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Bustle   Listen
noun
Bustle  n.  Great stir; agitation; tumult from stirring or excitement. "A strange bustle and disturbance in the world."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bustle" Quotes from Famous Books



... where the round-up was to begin furnished a scene of bustle and turmoil. From here and there the heavy four-horse wagons one after another jolted in, the "horse-wranglers" rushing madly to and fro in the endeavor to keep the different saddle bands from mingling. Single riders, in groups of two or three, appeared, each driving his ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... bustle and confusion at Durbelliere. Arms and gunpowder were again collected. The men again used all their efforts in assembling the royalist troops, the women in preparing the different necessaries for the army. The united families were at Durbelliere, and there was no ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... skirt are yours, Janet," she said. "Get with the work both of you. Bustle. Cover it with roses. Have it finished to-night. Wear it ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... Park Avenue owned its personal atmosphere of somnolent isolation, in strong contrast with the bustle of proletarian Fourth Avenue at its one extreme and the roar at the other of traffic-galled Forty-Second Street. Of the residences a few, whose awninged windows resembled heavy-lidded eyes, overlooked wayfaring folk with drowsy ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... bringing the man they had found in the snow. He was a heavy load, and the boys were almost exhausted by the time they reached the house. In a few brief words Rod explained how they had discovered him, and then the doctor at once examined the unfortunate man. Soon all was in a bustle about the place, and not until the unconscious man was attended to and in bed, did the boys leave to begin once more their battle against ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... self-depreciation are qualities scarcely masculine. My early ambition had been for a hard place in the world, where the world's work would force me to give hard knocks before I reached success. But now I shrank from the jostle and bustle and harsh competitions of real life; and as both my mother and Mr. Floyd wished nothing so much as that I should be guarded from all effort and fatigue at this epoch, everything conspired to unfit me for an active ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... all sights from pole to pole, And glance and nod and bustle by, And never once possess ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... no carpenter near by competent to make a case. Two smart Yankees hired our apprentice to go with them to the distant State of New Jersey, for the express purpose of making cases for the clocks they sold. On this journey he first saw the city of New York. He was perfectly astonished at the bustle and confusion. He stood on the corner of Chatham and Pearl Streets for more than an hour, wondering why so many people were hurrying about so ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... to their homes, and Charlie consigned to the limits of his own apartments. A slight bustle is heard in the hall, and presently two visitors are duly announced by a servant in waiting. A smile of satisfaction beamed on the countenance of the anxious Mrs. Lister as she eyed the two young gentlemen on their being introduced to ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... the castle was bustle and labour—masons and carpenters busy from morning to night. The wall that masked the windows of the chapel was pulled down; the windows, of stained glass, with never a crack, were cleaned; the passage under them was opened to the great ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... with a shiver, turning to his host. "This is decidedly not Verrays in the Rue Conde. I would give a couple of louis d'or for a moment of the bustle of Paris. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... road he noticed a spacious courtyard, surrounded by sheds and stables, crowded with a countless train of carriages and baggage-wagons, among which men and horses, coming and going, kept up an unceasing bustle. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... alighted two women, one the driver, an ordinary country person, the other a finely built figure in the deep mourning of a widow. Her sombre suit, of pronounced cut, caused her to appear a little out of place in the medley and bustle of a provincial fair. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... with the traffic and manifold activity of the city. Besides the bustle and crowding of people and the nondescript grating and electric howling of street-cars, I am conscious of exhalations from many different kinds of shops; from automobiles, drays, horses, fruit stands, and many ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... older nurses, who had kept alive in their busy little world the tradition of his brilliant work, aroused all the vanity in his nature. When he was about to tear himself away from the pleasant antiseptic odor and orderly bustle, the house physician pressed him to stay to luncheon. He yielded, longing to hear the talk about cases, and remembering with pleasure the unconventional manners and bad food of the St. Isidore mess-table. After luncheon he was urged to attend an operation by a well-known surgeon, whose ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... City Guilds, there is none more quaint, and in greater contrast to the bustle of the neighbourhood, than the Hall of the Brewers' Company, in Addle Street, City. This was partially destroyed, like most of the older Halls, by the Great Fire, but was one of the first to be restored ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... began to put on their wraps, word was sent to bring up the car, and all was bustle and happy words and Merry Christmases in abundance. Each guest carried a pretty basket filled with gifts from the host and hostess, and it was nearly eleven before the last load was off, with the sleighful of young folks to ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... deal of hurry and bustle in The Enormous Room. People were rushing hither and thither in the heavy half-darkness. People were saying good-bye to people. Saying good-bye to friends. Saying good-bye to themselves. We lay and sipped the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... the doors were kept barred, the telephones disconnected. Within, there was a bustle of feverish—if odorous—activity. For the three researchers, the olfactory acuity had reached agonizing proportions. Even the small gas masks Phillip had devised could no longer shield them from the constant ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse

... the door, and Mr. Pye stopped. There burst in a lady with a wide extent of crinoline, but that was not the worst of the bustle. Her cheeks were flushed, her hands lifted, her eyes wild; altogether she was in a state of the utmost excitement. Gerald stared with all his might, and the head-master rose to receive her as she sailed down upon him. It ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... of McTee, and when the latter did not come, the Irishman lingered on the bridge for an hour or more, pottering about with his brush in a pretense of finishing up a perfect job. His attention was drawn then by a gathering crowd and bustle in the waist of the ship between the wheelhouse and the forecastle. The entire crew of the Heron seemed to be mustering, with the exception of those needed to keep the engines running. They stood in a circle, leaving the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... had only a few moments to write before we left Suez, and my writing, such as it was, I performed under difficulties, as the bustle of passengers finding their cabins, and conveying to them their luggage, or such portions of it as they could rescue from its descent into the hold, was going on all around me. I had, therefore, only time to tell you that our visit ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... All was presently bustle and activity in both houses. Zoe and Edward, with no painful parting in prospect, made themselves very merry over their packing. They were much like two children, and except when overcome by the recollection of her recent bereavement, ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... years old, and I remembered how the Head Master used to call me to his desk and say, 'Blake Senior, two pages of Horace and keep in bounds for a week.' And then I heard our names and the months, and my name and 'eight months' imprisonment,' and there was a bustle and murmur and the tipstaves cried, 'Order in the Court,' and the Judges stood up and shook out their big red skirts as though they were shaking off the contamination of our presence and rustled away, and I sat down, wondering how long eight months was, and ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... history's greatest jurist. There were two distinct stages in the training of his ears. First there were the forty years of solitude in the desert sands, alone with the sheep, and the stars, and—God. His ears were being trained by silence. The bustle and confusion of Egypt's busy life were being taken out of his ears. How silent are God's voices. How few men are strong enough to be able to endure silence. For in silence God is ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... not to enjoy themselves, they come punctually, do not cause inconvenience by going out between the acts to waste money on high-priced refreshments, and remain in their places to the bitter end—unlike the cash patrons, so many of whom bustle away brutally towards the close of the entertainment for fear lest they should miss the chance of earning a nightmare at a fashionable restaurant. Seeing what service they render to the managers the deadheads are ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... How they all contrived to get a living, nobody could imagine. That they did jog along somehow, was evident; but they appeared to be generally as void of bustle as were their lazy sign-boards, basking in the sun on a summer's day. The best in the place, one with rather more pretension to superiority than the rest, was the Golden Fleece. It was situated at the entrance to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... cases it will not be the thing he finally buys. It may be a chalk-line stripe or a Shepherd's Plaid worn by a drummer who boarded the 6.30 Lightning Express. In the glow of the lamps and the bustle and excitement of the Station platform the thing looked possible: but confronted in the store with the very style and pattern he backs away from it, though 'it looked good on the ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown

... against the bulwark, a lonely figure in the midst of all this lively bustle, and wished impotently that he could have let well enough alone—and by well enough he doubtless meant both the champagne and Mrs. Campbell—thus preserving the pleasant relations of yesterday. A steamship soon becomes the world itself to its passengers, and the little events of each day assume ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... Skipper Ben brought down carpenters and masons on the "White Gull," and straightway they went at work upon the old house. Doors went up, windows went in, a piazza pushed itself out towards the sea-front, and there was great bustle and activity about it for weeks. Then the laborers went away, and when the skipper came again, he brought, instead of groceries and store-cloth, a great quantity of furniture, the like of which the poor ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... come down from the mount likewise, and work, and preach, and teach, and wear himself out in daily drudgery for that God whom he learnt to serve, even when he could not adore Him in the press of business, and the bustle of a rotten and ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... youth, he forsook the bustle of the city for the solitude and charm of the lovely country which surrounded his home, and he definitely set himself to feed his imagination on the concrete and sensuous imagery of the poets. He laid ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... up to the door, and after some bustle a lady entered, followed by a young lad, who paused a moment on the upper step and gave some orders to the coachman in a clear, cheerful voice, that seemed out of place ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... he had been exposed on account of his attachment to the Romish communion; all these considerations had a powerful influence on Mary. But the cardinal was now in the decline of life; and having contracted habits of study and retirement, he was represented to her as unqualified for the bustle of a court and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... but no one looked up at them. Underfoot, lay the thick, black veil of mud, which the Lane never lifted, but none looked down on it. It was impossible to think of aught but humanity in the bustle and confusion, in the cram and crush, in the wedge and the jam, in the squeezing and shouting, in the hubbub and medley. Such a jolly, rampant, screaming, fighting, maddening, jostling, polyglot, quarrelling, laughing broth of a Vanity Fair! Mendicants, vendors, buyers, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... parades and battles than he found in any other sport. A stick, corn-stalk or broom-handle, answered for gun or sword, and the meadow in front of his father's house became his muster-field. Here Lewis Willis, John Fitzhugh, William Bustle, Langhorn Dade, and other companions, marched and counter-marched, under the generalship of their young commander, George. Soldiering became the popular pastime of the region, in which the boys played the part of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... not throw a damper on that occasion which for whirl and bustle and gayety and excitement is not equalled by any other day in a person's life. The city wedding in New York is marked first by the arrival of the caterer, who comes to spread the wedding breakfast; and later on ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... and I feared, if her gloves were found in my possession, some special attention might be directed my way which would cause you unmerited distress. So, yielding to an impulse which I now recognize as a most unwise, as well as unworthy one, I took advantage of the bustle about us, and of the insensibility into which you had fallen, to tuck these miserable gloves into the bag I saw lying on the floor at your side. I do not ask your pardon. My whole future life shall be devoted to winning that; I simply ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... for Sally's greenness, Aunt Chloe whipped the cover off the bake-kettle, and disclosed to view a neatly-baked pound-cake, of which no city confectioner need to have been ashamed. This being evidently the central point of the entertainment, Aunt Chloe began now to bustle about earnestly ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... an hour, in a very commodious railway-carriage, brought me into the centre of the town, when a most interesting sight presented itself. The railway had been pouring in for the occasion upwards of 20,000 persons; and in the streets, all was bustle and harmony; thousands of well-dressed persons—some of the females elegantly so—moving in throngs here and there, all bearing the tokens of comfort and respectability. The occasion of the gathering ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various

... view of the squalid hamlet of Yellow Banks. A half-hour later we lay snuggled up against the shore, holding position amid several other boats made fast to stout trees, busily unloading, and their broad gangplanks stretching from forward deck to bank. All about was a scene of confusion and bustle, mud, and frontier desolation. Inspired by the ceaseless profanity of both mates, the roustabouts began unloading cargo at once, a steady stream of men, black and white, burdened with whatever load they could snatch up, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... that it was more than inhospitable: it was forbidding. High over my head poured the bitter wind in a river of sound through the bare tree tops; close at hand it rustled with a flurry of dead leaves that was uncannily like the bustle of inimical businesses pursued insolently in the dark, at my very elbow; and suddenly, through and over all other sounds, there rose in the harsh gloom the long, ravening ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... forests. From the lodges and cabins of the friendly Indians about the fort rose a hundred thin columns of smoke. Long rows of bateaux and canoes lined the beach below the log palisade; and others drew near the shore, laden with fish. There was a stir and bustle about the square within the stone bastions; orderlies hurried from quarters to barracks, bugles sounded, and groups of ragged soldiers sat about, polishing muskets and belts, and setting new flints. Men of the commissary department were carrying boxes and ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... French vapouring, And with ice and Roman punch amaze the world; There's I myself, and Lady L——, you'll seldom meet a rummer set, With Lady Grosvenor, Lady Foley, and her Grace of Somerset, While Lady Jersey fags herself, regardless of the bustle, ma'am, With Lady Cowper, Lady Anne, and Lady William Russell, ma'am. Come, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... labor for the highest interests of his fellow-men. During a temporary residence in Philadelphia, in the summer of 1838, the quiet and beautiful scenery around the ancient village of Frankford frequently attracted me from the heat and bustle of the city. I have referred to my youthful acquaintance with his writings ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Conti offered him an apartment in the privileged quarter of the Temple, on his way through Paris. His own purpose seems to have been irresolute to the last, but his friends acted with such energy and bustle on his behalf that the English scheme was adopted, and he found himself in Paris (Dec. 17, 1765), on his way to London, almost before he had deliberately realised what he was doing. It was a step that led ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... without noise; she did not sit too near to him; she took pains not to annoy him by any feminine bustle over her work; she chose her knitting, as being always most to his fancy; then she looked up timidly into his face. But there was a frown, slight to be sure, but still a frown, upon it, neither did he speak. Some gloomy, perhaps some bitter thought held the man. A reflection ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... seamen to the starboard braces, and in an instant, the deck, before so quiet, was full of bustle and life. The ship was hauled up to the north, and at length the bold outline of the Cape of Good Hope came into view. Before evening the "Crusader" anchored ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... an assemblage of Indians, encamped under huts made of palm-leaves. This encampment contained more than three hundred persons. Accustomed, since we had left San Fernando de Apure, to see only desert shores, we were singularly struck by the bustle that prevailed here. We found, besides the Guamos and the Ottomacs of Uruana, who are both considered as savage races, Caribs and other Indians of the Lower Orinoco. Every tribe was separately encamped, and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... 2nd, all was hurry, bustle, and confusion, in getting their things ready for their departure, and after the beasts had been laden, and the people had their burdens on their head, they had to wait for the sultan's long expected letter to the king of England. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... tramp of marching men—squads of recruits leaving for Blois; songs and shoutings and huzzas filled the air night and day, the town was full of strangers, the streets and inns were thronged, the bustle of preparation was everywhere, and everybody carried a glad and cheerful face. Around Joan's headquarters a crowd of people was always massed, hoping for a glimpse of the new General, and when ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... hum and bustle through the whole camp, and as the limited rolling stock on the still unfinished railroad could only accommodate a regiment at a time, they left at all hours of the day, or night, that the trains arrived. Constantly at midnight the dull tramp of marching men and the slow tap of the drum, passing ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... hearing from him in return, was my greatest consolation during his absence. Twice he managed to come down for a couple of days, which were much enjoyed by us both; and then Easter drew near, and with it all the bustle attending the preparations for Constance's wedding. After it was over we were to go down to Cobham Hall, which was Philip's place, and stay there for three or four weeks, and Nelly as well as myself was greatly ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre

... of the room, and with these one could console oneself. There was also a commendable pancake whose honored name I never knew, but whose acquaintance I should be sorry not to have made; and all about Bobadilla there was an agreeable bustle, which we enjoyed the more when we had made sure that we had changed into the right train for Granada and found in our compartment the charming young Swedish couple who had ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... hotel all is excitement and bustle, getting the men off for the Kuskokquim River, where the new strikes are reported. Strong new sleds have been made by the natives, grub is being packed and dogs gotten into condition, besides a thousand other things which must be done before the expedition is ready to ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... office:" I must go, at all events, whether the north wind sweep the earth, or winter contracts the snowy day into a narrower circle. After this, having uttered in a clear and determinate manner [the legal form], which may be a detriment to me, I must bustle through the crowd; and must disoblige the tardy. "What is your will, madman, and what are you about, impudent fellow?" So one accosts me with his passionate curses. "You jostle every thing that is in your way, if with an appointment ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... died ninety years later. His early manhood was spent in London as a "linen-draper," but in friendly conversation with the best clerical and literary society. In 1643 he retired from London to avoid the bustle of the Civil War, and the Complete Angler appeared in 1653. Another writer contemporary with Walton, though less long-lived, James Howell, has been the subject of very varying judgments; his appeal being very much of the same kind as ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of information; and as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is disappointed he can hardly complain. It is easy to perceive, from every page, that though ambition pressed Swift into a life of bustle, the wish for a life of ease was always returning. He went to take possession of his deanery as soon as he had obtained it; but he was not suffered to stay in Ireland more than a fortnight before he was ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... who was to be my new employer, so soon as the wedding should leave him leisure enough to furnish epitaphs for two tombstones recently placed in the family burying-ground. The wedding-day arrived; and, to be out of the way of the bustle and the pageant, I retired to the house of a neighbour, a carpenter, whom I had obliged by a few lessons in practical geometry and architectural drawing. The carpenter was at the wedding; and, with the whole house to myself, I was engaged in writing, when ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... much bustle and confusion throughout the little inn at Sinuessa. August was just closing, and the midday summer sun beat down too fiercely to permit of comfortable travel save toward morning or night. The inn-keeper had hurried out and stood in the roadway, bowing and wreathing ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... MacDougall was in Edinburgh, and was mightily amazed and confused with the grandeur and bustle of the place, which she had never seen before. How her children could have found their way here, and still more, how they could ever have been discovered and identified in such a teeming, bustling, bewildering city, she could not imagine. ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... produced by the bustle and novelty of preparation for their departure, and the eager curiosity excited by the extraordinary occurrence that occasioned it, at first predominated over every other feeling; but when the carriage came to the door that was ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown

... sincerely pleased to be back again. As he sat beneath a great cedar filling his pipe, it seemed to him only appropriate that he should approach Bonavista through that belt of cool, sweet-scented Bush. It made it easier to feel that he had left behind him all that associated him with the strife and bustle of the hot and noisy cities. At Bonavista were leisure, comfort, and tranquillity, which were, after all, things that made a strong appeal to one side of his nature, and he had made no progress in the city. There was also no doubt that both Mr. and Mrs. Acton were glad to entertain him ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... him. When forced to occupy himself with them he saw nothing but bitterness and confusion about him. 'Where is gladness or repose? Wherever I turn my eyes I only see disaster and harshness. And in such a bustle and clamour about me you wish me to find leisure for the work ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... Next came the bustle of departure. Effie was despatched in the fly with the luggage and Betty, the fat Welsh servant, to look after her. Beatrice and Geoffrey were to ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... glad to be back? She did not ask herself. It was as though the voyage had automatically detached her from that other Sara Lee of the little house. That was behind her, a dream—a mirage—or a memory. Here, a trifle confused by the bustle, was once again the Sara Lee who had knitted for Anna, and tended the plants in the dining-room window, and watched Uncle James slowly lowered into ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... into a drowsy state, when an unusual bustle among the crew brought us out of our den, and we found that three hours of assiduous poling had taken us half-way across the lake, just six miles—a good test of the value of the Aztec system of navigation. Here was a wooden cross set up in the water; and here, from ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... with the execution of it. tienne now caused criers to proclaim through the village that every one should get ready to emigrate in a few days to the country of their new friends. The squaws began their preparations at once, and all was bustle and alacrity; for the Hurons themselves were no less deceived than were the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... up by "the bhoys;" and this was the only accession to the population which redeemed the dismal, tradeless port from the appearance of having been stricken by plague and abandoned, and lent it at intervals an artificial bustle. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... anterior to human creation. We, in fact, live upon a pile of worlds, and anticipating the future from past records and from changes still manifest from the shallowing soundings of neighbouring seas, it is not improbable that the existing scene of bustle may have heaped upon it as many superincumbent masses as the lowest of the rocks enclosing the vestiges ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous

... ices, and drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoe- blacks were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggons clattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streets across the River, were so many dense perspectives of crowd and bustle, parti-coloured nightcaps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, large boots, and shaggy heads of hair; nothing at that hour denoted a day of rest, unless it were the appearance, here and there, of a family pleasure-party, crammed into a bulky old lumbering cab; or of some contemplative ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle and ever-varied life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the country misses the excitement in the midst of which ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... France, or rather France provoked it, and Captain Markham was appointed to the Blonde frigate. My mother instantly wrote to him; his answer was favourable, and he requested her to let me join him as soon as possible. All now was bustle and preparation. My brothers were sent for home, and begged to be allowed to go with me. Poor fellows! they little knew what they asked. In a few days I was fully equipped. I mounted my uniform, and I thought my brothers and the young friends who ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... likeness: he could kill his Man quite as quietly as blows the Monsoon Her steady breath (which some months the same still is): Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle, And could be very busy without bustle; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... because delivered by Moses? Or, are these such as may better be broken, than for want of light to forbear baptism with water? Or, doth a man while he liveth in the neglect of these, and in the mean time bustle about those you call gospel commands, most honour Christ, or best fit himself for fellowship with the saints? Need I tell you, That the faith of Christ, with the ten commandments, are as much now gospel commands as baptism; and ought to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... this bustle Noel McAllister stepped aside, and said to M. Bois-le-Duc, in a hurried, ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... forward accordingly at a gallop, and were soon in front of the clump of trees amongst which the Peigans were encamped. Their approach had evidently spread great alarm among them, for there was a good deal of bustle and running to and fro; but by the time the trappers had dismounted and advanced in a body on foot, the savages had resumed their usual quiet dignity of appearance, and were seated calmly round their fires with their bows and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... lived there at one time; he had taken service in Spain and had there performed many brave deeds and gathered much treasure. When he returned home to Dorfli he spent part of his booty in building a fine house, with the intention of living in it. But he had been too long accustomed to the noise and bustle of arms and the world to care for a quiet country life, and he soon went off again, and this time did not return. When after many long years it seemed certain that he was dead, a distant relative took possession of the house, but it had already ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... professed to love, in a strange place, conveyed by hirelings and deposited like merchandise among the freight of a steamboat on the way to his long home. I can scarcely write now, at the thought, through the blindness of my own tears. As I saw him placed in the appointed spot among the strangers and bustle of a departing boat, careless of who or what he was, I stole away to the most retired part of the boat, to conceal the weakness of friendship and relieve my overburdened heart with a flood of tears. I felt ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... conspicuous of the stars; of the ascendant, was a lady, who took the field with an eclat, a brilliancy, and bustle, which for a time fixed the attention of all upon herself. Although a fine woman, in the strictest sense of the term, and still handsome, though not still very young, she was even more distinguished ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various

... (give it a more moderate Title), Desire of Fame, is naturally addicted to most men; The Triumph of Miltiades would not let Themistocles sleep; For what was it that Alexander made such a Bustle in the world, but only to purchase an immortal Fame? To what purpose were erected those stupendious Structures, entituled The Wonders of the World, viz. The walls of Babylon, the Rhodian Colossus, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Tomb of Mausolus, ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... always concurring with the influence, the claim upon him, the rebuke, of others, in the bustle of school life he did not count even with those who knew him best, with those who taught him, for the intellectual capacity he really had. In every generation of schoolboys there are a few who find ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... a very old friend of my late husband's and mine has asked me to be his wife. He is going back to India in a fortnight, and so, much as I shrink from the thought of all the bustle and hurry it will involve, I feel that as it must be now or never, it must be now, and the fact that I have a good offer for The Trellis House seemed to me a ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... eye. I have never seen a Channel steamer so quickly empty itself. It was as though the people were stricken by a sudden impulse to dash away from the poor craft at any cost. At the Customs, amid all the turmoil and bustle, I saw neither my young friend and his sister, nor my enemy, who so far had clung to me on ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... as our neighbourhood pleases you, you must come and see us again; we don't ask anything better," said Cazaban; and, on the architect seating himself in one of the arm-chairs and asking to be shaved, he began to bustle about. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... quantity of work to perform weekly. Conscious of being able to complete it in half the time, and having yielded myself solely to my ruinous propensity to delay, I seldom did anything before the Thursday; and the remaining days were spent in hurry, bustle, and confusion. Occasionally I overrated my abilities—my task was unfinished, and I was compelled to count a dead horse. Week after week this grew upon me, till I was so firmly saddled, that, until the expiration of my apprenticeship, I was never completely freed ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... a bustle we are in! and what a world of trouble is here!" cried Simon, when he came to Gray's house, and found him on the ladder taking off the decayed thatch; whilst one of his sons, a lad of about fourteen, was hard at work filling a cart from ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... the variegated band of adventurers about to embark in the Tonquin on this ardous and doubtful enterprise. While yet in port and on dry land, in the bustle of preparation and the excitement of novelty, all was sunshine and promise. The Canadians, especially, who, with their constitutional vivacity, have a considerable dash of the gascon, were buoyant and boastful, and great brag arts as ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... and ninety years, at least, since his son's penance was performed. But the church has now merely a street of ordinary width passing around it, while the market-place, tho near at hand, neither forms a part of it nor is really contiguous, nor would its throng and bustle be apt to overflow their boundaries and surge against the churchyard and the old gray tower. Nevertheless, a walk of a minute or two brings a person from the center of the market-place to the church-door; and Michael Johnson might very conveniently ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... and withdrew; whilst Gomez Arias, assuming as much resolution as the importance of the occasion demanded, left his apartment to meet Don Alonso de Aguilar. Scarcely had he quitted his chamber than he beheld, with no little emotion, the bustle and activity which prevailed over the whole palace, on account of the expected festivities of the day. Here were maids, in fine attire, tripping gaily along, simpering and smiling, and all good nature and amiability. There ran servants in gorgeous dresses ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... uncomfortably in keeping with the conversation to which he had just been listening. He looked in at his own door; the furniture seemed stiffer than usual and the tick of the clock more deliberate. He closed the door again and, taking a deep breath, set off towards the life and bustle ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... to remove themselves from the Lodge to the inn at the borough of Woodstock, with all that state and bustle which attend the movements of great persons, and especially of such to whom greatness is not entirely familiar, Everard held some colloquy with the Presbyterian clergyman, Master Holdenough, who had issued from the apartment which he had occupied, as it ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... Aventine Hill. The silence here seemed more absolute than among the dwellings of the rich, for there, at times, a night watchman would emerge from a cross-road and give challenge to the belated passer-by, whilst a certain bustle of suspended animation always reigned around the palace of the Emperor even during the hours of sleep; some of his slaves and guard were always kept awake, ready to minister to any fancy or caprice that might seize the mad Caesar in the middle of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... he declared, gone more than twenty times on pilgrimage to the tomb of the holy prophet; and was not much pleased to have his repose so much disturbed by the noise and bustle of the imperial court. At last, Akbar wanted to surround the hill with regular fortifications, and the Shaikh could stand it no longer.[20] 'Either you or I must leave this hill,' said he to the Emperor; 'if the efficacy of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... clear and bright, and driving over to Park Lane from Stanhope Gate, old Jolyon had had the carriage open. Sitting back on the padded cushions, finishing his cigar, he had noticed with pleasure the keen crispness of the air, the bustle of the cabs and people; the strange, almost Parisian, alacrity that the first fine day will bring into London streets after a spell of fog or rain. And he had felt so happy; he had not felt like it for months. His confession to June was off his mind; he had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... conversed by his side, first in undertones, then louder, for M. Chebe's shrill, piercing voice could not long be subdued.—He wasn't old enough to be buried, deuce take it!—He should have died of ennui at Montrouge.—What he must have was the bustle and life of the Rue de Mail or the Rue ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... giving rather expensive dinners to certain great people, who gave him nothing in return, except their company; I could never discover his reasons for doing so, as he always appeared to me a remarkably quiet man, by nature averse to noise and bustle; but in all dispositions there are anomalies. I have already said that he lived in a handsome house, and I may as well here add that he had a very handsome wife, who both dressed and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the world, ended by making up her mind to tell no one about the matter. Evidently, Jennie had been having some decidedly unconventional experience, and the less publicity given to all such passages in young ladies' lives the better for their prospects. It so happened that in the bustle attending the approach to the terminus and the prospective change of cars everybody was too busy to notice that any passengers were missing. At Ogden, Mrs. Eustis left the train and went to a hotel. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... which are fond of parade and the bustle of festivity, and which do not regret the costly gaieties of an hour. Others, on the contrary, are attached to more retiring pleasures, and seem almost ashamed of appearing to be pleased. In some countries the highest value is set ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... next few days all was bustle and preparation. The ponies being so much smaller than I had expected, all our packsaddles had to be altered, and fourteen of them, which the party had made during the absence of the schooner, still ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... struck off, the sentence was expired, the prison was a momentary shadow halting about them. The children were carrying away books and inkwell, and rolling up maps. All their faces were bright with gladness and goodwill. There was a bustle of cleaning and clearing away all marks of this last term of imprisonment. They were all breaking free. Busily, eagerly, Ursula made up her totals of attendances in the register. With pride she wrote down the thousands: to so many thousands ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... All was bustle and confusion in the Hotel de Soissons. A crowd of workmen filled its halls; some on ladders, regilding walls and ceilings; some on their knees waxing the inlaid floors: and others occupied in removing the coverings, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... known that that strange three were one! What if—Jimmie Dale smiled whimsically. A burst of applause echoed through the house, the orchestra was playing, the lights were on, seats banged, there was the bustle of the rising audience, the play was at an end—and for the life of him he could not have remembered a single line ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... dogs, folding the paper into the moulds, pasting it down, or cutting the skins into the requisite sizes. About five, when the children had had their tea, she and her mother went for a short walk. Very often they strolled through Victoria Station, amused by the bustle of the traffic, or maybe they wandered down the Buckingham Palace Road, attracted by the shops. And there was a sad pleasure in these walks. The elder woman had borne years of exceeding trouble, and felt her strength failing under her burdens, which instead of lightening were increasing; ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... statues, or playing at a sort of draughts or of backgammon on its marble platforms—the lines to put the "men" upon are here and there still visible upon the pavements—or even scratching a name or a drawing on a pillar. In certain parts the Forum was alive with the bustle of financial business and, doubtless under certain limitations, with the traffic of the pedlar. Curiosities were exhibited, the crier shouted his advertisements, and, in short, the place was almost ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... from the rice-mills adds to the already overpowering sense of heat, while from across the water the noise of hammered iron from the repairing yards completes a picture of bustle, heat, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... Durwards in London had come at an opportune moment, offering, as it did, a way of escape from the embarrassments inseparable from the situation. Moreover, amid the distractions and bustle of the great city it would be easier to forget for a little her burden of pain and humiliation. There is so much time for thinking—and for remembering—in the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... day came. I, as best man, was busy and thankful for the bustle and responsibility. They occupied my mind and kept it from dwelling on other things. George worked at the bank until noon, getting ready to leave the institution in my charge and that of Dick Small, Henry's brother, ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... heard the stir and bustle, I went through the chamber where I lay, and came into that room where ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... descended over the great building, and for a long time Peace lay chuckling over the night's unusual adventure. Then in spite of the heat she at length fell asleep. Nor did she waken until the sun was high in the sky and the bustle of the busy city floated up ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... that went up to Heaven from her relieved and grateful heart. She had finished her prayers and had arisen from her knees and was sitting by her writing-table indulging in a reverie of anticipation, when a bustle below stairs attracted ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... room he called his study. Was it the calm confidence he showed, or the weirdness of finding myself amid Oriental splendors and under the influence of night effects in high day and within sound of the clanging street cars and all the accompanying bustle of every-day traffic? It is hard to say; but from this moment on I found myself affected by a vague affright, not on my own account, but on hers whose voice we could plainly hear humming a gay tune in the adjoining apartment. But I was resolved to suppress all betrayal ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... dawned, with a light snow falling. There was a bustle in at least four homes that day, and presently the intending travelers gathered at the station long before the train was due that would take them on to Philadelphia, and then, with a change of cars, ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... He found at the side of his bed a blunderbuss, a cutlass, and a pike; and he was directed to secure the door of his chamber with a great chain and a massy iron bar. Feeling great confidence in his securities, although he was quite ignorant of the cause of alarm, and very much exhausted with the bustle of the day, he enjoyed sounder sleep than had refreshed him for many weeks. He was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud knocking at his door. He immediately seized his blunderbuss, but, recognising the voice of his own valet, he only took his pike. His valet told ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... He was also a good deal in debt: it was difficult to live in London like a gentleman on three hundred a year; and his heart yearned for the Venice and Florence which John Ruskin had so magically described. He felt that he was unsuited to the vulgar bustle of the Bar, for he had discovered that it was not sufficient to put your name on a door to get briefs; and modern politics seemed to lack nobility. He felt himself a poet. He disposed of his rooms in Clement's Inn and went to Italy. He had spent ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... After all this bustle and turmoil, there was a calm, which lasted the whole winter. I followed up my usual avocations. I had as many pupils as I could attend to, and saved money fast. The winter passed away, and in the spring I expected Lionel with my brother Auguste. I looked forward to seeing ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... bound steamer was almost ready to sail, and all the bustle attendant upon departure of an ocean craft eddied about three people who stood in a half-sheltered nook upon the wharf. They were saying little. Both Grant Herman and Ninitta kept their eyes fixed upon Helen, while her glance was cast to the ground, save when ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... no profit. Indeed, there was no systematic farming; they ploughed and sowed a little simply from habit, and in reality did nothing and lived in idleness. Meanwhile there was a running to and fro, reckoning and worrying all day long; the bustle in the house began at five o'clock in the morning; there were continual sounds of "Bring it," "Fetch it," "Make haste," and by the evening the servants were utterly exhausted. Auntie Dasha changed her cooks and her housemaids every week; sometimes she discharged ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... religious man; and, although quite willing to face difficulties, dangers, and troubles like a man, when required to do so, he did not see it to be his duty to thrust himself unnecessarily into these circumstances. There were plenty of men, he was wont to say, who loved bustle and excitement, and there were plenty of situations of that sort for them to fill; for his part, he loved peace and quiet; the Eddystone lighthouse offered both, and why should he not take advantage of the opportunity, especially when, ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... steamer chairs and sitting down, they watched the crowd which had already begun to thin out. The novelty of the scene held both women fascinated. The constant bustle and excitement, the going and coming of well-groomed men and women, the little scraps of conversation overheard, interested them both beyond measure. Helen studied each individual couple, wondering who they were, how long married, if they were happy, where they were going to. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... bustle along at such a pace. Remember, I have made more experiments than you have, and I have never come upon an exactly similar case. I don't know whether such a thing can be. No more do you—you've guessed. Now, guessing is not at all scientific. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... increasing. Maria Antoinette, who perceived all this, looked at me with a smile. I found means to approach her, and she said to me, in a whisper, 'Let down your lappets, or the countess will expire.' All this bustle rose from two unlucky pins, which fastened up my lappets, while the etiquette of costume ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... could not hear Harlin's reply to Nick's suggestion, but one of the others quickly agreed. The listener did not wait to hear more, and in five minutes the back room of the White Horse saloon was in a bustle of excitement. John Daniels and Jim Halliday called for a posse of citizens to help them defend the jail, and the party set out at once on a quick run up ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... The bustle of morning was beginning. A young Jewess in a brown gown with flounces led a horse into the yard to drink. The pulley of the well creaked plaintively, the bucket knocked ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... the three servants took up the quest, stooping and peeping under book-cases and drawers. Ida had returned to her studies, and Clara to her blue-covered volume, sitting absorbed and disinterested amid the bustle and the racket. At last a general buzz of congratulation announced that the cook had discovered the boots hung up among the hats in the hall. The Doctor, very red and flustered, drew them on, and stamped off to join the Admiral in his ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle



Words linked to "Bustle" :   din, cannonball along, pelt along, ruction, hustle, flurry, ruckus, speed, belt along, hotfoot, step on it, stir, framework, rumpus, bucket along, move, hie



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