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More "Sparrow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thus, when his Sparrow's flown, The Bird in Silence eyes; But soon as out of Sight 'tis gone, Whines, ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... ready for any kind of an excursion. During the whole of this little flight he uttered a loud, brisk, and melodious neigh, and finally came down at Bellerophon's side as lightly as ever you saw a sparrow hop ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... half jest, but nothing could have been more real; she was beside herself with grief. I realised that if philologians have disputed as to how far Catullus' poem of the girl's grief over the dead sparrow were jest or earnest, it was because they had never seen a girl weep over a bird. Catullus, perhaps, makes fun a little of the grief, but the grief itself, in his poem too, is ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... forests, as the pygmies of Africa do to this very day. When he felt the pangs of hunger he ate raw leaves and the roots of plants or he took the eggs away from an angry bird and fed them to his own young. Once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he would catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit. These he would eat raw for he had never discovered that food tasted ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... fear in the world." "What another man would call want, I call comfort." "Must not one often act thoughtlessly, if one would provoke Fortune to do something for him?" In his first inexperience, the life of "the sparrow on the house-top" (which we find oddly translated "roof") was the one he would choose for himself. Later in life, when he wished to marry, he was of another mind, and perhaps discovered that there was something in the old father's ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... impression which some who read it, and may believe it, may form, that such a vast catastrophe as I have depicted militates against the idea that God rules and cares for his world and his creatures. It will be asked, If "there is a special providence even in the fall of a sparrow," how ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... is before our eyes! On one side, the nations who allow the woman to be degraded and enslaved at the feet of the confessor—France, Spain, Romish Ireland, Mexico, &c., &c.—are, there, fallen into the dust, bleeding, struggling, powerless, like the sparrow whose entrails are devoured by the vulture. On the other side, see how the nations whose women go to wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb are soaring up, as on eagle wings, in the highest regions ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... to the sea he is with that child that looks as if he was made of air, and lived on live larks! And Master Lance, he's no better-eats like a sparrow, and sits up half the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one may hear the happy song of the white-throated sparrow. Here and above lives the leucosticte. Far above the vanguard of the brave pines, where the brilliant flowers fringe the soiled remnants of winter's drifted snow, where sometimes the bees hum and the painted butterflies sail on ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... this dream and a little anecdote brought down to us, as having actually occurred in Rome about twenty-four hours before his death. A little bird, which by some is represented as a very small kind of sparrow, but which, both to the Greeks and the Romans, was known by a name implying a regal station (probably from the ambitious courage which at times prompted it to attack the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... 3 Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young: even thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my Bang ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... at Bonneville—shackamarack gilt dirt, Irish-French. Pictet bought a sparrow some boys in the street threw up at the window, and said he would bring it home for his little grandson. It was ornamented with a topping made of scarlet cloth. He put it in his hat, and tied a handkerchief over it; and hatless in the burning sun he ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... bye there arrived, with chattering loud, Chaffinch and sparrow and finch, in a cloud; Round and around in their fierce attack, They plucked the feathers from breast and back; And the poor little linnet all vainly strove, Fighting with ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing) by insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight to Kutuzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutuzov who had brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle; if it succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if battle were not given, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow. But this intrigue did not now occupy the old ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... naturally grows curious about whether a cobra or some other less desirable member of the reptile world is not likely at any time to join their interesting company. The lizards scale the walls and ceiling in search of flies, frogs hop sociably about the floor, and a sparrow now and then twitters ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... instances of a directing Providence in our affairs. And have we forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sirs, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without His notice is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sirs, that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus- flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... point; thinness &c 203. dwarf, pygmy, pigmy^, Liliputian, chit, pigwidgeon^, urchin, elf; atomy^, dandiprat^; doll, puppet; Tom Thumb, Hop-o'-my-thumb^; manikin, mannikin; homunculus, dapperling^, cock-sparrow. animalcule, monad, mite, insect, emmet^, fly, midge, gnat, shrimp, minnow, worm, maggot, entozoon^; bacteria; infusoria^; microzoa [Micro.]; phytozoaria^; microbe; grub; tit, tomtit, runt, mouse, small fry; millet seed, mustard seed; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sister, with whom I have played and been merry in the autumn tide about the edges of the stubble-fields; and we gathered the nuts and bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush, and wondered at his voice and thought him big; and the sparrow-hawk wheeled and turned over the hedges and the weasel ran across the path, and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sat happy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the sage, the elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical elements, variously disguised, support all mortals. A brief study of Pinkerton in his new setting convinced me of a kindred truth about that other and mental digestion by which we extract what is called "fun for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Paradise for the thieves and murderers who acknowledged His splendor and fought His fight. This marvelous charity, the cleansing hope for his blackened soul, swept over him in a warm rush of humble praise and unutterable gratitude. Nothing of the Lord's was lost: "His eye is on the sparrow." ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... go by, a noisy throng; About the meadows all day long The shore-lark drops his brittle song; And up the leafless tree The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings; The bluebird dips with flashing wings, The robin flutes, the sparrow sings, And the swallows ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... common. There is your military martinet, your clerical martinet, your legal martinet, and the martinet of common life, ("Gallicrista fastidiosa communis," Linnaeus would class him,) who is to the others what the house-sparrow is to the rest of his tribe. It is with him alone we have to do. The "martinet" is a person who is all his life violently busied in endeavouring to be a perfect gentleman, and who almost succeeds. He misses the point by over-stepping it. He is like one of those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... grown—as is also the fibre of men. Impenetrable and therefore weedless; for no plant life can flourish there, nor animal nor bird. Scarce a beetle runs bewilderingly through those forbidding colossal solitudes. The field-sparrow will flutter away from pollen-bearing to pollen-receiving top, trying to beguile you from its nest hidden near the edge. The crow and the blackbird will seem to love it, having a keen eye for the cutworm, its only ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... the life of man, O king," said an aged noble, "as a sparrow's flight through the hall when you are sitting at meat in winter-tide, with the warm fire lighted on the hearth, while outside all is storm of rain and snow. The sparrow flies in at one door, and tarries for a moment in the light and heat of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... endeavor, Thy birds here do not live forever; That cold or hunger, sickness or age, Finishes their earthly stage; The rook drops without a stroke, And never gives another croak; Birds lie here, and birds lie there, With little feathers all astare; And in Thy own sermon, Thou That the sparrow falls dost allow. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... also materially assisted by Military Store-Keeper Girardey and several young officers—Captain Finney, and Lieutenants Waller, Collier, Sparrow, Hallam, and Cadet Lewis, and towards the close of operations by ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... beginning of things! Ammon, lord of eternity! Ptha, demiurgus! Thoth, his intelligence! Gods of Amenthi! Special Triads of the Nomes! Sparrow-hawks in the azure! Sphinxes on the outsides of temples! Ibises standing between the horns of oxen! Planets! Constellations! River-banks! Murmurs of wind! Reflections of light! Tell me ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... acquaintances was a little bird which is known as the clay-colored sparrow. It belongs to the same genus (Spizella) as the chipping and field sparrows which are so well known in the East; but it has an individuality of its own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... changed the whole perspective of life for birds, as they may for us shortly; so it is no surprise to find that birds have, almost with one consent, converted their tails into steering-gear. A commonplace bird, like a sparrow, scarcely requires this except as a brake when in the act of alighting; but to those birds with which flight is an art and an accomplishment, an expansive forked or rounded tail (there are two patents) is indispensable. We have shot almost ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the prairie spring unrolled its beauties before me. I saw the last goose pass on to the north, and watched the green grass creeping up the sunny slopes. I answered the splendid challenge of the loitering crane, and studied the ground sparrow building her grassy nest. The prairie hens began to seek seclusion in the swales, and the pocket gopher, busily mining the sod, threw up his purple-brown mounds of cool fresh earth. Larks, blue-birds and king-birds followed the robins, and at last the full tide ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... he had created in his mind, he buried his face again in his hands. Once more Blanche sought to soothe his cares by assuring him that He who watched the sparrow's fall would in some way care for ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... inspection at the principal ports of entry on both Atlantic and Pacific coasts by means of which the introduction of noxious mammals and birds is prevented, thus keeping out the mongoose and certain birds which are as much to be dreaded as the previously introduced English sparrow and the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... de la cort del Puoi Santa Maria e de dar l'esparvier. Lone temps ac la seignoria de la cort del Puoi, tro que la cortz se perdet." "He was made president of the court of Puy Sainte Marie and of awarding the sparrow-hawk. For a long time he held the presidency of the court of Puy, until the court was dissolved." The troubadour Richard de Barbezieux refers to this court, which seems to have been a periodical meeting attended by the nobles and troubadours of Southern Prance. ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... how the appreciate this plant. There wasa chewink in the Stanley woods, that brought off a brood of four, under the safe shelter of a rank thistle leaf, in the midst of trampling herds of cattle driven wild by flies. There was a ground sparrow near the Hale sand pit, covered by a base leaf of another thistle, and beneath a third on Bob's lease, I had made a study of an exquisite nest. Protection from the rank leaves was not all the birds sought of these plants, for goldfinches were darting around inviting all creation ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to cry. "Oh, my dear, my dear, try to control yourself, or you'll do something dreadful some day!" Cherry-pie's efforts to check Elizabeth's temper were like the protesting twitterings of a sparrow in a thunder-storm. When she reproved her now, the furious little creature, wincing and trying to check the bleeding with her handkerchief, did not even take the trouble to reply. Later, of course, the ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... do not," he said heartily. "I care for you as St Francis did for his pet sparrow. So now put your hat on and I will go down and get a vettura with ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... a hero; I could reverence him as my prince; I would kneel and wash the dust from his feet, or cut off my long hair to string his bow; but I cannot be his bride," exclaimed Zarah. "I am so weak, so unworthy! It would be like mating the eagle with the sparrow that sits on the housetops. Maccabeus ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... was thrashing the broad, leafy top of the maple whose tallest twigs reached to the funny grey eaves of our old house. One roly-poly little sparrow blew or flew to the sill and sat there for a minute, looking at me with knowing eyes. Down below I could see Murray in a corner of the yard, pottering over a sick duck. He had set its broken leg and was nursing ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... lay at St. James's. Yesterday evening he was at the Queen's and Carlton-house, and at night at Lady Hertford's assembly. He only takes the title of altesse, an absurd mezzotermine, but acts king exceedingly; struts in the circle like a cock-sparrow, and does the honours of himself very civilly. There is a favourite too, who seems a complete jackanapes; a young fellow called Holke, well enough in his figure, and about three-and-twenty, but who will be tumbled down long before he is prepared for it. Bernsdorff, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... and etiquette for which he was indebted to the unusual movement about him, pursued his favourite sport of bird-hunting in the gardens of the Tuileries, and attached more importance to the feats of a well-trained sparrow-hawk than to the probable qualities of the bride provided for him by the policy of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... valleys and lakes burst upon his view, as the deer at his approach leaped from his ambush into the deeper solitudes, as the startled bird with rushing wings darted from his feet into the sky; or his pious thanksgiving, as at the end of a weary day the song of the sparrow or the robin relieved his mind from the heavy melancholy that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... what an accomplished young man he was, and how he thought nothing of squandering half-a-dollar for ice-cream and oysters to celebrate his entry as clerk into the woollen department of Macy's. Before she finished I began to paint, and she resumed the pose, smiling and chattering like a sparrow. By noon I had the study fairly well rubbed in and Tessie came to ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... no great sympathy with those who talk of the cruelty of the work. A whale feels acutely, no doubt, and so does a mouse or a sparrow, when wounded; but not having huge bodies to twist and turn about in their agony, they do not appear to suffer so much as does the mighty monarch of the deep. I suspect that the amount of pain felt by the small animal is equally great with that felt by the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... hair, which was not so dark as that of the Indians, was smooth and sleek as the hair on the head of a child, or the feathers on the breast of the humming-bird. His head was encircled with a chaplet made of the feathers of the song-sparrow and the red-headed-woodpecker. He rode slowly through the village without stopping till he came to the lodge of Wasabajinga, when he alighted, leaving his good horse to feed upon the grass which grew around the cabin. He entered the lodge of the chief. The stern old warrior, without ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... was a sort of hawk (Haliaeetus leucosternus, Gould) rather larger than the sparrow-hawk, of a light cinnamon colour, with a perfectly white head. They also frequent the shores, but I never ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... watchful care was impressed upon them by the simple reminder that though sparrows were sold two for a farthing, and yet not a sparrow could be sacrificed without the Father's concern, they, who were of more value than many sparrows, would not be forgotten. They were solemnly warned that whosoever would freely confess the Christ before men would be acknowledged by Him in the Father's ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the reposeful quiet of the tomb. Barney Bill smoked for a time in silence, while Paul sat with clenched fists and a beating heart. The simplicity of the high adventure dazed him. All he had to do was to walk away—walk and walk, free as a sparrow. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and lanes the quantity and variety of life in the hedges was really astonishing. Magpies, jays, woodpeckers—both green and pied—kestrels hovering overhead, sparrow-hawks darting over gateways, hares by the clover, weasels on the mounds, stoats at the edge of the corn. I missed but two birds, the corncrake and the grasshopper lark, and found these another season. ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... Delmar, Delamere, Delapole, impress more than Mears and Pool, and Larpent (Fr. I'arpent), Lemaitre, and Lestrange more than Acres, Masters, and Strange. There are few names of less heroic sound than Spark and Codlin, yet the former is sometimes a contraction of the picturesque Sparrow-hawk, used as a personal name by the Anglo-Saxons, while the latter can be traced back via the earlier forms Quodling (still found), Querdling, Querdelyoun ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... parrot, with a red beak, and a circle of salmon-coloured feathers round its neck; they are very noisy and destructive, and flock together to the fields where they do great damage to the crops. The lutkun sooga is an exquisitely-coloured bird, about the size of a sparrow. The ghur[a]l, a large red and green parrot, with a crimson beak. The tota a yellowish-green colour, and the male with a breast as red as blood; they call it the amereet bhela. Another lovely little ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... in their frown! Cannot we direct it harmlessly to the earth? The morning and evening prayer of the people I speak for in such weakness rises in strength to that Supreme Ruler who, in noticing the fall of a sparrow, cannot disregard the fall of a nation, that our States may continue to be as they have been—one; one in the unreserve of a mingled national being; one as the thought of God ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... would have occasioned little disturbance, she suspected, had it not been for the cookies. She was used by now to having no fuss made over her. Laura waved a hand from her seat behind the horses; the boys swung their hats; Priscilla darted over to display a ground-sparrow's nest that ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... man, the promise of a life beyond death; and Coifi, one of the councillors, rising, speaks thus: "So seemeth to me the life of man, O King, as when in winter-tide, seated with your thanes around you, out of the storm that rages without a sparrow flies into the hall, and fluttering hither and thither a little, in the warmth and light, passes out again into the storm and darkness. Such is man's life, but whence it cometh and whither it goeth ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... damned hard thing to hear one's own flesh and blood abused. Look here: there's a couple. One of them has made a fool of a girl. It can't be my rascal—stop a minute—he isn't the man, because she'd have been sure to have made a fool of him, that's certain. He's a soft-hearted dog. He'd aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed. There you have him. He was one of your good boys. I used to tell his poor mother, 'When you leave off thinking for him, he'll go to the first handy villain—and that's the devil.' And he's done it. But, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... water, and she had never had very much to do with them. In the birds she found her true allies. They were not attached to the higher civilisation. The higher civilisation, so far, had treated them inconsiderately, at sparrow clubs. The Owl talked a good deal about the low moral tone of the human race in this respect, and was pessimistic about it, failing to perceive that higher types of organisms always like to signify their superiority over lower ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... unprejudiced man who looks at history can fail to see from how small and apparently unimportant an event has sprung the greatest results to the individual, the nation, and the world. The Christian, at least, needs no other explanation of this than that his God, without whose knowledge no sparrow falleth to the ground, guides all the affairs of the world. Surely God did not make the world, and purchase the salvation of its tenants by the sacrifice of his Son, to take no further interest in it, but leave it subject either to fixed law or ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... is a marvellous transformer; not only vegetable but animal life is affected by it; the bush is enlivened by the twittering of small birds, which come from nobody knows where, build their nests, hatch out their young, and disappear! Almost every bush held a nest, usually occupied by a diamond-sparrow. Her nest is round, like a wren's, with one small entrance and is built roughly of grass, lined with soft, small feathers. The eggs, numbering four to five in the few nests we disturbed, are white and of the size and shape of our hedge-sparrow's. I am pretty ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... beast more formidable than the fox. The inordinate breeding of rooks seems even in those days[125] to have led to a war of extermination against them, carried on upon a system akin to that which was waged against the sparrow in the memory of men yet living. But besides this one, he records, in the De Subtilitate, few facts concerning Britain. He quotes the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in support of the view that the barbarians ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... commander was the son of Colonel Nivelle—and an English mother, a former Miss Sparrow, whose family lived at Deal, on the English Channel. In his married life General Nivelle ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... bright and cheery as her appearance. She picked up her courage very soon, stepped neatly through the miry, slippery streets, and presently reached her home. Mrs. Reed and the six grandchildren lived in a model lodging-house in a place called Sparrow Street, off Whitechapel Road. The house possessed all the new sanitary improvements, a good supply of water was laid on, the rooms were well ventilated, the stoves in the little kitchens burned well, the rents were moderate, there was nothing at all to complain of ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... bird cannot live where there are neither seeds nor insects, but must soar away across the seas to cooler and more fertile climes. Not only here, but throughout the whole of Syria, I missed the delightful minstrels of the air. The sparrow alone can find sustenance every where, for he lives in towns and villages, wherever man is seen. A whole flock of these little twittering birds woke me ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Jack Hor-ner sat in a cor-ner Lit-tle Tom Tuck-er Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle A dog and a cat went out together Little Polly Flinders Four and twen-ty tai-lors went to kill a snail A little cock-sparrow sat on a tree Bless you, bless you, bonny bee One day, an old cat and her kittens Doctor Foster went to Gloster John Cook had a little gray mare; he, haw, hum! Dingty, diddlety, my mammy's maid A horse and cart Who ever saw a rabbit Boys and girls, come out to play Jog on, ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... placid little woman in dove-gray came walking from the bridge and handed over her penny. She eyed the skipper with interest, and cocked her head with the pert demureness of a sparrow while she studied the parrots who ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... been, but full of freckles, and not handsome in face. And so I out by water among the ships, and to Deptford and Blackewall about business, and so home and to dinner with my father and sister and family, mighty pleasant all of us; and, among other things, with a sparrow that our Mercer hath brought up now for three weeks, which is so tame that it flies up and down, and upon the table, and eats and pecks, and do everything so pleasantly, that we are mightily pleased ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... So you mean to say that a bird as large as a goose can go in and out by that hole? Why, a sparrow could scarcely ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... of ribbons well before the end of the Somme battles, and had flower-borders on their breasts by the time the massacres had been accomplished in the fields of Flanders. I know an officer who was awarded the D. S. O. because he had hindered the work of war correspondents with the zeal of a hedge-sparrow in search of worms, and another who was the best-decorated man in the army because he had presided over a visitors' chateau and entertained Royalties, Members of Parliament, Mrs. Humphry Ward, miners, Japanese, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... any," pricked the accuser. "You talk about the honor of the Winnebagos. If you use that information you would be dishonoring the Winnebagos! You're a cheat, you're a cheat," it said tauntingly, and a little sparrow on the window sill outside took up the mocking refrain, "Cheat! Cheat!" Stung as though some one had pointed an accusing finger at her, Migwan flung down her pen in despair and resolutely blotted her paper. She handed in her examination with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... is not so easy to do as you imagine. But I will torture you no longer. You ask what we are going to do. Well, we are going to amuse ourselves and seek adventures. You ask where we are going. Ask that question of the sparrow that sits on the house-top—ask where it is going, and what is the aim of its journey. It will reply, the next bush, the nearest tree, the topmost bough of a weeping willow, which stands on a lonely grave; the mast of a ship, sailing on the wide sea; or the branch of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... white, like the Martin's, or pure green, like the Robin's, or dotted and mottled into the loveliest of browns, like the Red Thrush's, or aqua-marine, with stains of moss-agate, like the Chipping-Sparrow's, or blotched with long weird ink-marks on a pale ground, like the Oriole's, as if it bore inscribed some magic clue to the bird's darting flight and pensile nest. Above all, the associations and predictions of this little wonder,—that one may bear home between his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and his rough-running, irregular rhythmic rather than strictly metrical verses ... mad and ribald ... often tedious ... but with wild flashes of beauty interwoven through his poems ... the poem about his mistress's sparrow ... the elegy on its death ... where he prayed God to give it the little wren of the Virgin Mary, as a wife, in heaven—"to tread, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... on top o' t'grass, Clois to a runnin' brook, An' harken'd t'watter wagtails sing Wi' t'sparrow, thrush, an' rook. ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... like other poverty-stricken girls, to marry somebody who will support me comfortably; but that is rather an uncertain speculation, and meantime Miss Jane might die. Now, if the Bible is true, it must indeed be a blessed lot to be born a brown sparrow, and have the Lord for a commissary. I am a genuine child of old Adam, and labor is the heaviest curse that could possibly be ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the only Son, who is in the Father's bosom—He has made Him known."[8] He made Him known in His own Person; but He appealed also to the everyday sights and sounds, the lily of the field, the blowing wind, the sparrow falling, the children at their mothers' knees, for the evidence to declare Him. As expressions of Him they may be misinterpreted by the error in my physical senses, or distorted by my limitations of spiritual perception; but even then they bring Him near to me in the kind of radiance ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... within; while through the fissures of the great door the weeds on the threshold threatened to encroach upon the nave. Amid all this quickening life, the big Christ, still in shadow, alone displayed signs of death, the sufferings of ochre-daubed and lake-bespattered flesh. A sparrow raised himself up for a moment at the edge of a hole, took a glance, then flew away; but only to reappear almost immediately when with noiseless wing he dropped between the benches before the Virgin's altar. A second sparrow followed; and soon from all the boughs of the rowan tree came others ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... heard on pleasant days throughout the winter season, and a few of the braver and hardier ones never entirely desert us. The Robin and the Blue Bird are tenderly associated in the memories of most persons whose childhood was passed on a farm or in the country village. Before the advent of the English Sparrow, the Blue Bird was sure to be the first to occupy and the last to defend the little box prepared for his return, appearing in his blue jacket somewhat in advance of the plainly habited female, who on her arrival quite often found a habitation selected and ready for her acceptance, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... ever guessed how marvelous it is for a human being to walk. As for the internes in their white suits, I had never realized before the whiteness of white linen; but much more than that, I had never so much as dreamed of the beauty of young manhood. A little sparrow chirped and flew to a near-by branch, and I honestly believe that only "the morning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy" can in the least express the ecstasy of a bird's flight. I cannot express it, but I ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... poor first-floor to us, but a bower to them. Very neat. Very airy. Plants you observe; hyacinths; books again; birds.' These birds, by the bye, comprised, in all, one staggering old sparrow without a tail, which had been borrowed expressly from the kitchen. 'Such trifles as girls love are here. Nothing more. Those who seek heartless splendour, would seek ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the palms, where turtle doves, lapwings and sparrow-hawks were wont to perch, were crowded with the vagabond boys of the town, who whiled away the time by pulling the withered and diseased dates from the great clumps and flinging them down on the bystanders below, till the guard took aim at them with their arrows and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to Desks in Churches: Font Inscription: Parochial Libraries, by W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A. 93 Real Signatures versus Pseudo-names, by the Rev. James Graves 94 Popular Stories of the English Peasantry, by Vincent T. Sternberg 94 Shakspeare Correspondence, by Cecil Harbottle, &c. 95 Epitaph and Monuments in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... regular customers. One man in particular became a great favourite with Joe, and that was Jacob Wideawake the Birdcatcher; and it was interesting to listen to his conversation on the means of catching and transforming the London Sparrow into an ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... a flocke of Birds into Cornwall, about Haruest season, in bignesse not much exceeding a Sparrow, which made a foule spoyle of the Apples. Their bils were thwarted crosse-wise at the end, and with these they would cut an Apple in two, at one snap, eating onely the kernels. It was taken at first, for a forboden token, and ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... purposes of Heaven, we cannot but admire the inscrutable wisdom that appoints all persons to their stations, qualifies all agents for their particular instrumentality, and regulates all the movements of this lower world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground, nor an angel wings his flight, but in subserviency to the arrangements ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... lazily from one foot to the other as he began, "The sparrow, the robin, and wrens, and—the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... security, he comes quite up to our door-step, mindless of the people who are assembled round it, and, fearless of danger, picks up the crumbs that are scattered there. He may be seen at all seasons of the year, though his voice is not heard in the spring so early as that of the Song-Sparrow or the Blue-Bird. He lives chiefly on seeds, though, like other granivorous birds, he feeds his young with grubs and small insects. This is a general practice with the granivorous tribes, in order to provide their young with soft and digestible food before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the flower laughs where lately lay the snow, O'er the breezy hill-top hoarsely calls the crow, By the flowing river the alder catkins swing, And the sweet song-sparrow cries, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... "since they all hate one another and want to get away. The Galahs have pecked the Butcher Bird twice in five minutes, the Pee-weet keeps quarrelling with the Soldier Bird, and none of them can bear the English Sparrow." ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... thought that if the devil were to assume the form of that girl he would have no difficulty in leading one into temptation. She was moreover of a sweet temperament, very obedient, and lively, like a sparrow upon the roof. Sometimes strange thoughts crossed the Bohemian's mind; once when he and Anulka remained somewhat in the rear near the packhorses, he suddenly turned ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... could be exercised and all things would continue to proceed in the old merely cosmic order. It is of course true that in the merely generic order the Spirit must be present in every form of Life, as the Master pointed out when He said that not a sparrow falls to the ground without "the Father." But as the sparrows He alluded to had been shot and were on sale at a price which shows that this was the fate of a good many of them, we see here precisely that stage of manifestation where the Spirit has not woke up to individual self-recognition, ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... self-projecting process by the somewhat ambiguous name of "personalizing," rightly insists, I believe, that poets make a more distinctive use of this activity than other men. He quotes some of the classic confidences of poets themselves: Keats's "If a sparrow come before my window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel"; and Goethe on the sheep pictured by the artist Roos, "I always feel uneasy when I look at these beasts. Their state, so limited, dull, gaping, and dreaming, excites in me such sympathy that I fear I ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... leafless thicket Close beside my garden gate, Where, so light, from post to picket Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate; Who, with meekly folded wing, Comes to sun himself ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... said Thornton. "No, I am not a sparrow, to have my neck wrenched by a woman's hand like your's. Give me my demand—sign the paper, and I will leave you for ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... grows the whisper into word, As sharp as lightening, and as broad of reach, As seas, flung down by God to every beach Where thirsts a sparrow, or a bleating herd! There is no soul through out the land, not stirred; For, oh, to glory God gives his own speech When darkness, raised by Gold, declares that each, Hulk-held, is good but ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... couldn't I leave him in heavenly hands? And then it came into my heart to pray. I knew I hadn't any right to pray expecting to be heard; but yet mine would be the prayer of the humble, and wasn't Faith of as much consequence as a sparrow? By-and-by, as we all sat leaning over the gunwale, the words of a hymn that I'd heard at camp-meetings came into my mind, and I sang them out, loud and clear. I always had a good voice, though Dan 'd never heard me do anything with it except hum little low things, putting mother to sleep; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... distastefully. Her first impression of the stranger had been more correct than are first impressions nine times out of ten; he was as full of impudence as a city sparrow. She had sat up 'looking like a fright'; her father had made himself ridiculous; the stranger was mirthfully concerned with the amusing possibilities of ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... scarcity of woods and high trees may probably account for this. Besides the carrion vulture, condors collect in great numbers on the shore to prey on the stranded whales. Falcons seldom appear, except the small Sparrow Hawk (Falco sparverius, L.), which is very numerous in Peru. One of the most common birds is the little Earth Owl (Noctua urucurea, Less.), which is met with in nearly all the old ruins scattered along the coast. The Pearl Owl (Strix perlata, L.) ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... shelter, food or blankets; but even the labor of fire-building appalled his spirit. I would be a mighty task, fatigued as he was: first to clear away the snow, cut down trees, hew them into lengths and split them—all with a light camp ax that only dealt a sparrow blow—then to kneel and stoop ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... have plenty of wit, we thought it would be a good thing to parade our dear little honor, or dishonor, to catch an old boy; but that old boy, my dear heart, knows the Alpha and Omega of female tricks,—which means that you could easier put salt on a sparrow's tail than to make me believe I have anything to do with your little affair. Go to Paris, my dear; go at the cost of an old celibate, I won't prevent it; in fact, I'll help you, for an old bachelor, Suzanne, ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... not even time to sing. But there was a good deal of discomfort and unpleasantry abroad, for a young relative of Spottleover the thrush had lost three or four eggs from his nest at the bottom of the garden. Of course they had been stolen, but who was the culprit? A chattering old sparrow said it was one of the rooks; and when the report got up in the rookery there was a fine commotion about it that evening, for the rooks held quite a parliament to vindicate the innocence of their order; and at last passed a vote of censure upon the sparrow for his false accusation; agreed ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... evidently, was a sparrow, offensively cheerful upon a lamp-post. This self-centred little bird allowed a pebble to pass overhead and remained unconcerned, but, a moment later, feeling a jar beneath his feet, and hearing the tinkle of falling glass, he decided to leave. Similarly, and at the same instant, Penrod ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... sodaine Very sore, all here about. Hor. My lord, forebeare the challenge then. Ham. No Horatio, not I, if danger be now, Why then it is not to come, theres a predestinate prouidence in the fall of a sparrow: heere comes the King. [I3] Enter King, Queene, Leartes, Lordes. King Now sonne Hamlet, we hane laid vpon your head, And make no question but to haue the best. Ham. Your maiestie hath laide a the weaker side. King We doubt it not, deliuer ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... those generally seen are the long tailed grouse-hawk, the sparrow hawk, and the sharp-shinned hawk. Night-hawks are quite conspicuous, if one walks about after sunset. They are dusky with a white throat and band on the wing. They sail through the air without any effort, wings outspread and beak wide open, and ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... nestle was a blue jay, and the euthuma was a sparrow. We couldn't see what the shelcuff was ourselves, the tree ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life, snapped an oar and overturned a lantern. Some drift-wood, covered with slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember that a little disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held itup for a moment to ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... very pale, and Jane now and then reproached her with eating no more than a sparrow, and told her she was getting into a dwining way; but she made no answer, except that she 'could do her work.' At last, one Sunday evening, when she had been left alone with the children, her mistress found her sitting at the foot of her bed, among the sleeping ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ship-destroying monsters, the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, they all are called into existence by God, and God has not merely called all these creatures into existence, but His providence preserves them, and not even a sparrow falls from ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... prosecution, and the execution of his wrath upon them, often gets a Liberty to make a Descent upon the Children of men. When the Devil does hurt unto us, he comes down unto us; for the Rendezvouze of the Infernal Troops, is indeed in the supernal parts of our Air. But as 'tis said, A sparrow of the Air does not fall down without the will of God; so I may say, Not a Devil in the Air, can come down without the leave of God. Of this we have a famous Instance in that Arabian Prince, of whom the Devil was not able so much as to Touch ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... him!" cried Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, the boy and girl sparrow, who happened to be at the circus. "We'll save ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... rockets off here where we are at this moment? They deceived me, for I took them to be signals of their presence from the Weasel or the Sparrow. When I saw those rockets, Griffin, I was just as certain of the Few-Folly as I am now of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... syllable in the book of nature, he will make the most of that. I read such a word the other morning when I perceived, when watching a young but fully fledged junco, or snowbird, that its markings Were like those of the vesper sparrow. The young of birds always for a brief period repeat the markings of the birds of the parent stem from which they are an offshoot. Thus, the young of our robins have speckled breasts, betraying their thrush kinship. And the young junco shows, in its striped appearance of breast and back, and the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... is no question, and he attacked Walpole in one of the second series of his "Fables" (which appeared posthumously in 1738), entitled "The Vulture, the Sparrow, ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... to be first in the pursuit of our life's work. We cannot reach the topmost round at once, and if we get there at all there must be something in us worthy of the upper rounds. Can we ask Him to be our guide who noticed the falling of a sparrow to the ground? Do so; then we will not choose the wrong path, we will not stumble in our darkest hours. We will not think solely of our slavery, of our closing hour, or how we will spend the evening, but will put our mind on our duties and ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... and enclosures of the forest; swooped down upon the game with the keen scent and the velocity of a bird of prey, and never was known to miss his mark. Thus it was that the country people surnamed him the 'grand chasserot', the term which we here apply to the sparrow-hawk. Besides all these advantages, he was handsome, alert, straight, and well made, dark-haired and olive-skinned, like all the Buxieres; he had his mother's caressing glance, but also the overhanging eyelids and somewhat stern expression of his father, from whom ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... one day a hawk pounced on a bird, * A wildling sparrow driven by destiny; And held in pounces spake the sparrow thus, * E'en as the hawk rose ready home to hie:— 'Scant flesh have I to fill the maw of thee * And for thy lordly food poor morsel I. Then ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... doing the same thing. They did not roar now, but went quietly, slinking through the jungle as quietly as your cat creeps through the grass when she is trying to catch a sparrow. The lions had done enough roaring to scare away other animals who might bother them in their hunt. Now they did not roar any longer, for they did not want to scare away the smaller beasts which were food for ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his maw into a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy didn't believe in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the morning, hoein' up their old garden; raised garden-truck for their table, sparrow-grass and sweet corn—yes, and roses, too; always had the house full of roses in June-time; never was a ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... sparrow, Rayther hear a robin twitter; Tho' they may net be thi marrow, May net fly wi' ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... A sparrow was hopping along the flat stone, toward the upraised box, under which were the bread and cake crumbs, and other good things that birds like. Closer and closer to the box went the bird, and finally it was all the way under, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... existence. Finally Shandon contented himself by forbidding Dart to meddle in the future with anything not in any way a part of his own business; and nourished the secret hope that a few weeks of the humdrum of mountain life would tire this sparrow of the city gutters. Whereupon, when alone with his big book and a fresh cigar, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... things need him. Think of God as a king working for ever for the good of his subjects, a Father working for ever for the good of his children, for ever sending forth light and life and happiness to all created things, and ordering all things in heaven and earth by a providence so perfect, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without his knowledge, and the very hairs of your head ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the New York Tribune by an official in the Department of Agriculture estimated the amount of weed seeds annually destroyed by the tree sparrow in the state of Iowa on the basis of one-fourth of an ounce of seed eaten daily by each bird. Supposing there were ten birds to each mile, in the two hundred days that they remain in the region, we ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... grumbling about something from morning to night. The old man had for a long time ceased to take any notice of her crossness. He was out most of the day at work in the fields, and as he had no child, for his amusement when he came home, he kept a tame sparrow. He loved the little bird just as much as if ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... and ministers around you, and a good fire blazing in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail outside, and the two doors are open at each end, sometimes it happens that a poor little sparrow flies in at one door, and immediately out at the other; but for the short space during which he is in the hall, he enjoys the light and warmth, and is safe from the wintry storms. The swift flight of the sparrow from one darkness to another darkness, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... away," he said. "In the third kingdom from here near the Tsar's own city there is a deep lake. A dragon lives at the bottom of the lake. In the dragon there is a wild boar; in the boar a hare; in the hare a pigeon; in the pigeon a sparrow. My strength is in the sparrow. Let any one kill the sparrow and I should die that instant. But I am safe. No one but shepherds ever come to the lake and even they don't come any more for the dragon has eaten up so many of them that the lake has got a ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... way," said Ready; "if I thought our situation hopeless, I would candidly say so; but there always is hope, even at the very worst, - and there always ought to be trust in that God without whose knowledge not a sparrow falls to the ground. But, Mr. Seagrave, I shall speak as a seaman, and tell you what our probabilities are. The ship is half-full of water, from her seams having opened by the straining in the gale, and the heavy blows which she received; but, now ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... Zoological Gardens in the quiet hours of the night, and suppose that, as in old fables, the animals are able to converse, and that some very wise creature who had easy access to all the cages, say a philosophic sparrow or rat, was engaged in collecting the opinions of all sorts of animals with a view of elaborating a system of absolute morality. It is needless to enlarge on the contrariety of ideals between the beasts that prey and those they prey upon, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... first ascertained their position by his compass. Turning to the north, they observed in that direction fewer churches, but numerous villas and lines of wood, with the arid steppe beyond them. To the south-west arose the Sparrow Hills, those celebrated heights whence Napoleon and his then victorious army first caught sight of that magic city which they deemed was soon to be the reward of all their toils, but yet which, ere many days had passed, was to prove the cause of their destruction. ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... to be so lean that I was nothing but skin and bone, he let me go. He took up all the rest one by one, and viewed them in the same manner. The captain being the fattest, he held him with one hand, as I would do a sparrow, and thrust a spit through him; he then kindled a great fire, roasted, and ate him in his apartment for his supper. Having finished his repast, he returned to his porch, where he lay and fell asleep, snoring louder than thunder. He slept ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... awful and on so large a scale that the senses refused to grasp it. It has been said that in the Civil War Sheridan was commanded, in pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, to leave the countryside in such condition that a crow could not live on it. A sparrow could not have existed in ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... been led back to sobriety and a life of honest industry by the hand of a little child cast somehow adrift in the world, yet guarded and guided by Him who does not lose sight in his good providence of even a single sparrow. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... crooked toes, and screwing his head sideways at intervals to look at the sky. Sometimes he stopped to tweak some tender stalk with his hooked beak, and sometimes he took a sudden and vicious little run at a sparrow or some other bird at a distance; when it flew away he flapped his wings ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... various states of corruption. The men of the North were puffed up with livid swellings, while the more nervous Africans looked as though they had been smoked, and were already drying up. The Mercenaries might be recognised by the tattooing on their hands: the old soldiers of Antiochus displayed a sparrow-hawk; those who had served in Egypt, the head of the cynosephalus; those who had served with the princes of Asia, a hatchet, a pomegranate, or a hammer; those who had served in the Greek republics, the side-view of a citadel ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... Kurmis, who profess to be members of the Hindu community, still retain the totemistic organisation, with names derived from birds, beasts and plants. Even the Jagannathi Kumhars of Orissa, taking rank immediately below the writer-caste, have the totems tiger, snake, weasel, cow, frog, sparrow and tortoise. The sub-castes of the Khatlya Kumhars explain away their totem-names "as names of certain saints, who, being present at Daksha's Horse-sacrifice, transformed themselves into animals to escape the wrath of Siva," like ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... his first impulse, on entering the city, was to fly to this holy solitude, as the wandering sparrow of sacred song sought her nest amid the altars of God's temple. Artist no less than monk, he found in this wondrous shrine of beauty a repose both for his artistic and his religious nature; and while waiting for Agostino Sarelli to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... poor sparrow," she said, dragging him across the threshold of the chapel, "the abate is here asking for you;" and she crossed herself, as though she had named ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... servants in the day of their temptations in this world; and a sore time it is. Job complained under it, so did Heman, Paul, and Christ (John 6:66; 2 Tim 1:15; Job 19:13-19). Now a man is as forlorn as a pelican in the wilderness, as an owl in the desert, or as a sparrow upon the house-top. If a man cannot now go to the throne of grace by prayer, through Christ, and so fetch grace for his support from thence, what can he do? He cannot live of himself (John 15:4). Wherefore this is a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his meaning obscure and even unintelligible. He uses a maze of alphabetical acrostics, line by line he wreathes into his compositions the words of successive Bible texts. Yet even at his worst he is ingenious and vigorous. Such phrases as "to hawk it as a hawk upon a sparrow" are at least bold and effective. Ibn Ezra later on lamented that Kalir had treated the Hebrew language like an unfenced city. But if the poet too freely admitted strange and ugly words, he added many of considerable force and beauty. Kalir rightly felt that if Hebrew was to ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... soldiers, and the stores of Homeville were ransacked for drums, swords, and belts and toy-guns. He would stand on guard for hours at the barnyard gate, saluting in the most solemn manner whoever passed, even if it was only a sparrow. The only interest in animals which survived his change of heart was that which he now took in horses as chargers. He would ride the farm-horses bare-back to the trough, holding the halter in one hand and a tin sword ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak, And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke. The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free (Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!), The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue, But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew. An arm's-length out and overside the banked fog held them bound, But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... for my nest," said the falconer, "if this cock-sparrow is to crow over us as he seems ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... shoe or stockin' on your hooves—wid a couple of shiverin', half starved, sick childre, tied by an ould praskeen to your back, an' you sinkin' wid hunger all the time?—ay, and the tail o' your old coat blown up behind every minute, like a sparrow before the wind!—Eh, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... they do not love them even as dogs. Mark this, a hen, a goose, a wolf, will always remain to woman inaccessible ideals of animal love. It is a rare thing for a woman to throw herself, at the peril of her life, upon an elephant to snatch her child away, whereas a hen or a sparrow will not fail to fly at a dog and sacrifice itself utterly for its children. Observe this, also. Woman has the power to limit her physical love for her children, which an animal cannot do. Does that mean that, because of this, woman is inferior to the ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... rhythmic gestures, and appeared to be reciting verses. The Florentine cobbler listened with a kind smile. He was a little, bald man, and represented one of the types familiar to Flemish painters. On a table, among wooden lasts, nails, leather, and wax, a basilic plant displayed its round green head. A sparrow, lacking a leg, which had been replaced by a match, hopped on the old man's shoulder ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... distresses we must hold fast to the belief that there is a God who maketh the clouds His chariot and walketh upon the wings of the wind—a God who is present in every summer breath and every wintry blast, in every budding leaf, and every opening flower, in the fall of every sparrow and the wheeling of every world. His Providence is in every swinging of the tides, in every circulation of the air, in all attractions and repulsions, in all cohesions and gravitations. These, and the varied ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... doubtless, very beautiful. You must all have admired the bold, fierce, bright eye of the eagle; the large, gentle, brown eye of the ox; the treacherous, green eye of the cat, waxing and waning like the moon; the pert eye of the sparrow; the sly eye of the fox; the peering little bead of black enamel in the mouse's head; the gem-like eye that redeems the toad from ugliness, and the intelligent, affectionate expression which looks out of the human-like eye of the horse and dog. There are many other animals whose ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... often the only refuge of the unhappy subject of orphanage, or the victim of evil family influences, it seems an unnecessary cruelty to withhold the protection, encouragement, and support, which may be so easily and profitably furnished. It is said that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the bosom of a member of the sovereign assembly of Athens, and that the harsh Areopagite threw the trembling bird from him with such violence that it was killed on the ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... crop. The Argentine ant has been brought to us from South America and is proving a most destructive pest. The Norway rat was brought to our country on sailing vessels and causes more loss than most of us realize. The English sparrow has spread over much of the country and is driving many of the native birds from their homes, because of its quarrelsome disposition. It makes itself a nuisance ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... unfamiliar cries. The variety of birds was a very marked feature of this tropical region. The keen voice of the Ceylon thrush rang in our ears like the scream of a young child. Many other smaller birds were seen in rainbow feathers; and a sparrow, like his English brother, except that the Ceylon species wear a white ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... he dropped off, and he seemed to have slept only a moment when there was a knocking at his door. He heard it while he was still sleeping. The dawn had broken, the streamers of the sun were rising out of the sea. A sparrow in the garden was hacking the air ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... was rough and clumsy, and looked more like a Sparrow's nest than that of a small Sylvine bird. The entrance was about 13/4 inch in diameter, and was with the interior of the nest neat and strong. Horornis pallidus occurs at from 5600 feet elevation up to 7000 and even 8000 feet. It was abundant at Suki ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... knew everybody's secrets, but she told them judiciously if at all. She chattered all day to you as a sparrow twitters, and you did not tire of her; and Kate and I were never more agreeably entertained than when she told us of old times and of Kate's ancestors and their contemporaries; for her memory was wonderful, and she had either seen ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... a sparrow tame There lived a cat; from tenderest age, Of both, the basket and the cage Had household gods the same. The bird's sharp beak full oft provoked the cat, Who play'd in turn, but with a gentle pat, His wee friend ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... didn't mean any disrespect," said the boy, as he fixed the splint on the dog's leg, and tied it with a string, while the dog licked his hand, "but I learned in Sunday school that up there they watch even the sparrow's fail, and they wouldn't be apt to get left on a dog bigger than a whole flock of sparrows, 'specially when the dog's fall was accompanied with such noise as a velocipede makes when it falls down stairs. No sir, a woman who throws a velocipede ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... thing conceal. A pagan once, of graceless heart and hollow, Whose faith in gods, I'm apprehensive, Was quite as real as expensive. Consulted, at his shrine, the god Apollo. 'Is what I hold alive, or not?' Said he,—a sparrow having brought, Prepared to wring its neck, or let it fly, As need might be, to give the god the lie. Apollo saw the trick, And answer'd quick, 'Dead or alive, show me your sparrow, And cease to set for me a trap Which can but cause yourself ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... whether it should be always so interpreted, for I know it is sometimes a sign of distress or call for help, having heard it from one in full flight from a pursuing hawk. Other curious local names of birds in Worcestershire are "Blue Isaac" for hedge sparrow, "mumruffin" for long-tailed tit, "maggot" for magpie, and the heron is always called "bittern" (really quite a distinct bird). There are innumerable rhymes as to the signification of numbers where ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... perhaps, interest MR. SANSOM to be informed that the appearance described to him is mentioned as a known fact in one of the works of the celebrated mystic, Jacob Behmen, The Three Principles, chap. 19. "Of the going forth of the Soul." I extract from J. Sparrow's translations., London, 1648. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... without. I'll choose me masther, Hinnissy, an' whin I do, 'twill not be that low-lyin', purple-complected, indygistible viggytable. I may bend me high head to th' egg-plant, th' potato, th' cabbage, th' squash, th' punkin, th' sparrow-grass, th' onion, th' spinach, th' rutabaga turnip, th' Fr-rench pea or th' parsnip, but 'twill niver be said iv me that I was subjygated be a Beet. No, sir. Betther death. I'm goin' to begin a war f'r freedom. I'm goin' to ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... drives away the native birds, although he is himself an attractive inhabitant in winter, particularly where native birds are not resident. The English sparrow should be kept in reduced numbers. This can be easily accomplished by poisoning them in winter (when other birds are not endangered) with wheat soaked in strychnine water. The contents of one of the eighth-ounce vials of strychnine that may be secured at a drug store is added to sufficient ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... She knows she is not a Princess, and no Prince changed into a blue bird will come to visit her. She tells herself that all birds are not Princes; that the birds of her village are villagers, and that there might be one perhaps found amongst them, a little country lad changed into a sparrow by a bad fairy and wearing in his heart under his brown feathers the love of little Fanchon. Yes, if he came and she knew him, she would give him not bread crumbs only, but cake and kisses. She would so like ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... conceptions of duty, and of how that duty should be done. It is childish to regret the old times, when our soot-grimed manufacturing districts were green with lonely farms. To murmur at the transformation would be, I believe, to murmur at the will of Him without whom not a sparrow ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... said he. "The preparations are for the game that is to be held to-morrow by the young earl, which will be on this wise. In the midst of a meadow which is here, two forks will be set up, and upon the two forks a silver rod, and upon the silver rod a sparrow-hawk, and for the sparrow-hawk there will be a tournament. And to the tournament will go all the array thou didst see in the city, of men and of horses and of arms. And with each man will go the lady he loves best; and no man can joust for the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... floor. Most of their rooms are private; for the partners, being bachelors and bosom friends, live there; and the door marked Private, next the clerks' office, is their domestic sitting room as well as their reception room for clients. Let me describe it briefly from the point of view of a sparrow on the window sill. The outer door is in the opposite wall, close to the right hand corner. Between this door and the left hand corner is a hatstand and a table consisting of large drawing boards on trestles, ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... these had long ceased to affect him. Of all the changes that spring brings with it, there was one only that now interested Kant; and he longed for it with an eagerness and intensity of expectation, that it was almost painful to witness: this was the return of a hedge sparrow that sang in his garden, and before his window. This bird, either the same, or one of the next generation, had sung for years in the same situation; and Kant grew uneasy when the cold weather, lasting longer ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... a minute, I have heard it imitate the woodlark, chaffinch, blackbird, thrush, and sparrow.... Their few natural notes resemble those of the nightingale, but their song is of greater compass and more varied."—Ashe, Travels in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... After having viewed me well, and perceiving me to be so lean that I had nothing but skin and bone, he let me go. He took up all the rest, one by one, and viewed them in the same manner; and the captain being the fattest, he held him with one hand, as I might a sparrow, and thrusting a spit through him, kindled a great fire, roasted, and ate him in his apartment for his supper. This being done, he returned to his porch, where he lay and fell asleep, snoring louder than thunder. He slept thus till morning. For our parts, it was not possible ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... abolished by Reason. We are able to see now, with eyes made clear by knowledge, that everything is governed by Universal Law-that the infinite number of laws are but manifestations of the One Great Law-the LAW which is THE ALL. It is true indeed that not a sparrow drops unnoticed by the Mind of THE AL—that even the hairs on our head are numbered—as the scriptures have said There is nothing outside of Law; nothing that happens contrary to it. And yet, do not make the mistake of supposing that Man is but ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... large number of small lakes. In spring this plain is so water-drenched and so crossed by deep rapid snow-rivulets, that it is difficult, often impossible, to traverse it. Immediately after the disappearance of the snow a large number of birds at all events had settled there. The Lapp sparrow had chosen a tuft projecting from the marshy ground on which to place its beautiful roofed dwelling, the waders in the neighbourhood had laid their eggs in most cases directly on the water-drenched moss without trace of a nest, and on tufts ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... probably at Jumble Sales, and he always seems to choose clothes made for a stouter bird. There is no reason why he should never look chic; he has a slimmer figure than the bullfinch, for instance, who always manages to look so well-tailored. It is just arrogance, pure Londonism, on the part of the sparrow, just that impudent socialistic spirit that makes it so difficult for us ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... exemplary. What irony that he should be unobserved! Even we, posterity, think far less of St. Peter than of Bellini when we see this picture; St. Peter is no more to us than the blue harmony of those little hills beyond, or than that little sparrow perched on a twig in the foreground. After all, there have been so many martyrs—and so many martyrs named Peter—but so few great painters. The little screed on the fence is no mere vain anachronism. It is a sly, rather ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... powers by which he may be appreciated. And yet he is not only a real poet, but he is all poet. The Muses have not merely sprinkled his brow; he was baptized by immersion. His notes are not many; but in them Nature herself sings. He is a sparrow that half sings, half chirps, on a bush, not a lark that floods with orient hilarity the skies of morning; but the bush burns, like that which Moses saw, and the sparrow herself is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... fortune—favoured me? You jest! But I will tell you how I fared. The Khan Of Berlas hath a favourite sparrow-hawk, That with his jesses to the forest flew. By some good chance I caught this hawk, and brought him Home to the Khan, who questioned of my name. I hid my birth, and painted myself poor, A porter of burdens, and my parents ill. Straightway he sends them to the hospital... (Weeps.) ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... a wood fire at his club, ordered hot gin for himself and the ship's doctor. The ship's doctor had gone below on another "hurry call" from the widow. At the first luncheon on board the widow had sat on the right of Doctor Sparrow, with Austin Ford facing her. But since then, except to the doctor, she had been invisible. So, at frequent intervals, the ill health of the widow had deprived Ford of the society of the doctor. That it deprived him, also, of the society ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... thin little hands together, with his head cocked to one side, looking like an intellectual and benevolent sparrow. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... old "Father Duchesne" in a towering passion, with short legs, bare arms, and rubicund face, topped with an immense red cap. In one hand he holds a diminutive Monsieur Thiers and stifles him as if he were a sparrow. Here, the drawing is not only vile, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... and narcissi, also with flowery hats and airy garments that made the passer-by shiver by their contrast with the cutting March wind. In and out, among automobiles and pedestrians, darted that fearless optimist, the metropolitan sparrow, busy already with straws and twigs for ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... and grilled quail— On every fowl they fare. Boiled perch and sparrow broth,—in each preserved The separate flavour that is most its own. O Soul come back to ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... quite softly to myself, and held my head sneeringly askew. Wherefore should I sorrow for what I eat, for what I drink, or for what I may array this miserable food for worms called my earthy body? Hath not my Heavenly Father provided for me, even as for the sparrow on the housetop, and hath He not in His graciousness pointed towards His lowly servitor? The Lord stuck His finger in the net of my nerves gently—yea, verily, in desultory fashion—and brought slight disorder among the threads. And then the Lord withdrew His finger, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... thou not know him? He sang to thee the Marseillaise, and thou kissedst the pen that fell from his wing; he came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance thou didst turn away from him towards the sparrow who sat with ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Thus the status of theology does not correspond to what we look for in very low culture. It would scarcely be a paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is degenerate from Mungan-ngaur, or the Fuegian being who forbids the slaying of an enemy, and almost literally 'marks the sparrow's fall.' ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Mrs. Sparrow cocked her head sideways and looked queerly at him. "You don't look as if you were starving," she observed. "You're as plump and sleek as any rabbit I ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... cricket waxing slow, With home-made bow and arrow We took to shooting—once I know I all but hit a sparrow. ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... remember this. That when we walk across the field, or look out into the garden, we could have the wisdom to remember, Whither, O God, can I go from Thy presence? For Thou art looking down on the opening of every bud and flower, and without Thee not a sparrow falls to the ground. Whither can I flee from Thy Spirit? For Thy Spirit is giving life perpetually, alike to me and to the insect at my feet; without Thy Spirit my lungs could not breathe one breath, my heart ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... blackbirds rising in huge swarms like gnats; full-voiced meadowlarks on the fence posts; herons stalking solemnly, or waiting like so many Japanese bronzes for a chance at a gopher; red-tailed hawks circling slowly; pigeon hawks passing with their falcon dart; little gaudy sparrow hawks on top the telephone poles; buzzards, stately and wonderful in flight, repulsive when at rest; barn-owls dwelling in the haystacks, and horned owls in the hollow trees; the game in countless numbers; all the smaller ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... that were left of them, took her part; but they lived in the water, and she had never had very much to do with them. In the birds she found her true allies. They were not attached to the higher civilisation. The higher civilisation, so far, had treated them inconsiderately, at sparrow clubs. The Owl talked a good deal about the low moral tone of the human race in this respect, and was pessimistic about it, failing to perceive that higher types of organisms always like to signify their ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... imperfectly, but that a difference in skill may not unfrequently be detected between individuals{285}. Certain birds, moreover, adapt their nests to circumstances; the water-ouzel makes no vault when she builds under cover of a rock—the sparrow builds very differently when its nest is in a tree or in a hole, and the golden-crested wren sometimes suspends its nest below and sometimes places it ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... appears to have been written on the day of the king's pardon being received. —Oh deem it not Presumptuous, that my soul grateful thus rates The present high deliv'rance it hath found;— Sole effort of Thy wisdom, sov'reign Pow'r, Without whose knowledge, not a sparrow fells! Oh I may I cease to live, ere cease to bless That interposing hand, which turn'd aside— Nay, to my life and preservation turn'd,— The fatal blow precipitate, ordain'd To level all my little hopes in dust, And give ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... whole sheer in its talons, with as much ease as an eagle would carry off, in the same manner, a hare or a rabbit. This we may readily give credit to, from the known fact of our little kestrel and the sparrow-hawk frequently flying off with a partridge, which is nearly three times the weight ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... to note the exact order in which the different birds successively begin their parts in this performance; but the bluebird, whose song is only a short, mellow warble, is heard nearly at the same time with the robin, and the song sparrow joins them soon after with his brief but finely modulated strain. The different species follow rapidly, one after another, in the chorus, until the whole welkin rings with their matin hymn ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... has got the bulge on all the Christians now, and draws more water than anybody, but He who knows the sparrow's fall has no doubt got an eye on the fat rascal, and some day will close two or three fingers around Bob's throat, when his eyes will stick out so you can hang your hat on them, and he will blat like a calf and get down on his knees ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... were silent and went into hiding when above the tops of the trees there grated like a rusty weathercock the "alma de gato" or "soul of the cat," a kind of light fawn-colored sparrow-hawk. If he proudly hooted, displaying in the air the long white plumes of his tail, he in his turn meekly took to flight when in the loftier heights there appeared the "gaviao," the large white-headed ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... meeting him in the antechamber, the corridor, or on the stairs, those touches of the hand every time she met him, and her deep sighs; but absorbed by his desire to please the great lady, he had disdained the soubrette. He whose game is the eagle takes no heed of the sparrow. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow, Gleam the little rooms in the homestead that I know: Death, I think, has lost the way to Kimmeridge in Dorset; Sorrow never knew it, or forgot ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Gulf Stream which the Captain says seldom extends so far north. Passed a French brig at ten; the wind freshened and we took in some sail. About 5 some sail torn by the wind. At three passed another ship and brig nearly together; after dinner a small bird resembling our sparrow though rather larger and with speckled breast. The nearest point of land is at least 200 miles; it fluttered about refusing any food, then flew into the ladies' cabin and ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... religion of the most primitive type, and inclusive of all natural creatures and things, even to "the sparrow that falls to the ground,"—though never by shot of his,—and, for whatsoever is manly in man, his worship may compare with that of the priests and heroes of pagan times. Nor is he false to these traits under any guise,—worshipping at unbloody altars, a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... preface to the reader, John Sparrow writes: "I must say that this book, 'Aurora,' hath conduced more to open my mind to the understanding of all his writings, and of all Mysteries, both natural and divine (and so, consequently, of ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... blue jay, and the euthuma was a sparrow. We couldn't see what the shelcuff was ourselves, the tree was ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... a small bird, which is said to be peculiar to the Blasquet Islands, called by the Irish, Gourder, the English name of which I am at a loss for, nor do I find it mentioned by naturalists. It is somewhat larger than a sparrow; the feathers of the back are dark, and those of the belly are white; the bill is straight, short, and thick; and it is web-footed: they are almost one lump of fat; when roasted, of a most delicious taste, and are reckoned to exceed an ortolan; for which reason the gentry hereabouts call them the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... was perched on a bough in a pine-wood, and the jester said that this bird was a very peculiar species. It had originally been grey, and its bill was as straight as a sparrow's, but when the Saviour hung upon the cross, it pitied him, and with its little bill strove to draw the nails from the wounded hands. In memory of this friendly act, the Lord had marked its beak with the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... spirit, he despised them; and believing the Deity too wise to be affected by mere virtuous shows of any kind, his ignorance of the sublime benevolence, which disdains not to provide food even for the "sparrow ere it falls," made him think the Creator of all too great to care about the actions of men; hence, being without the true principles of good-virtue, as virtue, was nonsense ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... canamus—Secundum formam statuti," &c., and from time to time, when he is greatly elated and wishes to show himself in all his magnificence, he adopts the elegances and similes proper to the euphuistic style: "The sparrow for his lecherie ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... gente (la), people gerente, manager girar, to draw (a bill), to turn giro, bill, draft, also turnover gobernar, to govern gobierno, government goleta, schooner goma elastica, caucho, rubber gorra (gorro), cap gorrion, sparrow gozar, to enjoy grabado, embossed gracia, grace, gracefulness graduacion, gradation, degree granadas, pomegranates grande (gran), great, large grande velocidad (a), by fast train granizar, to hail granjearse, to win over granos, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... still. Compared with home and Budge Street, it was the reposeful quiet of the tomb. Barney Bill smoked for a time in silence, while Paul sat with clenched fists and a beating heart. The simplicity of the high adventure dazed him. All he had to do was to walk away—walk and walk, free as a sparrow. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the majesty of the lightning, and in the grandeur of the storm regulating and directing the whole in its sublime career, but he notices the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the very hairs of our head. Events, the most trivial in their nature, are the objects of his notice, as well as those of the most momentous character. Were not this the case, universal disorder and ruin would soon find their way into his works, break the chain of events, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... vault. Then I saw that bees weren't the animal kingdom's only representatives inside this volcano. Here and in the shadows, birds of prey soared and whirled, flying away from nests perched on tips of rock. There were sparrow hawks with white bellies, and screeching kestrels. With all the speed their stiltlike legs could muster, fine fat bustards scampered over the slopes. I'll let the reader decide whether the Canadian's appetite was aroused by the sight ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the town's a hive. From miles around, the autos drive. The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows. The ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... Birds' eggs are almost as different from each other as are the birds themselves. The robin lays four or five blue eggs. The dove lays two white eggs. The sparrow lays six or eight speckled eggs. If we should find a nest with four blue eggs in it, we could be pretty sure that it was the nest of a............. rather than of a............. ...
— Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 - Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 • Truman L. Kelley
... for the great light ahead of us, the light I truly saw. And what the light is, still I do not know. But this I know: God is. He lives. And He is sorry. The boy may tell me this is no more than the words about His caring for the sparrow that falleth. But I tell him it is more to me, for this I have found out for myself. And I have found it out through great tribulation. But the tribulation is not now. It has stopped. It stopped with the sound of old Billy Jones's voice I heard—somehow ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Books chained to Desks in Churches: Font Inscription: Parochial Libraries, by W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A. 93 Real Signatures versus Pseudo-names, by the Rev. James Graves 94 Popular Stories of the English Peasantry, by Vincent T. Sternberg 94 Shakspeare Correspondence, by Cecil Harbottle, &c. 95 Epitaph and Monuments ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... about a fair, the inns were like anthills, the very churches were full. On the morrow was to be the great procession of religious to enact the translation of the remains. No lodgings were to be had better than a stall in the stable of the Sparrow-hawk. There it was that we established our camp; and that done, I left my companions and wandered alone about the town, hardly hoping, and not able, to find my beloved, remote ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... with a tuft of white feathers, just the shape of a loaf of bread, upon its head. The Sparrow flies ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... speaking of the compositions introduced into his classes, he says: 'Besides religious compositions, there are others, which refer to the Creator, by calling attention to the beauty and grandeur of his works. Songs, shewing in a few touching lines the wondrous instinct of the sparrow, the ant, the bee, and cultivating a feeling of respect for all nature's children. Besides these, there are songs intended to promote social and domestic virtues—order, cleanliness, humility, contentment, unity, temperance, etc.; thus impressing, not the letter of the law of charity on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... of a casual song of the lark in a fresh morning, of the blackbird and thrush at sunset, or the monotonous wail of the yellow-hammer, the silence of birds is now complete; even the lesser reed-sparrow, which may very properly be called the English mock-bird, and which kept up a perpetual clatter with the notes of the sparrow, the swallow, the white-throat, &c. in every hedge-bottom, day and night, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... despise it, instead of taking it thankfully, as she ought to have done, for she was really very comfortably off in the cottage—having bread and milk every morning and night, and something for dinner too; besides what mice she could catch, to say nothing of a stray robin or sparrow now and then. But, as I said just now, the magpie's chattering stories unsettled her; she thought it would be so charming to dine upon bits of roast chicken, and have buttered crumpets for breakfast, and fine cushions to lie upon, like the countess's cat. All this was very silly, no doubt; but ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... you notice that the dog leaves the track of his nails every time; while puss, well, she sheathes her claws while she walks, keeping them sharp for business when she sights a sparrow or ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... "not a sparrow falls but He is noticing, if that is what you mean; but the human conception of it is that God is sitting up nights worrying over the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Walsham by Samuel Otes, rector of South Repps, Norfolk, who was chaplain to the Lord Chief Justice Hobart. Reference has already been made to the works of Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich. Anthony Sparrow, Bishop of Norwich, who was born in Suffolk, published "Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer" (London, 1661), which was often reprinted and is still of some value, and a companion volume "Collection of Articles, Canons," etc. (London, 1684). Last but not least ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... braver. A bird does not 'fall to the ground' unless wounded, and if it falls it dies. Jesus had looked pityingly on the great mystery, the woes of the creatures, and had stayed Himself on the thought of the all-embracing working of God. The very dying sparrow, with broken wing, had its place in that universal care. God is 'immanent' in nature. The antithesis often drawn between His universal care and His 'special providence' is misleading. Providence is special because it is universal. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... similar to those secured by Supt. Babcock are becoming manifest. Only a few days ago a boy said to his teacher, "I used to take pleasure in killing all kinds of birds. Now I don't wish to harm even an English Sparrow." ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... pluck, though not in the least sublime, Is wiser than blank dismay, Since "No sparrow can fall before its time", And we're valued higher than they; So hope for the best and leave the rest In charge of a stronger hand, Like the honest boors in the far-off west, With the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... sense has been strongest in saints of a very mystical sort; such as St. Francis who spoke of Sister Sparrow and Brother Wolf. Shaw adopted this crusade of cosmic pity but adopted it very much in his own style, severe, explanatory, and even unsympathetic. He had no affectionate impulse to say "Brother Wolf"; at the best he would have said "Citizen Wolf," like a sound republican. ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... or Uncle Jed been there, the catastrophe would never have happened; but Mrs. Snawdor was at the post-office, and Uncle Jed at the signal tower, and the feeble protests of Mr. Demry were as futile as the twittering of a sparrow. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... gone. She prayed her evening prayer; she trusted herself to the Lord Jesus to take care of her; and then she undressed herself and lay down and went to sleep, just as quietly as any sparrow of them all with its ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... adulterous king, beloved of him, The same who offers to a chosen few The right to praise him in eternal song While a vast shrieking world of endless woe Blends its dread chorus with their rapturous hymn? Is this the God ye mean, or is it he Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving heart Is as the pitying father's to his child, Whose lesson to his children is, "Forgive," Whose plea for all, "They ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... son of Colonel Nivelle—and an English mother, a former Miss Sparrow, whose family lived at Deal, on the English Channel. In his married life General Nivelle has ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... know something more concerning the Ash. HAR replied: 'What I have farther to add concerning it is, that there is an eagle perched upon its branches, who knows a multitude of things, but he hath between his eyes a sparrow-hawk (qui Vederloefner vocatur). A squirrel runs up and down the Ash, sowing misunderstanding between the eagle and the serpent, which lies concealed at its root. Pour stags run across the branches of the tree, and devour its rind. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... improvement sought. She rears her young the hundredth time as she did the first, by the long experience none the wiser. This is her nature. God made her thus. Instinct is wonderful, but it never improves. It grows not wiser with age nor the ages. It nothing from experience learns. The sparrow builds her nest, and the beaver his dam, just as they did in the years before the flood. The little quails an hour from the shell, will hide at the danger-signal of the mother bird, when they never saw a hawk, nor heard of one's existence. How different this from ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... and greedy spendthrift that he is, has not created even the humblest of the species of birds, mammals and fishes that adorn and enrich this earth. "The earth is THE LORD'S, and the fulness thereof!" With all his wisdom, man has not evolved and placed here so much as a ground-squirrel, a sparrow or a clam. It is true that he has juggled with the wild horse and sheep, the goats and the swine, and produced some hardy breeds that can withstand his abuse without going down before it; but as for species, he has not yet ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... supposed to be such that he would not countenance the slaughter of the meanest thing that crawls—not even those miserable creatures who hold that SHAKSPEARE'S plays were written by SHAKSPEARE. It was therefore with pained regret that I heard him attempting to support his objection to the activities of sparrow-clubs by the argument that, if the birds were destroyed, large numbers of grubs and caterpillars would be left alive. After this I shall not be surprised to hear that he has been summoned by the R.S.P.C.A. for brutality to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... this country break their fast with (el hassua) barley-gruel; they grind the barley to the size of sparrow-shot, this they mix with water, and simmer over a slow fire two or three hours. This food is esteemed extremely wholesome, and is 243 antifebrile. The Emperor takes this before he drinks tea in a morning: his father, Seedi Muhamed ben Abdallah, also, who drank none but fine ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... putting his head on one side, like a meditative sparrow; "'tective fellers can't find out; that's the difficulty. Good mind to go on the ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... all the voices of nature seemed to flow in and mix with the reading, I cannot tell, no more than I can number them; the whirr of a bird's wing, the liquid note of a wood thrush, the stir and movement of a thousand leaves, the gurgle of rippling water, the crow's call, and the song-sparrow's ecstasy. Once or twice the notes of a bugle found their way down the hill, and reminded me that I was in a place of delightful novelty. It was just a fillip to my enjoyment, as I looked on ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... will wait. This sad and solemn hour Is dark with doubt and gloom, but by and by The clouds will lift and you will see God's face. For there is one in heaven whose pleading tongue Will pray for blessings on her only son Of Him who heeds the little sparrow's fall;— And O if He will listen to my prayers, The gates of heaven shall echo to my voice Morning and evening,—only keep your heart.' ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... window, Anna Barly peered out at the wet, gray morning. The ground was sopping, the trees black with the night's drenching. In the orchard a sparrow sang an uncertain song; and she heard the comfortable drip, drip, drip from the eaves. It was damp and fresh at the window; the breeze, cold and fragrant after rain, made her shiver. She drew her wrapper closer about ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... fall out and you call them casual and attribute them to fortune? How many things do the world gaze upon, think upon, and discourse upon, and yet not one thought, one word of God all the time? What more contingent than the falling of a sparrow on the ground? And yet even that is not unexpected to him, but it flows from his will and counsel. What less taken notice of or known than the hairs of your head? Yet these are particularly numbered by him, and so that no power in the world can add to them or diminish from ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Dickie Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, and he perched on the fence in front of Bully, put his head on one side—not on one side of the fence, you know, but on one side of his own little feathered neck—and Dickie looked out of his bright little eyes at ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... waters flowed on sullenly in their eternal act of escape to the sea. All along the wan stretch of Cheyne Walk the thin trees stood exanimate, with not a breath of wind to stir the snow that pied their soot-blackened branches. Here and there on the muffled ground lay a sparrow that had been frozen in the night, its little claws sticking up heavenward. But here and there also those tinier adventurers of the London air, smuts, floated vaguely and came to rest on the snow—signs that in the seeming death of civilisation some housemaids at least ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... of God are numerous; the Scriptures are filled with creatures emblematic of the Saviour. David compares Him, by comparing himself, to the pelican in the wilderness, to the owl in its nest, to a sparrow alone on the house-top, to the dove, to a thirsting hart; the Psalms are a treasury of analogies with His qualities ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... invested, and ransacked from top to bottom. But for a long while all search was vain; at last a slave betrayed the secret;—the diamond was found concealed beneath a heap of ashes. Runjeet Singh had it set in an armlet, between two diamonds, each the size of a sparrow's egg." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... forward from under the bush, rose with a great hubbub a little way into the air, then fell in one mass to the earth and went to pieces. And then, without uttering a sound, each of the little balls suddenly went his way, and a moment afterwards there was not a sparrow to be seen ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... frequently seen these eagles swoop on to one, and, while struggling with its prey, have galloped up and secured it myself, before the dazed wallaby could collect its senses. Other birds of prey, such as sparrow-hawks, owls, and mopokes (a kind of owl), inhabit this region, but they are not numerous. Dull-coloured, small birds, that exist entirely without water, are found in the scrubs; and in the mornings they are sometimes noisy, but not melodious, when ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... charming picture, only to spoil it at the last moment by a careless movement, which altered the position of the camera, and so omitted such important details as the head of the sitter, or left her squeezed into one corner of the picture, like a sparrow on the house-top. ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... cabin was built. On the eighteenth of October, 1817, Thomas Lincoln entered a quarter-section of government land eighteen miles north of the Ohio river and about a mile and a half from the present village of Gentryville. About a year later they were followed by the family of Thomas and Betsy Sparrow, relatives of Mrs. Lincoln and old-time neighbors on the Rock Spring farm in Kentucky. Dennis Hanks, a member of the Sparrow household and cousin of Abraham Lincoln, came also. He has furnished some recollections of the President's boyhood which are well ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... poor crippled sparrow fell to the ground, and fluttered about in a vain attempt to regain a place of safety. Some of its mates gathered around it, and seemed eager to help it; but they did not know what to do. Their chirping drew together a good many of the ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... epistles on history, I was not acquainted with that amiable man and elegant poet. He afterwards thanked me in verse for my second and third volumes; and in the summer of 1781, the Roman Eagle, (a proud title) accepted the invitation of the English Sparrow, who chirped in the groves of Eartham, near Chichester. As most of the former purchasers were naturally desirous of completing their sets, the sale of the quarto edition was quick and easy; and an octavo size was printed, to satisfy at a cheaper rate the public demand. The conclusion of my work ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... materially assisted by Military Store-Keeper Girardey and several young officers—Captain Finney, and Lieutenants Waller, Collier, Sparrow, Hallam, and Cadet Lewis, and towards the close ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... was so big and angry that she felt like a wren or sparrow in his hold. But the stupidity of him! the blind idiocy! She eyed him from head to foot with a bitterness and contempt unutterable—a handsome six-foot animal, with his small brain filled with smaller, worn-out prejudices! The way of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... Lord of Hoasts, how dear The pleasant Tabernacles are! Where thou do'st dwell so near. 2 My Soul doth long and almost die Thy Courts O Lord to see, My heart and flesh aloud do crie, O living God, for thee. 3 There ev'n the Sparrow freed from wrong Hath found a house of rest, 10 The Swallow there, to lay her young Hath built her brooding nest, Ev'n by thy Altars Lord of Hoasts They find their safe abode, And home they fly from round ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... wheeled round. It was Pye. The little man fixed his gold glasses on his nose with two fingers in his nervous way, and blinked through them at us, unruffled as a cock-sparrow that ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... at the beginning of each day. Linna, who had gained a dim idea of what the touching act meant, bent on her knees beside Alice; and who shall say the petition which went up from her heart was not heard and remembered by Him who notices the fall of every sparrow. ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... rise from the clover or wheat, and nest in the trees or hedgerows of furze or quickset, are for the most part English—the skylark, the blackbird, finches, green and gold, thrushes, starlings, and that eternal impudent vagabond the house-sparrow. Heavy is the toll taken by the sparrow from the oat-crops of his new home; his thievish nature grows blacker there, though his plumage often turns partly white. He learns to hawk for moths and other ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... done, King Aylmer noticed his little daughter, and when he saw how pale her cheeks were, he patted her head and said, "Cheer up, child, the young cock-sparrow is not dead; 'tis but a swoon caused by the cold and wet, and methinks when old Elspeth hath put a little life into him, thou wilt mayhap ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... copper all about the walls; I have never seen so gay a room. And always flowers in the window, and always a yellow cat on a red cushion. No canary bird; my mother Marie never would have a bird. "No prisoners!" she would say. Once a neighbour brought her a wounded sparrow; she nursed and tended it till spring, then set it loose ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... mother to the utmost of her strength night after night. To learn to take the universe seriously there is no quicker way than to watch—to be a "waker," as the country-people call it. Between the hours at which the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrow shook himself, the silence in Casterbridge—barring the rare sound of the watchman—was broken in Elizabeth's ear only by the time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on the stairs; ticking harder and harder ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... was one of those afternoons which intrude on the bleakness of winter with a false but none the less agreeable intimation that Spring is on its way. The sidewalks were wet underfoot, and the gutters ran with thawed snow. The sun shone exhilaratingly from a sky the color of a hedge-sparrow's egg. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... pale, and Jane now and then reproached her with eating no more than a sparrow, and told her she was getting into a dwining way; but she made no answer, except that she 'could do her work.' At last, one Sunday evening, when she had been left alone with the children, her mistress found her sitting at the foot of her bed, among ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horses can see much better in the dark than men can, and many an accident would never have happened if horses might have had the full use of their eyes. Some years ago, I remember, there was a hearse with two horses returning one dark night, and just by Farmer Sparrow's house, where the pond is close to the road, the wheels went too near the edge, and the hearse was overturned into the water; both the horses were drowned, and the driver hardly escaped. Of course after this accident a stout white rail was put up that ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... generally with success. There are anecdotes hinging, however, on animals which have more to do with man than the other mammals referred to in the little story. These stories we have felt to be very interesting when they occur in biographies of great men. Cowper and his Hares, Huygens and his Sparrow, are tales—at least the former—full of interesting matter on the history of the lower animal, but are of most value as showing the influence on the man who amused himself by taming them. We like to know that the great ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... grated unpleasantly on the ear, and set half a dozen alert in a small band of seals that were ahead of us. Away they went, breaching and jumping entirely out of water. A sea-gull with slow, deliberate flight and long, majestic curves circled round us, and as a reminder of home a little English sparrow perched impudently on the fo'castle head, and, cocking his head on one side, chirped merrily. The boats were soon among the seals, and the bang! bang! of the guns could be heard from ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... roam unvexed by any beast more formidable than the fox. The inordinate breeding of rooks seems even in those days[125] to have led to a war of extermination against them, carried on upon a system akin to that which was waged against the sparrow in the memory of men yet living. But besides this one, he records, in the De Subtilitate, few facts concerning Britain. He quotes the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in support of the view that the barbarians are equal to the Italians in intellect,[126] and he likewise ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... at St. James's. Yesterday evening he was at the Queen's and Carlton-house, and at night at Lady Hertford's assembly. He only takes the title of altesse, an absurd mezzotermine, but acts king exceedingly; struts in the circle like a cock-sparrow, and does the honours of himself very civilly. There is a favourite too, who seems a complete jackanapes; a young fellow called Holke, well enough in his figure, and about three-and-twenty, but who will be tumbled down long before he is prepared for it. Bernsdorff, a Hanoverian, his first ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... their behalf. Happy and contented in the belief that they were not forgotten by their heavenly Father, these poor "children in the wood" looked up with gratitude to that beneficent Being who suffereth not even a sparrow to fall unheeded. ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... and gave him her hand. Charley took it in both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was like that of a child holding a captured sparrow. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... perpetual alertness of armed men to ensure peace and safety. For Kohat city boasted a creditable average of bad characters and murder cases—a corpse more or less on the Border being of no more consequence than the fall of a sparrow; and the Waziris had of late been unusually daring in regard to Government horses and carbines. Nor was it an unknown thing for them to creep past the sentries on very black nights into the station itself; and for ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... with distended cheeks, the members of the regimental band flung out their deafening, brazen notes upon the air, stimulated in their efforts by a smartly-dressed bandmaster who looked like a pert little sparrow, and who zealously flourished his baton. Grouped round the band-stand were clerks, shopmen, schoolboys in Hessian boots, and little girls wearing brightly-coloured handkerchiefs round their heads. In the main walks and side-walks, as if engaged in an endless quadrille, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... as on most occasions, was our friend Cockerell,—affectionately known to the entire Battalion as "Sparrow,"—and his qualifications for the post were derived from three well-marked and invaluable characteristics, namely, an imperious disposition, a thick skin, and an attractive bonhomie ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... stew of tripe," said the landlord, smacking his lips, "and cow-heel," smacking them again, "and bacon," smacking them once more, "and steak," smacking them for the fourth time, "and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy." Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long, hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... all the birds are nesting, Tells the hermit thrush the song he cannot tell, While the white-throat sparrow never resting, Even in the deepest night rings his crystal bell: O, she would love me then with a wild elation, Then she must love me and leave her lonely state, Give me love yet keep her soul's imperial reservation, Large as her deep nature ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... Robing in tresses blackest ink outvie. The morning-breezes give her boughs fair drink, * And like a branch she sways with supple ply: She smiles in passing us. O thou that art * Fairest in yellow robed, or cramoisie, Thou playest with my wit in love, as though * Sparrow in hand of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... things. If he can read only a word of one syllable in the book of nature, he will make the most of that. I read such a word the other morning when I perceived, when watching a young but fully fledged junco, or snowbird, that its markings Were like those of the vesper sparrow. The young of birds always for a brief period repeat the markings of the birds of the parent stem from which they are an offshoot. Thus, the young of our robins have speckled breasts, betraying their thrush kinship. And the young junco shows, in its striped appearance ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... set off to Sparrow Hill, and partook of some tea under a small tent commanding a splendid view of Moscow, and said to be the spot whence Napoleon had his first glance of this ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... Peterswaldau. A bare snow field, spread about huts of clay, shingles and branches, without a sign of life. Neither a cat, dog nor sparrow, not even chimney smoke, to indicate the activity of the inhabitants. Heated dwellings in this stretch of land are luxuries, difficult of achievement; and how is one to prepare a warm meal out ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the ground with strong pulsation; rode quickly; pounded along. {150d} Skirl, sound shrill. {147d} Slaps, breaks in walls or hedges; also narrow passes. {149b} Smoored, smothered. {151j} Spean, wean. {32} Spear-hawk, sparrow-hawk. From the root spar, to quiver or flutter, comes the name of "sparrow" and a part of the name "sparrow-hawk." {94e} Summerhall, Stubbs, in the "Anatomy of Abuses," speaking of the maypole, tells ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... would soon exterminate the sworn foe of their chickens and pigeons. They are also the great drawback to the introduction of pheasants and partridges, for the young birds have not a chance in the open against even a sparrow-hawk. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... and, after having viewed me well, and perceiving me to be so lean that I had nothing but skin and bone, he let me go. He took up all the rest one by one, viewing them in the same manner: and the captain being the fattest, he held him with one hand, as I would do a sparrow, and thrusting a spit through him, kindled a great fire, and roasted him in his apartment for supper; which being done, he returned to the porch, where he lay and fell asleep, snoring louder than thunder: he slept thus till morning; for our parts, it was not possible ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... was thus engaged in fight, Grifonio ran to gain a sweeter sight; The princess was on board full well he knew; No time he lost, but to her chamber flew; And, since his pleasures seemed to be her doom; He bore her like a sparrow from the room: But not content with such a charming fair, He took her diamonds, ornaments for hair, And those dear pledges ladies oft receive, When they a lover's ardent flame believe. Indeed, I've heard it hinted as a truth, (And very probable for such a youth,) ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... that he deserved, and his life had been so hemmed in with security that he had had no difficulty in assuring his congregation on every possible occasion that God was good and far-seeing, and that "not one sparrow..." ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... and help, had been led back to sobriety and a life of honest industry by the hand of a little child cast somehow adrift in the world, yet guarded and guided by Him who does not lose sight in his good providence of even a single sparrow. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... the strength of this man's desire for the holy place. He covets the privilege of the very sparrow which builds its nest beneath the sacred eaves! When he is away from the Temple its worship and music haunt his mind and soul. It wooes him in the market-place. Its insistent call is with him by the fireside. Yes, "in his heart are the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... enviable reputation awaits that man of genius, who should attempt and realize a union;—who should recall the high finish, the appropriateness, the facility, the delicate proportion, and above all, the perfusive and omnipresent grace, which have preserved, as in a shrine of precious amber, the Sparrow of Catullus, the Swallow, the Grasshopper, and all the other little loves of Anacreon; and which, with bright, though diminished glories, revisited the youth and early manhood of Christian Europe, in the vales ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... I'll surprise your inmost secrets?" she taunted. "They'd be safe. I can be close-mouthed, even though I've been chattering like a sparrow." ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... earnest or e'en in jest.[FN229] We bear with the dog which behaves itself * But the lion is chained lest he prove a pest: And the desert carcases swim the main * While union-pearls on the sandbank rest[FN230]: No sparrow would hustle the sparrow-hawk, * Were it not by folly and weakness prest: A-sky is written on page of air * 'Who doth kindly of kindness shall have the best!' 'Ware of gathering sugar from bitter gourd:[FN231] * 'Twill prove to its origin ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the roads are rambling. The name was originally Moor-Town, standing as it once did on the edge of the moor; and the manor, like the barton of Drascombe, was held on a curious tenure. 'Which manor was the Earls of Ulster in King Edward the first's age, who held it of the king for one sparrow-hawke yearly to be yielded.' Moreton is a small place, and in these days perhaps its most marked characteristic is the Dancing Tree, or Cross Tree, as it is sometimes called, for it has grown out of the steps that encircled the now broken village cross. This tree, an elm, was pollarded, and the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... rarely beautiful. In a sky of palest turquoise a crescent moon hung low, its arc of silver poised above the tips of the stunted pines, whose feathery outlines loomed black in the dusk. From out the dimness the note of a vesper sparrow sounded and mingled its sweetness with ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Philip justice, he did not allow the bills to trouble him much. He died owing forty-five million piastres, which his dutiful son refused to pay. When you deal with Bourbons, it is well to remember the Spanish proverb, "A sparrow in the hand is better than ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... and murderers who acknowledged His splendor and fought His fight. This marvelous charity, the cleansing hope for his blackened soul, swept over him in a warm rush of humble praise and unutterable gratitude. Nothing of the Lord's was lost: "His eye is on the sparrow." ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... religious faith that was his sole unencumbered heritage. Once again he was a trustful little boy. He slid out of the great bed of his ancestors and knelt on the old rag mat beside it; he poured out an appeal for help from One who, he had been told—who, he truly believed—marked the sparrow's fall. Don Mike was far from being the orthodox person one ordinarily visualizes in a Spanish-Irish Catholic, but he was deeply religious, his religious impulse taking quite naturally a much more practical form and one most pleasing to himself and his neighbors, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of them; Smiling and free in breezes sway, Yet clothed by heavenly hand are they. Meek lilies of the quiet fields, Your growth instruction to me yields. The One who clothes the lily fair And gives it tender, earnest care— Will he not hear my fervent prayer? The One who notes the sparrow's fall— Does he not love his creatures all? If he so clothes each tuft and tree And gives the birds such liberty, Will he not clothe and care for me? I no more can doubt or sorrow: God ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... single turquoise, almost as large, and quite as clear in colour, as a hedge-sparrow's egg. The setting ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... broken hinges. The corral stockade was breached in many places by the years that had rotted the posts. The old-time windlass pump that, operated by a blind burro, once lifted water for the long vanished herds, was a pathetic old wreck, incapable now of offering drink to a thirsty sparrow. On their other hand, beneath the wide branches of giant sycamores and walnuts, and backed by a tangled orchard wilderness, stood an old house, empty and neglected, as if in the shadowy gloom of the untrimmed trees it awaited, lonely and forlorn, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... safe to assume that there is hardly any one who does not know by sight at least a few birds. Nearly every one in the eastern United States and Canada knows the Robin, Crow, and English Sparrow; in the South most people are acquainted with the Mockingbird and Turkey Buzzard; in California the House Finch is abundant about the towns and cities; and to the dwellers in the Prairie States the Meadowlark ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... guessed how marvelous it is for a human being to walk. As for the internes in their white suits, I had never realized before the whiteness of white linen; but much more than that, I had never so much as dreamed of the beauty of young manhood. A little sparrow chirped and flew to a near-by branch, and I honestly believe that only "the morning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy" can in the least express the ecstasy of a bird's flight. I cannot express it, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... jellyfish to the ship-destroying monsters, the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, they all are called into existence by God, and God has not merely called all these creatures into existence, but His providence preserves them, and not even a sparrow falls from the roof without ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... felt her pulse and said: "Oh! how weak this poor woman is!" Then he told the son that he must take good care of his mother and make her some very thin broth and give her a bowlful every minute. The son promised to obey him and went to the market and bought a sparrow and put on the fire a pail of water. When it boiled he put in the sparrow and waited until it boiled up two or three times, and then took a bowl of the broth to his mother, and repeated the dose as ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... soda," he thought. "What am I thinking about? Oh—my soda. . . . Most likely I shall have a bilious attack. . . . It's extraordinary, Smirnovsky swills vodka all day long and yet he never has a bilious attack. . . . There's a bird settled on the window . . . a sparrow. ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in mine embrace and would keep it as my right eye.' Whereupon said he to me, 'What time I was born, the astrologers predicted that I should lose my soul at the hands of the son of a king of mankind. So I took it and set it in the crop of a sparrow, and shut up the bird in a box. The box I set in a casket, and enclosing this in seven other caskets and seven chests, laid the whole in a alabastrine coffer,[FN424] which I buried within the marge of yon earth-circling ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... birds, are parrots, somewhat smaller than the common grey ones, of an indifferent green on the back and wings, the tail bluish, and the rest of a sooty or chocolate brown; parroquets, not larger than a sparrow, of a fine yellowish green, with bright azure on the crown of the head, and the throat and belly red; besides another sort as large as a dove, with a blue crown and thighs, the throat and under part of the head crimson, as also part of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... were almost out of sight as they passed some trees but the colors could be seen dodging between them. When they were in full view again Handy Man led, with Milkmaid, Picket, Fright, and Sparrow close behind. Bandmaster came next, alone, followed by the rest. Seven had fallen and there was a ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... half-lights of Symbolist mysticism are remote from his hard glare. As a dramatist he drew upon and exaggerated that which in Aeschylus and Shakespeare seems to the countrymen of Racine nearest to the limit of the terrible and the brutal permissible in art: a princess nailed by the hands like a sparrow-hawk to a pine by a brutal peasant; the daughter of a noble house submitting to a loathed marriage with a foul-mouthed plebeian in order to ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... honey. I know that the 'bug-birds,' that are always seen on or near cattle, do not feed on the bugs with which the cattle are covered, but on the locusts that fly about the herd. Last week, when our guards took us for a walk outside the fort, I noticed that a kind of sparrow in India has the same trick of catching the locusts that are driven on ahead ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... consider: for it is not always the part of wisdom to attempt a settlement of what the progress of events will soon settle for us. Mr. Buchanan seems to have no opinion, or, if he has one, it is a halting between two, a bat-like cross of sparrow and mouse that gives timidity its choice between flight and skulking. Nothing shocks our sense of the fitness of things more than a fine occasion to which the man is wanting. Fate gets her hook ready, but the eye is not there to clinch with it, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... The Sparrow, Swan, the Doue, Though VENVS Birds they be, Yet are they not for Loue So absolute as we: For Reason vs doth moue; They but by billing woo: Then try what we can doo, To whom ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... beautiful than in Europe.} Birds of Carolina. Eagle bald. Eagle gray. Fishing Hawk. Turkey Buzzard, or Vulture. Herring-tail'd Hawk. Goshawk. Falcon. Merlin. Sparrow-hawk. Hobby. Ring-tail. Raven. Crow. Black Birds, two sorts. Buntings two sorts. Pheasant. Woodcock. Snipe. Partridge. Moorhen. Jay. Green Plover. Plover gray or whistling. Pigeon. Turtle Dove. Parrakeeto. Thrush. Wood-Peckers, five sorts. Mocking-birds, two sorts. Cat-Bird. ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... 'The Sparrow's Nest', and the sonnet on Skiddaw, along with some translations from Chaucer, belong to the year 1801. During this year, however, 'The Excursion' was in progress. In its earlier stages, and before the plan ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of the demolition of Paul's Cross is stated by Dugdale to have been 1643, but the late Canon Sparrow Simpson produced evidence which clearly proves that it was pulled down before 1641, and probably before 1635. In the charge-books of the cathedral there is an entry under June, 1635, which shows that labourers were employed in carrying away "the lead, timber, etc., that was pull'd downe of ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
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