"Tails" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... encouragement in his labour. Not only that the sparrows noisily criticized his work, and the chestnuts scornfully whisked their tails under his nose, but the harrows also objected, and resisted at every little stone or clod of earth. The tired horses continually stumbled, and when Slimak cried 'Woa, my lads!' and they went on, the harrows ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... stinging, and hath not so much venom as other serpents: for to the end to slay anything, to him venom is not needful, for whom he findeth he slayeth, and the elephant is not secure of him, for all his greatness of body. Oft four or five of them fasten their tails together, and rear up their heads, and sail over sea and over rivers to get good meat. Between elephants and dragons is everlasting fighting, for the dragon with his tail bindeth and spanneth the elephant, ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... and war had been resolved upon by the English, it might have been expected that active operations would have been commenced forthwith. Such was not the case. An English soldier remarked:—"We were kept on the Neck twisting our tails and powdering our heads, while the Yankees were gathering in our front and in our flanks like clouds." It seems to be generally acknowledged that this inactivity was fatal to the cause of the British arms in America, and that if General Gage had employed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... carefully along the boulder-strewn bottom. The man's back was toward him, but the general look of him was Mexican. The horse was bay with a rusty black tail, but there were in New Mexico thousands of bay horses with black tails, so there was nothing gained there. The rider seemed to be making toward Medina's ranch, though that was only a guess, since the arroyo he was following led in that direction at that particular place. Later it took a sharp turn to the south, ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... leaning forward, twisting themselves into strange attitudes, and adapting their bodies to the several degrees of the framework. The same may be said of the arabesques around the portraits of the poets, where men, women, and children, some complete, some ending in foliage or in fish-tails, are lavished with a wild and terrible profusion. Hippogriffs and centaurs, sirens and dolphins, are here used as adjuncts to humanity. Amid this fantastic labyrinth of twisted forms we find medallions painted in chiaroscuro ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... sleeping on the door mat in the broiling sun; two cats, which looked as though they might be dead, were stretched out in front of the two windows, their eyes closed, their paws and tails stretched ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... have formerly served terms in others of like character, have shown him the scars and marks of brutal punishment. One of these poor unfortunates showed me his back, which is covered with great furrows in the flesh caused by the cat-o'-nine-tails in the hands of a merciless official of the Missouri penitentiary. Another prisoner carries thumbs out of joint and stiffened by the inhuman practice of hanging up by the thumbs in vogue in a former place of imprisonment, and still another carries about with him ugly wounds inflicted by bloodhounds ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... greedy for war, but that's only because they have never yet seen a real warrior. Send them a regular conqueror, and they'll soon drop their tails between their legs and cry, 'Have mercy, Lord! Save us from the man ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... resonant sound of the stream on the bottom of the tin pail, then the soft delicious purring of the cascade into the full bucket, while the cows serenely chewed their cuds and whisked away the flies with swinging tails. Deacon Baxter was taking his cows to a pasture far over the hill, the feed having grown too short in his own fields. Patty was washing dishes in the kitchen and Waitstill was in the dairy-house at the butter-making, one of ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... hundred feet, are often stamped over by these footprints like the mud of a barnyard. From the little we can determine from these footprints, the creatures seem to have been somewhat related to our frogs, but they generally had tails, and, though provided with four legs, were in the habit of walking on the hind ones alone like the kangaroo. A few of these tracks are shown in the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... given him. After he had seen it filled, he strolled along the sunny street toward the plaza. It was one of those warm, somnolent New Mexico days as peaceful as old age. Burros blinked sleepily on three legs and a hoof-tip. Cowponies switched their tails indolently to brush away flies. An occasional half-garbed Mexican lounged against a door jamb or squatted in the shade of a wall. A squaw from the reservation crouched on the curb beside her display of pottery. Not a sound disturbed the siesta ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... see as I write. He was greatly excited, and he led the opposition by racing up and down the aisles, quoting from the Scriptures to prove his case against women ministers. As he ran about he had a trick of putting his arms under the back of his coat, making his coat-tails stand out like wings and incidentally revealing two long white tapestrings belonging to a flannel undergarment. Even in the painful stress of those hours I observed with interest how beautifully those ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... raises his head gracefully, straightens his silky aigrette, struts and bows to his female, while his throat swells and he utters a sort of guttural note.[62] The common shield duck, geese, wood-pigeons, carrion-vultures, and many other birds have been observed to dance, spread their tails, chase one another, and perform many strange courting parades. A careful observer of birds, Mr. E. Selous, who is quoted by Havelock Ellis,[63] has found that all bird dances are not nuptial, but that some birds—the stone-curlew (or great ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... to Downing Street on our motor-scooter we were just in time to catch Sir PHILIP KERR by one of his coat-tails as he was disappearing into the door of No. 10 and to ask him whether the strange rumour as to the PRIME MINISTER'S latest project ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... eyes to bless, In her magnificent comeliness, Is an English girl of eleven stone two, And five foot ten in her dancing shoe! She follows the hounds, and on she pounds - The "field" tails off and the muffs diminish - Over the hedges and brooks she bounds - Straight as a crow, from find to finish. At cricket, her kin will lose or win - She and her maids, on grass and clover, Eleven maids out - eleven maids in - (And perhaps an occasional "maiden over"). Go search the ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... your son, is it not so? He is like you"—and laying his hand on Jean's head, who clung to his father's coat-tails in wonder at the red waistcoat and the sing-song voice, he asked if the child learned his lessons well, if he was growing up to be a clever man, if he would ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... out of the houses the rats came tumbling— Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats. Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails, and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped, advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... for a change, but are mostly spoiled by poor cooks, who put tough old he's and tender young squirrels together, treating all alike. To dress and cook them properly, chop off heads, tails and feet with the hatchet; cut the skin on the back crosswise; and, inserting the two middle fingers, pull the skin off in two parts, (head and tail). Clean and cut them in halves, leaving two ribs on the hindquarters. Put hind and fore quarters into the kettle and parboil ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... a change from the monotonous drag and pull on shipboard. Frequently, too, we had some amusement and adventure. The coyotes, of which I have before spoken,— a sort of mixture of the fox and wolf breeds,— fierce little animals, with bushy tails and large heads, and a quick, sharp bark, abound here, as in all other parts of California. These the dogs were very watchful for, and, whenever they saw them, started off in full run after them. We had many fine chases; yet, although our dogs ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... its tic, but he was shaking his head. "It wouldn't go, anyway. Suppose I caught one, or both, of those other gliders, busy at their reconnaissance and shot their tails off. So what? The fans still wouldn't have their blood and gore. We'd be so high they couldn't see the action. All they would be able to see would be ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... his family may see. Then the old women of the village bring barnyard fowls to the master as presents, and these are left in the house which the horse has only recently vacated. Even the chickens are decorated with strings of berries around their necks and bits of evergreen fastened to their tails. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... exclaimed Olly, withdrawing a roast rib from his mouth for the purpose of speech; "beavers seem to have wonderfully broad and flat tails." ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... rapidly now, and presently it had crossed the railway track and turned into the lane which led up to the Big House, the dogs threading without hesitation the maze of footprints which covered all the ground thereabout. They came on with heads down and tails slowly moving, now and again giving utterance to their long and mournful note, until presently they and those who followed them were met at the yard gate by Colonel Blount, who came down to greet the sheriff of the county, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... gate to plunge face and hands into the cool of the sheltered grass that side the hedge, and then rested my eyes on the stretch of green I had lacked all day. The rabbits had apparently played and browsed unmindful of the stir, and were still flirting their white tails along the hedgerows; a lark rose, another and another, and I went back to my road. Peace still reigned, for the shadows were lengthening, and there would be little more traffic for the fair. I turned to my work, grateful for the ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... pleasure of having them at my house in a quiet way. They both rose more and more in my esteem the more I observed their inner life and character. As years rolled on, my visits were enlivened by the sight of small drums, trumpets, horses with their tails pulled out, and dolls with their noses knocked off. Sometimes very pretty little cherubs peeped in at the door, or were invited for half an hour to the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... foam hissing past her lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray dashing high over her bows and raining upon her decks; to brace myself and hang fast to the first object that presented itself, with hat jammed down and coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration that thrills in one's hair and quivers down his back bone when he knows that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel cleaving through the waves ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a thing," said Madame, "but me, I knew. Is it not so, Henri?" she cried to her husband. "I said it was this one there," and she pointed triumphantly to me. As they were going he produced a large bottle of Burgundy from a voluminous pocket in his coat tails. "Ha! le bonhomme!" cried the incorrigible wife, "he would first see which demoiselle it was before he presented the bottle!" Hubby appeared to be slightly discomfited at this and beat ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... wilderness at the other side of the sea, and they all came to the place where the asses were, and they placed themselves there. From the middle down, these animals were in the shape of a man, and from the middle up some had the likeness of bears, some of apes, and they all had tails behind them like the tail of the dukipat, from between their shoulders reaching down to the earth. The animals mounted the asses, and they rode away with them, and unto this day no eye hath seen them. One of them approached Anah, and smote him with its ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... creeper and I tied it up like a roll of tobacco. Once my wounds dressed, I sought for my servant, for I could not see him. I called him, there was no answer. My dogs were crouched at my feet; they appeared so innocent, the cunning creatures! and looked at me as they wagged their tails as if nothing was wrong. Finally I arose, and what should I see at twenty paces distance but the remains of my servant. I recognized his powder-horn and the sheath of his knife. That was all that remained of him, I tell you this ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... and I walked arm in arm So far, till he had brought me thither, Where all the devils of hell together Stood in array in such apparel As for that day there meetly fell. Their horns well-gilt, their claws full clean, Their tails well-kempt, and, as I ween, With sothery[48] butter their bodies anointed; I never saw devils so well appointed. The master-devil sat in his jacket, And all the souls were playing at racket. None other rackets they had in hand, Save every ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... deep-green sea! O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?— The hoary monster's palaces!—Methinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb-plunging down, amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn; And for the ghastly-grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn: To leap down on the kraken's back, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... laughing and looking across the room at him. Well, I saw an expression in his eyes that settled it. He looked as if he could see me—just like I know I am—in the mornings when I first wake up—all frowsy and fuddled, with this little bit of a mat I've got, sticking out in tails, about as long as your hand, on the pillow. It takes a bit of courage for a man to even go and live with a woman after he's seen her like that. I assure you it didn't take me much courage to tell him I'd ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... BROWN: We've finally got things going. Had to stir them up a little at Ledyard. Can you tell me who it is that's got hold of our coat tails on this job? There's somebody trying to hold us back, all right. Had a little fuss with a red-headed walking delegate last night, but fixed him. That hat hasn't come yet. Shall I call up the express company and see what's the matter? ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... is larger than England and Scotland together; for, besides the said three hundred twenty-two thousand paces, there are two more provinces in that part which lies toward the west, which I did not visit; one of these the Indians call Anan, whose inhabitants are born with tails. They extend to one hundred eighty miles in length, as I have learned from those Indians I have with me, who are all acquainted with these islands. But the circumference of Hispana is still greater than all Spain from Colonia to Fontarabia[13]. This is easily proved, because its fourth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... universe, says that in the beginning all was water and darkness; that in the water were the beginnings of life; but as yet there was no order. Men were there with the wings of birds and even with the feet of beasts. There were also quadrupeds and men with fishes' tails, all of which had been produced by a twofold principle. Over this incongruous mass a woman presided. This woman is called Omoroka by the Babylonians and by the Chaldeans Thalatth. The latter name, signifies, "bearing" or ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... by all means; but, as to the second point about establishment, let us sift the proposal a little. It does seem at first a little like that proposal of the fox, who had lost his own tail, to put all the other foxes in the same boat by a general cutting off of tails; and we know that moralists have decided that the right course here was, not to adopt this plausible suggestion, and cut off tails all round, but rather that the other foxes should keep their tails, and that the fox without a tail should get one. ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... see, the rain's turned out a few, and some on 'em, folks says, was buried with lots o' goold platted up in their pig-tails. I know o' one man that dug up two or three to git their teeth, (to sell to the tooth-doctors, you know,) and when he took hold o' the pig-tail to lift the head by, the hair come off in his hand, and out rattled ten good goolden guineas. Now, if any money's washed out, there's ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... water, and from their leeward ends flowed eddying currents of back water that from their dark, undulating appearance rather suggested that every boulder possessed a tail. It was always for those long, flowing tails that the canoes were steered in their slow upward struggle from one rock to another; for each tail formed a little harbour in which the canoe could not only make easier headway, but also might hover for a moment while the paddlers caught their ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... tails were over my head, and I was progressing in great leaps and bounds, and quite against my will, towards him. In the same moment the discoverer was seized, whirled about, and flew through the screaming air. ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... entangled in them, but a sailor's trousers are not very large. So Bill managed to draw up one of his legs and get hold of the foot of the trousers; then he slipped the other leg quickly out, and off went his trousers after his shoes. His shirt was the next thing to be rid of, but there was a risk of the tails getting over his head, so he rolled them up, and then getting one arm clear, in a twinkling whisked it off, and there he was, floating out in the ocean, with no more clothes on than when he was born; but he felt much lighter, and ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... this worthy body were consequently received with a simple faith which later and more sceptical generations might deny them. Perhaps the most remarkable of these directions, given under the heading of "Medicines External," was the following: "Pull off the feathers from the tails of living cocks, hens, pigeons, or chickens, and holding their bills, hold them hard to the botch or swelling, and so keep them at that part until they die, and by that means draw out the poison. It is good to apply a cupping glass, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... anything about comets, down here. If you want to see comets that ARE comets, you've got to go outside of our solar system —where there's room for them, you understand. My friend, I've seen comets out there that couldn't even lay down inside the ORBITS of our noblest comets without their tails hanging over. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Louis, you that writes in Scots, Ye're far awa' frae stirks and stots, Wi' drookit herdies, tails in knots, An unco way! My mirth's like thorns aneth ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... yet; but when he gets them he'll be as loth to leave the babbies at home on a Whitsuntide as any on us. We shall live to see him in Dunham Park yet, wi' twins in his arms, and another pair on 'em clutching at daddy's coat-tails, let alone ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... suspicions. Fired with this idea, he started on his feet, and eyeing the door for a long time before he ventured on the voyage, with a bold determination, and taking a good departure from his chair, he gained his port. He had undoubtedly expected to be lugged back again; for he whisked the tails of his coat out of reach, while, with his other hand on the lock of the door, and swaying himself about from side to side, like a ship in a calm, he stood the very image of tottering equilibrium, as the mathematicians call it. Our adroit landlord, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... often fly for two or three miles. But this is exceptional, and the usual shortness of insect flight is an important fact for man since it limits the range of insects like house-flies and mosquitoes which are vehicles of typhoid fever and malaria respectively. The most primitive insects (spring-tails and bristle-tails) show no trace of wings, while fleas and lice have become secondarily wingless. It is interesting to notice that some insects only fly once in their lifetime, namely, in connection with mating. The evolution of the insect's wing remains quite obscure, but it ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Wit, or Prejudice let fly their formidable shot at you, what odds is it they don't all whistle over your head? Thus, too, though we may want the artillery of missive wit to make reprisals, we may at least in security bid them kiss the tails we have turned to them. Who knows but, by this our supine, or rather prone serenity, their disappointed valour may become their own vexation? Or let us yet, at worst, but solidly stand our ground, like so many defensive ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... what," said Horace, rising, and standing with his back to the fire, with his hands under his coat-tails—"You may not be aware of it, but you're rather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... flight or course, that a huntsman may as well undertake to run with his dogs, or a falconer to fly with his hawk, as an aristocracy at this game to compare with the people. The people of Rome were possessed of no less a prey than the empire of the world, when the nobility turned tails, and perched among daws upon the tower of monarchy. For though they did not all of them intend the thing, they would none of them endure the remedy, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... then, like smoke, vanished with almost unbelievable swiftness into the hazy distance. Prairie dog towns, populous as cities of man a minute before their approach, went lifeless, desolate, as they passed through. In the infrequent draws and creek beds between the low, rolling hills, great-eyed cotton tails scampered to cover or, like the antelope, just out of harm's way, watched the passage of this strange being, man. Wonder of wonders that display of life would have been to another generation; but of it these grim-faced riders were apparently unconscious, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... out of the question with Esquimaux at most times, but now I was not allowed to perform the necessary ablutions of their hands and faces, however greasy or dirty they might be made by their food; the girl's hair was not to be put into pig-tails, and everything was neglected; Takkeelikkeeta was not to go sealing until the summer. With the exception of an occasional sigh from the man, there were no more signs of grief; our mourners ate, drank, and were merry, and no one would have supposed they ever had wife, mother, or sister. When ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... his kindness to words, for he sent us an ample supply of flour and clarified butter for our followers, grass and corn for our cattle, and a sheep for ourselves; these sheep are of the Doomba species, with large tails weighing several pounds, which are considered the most delicate part of the animal. He also sent us from his harem an enormous dish of foul[a]deh, made of wheat boiled to a jelly and strained, and when eaten with sugar and ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... down yon'er in Guinea Gall, De Niggers eats de fat an' all. 'Way down yon'er in de cotton fiel', Ev'ry week one peck o' meal. 'Way down yon'er ole Mosser swar'; Holler at you, an' pitch, an' r'ar; Wid cat o' nine tails, Wid pen o' nine nails, Tee whing, tee bing, An' ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... even Mr. Lofel and Mr. Oldenbuck may see, if they do will to see, how art has no enemy at all but ignorance. Look at this little slip of hazel nutsit is fit for nothing at all but to whip de little child"("I would choose a cat and nine tails for your occasions," whispered Oldbuck apart)"and you put it in the hands of a philosopherpaf! it makes de grand discovery. But this is nothing, Sir Arthur,nothing at all, worthy Dr. Botherhowlnothing at all, ladiesnothing at all, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... silver light. Down in the meadows, where the ponds were, and the shady trees grew, the cows were so hot that they stood up to their knees in the muddy water, chewing their grass with half-shut eyes, and whisking their long tails about to keep the flies at a distance. But it was of no use to whisk, for every now and then a nasty, spiteful, hungry fly would get on some poor cow's back, creep beneath the hair, and force its horny trunk into ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... the shrieking demons of pain, I saw her as I had seen her last, in the queer hat with green ribbons. I told the doctor this, guardedly, the next morning, and he said it was the morphia, and that I was lucky not to have seen a row of devils with green tails. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... moving in through the Golden Gate. The hills fell sharply away to the beach, Gioli's ranch-house, down in the valley, was only one deeper brown note among all the browns. Here and there cows were grazing, cotton-tails whisked behind the tall, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... chaps among us said that we should have good luck," remarked Twigg, the master's assistant, who was always fond of putting Rawson in the wrong. "Now, you see, old fellow, it was just heads or tails—even, you'll understand—and as ill-luck would have it, you ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... palace at Fuerstenried, under the impression that he is a sheep or goat, he will stand on one leg in the centre of a shallow pond, firmly convinced that he is a stork, occasionally flapping his long coat-tails in lieu of wings, and greedily attempting to devour any frogs or tadpoles that may come within his reach, unless prevented by his attendants ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... back, the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and the sharp thunder of his voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, so that you saw at last the use of that great wealth of names for every knowe and howe upon the hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and raised faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to fill me with wonder how they could follow and retain so long a story. But John denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the constant butt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that say many prayers and quote much Scripture, but he beat his children—both girls and boys—so severely that outsiders were at times compelled to interfere. For years these unfortunate children carried the scars left on their backs by the thongs of cat-o'-nine-tails when he punished them for some slight misdemeanor. They were all terrified at him, all obeyed him like soldiers, but none escaped his severity. The two elder ones, a boy and a girl, had married before they left England. The next girl married in Ohio, and the boys drifted away, ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... herself a character ... the poverty of her family was extreme. She had a numerous menage of daughters; and a horde of cats as pets. Whenever she walked away from her house the cats followed her in a long line, their tails gaily in the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... a board stable, and took her through to a large, roofed inclosure in the rear. There he led to her a span of sturdy dappled chestnuts, with cream-colored manes and tails. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... he said to me, shortly after his arrival, "ees a big monkey-house, and all ze monkeys are pulling each ozer's tails. I pull no tails, moi, and I allow no liberties to ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... carrying torches. But when their horns were burned to the quick, causing them considerable pain, the beasts, now scorched by the fire from one another as they shook their heads, set off in wild career over the mountains, with their foreheads and tails blazing, setting fire to a great part of the wood through which they passed. The Romans watching the pass were terribly scared at the sight; for the flames looked like torches carried by men running, and they fell into great confusion and alarm, thinking that they were surrounded, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... shapes of several beasts, so we will not look like any one of them," proposed the wily old Nome. "Let us have the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, the wings of eagles and the tails of wild asses, with knobs of gold on the end of them instead ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... flights of easy stairs. We entered a door at the top, and the first objects which struck our eyes were the vultures. They sat motionless, as close together as possible, on top of the wall of the round tower, with their tails toward us and their beaks toward the centre of the tower where the bodies are placed. The wall is about twenty feet high and fifty feet in diameter. There did not appear to be room for one more bird upon it, every inch of it ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... room, and a greenish sofa across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on one side of it stood an Alaskan "grass basket" full of photographs, and on the other an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted with daisies and full of gilded cat-tails tied with a blue ribbon. Near the piano straddled a huge easel of imitation brass up-holding the crayon picture of Ida's baby sister enlarged from a photograph. Across one corner of this picture was a yellow "drape." ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... kits asleep, and gone down to get her own breakfast, and there, in the middle of the ruffled apron, as if in a dainty cradle, lay the two Maltese darlings, with white bibs and boots on, and white tips to the tiny tails curled round their little noses in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... accustomed to the gloom, I saw that there were numerous persons in this great hall: tall monks in flowing robes of black, beggars come to solicit alms or breakfast; and dogs, many dogs, who crowded round me, with a waving of huge tails, and a gleaming of brown jewelled eyes in the dusk. I did not need to ring the bell of the iron gate beyond which, according to Joseph, no woman has ever passed. One of the monks came to me—a tall, spare young man with a grave face, soft in expression, yet hardened in outline by a rigorous ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... their bodies the long ropes were wound, their master standing by with his goad. That we wound also, and covered his hat with roses. The huge oxen swayed aside, looking ashamed of themselves. And when their tails were ornamented with a bunch at the tip, they switched these pathetically. Still even an ox loves festivity, whether he owns to it or not. We made a procession, child behind child, each bearing on his head all the roses he could carry, the two oxen walking tandem, led by ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... pound still, but two of them are wrapping paper in a good many stores. And there're just as many chances for a fellow as ever, but they're a little gun shy, and you can't catch them by any such coarse method as putting salt on their tails. ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... budding woods, and of clearings round which the trees stand on guard about the safe little daisies and wild hyacinths and wild crocuses; flowers of the sloping meadows that go down to the streams of Spring. And all along the streams the twigs are budding; the yellow "lambs' tails" swing in the breeze, as if answering to the white lambs' tails that are wagging in the fields. The thrush sings in the copse, and in his piercing sweet note is ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... green leaves and brown bark with touches of silver, and, far up, the deep blue sky with white clouds reposing on it, like snowy islands on a blue ocean; and he watched the squirrels, with their bushy tails, as they ran up the tree, and jumped from branch to branch, and sported among the leaves, until he fell into a sort of pleasant day-dream, and felt so happy, he hardly knew why. As he lay here, he thought he heard, in his half-waking dream, a little squirrel sing a song. Was it not his own heart, ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... was hit, for his body gave a spasmodic jerk forwards, his knees bent under him, and his head became thrown back somewhat over his shoulders. He did not fall himself, but his hat did; he dropped his pistol to the ground, and inserted both his right and his left hand under the tails of his coat. ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Our fellows gave way as hard as they could, but the Malay kept the lead; and as we shot past the Chinese towns, one on each bank, the natives crowded to the beach, as much astonished, no doubt, with our strange cocked hats, swords, and oddly-shaped boat, as we could be with their long tails and wild-looking junks, or with the creases which every Malay carries by his side. This fierce-looking weapon is not, in form, unlike the waving sword one sees in the pictures of the angel Michael, though it is not above a foot and ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... and the doyley. "This is serious," he said sternly, "and if it wasn't that the young ladies perticler asked me not to, I'd clap the handcuffs on the lot of you for it, and as like as not you'd get a week in jail, and have your jackets warmed with that there cat-o'-nine-tails you may have heard tell on. Don't you think, miss," turning to Esther with a very grave face, "as 'ow ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... beaten, huge horns are blown, and thus summoned the group from each village forms its procession. In front are young men with swords and shields or other weapons, the village standard-bearers with their flags, and boys waving yaks' tails or bearing poles with fantastic arrangements of garlands and wreaths intended to represent umbrellas of dignity. Sometimes a man riding on a wooden horse is carried, horse and all, by his friends as the Raja, and others assume the form ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of coyotes. They would not hurt anyone; they were more scared than you were—the bunch had told him so. He wished he could get a sight of him, though. He liked to see their ears stick up and their noses stick out in a sharp point, and see them drop their tails and go sliding away out of sight. When he was ten and Daddy Chip gave him a gun, he would shoot coyotes and skin ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... ornamented with the horns of goats or antelopes. The sorcerers were an important element. These rascals, who are the curse of the country, were, as usual, in a curious masquerade with fictitious beards manufactured with a number of bushy cows' tails. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... small as sparrows, while others surpassed in stretch of wing the largest birds of the present day. They may be divided into two groups. The earliest group comprises genera with jaws set with teeth, and with long tails sometimes provided with a rudderlike expansion at the end. In their successors of the later group the tail had become short, and in some of the genera the teeth had disappeared. Among the latest of the flying reptiles was ORNITHOSTOMA (bird beak), the largest creature which ever flew, and whose ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... to my coat-tails to keep yourself up. You look to my position for shelter, but let me make it clear to you that you can't hide behind my prestige and my position any longer. You human sponge! You parasite! Do you think I'm blind because I've been dumb? ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Bo-peep has lost her sheep, And can't tell where to find them; Let them alone, and they'll come home, And bring their tails behind them. ...
— Simple Simon - Silhouette Series • Anonymous
... there great fishes in the spray Their silvery fins beneath the sun display, Or their blue tails lash up from out the surge, Like to a flock the sea its fleece doth fling; The horizon's edge bound by a brazen ring; Waters and sky in ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... slaughtered and hunted people. It was near night; yet the bagpipes struck up a national air as the last of the Highland host passed the river: and the Highlanders began dancing reels, "which," relates Lord George, "in a moment dried them, for they had held up the tails of their short coats in passing the river; so when their legs were dry, all was right." This day, forming an epoch in the sorrowful narrative of the insurrection of 1745, was the birthday of Prince Charles, who then attained his twenty-fifth year. Many mercies had marked the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... time too ... to be sure there were! But who were they? A pack of strumpets, shameless hussies. Draggle-tails—for ever gadding about after no good.... What do they care? It's little they take to heart. If some poor fool comes in their way, they pounce on him. But sensible folk looked down on them. Did you ever see, pray, the like of such ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... to me it must be Peter's writing," she said at last. "Those long tails to the filial letters of the words, those are characteristic. And it's—yes, it's ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... high forbiding flats looking down on to the dirty ice of the canals, the water dripping, dripping, dripping.... No one was about. Every one had gone to join in the procession. I could see it, with my mind's eye, unwinding its huge tails through the watery-oozing channels of the town, like some pale-coloured snake, crawling through the ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... at the field across the road. On it sedges were waving, softly brown; tufts of mouse-gray goldenrod nodded before the breeze; chestnut-hued cat-tails stood guard in thick ranks, and a delicate Indian Summer haze blended all into a harmony of warm, ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... flowers were in great profusion; but we saw no animals anywhere, excepting a few chipmunks and gophirs, which are sort of half-rats, half-squirrels. The chipmunks are dear little things about the size of a mouse, with long bushy tails and a dark stripe running the whole length of ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... was also made for five extra bass keys at the lower end of the upper manual. However, since short octave tuning was employed and it was desirable to be able to use the same fingering in the bass on both manuals, the tails of the C/E, D/F and E/G keys of the upper manual had to be bent to the left in order to work on the strings played by the F, G, and A keys respectively of the lower manual. The vacant space to the left of the upper ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... at the quiet reprimand given by a literary lady of New York to a stranger at her receptions, who, with hands crossed complacently under his coat-tails, was critically examining the various treasures in her room, humming obtrusively as he ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... there," said Charles. "Aunt Mary, in my young days, used to think nothing of the grave if I had displeased her. She still revels in a future court of justice, and an eternal cat-o'-nine tails beyond the tomb. Well, Molly, so here you are, back again! What's the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... out of the shells being half boil'd, then take the tails and lard them with a salt eel (or not lard them) part the tails into two halves the longest way, and fry them in sweet sallet oyl, or clarified butter; being finely fryed, put them into a dish or pipkin, and set them by; then make sauce with white wine, and white wine vinegar, four or ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... Looming are species of mirage." The mirage is one of the most beautiful scenes I ever beheld and can only be seen on the plains or in deserts in its complete beauty. It has to be seen to be appreciated. It makes a buffalo look like it had two tails. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... many of its human ones. Stout, sedate looking pigs, hurried by each morning to their places of business, with a preoccupied air, and sonorous greeting to their friends. Genteel pigs, with an extra curl to their tails, promenaded in pairs, lunching here and there, like gentlemen of leisure. Rowdy pigs pushed the passers by off the side walk; tipsy pigs hiccoughed their version of "We wont go home till morning," from the gutter; and delicate young pigs tripped daintily through the mud, as if, like "Mrs. Peerybingle," ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... with ye. Won't wait while y' sprinkle salt on their tails, them red-heads and canvas ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the Indian style. Magnificent panoplies unite Rajpoot shields, Mahratta scimitars, helmets with curtains of steel, rings belonging to Afghan chiefs, and long lances ornamented with white mares' tails, wielded by the horsemen of Cabul. The walls are painted from designs brought from Lahore. The panels of the doors were decorated by Gerome. The great artist has painted Nautch girls twisting their floating scarves, and jugglers throwing poignards into the air. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... Bess with suspicious promptness. "Walter is jolly good fun, especially when he has his Bargain Rush with him. But lately the rest of us girls—even Grace—have to hang on to his coat-tails to keep him from going off alone with you. He doesn't seem to know there's any one else around. Oh, you don't need to look so surprised, Miss Innocence," she added, as Nan regarded her with wide-open eyes. "You know it just as well as the rest ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... like a cat when scratchingly she wheels about after a mouse,' as my old favourite, Sir Philip Sidney, says. Notwithstanding her speed, however, when I reached the mouth of the lane, there was Mr Coningham half across the first field, with his coat-tails flying out behind him. I would not allow myself to be left in such a discourteous fashion, and gave chase. Before he had measured the other half of the field, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... gazed across the river, his hands under the tails of his frock, and the perturbation of his mind expressed by the frequent flapping of those somber woolen wings. To the little man who watched him, there was a faint resemblance to a ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... that I like to be my own master. A mistress at my coat-tails would be more troublesome than a wife; she would be an obstacle to the numerous pleasant adventures I encounter at every town. For example, if I had a mistress I should not be able to take the charming Irene to the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for that matter, is the suburb that never do even beggars resort thither, save when drunk. No, the only creatures which resort thither are dogs which subsist no one knows how as predatorily they roam from court to court with tails tucked between their flanks, and bloodless tongues hanging down, and legs ever prepared, on sighting a human being, to bolt into the ravine, or to let down their owners upon subservient bellies in expectation of a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... get up and see what is going on.—Oh,—oh,—oh! do you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is born of the little red eggs we call sparks, with his hundred blowing red manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous red eyes glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongues lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... it braided," she exclaimed. "I like it this way. It would look like ugly little pig-tails if it was braided, and I won't have it that way. Oh, I want to go home. I don't like it here one single bit. I am sure my mamma would n't let me have my hair braided, like ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... folks," he told himself. "Catch 'em just as easy as a bird—only put a little salt on their tails, in the shape of good paying stocks, or a sufficient number ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... you, sir, yes," said Philip, gratefully. "Agreed, then. Follow me—present you to Mrs. P." Thus saying, Mr. Plaskwith returned the letter to the pocket-book, and the pocket-book to the pocket; and, putting his arms behind his coat tails, threw up his chin, and strode through the passage into a small parlour, that locked upon a small garden. Here, seated round the table, were a thin lady, with a squint (Mrs. Plaskwith), two little girls, the Misses Plaskwith, also with squints, and pinafores; a young man of three ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... mettre les redites et les priphrases de l'original anglo-saxon, je la rendrais meilleure et plus conforme l'esprit vritable de l'oeuvre. Est-ce sacrifier du reste la fidlit d'une traduction que d'pargner au public la lecture de dtails le plus souvent bizarres et inintelligibles? N'est-il pas plus logique d'en finir de suite avec des artifices potiques inconnus nos littratures modernes, plutt que de vouloir s'escrimer en vain les reproduire en franais? Et alors mme ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... on both sides. No villages, no human beings were seen. Tall trees stood on the bank like triumphal arches, and from their boughs hung lianas serving as rope ladders and swings for sportive monkeys with prehensile tails. Day after day the vessel glided farther into this humid land never before seen by white men. The Spaniards looked in vain for natives, and their eyes tried in vain to pierce the green murkiness between the tree trunks. The men showed increasing uneasiness; but Orellana ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... will not greet us gladly, But drearily howl with drooping tails. And lifting their heads the horses will listen; Neighing they stand, the ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... wooden measure, going round the corner of the house, and clucking for the fowls to rally from their scratching-places. These came zealously, with speed of leg and wing, from straw-rick, threshing-floor, double hedge, or mixen; and following their tails, the boy slipped through the rick-yard, and tossed a note to Mary with a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the loggia and watched the Contessa's departure. As the small horses trotted away, with a jingling of bells and a fluttering of the furry tails that hung from their ears, the padre parroco passed. He took off his hat to the Contessa, then seeing Mrs. Burgoyne on the loggia, he gave her, too, a shy but ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the hounds, the young Count of Jaffa, with his great army of hunters and attendants, moved before the cavalcade into the heart of the forest. A fantastic train it was, with the picturesque costumes of the riders, the tinted tails of their horses and dogs flashing an orange trail in the sunshine, a touch of coquetry much in vogue among the young Cyprian nobles of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... still legal although their use is now considered rather the "Whitechapel game." He resorted to the cross-lines, not in greed for fish but for the sake of the shooting practice they afforded him. When the hooked fish were struggling and in their struggles showing their tails out of water, he several times shot two right and left breaking the spine in each case close to ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Mosk. 'I'd give him the cat-o-nine tails if I had my way. Don't you trouble about him, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the walls, sunlight brightening the oak leaves and saplings in the coppice, watching the water-lily leaves unfold and glisten, and the silvery young corn of the one wheat field; listening to the starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud, flicking slow their tufted tails; and every one of these fine days he ached a little from sheer love of it all, feeling perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much longer to enjoy it. The thought that some day—perhaps not ten years hence, perhaps not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Planet Mars, in which he does battle against the ferocious "plant men," creatures whose mighty tails swished their victims to instant death, and defies Issus, the terrible Goddess of Death, whom all ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... it be spoken, Fat Capons shak't their tails at's in defiance? And turkey tombs such honorable monuments, Shall piggs, Sir, that the Parsons self would envy, And ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... you on the floor. I laughed at the idea of having a tail on one's dresses. I noticed that the first day when you came to the Court." Before we had time to explain to her, she said: "I see, dresses with tails behind must be more dignified than short ones, am I right?" We told her it was so. Then she said: "Go and put on your most beautiful gowns at once." We immediately went and changed. My sister and myself wore our pink crepe de chine gowns, trimmed ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... try to get them to the ranch house. You boys will have to make a snow camp, and hold the herd from drifting at all odds. Don't let them sneak on you. Keep pushing them from the south. You see, they're all turned that way now with their tails to the wind. As soon as they get cold they will begin to move. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... bushy tails, however, soon enabled them to turn about and follow in the new direction, and they galloped after Harry, who was now the nearest ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... who've parts at exhibition Obtained by long, unwearied fishing, I say, to such unlucky wretches, I give, for wear, a brace of breeches; Then used; as they're but little tore, I hope they'll show their tails no more. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... footprints is distinguishable from all other rabbit tracks in the area. Even when only patches of snow remain, the animal can be followed by checking the edges of the snow for the emerging footprints of the marked rabbit. The same dye is used to color the tails. The color persists in the footprints for about three hours, over a distance of 600 to 800 yards. The animal leaves only a small spot in each footprint, but when it pauses, the mark is large. Red dye makes the most ...
— Home Range and Movements of the Eastern Cottontail in Kansas • Donald W. Janes
... jury-canvas at the rate of five to six knots per hour. Toward evening, however, on the second day, signs of a change of weather began to manifest themselves, the sky to windward losing its rich tint of blue and becoming pallid and hard, streaked with mares' tails and flecked with small, smoky-looking, swift-flying clouds, while the setting sun, as he neared the horizon, lost his radiance and became a mere shapeless blotch of angry red that finally seemed to dissolve and disappear in a broad bank of slate-hued vapour. The sea too changed ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... thought he could answer that question, "the miller's wife has a pair in a cage, but they aren't very pretty, 'cause they've scraped most of the feathers off their heads and rumpled their tails, trying to get out. The miller caught three of them down there last winter, only one died and the other two aren't a bit happy; the male doesn't sing and the female has a cough. The miller's wife doesn't care much for them; they're a bother to feed, she says—have ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... husband and they took big sticks and went down to the river and commenced whacking Bruin who, by this time, was fast in the ice. He pulled and he pulled and he pulled, till at last he got away leaving three quarters of his tail in the ice, and that is why bears have such short tails ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... of the Railway Company. They came on like a whirlwind, and dashed over the line snorting, kicking, squealing in a compact, piebald, tossing mob of bay, brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended, nostrils red, long tails streaming. As soon as they had leaped upon the road the thick dust flew upwards from under their hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio only a brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers rolled by, making the soil tremble on ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... squeals his lungs were capable of, his hind legs were secured and his body hung suspended by the steelyards, the dog in the meantime keeping up a loud barking, and threatening to make ribbons of the major's coat-tails for taking such improper liberties with his friend. "Eighty-four pounds, exactly," muttered the drover, counting the notches upon his steelyards as the major bagged his pet, who continued to give out so many squeals ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... lovely little blue eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long tails, white summer frock and embroidered pantalettes. * * * He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye until he saw that she had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... lance,[FN303] and she was wrapped in a veil of gold-purfled silk. The merchant uncovered her face, whereupon the place was illumined by her beauty and her seven tresses hung down to her anklets like horses' tails. She had Nature kohl'd eyes, heavy hips and thighs and waist of slenderest guise, her sight healed all maladies and quenched the fire of sighs, for she was even as the poet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... the opposite end of the cloister a faint glimmer of white light, then the red glare of torches, and at last a crew the sight of which made their flesh creep and their hair stand on end—he-devils with birds' heads, horses' tails, and tinsel of all colours; she-devils or abducted shepherdesses in white and pink dresses; and at the head of them Lucifer himself, horned and, except the blood-red face, all black. The strange noise, however, turned out to be the rattling of castanets, and the terrible-looking figures a ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... irritable impatience that is often combined With a mood of leaden despondency. A brown lizard with two tails—a monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine—ran across his foot, and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so did Miriam, trying to dissolve her whole heart into sympathy, and lavish it all upon him, were it only ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... much in delivery and manner during this course of lectures .... In his earlier lectures his ways were awkward, his speech was too rapid, and he did not know what in world to do with his hands. It was quite to see him run them under his coat tails, spread them across his shirt front, stick them in his breeches pockets, twirl them in the arm-holes his vest, or hold them behind his back. He has now found out how to dispose of them in a more or less natural way. His delivery is less rapid, his voice better modulated, and his enunciation ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... turned upside-down, and one hardly dares longer say what he believes, for the dogma of to-day is the fairy-tale of to-morrow. And, through it all, as some one has tersely said, 'orthodoxy is hanging onto the coat-tails of progress in a vain attempt to stop her.' We are facing in the United States the momentous question, Is Christianity a failure? Although no one knows what Christianity really is. But one thing is certain, the brand of Christianity handed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... handkerchiefs and shawls, English and German, are sold, we passed to the shop of Mustapha, the scent dealer, where we established ourselves for a luncheon, consisting of pipes, coffee, and lemonade, while the various bottles of perfume,—viz. attar of roses and jasmine, musk, musk rat-tails, lemon essence, sandal wood, pastilles, dyes, all the sweet odours that form part and parcel of a sultana's toilet, were temptingly exposed to our view. From time to time, portions of these delicacies were rubbed on our whiskers, hands, and lips, to induce us to purchase; so ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... madness in this. Whilst he is there I'm nothing—but without him, if I were with her again—I was always beaten easily by anybody but in this at least I can be strong. I don't hate him but I know that he will always be first as long as we're together. And we seem to be tied now like dogs by their tails, tied by ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole |
