"Mastiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of aged mastiff bitches—mothers in their time, and now great-grandmothers, of a noble race—lay sunning themselves before the house-porch. They recognised the parson's dog-cart and heaved themselves up, wagging their tails to welcome a ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Turk" and "Linda," the former a beautiful mastiff and the latter a soft-eyed, gentle, good-tempered St. Bernard. "Mrs. Bouncer," a Pomeranian, came next, a tiny ball of white fluffy fur, who came as a special gift to me, and speedily won her way by her grace and daintiness into the affections of every member of the household. ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... "shall never go again into Holland. Let the States get others to serve their mercenary turn, for me they shall not have." Upon giving up the government, he caused a medal to be struck in his own honour. The device was a flock of sheep watched by an English mastiff. Two mottoes—"non gregem aed ingratos," and "invitus desero"—expressed his opinion of Dutch ingratitude and his own fidelity. The Hollanders, on their part, struck several medals to commemorate the same event, some of which were not destitute of invention. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... came a rush of feet behind and he was sent sprawling by a heavy body striking him between the shoulders. When he was quite able to grasp the situation he found himself on the broad of his back, with a big mastiff lying on his chest, one paw on either side of his head, and a long, warm tongue lolling in his face with affectionate familiarity. The expression in the dog's eye, he noticed, was decidedly genial, but its attitude was firm. The amiable ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... he whistled drawlingly and in a moment the gigantic mastiff dashed among the camels. Seeing the children he leaped towards them. From joy he overturned Nell who extended her hands to him; he reared himself on Stas; afterwards whining and barking he ran round both a few times, again overturned Nell, again reared himself ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... appears to me that the first time I saw the sun was in Seville, in its slaughter-houses, which were outside the Puerta do la Carne; wence I should imagine (were it not for what I shall afterwards tell you) that my progenitors were some of those mastiff's which are bred by those ministers of confusion who are called butchers. The first I knew for a master, was one Nicholas the Pugnosed, a stout, thick-set, passionate fellow, as all butchers are. This Nicholas ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... terrier to catch our rats; the mastiff and spaniel to guard our houses; the lapdog for ladies to play with; the poodles to laugh at; and once there was the turnspit to roast ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed:—I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man. "I guess I should not like to be your nigger!"— Webster is not loquacious, but he is pertinent, conclusive; a dignified, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the poor little fellow; "don't bark, my dear." And up he went, and stroked and patted the great mastiff, who, already knowing the little fellow, put his paws on his shoulders, and licked his face with great appreciation. For Christopher was tenderly kind to animals, and he was rewarded for this now in his day of deep distress. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... in all the pack Can set the mastiff on your back. I own, his madness is a jest, If that were all. But he's possest Incarnate with a thousand imps, To work whose ends his madness pimps; Who o'er each string and wire preside, Fill every ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... "I had to consult a very doubtful-looking mastiff; then appeared a tall, robust well-made, soldierlike-looking form in English costume of blue serge, brigand felt hat, with a long pipe, who looked fifty, and not at all like a doctor. He received me very kindly, and took me up flights of ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... a doggedly obedient, but most dissatisfied air down by the fire-place. It was evident nothing would move him thence: so he was as safe a guard over my poor old father's slumber as the mastiff in the tan-yard, who was as brave as a lion and as docile as a child. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... my obligation to you, sir, for the restoration of the badge of our family, I cannot but marvel that you have nowhere established your own crest, whilk is, I believe, a mastiff, anciently called a talbot; ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... loosened the short sword he carried. But the priest plainly had no mind to the business. He rose, tipsily fumbling a knife, and snarling like a cur at sight of a strange mastiff. "Vile rascal!" said Gilles Raguyer, as he strove to lash himself into a rage. "O coward! O parricide! ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... voice, songs that seemed quite fascinating to Hanny, pathetic old ballads such as one finds in "The Ballad Book" of a hundred years ago. There was an old woman in the kitchen who scolded the two farmhands continually; a beautiful big dog and a cross mastiff who was kept chained, as well as numerous cats, but Grandmother ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... this word at him like an angry mastiff. "'Psychic!' What business has she to be a 'psychic'? She is too lovely to be anything but a wife and mother—a happy hausfrau. And you would make her infamous? My friend, I ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... no fresh water, except by digging. There were various trees, and among these the tree producing dragon's-blood. We saw no fruit-trees, nor so much as the track of any animal, except one footstep of a beast, which seemed the size of a large mastiff. There were a few land-birds, but none bigger than a black-bird, and scarcely any sea-fowl; neither did the sea afford any fish, except tortoises and manatees,[201] both of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... among them; for some hunted beeves merely for the hide, and others hunted the wild hogs to salt and sell their flesh. But their habits and appearance were the same. The beef-hunters had many dogs, of the old mastiff-breed imported from Spain, to assist in running down their game, with one or two hounds in each pack, who were taught to announce and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... sprang on the deck and shook himself like a great mastiff, and resolved to devote himself, heart and soul, from that moment, to the work in which ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... mental qualities within the same class." (p. 255) He shows that even in a state of nature the instincts of animals of the same species do in some degree vary, and that they are transmitted by inheritance. A mastiff has imparted courage to a greyhound, and a greyhound has transmitted to a shepherd-dog a disposition to hunt hares. Among sporting dogs, the young of the pointer or retriever have been known to point or to retrieve without instruction. "If," he says, ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... and soon arrived At where the friendly mastiff lived. "Well," said the wolf, "I can't deny You have a better house than I." "Not so," the other then replied, "If you with me will hence abide." "Oh," said the wolf, "how kind you are! But what d'ye call that, ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... in eager pursuit of the Belle Poule; a fox-terrier chasing a mastiff! The Belle Poule was a splendid ship, with heavy metal, and a crew more than twice as numerous as that of the tiny Arethusa. But Marshall, its captain, was a singularly gallant sailor, and not the man to count ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... large bone or piece of meat, he immediately went out of doors with it, and after having disappeared for some time would return again; upon which, after some time, they watched him, when, to their great surprise, they found that the poor charitable creature carried what he so got to an old decrepit mastiff, which lay in a nest that he had made among the brakes a little way out of the town, and was blind, so that he could not help himself; and there this creature fed him. He adds also that on Sundays or holidays, when he found they made good cheer in the house where he lived, he would go ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... of the South bridge is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets; he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... you cannot invent animals without limbs, each of which, in itself, must resemble those of some other animal. Hence if you wish to make an animal, imagined by you, appear natural—let us say a Dragon, take for its head that of a mastiff or hound, with the eyes of a cat, the ears of a porcupine, the nose of a greyhound, the brow of a lion, the temples of an old cock, the neck ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... excellence. There are perfect descriptions of Ysengrin, who feels very foolish after a rebuke of the king's, and "sits with his tail between his legs"; of the cock, monarch of the barn-yard; of Tybert the cat; of Tardif the slug; of Espinar the hedgehog; of Bruin the bear; of Roonel the mastiff; of Couard the hare; of Noble the lion. The arrival of a procession of hens at Court is ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... stars of his eyes. In swiftness and poise, A proud child of the deer, A white fawn he was, Yet a fawn without fear. No youth thought him vain, Or made mock of his hair, Or laughed when his ways Were most curiously fair. A mastiff at fight, He could strike to the earth The envious one Who would challenge his worth. However we bowed To the schoolmaster mild, Our spirits went out To the fawn-footed child. His beckoning led Our troop to the brush. We found nothing there But a wind and a hush. ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... wolf twitting the mastiff with his chain, the soldier was no sooner outside the door of the Dragon court before he began to express his wonder how a lad of mettle could put up with a flat cap, a blue gown, and the being at the beck and call of a greasy burgher, when a ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the tough yew-bow, at Hastings bended, With wreaths of bright holly and ivy bound, Were perches for falcons that shrilly screamed, While their look with the lightning of anger gleamed, As they chided the fawning of mastiff and hound, That crouched at the feet of each peasant guest, And asked, with their eyes, to ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... was rudely cut short, for with a yell of pain he darted off across the arena, closely followed by a huge mastiff, whose tail he had been unfortunate enough ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... Azra, his head filled with a false philosophy, is made again and again to act otherwise than he would by the mastiff Bran. ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... we came in sight of land, my dog repeatedly placed his fore feet upon the rail and sniffed the wind blowing from the coast. His inhalations were long and earnest, like those of a tobacco smoking Comanche. In her previous voyage the Wright carried a mastiff answering to the name of Rover. The colonel said that whenever they approached land, though long before it was in sight, Rover would put his paws on the bulwarks and direct his nose toward the shore. His demonstrations were invariably accurate, and showed ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Does the old lady intend to marry me? What can there be in this very lazy and selfish personage who bears my name, to excite so romantic an affection? Well, Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou hast one more friend in the world beside Bran the mastiff; and therefore one more trouble—seeing that friends always expect a due return of affection and good offices and what not. I wonder whether the old lady has been getting into a scrape kidnapping, and wants my patronage to ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... unimpeachable, and he had all the air of easy command which is so characteristic of the well-bred Englishman. The slight roughness about him was as inseparable from his build and his character as it is to the best-groomed and best-bred staghound or mastiff of the ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... tenants rack'd, Wasted my treasure, and increas'd your store. Your sire contented with a cottage poor, Your mastership hath halls and mansions built; Yet are you innocent, as clear from guilt As is the ravenous mastiff that hath spilt The blood of a whole flock, yet slyly comes And couches in his kennel with smear'd chaps. Out of my house! for yet my house it is, And follow him, ye catchpole-bribed grooms; For neither are ye lords nor gentlemen, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... than I had expected, and, having finished it, I strolled into the kitchen, anxious to have a further talk with the old man. He was seated alone by the fire, a great mastiff lying at ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... regretfully, "that they could all be the same sort of half-breeds—to make them more uniform as to size and style. With Kid and Spot part pointer, Irish and Rover part setter, Jack McMillan verging on the mastiff, and all the rest of them part something else, don't you think it looks the least little bit as if we had picked them up ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... rushing upon him, as a mastiff might on a lion, and striking at his helm, though shorter than him by a head and shoulders, such swift and terrible blows with the broken hilt, as ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... expression in the desire for physical superiority—the glory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with the champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon qualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any horse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and bruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred battle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... talk, Godefroid discovered she had intended to keep boarders in the building, but for the last five years had not obtained a single lodger of that description. She lived herself on the ground-floor facing towards the boulevard; and looked after the whole house, by the help of a huge mastiff, a stout servant-girl, and a lad who blacked the boots, took care of the rooms, and ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... is impossible to recognise the greater number with any certainty. Youatt, however, gives a drawing of a beautiful sculpture of two greyhound puppies from the Villa of Antoninus. On an Assyrian monument, about 640 B.C., an enormous mastiff[8] is figured; and according to Sir H. Rawlinson (as I was informed at the British Museum), similar dogs are still imported into this same country. I have looked through the magnificent works of Lepsius and Rosellini, and on the monuments from the fourth to the twelfth dynasties (i.e. from about ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... accommodated; cuirasses, swords, pikes, crossbows, muskets, powder and balls were ominously abundant; seed-corn, rice, sugar-cane, vegetables, etc., were not forgotten; cattle, sheep, goats, swine, and fowls for stocking the new provinces, provided for future needs; and a breed of mastiff dogs, originally intended, perhaps, as watch-dogs only, but which became in a short time the dreaded destroyers of natives. Finally, Pope Alexander VI, of infamous memory, drew a line across the map of the world, from pole to pole,[4] ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... the horse. After seeing the animal led up and down the yard once or twice, he would always find some excuse for not riding; the fact being that he had no longer courage enough to get into the saddle. His riding days were over. Even the stable mastiff, an old favourite with Brian, gave him a painful shock when the great tawny brute leapt out of his kennel, straining at his chain, and baying deep-mouthed thunder by way ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... you heartily in that," said Lewis, turning to the man of science, who stood regarding the Captain with an amiable smile, as a huge Newfoundland dog might regard a large mastiff; "but why is our proposed excursion to the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... dearly; but, stout-hearted fellow that he was, he loved the weakest one best; and, therefore, little Kitty was never without a friend and protector. Ever since a certain day in the summer, when she had fallen into the stream, and had been carried home insensible by Bouncer, Kitty had loved the huge mastiff dearly, and nightly added to her simple prayer, "Please, ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... public ceremonial, and whose Cardinal's hat, with its tangled scarlet tassels, lay on a purple tabouret in front. On the wall, facing the throne, hung a life-sized portrait of Charles V. in hunting dress, with a great mastiff by his side, and a picture of Philip II. receiving the homage of the Netherlands occupied the centre of the other wall. Between the windows stood a black ebony cabinet, inlaid with plates of ivory, on which the figures from Holbein's ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... said Bensiabel, 'for I love you better than myself. Take this flagon of oil, this loaf of bread, this piece of rope, and this broom. When you reach the witch's house, oil the hinges of the door with the contents of the flagon, and throw the loaf of bread to the great fierce mastiff, who will come to meet you. When you have passed the dog, you will see in the courtyard a miserable woman trying in vain to let down a bucket into the well with her plaited hair. You must give her the rope. In the kitchen you will find a still more miserable woman trying to clean the hearth ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... which we did not fail to hear every night afterward, though at no time so incessantly and so favorably as now, was the barking of the house-dogs, from the loudest and hoarsest bark to the faintest aerial palpitation under the eaves of heaven, from the patient but anxious mastiff to the timid and wakeful terrier, at first loud and rapid, then faint and slow, to be imitated only in a whisper; wow-wow-wow-wow—wo—wo—w—w. Even in a retired and uninhabited district like this, it was a sufficiency of sound for the ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... of all my store; and pray, mother, ought I not to have given her the other half crown, for what she got would be of little use to her? However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affectionate friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assistance of a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than that of the dog; yet she with great humanity relieved me from the jaws of this Cerberus, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of the same species, derive from nature a much more remarkable distinction of genius, than what, antecedent to custom and education, appears to take place among men. By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a grey-hound, or a grey-hound from a spaniel, or this last from a shepherd's dog. Those different tribes of animals, however, though all of the same species are of scarce any use to one another. The strength ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... for the night, because he sleeps on the floor of my room, instead of in a kennel, which must be horrid, I am sure. Yesterday, the Old Squire said, "One of these fine days, when Master Saxon does not come home till morning, he'll find a big mastiff in his kennel, and will have to seek a home for himself where ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... citizens of Chicago on the walls and an attempt at artistry in stained glass in the windows. There were short and long men, lean and stout, dark and blond men, with eyes and jaws which varied from those of the tiger, lynx, and bear to those of the fox, the tolerant mastiff, and the surly bulldog. There were no ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... First Consul." What god does he most resemble? Mars, Bacchus, or Apollo? or the god Serapis who, flying (as Egyptian chronicles deliver) from the fury of the dog Anubis (the hieroglyph of an English mastiff), lighted on Monomotapa (or the land of apes), by some thought to be Old France, and there set up a tyranny, &c. Our London prints of him represent him gloomy and sulky, like an angry Jupiter. I hear ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... assaults of his enemies thus far had disturbed him little. He had been able to anticipate most of their attacks and they had resulted in little harm to himself. They had left him unperturbed, unharmed—like the attacks of an excitable poodle upon a giant, contemptuous mastiff. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the late autumn Annie was sitting watching Hyde playing with his dog, a big mastiff of noble birth and character. The creature sat erect with his head leaning against Hyde, and Hyde's arm was thrown around his neck as he talked to him of their adventures on the Broad that day. Annie's small face, though delicate ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... found our dogs of the greatest use in the hills, especially our monster bloodhound-mastiffs. These animals possessed nearly all the tracking qualities of the bloodhound, with more fierceness and speed than the mastiff, and nearly the same amount of strength. Their courage, too, and general ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... word she said it over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off, and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath again he would ask her what it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this but thought he would catch her; so when she told him, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... could see them loping in circles around the cabin, whining and snuffing the air as if they yearned for human blood. They were gaunt, fierce-looking creatures, and in the winter-time their hunger made them so bold that they would come up to the door and scratch against it. The barking of her mastiff would soon drive the cowardly beasts away but only a few rods, to the edge of the clearing where, sitting on their haunches, they frequently watched the house all night, galloping away into the woods when ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... dog used for coursing the kangaroo is generally a cross between the greyhound and the mastiff or sheep-dog; but in a climate like New South Wales they have, to use the common phrase, too much lumber about them. The true bred greyhound is the most useful dog: he has more wind; he ascends the hills with more ease; ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... sleeping. It was Bertram who wakened first. There was a strong smell of burning in the room. From the window he could see a crowded boat-load of men landing at the little harbour, and in the yard below a huge mastiff was raging ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... A large mastiff dog picked up a favorite lap dog in the upper part of the city last week, and ran off with it. He was pursued by a mob, and after a severe chase, the terrified pet was recovered ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... Rymer, whom Pope pronounced a good critic, was very severe upon Shakspere in his Remarks on the Tragedies of the Last Age; and in his Short View of Tragedy, 1693, he said, "In the neighing of a horse or in the growling of a mastiff, there is more humanity than, many times, in the tragical flights of Shakspere." "To Deptford by water," writes Pepys, in his diary for August 20, 1666, "reading Othello, Moor of Venice; which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play; but, having so lately read the Adventures of Five ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... have, then, at least three stocks of very distinct dogs: 1, a hunting or shepherd's dog, of European origin; 2, a mastiff, typical of the large breed of dogs indigenous to Asia; and 3, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... before the castle, they beheld a vast flock of sheep, which was boundless, and without an end. And upon the top of a mound there was a herdsman, keeping the sheep. And a rug made of skins was upon him; and by his side was a shaggy mastiff, larger than a steed nine winters old. Never had he lost even a lamb from his flock, much less a large sheep. He let no occasion ever pass without doing some hurt and harm. All the dead trees and bushes in the plain he burnt with his breath down ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... got up and went and talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining look in his keen eye—he was being stiffly deferential to one of the ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny griffon ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Misses Snow, and the Balfours, and the neighbors; and there were kisses and hand-shakings, and good wishes. Jim beamed around upon the fluttering and chattering groups like a great, good-natured mastiff upon a playful collection of silken spaniels and smart terriers. It was the proudest moment of his life. Even when standing on the cupola of his hotel, surveying his achievements, and counting his possessions, he had never felt the thrill which moved him then. The little woman was his, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... piazza, the high-backed chairs, and the blue china. The clump of cinnamon roses across the way is one mass of spicy bloom, and soon its fragrance will be mingled with that of new-mown hay. There is nothing new about the place but Don Quixote, the great handsome English mastiff. Do you know the mastiff—his lion-like shape, his smooth, fawn-colored coat, his black nose, and kind, intelligent eyes, their light-hazel contrasting with the black markings around them? If you do, you must pardon ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... relate with infinite humor an adventure between him and a mastiff, when he was a boy. He had heard somebody say that any person throwing the skirts of his coat over his head, stooping low, holding out his arms, and creeping along backwards, might frighten the fiercest dog, and put him to flight. He accordingly made the attempt on a miller's animal in the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... stared at him horror-stricken; then, as soon as she had collected her senses, took to her heels, yelling at the top of her voice. A big mastiff, who had just been let loose for the night, began to bark angrily in a back yard, and a dozen comrades responded from other yards, and came ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... head, and declared that her brother knew better than to let any bishop put him into leading-strings. By and by there was a great outcry among the children, and Edmund Tudor and Edward of York were fighting like a pair of mastiff-puppies because Edward had laughed at King Harry for minding what an old shaveling said. Edward, though the younger, was much the stronger, and was decidedly getting the best of it, when he was dragged off and sent into seclusion with his tutor ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... herbs and flowers. Well-scoured milking tubs, with bright copper hoops, hung on the garden paling. Fruit trees were trained up against the cottage, and pots of flowers stood in the windows. A fat superannuated mastiff lay in the sunshine at the door; with a sleek cat ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... bison, buffalo, yak, zebu, dog, cat. [dogs] dog, hound; pup, puppy; whelp, cur, mongrel; house dog, watch dog, sheep dog, shepherd's dog, sporting dog, fancy dog, lap dog, toy dog, bull dog, badger dog; mastiff; blood hound, grey hound, stag hound, deer hound, fox hound, otter hound; harrier, beagle, spaniel, pointer, setter, retriever; Newfoundland; water dog, water spaniel; pug, poodle; turnspit; terrier; fox terrier, Skye terrier; Dandie Dinmont; collie. [cats][generally] feline, puss, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rich, Hath a toothless mastiff-bitch, From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... darlings are her hearts of oak." The lights were out, and not a soul astir, Or else the dead man's scabbard, as it clashed Against the marble pavement when he fell, Had brought a witness. Not a breath or sound, Only the sad wind wailing in the tower, Only the mastiff growling in his sleep, Outside the gate, and pawing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... unreliable in some way; for he would next run to the open store door, and bark, run back, and, from a distance, watch the hollow dark within, as if a vague enemy lived there, mocking his obedient nature and keeping his mistress captive. Turk was a setter with mastiff mixing, worth a little for the hunt and more for the watch, but as an ornament and friend worth more than all; he was so impartial in his favors as to like Aunt Hominy and Vesta about equally, and often slept in the kitchen before the great ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... of that by and by," answered Pluto. "We are just entering my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us? When we pass those gates, we are at home. And there lies my faithful mastiff at the threshold. Cerberus! Cerberus! Come ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... reports, making notes. For a second time the morning sun found Peter still at his desk. But this time his head was not bowed upon his blotter, as if he were beaten or dead. His whole figure was stiff with purpose, and his jaw was as rigid as a mastiff's. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... case of many of these and other examples, wild forms still occur which seem to be like the ancestral stock from which the domesticated forms have been produced. All the varied forms of dogs—from mastiff to toy-terrier, and from greyhound to dachshund and bulldog—find their prototypes in wild carnivora like the wolf and jackal. In Asia and Malaysia the jungle fowl still lives, while its domesticated descendants have altered under human direction to become ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... known in keeping the herd together (either when they grass or go before the shepherd) that it should be but in vain to spend any time about them. Wherefore I will leave this cur unto his own kind, and go in hand with the mastiff, tie dog, or band dog, so called because many of them are tied up in chains and strong bonds in the daytime, for doing hurt abroad, which is a huge dog, stubborn, ugly, eager, burthenous of body (and therefore of but little swiftness), terrible and fearful to behold, and ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... a very important admission," she said, in half-comic seriousness, "but you see, I really did weep when I parted from my great mastiff, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... was heard, and turning they saw under a bush a mastiff, standing over the body of a child. The animal could with difficulty keep its legs; it had been pierced by a lance, and had received a blow with a tomahawk on the head which had nearly cut off one of its ears. It had doubtless been left for dead, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... eventually led other members of his family to wander, less reputably, for their livelihoods. She remembered that even in those days Thady was always her ally, and had lamed himself for life by a fall on the road when running to rescue her from the Hutchinsons' wicked mastiff, who had knocked her down near their gate, and was standing over her with a growl and a grin of which she still sometimes dreamed. And again she remembered how once she had been laid up for a long while with the fever, and had crept out of the Union infirmary to find that ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... last. One of the Landfield men gets hold of the ball, and runs down hard along the touch-line. Forrester is the quarter-back that side, and gallant as the Fourth Form boy is, his big opponent runs over him as a mastiff runs over ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... duck-shot, and every strolling gentleman would step out of his way to smite off her head with his cane, as one decapitates a thistle. But in the drawing-room one lays off his destructiveness with his hat and gloves, and the Young Person enjoys the same immunity that a sleepy mastiff grants to the worthless kitten ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... can it be overcome? A calm succeeds the tempest, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies away, we replace the broken mass, we check the leak, we extinguish the fire; but what is to be done with this enormous bronze beast? How can it be subdued? You can reason with a mastiff, take a bull by surprise, fascinate a snake, frighten a tiger, mollify a lion; but there is no resource with the monster known as a loosened gun. You cannot kill it,—it is already dead; and yet it lives. It breathes a sinister life bestowed on it by the Infinite. The plank beneath sways it to ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... others of the African Company with us, and then up to the accounts again, which were by and by done, and then I straight home, my head in great pain, and drowsy, so after doing a little business at the office I wrote to my father about sending him the mastiff was given me yesterday. I home and by daylight to bed about 6 o'clock and fell to sleep, wakened about 12 when my wife came to bed, and then to sleep again and so till morning, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the five jennets, my lady's three palfreys, and the great dapple-gray roussin, had all their needs supplied, had taken his dogs for an evening breather. Sixty or seventy of them, large and small, smooth and shaggy—deer-hound, boar-hound, blood-hound, wolf-hound, mastiff, alaun, talbot, lurcher, terrier, spaniel—snapping, yelling and whining, with score of lolling tongues and waving tails, came surging down the narrow lane which leads from the Twynham kennels to the bank of Avon. Two russet-clad varlets, with loud halloo ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... narrow, feminine face, round popeyes—requiring the application of a pocket-glass every few minutes—and very fair complexion, with little positive expression of character in his features. His nose was pointed; his chin, projected and covered with innumerable little pimples, gave an irregular and mastiff-shaped mouth a peculiar expression. He wore a very highly-polished and high-heeled pair of boots, and a broad-brimmed, silk-smooth hat. He seemed very anxious to display the beauty of two diamond ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... arched skull, deep lower jaw, strong legs and neck, semi-hanging ears, truncated tail, and frequent presence of a fifth toe, distinguish the noble Mastiff. They are silent, phlegmatic dogs, conscious of their own strength, seem to consider themselves more as companions than servants, are resolute, and face danger with the utmost self-possession. A cold region, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... a couple of great wings dashing round and above him, presently felt a spear on his Deck; but only to irritate him, for it could not pierce the skin. In vain Ruggiero tried to do so a hundred times. The combat was of no more effect than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his snapping teeth. The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew whether he was in air or sea. He began to fear that ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... of a dog which got quite used to a ghost that often appeared to his master, and used to follow it. In "The Lady in Black," a dog would jump up and fawn on the ghost and then run away in a fright. Mr. Wesley's mastiff was much alarmed by the family ghost. Not to multiply cases, dogs and other animals are easily affected by whatever it is that makes people think a ghost is present, or by the conduct of the ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... would have regarded any one of the Interpreter's many visitors; then the deaf and dumb man's expression changed. Glancing quickly at his still unobserving companion, he caught up a hatchet that lay among the tools on the table and, with a movement that was not unlike the guarding action of a huge mastiff, rose to his feet. His face was a picture of animal rage; his teeth were bared, his eyes gleamed, his every ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... a mad dog, frothing at the mouth, has passed this way, going west. Officers have gone in pursuit of the animal, but passers-by may encounter the dog before the officers do. The dog is a huge English mastiff, without collar. Turn ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... big, well-fed Mastiff, having a wooden collar about his neck, inquired of him who it was that fed him so well, and yet compelled him to drag that heavy log about wherever he went. "The master," he replied. Then, said the Wolf: "May no friend of mine ever be in such a plight; ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... their hoarse cry of alarm, and immediately disturbed the Tetel. One of the men, in revenge, fired a long shot at a great male, who was sitting alone upon a high rock, and by chance the ball struck him in the head. He was an immense specimen of the Cynocephalus, about as large as a mastiff, but with a long brown mane like that of the lion. This mane is much prized by the natives as an ornament. He was immediately skinned, and the hide was cut into long strips about three inches broad: the portion of mane adhering had the appearance ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... would be difficult to overtake him, sent after him a large mastiff who had won the first prizes at all the dog races. Pinocchio ran, but the dog ran faster. The people came to their windows and crowded into the street in their anxiety to see the end of ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... shirt, for he had been one of the witnesses, and he was firmly planted on his bowed legs, his long arms hanging down by his sides; his little red eyes were fixed on Zorzi's face, his ugly jaw was set like a mastiff's, and his extraordinary face seemed cut in two by a ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... as a third person entered. He was wearing a rich suit of some long-departed period, and, with his furrowed face and deep-set eyes, he rather resembled an elderly mastiff, though he did not convey the same impression of profound wisdom. He gazed round the room as though he himself were as bewildered as its other occupants, who were speechless with amazement. Then his eye fell on Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, and he hesitated no longer, but, advancing ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... your praise might yield returns, 65 And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... He is like Hunt's dog, will neither go to church nor stay at home. One Hunt, a labouring man at a small town in Shropshire, kept a mastiff, who on being shut up on Sundays, whilst his master went to church, howled so terribly as to disturb the whole village; wherefore his master resolved to take him to church with him: but when he came ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... dangerous, and just as big-boned, we find in the person of an abbot—defending his abbey, not by any reputation for sanctity or learning, but solely by his dangerousness as the wielder of quarter-staff and cudgel. With no bull-dog or mastiff, and taken by surprise, such an abbot naturally lost the stakes for which he played. The letter is addressed to the Secretary of State:—'Please it your goodness to understand, that on Friday the 22nd of October (1535), I rode back with speed to take ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... gentlemen! walk in! Here's the rope-dancing and juggling, with lots of gilt gingerbread,—and all for sixpence! Here is the great Numidian lion!"—leading forth a creature not larger than a moderate-sized English mastiff,—"with a throat like a turnpike gate, and teeth like mile-stones, and every hair on his mane as big as a broomstick!" It was worth sixpence to see the fellow's face when he said this; but most of the people round me seemed to believe what they heard rather than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... across the marsh she was thinking this first phase over. She had reached a new one, and at first she looked back with a faint, even rather hard, smile. She walked straight ahead, her mastiff, Roland, padding along heavily close at her side. How still and wide and golden it was; how the cry of plover and lifting trill of skylark assured one that one was wholly encircled by solitude and space which were more enclosing than any walls! ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... vacant look of his two eyes gives you to understand that he could never run out of his wits, which seemed not so much to be lost, as to want employment; they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering. He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has often saved him from being treated like a cur, till some more sagacious than ordinary found his nature, and used him accordingly. Unhappy being! terrible without, fearful within! Not a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a sheep in ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... former greatness. On the occasion of our visit, Juliet, very dowdily dressed, looked down from the top of a long, dirty staircase which descended into the court, and seemed interested to see us; while her mother caressed with one hand a large yellow mastiff, and distracted it from its first impulse to fly upon us poor children of sentiment. There was a great deal of stable litter, and many empty carts standing about in the court; and if I might hazard the opinion formed upon these and other appearances, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... told me that he once wounded a tiger which afterwards sprang on him, knocked him down, and seized him by the hand and arm. With Mr. A. was a large dog, half mastiff and half polygar (a savage and rare native breed), which at once attacked the tiger, and diverted its attention from Mr. A. After driving off the dog the tiger again returned to Mr. A. and commenced to worry him, but was again attacked ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... the lance, and draw the bow! and when, for the first time, the young heir followed him to the chase, who so happy as he? And Rudolph reciprocated his affection; next to papa and dear mamma, sweet little black-eyed Cousin Bertha, and the ugly, shaggy mastiff to which he was devoted, old Fritz came in for his warmest love. And some people were malicious enough to say that there was a strong resemblance between these last two favorites, both in countenance and character; certain it is, that both Bruno ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... thought a happy idea when one fellow got into the gallery with a dustman's bell, and rang it furiously. Dogs were also brought into the boxes, to add their sweet voices to the general uproar. The animals seemed to join in it con amore, and one night a large mastiff growled and barked so loudly, as to draw down upon his exertions three cheers ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Master Keep the shoemaker's pigs; now succeeding to the reversion of the well-gnawed bone of Master Brown the shopkeeper's fierce house-dog; now filching the skim-milk of Dame Wheeler's cat:—spit at by the cat; worried by the mastiff; chased by the pigs; screamed at by the dame; stormed at by the shoemaker; flogged by the shopkeeper; teased by all the children, and scouted by all the animals of the parish;—but yet living through his griefs, and bearing them patiently, 'for sufferance is the badge of all his tribe;'—and even ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... would fly at your legs and throat like wild beasts; but twirl a big stick jauntily, or better still go quietly on your way without concern, and they would skulk aside and watch you hungrily out of the corners of their surly eyes, whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mastiff's. When the moon rose I noticed them flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, miles away from the hamlet; now sitting on their tails in a solemn circle; now howling all together as if demented, and anon listening intently in the vast ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... Neither is there any cone nor cart-horses about. Why, even a tall chanticleer makes a home look homely. I do like to see a tall proud chanticleer strutting in the yard and barely giving way as I advance, almost ready to do battle with a stranger like a mastiff. So I prefer the simple ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Pisa in the autumn of 1821, consisted, inter caetera, of nine horses, a monkey, a bull-dog, and a mastiff, two cats, three ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... immediately afterwards saw struggling furiously to free himself and companion from the violent current. Stepping to the extremity on some loose timber which lay secured to the shore, yet floating in the river—they threw out poles, one of which Sambo seized like an enraged mastiff in his teeth, and still supporting the body, and repelling the water with his disengaged arm, in this manner succeeded in gaining the land. The crews of the little fleet, which lay armed a hundred yards lower down, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... I went to seek my favorite in the poultry yard; plenty of hens were there, but no Yarico. The gate was open, and, as I concluded she had sought the forbidden copse, I proceeded there, accompanied by the yard mastiff; a noble fellow, steady ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... which are bred in Chihuahua, in northern Mexico, and the great Danes or mastiffs of northern Europe, is, perhaps, the greatest which has ever been attained in any mammal. In some cases the larger individuals belonging to the mastiff breed probably weigh nearly thirty times as much as their smaller kinsmen. Great as are these variations, they are only in form and bulk. They involve none of those curious changes in the number of bones of the skeleton which we may trace ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... to pass, that as soon as the young people were left alone, they seated themselves at the table, and before the dreaded bride had time to open her lips, the bridegroom, looking behind him, saw stationed there his favourite mastiff dog, and he said to him somewhat sharply, "Mr. Mastiff, bring us some water for our hands;" and the dog stood still, and did not do it. His master then repeated the order more fiercely, but the dog stood still as before. His master then leaped up in a great passion from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... where there is an inn, and where the road branches off into the Val Calanca. Alighting here for a few minutes we saw a cane lupino—that is to say, a dun mouse-coloured dog about as large as a mastiff, and with a very large infusion of wolf blood in him. It was like finding one's self alone with a wolf—but he looked even more uncanny and ferocious than a wolf. I once saw a man walking down Fleet Street accompanied by one of these cani lupini, and ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... their houses, or rather tents, and found many of those serpents alive, and they were tied by the feet and had a cord around their snouts, so that they could not open their mouths, as is done (in Europe) with mastiff-dogs so that they may not bite: they were of such savage aspect that none of us dared to take one away, thinking that they were poisonous: they are of the bigness of a kid, and in length an ell and a half: their feet are long and thick, and armed with ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... attempt, and having again placed him on the saddle, I led the horse on pretty smartly in hopes of reaching Koomikoomi before dark. We had not proceeded above a mile, before we heard on our left a noise very much like the barking of a large mastiff, but ending in a hiss like the fuf [Footnote: Thus is Mr. Park's MS] of a cat. I thought it must be some large monkey; and was observing to Mr. Anderson "what a bouncing fellow that must be," when we heard ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... never see him again," sobbed Mrs. Bright, as she took Isobel by the hand and sauntered slowly home, accompanied by Fred and Buzzby, the latter of whom seemed to regard himself in the light of a shaggy Newfoundland or mastiff, who had been left to protect the family. "We are always hearing of whale-ships being lost, and, somehow or other, we never hear of the crews being saved, as one reads of when ships are wrecked in the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... wife home to his old father's house in the precincts of Sheffield Park, where she was kindly welcomed; but wealth did not so abound in the family but that, when opportunity offered, he was thankful to accept the command of the Mastiff, a vessel commissioned by Queen Elizabeth, but built, manned, and maintained at the expense of the Earl of Shrewsbury. It formed part of a small squadron which was cruising on the eastern coast to watch over the intercourse between France ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Building, was about to bring a hopeless human fragment into a grey world. Lola went to see what aid the Building could provide. In front of the door lounged the husband, a hulking porter in a Bermondsey factory. Glowering at his feet lay a vicious mongrel dog—bull-terrier, Irish-terrier, mastiff—so did Lola with her trained eye distinguish the strains. When she asked for his wife in travail the chivalrous gentleman took his pipe from his mouth, spat, and after the manner of his kind referred to the disfigurement of her face in terms impossible ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... had rushed into the room at the noise of the struggle, and strove vainly to tear the Russian from his hold. But he hung on with the tenacity of a mastiff. There was a ringing in Foyle's ear and a red blur before his eyes. With a superhuman effort he got his elbow under the Russian's chin and pressed it ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... faced each other, crouching, watching for an opening. Sabota's great hands worked convulsively, eager to grasp and crush his wiry opponent; the Ramblin' Kid, with lips curled back from white teeth, like a pure-bred terrier circling a mastiff, bent forward, every muscle tense as drawn copper, his eyes cold as a rattler's as he searched for a place ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... suicide. But this would be precipitate. Agreeably to one of Mr. White's judicial placita, which I make no apology for citing twice, 'no man who has preserved all his senses will doubt for a moment that "to exist a mastiff or a mule" is absolutely the same as "to be a mastiff or a mule."' Declining to admit their identity, I have not preserved all my senses; and, accordingly—though it may be in me the very superfetation of lunacy—I would caution the reader to keep a sharp eye on my arguments, hereabouts ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... rabbits; they'd happen ha' died, if they'd been fed. Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He made the rabbits' ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know better nor buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin' ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... just in time to see how Sultan, a big fierce mastiff, sprang at Douglas's neck, while his father, brandishing his ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... the encounter,—how he sharpened his teeth, as it were, and felt the points of his own claws. The little devices of Mr. Chaffanbrass did not deceive him. He knew what he had to expect; but his pluck was good, as is the pluck of a terrier when a mastiff prepares to attack him. Let Mr. Chaffanbrass do his worst; that would all be over in an hour or so. But when Mr. Chaffanbrass had done his worst, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... your lordship's most honourable actions. Some consented to go with us, though unwillingly; but most of them ran to the pottage pot, swearing it was dinner time. We went all on board this night, except our great mastiff dog, which we could not induce to follow us, for I think he was ashamed of our cowardly behaviour. The land here is of an excellent soil, and the climate is quite healthy; the soil being full of good herbs, as mints, calamint, plantain, ribwort, trefoil, scabious, and such like. We set sail from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... common all over Thibet, and is a terrible depredator among the flocks, or, as Kinloch writes: "apparently preferring the slaughter of tame animals to the harder task of circumventing wild ones." The great Bhotea mastiff is chiefly employed to guard against it. According to Hodgson the chanko has a long, sharp face, with the muzzle or nude space round the nostrils produced considerably beyond the teeth, and furnished with an unusually large lateral process, by which ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... bend to the natural inclinations." He points out that the bear and the wolf are the two animals "which have been and still are the most destructive to human life (and particularly to children) in our latitude and climate," and that "several of the large breeds of dogs,—the wolf-hound proper, the mastiff (particularly the Spanish mastiff), and even the St. Bernard,—were originally evolved as wolf-dogs for the protection of sheep and children." His general conclusion is: "The fear inspired by these animals during the long ages of the childhood of our civilization, and the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... mastiff's throat with iron hand, and forced him to loose his hold; then, bellowing with fury, seized his axe and sprang forward, mangled as he was, upon the nearest soldier. Jemmy Vetch had been beforehand with him. Uttering a low snarl of hate, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the plant had ever dared to talk to him like that. He would glare down at Fanny for a moment, like a mastiff on a terrier. Fanny, seeing his face rage-red, would flash him a cheerful and impudent smile. The anger, fading slowly, gave way to another look, so that admiration and resentment ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... shiver every time they meet a collie or a mastiff," admitted Bluff, "though for my part I've always liked all breeds. I believe a dog is man's best friend, as ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... to the Lombards and extortioners in order to raise the sum, remained, without a penny in the world, awaiting her lord in a poor lodging in the town, without a carpet to sit upon, but proud as the Queen of Sheba and brave as a mastiff who defends the property of his master. Seeing this great distress the seneschal went delicately to request this lady's daughter to be the godmother of the said Egyptian, in order that he might have the right of assisting the Lady of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... very courteous and even kind to me, which was fortunate, as the young men had little idea of showing even ordinary civilities. That night I made the acquaintance of his dog "Ring," said to be the best hunting dog in Colorado, with the body and legs of a collie, but a head approaching that of a mastiff, a noble face with a wistful human expression, and the most truthful eyes I ever saw in an animal. His master loves him if he loves anything, but in his savage moods ill-treats him. "Ring's" devotion ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... and very ferocious mastiff belonging to Jack O'Malley, and always accompanied him wherever ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... that; only my notion is, that a wise man ought to go out and enjoy it—as I am going to do—with a gun on his shoulder, instead of poking at home like a yard-dog, and behowling oneself in po-o-oetry;" and Tom lifted up his voice into a doleful mastiff's howl. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... steadfast. There Polenta's eagle[1] broods, And in his broad circumference of plume O'ershadows Cervia[2]. The green talons[3] grasp The land, that stood e'erwhile the proof so long And piled in bloody heap the host of France. The old mastiff of Verrucchio and the young[4] That tore Montagna[5] in their wrath still make Where they are wont, an augre of their fangs, Lamone's[6] city and Santerno's[7] range Under the lion of the snowy lair[8], ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... give an additionally sullen weight to the countenance. The lower part of the face was unusually large, muscular and heavy, and appeared to hang like a load to the head, and to make it drop like the mastiff's jowl. The upper lip was long and large, and the mouth had a severe and dogged appearance. His nose was rather small for such a face, but it was not badly shaped; his eyes, too, were small and buried deep under his protruding ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... in the manufacture of Prussian blue. It is the most violent of all poisons, and destroys animals by being applied to the skin only. It is stated by an able chemist, that a single drop applied to the tongue of a mastiff dog caused death so instantaneously, that it appeared to have been destroyed by lightning. One drop to the human frame ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... Sir," she began, with a mock courtesy to the priest, "I'd thank you, Sir, to call off your mastiff." ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... by the unhappy etourderie of the trunk, as by the effect it had upon the groom. We both expected, as a matter of course, that Dr. —- would sally, out of his room, for in general, if but a mouse stirred, he sprang out like a mastiff from his kennel. Strange to say, however, on this occasion, when the noise of laughter had ceased, no sound, or rustling even, was to be heard in the bedroom. Dr. —- had a painful complaint, which, sometimes keeping him awake, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... tenfold English Court-of-Chancery, which has lawsuits 250 years old),—if he were a theoretic German King. He can plead in the Diets, and the Wetzlar Reichs-Kammergericht without end: "All German Sovereigns have power to send their Ambassador thither, who is like a mastiff chained in the back-yard [observes Friedrich elsewhere] with privilege of barking at the Moon,"—unrestricted privilege of barking at the Moon, if that will avail a practical man, or King's Ambassador. Or perhaps the Bishop of Liege will bethink him, at last, what considerable ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... whereupon she drew herself back, as if she were more afraid of me. I had less apprehension concerning the dogs, whereof three or four came into the room, as it is usual in farmers' houses; one of which was a mastiff equal in bulk to four elephants, and a greyhound somewhat taller than the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he learned his lessons, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... a window in the library. This room was on the ground-floor, easily accessible, and, try as he would, there was one window which the blacksmith could not secure. The good fellow was for sleeping on the floor all night by way of guard, but Barbara would not hear of it, and, in the end, Bevis, the mastiff, the great dog that had followed Colonel Myddelton into camp in the late war, was chained outside the window. Satisfied with this arrangement, Matthew pulled his forelock and said good night, ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... the ring, and on one occasion had killed a man with a single blow of his fist, in a prize fight near St. Louis. We were all very proud of him, and it was as good as an entertainment to us to see the noisiest roughs subside into deferential silence as Ned would come among them, like some grand mastiff in the midst of a pack of yelping curs. Ned entered into the regulating scheme heartily. Other stalwart specimens of physical manhood in our battalion were Sergeant Goody, Ned Johnson, Tom Larkin, and others, who, while not ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... question was not bigger than a "San Bernard," a "Newfoundland," or a mastiff: but seen as it was, it loomed larger than any of the three. Like these creatures, it was canine in shape—lupine we should rather say—but of an exceedingly grotesque and ungainly figure. A huge square head seemed set without neck upon its shoulders; while ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Goddard rather nervously. Stamboul was indeed an exceedingly remarkable beast. Taller than the tallest mastiff, he combined with his gigantic strength and size a grace and swiftness of motion which no mastiff can possess. His smooth clean coat, of a perfectly even slate colour throughout, was without folds, close as a greyhound's, showing ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... time. (In fact, Alan, my companion mimicked, with a good deal of humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the tenant's address, and the hypocritical melancholy of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, he said, had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on the rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was afraid would spring ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the broad high brow of her brother. Mr. Ringgan had no affinity with small cares; deep serious matters received his deep and serious consideration; but he had as dignified a disdain of trifling annoyances or concernments as any great mastiff or Newfoundlander ever had for the yelping of a ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the same mode of worship. The eye of the yeoman and peasant sought in vain the tall form of old Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, as, wrapped in his lace cloak, and with beard and whiskers duly composed, he moved slowly through the aisles, followed by the faithful mastiff, or bloodhound, which in old time had saved his master by his fidelity, and which regularly followed him to church. Bevis, indeed, fell under the proverb which avers, "He is a good dog which goes to church;" for, bating an occasional ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... very interesting. Here we saw for the first time monkeys running about unfettered among the trees, and a lion chained to a dog-kennel doing watch duty like a mastiff. We also saw an entire house devoted to the display of pheasants. These birds make a fine collection, for there are numerous varieties, and some exceedingly beautiful. There are here two full-grown orang-outangs and one child, the former even more human than the pets we had recently been in charge ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... sure of its ground and the weakness of the adversary does the modern Indian band attack at night. Folsom and his people well knew that. Yet not five minutes after the Indian girl, faint with exhaustion and dread, was carried within doors, the big mastiff challenged again. The dogs charged furiously out to the northeast and would not be recalled. For nearly half an hour they kept up their angry clamor. Time and again during the night, suspicious and excited, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... one day, he rose and went. But, as he approached the wood, Dorothy's great mastiff, which she had reared from a pup with her own hand, came leaping out to welcome him, and he was prepared to find her not ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... brute!" cried the gunner, stepping forward; and they caught sight of the animal, a huge mastiff, bounding towards them. Dick held his drawn cutlass ready in his hand, and as the creature sprang up to seize him by the throat, with one sweep of his weapon he laid it dead at his feet, with its head almost severed ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... your fav'rite boy? Each caution, every care employ: And ere you venture to confide, Let his preceptor's heart be tried: Weigh well his manners, life, and scope; On these depends thy future hope. As on a time, in peaceful reign, A bull enjoyed the flowery plain, A mastiff passed; inflamed with ire, His eye-balls shot indignant fire; 10 He foamed, he raged with thirst of blood Spurning the ground the monarch stood, And roared aloud, 'Suspend the fight; In a whole skin go sleep to-night: Or ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... epicure, tickled to the last degree with this new turn of his affairs; when on a sudden, a noise of somebody opening the door made them start from their seats, and scuttle in confusion about the dining-room. Our Country Friend, in particular, was ready to die with fear at the barking of a huge mastiff or two, which opened their throats just about the same time, and made the whole house echo. At last, recovering himself:—"Well," says he, "if this be your town-life, much good may you do with it: give me ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Yes; the dogs were out, and already they were at work, ranging in great semicircles, alert with the joy of the chase. There was Blazer, with his tawny muzzle, and behind him Fangs, the great, black bitch, half mastiff and half bloodhound, the saliva dripping from her jaws as she ran. Constans drew a deep breath as he watched them. Already they were nearing the pavilion; in a few seconds at the farthest they would be giving tongue upon ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen |
