"Leering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... DIVERGENT SQUINT.—This very serious deformity is often the result of the operation for convergent squint, and is associated with a fixed, leering, and prominent eye, and frequently with ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... and started to run when he was pounced upon and borne to the ground. Phil found himself grasped by the collar and jerked violently to his feet, with the leering face of Sully thrust up close to ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... don't seem to get on fast, no, that he don't. It's downright lucky for him that he's got sech a bright gal as you to look after things. He is a smart sight better off than I should have been under the circumstances;" and Oily Dave struck an attitude of respectful admiration, leering at Katherine ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... tapped on the flashlight picture of the giant lizard of which the story told. And it was a giant. A rope had upheld a colossal, leering, reptilian head while men with rifles posed self-consciously beside the dead creature. It was as big as a horse, and at first glance its kinship to the extinct dinosaurs of Earth was plain. Huge teeth in sharklike rows. A long, ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... light, to try to get at its contents without breaking the seal, [for, dispatched in a hurry, it had no cover,] there stood he, laughing, shrugging, playing off his legs; now stroking his shining chin, now turning his hat upon his thumb! then leering in my face, flourishing with his head—O Christ! now-and-then ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... beautiful young lady as yourself, Modam, can't find it difficult to put 'er 'and on five hundred pounds," murmured Mrs. Piper, and as she said the words there came a leering smile ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... was up again. "Oh, you don't," he screamed, leering frenziedly. "You yellow devil! You almond-eyed pigtail! But I know you do! And I must have it. Quick! quick!" He hung, clutching, on the edge of Fong Wu's ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... mother could never forgive, the partner had seen a crime which the friend could never forgive. Think of a loved face suddenly melting before your eyes into a grinning skull, then into a mass of putrefaction, then into the ugliest fiend of hell, leering at you, distorted with all the marks of vice and shame. That is what I saw, that is ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... had so excited her emotions at home in an earlier hour of the day. Cracklingly under her eager fingers the clumsy cover slid off, exposing once more to her enraptured gaze the gay-colored muslin layer of animal masks leering fatuously up at her. ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... men laugh and talk freely before those ladies, and about them. The girl sees people whom she has no right to know, and talks to men with whom no girl should have an intimacy. Did you see those two reprobates leaning over Lady Clavering's carriage in the Park the other day, and leering under Miss Blanche's bonnet? No good mother would let her daughter know those men, or admit them ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as from men instead of monkeys. I think we are human only in virtue of open windows. Without fresh air, you only require a bad heart, and a remarkable command of the Queen's English, to become such another as Dean Swift; a kind of leering, human goat, leaping and wagging your scut on mountains of offence. I do my best to keep my head the other way, and look for the human rather than the bestial in this Yahoo-like business of the emigrant train. But one thing I must say, the car of the Chinese ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little girl—well, well, let's see her," said the colonel, with a leering and thoroughly wicked look, which proved to a man of Vinet's quality how little respect the old trooper ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... elemental control and moderation, I found the character and manners of the people gentler and sweeter than I had been led to believe they were. No loudness, brazenness, impertinence; no oaths, no swaggering, no leering at women, no irreverence, no flippancy, no bullying, no insolence of porters or clerks or conductors, no importunity of bootblacks or newsboys, no omnivorousness, of hackmen,—at least, comparatively none,—all of which an American is apt ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... bound, is led through the streets; followed by the mixed rabble, to the meeting hall, probably in the neighborhood of the temple. He is brought in and faces these men. How some of those eyes must have gloated out their green leering! Here are the men He had not hesitated to denounce openly with the ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... in every conceivable key. Brazen women were leering at me. Potbellied men regarded me furtively. Alluringly the gambling-dens and dancing-dives invited me. The town was a giant spider drawing in its prey, and I was the prey, it seemed. Others there were in plenty, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... the same moment all distinctly heard a step in the passage outside. It stopped at the door, and as they watched with bated breath, the door creaked and slowly opened. Malcolm fell back open-mouthed, as a white, leering face, with sunken eyeballs and close-cropped bullet ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... fagot piles to curtain off all that lay beyond. Through the luminous flame-veil the capering savages took on shapes the most weird and grotesque; and when I had a glimpse of the dead men's row, each hideous face in it seemed to wear a grin of leering triumph. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Yet leering through his degeneracy, his identity could not be mistaken. Here was the man Virginia had pierced the North ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... art an apt pupil indeed," he cried, leering upon her in approbation and lustful desire—- his very gaze was pollution to her. "D'ye know there are few women who can resist me when I try to be agreeable? Harry Morgan's way!" he laughed again. "There be some that I have won and many I have forced. None like you. So ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... pain at this official missive. The matter had been discussed in newspapers. Indeed, a caricaturist ventured to publish a sketch showing Pitt as Adam conducting Eve to the nuptial bower in the garden of Eden, while behind it squatted Satan as a toad, leering hatred through the features of Fox. It is to be hoped that Auckland did not know of this indelicate cartoon when he replied to Pitt. That letter has very properly been destroyed. But we have Pitt's second letter to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... good look at his face as he sat leering at me through his glasses. From the congested look of it, I could quite believe that he had sampled this mixture, or others of a similar alcoholic nature, sufficiently to give an opinion on the point; his bloodshot eyes also testified to ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... serenely confident in his strength and length of arm. "It is all one to me." Then suddenly looking round on the leering, sullen faces about him, a wolfish girdle of ferocity, he caught back his agreement and held it for a moment. "On this condition," he added. "When there is an end of you, there is an end of the quarrel. Your friends here must ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sympathetic German woman,—and Faust, gallant, ardent, winning in the bright-eyed Italian,—thoughtful, tender, fervent in the intelligent German,—are background figures in the picture your memory paints; while the ubiquitous, sneering, specious, cunning, tempting, leering, unholy Mephistopheles is a character of himself, in the foreground, whose special interpreter you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... he stood still, leering like some foul thing that feasts on Anguish. Then he let fall the nosegay and took the whip ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Bambo closed his eyes an instant while his soul rose to heaven in one of those earnest petitions which ofttimes are prayed without a word. Then he looked towards the entrance to the kiln, fully prepared to see the wicked face of Thieving Joe leering in upon them—to hear his shout of satisfaction at beholding his prey so securely caught in a trap from which there ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... former military comrade, who had marked a paragraph. It was one of those journals, now barely credible, dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle, wherein initials raised sewer-lamps, and Asmodeus lifted a roof, leering hideously. Thousands detested it, and fattened their crops on it. Domesticated beasts of superior habits to the common will indulge themselves with a luxurious roll in carrion, for a revival of their original instincts. Society was largely a purchaser. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mattaire?" came a leering voice and, turning they beheld Klusky, the renegade. He had entered silently, as usual, and now darted shrewd ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Dore to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... tin, sagacious Tyler!" But the old experienced file, Leering first at Clay and Webster, Answered, with a ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... now is the bishop a-leering at? I know a point where his text falls pat. I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just now Went to my heart and made me vow To meddle no more with the worst of trades: Let somebody else ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... I know what it cost you to even let me lean on you, there in the glare of the electric light—there where men stood leering and sneering and misjudging you!—and my blood ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... the twilight the effect of all this misery was accentuated, the sentinels every few hundred yards were more suspicious than ever and when we came upon a few isolated "Hussars de la Mort" with the death's head leering out from those elegant fur turbans, I thought all was finished. Happily the men were ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... to noon; and ever, like one of the dead, The priest lay still in his house with the roar of the sea in his head; There was never a foot on the floor, there was never a whisper of speech; Only the leering tikis stared on the blinding beach. Again were the mountains fired, again the morning broke; And all the houses lay still, but the house of the priest awoke. Close in their covering roofs lay and trembled the clan, But the aged, red-eyed priest ran forth like a lunatic man; And the village panted ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the darkness were coming out like eager, vulgar comets in a dim and muttering firmament. It was just the moment when the outside mood of the huge city begins to undergo a change, to glide from its comparative simplicity of afternoon into its leering complexity of evening. Each twenty-four hours London has its moment of emancipation, its moment in which the wicked begin to breathe and the good to wonder, when "How?" and "Why?" are on the lips of the opposing factions, and only the philosophers ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... been counted to you for your brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately chosen the part of the man from Honolulu, and you have played it with improvements of your own. The man from Honolulu—miserable, leering creature—communicated the tale to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house, where (I will so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is not always at his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself been drinking—drinking, we may charitably fancy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a leering and unfavourable countenance, here stepped forward, taking his station upon one of the steps beside his mother. A notion had gone abroad that the boy was the fruit of some unhallowed intercourse with an immortal of the fairy or pixy kind, whose illicit amours the old woman ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... almost to the house and then turned along the path that led to the road. He made a gesture with his hand and by chance Tom Butterworth, who had been looking off across the open country toward Bidwell, turned and saw both the movement and the leering confident smile on the farm hand's face. He arose and followed John May into the road, astonishment and anger fighting for possession of him. The two men stood talking for three minutes in the road before the ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... flattered, though quite erroneously, when I casually remark at the club that the Italians are a much dreamier people than they. To the Hollander a dreamer is a blockhead and a dullard, and our broker, a little fellow with gray beard and little leering cunningly-stupid eyes, who thinks himself very smart because he knows bow to eke out a profit everywhere and thus to swell his bank account, always states with much satisfaction that he never knew what it was to dream. When he sleeps he sleeps absolutely ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... building in Sebenico is the cathedral, which was begun when America had yet to be discovered. The chief glory of the cathedral is its exterior, with its superb carved doors, its countless leering, grinning gargoyles—said to represent the evil spirits expelled from the church—and a broad frieze, running entirely around the edifice, composed of sculptured likenesses of the architects, artists, sculptors, masons, and master-builders who participated in its construction. Put ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... of the betrayed council were there beside him. Slowly they about to die came forth and stood in even rank and bowed low before the king. Herod beat his palms upon the golden rail before him and muttered hoarsely. Then with raised finger and leering face he ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... she did not let her own glance quail, but continued to look at him with what she meant for a smile on her pale lips, he subdued this outward manifestation of passion, and, chuckling to hide his embarrassment, began backing into the entry, leering in evident enjoyment of the fears he caused, with what she felt was a most horrible smile. Once in the hall, he hesitated, however, for a long time; then he slowly went toward the garment he had dropped on entering and stooping, drew from underneath ...
— Midnight In Beauchamp Row - 1895 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... more a metafore than yourself, Sir Hurricane; but I'll tell you what, you are a cock-and-hen admiral, a dog-in-the-manger barrownight, who was jealous of my poor tom cat, because—, I won't say what. Yes, Sir Hurricane, all hours of the day you are leering at every young woman that passes, out of our windows—and an old man too; you ought to be ashamed of yourself—and then you go to church of a Sunday, and cry, 'Good ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is the gentleman the Girl loves?" Sonora's face wore a cruel grin as he stood with arms folded leering at ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... that way? You can't forbear leering after the forbidden fruit.—But whene'er I take ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... the French, his eyes creeping round to me every moment to see how I was taking it. 'Now, Monsieur de Laval,' he cried, putting his rude hand upon my shoulder, 'here is a toast for you to drink. This is to the arm of Nelson which strikes down the French.' He stood leering at me to see if I would drink it. 'Well, sir,' said I, 'I will drink your toast if you will drink mine in return.' 'Come on, then!' said he. So we drank. 'Now, monsieur, let us have your toast,' said he. 'Fill your glass, then,' ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were no longer sterile-seeming. The road coiled up and up snakily, between rows of leering cactus; and far below the densely wooded heights lay lovely plains through which a great river wandered. There was a homely smell of mint, and the country did not look to Stephen like the Africa he had imagined. All the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his grasp. The hateful words in the guttural voice, pronounced in vile French, the leering, vicious face with the light of admiration growing in the bloodshot eyes, were all a ghastly nightmare. With a sudden desperate wrench she freed herself and fled across the tent—panic-stricken at last. But in her blind rush she tripped, and with a swiftness that ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... my hand, I heard the door of my room grind open. I screamed, screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do not know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me like some propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terrible in its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips, curled back over broken teeth. Hair—writhing, distorted—like a mass of moving, bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly white, bloodless, were extended toward me, with open, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... thy sweet face in the circle—but Instead—a grey-haired, withered, bloody-eyed, And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing, Female in garb, and crowned upon the brow, Furrowed with years, yet sneering with the passion Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... medley. Indians sprang from the squatting groups around the fire and ran to meet us. They were black shapes that I could not recognize. I leaped from my canoe and held up my hand in greeting. But an arm reached out and tore my musket from me. I looked up. A leering Iroquois stood ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... Young Man thought he could reach it, but his opponent's great arms were around him now and held him too tightly. He tried to pull himself loose, but could not. Then he rolled partly over again, and met Targo's eyes above, leering triumphantly down at him. He looked away and wrenched his right arm free. Across the room he could see the girl still crouching in the corner. His right hand sweeping along the floor struck something heavy lying there. His fingers ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... he had been in the storm while Uncle William was ill. He gave a queer sort of leering chuckle and said, "Over there," and pointed backwards with his thumb towards the first class part of the ship. Then he said, "Come here a minute," and he led me round a corner to where no one could see, and showed me a gold ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... the purao. Now they would write a word or two, now scribble it out; now they would sit biting at the pencil end and staring seaward; now their eyes would rest on the clerk, where he sat propped on the canoe, leering and coughing, his pencil ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with both barrels, straight at that leering head—or at least it ought to have been a leering head, whatever that may mean! The howl that went up out of the wilderness, the next moment, could have been heard for ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... miserable bed lay a gray-headed old man of gigantic stature, with nothing on him but a ragged shirt and a pair of patched, filthy trousers. At the side of the bed, with a bottle of gin on the rickety table between them, sat two hideous leering, painted monsters, wearing the dress of women. The smell of opium was in the room, as well as the smell of spirits. At Turlington's appearance, the old man rose on the bed and welcomed him with greedy eyes ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... husband, leering; "but you needna cast it at us, for, my certie, if the men got it frae him in the forenoon, the women got ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... sergeant, leering at Lord Dunseveric, but before he got any further a woman's shriek rang through the building. The sergeant stopped abruptly. The men crowded through the door, eager for some new excitement. Lord Dunseveric ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... art-expression, is revealed to the life in the beauty-loving personality of the dying bishop. And by means, also, of his social ties with his nephews, called closer than they wish about him now; with her whom "men would have to be their mother once"; with old Gandolf, whom he fancies leering at him from his onion-stone tomb; and with all those strong desires of the time for the delight of being envied, for marble baths and horses and brown Greek manuscripts and mistresses, the seeds of human decay planted in the plot of Time, known ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... my spectacles, and put them on for my own purpose, and against his direction and desire. I looked at him, and saw a huge bald-headed wild boar, with gross chops and a leering eye—only the more ridiculous for the high-arched, gold-bowed spectacles, that straddled his nose. One of his fore hoofs was thrust into the safe, where his bills payable were hived, and the other into his pocket, among the loose ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... creature, one whose face would light at my coming, cloud at my going; one to whom I should be a god. There is a third I, a child of Pan—an ugly little beast, Mrs. Kelver; horns on head and hoofs on feet, leering through the wood, seeking its fit mate. And a fourth would wed a wholesome, homely wench, deep of bosom, broad of hip; fit mother of a sturdy brood. A fifth could only be content with a true friend, a comrade wise and witty, a sharer and understander of all joys and thoughts and feelings. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... part the long, involved sentences rolled themselves without meaning. But now and then something struggled clear—a familiar phrase—an ironical echo. Then Robert Stonehouse saw through the disfigurement to the man that had been—the poor maimed and shackled fighter gibing and leering at his fellow-prisoners. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... appearance, but the manners also, of Foreign Affairs, may be copied with signal benefit. Two of their accomplishments will be found eminently serviceable—the art of looking black, and that of leering. These physiognomical attainments, exhibited by turns, have a marvellous power of attracting female eyes—those of them, at least, that have a tendency to wander abroad. The best way of becoming master of these acquisitions is, to peruse with attention the features of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... and conduit covers dotting its channel intermittently like scattered stepping stones; and on either side wide, flat pavements, as though the stream had fallen to low-water mark and left bare its shallow banks. Daylight would have shown most of the houses boarded up, with diamond-shaped vents, like leering eyes, cut in the painted planking of the windows and doors; but now it was night time—eleven o'clock of a wet, hot, humid night of the late summer—and the street was buttoned down its length in the double-breasted fashion of a bandmaster's coat with ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... worked he the muscles of his face into most grotesque expression of interest or pleasure—(Tunc immensa cavi spirant mendacia folles!)—and you had a famous display of grimace and deferential civility, in bad French or worse Italian. We have seen him sneering and leering as he made his way round a drawing-room at an evening party, and bowing like a French perruquier to some absurd fool of a foreigner; and we have seen him, a minute after, holding up his head and cocking his chin in defiance, if an English ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... illuminated the warriors' faces and showed the face of Demetrios as sly and leering. It was less the countenance of a proud lord than a carved head on some ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... so gallant to his lady love—who, by the way, was frequently the wife of another man—had very little scruple about seducing a maid of low degree. The same gallantry is conspicuous in the Letters of Lord Chesterfield, beneath whose unctuous courtesy the beast of sensuality is always leering. ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah, leering chastely behind her veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the Court. He said that his Mamma was dying and that it was not wholesome for any man to lie unthriftily in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... all this, knowing what must come, no other city in America so gaily set forth upon the road to ruin as did patriotic New York. And from that dreadful hour when, through the cannon smoke on Brooklyn Heights, she beheld the ghastly face of ruin leering at her across the foggy water—from that heart-breaking hour when the British drums rolled from the east, and the tall war-ships covered themselves with smoke, and the last flag flying was hacked from the halyards, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... slippers, he was indeed the original of the portrait upon which poor Toinon the Virtuous had lavished such loving glances. And yet the photograph was flattering. The lens had failed to convey the expression of low cunning that distinguished the man's features, the impudence of his leering smile, and the mingled cowardice and ferocity of his eyes, which never looked another person in the face. Nor could the portrait depict the unwholesome, livid pallor of his skin, the restless blinking of his eyelids, and the constant movement of ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... the arm of Mehetabel, and leering into her face, said: "Come, say a word o' thanks. Better late than never. At the last, through me, you've gotten ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... leering o'er the vale, Pourtrays a scene t' adorn romantic tale; But more than all the beauties of its site, Its former owner gives the mind delight. Is there a heart that can't affection feel For lands so rich as once to boast ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... Dayson asked in a low voice, leering pawkily, as though to indicate that he was a man who could be trusted to think ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the lion and the lamb together," said one harpy. "The lion must buy a rose to give to the lamb. Sir Lion, the rose is but a poor half-crown." And she tendered him a battered flower, leering at him from beneath her draggled, dusty bonnet as she put forth her untempting hand for ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... the ante-chamber, leering at the slave-girls, and scowling at Philammon; and the youth was ushered into the presence ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... revolting by the characteristics of the habitual drunkard, lowering and glaring at me in her purple, bloated face. To see her heavy hands shaking at the pillow, as they tried mechanically to arrange it; to see her stand, alternately leering and scowling by the bedside, an incarnate blasphemy in the sacred chamber of death, was to behold the most horrible of all mockeries, the most impious of all profanations. No loneliness in the presence of mortal agony could try me to the quick, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... His religion, strictly defined, is an ineradicable belief in his own religiousness. As an Englishman, he holds as birthright the true Piety, the true Morals. That he has "gone wrong" is, alas, undeniable, but never—even when leering most satirically—did he deny his creed. When, at public dinners and elsewhere, he tuned his voice to the note of edification, this man did not utter the lie of the hypocrite he meant every word he said. Uttering high sentiments, he spoke, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Curiosity Shop," grotesque scenes were many. There was the one in which grandfather and little Nell were the prominent figures, Nell trying to comfort him in their poverty. Quilp enters and perches himself on a high chair, leering at them. Quilp hops in at Mrs. Quilp's tea party, she supposing herself free to entertain a few friends at the time. Next in order was the meeting of Kit and Barbara; Kit's trial scene; Sally Brass and the Marchioness discovered eavesdropping by Dick Swiveller, ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... may crawl under the dignity of the name, but they don't shell under the dignity of the money-they don't!" says a stalwart companion, attempting to gain a position by the side of his fellow on the steps. He gives a leering wink, contorts his face into a dozen grimaces, stares vacantly round the hall (sliding himself along on his hands and knees), his glassy eyes inflamed like balls of fire. "It'll be all square soon," ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... now," said the captain, raising his voice above the thumping and banging that was being done on deck, "an' I s'pose you fellers wanta go ashore." He chuckled in an exasperating manner. "Jes' sing out when yeh wanta go," he added, leering at the freckled man. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... apprehension by looking at the house which sheltered him, but the sight of his bicycle, propped in a drunk and incapable attitude against the doorway, humping its rackety mud-guard and leering at them with its darkened lantern eye, drove them away—so it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver—to the spacious swallow of the Golden Dragon. The young lady was riding very slowly, but the other man in brown had a bad puncture and was ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... have seemed to many that it were impossible for the dame's cheeks to be any redder, but Mistress Satchell's visage showed that nature could still work miracles. With face a rich crimson from chin to forehead, she made to hurl herself upon the leering, fleering mannikin, but was caught in the unbreakable ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of the big cities, of "Chi" and "Cinci" and "Frisco," and were bent upon getting to one of these places. They condemned the rich and begged and stole from the poor, talked swaggeringly of their personal courage and ran whimpering and begging before country constables. One of them, a tall, leering youth in a grey cap, who came up to Sam one evening at the edge of a village in Indiana, tried to rob him. Full of his new strength and with the thought of Ed's wife and the sullen-faced son in his mind, Sam sprang upon him and ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... the face too, a winking, blinking, leering, little face much like the one that had grinned at Ann from the post of the big bed not so ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... live with him, and (as was always the case almost in my dreams) for centuries. I escaped sometimes, and found myself in Chinese houses, with cane tables, &c. All the feet of the tables, sofas, &c., soon became instinct with life: the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied into a thousand repetitions; and I stood loathing and fascinated. And so often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams that many times the very same dream was broken up in the very same way: ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... they thought they could come and call and make friends with us! And no wonder," she added, more viciously, "that there he stands leering up at this window, when his horse has been ready this ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Nicholas, regarding the picture as steadily as he could—"she's leering at me now. By the Queen of Paphos! another wink. Nay, if you doubt me, watch her well ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rose and tossed his cigar out of the window. "Stanhope," he went on, "we are old friends, and I don't wish to be continually seeming to interfere with your business, but if I were a man with fifty years leering hideously at me, and engaged to a pretty girl of two and twenty, I'd make quick work of it before Providence came along with a younger affinity in a Panama hat, negligee shirt, and ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... almost expecting to see some sinister shadow leering at her from the doorway, or disappearing into the wardrobe. Her terror had something in it of childish nightmare. Acting as if under a spell of compulsion, she rose and tiptoed to the door. She looked down the hall, and found it empty. The querulous voice of Mrs. Mellows came to her, raised in ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... of my tools. See!" The clutching bones dropped the rattling Scythe, and the handle broke as it fell, and rotted before their eyes. "Heh, heh," the Thing cackled as it watched. "Heh—what Death touches, rots as he leaves it." The grinning, blackened skull grinned wider, in an awful, leering cavity, rotting, twisted teeth showed. But from under his flapping robe, the skeletal ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... am writing a horrible lpero, with great leering eyes, is looking at me through the windows, and performing the most extraordinary series of groans, displaying at the same time a hand with two long fingers, probably the other three tied in. "Seorita! Seorita! ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... at the foot of the lane, smoking and bragging and leering as before. To Keith he ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... P——, distinguishing the soldier's accoutrements. The Dane approached the iron gate, and, leering through the bars, seemed to doubt our gentility. We could not speak Danish; he did not speak English; and what was to be done with a common soldier at dead of night? P—— went near ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... from my Nazi ancestors of four hundred and fifty years ago. Hideyoshi's going to treat King Yoorkerk to a movie-show. Want to bet he won't loosen up and release Procyon and Northern Lights and unblockade the Grank Residency after he sees that shot of Firkked's head leering at him off the point of that overgrown asagai? As I said, that's only the last scene, too. I've been having scenes shot all through this fight; some of them are ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... was not a real sign of uneasiness anywhere except in my boat; yet I felt something ominous in this silent, stifled noon. After all, I ought to have scotched the rusty, red-bellied water-snake leering at me now. The croak of the great blue heron sounded again; then far away, mysterious and spirit-like, floated a soft qua, qua, qua—the cry of the least bittern out of the ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... provoked to attack it. Now there is Pepys; you praised that man with such disproportion, that I was incited to lessen him, perhaps more than he deserves. His blood is upon your head. By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; for your censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a leering smile) she is the first woman in the world, could she but restrain that wicked tongue of hers;—she would be the only woman, could she but ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the door opened and a burly warrior appeared in the opening—a hulking fellow, with thick lips and an evil, leering face. The slave girl sprang to ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... as one has often felt when unable to distinguish the words one wishes to repeat. You really then do not seem as if you were alone in this tribune, so animated is every figure, so full of life and soul: yet I commend not the representing of St Catharine with leering eyes, as she is here painted by Titian; that it is meant for a portrait, I find no excuse; some character more suited to the expression should have been chosen; and if it were only the picture of a saint, that expression was strangely out of character. An anachronism may ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... still unpruned by me: Corruption, roll'd in a triumphant car, Displays his burnish'd front and glittering star, Nor heeds the public scorn, or transient curse, Unknown alike to honour and remorse. Behold the leering belle, caress'd by all, Adorn each private feast and public ball, 140 Where peers attentive listen and adore, And not one matron shuns the titled whore. At Peter's obsequies[5] I sung no dirge; Nor has ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the most rapturous applause, and received it with a "decent dignity," very unlike the leering smiles with which, in general, a danseuse thinks it necessary to advance to the front of the proscenium, shewing all her teeth, as she ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... confronted the lights, the leering scullions and the grinning maids with their great mantles; his brown, woodpecker-like face was alike crestfallen and thirsty with desire. A lean Dominican, with his brown cowl back and spectacles of horn, gabbled over his missal and took a crown's fee—then asked another ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... They staggered—and in the winds they sang. Olafaksoah pointed consentingly to Annadoah. One of the men attempted to embrace her. Then she rose defiantly and did what few Eskimo women ever dared. She smote the man's leering face and, sobbing, sank on her knees before Olafaksoah. He roared out things the Eskimos do not understand. "Goddlmighty!" and more awful words. His fist descended. In the winds Ootah heard Annadoah scream ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... overcame him, his mind was still at work, not in orderly sequence but along trails monstrous and grotesque. Hobgoblins seemed to steal through the hall, and leering incubi oppressed his soul with terrible burdens. In the morning he awoke unrested. The tan vanished from his face and little lines appeared in the corners of his mouth. It was as if his nervous ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... shall not force himself upon my friends. Con., treat him with the disdain he deserves, else, he will force his way into your very drawing room. Never, never, never, extend to him the courtesies due to an equal. He is not an equal, he is not a man at all; he is a fat, sleek, leering, ruminating animal, at his best; he is a wolf, a vampire, a devil, at other times; ignorant, vain, avaricious, gross. Rather than see him force himself upon you, as he has forced himself upon us here, I will myself sever our friendship, I will never see, never speak with you again. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... blaze of another match, shielded by the ranger s hands, Larry looked into the scowling, villainous face he had seen earlier in the day. There could be no mistaking those leering, cruel eyes nor the ratlike, shifty look of the face, not to mention the long scar across it. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... could ever have feared it. I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best among them. I knew I was mad, but they did not even suspect it. How I used to hug myself with delight, when I thought of the fine trick I was playing them after their old pointing and leering, when I was not mad, but only dreading that I might one day become so! And how I used to laugh for joy, when I was alone, and thought how well I kept my secret, and how quickly my kind friends would ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Leering closer, rank and girding, In this Black Port where we bide, Reel a thousand flaring faces; But escape is ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... instant came the roar, and the hot silent night was turned to pandemonium. I dashed out of the tent, shouting for Ingleby. Good God! It was like hell! The yelling swearing Tommies, making up for the long enforced silence and inaction; the hordes of dark devilish faces, leering in their fury, and jeering at our discomfiture; for inside their outer wall, was a rampart of double the strength, and we were ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... iridescent, in the magic web of his verse. One thought, however, perpetually haunts him; under all his music of laughter or of passion, it is easy to hear one dominating note. It is the thought of mortality. The whining, leering, brooding creature can never for a moment forget that awful Shadow. He sees it in all its aspects—as a subject for mockery, for penitence, for resignation, for despair. He sees it as the melancholy, inevitable end of all ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... said the fat man. At the same moment a head appeared over the edge of the barge. It was Jules' face—dark, sinister and leering. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... willow, the man,—content, insensate, sprawling upon the bank,—but the Kappa! Buddha the Merciful, could it be true? Where he had left a Kappa, waiting until to-morrow to give the triumph, the leering satisfaction at the human grief it fed on, rose the white form and pitying face of Kwannon Sama,—she to whom his Ume loved to pray. The eyes, soft, humid with compassion, looked directly out to his. They were Ume's eyes! He caught up one brush after the other. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... room-door, which I opened, and peered into the passage, nearly faint with horror lest some leering, shapeless thing should ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... as, while soothing the trembling girl, he looked over his shoulder reproachfully at Rawbon. His tone was low, and even gentle, but it was tremulous with passion. But the man gave no answer, and continued leering at them as before. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... Gabinius!" cried Agias, and, without waiting for his cousin, the young Greek flung himself forward. One stroke of his short sword sent a leering negro prone upon the pavement; one snatch of his hand seized the white mantle, and held it—held it though half a dozen blades were flashing in his face in an eye's twinkling. But the prowess of twenty men was in the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... rises an arch ornamented with high stone tracery. A curious screen between the tower and the church has been made from the old carved bench-ends. Most of the subjects are grotesque, and on some of the panels are gnome-like heads, with long beards, big hats, and impudent, leering expressions. ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... hearing the ravishing music, he might not escape if he would. In a later day we hear of the Lorelei singing on her rock, striking chords on her golden harp, and, as the raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and ears by her music, he had a moment's consciousness of a skull leering at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... intones by rote a coded praise, Unto a leering two-faced god falls prone, And smears with lust and fear his alternate days For monstrous imaginations to atone; For you, most instant, most ardent,—you are flown Like fumes to his clownish brain, and in his fear He dreams you a eunuch ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... lines Zola sketches a living character. Take the picture of old Mere Fetu. One really feels her disagreeable presence, and is annoyed with her whining, leering, fawning, sycophancy. One almost resents her introduction into the pages of the book. There is something palpably odious about her personality. A pleasing contrast is formed by the pendant portraits of the awkward little soldier and his kitchen-sweetheart. This homely and wholesome ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... he got in, and said, "If you can help me to trap Lieutenant Hale, Miss Dixon, we'll go partners in the reward. I know you'd like to be my partner, now wouldn't you? Don't be shy, but say yes." And he jumped on the bus, and I saw his ugly face leering at me with a wicked smile to think how he'd had the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with a sigh. "I guess you're right," he admitted, "but, I declare, it makes me mad the way that big brute is leering up ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... gliding motion, vanished in the yard of an adjacent house. The child did not appear to be human, but a concoction of half a dozen diminutive bestialities, and as my friend gazed at it, too fascinated for the moment to tear himself away, it smiled up at him with the hungry, leering smile of ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... lighted and very damp. The place smelt like a burial vault, and against the walls on each side, rows of ghouls sat on the floor, their knees drawn up to their chins. As the Prince passed, some of them jumped up and gibed at him, leering, sticking out their tongues, and smacking their lips as they danced around him. Walking on rapidly, he soon left these gibbering wretches, and found that the passage became much drier, although darker, and wound and turned in various ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... rain-soaked company for any face known to me. Whom I expected to find there, I know not, but I should have counted it no matter for surprise had I detected amid that ungracious ugliness the beautiful face of Karamaneh, the Eastern slave-girl, the leering yellow face of a Burmese dacoit, the gaunt, bronze features of Nayland Smith; a hundred times I almost believed that I had seen the ruddy countenance of Inspector Weymouth, and once (at what instant my heart seemed to stand still) I suffered from the singular delusion that ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... benefit by it, squaring accounts by spending the money of the Court against the Court, probably inwardly chuckling, the same as the peasant in a blouse on getting ahead of his well-duped landlord, or as the Frank, whom the ancient historian describes as leering on pocketing Roman gold the better to make war against Rome.—The graft on this plebeian seedling has not taken; in our modern garden this remains as in the ancient forest; its vigorous sap preserves its primitive raciness and produces none of the fine fruits ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... jeered this mysterious, evil creature. The black man had halted as Harry prepared to throw, but he showed no sign of hesitation. Though he stood still, he thrust his repulsive, leering face forward, as though to offer that ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... I thought it was a bit further on," said the cabby, leering down cheerfully. "Nice ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Sir Guy thinks none the worse of me for my coaching predilections. "Fond of driving, Miss Coventry?" says he, leering at me from over his great choking neckcloth. "Seen my team—three greys and a piebald? If you like going fast I can accommodate you. Proud to take you back on my drag. What? Go on the box. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Two hundred or more—Oh! he made them all fly! One day, by a blow, He was conquered, I know; But no wonder at last he should yield to a foe: He yielded, poor fellow! The conquering bellow Resounds in my ears as my poor father's knell—Oh!" A Fox then replied, While, leering aside, He laughed at his folly and vapouring pride: "My chattering youth, Your nonsense, forsooth, Is more like a funeral sermon than truth. Let history tell How your old father fell; And see if the ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Or pleasant vale, and green plains stretching far, And quiet bays, and many a shingly bar, And troubled seas, with bitter perils past, And elfin shapes that jeering flitted fast With scornful faces, leering lips that smiled, Or bursts of laughter through that vision wild. Uncertain, then, she stood, half loth to turn. "Against yon deepening sky, how dimly burn The stars, new-lit. Dear home, thou art so fair!" She fondly sighed. Then sudden she was 'ware The angel near her paused, whose ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... the betrothal ring on her finger. Over at the altar Jack was leering at his new-made bride, past decency; and little Angela held the wooden horse's head, which had parted ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... not speak; the other was an old man with a Woollen night-cap under his hat, a brown snuff-colored coat, a nose begrimed with snuff, a small gray eye enveloped amidst wrinkles that spread towards his temples in the form of birds' claws, and gave to his countenance a sort of leering cunning that was extremely disagreeable. I found he was the clerk of the island chapel; that he was a sort of master of the ceremonies in purgatory, and guardian and keeper of it when the station time was over and priests and pilgrims had deserted it. I could plainly ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... I should think there is! Look how he keeps on licking his lips and leering at us now and then. Beautiful and patient, too. Why, he's quite smiling at us, and as soon as they begin to hang his load upon his beautiful humpy back he'll begin moaning and groaning and sighing as if there never was such an ill-used ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... and then another. O'Malley was still taking care of himself and Stan was doing all right, but his gasoline gauge was leering at him and its needle was rolling steadily around. When the fourth Thunderbolt broke into flames, Stan knew it was time to go home. He probably would not make it, but there was ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... have risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, 'Tom ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... down, he wheeled to face the two leering Russians, not forty feet down the road. Pistols levelled, they were ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... to his feet, and stood on the hearth rug, his eyes sparkling with humour. "Confess, sir," he cried gaily. "You do not like Jefferson any better than I do. Fancy him opposite to you day after day, stinging you with honeyed shafts and opposing you with obstacle after obstacle, while leering with hypocrisy. Put yourself in my place for an instant, and blame ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C.V.L., when importuned for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is there no clergyman here?"—significantly adding, "thank G——." Nor do I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a preamble, connecting with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... a soft thud sounded at his feet, coincident with a flash of black and white across his shoulder. He covered the object with one foot, as the oily, leering face of Ah Sih King appeared in the doorway. The blanched face surmounted a costly mandarin robe, righteously worn, a gorgeous blue raiment with traceries of fine gold and exquisite gems. At this moment he seemed to exhale an air of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... the Jack-o'-Lantern, he paused. It was dark, save for a single round window. In an upper front room a night-lamp, turned low, gave one leering eye to the grotesque exterior of ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed |
