"Ill-fitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... working girls, the office clerks came past, breathing upon their chilled fingers and munching penny rolls. Some of them are gaunt young fellows in ill-fitting suits, their tired eyes still fogged from sleep. Others are older men, stooped and tottering, with faces pale and drawn from long hours of office work and glancing nervously at their watches ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... in ill-fitting black clothes approached Moonson's table, interrupting his reflections with thoughts that seemed designed to disturb and distract him out of sheer perversity. So even here there were flies in every ointment, and no dream ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... an odd figure. His worn, ill-fitting clothes, with their bulging pockets, the grasshopper slimness of his legs and arms, the peering, glancing look of his eternally restless eyes, were all of them displeasing to Enid Glenwilliam as she surveyed him. But she ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... expressed his desire to help me, asking if I would accept a check—"For you and your sister to carry on." But I refused. I had appealed to him for the country, not for myself. But his offer mortified me, made me conscious of my shabby appearance, the coarse, ill-fitting clothes, the effects of the fire still visible in rough and smoke-stained skin, the splotches of new skin on my lips, the face pink and tender. Altogether, the surroundings and I must ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... found himself confronted with the embodied proof of his somewhat stilted fancies. There, close beside him, his face altered and disfigured by poverty and disgrace, his body barely covered by greasy ill-fitting rags, stood his old friend Charles Herbert, who had matriculated on the same day as himself, with whom he had been merry and wise for twelve revolving terms. Different occupations and varying interests had interrupted the friendship, and it was six years since Villiers had ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... seemed awkwardly constricted in ill-fitting, blue cotton overalls such as American laborers wear over street-clothes. Their huge bodies seemed about to break through the flimsy bindings, and the carriage of their striking heads made the garments ridiculous. Most of them had fairly regular features on a large scale, their mouths ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... opened a door to the right, and led the way into a large gloomy room, with a little newly lighted wood fire crackling in an enormous grate, making darkness visible, and drawing the cold out of the walls. We need scarcely say it was that terrible room—the best; with three creaking, ill-fitting windows, and heavy crimson satin-damask furniture, so old as scarcely to be able to sustain its own weight. 'Ah! here you are,' observed Mr. Jawleyford, as he nearly tripped over Sponge's luggage as it stood by the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he felt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the shed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his ears. A name was mentioned—his own! His angry hand was on the latch. One moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the old-fashioned costume of coat and breeches, ill-fitting and shiny with wear, and his freckled face and round shock head of tan-coloured hair thrown into full relief by a big, square collar of coarse tatten lace laid out on his shoulders like a barber's towel, and illustrating the great red ears that stood ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... the gulf which lay between him and them. They were of a world to which, even if he were permitted to enter it, he could not possibly belong. He returned such glances as fell upon him with fierce insolence; he was indeed somewhat of a strange figure in his ill-fitting and inappropriate clothes amongst a gathering of smart people. A lady looking at him through raised lorgnettes turned and whispered something with a smile to her companion—once before he had heard an audible titter from a little group of loiterers. He ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the picturesque figure which fancy has painted of his class. Instead of the red toque, which artists place on the heads of habitants, he wore a cloth cap with ear flaps coming down to be tied under his chin. His jacket was an ill-fitting garment, the cast-off coat of some well-to-do man, and his trousers slouched in ample folds above brightly beaded moccasins. When I paused, Paul fixed his eyes on an invisible spot in the snow and ruminated. Then he hitched the baggy trousers up, pulled the red scarf, that held ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... cleanly, neat look about him which attracted me at once. His face was as rosy as an apple, and his large, white teeth were as sound as new silver dollars. His dark hair, which was inclined to be curly, was cut short, and the ill-fitting clothes could not conceal the ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... the man, and not the woman, who makes the false step; because it is the man who elects to marry when he is still very young. If he choose some ill-fitting, commonplace, and unresponsive nature to match his own, it is he who is bound in the course of time to learn his great mistake. When the splendid eagle shall have got his growth, and shall begin to soar up into the vault of heaven, the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... and glanced about him in a very curious way, - as one of the meaner reptiles might, looking for a hole to hide in. I noticed at the same time, that a singular change took place in the figure of the man, - as if it collapsed within his clothes, and they consequently became ill-shapen and ill-fitting. ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... the regiment came over the hill, and I retreated inside the gate where I had pails of water ready for them to drink. They were a sorry-looking lot. It was a hot day. They were covered with dirt, and you know the ill-fitting uniform of the French common soldier would disfigure into trampdom the best-looking man in ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... and critical adversary. It was a glance of amused disdain, softened only by a smile of contempt. As it fell upon me I blushed to the rim of my sombrero. I felt as meanly as though I had been caught in a lie. With her eyes, I saw the bare feet of our negro band, our ill-fitting uniforms with their flannel facings, the swagger of our officers, glancing pompously from their half-starved, unkempt ponies upon the native Indians, who fawned at ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... fact that her mother was a dressmaker, Mamie's clothes never looked smart or attractive—she would have felt out of keeping with herself if they had. Her shoes were rather large, and ill-fitting; her skirt hung in lifeless lines from her hips to her feet, of good material but seemingly bad design. At that time the colored "jersey," so-called, was just coming into popular wear, and, being close-fitting, looked well on those of good form. Alas for Mamie ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... ushered in a young woman with blond hair and an ill-fitting dress. She walked as in a dream, and there was a strange look in ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... fingered the rough brown cord that hung from Mary's waist, and smelled the sweet breath of the cattle, and the burning oil of Joseph's lantern hung against the wall, and shivered as the night wind shrilled under the ill-fitting door and awoke the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... ungrateful and disastrous task is no less clear.[8] But the net result of his meddlesome benevolence has been that now for two centuries and a half the greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance has worn the ill-fitting disguise prepared for him by a literary 'breeches-maker.' In fact, Michael Angelo the poet suffered no less from his grandnephew than Michael Angelo the fresco painter from his follower Daniele ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... fellow had whirled him around before he had finished the sentence. "Come," he said. "Don't waste time talking—why didn't you tell me before?" and then he glanced up. He saw the ill-fitting clothes, the crag-like, rough-modelled head, the awkward carriage of the man; he was too young to know that what he felt beyond these was greatness. There was a tone of patronage in his voice and in the cock of his aristocratic young head as he spoke. "We ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... retired tradespeople. Rose was in a gray silk gown trimmed with red knots and with puffs; she was smiling happily at the joyous behavior of Henri and Charles, who sat on the front seat, looking awkward in their ill-fitting collegians' tunics. But when the landau had drawn up by the rails and she perceived Nana sitting in triumph among her bouquets, with her four horses and her liveries, she pursed up her lips, sat bolt upright and turned her head away. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... were dressed somewhat in a military fashion, with helmets or stiff shakos, ill-fitting uniform coats of red or blue cloth, oddly contrasting with the brown buckskin that covered ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... silent before me, with something pitiful in her pose—a wonderfully pretty woman, whose disarranged hair and dilapidated hat could not mar her beauty; whose clumsy, ill-fitting garments could not ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... spreading like a mane to the foot of the lamp. Emma looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. Why, at least, was not her husband one of those men of taciturn passions who work at their books all night, and at last, when about sixty, the age of rheumatism sets in, wear a string of orders on their ill-fitting black coat? She could have wished this name of Bovary, which was hers, had been illustrious, to see it displayed at the booksellers', repeated in the newspapers, known to all France. But ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... battle with Timbs. Timbs was about sixty. He had shaggy, bushy eyebrows over hard little eyes, a shaggy grey beard, and a long, clean-shaven, obstinate upper lip. Stick him in an ill-fitting frock coat and an antiquated silk hat, and he would be the stage model of a Scottish Elder. As a matter of fact he was Hampshire born and a devout Roman Catholic. But he was as crabbed an old wretch as you can please. He flatly ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... applauded hotly, the touch of theatricality finding immediate response. Langham was remorselessly conscious of the man's absurd chevelure and ill-fitting clothes. But Rose herself had evidently nothing but relish for the scene. Proudly smiling, she held out her hand for her property, and as soon as she had it safe, she whisked it into the open drawer of a cabinet standing near, and drawing ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were in comparative safety regarding any molestation by the natives, for we were escorted by the son of the sheikh of one of the subtribes of the latter country. At all events, I must have been a sore temptation for any evil disposed Fuzzy Wuzzy; for, owing to my camel being badly galled by an ill-fitting saddle, I would find myself for many hours entirely alone picking my way by the light of the moon, the poor brute I was riding not being able to keep pace with the rest. All the following day our route lay over stony plains of a bolder type than any we had yet seen, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... like an old-time Indian council, but the picturesqueness was a good deal spoiled by the gingham shirts they wore, and the ill-fitting coats ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... of unkept lawns, overgrown with large wild flowers, and grass-covered avenues leading on the right to a distant mound, thickly dotted with ruins, and, on the left, to a small, tumbledown house with ill-fitting shutters. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... average American of the better class is not imbued with the sporting spirit. He wears it like an ill-fitting coat. I find a singular feature among the Americans in connection with their sports. Thus if something is known and recognized as sport, people take to it with avidity, but if the same thing is called labor or exercise, it is considered hard work, shirked and avoided. This is very cleverly ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... with one exception, were of that class of Americans who dressed in cheap imitations of fine clothes, are forever travelling, travelling,—taking the steamers not from preference, but because they are less costly than an all-rail route. The thin, listless men, in ill-fitting black clothes and shining tall hats, sat on the deck in tilted chairs hour after hour silent and dreary; the thin listless women, clad in raiment of many colors, remained on the fixed sofas in the cabin hour after hour, silent and weary. At meals they ate indiscriminately ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... Lively was canning some cherries which the doctor had taken in pay for a prescription. The air was filled with the mingled odor of the boiling fruit and of burning sealing-wax. The cans were acting with outrageous perversity, for they were second-hand and the covers ill-fitting. Her blood was almost up to fainting heat, and she was worried all over. She had to do all her preserving in a pint cup, as she expressed it in her contempt for the diminutive proportions of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... the sun-tinge which showed an out-of-doors life, was of that peculiar tint, neither blond nor brunette, which is usually found with hair of that coppery hue, and the whole artistic head but crowned a form whose grace and roundness not even her ill-fitting gown ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... working-classes in France show to advantage. My friend noticed with admiration the well- stockinged, well-shod children, all having good strong shoes—stockings evidently bought or made for them, not the ill-fitting belongings of others, gifts of charity or bargains of the pawnshop. The men and women, too, are uniformly well shod, with strong, clean, home-knit stockings. Again, the implied sense of security in these unprotected ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... hanging down, and in petticoat-bodice, gaping at the neck, opened the door when she heard footsteps on the stairs, and slammed it to when she saw Christophe. There were several flats on each landing, and through the ill-fitting doors Christophe could hear children romping and squalling. The place was a swarming heap of dull base creatures, living as it were on shelves, one above the other, in that low-storied house, built round a narrow, evil-smelling yard. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... required long hours of study, but that was my delight. To make myself at home in an alien world was also within my talents; I had been practising it day and night for the past four years. To remain unconscious of my shabby and ill-fitting clothes when the rustle of silk petticoats in the schoolroom protested against them was a matter still within my moral reach. Half a dress a year had been my allowance for many seasons; even less, for as I did not grow ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... useful "properties." The background of his story is a Gothic castle, singularly unenchanted it is true, but capable of being invested by Mrs. Radcliffe with mysterious grandeur. Otranto contains underground vaults, ill-fitting doors with rusty hinges, easily extinguished lamps and a trap-door—objects trivial and insignificant in Walpole's hands, but fraught with terrible possibilities. Otranto would have fulfilled admirably the requirements of ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... a shabby cap and an ill-fitting sweater which bulged in back as if something were being carried in the rear pocket. And there he stood, a poor little figure, heedless of the merry throngs that passed, his wistful gaze fixed upon a four-story ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... loudly, scolding and muttering to himself; but Ulrich listened with sparkling eyes to the sounds that came through the ill-fitting door, by which he could hear what was passing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... plain, picturesque enough in summer with the green alders overhanging the babbling beck, but in winter bitter chill. In this dreary house of machines, the place of the ousted wheels and springs was taken by ninety hungry, growing little human beings, all dressed alike in the coarse, ill-fitting garments of charity, all taught to look, speak, and think alike, all commended or held up to reprobation according as they resembled or diverged from the machines whose room they occupied and whose regular, thoughtless movement was the model of ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... crumblings, shake-downs, and shrinkages were seldom noticed by the passer-by. The old adage that a well-brushed hat, a clean collar, polished shoes, and immaculate gloves—all terminal details—make the well-dressed man, no matter how shabby or how ill-fitting his intermediate apparel, applied, according to Todd's standards, to houses as well as Brummels. He it was who soused the windows of purple glass, polished the brass knobs, rubbed bright the brass knocker and brass ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... up the lamp and crept down the narrow passage to the door of the back kitchen. His loud, even breathing sounded distinctly through the crannies of the ill-fitting door. Surely it was overloud. She listened to it. She could hear nothing else. Was his breathing a pretence? She opened the door noiselessly, and went in, shading the light ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... at his home, in an unmistakably ill-fitting suit of clothes and accompanied by a Chinaman, equally badly dressed, he caused great surprise to his family. If he had returned dressed in 'fear-noughts' and a jersey, or even in 'oilies,' they would not have been ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... girl, watching her, was at a loss to account for the reckless radiance of her smile. The sunshine flickered down between the branches on the sweet pink and white face, the pansy blue eyes, and long slender throat; it shone alike on the ill-fitting gown, the clumsy shoes, the carelessly arranged hair. Cornelia's golden eyes travelled up and down, down and up, in earnest, scrutinising fashion. She met Elma's glance with a shake of the head, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... come forward and sing—songs not always strictly adapted to the family circle, perhaps. But the favorite vocalist is a comic man, who emerges from behind the scenes in a grotesquely exaggerated costume—an ill-fitting, long, green calico tail-coat, with a huge yellow bandana dangling from a rear pocket; a red cotton umbrella with a brass ring on one end and a glass hook on the other; light blue shapeless trousers; a flaming orange—colored vest; a huge standing collar, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... was roused by the opening of the door, and, glancing up, beheld John Peterby. A very different person he looked from the neat, well-groomed Peterby of a week ago, what with the rough, ill-fitting clothes he wore and the fur cap pulled low over his brows; the gentleman's gentleman had vanished quite, and in his stead was a nondescript character such as might have been met with anywhere along the River, or lounging in shadowy corners. He carried a bundle beneath one arm, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... boys. His bestial face was drawn, and his eyes were red-rimmed for lack of sleep. The long whip, with the fourteen-foot stock and the lash of twenty-three feet, had not smacked for a long time; the sjambok had not been used upon the long-suffering wheelers. Huddled up in his ill-fitting clothes of tan cord, he sat on the waggon-box and slept, his head nodding, his elbows on his knees. He was dreaming of the bad Cape brandy that had been in the bottle, and would be, with luck, again, when the waggon reached a tavern or ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... as the "creature" had just transferred the last potato to his own plate, stabbing it with his knife for that purpose) was a quaint representation of a mournful-looking couple, clad in singularly ill-fitting aprons of fig-leaves. The man was digging with a spade, while the woman sat at a spinning-wheel placed dangerously near the edge of the deep ditch which her husband had already dug. Round the edge ran an inscription, which, after some study, Hilda ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... all sides of his head, and the sun behind him shone in it like a glory, just as when first he appeared to Ginevra in the peat-moss, like an angel standing over her. Indeed, while to Miss Kimble and the girls he was "a mad-like object" in his awkward ill-fitting clothes, made by a village tailor in the height of the village fashion, to Ginevra he looked hardly less angelic now than he did then. His appearance, judged without prejudice, was rather that of a sailor boy on shore than a shepherd boy from ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... inverted pots for hats, the same size all the way up, and the shoes that seemed to be made of sole leather, and which scraped the skin off the ankles. O, if this government ever does go to Gehenna, as some people contend it will, sometime, it will be as a penalty for issuing such ill-fitting shoddy clothing to its brave soldiers, who never did the government any harm. I carried the lot of clothing to my tent, feeling sick and faint. The idea of wearing them among folks was almost more than I could bear to think of. I laid them on my bunk, and looked at them, and "died ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... person. Her size was truly heroic; she would have been grotesque, ridiculous, except for a certain youthful plasticity and a suggestion of tremendous vigor and strength that gave her dignity. Her ample, ill-fitting dress failed to hide the fact that her robust body was ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... not the same. He now was in stiff, ill-fitting and exclaimingly new clothing. A new dark hat oppressed his perspiring brow, new and pointed shoes agonized his feet, a new white collar and a tie tortured his neck. He had been owner of these things no longer than overnight. He did not feel ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... positive and negative, density and potential, to be measured in ohms (whatever they may be), and partially imitated with Leyden jars and red sealing-wax apparatus. Why, did not Benjamin Franklin, a fat old gentleman in ill-fitting small clothes, bring it down from the clouds with a simple door-key, somewhere near Philadelphia? and does not Mr. Robert Scott (of the Meteorological Office) calmly predict its probable occurrence within the next twenty-four hours in his daily report, as published regularly in the morning papers? ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... would increase the cost, without adding to the capacity or usefulness, but the proportions should be satisfactory, the arrangement convenient, the materials the very best of their kind, and the workmanship well and faithfully performed. Rough work, open joints, ill-fitting ventilators, ill-proportioned plans and forms, and a general tumble-down appearance, is not the kind of economy we should recommend to our readers or practice on our own place. One may choose between wood and masonry ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... gracefully. His light amber-colored gloves fitted him perfectly. His obedient servant, on another magnificent horse, waited behind him. He looked the impersonation of rank and breeding—of wealth and prosperity. What a contrast, in a woman's eyes, to the shy, pale, melancholy man, in the ill-fitting black clothes, with the wandering, uneasy glances, who stood beneath him, and felt, and showed that he felt, his inferior position keenly! In spite of herself, the treacherous blush flew over Isabel's face, in Moody's presence, and with Moody's eyes ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... such as this! Pete fancied the inquiring looks turned from the man to the man's posted picture. It was no longer a faithful likeness, of course; still, it was a likeness. There was no other man in all the world like Hugh! He was made of odd, fantastic fragments, of ill-fitting parts—physically, mentally, spiritually. It was as if a soul had seen itself in a crooked mirror and had fashioned a form to match the distorted image. Hugh wouldn't, couldn't force himself to be inconspicuous. He would swagger; he would talk loud; his big, beautiful voice ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... lives in a ramshackle, two-story, rooming house near the banks of the Savannah River. She is an old Negress with iron gray hair and a gingercake complexion. Her ill-fitting old dress was none too clean, and her bare feet exposed toe nails almost a half-inch long. Fannie apparently hadn't a tooth in her head, but she was munching ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... and through these there emerged a moment after our halting a tall, thin man whose restless eyes surveyed us swiftly, whose thin-lipped mouth smiled a greeting to Messer Arcolano in the pause he made before hurrying down the steps with a slip-slop of ill-fitting shoes. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... with an ill-fitting suit, a straggling gray beard and a corpulent umbrella hopped from the conglomeration of cabs and street cars to the sidewalk at ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... y' are at last!" observed his spouse scornfully, and rattled on. Lawton nodded awkwardly, and perched himself on the edge of a chair. He had assumed an ill-fitting suit of store clothes, in which he unaccustomedly writhed, and evidently, to judge from the sleekness of his hair, had recently plunged his head in a pail of water. He said nothing, but whenever Mrs. Lawton was not looking he winked ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... never care to say very much, because it is not with me a wedding-garment, though I know an ugly or ill-fitting one when I see it, and can say, "Well tailored or dress-made!" in the more satisfactory circumstances. Moreover, Zola hardly enters himself for much competition here. There is none in the first two Apocalypses; Verite ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... no case for hesitation. Tam executed a doglike gambol on the turf, and proceeded to course up the burn ahead of the party, a vision of twinkling bare legs and ill-fitting Sunday clothes. The sedate Jock rolled down his sleeves, rescued a ragged jacket, and stalked in ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... had evidently dabbed on hastily was plainly visible upon her face; the round, soft arms were hidden beneath ill-fitting sleeves of some crapey material, the thought of which put my teeth on edge. I wished her intention had been stronger. Instead, relenting, she offered me her flowery cheek, which I saluted gingerly, the taste of it reminding me of ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... visited this earth: foreign devils: human-like beings, with pointed beards: good singers; one shoe ill-fitting—but with sulphurous exhalations, at any rate. I have been impressed with the frequent occurrence of sulphurousness with things that come from the sky. A fall of jagged pieces of ice, Orkney, July 24, 1818 (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., 9-187). They had ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... was he? Nowhere. He couldn't even understand what Mr. Snoop was saying. And when Mr. Snoop would stand on the hearth-rug with a cup of tea balanced in his hand, and discuss whether sex was or was not the dominant note in Botticelli, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown would be skulking in a corner in his ill-fitting dress suit. His wife would often catch with an agonized ear such scraps of talk as, "When I was first in the coal and wood business," or, "It's a coal that burns quicker than egg, but it hasn't the heating power of nut," or even in a low undertone the words, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... profoundly. I was delighted to see that Dr. Kayabashi, a man under thirty, and fresh from Tokiyo, and all the staff and students were in the national dress, with the hakama of rich silk. It is a beautiful dress, and assists dignity as much as the ill-fitting European costume detracts from it. This was a very interesting visit, in spite of the difficulty of communication ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... wi yo, Louie?' said Uncle Reuben, looking at her with some discomfort. He had just finished the delivery of a long grace, into which he had thrown much unction, and Louie's manners made but an ill-fitting Amen. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... other diseases concerning which the men should be instructed, but lack of space prevents further treatment of them. They should be taught the proper treatment of blistered feet, for they incapacitate a great many men; the chief causes are ill-fitting shoes and our old friend "uncleanliness." Shoes are the most important article of clothing of the infantryman; each man should have one pair well broken in for marching, and two other pairs. Socks should be soft, smooth and without holes—also clean. Further steps ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore her lanky, ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy would have dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long jade earrings, ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... moment to watch Bruce walk across the office and he noticed how he towered almost head and shoulders above the clerk at the desk: and he saw also, how, in spite of his ill-fitting clothes so obviously ready-made, he commanded, without effort, the attention and consideration for which, in his heart, Sprudell knew that he himself had to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... stumbled against him in passing. Livius drew away, his high forehead working with suspicion. The Ad-Visor's expression of blank apology, eked out with a bow and a grimace, belied the busy-working mind within. For, in the moment's contact, he had heard the crisp rustle of paper from beneath the ill-fitting coat. ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... stimulate. She submitted to this possibility, and waited for his coming, which began to seem unreasonably delayed. The door opened at last, and a tall, powerfully framed man of thirty-five or forty, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of gray Canada homespun appeared. He moved with a slow, pondering step, and carried his shaggy head bent downwards from shoulders slightly rounded. His dark beard was already grizzled, and she saw that his mustache was burnt ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and Merejkowsky in the window, and the bridges and the palaces and the square before the Alexander Theatre, and Elisseieff's the provision shop, and all the banks, and the shops with gloves and shirts, all looking ill-fitting as though they were never meant to be worn, and then the little dirty shops poked in between the grand ones, the shop with rubber goods and the shop with an Aquarium, gold-fish and snails and a tortoise, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... all harmless, the officer dropped his military preciseness as if it were an ill-fitting garment. He was the daintiest, handsomest wisp of a man I had ever set eyes on, and looked for all the world like an exquisite figure in Dresden china come to life. He could not have had much soldiering—the air and aroma of the London salon still hung closely around him—and he ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... self as a visible object, I surveyed my garmented being in mirrors and was trained to feel the "awfulness" of various other small boys who appeared transitorily in the smaller Park when Lady Ladislaw extended her wide hospitality to certain benevolent London associations. Their ill-fitting clothing, their undisciplined outcries, their slouching, their bad throwing and defective aspirates were made matters for detestation in my plastic mind. Those things, I was assured, placed them outside the pale of any ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... man, with white hair and large rimmed spectacles. His slightly stooped shoulders were draped in an ill-fitting, though immaculate, frock coat, and a shiny silk hat added to the incongruity of his garb in an ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... career. In many cases it will be a method of living to which he is totally unsuited. But once he is embarked on it the clogs are about his feet, and it is hard to break away and begin all over again. And this ill-fitting of men to jobs may not even embrace so wide a divergence as that between one kind of activity and business and another. A young man may be in the right business for him, and yet in the wrong department of it. In any case, the result is the same. ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... watch for it, and summon it suddenly, authoritatively, on the spot. No plan, no sketch, no rough model; no ready-made shoe ill-fitting the unexpected. They plunge headlong into the dark. To turn to immediate and rapid profit any circumstance that can aid him is the quality which distinguishes the able scoundrel, and elevates the villain into the demon. To ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... them, tattered or ill-fitting clothing, taken at random when the first supply of this character arrived, their heads covered with thin shawls or calico sun shades. They stand there in the chilly morning wind that blows through the valley along the mountains, patiently waiting their turn at the provision ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... little low wooden structure had been carefully closed for hours. It has happened to me more than once, on getting up in the morning, to find my clothes, which had been laid on a chair beneath my bedroom window overnight, completely covered by powdered snow, drifting in through the ill-fitting casement. This same window was within a couple of feet of my bed, and between me and it was neither curtain nor shelter of any sort. Of a winter's evening I have often been obliged to wrap myself up in a big Scotch maud, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... a look—as there was evidence in his walk also—of his being tired from prolonged exertion or endurance. He was decently, though not expensively, clad in black cloth, his three-cornered felt hat, wide-skirted coat, and ill-fitting knee-breeches, being all of the same solemn hue. I was to perceive later that his clothes were old and carefully mended. His gray silk stockings ill accorded with his poor shoes, of which the buckles were of steel. He carried in ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... passed examined the wheels of Christina as long as the dogs allowed it to do so. Each flock was followed by two men, and sometimes a child in ill-fitting clothes on a pony, and sometimes a woman with ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... to begin with—and their dress! It was chiefly made by their own sewing machine, with the assistance of the Bourne Parva mantua-maker, superintended by Jane, 'to prevent her from making it foolish'; and the effect, I grieve to say, is ill-fitting dowdiness, which becomes grotesque from their self-complacent belief that it displays the only graceful and sensible fashion in the place. It was laughable to hear them criticising every hat or costume they have seen, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... glad to see everybody, asking about everybody's friends, and trusting that everybody was well. Colonel Richard M. Johnson was also to be seen at all public gatherings, looking, in his scarlet waistcoat and ill-fitting coat, not as the killer of Tecumseh, but as the veritable Tecumseh himself. Mr. Webster was seldom seen at public parties, but Messrs. Clay and Calhoun were generally present, with the foreign Ministers and their suites, who were the only ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... however, easily discerned from the true Priest. Should one of them ever appear before the Father of the faithful in these ill-fitting robes the venerable Pontiff would exclaim, with the Patriarch of old: "The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." I feel the garment of the Priest, but I hear the voice of ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... My mother sometimes wept when I was rebuked. Perhaps she was disappointed in me. But she had no power to make things better. I felt that I was a beast of burden, fed only in order that I might be useful; and the dull life irked me like an ill-fitting harness. There was nothing ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... that Annie Eustace, little Annie Eustace, who had worshipped at her own shrine, whom she had regarded with a lazy, scarcely concealed contempt, for her incredible lack of wordly knowledge, her provincialism, her ill-fitting attire, should have achieved a triumph which she herself could never achieve. A cold hatred of the girl swept over the woman. She forced her lips into a smile, but ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the flat, fleshy nose; the indeterminable, mask-like expression; all were faithfully reproduced by the celebrated academician—and humorist—who had executed the painting. Soft black hat, flat black tie, and ill-fitting frock coat might readily have been identified by the respectable but unfashionable tradesmen patronised ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... scrutiny to the little knots of volunteers who had sauntered in to pick up points. To the former it looked odd and out of gear to see the forage-caps and broad white stripes of commissioned officers mingling with the slouch hats and ill-fitting nether garments of the rank ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... of the man he found in the drawing-room stopped him rather short. Anthony March had taken off the ill-fitting khaki blouse and the sleeves of his olive-drab uniform shirt were rolled up above the elbows. He was sitting sidewise on the piano bench, his left hand on the keyboard, his right making imperceptible ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... incontestably of the class described by a witty writer to whom "a lace petticoat is as much a badge of infamy as a cigarette on the stage." The German proletariat cannot be susceptible to externals, else the universal sad-coloured skirt, the ill-fitting blouse and the ugly hat worn by his women-folk could not find favour in ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... new, ill-fitting gloves, With frocks as white as snow, By two and two these little loves ...
— Children of Our Town • Carolyn Wells
... the procession had been met and passed. It consisted entirely of elderly gentlemen in ill-fitting khaki, clumping along upon their flat feet and smoking clay pipes. They carried shovels on their shoulders, and made not the slightest response when called upon by the soldierly old corporal who led them to give Mr. Cockerell "eyes left!" On the contrary, engaged as they ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... until she carried it into her dreams with her, could not have shared it with Natalie. It was a dream already, to be wondered at and forgotten by daylight, as she stared across the schoolroom at Neil, not a romantic figure at all with his ill-fitting suit and his tumbled hair; forgotten until the next moment like it came—next in a lengthening series of dream pictures, of moonlight and candlelight and faintly heard music, a secret too sweet to share, ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... be taught to rise in the morning and not to lie in bed after waking up, because it is largely owing to this habit that the secret vice is contracted. One of the common causes of premature excitement in many boys is a tight foreskin. It may cause much evil and ought always to be remedied. Ill-fitting garments often cause much irritation in children and produce unnatural passions. It is best to have boys sleep in separate beds and not have them sleep together if it can ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... the hotel keeper. At my first visit he had not made his appearance. From the out-house, after a long wait, a big lazy Dutch man came shuffling on in a very slovenly and ill-fitting gray suit, a black silk cap, a soiled shirt in place of the missing collar and tie, an open vest full of cigar ashes, a cigar in a paper holder in his mouth, and worn, flowered, green slippers on his feet. When after some little conflict with myself I finally looked into his face, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... relate her religious history. It appeared that she had been a much greater sinner than she looked, and that the mercy shown her had been proportionate. She was vain both of her sins and mercies, poor soul, and in her scrimp figure, with its ill-fitting uniform, Heaven knows how long she went on. I was distracted by a clergyman passing on the outside of the ring of listening women and children, and looking, I chose to think, somewhat sourly askance at the distasteful ceremonial. I wished ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... thought of the destruction they could do. I felt as I used to feel about that infernal stallion that had killed a man with its teeth and feet, a despairing fear, a sense of monstrosity in life. And this creature who had so disturbed me was only a beastly snuffy little man in an ill-fitting frock-coat, who laid his knife and fork by their tips on the edge of his plate, and picked his teeth with gusto and breathed into my face as he talked to me. The commonest of representative men. I went about that Westphalian ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... for a few days. But not they. They spattered their limp, ill-fitting garments with jest, and soon they had produced a poem in praise of the change. These are the verses which a Belgian soldier, clad in his fresh yellow, sang to us as we grouped around ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... that when a gust came in around the ill-fitting windows, the flare of the torch-flames sounded loud as ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... in his odd, ill-fitting uniform of the Legion, tunic unbuttoned, collarless of shirt, his bright, thick hair, now of decent ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... twenty log houses, large barn-like stores, a Catholic chapel, an Episcopal mission, and a biggish residence of pretence for the chief trader. This is Fort Chipewyan. At certain seasons Indian tepees dot the surrounding plains; and bronze-faced savages, clad in the ill-fitting garments of white people, shamble about the stores, or sit haunched round the shady sides of the log houses, smoking long-stemmed pipes. These are the Chipewyans come in from their hunting-grounds; but for the most part the fort seems chiefly populated by regiments of husky ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... three men stepped over to the spot, but Tom, who did not dare to join them, stood just where he was, looking uncouth and out of place in the ill-fitting white duck jacket and blue peaked service cap which had been ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... day in October in an ill-fitting uniform, looking already coarser in fibre and with a nose scorched red by the autumnal sun. He said the life was rough, but it made him feel extraordinarily well; perhaps man was made to toil until ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... features were more decided than in the generality of Russian faces; he had a line of the jaw, a clean-shaven, sallow cheek; his nose was a ridge, and not a mere protuberance. He wore the hat well down over his eyes, his dark hair curled low on the nape of his neck; in the ill-fitting brown clothes there were sturdy limbs; a slight stoop brought out a satisfactory breadth of shoulders. Upon the whole I was not ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... people entered the chateau silently, handed their horses to a melancholy-looking groom, and directed their steps, conducted by a huntsman in black, to the great dining-room, where Mousqueton received them at the door. Mousqueton had become so thin in two days that his clothes moved upon him like an ill-fitting scabbard in which the sword-blade dances at each motion. His face, composed of red and white, like that of the Madonna of Vandyke, was furrowed by two silver rivulets which had dug their beds in his cheeks, as full formerly as they had become flabby since his grief began. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a tall fellow and well built, but his clothes, the majority of which his Aunties still fashioned, were always too small and very ill-fitting. They seemed to have a tendency to work up to his neck and they were all crowding to the top when he lurched forward and took ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... friction; for example, on the hands, from the use of various tools and implements, and on the feet from ill-fitting shoes. It is, indeed, often to be looked upon as an effort of nature to protect the more ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... of a member of the lower classes—of a mountebank, if you please—you reflected that the care you bestow upon your person might betray you. You foresaw the impression that would be caused when the coarse, ill-fitting boots you wore were removed, and the officials perceived your trim, clean feet, which are as well kept as your hands. Accordingly, what did you do? You poured some of the water that was in the pitcher in your cell on to the ground ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... washed from them almost all the colour. It added much to the strange unpleasantness of his appearance, that he wore a jet-black wig, so that to the unnatural came the untimely, and enhanced the withered. His mouth, which was full of false teeth, very white, and ill-fitting, had a cruel expression, and Death seemed to look out every time ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... quiet. The day had been bitter cold, and as it drew to a close it became colder still, and a fierce wind rose and whistled about the old house, shaking the ill-fitting windows and doors. But the sick man did not seem to hear it. Toward midnight he fell into a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... me as being a gentleman, yet his clothes seemed shabby and ill-fitting. Indeed, he had a shabby-genteel look, as though he were a bit down ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... black, and if Fanny had been a woman with the slightest sense of humor, she could not but have been amused at the picture which he presented in the revealing fire-light with his elfish and ape like body much too small to fill out the tattered and ill-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him and his rags, and at his motive ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... most uncouth and indecent to speak of the Almighty as if He were a servant or a slave." This difficulty of the verbal ornament of the East was one that the Bible Society had frequently met with in the past. It was rightly considered as ill-fitting a translation of the words of Christ. Simplicity of diction was to be preserved at all costs, whatever might be the rule with secular books. Mr Jowett had warned Borrow to "beware of confounding the two ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... that figure of an old woman who is said to have put by all her savings from the grocery business that she might appear properly in the Campo Santo, and who is shown there short and stout and common, in her ill-fitting best dress, but motherly and kind and of an undeniable ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... lighted up within—the day when she had said to her husband afterwards: "Ah, he's an angel!" Not yet a year—the beginning of last October term, in fact. He was different from all the other boys; not that he was a prodigy with untidy hair, ill-fitting clothes, and a clever tongue; but because of something—something—Ah! well—different; because he was—he; because she longed to take his head between her hands and kiss it. She remembered so well ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... day, Ebenezer Waldstricker met Lysander Letts, just back from Auburn, loitering along Buffalo Street near the Lehigh Valley station. The prison-pallor of the squatter's face and hands and the ill-fitting, cheap prison clothes on his big body made him conspicuous among the men on the street. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... home, they have no place in the outdoor life, and you will be freer if you discard the dress skirt when at camp and on the trail. Have your muscles free, be able to take in long, deep breaths, to move readily all portions of your body, and not be hampered in any way by ill-fitting, uncomfortable clothing. There must be unrestricted freedom of arms and limbs for a girl to be able to use them easily in climbing mountains or hills, scrambling over fallen trees, sliding over rocks, jumping from stone to stone, or from root to half-sunken log ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... fine air of indifference, but glancing apprehensively toward the crowd of women in the opposite corner that surround the bride, a pale little shop-girl with a pleading, winsome face. From somewhere unexpectedly appears a big man in an ill-fitting coat and skullcap, flanked on either side by a fiddler, who scrapes away and away, accompanying the improvisator in a plaintive minor key as he halts before the bride and intones his lay. With many a shrug of stooping shoulders and queer excited gesture, he drones, in the harsh, guttural ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... cold in the shed that his breath hung in the air like a little silvery cloud. There was a tiny window on his right, through which, when it was clear of frost, one looked on Terminaison; and that was cheerful, and made him whistle. But to the left, through the chink of the ill-fitting door, there was nothing to be seen but the forest, and the road ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... are not uncommon as the result of wearing tight, or ill-fitting shoes. Wherever possible, they should be quickly relieved from all compression, and should under no circumstances ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with linen tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over these for a while, semi-conscious of Quair's bantering voice and the girl's easily provoked ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... cassock and put away his hat, and, a ludicrous figure in ill-fitting black knee-breeches and a not very clean shirt, a red handkerchief round his neck, he proceeded to give great extravagant blows at the tree. He was like a caricature. In the doorway Maria was encouraging him rather jeeringly, whilst she winked at me. Marco was stifling his hysterical amusement ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... candle in a tin candlestick gave light to the two occupants of the room. One of these a woman sitting in a listless attitude before the grate, fireless now, although the evening was damp and chilly. She appeared strong, but just now was almost repulsive to look at as she sat there in her dirty ill-fitting gown, with her feet thrust out before her, showing her broken muddy boots. Her features were regular, even handsome; that, however, was little in her favour when set against the hard red colour of her skin, which told of habitual intemperance, and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... each his share of good things. He was a most good-natured, courteous old gentleman, although his costume consisted of nothing but a few bunches of ferns. The number of guests increased steadily; besides the real heathen in unadorned beauty, there were half-civilized Christians, ugly in ill-fitting European clothes, of which they were visibly vain, although they made blots on the beautiful picture of native life. All around the square grunted the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... cathedral this forenoon, and the whole family, except myself, sketched portions of it. Even Rosebud stood gravely sketching some of the inlaid figures of the pavement. As for me, I can but try to preserve some memorial of this beautiful edifice in ill-fitting words that never hit the mark. This morning visit was not my final one, for I went again after dinner and walked quite round the whole interior. I think I have not yet mentioned the rich carvings of the old oaken seats ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was a youth steeling himself against a natural repugnance to the dangerous profession he had espoused; and when, a moment later, he stepped out into the moonlight and crossed the lawn toward the house, the slender, graceful lines which the ill-fitting clothes could not entirely conceal carried the conviction of youth if not ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... evenings, when she "kept company" with Jake Crouthamel. "Chake," as Sibylla called him, was a sturdy, red-faced young farmer, all legs and arms. He appeared to be put together loosely at the joints, like a jumping-jack, and never appeared at ease in his ill-fitting "store clothes." He usually wore gray corduroy trousers and big cowhide boots, a pink and white striped ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... school-house improvement. She proved that the physical condition of the school-house was reflected in the physical condition of the children. For example, a poorly lighted and badly ventilated school-house always housed children with eye strain and nervous disorder, and in a school-house having ill-fitting desks were children of ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... the gold. She was dressed differently—perhaps in her ordinary every-day garments—a bright sprigged muslin, a chip hat with blue ribbons set upon a coil of luxurious brown hair. But what struck him most was that the girlish and diminutive character of the figure had vanished with her ill-fitting clothes; the girl that stood before him was of ordinary height, and of a prettiness and grace of figure that he felt would have attracted anywhere. Fleming felt himself suddenly embarrassed,—a feeling that was not lessened when he noticed that her pretty lip was compressed ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... contrast they presented,—the German, erect, well-poised, plainly a soldier in spite of his ill-fitting clothes; the American, lank and stomachless, yet taller than the other in spite of his bent shoulders. His tawny beard was guiltless of care. Of all his slack body only his eyes showed alertness as they looked sidewise from under ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... of the drama is yet under rehearsal; the actors are still running in and out of the green-room, and hastily shuffling on their new and ill-fitting dresses; but its general scope is not far to seek. At no distant day our once timid and tearful guest will be turning up her nose at the fare provided for her. "Give me no more youths to teach," she will say; "but pay me handsomely, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... anything but beautiful. Its appearance is a little unfamiliar, of course, but all the muddle of dust-collecting hangings and witless ornament that cover the earthly bedroom, the valances, the curtains to check the draft from the ill-fitting windows, the worthless irrelevant pictures, usually a little askew, the dusty carpets, and all the paraphernalia about the dirty black-leaded fireplace are gone. The faintly tinted walls are framed with just one clear colored line, as ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... with dressing the inspiration in its most appropriate harmonic, polyphonic, and rhythmic garments. These garments are the raiment in which the inspiration will be viewed by future generations. It is often by these garments that they will be judged. If the garments are awkward, inappropriate and ill-fitting, a beautiful interpretation of the composer's ideal will be impossible. Nevertheless, it is the performer's duty in each case to try to see through even unbecoming garments and divine the composer's thought, according to ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... Minn. She has more misery over an ill-fitting dress, an unshapely shoe, or an awkward glove, than you and I have in an age. I was born out of my sphere, I know I was; I ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... a conspicuous indifference. They wear anything from overalls and broad-banded sweaters to lounge suits that ever seem ill-fitting. In Winnipeg there is the same disregard for personal appearance plus a hat with a higher crown. As we went West the crown of the soft hat climbed higher, and the brim became both wider and ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... The unkempt hair that covered his face and through which his keen eyes glowed like fire, gave him an unusual and formidable aspect. In one hand he held the ugly-looking jemmy he had taken from the burglar, and the new clothes he had donned, ill-fitting and soiled, served to accentuate the ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon |
