"Ell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conquering march toward other worlds. In the year of her publicity she had, through Mrs. Tommy Kidder and other agencies, brushed here and there at the rim of the magic inner circle of metropolitan society, for every inch of which she now encroached an ell. Shelby gained his first knowledge of the astonishing extent of his wife's acquaintance when he scanned the invitation list of a thousand names, and was told by the military secretary that New York's quota ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... with the setter dog," said he. "His name was Archie, and he used to jump over the roof of a part of our house as high as"—he looked about and pointed conclusively at the ell of a house across the street—"as high as that," he said, with one ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the proverb that if you give some men an inch they will take an ell, I induced the Governor to let me pursue my study of Italian. First he allowed me a Grammar, then a Conversation Book, then a Dictionary, then a Prose Reading Book, and then a Poetical Anthology. These volumes, being an addition to the two ordinary ones, gave my little domicile a civilised ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... from small signs of assurance, that this Western child was bold. "Give her an inch, and she'll take an ell," she had said to herself. "I ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... impossible for the mind to compute their number, such a computation will Never afford us a standard by which we may judge of proportions. No one will ever be able to determine by an exact numeration, that an inch has fewer points than a foot, or a foot fewer than an ell or any greater measure: for which reason we seldom or never consider this as the standard of equality ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... us intirely he has,—the black-hearted crather; an' may the cuss O' Crom'ell stick to him day an' night, an' turn his sleep to wakin', an' his mate to pizen, till all I wish ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... They knit up their hair, which is very long, with a roll of ostrich feathers, and usually carry their arrows wrapped up brit, that they may not encumber them, they being made with reeds, headed with flint, and, therefore, not heavy. Their bows are about an ell long. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... wept. "I'd sooner be a dog nor a trainer," he exclaimed. "Oh! the cusseduess of bein' shut up for weeks with a fightin' man! For the fust two days they're as sweet as treacle; and then their con trairyness comes out. Their tempers is puffict 'ell." ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore, There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore; An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell, You drop some tallow in your socks an' that will make 'em well. ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... was in sections in them boxes and crates. Nate and Augustus and the professor got out the sections and fitted 'em together. The buildin's on Ozone was all joined together—first the house, then the ell, then the wash-rooms and big sheds, and, finally, the barn. There was doors connectin', and you could go from house to barn, both downstairs and up, without ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... them," said she to Graeme one day, after having closed the door, on his departure, with more haste than was at all necessary. "Give a man an inch, and he'll take an ell. Because I didna just set my face against the whole matter, when the minister first spoke about it, he's neither to hold nor bind, but 'when will it be?' and 'when will it be?' till I have no peace ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... good quantity of Mecca ginger, and procure plenty of frankinsence from Bista[220]. They reduce their buck-wheat to meal on a piece of marble, about the size of the stone on which colours are ground by painters, on which another stone about half an ell long and like a rolling pin or roller is made to work so as to bruise the corn. Immediately after this it is made into a paste and baked into thin cakes. This is their bread, which must be made fresh every day, otherwise it becomes so dry and hard ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... the highest pinnacle of the minster spire, and sat in what is called the neck, under the nob or crown, for a quarter of an hour, before I would venture to step out again into the open air, where, standing upon a platform scarce an ell square, without any particular holding, one sees the boundless prospect before; while the nearest objects and ornaments conceal the church, and every thing upon and above which one stands. It is exactly as if one saw one's self carried up into the air in a balloon. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... shy little Dormouse peeped out of his hole, And led to the feast his blind cousin, the Mole; And the Snail, with her horns peeping out of her shell, Came, fatigued with the distance, the length of an ell. A mushroom the table; and on it was spread A water-dock leaf, which their table-d'hote made. The viands were various, to each of their taste, And the Bee brought the honey to sweeten the feast. Then close on his haunches, so solemn and wise, The Frog from a ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... as he, she was twice as broad and thick, and the knotted arms hung down past bowed knees till their clawed fingers brushed the ground. Her head was beast-like, almost split in half by the tusked mouth, the eyes wells of darkness, the nose an ell long; her hairless skin was green and cold, moving on her bones. A tattered shift covered some of her monstrousness, but she was ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... Spouse [could [1]] make but Fourscore; so may Madam Hecatissa very justly allege hereafter, That, as long-visaged as she may then be thought, upon their Wedding-day Mr. SPECTATOR and she had but Half an Ell of Face betwixt them: And this my very worthy Predecessor, Mr. Sergeant Chin, always maintained to be no more than the true oval Proportion between Man and Wife. But as this may be a new thing to you, who have hitherto had no Expectations from Women, I shall allow you what Time you think ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to glisten like sparkling diamonds, while the sweet odors of many scented flowers were borne upon every passing breeze. But could we now recognize this spot? oh no! the destroyer has been there, and there remains no trace of herb or flower; an ell has been built on to that end of the house, and the barn has been moved, so that our beautiful garden has been transformed into a door yard, and all traces of beauty are obliterated. Crossing the garden you next entered upon a large level lot covered ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... free stepping was difficult. As she groped her way along, she had ample opportunity to hear again the intermittent sounds of the hammer, and to note that they reached their maximum at a point where the ell of the judge's study approached ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... hit. W'ell said, Helen—well said, I say. Crusoe, you villain, hold up your head, and thank ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... 'im i' th' pit we me, an' 'ell earn a easy ten shillin' a wik from th' start. But six shillin' wearin' his truck-end out on a stool's better than ten shillin' i' ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... "We-ell, I s'pose then you might stay out just this once," Mrs. Hunt said, slowly, being fully alive to the advantages to Jimmy of such a friendly feeling on Theo's part. She recognized Theodore's business ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use{114} his own words, further, he said, "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;" "he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "if you teach that nigger—speaking of myself—how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave;" and "as to himself, learning would do ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... knight replies, "I know not who is to pay the penalty. But whoever may object or disapprove, I intend to lie upon this bed and repose there at my ease." Then he at once disrobed in the bed, which was long and raised half an ell above the other two, and was covered with a yellow cloth of silk and a coverlet with gilded stars. The furs were not of skinned vair but of sable; the covering he had on him would have been fitting for a king. The mattress was not ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... now and gone—gave what they call a candy-pulling in those days in the West, and they took the saucers of hot candy outside of the house into the snow, under a sort of old bower that came from the eaves—it was a sort of an ell then, all covered with vines—to cool this hot candy in the snow, and they were all sitting there. In the mean time we were gone to bed. We were not invited to attend this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... believe me, as I am the elder of us two, timidity is a great sin against love. But did you not see that that beggar had holes in her stockings and a seam of filth and mud, half- an-ell high, on the bottom of ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... little of Mr. McKinley's apparent vacillation and of his complaisance toward men and interests representing wealth was due to an endowment of exquisite finesse which stooped to conquer, which led by seeming to follow, or by yielding an inch took an ell. In him was rooted by inheritance a quick sense of the manufacturer's point of view, for his father and grandfather had been iron-furnace men, and a certain conservative instinct, characteristic of his party, which deemed the counsel of broadcloth wiser than the clamor ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... is fair and even? If thou stand on Will's haw [hillock], the oak on thy right hand is the largest tree; if thou stand on Dick's, it shall be the beech on thy left. And thine ell-wand reacheth ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... a very long adobe house one story in height and one room deep, except in an ell where a number of rooms were bunched together. The Senora had it whitewashed every year, and the red tiles on the roof renewed when necessary; therefore it had none of the pathetic look of old age peculiar to the adobe mansions of ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... end of the wedge meant, and, being in a far better position than we are to judge of the significance and importance of many a casus belli which now seems but trivial, they never dreamed of giving an inch for the other side to take an ell. So they went to law, and enjoyed it amazingly! Sometimes however, there were disputes which were not to be settled peaceably; and then came what University men in the old days used to know as a "Town and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... swung forward his body. The end of the race came sooner than any one expected. A police barge nosed round an ell; by the time Pompeo was off again, the ferrule of the pursuing gondola scraped past Pompeo's blade. Pompeo called and Achille answered. There was a war of words, figure of a dog, name of a pig. Achille was in the wrong, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... his personal [Greek: ananke] which of all moods is to Fortune, the goddess of spontaneity, the most antipathetic. Indeed, he felt his wit, like Romeo's, to be of cheveril; and his conviction that it needed only the pull of circumstance to stretch it "from an inch narrow to an ell broad" expressed but the very wooing quality of ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... got in bed with Pa. I had heard Pa blame Ma about her cold feet, so I got a piece of ice about as big as a raisin box, just zactly like one of Ma's feet, and laid it right against the small of Pa's back. I couldn't help laffing, but pretty soon Pa began to squirm and he said, 'Why'n 'ell don't you warm them feet before you come to bed,' and then he hauled back his leg and kicked me clear out in the middle of the floor, and said if he married again he would marry a woman who had lost both her feet in a railroad accident. Then I put the ice back ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, she declared ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... trottin' from the other place over here day in an' day out. An' when his Uncle Nat died, two year ago, then was the time for him to come over here an' marry 'Mandy an' carry on the farm. But no, he'd rather hang round the old place, an' sleep in the ell-chamber, an' do their chores for his board, an' keep on a-runnin' over here.' An' when young Nat married, I says to myself, 'That'll make him speak.' But it didn't—an' you 're a laughin'-stock, 'Mandy Green, if ever there was one. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... and the tide goes down, And ever I hear a song, As the moaning winds, through the moss-hung oaks, Sweep surging ever along: "O massa white man! help de slave, And de wife and chillen too; Eber dey'll work, wid de hard worn hand Ef ell gib 'em de ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... later the second bus in trouble turns tail. Its engine has been missing on one cylinder since the start, and is not in a fit state for a trip over enemy country. Again I call to the leader, and again hear a word ending in "ell." The two remaining machines close up, and we continue. Very suddenly one of them drops out, with a rocker-arm gone. Its nose goes down, and it glides into the clouds. Yet again I call the flight-commander's attention to our dwindling numbers, and this time I cannot mistake the single-syllabled ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Knox and of —- Sinclair, his wife, {2a} unlike most Scotsmen, unlike even Mr. Carlyle, had not "an ell of pedigree." The common scoff was that each Scot styled himself "the King's poor cousin." But John Knox declared, "I am a man of base estate and condition." {2b} The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... heirs when I've nothing to leave," continued Cockle, addressing me—"hairs are like rats, that quit a ship as soon as she gets old. Now, Bob, I wonder how long that rascal will make us wait. I brought him home and gave him his freedom—but give an inch and he takes an ell. Moonshine, I begin to feel angry—the tip of my ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... "We-ell," said Mr. Struthers, gazing down the Fechars Road, as if visioning great things, "it will require a strenuous and devoted application—a strenuous and devoted application—even from the man of abeelity you have shown yourself to be. Tell me now," he went on, "have ye heard ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... ceinctz et les cieulx S'estoient vestuz d'un manteau precieux A raiz ardens de diverse couleur: Tout estoit plein de beaute, de bonheur, La mer tranquille, et le vent gracieulx, Quand celle la nasquit en ces bas lieux Qui a pille du monde tout l'honneur. Ell' prist son teint des beux lyz blanchissans, Son chef de l'or, ses deux levres des rozes, Et du soleil ses yeux resplandissans: Le ciel usant de liberalite, Mist en l'esprit ses semences encloses, Son nom ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... argued. But the fact is, I stayed because I couldn't go away. Of course, it was an abominable position, but I assure you it felt like heaven when it didn't feel like 'ell." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... picking up coins behind the severe and disdainful figure of science whose giant strides have widened for us the horizon of the universe by some few inches—stand ready, almost eager, to appeal to the sword as soon as the globe of the earth has shrunk beneath our growing numbers by another ell or so. And democracy, which has elected to pin its faith to the supremacy of material interests, will have to fight their battles to the bitter end, on a mere pittance—unless, indeed, some statesman ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... to the facts, mother." He got up, and began to walk about the long, low living-room of the farmhouse where they were sitting. Louise had gone to direct her maid in packing for her flitting to the seaside in the morning; Matt could see a light in the ell-chamber where Maxwell was probably writing. "The self-made man can never be the society equal of the society-made man. He may have more brains, more money, more virtue, but he's a kind of inferior, and ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... cabbage-salad with snorkery-snickery ell-grass dressing on it, some water-lily cake, and some moss covered eggs for your breakfast," said the fish. "And I wish you good luck on ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... "W ell, perhaps it is a little; marrying weather and fishing weather don't agree. Only what else is there to do? But if you are tired," he added, looking at East, "I don't care a straw about it. I shall ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... But Ibn Batuta, in the 14th, states it at 11 spans, or more than the modern report. [Ibn Khordadhbeh at 70 cubits.—H.C.] Marignolli, on the other hand, says that he measured it and found it to be 2-1/2 palms, or about half a Prague ell, which corresponds in a general way with Hardy's tradition. Valentyn calls it 1-1/2 ell in length; Knox says 2 feet; Herman Bree (De Bry ?), quoted by Fabricius, 8-1/2 spans; a Chinese account, quoted below, 8 feet. These discrepancies remind one of the ancient ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... swift, this do I leave, Against that may beseem them well: That they their good Wives do deceive, Bring home a Yard and steal an Ell: And Taylors too must be set down, A Gift to give them I am bent; To cut four Sleeves to every Gown, By ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... roots they noticed something skipping and springing, which they could not make out, as it was sometimes hidden in the grasses. As they came nearer they could see it was a dwarf, with a shrivelled-up face and a snow-white beard an ell long. The beard was fixed in a gash in the tree trunk, and the tiny fellow was hopping to and fro, like a dog at the end of a string, but he could not manage to free himself. He stared at the children with his red, fiery eyes, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... mildew: also you must haue an apron to gather in, and to empty into the great baskets, and a hooke to draw the boughes vnto you, which you cannot reach with your hands at ease: the apron is to be an Ell euery way, loopt vp to your girdle, so as it may serue for either hand without any trouble: and when it is full, vnloose one of your loopes, and empty it gently into the great basket, for in throwing them downe roughly, their owne stalkes may pricke ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... now backed up against a small ell in the wall of the cellar. It was barely large enough to hold us, but by crowding we were able to keep out of the reach of the ray. The ray shot past the ell and struck a wall a couple of inches ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing)—so much the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length, so that allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to do what she ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the freak takes our Monsieurs to appear like so many farces or Jack Puddings on the stage, all the world should alter shape and play the pantomimes with them. Methinks a French tailor, with an ell in his hand, looks like the enchantress Circe over the companions of Ulysses, and changes them into as many forms.... Something I would indulge to youth; something to age and humor. But what have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... a with ogonek (tail) ['c] c with acute accent [vc] c with caron [-e] e with macron [ve] e with caron [e,] e with ogonek [)e] e with breve [-i] i with macron [)i] i with breve [/l] ell with stroke ['m] m with acute accent ['n] n with acute accent [vn] n with caron [-o] o with macron [vr] r with caron [.r] r with dot over ['s] s with acute accent [vs] s with caron [-u] u with macron ['z] z with acute accent [.Z] Z with dot ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... was trying to do what a better man than I did, and where he hit the mark I missed it by an ell. Twas a pretty scrape ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... too bad. It showed that as soon as you gave those cloistered girls an inch they took an ell. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... proved by the red and green jackets, the tyrolese caps, and by the printed sign which says, "This is a Hungarian Orchestra." I knew that they were Hungarians the night I saw them, because I distinctly heard one of them say, "what t'ell do we play next boys?" The reference to William Tell was obvious. After every four tunes the Orchestra are given a tall stein of beer, and they all stand up and drink it, shouting "Hoch!" or "Ha!" or "Hoo!" or something of the sort. This is supposed to give ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... Home Ruler, and yet unlike the rest. He said: "I am a Home Ruler because I think Home Rule inevitable now the English people have given way so far. Give Paddy an inch and you may trust him to take an ell. We must have something like Home Rule to put an end to the agitation which is destroying the country. It is now our only chance, and in my opinion a very poor chance, but we are reduced so low that we think the bottom is touched. The ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... to New South Wales, Nor hunt for glory at the Pole— To feed the sharks, or catch the whales, Or tempt a Lapland lady's soul. I'll never willing stir an ell Beyond old England's chalky border, To steal or smuggle, buy or sell, To drink cheap wine, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... "Here! Here! What'ell—what's the matter with you?" he gasped, gripping her hands and tearing them from his neck. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... parsimonious in their Diet, as the Holy Fathers were in their frugal life in the Desert, known by the name of Eremites. They go naked, having no other Covering but what conceals their Pudends from publick sight. An hairy Plad, or loose Coat, about an Ell, or a coarse woven Cloth at most Two Ells long serves them for the warmest Winter Garment. They lye on a coarse Rug or Matt, and those that have the most plentiful Estate or Fortunes, the better sort, use Net-work, knotted at the four corners in lieu of Beds, ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... t'ell, Gord!" exclaimed an individual, with a long, drooping nose, a jaw which hung loosely on a corded, bare throat; "it ain't three weeks ago but you got a suit, and it ain't the one you have ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... "Saints' Rest" and Young's "Night Thoughts." The fireplace flue so seldom held a fire that the swallows utilized the chimney for their nests. Back of this was the dining-room, in which we lived. It had a large brick oven and a serviceable fireplace. The kitchen was an ell, from which stretched woodshed, carriage-house, pigpen, smoking-house, etc. Currant and quince bushes, rhubarb, mulberry, maple, and butternut trees were scattered about. An apple orchard helped to ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... who took me by both hands and looked earnestly in my face. I feared that she would kiss me before the others and durst not look at her. "Yes," I heard her say, in a low voice, "it is Edmund's own boy." She led the way into the house, through the long wood-shed and ell. Supper was waiting; and after a hasty wash at a long sink in the wood-shed, I followed grandfather through the kitchen to the room beyond it, where the large round table was spread. The family all came in and sat down. I still felt very ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... weather, the winter after Sidonia's death, and the numberless mock suns that appeared in different places, or of that strange rain, when a sulphureous matter, like starch in appearance, fell from the air (item, a snow-white pike was caught at Colzow in Wellin, seven quarters long, and half an ell broad, with red round eyes, and red fins), a stranger wonder than all was seen at Wolgast; for suddenly, during a review held there, one of the soldier's muskets went off without a finger being laid on it, and the ball went right ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... dealing thyself by God's ell-wand of the Fifth Commandment, and judge if it were honouring thine elders as ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... like every other human instinct, has its distortions. It is in the failure to see the relative importance of things, to keep the proportions, that human beings lose control of their endowment. Give an instinct an inch, and it invariably takes its ell! The instinct for clothes, from which we have learned so much in our climb from savagery, has more than once had the upper hand of us. So dangerous to the prosperity and the seriousness of peoples has its tyranny been, that laws have again ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... "We-ell, he did say the best way for me to avoid all possibility of being involved in the thing was not ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... ch ick wh at th at sh ell ch ild wh en th is sh y ch air wh y th ese sh ore ch ill wh ere th ose sh ine ch erry wh ich th ere sh ow ch ildren th en th eir sh e ch urch th ey th ey sh all ch ase sh ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... Moors; and the women as having "handsome limbs, slender arms, pretty hands, and when they sing they have a pleasant tange in their voices. The men shaved their hair on the right side, the women acting as barbers, and left the hair full length on the left side, with a lock an ell long." A Puritan divine—"New England's Plantation, 1630"—says of the Indians about him, "their hair is generally black, and cut before like our gentlewomen, and one lock longer than the rest, much like to our gentlemen, which ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... drwy brovedigaeth yn yr amser yr ennillawdd ev * * o verch Brangor yr hon a vu ymerodres yn Constinobl, or honn y doeth y genhedlaeth vwyav o'r byd, ac o genhedlaeth Joseph o Arimathea y hanoeddyn ell tri, ac o lin Davydd brophwyd mal y tystiolaetha Ystoria y Greal."—(Triad ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... pinch, And wish'd the dog in hell, Should we give this same Wood an inch, We know he'd take an ell. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Winchester, should be observed throughout the realm. Most nations have regulated the standard of measures of length by comparison with the parts of the human body; as the palm, the hand, the span, the foot, the cubit, the ell, (ulna, or arm) the pace, and the fathom. But, as these are of different dimensions in men of different proportions, our antient historians[r] inform us, that a new standard of longitudinal measure was ascertained by king Henry the first; who commanded that the ulna or antient ell, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... order to be asked to believe that Lombardy and Venetia are nothing more than an outspread sheet of deep Alpine mud. Well, there is nothing so good for incredulity, don't you know, as capping the climax. If a man will not swallow an inch of fact, the best remedy is to make him gulp down an ell of it. And, indeed, the Lombard plain is but an insignificant mud flat compared with the vast alluvial plains of Asiatic and American rivers. The alluvium of the Euphrates, of the Mississippi, of the Hoang Ho, of the Amazons would take in many Lombardies and half-a-dozen Venetias without noticing ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... glad I've told you. A've been i' 'ell for mony a week, and, and—but there, it's all ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... for every pint of honey a gallon of gall; for every dram of pleasure a pound of pain; for every inch of mirth an ell of moan; and as the ivy twines around the oak, so does misery and misfortune encompass the happy man. Felicity, pure and unalloyed felicity, is not a plant of earthly growth; her ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... "We-ell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what Corkran's appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... indeed; if I had had the luck to have taken up that Rod, 'tis twenty to one he should not have broke my line by running to the Rods end, as you suffered him; I would have held him, unless he had been fellow to the great Trout that is neer an ell long, which had his picture drawne, and now to be seen at mine Hoste Rickabies at the George in Ware; and it may be, by giving that Trout the Rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, I might have caught him at the long run, for so I use alwaies to do when I meet ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... had lost themselves in the night, Caroline was out of the window. She stole lightly along the tin roof, warm yet with the first intense heat of June, dropped easily to the level of the kitchen-ell, and, slipping down onto the massive trunk of the old wistaria, fitted accustomed feet into its curled niches and clambered down among the warm, fragrant clusters. Steeped in the full moon, it sent out its cloying perfume like a visible ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... to the Israelites, "Go and sweep and clean our houses, our courtyards, and our streets," He changed the dust of the air into lice, so that the vermin lay piled up in heaps an ell high, and when the Egyptians put on fresh garments, they were at ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... we that now make merry on the Green They left, and Summer dresses in new sheen, Ourselves must we beneath the springing Turf Add our Ell ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... elegant and dashy robing that ever was! Pray Heaven I don't dirt it for it is to serve for the whole winter! Peggy has three new frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest, and by tight lacing (though no tighter than theirs) I make my waist an ell smaller than either. In addition, I have a nabob of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it but for what it would conceal. I intend to ask Peggy if 't would be citified and a la mode to keep it on for ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... on a bench excitedly, gesticulating with a bottle in his hand.] Listen 'ere, Comrades! Yank 'ere is right. 'E says this 'ere stinkin' ship is our 'ome. And 'e says as 'ome is 'ell. And 'e's right! This is 'ell. We lives in 'ell, Comrades—and right enough we'll die in it. [Raging.] And who's ter blame, I arsks yer? We ain't. We wasn't born this rotten way. All men is born free and ekal. That's in the bleedin' Bible, maties. But what d'they care for the ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... offenders, those incorrigible miscreants, Rags and Want! The confederacy is, to be sure, older than the crucified thieves; but then it has not been so undisguisedly avowed. Broad Cloth has, on the contrary, affected a sympathy with tatters, though with a constancy of purpose has refused an ell from its trailing superfluity to solace the wretchedness; the tears of Beef dropt on the lank abdomen of Starvation, are ancient as post diluvian crocodiles.—but it has spared no morsel to the object of its hypocritic sorrow. Now, however, even the decency of deceit is to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... the expression "Flemish Account" may have been derived from the fact that the Flemish ell measures only three quarters of our yard, while the English ell measures five quarters, and that thence the epithet Flemish was adopted as denoting ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... had been boarding with anyone but Jerry Longworthy she would have gone at once but Jerry Longworthy was very apt to forget that she preferred work to love. If she went to his back yard he would be sure to think that her coming was an inch and proceed to make an ell out of it. It would be far wiser to stay away. So she shook her head. "Not now, Mary Rose," she ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... bundles one day in my chamber, I heard her in another room, and called her in with a kind of familiar way. There I showed her some of my fine clothes, and having among the rest of my things a piece of very fine new holland, which I had bought a little before, worth about 9s. an ell, I pulled it out: "Here, my friend," says I, "I will make you a present, if you will accept of it;" and with that I laid the piece of Holland in ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... do that," replied the man, "but I'll tell you what I'll do with you,—I'll lay you two to one, in fives or fifties if you like, that you knew before you axed, and that Thunderbolt don't win the Riddlesworth." "Really," said Mr. Jorrocks, "I'm not a betting man." "Then, wot the 'ell business have you at Newmarket?" was all the answer he got. Disgusted with such inhospitable impertinence, Mr. Jorrocks turned on his heel and walked away. Before the "White Hart" Inn was a smartish pony phaeton, in charge of a stunted stable lad. "I say, young chap," ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... "What t'ell they got agin him? Ain't he the biggest man in this country to-day? Didn't he lick Spain and England both at Pensacola and didn't he finish the Red Coats at ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... would do so, and never again be summoned for a similar offence. He left the Court and returned to his cure, and as soon as he came there, he called the draper and the tailor, and he had a gown made which trailed three quarters of an ell on the ground; for he told the tailor how he had been reproved for wearing a short gown, and ordered to ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... the chamber, crossed the sitting room, and went into the ell-kitchen with his shoes in his hand. When he opened the back door he faced the west, but even the sky at that point of the compass showed the glow of the false dawn. Down in the cove the night mist wrapped the ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... was in a hackney cabriolet, for Jonas Chuzzlewit had said 'Spare no expense.' Mankind is evil in its thoughts and in its base constructions, and Jonas was resolved it should not have an inch to stretch into an ell against him. It never should be charged upon his father's son that he had grudged the money for his father's funeral. Hence, until the obsequies should be concluded, Jonas had taken for his motto ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... were orders of the General Court forbidding 'short sleeves whereby the nakedness of the arms may be discovered.' Women's sleeves were not to be more than half an ell wide. There were to be no 'immoderate great sleeves, immoderate ... knots of ryban, broad shoulder bands and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles and cuffs.' The women were complained of because of their 'wearing borders of hair and their ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... feenerty, fickerty, feg, Ell, dell, domun's egg; Irky, birky, story, rock, An, tan, toose, Jock; Black fish! white troot! ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... much in boats. These they call quintans, as the West Indians call their canoas. They make them with one tree, by burning and scraping away the coals with stones and shells till they have made them in the form of a trough. Some of them are an ell deep and forty or fifty foot in length and some will transport forty men, but the most ordinary are smaller and will ferry ten or twenty, with some luggage, over their broadest rivers. Instead of oars, they use paddles and sticks, with which they will row faster than we in our barges. ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... white farmhouse, nestling among the apple trees, the front to the west and facing on the lane that led up to a farm above. The house had a one-story ell on the end toward him, containing the kitchen and pantry—this ell projected back almost to the smokehouse. On the opposite side, but hidden from his view, there was a wide porch running the full length of house and ell, and in the angle formed by the ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... on the right, a low-arched vestibule which opens into the nave of the Cathedral. The interior of Saint-Etienne is dark and somewhat gloomy, but that is an inherent trait of a fortress-church, for every added inch of window-opening brought an ell of danger. The nave is unusually low and broad, and its buttressed piers are of immense weight, ending severely in a plain, moulded band. On these great piers rest the cross-vaults of the roof and the broad arches of the wall. The north aisle, disproportionately ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... gain an inch, mate, or he'll soon gain an ell," said old Mat. "He is doing Satan's work, and that's what Satan is always trying to do—trying to make us do a little wrong—just to get in the sharp edge of the wedge; he knows that he shall soon be able to drive ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... I went to the Temple, and there spent my time in a Bookseller's shop, reading in a book of some Embassages into Moscovia, &c., where was very good reading, and then to Mrs. Turner's, and thither came Smith to me, with whom I did agree for L4 to make a handsome one, ell square within the frame. After he was gone I sat an houre talking of the suddennesse of his death within 7 days, and how by little and little death came upon him, neither he nor they thinking it would come to that. He died after a day's raveing, through lightness ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and when they came to vs, euery man sticked downe his dart vpon the shoare, and the Captaines had stooles brought them, and they sate downe, and sent a young man aboord of vs, which brought a measure with him of an ell, and one fourth part, and one sixteenth part, and he would haue that foure times for a waight of one Angell and twelue graines: I offered him two elles, as I had done before for two Angels weight, which he ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... drew back his chair half an ell farther from the table, and his lips quivered at ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... after man struck down at the gun, they could hear the hiss and whitt of the bullets over their heads, the constant cracker-like smacks of others that hit the parapet, and—they hung back. "Why th' 'ell don't you do it yerself?" demanded one of them, angered by Bunthrop's goading and in some degree, no doubt, by the disagreeable knowledge that they were flinching ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... all came to know him well and they liked his cheerfulness and his interest in what they were doing and planning. On Saturdays he helped Roger build a hot bed in the sunniest spot against the side of the kitchen ell. They found that the frost had not stiffened the ground after they managed to dig down a foot, so that the excavation was not as hard as they had expected. They dug a hole the size of two window sashes and ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... your sleep, George," he said; "where'd you be then? You jest think of that me boy." By this time I was thoroughly miserable and frightened, and this suggestion unnerved me dreadfully but I kept up an impenitent front. "To wake in 'ell," said Uncle Nicodemus, in gentle tones. "You don't want to wake in 'ell, George, burnin' and screamin' for ever, do you? You ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said what sounded like "Give an ell," but probably was not, as there was no ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in 'is free-'anded way, 'e give 'er a five-pun' note. Next week she come agen for somethin' else, and stopped and talked to 'im about 'is soul in the passage. She told 'im as 'e was a-goin' straight to 'ell, and that 'e oughter give up the bookmakin' and settle down to a respec'ble, God-fearin' business. At fust 'e only laughed, but she lammed in tracts at 'im full of the most awful language; and one day she fetched 'im round to one of them revivalist ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... known by experience, that three quarters of a Pound of Thread worth 12 d. per Pound spinning, will make one Ell of Cloth worth 2 s. per Ell; which Three quarters of a Pound two Spinners may spin in ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... say, that if you once give a priest an inch he'll take an ell; and I am sorry I forgot it ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... like it, a la Matignon. Pepi has built a tower upon your head at least three quarters of an ell high, and above that is a blue ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... as it was called, a large white house with a piazza in front and a long, low ell, stood in the midst of the primitive little settlement, and was a favorite retreat of the lumbermen whenever they had the good fortune to get out of the woods, as well as the stopping-place of the overseers and the men with supply-teams ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... frightened, and was glad that a summons of 'my daughter' from the Princess of Conde interrupted these strange communications. I understood them better when we were called upon to ell the old Marchioness the names of every one whom we had met at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and on hearing of the presence of Mademoiselle de Bourbon she said: 'Ah! yes, a marriage is arranged for the young lady with the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... some Fritzie was a-playin' of. An' you ought to 'ave 'eard 'em a-singin'! Doleful as 'ell!" ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... regarded by the whole Yankee race as the modern land of promise, and themselves as the chosen and peculiar people destined, one day or other, by hook or by crook, to get possession of it. In truth, they are a wonderful and all-prevalent people; of that class who only require an inch to gain an ell; or a halter to gain a horse. From the time they first gained a foothold on Plymouth Rock, they began to migrate, progressing and progressing from place to place, and land to land, making a little here and a little there, and controverting the old proverb, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... about getting a fresh breakfast for the three men he said to Mead, "It's mighty lucky you've come 'ome, sir. There's been merry 'ell 'erself between our boys and the Fillmore boys, and they're likely to be killin' each other off at Alamo Springs to-day. They 'ad shots over a maverick yesterday, and the swearin' they've been doin' 'ad enough fire and brimstone in it to ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... side, and when he was in her the canoe was laid athwart her gunwales; but at night he had to drop the bit of old iron that served for an anchor, and the very first night a large moccasin—not of the dusky kind described in books, but of that yet deadlier black sort, an ell in length, which the swampers call the Congo—came up the anchor-rope. The castaway killed it with an oar; but after that who would ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... some time we could make good use of another room. We couldn't give up the parlor to her all the time. If we built another room on the ell and put the piano in there, she could give lessons all day long and it wouldn't bother us. We could build a clothes-press in it, and put in a bed-lounge and a dresser and let Anna have it for her sleeping-room. She needs a place of her own, now that ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... filled the whole house with "Hullo, Sarah! what's the latest intelligence?" this young lady had only just time to pull herself together into something like dignified self-possession, in order to reply ridiculously—how could she have been our usual Sally, else?—"We-ell! I don't see that it's anything so very remarkable, after all. I've been encouraging my medical adviser's attentions, if you want to ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... longer they have been so, the worse for them. Princes and emperors have granted the pope vast privileges, by which in course of time he has become their master, till now all men bow down and kiss his feet. Where he was given an inch, he has taken an ell.... Christ told Saint Peter to feed his lambs. But the popes with their satellites have long since ceased to feed Christ's lambs, and for centuries have done naught but fleece and slaughter them, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... black-moustached captain, whose eyes were covered with a bandage, kept his bearers busy with continual impatient questions. 'Yes, but what I want to know is this, did they get into them with the bayonet?' The volunteer stretcher-bearers could make no satisfactory reply, but said, 'Yes, they give 'em 'ell, sir.' 'Where, on the left of Railway Hill?' 'Oh, everywhere, sir.' The group passed by, and the last thing I heard was, 'How much of the artillery has crossed? Are they sending the cavalry ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... 'We-ell, ye-es,' he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfied with the phrase: 'or perhaps I might say, if it was in him. Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he would find your mother an inestimable companion. But if he had any taste for walking, or should wish ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... "We-ell. I don't want to believe it," he agreed. "But, look here!" and in desperation he pulled something from his pocket. "You ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... Weissenfels, however, it shall be; and frightful rumors go that he is written to, that he is privately coming, and that there will be no remedy. [Wilhelmina, i. 197.] Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a shadow; "her waist hardly half an ell;" worn down by these agitations. The Prince and she, if the King see either of them,—it is safer to run, or ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... thought it well to frighten the scamps thoroughly. It was too dark for me to see Alfred's face or Harvey's, but they had little to say. The procession moved on to the barn; I rolled the doors open, while Addison ran to get a lantern. Grandmother and the girls had retired hastily to the ell piazza, where ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... of the front door; on the right of it a big bedroom—I've always pined for a downstairs bedroom—I don't know why, but I never had one till I came to your house—with a bathroom and dressing-room behind it; the dining-room and kitchen will be in the ell. I'm sure I can make that unfinished attic into three more bedrooms, and another bathroom, but I want to see what you think. I'm going to have a great deep piazza all around it, and ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... is, like Ra and Osiris, a god of the under-world to which men go after death. He is said to open the mouth of the dead—that is to say, that he hears them and judges them. But in the upper-world too he has to do with justice; he is called the "Lord of the Ell," a title connecting him with measurements and boundaries, matters of the greatest importance in Egypt. His son is Imhotep, he who comes in peace; the Greeks regarded this god as a physician, and called him Asclepios. The goddess of ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... inseparable quid in his cheek, and slyly drawled out, "W-ell, if ye must, ye must! I a'n't a-goin' ter stand in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the conversation, By many windings to their clever clinch; And secondly, must let slip no occasion, Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch,[mt] But take an ell—and make a great sensation, If possible; and thirdly, never flinch When some smart talker puts them to the test, But seize the last word, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... councillors of the captive Duke Charles of Orleans, gave her a green cloak and a robe of crimson Flemish cloth or fine Brussels purple. Jean Luillier, who furnished the stuff, asked eight crowns for two ells of fine Brussels at four crowns the ell; two crowns for the lining of the robe; two crowns for an ell of yellowish green cloth, making in all twelve golden crowns.[1223] Jean Luillier was a young woollen draper who adored the Maid and regarded her as an angel of God. He had a good heart; but fear ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... year 1789, this manufactory continued to be under the direction of a contractor, who delivered the carpeting to the government at the rate of 220 francs per square ell. At the revolution, new regulations were established; the workmen were paid by the day, and classed according to their merit. In consequence, though less work is performed, it is executed with ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... her name and three quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... had had the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to one he should not have broken my line by running to the rod's end, as you suffered him. I would have held him within the bent of my rod, unless he had been fellow to the great Trout that is near an ell long, which was of such a length and depth, that he had his picture drawn, and now is to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, at the George in Ware, and it may be, by giving that very great Trout the rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, I might ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... hospitality; whereupon the linen-draper, utterly forgetful of all party rancour, nobly responded to the appeal, and telling his wife to conduct his lordship upstairs, jumped over the counter, with his ell in his hand, and placing himself with half-a-dozen of his assistants at the door of his boutique, manfully confronted the mob, telling them that he would allow himself to be torn to a thousand pieces ere he would permit them to injure a hair ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... bloody 'ell?" he gasped, as he looked into the muzzle of the revolver. From down the mountain side came the shout of one ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... "We-ell," Little drawled, lazily lighting a cheroot, "anything you say suits me, but I'll tell you my idea right now: That Goring woman came here in ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other Neither continency nor virtue where there are no opposing desire Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell Neither the courage to die nor the heart to live Never any man knew so much, and spake so little Never did two men make the same judgment of the same thing Never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd Never represent ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,—I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... death the store was moved across the street, where it still remains, forming the ell of Gerrish's block. The post-office was in the north end of it, during Mr. Butler's term as postmaster. About this time the son, William Farwell Brazer, built a store nearly opposite to the Academy, which he kept during some years. It was made finally into a ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... long, with a piazza, and a long corridor ran through the whole building. All this announced an inn. The windows in the part of the house assigned to guests were dark. In the others, situated opposite the piazza, and not higher than half-an-ell from the ground, which was covered with straw and hay and all kinds of rubbish, the lights of Sabbath shone forth ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... assigned to Bert was over the kitchen, which was in the ell part. The roof was sloping, and, toward the eaves, very low. There was one window near ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... counter of a wood-merchant, and Masson picked up 'Agobardus' at the shop of a binder, who was going to use the MS. to patch his books withal." Rossi, who may have seen Naude at work, tells us how he would enter a shop with a yard-measure in his hand, buying books, we are sorry to say, by the ell. "The stalls where he had passed were like the towns through which Attila or the Tartars had swept, with ruin in their train,—ut non hominis unius sedulitas, sed calamitas quaedam per omnes bibliopolarum tabernas pervasisse ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... world, and the most worthy of your Majesty's grandeur. You are aware that, in default of splendid deeds of arms, there is nothing which denotes the grandeur and spirit of princes more plainly than buildments do, and all posterity measures them by the ell of those superb mansions which they have erected during their lives. O, what pity it were that the greatest king and the most virtuous in that true virtue which makes the greatest princes should be measured by the ell of Versailles! And, nevertheless, there is room to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and flanked on either side by still perfect towers, frowned the massive gateway of the old Norman castle. Then, to the west, almost at the foot of Molehill, the ground broke away in a deep bank clothed with timber, which led the eye down by slow descents into the beautiful valley of the Ell. Here the silver river wound its gentle way through lush and poplar-bordered marshes, where the cattle stand knee-deep in flowers; past quaint wooden mill-houses, through Boisingham Old Common, windy looking even ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... Father Healy. Of his humorous sayings the number is legion; his wit may be illustrated by a less familiar example—his comment on a very tall young lady named Lynch: "Nature gave her an inch and she took an ell." In the House of Commons today there is no greater master of irony and sardonic humor than his namesake, Mr. Tim Healy. On one occasion he remarked that Lord Rosebery was not a man to go tiger-shooting with—except at the Zoo. On another, being ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... altered," cried Will Scarlett; "we will call a feast, and henceforth, because he is full seven feet tall and round the waist at least an ell, he shall ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... they had rounded the corner of the house and entered a narrow walk, flagged with brick, which connected the space in front with the rear offices and garden. This walk ran close to the walls which were broken on this side by an ell projecting in the direction of the mill-stream. It was from the roof of this ell that Anitra declared Georgian ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... pewter," says M. de Barante. Those magnificent silks and velvets, that cloth of gold and damask, that Flanders lace, and those carpets from Arras which were found heaped up in chests, were cut in pieces and distributed by the ell, like common canvas in a village shop. The duke's large diamond which he wore round his neck, and which had once upon a time glittered in the crown of the Great Mogul, was found on the road, inside a little box set with fine pearls. The man ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was composed of four large rooms, with plastered adobe walls, and a two-room wooden ell. A twenty-feet-wide "gallery" circumvented the structure. It was set in a grove of immense live-oaks and water-elms near a lake—a long, not very wide, and tremendously deep lake in which at nightfall, great gars ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... play, This dagger shall throughout thine hearte go." This fruit comes of the *bicched bones two,* *two cursed bones (dice)* Forswearing, ire, falseness, and homicide. Now, for the love of Christ that for us died, Leave your oathes, bothe great and smale. But, Sirs, now will I ell you forth my tale. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... foot-path leading to the side door, the foot-path which his unwilling and weary feet had helped to trace more definitely for nearly forty years. The house was a small cottage of the humblest New England type. It had a little cobbler's-shop, or what had formerly been a cobbler's-shop, for an ell. Besides that, there were three rooms on the ground-floor—the kitchen, the sitting-room, and a little bedroom which Henry and Sylvia occupied. Sylvia had cooking-stoves in both the old shop and the kitchen. The kitchen stove was kept ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... not hold enough to marry then. What the 'ell would you do with a woman in the 'ouse if you couldn't corner 'er? I tell 'e, women 'ave to 'ave a master, and no man better tackle that job until 'e can be sure 'e can make ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Time, I cannot allow one to take up one's residence here. I take note of the acts of righteousness (or otherwise) that one does in the world. Do thou, O learned Brahmana of great splendour return immediately to thy abode. 'I ell me what also is in thy mind and what I can do for thee, O thou of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... blurry ship; fight the blurry ship; sink the blurry ship; and go to ell in the blurry ship. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... face, now arranged for indefinite photography, as he went on. "That is exactly what I say to them. That is what I said to Mr. Marvin one year ago, when he had that trouble in his shoe shop. I said, 'You're too concessive.' I said, 'Mr. Marvin, if you give those fellows an inch, they'll take an ell. Mr. Marvin,' said I, 'you've got to begin by being your own master, if you want to be master of anybody else. You've got to put your foot down, as Mr. Lincoln said; and as I say, you've got to ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... shot into the green, and the green lightened from the blue, as the colours play in the ocean between deeps and shallows: she thought she could endure to live no longer and not wear it. There was a bracelet of an ell long, wrought like a serpent and with fiery jewels for the eyes; she saw it shine on her white arm and her head grew dizzy with desire. "Ah!" she thought, "never were fine lendings better met with a fair wearer." And she closed her ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ancient days were magnificent! Noblemen then wore costumes weighted with embroidery. At Lyons, material was sometimes sold for as much as six hundred francs an ell. One ought to read the by-laws and regulations of the Guild of Master Workmen, where it is laid down that 'The embroiderers of the King have always the right to summon, by armed force if necessary, the workmen of ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... "We-ell, I suppose I can do it," agreed Heckler at last. "There's nothing in the job, but I can remember that I used to be a boy myself. We'll call it a deal, ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... wonder," she returned, still at her task. Then she rose, holding a bulb in her hands, and said: "It's a funny kind of relation. Her father and mother egging her on—and you know that kind of a man; give him an inch and he'll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got." She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. "Those are the nice big yellow ones I'm saving for Mrs. Barclay. But I'm sure of one thing, Molly has no notion of marrying Brownwell." She continued: "Molly is ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... "To 'ell if you like," he replied. Then struck with curiosity, he inquired, "Where do you want to go to? This pillar ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... record, that his great surprise was, that so small a pistol could kill so big a man. These are the words of that venerable biographer, whose trade had not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell. "He," (Francis Gordon) "got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... at them in the way, and will scarce stir out of it. He will come and eat Carrion with the Dogs and Jackals, and will not be feared away by them, but if they come near to bark or snap at him, with his tayl, which is about an Ell long like a whip, he will so slash them, that they will run away and howl. This Creature ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... "We-ell," said the dog and rubbed himself. "They're that sort of chaps, you know, that one really never ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... you now mister Fitts; 'tis other people's minds that's bothered, an' I'm only sorry for it: but y'ell know soon enough; the master 'ill tell ye when he sees fit, and ye can be preparin' for ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... the door. Octavius, without stopping to relight the lamp, hurried up to his room in the ell, fearful lest he be recalled a fifth time—a test of his powers of mental endurance to which he dared not submit in ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... gulfs to dilating, shadowing, quickening windows of thought. "Russ-ell Archi-bald Sittell," she echoed. "Ranger! Secret ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey |
