"Curbstone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sneakers and a large red hair-ribbon, shouted at her, and Charlie Martindale, of the First National Bank, nodded to her, but these exquisites were too young for her; they danced too well and laughed too easily. The person who stopped her for a long curbstone conference about the weather, while most of the town observed and gossiped, was the fateful Henry Carson. The village sun was unusually blank and hard on Henry's bald spot to-day. Heavens! she cried to herself, in almost hysterical protest, would ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... called cheerily from the door-way; and a moment later Varrick was hurried into the coupe, which had just drawn up to the curbstone, and, with Maillard seated beside him, was soon whirling in the direction of the Northrup mansion to which ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... day with a mustang, in whom was no fault, and who had every appearance of speed, but who was only marking time as it is called in military drill, I believe, when he seemed to be getting swiftly over the ground; he showed a sociable preference for the curbstone in turning corners, and was condemned, to be replaced the next evening by a pony-horse that a child might ride or drive, and that especially would not shy. Upon experiment, he shied half across the road, and the fact was reported to the dealer. He smiled compassionately. "What ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... their terrible fear, go on a strike. Let the horses of these fat aldermen, left all day in the court house alleyway without food and checked tight with head-check lines, go on a strike. Let the patient nags that stand all day by the curbstone and are plagued and annoyed by mischievous boys, go on a strike. In such a strike as any of these the Lord himself might condescend to take sides with the oppressed against ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... would only leave her! But, as they crossed to the curbstone, he changed over, preserving his proper place. He leaned to her with the indestructible attention of a lover. His whole manner was inimitably chivalrous, protective, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Miss Moreland had her misgivings on that point. And, just as she was about to draw a breath of relief, convinced that, after all, she would go, the girl stopped deliberately in the shadow of a tree, and sat down on the snow-covered curbstone. ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... her career, when driven to the last-named method, four policemen were carrying her to the station, and she was extra violent, screaming, plunging and biting, when, either by accident or design, one of the policemen let go of her head, and it came in contact with the curbstone, causing the blood to pour forth in a stream. As soon as they placed her in the cell the poor creature caught the blood in her hands, and literally washed her face with it. On the following morning she presented ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the spirit of those days lays its hand upon me, and I have to pause a few moments and, half-dreaming, half-longing, run over the titles. Nearly all my copies of the English classics I have picked up at these curbstone stalls. How much more they mean to me than new books of later years! Here, for instance, are two volumes of Dr. Johnson's works in good leather binding, library style, which I have carried with me from one place to another for over fifty ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... left my doorstep and went to help the lady up. Constitutionally I am not a brave man, but I forgot all about the flying bullets till one took me in the knee, and I toppled over, hitting my head against the curbstone as I did so. I must have been stunned, for when I opened my eyes again the street was empty, except for a thundering vehicle that was bearing straight down ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... from which Miss Margaret had emerged—was drawn up, and old Mr. Bilkins in spiral nightcap looked out on the sunny street. Not a living creature was to be seen, save the dissipated family cat—a very Lovelace of a cat that was not allowed a night-key—who was sitting on the curbstone opposite, waiting for the hall door to be opened. Three quarters of an hour, we repeat, had passed, when Mrs. Margaret O'Rourke, nee Callaghan, issued from the small, dingy house by the river, and regained the door-step of the Bilkins mansion in the same ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... with your knees a little bent. Some gentlemen almost stand, with a thick cushion reaching above the rail of the box, and their toes several inches over the foot-board. This is not only unsightly, but attended with risk, for if you came in contact with the curbstone, or any trifling obstruction, you might very readily, and most likely would, be thrown from your seat. The rail of the box, ought always to be a few ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... end of the street he turned in his saddle and looked behind him. His satellites stood in the bar-room door, loungers loafed on the curbstone, a woman or two drifted into the General Merchandise Store. The Postmaster was eying him idly through his fly-specked window, and a group of boys, who had been drawing pictures with their bare toes in the deep white dust of the street, scowled after him because his ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... exuberance, they perforce sought the street. Like pigeons they would descend in a flock, here, there, everywhere; perching in a blissful row before the soda fountain in the drug store; or if the state of the public purse did not warrant this, the curbstone and the wares of the Candy Wagon were cheerfully substituted. By virtue no doubt of her long legs and masterful spirit, Virginia ruled the flock. Under her guidance they made existence a weariness to the several ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... in the bay-window. Rodney rode by, then wheeled about and came back as far as the stone sidewalk before the Bank entrance. He jumped off, hitched Red Squirrel to one of the posts that sentineled the curbstone, and passed quietly round into the ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... had been allowed to climb up to its lowest branches, so that its green arms stirred the roses. Under the tree was a swing, and at the back of it a sort of thicket of lilacs and witch-elms; there was a round plot of grass, with a garden bench and a very small pool with a white curbstone round it and a fountain that did not play. The pool was full of aquatic plants and a few black newts were ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... and pensive, was then seated on a bench near the basin, regarding with a kind of mechanical interest the gambols of two daring birds that came to sport on the curbstone. She ceased for a moment to work on a little child's frock which she was hemming. It is necessary to say that this belonged to the generous offering made to Mont Saint Jean by the prisoners, thanks to ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... profession." Physicians would consult him freely. As a chemist and experimental pharmacologist, he prepared various remedies. Some of these he tried out on patients himself, others he gave to practitioners who might use them. Boyle seems to have abundantly provided what we today call "curbstone consultations." ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... about once more, as formerly. He took a "deal" on the curbstone occasionally, or now and then ventured a few pieces of silver upon the black or red. He was back ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... year from that morning when the reader first saw the daylight breaking upon Stillwater, several workmen with ladders and hammers were putting up a freshly painted sign over the gate of the marble yard. Mr. Slocum and Richard stood on the opposite curbstone, to which they had retired in order to take in the general effect. The new sign read,—Slocum & Shackford. Richard protested against the displacement of its weather-stained predecessor; it seemed to him an act little short of vandalism; but Mr. Slocum was obstinate, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in black and white, and girls in tender colours converged from various directions, making gayly for the thrilling gateway—and the most beautiful little girl in all the world, Marjorie Jones, of the amber curls, jumped from a carriage step to the curbstone as Penrod and Sam came up. She ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... that man fallen against the curbstone, covered with bruises and beastliness? He was as bright-faced a lad as ever looked up from your nursery. His mother rocked him, prayed for him, fondled him, would not let the night air touch his cheek, and held him up and looked down into his loving eyes, and wondered for what high ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... dark, and the street deserted. The gloomy silence was only disturbed at long intervals by the opening or shutting of a door, or by the distant tread of some belated pedestrian. Having at least twenty minutes to wait, Pascal sat down on the curbstone opposite the Hotel de Chalusse, and fixed his eyes upon the building as if he were striving to penetrate the massive walls, and see what was passing within. Only one window—that of the room where the dead man was lying—was lighted up, and he ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... gained by experience when it is gained at all, and the craving for explanation takes the place, in some minds, of a willingness to learn. It is not my business to find explanations, nor to raise my little self to your higher level, by standing upon this curbstone, in order to deliver a lecture in the popular form, upon matters that interest me. It is enough that I have found what I wanted. Go and do likewise. See for yourself. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You are unhappy, and unhappiness is dangerous, in rare cases fatal. If you tell ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... the point Mr. Hume would take up in mocking him. He'd call him a curbstone fiddler, and say that he ought to be playing at barn dances and Italian christenings instead of aspiring to the platform. Spatola would get frantic with rage, and fairly scream ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... the city Dryden insisted on leaving the reporter at his doorsteps, a courtesy which went straight to Harrington's heart, for, as he expected would be the case, his wife and son Tesla were looking out of the window at the moment of his arrival and saw him dash up to the curbstone. His sturdy urchin ran out forthwith to inspect the mysteries of the huge machine. As it vanished down the street Harrington put an arm round Tesla and went to meet ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... am. I could hug a curbstone ... or the handle o' your collection bag. I do feel most uncommonly jolly. I could laugh ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... ideas to receive any idea of what purity meant, things were in bad shape. When he was grubbing content in the gutter, how was he ever to be gotten up to the highlands, when you couldn't even lift his eyes over the curbstone? All the prohibitions of the Mosaic code are but faithful mirrors of man's condition. A wholly new standard had to be set up. That was God's task. It must be set up through men if they were to be attracted to it. ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... he held his hands under a leak in a hose that was fastened to a hydrant near us. He got enough water to dash on Charlie's face and breast, and then seeing that the boy was reviving, he sat down on the curbstone and took him on his knee, Charlie lay in his arms and moaned. He was a delicate boy, and he could not stand rough usage as the ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... been foiled, he said nothing, but his lips grew white. He closed them fast, and went and stood near the door. When Clare, unsuspecting as innocent, opened it, he was met by a blow that dazed him, and a fierce kick that sent him on his back to the curbstone. Almost insensible, but with the impression that something was interfering between him and his work, he returned to the door. As he laid his hand on it, it opened a little, and his master's face, with a hateful sneer upon it, shot into ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... to summon back the waning fortunes of the day. But Madam Delia still sat at her post, undaunted. She kept her eye on two sauntering militia-men in uniform, but they only read her sign and seated themselves on the curbstone, to smoke. Then a stout black soldier came in sight; but he turned and sat down at a table to eat oysters, served by a vast and smiling matron of his own race. But even this, though perhaps the most wholly cheerful exhibition that the day yielded, had no ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... house in Walnut Street—the Walnut Street which belongs to the city of William Penn; and on the threshold stands a lady, with her hand up to her brows, shielding her eyes from the light. She is watching to see what will come out of a carriage just driving up to the curbstone. The carriage stops; there descends first the figure of a handsome, very comfortable-looking gentleman. Mrs. Eberstein's eyes pass over him very cursorily; she has seen him before; and there is hardly ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... in one of Chicago's segregated districts for advertising and encouraging vice, asked this question, as he stood on the curbstone in one of our midnight gospel meetings: "If the wise men who are set up over us to rule us want it this way, what can you expect ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... not. There stood a cab, drawn close to the curbstone, and there, in the shadow of the cab, stood a tall man ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... . . . I am sitting on the curbstone of a street at the edge of the town. The houses end abruptly and the yellow vineyards begin here. The view is broad and uninterrupted to the crest ten kilometers or so across the valley. Between this and ourselves are the lines of the two armies. A fierce cannonading is going on continually, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... Polktown's library and free reading-room. However, the boys pursued Tim Narnay no farther. They slunk back into the lane, and finally, with shrill whoops and laughter, disappeared. The besotted man stood wavering on the curbstone, undecided, it seemed, upon his ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... gone out of it, his eyes looked strange and dizzy, and drops of blood began to trickle from a great cut on his forehead. The man saw it, too, and had him up in a minute; but he could n't stand, and stared about him in a dazed sort of way, as he sat on the curbstone, while Polly held her handkerchief to his forehead, and pathetically begged to know ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... said, pulling him forward from under the noses of two enormous sleepy-headed cart-horses. He skipped wildly out of the way and up on the curbstone with a purely instinctive precision; his mind had nothing to do with his movements. In the middle of his leap, and while in the act of sailing gravely through the air, he continued to relieve his ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... over here. That there is the Reddin's' house, the big white one where them curbstone ladies are in the yard. I wisht you could git a peek in the parlor; they've got chairs made outer real gold, an' strandaliers that look like icicles all ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... fell in splinters at the bottom of my mind. Sadly I looked upon the old Carl Schurz mansion on the hill, and we departed for the airy plateaus of Central Park. Desperately I pointed to the fading charms of East River Park—the convent round the corner, the hokey pokey cart by the curbstone. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... came to the corner of Lexington. There, on the curb, he stopped and stared. The gray wall was thicker there but he did not realize how close it was until he glanced down at his feet and saw there was nothing, nothing at all beyond the curbstone. No dull gleam of wet asphalt, no sign of a street. It was as if all eternity ended here at the corner of ...
— The Street That Wasn't There • Clifford Donald Simak
... said Freddie, handing it over, as he and Flossie took their seats in the goat wagon. There was plenty of room for them and the red-haired driver. Other children on the block crowded to the curbstone and looked on with eager eyes as the Bobbsey twins started on their ride. Mrs. Bobbsey, talking with her friend in the darkened parlor, knew nothing of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... Mrs. Staggchase went home with Berenice to lunch with Mrs. Morison. Maurice put them into their carriage, feeling that he could not let Berenice go out of his sight. He stood on the curbstone watching the carriage as if it had set out on a voyage to regions unknown and far; then smiling at himself with a realization of what he was doing he turned back to go home himself. As he did so he came ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... carriages moved slowly along, but that rose up in solid walls of town and prairie humanity on the sidewalks and city dooryards. How hearty and happy the myriad faces looked! At one point I spied in the throng on the curbstone a large silk banner that bore my own name as the title of some society. I presently saw that it was borne by half a dozen anxious and expectant-looking schoolgirls with braids down their backs. As my carriage drew near them, they pressed their way through the throng, and threw a large bouquet ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... turned on the light in the hall, and opened the front door. A tall, dark man of military aspect loomed out of the mist, and, behind him, at the curbstone, the outline of a big motorcar was dimly visible. He held out a visiting-card inscribed "Baron de Mortemer," and spoke slowly and courteously, but with a strong nasal accent and a tone of ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... liked the handsome girl, whose outspoken protests against the shams of her life agreed with her own more gentle horror of pretension. Marion, wreathed in veils, was, however, at the steering-wheel, and, as she guided the huge machine to the curbstone, showed no symptoms of wishing to alight. Beside her was Reggie Bradford, a large, fat youth, whose big, good-natured laugh almost called back echoes from the surrounding houses. As the car stopped he ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... pretty picture in the shade of the great elm, that sultry morning of August, three quarters of a century ago. The presence of the crutch showed there was something sad about it; and so there was; for if you had glanced at the little bare brown foot, set toes upward on the curbstone, you would have discovered that the fellow to it was missing— cut off about two inches above the ankle. And if this had caused you to throw a look of sympathy at his face, something yet sadder must long have held your attention. Set jauntily on the back of his head was a weather-beaten ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... automobiles come whirling down the street, packed solid with husky detectives. Then he turned off and hurried down a side street. He managed to get a couple of blocks away, and then his nerves gave way entirely, and he sat down on the curbstone and began to cry—just the way little Jennie had cried when he told her he couldn't marry her! People stopped to stare at him, and one benevolent old gentleman came up and tapped him on the shoulder and asked what was the trouble. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... this part, almost as luxurious and comfortable; but they themselves . . . they themselves!!! If you could see them arriving, the old men in rags coming to die; persons who have been dying of misery for months, picking up their food at the edges of the curbstone like dogs in the street; women in rags, emaciated, sick, paralyzed, incapable of making a living, who say to us after they have told us their story: 'You see that things cannot go on like that, as I cannot work any longer or earn anything.' I saw one woman of eighty-seven ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... alluded hastily to a severe attack of croup from which my little boy was suffering, and said, impatiently, that it seemed as if all my care might secure for him as happy a babyhood as that of the little things whose frozen heels were at that moment hitting the curbstone. ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his head, putting his chin ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... little girl standing on the curbstone down town on Broadway in New York, with a bundle in her arms. She has been sent on an errand, and wants to get across the street. But the electric cars are whizzing past in both directions, and wagons, and carriages, ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... accompanying her from his office to her friend's house on the North Side. On Halstead street their carriage suddenly stopped. Putting her head out of the window, the countess perceived that the coachman had drawn up close to the curbstone to avoid the onset of a yelling mob of boys and men armed with every description of weapon, from laths and brickbats to old muskets. The boys appeared to regard the whole affair as merely a gigantic "spree," and shouted "Bread or Blood!