"Ell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 other masters.' . . . And ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... to the front porch, and as she stood on the lower step looking up at him, the sunshine suddenly filled her eyes with limpid brown light. "Maggie is in her room in the ell—the first door on the left. Shall I show ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... 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 ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... breaks and blows, Still breaks and blows, still gleams and glows, 'Mid icy blasts, and wintry snows, The Golden Rose still breaks and blows;— Search w ell ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... enough to take care of the wench when thy mother was ill; there was reason for that. And the child is a nice child enough, when she is not cross; but still there are some folks, it seems, who, if you give them an inch, will take an ell. Where's Bessy, that she can't mind her ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... practice behind us, Jonah and I could thrust through traffic, happy enough with an odd inch to spare. Naturally enough, Berry had no such confidence. An inch was of no use to him. He must have a good ell, and more also, before he would enter a gap. In the trough of a narrow street he laboured heavily.... There was no doubt about it. The towns through which we should have to pass on Wednesday would settle our chances. My money was as good ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... gradually increased to the size of my wrist in the middle, and then as gradually decreased till it terminated in a point again at the contrary extreme; all which spiral, if it were fairly extended in length, might be a yard or an ell long. I surveyed this strange vegetable very attentively; it had a rind, or crust, which I could not break with my hand, but taking my knife and making an opening therewith in the shell, there issued ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... a fresh-faced lad chirps up: "T' 'ell wif yer Lonnon an' yer whuskey. Gimme a jug o' cider on the sunny side of a 'ay rick in old Surrey. Gimme a happle tart to go wif it. Gawd, I'm fed ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... sly 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 from her shell, Came fatigued with the distance, the length of an ell. ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne
... legs were but a finger lang, And thick and nimble was his knee; Between his brows there was a span, Between his shoulders ell-es three. ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... their design to the King, who gathering together his army returned with them to the city. Presently the Architects and Master-masons fell to building it square of corners and towering in air over the height of an hundred ells and an ell; and amiddlemost thereof stood a quadrangular hall with four-fold saloons, one fronting other, whilst in each was set apart a cabinet for private converse. At the head of every saloon a latticed window projected over the garden whereof the description shall follow ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... looked at the card, "some of them shall bite dust for that! As for Le Gardeur, poor boy, overlook his fault—pity him, forgive him. He is not so much to blame, Pierre, as those plundering thieves of the Friponne, who shall find that La Corne St. Luc's sword is longer by half an ell than is good for ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 'ell...." he began, but I managed to silence him. Once accustomed to the gloom, his eyes took in the strangeness of the situation and, painfully swallowing the foul nausea of his drunk, he calmly and quietly ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... "What 'n 'ell do you want to butt in for while the show's on? Go round front." She caught a glimpse of disordered scenery, and before he could slam the door in her face thrust a silver dollar into his hand, at the same time wedging herself into the opening. He pocketed the coin and the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... 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
... belly thick in the middle, yellow, like gold, having many bristles on his back like a hedgehog. After him came Cannagosta, being white and grey mixed, exceeding curled and hairy; he had a head like the head of an ass, and a tail like a cat, and claws like an ox, lacking nothing of an ell broad. Then came Anobis: this devil had a head like a dog, white and black hair; in shape like a hog, saving that he had but two feet—one under his throat, the other at his tail; he was four ells long, with hanging ears like a blood-hound. After ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... desaved 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 ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... was a long, low, rambling house, with wide, hospitable verandas embowered in half-tropical vines. It had evidently started out as a one-roomed, Spanish 'adobe,' and, as the needs of the family demanded it, an ell had been added here, a room there, like cells in a bee-hive, until now it covered a good deal of territory, still keeping its ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... his word about Mr. Raeburn," said the cook in an injured voice. "And last Sunday when I went to the minister to show my lines, he said a member ought to be ashamed to take service with a hatheist and that I was in an 'ouse of 'ell. Those was his very words, miss, an ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... 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 ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... shipmate was talking again. "Hi 'eard 'im sy in the Knitting Swede's 'ow 'e was shipping in this ship just to ryse 'ell." ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... the condition being expressed by placing the verb first, without si. Cf. Verg, Aen. 6. 31 'Partem opere in tanto, sineret dolor, Icare, haberes'; or in English such forms as 'Give him an inch, he will take an ell'. ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... "How'n 'ell did he git here—the doctor?" he demanded, making a great effort to hold his voice down to a whisper, and forgetting now and then. "How'd he know Brit rolled off'n the grade? Us here, we never knowed it, and I was tryin' to send him back when you came. He said somebody telephoned there ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... remarked Jack Willis, a fine stalwart young fellow of some five-and-twenty. "It was my first year at sea. I'd been bound apprentice to the skipper of a collier brig called the Nancy, sailing out of Harwich. The skipper's name was Daniell, 'Long Tom Dan'ell' they used to call him because of his size. He was so tall that he couldn't stand upright in his cabin, and he'd been going to sea for so many years that he'd got to be regular round-shouldered. I don't believe that man ever knowed what ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... dead; his soul to heav'n God bare. That Emperour to Rencesvals doth fare. There was no path nor passage anywhere Nor of waste ground no ell nor foot to spare Without a Frank or pagan lying there. Charles cries aloud: "Where are you, nephew fair? Where's the Archbishop and that count Oliviers? Where is Gerins and his comrade Gerers? Otes the Duke, and the count Berengiers And Ivorie, and Ive, so dear they were? What is become of Gascon ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... 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 from ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... cnawdol ond unwaith a hynny 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 lxi. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... and flashed his light about, to find that a very few feet below was an ell roof, and he just caught a glimpse of the fugitive letting himself over the edge, probably to drop into a yard below and so make his way ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... springy footsteps on the elastic wooden walk. Already men had noted that quick, alert, soldierly gait of the new officer. But "shut up" was repeated when audible murmurs were made. "There's more fellows a-horseback up yonder. Who in 'ell's out to-night?" queried the citizen with the keenest ears. "Jimmy, boy, run up there and ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... amid the cries of the sorcerer directed towards the sunrise, and the diligent sprinkling of milk for the benefit of the Spirits of the Air. The flesh is eaten, but the skeleton with a part of the fat is burnt on a turf altar erected on four pillars of an ell and a half high, and the skin, with the head and feet, is then hung up in the way practised by the Buraets." (Sammlungen, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... them, cases of books. At the far end of the room, toward the rear of the house, was another door. Duvall stole over to it, listened carefully, then slowly opened it and looked within. The room proved to be the doctor's private office, and he saw at once that it was built in a sort of ell, and could not be entered except through the room in which he stood. There was a door, it is true, in the right-hand wall, which had once given entrance to the hall, but against this a heavy instrument case, with glass ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... "We-ell, he did say the best way for me to avoid all possibility of being involved in the thing was ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... I was not satisfied so easily and many more peaceful moments I would have had if I had never pried further as I did. After all, I only asked one question and that early the next morning. In the house next to ours a brick ell was built way out to the alleyway along half the yard. The kitchen windows looked out on the passage. There was a maid in that house,—a second girl, as they call them in this country,—and I knew she was a great person for staying up late, telling her own fortune with ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... that degree of levity as to turn into all their shapes without discrimination; so as when 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 we to do with these foreign butterflies? In God's name, let the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... aune, ell), the official supervision of the shape and quality of manufactured woollen cloth. It was first ordered in the reign of Richard I. that "woollen cloths, wherever they are made, shall be of the same width, to wit, of two ells within the lists, and of the same ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the bottom of ''Ell's Mouth'!" shrieked Eli. "You thrawed un there; but you shall suffer, Jack Fraddam. Ef mawther es a witch, I be a wizard, and you shall suffer wuss than the darkness of thicky plaace. I ded love Jasper, he was kind to me, he was. He loved me, he ded. He tooked little Eli round with un, he ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... with my Nivernois hat can compare, Bag-wig and laced ruffles, and black solitaire, And what can a man of true fashion denote, Like an ell of good riband ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... is the piece of Genoa velvet Dame Margery looked out yesterday for her mistress's wedding-suit? I do bethink me it is a good ell too long at ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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
... 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 ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... "We-ell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what Corkran's appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Franklin, of fourscore years, President of Pennsylvania, had finished a long, three-story ell to his house on Market Street, and in this ell he had caused to be made a library which filled his heart with pride. He had invented a long arm with which to take down books from the high shelves of this library—an invention which came into use in other libraries in such a way ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... was o'er That she had thus the dire return received, And saved the man for whom her bosom grieved. So much emotion William seemed to feel, No grace he gave, but all performed with zeal; Retaliated ev'ry way so well, He measure gave for measure:—ell for ell. How true the adage, that revenge is sweet! The plan he followed clearly was discrete; For since he wished his honour to repair:— Of any better ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... not," Racey contradicted, quickly. "We was talking about a job here in Fort Creek County. T'ell with Arizona." ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... enough. A "mighty big head," or an abnormally thick head and neck, is in Germany deemed sufficient credentials from Fairyland; while in a case from Lapland, where the hand and foot grew so rapidly as to become speedily nearly half an ell in length and the child was unable to learn to speak, whereas she readily understood what was said to her, these deviations from the course of nature were looked upon as conclusive evidence.[75] A reputed changeling shown ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... word Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women of Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear poulaines." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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 ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... 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 strange to the place; but a glance into grandmother's ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... rather abruptly at a side door of the dark-red pile of building which boasted the illuminated tower-clock and a jutting ell with barred windows. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... whole sheet, besides seventeen etched pieces, eight quarter- sheets, and ten wood-cuts, seven of the bad woodcuts, two books, and ten small wood "Passions," the whole for 8 florins. Also I exchanged three large books for one ounce [ell of?] camlet. I changed a Philip's florin for expenses and my wife likewise changed ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... "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
... the lead. Firs, &c., have also been planted in the wet and bad parts of most of the other enclosures, and succeed. The nurseries we have in cultivation are the Bourts, 161 acres; Yew-tree Brake, about 5 acres; Ell Wood, 11 acres; and about 26 in the Vallets, or middle, and Sallow Vallets Nurseries, previously occupied by Mr. Driver. In these there are now about four millions of young oaks, three, two, and one year old, and about 600,000 firs and other trees of ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... all his own, Because by deeds like his with whom he came, He weens the mob expects to see him known. So that it now behoves his valour flame More clear than light, or they, to censure prone, — Errs he a finger's breadth — an inch — will swell His fault, and of that inch will make an ell. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... house need not be so expensive; one big dining-room, with turn-up tables like those ironing-board seat-tables, you know—then they can dance there. Small reception room and office, hall, kitchen and laundry, and thirty bedrooms, forty by thirty, with an "ell" for the laundry, ought to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Blanc on visiting England was very indignant at the representation of his countrymen on the London stage: he describes how, "Two actors came in, one dressed in the English manner very decently, and the other with black eye-brows, a riband an ell long under his chin, a big peruke immoderately powdered, and his nose all bedaubed with snuff. What Englishman could not know a Frenchman by this ridiculous picture?... But when it was found that the man thus equipped, being also laced down every seam of his coat, was nothing but ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... over the basement kitchen, jutted in an ell off the rear of the house so that from the back parlor it was not difficult to precede the immediate overhead response to that bell. A black-faced genii of the bowl and weal, in a very dubiously white-duck coat thrust on hurriedly over clothing reminiscent of the day's window washing and ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... thought the monks. They knew well enough what the thin 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
... only your inside girlhood that died," insisted Patty stoutly, "The outside is as fresh as the paint on Uncle Barty's new ell. You've got the loveliest eyes and hair in Riverboro, and you know it; besides, Ivory Boynton would tell you so if you didn't. Come and bore my ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... do better next time. Honest to God, I will. That's enough for today. Just let's love now. T'ell with the rest." ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... '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 ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... Abbott. "And mind you, Rachel! if you pull yourself forth, you'll find your gown in rags by the time you're at home. I do hope, neighbour, you deal not with Simpkinson, in the Strand; that rogue sold me ten ells of green stamyn, and charged me thirty shillings the ell, and I vow it was scarce made up ere it began a-coming to bits. I'll give it him when I can catch him! and if I serve not our Seth out for dinting in the blackjack last night, I'm a Dutch woman, and no mistake! Black jacks are half-a-crown apiece, and so I told ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... do any such thing," replied Polly; "and I think that quite enough has been settled for one morning. It's give an inch and take an ell with ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... to the effect that the Neapolitan eats his spaghetti by a deft process of wrapping thirty or forty inches round the tines of his fork and then lifting it inboard, an ell at a time. This is not correct. The true Neapolitan does not eat his spaghetti at all—he inhales it. He gathers up a loose strand and starts it down his throat. He then respires from the diaphragm, and like ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... party looked with dread and loathing on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,—first, in his egotism, eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; secondly, in his cynical acceptance ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... go!' he cried dropping half a cup of boiling coffee down another chap's neck, as 'is smile broadened, 'it's a 'ell of a time ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... 