"Astride" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exchequer can withstand the shock. And they wisely give way to the popular will when they can no longer resist it without running too great a risk. They oppose it as far as it is safe to do so, and then jump on and ride it. And you will see them astride of the vote, if the common people want it. But in America it is not so. The vote with us is so general that there is no danger of insurrection, and there is no danger that the government will be ruined by a wronged class that lies coiled up beneath it. When we speak of the vote here, it is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in their boats.' He owned, amongst many homes, a noble white steed, that was led to the top of the grass- covered hill, and with great pomp and ceremony, in the presence of the whole nation and several of the far-traders and the Indian agent, he was placed astride of his horse's back, with his bow in his hand, and his shield and quiver slung, with his pipe and his medicine bag, with his supply of dried meat, and his tobacco-pouch replenished to last him through the ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... and active men who had accompanied him got astride upon the beam, and with the help of their hands reached the other end one by one. When the first of them arrived in the garret whither Antony Mauprat had fled, he found him grappling with Marcasse, who, quite carried away by his triumph and forgetting that it was not a question of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... are heavy on my brow; My breath comes hard and low; Yet, mother dear, grant one request, Before your boy must go. Oh! lift me ere my spirit sinks, And ere my senses fail, Place me once more, O mother dear, Astride the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... look upon their native land once more. To the old seaman who was used to meeting and to parting it was a small matter, but Amos, who had never been away before, was on fire with impatience, and would sit smoking for hours with his legs astride the shank of the bowsprit, staring ahead at the skyline, in the hope that his friend's reckoning had been wrong, and that at any moment he might see the beloved coast line looming up ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to carry one's own bedding for the inns supply nothing but food, and consequently when a Chinaman rides from one city to another he piles a great heap of blankets on his horse's back and climbs on top with his legs astride the animal's neck in front. The horses are trained to a rapid trot instead of a gallop, and I know of no more ridiculous sight than a Chinaman bouncing along a road on the summit of a veritable mountain of bedding with his arms ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... grown-up infant that he is, or else to be howling at the top of his lungs hallelujahs!—he that could never raise a note. And, if not so, certainly, out of compliment to the judgment of his boon companions, he should be engaged in the dread alternative of sitting astride a pair of balances and being "weighed and found wanting;" or having been sent by the relentless Judge into everlasting torment "where there is cursing and gnashing of teeth," he should be found there ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... now astride of the wall, and speedily lifted the ladder to our side, where it leaned comfortably against the stout branches of the draper's peach vine. Willie ran nimbly up the ladder and bestrode the wall. I followed, first standing, and then decorously sitting ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... centaur, I imagine, must have been for ever in difficulties; as a horse, he could not use the wonderful inventions of man, and as a man, he could not enjoy the proper pleasures of a horse. [20] But I, if I learn to ride, once set me astride my horse, and I will do all that the centaur can, and yet, when I dismount, I can dress myself as a human being, and dine, and sleep in my bed, like the rest of my kind: in short, I shall be a jointed centaur that can ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... all sorts of vehicles wuz seen. Big barouches full of English people, down to a little two-wheeled cart drawed by one ox. Crowds of people, jewels, bright color, anon a poor woman carrying her baby astride her hip, men, wimmen, children, a ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... one of them, Roger Browne by name, said, "that I had best go up first. I served for some years at sea, and am used to climbing about in dizzy places. It is no easy matter to get from this window sill astride the roof above us, and moreover I am more like to heave the grapnel so that it will hook firmly on to the ridge than ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... have been washed out to sea and pictured them astride the wigwam in a beam-roll off Kinsale, keeping a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... me, Malviny. Don't pappy's gal want er ride on pappy's foot? See 'ere, now! Whoopee!" and placing the plump little body astride his foot, the leg of which crossed the other, and clasping the baby hands in his, he tossed her up and down till she crowed and laughed in a perfect abandon of baby glee. A smiling audience looked on in joyous ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... Colonel took the lead, with Laura astride his neck, and the newly-inspired and very grateful immigrants picked up their tired limbs with quite a spring in them ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... went down, and at least another had passed before he had hewn off a portion. Then very slowly and painfully he rolled it to the river with skids and levers cut in the bush. He was breathless, and the perspiration dripped from him when at last it slid into the water and he seated himself astride, with his possessions on the wet bark in front of him. The device was a very old one, but there is a difficulty attached to the putting it in execution, for it is needful to lean out a little while using the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... rather narrow stone lying a few yards from me. I wondered how it could have come there, for there were no mountains or rocks near: the field was part of a level country. Carelessly, I sat down upon it astride, and watched the setting of the sun. Somehow I fancied that his light was more sorrowful than the light of the setting sun should be, and I began to feel very heavy at the heart. No sooner had the last brilliant spark of his light vanished, than I felt the stone under me ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... Southampton to be with Kelsall once again. Eccentricity had grown on him; he would shut himself for days in his bedroom, smoking furiously; he would fall into fits of long and deep depression. He shocked some of his relatives by arriving at their country house astride a donkey; and he amazed the Procters by starting out one evening to set fire to Drury Lane Theatre with a lighted five-pound note. After this last visit to England, his history becomes even more obscure than before. It ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... a wide, big belt around his waist, and, taking this off, he put it over his shoulders, buckling it so that there was a loop hanging down his back. He put Freddie in this loop, astride, so the little boy could clasp his arms around the man's neck. Then, telling him to hold on tightly, and picking Flossie up in his arms, the man started off ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... design; but unhappily the lady had caught hold of his coat-tail to arrest his flight, and therefore instead of vaulting clear over the rails, as he had anticipated, his Excellency was drawn back in his leap, and found himself seated astride upon the barrier, with a desperate woman tugging at his tail, and trying to pull him back into the arena. Nothing, we believe, has ever exceeded the ludicrous misery displayed in his Excellency's visage on finding himself in this perilous situation. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... riding astride the full moon!" he quoted. "Old Nannie is rather a wonderful old witch, after all, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... cast in the undulating ravines. It is interesting to compare with either of these noble works such hills as those of Claude, on the left of the picture marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery. There is no detail nor surface in one of them; not an inch of ground for us to stand upon; we must either sit astride upon the edge, or fall to the bottom. I could not point to a more complete instance of mountain calumniation; nor can I oppose it more completely, in every circumstance, than with the Honfleur of Turner, already mentioned; in which there ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... fine, but there is very little positive beauty among them. Most of the old country-women are veritable hags, and their appearance is not improved by the broad-brimmed stove-pipe hats which they wear. Seated astride on their donkeys, between panniers of produce, they come in daily from the plains and mountains, and you encounter them on all the roads leading out of Palma. Few of the people speak any other language than the Mallorquin, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... tea-table, and he stood at a little distance, watching her pull off her gloves with a queer comic twitch of his elastic mouth. "Well, I guess it's only when you want to be," he said, grasping a lyre-backed chair by its gilt cords, and sitting down astride of it, his light grey trousers stretching too tightly over his plump thighs. Undine was perfectly aware that he was a vulgar over-dressed man, with a red crease of fat above his collar and an impudent swaggering eye; yet she liked ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... her own. Her first attempts to make fast to the Mole ahead of Vindictive failed, as her grapnels were not large enough to span the parapet. Two officers. Lieutenant Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the parapet trying to make the grapnels fast till each was killed and fell down between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine Gibbs had both legs shot away and died next morning. Lieutenant Spencer, B.N.R., though wounded, conned the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... one to his mother: King Charles spaniels, Italian greyhounds, affectionate to her crinoline—you never saw them now. You saw no quality of any sort, indeed, just working people sitting in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few young bouncing females in pot hats, riding astride, or desultory Colonials charging up and down on dismal-looking hacks; with, here and there, little girls on ponies, or old gentlemen jogging their livers, or an orderly trying a great galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no gossip—nothing; only the trees ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... astride a stick of timber in front of Master Geoffrey Thompson's new house, watching Tom Carpenter the carver cut fleur-de-lis and curling traceries upon the front wall beams. He was a tenant-farmer's son, this Roger, and ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... again without a moment's hesitation or reflection, and running along, with the lightness of a cat, gained the roof of the back building, which he ascended to the very apex, and then placed himself astride thereof. Here he sat for some minutes looking around him and enjoying the prospect. On the end of the back building was fastened a strong pole, running up into the air some ten feet. On the top of this pole was a bird-box, in which a pair of pigeons had their nest. Two young pigeons ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... upon my expressing a desire to ascend to the earth on the summit, he commenced a scramble over loose stones, large rocks, and occasional slippery grass, holding on to the now numerous dwarf-cypress, until we reached a narrow saddle of the peak, over which a man could sit astride and look down to the right and left into the depth below. It was necessary to cross this saddle for about ten or twelve feet to gain the wider pathway formed by the natural rock, which was terminated after a few yards by the castle tower. This, as may be ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... tested the air and proved it good by dropping in blazing excelsior saturated with turpentine, a stout oak stick was attached to the end of the rope, my son sprang astride and was lowered to the bottom, just one hundred feet. He reported back 'All right.' On the return of the rope I took my position on the stick and was soon dangling in mid air. The sensation was strange and exhilarating. Looking up I could only ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... distinctive faces, very much as people have, meditated Mr. Twist the morning of the opening, as he sat astride a green chair at the bottom of the little garden, where a hedge of sweetbriar beautifully separated the Twinkler domain from the rolling fields that lay between it and the Pacific, and stared at his handiwork; and the conclusion was forced upon him—reluctantly, ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... of the Conquerors, Caesar and Alexander, Attila and Napoleon, Charlemagne and Cambyses, astride their horses or in chariots in the centre of the picture, dark, gloomy, menacing? On each side of them, lining a vast plain that fades in the distance, lie the dead—stiff, cold, grey, reproachful;—yet all the victims of those ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... "it's just the way with carnivores. After a kill, they drink. It's the taste of blood, you know.—What was the brute like?" he continued. "Would you know him again?" He glanced about us, standing astride over the mess of dead rabbit, his eyes roving among the shadows and screens of greenery, the lurking-places and ambuscades of the forest that bounded us in. "The taste ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... the ground hard and he lay dazed for a second or two. When he regained his senses, Job Howland stood astride of him coolly tucking the pistol into his own waist-band. "Ay," said Job, "ye'll be a fine buccaneer, only ye should have struck with the butt. I heard the click." The pirate seemed to hold no grudge for what had occurred and sat down beside ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... sat astride his harness maker's horse, and when he was not at work, stared out through a dirty window into an alleyway and tried to understand Jim's idea of what a harness maker's attitude should be toward his customers, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... to-day, Billy, Kate and Robin, All astride upon the back of old grey Dobbin? Jigging, jogging off to school, down the dusty track— What must Dobbin think of it—three upon his back? Robin at the bridle-rein, in the middle Kate, Billy holding on ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... in Gramm., Lat. i. 477: 'Iambus stood a little while astride with foot advanced, that so his strained limbs might get power and have a ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... One man, astride on a better horse than the rest, galloped on in front and came within range of us. He had a rifle in his hand, he pointed it twice, and covered us. But he did not shoot. Hilda gave a cry of relief. "Don't you see?" she exclaimed. "It is Oom Jan Willem's ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Holding his breath, he sprang up and leaped with all his strength upon the robber's back, stunning the rascal with the force of the blow. To seize the knife was but a second's work. The robber began to struggle, but Peter sat like a giant astride the ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Alexis had a good appetite; the meal was after his heart; and by the time he had eaten a hare and half a flank of venison, followed by several bowls of fiery wine, he was in the humor for sport. He ordered a hole cut in the upper side of the barrel, as it lay; then, getting astride of it, like a grisly Bacchus, he dipped out the liquor with a ladle, and plied his thirsty serfs until they became as ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... names of Nat Turner, Dick Berry, and Milt Wiseman, who like their beloved commander had given their life for their country. There is an inscription on the stone base of the magnificent bronze statue of General N. B. Forrest astride his war horse in Forrest Park in Memphis that could well be placed above the graves of Cleburne, Turner, Berry, and Wiseman, those brave, heroic soldiers from Phillips County. The inscription in verse ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... took me a month to travel over, and then I came to the seaside. It happened at the time to be perfectly calm, and I espied a vessel about half a league from the shore. Unwilling to lose so good an opportunity, I broke off a large branch from a tree, carried it into the sea, and placed myself astride upon it, with a stick in each hand, to serve me ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... supposed to have fallen overboard into the river. In each case several contestants pretended to drag him out, placing him face downward, with his arms above his head, and his face a little to one side. Then one of the rescuers knelt astride the body, allowing his hands to press upon the spaces between the short ribs. By pressing downward the air was forced from the other's lungs, to creep in again when this was relaxed; and in this fashion an artificial respiration was induced that should ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... unburdened, could find footing and hold it upon that wall of narrow ledges and inverted, slanting gullies. But he climbed on, sure-footed as a mountain goat, and, surmounting the last rough steps, he stood a moment silhouetted against the white sky. Then he disappeared. Ladd sat astride Blanco Sol gazing upward. How the cowboy must have honored ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... for the Turkish Sultan or his proclamations. Through Bagdad, however, they hoped to strike a blow at the English influence on the Persian Gulf. The English, therefore, felt strongly that it was not enough to sit safely astride the Tigris, but that a blow at Bagdad would produce a tremendous political effect. It would practically prevent German communication with Persia, and the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... enough of horses and riding to see at a glance that he was a failure, with his low withers and high haunches, for descending steep mountains. In addition to his forward pitch, his back was immensely broad. Miss Anthony and I decided to ride astride and had suits made for that purpose; but alas! my steed was so broad that I could not reach the stirrups, and the moment we began to descend, I felt as if I were going over his head. So I fell behind, and, when the party had all gone forward, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the gunner, who by firing in a hurry would in many instances entail a miss. Having well considered the matter, I determined to make myself more comfortable on the morrow, by padding the mucharn with the quilted pad of the riding elephant, and by sitting astride a tightly bound ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... which they had so lately been the victims. They laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire—the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles astride of his nose, and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair, and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of Doctor Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully, and leaped about the room. The Widow ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... were seen running in with a swell upon the rocks, and breaking against them into clouds of foam and white spray. In the midst of the sea the bull was depicted, breasting the lofty billows which surged against his sides, with the damsel seated on his back, not astride, but with both her feet disposed on his right side, while with her left hand she grasped his horn, by which she guided his motions as a charioteer guides a horse by the rein. She was arrayed in a white ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... the massacre of some Russians afforded Peter a pretext for sailing down the Volga and seizing the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, which now became virtually a Russian lake. This ended Peter's conquests. The Russian colossus now "stood astride, with one foot on the Baltic and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... watched us pass; and lower, and where the long Rich galleries, lady-laden, weighed the necks Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls, Thicker than drops from thunder, showers of flowers Fell as we past; and men and boys astride On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan, At all the corners, named us each by name, Calling, "God speed!" but in the ways below The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor Wept, and the King himself ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... climb over it," the thought, God knows why, occurred to him, "surely I can." He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold of the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the bath-house, but from the fence he could see the lighted windows of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... troop of horses, with two bare-legged, wild-looking youngsters astride each a barebacked steed, and holding the others with leading-reins. These horses, as well as those drawing the wagons, were sleek ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... us your 'but' citizen," said Tinville, for the coal-heaver had paused, as if trying to collect his thoughts. He had dragged a wine barrel to collect his thoughts. He had dragged a wine barrel close to the trestle table, and now sat astride upon it, facing Tinville and the group of Jacobins. The flickering tallow candle behind him threw into bold silhouette his square, massive head, crowned with its Phrygian cap, and the great breadth of his shoulders, with the shabby knitted ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... children, one after the other, have all the delights of a stolen ride. The ever-present dread of Miss Bibby's discovery naturally added a fearful joy to the proceedings "A judge's eldest daughter astride a grocer's horse!" Pauline could readily imagine ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... sort it meant an invasion of aliens who had never come before for other purpose than to break up their stills and drag them to jail. As he came out into the Susie and Pussie pike he met a frowsy pinewoodsman astride a ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... intimacy. They dawdled along, chatting with one another, which prevented them feeling dull, and after a time decided to go and taste the soup prepared by Madame Raquin. Laurent opened the shop door as if he were master of the house, seated himself astride a chair, smoking and ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Henry by York and London so violated the immemorial usage of the Church, that, like the gravedigger's child I have heard of, trying to ring the bell, he hath half-hanged himself in the rope of the Church, or rather pulled all the Church with the Holy Father astride of it down upon his ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... to be resisted, and a dark form wriggled out from among the roots, only to stretch itself flat under a bush and peer cautiously at the struggling brutes not thirty feet away. Twice Mitchell hissed for his employer to come down; but that worthy was safe astride the highest branch that would bear his weight, with no desire evidently for a better view of the fight. Then Mitchell found the rifle among the bushes and, waiting till the bulls backed away for one of their furious charges, killed the larger one in his tracks. The second stood startled an instant, ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... faster now; but before they had the opening large enough to pass, he would have done what he wanted! With a strong piece of iron for a lever, he drew the staple from the post, then drove it in astride of the bolt, careful to time his blows to those of the masons. That done, he ran down to the chapel, gathered what dust he could sweep up from behind the altar and laid it on its top, restored on the bed, with its own dust, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... this polite tranquillity came, I blush to say, from the descendant of John de Fonte. He exploded in a yawn of magnitude; to cover this, the young lady began hastily to play her old game of setting people astride their topic, and she selected David Dodd for the experiment. She put on a warm curiosity about the sea, and ships, and the countries men visit in them. Then occurred a droll phenomenon: David flashed ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... man's lips; then she shook no more, but guided the flask so that each of them got what he wanted, and the twelfth had not done drinking before the first sat and snored. Then the Master Thief threw off his beggar's rags, and took one groom after the other so softly off their horses, and set them astride on the beams between the stalls; and so he called his eleven men, and rode off with the Squire's twelve horses. But when the Squire got up in the morning, and went to look after his grooms, they had just begun to come to; and some of them fell to spurring the beams ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... of the present time think of going to mill on a frosty morning astride of a bag of corn on the horse's back, without stockings or shoes and with trousers half way up to the knees? On one occasion the little Ichabod was so thoroughly chilled that he had to stop at a house to get warm, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... the yellow light of the moon, the two friends turned face to face on the deck of the timber-ship, and looked at each other in silence. The next moment Allan's inveterate recklessness seized on the grotesque side of the situation by main force. He seated himself astride on the bulwark, and burst out boisterously into his loudest ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... of their horses in anxious conference. If any of them saw him, outlined like a sentinel against the sky, they made no sign; but suddenly a man in a high Texas hat leaped up from the group, sprang astride his mule and spurred him into the cold water. For the first twenty feet the mule waded, shaking his ears; then he slumped off the edge of a submerged bench into deeper water and swam, heading across the stream but drifting diagonally with the current ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... to be a woman by day and at night a spirit that torments human beings and horses by sitting astride ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... restful, strengthening, inspiring weeks, the man lived, so far as a man can live, in his Yesterdays. In the cool shade of the orchard that once was an enchanted wood; under the old apple tree ship beside the meadow sea; on the hill where, astride his rail fence war horse, the boy had directed the battle and led the desperate charge and where the man had dreamed the first of his manhood dreams; in the garden where the castaway had lived on his desert island; in the yard near mother's window where the boy had builded the brave ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... This decreased his speed. Half-way up the hill he was met by Alfred on his way to get in the game, whatever it might prove to be. The little man reached over and grasped Tom's hand. Tom braced his foot against the stirrup, and in an instant was astride behind the saddle. Alfred turned up the hill again, and without a word began applying his quirt vigorously to the wiry shoulders of his horse. At the top of the hill, as they passed the grazing ponies, Tom turned ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... You would scarcely ever see the main street without a horse or two tied to posts, and making a fine figure with their Mexican housings. It struck me oddly to come across some of the Cornhill illustrations to Mr. Blackmore's "Erema," and see all the characters astride on English saddles. As a matter of fact, an English saddle is a rarity even in San Francisco, and you may say a thing unknown in all the rest of California. In a place so exclusively Mexican as Monterey, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hour later, outside the General's tent Kruger Bobs sat astride The Nig, with the rein of the gray broncho in his hand. The clouds, since noon banked low in the eastern horizon, had swept up across the sky, and already the rain was pattering drearily over the hunched-up shoulders of Kruger Bobs. Inside the tent, the colloquy was brief. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... waters spreads a dazzling foreground to valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and stars ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... ass of Balaam. They teased little Mirande in all sorts of ways; they would dirty her pretty clothes by making her fall face downward on the stones. Once they pushed her head right up to the neck into a barrel of treacle. They taught her to sit astride railings, and to climb trees, contrary to the decorum of her sex; they taught her words and manners that smacked of the inn and the salting-tub. Following their example, she called Madame Bassne "an old goat," and ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... eight sat astride upon a farmyard gate, whistling and beating time with a hazel-switch. He had fastened his belt round the gate-post and was using it as a bridle, his bare knees gripped the wooden bar under him, and his little brass-tipped ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... front of the bungalow where Noel had left the mounts; and after a good deal of discussion and many injunctions Peggy was, to her huge delight, perched astride the Chimpanzee, a creature of almost human intelligence who plainly took a serious view of his responsibilities, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... his might Ken went down under a half dozen sophomores. Then Dale was astride his chest, and others were sitting on his hands ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... constitutes the especial genius of the artist, and a work that is not aglow with its creator's personality—personality, mind you, not coarse realism—can never rank as a masterpiece. But, come, this won't do. Why did you want to get me astride my hobby?" ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... make any mistake," Jerry said. "In the first place they may come in useful to us yet, and even if we never get astride of them again they may come in mighty handy for food. I don't say as we mayn't get a bear if there are openings in the canon, or terraces where they can come down, but if there ain't it is just horse-meat we have got to depend on. Look here, boys, it is 'tarnal dark here; ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... Woodbridge witnessed the strangest scene in its history. It was that of a score of Green Mountain Scouts, in buckskins and coon caps, traveling up the dusty road toward the Lake. Some were astride motor cycles, a half-dozen were crowded into "Old Nanc" and the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... mile, Past cottage an' village an' toon, She'd an awfu' time astride o' the gate, Though it seemed to gree fine wi' the great muckle skate, An' the lum hat wantin' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... woods a character of solemnity, absent in those of countries long civilised. Shortly after sunset we bivouacked for the night. Our female companion, who was rather good-looking, belonged to one of the most respectable families in Castro: she rode, however, astride, and without shoes or stockings. I was surprised at the total want of pride shown by her and her brother. They brought food with them, but at all our meals sat watching Mr. King and myself whilst eating, till we were fairly shamed into feeding the whole ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... to June); dry season (June to October); constantly high temperatures and humidity; particularly enervating climate astride the Equator ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... possible from the driving rain, I wiped and stored a lot of dead twigs, lighted the candle, and set it in the hut, carefully added pinches of punk and shavings, and at length got a little blaze, by the light of which I gradually added larger shavings, then twigs all set on end astride the inner flame, making the little hut higher and wider. Soon I had light enough to enable me to select the best dead branches and large sections of bark, which were set on end, gradually increasing the height and corresponding light of the hut fire. A considerable area was thus ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... marshaled in three divisions, they began their march. One division had for its chief the Marquis de St. Huruge, an intimate friend and adherent of the Duc d'Orleans; at the head of another, a woman of notorious infamy, known as La Belle Liegeoise, clad in male attire, rode astride upon a cannon; while, as it advanced, the crowd was every moment swelled by vast bodies of recruits, among whom were numbers of women, whose imprecations in ferocity and foulness surpassed even the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... and as small as any, was her master himself. Bewildered and frightened, Cherry sprang to her feet, but as she turned to run she saw everything was changed. There were Little People everywhere, hanging on the trees overhead, swarming over the ground at her feet, swinging on the flowers, some astride the stalks, others curled up in the cups, all exquisitely dressed, and flashing with gold and jewels; and all ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... hoofs invariably beats out in my brain some tune, the most incongruous, against my will—when a sudden outcry roused me. It came from my companion, a hired muleteer, and sounded angry. The fellow had been riding on ahead. I now saw that he had overtaken other travellers—two men astride of one donkey—and had entered into conversation with them. One of the two, the hindmost, was a Turkish soldier. Except the little group they made together, and a vulture, a mere speck above them in the blue, no other living creature was in sight. Something ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... a man to do, to be sure, but the astonishment of it nearly stopped the heart of Kate Cumberland. For in all her life she had never before heard him whistle except when he was in the open, and preferably when he was astride of the strength and the speed of Satan, with Black Bart scouting swiftly and smoothly ahead. But now he whistled here by the warmth of the fire. To be sure the sound was small and thin, but there was such music ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... forward movements, in consideration of the large amount of matter you have to review before you can at all imagine yourselves to have made his acquaintance. This it is not necessary to do when you are set astride the enchanted horse of the Tale, which leaves the man's mind at home while he performs the deeds befitting him: he can indeed be rapid. Whether more active, is a question asking for your notions of the governing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that for an instant Ann thought she must surely topple backwards, and wondered with a little breathless thrill of admiration how Brett contrived to keep his seat at all at such an angle. Possibly the mare wondered also, for, coming down once more on all four feet to find the hated incumbrance still astride her back, she reared again, immediately. Ann had a vision of two black hoofs pawing the air indignantly, then, swift as a flash of light, Brett had flung himself forward on the mare's neck and brought his crop ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Bagarag on the horse and enveloped him, and seized him, and plucked him from the Horse, and whirled him round, and flung him off. The youth went circling in the air, high in it, and descended, circling, at a distance in the deep meadow-waters. When he crept up the banks he saw the Genie astride the Horse Garraveen, with a black flame round his head; and the Genie urged him to speed and put him to the gallop, and was soon lost to sight, as he had been a thunderbeam passing over a still lake at midnight. And Shibli Bagarag ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... climbed to the right place, worked so vigorously that he succeeded in detaching the anchor, and the latter, violently jerked, at that moment, by the start of the balloon, caught the rascal between the limbs, and carried him off astride of ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... had never seen an animal that pleased me so much; his well-arched neck and slightly-dipped back showed that an Arab cross had mingled with the stronger qualities of the Norman horse. I sprung to my saddle with delight; to be astride such a beast was to kindle up all the enthusiasm of my nature, and as I grasped the reins, and urged him forward, I was ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... then, to proceed. The first of these was Miss Diana Tonkin, a young lady, who kept her brother's snuff-shop, at the sign of the African astride the Tobacco Barrel—a rare beauty, who was on the most intimate talking terms with half a hundred young bloods and beaux, who looked in during lounging hours, being students of law, physic, and divinity, half-pay ensigns, and theatrical understrappers, to replenish ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... trying to dig the cork out of a beer bottle with a pair of shears, and ask a supe, in harsh tones, where the cork-screw was, while she spread mustard on a piece of cheese, and finally drank the beer from the bottle, and spit the pieces of cork out on the floor, sitting astride of a stage chair, and her boot heels up on the top round, her trail rolled up into a ball, wrong side out, showing dirt from ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... or one against ten, in which the desperate peasants joined also with their scythes. At night the Emperor might be seen sitting astride his chair, with his chin resting in his folded hands on the back, before a little fire with his generals around him. This was the way he slept and dreamed. He must have had terrible reflections after the days of Marengo, ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... trees and hedges rocked, The moon was drowned in black; At Hirsel woods I shrieked to find A fiend astride my back. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Astride her big broom, the witch rode high above the cottage. She circled around like a huge bird, over the trees and back again, while she sang ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... seemed to rest over me, over the houses, the ships, the whole wide land. By the blessing of Heaven, not so much as the faintest breeze played about the spire, or cooled the copper rod burning my hand (and, again, it may have been this that woke me). I sat astride the topmost crocket, and glancing down between my boot heels, spied the carriage with its pair of greys flattened upon the roadway just beyond the verge of the battlements, and Mr. Scougall himself dancing and waving his arms like a ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... few blocks of greater dimensions, for the purpose of raising the beam to a suitable purchase; and a movable roof constructed of clap-boards nailed upon pairs of light rafters, of sufficient size to shelter the platform and hogshead, is made ready to place astride of the beam, as a saddle is put upon a horse's back, in order to secure the tobacco from the weather while it is subjected to this tedious part of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... yet: mark 'midst the wave-blurred mass, In lines distinct, in colors clear defined, The typic groups and figures of mankind. Behold within the cool and liquid glass Bright child-folk sporting with smooth yellow shells, Astride of dolphins, leaping up to kiss Fair mother-faces. From the vast abyss How joyously their thought-free laughter wells! Some slumber in grim caverns unafraid, Lulled by the overwhelming water's sound, And some make mouths at dragons, undismayed. Oh dauntless innocence! The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... may be seen in the book, where it is related that as he was sailing along a river there came up out of the midst of the water against him a fiery serpent, and he, as soon as he saw it, flung himself upon it and got astride of its scaly shoulders, and squeezed its throat with both hands with such force that the serpent, finding he was throttling it, had nothing for it but to let itself sink to the bottom of the river, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... his side. The Joven, grinning cheerfully, then forced a thong of raw hide into his unwilling pupil's mouth, whilst the young horse, half-mad with terror, rolled his eyes impotently. The Joven, standing astride over the fallen animal, half-dancing on his toes in his canvas shoes, would shout to the men to slacken the heel- rope, and then to let go the head-rope. As the terrified animal struggled to his feet, the Joven slipped nimbly on to the recado. Then came a brief pause, as the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... touching the water. In another moment he had both hands upon the iron, and, giving himself a vigorous upward swing, he was soon able to throw his feet over the tautly-strained main-brace. To scramble up and place himself astride the brace-block was now an easy task, and, settling himself firmly there, he prepared to assist the chief mate, when he should make ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... great strong horses, gray and bay, with thick manes and tails, came clattering up to the door of the forge, a man astride on one of them. Hetty knew the horses, which belonged to Wavertree Hall, and were accustomed to draw the long carts which brought the felled trees out of the woods to the yard at the back of the Hall. Hetty once had thought that the trees were going to be planted again in Mrs. Enderby's drawing-room, ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... shall soon feel like Dr. Blimber with his model young gentlemen," said Professor, laughing, as he saw Tommy not only remove his own hat, but knock off Ned's also, as they entered the hall where the Princess was taking a ride on the rocking-horse, attended by Rob and Teddy astride of chairs, and playing gallant knights to the best ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... life Or death betide, across the plashy ford 120 Drives slow; the beasts plod on, foot following foot, Aged and grave, with half-erected ears, As now his whip above their matted manes Hangs tremulous, while the dark and shallow stream Flashes beneath their fetlock: he, astride On harness saddle, not a sidelong look Deigns at the breathing landscape, or the maid Smiling behind; the cold and lifeless calf Her sole companion: and so mated oft Is some sweet maid, whose thrilling heart was formed 130 For dearer fellowship. But lift the eye, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... arises as to whether women should adopt men's saddles in preference to their own. I have studied the art of riding astride in an ordinary man's saddle, and would give a negative answer to that query. The fact that by the adoption of the cross saddle, about seven pounds in weight would be saved, and the work for the horse would be somewhat easier, ought not to outweigh the enormous disadvantages on the other side. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... within reach, but without orders. He wrote to the President that he would have to fight double numbers intrenched, when his own army was actually twice as strong as that of his antagonist. Placing his army astride the Chickahominy, he afforded that antagonist, General Johnston, the opportunity, at a sudden rise of the river, to fall on one portion of his divided forces at Fair Oaks with overwhelming numbers. Finally, when he was within four miles of Richmond and was attacked by General ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... just been whittled into the required semi-cylindrical form with the shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, like a hog's back with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to keep astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the bare sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to behold,—a vast hollowness, like that between Saturn and his ring. At a tavern hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... of the Rebels, some of whom lay on heaps of straw, asleep, or, at all events, giving no sign of consciousness; others sat in the corners of the room, huddled close together, and staring with a lazy kind of interest at the visitors; two were astride of some planks, playing with the dirtiest pack of cards that I ever happened to see. There was only one figure in the least military among all these twenty prisoners of war,—a man with a dark, intelligent, moustached face, wearing a shabby cotton uniform, which he had contrived ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... He knelt astride with one knee on either side of Joel's body, and commenced pressing down regularly on the small of his back, so as to induce an artificial respiration. At the same time, Toby and one of the other fellows worked the unconscious boy's arms back and forth like ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton |
