"Strut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the emporium door and watched the men dispersing, their bundles under their arms, each one making direct for his own front door. "Every woman in Riverfield will have to put down needle and fry-pan and butter-paddle to feed them so plum full of compliments that they'll strut for a week. Bless my heart, honeybunch, we have all got to turn around twice in each track to get ready, and as I'm pretty hefty I must begin right now." With this remark, Aunt Mary departed from the back door to her house ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... shone as vividly and beautifully as on the preceding Sunday, to Titmouse's saddened eye there seemed a sort of gloom everywhere. Up and down the Park he and Huckaback walked, towards the close of the afternoon; but Titmouse had not so elastic a strut as before. He felt empty and sinking. Everybody seemed to know what a sad pretender he was: and the friends quitted the magic circle much earlier than had been usual with Titmouse. What with the fatigue of a long day's saunter, the vexation of having had but a hasty, inferior, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... gets awry, or a Roman has trouble with his foolish garters. Few men or women can resist mumming; they fancy themselves as somebody else, dead or living. Yet these seem happy in this nonsense. The indolent days appear to have deadened hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. They shall strut and fret their hour upon this little stage. Let that sprightly girl forget the sudden death which made her an orphan; the nervous broker his faithless wife; the grey-haired soldier his silly and haunting sins; the bankrupt ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... protruding eyes. Some settle on the Scotch moors, where they industriously waddle themselves thin. Others take short flights to neighboring bathing-places, where they splash in the water with their goslings, strut proudly on the sands, display a tendency to pair, and are often preyed upon by the foxes which also resort to those localities. Many more cross the Channel, and may be heard during two months cackling more or less loudly in every large ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... for anything, the insolent wink at every modest girl, and the coarse joke running along apish mouths—even before dark crime begins, native antipathy is sown and thrives. And now for nearly four years this coast had never been free from the arrogant strut, the clanking spur, and the loud guffaw, which in every age and every clime have been considered the stamp of valour by plough-boys at the paps of Bellona. So weary was the neighbourhood of this race, new conscripts always keeping up the pest, that even the good M. Jalais ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of the car shows a radical departure from anything that had been previously attempted, and as a model an ordinary boat was taken. In shape it is as nearly streamline as is practicable, having a keel and ribs of wood with curved longitudinal members, the strut ends being housed in steel sockets. The whole frame is braced with piano wire set diagonally between the struts. The car is floored from end to end, and the sides are enclosed with 8-ply wood covered ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... part, but the whole play—he has to undergo a severe physical training, part of which consists in standing for an hour every day with his mouth wide open, to inhale the morning air. He is taught to sing, to walk, to strut, and to perform a variety of gymnastic exercises, such as standing on his head, or turning somersaults. His first classification is as male or female actor, no women having been allowed to perform since the days of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796), whose mother was an ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... or brickwork designed to receive and resist the lateral pressure of an arch, vault or strut. When built outside a wall it is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... differently occupied. Strolling down to the lake shore, he amused himself for a time by watching the waves as they dashed against the pebbly beach, and by fancying that each of them reflected the image of Leffie's bright, round face. Then buttoning up his coat he would strut back and forth, admiring his shadow, and thinking how much more the coat became him than it did his young master. It had been given to him by Dr. Lacey, with the order "not to wear it out in two days"; so Rondeau had not worn it before since the morning when he gave his master one ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... it," she said slowly. "Perhaps that's why life is sometimes a huge joke and sometimes nothing but sadness and disillusionment. We play our little game of make-believe and strut around proudly, making ourselves, as well as others, think that we amount to something and then comes death, like a curtain; the footlights go out and where are we? Who ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... hurdy-gurdies sound. Till sinks the sun—then stop—the poor man's fete Begins not early, and must end not late. Whilst Paris belle in costliest silk array'd, Runs up, and walks in stateliest parade; Each comely damsel insolently kens; (So silver pheasants strut 'midst modest hens!) And marvels much what men can find t' admire, In such coarse hoydens, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... ever uses a sword, nor does he strut about adorned with all his crosses and medals, nor does he wear the resplendent uniforms of other days. On the contrary, his uniform is ugly and dirt coloured, and innocent ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... every one around him—he is up to the sharps, down upon the flats, and not to be done. But in looking round you may perceive men booted and spurred, who perhaps never crossed a horse, and some with whips in their hands who deserve it on their backs—they hum lively airs, whistle and strut about with their quizzing-glasses in their hands, playing a tattoo upon their boots, and shewing themselves off with as many airs as if they were real actors engaged in the farce, that is to say, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... presumptuous spirit at war with all the passive worth of mankind. The independence which they boast of despises habit, and time-honoured forms of subordination; it consists in breaking old ties upon new temptations; in casting off the modest garb of private obligation to strut about in the glittering armour of public virtue; in sacrificing, with jacobinical infatuation, the near to the remote, and preferring, to what has been known and tried, that which has no distinct existence, even in imagination; in renouncing, with voluble tongue and vain heart, every thing ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... this also has its characters privileged by birth, clothed in purple, dazzling with embroidery, "adorned with lofty plumes," who strut pretentiously; "its idle rich," covered with robes of gold of rustling splendour, who display their diamonds, their topazes and their sapphires; who gleam with fire and shine like mirrors, magnificent of mien; ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... wanted the fleetness, and whose arm lacked the strength, of a man's, but he was nevertheless the favourite of the Great Spirit. He was less in stature than a man, and crooked withal, his height being little more than that of the tall bird[A] which loves to strut along the sandy shore, picking up the fish as they flutter joyously along in the beams of the warm and cheering sun. But if he was diminutive in body he was great in his soul—what others lacked in wisdom he supplied. His name was Ohguesse, which ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... or any other material is used for a pillar or strut, it has not only to resist a crushing force, but also a force tending to bend or bulge ...
— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower
... baby for his mother's neglect. Almost without a notion how even to take him in his arms, he would now send for him the moment he had had his tea, and after a fashion, ludicrous in the eyes of the nurse, would dandle and caress him, and strut about with him before his wife, glancing up at her every now and then, to point the lesson that such was the manner in which a parent ought to behave to a child. In his presence she never made any active show of her dislike, but her look seemed ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... head erect, he paced three or four times round the company, saying, in a loud voice :—"God preserve you, good people." Then taking the habit off indignantly, he threw it from him with contempt, and, turning to Elias, "That is the way," he said, "that the bastard brethren of our Order will strut." After this he resumed his usual demeanor and walked humbly with his old and tattered habit, saying:—"Such is the deportment of the true Friars Minor." Then, seating himself amongst them, he addressed them in the mildest manner, and spoke on poverty and humility, of which ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... next day, all the third day, if the river was wide, they would strut and cluck along the shore, making up ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... do?" he went on scornfully. "She couldn't shoot or run or fight. All she did was to lie around or strut about with a veil around her head and a golden girdle (sensible costume!) and serve the hero with ambrosia and ruddy nectar. I've never eaten ambrosia, but I'm pretty sure it was some sweet, sticky stuff, like her." ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... if I am elected, I shall, unless you assure me that I have mistaken de l'Estorade's meaning, find occasion to let him and others of his kind know that one can, if so disposed, climb over the walls of their little parks and strut as ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... remained to bear the brunt of the late ambassador's malice, and to engage at a little later period in hottest controversy with him, personal and political. "Why should van der Myle strut about, with his arms akimbo like a peacock?" complained Aerssens one day in confused metaphor. A question not ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... three-pence hight. One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean, 10 There with her single person fills the scene. Another, with long use and age decay'd, Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid. Our trusty doorkeepers of former time There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme. Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit, And there's a hero made without dispute: And that, which was a capon's tail before, Becomes a plume for Indian emperor. But all his subjects, to express the care ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... old.... In my day, it is true, we waited until a man was sixty before we called him an old man. They are going faster, nowadays.... Wireless telegraphy, aeroplanes.... A generation is more quickly exploded.... Poor devils! They won't last long! Let them despise us and strut about ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... painted show to strut Of girlish toilet, manner skittish: It may be Fin-de-Siecle, but It ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... your law"—and "Sir, your eloquence—" "Yours, Cowper's manner"—and "yours, Talbot's sense." Thus we dispose of all poetic merit, Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit. Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he'll swear the nine, Dear Cibber! never matched one ode of thine. Lord! how we strut through Merlin's cave, to see No poets there, but Stephen, you, and me. Walk with respect behind, while we at ease Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we please. "My dear Tibullus!" if that will not do, "Let me be Horace, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... shrapnel and yet escape serious injury. The mere puncture, even the repeated puncture, of the wings did no damage. Only lucky shots that might pierce the fuel tank, hit the engine, touch an aileron or an important stay or strut, could affect the machine, while in due course of time a light armour on the bottom of the fusillage or body of the machine in which the pilot sat, protected the operator to some degree. Other considerations, however, finally led to the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... hat down over his eyes, whirls around and offers his arm to DAISY. They strut into the store, DAVE gazing contemptuously at JIM as he passes. Crowd roars with laughter, much ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... multiply the rows Of radiant beauties, and accomplish'd beaus, At once confounded into sober sense, He feels his pristine insignificance: And blinking, blund'ring, from the general quiz Retreats, "to ponder on the thing he is." By pride inflated, and by praise allured, Small Authors thus strut forth, and thus get cured; But, Critics, hear I an angel pleads for me, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... my own act, and partly with the help of Destiny (the greater jester than I) I have stripped myself of all these garments of life which not only enabled me to strut peacock-fashion in the pleasant places of the world, but also ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... is different with the "bogus diploma" trade. Business and not vanity is doubtless the ruling motive with the foreigners who strut in plumage bought of the Philadelphia "university." The diploma of M. D. is worth its price for display before the eyes of the patients waiting in the "doctor's" office, while to Squeers of Dotheboys Hall the degree of A. M. is good for at least three new pupils, and Ph. D. for a dozen. I presume ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... strutting it finely," said the innkeeper, in a mocking tone. "And dost thou strut now? Nay, verily; but thou art as meek as any whipped cock. And since it was by thy strut that men did recognize thee, how shall they make thee out when thy fine strut is gone? Wherefore serve the strangers, and ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... best, John's pockets are an integral part of his personality. He feels after his pocket instinctively while yet in what corresponds in the genus homo with the polywog state in batrachia. The incipient man begins to strut as soon as mamma puts pockets into his kilted skirt—a stride as prophetic as the strangled crow of the cockerel upon the lowest bar of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... phoenix," said Hope, dryly. "Praise is sweet, especially behind one's back. So pray go on, unless you have something better to say to each other;" and Hope retired briskly into his office. But when the lovers took him at his word, and began to strut up and down hand in hand, and murmur love's music into each other's ears, he could not take his eyes off them, and his thoughts were sad. She had only known that young fellow a few months, yet she loved him passionately, and ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... true; With our laborious hiving What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 80 Only secure in every one's conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and desires, 85 Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. But stay! no age was e'er degenerate, Unless men held it at too ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... overrun with "Smartness": Smart pages, smart messengers, smart cabmen, smart publicans, smart politicians, smart women, smart scoundrels! Greatness became commonplace here, and Mr. Douglas might drink at Willard's Bar, with none so poor to do him reverence, or General Winfield Scott strut like a colossus along "the Avenue," and the sleepy negroes upon their backs would give him the attention of only one eye. It was interesting, to notice how rapidly provincial eminence lost caste here. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... statements, and the indifference with which she neglected to improve any strong points in her own favor—the indifference, as every heart perceived, of despairing grief. Then came the manners on the hostile side—the haggard consciousness of guilt, the drooping tone, the bravado and fierce strut which sought to dissemble all this. Not one amongst all the witnesses, assembled on that side, had (by all agreement) the bold natural tone of conscious uprightness. Hence it could not be surprising that ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... popular at court, grew jealous of his rival's success, and alarmed lest it should lead to extraordinary advancement. When the Marquis of Rockingham was posed before Sir Joshua for the full-length picture, engraved by Fisher, the nobleman asked the painter if he had not given a strut to the left leg. 'My lord,' replied Sir Joshua with a smile, 'I wish to show a leg with ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... with such fine baby faces, That strut in a garter and star,— Have they, under their tambour and laces, The kind honest heart of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... twofold. America is ruining our agriculture; and soon, I suppose, we have to send to China for labourers. Why, those who do not emigrate demand twice as much to-day for half the work they used to do five years ago; and those who return from America strut about like country gentlemen deploring the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... and happily with his wife the Princess. His merriest time was when the Grand Vizier visited him in the afternoon; and when the Caliph was in particularly high spirits he would condescend to mimic the Vizier's appearance when he was a stork. He would strut gravely, and with well-stiffened legs, up and down the room, chattering, and showing how he had vainly bowed to the east and cried 'Mu...Mu...' The Caliphess and her children were always much entertained by this performance; but when the Caliph went on nodding and bowing, and calling ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... feasible," Mr. Dick said in a relieved voice, getting up and beginning to strut up and down the room. "It isn't as though I'm beyond call. You can come out here and consult me if you get stuck. And then there's Minnie; she knows a good ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... other birds, besides the yellow blossoms of the wattle-tree and many light-green ferns. In this ingeniously contrived sylvan retreat the feathered architect runs about and holds a sort of carnival, to which others of his tribe gather. Here the little party chirp vigorously, and strut about in a most ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... go through their genuflexions put me in a good mood for an introduction to the pigeons, which I longed to have for friends—strange little stately ruffling things, almost as mechanical in their strut as the figures of the clock; so metallic, too, in their lustre, that I could have believed them made of ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... salved and puffed at the apothecary's to conceal his muddy complexion, he was reckoned, in the Mercato Nuovo, as little better than an ill-conditioned braggadoccio! His shortness of stature he sought to atone for by his accentuation of the Florentine pout and the Tuscan strut—he was well known, too, for his contemptuous jokes at the expense ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... bears come out, led, I believe, by a rooster who claps his wings and crows, and then they walk round a old man with a hour glass who strikes the hour on a bell. But the bears lead the programmy and bow and strut round ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... between the bewigged and powdered formalism of the eighteenth century, and the outburst of new ideals which was to follow. His Ossian is a cross between Pope's Homer and Byron's Childe Harold. His heroes and heroines are not on their native heath, and are uncertain whether to mince and strut with Pope or to follow nature with Rousseau's noble savages and Saint Pierre's Paul and Virginia. The time has gone when it was heresy to cast doubt upon the genuineness of MacPherson's epic, but ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... teachers wanting in talent! We see and hear a great many virtuosos, old and young, with and without talent, renowned and obscure. They either play in an entirely mechanical manner and with faulty and miserable touch, or else, which is less bearable, they strut with unendurable affectation and produce musical monstrosities. In order to conceal their indistinct mode of execution, they throw themselves upon the two pedals, and ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... no fashion plates in that day, nor were there any "living models" to strut back and forth before keen-eyed customers; but fully dressed dolls were imported from France and England, and sent from town to town as examples of properly attired ladies. Eliza Southgate Bowne, after seeing the dolls in her shopping ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... it swooped. With a hoarse croak it lit on the snow at a wary distance, and began to strut back and forth. Presently, its suspicions at rest, the raven advanced, and with eager beak began its dreadful meal. By this time another, which had seen the first one's swoop, was in view through the ether; then another; then another. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... exterior. This is of course an extreme example and does not represent the usual practice, but it brings sharply to consciousness the well known fact that for these buildings we have substantially one method of construction—that of the vertical strut, and the horizontal "fill"—while in style they appear as Grecian, Roman, Renaissance, Gothic, Modern French and what not, according to the whim ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... could not see the difference between it and one not worth ten shillings. The pouting pigeons, who have goitres, as Mrs. Marcet said, are frightful; they put in their heads behind these bags of wind, and strut about as if proud of deformity. We saw four Antwerp pigeons, one of which went, Sir John told us, from Tower Hill to Antwerp ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the elf-like girl—the living Peter Pan to millions of theater-goers—was to assume the feathers and strut of the barnyard Romeo, there was a widespread feeling that he was making a great mistake, and that he was putting Miss Adams into a role, admirable artist that she was, to which she was absolutely unsuited. A storm of criticism arose. But Frohman was absolutely ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... seventy-five years ago. Then the Company and the Five Families got together and marketed a luxury item to the galaxy. You know how every super-jet big shot on twenty-five planets wants to say he's hunted on Khatka. And if he can point out a graz head on his wall, or wear a tail bracelet, he's able to strut with the best. To holiday on Khatka is both fabulous and fashionable—and very, very profitable for the natives and for Combine who sells transportation to ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" - "My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be, Isn't equal to that. You ain't ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... did ye toil, and fagg, and fume, and fret, And—what the bashful muse would blush to say. But, now, your painful tremors are all o'er, Cloath'd in the glories of a full-sleev'd gown, Ye strut majestically up and down, And now ye fagg, and now ye fear, no more! ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... is timid, but the old gobbler rather likes to quarrel. He is a vain bird, and it is funny to see him strut up and down, with his tail spread out, and his wings drawn down, his feathers ruffled, and his neck drawn back, and to hear him puff, and cry, ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... catch some mean, unworthy prey, And rests, deep-sorrowing, On the low rock beside the stream. Up to the oak he looks, Looks up to heaven, While in his noble eye there gleams a tear. Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold, There comes a wanton pair of doves, Who settle down, and, nodding, strut O'er the gold sands beside the stream, And gradually approach; Their red-tinged eyes, so full of love, Soon see the inward-sorrowing one. The male, inquisitively social, leaps On the next bush, and looks Upon him kindly and complacently. "Thou sorrowest," murmurs he: "Be of good cheer, my friend! ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... and as he talked, in straight lines; but before he turned the corner he glanced up and down the empty sidewalk in a quick, furtive fashion, and after he had swung into the side street a trifle of the steam seemed gone from his stiff-spined, hard-heeled gait. It ceased to be a strut; it became ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... works upon tactics, he drew up a simpler system for the use of his men. Throwing aside the old ideas of soldierly bearing, he taught them to use vigor, promptness, and ease. Discarding the stiff buckram strut of martial tradition, he educated them to move with the loafing insouciance of the Indian, or the graceful ease of the panther. He tore off their choking collars and binding coats, and invented a uniform which, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... an old cock would separate from the pack, and running out to some distance, would leap upon a rock that was there; then, after dropping his wings, flirting with his spread tail, erecting the ruff upon his neck, and throwing back his head, he would swell and strut upon the rock, exhibiting himself like a diminutive turkey-cock. After manoeuvring in this way for a few moments, he would commence flapping his wings in short quick strokes, which grew more rapid as ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... divided into lateral and medial groups (Figs. 5, 6). The lateral division consisted of temporal and masseter masses. The temporal arose from the upper rim of the temporal opening, from the lateral wall of the skull behind the postorbital strut, and from the dorsal roof of the skull. The bones of origin included jugal, postorbital, postfrontal, parietal and squamosal. This division may also have arisen from the fascia covering the temporal opening (Romer ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox
... of costs and deputy sheriffs, but I do know that Mr. Aristabulus Bragg is an amusing mixture of strut, humility, roguery and cleverness. He is waiting all this time in the drawing- room, and you had better see him, as he may, now, be almost considered part of the family. You know he has been living in the house at Templeton, ever since he was installed by ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... a boy being praised by his elders, Baby started to strut to the Davis cabin, but quickly fell into a limping walk and whimpered ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles drop a bow or curtsey as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... be as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said. "Not that such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen should strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out. Beyond that perhaps you'll do. Have you ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Jerome. The doctor was moving with his stately strut to the door. Suddenly the boy, in a great outburst of boldness, flung himself before this great man of his childhood and arrested his progress. "Oh, sir, tell me," he begged—"tell me what you're ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in Mason's English Collection, one of my schoolbooks. The first two books I ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were "The Life of Hannibal" and "The History of Sir William Wallace." Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life shut ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... little hen goes "cut cut cut." The rooster he goes "cock a doodle doo! You want me and I want you, But I'm up here and you're down there." The little hen goes "cut cut cut," The rooster he steps with a funny little strut, He cocks his eye, gives a funny little sound, He looks at the hen, he looks all around, He flaps his wings, he beats the air, He stretches his neck, then flies to the ground. "Cock a doodle, cock a doodle, cock a doodle doo! Now you have ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... reference by Luther to the lessons he learned in childhood from his experience of poverty at home, in his remarks in later life, on the sons of poor men, who by sheer hard work raise themselves from obscurity, and have much to endure, and no time to strut and swagger, but must be humble and learn to be silent and to trust in God, and to whom God also has given good ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... estrangement cannot, indeed, rob them of their portion in the past, but it will rob them of any effect of reality. The whole of their history becomes more and more foreign, more and more like some queer barbaric drama played in a forgotten tongue. There they strut through their weird metamorphoses of caricature, those premiers and presidents, their height preposterously exaggerated by political buskins, their faces covered by great resonant inhuman masks, their voices couched in the foolish idiom of public utterance, disguised beyond ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... senate (if things hit, And thou at Stockbridge[4] wert not bit) Must feel thy eloquence and fire, Approve thy schemes, thy wit admire, Thee with immortal honours crown, While, patriot-like, thou'lt strut and frown. What though by enemies 'tis said, The laurel, which adorns thy head, Must one day come in competition, By virtue of some sly petition: Yet mum for that; hope still the best, Nor let such cares disturb thy rest. Methinks I hear thee loud as trumpet, As bagpipe ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the pulse as if merely caressing the slender wrist. Then he began to describe his bailiff's cottage, with woodbine round the porch, the farm-yard, the bee-hives, the pretty duck-pond with an osier island, and the great China gander who had a pompous strut, which made him the droll est creature possible. And Sophy should go there in a day or two, and be as happy as one of the bees, but not so busy. Sophy listened very earnestly, very gravely, and then sliding her hand from the Mayor, caught hold of her grandfather's arm firmly, and said, "And you, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... becoming to him. It corresponded to his lordly strut, and was in keeping with the stentorian tones ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... go to the footlights with the greatest possible strut.> Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... then seeing that Helen was gazing at him inquiringly once more he added, gravely, "One could be well content to let vain people strut their little hour and be as wonderful as they chose, if it were not for the painful fact that they are eating the bread of honest men, and that millions are toiling and starving in order that they may have ease and luxury. That is such a very dreadful thing to know that sometimes one ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... his delight. He "was not sure"; "was not quite disposed to yield so great a favor to this far-away duke"; "the count is young; no need for haste," and so on. The duke had no intention whatever of sending such messages to Burgundy; he simply wished to strut before his little court. Charles most certainly would receive a pompous and affirmative answer. The poor duchess, torn by contending emotions of mother-love and family pride, was flattered by Burgundy's offer; ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... year, that of the feast of him whom we call Osiris, but whom other nations have known and know by different names, it is given to us once more to be mortal for an hour, and, though we be but shadows, to renew the loves and hates of our long-perished flesh. Here for an hour we strut in our forgotten pomp; the crowns that were ours still adorn our brows, and once more we seem to listen to our people's praise. Our hopes are the hopes of mortal life, our foes are the foes we feared, our gods grow real again, and our lovers whisper in our ears. Moreover, ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... he watched the little tyrant strut off to his class. How long would he be able to keep hands ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... entirely an outcome of vanity and emulation, and not a manifestation of the esthetic sense, is made clear by the further observations of Livingstone. Men who could not afford so many of these copper rings would still, he found, strut along as if they had them. "That is the way," he was informed, "in which they show off their lordship in these parts." Among the Mojave Indians "nose-jewels designate a man of wealth and rank," and elaborate headdresses of feathers are the insignia of the chiefs[93]. Champlain says that ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... when both of them were members of the House of Representatives. In a controversy that took place between them on the floor of the House Mr. Blaine referred to Mr. Conkling as the member from New York with the "turkey gobbler strut." That remark made the two men enemies for life. That remark wounded Mr. Conkling's pride; and he could never be induced to forgive the one who had so ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... dancers![21] Adieu to Peter—whom no fault's in, But could not teach a colonel waltzing; Adieu, ye females fraught with graces! Adieu red coats, and redder faces! Adieu the supercilious air Of all that strut en militaire![22] 20 I go—but God knows when, or why, To smoky towns and cloudy sky, To things (the honest truth to say) As bad—but in ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality, forgive (if you can) the INSUFFERABLE vanity of my copying the last sentence in his note: "I regard your Monograph on Chile as, without exception, one of the finest specimens of Geological enquiry." I feel inclined to strut like a Turkey-cock! ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... moved almost to tears by the hard fate which through four long acts kept her from the hungering arms of the so beautiful Leandre, howled its delight over the ignominy of Pantaloon, the buffooneries of his sprightly lackey Harlequin, and the thrasonical strut and bellowing fierceness ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his fat strut. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... happening in the air, Charging the very texture of the gray With something luminous and rare? The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire, And, as one lights a candle, it is day. The extinguisher that fain would strut for spire On the formal little church is not yet green Across the water: but the house-tops nigher, The corner-lines, the chimneys—look how clean, How new, how naked! See the batch of boats, Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam! And ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... great day came when old Mother Nature arrived to inspect the kingdom of old King Bear. All the little meadow people and all the little forest folk hastened to pay their respects to old Mother Nature and to strut about in their fine clothes—all but Mr. Toad. He was so busy that he didn't even know that old Mother ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... wide mothe, as he calls it, and gave me the letter; but with a strut, rather than a bow; and then sidled off like one of widow Sorlings's dunghill cocks, exulting after a great feat performed. And all the time that I was holding up the billet to the light, to try to get at its contents without breaking the seal, [for, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... shall hear later," said one, "for 'tis said Jack Oxon was there, being on a visit to his kinsman, Lord Eldershawe, who has been the young lady's playmate from her childhood. Jack will come back primed and will strut about for a week and boast of his fortunes whether he can ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... partial manner; and that we must take the whole of society to find the whole man. Unfortunately the unit has been too minutely subdivided, and many faculties are practically lost for want of use. "The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.... Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things.... The priest becomes a form; the attorney a statute book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... painting, and forgive that of a Berlioz and a Chateaubriand because of the many beauties, the veritable grandeurs of their styles, we cannot quite learn to love yours. For in you the disease was aggravated by the presence of another powerful incentive to strut and posture and externalize and inflate your art. For you were the virtuoso. You were the man whose entire being was pointed to achieve an effect. You were the man whose life is lived on the concert-platform, whose values are those of the concert-room, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... hard to attend a political feast, And strut like a peacock, and crow like a bantam, Yet feel at one's back, like a blast from the east, A be-robed and be-wigged and blood-curdling law phantom. Stentorian cheers, and uproarious hear-hears, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... devour mice. If they should swallow a shrew, which is very rare, they almost immediately reject it. They will sit hour after hour watching at the mouth of a hole, and after seizing their prey, bring it to their favourites in the house to show their prowess, and strut about with a great air of self-satisfaction. They generally have a great dislike to water; but they have been known to surmount this when they could catch a fish, for which species of food they have a great preference. The accusation that they play with you one minute, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... great Carthagenian general, and a Life of Wallace, the great Scottish hero; this last being lent him by the blacksmith. These books excited little Robert so much that if ever a recruiting sergeant came to his village, he would strut up and down in raptures after the drum and bagpipe, and long to be tall enough to be a soldier. The story of Wallace, too, awoke in his heart a love of Scotland and all things Scottish, which remained with him his whole life through. At times he would steal ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Partridge and tried for a long time to learn to strut. At last the Partridge turned around and asked the Crow ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... keep our talents hid, or think we favor men because We use the gifts that God has given? The robins never ask applause, Nor count themselves remarkable, nor strut in a superior way, Because their music sweeter is than that God gave unto the jay. Only a man conceited grows as he makes use of talents fine, Forgetting that he merely does the working of ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... manage—that is just it," he angrily retorted. "You two boys will strut about like roosters showing what good fighters you are, and get blown up through the insides! Have I not seen it often? Bah!" He ran his hands through his hair. "Why is it, when brains are as easily cultivated as ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... and thievishly resolved To escape the impending famine, often scared As oft return, a pert voracious kind. Clean riddance quickly made, one only care Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and, wading at their head, With well-considered steps, seems to resent His altered gait ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at the girls as ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... it did not appeal powerfully to the imaginations of the frequenters of the Globe, the Rose, and the Fortune. They had no such feeling as we have in regard to the pasteboard kings and queens who strut their brief hour before us in anachronic absurdity. But, besides that he wrote in the spirit of his age, Shakespeare wrote in the language and the literary methods of his time. This is not more evident in the contemporary poets than in the chroniclers of that day. They all delighted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hawk's! Zounds, why does the creature strut about with its toes so far apart? Stop, bandit! He'll peck that little dove to death. As true as I live, the saucy rascal ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this has the air of a highwayman's attack, but, after all, the uniform covers a host of civil sins, and, really, I do not see a better way to have done with the youth. It will never do to have him strut about Paris boasting that he snatched the sword away from an officer and drubbed him with ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... outdone in generosity, offers his life to his enemy and preserver, giving him his horn and promising to come to meet his death at its summons. There is the same fault here which is felt in Hugo's novels. Motives are exaggerated, the dramatis personae strut. They are rather over-dramatic in their poses—-melodramatic, in fact—and do unlikely things. But this fault is the fault of a great nature, grandeur exalted into grandiosity, till the heroes of these plays, "Hernani," ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... their own opinion, the Be-All and the End-All of everything! ... as if the Supreme Creative Force called God were incapable of designing any Higher Form of Thinking-Life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and, with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to understand and weigh the whole foundation and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... to be considered the tallest individual in the kingdom, and indeed nothing could be more amusing than to witness the manner in which he held up his head while he walked, or sat, or stood. In fact his walk was a complete strut, to which the pride, arising from the consciousness of, or rather the belief in, his extraordinary height gave an extremely ludicrous appearance. Poor Tom was about five feet nine in height, but imagined himself to be at least a foot higher. His whole family were certainly tall, and ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... but lived in villages, and assembled as necessity demanded. As they were completely beyond the sphere of Polish influence, they knew nothing about "knightly honour" and similar conceptions of Western chivalry; they even adopted many Tartar customs, and loved in time of peace to strut about in gorgeous Tartar costumes. Besides this, they were nearly all emigrants from Great Russia, and mostly Old Ritualists or Sectarians, whilst the Zaporovians ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... strut, vapour, and swagger as thou dost; but why offended at this? Oh, but he has been a naughty man, and I have been righteous! sayst thou. Well, Pharisee, well, his naughtiness shall not be laid to thy charge, if thou hast chosen none of his ways. But since thou ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... shade of the palace wall, Where the peacocks strut, Where the queen may have heard ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... had to come to him from the OUTSIDE. And so, when he heard bravery extolled and cowardice derided, it woke him up. He was ashamed. Perhaps his sweetheart turned up her nose and said, "I am told that you are a coward!" It was not HE that turned over the new leaf—she did it for him. HE must not strut around in the merit ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... joys of La Valette, Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat; Adieu, ye females without graces, Adieu, red coats and redder faces; Adieu, the supercilious air Of those that strut ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... the hills; A Tyrian light the village fills; A wider sunrise in the dawn; A deeper twilight on the lawn; A print of a vermilion foot; A purple finger on the slope; A flippant fly upon the pane; A spider at his trade again; An added strut in chanticleer; A flower expected everywhere; An axe shrill singing in the woods; Fern-odors on untravelled roads, — All this, and more I cannot tell, A furtive look you know as well, And Nicodemus' mystery Receives its ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... turned a fainter and more delicate hue as they receded, till, far away, they looked like mottled glass. Only yesterday he had laughed with me, talked and smoked with me, and now he was dead. A rage pervaded me. We are puny things, we, who strut the highways of the world, parading a so-called wisdom. There is only one philosophy; it is ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... God, having no warrant for more, canst thou believe it innocent to counterfeit kings and queens? Supposest thou that if the impression of their faces on a farthing be felonious and rope-worthy, the imitation of head and body, voice and bearing, plume and strut, crown and mantle, and everything else that maketh them royal and glorious, be aught less? Perpend, young man, perpend! Consider, who among inferior mortals shall imitate them becomingly? Dreamest thou they talk and act like checkmen at Banbury fair? How can ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... without the usual strut or swim: it corresponds with the biblical walking or going softly. (I Kings xxi. 27; Isaiah ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... astonishment, and they watched the wrathful gallant strut down the street, his back as stiff as ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... while I continued to strut about and plan how to punish the bold woman for her offence. Yet not more than a few moments had passed when Natalia returned and, stealing to my side, began to ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... tried to be a gentleman. I may strut up and down Market street in fine clothes, switch my rattan about, talk nonsense to silly ladies, swear, and drink wine; but if I don't pay my ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur |
