat there and pull out their beads to pray without washing their hands even. It does look nasty when compared to the Muslim coming up clean washed, and standing erect and manly—looking to his prayers; besides they are coarse ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... 'un," repeated Jenny. She was small and squat, with a broad, freckled face, and light blue, saucer eyes. She looked up at the handsome girl by her side with the most ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... honor may sit instead of kneeling Japanese fashion. We place ourselves after having all the guests one after another brought up. We shake hands because their bows are rather impossible and they have adapted themselves to our way. Then we all squat again. Then the pretty waitresses come slithering across the floor, each with a tiny table in her hands. The first is for Papa, the second for me, then the mayor, and so on. The mayor is down at the ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... a mighty fine lookin' critter, and we all calculated that Jim had right smart of a bargain, 'til one day Jim went to ride him, 'n he found out if he fetched the peskey critter on the sides he'd squat right down. Wall, Jim knowed if he didn't git rid of that hoss, his reputation as a hoss trader wuz forever gone; so he went over in t'other township to see old Deacon Witherspoon. You see the Deacon he wuz mighty fond of goin' a-huntin', and as he had rheumatiz purty bad it wuz sort of hard fer ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... speaker. Squat, stout, heavy jowled—with a neck that pushed over the back of his collar—a follower of the ring, smug, assertive, confident. A prophet? I was not ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... piece, Probationary Odes for the Laureateship (p. xliii), Dr. Joseph is made to hug his brother in his arms, when he sees him descend safely from the balloon in which he had composed his Ode. Thomas Warton is described in the same piece (p. 116) as 'a little, thick, squat, red-faced man.' There was for some time a coolness between Johnson and Dr. Warton. Warton, writing on Jan. 22, 1766, says:—'I only dined with Johnson, who seemed cold and indifferent, and scarce said anything to me; perhaps he has heard what I said of his Shakespeare, or rather was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... return there is no deliverance for the lower animals. Vegetarians may reduce their theories to practice in the cities and among cultivated fields, but vegetarians among the red men of the Far West or the squat men of the Arctic zone, would either have to violate their principles ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... was tremblingly imperative that Jerry must suddenly squat down, point his nose at the zenith, and vocalize his heart-rending woe, an idea came to him. There is no explaining how this idea came. No more can it be explained than can a human explain why, at luncheon to-day, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... Carruthers lost one of the wicked eyes I had given him from out the head of the stepfather who did so cruelly stare at the poor young David Copperfield, and became a man with only one eye which still held the malevolence that was hurled at that small David. And with this squat, crooked, evil image of the General Robert Carruthers in my heart I alighted from the train into the City of Hayesville, which is the capital of the great American State of Harpeth. The black man had swung himself off with ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... alarmed, I take all the responsibility upon myself. Imagine, it's an oasis! Neither politics, literature, nor anything modern ever penetrates there. The little house is such a squat one, such as one rarely sees nowadays; the very smell in it is antique; the people antique, the air antique...whatever you touch is antique, Catherine II. powder, crinolines, eighteenth century! And the host and hostess... ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... out and shaded her eyes as she gazed across the great depression of the volcanic crater which had made such a wonderful farm for the Brewsters. At the door of the long, squat homestead, stood Mrs. Brewster, waiting ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... came. My heart was in my mouth as I opened the door to them, and sank back again to the very lowest depths of my inner man when my eyes fell on the face and figure of the missionary—a squat, red-faced, pig-eyed, low-browed man, with great soft lips that opened back to his very ears: sensuality, conceit, and cunning marked on every feature—an innate vulgarity, from which the artisan and the child recoil ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... possible the profile of Antinoeus, and then say, 'We have done our utmost; if, nevertheless, we fail to make the negro beautiful, then we ought not to introduce into our pictures such a freak of nature, the squat nose and thick lips, which are so unendurable to the eyes.'" True idealism treats everything after its own kind, making it more intensely itself than it is in the play of nature; the athlete is more heroically an athlete, the negro more vividly a negro. True idealism seeks ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... done with life. I hope she won't be all day raking a few girls together. She's not what you'd call quick. I've misjudged her. Here she comes with half a dozen at least—and, oh, no, Sheila! You don't mean to say you've brought candy? Well, you are a sport! Let's squat under the mimosa ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... utter defeat of her antagonist. And how she has tried—the happy thoughts, the faint hopes, the new departures and outflanking