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 that there is no eating it. Both fish and flesh ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... labors, as that the composer should neglect beat, measure and rhythm, in his effort to realize a well-developed and intelligible design in the whole, or any part, of his composition. The beats and measures and phrases are the barley-corn, inch and ell of the musical draughtsman, and without these units of measurement and proportion, neither the vital condition of Symmetry nor the equally important condition of well-regulated Contrast ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... Corps alone. Not that I'm doubting you're a plucky young feller enough, but you ain't up to that. It's nerve you want for it. Well, I wouldn't take it on myself, and I'm pretty well seasoned. Why, you 'ave to go calmly into the mouth of 'ell with supplies, over the open ground, when the Infantry's safe and snug in the trenches. You ain't strong enough ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... I., we find, "Mercatorum falsam ulnam castigavit adhibita brachii sui mensura." See also William of Malmsbury in Vita Hen. I., and Spelm. Hen. I. apud Wilkins, 299., who inform us, that a new standard of longitudinal measure was ascertained by Henry I., who commanded that the ulna, or ancient ell, which answers to the modern yard, should be made of the exact length of his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... own house at Amesbury is a plain white painted wooden house, consisting of an upright and ell, like many old-fashioned farm-houses, and surrounded by a picket-fence. It is roomy and comfortable, and the study is a very cosey and attractive place, with its open wood-fire and its well-filled book-shelves. One familiar with its appearance thus ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... table with his glass. "There was Willy's schooner tied up next to me, and 'e got a slant and slid away, while my boat busts 'er sides open on the reef, The 'ole blooming atoll was 'eaped with the blooming cargo. Willy 'ad luck; I 'ad 'ell. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... above 200 were killed in about an hour. The natives came boldly about them, while working ashore, having their faces painted, their only apparel being a covering of skin with the fur on, wrapped about their waists, and a kind of wreaths round their heads. Each man had a bow, about an ell long, and only two arrows. They even seemed to have some notion of military discipline, as they ranged their men in an orderly manner; and they gave sufficient proof of their agility, by stealing the admiral's hat from his head, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... seemed, would most certainly not have entered our heads. Nothing could be more dangerous than to begin to work with pickaxes in that particular part of the globe. Supposing while he was at work a break-up were to take place, and supposing the torrent once having gained an inch were to take an ell, and come pouring bodily through ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... thus. Common sense gave the inch of admitting some parts of the body to be less living than others, and philosophy took the ell of declaring the body to be almost all of it stone dead. This is serious; still if it were all, for a quiet life, we might put up with it. Unfortunately we know only too well that it will not be all. Our bodies, which seemed so living ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... inspected, and a special apartment connected with the kitchen, finished in hardwood, handsomely decorated, and hung with rich tapestries, was provided for the cook, in the vain hope that she might be induced permanently to occupy her position. The Queen Anne wing and Elizabethan ell were constructed, the latter to provide bowling-alleys and smoking-rooms for the probable cousins of possible culinary queens, and many there were who accepted the office with alacrity, throwing it up with still greater alacrity ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... cottage, containing four rooms, and a kitchen in the ell part. There was a plot of about a quarter of an acre connected with it. Everything about it ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... I'd 'a' seen you blowed fust 'fore I'd answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic like if I'd like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to 'ell?" ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... never go 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... Walker, he has left it upon 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
... 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 ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... 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' ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... But she's done her bit, she has," said my soldier, changing the crossing of his legs. "Ah! little did she think when I used to take 'er acrorse Ludget Circus what a 'ell of a time I'd 'ave to give 'er some day. She's a good ole thing. She's done 'er bit. She won't see Liverpool Street no more. If medals wasn't so cheap she ought to 'ave one, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... resembling the head of a civet-cat; the forepaws are very short, about the length of a finger, on which the animal has five small nails or fingers, resembling those of a monkey's forepaw. Its two hind-legs, on the contrary, are upwards of half an ell in length, and it walks on these only, on the flat of the heavy part of the leg, so that it does not run fast. Its tail is very long, like that of a long-tailed monkey; if it eats, it sits on its hind-legs, ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... 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 various political agencies which ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... 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 shipping about in an almost opaque veil. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Hale and Stout, Comely enough,—so said Mistress Prue and many other damsels,—with a Military Education, an approved reputation for Valour, and very little else besides. A gentleman at large, with a purse well-nigh as slender as an ell-wand, and as wobegone as a dried eel-skin. But I was never one that wanted many Superfluities; and having no Friends in the world, was of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... your savings on a dress suit?" Cappy exploded. "Whadja mean by courting my Florry, eh? Tell me that! Give you an inch and you'll take an ell! Infernal ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... wos dying of——Look 'ere," said Mo, with the light on his face of the earnest seeker after Truth. "If a chap ain't got no food, he's dying of 'unger. If he ain't got no drink, he's dying of thirst. What the 'ell is he dying of if ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... 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
... the first. Its benches, hideously hacked and thick with grime, were as hard and uncomfortable as when I first saw them, and the windows remained unshaded and unwashed. Most of the farm-houses in the region remained equally unadorned, but Deacon Gammons had added an "ell" and established a "parlor," and Anson Burtch had painted his barn. The plain began to take on a comfortable look, for some of the trees of the wind-breaks had risen above the roofs, and growing maples softened the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... PE ELL is a town of 1,000 people on the South Bend branch of the Northern Pacific railway, chiefly engaged in milling ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... 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, and called out, "Why are you standing there? ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... 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 ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... 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 with the richest grass that annually ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... the streets were paved with gold, and there was music and 'appiness everywhere. She told 'er he was thinking of 'er every day and every hour and watching and waiting for the day she would come to 'im. Now wasn't that worth fifty cents of any woman's money? And the man may be in 'ell for ...
— The Thirteenth Chair • Bayard Veiller
... renewed. With the attrition of time and the elements, it had worn away in spots, through which the brown adobe bricks showed, like the bones in a decaying corpse. The main building faced down the valley; from each end out, an ell extended to form a patio in the rear, while a seven-foot adobe wall, topped with short tile, connected with the ell and formed ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... home, the children had to go to bed early, or they came over to my house to play. Mr. Harling not only demanded a quiet house, he demanded all his wife's attention. He used to take her away to their room in the west ell, and talk over his business with her all evening. Though we did not realize it then, Mrs. Harling was our audience when we played, and we always looked to her for suggestions. Nothing flattered one like her ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... dumb girl," murmured a very shy little maiden, whom the usher immediately announced as "An Ell of a dumb girl!" And so on, he went, making the most absurd as well as the most awful blunders with ladies' and gentlemen's names, as announcing the "Grand Turk" as Miss Ann Burke; for which last mistake the poor old man was not much to blame, as the subject was but a little fellow in ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... "We—ell! The lake's free. And we're going the same way Hester and Lily are. If they race us, what's ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... when the vemencie of y^e fire was over, smoke was seen to arise within a shed y^t was joynd to y^e end of y^e storehouse, which was watled up with bowes, in y^e withered leaves wherof y^e fire was kindled, which some, ru[n]ing to quench, found a longe firebrand of an ell longe, lying under y^e wale on y^e inside, which could not possibly come their by cassualtie, but must be laid ther by some hand, in y^e judgmente of all that saw it. But God kept them from this ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... surprise, real or feigned, to see P. Sybarite take the seat by his side. "What t'ell? Who's payin' you to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... get a peep through the windows of the room, and Private Larson, walking his post in front of the sacred precincts, had to shoo them away frequently with threatening gestures and Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay veet—Allay veet t'ell outer here." ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... was therefore in absolute distress. Junot often used to speak of the six months they passed together in Paris at this time. When they took an evening stroll on the Boulevard, which used to be the resort of young men, mounted on fine horses, and displaying ell the luxury which they were permitted to show at that time, Bonaparte would declaim against fate, and express his contempt for the dandies with their whiskers and their 'orielles de chiene', who, as they rode Past, were eulogising in ecstasy the manner in which Madame Scio sang. And it is on ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Scotia was preserved to England; and the trade and fisheries of France were nearly ruined. The successful General, a New Englander by birth, was created a baronet of Great Britain, in recognition of his important services to the State. Sir William Pepper(w)ell rose on the ruins of Louisbourg. On France the blow fell with great severity. The court, aroused to vengeance, sent the Duke D'Anville, a nobleman of great courage, in 1746, at the head of an armament of forty ships of war, fifty-six transports, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... stouter man. Tall was Robin, but taller was the stranger by a head and a neck, for he was seven feet in height. Broad was Robin across the shoulders, but broader was the stranger by twice the breadth of a palm, while he measured at least an ell around ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... 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 keep ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... stairway which leads to the Cloister; and 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 narrow, is a later ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... doing so. This brought her into a wilderness of tangled grasses where 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
... with a racing stud," lisps the gunner, "but, by G——, they'll shy chaff enough at us to keep all the bloomin' horses between 'ere and 'ell, and the girls will send us a kid's feedin' bottle, as a mark of feelin' and esteem, every Valentine's Day for ten years to come, because of the glorious name we made for Australia on the bloody fields of war ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... old Jasper would croak triumphantly. "Oh! 'e were a gen'us were my bye Jarge. 'Ell come a-marchin' back to 'is old feyther, some day, wi' 'is pockets stuffed full o' money an' bank-notes—I knaw—I knaw, old ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... blanky 'ell for a week,' he said slowly, 'if so be I 'ad them strikers 'ere alongside ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... the conversation By many windings to their clever clinch; And secondly, must let slip no occasion, Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch, 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, which no ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the New York Express Company would, if necessary, have carried the goods much further for the same charge of forty cents a package. The limit of distance I do not know: it is probably something like twenty miles. But a potential ell does not reconcile me to paying an exorbitant price for the actual inch which is all I have any use for. This method of simplification—fixing the minimum payment on the basis of the maximum bulk, weight, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... phrase about "skewered like stuck pigs." The others hung back. They had seen man 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 ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... produces 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 gardens are ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the bearers of gold, men, that is, Helgi and Grim. (3) "Byrnie-breacher," piercer of coats of mail. (4) "Noisy ogre's namesake," an allusion to the name of Skarp hedinn's axe, "the ogress of war." (5) Twelve ells, about twenty-four feet (the Norse ell being something more than two feet), a good jump, but not beyond the power of man. Comp. "Orkn. Saga", ch. 113, new ed., vol. i., 457, where Earl Harold leaps nine ells over ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... they must allure 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, which no ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... '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
... coupling screwed on one end. The lengths come in bundles up to 1-1/2-inches and in single lengths over that size. Screw pipe fittings, it will be noted, are called by a different name than cast-iron ones. The fittings in common use today are the 90 degree ell, 45, 22, and 16-2/3. The Y and TY, tucker fittings, and inverted Ys are used in practically the same way as the cast-iron fittings. The 90 degree ell, 45, 22, and 16-2/3 are used to change the run of pipe that many degrees. All 90 degree fittings, ells, and Ts are tapped to give the pipe a pitch ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... remarked a quiet, inoffensive-looking youth who was sweeping the floor of the room. "They were a bit 'ot, but nothin' much to write 'ome about. Not like a picture in the papers, none of them wasn't. Not much stickin' of men. You just ops out of your trench and rush and roar, like 'ell. The Germans fire and then run ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Number Three, down at the quartermaster's corral, began his soldier song; and so, alert, cheery, reassuring, the sentries sent their deep-voiced assurance on its unbroken round to the waking guardian at the southwest angle, and as his final "A-a-a-ll's W-e-ell" went rolling away over bluff and stream and prairie, Ray lifted a grave and anxious ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... is 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. They have nets ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... 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, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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
... your rest now, and Miss Philippa will take a walk," he said firmly. "There is no sense in doing too much the first day. It is always the same with convalescents, if you give them an inch they take an ell." ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... Pleasant was such as was befitting the noble proportions of the mansion. It adjoined the hall in opposition to the great drawing-room, its eastern side terminating in an ell extension from the hall proper where a wide easy staircase with a balustrade of gracefully turned spindles ascended to the second floor. It was lighted, not only by the fire that burned in the reredos at the northern wall, but also by eight cresset-lamps and as many candles set in huge ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... "Enthusiastic? We-ell, I can't say I know much about it. Of course, I know the sort of putrid tosh he'll sling at them, but what I want is to see ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... child's play— The only fun he had. I've heard them say, though, They found a way to put a stop to it. He was before my time—I never saw him; But the pen stayed exactly as it was There in the upper chamber in the ell, A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter. I often think of the smooth hickory bars. It got so I would say—you know, half fooling— "It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail"— Just as you will till it becomes a habit. No wonder I was glad to get away. ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... remnants of the Hurons, the Jesuits discerned nothing in the plan but the most excellent means to convert pagan Iroquois by Christian Hurons. Having gained an inch, the Iroquois demanded the proverbial ell. They asked that a French settlement be made in the Iroquois country. The Indians wanted a supply of firearms to war against all enemies; and with a French settlement miles away from help, the Iroquois could wage what war they pleased against the Algonquins without ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... up and down the street, was two stories in height, twenty-five feet by forty in the main, with a one-story ell running back. Without doubt there was a parlor, sitting room, and four chambers in the main, with dining room ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... things, Luther had written: "It matters nothing to me whether King Heinz or Kunz, the Devil or Hell itself, has composed this book. He who lies is a liar—therefore I fear him not. It seems to me that King Henry has provided an ell or two of coarse stuff for this mantle, and that the poisonous fellow Leus (Leo X), who wrote against Erasmus, or someone of his sort, has cut and lined the hood. But I will help them—please God—by ironing it and attaching bells ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... huge dance hall: It has a "Hungarian Orchestra"—a fact which is 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 a high touch of local colour. Everybody ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... curious) dislike that way, and will onely haue a gathering apron, into which hauing gathered their fruit, they doe empty it into larger vessells: this gathering apron is a strong peece of Canuas at least an ell euery way, which hauing the vpper end made fast about a mans necke, & the neather end with three loopes, that is, one at each corner, & one in the midst, through which you shall put a string, and binde it about your waste, in so much that both ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... especially in sudden whirls, and the other accidents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. The male world wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang bobbing over the side (schief): their shoes are peaked in front, also to the length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags; even the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses: some ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the chancel, in the principal wall on the right side of the high altar. Within were found the fragments of a leaden coffin, a number of bones, and a quantity of mould, evidently the remains of a human body. These were carefully collected and put into a case of gilded lead, about half an ell in length and breadth, and a third in height, secured by an iron lock, the key of which was delivered to the archbishop. The case was inclosed in a coffin covered with black velvet, and ornamented with lace and ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... 'orrible 'Enery 'Emms, And I 'ails from a 'ell of a 'ole! The things I 'ave thought an' the deeds I 'ave did Are remarkable lawless an' better kep' hid, So if Morgan you think of, an' Sharkey an' Kidd, Forget 'em! To name such beginners as them's An insult, so shivver my soul! Yow! In every port o' the whole seven seas I 'ave two or three ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... "We-ell," Sammy admitted slowly, "she was busy cutting out something on the dining-room table and her mouth was full of pins. I had to ask her two or three times before she seemed to ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... murmuring aftertones 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 cloud; her white ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... bloody well mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer! 'Ere you come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I tykes yer into my galley an' treats yer 'ansom, an' this is wot I get for it. Nex' time you can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... dug out of the ground; which had been particularly noted to be plain and level, and ploughed just before; but where it was now found to have made a great fissure, or cleft, an ell wide, whilst it singed the ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... cried she, "I may's 'ell find Ephum. I knows he's loafin' somewhar hereabouts. An' I ain't seed him dese five month." And she started for the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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, which the Inhabitants ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... natives of the Philippines. The men have no other dress than a kind of girdle which covers their loins and thighs, and which is wound several times about their bodies. They have upon their shoulders more than an ell and a half of coarse cloth, of which they make a kind of hood, which they tie in front, and allow to hang carelessly behind. The men and the women are dressed in the same fashion, except that the women have their wearing apparel ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various |
