"Oldish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought I was getting a bit oldish—but I'm not. It's the things you've got as gets worn out, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... to a distinct sub-order of the Leguminosae from Cassia. Both cotyledons of an oldish seedling, with the first true leaf partially unfolded, were rubbed for 1 m. with a fine twig, and in 5 m. each rose 32o; they [page 127] remained in this position for 15 m., but when looked at again 40 m. after ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... that would be likely to make him either ridiculous or hateful in common opinion, and inventing nothing that could attract much sympathy or much admiration. Though, as has been pointed out already, the Confessions abound in small inaccuracies of date, hardly to be avoided by an oldish man in reference to the facts of his boyhood, whether a Rousseau or a Goethe, and though one or two of the incidents are too deeply coloured with the hues of sentimental reminiscence, and one or two ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... easy, careless life of the idle man, joining in hunting and fishing expeditions when in the mood; at other times enjoying existence in my own way, apart from my fellows, conversing with wild nature in that solitary place. Besides Runi, there were, in our little community, two oldish men, his cousins I believe, who had wives and grown-up children. Another family consisted of Piake, Runi's nephew, his brother Kua-ko—about whom there will be much to say—and a sister Oalava. Piake had a ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... they never did any sort of washing in their rooms. Cornelia did not know who or what some of them were; but she made sure of a theatrical manager; two or three gentlemen in different branches of commerce; a newspaper writer of some sort, and an oldish gentleman who had been with Mrs. Montgomery a great while, and did not seem to be anything but a gentleman boarder, pure and simple. They were all very civil and quiet, and they bore with the amiable American fortitude the hardships of the common lot at Mrs. Montgomery's, ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... you a story. Last Friday I went down to Portobello, in the heavy rain, with an uneasy wind blowing par rafales off the sea (or "en rafales" should it be? or what?). As I got down near the beach a poor woman, oldish, and seemingly, lately at least, respectable, followed me and made signs. She was drenched to the skin, and looked wretched below wretchedness. You know, I did not like to look back at her; it seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is oldish, Although Sir John as gray, gray air, Hage has not made his busum coldish, His Art still beats tewodds ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Company's ryott in accordance with the wish, he said, of the Dupha Gam; but when I told him he ought to send or go to the Suddiya Sahib, or Political Agent, he said he wanted to see the Dupha first: he was accompanied by a very loquacious oldish man, who had just returned from Hook-hoom, to which place he had gone with the Dupha. They left apparently not much pleased at my being ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... Hobart Town. "I am afraid that is rather stiff, Blunt," said Frere. "That's one of the best billets going, you know. I doubt if I have enough interest to get it for you. Besides," he added, eyeing the sailor critically, "you are getting oldish for that sort ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the room, in company with an oldish, half-foreign-looking man, evidently his relation. With no helping recollection, with no means of comparison beyond a vague idea that his cousin might look like himself, Clarence stood hopelessly before him. He had already ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... at the station steps together. Ashton jumped out, and ran to meet George; but blank was his astonishment to see an oldish lady and her attendant alight from the vehicle, which he ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... at first. There are many young offenders; the governors say they are horrid plagues, for they are not allowed to flog them, and they are little influenced by darkness and solitary confinement: oldish men much afraid of it. The disease most common in this prison is scrofula; and it is a curious fact that those who work with their arms at the mills are free from it, those who work with their feet at the tread-mills are ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... realised that they had settled down there and that habits had been formed. Still, they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey, by terrible application and by sitting daily at the feet of an oldish lady in black, and by refusing to speak English between breakfast and dinner, had acquired a good accent and much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke French, she thought in French, and she ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Drawin' a quick breath, I knocked at the door. "Come in," says a peskish voice. I cum in, and there, sure enough, with nose close down to the desk, a writin' away for dear life, sat CHARLEY. I knowed him to onc't, for all he was a little oldish, and a little grayish, and had a bare spot like a turtle's back on the top of his head. My heart cum' a bustin' up into my throat, and an inward voice seemed ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... had a feeling that the man at the other table was gazing at me. I glanced at him, but seemed to have been mistaken. He was looking absently at the sky over my head. I now took thought of what a very silent, motionless, undemonstrative man this was. He was thin and oldish, and of moderate stature, with a narrow face, pale eyes, and a very long nose. He was dressed in dull brown cloth, and was in all respects—save his length of nose—one of those persons of whom nobody ever takes much ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... an uncomfortable situation, as Mr. Carr was quite unaware of the religion of five out of six of those present, and very soon began to give voice to his views on Papistry. He was an oldish man by now, and of some importance in Maidstone, where he had been appointed Jurat by the Corporation, and was a very ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... devil, the devil!" Calendar started on again, muttering distractedly. As they reached the corner he disengaged his arm. "We've a minute and a half to reach Charing Cross Pier; and I think it's the last boat. You set the pace, will you? But remember I'm an oldish ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... gone, there came in his place as curate an oldish man, grey-haired and meagre; a great adorer of Archbishop Laud and of King Charles the First, 'the Royal Martyr,' as he would say; but for all his half Popish notions, he was blameless, nay, austere in his life; and he had thriven so ill in the gay new world of London, ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... such outfit, If I've got your idee right. Think they camped a mile below here Week ago last Thursday night. Pulled in sometime 'long 'bout sundown, Turned their stock in yonder draw, But an oldish sort of fellow Was the only one I saw; Rode a speckled chestnut pony With a white star in his face; Asked some questions 'bout the country, 'Bout the proper crossing-place. Pulled out sometime long 'fore daylight. Didn't see them when they passed, ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... in and poke fun at. There was a swell girl in a 40 H.-P. auto tan coat and veil, and a fat old man with white side-whiskers, and a young chap that couldn't keep his feet off the tail of the girl's coat, and an oldish lady that looked upon life as immoral and unnecessary. 'How perfectly delightful,' they says, 'to sup in a slosh.' Up the stairs they go; and in half a minute back down comes the girl, her skirts swishing like the waves on ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... his first Christmas dinner and he thought of his little brothers and sisters who were waiting in the nursery, as he had often waited, till the pudding came. The deep low collar and the Eton jacket made him feel queer and oldish: and that morning when his mother had brought him down to the parlour, dressed for mass, his father had cried. That was because he was thinking of his own father. And uncle Charles ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... which prevailed, there was more stir about this expedition than had been about any. There were to be two ships fitted for it. First of all, Freydis said that she intended for it—she and her husband Thorhall; then another Thorhall, him they called the Huntsman, offered himself—a tall, oldish, glum fellow, liked by nobody and trusted by few, but a man of great strength and courage, too able to be refused. Then came up Biorn from Heriolfsness offering himself and his ship. Altogether there were some hundred and forty people to be carried, of whom five only ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... The oldish man came deliberately down the steps, and approached us. Then his gaze, beginning at my waist, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... the use?—but leaned against the cabin-door, holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman, who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on her lap. She had found an empty stool, and ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... away himself, when his eyes lit upon a strange sight, and one which sent a tingling through his skin. Out of the tangled scrub on the old overgrown barrow two human faces were looking out at him; the sinking sun glimmered full upon them, showing up every line and feature. The one was an oldish man with a thin beard, a crooked nose, and a broad red smudge from a birth-mark over his temple; the other was a negro, a thing rarely met in England at that day, and rarer still in the quiet southland parts. Alleyne had ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... we helped 'n. We was only gone out to see 'n do it. He never wanted no help. He didn't say much; only 'Git back,' or 'Git up,' to the hosses. When it come to gettin' the last tree up, on top o' t'other two, I never thought he could ha' done it. But he got 'n up. And he was a oldish man, too: sixty, I dessay he was. But he jest spoke to the hosses. Never used no whip 'xcept jest to guide 'em. Didn't the old farmer go on at his own men, too! 'You dam fellers, call yerselves carters,' he says; 'a ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... replied, for my nerve was giving out and I grew confused, "he is oldish, with a white beard, rather like Father Christmas in short, and his Christian name (I didn't dare to give it all at once) is—er—John, Brother John, we call him. Now I think of it," I added, "he has some resemblance ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... bath room, private or public, in Brownsville in those days. Wash tubs were used in winter, the creek and river in summer. Once there came an oldish, high-toned lady from Richmond. She lodged with Isaac Vance at the Marshall House. He bought a new carpet and other fine furnishings for her room. It was an unusually warm summer. One day Vance noticed the colored porter carrying a tub to the lady's room: "Yer, yer, where yer goin' ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... would, out of obstinacy, herself break off a blooming bough. She wounded herself on a thorn, and as if from the dark roses, flowed the purple on her tender hand. This circumstance put the whole party into a flutter. English plaster was sought for. A still, thin, lanky, longish, oldish man, who stood near, and whom I had not hitherto remarked, put his hand instantly into the close-lying breast-pocket of his old French gray taffetty coat; produced thence a little pocket-book; opened it; and presented to the lady, with a profound obeisance, the required article. She took ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Hearthstone stenographer, boarded in the same house with the author. She was an oldish, thin, exclusive, languishing, sentimental maid; and Slayton had been introduced to her some ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry |