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... was actually steering—the girls could see that, for the auto swerved in and out, narrowly missing the curbstone, as he turned and twisted the wheel ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... good as dollars, and a church (where the clock is) with a fat old man sitting on the pavement in a chair tilted back against the church wall smoking a long pipe, who doesn't mind being stared at from the curbstone, and a street-car track where you have to look out for the horse-car, which is very dangerous when the horse begins to trot, and—but Freddie hadn't lived long in his fine two-story house in that street, and these things were new to him and took time. But the ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... village. The sense of irresponsibility was delightful. I felt as if I had escaped through the buckle of my father's creed and for once was a happy maverick soul in the world at large, with no prayer-meeting responsibilities. I could have danced and glorified God on a curbstone, if such a manifestation of heathen spirituality ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... realization of impotence in every direction. It came upon her like a burden; under it she grew sick and faint. At the door she stumbled, and she was hardly sure of her steps to her cab, which was drawn up by the curbstone, and in which she presently ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... in the next block, or carrying on a chronic courtship at the lattice of some olive-cheeked soubrette around the corner. Be that as it may, no one ever found him on hand; and there is nothing to do but to sit down on the curbstone and lift up your voice and shriek for him until he comes. At two o'clock of a morning in January the exercise is not improving to the larynx or the temper. There is a tradition in the very name of this worthy. He is called the Sereno, because a century or so ago he used to call ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... we are assured. For one morning he eludes the grumpy officer, and sidles out among his Italian neighbours who were permitted to land. See him genuflecting now, to kiss the curbstone and thank Allah that he is free. But before he can enjoy his freedom, before he can sit down and chuckle over the success of his escapade, he must bethink him of Khalid. He will not leave him to the mercy of the honourable Agents of the Law, if he can help it. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... toughs and roughs from the East Side, good-natured spectators who merely wanted to see this splendid prison, and a moving line of gentlemen and ladies who simply happened to be passing that way at this time. The curbstone was lined with a score of reporters of the city journals, each with his note-book. Every window and entrance was eagerly watched. It was hoped that one of the family might be seen, or that some servant might appear who could be interviewed. Upon the windows ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... much, and upsets the carriage; perhaps the horses run away and a general smash ensues; or, maybe, the hitherto fortunate owner, in a moment of absent-mindedness, misses the step, and fractures his leg on the curbstone. Such accidents occur every day; and their long list should make humble foot-passengers bless the lowly lot which preserves them from ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... and it may have been providence; but whichever it was it saved him. He could not face that semblance of his haunting thought; and turning away he cowered down on the neighbouring curbstone, where he sat for several minutes, with his head buried in his hands; when he arose again he was his own daring and sinister self. Knowing that he was now too much master of his faculties to ignore me any longer, I walked quickly away and left him. I knew where he would ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Ascending the rise, we reached a large house on a corner. The greater part of the people who were walking along with me halted at this house. They stood all over the sidewalk of this house, and sat on the curbstone, and even the snow in the street was thronged with the same kind of people. On the right side of the entrance door were the women, on the left the men. I walked past the women, past the men (there were several hundred of them in all) and halted where the ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... cafe terrace over a cooling drink. The two are covered with dust and very thirsty; Marie wears a long dust-colored ulster, and he a wind-proof coat and high boots. Meanwhile, the locomotive-like affair at the curbstone is working itself into a boiling rage, until finally the brave chauffeur and his chic companion prepare to depart. Marie adjusts her white lace veil, with its goggles, and the chauffeur puts on his own mask ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... had paid they followed him out. At the curbstone he said, "Keep together somewhere round the wharf-boat. So long." He lifted the battered hat he was wearing, smiled at Susan. "Cheer up, Miss Sackville. We'll down 'em yet!" And away he went—a strange figure, his burly frame squeezed into a dingy old frock suit ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... backer of domestic slave-dealers, and put his money into forms of gain men hesitated at; not only at the curbstone, for usury, but behind pawnbrokers and sporting men, in lottery companies and liquor-houses, and, it was said, in the open slave-trade, too, clippers for which occasionally stole out of the Chesapeake on affected trading errands to the East Indies, and came home ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the literary incarnation of the 'eccentric' person, on the curbstone, is supposed to represent Mr. Moore at the present moment, Mr. Whistler thinks the likeness exaggerated—as it is absurd to suppose that Mr. Moore can really imagine that any one admires him in his late role before Interviewer, ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... aside for a great celebration and a mass-meeting at the Methodist church to welcome them. The procession was to take place early in the evening, and after supper Cleary went out alone to watch the proceedings, leaving his friend to the care of his relatives. He took his place on the curbstone of the principal street and was soon conversing with his neighbors on each side, one of whom was our old friend, Mr. Reddy, and the other the young insurance agent whose acquaintance Sam ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... possible use to put one's reading to; yet for that man the book is not art. Another may be entertained by the spectacle of the persons as they exhibit themselves in Thackeray's pages, much as he might stop a moment on the curbstone and watch a group of children at play in the street. Here he is a looker-on, holding himself aloof; and for him, again, the book is not art. Still a third may find in "Vanity Fair" a record of the customs ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... majeste devant les gamins." If I chance to be in St. James's street when a semi-squadron of these elegant warriors are returning from attendance upon royalty after a Drawing-Room or a Levee, I am sure to make one of the gamins who stand upon the curbstone to see them pass. If the day be a fine one at the height of the season, and London happen to be wearing otherwise the brilliancy of supreme fashion—with beautiful dandies at the club-windows, and chariots ascending ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the Living Water. She forgot her old thirst. She forgot the errand that brought her to the well. She left the empty water pot by the curbstone and bounded away like a happy child into the city. She is under the compelling power of a marvelous discovery. She has a story infinitely too good to keep. And in spite of the fact that her past had been a shameful and sordid past—she would not let it close her ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... made, not always the widest to be sure, but smoothly floored with the asphaltum of Seyssel, which answers the purpose admirably; the gutters have been removed from the middle of the street to the edge of the curbstone, and lately the curbstone has been made to project over them, so that the foot-passengers may escape the bespattering from carriage-wheels which he would otherwise be sure to get in a rainy day, and there are many such days in this climate—it has rained every day ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... about them for the means of support. The money on which he had relied was gone. His credit was utterly destroyed, and he had no hope of being reinstated in his former position. The only way he could possibly be useful in the street was by becoming a curbstone broker, a go-between, trusted by neither borrower nor lender, and earning a precarious livelihood by commissions. Even in that position he felt that he should labor under disadvantages, for he knew that his course had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... stopped at the new house, and the horses backed them up side by side in the gutter. There wasn't any curbstone, and the sidewalk was a new one of gravel, and there would be a border of grass when the grass had time ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... heard a strange, wild strain Sound high above the modern clamor, Above the cries of greed and gain, The curbstone war, the auction's hammer; And swift, on Music's misty ways, It led, from all this strife for millions. To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... surface. brenal briery or brambly ground. bribon m. rascal. brillante brilliant. brillar to shine. brillo brilliancy. brindar to toast (with wine), vr. to offer. brindis m. toast. brisa breeze. brocal m. curbstone of a well. brotar to germinate, break out. bruma haziness, mist. buenamente easily, by fair means. buenaventura fortune-telling. bueno good. buey m. ox. buitre m. vulture. bullicioso noisy. buque m. vessel. burgomaestre burgomaster. burla jest, mockery. burlar ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... Hill, and many less busy parts of London, ring with such cries for a month before Christmas. All the year round the hawkers are standing patiently on the curbstone with their wonderful penn'orths; but it is at Christmas-time that they do most business. Some children are fortunate enough to be taken by their parents to see the streets at Christmas-time, and sometimes they are allowed to buy some ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... any question supposed to involve a doubt of the generally accepted Hebrew traditions. To-day such questions are recognized as perfectly fair subjects for general conversation; not in the basement story, perhaps, or among the rank and file of the curbstone congregations, but among intelligent and educated persons. You may preach about them in your pulpit, you may lecture about them, you may talk about them with the first sensible-looking person you happen to meet, you may write magazine articles about them, and the editor need not expect to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... letters cut (not very neatly) out of coloured paper, of graduated tints, and surrounded with a small band of stamped gilt. The two sides of the shop were protected by an immense pent-house shed, which projected over a greasy pavement and was supported by wooden posts fixed in the curbstone. Beneath it, on the dislocated flags, barrels and baskets were freely and picturesquely grouped; an open cellarway yawned beneath the feet of those who might pause to gaze too fondly on the savoury wares displayed in the window; ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... of their iron-covered storehouses; a couple of banks, occupying the best corners, and barber shops and pool-rooms in apparent excess of the needs of the population. All these he might have found in Plainville, but there were here in addition half-a-dozen real estate offices, with a score or more curbstone dealers, locaters, commission-splitters, and go-betweens, and the number and size of the livery stables gave some clue to the amount of prospecting going on from this base of supplies. The streets were lined with traffic. Riles estimated that in two hours as many teams passed ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Mademoiselle, my outset in life was hard. I am without relations. Mother Marechal, a kind fruiterer of the Rue Pavee au Marais, found me one morning by the curbstone, rolled in a number of the Constitutionnel, like an old pair of boots. The good woman took me home, brought me up and sent me to college. I must tell you that I was very successful and gained a scholarship. I won all the prizes. Yes, and I had ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... classes, as of rich and poor, educated and illiterate, well and obscurely born. On the steps of the court-house, in the post-office while the daily mail is sorted, in the corner drug store on Sundays, in lawyers' offices, on the curbstone,—wherever a group of men is assembled,—there is the freest talk on every possible subject; and the lives of men are open to their fellows as they cannot be in cities by reason of the mass or in country districts by reason of the solitude and the shyness which solitude breeds. Against Douglas ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... think we have met," the other was beginning, when a young lady—toward whom the Colonel had already cast some sharp, admiring glances as she stood on the curbstone holding a hand of the smaller of two little boys in smart sailor suits—uttered a cry of dismay. The elder child had rushed into the road, as if to stop a passing omnibus, not seeing that a hansom was coming up ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... on foot, some accident may have happened," thought she. "A man may be killed by tumbling over a curbstone or failing to see a gap. Artists are so heedless! Or if he should have been stopped by robbers!—It is the first time he has ever left me alone here for six hours and a half!—But why should I worry myself? He cares for ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... soon changed for the alert look of one who dreads to see a certain face start up from some unknown quarter. Glancing up and down the street, peering furtively into doorways as we passed, starting and trembling if a sudden figure appeared on the curbstone, she did not seem to breathe with perfect ease till we had left the avenue behind us and entered upon Thirty-seventh Street. Then, all at once her natural color returned and, leaning gently toward me, she asked if I had a pencil and piece of paper I could give her. ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... cried at last, at the end of his patience, and out he went in God knows what mood. He drove as if he had never handled the reins before, locked his wheels in the wheels of other vehicles, collided with the curbstone in the Place Louis-Quinze, went he knew not whither. The horse, left to its own devices, made a bolt for the stable along the Quai d'Orsay; but as he turned into the Rue de l'Universite, Josephin appeared to stop ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... my own, to which my hand-cart was chained. Next this I had piled broken brickbats and paving-stones, and other heavy things, that would not be stolen. There was the stump and the root of an old pear-tree there, too heavy to steal, and too crooked and hard to clean or saw. There was a bit of curbstone from the street, and other such trash, which quite masked the fence and the ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... curbstone and stared into the middle of the street. Her face was white with fright and the tears which had not as yet come were close to her big blue eyes. Her little fists were clinched and even her perky plaid hair ribbon ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... "Good-evening!" and stepped out into the murky street. Philip, who saw her face as she emerged from the gloom, gave a little start. She seemed paler than ever, and she walked with her eyes fixed upon vacancy, as though almost unconscious of her whereabouts. She crossed the sidewalk without noticing the curbstone, and stumbled at the unexpected depth of it. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... velocipede to be abroad again, the place showed unmistakable signs of occupancy. There were muslin curtains in the upstairs windows, and, peeping in through the glass door of the shop, he saw packing-boxes. At another time a woman stood on the curbstone buying vegetables from a wagon, but she was far removed from the lady of ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... drew up quickly before the curbstone, and as he sprung from the vehicle, his astonishment can better be imagined than described at finding himself face to face with his friend, Miss Rogers, and that it was she who had been ejected so summarily. The poor soul almost fainted ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... There is a great variety in color and physical properties of stone from these quarries. It is used as building stone and for trimming, and some of it is especially valuable for large platforms. A large proportion of the output is in the form of flagging and curbstone. ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... is," said Frick, sitting down on the curbstone to become lost in thought—an example to be speedily followed by all the boys, till finally there was a dismal row of them, without a thought remaining of having the expedition on the pond, since Joel Pepper ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... field," Captain Muggs displayed his extraordinary knowledge of tactics. He it was who first discovered the method of "dressing" a line, by backing it up against a curbstone. He also divested military science of many pedantic terms, which tend only to confuse the young conscript, and dampen the military ardor of the patriot soldier. He substituted the brief and soldierly words of ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... lightning comes, a blink that seems to begin nowhere; though it is to be suspected that it was first whispered over the telephone—together with an urgent selling order—by some employee in the cable service. In five minutes the dull noise of the curbstone market in Broad Street had leaped to a high note of frantic interrogation. From within the hive of the Exchange itself could be heard a droning hubbub of fear and men rushed hatless in and out. Was it true? asked every man; and every man replied, with trembling lips, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... that they could have been heard on the opposite side of the street, and when the Osprey's pilot turned out to let them pass, they tried to crowd him off into the gutter. But Marcy, beside being a sturdy fellow, knew how to stand up for his rights. He braced his foot firmly against the curbstone and met the shock of the collision so vigorously that those who would have sent him headlong into the street were sent backward themselves, and came very near going head first down the stairs that led into ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... tell who we were under this top," Walter assured her as he brought the little car to a standstill beside the curbstone, out in the street. "What's it matter if he did, the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... been chance and it may have been providence; but whichever it was it saved him. He could not face that semblance of his haunting thought; and turning away he cowered down on the neighboring curbstone, where he sat for several minutes, with his head buried in his hands; when he rose again he was his own daring and sinister self. Knowing that he was now too much master of his faculties to ignore me any longer, I walked quickly away and left ...
— A Difficult Problem - 1900 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... met the interrogative smile of Barton Flamel, who stood on the curbstone watching the retreating car with the eye of a man philosophic enough to remember that it ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... favour the latter position, inasmuch as we do not find that he was advanced to any other public post on his return, than the post at the corner of the Haymarket, where he officiated as assistant-waterman to the hackney-coach stand. Seated, in this capacity, on a couple of tubs near the curbstone, with a brass plate and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ankles curiously enveloped in haybands, he is supposed to have made those observations on human nature which exercised so material an influence over all ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... send for a cab and for a priest; send for the curate of Saint-Sulpice!" answered the old dragoon, sinking down upon the curbstone. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... far more tolerant, even in his wrath, than most men would have been, but he had disposed of his enemy effectually. The fellow lay stunned upon the ground. In his fall, he had cut his head upon the curbstone, and the blood streamed from the wound when his companions crowded near, and raised him. Owd Sammy Craddock offered no assistance; he leaned upon his stick, and looked on with ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the foremost in the rank, and followed the girl. One or two other passing cabs heard the cry, and made for the place, but the girl had taken care not to call till she was near enough to give her friends the first chance. When they reached the curbstone—who should it be waiting for the cab but Mrs. and Miss Coleman! They did not look at the cabman, however. The girl opened the door for them; they gave her the address, and a penny; she told the cabman, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Marta newspaper. His horse—a stony-hearted but persevering black brute with a hammer head—you would have seen in the street dozing motionless under an immense saddle, with its nose almost touching the curbstone of the sidewalk. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... He bore the ever-increasing horror as long as he could, then—better starve and have done with it than die like a dog from sheer fright!—he stepped cautiously, softly, starting at the crackle of the ice under his tread, off the curbstone into the street. So far he was safe. He kept his head low, and walked carelessly towards Third Avenue. When nearing the corner he determined he would look up. He took the middle of the street. It cost him a supreme effort to raise his eyes, to look ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... consummate tact and diplomacy, goes off unsteadily in the direction of Piccadilly, accompanied by a suite of small boys who have kindly resolved to see him through any further adventures that may await his progress. The Cabman remains to discuss the affair at great length on the curbstone. The Policeman paces slowly on, conscious that he has worthily maintained the dignity of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... to get away, but the boy held him with ease. Overcome, the man finally sat down on the curbstone and ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... almost without any one knowing it till they were gone. The trucks that obstructed the children's only playground, the street, went with the dirt, despite the opposition of the truckman who had traded off his vote to Tammany in the past for stall room at the curbstone. They did not go without a struggle. When appeal to the alderman proved useless, the truckman resorted to strategy. He took a wheel off, or kept a perishing nag, that could not walk, hitched to the truck over night to make it appear that it was there for business. But ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... a pipe, and me being in another chair, rather struck his fancy, and he said he would consider it; and so that afternoon we went to the hotel door and looked at the long line of bath-chairs standing at the curbstone on the other side of the street, with the men waiting for jobs. The chairs was all pretty much alike and looked very comfortable, but the men was as different as if they had been horses. Some looked gay and spirited, and others tired and worn out, as if they had belonged ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... fair hair rushed suddenly out of a door on the side-street, eagerly pulling a ragged sweater about his small shoulders, and stood upon the curbstone, breathlessly watching the coming trolley. The car stopped, and a young girl in shabby clothes got out and ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... he had paid she'd go back to her footlights," Gabriel developed from the curbstone as his companion closed the apron ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... despairing wail, and would not have missed it for ever so much extra slumber. When all hope of more sleep was past there was no question of the desirability of the boy who visibly arranged his store of oranges on the curbstone under the villa wall, and seemed to think that they had a peculiar attraction from being offered for sale in pairs. His cry filled the rest ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... bad sort neither, an' 'is fice was white an' wet with sweat—'Gawd done it,' 'e ses. An' me, I'd nussed the child an' I clawed me 'air sime as if I was 'is mother an' I screamed out, 'Then damn 'im!' An' the curick 'e dropped sittin' down on the curbstone an' 'id ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... number of people, all of whom regarded the boy and the goose curiously, bewildered both the travellers. More than once, when Dan was sure Crippy was close at his heels, on looking around he would see the goose, standing on one foot near the curbstone, looking sideways at the street, much as if trying to decide whether he would continue to follow his master, or toddle back home as fast as his legs of unequal length ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... the whole year passes without neighbors meeting for a common social experience. This is why people move to the city, because every city, great and small, has in the course of the year some events which bring all the people to the curbstone. Country life has few such times and therefore it is dull, because the richest experience of mankind is the experience of common social joy. The best recreation is acquaintance and conversation. The farmer's son spends many hours in silence. He wants someone ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... man-about- New-York, turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, and word of it went "down the line," bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables, cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of all-night cafes, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts charged up a few bottles to his account by ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... sidewalk was littered with building material and where a large house was in course of construction. Perhaps the workmen were on a strike that day. At any rate none of them were about, and the boy sprang up onto a barrel that was standing near the curbstone, and sat there drumming on the head with two pieces of lath and whistling ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... these drivers towards him, and his person was lost to sight amidst their pantomime. They did not try to underbid each other, and they were perfectly good-humored; as soon as he had made his choice, the rejected multitude returned to their places on the curbstone, pursuing the successful aspirant with inscrutable jokes as he drove off, while the horses went on munching the contents of their leathern head-bags, and tossing them into the air to shake down ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... rock—marched now along a street which could with every propriety be described as private. In its breadth, emptiness, and extent it had the majesty of inorganic nature, of matter that never dies. The only reminder of mortality was a doctor's brougham arrested in august solitude close to the curbstone. The polished knockers of the doors gleamed as far as the eye could reach, the clean windows shone with a dark opaque lustre. And all was still. But a milk cart rattled noisily across the distant perspective; a butcher boy, driving with the noble recklessness of a charioteer at Olympic ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... practical use, and one finds cobblers, barbers, fortune-tellers and a multitude of small tradesmen carrying on a business in a jog, or niche in the wall, not as large as an ordinary bootblack's stand. Along the narrow sidewalks are seen many of these curbstone merchants. Some have their goods displayed in glass show-cases, ranged along the wall, where are exhibited queer-looking fancy articles of Chinese workmanship, of a cheap grade, all sorts of inexpensive ornaments for women and children's ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... do any good," said his wife, in a tone which he understood as well as he understood her words. He turned the mare up to the curbstone . ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... vender who made this announcement. He stood upon the curbstone, a small tray of his ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... limit, boundary, bounds, confine, enclave, term, bourn, verge, curbstone[obs3], but, pale, reservation; termination, terminus; stint, frontier, precinct, marches; backwoods. boundary line, landmark; line of demarcation, line of circumvallation[obs3]; pillars of Hercules; Rubicon, turning point; ne plus ultra[Lat]; sluice, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... beggar girl on the curbstone sat, All ragged an' hungry-eyed. Across the street came Peggy McGee; The beggar girl saw ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... her friends, however. A moment after, she came running up with her broom over her shoulder, calling "Cab, there! Cab!" And when Diamond's father reached the curbstone, who should it be but Mrs. Coleman and Miss Coleman! Diamond and his father were very happy to see them again and gladly drove them home. When they wanted to pay for it, Diamond's father would not hear of it, but jumped on his box ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald
... restaurant on the corner of the square, and the iron curtain of the entrance had been hastily dropped on us, we stood in such complete night that it took a waiter's friendly hand to guide us to the curbstone. Then, as we grew used to the darkness, we saw it lying still more densely under the colonnade of the Place de la Carriere and the clipped trees beyond. The ordered masses of architecture became august, the spaces between them immense, and the ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... housekeeping" in an obscure hinterland of respectability. Hill Street, which had once known fashion, and that only yesterday, as old ladies count, had sunk at last into a humble state of decay. Here and there the edges of porches had crumbled; grass was beginning to sprout by the curbstone; and the once comfortable homes had opened their doors to boarders or let their large, high-ceiled rooms to the impoverished relicts of Confederate soldiers. Only a few blocks away the stream of modern progress, sweeping along Broad Street, was rapidly changing the old ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... years old the day he sat on the curbstone and stared down into the gutter. It was full of rain water. Sticks and straws were carried past in wild swirlings down to the sea. The little boy sat and looked on with that pleasant calm that people feel in following the adventurous existence of others, when they themselves ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... of argument, I was so profoundly convinced of its truth, that without having first tried it upon my own person, I would have sat where I was, upon the curbstone, and had a tooth removed with the perfect expectation of absence of pain and of still being conscious of touch. While yet walking with my children, I commenced to breathe as rapidly as possible, and, as anticipated, found my steps growing shorter and shorter, until I came to a stand, showing ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... moment Margery had forgotten, and now, at this sudden reminder, she was so overcome she had to sit down for a few moments and rest on the curbstone. ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... find your "lead," for this precious metal is not found indiscriminately in every rock or ledge you may chance upon. It is found only in the quartz rock, a ledge of which, say twenty feet in thickness, may run like a curbstone set on edge for many miles across hills and in valleys. It may be a mile in depth, and maintain a nearly uniform thickness, being perfectly distinct from the casing rock on each side of it, and keeping its distinctive character always, no matter ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... seen me standing irresolute on the pavement, tapping my stick of Irish bog-oak idly against the curbstone, you would have seen a slim youth, rather nattily dressed (I think), with a shadow of brown on his upper lip, and a curl escaping from under his hat, and the hat just a little towards the back of his head, and a pretty good chin, and the pride of life in his ingenuous eye. Quite unaware that ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... resolutely on up Hanover Street, being familiar with that part of my route, till I came to a puzzling corner. There I stopped, utterly bewildered by the tangle of streets, the roar of traffic, the giddy swarm of pedestrians. With the precious manuscript tightly clasped, I balanced myself on the curbstone, afraid to plunge into the boiling vortex of the crossing. Every time I made a start, a clanging street car snatched up the way. I could not even pick out my street; the unobtrusive street signs ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... attended by two classes of people—those who want to trade in horses, and those who don't; between them they manage to assemble a large crowd. There are always plenty of curbstone brokers, or intermediaries, who hang around the fair to negotiate purchases and sales. They have a way of conducting trades by drawing their long sleeves over their hands, and making or receiving bids by means of the concealed fingers. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... an izvostchik and join the throng. The process is simple; it consists in setting ourselves up at auction on the curbstone, among the numerous cabbies waiting for a job, and knocking ourselves down to the lowest bidder. If our Vanka (Johnny, the generic name for cabby) drives too slowly, obviously with the object of loitering away our money, a policeman will give him a hint to whip up, or ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... you worry about me, good people? I 'm not a heroine. If I were sitting on the curbstone without a roof to my head, and did n't know where I should get my dinner, I should cry! But I smell my dinner" (here she sniffed pleasurably), "and I think it 's chicken! You see, it's so difficult for me to realize that ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the slimy mosses, fearing each new energy of grasping muscle is the last that Nature holds in its store for you; and then, weary almost unto death, you look up and see two human faces peering above the curbstone, see the rope curling down to you, swinging right before your grasp, and a doubt comes,—have you life enough ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... these four men in armour met each other in front of the windows of the house, and stood there on horseback for fifteen minutes, with their backs to the curbstone. The forage, however, of the horses became so terribly large an item of expenditure that Mr. Brown's heart failed him. His heart failed him, and he himself went off late one evening to the livery stable-keeper who supplied the horses, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... obscured, and another aspect of the adventure was presented to Laura. The sufferings of the arrogant are not wholly depressing to the spectator; and of arrogance Hedrick had ever been a master. She began to shake; a convulsion took her, and suddenly she sat upon the curbstone without dignity, and laughed as ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... to his sister or Johnny, or staring at such customers as happened to be within; and, if these proved to be Matty's patrons, he would watch the progress of the sale with great interest. Then he would turn to his roaster, and work it violently for a few moments, then be off to the curbstone or crossing, exchanging some, probably not very choice, joke with some other street-gamin, or the conductor or ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews |
