"Awkwardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and would have done so but for the fact that he saw a man climbing his path. When he recognized the rider Holley he sensed trouble, and straightway he became gloomy. Bostil's right-hand man could not call on him for any friendly reason. Holley came up slowly, awkwardly, after the manner of a rider unused to walking. Slone had built a little porch on the front of his cabin and a bench, which he had covered with goatskins. It struck him a little strangely that he should bend over to rearrange these skins just as ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... light. The ribs at the angles are supported on engaged columns, above which are Gothic figures beneath canopies, of which two, David and Simeon, remain; the other two were destroyed or stolen, I understand, by thieves who broke into the building. The figures bend forward awkwardly beneath the curve of the vault, which becomes domical, with angels and cherubs upon it. The boss in the centre bears a head of God the Father and the Holy Dove, with an inscription round the edge: "Hic est ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... after, three notes, clear as a bird's call, sounded from the direction whither she had vanished, and Miss Rood's companion, breaking off short a remark on the excessive dryness of the weather, bowed awkwardly and also disappeared ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the morning when I was first able to walk about?" asked Ferrand. "You helped me to get up, and supported me whilst I awkwardly stumbled about, no longer knowing how to use my ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... toward Lincoln was generous and manly. When Lincoln, rising to pronounce his first inaugural address, looked awkwardly about him for a place to bestow his hat that he might adjust his glasses to read those noble paragraphs, Douglas came forward and took it from his hand. The graceful courtesy won him praise; and that was his attitude toward the new administration. The day Sumter was fired on, he went to the President ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... still nervous from recurring doubts, awkwardly assisted his vivacious charge to attain safe footing, anxiously bade her hold firmly to the swaying rope, and stood, carefully steadying the line as it slowly disappeared, hypnotized still by those marvellous black eyes, which continued to peer up at him until they vanished within ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What delightful people! those are friends who may be ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Then they got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather dizzy, were getting the fresh air, the two men, who were altogether drunk, were performing gymnastic tricks. Heavy, limp, and with scarlet faces, they hung awkwardly onto the iron rings, without being able to raise themselves, while their shirts were continually threatening to leave their trousers, and to flap ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... John asked awkwardly one day. 'You see, Mary, she's got to die. If we keep her, she'll die. And if we sell her, she'll only die. If we keep her, Mary, she may die of some disease, and we shall see her in pain. If we sell her, she will die suddenly, and feel no pain. And then, Mary,' he continued slowly, ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... in a second, covered with green beads, his black mouth choked with them. Although not a water-dog, instinct kept him afloat, and he began to swim awkwardly, forging farther from shore instead of nearer. In a moment he had tangled his legs among thick-growing, ropey stems of water-lilies, and frightened and confused at finding himself a prisoner, went down again ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... grave was dug, and, sprinkling its depth with leaves and soft branches of spruce, the dwarf drew the body over, and lowered it slowly, awkwardly, into the grave. Then he covered all but the huge, unlovely face, and, kneeling, peered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... present for you," he said awkwardly, putting a purse into Aunt Sally's hand. "I reckon there's enough there to keep you from ever having to go to the poorhouse again and if not, there'll be more where that comes from when ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... corn-merchants at Liverpool, his contribution to the total capital of four thousand pounds being fifteen hundred, of which his father lent him five hundred, and a friend another five at five per cent. In 1787 he thought the plural ending of his name sounded awkwardly in the style of the firm, Corrie, Gladstones, and Bradshaw, so he dropped the s.[12] He visited London to enlarge his knowledge of the corn trade in Mark Lane, and here became acquainted with Sir Claude Scott, the banker (not yet, however, a baronet). ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... over-work, to do the best they could with the work in hand—to make it excellent of its kind; and when that had gone on for a little, a craving for beauty seemed to awaken in men's minds, and they began rudely and awkwardly to ornament the wares which they made; and when they had once set to work at that, it soon began to grow. All this was much helped by the abolition of the squalor which our immediate ancestors put up with so coolly; and by the leisurely, but not stupid, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... speaking and jumping over the logs ran down the road. Among the first of the miner's houses he stopped and laughed awkwardly. "I am cracked also," he thought, "shouting at emptiness on a hillside." He went on in a reflective mood, wondering what power had taken hold of him. "I would like a fight—a fight against odds," he thought. "I will stir things up when I am a lawyer ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... out her hand awkwardly, still avoiding the eyes of the older woman. "A bad sign"—thought Mrs. Johnson, unconsciously—"she never seems to look ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... illuminated her own countenance as much as that of Amanda, who, repelled by her manners and appearance, sat motionless, and checked the appeal that was rising to her lips. The redoubtable rider dismounted awkwardly from behind her, half dragged her from the tall beast, and hurried her into the house. The woman followed, and having closed the door, placed the candle on a table, and sat down by the fire; when Amanda, still standing in the midst of ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... not unkindly tone, and paused awkwardly while the protruding toe tried vainly to burrow from sight in ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... expressively glum and ironical,— he, however, was compelled, like all the other paid servants of the household, to make a low and respectful obeisance as soon as he found himself in Sah-luma's presence,—an act of homage which, he performed awkwardly, and with evident ill-will. His master nodded condescendingly in response to his reluctant salute, and signed to him to take his place at a richly carved writing-table adorned with the climbing figures of winged cupids ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... was quite shattered. He had forgotten his own powers of attack. He seemed to fear for his eyes,—and among all the wild kindred there is no fear more horrifying than that. When he ducked, and swerved, and tried to dodge, he did it awkwardly, as if his presence of ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... right off if you hadn't gone back to have that last reel with Denis," he brought out awkwardly. He could not pronounce the name without a stiffening of the muscles ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... in the length and breadth of the Amazon Valley. He has got, moreover, as "tall" a tail as the tamanoir, very nearly as long a snout, a mouth equally small, and a tongue as extensive and extensile. In claws he can compare with his American cousin any day, and can walk just as awkwardly upon the sides of his ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... at the beginning with much more extensive, and therefore less intensive, notions than those of adults, with notions which the adult no longer forms. But the child does not, on that account, proceed illogically, although he does proceed awkwardly. Some further examples ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... the money and awkwardly drew out his purse. But it was the first time he had touched it since it was returned to him in the bar-room, and it struck him that it was heavy and full—indeed, so full that on opening it a few coins rolled out on to the floor. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... I fidgeted awkwardly about Cousin Frank's chair, pinching the hem of my apron into folds, and shifting from one foot to ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... thank you," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "for a most pleasant luncheon. And I should like fine," he added suddenly and impetuously, "to make out a precis for you on the subject of Caerulea. Never heed it yourself! Away home, and I'll ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... went on awkwardly as Esther still made no remark, "they feel a great deal, of course, but it must be so very interesting. A little cold cream for my nose, Esther. If I leave it until I get home I ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the answer in silence and backed awkwardly out. The pleasant nature of her reception rather astonished her. She had expected that it would be more difficult, that something cold and harsh would be said—she knew not what. That she had not been put to shame and made to feel her unfortunate ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... is newly shorn; the brow still white; The rough cloak has not yet the shoulder scarred; He wears it awkwardly; it clings not tight; And here above, the ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... 558 ff. In the interior of Peru, the priest is also usually a shop-keeper (Poeppig, Reise, II, 365); in Canada, as in many of the villages of the Alps which are not often visited, a hotel keeper. In countries with an unadvanced civilization, the little division of labor that exists is also very awkwardly regulated. Thus in Russia, weak children are very frequently put to work on farms, while powerful men are found in the city offering all kinds of eatables and the pictures of saints for sale. (Storch, Gemaelde des russischen Reichs II, 364. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... heavily discounted." He ignored Daniel and turned upon me. "As for you," he said, "I warn you you are playing against a marked deck. You will find fists a poor hand. Ladies and gentlemen, good-morning." With that he strode straight for his horse, climbed aboard (a trifle awkwardly by reason of his one arm disabled) and galloped, ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... brown, too, and in her cheeks she had a glow of rich, dark color. Her brown hair was curly and wild-looking. The little sister, whom they called Yulka (Julka), was fair, and seemed mild and obedient. While I stood awkwardly confronting the two girls, Krajiek came up from the barn to see what was going on. With him was another Shimerda son. Even from a distance one could see that there was something strange about this boy. As he approached us, he began to make ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... which he puts on the table. He thinks he is turning wine into the five glasses —it is vinegar, which will prove that no one has drunk out of them. He ascends, puts forward the hands of the clock, but forgets to put the hands and the striking bell in harmony. He rumples up the bed, but he does it awkwardly—and it is impossible to reconcile these three facts, the bed crumpled, the clock showing twenty minutes past three, and the countess dressed as if it were mid-day. He adds as much as he can to the disorder of the room. He smears a sheet with ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... smart, they say," responded Philetus, insinuating the rope's end as awkwardly as possible among the horse's ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... not your Sylvia with Jessie I pray, 'Tis comparing dark night with the fair light of day; Sylvia's movements are clumsy, and awkwardly seen, But Jessie is graceful, she moves like ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... Wharton, at the opening of his speech he spoke both awkwardly and flatly; and Marcella had a momentary shock. He was, as he said, tired, and his wits were not at command. He began with the general political programme of the party to which—on its extreme left wing—he proclaimed himself to ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... violin from his chin, came over the floor, and awkwardly offered his hand. With easy, lazy grace she rose from the block where ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... with a break in her frightened voice Norma began more clearly, "Our Father, Who art in Heaven——" and they all joined in, somewhat awkwardly and uncertainly. ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... in her arms and embraced him many times. By and by he kissed her back again—at first awkwardly and shyly, then with all the strength of ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... awkwardly dangled his rope into the abyss with one hand, and kept his light upon it with the other, he found to his disappointment that not even a single length would reach ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly. Thus the logic of ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... was waiting for you." He laid his fresh young face against hers, insisting that she must go to bed at once; helping her upstairs awkwardly, laughing as he went—telling her she was the sweetest girl he ever knew and his best sweetheart—kissing her pale cheeks as they climbed the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... shoot at, Nick?" he demanded, as the excited boy scrambled awkwardly to his feet, and appeared anxious to renew the engagement; at the same time Jack made sure to lay hold on the other's gun, lest ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... was better that youth should awkwardly strive TOWARD making, than repose in what it found made, so is it better that age, exempt from strife, should know, than tempt further. As in youth, age was waited for, so in age, wait for death, without fear, and with the absolute soul-knowledge ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... little horse, and he'll take me through." Then, coming close, she continued: "Oh, boy! Can't you see that I want to help? Can't you see that I—I'd DIE for you if it would do any good?" He gazed gravely into her wide blue eyes and said, awkwardly: "Yes, I know. I'm sorry things are—as they are—but you wouldn't have me ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... first tones of his voice, she whom he had so awkwardly, if unintentionally damaged, seemed to lose sight of her injuries. Her face blanched, but not with physical pain, her lips parted in a sort of gasp, and the sweet eyes, wide and dilated, sought his in wonder—almost ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... dresser; the firelight shone on the gleaming pewter and brass utensils, and a great tabby cat sat purring on the elbow of Nathaniel's chair. I thought he seemed a little confused at my entrance, for he got up rather awkwardly and shuffled his papers together, so I took pity on his embarrassment, and ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... life which is in no want, keeps a best parlour, and does not say ma'am, was quite new to her, and she did not fancy it. When the girls were left together, while Mrs. Giles returned to her ironing, Gillian was the shyer of the two, and began rather awkwardly and reluctantly—- ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... perhaps no other will ever do them justice—but the disciples of future schools will make glorious pillage of their remains. The writings of Shelley would furnish matter for a hundred volumes: they are an admirable museum of ill-arranged curiosities—they are diamonds, awkwardly set; but one of them, in the hands of a skilful jeweller, would be inestimable: and the poet of the future, will serve him as Mercury did the tortoise in his own translation from Homer—make him 'sing sweetly when he's dead!' Their lyres will be made ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... acting in the most unaccountable way. They thrust out their hands before them, pursued devious courses, came into violent collision with the counter, with boxes and barrels on the floor, and with one another. They turned awkwardly hither and thither and seemed trying to escape, but unable to retrace their steps. Their voices were heard in exclamations and curses. But in no way did the apparition of Silas Deemer manifest an interest ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... ready. Silverado would then be still in shadow, the sun shining on the mountain higher up. A clean smell of trees, a smell of the earth at morning, hung in the air. Regularly, every day, there was a single bird, not singing, but awkwardly chirruping among the green madronas, and the sound was cheerful, natural, and stirring. It did not hold the attention, nor interrupt the thread of meditation, like a blackbird or a nightingale; it was mere woodland prattle, of which the mind was conscious like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little awkwardly, "I might have gone; but, you see, when I wrote to father and mother about not getting along well and all that, and when Uncle Justus wrote about that time, you know when the boys were there, and said I ought to be in a regular ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... a strong word. I do not know that her uncle has any claim to her gratitude; his wife certainly had; and it is the warmth of her respect for her aunt's memory which misleads her here. She is awkwardly circumstanced. With such warm feelings and lively spirits it must be difficult to do justice to her affection for Mrs. Crawford, without throwing a shade on the Admiral. I do not pretend to know which was most to blame in their disagreements, though the Admiral's present ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... is the condition of all good work whatsoever. All freedom is error. Every line you lay down is either right or wrong; it may be timidly and awkwardly wrong, or fearlessly and impudently wrong. The aspect of the impudent wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons, and is what they commonly call "free" execution; the timid, tottering, hesitating wrongness is rarely so attractive; yet sometimes, if accompanied ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... there arose a hubbub of excitement from the crowd on the canals. The gondolas moved turbidly upon the face of the waters. The bridegroom kept muttering to himself, "How we shall be criticised! They will tell each other who was decently dressed, and who stepped awkwardly into the boats, and what the price of my boots was!" Such exclamations, murmured at intervals, and followed by chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With regard to his boots, he need have ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and the wind was hurrying down-stream, and old Powhatan was much troubled. Gadabout rolled awkwardly among the white-caps but continued to make headway. Pocahontas, the big river steamer, was coming down-stream. We could see her making a landing at a wharf above us where a little mill puffed away and a barge was loading. Evidently, the steamer ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... we must be sure. You'll let me measure it, won't you? It's the only way." Assuming his permission he climbed awkwardly upon the chair, happily a stout Italian construction, and as she watched him with a strange pity, he read off from a pocket rule: "One metre thirty-seven. A shade taller than mine, but there is no frame. Thirty-one centimetres; the same thing. Yes, it is my missing St. Michael," and as ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Pluralism—a theory of wholly independent 'Reals' or 'Monads.' Dr. McTaggnrt is too much of a Hegelian to acquiesce in such a view. The gulf between the two tendencies seems to me—with all respect—to be awkwardly bridged over by the assumption that the separate selves form an intelligible system, which nevertheless no one really existent spirit actually understands. If a system of relations can be Reality, there is no ground for assuming the pre-existence or eternity of individual souls: ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... instant attention was drawn to the last occupant of the last coach who stumbled awkwardly off the car platform and ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... more than he did when I accused Shannon?" Drew asked bleakly. "I'll head south, all right. Nobody's goin' to lift Shiloh and get away with it as long as I'm able to fork a saddle and push. But if you're countin' on my bein' able to influence my—my father"—he stumbled over the word awkwardly—"don't!" ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... blundered about slowly and awkwardly, he looked with wonder and admiration at the ease and facility with which his teacher and the other men did their work. They were so calm, so precise, and so self-sufficient. He wondered if he would ever be like them, and felt very hopeless as the question presented ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... awkwardly, and turned aside his face, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance. It was swift, and full of the terrible ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... vain image of Imperial greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O Plato, Plato, what a task for a philosopher!" Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men of business are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian with the noblest ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... that joyous day would have been complete had his mother been present, when in the presence of the old priest who had instructed Adrienne in her catechism, Sulpice stood forward and took by its velvet shield the taper that seemed so light to him, and awkwardly held the wafer that the priest extended to him. It was a great event in Grenoble when the leader of the Liberal Party, who headed the list at the last election, was seen being married like a believing bourgeois. The organ pealed ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... everything needful to a fine gentleman's toilet. Then she sets before me a gold-framed mirror, and taking a pair of scissors at her bidding I began to clip the hair from my face, but so bungled the business that she presently took the scissors and did it for me. Thereafter I shaved (awkwardly enough, and she mighty anxious lest I cut myself—the which I did!) and, having at last washed and dried my face, I stood all amazed to find myself so much younger-looking. Now, seeing how she stared at me, and with rosy lips all a-quiver, I smiled, then wondered ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Molly—don't do that." The boy rose eagerly, and went towards her. Then he stopped awkwardly, and putting his hands in his ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... virtues. Sir Charles Grandison has to tell us himself of his own virtuous deeds; how he disarms ruffians who attack him in overwhelming numbers, and converts evil-doers by impressive advice; and, still more awkwardly, he has to repeat the amazing compliments which everybody is always paying him. Richardson does his best to evade the necessity; he couples all his virtuous heroes with friendly confidants, who ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... know; they have had no experience with strings that hang loose and unravel in the wind. They often use strings, to be sure, in building their nests, but they use them in a sort of haphazard way, weaving them awkwardly into the structure, and leaving no loose ends that would suffer by fraying in the wind. Sometimes they use strings in attaching the nest to the limb, but they never knot or tie them; they simply wind them round and round as a child ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... "Spoon" of Zotique's reception—was sitting on the balustrade of the little gallery, making courtship over the shoulder of a dark-eyed maid, whose mother—a square-waisted archetype of her—stood in the door. Paterfamilias sat on the top step with his back to Chrysler, barring the stair rather awkwardly with his legs. A second young man slender, and dressed in a frock coat of black broad-cloth, and silk hat, and with face pale, but of undiscourageable obserfulness, though without doubt repulsed by the father's attitude from a front attack on the position, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... bowed awkwardly, and was about to pass into the dining-room when Holmes caught the glint of something sparkling ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... massive, seemed awkwardly constricted in ill-fitting, blue cotton overalls such as American laborers wear over street-clothes. Their huge bodies seemed about to break through the flimsy bindings, and the carriage of their striking heads made the garments ridiculous. Most of them had fairly ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... tragedy. A thickly-set, sandy young man, with an unwholesome complexion and grease-smooth hair, had entered the room. He wore a black tail coat buttoned tightly over his chest, and a large diamond pin sparkled in a white satin tie which had seen better days. He bowed awkwardly to Mrs. White, who held out her hand and beamed a ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... string around the jaws of their little pet and handed it to Dick, who carried the wiggly thing so awkwardly that Johnny took it back and, opening the bosom of his shirt, put the alligator where he would have a soft bed and plenty of room ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... irretrievably damage Miss JOYCE CAREY'S reputation as a modern when I say that she looked so pretty and innocent that I don't believe even sour old spinsters would have doubted her. A charming and capable performance. Mr. DONALD CALTHROP made love quite admirably on the lighter note; a little awkwardly, perhaps, on the more serious. Miss SYBIL CARLISLE handled an unpromising part with great skill. Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS as the ineffable Lady Tonbridge was as competent as ever, and had a coat and skirt in the Third Act which filled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... no position to say," Saunders answered, awkwardly. "It is a matter for you to decide. His condition is really pitiful. His family seem to be in actual need. Girls brought up as his daughters were brought up don't seem to know exactly how to make ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... cherry trees at the farm were so white with bloom that standing under them you could scarcely see the sky. The grass in the orchard was freshly green and sprinkled with daisies, amongst which families of fluffy yellow ducklings trod awkwardly about on their little splay feet, while the careful mother hens picked out the best morsels of food for them. This food was flung out of a basin by Agnetta Greenways, who stood there squarely erect uttering a monotonous ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... eh?" said McCall, awkwardly holding the gate open for her. "Friendship ought to be tough enough to bear a pretty stout strain, then. Such friendship as ours, I mean. For I think a man and woman can be friends without—without—Well, what do you think, Maria?" feeling a sudden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... milk from a dry cow than to make a spoiled, lazy girl obliging, they let her go her way in peace, and no longer asked her for help. As she walked on and on, she too at last reached the Goddess Sunday. But here also she behaved sullenly, saucily, and awkwardly. Instead of cooking the dinner nicely and washing Sunday's children as thoroughly as her step-sister had done, she burned them all till they screamed and ran off as though crazed by the burns and the pain. The food she scorched, charred, and let curdle so that no one ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... system working alongside of a bitterly inimical popular representation. I say nothing of the effect of the fluctuations of English parties on Irish administration. I say nothing of the tendency in an Irish government, awkwardly alternating with that to which I have just adverted, to look over the heads of the people of Ireland, and to consider mainly what will be thought by the ignorant public in England. But these sources of incessant perturbation must ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... Overman rose awkwardly, pale as death, his great breast heaving with emotion, and looked again helplessly toward ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... vein, he breaks out against the practice of drawing from the academic model. All these academic positions, affected, constrained, artificial, as they are; all these actions coldly and awkwardly expressed by some poor devil, and always the same poor devil, hired to come three times a week, to undress himself, and to play the puppet in the hands of the professor—what have these in common with the positions and actions of nature? What is there in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... sowing had been transplanted to a deeper soil. Moreover she, and Clare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between predilection and love; where no profundities have been reached; no reflections have set in, awkwardly inquiring, "Whither does this new current tend to carry me? What does it mean to my future? How does it ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... admiration of an attentive auditory, when you first ventured to harangue in public! With far less hope and fear (great as yours were) did you first address a crowded court, and thirst for its approbation on your efforts, than Agnes sighed for your approbation when she took a pen and awkwardly scrawled over a sheet of paper. Near twenty times she began, but to a gentleman—and one she loved like William—what could she dare to say? Yet she had enough to tell, if shame had not interposed, or if remaining confidence in his ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... Bordman climbed awkwardly into the boxlike back of the car. He bestrode one of the cylindrical arrangements. With a saddle on it, it would undoubtedly have been a comfortable way to cover impossibly bad terrain in a mechanical carrier. ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Mr. Defrees states that a certain sentence of another message was very awkwardly constructed. Calling the President's attention to it in the proof-copy, the latter acknowledged the force of the objection raised, and said, "Go home, Defrees, and see if ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... the cure the Marquise felt no inclination to change her mind. She saw before her a stout, rotund little man, with a ruddy, wrinkled, elderly face, which awkwardly and unsuccessfully tried to smile. His bald, quadrant-shaped forehead, furrowed by intersecting lines, was too heavy for the rest of his face, which seemed to be dwarfed by it. A fringe of scanty white hair encircled the back of his head, and almost ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... the other visitors edged away or took their hats and left the room. The President proved to be a hard-featured man of sixty, with a hooked nose and thin, straight, iron-gray hair. His voice was rougher than his features and he received Ratcliffe awkwardly. He had suffered since his departure from Indiana. Out there it had seemed a mere flea-bite, as he expressed it, to brush Ratcliffe aside, but in Washington the ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... moment Dan was all tenderness. For the first time he put his arm around her and awkwardly patted ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... his ruddy insolent flesh, Had hoped she did not hear. His barrel chest Gave a slight cringe, as though the glint of her eyes Prickt him. But he stood up to her awkwardly bold, One elbow on the counter, gripping his mug Like a man holding on ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... she said awkwardly, "I see him, you know. He has become more mysterious than ever, quite like one of those wicked people one reads about in sensational stories. He has a laboratory somewhere in the country, and he does quite a lot of motoring. ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... invincible English, to save her country. Probably the average European would have passed her by as an excited peasant woman. But pitiful she was to me, more pitiful than the raging officer and his dog battery, or the infantry awkwardly intrenching back of Louvain, or flag-bedecked Brussels believing in victory: one of the Belgians with the true schipperke spirit. She was shaking her fist at a dam which was about to burst ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... actually did not see it, having lost all sense of his surroundings, and only preserved a furious instinct to remain glued to his horse and force it along, never mind how. Brummel jumped, but receiving no aid from his rider, caught his hind legs against the barrier, and came down so awkwardly on the other side that the rider lost his stirrups, without, however, coming out of the saddle, and he continued to run. Andrea Sperelli now took the lead, Giannetto Rutolo, without having recovered ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... afraid. He pictured again—and he picture was blurred and indistinct-the day when strange men had brought his father mysteriously home; men who were silent save for the shuffling of their feet, and who carried their big hats awkwardly ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... The officer, a subaltern, in charge of the guard, seeing Alice, and not quickly able to make out that it was a woman thus defying him, crossed swords with her. There was small space for action; moreover the officer being not in the least a swordsman, played awkwardly, and quick as a flash his point was down. The rapier entered just below his thread with a dull chucking stab. He leaped backward, feeling at the same time a pair of arms clasp his legs. It was Jean, and the Lieutenant, thus unexpectedly tangled, fell to the floor, breaking ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... dish of gravy: no trained waiter could have anticipated their wants any better. If she was a bit sulky, she had reason for it. Houck's gaze followed her like a searchlight. It noted the dark good looks of her tousled head, the slimness of the figure which moved so awkwardly, a certain flash of spirit in ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... Vic throwing rocks at something which he judged was a snake, and he saw Helen May rein the pinto awkwardly around, "square herself for action," as Starr would have styled it, and fire. By her elation; artfully suppressed, by the very carelessness with which she shoved the gun in its holster, he knew that ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... them so faithfully. At the same time, however, I noticed evident constraint in their manner. They no longer said 'thee' and 'thou' to me; they no longer spoke roughly; but they said 'you,' and addressed me as 'mademoiselle.' Poor people! they awkwardly apologized for having ventured to accept my services, declaring in the same breath that they should never be able to replace me at the same price. Madame Greloux, moreover, declared that she should never forgive herself for not having sharply reproved her brother for ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... very awkwardly and I was battered about between the two. I turned and cursed the men standing round for laughing and doing nothing and, before I could separate the combatants, I had given and received heavy blows; but unexpected help came from a Cliffords packer who ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... February has been a droll month. I have seen Februaries in France which have been spring-like, with the chestnut trees in bud, and the primroses in flower, and lilacs in leaf. This February has been a strange mixture of spring awkwardly slipping out of the lap of winter and climbing back again. There have been days when the sun was so warm that I could drive without a rug, and found furs a burden; there have been wonderful moonlit nights; but the most of the time, so far, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... see," Gavin replied, awkwardly, "that there is a—a difference between a minister ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... he looked, a generous forkful of hay rolled over the top of the corral fence, and the horses crossed over and thrust their muzzles into its fragrant depths. A half-dozen weak old ewes snipped half-heartedly at the short buffalo grass, and three or four young lambs frisked awkwardly about the door-yard on their ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... Mr. Rogers awkwardly stammered that he hoped she wouldn't mention it. But if the speech was inadequate, his action made up for it. He took her hand and ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his mother's milk. A draggled muslin ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... to cry. Awkwardly, he embraced her. He wondered what his son had wanted that he couldn't get ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom
... very bold to force my company on you," said Superstition awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my house is never so mute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is in the ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... if he were leaving home to return to a strange land where he would always be an alien. At his door the farmer said awkwardly, "Well, goodbye, Brother Matthews, come out ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... handkerchief into her mouth to prevent laughter, a spark of anger glittered in his eyes. His first thought was that Mr. Jocelyn was indulging in unexpected irony at his expense, and the ready youth whose social habits had inured him to much chaffing was able to reply, although a little stiffly and awkwardly, "I suppose most young men have ambitious hopes of doing something in the world, and yet that does not prevent mine from seeming absurd. At any rate, it's clear that I had better reveal them hereafter by deeds rather than words," and with ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... herbage of some Eastern plain instead of tugging here—had trodden this road almost daily for twenty years. Even his subjection was not made congruous throughout, for the harness being too short, his tail was not drawn through the crupper, so that the breeching slipped awkwardly to one side. He knew every subtle incline of the seven or eight miles of ground between Hintock and Sherton Abbas—the market-town to which he journeyed—as accurately as any surveyor could have learned ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... delay, to indulge the company in the renewed shouts of laughter which were called forth by the ludicrous contrast now presented in the appearance of the oddly matched competitors, as the diminutive and shabby looking prisoner sat awkwardly mounted on his no less diminutive and shabby pony, by the side of the portly Sturges and his large and finely built horse, the signal was given, and the parties set forth amidst the encouraging hurrahs of the crowd. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... begin hallooing, and straddling, and working their arms as if their gestures and vociferations would assist the race. Lord Scamperdale stands transfixed. He is staring through his silver spectacles at the awkwardly lying ball ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... grasped a light oar, handling it rather awkwardly, as a novice might, but succeeded at last in getting the blade over the side, more by chance ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... have honored us with the wish to become acquainted with the English people dwelling in your State," he began, "and it is therefore my pleasure and duty to present to you the officers of the regiments—" He stumbled awkwardly, the strangeness of the situation, the direct and searching gaze of his host, throwing him completely out of whatever oratory powers he possessed. It was Nehal Singh himself who saved ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... as he looked at him seated awkwardly in a chair, was surprisingly, unexpectedly touched. The creature was so obviously sincere. It was indeed poor Bunning's only possible "leg," his ardour. He would willingly go to the stake for anything. It was the actual death and sacrifice that mattered—-and Bunning's life was spent ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... to strangers, froward to their friend, Submit to love with a reluctant mind, Resolved to be ungrateful and unkind. If, by necessity, reduced to ask, The giver has the difficultest task: For what's bestow'd they awkwardly receive, And always take less freely than they give; The obligation is their highest grief, They never love where they accept relief; So sullen in their sorrows, that 'tis known They'll rather die than their afflictions own; And if relieved, it is too often true, That ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... Sam went out and returning reported that the rain had completely extinguished the fire. They then retired to the root fortress which was unhurt, and Sam said he thought they ought to hold prayers before going to sleep. Sam prayed rather awkwardly perhaps, but he prayed because he felt like thanking the Father who had watched over them all in so many dangers, and the awkwardness of such a prayer is a matter of no consequence. They all laid down, after prayers, and one ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... I felt awkwardly. How was it that this girl, meeting him for the first and only time in her life, had contrived to learn so much that she had no right to know, and appeared here as mediator between two who were strangers ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Asako, thinking how big and vulgar a bedstead would appear in that clean emptiness and how awkwardly its iron legs would trample on the straw matting; "but ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Clary," said the companion rather awkwardly, while she changed color and became red and white, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... a last glance of implacable dislike at the sounder, Quimby bowed awkwardly, and departed ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... for me, Mrs. Ballard. We're going down for business, and you won't see me again until we've licked the 'rebs.'" He held her hand awkwardly for a minute, then relieved the tension by carrying off the two baskets of apples. "I know the trees these came from," he said, and soon a hundred boys in blue were ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... this!—and in the softer sex, what a contrast is there, between her who recalls to us the fabled Diana of old, and that other, who has scarcely trodden but on smooth pavements or carpets, and who, under any new circumstances, carries her person as awkwardly as something to the management of which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... to see Mr. Mattison," said Jawn, removing his pipe and holding it awkwardly: Jawn, though at home on an engine, was ill at ease in ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... down and the professor rose and put his arms around her, awkwardly, and kissed her. He had not kissed her in years. They sat down together before the hearth and gazed into the blackened ashes. He held her hand in his. Finally she spoke. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... late."—"The sky is so clear. I want to look at the stars once more. If you wish you may come with me." At first she remained standing, then he heard her coming after him. When he had directed his telescope to a nebulous star he invited her to look in. She placed herself so awkwardly that he laid his hand on her shoulder and asked her, "What do you see?"—"Oh!" she said, "I see—I see—a large farmhouse, which is burning. It has a thatched roof. Oh!—Everything is burning; the roof is all in flames. Sparks are flying about. It is really an old Ditmarsh farmhouse."—"No, ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... upbraided him, that his licentiousness was neither natural nor seductive. Dryden had unfortunately conformed enough to the taste of his age, to attempt that "nice mode of wit," as it is termed by the said noble author, whose name has become inseparably connected with it; but it sate awkwardly upon his natural modesty, and in general sounds impertinent, as well as disgusting. The clumsy phraseology of Burnet, in passing censure on the immorality of the stage, after the Restoration, terms "Dryden, the greatest master of dramatic ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott |
