"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "There is a bird that restores and reproduces itself; the Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It feeds on no common food, but on the choicest of gums and spices; and after a life of secular length (i.e., a hundred years) it builds in a high tree with cassia, spikenard, cinnamon, and myrrh, and ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... cannot quite make out what it is. It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo" when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bird told me the other day that a no less distinguished person than Dr. Page had been seen in Benham twice during the last three months. Of course a Governor's wife is supposed to know everything which goes on, and ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... it they would first gaze in astonishment at the car, then edge up to the windows and doors, and peer in with eyes solemn, round, and wondering, only to be more amazed than ever by the discovery that the car housed neither bird nor beast. This bucolic comedy was repeated at every station until we reached Wyatt, Alabama, where our gifted fellow traveler arose, pointed his collar button toward the door, bade us farewell, and departed, saying that he was going to "walk ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... things by dots and dashes, instead of by good hard assertive lines. He would not pause to see how little we knew. Sometimes his wit rose so high that he would lose sight of it himself, and then he would pause, purse his lips as if he whistled, and then till the bird came back to the lure, fill his void mouth with grapes. He talked of the relations of the sexes, and love—a passion he held in great contempt as being in its essence complex and disingenuous—and afterwards we found we had ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... was a pagan Grandones, Son of Capuel, the king of Capadoce. He sate his horse, the which he called Marmore, Never so swift was any bird in course; He's loosed the reins, and spurring on that horse He's gone to strike Gerin with all his force; The scarlat shield from's neck he's broken off, And all his sark thereafter has he torn, The ensign blue clean through his body's gone, Until he flings him dead, on a high rock; ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... as they had heard many times before, the Miller shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... of her adorable confession, he caught her in his arms and drew her to him. Close as breathing he held her, her heart beating against his like a fluttering bird. A delicious faintness overcame her. She lay ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... has skipped out," he declared grimly. "His pals are in there, but our naughty little bird has flown! Never mind; I'll get him. He's either skulking around town somewhere or he's made tracks to the station, hoping to get the 2.10 to New York. You said you were on your way to the station, didn't you? I'll go there first ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... fellow in broad green braces and blue breeches lay half across a wooden table, thrumming a zither, which set the groups in motion. The zither is a melancholy little instrument; in range of expression it is to the harp what the winchat is to the thrush; or to the violin, what that bird is to the nightingale; yet few instruments are so exciting: here and there along these mountain valleys you may hear a Tyrolese maid set her voice to its plaintive thin tones; but when the strings are swept madly there is mad dancing; it catches at the nerves. "Andreas! Andreas!" the dancers ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... minutes together, and gulfs of blue opened in the great white clouds. These moved and met among each other, and parted, like hands spread out, slowly weaving a spell of sleep over the day after the wakeful night storm. The huge contours of the earth lay basking and drying, and not one living creature, bird or beast, was in sight. Quiet was returning to my revived spirits, but there was none for the Virginian. And as he reasoned matters out aloud, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... This bird is figured in Gould's work on Australian ornithology; it is called the Leipoa ocellata. Two specimens of these birds are preserved in the Natural History Department of the British Museum at Kensington. We obtained six fresh eggs from it. I found another, and got five more. We ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... next went away for one day, she told on slave to turn under the bird's cage a hand-mill; another to throw water down from above the cage, and a third to take a mirror and turn it in front of its eyes, from left to right by the light of a candle. The slaves did this for part of the night, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... the bird's-eye view of the garden of the Tuileries on the evening of this auspicious day, the grand parterre, encircled by illuminated colonnades from arch to arch of which were festooned garlands of rose-colored lights; the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... it, you might disturb them," says Terenty, wringing the water out of his cap. "The nightingale is a singing-bird, without sin. He has had a voice given him in his throat, to praise God and gladden the heart of man. It's ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... behind) "Fool!" said the chief, "tho' fleeter than the wind, Couldst thou presume to scape, when I pursue?" He said, and downward by the feet he drew The trembling dastard; at the tug he falls; Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls. Thus on some silver swan, or tim'rous hare, Jove's bird comes sousing down from upper air; Her crooked talons truss the fearful prey: Then out of sight she soars, and wings her way. So seizes the grim wolf the tender lamb, In vain lamented ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... sing for pure delight of heart than perish for the sake of love! 'Tis an unequal simile, my friend!— as well compare a fiery planet with a twinkling dewdrop, as draw a parallel between the heroic ideal maid 'Nourhalma'—and my fluttering singing-bird, Niphrata!" ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... at the end of a projecting board which broke the little white balustrade, throw up its arms and leap out and flash—its joined hands pointed downwards towards the water, its white feet sweeping up like the tail of a swooping bird—cleave the green water and disappear. The huge bath was empty of bathers and smoothly rippling save where the flying body had cleaved it and left wavelets and bubbles. The girls—most of them in their outdoor things—were gathered in a little group ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... kindly spirit. Happiness, love and peace, walked the forest paths, and tempered the atmosphere. After all the agitation and sorrow I had endured in Greece, I sought Windsor, as the storm-driven bird does the nest in which it may fold its wings ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... forgot, the great, the immortal day, 60 When rescued Sicily with joy beheld The swift-wing'd thunder of the British arm Disperse their navies? when their coward bands Fled, like the raven from the bird of Jove, From swift impending vengeance fled in vain? Are these our lords? And can Britannia see Her foes oft vanquish'd, thus defy her power, Insult her standard, and enslave her sons, And not arise to justice? Did ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... draw horizontal AD, which gives us point n. From these two points m and n raise perpendiculars the height required for the roof, and from these draw sloping lines to the corners of the base. Join ef, that is, draw the top line of the roof, which completes it. Fig. 231 shows a plan or bird's-eye view of the roof and the diagonal AB passing through centre O. But there are so many varieties of roofs they would take almost a book to themselves to illustrate them, especially the cottages and farm-buildings, barns, &c., besides churches, ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... have worn that at four balls already; I won't be known by my colors, like a bird. I have made up my mind to wear the jaune, and I will, in spite of them all; that is, if I can find anybody who cares enough for me to try it on, and tell me what it wants." Lucy offered at once to go with her to her room and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... that Bert jumped at the invitation, and, his mother giving her consent, he rode on the box seat beside Davis the greater part of the day as happy as a bird. The weather was perfect, it being a cool, bright day in early September, and Bert enjoyed very much recognising and recalling the different things that had particularly interested him on the way down. "Black Rory" was as lively as ever, and seemed determined to run away and dash everything ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... landowners and the peasants as mere tenants; this had often caused grave injustice to the latter, and the officials now desired to revise the settlement in order to put all classes on a fair footing. In this department Robert Bird was supreme, and under his direction John Lawrence and others set themselves to measure out areas, to record the nature of the various soils, and to assess rents at a moderate rate. Still this was dull work compared to the planning of practical improvements and the conviction ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... life could never be again exactly as it had been before. Nothing and yet everything seemed to have happened to her in a day. Her face, gazing gravely back at her from the mirror, looked young and wistful, the face of one who, like a bird flying suddenly out of darkness against a lamp, is bewildered by the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... confined to integrations and dissipations of matter and motion. He could describe the masses and grouping of material things, but in all this be would get no suggestion of the inner life which gives significance to it all. As conceivably a bird might sit on a telegraph instrument and become fully aware of the clicks of the machine without any suspicion of the existence or meaning of the message, or a dog could see all that eye can see in a book yet without any hint of its meaning, or a savage could gaze ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... riot-maker! Can the fruit Of frenzy be a gracious thing? His soul has hands; above the bruit They lift a song-bird quivering. ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... wall facing the window were other prints, in frames equally veiled in damp and cobwebs and also two bird-cages. The bird-cages Philip approached, and looked into them. The occupants, of course, had long been dead; but at the bottom of the cages was a small heap of yellow feathers, through which the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... dough, and den dey'd boil birds, make sort of long, not round dumplings, and drop 'em in a pot of hot soup. We thought dat was terrible, putting dat in de pot wid de birds. Dey had blow-guns and dey'd slip around, and first thing dey'd blow, and down come a bird. Dey'd kill a squirrel and ketch fish wid deir blow guns. Dem guns was made out of canes 'bout eight feet long, burned out at de j'ints for de barrel. Dey put in a arrow what had thistles on one end to make it go through quick and de other ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... in a certain butcher's yard, and elsewhere—no other, in fact, than Dobble. He, too, was dressed en militaire, with a frogged coat and spurs; and was walking with a showy-looking, Jewish-faced, black-haired lady, glittering with chains and rings, with a green bonnet and a bird-of-Paradise—a lilac shawl, a yellow gown, pink silk stockings, and light-blue shoes. Three children, and a handsome footman, were walking behind her, and the party, not seeing me, entered the "Royal ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Creek several seagulls were seen, but beyond these we had no reason to anticipate the existence of inland water from any thing we noticed as to the feathered races. On our first arrival at the Depot there was a bittern, Ardetta flavicollis, that frequented the creek in considerable numbers. This bird was black and white, with a speckled breast and neck. Every evening at dusk they would fly, making a hoarse noise, to the water at the bottom of the Red Hole Creek, and return in the morning, but as winter advanced they left us, and ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... did in true Indian style. Two squaws went through the performance. One took hold of one wing, and the other took hold of the other wing; and thus between the two most of the feathers were removed. They then opened the bird, removing such of the internal viscera as were thought not fit for food, washed it in a vessel of water, and then put it on to cook in the very same water they had ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... about the place! You see that fellow—he's a detective, a very clever one, named Mondesir, who had some trouble when he was in the army. Just look at him, sniffing like a dog that has lost scent! Well, well, my brave fellow, if you've been told of any game you may look and look for it, the bird's flown already!" ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... avail himself of this wise and friendly counsel, by which he might yet have been preserved. Leicester, who watched all his motions, was at length satisfied that his purpose was effected,—the victim was inveigled beyond the power of retreat or escape, and it was time for the decoy-bird to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... who cling to life with stubborn hands, Can grin through storms of death and find a gap In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky That hastens over them where they endure Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, And foundered trench-lines ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... "The bird was there, and rose and fell as formerly, pouring out his melody; but it was not the same. Something was missing from those last sweet languishing notes. Perhaps in the interval there had been some disturbing accident in his little wild ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... how unready for suffering. I remember that she brought the baby in after a while, and that Tip came all muddy from the garden, dragging his tiny hoe over the carpet; that the window was open, and that, while we all sat there together, a little brown bird brought some twine and built a nest on an ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... not pretend that his mind felt flattered by this scientific outlook. Every fabulist has told how the human mind has always struggled like a frightened bird to escape the chaos which caged it; how — appearing suddenly and inexplicably out of some unknown and unimaginable void; passing half its known life in the mental chaos of sleep; victim even when awake, to its own ill-adjustment, to disease, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... The bird that flutters and twitters in the parent nest is a very different thing from the emancipated fledgeling, feeling its newly acquired power of flight, and soaring far up and out into the woods and over the fields; ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... never got the answer to her question. A field-sparrow came hopping through the grass in search of insects, and the little bee pressed herself close to the ground and kept very quiet until the bird had gone. When she looked around for Bobbie he had disappeared. So she too made off; for the rain had stopped and the day ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... riches and vaunting brought us? Those things all passed away as a shadow, and as a message that runneth by; as a ship passing through the billowy water, whereof, when it is gone by, there is no trace to be found, neither pathway of its keel in the billows; or as when a bird flieth through the air, no token of her passage is found, but the lightwind, lashed with the stroke of her pinions, and rent asunder with the violent rush of the moving wings, is passed through, and ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... behind one of which a red rose was stuck jauntily enough among the glossy black curls; on his head was a broad velvet Spanish hat, in which instead of a feather was fastened with a great gold clasp a whole Quezal bird, whose gorgeous plumage of fretted golden green shone like one entire precious stone. As he finished his speech, he took off the said hat, and looking ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Cheyenne crouched tense, and then made a rush. A slug sang past his head. Heat palpitated in the narrow draw. He gained the opposite bank, dropped, and crawled through the brush and lay panting, close to the trail. From above him somewhere came the note of a bird: Chirr-up! Chirr-up! Again a slug tore through the brush scattering twigs and tiny ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in the hours of play, If snatched from the study-time; No music in the wild-bird's song, While I hear ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... into a very deep river, and it had sunk to the bottom. Suppose I could not get it in any other way but by going down to the bottom after it. I could go down to that depth, and live there for some time, by means of a diving bell made large enough to hold me, precisely in the same way that a bird might go down to the bottom of a tub of water, in a tumbler, and stand there with the water hardly over his feet. There is a good deal of machinery about a diving bell, it is true. But I need not take up much time in describing it. It is necessary for the man to breathe, ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... have got the pot- plants out of that, and a lot more, and they've turned the edges of that back yard, along the fence, into a regular bower; they've got sweet peas planted, and nasturtiums, and we shall be in a blaze of glory about the beginning of June. Fun to see 'em work in the garden, and the bird bossing the job in his cage under the cherry-tree. Have to keep the middle of the yard for the clothesline, but six days in the week it's a lawn, and I go over it with a mower myself. March, there ain't anything like a home, is there? Dear little cot ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bird I am, Shut from the fields of air; And in my cage I sit and sing To Him who placed me there; Well pleased a prisoner to be, Because, my ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... saw his eternal smile of triumph slowly growing round his mouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred his tawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched her as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of ferocity. In his eyes was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something fathomless, deepening black and abysmal, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... into Denver we had our first glimpse of the Rockies, and although they were then only in the blue distance we were quite excited about them; and at Greely Station (much impressed on our minds by having read Miss Bird's book just before coming here), we came in full view of Long's Peak,—almost wishing "Mountain Jim" might still be alive to ascend it with us,—and the whole of the gorgeous range; and quite one of the loveliest sights I ever saw was watching two thunder-storms ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... and he floated away to slumberland it was to the thrilling song of a bird on a bough above ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with Heath. She had grown to value it. She was incapable of entering into a sentimental relation with any man. She had loved deeply, had had her beautiful summer. It had died. The autumn was upon her. She regretted. Often her heart was by a grave, often it was beyond, seeking, like a bird with spread wings above dark seas seeking the golden clime it needs and instinctively knows of. But she did not repine. And she was able to fill her life, to be strongly interested in people and in events. She mellowed with her great sorrow instead of becoming blunted by it or withering ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... While the bird life of our island is plentiful and varied, mammalian is insignificant in number. The echidna, two species of rats, a flying fox (PTEROPUS FUNEREUS) and two bats, comprise the list. Although across a narrow channel marsupials are plentiful, there is ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... most wicked and the merriest mocking-bird God ever created," cried the duchess, "Have done with your scandals, go up to your room, piously say your evening prayers, and stretch ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... did not prove that he sent a message to Allan at Coalisnacoan, bidding him draw on William Stewart for money; yet on Friday, May 15, James did, by the pedlar, bid William Stewart give Allan credit, and on Saturday, May 16, Allan did make a pen from a bird's feather, and ink with powder and water, and write a letter for money, on the strength of James's credit, to William Stewart. This is certainly a difficulty for James, since he suggested John Breck MacColl, a tenant of Appin's at Coalisnacoan, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... is here very useful, although he is occasionally an exceedingly impatient animal. He is apt to whimper and babble as soon as he comes upon the scent of game, and often raises the bird before the sportsman is within reach: but when he is sufficiently broken in not to give tongue until the game rises, he is exceedingly valuable. There can scarcely be a prettier object than this little creature, full ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... on the gravel-path; a novice entered the arbour, and placed a bowl of bread and milk by the Abbot. The latter started, as though he had been recalled from far away, and exclaimed, "Leave me in peace!" The novice remained standing, frightened and troubled. Then a little bird, which had been sitting in the arbour, struck up its song. The Abbot looked up, his countenance cleared, he cast a glance on the bowl of milk which he eagerly seized, and was in the act of raising it to his mouth, but, as he noticed the youth's troubled aspect, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... until she put it aside as too large to give away, and took a still smaller pinch. This also grew miraculously, and was put aside. The same thing happened a third time, till she said, 'I cannot roll you a small bannock.' Then Christ said, 'For your selfishness, you shall become a bird, and seek your food 'twixt bark and bole.' Gertrude at once became a bird, and flew up into a tree with a screech. And to this day the great woodpecker of Scandinavia is called 'Gertrude's Bird,' and has a ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... masculine and feminine costumes. Here we would crack the nuts, nibble the sharp edges of the maple sugar, chew some favorite herb, play ball with the bags, whirl the old spinning wheels, dress up in our ancestors' clothes, and take a bird's-eye view of the surrounding country from an enticing scuttle hole. This was forbidden ground; but, nevertheless, we often went there on the sly, which only made the little escapades ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... natives which they have subdued, resting upon their own protecting forces; and then when they fail also, all goes to ruin, and they become a prey. So was it in the decay of the Roman empire; and likewise in the empire of Almaigne, after Charles the Great, every bird taking a feather; and were not unlike to befall to Spain, if it should break. The great accessions and unions of kingdoms, do likewise stir up wars; for when a state grows to an over-power, it is like a great flood, that will be sure to overflow. As it hath been seen in the states ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... when he had once settled down to the work he was born to do. His levity was the mere idle sport of a mind unattached and seeking its own proper object. He was like a cat, which will play with a ball or its own tail in the sunshine, but if a mouse or a bird crosses its path will fasten on it with sudden ferocity. He wrought like a slave during the two months before the eventful 10th March 1817, and well nigh broke his heart over the business. Everything had to be done subterraneously; for though the Habeas ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... pardon sir," I told 'im, "but it's a German. No mistakin' them bird-shaped wings an' tail. He's ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... and laid the bird aside, while Susan watched carefully to see just how the stew was made. When it began to boil, her mother picked up the sewing and told her to run ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... gracious lady, holding the Divine Child in her arms, must be reckoned among Buonarroti's triumphs in dealing with the female form. There is more of softness and sweetness here than in the Madonna of the Medicean sacristy, while the infant playing with a captured bird is full of grace. Michelangelo left little in this group for the chisel of Montelupo to deform by alteration. The seated female, a Sibyl, on the left, bears equally the stamp of his design. Executed by himself, this would have been a masterpiece for grandeur of line and dignified ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... of the way of the plough; but even with all these breaks, their natural unity is so sweet and perfect, that, if the reader will turn the plate upside down, he will see I have no difficulty (merely adding a quill or two) in turning them into a bird's wing (Fig. 2), a little ruffled indeed, but still graceful, and not of such a form as one would have supposed likely to be designed and drawn, as indeed it was, by the ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... disuse, for we know not the parent-forms; but many animals have structures which can be explained by the effects of disuse. As Professor Owen has remarked, there is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that cannot fly; yet there are several in this state. The logger-headed duck of South America can only flap along the surface of the water, and has its wings in nearly the same condition as the domestic Aylesbury duck. As the larger ground-feeding birds seldom take flight except to escape ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... is not in some point of view different—the beautiful ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another? Everything is and is not, as in the old riddle—'A man and not a man shot and did not shoot a bird and not a bird with a stone and not a stone.' The mind cannot be fixed on either alternative; and these ambiguous, intermediate, erring, half-lighted objects, which have a disorderly movement in the region between being and not-being, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the slightest secret of her affection for me nor of our thorough comprehension of each other and our similarity of tastes. Quiet always, or almost always, with Roger, with me she chattered like a bird, and I could give her opinion on many matters ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... her hand at every turn, either as a spy or a messenger of spies,—and the mulattoes are too stupid, to say nothing of their probable fidelity to us. No, General, if we are watched, it is by an eagle, and not a mocking-bird. Miss Faulkner has nothing worse about her than her tongue; and there isn't the nigger blood in the whole South that would risk a noose for her, or for any of their masters ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... with the cheerful morn, No lark more blithe, no flower more gay; And like the bird that haunts the thorn, So merrily ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... light, and happy in watching beneath it the flow and the glittering of the classical river, when I noticed a well-dressed boy, apparently just out of some orderly Sunday-school, leaning far over the parapet; watching, as I conjectured, some bird or insect on the bridge-buttress. I went up to him to see what he was looking at; but just as I got close to him, he started over to the opposite parapet, and put himself there into the same position, his object being, as I then perceived, to ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... An excellent bird's-eye view of the cathedral can be obtained from the castle, either from the keep itself, or from a convenient opening in the outer wall. On the church's own level good views can be obtained of almost all the principal parts, though in some directions ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... critics say to Tennyson's orchestra consisting of a flute, violin, and bassoon? Or to Coleridge's "loud bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played "with an airy and bird-like touch?" Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in "Snubbin' through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play "the symphonies of Beethoven" to entertain his fellow canal-boat passengers? The tendency toward realism, ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... up his house-keeping—and death takes him by the throat and hauls him down stairs to the grave; then he, who never prayed, crieth, Pray for me, and the poor soul is as loath to go out of the body for fear the devil should catch it, as the poor bird is to go out of the bush while she sees the hawk waiting to receive her. But I must not detain the reader longer from entering on this solemn and impressive treatise, but commend it to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... she had sufficient resolution to see Mirto no more, and was becoming sick with chagrin and weariness. The queen visited her frequently, bringing all sorts of sweetmeats, and a singing-bird, to divert her captivity. She brought no finery; indeed, that would have been quite ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... for the densest, most impenetrable places,—leading you over logs and through brush, alert and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few yards from you, and goes humming through the trees,—the complete triumph of endurance and vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never be fewer, or your visits to the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... invented for such as sleepe on the Lord's Daie." Perhaps they woke the offender up and rudely and summarily dragged him out and caged him at once and kept him thus prisoned throughout the nooning,—a veritable jail-bird. ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... lim' ober de spring, an' dere's a jay-bird hoppin' about in it right now. Ain't I done heah yo' pa say dat lim' 'll hafter be cut off 'fo' it ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... with a glance at the tall retiring figure, 'that is a nice friend for a bishop to have. He's a jail-bird if I mistake not; and he is afraid of my finding out his business with Pendle. Birds of a feather,' sighed Mr Cargrim, entering the hotel. 'I fear, I sadly fear that his lordship is but a whited sepulchre. A look into the bishop's past might show me many ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... scattered Indians, and minister to their spiritual wants, I decided on making another trip northward as soon as possible after navigation opened. My wife accompanied me, and we took an Indian boy with us, named Aleck Bird, as ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... miracles of craftsmanship in gold fliagree and in jade, are especially interesting, the sensitive-fingered artisans working at benches set in the windows in full view of passersby. The meat and fish stalls, the apothecaries, the cobblers who work on the sidewalks, the lily and the bird vendors, the telephone exchange where Chinese girls operate the switchboard, the headquarters of the Six Companies, the Joss House and the Chinese theatre, spilled over into the Latin Quarter, are among the sights much written about ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... sacred shades! cool, leafy house! Chaste treasurer of all my vows And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid My love's fair steps I first betray'd: Henceforth no melancholy flight, No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night, Disturb this air, no fatal throat Of raven, or owl, awake the note Of our laid echo, no voice dwell Within these leaves, but Philomel. The poisonous ivy here no more His false twists on the oak shall score; Only the woodbine here ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... at anchor, hunting parties were sent out, and the game laws of the preceding year were strictly enforced, by which every beast and bird was to be given up for the general good, the capturer only retaining the head and legs. The head, however, was sometimes greatly extended, so as to include several joints of the back-bone. At length the explorers found themselves among a complete labyrinth of islands, amidst ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... singer in a little boat, Whose snowy sail gleamed in the sun, Paused there, until the last fond note Was sung, then swiftly sped away, Like some sweet bird whose plaintive cry Ere pity wakes, hath ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... call seemed re-echoed, so exactly, so cheerily, that for the moment I thought that the note was the mimicry of the shy mocking lyre bird, which mimics so merrily all that it hears in its coverts, from the whir of the locust to the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... lady. During her father's lifetime, Lisa was in the hands of a governess, Mademoiselle Moreau from Paris, after his death she passed into the charge of Marfa Timofyevna. Marfa Timofyevna the reader knows already; Mademoiselle Moreau was a tiny wrinkled creature with little bird-like ways and a bird's intellect. In her youth she had led a very dissipated life, but in old age she had only two passions left—gluttony and cards. When she had eaten her fill, and was neither playing cards nor chattering, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... owl, — is it thou That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough, As I pass to the beach, art stirred? Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird? ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... faced them bravely and warned them away with his sickle. They were prepared for such emergencies. One of them drew a bag of bird shot from his pocket and hurled it at Harry's head. It hit him full in the face and he staggered against the wall stunned by the blow. They rushed upon the boy and disarmed and bore him to the floor. For a little time he knew not what was passing. When he came ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... visits which I paid in the night-time to the Hotel de Chevreuse, I conversed with none but canons and cures. I was the object of raillery both at Court and at the Palace of Conde; and because I had set up a bird-cage at a window, it became a common jest that "the Coadjutor whistled to the linnets." The disposition of Paris, however, made amends for the raillery of the Court. I found myself very secure, while other people were very uneasy. The cures, parish priests, and even the mendicants, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Garth. "'Love never faileth.' It may for a time appear to be dead, even buried. But the Easter morn soon dawns, and lo, Love ariseth! Love grieved, is like a bird with wet wings. It cannot fly; it cannot rise. It hops about upon the ground, chirping anxiously. But every flutter shakes away more drops; every moment in the sunshine is drying the tiny feathers; and very soon it soars to the tree top, all the better for the bath, which seemed to ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... interesting elements which made the cruise of the Woermann unusual. Mr. Boyce and his party of six were on board and were on their way to photograph East Africa. They took moving pictures of the various deck sports, also a bird's-eye picture of the ship, taken from a camera suspended by a number of box kites, and also gave two evenings of ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... gigantic bird moving across the sky, not in flight, but walking with long strides! They might have been alarmed but for their knowledge of what ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... from its hook in the corner sunlight the canary bird and his cage. She put them on the table and prepared to give the bird his ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... must have such lots and lots of things to tell me! I know that you are without news of your brother. Ah, that poor Maurice, how I pity him, shut up in Paris, with no gas, no wood, no bread, perhaps! And that young man whom you have been nursing, that friend of your brother's—oh! a little bird has told me all about it—isn't it for his ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... answered the prince, "that to every species of living thing there is something in common; the vast chain of sympathy runs through all creation. By that which they have in common with the beast of the field or the bird of the air, men govern the inferior tribes; they appeal to the common passions of fear and emulation when they tame the wild steed, to the common desire of greed and gain when they snare the fishes of the stream, or allure ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... like a bird in its nest, murmured indistinctly, her eyelids quivered a second, then the blue eyes opened wide, and ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... This last measure is so unpopular that I should have been cast out like an unclean bird, if it were known ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Ralph with naught to hide him, and when their eyes met Ralph gave a cry as one astonished; and the Lord of Utterbol rose up to his feet and shouted, and then fell a laughing joyously, and then cried out: "Welcome, King's Son, and look on me! for though the feathers be fine 'tis the same bird. I am Lord of Utterbol and therewithal Bull Shockhead, whose might was less than thine on the bent of ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the top, Drake beside him; in the flash of a humming-bird's wing they were gripping me, swearing feebly. The unseen hold angled; struck upward; clutched from ankle to thigh; held us fast—men ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... two guitars, bowed elegantly, and sang the "Bonny Blue Flag." The applause was thunderous. A large bearded man in the front row lifted a voice that boomed like one of Ashby's cannon. "Encore! Encore!" Company C sang "Listen to the Mocking Bird." The audience gently sighed, took the pipe from ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... briskly towards his visitors. His face was not the least remarkable part of him. It was ridiculously small and narrow for so big a frame, with a great curved beak of a nose, and small bright eyes set close together. Those eyes were at the present moment glancing with bird-like swiftness from one to the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... when some danger lies O'er her young brood, and, with wild eyes, Straight at the sudden foe she flies, Her full soul spurred To battle with the gnashing beak— A roaring tiger is more meek; And somehow one is bound to speak Well of the bird. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... to me," rejoined the valet; "I warrant you I'll find a way when the time comes, and that will very likely be no further off than to-morrow, to tempt the silly little bird into the snare of the fowler." Saying this, the valet rose as if to depart, but at the same moment the fiery little king of the kitchen bounded from his chair, sprang at him, and seized him ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... birds are present in the State; at least 312 living named kinds of 249 species have been recorded. Possibly another 100 species will be reported after further studies have been made there. At least 154 of the species listed in this paper probably breed in Coahuila. The bird fauna in the State includes species characteristic of eastern North America and of western North America, species that range from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and species found only, or ...
— Birds from Coahuila, Mexico • Emil K. Urban
... after his flock have been exposed for six days together to the full weight of the world's temptation, and he has been forced to watch the thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and to see what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside by this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless and weary with the week's labor they give him this interval of imperfect and languid hearing, he has but thirty minutes to get at the separate hearts of a thousand men, to convince ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... Courland, was converted into a kind of citadel, and that the port to which his supplies were chiefly carried was Peekshill, about fifty mites up the Hudson River. Acting upon this information he sent a detachment of five hundred men, under the command of Colonel Bird, in a couple of transports, to drive the Americans away from Peekshill, and to capture their stores. As Bird approached the Americans fled from their position, but before they retreated they set fire to their store-houses, so that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that hence may arise a worship of animals, plants, and even inanimate bodies. Still the obvious implication is that the worship so derived will be limited to things that are, or have been, perceived. Why should this mode of thought lead the savage to imagine a combination of bird and mammal; and not only to imagine it, but to worship it as a god? If even we admit that some illusion may have suggested the belief in a creature half man, half fish, we cannot thus explain the prevalence among Eastern races of idols representing bird-headed men, and men having their ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... sahib. It will be no easy work to get the lady away. There will be guards and women to look after her. A lady is not to be stolen out of a zenana as a young bird is ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... There's the son of Monsieur Lupin, Amaury, he might marry you. But that's not all; if you only knew what comforts you can find there against vexation and worry. Why, Socquard's boiled wine will make you forget every trouble you ever had. Fancy! it can make you dream, and feel as light as a bird. Didn't you ever drink boiled wine? Then you ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... conversation up to the melodious strains of music, or may soar in flights of oratory into the sublime, until the multitude is entranced; so the capabilities of the pen are not limited to the common uses of life, but may take on forms of beauty in elegant outlines of bird, or landscape, or graceful swan or ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... in his handkerchief, that no blood should fall to the ground. Then he broke off one of its legs, and one of the demon's legs fell off. Still the demon came on. Then he broke off the other leg, but the demon walked on his hands. The boy saw him coming nearer and nearer, so he wrung the bird's head off, and the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... possesses three specimens of it, and the Boulogne Museum possesses one. These birds always excite the curiosity of the public by their strange aspect. At first sight, says W.P. Parker, in his notes upon the osteology of the balaeniceps, this bird recalls the boatbill, the heron, and the adjutant. Other birds, too, suggest themselves to the mind, such as the pelican, the toucan, the hornbills, and the podarges. The curious form of the bill, in fact, explains this comparison with birds belonging to so different groups, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... you," said the kind old woman, stooping down and stroking the head that again Ellen had bowed on her knees; "will ye no tell me what vexes ye? Ye suld be as blithe as a bird the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... was good, the noise full sweet, Each bird did play his part; And I admired to hear the same, Joy sprang ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Atuona Valley, the hoot of the owl, the kouku, which in Malay is the ghost-bird, the burong-hantu, seemed to deepen the silence. Does not that word hantu, meaning in Malay an evil spirit, have some obscure connection with our American negro "hant," a goblin or ghost? Certainly ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... asked the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devote Samanas, year after year. Perhaps, oh Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the chimpanzee. It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as 'learning'. There is, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... by this time entirely deserted us, leaving for our winter companions the raven, cinereous crow, ptarmigan, and snow-bird. The last of the waterfowl that quitted us was a species of diver of the same size with the Colymbus arcticus but differing from it in the arrangement of the white spots on its plumage, and in having a yellowish-white bill. This bird was occasionally ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... sweet mellow notes, or dazzle the sight, as in their gorgeous attire they flash by. It was while ascending the Upper Mississippi, during the month of February, 1814, that I first caught sight of the beautiful Bird of Washington. My delight was extreme. Not even Herschel, when he discovered the planet which bears his name, could have experienced more rapturous feelings. Convinced that the bird was extremely rare, if not altogether unknown, I felt particularly anxious to learn ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... of her reckoning upon this occasion. The hedgehog, who dealt in snakes as a game-warden deals in tigers, had no nerves that way. He just sailed in under the baffling, great, flapping wing, and, ere ever the bird of the night could spring aloft, had struck. It was a ghastly form of warfare, this low running in and wrenching snap. It landed right under the armpit, so to speak, and left a nasty round hole. And it is worth noting, by the way, that precisely the same sort of hole, and in the same spot ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... away down the country road like an arrow, or a bird. On and on, with the speed of the wind, and yet the lightning express made even greater speed than did the ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... it came about that he was sent up here, where he has time to study to his heart's content, since his flock will never be anything but small. Moreover, his share of poor old Dad's worldly substance enables him to live, for the emoluments here would scarcely support a canary-bird. ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... Todd as he rowed past with Babette Gold. "Only there isn't a lark or any other bird in these woods that I've been ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... never be exacting about words with me, never say that I said so and so, or so and so. Shall I tell you more about birds? There is a wicked bird that is called a rat-hawk: as you may know by its name, it lives on rats. But as it is an evil bird it has hard work to catch the rats. Because it can say only one single word, and that a noise such as a cat makes when it says "miau." Now when the rat-hawk says "miau" ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... up, and the two soldiers nodded. The position lay before them like a bird's-eye view; and Concepcion, in whom Spain had perhaps lost a guerilla general, had only set eyes on the spot once as he ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... was the keep or stronghold of Jacob Van Tassel, a valiant Dutchman.... Years and years passed over the time honored little mansion. The honeysuckle and the sweet briar crept up its walls; the wren and the phoebe bird built under its eaves.... Such was the state of the Roost many years since, at the time when Diedrich Knickerbocker came into this neighborhood.... Mementoes of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker are still cherished ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... summoning the man enquired of him who he might be. And he replied that he was a confidential adviser of Aspar; such a person the Romans call a "domesticus" in their own tongue. And when Gizeric heard this and considered first the meaning of the bird's action, and then remembered how great power Aspar exercised in Byzantium, it became evident to him that the man was being led to royal power. He therefore by no means deemed it right to kill him, reasoning that, if he should remove him from the world, it would be very clear that the ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... away from it, and he came and stood beside her. Even to Commander Raffleton himself it looked as if the great wings were quivering, like the outstretched pinions of a bird preening itself ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... will keep depends on the strength of the spirit of wine. The result is, then, that you must send me a sample of your very best, and write what you would propose after weighing these circumstances. The leg and feathers of the bird are also arrived; but the comb, which you mention as annexed to the foot, has totally disappeared. I suppose this is the effect of its drying. I have not yet had an opportunity of giving it to Monsieur de Buffon, but expect to do it soon. I thank you for the trouble ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... girls I like," he noncommittally asserted. And I began to see that it was hopeless. My boy had reservations from his own mother, reservations which I would be compelled to respect. He was no longer entirely and unequivocally mine. There was a wild-bird part of him which had escaped, which I could never recapture and cage again. The thing that his father had foretold was really coming about. My laddie would some day grow out of my reach. I would lose him. And my happiness, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... way, so that they had no trouble and kept on for a mile beyond the town, finding themselves in a most wild and picturesque spot, most of the time in deep shadow, and hearing no sounds except those of the woods, now and then seeing a drowsy bird on a bough or hearing the low hum of insects ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... he certainly would have rifled one of us of a life," continued the captain, laughing at his own conceit. "But come, the bird is flown, and we have only to thank ourselves for having been so egregiously duped. Had Valletort been here, he would have given a ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... permitted my father to be taken from me and sent away, perhaps to death. I gave everything to my sovereign, and if he wants my life also," she continued with fresh emotion, "he may have it; but the existence of a caged bird!—that will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... were on, it was always safest to let the unhappy child alone. Prudy, who had no more temper than a humming-bird, and Susy, who was only moderately fretful once in a while, were made very unhappy by Dotty's dreadful behavior. At such times as I describe, they even looked guilty, and cast down their eyes, for they could not help feeling ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... from Kerry crossroads and leave the wooded dells, Take the mountain path and find where Tip O'Leary dwells; Tip O'Leary is the name, I sing it all day long, And every bird whose heart is wise will have it ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... wings across his face aroused him with a start and a cry of agony. The great bird of carrion, startled in its inspection, flew clumsily off and settled fearlessly on ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... been brought unto me, and they bowed low in paying homage unto me and in saluting me with cries of joy. I have risen, and I have gathered myself together like the beautiful hawk of gold, which hath the head of a Bennu bird, and Ra entereth in day by day to hearken unto my words; I have taken my seat among those first-born gods of Nut. I am stablished, and the divine Sekhet-hetep is before me, I have eaten therein, I have become a khu therein, I have an abundance therein—as ...
— Egyptian Literature
... coming to the Northward we stood to the Westward with all the sail we could make. In the morning got up Topgallant yards, and set the sails; found the Variation to be 16 degrees 16 minutes East. Saw several Whales, Seals, and one Penguin; this bird was but Small of the sort, but seem'd to be such a one as we had never seen before. We have seen several Seals since we passed the Straits, but never saw one upon the whole Coast of Aeheinomouwe. We sounded both in the Night and the morning, ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... in service, in retreat, in Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth; and use what cunning he will, ennoble his career as he will thereafter, nothing is of the slightest use; that nickname will caw of itself at the top of its crow's voice, and will show clearly whence the bird has flown. A pointed epithet once uttered is the same as though it were written down, and an axe will not cut ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... and cried like a child. When he could control himself he said, "It was but this very morning that I passed her on the street. She seemed just like a happy bird as she waved me 'good day,'—and now—now—to find her ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... follow where he led. The most perfect silence reigned over the scene, except the sound of their tread, which could just be heard above the dash of the water on the rocks below, and the scream of some wild sea-bird as it winged its flight at a distance through the calm night-air. On he went—a few more steps would place him on the summit of the cliff, in comparative safety. His hand touched the grass at the very edge of ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... at Sadamahal (for I found it there) a plant which produces a flower like Bhayt, of a pale bluish colour, almost white; and indeed several other things there. Try and bring something. Can't you bring the grasshopper which has a saddle on its back, or the bird which has a large crest which he opens when he settles on the ground? I want to give you a little taste for natural objects. Felix is very ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... finance and commerce from which business men have been ousted by the cormorant "captains of industry." I must use my strength. How could I better use it than by fluttering these vultures on their roosts, and perhaps bringing down a bird or two? ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... That hippogryph, huge fowl, and strange to sight, Bears off the warrior with such rapid wing, He would have distanced, in his airy flight, The thunder bearing bird of Aether's king: Nor other living creature soars such height, Him in his mighty swiftness equalling. I scarce believe that bolt, or lightning flies, Or darts more swiftly ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... sunshine. Alone, far from the beaten tracks, she glided, all white, round dark, frowning headlands, stole out, silent like a ghost, from behind points of land stretching out all black in the moonlight; or lay hove-to, like a sleeping sea-bird, under the shadow of some nameless mountain waiting for a signal. She would be glimpsed suddenly on misty, squally days dashing disdainfully aside the short aggressive waves of the Java Sea; or be seen far, far ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... who sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. Dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... sign of a locksmith. Her eyes were full of this picture, which was new to her. Pigeons flew above her head; she heard chickens cackle. A servant with a military look opened the door. She found herself in a yard covered with sand, shaded by a tree, where, at the left, was the janitor's box with bird-cages at the windows. On that side rose, under a green trellis, the mansard of the neighboring house. A sculptor's studio backed on it its glass-covered roof, which showed plaster figures asleep in the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sunken eyes, and the corners of his mouth hanging down to his chin. So, among those court-bred people, "whenever M. Brockdorf passed through the apartments, every one called out after him 'Pelican,'" because "this bird was the most hideous we knew of." But what regard for the feelings of a person of inferior rank could be expected from his enemies, in a court where the dearest ties and the tenderest sorrows were dashed aside with the formal brutality recorded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the vowel has a soft pronunciation. The rein-deer are very fond of salt, and the wildest of them will follow a person, who holds some salt in his hand, for miles together. To put salt on a bird's tail, and catch it, may be an English piece of jocularity; but the Norwegian would be puzzled to think why we should attach a joke to such an act; and to prove to an Englishman the inaptitude of the proverb, the Norseman will go forth with his handful of salt, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... cheek the crimson ray By changes comes and goes, As rosy-hued Aurora's play Along the polar snows; Gay as the insect-bird that sips From scented flowers the dew— Pure as the snowy swan that dips Its wings in waters blue; Sweet thoughts are mirrored on her face, Like clouds on the calm sea, And every motion is a grace, Each ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield |
