"Curbstone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he had relied was gone. His credit was utterly destroyed, and he had no hope of being reinstated in his former position. The only way he could possibly be useful in the street was by becoming a curbstone broker, a go-between, trusted by neither borrower nor lender, and earning a precarious livelihood by commissions. Even in that position he felt that he should labor under disadvantages, for he knew that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... couldn't tell who we were under this top," Walter assured her as he brought the little car to a standstill beside the curbstone, out in the street. "What's it matter if ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... down the street, packed solid with husky detectives. Then he turned off and hurried down a side street. He managed to get a couple of blocks away, and then his nerves gave way entirely, and he sat down on the curbstone and began to cry—just the way little Jennie had cried when he told her he couldn't marry her! People stopped to stare at him, and one benevolent old gentleman came up and tapped him on the shoulder ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... to the crowd. I wish to tell the smug ones that we waste our lives in holding on to things that in our hearts we hold contemptible. I wish to tell the mob just why there are thirty thousand steady men out of work in this city: to do this I may take to the curbstone." ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... all of whom regarded the boy and the goose curiously, bewildered both the travellers. More than once, when Dan was sure Crippy was close at his heels, on looking around he would see the goose standing on one foot near the curbstone, looking sideways at the street much as if trying to decide whether he would continue to follow his master, or toddle back home as fast as his legs of unequal length ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... more tolerant, even in his wrath, than most men would have been, but he had disposed of his enemy effectually. The fellow lay stunned upon the ground. In his fall, he had cut his head upon the curbstone, and the blood streamed from the wound when his companions crowded near, and raised him. Owd Sammy Craddock offered no assistance; he leaned upon his stick, and looked ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... it, the literary incarnation of the 'eccentric' person, on the curbstone, is supposed to represent Mr. Moore at the present moment, Mr. Whistler thinks the likeness exaggerated—as it is absurd to suppose that Mr. Moore can really imagine that any one admires him in his late role before Interviewer, or in that of the ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... my outset in life was hard. I am without relations. Mother Marechal, a kind fruiterer of the Rue Pavee au Marais, found me one morning by the curbstone, rolled in a number of the Constitutionnel, like an old pair of boots. The good woman took me home, brought me up and sent me to college. I must tell you that I was very successful and gained a scholarship. I won all the prizes. Yes, and I had to sell ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... been allowed to climb up to its lowest branches, so that its green arms stirred the roses. Under the tree was a swing, and at the back of it a sort of thicket of lilacs and witch-elms; there was a round plot of grass, with a garden bench and a very small pool with a white curbstone round it and a fountain that did not play. The pool was full of aquatic plants and a few black newts were ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... too soon? Surely not. There stood a cab, drawn close to the curbstone, and there, in the shadow of the cab, stood a tall man in ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... into the library. He dropped in a chair with a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting the gas I was shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never saw such a look before. It was like a rat you've seen running along the gutter side of the curbstone ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... colours converged from various directions, making gayly for the thrilling gateway—and the most beautiful little girl in all the world, Marjorie Jones, of the amber curls, jumped from a carriage step to the curbstone as Penrod and Sam came ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... street. Like pigeons they would descend in a flock, here, there, everywhere; perching in a blissful row before the soda fountain in the drug store; or if the state of the public purse did not warrant this, the curbstone and the wares of the Candy Wagon were cheerfully substituted. By virtue no doubt of her long legs and masterful spirit, Virginia ruled the flock. Under her guidance they made existence a weariness to the several janitors on ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... throng, largely made up of toughs and roughs from the East Side, good-natured spectators who merely wanted to see this splendid prison, and a moving line of gentlemen and ladies who simply happened to be passing that way at this time. The curbstone was lined with a score of reporters of the city journals, each with his note-book. Every window and entrance was eagerly watched. It was hoped that one of the family might be seen, or that some servant might appear who could be interviewed. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is to find your "lead," for this precious metal is not found indiscriminately in every rock or ledge you may chance upon. It is found only in the quartz rock, a ledge of which, say twenty feet in thickness, may run like a curbstone set on edge for many miles across hills and in valleys. It may be a mile in depth, and maintain a nearly uniform thickness, being perfectly distinct from the casing rock on each side of it, and keeping its distinctive character always, no matter how deep ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... heard a strange, wild strain Sound high above the modern clamor, Above the cries of greed and gain, The curbstone war, the auction's hammer; And swift, on Music's misty ways, It led, from all this strife for millions. To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days Among the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... feebly to get away, but the boy held him with ease. Overcome, the man finally sat down on the curbstone ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... the night dark, and the street deserted. The gloomy silence was only disturbed at long intervals by the opening or shutting of a door, or by the distant tread of some belated pedestrian. Having at least twenty minutes to wait, Pascal sat down on the curbstone opposite the Hotel de Chalusse, and fixed his eyes upon the building as if he were striving to penetrate the massive walls, and see what was passing within. Only one window—that of the room where the dead man was lying—was lighted up, and he could vaguely distinguish the motionless form of a ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... bell and a boy on the curbstone whistled shrilly, but the dog refused to budge. He only rolled ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... Aberdeen. The day before the steamer sailed, they found themselves, about six o'clock, in Gracechurch Street. It was a fine summer evening. The street was less crowded than earlier in the afternoon, although there was a continuous stream of waggons, omnibuses, and cabs both ways. As they stood on the curbstone, a little way north of Lombard Street, waiting ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... hands again, but he avoided her gently and went out into the street. Wambush stood on the sidewalk a few yards from the door, one booted foot on the curbstone, the other on the ground. He had thrown his broad-brimmed hat on the ground, and tossed his long hair back over his shoulders. His left hand rested on his raised knee, his right was in the pocket of his ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Jane, a figurine in a plastic state and altogether disgraceful;—she came up out of the waters and stood before them with feet of clay, indeed; pedestaled upon the curbstone. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... window for what appeared to be hours, and yet they would not bring out the bags. What in the name of reason were they waiting for now? Then at last he detected the movement of shuffling footsteps; he heard voices—Ridgett's voice among the others; a wheel grated against the curbstone, and the cart rolled away. The sounds of the church clock chiming twelve mingled with the reverberations made by the horse's hoofs as the cart passed between the garden walls. Thank goodness, anyhow, they had got it off ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Rizal, hunted hard, attempted to escape in disguise on a Spanish troop ship carrying discharged soldiers to Spain, but was detected while on the Red Sea, returned to Manila and shot to death. I stood on the curbstone that borders the Luneta along the principal pleasure drive, between the whispering trees and the murmuring surf of the bay, just where the martyred poet and patriot waited and looked over the waters his eyes beheld, the last moment before the crash of the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... had gone to school in the morning, they had seen Larry's figure, as they passed along the street, stretched out full-length beneath the trees near the gutter curbstone; and when they returned, there he was still. They looked at him with curiosity; and some of the boys even paused beside him and bent over to see if he were sunstruck. He let them talk about him and discuss him and wonder at him as they ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... children had stopped on the curbstone in front of the house, shivering a little in the pale autumn sunshine, but laughing and pushing each other as they gathered closer around the man with the hand-organ. As the wheezy notes were ground out, the man unwound the rope that was coiled around his wrist, ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... year from that morning when the reader first saw the daylight breaking upon Stillwater, several workmen with ladders and hammers were putting up a freshly painted sign over the gate of the marble yard. Mr. Slocum and Richard stood on the opposite curbstone, to which they had retired in order to take in the general effect. The new sign read,—Slocum & Shackford. Richard protested against the displacement of its weather-stained predecessor; it seemed to him an act little short of vandalism; but Mr. Slocum was obstinate, and would have ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of the beautiful park to the south and, as they passed the tents of the commanding general, even though they kept their heads erect and noses to the front, their wary eyes glanced quickly at the unusual array of saddled horses, of carriages and Concord wagons halted along the curbstone, and noted the number of officers grouped about the gate. Ponchos and overcoat capes were much in evidence on every side as the men broke ranks, scattered to their tents to stow away their dripping arms and belts, and then came streaming out to stare, unrebuked, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... N. limit, boundary, bounds, confine, enclave, term, bourn, verge, curbstone^, but, pale, reservation; termination, terminus; stint, frontier, precinct, marches; backwoods. boundary line, landmark; line of demarcation, line of circumvallation^; pillars of Hercules; Rubicon, turning point; ne plus ultra [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... some practical use, and one finds cobblers, barbers, fortune-tellers and a multitude of small tradesmen carrying on a business in a jog, or niche in the wall, not as large as an ordinary bootblack's stand. Along the narrow sidewalks are seen many of these curbstone merchants. Some have their goods displayed in glass show-cases, ranged along the wall, where are exhibited queer-looking fancy articles of Chinese workmanship, of a cheap grade, all sorts of inexpensive ornaments for women and children's wear, curiously ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... cool the fever of their terrible fear, go on a strike. Let the horses of these fat aldermen, left all day in the court house alleyway without food and checked tight with head-check lines, go on a strike. Let the patient nags that stand all day by the curbstone and are plagued and annoyed by mischievous boys, go on a strike. In such a strike as any of these the Lord himself might condescend to take sides with the oppressed ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... college. In such communities there is little division into classes, as of rich and poor, educated and illiterate, well and obscurely born. On the steps of the court-house, in the post-office while the daily mail is sorted, in the corner drug store on Sundays, in lawyers' offices, on the curbstone,—wherever a group of men is assembled,—there is the freest talk on every possible subject; and the lives of men are open to their fellows as they cannot be in cities by reason of the mass or in country districts by reason of the solitude and the shyness which solitude breeds. Against Douglas there ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... difference whether the guests were "carriage company" or not, to quote good Mrs. McGuffey. Peter would not be Peter if he lived anywhere else, and Miss Felicia wouldn't be half so quaint and charming if she had received her guests behind a marble or brownstone front with an awning stretched to the curbstone and a red velvet carpet laid across the sidewalk, the whole patrolled by a bluecoat ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the string for the carriage to stop, as they had arrived at the corner of the street where he was to get out. The coachman drew up to the sidewalk and stopped. Mr. George opened the door and stepped out upon the curbstone, and then said, as he shut ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... which, as they walked along the road, on either side the fantastic shapes of the dripping, shivering bushes started forth, looking like the plants in an aquarium),—they went together to say farewell to the grave where he lay. They all three knelt on the narrow curbstone which surrounded the freshly turned patch of earth. They wept in silence; Olivier sobbed. Madame Jeannin mopped her eyes mournfully. She augmented her grief and tortured herself by saying to herself over and over again the words she had spoken to her husband the last time she had seen him ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... is attended by two classes of people—those who want to trade in horses, and those who don't; between them they manage to assemble a large crowd. There are always plenty of curbstone brokers, or intermediaries, who hang around the fair to negotiate purchases and sales. They have a way of conducting trades by drawing their long sleeves over their hands, and making or receiving bids by means of the concealed fingers. This mode of telegraphing is quite convenient when secrecy ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... at his doorsteps, a courtesy which went straight to Harrington's heart, for, as he expected would be the case, his wife and son Tesla were looking out of the window at the moment of his arrival and saw him dash up to the curbstone. His sturdy urchin ran out forthwith to inspect the mysteries of the huge machine. As it vanished down the street Harrington put an arm round Tesla and went to meet the wife ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... is," said Freddie, handing it over, as he and Flossie took their seats in the goat wagon. There was plenty of room for them and the red-haired driver. Other children on the block crowded to the curbstone and looked on with eager eyes as the Bobbsey twins started on their ride. Mrs. Bobbsey, talking with her friend in the darkened parlor, knew nothing of what was ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... which was so strange to me. In these quarters, evidently, people always talked so. Ascending the rise, we reached a large house on a corner. The greater part of the people who were walking along with me halted at this house. They stood all over the sidewalk of this house, and sat on the curbstone, and even the snow in the street was thronged with the same kind of people. On the right side of the entrance door were the women, on the left the men. I walked past the women, past the men (there were several hundred of them in all) and halted where the line came to an end. The ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... and dizzy, and drops of blood began to trickle from a great cut on his forehead. The man saw it, too, and had him up in a minute; but he could n't stand, and stared about him in a dazed sort of way, as he sat on the curbstone, while Polly held her handkerchief to his forehead, and pathetically begged to know ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... the Living Water. She forgot her old thirst. She forgot the errand that brought her to the well. She left the empty water pot by the curbstone and bounded away like a happy child into the city. She is under the compelling power of a marvelous discovery. She has a story infinitely too good to keep. And in spite of the fact that her past had been a shameful and sordid past—she would not let it close her lips. She gave her testimony, and ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... sighed Lizzie, as she picked herself up, bruised, wet, and faint with pain; "but, oh, my heart! won't Madame scold when she sees that band-box smashed flat," groaned the poor child, sitting on the curbstone to get her breath ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... I was stepping into the roadway, the drunken man collided heavily with a telephone pole, caught clumsily at it to save himself, and fell, striking his head on the curbstone and rolling into the gutter. It was a case for the Good Samaritan, and, as it happened, that time-honored personage was at hand. Before I could edge away, as I confess I was trying to do, a clean-cut young man in the fatigue uniform of the Church militant came striding ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... very many the whole year passes without neighbors meeting for a common social experience. This is why people move to the city, because every city, great and small, has in the course of the year some events which bring all the people to the curbstone. Country life has few such times and therefore it is dull, because the richest experience of mankind is the experience of common social joy. The best recreation is acquaintance and conversation. The farmer's son spends many hours ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... approached Broadway from a side-street, hastening to headquarters, the Hibernian firebrand and his supposed ally stood on the curbstone, A moment later Merwyn struck his companion such a powerful blow on the temple that he fell in the street, almost in front of the officers of the law. The young fellow then sprung upon the stunned and helpless man, and took ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... "first field," Captain Muggs displayed his extraordinary knowledge of tactics. He it was who first discovered the method of "dressing" a line, by backing it up against a curbstone. He also divested military science of many pedantic terms, which tend only to confuse the young conscript, and dampen the military ardor of the patriot soldier. He substituted the brief and soldierly words of command, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... surface. brenal briery or brambly ground. bribon m. rascal. brillante brilliant. brillar to shine. brillo brilliancy. brindar to toast (with wine), vr. to offer. brindis m. toast. brisa breeze. brocal m. curbstone of a well. brotar to germinate, break out. bruma haziness, mist. buenamente easily, by fair means. buenaventura fortune-telling. bueno good. buey m. ox. buitre m. vulture. bullicioso noisy. buque m. vessel. burgomaestre burgomaster. burla ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... for a matter of five years and yet he had never recovered from the habit of turning out for every pedestrian he met, giving the other man the right of way instead of holding to his own half of it, sometimes stepping in puddles of water to do so and not infrequently being edged off the curbstone by ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... off, tucking my note to Mrs. Wesley inside the leather belt buckled tightly around his waist. I lingered a moment on the curbstone, and looked after him with a sensation of mingled pride, amusement, and curiosity. That was my Family; there it was, in that broad back and those not ungraceful legs, striding up Sixth Avenue, with its noble intellect intent on thoughts of breakfast. I was ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... pulling him forward from under the noses of two enormous sleepy-headed cart-horses. He skipped wildly out of the way and up on the curbstone with a purely instinctive precision; his mind had nothing to do with his movements. In the middle of his leap, and while in the act of sailing gravely through the air, he continued ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... of my route, till I came to a puzzling corner. There I stopped, utterly bewildered by the tangle of streets, the roar of traffic, the giddy swarm of pedestrians. With the precious manuscript tightly clasped, I balanced myself on the curbstone, afraid to plunge into the boiling vortex of the crossing. Every time I made a start, a clanging street car snatched up the way. I could not even pick out my street; the unobtrusive street signs were lost to my unpractised sight, in the glaring confusion of store signs and advertisements. If ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... as we do not find that he was advanced to any other public post on his return, than the post at the corner of the Haymarket, where he officiated as assistant-waterman to the hackney-coach stand. Seated, in this capacity, on a couple of tubs near the curbstone, with a brass plate and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ankles curiously enveloped in haybands, he is supposed to have made those observations on human nature which exercised so material an influence ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Maori on the curbstone, looking a horrible tatterdemalion as he stands there in the scantiest and wretchedest of European rags, offering peaches and water-melons for sale. Him and his proffered wares the chief waves off with aristocratic hauteur, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Sh! if you ventured to meddle with any question supposed to involve a doubt of the generally accepted Hebrew traditions. To-day such questions are recognized as perfectly fair subjects for general conversation; not in the basement story, perhaps, or among the rank and file of the curbstone congregations, but among intelligent and educated persons. You may preach about them in your pulpit, you may lecture about them, you may talk about them with the first sensible-looking person you happen to meet, you may write magazine articles about them, and the ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he did escape, we are assured. For one morning he eludes the grumpy officer, and sidles out among his Italian neighbours who were permitted to land. See him genuflecting now, to kiss the curbstone and thank Allah that he is free. But before he can enjoy his freedom, before he can sit down and chuckle over the success of his escapade, he must bethink him of Khalid. He will not leave him to the mercy of the honourable Agents of the Law, if he can help it. Trachoma, he knows, is a hard ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... accompanied by a suite of small boys who have kindly resolved to see him through any further adventures that may await his progress. The Cabman remains to discuss the affair at great length on the curbstone. The Policeman paces slowly on, conscious that he has worthily maintained the dignity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... carriage to the front entrance, thus screening guests from the crowd that usually gathers on such an occasion. A carpet should also cover the steps and walk to protect the ladies' gowns. A manservant in evening dress and white lisle gloves should be at the curbstone to assist ladies, who may have come unattended, in alighting, (providing they have no footman). He also provides each party with the number of their carriage, giving the same to the driver, in order that he may be ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... going back to Julia's party was unendurable, yet a return was necessary on account of his new hat, the abandonment of which he did not for a moment consider. But about half way, as he walked slowly along, he noticed an old horse-block at the curbstone, and sat down there. He could hear the music at Julia's, sometimes loud and close at hand, sometimes seeming to be almost a mile away. "All right!" he said, so bitter had he grown. "Dance! Go ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow toward the house, but the other was incredulous, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris |
