"Passer-by" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... calling.... There are lots of them here too. One often comes upon a string of cranes or swans.... Snipe and woodcock flutter about in the birch copses. The hares which are not eaten or shot here, stand on their hindlegs, and, pricking up their ears, watch the passer-by with an inquisitive stare without the slightest misgiving. They are so often running across the road that to see them doing so is ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... conspicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready—you have only to get into it; it serves a double purpose—a bed by night, a portmanteau by day; and it does not advertise your intention of camping out to every curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If a camp is not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place; you become a public character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye open, and be up before the day. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... threadbare old coat without the Abruzzi cloak, without the barrel-organ, without the monkey. My first impulse was to go up to him, but an uneasy feeling of I do not know what held me back; I felt that I blushed and I did not move from my place. Every now and then a passer-by stopped for a moment and made as if to search his pockets, but I did not see a single copper fall into the old man's hat. The place became gradually deserted, and one beggar after another trotted off with his little earnings. At last a child came out ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... miles long in various directions—little rows and single and double cottages and villas, all in red, red brick and its weary accompaniment, the everlasting hard slate roof. These square red brick boxes with sloping slate tops are built as close as possible to the public road, so that the passer-by looking in at the windows may see the whole interior—wall-papers, pictures, furniture, and oftentimes the dull expressionless face of the woman of the house, staring back at you out of her shallow blue eyes. The weather too was against us; a grey hard ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... be passed without mention. It is among the most aged survivals of pre-revolutionary days. Neither its architecture not its age, however, is its chief warrant for our notice. The absurd number of windows in this battered old structure is what strikes the passer-by. The church was erected by subscription, and these closely set large windows are due to Henry Sherburne, one of the wealthiest citizens of the period, who agreed to pay for whatever glass was used. If the building could have been composed entirely ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... one that Ayleesabet found," added Mr. Emerson, drawing it from his pocket. "That is the five hundred and seventy-second. Young Vladimir's trophy has gone for good, I'm afraid. He must have sold it to some passer-by who knew enough to realize that it was a valuable coin and wasn't honest enough to hunt for the owner or to pay the child ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... it the same to Elspeth, so they sat down by the roadside and cried with their arms round each other, and any passer-by could look who had the heart. But when night came, and they were in their garret bed, Tommy was once more seeking to comfort Elspeth with arguments he disbelieved, and again he succeeded. As usual, too, the ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... the kirkyard and the gate was not opened. The music bells ran the gamut of old Scotch airs and ceased, while he sat there and waited patiently. Once a man stopped to look at the little dog, and Bobby promptly jumped on the wicket, plainly begging to have it unlatched. But the passer-by decided that some lady had left her pet behind, and would return for him. So he patted the attractive little Highlander on the head and ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... noting how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands—they might well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the world looks to-day!" said Bessie to herself; and perhaps this pleasant thought was reflected in her face, for more than one passer-by glanced at her half enviously. Bessie did not notice them; her soft gray eyes were fixed on the blue sky above her, or on the glimpses of water between the houses. Just before she turned into the avenue that led to the house, she stopped to admire the view. She was at the summit ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... adviser whenever a new model of some important agricultural machine had to be prepared at the Beauchene factory. Constance promptly dismissed him from her thoughts; in her estimation there was no reason to fear him; he was a mere passer-by, who on the morrow, perhaps, would establish himself at the other end of France. Then once more the thought of Blaise came back to her, imperative, all-absorbing; and it suddenly occurred to her that if she made haste home she would ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... why he sought the most consecrated part of earth for these precious relics. All about, upon the graves of the poor, he had seen similar tokens, and had observed that even the most careless and light-hearted passer-by had never stooped to touch what a pious affection had made sacred. Some, it is true, had looked with contempt upon these simple tributes, and had suffered the words "heathen fanatics!" to escape their lips; but these same ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... was proclaimed to be a beast to be bred and sold in market with the horse and the swine,—that land, with its fair name, Virginia, has been made a desolation so signal, so wonderful, that the blindest passer-by cannot but ask for what sin so awful a doom has been meted out. The prophetic visions of Nat Turner, who saw the leaves drop blood and the land darkened, have been fulfilled. The work of justice which he predicted is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... tall Venetian masts, topped with shields or banners. Concealed behind the heraldic emblems are powerful magnesite arc lamps. These spread their intense glow on the walls, but are hardly recognized as sources of light by the passer-by on the avenues. Batteries of searchlights and projectors mounted on the tops of buildings light the towers, the domes, and the statuary. Even the banners on the walls are held in the spotlights of small projectors constantly ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... but—whether there was something the matter with my eyes or not, I do not know—despite all my alertness, there wasn't a soul in sight that I could see. Of course, I was slightly mystified at first, and then I attributed the interruption either to imagination or to some passer-by, whose voice, wafted on the breeze, might have reached my ears. I threw myself back into the hammock once more, and was just about dozing off to the lullaby sung by a bee to the accompaniment of the rustling leaves, when I again heard my ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... was this: I am sorry to find you here almost at the mercy of the passer-by, where a man may come, may drink, may rob you if he will—" and here a flush of shame spread over his features in spite of himself—"and where, I daresay, more than one has laid claim ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... When the first railway was constructed up in the North the Okebourne folk, like the rest of the world, were with good reason extremely curious about this wonderful invention, and questioned every passer-by eagerly for information. But no one could describe it, till at last a man, born in the village, but who had been away for some years soldiering, returned to his native place. He had been serving in Canada and came through Liverpool, and thus saw the marvel of the age. At ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... he liked it. It was the sort of thing any fool could do, as the policeman had said. It would take some thinking over. Besides, dynamite dropped on the pavement would, at most, but blow in the front of the shop, kill the perambulating policeman perhaps, or some innocent passer-by, but it would not hurt old Sonne nor yet the garcon who had made himself so ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... was invited by Elizabeth and Miss Carteret, in a manner not to be refused, to sit between them; and by some other removals, and a little scheming of her own, Anne was enabled to place herself much nearer the end of the bench than she had been before, much more within reach of a passer-by. She could not do so, without comparing herself with Miss Larolles, the inimitable Miss Larolles; but still she did it, and not with much happier effect; though by what seemed prosperity in the shape of an early abdication in her next neighbours, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... man a sovereign. Naturally enough the fellow could not change it, and Barnes went in to get some silver from his rooms, promising to return in a minute or two. The cabby descended and walked to the corner of the street to see if he could beg a match for his pipe from any passer-by. He may have been away for perhaps five minutes, certainly no more, during which time he stood with his back to the Mansions. Seeing no one about, he returned to his cab, ascended to his seat, naturally without looking inside, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... five people, lying down. This arbour would hardly be noticed, even by persons searching; as it was, to a great extent, hidden by the foliage beneath it. Stanley told Meinik that they had better buy some rope for a ladder, and take out the pegs; as these might catch the eye of a passer-by, and cause him to make ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... Alix!" Her despair lent her wit. If he went to the ticket office, and she into a telephone booth, she might escape him yet! While he dawdled here, minutes were flying, and Peter was watching every car and every passer-by, torn with the same agony that was tearing her. "If you'll go find out the exact time and get tickets," she said, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... graffito containing this sentence: "February 5, 375, we, Florentinus, Fortunatus, and Felix, came here AD CALICE[M] (for the cup)." To understand the meaning of this sentence, we must compare it with others engraved on pagan tombs. In one, No. 25,861 of the "Corpus," the deceased says to the passer-by: "Come on, bring with you a flask of wine, a glass, and all that is needed for a libation!" In another, No. 19,007, the same invitation is worded: "Oh, friends (convivae), drink now to my memory, and wish that the earth may be light on me." We are ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... When the last passer-by was out of sight, Billy ran and dressed himself in his master's best suit of clothes, took the brown mare from the stable, and was off ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... holding in her hand a neat small basket, on the top of which lay a clean white cloth, to shade from the sun the flowers which she praised so highly, and a little bunch of which she presented to almost every passer-by, in the hope of finding purchasers; while, after one had passed rudely on, another had looked at her young face and smiled, another had said, "What a nice child!" but not one had taken the flowers, and left the penny ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... pillows, reading. That is where Stair sleeps at night. His feet are towards the fire and the light shines down on his book from the four little panes of glass. These are open to the sky but carefully masked from the sight of any passer-by (if such a thing could be thought of on the Wild of Blairmore) by a firmly packed wall ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... soundness of his opinions, but not often the justice of his actions. Gordon's statue, set up in the indignant grief of the nation in the space which is appropriated to the monuments of Great Captains by sea and land, claims the attention of the passer-by, not only because it is comparatively new. The figure, its pose, and its story are familiar even to the poorest citizens of London and to people from all parts of the United Kingdom. Serene amid the noise of the traffic, as formerly in that of ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... community. Never were there such beds of lilies! And when they pierced the black loam with their long sheath-like leaves, and broke their alabaster boxes of perfume on the feet of spring, the most careless passer-by was forced to stay his steps for one ecstatic moment to look and to breathe, to forget and to remember. The shadow of the owner's house lay on this garden at the morning hour, and a tall brick building intercepted its share of the ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... any other than a shuddering motion, as though it felt the searching blast, which swept furiously from the north up the declivity of the street, rattling the shutters in its headlong passage. Once or twice, when a passer-by, muffled warmly from the bitter air, hurried past, the phantom shrank closer to the wall, till he was gone. Its vague, mournful face seemed to watch for some one. The twilight darkened, gradually; but it did not flit away. Patiently ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... a mass of shapeless walls, of mud hovels, gray and dusty looking as the soil, together with some fragments of turreted walls, in whose shelter about a thousand humble huts raised their miserable adobe fronts, like anaemic and hungry faces demanding an alms from the passer-by. A shallow river surrounded the town, like a girdle of tin, refreshing, in its course, several gardens, the only vegetation that cheered the eye. People were going into and coming out of the town, on horseback and on foot, and the human movement, although not great, gave some appearance ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... people in the streets except tourists, mostly Englishmen in pith-helmets, puggarees, red Baedekers, with their everlasting "Very interesting!" on their lips. At noon our Babuino is so deserted that the footstep of a solitary passer-by re-echoes on the pavement. But in the evening the street swarms with people. At that time I feel usually very depressed, nervous, and restless. I go out, and walk about until I am tired; and that gives me relief. I walk mostly on the Pincio, three or four times along that ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... La Palferine was walking with a friend who flung his cigar end in the face of a passer-by. The recipient had the bad taste ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... the full extent of his loss, his first impulse was to seize hold of the nearest passer-by and strangle him; his next, to dash down a narrow street close beside him in pursuit of some one; his next, to howl "stop thief!" and "murder!" and his next, to stare into a shop window in ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... with as much disdain by the miserable slave as by his wealthy owner. This disposition seems to be instilled into the mind of every slave at the South, and indeed, I have heard slaves object to being sent in very small companies to labor in the field, lest that some passer-by should think that they belonged to a poor man, who was unable to keep a large gang. Nor is this ridiculous sentiment maintained by the slaves only; the rich planter feels such a contempt for all white persons without slaves, that he does not ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... the little old lady, to whom the Major's facetiousness was the only serious thing about him. "Your secrets are like apples, sir, that hang to every passer-by, until I store them ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... deep ultramarine blue, liquid with the moisture of innocent youth, rested on a passer-by, he was involuntarily thrilled. Nor did a single freckle mar her skin, such as those with which many a white and golden maid pays toll for her milky whiteness. Tall, round without being fat, with a slender dignity as noble as her mother's, she really deserved the name ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... quenched, the hungry fed, some sort of shelter provided, the next step was to prepare for the resumption of business and the reconstruction of the city. Within ten days from the first outbreak of flames the soldiers had begun to impress the passer-by into the service of throwing bricks and other debris out of the street in order to remove the stuff ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... child upon Storch's doorstep, hugging her doll close, and as swiftly he remembered the black kodak case upon the center table. He wondered if the child were still sitting there ... Perhaps, by this time, a swarm of children were tumbling about the weather-beaten steps. He asked a passer-by the hour. Eleven-thirty! In fifteen more minutes, if the ticking clock within that sinister case performed its function, Storch's dwelling would be tumbling in upon his prostrate body. And, in the face of this, children ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... would in Europe have been inadmissible, and would, without doubt, have led to the immediate arrest and imprisonment of the authors. Here, however, they are but little noticed by the populace, and not at all, I believe, by the authorities. Cheap newspapers are pushed into the face of the passer-by, at the corner of every principal thoroughfare, the prices varying from two to six cents. These, as may be supposed, contain, together with the current news, every description of scandal and trash imaginable, their personality being highly offensive, injurious, and reprehensible. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... How little would the passer-by who looked in those days on its walls, decayed and moss-grown even then, and mouldering—how little would he have imagined that its fame would go down to the latest ages, imperishable ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... A passer-by jostled Drake in the back. Standing there they were blocking the way. 'Isn't there anywhere we could go? Tea? One drinks ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... "I can't tell till I've seen just how it suits you. But I am going to the root of the matter, now that I am here. Oh! is this the place?" as they came up against a large window, behind whose plate glass, rows and rows of books in all styles of bindings, met the view of the passer-by. ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... advancing forward into the truth—how, they know not. Neither the one class nor the other have undertaken to inquire and judge, or have set about being converted, or have got their reasons all before them and together, to discharge at an enemy or passer-by on fit occasions. The difference between these two classes is in the state of their hearts; the one party consist of unformed minds, or senseless and dead, or minds under temporary excitement, who are brought over by external or accidental ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... and woe-begone villa next door had almost lost its name, so faded was the lettering on the gate-post that was putting out its bell-handle to the passer-by, even as the patient puts out his tongue to the doctor. But experts in palimpsests, if they had penetrated the superscriptions in chalk and pencil of idle authorship, would have found that it was The Retreat. Probably this would have ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... his hands tied behind his back, being led with a rope and followed by about a score of cavalry soldiers in their picturesque hats and red tassels. A magistrate, in his long white gown and with a huge pair of circular spectacles on his nose, headed the procession. I asked a passer-by what they were going to do, and was soon informed, both by action and by word of mouth, that the man was going to be flogged, whereupon I at once slackened my pace, and joined the procession, that I might, if possible, see how ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed in some way to ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... ladies were highly educated: many of them could converse in several different languages; while during most days of the week there was a constant succession of gay assemblies, banquets, dances and nuptial parties, while music, singing, and cheerful sounds might be heard by the passer-by in every street. What a fearful change was in a few short years to be wrought in this state of things! Shrieks of agony, cries of despair, hideous, brutal slaughter, blood flowing down the doorsteps of every house, flames bursting forth from amid ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... encouraged might develop into being equal to all demands. Here and there an exceedingly fresh and clean "market store," brilliant with the highly colored labels adorning tinned soups and meats and edibles in glass jars, alluringly presented itself to the passer-by. The elevated railroad perched upon iron supports, and with iron stairways so tall that they looked almost perilous, was a prominent feature of the landscape. There were stretches of waste ground, and ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... yet in ten minutes after their first speech all those who gazed knew that the tale was told. And as they rode homeward together beneath the arching trees and through the crowded streets, their faces wore such looks as drew each passer-by to turn and gaze after them, and to themselves the whole great world had changed; and of a surety, nowhere, nowhere, two hearts beat to such music, or two souls ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... white draperies, her face made an attractive picture for the passer-by. Mrs. McAlister's girlhood had passed; a certain girlishness, however, would never pass, and her clear blue eyes had all the life and fire they had shown when, as Bess Holden she had been the leader in most of the pranks of her class ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Jack grumbled, at which they all laughed with such infectious mirth that more than one passer-by turned to smile ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... there were certain eyes that saw him from the banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless, Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by found the two dead ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... shade. Between these cliffs, like the Libyan bay which sheltered the shipwrecked Trojans, was a little haven, seemingly a beginning made by Nature herself of a perfect harbour, which appealed to the passer-by as only requiring a little human industry to finish it and make it famous, the ground on each side as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior valley being a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... sit at my window this morning where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me ...
— Stray Birds • Rabindranath Tagore
... and yet suppose I could carry off its object as I might a rusty nail, which any passer-by would ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Ruth and Harold sat waiting in his car at eight-thirty on Friday morning. The machine did not stand in front of either Mason's or Henry's house; instead, it was drawn up before a provision store, where, to the passer-by, it might appear to be waiting while Mrs. Mason or Mrs. Wilkinson was making ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... drunken men, draws a crowd on the street and brings the police to the spot. At other times there is a rush of human beings and a wild cry of "stop thief," and the throng sweeps rapidly down the side-walk overturning street stands, and knocking the unwary passer-by off his feet, in its mad chase after some unseen thief. Beggars line the side-walk, many of them professing the most hopeless blindness, but with eyes keen enough to tell the difference between the coins tossed into their hats. The "Bowery Bands," as the little street musicians are called, are ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... show you that a tremendous penalty would have been the result, had I cut it down. 15. For I was cutting the olive in broad daylight, as though, so far from keeping it a secret from all, it was necessary for every Athenian to know it. If the deed had been merely a disgrace, perhaps a chance passer-by would not have troubled himself about it. I was risking not disgrace, but great punishment. 16. Should I not be the most wretched of all men if my slaves, being acquainted with my crime, became no longer my slaves, ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... eat or drink for the first twenty-four hours, and do little else but brood underneath the hen, though little patches of brown and yellow with a bright eye here and there form a fascinating picture for any passer-by. ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... reception Mr. Lincoln was in excellent spirits, giving each passer-by a cordial greeting and a warm shake of the hand, while for some there was a quiet joke. Mrs. Lincoln stood at his right hand, wearing a purple silk dress trimmed with black velvet and lace, with a lace necktie fastened with a pearl ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... and the warped streets had him in their grip once more, and sported with him till his consciousness waxed to one white-hot point of pain. Overhead the stars were laughing quietly in the fields of space, and sometimes a policeman or a chance passer-by looked curiously at his lurching figure, but he only knew that life was hurting him beyond endurance, and that he yet endured. Up and down the ice-cold corridors of his brain, thought, formless ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... at all, and always in such a manner as would cause an encounter to appear to be mere chance. Then certain words were to be uttered, but always without attracting the attention of any bystander or passer-by. ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which still festoon the forest, but the export has almost ceased from Ceylon. Along with these the trunks of the larger trees are profusely covered with other delicate creepers, chiefly Convolvuli and Ipomoeas; and the pitcher-plant (Nepenthes distillatoria) lures the passer-by to halt and conjecture the probable uses of the curious mechanism, by means of which it distils a quantity of limpid fluid into the vegetable vases at the extremity of its leaves. The Orchideae suspend their pendulous flowers ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... as I passed it. But now!—now it inspires in me a sense of deep trust and gratitude; and such awe as I have for it is altogether a loving awe, as for holy ground that should he trod lightly. A drugget of crimson cloth across a London pavement is rather resented by the casual passer-by, as saying to him 'Step across me, stranger, but not along me, not in!' and for answer he spurns it with his heel. 'Stranger, come in!' is the clear message of the Golden Drugget. 'This is but a humble and earthly hostel, yet you ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... in a cornfield that bent inward, hidden from the casual passer-by by a grove of Osage orange trees. Here we drew up, jumped out, tenderly conveyed the kegs forth ... the ground we had chosen, in the corner of the field, was too rocky for planting. It was sultry early afternoon, of a ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... a sort of fright about this Jamaica bill," said Mr Egerton in an undertone, as if he were afraid a passer-by might overhear him. "Don't say anything about it, but there's a ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... gorgeous god of day threw over earth and sky the flashing strands of his golden hair, but in the night time when all else was wrapped in the arms of sleep, the twin sister of death; and the belated passer-by of his home often saw the gleam of his cigar as he sat or walked upon the lawn, in the small hours of the night: and at such time I know there came through his soul the thoughts, if not the words, of that death-devoted Greek, who to the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and there—subscription-book in hand—she stationed herself at the great south gate in order to take toll from those who wished to lay up for themselves treasures in the Western Heaven. The first passer-by who took any notice of her was an amiable maniac. His dress was made of coloured shreds and patches, and his general appearance was wild and uncouth. "Whither away, nun?" he asked. She explained that she was collecting subscriptions for ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... the moment he emerged, the buck stood for some moments eyeing him with sheer curiosity. Was this a harmless passer-by, or a would-be trespasser on his new domain of cabbages? On second glance, he decided that it looked like the noisy figure which had waved defiance from the top of the fence. Realizing this, a red gleam came into the buck's eye. He wheeled, stamped, and ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... took from him his poor cloak. Francis asked to have the cloak back, alleging mildly, that what had been taken had done no injury to the vineyard; and that good feeling required that this assistance should be given to a passer-by who needed it. But, not having succeeded in procuring its restoration, he went to the proprietor of the vineyard, from whom he had no difficulty in getting it back, after having told him what had happened. He then conversed with him on heavenly things with such effect, that ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... which was in reality no better than a very rough mountain track and exceedingly bumpy, worked old Killer, as the tiger was ominously called, into a frenzy of wrath, the which was by no means softened by the removal of the outer side of his cage, in order that the casual passer-by might observe his ferocity through the inner iron bars. Now the tiger's frenzy meant something very like frenzy for Finn. When the tiger snarled, and thrashed the inner side of his cage with his ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... which no one had taught him. It was all done in his function as a guard. It would be hard to determine what his yelps meant, but there were in them an inflection, a sonorousness, and a continuance quite different from those he uttered when pursuing a passer-by or when going to meet a person coming toward the house. Every one who has a watch dog is able to tell by the sound of his barking when a person is coming up, and usually what sort of a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... arranged with genuine taste, a little too formal and stiff to meet our fancy, but yet finding ready customers at reasonable prices. In Madrid, Florence, or Paris, it is sunny-faced girls who offer these fragrant emblems to the passer-by; but at Hong Kong it is done with less effect by almond-eyed men and ragged boys. The city is so far Europeanized as to be less typical of Chinese manners and customs than are cities further inland; but revelations come upon us with less of a shock when ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... herself, "and tell them; I will go—" And then she stopped short, remembering that she could neither go nor write,—that all communication with the world she had left was closed. Was it all closed? Was there no way in which a message could reach those who remained behind? She caught the first passer-by whom she passed, and addressed him piteously. "Oh, tell me,—you have been longer here than I,—cannot one send a letter, a message, if it ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... deep, romantic, tragical interest; such a character, in such circumstances, in such an age, and such a place: I commend it to those of the Anglo-Gallic school, who love the domestically horrible, and delight in unsunned sorrows: but, I throw not any one topic away as a waif, for the casual passer-by to pick up on the highway. Shadows, indeed, are flung upon the waters, but Phulax still holds the substance with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and hurriedly note his points, fearing every moment that he would take wing; but not a feather stirred. A king on his throne could not be more absolutely indifferent to a passer-by than this little beauty. He was self-possessed as a thrush, and serene as a dove, but he was not conveniently placed for study, being above my head in strong sunlight, against a glaring sky. I could see only ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of those you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper propped up against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and with indifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying them through ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... half-empty bed. At the present moment there were no such patches; and the waters ran by, silent, black, in great volumes, and with unchecked rapid course. It was only by pausing specially to listen to them that the passer-by could hear them as they glided smoothly round the piers of the bridge. Nina did pause and did hear them. They would have been almost less terrible to her, had the sound ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... unsheltered slope, she looked about for a place of refuge. She found it in a clump of trees and bushes growing by the roadside; and creeping in amongst them, our Madelon's slim little figure was very well concealed amongst the shadows from any passer-by. Eight o'clock had struck as she left the convent. "I will wait till nine," she resolved. "An hour will not be very long, and it will be quite dark by that time." And so she did wait, with the most determined impatient patience, through an hour ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... displeasure. At last I made out the cause of the disturbance,—a little owl on a limb, looking down in wide-eyed intentness upon me. How annoyed he must have felt at all this hullabaloo, this lover of privacy and quiet, to have his name cried from the treetops, and his retreat advertised to every passer-by! ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... so far within so short a time! That almost within the limits of two men's lives a state of things prevailed which permitted a corpse to be lying about by the side of the public highway, subject now to the insults, now to the pity, of the passer-by! Yet many persons living remember the fire-side stories of the dreadful penalties awaiting any person who dared to interfere with the course of the law, and remove the malefactor from ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... and he turned down the road a few rods distant beyond some bushes, as little concerned about the wild happenings as any other passer-by might have been. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... a day when the appeal was so insistent that he braced himself to the effort, and after many weary miles reached the place of his dreams, only to find that the blue distance had disappeared. Meeting a passer-by he told him of his journey and its object, and of his disappointment, "Look behind you," was the reply. He looked, and behold! over the very spot he had left in the morning—over his own home—the blue haze hung, as ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... peculiar to his dual capacity of shopkeeper and manager of a post-office. All day long he stood on the watch for customers—literally stood, now behind the counter, now in front of it, his eager and angry eyes turning to the door whenever the steps of a passer-by sounded without. If the door opened his nerves began to tingle, and he straightened himself like a soldier at attention. For a moment he suffered an agony of doubt. Would the person entering turn to the counter or to the post-office? And seldom was his hope fulfilled; ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... throughfare, and verging still to the west, Dyson discovered that he had penetrated to the depths of Soho. Here again was life; rare vintages of France and Italy, at prices which seemed contemptibly small, allured the passer-by; here were cheeses, vast and rich; here olive oil, and here a grove of Rabelaisian sausages; while in a neighbouring shop the whole press of Paris appeared to be on sale. In the middle of the roadway a strange miscellany of nations sauntered ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... in Wardour-street by this time, looking at the dimly-lighted shops where brokers' ware of more or less value, old oak carvings, doubtful pictures, and rusted armour loomed duskily upon the passer-by. At the corner of Queen Anne's Court he paused, and peered ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... them so distended with food as to be literally incapable of moving. Only yesterday, there swept past these doors a bright procession, going half-trot to a lively chant of music: the funeral of a woman. I enquired of a passer-by the cause of ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... bristling with nails, called caltrops, were distributed over the yonder side of the ditch. There were every day four hundred crossbow-men on duty, with orders to fire on whosoever approached. Every suspected passer-by was seized, and carried off to Tristan l'Hermite, the provost-marshal. No great proofs were required for a swing on the gibbet, or for the inside of a sack and a plunge in the Loire. . . . Men who, like Sire de Commynes, had been the king's servants, and who had lived in his confidence, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Many a passer-by in the streets of London that night must have asked himself, What lunatic is this at large? At one moment I would bound along the pavement as though propelled by wings, scarcely seeming to touch the pavement with my feet. At the next I would stop in a cold perspiration ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... will quickly convince us that these strange daughters of hazard, who should be blind and deaf as their father, by no means act in his irresponsible fashion. They are well aware of what they are doing, and rarely make a mistake. With inexplicable certainty do they move to the passer-by whom they have been sent to confront, and lightly touch his shoulder. Two men may be travelling upon the same road, and at the same hour; but there will be no hesitation or doubt in the ranks of the double, invisible troop ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Dawley, of Fayetteville, on August fifth, and from that time until September twenty-sixth, additions were made almost daily. One hundred and twenty-eight varieties, arrayed on hundreds of plates, and occupying nearly a third of the New York space, compelled the attention and admiration of every passer-by. And indeed, it was an attractive sight, from the stand-point of color alone, comprising, as it did, nearly every shade of green, yellow, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... of Old England, and, by contrast, in some of the busiest centres of New England, landmarks of religious history are to be found which are not to be easily understood by every passer-by. He is familiar with the ordinary places of worship, at least as features in, the picture of town or village. Here is the parish church where the English episcopal order has succeeded to the Roman; yonder is the more modern dissenting chapel, homely or ornate. But, now and then, ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... custom of laying the sins of the people upon the head of an animal, and turning him out into the wilderness, had its counterpart among the Mexicans, who, to cure a fever, formed a dog of maize paste and left it by the roadside, saying the first passer-by would carry away the illness. (Dorman, "Prim. Super.," p. 59.) Jacob's ladder had its duplicate in the vine or tree of the Ojibbeways, which led from the earth to heaven, up and down which the spirits passed. ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... no means an ideal arrangement—a mountain pass, but it is better than always sitting in one's study in civilisation, where every passer-by, pamphlet, boy in the street, thinks he might just as well come up and ring one's door-bell awhile. All modern books are book agents at heart, around getting subscriptions for themselves. If a man wants to be sociable or literary nowadays, he can only do it by being a more or ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... her. She always carried her book in her pocket, and took to asking girls the pronunciation of larger words, and begging them to read a few lines to her; and sitting on the door-step poring over her book, she would salute any passer-by with: "Please tell us what is that word." When she could read easily, which she learned to do in two or three months, she borrowed left-off school-books from the girls, and worked slowly on, and ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... building covered ways from their breastwork to the ground below. In a few days men could go the length of a regiment without being exposed in the least, crawling along the tunnels all dug with bayonets, knives, and a few wornout shovels. At some of these angles the passer-by would be exposed, and in going from one opening to another, only taking the fraction of a second to accomplish, a bullet would come whizzing from some unseen source, either to the right or left. As soon as one of these openings under a covered ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... fashion of the sample just given, of the God idea, and Righteousness, and Carlyle, and the Reorganisation of Society. And in the midst of it all, Hill, arguing not only for Thorpe, but for the casual passer-by, would lose the thread of his argument glancing at some pretty painted face that looked meaningly at him as he passed. Science and Righteousness! But once or twice lately there had been signs that a third interest was creeping into his life, and he had found his attention wandering ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... on the ground in the long grass, thus effectually concealing himself from the view of any chance passer-by, and crawled to the crest of the hill, where he again peered cautiously about him. The ground, from the spot whereon he knelt, declined pretty steeply to the sea, only a quarter of a mile distant; slightly to his right there lay a valley, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... remembered the gruesome sight he had once noted far to the north one day. Then, on one of his fishing expeditions, he had come upon the body of a man hanging in a tree, evidently treed by wolves and then frozen. He wondered if some chance passer-by in after years would find his skeleton in a similar way and would pass on with only a 'Dieu benisse' (May God bless) as he had done, and not even give him decent burial. He commenced to think that his present position was directly ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... general appearance. Of a dark skin and hair, he usually submits his chin to the barber's office but once a week, and the timid traveller would do well to take the road on Sundays only. Towards the end of the week, and notably on a Saturday, every passer-by is an unshorn brigand capable of the darkest deeds of villany, while twenty-four hours later the land will be found to be peopled by as clean and honest and smart, and withal as handsome, a race of men as ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... convolvulus, whose bold yet delicate flowers will display themselves to a very late period of the year—vetches, and white and yellow ladies-bed-straw— invest almost every bush with their varied beauty, and breathe on the passer-by their faint summer sweetness. The campanula rotundifolia, the hare-bell of poets, and the blue-bell of botanists, arrests the eye on every dry bank, rock, and wayside, with its beautiful cerulean bells. There too we behold wild scabiouses, mallows, the woody nightshade, wood-betony, and centaury; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... genuine, and handsome so far as a cedar post is capable of being handsome. You think, "Ah, that will be a good unobjectionable fence." But, behold, as soon as the posts are in position, he carefully lays a flat plank vertically in front of each, so that the passer-by may fancy that he has performed the feat of making a fence of flat laths, thus going out of his way to conceal the one positive and good-looking feature in his fence. He seems to have some furtive dread of admitting that he has used ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... going in, and afterwards, strolling up a dull little street which ended in a cul de sac, he spied a dingy archway, offering itself as an approach to a flight of equally dingy stairs. Here a brass plate, winking at the passer-by, stated that "Rowden and Owlett, Solicitors," would be found on the first floor. Helmsley paused, considering a moment—then, making up his mind that "Rowden and Owlett" would suit his purpose as well as any other equally unknown ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... fine animals from the Rocky Mountains. From its location, however, everybody supposed it to be a part of Johnson's estate, and to confirm this notion—in a waggish spirit—a member of Johnson's family put up in the park a conspicuous sign, which every passer-by ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... boyish delight and pride, hailed each addition to the string of catfish and suckers that swam near by, safely anchored to the bank. He could hear the drowsy hum of the mill across the pond and the merry shout of the miller hailing some passer-by. And, now and then, would come, the clatter of horses' hoofs and the rumble of a farmer's wagon on the planks above his head and he would idly watch the ever widening circles in the water as some bit of dirt, jarred from the beams above, marred the glassy surface. The ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... same hour every afternoon a tall man walked alone on the so-called Wasserglacis (Vienna). Every one reverentially avoided him. Neither heat nor cold made him hasten his steps; no passer-by arrested his eye; he strode slowly, firmly and proudly along, with glance bent downward, and with hands clasped behind his back. You felt that he was some extraordinary being, and that the might of genius encircled ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... traveler tells of the disgrace that attaches to a lie in that land, as shown by the "lying heaps" of sticks or stones along the roadside here and there. "Each heap is in remembrance of some man who has told a stupendous lie, or failed in carrying out an engagement; and every passer-by takes a stick or a stone to add to the accumulation, saying at the time he does it, 'For So-and-so's lying heap.' It goes on for generations, until they sometimes forget who it was that told the lie, but, notwithstanding that, they continue throwing the stones."[8] What a blocking of ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... passer-by is seen; But—it might be with twenty years between, Or haply less—at unfixed interval There would a semblance be of festival. A Seneschal and usher would appear, And troops of servants many baskets bear. Then were, in mystery, preparations made, And they departed—for till night none stayed. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... down into the little copse on the right, where they would be less disturbed by the occasional passer-by. Here, seated on a felled tree-trunk, Willoughby began that bantering, silly, meaningless form of conversation known among the 'classes' as flirting. He had but the wish to make himself agreeable, and to while away the time. ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... himself—how long they slept unawakened, though they were in broad daylight and on the public thoroughfares all the time. Look at Tabachetti, and the masterpieces he left at Varallo. His figures there are exposed to the gaze of every passer-by; yet who heeds them? Who, save a very few, even know of their existence? Look again at Gaudenzio Ferrari, or the "Danse des Paysans," by Holbein, to which I ventured to call attention in the Universal Review. No, no; if a thing be in Central Africa, it is the glory of this age to find ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... was lost!—Not a shade of doubt of that; For he never barked at a slinking cat, But stood in the square where the wind blew raw, With a drooping ear, and a trembling paw, And a mournful look in his pleading eye, And a plaintive sniff at the passer-by That begged as plain as a tongue could sue, "Oh, Mister, please may I follow you?" A lorn, wee waif of a tawny brown Adrift in the roar of a heedless town. Oh, the saddest of sights in a world of sin Is a little lost pup with ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various |