movements! And even to-day there the thing defies her—a coal-box, with a broad smile that shows its black teeth, thick and squat, filling a snug corner and swaggering in unmanly triumph over the outrage upon her delicacy that ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... the hills and the ships and the gracious sky above them. There was scarcely a sound in the air. At the point where they stood, the Manor House was hidden from view, and only the squat old tower of the church was visible, and the yew tree rising above the wall against the golden field. A bush of briar covered with white roses hung above them, just behind Robinette, and Lavendar looking at her in this English setting on an English Sunday morning, wondered ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... invisible from the landing below, and out west of the bridge under the open sky. The roof, hemmed in by a low wall, seemed like a terrace, which, to his astonishment, was brilliant with flowers; in the rich surrounding, the house sat squat, a plain square block, unbroken except by a doorway in front. A dustless path led to the door, through a bordering of shrubs of Persian rose in perfect bloom. Breathing a sweet ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... received no answer. Shefford saw a dark, squat figure bending forward in the saddle. The man was tense. All about him was dark except the glint of a rifle across the saddle. The face under the sombrero was only a shadow. Shefford kicked the fire-logs and a brighter blaze ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... of those short, thick, squat little Bretons, with black hair and sun-browned faces, silent, slow, and obstinate as mules, but always following steadily the path marked out for them. He was forty-two years old, and had been twenty-five years in the household. Mademoiselle had hired ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... Europeans and a few Western-educated Indians who have learnt business habits ever think of "catching" a train. So the Indian railway station has a constant and generally dense floating population that squat in the day-time in separate groups, men, women, and children together, according to their caste, hugging the slender bundles which constitute their luggage, chattering and arguing, shouting and quarrelling, as their ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Tinker, the leader, squat upon his belly. Toby cracked the whip over him with a command to go on, and he turned upon his back, paws in air, as though in meek appeal. Toby clipped him with the tip of the lash, and he sprang up, turning to ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... caused by a boy rushing up to the house to announce that some "men-bush" are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... this expedient was new to the traveller he made some further inquiries, and was assured that if any person in such a predicament will simply seat himself on the ground, laying aside his weapons of defence, the dogs will also squat around in a circle; that as long as he remains quiet they will follow his example, but as soon as he rises and moves forward ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... TOM—garlanded with squat and surly steel Tom; then Tom's fallowbootfellow piles pick By him and rips out rockfire homeforth—sturdy Dick; Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal Sure, 's bed now. Low be it: lustily he his low lot (feel That ne'er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... five but, as he turned away, he heard a clock somewhere near him, but unseen, beating eleven strokes in swift precision. He laughed as he heard it for it made him think of McCann, and he saw him a squat figure in a shooting jacket and breeches and with a fair goatee, standing in the wind at Hopkins' ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... LANE, Trapesing in any of her whirl of weathers, Her flower-girls foot it, honest and hoarse and vain, All boot and little shawl and wilted feathers: Of populous corners right advantage taking, And, where they squat, endlessly posy-making. ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... a cape and a new stretch of coast appeared. On the summit of a mountain of red rocks, dotted here and there by dark masses of shrubbery, stood a broad yellow squat tower, with no opening on the side toward the sea except a window, a mere black hole of irregular contour. The outlines of a porthole in the battlement of the tower, that had formerly served for a small cannon, was outlined against the blue sky. On one side the promontory rose sheer above ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... squat face wrinkled; the double chin, folding down on the neck, became more ostentatiously double than ever. "Well, I can't admit that," he said, in his suave voice, twirling the string of his eye-glass. "I was Yorke-Bannerman's advocate, you see; and therefore I was paid not to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... penniless and broken, with paralysis upon him. He was a harum-scarum ne'er-do-well. Don't stare at me with that Saul-among-the-prophets look; he never drank; he would have been a better man if he had." And the organist made a further call on the squat bottle. "He would have given her less bother if he had drunk, but he was always getting into debt and trouble, and then used to come back to his sister, as to a refuge, because he knew she loved him. He was clever enough—brilliant they call it now—but unstable as water, with ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... through the whole of their performances, they used to squat themselves down suddenly in the most ungraceful style imaginable, and were then relieved by another pair ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... had led off the three horses and the packbeast, the old man changed his manner, and conducting them into a parlour at the back of his shop, sent his housekeeper, a middle-aged woman with a pleasant face, to make ready food for them while he produced cordials from squat Dutch bottles which he made them drink. Indeed he was all kindness to them, being, as he explained, rejoiced to see one of his own blood, for he had no relations living, his wife and their two children having died in one of the London ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... this cutter of Bees' throats is a pretty, a very pretty creature, despite her unwieldy paunch fashioned like a squat pyramid and embossed on the base, on either side, with a pimple shaped like a camel's hump. The skin, more pleasing to the eye than any satin, is milk-white in some, in others lemon-yellow. There are fine ladies among them who ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... him, nevertheless, to a sort of confession of some weakness, that he could not analyze for the swirl of emotional thoughts in the way; and they had him to the ground. An eagle of the poetic becomes a mere squat toad through one of these pretty material strokes. Where then is Philosophy? But who can be philosopher and the fervent admirer of a glorious lady? Ask again, who in that frowzy garb can presume to think of her or stand within ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shall we see if we can match them once more? I believe we can." Whistling faintly, and very white in the face, Trent opened another small squat bottle containing a dense black powder. "Lamp-black," he explained. "Hold a bit of paper in your hand for a second or two, and this little chap will show you the pattern of your fingers." He carefully took up with a pair of tweezers one of the leaves cut from his diary, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Newtake stood, a squat and unlovely erection, under a tar-pitched roof of slate. Its stone walls were coated with a stucco composition, which included tallow as an ingredient and ensured remarkable warmth and dryness. Before ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... thought that, they made a great mistake. To be sure, at anything except digging he was slow and awkward. He was too heavy and squat to be spry on his feet—to chase and catch his more nimble neighbors. But no one that knew much about Benny Badger would have said that his wits were dull. They were sharp. And so, too, were his teeth, which he never hesitated to use in ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... her mistress's imperious will. Thus, by a drawbridge spanning dark, oily waters, they came into a vast courtyard and an atmosphere as of mildew. A studded door stood ajar, and through the gap, from a guiding beacon of infamy, fell a rhomb of yellow light, suddenly obscured by a squat female figure when the steps of the Marchioness and her companions fell upon ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the night. McCord closed his mouth and opened it again for two words: "By gracious!" The following instant he had the lantern and was after her. I watched him go up above my head—a ponderous, swaying climber into the sky—come to the cross-trees, and squat there with his knees clamped around the mast. The clear star of the lantern shot this way and that for a moment, then it disappeared, and in its place there sprang out a bag of yellow light, like a fire-balloon at anchor in the heavens. I could see the shadows of his head and hands moving monstrously ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... watch, each lot led by its sultani in filthy rags and the foolish imitation crown his conquerors had supplied him at several times its proper price. The square was a dense sea of people before nine o'clock, and the askaris made the front few hundreds lie, and the next rows squat, in order that the men and women ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... plenty of hogs, goats, buffaloes, and bullocks to be seen. Dampier describes the way the feet of the women were bound up so that they lose the use of them, and instead of walking they only stumble about their houses, and then squat down again. They seldom stir abroad, and one would be apt to think their retaining this fashion were a stratagem of the men to confine them at home, to keep them from gadding and gossiping with their friends. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Soldier, huge and squat, with brown skin and dense black beard, stands just inside the doorway, holding a pike, guarding ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... in all their proceedings gave them the appearance of the heads of a party, and I never had the least doubt of their being the authors of the 'Gazette Ecclesiastique'. The one, tall, smooth-tongued, and sharping, was named Ferrand; the other, short, squat, a sneerer, and punctilious, was a M. Minard. They called each other cousin. They lodged at Paris with D'Alembert, in the house of his nurse named Madam Rousseau, and had taken at Montmorency a little apartment to pass the summers there. They did everything for themselves, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Henry did the same. At the same moment the convict screamed out a curse at us and hurled a rock which splintered up against the boulder which had sheltered us. I caught one glimpse of his short, squat, strongly- built figure as he sprang to his feet and turned to run. At the same moment by a lucky chance the moon broke through the clouds. We rushed over the brow of the hill, and there was our man running with great speed down the other side, ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... of the effluvia—I know not, but I am far from being convinced even now that it is not so. A very good sportsman, and true friend of mine, insists upon it that birds give out no scent except from the feet, and that, consequently, if they squat without running they cannot be found. I do not, however, believe the theory, and hold it to be disproved by the fact that dead birds do give out scent. I have generally observed that there is no difficulty in retrieving ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... felt the heat most, poor little Val or the buck. He, curiously enough, seemed more affected by it than we were. At night he drank more than we did, and then was not satisfied. Sometimes when waiting on ahead he used to squat down and scoop out a hole in the ground to reach the cool sand beneath; with this he would anoint himself. Sometimes he would make a mixture of sand and urine, with which he would smear his head or body. Poor Val was in ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... suits extended the incredibly straight lines which were plastic hoses filled with air. Very, very gently indeed, the great, bulbous Platform and the squat, flat Moonship came together and touched. They moored ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... I took the key and fitted it to the lock. It turned noisily, and a cold whiff of air struck my face. Gazing round this new chamber, I saw two lines of squat pillars, supporting a low arch'd roof. 'Twas the crypt beneath the chapel, and smelt vilely. A green moisture trickled down the pillars, and dripp'd on ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... cood swim said he, and you must lern, i said i have been wanting to lern to swim, for all the other boys can swim. so we went down to the gravil and i peeled off my close and got ready, now said he, you jest wade in up to your waste and squat down and duck your head under. i said the water will get in my nose. he said no it wont jest squat rite down. i cood see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter. so i waded out a little ways and then div in and swam under water most across, and when i came up ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... anticipating the wily artifices of some old cock, with spurs as long as a dragon's, who will sometimes lead you for a mile through bog, brake, fern, and heather, before the sudden drop of your staunch companion, and a rigidity in all his limbs, satisfy you that you have at last compelled the bird to squat under that wide holly-bush, from whence you kick him up, and feel some little exultation as you bring him down with a snap-shot, having only caught a glimpse of him through the evergreen boughs, as he endeavoured to escape by a rapid flight at the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... pale corridors of silence came moving very deliberately a dark, squat shape with blunt muzzle close to the snow. Its keen, fierce eyes and keener nostrils were scrutinizing the white surface for the scent or trail of some other forest wanderer. Conscious of power, in ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the Hurons and the Iroquois laid in large stocks of fire wood, by forming piles of logs slanted together on end; and in one pile, here, was an opening through which he might squeeze into the center space, there to squat as under a tent. The ground in the village had been scraped bare of snow; he ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called "The Plestor." In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... proportion to his stature, being so long that his hands hung down on either side of him when he stood erect, like the paws of some giant ape. Altogether, there was something decidedly simian about his appearance his squat nose with hairy, open nostrils, and the general hirsuteness of the man, his bushy eyebrows, the tufts of black hair on his cheekbones and on the backs of his big, spade like hands. And there was that in his eyes, dark and courageous beneath the shaggy brows, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... decent, respectable-looking body too, this confederate whom I concluded was masquerading as maid. The very opposite of the younger woman (about her more directly), a neatly dressed unassuming person, short and squat in figure, with a broad, plain, and, to the casual observer, honest face, slow in movement and of no doubt sluggish temperament, not likely to be moved or distressed by conscience, neither at the doing or ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... was glad to come to the fire, her short squat figure lost in the depths of a chair which Mme. Poussette had found in one of the disused rooms, padded and carved, but also torn and moth-eaten; nevertheless a comfortable refuge on such a day, and soon the reverend lady sank into a soothing slumber, while ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... you come to the poi merchants, squatting in the shade on their hams, in true native fashion, and surrounded by purchasers. (The Sandwich Islanders always squat on their hams, and who knows but they may be the old original "ham sandwiches?" The thought is pregnant with interest.) The poi looks like common flour paste, and is kept in large bowls formed of a species of gourd, and capable of holding from one to three or four ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... gratification of their desire for comfort, the ancient Egyptians gradually developed the art of making mats from papyrus, a plant as important to them as any of our trees, fibrous grasses, or hemp are to us. While at work on the manufacture of these mats, the weavers used to squat on the ground. They became skilful, both in constructing the fabric and arranging the colors; the latter were quite bright and effective, being chiefly red, blue, yellow, and green, with black and ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... face; and above it a cocked hat, that shone so, I thought it was made of polished tin (it may have been that or oilskin), handsomely laced with black worsted, and ornamented with a shining gold cord. A little squat boat, rowed by three ragged gallegos, came bouncing up to the ship. Into this Mr. Bundy and Her Majesty's Royal mail embarked with much majesty; and in the twinkling of an eye, the Royal standard of England, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief,—and ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and at length the squat log buildings of Pend d' Oreille loomed ahead of us in the night. Tired and hungry, we stabled our horses, ate a bite, and rolled ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... his life when, in the early mist of a September morning some weeks later, a line of these selfsame tanks burst for the first time upon his incredulous vision, waddling grotesquely up the hill to the ridge which had defied the British infantry so long and so bloodily—there to squat complacently down on the top of the enemy's machine-guns, or spout destruction from her own up and down beautiful trenches which had never been intended for capture. In fact, Brother Boche was quite plaintive ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... you chaps," said Langrish, leading the way to the bank facing that in the occupation of the enemy, "here's our place. Squat ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... "Mother" never goes wrong.' The German line was very quiet. 'Pourquoi ils ne repondent pas?' asked the Russian prince. 'Yes, they are quiet to-day,' answered the senior. 'But we get it in the neck sometimes.' We are all led off to be introduced to 'Mother,' who sits, squat and black, amid twenty of her grimy children who wait upon and feed her. She is an important person is 'Mother,' and her importance grows. It gets clearer with every month that it is she, and only she, who can ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... return to nature is practically a return to barbarism. You would have all men content so long as they grew enough potatoes for their daily needs. You would have England return to the conditions of the Saxon heptarchy. Each man would squat upon his clearing in the forest, ignobly independent, brutally content. There would be no longer that struggle for life which develops capacity, that urging onward of the flood of life which cuts for itself new channels, ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... who, flying the tyranny of the Triumvirate, had a thousand times by the subtlety of as many inventions escaped from falling into the hands of those that pursued him. It happened one day that a troop of horse, which was sent out to take him, passed close by a brake where he was squat, and missed very narrowly of spying him: but he considering, at this point, the pains and difficulties wherein he had so long continued to evade the strict and incessant searches that were every day made for him, the little pleasure he could hope for in such ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered and amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when entered is quite eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet vendors and the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd; curs yelp between your legs; negroes are as hideous and bright clothed as usual; grave Turks with long chibouques continue ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are laughing, Billy, and a ribald song you sing, While the old men sit and tell us war it is a ghastly thing, When the swift machines are busy and the grim, squat fortress nocks At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... swans asleep Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep For Famagusta and the hidden sun That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; And all those ships were certainly so old— Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun, Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, The pirate Genoese Hell-raked them till they rolled Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold. But now through friendly seas they softly run, Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green, Still patterned ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... he does not move. Squat down. We don't want the savages to see us. They are sure ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... life had he ridden in a close cab. Flinging his shoulders back, he surveyed the world on foot. "Odd faces one sees," he meditated. "I suppose they've got feelings, like the rest; but a fellow can't help asking—what's the use of them? If I inherit all right, as I ought to—why shouldn't I?—I'll squat down at old Wrexby, garden and farm, and drink my Port. I hate London. The squire's not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... expecting him every instant. Johnson waited, drumming his fingers on his knees, in a high, dim lit room, the air of which was charged with a faint, sickly smell of ether. The furniture was massive, and the books in the shelves were sombre, and a squat black clock ticked mournfully on the mantelpiece. It told him that it was half-past seven, and that he had been gone an hour and a quarter. Whatever would the women think of him! Every time that a distant door slammed he sprang from his chair in a quiver of eagerness. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... back as 60 degrees South lat. Besides this, we lost our top-mast, which was broken off, and which, in spite of the heavy sea, had to be replaced; the vessel, meanwhile, being so tossed about, that we were often unable to take our meals at the table, but were obliged to squat down upon the ground, and hold our plates in our hands. On one of these fine days the steward stumbled with the coffee-pot, and deluged me with its burning contents. Luckily, only a small portion fell upon my hands, so that the accident was ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... contractor. He forced an opening through the group of workmen by a savage sweep of his arms and came to the keg, where the Mexican at the moment was bending down and holding a cup under the spigot. When the man perceived the engineer, he leaped up. The fellow's short, squat figure and stony expression had for Bryant a vague familiarity—that face especially, brown, stolid, brutal, ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... strange woman who was usually called Countess Satan, in Naples; I immediately attached myself to her out of curiosity, and I soon fell in love with her. Not that she was beautiful, for she was a Russian who had all the bad characteristics of the Russian type. She was thin and squat, at the same time, while her face was sallow and puffy, with high cheek bones and a Cossack's nose. But her conversation ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... turned aside and fell upon the Government's forest policy, and Sam Gregg, a squat, wide-mouthed, harsh-voiced individual, cursed the action of Ross Cavanagh the ranger in the district above the Fork. "He thinks he's Secretary of War, but I reckon he won't after I interview him. He can't shuffle my sheep around over the hills ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... half human, I guessed; to judge by the small squat head, and still more by a thing like a tail or extra limb turned up behind and pointing, like a loathsome large finger, at some symbol graven in the centre of the vast stone back. I had begun, in the dim light, to guess at the hieroglyphic, not without ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... brandies, has come to signify alcoholic drinks in general to men of many nations dwelling under the subtropical South African sun. Thus, apple-brandy, and peach liqueur, "Old Squareface," in the squat, four-sided bottles beloved no less by Dutchman and Afrikander, American and Briton, Paddy from Cork, and Heinrich from the German Fatherland, than by John Chinkey—in default of arrack—and the swart and woolly-headed descendant ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... over the crest of the Downs at a lurching gallop; down the ragged rut-worn lane, the dusty convolvuluses glimmering up at him in the dusk; past the squat-spired Church in the high Churchyard among the sycamores; down the rough and twisted Highstreet of Newhaven in the chill of that August evening, as no man ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... muffling thickness of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a large basket on his ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... all, that squeal and squat And fly and browse where'er the mood entices, Noting in every hedge or woodland grot The swelling surge of sap, but noting not The ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... I could squat here for a week, provided of course that there was always plenty of provisions to keep us alive," ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... weeds. Out in the stable lot, where the grass was grazed so close that the geese could barely nip it, she would sometimes get one of the negro men to scare the little pigs, for the delight of seeing them squat as though hidden, when they were no more hidden than if they had spread themselves out upon so many dinner dishes. All of us reveal traces of this primitive instinct upon occasion. Daphne was doing her best ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and a spoon, also made of a calabash. These are all that relate to cooking. They lie upon mats with their feet towards the fire, on each side of it. They do not sit much upon anything raised up, but, for the most part, sit on the ground or squat on their ankles. Their other household articles consist of a calabash of water, out of which they drink, a small basket in which to carry and keep their maize and small beans, and a knife.... All who live in one house are generally ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... till a native army should be organized. In the case of Albania it was arranged that he should be provided with no armed force—otherwise he would be difficult to evict. The International forces in Scutari were to squat there and look on. Essad Pasha was the agent of the Italians, Serbs, and French, and intrigued, so soon as the Prince was appointed, to obtain power over him. He bargained to be one of those who went to invite the Prince to Albania, and, accompanied by a party of Albanians, many of them ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... tattooed upper lip to a high-caste Maori beauty. A costermonger hawked frozen rabbits from a donkey-cart, with a pallid woman following behind to drive away the mangy cats which quarrelled in the road for the oozing blood which dripped from the cart's tail. An Italian woman, swarthy, squat, and intolerably dirty, ground out the "Marseillaise" from a barrel-organ with a shivering monkey capering atop, waving a small Union Jack, and impatiently rattling a tin can ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... way, paying no attention to the inert forms scattered here and there. Going up to a blank wall, he manipulated an almost invisible dial set flush with its surface, swung a heavy door aside, and lifted out the Standish—a fearsome weapon. Squat, huge, and heavy, it resembled somewhat an overgrown machine rifle, but one possessing a thick, short telescope, with several opaque condensing lenses and parabolic reflectors. Laboring under the weight of the thing, he strode along corridors ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... into the open drawer, and his eyes narrowed with a look of furtive eagerness that did not escape Blake. In a corner of the drawer was a squat black bottle and a tumbler. Ashton lifted them out and poured a half-glassful of whiskey that was thick and ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... and a horse, all that remained for Don Quixote was to have a fair lady to do bold deeds for, whose colors he could wear on his lance when going into battle. A peasant girl lived near his house whose name was Aldonca Lorenso, a fat girl of squat figure and broad shoulders who smelled of onions, strong enough to carry a sack of potatoes on her head. And Don Quixote decided that she must be his lady fair, and he called her by the high sounding name of Dulcinea del Toboso, ready to uphold the marvelous ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... family. This room serves several purposes. It serves as a kitchen, because in one corner there is a fireplace where the food is cooked. It also serves as a dining-room, because when the meal is ready, mats are spread here, and the inmates squat on the floor to eat their meal. It also serves as a bedroom, and at night the mats for sleeping are spread out, and here ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... a tree, a beaver usually paused and appeared to look at its surroundings as if choosing a place to squat or sit while cutting it down; but so far as I could tell, he gave no thought as to the direction in which the tree was going to fall. This is true of every beaver which I have seen begin cutting, and I have seen scores. But beavers ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... my experience that, in such cases, the worst thing to do is to run away, for nothing encourages a man more to attack you than to show that you are afraid. I therefore loaded my Mannlicher rifle. My bearer did likewise with the Martini-Henry. I gave orders to the Shokas to squat down by their respective loads and to remain still. My bearer and I strolled toward the fast-approaching band, now less than a hundred yards distant. I shouted to them to stop. Chanden Sing signalled to them to go back. They took no notice of our warnings, and came on all the ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... a big man, no man here so big save Kootanie George alone, who was two inches the taller and fully thirty pounds the heavier. The Canadian stood four inches better than six feet in his squat, low-heeled boots and must turn sideways to get his massive shoulders through most doors hereabouts. Unlike most very tall men George carried himself straight, his enormous chest ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... time been climbing in great wide circles, and is now some three thousand feet above the Aerodrome which from such height looks absurdly small. The buildings below now seem quite squat; the hills appear to have sunk away into the ground, and the whole country below, cut up into diminutive fields, has the appearance of having been lately tidied and thoroughly spring-cleaned! A doll's country it ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... slipping in the path that had instantly become a miniature torrent, I came upon a little clearing in which stood a dirty, dark shanty, like a hovel in the outskirts of Canton, not raised on a paepae but squat in an acre of mud ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... fashion. There came a crash of reverberating thunder, a scurry in the thickening mass of black clouds, a drenching downpour of rain. For twenty minutes they crouched in what scant shelter was afforded them by a squat, wide-limbed cedar. Then the wind went ripping off through the tree-tops, exacting its toll of flying twigs and leaving in its wake a brief, hushed calm. Through the still air fell scattering flakes of snow, big and unbroken and feathery. King's ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... the manse seat, and at the Fast Day service Mr. Cameron usually sat there when a stranger preached. Not the least of Walter's treasures, now in his library, is a dusky little squat book called The Peep of Day, with an inscription on it in Mr. Cameron's minute and beautiful backhand: "To Walter Carmichael, from the Man at the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... like a feather fan. A rabbit of the same weight would have made the trip in about twelve seconds; the squirrel protracted it for more than half a minute," and "landed on a ledge of limestone, where we could see him plainly squat on his hind legs and smooth his ruffled fur, after which he made for the creek with a flourish of his tail, took a good drink, and scampered away into ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... here,——he would not let me rise; But I must up, for Fear my Love should stay, And we should be too late at the new Play. Here, Jenny, reach my Slippers, bring the Pot; Then out she jumps, and down she gives a Squat, I think I need not tell you what to do, And then she lets a merry Crack ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... is," muttered O'Hara; "he ought to know better than to squat out there when he knows I have seen him. I say, old chap," he called, in a louder tone, "come down off that stump, or I'll ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... think of Nijni Novgorod And Jews who never rest; And womenfolk with spade and hod Who slave in Buda-Pest; Of squat and sturdy Japanese Who pound the paddy soil, And as I loaf and smoke at ease They toil ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... I remembered Squat, who was indeed a long cow-puncher—long enough to be known, also, to his intimates ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Before us appeared two tall and slender youths, wreathed in smiles, engaging, and most attentive to the small niceties of courtesy. We returned their greeting from our recumbent positions, whereupon they made preparation to squat ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the table set. A kettle, humming on a heap of fresh coals, and a squat little teapot of blue china, were waiting anxiously for the brown paper parcel which he placed upon the cloth. His mother was waiting also, in a high straight-backed rocking-chair, with her hands in ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... my journal I have little hasty scribbles—one half done and the other begun. There is a group of women, with waistcloths only, standing on a half-submerged tree trunk in greenish water washing clothes, one stands the others squat, and beyond are cattle and bamboos. Along the side of the track there are wild flowers, creepers, and thorns with little violet flowers, and others of orange vermilion, and every here and there are ant hills, three or ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the screen of Casuarinas is a magnificent specimen of a wide-spreading shrub, in form a squat dome, which commemorates the name of a French naturalist—TOURNEFORTIA ARGENTA. The leaves, crowded at the ends of thick branchlets, are covered with soft, silky hairs of a silvery cast, which reflect the sun's rays. It would be gross exaggeration to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... lady with the balloons, who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as she may venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of the railings for one moment, the balloons would lift her up, and she would be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons are always tugging at her, and the strain has given her quite a red face. Once she was a new one, because the old one had let go, and David was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go, he wished he ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... entrance he almost ran into the overseer Kent, a squat, bow-legged animal with the arms of a Hercules and ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... discoveries and profound upheavals, on this battlefield of Armageddon between Hell and Heaven, in this crumbling of the old deities and the looming of the Unknown,—are we to lie down content and docile and suffer this hybrid monster of Frankenstein, under guise of governing, to squat on our necks, bind our Titan limbs, bandage our awakening eyes, gag our free voices, sterilize our civic manhood, and debase us from sons of divine liberty into the underpinning of ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... centre of this, on a raised platform, stands the tomb itself, a square measuring 69 feet on each side. It is two stories in height, and at each angle is an octagonal tower, surmounted by an open pavilion. The towers, however, are rather squat in proportion, and the general design of the building very far from being so pleasing as that of many less pretentious tombs in the neighbourhood. Had it, indeed, been built in red sandstone, or even with an inlay of white marble like that of Humayun, it would not have attracted ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... talk like that," she said, "I feel quite ashamed of being well off. I often long to be poor like—like dear little Elma here." As she spoke she patted her somewhat squat little companion on her arm. "But never mind, girls; I am not one of those who intend to throw away all my money; that is one reason why I want to have a good talk this afternoon. You must ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... squat, broad-faced young fellow having for all costume a pair of white drawers was offering the scarf thrown over both his arms, as if they had been sticks, and holding it respectfully as far as possible from his person. Lingard took it from him ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... legs—a truly Titanic bedstead; one might have put a ton or two on it—it would not have bent under the load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a little table of the same strong kind, and near the table a three-legged stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes pick it up and drop it again with a smile of delight. The garret was locked up by means of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or basket-shaped loaf, only black; ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... would be taken away—and still more charming, to the clock, which clanged a tremendous three, as they were in the act of looking at it, causing Leonard to make a great start, and then colour painfully. It was hard to believe, as Daisy said, that the old tower, that looked so short and squat below, could be so very high when you came to go up it; but the glimpses of the country, through the little loop-hole windows, were most inviting. At last, Aubrey, who was foremost, pushed up the trap-door, and emerged; but, as Dickie followed him, exclaimed, 'Here we ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... characteristic of the medival imagination is its fondness for the grotesque. It loved queer beasts, half eagle, half lion, hideous batlike creatures, monsters like nothing on land or sea. They lurk among the foliage on choir screens, leer at you from wall or column, or squat upon the gutters ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson |
