"Well-knit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is ease of movement. His frame must be at once supple and well-knit, to meet the opposite requirements of agility and firmness. That he is no stranger to the science of the boxing—and the wrestling-ring, that he has his share of the athletic accomplishments of Hermes and Pollux and Heracles, you may convince yourself ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Ranging themselves in the form of a crescent, these men of scarred limbs and fierce visage fasten their eyes curiously upon a white man who, standing against the bole of the elm, comes to them as white man never came before. He is a young man of about eight and thirty, wearing about his lithe and well-knit figure a sash of skyblue silk. He is tall, handsome and of commanding presence. His movements are easy, agile and athletic; his manner is courtly, graceful and pleasing; his voice, whilst deep and firm, is soft and agreeable; his face inspires instant confidence. He has large lustrous ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... imperceptible gradations into the group of courtship customs which, while allowing the young couple to spend the night together, in a position of more or less intimacy, exclude, as a rule, actual sexual intercourse. Night-courtship flourishes in stable and well-knit European communities not liable to disorganization by contact with strangers. It seems to be specially common in Teutonic and Celtic lands, and is known by various names, as Probenaechte, fensterln, Kiltgang, hand-fasting, bundling, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... before he sat down he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher and drank it slowly, with an air of preoccupation. He moved easily, with a quicker step than might have been expected in one of his figure. The strength of his hand was also in the firm line of his vigorous, well-knit frame. And his rather large head, Dan observed, ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... not above the middle size, but he had a very muscular and well-knit frame. Just as he drew near, Gaff, who was bearing a little boy through the surf in his arms, was hurled against the stones of the pier, rendered insensible, and sucked back by the retreating water. Billy was farther out at the moment, and did ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... liquid notes struck on empty bamboos. These dusky figures are Kachin men, with red turbans, and short, white, very loose kilts and bolero jackets. Some of the reflected light from the sand shows their curious, serious, boyish faces. They are short, but well-knit; they dance in a slow figure in a line, hand in hand, the bare feet shuffling with a little sound in the dust. The music is very faint, but you long to be able to remember the uncommon air that seems to have caught the quiet ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... cafe of the Nouvelle Athene. I knew it was Manet, he had been pointed out to me, and I had admired the finely-cut face from whose prominent chin a closely-cut blonde beard came forward; and the aquiline nose, the clear grey eyes, the decisive voice, the remarkable comeliness of the well-knit figure, scrupulously but simply dressed, represented a personality curiously sympathetic. On several occasions shyness had compelled me to abandon my determination to speak to him. But once he had spoken I entered eagerly into conversation, and next day ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... seemed to be, slender, well-knit and with a frank, winning face. But he evidently meant business, for he turned at once to Mr. Mortimer, and asked that ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... her hand blew and white, any of which is not said to be beautifull if it consist of single or simple colours; and so in walkes or alleyes, the all greene, nor the all yellow, cannot be said to be most beautifull; but the greene and yellow, (that is to say the untroade grasse, and the well-knit gravelle) being equally mixt, give the eye both lustre and delight beyond comparison." Abercrombie lived to the age of eighty, when he died by a fall down stairs in the dark. He was present at the battle of Preston Pans, which was fought close ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... and limbed as just described, our hero, as you may well imagine, must have been a man of prodigious bodily strength. To be sure, a tall, supple, well-knit, athletic white man like Simon Kenton, for example, might, in a wrestling-match and by some unexpected sleight of foot, have kicked his heels from under him and brought him flat on his back with ease. But keeping him there would have been an altogether different ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... qualities is continuity of character, and it escapes present applause because it tells chiefly, in the long run, in results. With his usual tact, Shakespeare has brought in such a character as a contrast and foil to Hamlet. Horatio is the only complete man in the play,—solid, well-knit, and true; a noble, quiet nature, with that highest of all qualities, judgment, always sane and prompt; who never drags his anchors for any wind of opinion or fortune, but grips all the closer to the reality of things. He seems one of those calm, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... well-knit little rascal, long and low, hardy and strong. His ancestors were bred for bolting foxes and wildcats among the rocky headlands of the subarctic islands. The intelligence, courage and devotion of dogs of this breed can scarcely be overstated. There is some far away crossing ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... it in a panier; to put it on the horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days longer; and hear me meanwhile on ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... overflowed its banks. I still retain a vivid impression of that morning's ride, the far-off mountains, like silhouettes, against the steel-blue sky, the crisp dry air, and the expanding track before me, animated often by the well-knit figure of George Tryan, musical with jingling spurs and picturesque with flying riata. He rode powerful native roan, wild-eyed, untiring in stride and unbroken in nature. Alas! the curves of beauty were concealed ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... him, but it is rude—it is bad manners, not even to ask!' the supposed victress was saying to herself, with quivering lips, her eyes following not the Trinity freshman, who was their latest captive, but an older man's well-knit figure, and a head on which the fair hair was already growing scantily, receding a little ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a moment with genuine modesty. Then her liking for the well-knit young man overcame her. With a frightened smile her hand stole to her bodice; she fixed them in her bosom. "Will that ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... was a tall and well-knit young man who later on in the day would no doubt be at least passably good-looking. At the moment an unbecoming pallor marred his face, and beneath his eyes were marks that suggested that he had slept little and ill. He stood at the foot of ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the feet were finished: two little feet—swift, well-knit and nervous. They might have been modelled ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... a closing look at the man himself. You see a stocky, well-knit figure, broad of shoulder and deep of chest. The animated body is surmounted by a face that alternately beams and gleams. There are strength and sensitiveness, good humour, courage and resolution in these features. His ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... personal appearance and domestic character in his old age, his grandson gives the following account: "In figure, John Adams was not tall, scarcely exceeding middle height, but of a stout, well-knit frame, denoting vigor and long life, yet as he grew old inclining more and more to corpulence. His head was large and round, with a wide forehead and expanded brows. His eye was mild and benignant, perhaps even humorous when he was free from emotion, but when excited it fully expressed ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... sort of process has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off from faith and love—only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some well-knit theory. Strangely Marner's face and figure shrank and bent themselves into a constant mechanical relation to the objects of his life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a crooked ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... him from the first, and being myself a small man, envied the six feet one of well-knit frame, and was struck with a way he had of quick backward head movement when the large blue eyes considered you with smiling attention. My first impression was that nothing as embarrassing as the absurd situation in which my blunder might have placed him could as yet have fallen upon this tranquil ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... appearance. Both face and figure are well preserved; his slightly curling gray hair sets off in pleasing contrast his bronzed yet clear complexion, his bright eye, and genial smile. He is somewhat over the medium stature, possessed of a compact and well-knit frame, carries his head erect, and moves about with a buoyancy and animation perfectly marvelous in one of his years and experience. His address is that of the well-bred, well-educated French gentleman that he is. His manner is winning, his ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... am sure, you would never wish to see! The well-knit, well-proportioned figure of the gentleman bespoke at once activity and ease, while the spirited, intelligent expression of his countenance—dark-complexioned as that of an Andalusian—would have given ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... them, and that gave him peculiar fitness for the work he was doing. It was work for the thinker, the scholar, but work which must have the fighting blood. Even his appearance bore the mark of the two kinds of things bequeathed him. He had the well-knit body of the soldier, the face of the student. He was not a large man, but he gave the sense of large things. He had the slight stoop of the laboratory, but when interested, aflame, he straightened ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... room a middle-aged man, tall, erect, well-knit in frame, with a thin, Yankeeish face, deeply browned, and shrewd hazel eyes. He bowed to nobody, but stood straight, looking like an Indian ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... was considerably slighter of build, but of a well-knit figure, whose muscles, while not so pronounced, played quickly and easily; and whose whole manner suggested somehow a reserve strength, and a physique capable of ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... winter's provand; thicker too at the chest, and with a jacket of London green cloth with brass buttons. Would the fishermen about the quay-head not lean over the gun'les of their skiffs and say, "There goes young Elrigmore from Colleging, well-knit in troth, and a pretty lad"? I could hear (all in my daydream in yon place of dingy benches) the old women about the well at the town Cross say, "Oh laochain! thou art come back from the Galldach, and Glascow College; what a thousand curious things thou must ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... into the army. I was just sixteen years old, and small for my age, and I can understand now, but could not then, how my parents looked upon the desire of a boy like that to go to the war, as out of the question. I did not think so. I was a strong, well-knit fellow, and it seemed to me that what you required in a soldier was a man who could shoot, and would stay there and do it. I knew I could shoot, and I thought I could stay there and do it, so I was sure I could be a soldier, and I was crazy to go, but ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... The energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun; And he who flagged not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing—only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... Hastings with more confidence that was displayed by Mr. Webster when he stood up, in the pride of his manhood, and began to address the interested mass of talent, intelligence, and beauty around him. A man of commanding presence, with a well-knit, sturdy frame, swarthy features, a broad, thoughtful forehead, courageous eyes gleaming from beneath shaggy eyebrows, a quadrangular breadth of jawbone, and a mouth which bespoke strong will, he stood like ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... saw that one was his father—slight, well-knit, and agile—and the other—heavy, massively built, and powerful—the Baron Steinberg, the desire was strong to rush between them; but the power was wanting, and he stood as if fixed to the spot, staring with starting eyes at the rapid exchanges made, for each was a good swordsman, ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... their exposure to the discipline of industrial life, no other population of nearly the same volume is placed in a position so conducive to a rapid acquirement of the spirit of the modern era. But, also, no other people comparable with the population of the Fatherland has so large and well-knit a body of archaic preconceptions to unlearn. Their nearest analogue, of course, is the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the poop, where he found Greenly keeping an anxious look-out on the state of the weather and the condition of his own ship; leaning at the same time, against the spanker-boom to steady himself in the gusts of the gale. The vice-admiral braced his own well-knit and compact frame, by spreading his legs; then he turned his handsome but weather-beaten face towards the line, scanning each ship in succession, as she lay over to the wind, and came wallowing on, shoving ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Serai,[26] and the divan was crowded. The tried generals and statesmen of the greatest of Ottoman emperors assembled to gaze upon the rough sea-dogs whose exploits were on the lips of all Europe; and most of all they scrutinized the vigorous well-knit yet burly figure of the old man with the bushy eyebrows and thick beard, once a bright auburn, but now hoary with years and exposure to the freaks of fortune and rough weather. In his full and searching eye, that could blaze ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... aspect, she saw that he was tall and well-knit, and goodly of fashion; dark-haired, with long hazel eyes, smooth-cheeked and bright-skinned; his nose long, and a little bent over at the end, and coming down close to his lips, which were full and red; his face was hairless save for a little ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... the country he was then visiting. The lady did not appear to notice either his courtesy or his presence, and this was the more remarkable since Drummond was a young man sufficiently conspicuous even in a crowd, and he and she were, at that moment, the only customers in the bank. He was tall, well-knit and stalwart, blond as a Scandinavian, with dark blue eyes which he sometimes said jocularly were the colors of his university. He had been slowly approaching the cashier's window with the easy movement of a man never in a hurry, when the girl appeared ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... young in worldly wisdom—to realize that the outside man is not of necessity the man himself. He merely felt, as each wooden face confronted his own, that here was surely no Great Man, no Hero. Only when it came to the civilians his eyes rested with some degree of satisfaction on Travers' well-knit figure and fresh-colored face. For the first time during the whole proceedings the prince smiled, and in ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... and as bliss is beautifying, he looked handsome as well. His strong, well-knit figure showed to advantage in the rough climbing-suit which he wore; his eyes sparkled and beamed ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... inextinguishable, unquenchable; incontestable; more than a match for; overpowering, overwhelming; all powerful, all sufficient; sovereign. able-bodied; athletic; Herculean, Cyclopean, Atlantean^; muscular, brawny, wiry, well-knit, broad-shouldered, sinewy, strapping, stalwart, gigantic. manly, man-like, manful; masculine, male, virile. unweakened^, unallayed, unwithered^, unshaken, unworn, unexhausted^; in full force, in full swing; in the plenitude of power. stubborn, thick-ribbed, made of iron, deep-rooted; strong ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... man," says Skapti, "before whom four men walk, a big burly man, and pale-faced, unlucky-looking, well-knit, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... at the young artist as he strode along, admiring his well-knit figure, his handsome boyish features chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight tendency to curl, his velvet jacket and flowing tie. Jack nodded and smiled at a familiar face now and then, or paused briefly to greet a male acquaintance; for the Latin Quarter ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... dirt of his dress, as the teeth of negroes seem the whiter for the surrounded black; and poor indeed of habit, poor of understanding, he was, however, abundantly rich in personal treasures, such as flesh, firm, plump, and replete with the juices of youth, and robust well-knit limbs. My fingers too had now got within reach of the true, the genuine sensitive plant, which, instead of shrinking from the touch, joys to meet it, and swells and vegetates under it: mine pleasingly informed me that matters ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... studying how to mortise the joints of our arguments into well-knit and shapely strength; the pure scholastic, however, possesses but half the weapons of the preacher. The best built skeleton is repulsive till it is clothed with flesh, colour and beauty. This is the rhetorician's task. He comes with his graceful art, and drapes the dry bones ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... (for that was the name by which he was known) was fifteen years old he was offered a position as clerk in the office of a lumber-merchant, and with his mother's consent he accepted it. He was a fine young lad now, large and well-knit, and with a clear earnest countenance. In the evening he would bring home books to read, and as it had always been Brita's habit to interest herself in whatever interested him, she soon found herself studying ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... weather-stained complexion, with light-brown, closely-curling hair, an expansive forehead, a clear blue eye, rather commonplace features, a thin, brown, pointed beard, and a slight moustache. Though low of stature, he was broad-chested, with well-knit limbs. His hands, which were small and nervous, were brown and callous with the marks of toil. There was something in his brow and glance not to be mistaken, and which men willingly call master; yet he did not seem, to have sprung of the born magnates of the earth. He wore a heavy gold chain about ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the system. They seem to be especially concerned with the life of sensation. When the centres lying above them, the hemispheres, are removed, the animal is still able to see, hear, etc., and still able to carry out his well-knit habits of action in response to what he sees and hears. But that is about all. A bird treated thus, for example, these second-level centres being still intact while the hemispheres are removed, retains his normal appearance, being quite able ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... a handsome young fellow, with a peculiarly pleasant and friendly look about his eyes,—an expression which was quite new to me then, though I soon became familiar with it. For the rest, he was dark-haired and berry-brown of skin, well-knit and strong, and obviously used to exercising his muscles, but with nothing rough or coarse about him, and clean as might be. His dress was not like any modern work-a-day clothes I had seen, but would ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... in its fullest feather about the Fourth of July. Its truculent disposition is then manifested by a threatening attitude toward the Anglo-Saxon Lion, (Leo Britannicus,) which it has twice worsted in single combat, and to whose well-knit frame it is prepared at any moment ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... with the world before him, is now a picture of manly symmetry. Graceful, well-knit physique, dark hair and eyes, and his soft, impassioned speech, betray the Franco-American of the Gulf States. While gazing on the glories of Tamalpais and the wooded mountains of Marin, he notes the little mission under the Visitacion hills. It's a glorious scene. All the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... advent on the African coast, or of the causes that induced them to leave the land of their ancestors. Their long, black, silky hair has not acquired the woolly texture of that of the sons of Ham, and the small extremities, the well-knit limbs, the straight nose and small lips, the dark bronzed complexion, distinguish them alike from the Shankallas and the Barias, and from the mixed races of the plateaus. They wear a piece of cloth a few yards in length, folded round the body, with an elegance peculiar to ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... the shining fountain, in the central court, stand two persons—Marcus and his mother. The lad has laid aside his toga, or outside mantle, and his close-fitting, short-sleeved tunic, scarcely reaching to his knees, shows a well-knit frame and a healthy, sun-browned skin. His mother, dressed in the tunic and long white stola, or outer robe, is of matronly presence and pleasant face. And, as they talk together in low and earnest tones, they watch with loving eyes, from the cool shadows of the high area walls, the motions ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... forward. For the moment the hubbub was forgotten as he scrutinized the young man, who seemed scarcely twenty-one, his well-knit, well-dressed body, his soft brown hair curled about his scalp, cleanly modelled ears, steady brown eyes, white teeth—especially the mobile lips which seemed quivering from some suppressed emotion—all telling of a boy ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wretch who assassinated General Garfield, was a native of Chicago, thirty-six years of age, short in stature, and with a well-knit, stout frame. He had led a vagabond life, and had come to Washington after the inauguration of General Garfield, seeking appointment to a foreign consulate, and when he found himself disappointed, his morbid imagination sought ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore |
