"Elbowing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because digestion would divert the blood from his brain. Otherwise, hour after hour, he sat before his square table, and concentrated his powerful mind on his work, utterly oblivious of the fact that there was anything in the world save the elbowing, crushing throng of phantom—yet to him absolutely real—personages, whom he took into his being, and in whose life he lived. For the time he felt with their feelings, saw with their eyes, became possessed by them, as the great actor becomes possessed by the personality ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... and come, elbowing and disappearing behind each other. The waiters worm their way through with their fragile and sparkling burdens—green, red or bright yellow, with a white border. The grating of feet on the sanded floor ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... theater, and went in. Ascending to the dress circle, he stood for a little time gazing around upon the audience and occasionally upon the stage in his usual graceful manner. He was subsequently observed by Mr. Ford, the proprietor of the theater, to be slowly elbowing his way through the crowd that packed the rear of the dress circle toward the right side, at the extremity of which was the box where Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and their companions were seated. Mr. Ford casually noticed this as a slightly extraordinary symptom ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... of clubs; no cabs or omnibuses splashing the mud to the right and to the left; and, above all, none of your punctual men of business hurrying to their appointments, blowing like steam-engines, elbowing everybody, and capsizing the apple-stalls. No; there is none ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... distance, mainly to look up at it. In spring and summer, of the years that have any, the height and the air are not only fine, but even fair and pleasant. So do the shadows and the sunshine wander, elbowing into one another on the moor, and so does the glance of smiling foliage soothe the austerity of crag and scaur. At such time, also, the restless torrent (whose fury has driven content away through many a short ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... immense; it even filled the corridors and the square before the court-house. One morning, after the opening of the court-room and before the arrival of the judges, Pille-Miche, a famous Chouan, sprang over the balustrade into the middle of the crowd, elbowing right and left, 'charging like a wild boar,' as Bordin told me, through the frightened people. The guards and the gendarmes dashed after him and caught him just as he reached the square; after that the guards were doubled. A picket of gendarmerie was stationed in ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... danger wherever it beckoned, careless of life and limb, reticent of speech and swift of action, light-hearted and altogether human. They were the adventurous and unfettered spirits of hundreds of communities whom the restrictions of respectable society had galled. Here they were, elbowing each other in a little corner of sagebrush country where there was little to do and much whiskey to drink; and the hand of the law was light ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Forum and Comitia was thronged with a surging crowd—patricians and plebeians,—elbowing and pushing one another in mad efforts to get closer to the Rostra and to a small group of magistrates, who, with grave faces, were clustered at the foot of its steps. These latter spoke to each other in whispers, but such a babel ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... often badly dressed and generally with set and anxious faces, hasting to and fro, hustling, elbowing, jostling each other along, as if driven by some invisible power that was swinging ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... men, who have wives but of doubtful virtue, considered this matter duly, I believe their inordinate ardour after gain would be a good deal cooled, when they could not be certain (though their mates could) for whose children they were elbowing, bustling, griping, and perhaps cheating, those with whom they have concerns, whether friends, neighbours, or more certain next-of-kin, by the mother's ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... the field where his spirit has its freedom to express itself and to grow. The professional man carries a rigid crust around him which has very little variation and hardly any elasticity. This professionalism is the region where men specialise their knowledge and organise their power, mercilessly elbowing each other in their struggle to come to the front. Professionalism is necessary, without doubt; but it must not be allowed to exceed its healthy limits, to assume complete mastery over the personal man, making him narrow and ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... not,' roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it. 'Ain't you, though—ain't you?' said the young man, appealing to Mr. Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process of elbowing the countenances ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... and fro or standing in their cavernous doorways and their dusky, crowded shops, calling, chattering, laughing, lamenting, living their lives in the conversational Italian fashion. I had for a long time had no such vision of possible social pressure. I hadn't for a long time seen people elbowing each other so closely or swarming so thickly out of populous hives. A traveller is often moved to ask himself whether it has been worth while to leave his home—whatever his home may have been—only to encounter new forms of human suffering, only to be ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... lost in the wind, but Gregory, following her frightened glance, saw Robert Clinton elbowing his way through the crowd, forcing his progress bluntly, or jovially, according to the nature of obstruction. He did not see them ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... divided transversely at the bottom, in such breadths as they judge their strength would be able to disengage from its adherence to the wood, and the connecting bark on each side. It is then broken into convenient lengths, and placed, slopingwise, against the elbowing part of some dead branch that has fallen off from the distorted limbs of the gum tree; and a little grass is sometimes thrown over the top. But, after all their labour, they have not ingenuity sufficient to place the slips of bark in such a manner as to preclude the free ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... moment in the Athens of the third century before Christ; that we are strolling in its streets, visiting its shops, its courts, and its temples, and that we are getting a whiff of the Aegean, mingled with the less savory odors of the markets and of the wine-shops. We stroll about the city elbowing our way through the throng of boatmen, merchants, and hucksters. Here a barber stands outside his shop and solicits custom; there an old usurer with pimply face sits bending over his accounts in a dingy little office; at the corner of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... as gloomy and impressive a spot as one could find anywhere out of a picture by Dore. The sombre pines crowded in on the little stream, elbowing and whispering, leaving overhead but a gap of clear sky; on either hand the rugged sides of the canon sloped steeply up amongst the timber and thick undergrowth, and never the note of a bird broke a silence which seemed only to be emphasised by the faint sough of the wind in the tree ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... Fitzroys, Miss Floyd, and Lord F. Cavendish;(110) and to-day, Lady Hertford, Miss Floyd, and Lord Frederick and I dined at Colonel Kane's, who is settled in the Stable Yard, and in a damned good house, plate, windows cut down to the floor, elbowing his Majesty with an enormous bow window. The dog is monstrously well nipped; he obtrudes his civilities upon me, malgre que j'en ai, and will in time force me not to abuse him. He would help me to-day to some venison, and how he contrived it, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Prynne was standing, he appeared to recognize, and did not hesitate to address her. As was usually the case wherever Hester stood, a small vacant area—a sort of magic circle—had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing one another at a little distance, none ventured, or felt disposed to intrude. It was a forcible type of the moral solitude in which the scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer; partly by her own reserve, and partly by the instinctive, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by your leave," cried the honest sailor who had found the stage-coachman's parcel—"avast, friend, by your leave," said he, elbowing his way between Alderman Holloway and his next neighbour, and getting clear into the middle of the circle—"I know more of this matter, my lord, or please your worship, which is much the same thing, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... your life instead of allowing your nature to become encoarsened, your esthetic faculties blinded and your finer instincts blighted by the pursuit of the coarser things of life, instead of developing your brute instincts of pushing, elbowing your way through the world for a few more dollars, in your effort to get ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... forth, the turn which characters have taken as they became abased, the trace of prostitution in souls of which their grossness rendered them capable, and on the vesture of the porters of Rome the mark of Messalina's elbowing. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and the stillness which ensued seemed ominous. Some one was elbowing his way forward, and as he passed through the crowd the uproar began again. Every one was on his feet, and although the prisoner stood and gazed toward the source of commotion he could not see the man who spoke. He looked ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... in which to enjoy their refreshment and change trains; most of them were going to London. This was only one of the many train-loads of men which would visit the room that night. There were about forty men, pushing and elbowing their way to ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... creek suited him better, and its proximity to the murmuring, eddying, rocky current appealed to us all, albeit it necessitated our mess-tent being pitched astride a shallow gully, and our individual tents elbowing one another in the narrow spaces between the boulders. But wild Nature, when you can manage her, is what the camper-out wants. Pure elements—air, water, earth—these settle the question; Camp Horseshoe Run ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... time." Her cries brought every woman in the village to the spot, and solemn were the shakings of heads, and loud the recalling of prophecies that vengeance would soon overtake the wicked. Then the serjeant came elbowing his way through the crowd, and was hailed instantly, like the drummer and fifer, by Mrs. Mugford. "That's the man you'm a looking for, maister; and a bad one he is. Hold mun fast, maister; and don't let ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... your nerves and soften your brain tissues and make your muscles mushy, a similar mental and moral condition will develop. And then, when you go out into real life, you will find some sturdy young barbarian, with a Spartan training and a merciless heart, elbowing you ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... going to fall, so I just jumped to where I seen you two," said she, with her customary calmness, and then she turned to assure her escort of the gondola, who was anxiously elbowing his way to her, that ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... those personal motives that have actuated the best. But, unfortunately, one is not a "vox et praeterea nihil," but with a considerable corporality attached which requires feeding, and so while my inner man is continually indulging in these anchorite reflections, the outer is sedulously elbowing and pushing as if he dreamed of nothing but gold ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... draw his weapon lest in such a situation it should provoke a holocaust. Yet he felt that in a moment he might need it. Then as he stood, still uncertain, he saw the giant who had until now looked on with detached emotionlessness come elbowing his way through the press, much as an elephant goes through small timber, uprooting obstacles and tossing ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... the length of the street in front of them the pilgrims were elbowing and fighting their way to the Sanctuary, where they were to ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... Fanny was aware of her intention, she had slipped away. At the same moment Judge Fulsom made his appearance, elbowing his smiling way through the crowd, a brimming saucer of vari-colored ice cream ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... a man of extraordinary strength, and now with a set purpose to inspire him still further, he scattered the crowd to right and left, elbowing, pushing, and thrusting, until he stood before the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Coblenz's engagement reception, an event properly festooned with smilax and properly jostled with the elbowing figures of waiters tilting their plates of dark-meat chicken salad, two olives, and a finger-roll in among the crowd, a stringed three-piece orchestra, faintly seen and still more faintly heard, played ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... hill and the river. And down there was the smell of tar and of merchandise, and narrow alleys full of sea-going men and raucous-voiced women, and queer nooks and corners, and ships being laden and ships being stripped of their cargoes and such noise and confusion and inextricable mingling and elbowing that Copplestone thought it was as likely to find a needle in a haystack as to make anything out relating to the quest they ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... obtained the first seat in the car, generally the object of most undignified elbowing, and had space to admire the beauties among which we passed. For many miles we travelled through a narrow gorge, between very high precipitous hills, clothed with wood up to their summits; those still higher rising behind them, while the track ran along the very edge of a clear rushing ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... crowds yet denser, the terms of discipleship yet more plainly put with loving, faithful plainness, that a characteristic incident happened.[49] A young man of gentle blood and breeding, and influential position, came eagerly, courteously elbowing his way through the crowd that gathered thick about. Our Lord had just risen from where He had been sitting teaching, when this young man, in his eagerness, came running to Him. With deep reverence of spirit he knelt down in ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... known were there. He saw the white hair and stern features of Sir Richard Devine, and beside him stood, wringing her thin hands, his weeping mother. Then Frere strode forward, and after him John Rex, the convict, who, roughly elbowing through the crowd of prisoners and gaolers, would have reached the spot where stood Sir Richard Devine, but that the corpse of the murdered Lord Bellasis arose and thrust him back. How the hammers clattered in the shipbuilder's yard! Was ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... however, crowding, pushing, elbowing, until they take their seats. I was, however, particularly struck with the attention shown to the ladies, the great sobriety of all classes, and the total absence of impure or profane expressions in conversation. How unlike the scenes one witnesses on board ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... charged with the suggestion of his own fate to be really joyful. There were men in all degrees between confidence and distress, and in every stage between extravagant smartness and the last stages of decay. There were sunny young men full of an abounding and elbowing energy, before whom the soul of Polly sank in hate and dismay. "Smart Juniors," said Polly to himself, "full of Smart Juniosity. The Shoveacious Cult." There were hungry looking individuals of thirty-five or so ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... [loud laughter, easily yielded and unnecessarily prolonged] that is to lift yourselves, and the city with you, from the abyss of no-art, and from the still deeper abyss of false art. That's where we're groping; that's where we're floundering. I declare, when I was elbowing my way through that struggling, gaping crowd [cries of "Oh, Doctor!" and laughter], I could only ask myself the question that I have just asked you here: what kind of a community is ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... hurried up and down the streets, giving way to the press of people, and clinging closely to Ralph as though she feared to lose him in the throng; and how the stern and hard-featured man of business went doggedly on, elbowing the passengers aside, and now and then exchanging a gruff salutation with some passing acquaintance, who turned to look back upon his pretty charge, with looks expressive of surprise, and seemed to wonder at the ill-assorted companionship. But, it ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... owing to the want of a good police, a more unpleasant aspect. People walked in mud up to the knee; and the multitude of caleches or volantes (the characteristic equipage of the Havannah) of carts loaded with casks of sugar, and porters elbowing passengers, rendered walking most disagreeable. The smell of tasajo often poisons the houses and the winding streets. But it appears that of late the police has interposed and that a manifest improvement has taken place in the cleanliness of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... but measured movements when he was thus engaged became irregular and nervous; and he frequently cast glances towards the entrance, as if expecting the arrival of some one; and twice in the midst of withering cross-examinations, stopped short at the sight of individuals elbowing their way through the crowd; gazing upon them enquiringly and with an air of expectation, until, passing, they became embedded in the serried mass of spectators; when, with a look of disappointment, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... throngs of people, one sees mountains of watermelons, piles of garlic, old scows and worn-out gondolas, heaped with all manner of strange-looking fish. Crossing over the bridge to the end where the jewelers have their shops, and elbowing through the crowd of young girls and matrons, with their gay-colored handkerchiefs and strands of bright beads, Paolo came to a more secluded quarter. Here he stopped, and, with careful deliberation, lifted the cover of the basket, saying as he laid his hand ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... crowd, in the center of which was our worldly-minded middie of river-boat memory and "Spring Chicken," his colleague; both talking very loud, and the latter exhibiting a bowie-knife half as long as himself. By considerable talk and more elbowing, we made our way to the boys; and, with the aid of a friendly stoker, got them ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of the best known reminiscences of the eighteenth century; all Paris hurrying early in the morning to the doors of the Theatre Francais, the greatest ladies dining in the actresses' dressing-room in order to secure places." "The blue ribands," says Bachaumont, "huddled up in the crowd, and elbowing Savoyards; the guard dispersed, the doors burst, the iron gratings broken beneath the efforts of the assailants." "Three persons stifled," says La Harpe, "one more than for Scudery; and on the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... bales on their shoulders; carriages dashing up at a gallop, filled with people afraid of being too late, and going off more leisurely after the passengers were deposited on the wharf. People were bustling hither and thither, elbowing their way to one place, merely to find out where to elbow it to the next; friends were bidding each other adieu; and in particular, a stout lady from the country, in yellow ribbons, from the upper part of the boat was sending a confidential message to her family and friends by ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... to get his bearings, and while they waited for him to go on Brown nudged Jaune to look at the delightfully picturesque frame house, set in a deep niche between two high brick houses, with the wooden stair elbowing up its outside to its third story. It came out wonderfully well in the moonlight, but Jaune was too much excited even ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon his long white face as he advanced, and Venner ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... intruding sterility about it. The New Opinion was a weekly. From week to week it offered a growing clientele finalities. There were finalities on the war, finalities on the social unrest; finalities on art, life, religion, the past, present, and future. A cock-sure magazine, gently, tolerantly elbowing aside the mysteries of existence and holding up between carefully manicured thumb and forefinger the Gist of the Thing. The Irrefutable Truth. The ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism, than with the reasoner's suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the 'Marie' upon the slate; the 'elbowing the male relatives out of the way;' the 'aversion to permitting them to see the body;' the caution given to Madame B——, that she must hold no conversation with the gendarme until his return (Beauvais'); and, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... one side of us. On the one hand contemplate Sokrates quietly entertaining a crowd in the Athenian market-place, and on the other hand consider Broadway with its eternal clatter, and its throngs of hurrying people elbowing and treading on each other's heels, and you will get a lively notion of the difference between the extreme phases of ancient and modern life. By the time we have thus rushed through our day, we have no strength ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Park at Albert Gate, two of his young companions nodded and took off their hats, elbowing each other, as who should say, "I suppose that's a case!" How proud Dick felt, and how happy! The quarter of a mile that brought him to Apsley House seemed a direct road to Paradise; the man who is always watering the rhododendrons shone like a ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... summons I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way towards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and his big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to cheer, a great many to jeer and hiss. Remarkably dense was the mob on this afternoon, for Mr. Carlyle had just concluded his address from the Buck's Head, and the crowd who had been listening to him came rushing up to swell the ranks of the other crowd. They were elbowing, and pushing, and treading on each other's heels, when an open barouche drove suddenly up to scatter them. Its horses wore scarlet and purple rosettes; and one lady, a very pretty one, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... into the habit of going to the beer houses, where the continual elbowing of the drinkers brings you in contact with a familiar and silent public, where the heavy clouds of tobacco smoke lull disquietude, while the heavy beer dulls the mind and calms the heart. He almost lived there. He was scarcely up ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... little unfortunate, may be. If you could not reach home without elbowing some one's pane of glass, or getting into a scrape of a more or less serious nature, you were helped out of all trouble by those steadfast allies who contributed gladly towards making your deception ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... a western frontier settlement where the home missionary had gone, and now this one elbowing by her with the same lightened face is from the mountain section of the South. And so they come eagerly up from many places where you have never been in person but where you have gone potentially through your money. That is what Jesus means. Make to yourselves ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... folds, sad in a grief without end, bewailing the protectors of his childhood and his lost illusions, seeing nothing but clouds on the horizon of his life. He begins no new friendships; he forms ties with no one; he follows the crowded streets of the city, elbowing lords, lawyers, and ladies of fashion; he greets no one. Men wearing furs and silver pendants, rich garments and collars of gold, brush past him, and he knows them not. Gold collars ought to be saluted, but he does not do it; he does not say to them: "God loke yow Lordes!" But then ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... dealer's protest he stepped outside the shop and joined the crowd about the window, elbowing each other for a better view of the portrait. No one recognized him. He was too obscure for that. They might after this, he thought with an exultant throb, and a flush of pride crossed ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of the big metropolis, in striking contrast to the quiet and seclusion of the sick room in which he had lived for so many weeks, astonished him. The crowds of suburbanites rushing frantically for trains, elbowing and pushing in their anxiety to get home, the strident hoarse cries of newsboys, the warning shouts of wagon drivers as they drove recklessly here and there at murderous speed, the blowing of auto horns, the ceaseless hum and roar of the big city's heavy traffic—all ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... shoulders with! The cowpunchers, probably pretty well "loaded" (tipsy), the "prominent" lawyer, the horny-handed miner, the inscrutable "John"; the scout, or frontier man, with hair long as a woman's; the half-breed Mexican or greaser elbowing a don of pure Castilian blood; the men all "packing" guns (six-shooters), some in the pocket, some displayed openly. The dealer, of course, has his lying handy under the table; but shooting scrapes are rare. If there is any trouble it will be ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... the citizen. Here was a young mother, Her face on flame, her red hair all blown back, She shrilling 'Wyatt,' while the boy she held Mimick'd and piped her 'Wyatt,' as red as she In hair and cheek; and almost elbowing her, So close they stood, another, mute as death, And white as her own milk; her babe in arms Had felt the faltering of his mother's heart, And look'd as bloodless. Here a pious Catholic, Mumbling and mixing up in his scared ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Dumont was one of those persons, the care of whose fame belongs in an especial manner to mankind. For he was one of those persons who have, for the sake of mankind, neglected the care of their own fame. In his walk through life there was no obtrusiveness, no pushing, no elbowing, none of the little arts which bring forward little men. With every right to the head of the board, he took the lowest room, and well deserved to be greeted with—Friend, go up higher. Though no man was more capable of achieving for himself a separate and independent renown, he attached himself ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of disdain no longer playing about his thin, refined lips. He even condescended to speak to the lame doctor, De Espadana, who answered in monosyllables only, as he was somewhat of a stutterer. The Franciscan was in a frightful humor, kicking at the chairs and even elbowing a cadet out of his way. The lieutenant was grave while the others talked vivaciously, praising the magnificence of the table. Dona Victorina, however, was just turning up her nose in disdain when she suddenly became as furious as a trampled ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... off, every one of you, and stay in purgatory till I pay to get you out, will you?" said Monna Ghita, fiercely, elbowing Nello, and leading forward her mule so as to compel the stranger to jump aside. "Tessa, thou simpleton, bring forward thy mule a bit: the cart will be ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... individuality. Mix up a lot of pebbles together, and the result would be hardly affected by the order of the arrangement, but mix up a lot of people, and the result would be greatly affected by the fact of who is elbowing who. It seems the same among the mysterious atoms, as if some complemented or stimulated those next them, or had an opposite effect. But can we think of the atoms in a chemical compound as being next one another, ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... a blow. Lance, looking out across the crowd, caught Belle's glance and nodded toward the schoolhouse. Belle hurried away to find the musicians and set them playing, and a few couples strayed after her. But there were men who stayed, pushing, elbowing to see what would happen when Lance Lorrigan loosened his hold ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... feet and were elbowing their way out. Drayton, who sat on the table, removed his pipe from between his teeth and called ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... nine, punctually, the conscription began, and amidst a breathless silence one of the mayor's assistants came to the window and called out the first name: "Adolphe Monnier, of the commune of S——;" and a tall country-boy, elbowing his way through the crowd, walked up into the town-hall. The commissioner of police gave the round box a touch, and as it turned round some six or seven times one might almost have heard a raindrop fall. "Now," said he laughing, "good luck to you!" and the peasant, plunging his hand into the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... had a bowing acquaintance with Napoleon, Washington, Wellington, Prince Charlie, Henry of Navarre, Paul Revere, and Stonewall Jackson, but as these gallant gentlemen stand on the printed page, so they stood shoulder to shoulder, elbowing one another in her pretty head, made prettier by a wealth of hair, Marcel-waved twice ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the table outside and laid it with a nice white table-cloth and put a plate for each; and, lastly, Granny brought out the steaming soup-tureen in state. The lamp was lit and the grandparents and grandchildren sat down to supper, jostling and elbowing one another and laughing and shouting with pleasure. Then, for a time, nothing was heard but the sound of the wooden spoons noisily ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... Elbowing the boy aside, he seized the operating lever and thrust it to the notch labelled "Descend." An instant of pause followed: like its attendant the elevator seemed stalled in ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... now she's had that glass of soda,' said another man, elbowing his way out of the crowd. As this individual came out, Slyme managed to work himself a little further into the group of people, and he uttered an involuntary cry of astonishment as he caught sight of Ruth, very pale, and looking very ill, as she stood clasping ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... breakfast, and reposed himself some time, for his long ride had made him very weary, he rose, and, changing his apparel, went to the Greyfriars church, where the clergy were assembling, and elbowing himself gently into the heart of the people waiting around for admission, he got in with the crowd when the doors ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... and took a third costume, promising me implicitly to pay attention to his gestures and his walk, and offering to bet that he would not be recognized. This time, in fact, he entered the hall as if it were a barrack, pushing and elbowing all around him; but, in spite of this, some one whispered in his ear, "Your Majesty is recognized." A new disappointment, new change of costume, and new advice on my part, with the same result; until at last his Majesty left the ambassador's ball, persuaded that he could not be disguised, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... fainting women were to be heard amid the extraordinary bustle and stir. The "majesty of the law" was utterly forgotten. The President tried in vain to make himself heard. Rouletabille made his way forward with difficulty, but by dint of much elbowing reached his manager and greeted him cordially. The letter was passed to him and pocketing it he turned to the witness-box. He was dressed exactly as on the day he left me even to the ulster over his arm. Turning to the ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... city, but the buzz and clamor were fairly under way, and the streets as full of busy, pushing, elbowing life as if night and silence had never rested above the tall roofs ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... others of the badly hurt) who had had his eye all but knocked out. It stood out of his head the size of half a hen's egg. This would have laid out a white man on his back for a month: and yet there was that chap elbowing here and there in the crowd and talking to the others as if nothing had been the matter. They made a great hubbub amongst themselves, and whenever the old man showed his bald head on the foreside of the bridge, they would all leave ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... knew so many hours pass so pleasantly as in this tribune, surrounded by those whispering, elbowing, plunging, veiled women in black, under the wall painted with Perugino's Charge of St. Peter, and dadoed with imitation Spanish leather, superb gold and blue scrolls of Rhodian pomegranate pattern and Della Rovere ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... Brazil" were rising upon the air, two ladies pushed their way vigorously through the crowd and appeared upon the speaker's platform. They were Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Hustling generals aside, elbowing governors, and almost upsetting Dom Pedro in their charge, they reached Vice-President Ferry, and handed him a scroll about three feet long, tied with ribbons of various colors. He was seen to bow and look bewildered; but they had retreated in the same vigorous manner before ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... but as his wife is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell—there is a buzz as of a hive overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... thrown up in the course of their operations, when gradually descending a short distance, we entered the great vestibule or ante-chamber of the Cave. What do we now see? Midnight!—the blackness of darkness!—Nothing! Where is the wall we were lately elbowing out of the way? It has vanished!—It is lost! We are walled in by darkness, and darkness canopies us above. Look again;—Swing your torches aloft! Aye, now you can see it; far up, a hundred feet above your head, a grey ceiling rolling dimly away ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... with nations, a ray of clear light reveals the shams and shortcomings of what is hastily styled success. The pushing, elbowing fellow gets ahead in the struggle of life, but his success is a questionable one. The bargaining man, who, partly by instinct and partly by practice, judges everything from the point of view, "How is that going to affect me?" ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... pushed forward, and elbowing Sir Thomas rudely out of the way, turned round, and, instead of apologising, eyed him coolly and contemptuously from ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that was almost a prescience, he fell to forcing his way without ceremony, and had got a little nearer to the puma, when, elbowing roughly through the spectators, with red, evil face, in drink but not drunk, Glum Gunn appeared, almost between him and the cage—once more, to the horror of Clare, holding by the neck his poor little Abdiel, curled up into the shape of a ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... were like two beads, first at the two men, who were now elbowing each other for the best place before the fire, and next at the revolting figure in the chair, he bestowed his greeting, which consisted of an elaborate bow, not on them, but upon the picture hanging so conspicuously ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... landward wall, lanterns moved slowly, clustered here and there by twos and threes, and dispersed. Cackling argument came from the ditch, wherever the lantern-bearers halted; and on the face of the wall, among elbowing shadows, shone dim strips of scarlet. Both pillars of the gate were plastered ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... and which has indeed been painfully absent from the pastoral since Tasso penned the final chorus of the Aminta. This humorous tone is never harshly forced upon the attention, and consists, in a measure, merely in the fact of the comic business constantly elbowing the serious action, and thus saving the latter from the danger of becoming stilted and pretentions—a fault not less commonly and quite as justly charged against pastoral literature as that of artificiality. A leaven of humour is the great safeguard against ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... dollars," said Hiram Cole, elbowing his way to the front. "'Tain't p'inted right, that's all. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... the crowd at this particular spot on the Great White Way was dense, and the chums had all they could do to force their way along, often elbowing people in a way that was far from polite. Presently they gained a street corner where the pedestrians were being held up by the traffic flowing the ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... arms, I observed sundry hands descend quickly, and, as I thought, kindly, lest he should lose his hat, upon the crown of it, until it encased more of his head than could be deemed either fashionable or comfortable. Presently, however, he was again seen viciously elbowing and writhing his way back to me, which after immense exertions he performed, in the full receipt of numerous anathemas and jocular insults. As he neared me, I inquired what he had been doing; why he had left me for such a short, difficult, and unprofitable journey—which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at the mechanism of her fan with a demure expression on lips shaped for happiness. A dark young man was elbowing his way through the ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... bailiff's commands passed unheeded. The people were thronging up the street, elbowing each other, treading on each other's toes, yelling, booing, forgetful of all save the strange coincidence that, on this evening of all others, the banquet in honor of Clive, the Indian hero, had been ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... was leaving the church, she saw a crowd of boys hustling and elbowing each other, and giving vent to peals of joyous laughter. When, seated in her carriage, she was able to overlook the throng, she discovered that the cause of this tumult was a poor cat to whose tail the little wretches had tied ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... settles would rock and overturn without some such security. The thunder of bowls echoed from the backyard; swingels hung behind the blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers, whom squires had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each other—men who in past times had met in fights under the moon, till lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss of favour and expulsion from service on the other, brought them here together to a common level, where they sat calmly ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... flowers and flung them to his fellows below. As he was let drop to the ground, Jeff snatched a handful of his spoil from him, and made off with it toward the place where he had seen Bessie Lynde and her party. But when he reached the place, shouldering and elbowing his way through the press, she was no longer there. He saw her hat at a distance through the crowd, where he did not choose to follow, and he stuffed the flowers into his breast to give to her later. He expected to meet her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again and again for a certain "August." She wrung ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... know what trouble is. There were a couple of failures that needn't have happened, and a lot of partisan financiering, and then the town rose up and sat down on our social leaders with a most pronounced scrunch. We can stand just about so much society in Homeburg, but when it gets to elbowing into business, churches, schools and funerals, we are more sensible than you metropolitans are. It only takes a half-day to pass the word through a small town, and one fine morning the Payleys and Singers discovered that while they were still ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... liquor. There was one fellow,—named Randall, I think,—a round-shouldered, bulky, ill-hung devil, with a pale, sallow skin, black beard, and a sort of grin upon his face,—a species of laugh, yet not so much mirthful as indicating a strange mental and moral twist. He was very riotous in the crowd, elbowing, thrusting, seizing hold of people; and at last a ring was formed, and a regular wrestling-match commenced between him and a farmer-looking man. Randall brandished his legs about in the most ridiculous style, but proved himself a good wrestler, and finally threw his antagonist. He got up with ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and Lenora stood side by side upon the steps of the Courthouse, waiting for the automobile which had become momentarily entangled in a string of vehicles. A little crowd of people were elbowing their way out on to the sidewalk. The faces of most of them were still shadowed by the three hours of tense drama from which they had just emerged. Quest, who had lit a cigar, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... surrounding a large chapel, in the direction of from east to west, over a pavement of stone spikes, every one of them making its way along my nerves and muscles to my unfortunate brain. I was absolutely stupid and dizzy with the pain, the praying, the jostling, the elbowing, the scrambling and the uncomfortable penitential murmurs of the whole crowd. I knew not what I was about, but went through the forms in the same mechanical spirit which pervaded all present. As for that solemn, humble, and heartfelt sense of God's ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... he laughed outright, but in a hysterical way, as he looked over the crowd in front of him. I followed his eye and saw, some distance back, as if crowded out by the well-dressed and elbowing throng, a little woman in a faded dress and a well-worn hat, with a face almost painful in its intense but hopeful expression, glancing rapidly from window to window as ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the Mahdi's men," said Torpenhow, elbowing himself into the crush of the square; "but what thousands of 'em there are! The tribes hereabout aren't against us, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a crowded London drawing-room (for I am a town-bird now, acquainted with smoky eaves, and tasting Nature in the parks) quick flights of memory take me back among my father's parishioners while I am still conscious of elbowing men who wear the same evening uniform as myself; and I presently begin to wonder what varieties of history lie hidden under this monotony of aspect. Some of them, perhaps, belong to families with ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... yards to the wine-shop, and they walked there arm-in-arm in boisterous good-fellowship, elbowing their way through the crowd in a manner that was ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... sentence than might at first be imagined, and the effect upon settlers might be best explained by giving an example: A young man, then, comes to this glorious country fresh from all the excitement and fever of Europe, where people are, as a rule, overcrowded and elbowing each other for a share of the bread that is not sufficient to feed all; he settles down, either to steady work under a master, or to till his own farm and mind his own flocks. In either case, while feeling labour to be not only a pleasure, but actually a luxury, there is no heat of blood and ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... to Murray and Chivey, who had by this time got into a dense crowd of Turks, whom they were elbowing ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... speaking, Big Jack got slowly under way. Elbowing a path through the crowd he shuffled closer, hitching at the straining suspender to which was entrusted the task of holding in place his two pairs of baggy canvas trousers. Shifting from one bowed knee to the other, he contemplated his great bare ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... Merchant-princes came for Madame Desvarennes's sake; bankers for Cayrol's; and the aristocrats and foreign nobility for the Prince's. An assemblage as opposed in ideas as in manners: some valuing only money, others high birth; all proud and elbowing each other with haughty assurance, speaking ill of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the descendant of the noble knights of the Cid and Ruy Blas, walks against the current, elbowing his way through the crowd, desiring to hasten as fast as possible, without ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... after the publication of The Last Chouan, Honore de Balzac plunged boldly, under his own name, into the turmoil of literature. He pushed ahead audaciously, elbowing his way, and he made himself enemies. He went his own road, indifferent to sarcasms, mockeries, and spiteful comments called forth by his tranquil assurance and certainty of his own strength, which he did not try to hide. At a period when it was the fashion to sigh and be pale and melancholy, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... after some pushing and elbowing through the crowd, William Adams, an elderly quartermaster, made his appearance in the front, and passed over to the side where the officers stood, while the hisses of the rest of the ship's company expressed their disapprobation of his conduct. The old man just reached the other side ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... serving-man, high of heart, and bloody of hand, humble to his master and his master's equals, insolent to all others. To these might be added, the poor suitor, with his anxious look and depressed mien—the officer, full of his brief authority, elbowing his betters, and possibly his benefactors, out of the road—the proud priest, who sought a better benefice—the proud baron, who sought a grant of church lands—the robber chief, who came to solicit a ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... them, and clamoring tirelessly for more. Newcomers had to force their way to the bar by violent efforts, and once there they stayed until pushed bodily aside. There were actually women to be seen here and there in the throng, elbowing and shoving like the rest for a place at the front. Some of the more gallant young men fought their way outward, from time to time, carrying for safety above their heads glasses of beer which they gave to young ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... to make it a kind of rendezvous, where they might dispose of their ill-gotten spoils, and concert new depredations. Crews of these desperadoes, the runagates of every country and clime, might be seen swaggering, in open day, about the streets of the little burgh; elbowing its quiet Mynheers; trafficking away their rich outlandish plunder, at half price, to the wary merchant, and then squandering their gains in taverns; drinking, gambling, singing, swearing, shouting, and astounding the neighborhood with sudden brawl ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... her purse, Mademoiselle of the Veil's gaze once more wandered toward the entrance, and this time it grew fixed. Maurice naturally followed it, and he saw a tall soldier in fatigue dress elbowing his way through the crush. Many moved aside for him; ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... interruption came from a short, stout, dark, but very handsome, and very well-dressed person, who, in great excitement, was elbowing and pushing her way up the center aisle toward the chancel at which the startled and affrighted bridal ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... ventured on bowing to strange ladies in the same position, without special instruction in Portuguese courtesies. These little refinements became, indeed, very agreeable, only alloyed by the spirit of caste in which they were performed,—elbowing the peasant-woman off the sidewalk for the sake of doffing the hat to the Baroness. I thought of the impartial courtesies shown towards woman as woman in my own country, and the spread eagle within me flapped his pinions. Then I asked myself, "What if the woman were black?" and the eagle ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... offered the same sacrifice in a little guarded shrine at the lower end, amid many lamps and wax torches and glittering ornaments. Here was more devotion among the people, indeed a great struggling and elbowing just so as to touch the altar, or the steps of it, or the priest's hem, or even the rails which fenced the shrine. And with some show of good reason was this hubbub, as I learned. For here was indeed treasured the Girdle of Venus (this being her very sanctuary) ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... life, Dickens liked especially to dwell, and few things moved his fancy so pleasantly. The world, he would say, was so much smaller than we thought it; we were all so connected by fate without knowing it; people supposed to be far apart were so constantly elbowing each other; and to-morrow bore so close a resemblance to nothing half so much as to yesterday. Here were the only two leading incidents of his own life before I knew him, his marriage and the first appearance ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... instant, too, she had an odd feeling as if it were she who had made a mistake, not those groups of merry, hungry holiday-makers, who elbowed one another good naturedly, in order to find a seat at the crowded tables. Mrs. Stark wasn't used to elbowing or being elbowed, and she gathered her silken train in her hand to preserve it from contact with the oil-cloth covered floor of the lobby, while her face gathered ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... elbowing her way vigorously, and the beauty of her dress even more than the dark intensity of her face, caused the throng to make way. She saw the man clearly now, and already the crowd was beginning to seek ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... speaker?" I asked the elbowing helper who came through the crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the silver for them. "Who is this speaker who says there is ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... thinking what a queer fish he was, and then elbowing in to the table started afresh on my ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... smoke; no policemen looking like so many knaves of clubs; no cabs or omnibuses splashing the mud to the right and to the left; and, above all, none of your punctual men of business hurrying to their appointments, blowing like steam-engines, elbowing every body, and capsizing the apple-stalls. No; there is ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... long time, with rapid and irritated step, elbowing the passers-by that he need not deviate from a straight line, his great fury against her began to change into sadness and regret. After he had repeated to himself all the reproaches he had poured upon ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... the Mahdi's men,' said Torpenhow, elbowing himself into the crush of the square; 'but what thousands of 'em there are! The tribes hereabout aren't against ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... into the shoving, seething, elbowing crowd in the betting ring, he was suddenly struck in the chest by something which apparently had the momentum of an eight-inch shell; but it was only John Porter, who, in breaking through the outer crust of the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... a few minutes; and the two women went along, elbowing their way through the stream of fashionable people pouring out of Cardinal meadow, and being nearly ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... off. The people struggled back before our advance, striving to make a path for us. At times the press of those behind made it impossible for them to give us room. We did not hesitate, but shoved our way forward, elbowing them ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... soon detected the unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clambered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one, aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a consideration also, for the interior of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... social shrubs. These chiefly clothe the benches and eastern foot-slopes of the Sierras,—great spreads of artemisia, coleogyne, and spinosa, suffering no other woody stemmed thing in their purlieus; this by election apparently, with no elbowing; and the several shrubs have each their clientele of flowering herbs. It would be worth knowing how much the devastating sheep have had to do with driving the tender plants to the shelter of the prickle-bushes. It might ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... over-crowded: how a mighty army of young men were walking the hospitals, all intent on feeling the pulses and picking the pockets of the rising generation: how at the Bar men were growing old and grey before they saw their first brief: how competitors were elbowing and hustling each other upon every road, thronging at every gate. And while masculine youth strove and wrestled for places in the race, aunts and sisters and cousins were pressing into the same arena, doing their ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... wheels, and elbowing himself past the people who have been standing patiently there for hours). By your leave—'ere, just allow me to pass, please. Thenk you. One moment, Mum. "No right to push in 'ere," 'aven't I? I've as much right as what you 'ave. Think the ole Park b'longs to you, I suppose? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... in a leisurely muddled manner we got to the Address; and I found myself packed in a dense elbowing crowd to the right of the Speaker's chair; while the attenuated Opposition, nearly leaderless after the massacre, tilted its brim to its nose and sprawled at its ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... points, they cannot fail to approach accuracy. Faith is a first element in all great undertakings. It removes mountains at Mont Cenis, as it walked the waves with Columbus. In our century even faith is progressive, and does not shrink from elbowing its way through what Bunyan would have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... sometimes when I look at her and see how she's always so made up and stinking of perfume and looking for trouble and kind of always yelping, 'I tell yuh I'm a lady, damn yuh!'—why, I want to kill her! Well, she keeps elbowing through the crowd, me after her, feeling good and ashamed, till she's almost up to the velvet rope and ready to be the next let in. But there was a little squirt of a man there—probably been waiting half an hour—I kind of admired the little cuss—and ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... some difficulty through the stream of loiterers in the nave, Giles the younger elbowing and pushing so that several of the crowd turned to look at him, and it was well that his kinsman soon astonished him by descending a stair into a crypt, with solid, short, clustered columns, and high-pitched vaulting, fitted up as a separate church, namely that of the parish of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... he left Dora. First the vision, the enchantment—then the agony, the sob of desolation which could hardly be kept down. He saw nothing in the streets. He walked on past the Exchange, where an unusual crowd was gathered, elbowing his way through it mechanically, but not in truth knowing that it ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... scrimmage! such jostling and elbowing among the jealous ones; such ramming and cramming among the eager ones; such pardon-begging among the polite ones; such spurting of ponies, such clambering of cart-horses. All were bent on going as far as they could—all except Jawleyford, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... dressed like any country gentleman, but, when he dismounted to take the oath, tethered his horse with his own hands. More really significant was the presence of the populace that elected him—the great heaving, unwashed crowd elbowing the dainty politicians in the very presence chamber. The President's inaugural address was full of a generous spirit of reconciliation. "We are all Republicans," he said, "we are all Federalists." Every difference of opinion was not ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... still think its influence most pernicious. Men of real merit will, if they persevere, at last reach the station to which they are entitled, and intruders will be ejected with contempt and derision. But it is no small evil that the avenues to fame should be blocked up by a swarm of noisy, pushing, elbowing pretenders, who, though they will not ultimately be able to make good their own entrance, hinder, in the mean time, those who have a right to enter. All who will not disgrace themselves by joining in the unseemly scuffle must expect to be at first hustled and shouldered back. Some men of talents, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of this, that I take some pains to accommodate them with a passage between each comb; they will then at least lose no time by mistakes between the wrong combs, crowding and elbowing their way back through a dense mass of bees which impede every step, until again at the top perhaps between the same combs, perhaps right, perhaps farther off than at first; when I suppose they try it again; as boxes are filled sometimes under ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the Major caught sight of him, elbowing his way through the gut of a narrow lane leading off the Quay by the fish-market, and gave chase. But the weight in his pockets handicapped him, and the crowd seemed to take a malicious delight in ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... along, thoroughly enjoying the balmy weather, the crowds, and the charm of it all. About four o'clock hundreds of government clerks streamed out sluggishly from the side streets. At the crossings fakirs were busy, their customers good-naturedly elbowing each other in their eagerness to be swindled. And violets everywhere! The air was filled with the scent of them. Men, women, and children with trays piled high with the tiny purple and white flowers were doing a tremendous business; their customers ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... at the Hall of the Company of Mercers in Cheapside. An immense crowd was already collected in the street. As soon as the doors were flung wide, wealthy citizens, with their money in their hands, pressed in, pushing and elbowing each other. The guineas were paid down faster than the clerks could count them. Before night six hundred thousand pounds had been subscribed. The next day the throng was as great. More than one capitalist put down his name for thirty thousand pounds. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sage may say, "Oft have I seen him, in his fortune's dawn, When at his levees elbowing their way, Peer's ermine might ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... in the Ukraine, in 1857. Until his nineteenth year he was unfamiliar with the English language. Instead of following the literary or military traditions of his family, he joined the English merchant marine. Sailing the seas of the world, touching at strange tropical ports and uncharted islands, elbowing all the races of the globe, hearing all the languages spoken by man,—such were Conrad's activities between his twentieth ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... few of the exclamations that instantly burst forth upon the conclusion of the footman's announcement. The elbowing and trampling became more violent than ever, and Mrs. Bridgeman was forced—from lack of room—to forego her society start, though she was still able to indulge in her society smile, as she bowed, with almost swooning graciousness, to a short, perspiring, bald and ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... a meeting!—in the midst of men and women, elbowing, crowding, embracing, exclaiming, rejoicing, chaffing, weeping! It was an awkward state of things, but as every one else was in the same predicament, and as all were more or less swallowed up in their own affairs, Miles and his mother were fain to make the best of it. They retired ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... triumph to his house in San Fantino. As he was passing the Campanile of Saint Mark, his old pilot, Marino Corbaro, a remarkably able seaman, but a perpetual grumbler against those in authority, met him, and elbowing his way through the crowd, drew close to him, loudly shouting at the ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... their traps, they gathered into a surly group and swore their discontent at the whole expedition. Into the midst of this Stubbs stamped and under pretence of gruff greeting to this one and that, together with much elbowing, broke the circle up into three parts. A dozen questions were shot at him, but he answered them with an assumption of authority that had a wholesome effect. In another minute he had picked out three of the most aggressive men and stationed them at different points on ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... remember our legs wedged into those uncomfortable sloping desks, where we sat elbowing each other; and the injunctions to attain a free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after, with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be apparent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the court, sir," said one of the guards, elbowing his way through the passing crowd, and raising his hand to ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... however, without disturbance, or sight of an enemy, until we came nearly to the edge of the town and saw the glistening roof of the church appear above the foliage,—where sat sundry carrion-loving buzzards, elbowing each other, shuffling to and fro with outspread wings, and chuckling, doubtless, over the promise of glorious times. As we go on, suddenly heads appear over the bushes less than a hundred yards in front, and we hear the vindictive whistle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various |
