"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... screaming, the bird made every effort to escape, but not before Dee was aware of a label tied round his neck. This he quickly detached; after which the winged messenger flew back through the open window, either having finished his ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... four have ranged them in a row, Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem; And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds, they go— Oh, never carroled bird like them! ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... shepherd is here supposed to take the stem or beak of the ship for the mouth, from which the roaring voices of the sailors came. Rostrum is here a lucky word to put in the mouth of one who never saw a ship before, as it is used for the beak of a bird, the snout of a beast or fish, and for the stem of ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... must have hit a French Flying Fish, which was circling above the centre of the harbour, and disabled the wings and propellors on one side, for she lurched and wobbled for an instant like a bird with a broken wing. Then she swooped downwards in a spiral course, falling ever faster and faster, till she struck ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the passing host, The martial fury in their wonder lost. Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies; A bleeding serpent, of enormous size, His talons trussed; alive, and curling round, He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound. Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey, In airy circles wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... one subject on which they were in accord, and that was the canary bird. In the course of years they had possessed many, and every time the cat took one they protested that never again would they expose themselves ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... faced them, with an awkward take-off from the bank of a ditch. Killaloe crashed through; Brunette came like a bird in his tracks, Norah's arm across her face to ward off the loose branches. She got through with a tear in her coat, landing on stiff plough through which Mrs. Ainslie's grey was struggling painfully. Brunette's light burden was all in her favour ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... of the pigeon express man is not distinctly known; but he is supposed to have given up the bird business, and gone into the manufacture of woolly horses ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... were looking for something in the root of the hedge, you wouldn't want to scour the road in a high-speed automobile. And still less would you want to get a bird's-eye view in an aeroplane. That parable about fits my case. I have been in the clouds and I've been scorching on the pikes, but what I was wanting was in the ditch all the time, and I naturally missed it ... I had the wrong stunt, Major. I was too high up and refined. I've ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... of hazard the godfather played over his shoulder. In matters of choice he chose for him. And when the lad began to work on his father's farm the farmer began to get rich. For no bird or field-mouse touched a seed that his son had sown, and every plant he planted throve when Good Luck ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... than anything you ever saw. When he arose, he was no longer mangy and haggard, but strong and handsome. And the damsel sought out for him the finest robe she could find, with which she clothed him when he arose. And he was glad to put it on, quicker than a bird in flight. He kissed and embraced the maid, and then said to her graciously: "My dear, I have only God and you to thank for being restored to health again. Since I owe my liberty to you, you may take ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... have never known. Guilty? Of course she was guilty; and I only wish we could try her again and hang her yet! Now don't pretend you sympathize with a woman like that," he said to Rachel, with a look like a nudge; "you haven't been married long enough; and for Heaven's sake don't refuse that bird! It's the best that can be got this time of year, though that's not saying much; but wait till the grouse season, Mrs. Steel! I have a moor here in the dales, keep a cellar full of them, and eat 'em as ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... was borne over them. Then his captor did that which proved beyond doubt to Bradley that he was in the hands of human beings who had devised an almost perfect scheme of duplicating, mechanically, the wings of a bird—the thing spoke to its companion and in a language that Bradley partially understood, since he recognized words that he had learned from the savage races of Caspak. From this he judged that they were human, and being human, he knew that they could have ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the influence of Callimachus quite discomfited the young poet. A war of epigrams began, and while Apollonius called Callimachus a 'blockhead' (so finished was his invective), the veteran compared his rival to the Ibis, the scavenger-bird. Other singers satirised each others' legs, and one, the Aretino of the time, mocked at king Ptolemy and scourged his failings in verse. The literary quarrels (to which Theocritus seems to allude in Idyl ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... you be too sure of that," Miss Vernon replied. "Take my advice, and when you speak of Rashleigh, get up to the top of Otterscope-hill, where you can see for twenty miles round you in every direction—stand on the very peak, and speak in whispers; and, after all, don't be too sure that the bird of the air will not carry the matter, Rashleigh has been my tutor for four years; we are mutually tired of each other, and we shall heartily rejoice ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... brutish, and short". To live like an animal is to rely upon one's own quite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold or scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat his roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get the feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the comparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian tribes may fall to when really hungry. In the journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition there is an account ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken when three nights old from between his mother and the wall." And the Ousel answered, "When I first came here, there was a smith's anvil in this place, and I was then a young bird; and from that time no work has been done upon it, save the pecking of my beak every evening, and now there is not so much as the size of a nut remaining thereof; yet the vengeance of Heaven be upon me, if during ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... of the United States, was there, as ever the most simply attired personage in the Union. His beautiful wife, however, beaming and gracious, but no less rigid than "Lady Washington," in her social statutes, looked like a bird of paradise beside a graven image, so gorgeous was her raiment. Baron Steuben was in the regalia of war and a breastplate of orders. Kitty Livingston, now Mrs. Matthew Ridley, had also received a fine new gown of Mrs. Church's selection, for the two women still were friends, despite the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... in Rome are more entertaining to the eye than to measure the long plumb-line which drops from the inhabited windows of the palace, with their little over-peeping balconies, their muslin curtains and their bird-cages, down to the rugged constructional work of the Republic. In the Forum proper the sublime is eclipsed again, though the late extension of the excavations gives a chance ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... little white hands more tightly in his own, and whispered sweet words to her that brought a bright flush to her face and a love light to her eyes. She drooped her head with the coy, pretty shyness of a bird, listening to words that seemed to her all poetry ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the Ebenezer of a few believers in the "Bird- of-Freedom" school, with a spice of breezy religious courage in their composition, was raised at the bottom of Cannon-street, in Preston; and to this day it abideth there. Why it was elevated at that particular period of the world's history we cannot say. Neither does it signify. ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... spotted me, CHARLIE,—him being left out in the cold,— And to see him sit down on his topper, and turn off as yaller as gold, Wos as good as a pantermime. Oh! if there's one thing more nicer than pie, It's to soar like a bird in the sight of the flats as can't git on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... has cost him a pretty penny, madame. His singing-bird has cost him more than a hundred thousand francs in these two years. Ah, ha! you have not seen the end ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... goin' to do to-day, Triny?" he asked, briskly. "When you goin' over to see the Deerings' parrot? There ain't another such bird in America. You go over there this morning and see that parrot. Don't loll about the house. Don't be lazy!" Whereupon, with less profanity, but as much of autocracy as was ever displayed by an Irish boss whipping into shape the lowliest of his Italian gang, Mr. McBride replaced his pipe ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... among the waggons. At the same moment, I loosed mine. So did Doolittle. Quick as thought, but silently, we led them out all three where the laager was broken. I clutched my mare's mane, and sprang to the stirrup to pursue our enemy. My sorrel bounded off like a bird. The fugitive had a good two minutes start of us; but our horses were fresh, while his had probably been ridden all day. I patted my pony's neck; she responded with a ringing neigh of joy. We tore after the outlaw, all three of us abreast. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... square were two or three officials, and two men holding the two contesting birds. A man at a table outside held the stakes and presumably kept track of the bettors, odds, etc. Instead of the weapons provided by nature each bird had securely fastened to his left leg, in place of the spur that had been cut off, a villainously sharp steel spur, slightly curved and about three inches long. A well directed thrust from this steel weapon may kill the victim almost instantly, and one victim ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. The profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those persons whose sleep ordinarily is as light as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. To such an unwonted remoteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn into itself that he stirred not in his chair when old Roger Chillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. The physician advanced directly ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the nests in the field, there was a mother bird and three young birds. The little mother bird, there in the quiet clover field, had never heard such a loud ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... divided diagonally from upper hoist-side corner; the upper triangle is red with a soaring yellow bird of paradise centered; the lower triangle is black with five, white, five-pointed stars of the Southern ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... a difference in Dotty's attitude. She walked as quickly as before but she was not quite so alert. Also, she kept turning her head suddenly from side to side with a gesture of an inquisitive bird, a little uncertain which way ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... on the Place Saint Pierre, he took me up in it. I found the experience a novel but not a pleasing one, for all my life I have had a tendency to vertigo when ascending to any unusual height. I remember that it was a clear day, and that we had a fine bird's-eye view of Paris on the one hand and of the plain of Saint Denis on the other, but I confess that I felt out of-my element, and was glad to set foot on terra firma ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... "The bird's flown!" were his first words, addressed to Rolfe. "I've hunted high and low, but I cannot find a sign of him. It beats me how he's managed it. He couldn't have gone out the front way without my seeing him go past the door, and the ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... waves rushing up to my feet, I felt, all at once, as though an unseen power was impelling me to look up. I raised my head and gazed out over the water, and there I saw, far away, a great white object that looked like an immense bird. I knew, as I know all things that occur in my visions, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... young ducks in the course of the day—an easy matter, for the old birds made such a fuss in attempting to decoy us away from them—pretending to be badly hurt as they say the plover does—that we could always find them by going about in the opposite direction to the old bird till we heard the young ones crying: then we ran them down, for they could not fly though they were nearly full grown. Chowbok plucked them a little and singed them a good deal. Then we cut them up and boiled them in another pannikin, and ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... bad," said Barby eying her. "Why there ain't much particular, Fleda; nobody's had any heart to eat lately; I thought I might a'most as well save myself the fuss of getting victuals. Hugh lives like a bird, and Mis' Rossitur ain't much better, and I think all of 'em have been keeping their appetites till you came back; 'cept Philetus and me; we keep it up pretty well. Why you're come ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... tell you about this gattling gun expert. When they landed us off of them boats down on the coast, the battalion commander turned us all loose for a swim in the bay, and this here bird almost drowned. He went down three times before we could ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... Contemplation, And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will daign a Song, In her sweetest, saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of night, While Cynthia checks her Dragon yoke, Gently o're th'accustom'd Oke; 60 Sweet Bird that shunn'st the noise of folly Most musical!, most melancholy! Thee Chauntress oft the Woods among I woo to hear thy eeven-Song; And missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven Green, To ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... telling you of, and kept the best house in county Clare—well, he was coming down on the Limerick coach, and met a deuced pleasant, good-looking, talkative sort of a fellow a-top of it. They dined and got a tumbler of punch together at Roscrea; and when French got down at Bird Hill, he told his acquaintance that if he ever found himself anywhere near Ennis, he'd be glad to see him at Glare Abbey. He was a hospitable sort of a fellow, and had got into a kind of way of saying the same thing to everybody, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... to say that this form of advertisement is worth columns of the daily papers; and if Mr. Courtland had only shown himself appreciative of his best interests and had changed the title of his book to "The Land of the New Guinea Pig," instead of "The Quest of the Meteor-Bird," they would have gone to press with ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... heart most eased When that we are y-flatter'd and y-praised. He *went full nigh the sooth,* I will not lie; *came very near A man shall win us best with flattery; the truth* And with attendance, and with business Be we y-limed,* bothe more and less. *caught with bird-lime And some men said that we do love the best For to be free, and do *right as us lest,* *whatever we please* And that no man reprove us of our vice, But say that we are wise, and nothing nice,* *foolish For truly there is ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... not be accomplished, O Kesava! How can a person like me live, having failed to accomplish his vow? O hero, the non-accomplishment is evident of this (my vow which to me is a) source of great grief. (At this season of the year), I tell thee that the sun setteth quickly." The bird-bannered Krishna hearing this cause of Partha's grief, touched water and sat with face turned to the east. And then that hero, of eyes like lotus leaves, and possessed of great energy, said these words for the benefit of Pandu's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... glass in the hall that would cost him four dollars. Did they think he was made of argent. If so, they never made a bigger mistake in their vie. The meal closed with general expressions of good-feeling. A little bird has whispered to us that there will be no more parties at the De Smythes' ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... your bluff, it wouldn't be safe, would it? Of course, I'm a sure-enough bad man—and all that. But you must be a bird of my feather, or you wouldn't flock ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... who had charge of this young Scotchman. As he could not be found, the fellow's cell was broken open, and there was the warder, bound and gagged. The bird had flown, and parties of horse were sent off by all the roads leading to Bohemia and Silesia, but no signs of the man have, as far as we have heard, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... looked "lovingly" on the well-fed joints above his head. The gutters before his door literally ran with blood: pass by whenever you would, there the crimson current constantly flowed; and the smell the passenger inhaled was not that of "Araby." A "Whitechapel bird" and a "Whitechapel butcher" were once synonymous phrases, used to denote a character the very reverse of a gentleman; but, says a writer of the fifties, "in the manners of the latter we believe there ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... followed the path he had taken. The thickly grown wood was alive with spirit of spring. Small animals scampered underfoot, and overhead a bird breathed forth its soul in incomparable song. She stopped for a minute to listen to the latter—clear-throated as an English nightingale—singing away as though winter and the stark desolation had never been. A slight ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... do as a fairy small? I cannot tell all; But I would do much with a right good will: To all things good, and to nothing ill. And I'd laugh and skip, like a bird on wing, Twitter and sing, And make boys and girls, and birds and flowers, All say, "What a lovely world ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various
... born in 1636, died in 1695, chose the feathered tribe for his subjects. He has been called 'the Raphael of bird painters.' He painted especially poultry, peacocks, turkeys, and pigeons, which he usually represented alive, and treated with great truthfulness and picturesque feeling. Among his best pictures are 'The Floating Feather,' a feather given with singular ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... after putting away my things, nurse opened the nursery door and beckoned me in: "Miss Nannie," she said impressively, "I'm kinder worried 'bout your pa. He's never had no appetite to brag of; but for a week past he's been eatin' like a bird. Mornin' after mornin' he ain't touched nothin' but his tea, an' I'm afraid something's wrong. I don't want to frighten you, my dear, but I thought by tellin' you, maybe you could find out if anything ails him, and get him to send for the doctor. I think he looks kinder bad, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... sooner—and I wonder you did not think of it—we might both of us have had lots of allocations. These are not the times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can't you help me with ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... wherever it recurs, is the enemy of life itself. As I write, my eye falls upon a Japanese sword-guard. I have seen it a thousand times, but I never fail to feel the same thrill. Out of the disc of blued steel the artisan has worked the soaring form of a bird with upraised wings. It is indicated in skeleton fashion by bars extraordinarily energetic, yet suavely modulated. There must have been feeling and intelligence in every touch of the chisel and file that wrought it. Could that same object seen occasionally in a museum showcase afford me any comparable ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... straight before him, apparently at a bluebird balanced on a twig, but it was not the bird he was ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... first page of a Chinese almanack for the current year, we have a curious woodcut representing a fly, a spider, a bird, a sportsman, a tiger, and a well. Underneath this strange medley is a legend couched in the following terms:—"Predestination in all things!" The letterpress accompanying the picture explains that the spider had ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... to the superior quality of his dandelion; for she came to his side, and he at once flew to a neighboring bush and burst into song. It was a pretty little ditty, or rather a musical rattle on one note, resembling the song of the indigo bird, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... were transmitted into the ivory mouth-piece beside her. At the moment when the day was most threatened it had shown a new and most promising development. Over the grey dress Mrs. Grove wore a cloak with a subdued gold shimmer, her hat was hardly more than the spread wing of a bird across the pallor of her face, and the deep folds of the gloves on her wrists emphasized the slender charm of her arms. No young—younger woman, he decided, could compete with her in the worldly, the sophisticated, attractiveness she commanded: on the ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... boys came to a halt and looked about them searchingly. On one side of the road lay a tilled field, on the other were rocks and trees and bushes. They listened intently, but only the occasional cry of a night bird broke the stillness. ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... were the Mollies; for which bird the North Sea men have as great an affection and veneration as sailors round the Cape of Good Hope have for Mother Carey's chickens or the superb albatross: They have an idea that the spirits of the brave old Greenland skippers, the successors of the fierce sea-kings, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... bird from a neighbouring bush. 'I thought I should only be in the way if I kept close to you. But I longed to lend a claw in such good work. Can I ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... the mention of him, in mellow mirth, by England's greatest spirit. "What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?" Whereto replies the much-offended Malvolio: "That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird." He of the crossed garters disdains such fantasy. "I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... garlands that I weave for thee, Unchanging as the belt Orion wears, Bright as the jewels of the seven-starred Crown, The spangled stream of Berenice's hair!" And so she twines the fetters with the flowers Around my yielding limbs, and the fierce bird Stoops to his quarry,—then to feed his rage Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood And let the dew-drenched, poison-breeding night Steal all the freshness from my fading cheek, And leave its shadows round my caverned eyes. All ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... once started to find out what had become of the fellow, and all agreed that nothing should be decided until he reported. He was not long in getting trace of him and when he came in after dinner it was to tell the bird had flown. Fearing arrest, his face bandaged, he had been lifted into a long sleigh, and lying in it as a bed, had been driven westward. 'He will get to Hamilton this afternoon,' said Jabez, 'and is likely by sunset to be ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... utter was frozen in her throat. She saw the ice ahead and below them. Like a great bird—or a huge batfish leaping from the sea—the ice boat shot out on a long curve from the ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... other. Who,[64] dragging out my fair-haired tresses, will choose me as his spoil despite my tears, while my country is perishing? Through thee [forsooth,] the offspring of the long-necked swan, if indeed the report is true, that Leda met with[65] a winged bird, when the body of Jove was transformed, and then in the tablets of the muses fables spread these reports among men, inopportunely, and ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... in bright mail, with skirts of silk and cloth of gold, and long white mantles, each with the scarlet cross upon the shoulder; and on their heads they wore light caps of steel ornamented with chiselled gold and silver, and here and there with a metal crest or a bird's wing, beaten out of thin ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... both wearing a good deal of jewellery. The younger man, incredibly, had round his pudgy wrist a bangle set with turquoises! On the other side of this hilarious party was a large, sober-faced Englishman who looked like a stockbroker, Roger said, and with him a little humming-bird of a girl, starry-eyed, infantile—belonging to musical comedy, no ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... She was not tall, even for her age, and just a little too plump for the immediate suggestion of grace. Yet every motion of the child would have been graceful, except for the fact that impulse was always predominant, giving a certain jerkiness, like the hopping of a bird, instead of the gliding of one motion into another, such as you might see in the same bird on ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... population note: there is a small military garrison on South Georgia, and the British Antarctic Survey has a biological station on Bird Island; the South Sandwich Islands ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the troubled critics say to Tennyson's orchestra consisting of a flute, violin, and bassoon? Or to Coleridge's "loud bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played "with an airy and bird-like touch?" Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in "Snubbin' through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play "the symphonies of Beethoven" to entertain his fellow canal-boat passengers? The tendency toward realism, or "veritism," as it is called, ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Honourable Charles's soreness was not at all soothed thereby. Since the abode, obviously in Mr. Boult's eyes, left so much to be desired, it was no compliment to be told it was suitable. "A very nice little cage, Gibbon. Where is the bird?" ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... down through leaves at a man—wink, they go, and wink, wink, till, watching 'em, a man forgets his troubles awhile and knows something o' content. Aha, many's the time o' star-time they have winked me and my troubles asleep. Then there's wakings o' bird-time, wi' the sun up, dew a-sparkle and life calling within ye and without, and the birds—O the birds, Martin—a-filling the world wi' brave songs o' hope new-born like the day! Ah, many's the morn the birds ha' waked me and I as merry as any grig—Lord ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the commonplaces of conversation were interchanged, he could not but notice the floral appearance of the room. The ample white lace curtains were surmounted by festoons of artificial roses, caught up by a bird of paradise. On the ceiling was an exquisitely painted garland, from the centre of which hung a tasteful basket of natural flowers, with delicate vine-tresses drooping over its edge. The walls were papered with bright arabesques of flowers, interspersed with birds and butterflies. In one corner ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... hasn't compelled Agent Quhayne to purchase a larger-sized hat? And Whether it isn't a fact that, though they are press-agented at the same figure, Prince Otto is getting fifty a week more than Grand Duke Vodkakoff? And If it is not so, why a little bird has assured us that the Prince is being paid five hundred a week and the Grand Duke only four hundred and fifty? And, In any case, whether the Prince isn't worth fifty a week more ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... or a slip, could step in that way upon stones some of which are as slippery as ice with gelatinous weed and slime, while others are as sharp as razors. To walk like that the eye must be my darling's, that is to say, an eye as sure as a bird's the ball of the foot must be the ball of a certain little foot I have often had in my hand wet with sea-water and gritty with sand. For such work a mountaineer or a cragsman, or Winifred, is needed.' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... by the sight, a mite of a blue-bird with a golden head sat on the edge of the hammock close to the little mouth, and looked in. Evidently it was a bird of an inquiring disposition, for, having gazed for a considerable time with one eye, it turned its head, and gazed a longer time with the other. Quashy lay ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... and lightning; and though they do not behold the actions of the Gods, yet they cannot entertain a thought of a Deity doing nothing. The Egyptians (so much ridiculed) held no beasts to be sacred, except on account of some advantage which they had received from them. The ibis, a very large bird, with strong legs and a horny long beak, destroys a great number of serpents. These birds keep Egypt from pestilential diseases by killing and devouring the flying serpents brought from the deserts of Lybia by the south-west wind, which ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... first in front, then behind upon the other side, and at last allowed her eyes to move, without hurry, in the direction of the Hermiston pew. For a moment, they were riveted. Next she had plucked her gaze home again like a tame bird who should have meditated flight. Possibilities crowded on her; she hung over the future and grew dizzy; the image of this young man, slim, graceful, dark, with the inscrutable half-smile, attracted and repelled her like a chasm. "I wonder, will I have met my fate?" ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... House was a pleasure which seemed a long way off last night," observed the Dago Duke without embarrassment. "You heard the imprisoned bird singing for his liberty? Music to soothe the savage breast of your sheriff. When I am myself I can converse in five languages; when I am drunk it is my misfortune to be able only to sing or holler. Your jail is a disgrace to Crowheart; I've never been in a worse one. The mattress ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... say—Why, here! It's like her; photograph couldn't get it any better; but it makes me think-well, of a bird that you've come on sudden, and it stoops as if it was goin' ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a flood of commonness, and June on the roads would hardly be beautiful were it not for the roses that settle, delicate and fleeting as butterflies, on the long and crooked briers. Perhaps one has not the right to say of any flower or any bird that it is not beautiful Even elder-flowers, seen at a distance, can give cheerfulness to a roadside. But, if we have to pick and choose among flowers, there are many who will give the lowest prize to the flowers that have been compared to umbrellas—elder-flowers, ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... the shoal off the entrance of the harbour[5], and who had seen half his companions drowned, and half eaten by the Indians, had contrived to conciliate the natives. He had saved a musket and some powder from the wreck, and having taken an opportunity of shooting a bird in the presence of the inhabitants, they called him Caramuru, or the man of fire; and, as he accompanied them on an expedition against their enemies the Tapuyas, he became a favourite, married at least one Indian wife, and fixed his residence at the spot ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, had been the present of the Scythian king to Darius, (Herodot. l. iv. c. 131, 132.) Substituez une lettre a ces signes (says Rousseau, with much good taste) plus elle sera menacante moins elle effrayera; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... subject: * * * the consciousness is completely empty: an idea is suggested, and reigns supreme over the slumbering consciousness, * * * The second is psychic hyperexcitability, the cause of the aptitude for suggestion." "For example, we say to a patient: 'Look, you have a bird in your apron,' and no sooner are these simple words pronounced than she sees the bird, feels it with her fingers, and sometimes even hears it sing." "Again, in place of speech we engage the attention of the patient, and when her gaze has become settled and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... is a rare occurrence; and the water is so calm that it resembles a stream. Very frequently I used to start up from my desk, thinking that I was in some diminutive room ashore; and my mistake was the more natural, as we had three horses, a dog, several pigs, hens, geese, and a canary bird on board, all respectively neighing, barking, grunting, cackling, and singing, as if they ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Blare, and he could be seen. Then it began to seem as if others were living in Michigan, for we could see them. The light of civilization began to dawn upon us. We had cleared up what was a few years before, the lair of the wolf and the hunting ground of the red man. The Michigan bird of the night had no more chance to make his nest in hollow trees or live there, but had to go back to the woods. There we could hear him almost any evening hallooing. "Whoo! whoo! whoo!" His nearest neighbor ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... San Bernardino is an absolute desert. For over one hundred miles the track is one hundred feet, or more, below the level of the sea, and the country is absolutely naked of bird or grass. At San Bernardino we entered California proper, and there found a beautiful country, with nothing to obstruct the view, the California mountains being on the right all the way into Los Angeles. Upon my arrival in this city I was pleasantly surprised. I had been there thirteen ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... "Some kind of night-bird," I thought. But the next moment I felt quite startled, for the sound was repeated, and I knew now that it was some one whispering. Then, as I stood quite still in the darkness, with the glow coming from the cabin-windows ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... was a gentleman. This disreputable old man, whose grey hairs, far from making him venerable, but emphasised his sodden degradation; this tipsy, filthy, obscene old man; this gaol-bird, this doer of dirty work, this pandar, beggar, outcast, who bore without offence such a title of contempt as Bibi Ragout, was a fallen gentleman, the wreck of something that ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... institutions and traditions, the leaden weight of which will, apparently, not let him soar through space to ever greater heights. Apparently, because it sometimes occurs that an individual rises above the average, and waves his colors over the heads of the common herd. His life is that of the storm bird, anxiously making for distant shores. The efforts of the deepest, truest and freest spirits of our day tend toward the conscious formation of life, toward that life which will make the blind raging of the elements impossible; a life which will show man his sovereignity ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... it is only right that the reader should be able to judge, as much as is possible, from a description. She was very slight and rather tall, with a great deal of the Contessa's grace, moving lightly as if she scarcely touched the ground, but like a bird rather than a cat. There was nothing in her of the feline grace of which we hear so much. Her movements were all direct and rapid; her feet seemed to skim, not to tread, the ground with an airy poise, which even when she stood still implied movement, always light, untiring, full of energy ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... His trick had been too good a one for him to take any chances. He did not wish to scare his bird off ere he had him bagged. He walked away and waited for Tom to appear. The man, however, for some reason or other remained in his rooms, and our hero ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... our eyes open for them, never mind, and if we see them coming, we will hide. I wonder what is in that big cage over there? I see something flying from one side to the other but it doesn't look like a bird. Let's ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... tigers, wolves, elephants, horses, squirrels or rabbits. Instead there were found animals that are found nowhere else, and which seem to belong to a different and so-called extinct geologic age, such as the kangaroo, wombats, the platypus—which the sailors used to tell us was neither bird not beast, and yet was both. In birds, Australia has also very strange specimens, such as the ostrich which can not fly, but can outrun a horse and kills its prey by kicking forward like a man. Australia also has immense mound-making turkeys, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... bird, and has beautiful eyes, quick and penetrating; but the Bridegroom desires not hawk's eyes in His bride. The tender eyes of the innocent dove are those which He admires. It was as a dove that the HOLY SPIRIT came upon Him at His baptism, ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... on his accession to the throne of the Czars, as has before been noted, was too generous a captor to hold in cage so sweet a singing bird and so noble a lion; and he gave them liberty, appending to the act, dearest to a free-born heart, an imperial donation to Kosciusko that might have furnished him with a golden argosy all over the world. But the wounded son of Poland declined it in a manner ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... after dinner as we sat with French windows opened wide to the warm evening air of late spring, puffing idly at our cigars, a most beautiful bird song burst upon our ears—a song that made us stare at one another in amazement; we had never heard its like before. It might be described as a bird fantasia—the notes covered a wide range of sounds and the effect was beautiful. Captain Ellis ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... bowers. Bid the shepherds and their swains See the beauty of their plains; And command them with their flocks To do reverence on the rocks; Where they may so happy be As her shadow but to see: Bid the birds in every bush Not a bird to be at hush: But to sit, and chirp, and sing To the beauty of the Spring: Call the sylvan nymphs together, Bid them bring their musicks hither. Trees their barky silence break, Crack yet, though they cannot speak Bid the purest, whitest swan Of her feathers make her fan; ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... wolf weep!" returned Eben Dudley, raising his large frame so as to stand erect on the shaft, where he commanded a bird's-eye view of most of the desolation of the valley. "Evil though it be, we may not say that forewarning signs have been withheld. But what is the cunningest man, when mortal wisdom is weighed in the scale against the craft of devils? Come forth! Belial ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... danger of bringing the butyric vibrios into contact with air? It may be possible that LIFE WITHOUT AIR results from habit, whilst DEATH THROUGH AIR may be brought about by a sudden change in the conditions of the existence of the vibrios. The following remarkable experiment is well-known: A bird is placed in a glass jar of one or two litres (60 to 120 cubic inches) in capacity which is then closed. After a time the creature shows every sign of intense uneasiness and asphyxia long before it dies; a similar bird of the same size is ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... find the little steamer Cygnet at her wharf, looking as neat and trim as the graceful bird after which she is named. Newly painted, she was about to start on the ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... owned by a lady at Ipswich is said to make "poll scratchers" for herself out of small pieces of soft wood. In justice to the bird it must be stated that she has frequently expressed a desire to be allowed to do war-work, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... that held the sphere hovering in the air above the game sanctuary on the northern tip of Manhattan Island. In the screen, he had an aerial view of the grassy, rocky mounds where the earth hid the shattered and partially melted ruins of long-collapsed buildings. In the center of the screen was a bird's-eye view of a man holding a rifle. He was walking slowly, picking his way carefully along the bottom of the shallow gully that had once ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... up to a pretty soft spot in the thicket, and there found a little pigeon enjoying the last crumbs of Cleo's cake. Although the approach meant some more crackling of leaves and sticks, the bird seemed not the least disturbed, in fact, as the scouts looked down he looked up with a perky twist ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... hook of iron let into a piece of bone, and secured by thongs to a staff, the hook being sharply pointed, but not barbed. While we were on the island (to which I had applied the name of Observation Island), it happened that a small bird flew near us, when one of the Esquimaux made a sign of shooting it with a bow and arrow in a manner which could not be misunderstood. It is remarkable, therefore, that we could not find about their tents any of these weapons, except a little one of five or six inches long, the bow being made ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... mention, a similar phenomenon. This stuff, which could be had for nothing, was excellent for rifle-stoppers and for the stuffing of birds, so I took a great quantity of it with me. This time the bird-hunting went ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... and gravelly banks protruded, the ice appeared to be peeled off, for in those spots the sun's rays had melted it, though only at mid-day and on the south. All streams and waterfalls slumbered in silence under the snowy blanket. A chill silence reigned over the whole valley. Not a bird was to be seen, not even a snow bunting, only two ravens which kept flying from farmhouse to farmhouse, and even their ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... birds and flowers, both of which a Beet Sugar Farm in the Connecticut Valley made possible. A family of swallows made their nest in her woodshed, husband and wife dividing the labors of construction, nursing, and even of incubation, though the male bird did not have the same skill and grace as the lady, in placing his feet and wings. Mrs. Child gives a pretty account of this incident in a letter to one of her little friends, and says, "It seems as if I could watch them ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... moving mass and bright, Young ladies in a vasty curve, To strike imagination serve. 'Tis there that arrant fops display Their insolence and waistcoats white And glasses unemployed all night; Thither hussars on leave will stray To clank the spur, delight the fair— And vanish like a bird in air. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... which chance raises and destroys; like a gigantic waterspout, which advances on the ocean, threatening to annihilate everything, but which is dispersed by a stone thrown from the hand of a sailor; or an avalanche, which threatens to swallow towns, and fill up valleys, because a bird in its flight has detached a flake of snow on the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... was waiting in the library, sipping a brandy and pretending to scan a Congressional Record in the viewer-box. He looked up, bird-like, as Dan Fowler strode in. "Well, Nate. Sit down, sit down. I see you're into my private stock already, so I won't offer you any. What's ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... curses—not a policemen was assaulted. It was amusing, sometimes, to see what strange articles the poor wretches had stowed away in their dirty cellars. There was everything from barrels of sugar and starch to tobacco and bird-seed. Said a morning paper: "Mahogany and rosewood chairs with brocade upholstering, marble-top tables and stands, costly paintings, and hundreds of delicate and valuable mantel ornaments, are daily found in low hovels ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... mountain, And bleak blew the wind on the wild stormy sea; The cauld frost had lock'd up each riv'let and fountain, As I took the dreich road that leads north to Dundee. Though a' round was dreary, my heart was fu' cheerie, And cantie I sung as the bird on the tree; For when the heart 's light, the feet winna soon weary, Though ane should gang further ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that helps to keep it sustein'd, there is the Congruity of the bodies that are contiguous. This is yet more evident in Tenacious and Glutinous bodies; such as Gummous Liquors, Syrups, Pitch, and Rosin melted, &c. Tar, Turpentine, Balsom, Bird-lime, &c. for there it is evident, that the Parts of the tenacious body, as I may so call it, do stick and adhere so closely together, that though drawn out into long and very slender Cylinders, yet they will not easily relinquish one another; and this, though the bodies ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... shall at length die and leave their misery? And what shall we say of those coming, and yet to come and pass—evermore issuing from the fountain of life, daily born into evil things? Will the consolation that they will soon die, suffice for the heart of the child who laments over his dead bird or rabbit, and would fain love that father in heaven who keeps on making the creatures? Alas, they are crowding in; they cannot help themselves; their misery is awaiting them! Would those Christians have me believe in a God who differentiates creatures from himself, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... head with the dainty alertness of a beautiful bird. She had a gift denied to most Englishwomen—the genius for wearing clothes. No one had ever seen her dress dusty or crushed, her hat crooked. No uncomfortable accidents ever happened to her. Blacks never settled on her face, ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Major, "the golden-bug, or lady-bird; also Bishop-Barney: which see. This pretty little, and very useful insect, is tenderly regarded by our children. One settling on a child is always sent ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... fledged, standing up as if to guard the nest, the second hissing and snapping, as if a naughty boy, and two downy infants who died. One brown owl was kept tame, and lived 14 years. The village people call this bird Screech Owl, and after a sudden death always ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Now the Duke, who was too much inclined to credit his assertions, encouraged the fellow to speak thus, and thought in his own heart that things would go as he had prophesied, because that envious creature Bandinello never ceased insinuating malice. On one occasion it happened that the gallows bird Bernardone, the broker, was present at these conversations, and in support of Bandinello's calumnies, he said to the Duke: "You must remember, prince, that statues on a large scale are quite a different dish of ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... as all know, has been traced back to reptiles. It is in this matter that the famous Archaeopteryx plays an important part. Unfortunately, however, grave difficulties are again encountered in this connection. This primitive form is a real bird according to Zittel; and according to the same investigator as also according to Marsh, Dames, Vetter, Parker, Tuerbringen, Parlow and Mehnert, it is inadmissible to connect birds with a definite class of reptiles. Haeckel finds his way out of the difficulty ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... thus thinking, his wife awoke and asked him what was the matter. He told her, and she said, "That is a strange dream. If I were you, I'd ask the old parrot about it; he is a wise bird, and perhaps he knows." This parrot of which she spoke was the most wise of all the thousand wooden parrots. The Rajah took his wife's advice, and when all the birds came home that evening, he called the old parrot and told him his dream, saying, "Can this be true?" To which the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... under His wings shalt thou trust.' That grates, one gets away from the metaphor too quickly; but if we preserve the literal meaning, and read, 'under His wings shalt thou flee for refuge,' we have the picture of the chicken flying to the mother-bird when kites are in the sky, and huddling close to the warm breast and the soft downy feathers, and so with the spread of the great wing being sheltered from all possibility of harm. This psalm is ascribed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you mean," said Bill. "He is awfully dark, and has squinty black eyes and coal black hair. He has been transferred to our quarters now. He is splendid—does everything for mother: brings her flowers and all that, and a young mocking bird in ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... time, if only the Borgia could be fed elsewhere. At the thought of that hearty eater stalled in the Vatican, he felt that he might indeed thank God for his lovely Molly. With her for decoy even that game-bird might be lured. Lying on the poop of the Santa Fina, his dark eyes questing over her face, her hands among his curls, he seemed to Molly the wonder of the world. So of her world he was; but he meant to be that of his ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... infested. The region where the Lucius of the book wandered, either as man, or after his own curiosity into mysterious things had converted him into an ass (whereas he had wished to become a beautiful bird)—the region recalls some wild picture of Salvator Rosa's. We are surrounded by gloomy shades, sepulchral caverns, and trees writhing in storm, nor are cut-throat bandits ever far away. Violence and murder threaten at every turn. Through the narrow ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... pilgrims of the sky, true to the kindred points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's, in light, in purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for the glorious appearing of something in the sky, which the bird cannot. ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... been awarded to any one else, but, as it was, it came rather as a matter of course. The doctor was greatly pleased, and said he should drive round by Abbotstoke to tell the news there, and then laughed beyond measure to hear that Meta had been in the plot, saying he should accuse the little humming-bird of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the little craft rose a great, long-winged hawk that cried and hovered over it for a little, as if loth to leave it; and one man said, shrinking and pale, that it was the wizard's familiar spirit. But the wind caught the bird's long wings and drove it from the boat, and swiftly wheeling it must needs make for us, speeding down the wind ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... wings in the air, which was golden with sunshine and quivering with heat, soaring above the smoke and fire, this way and that. But it soon took flight, away from the furnace beneath. I shouted with delight, and cried to my father: 'Look at the bird! Where is he flying?' And he eagerly answered: 'Well done! If you desire to preserve the power I have conquered for you always undiminished, you must keep your eyes open. Let no sign pass unnoticed, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... good Beltran,' said he, 'you have actually hunted this bird, whose height is gigantic, whose cry at a distance resembles the lion's, and which is to be found in parched and desolate tracts, deserted even by antelopes and beasts ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... small boy of civilisation; and one of these pests of society slew the goose with a stone. The widowed gander consoled himself by contracting family ties with the common domestic goose of the parish, and all his progeny, in other particulars indistinguishable from that familiar bird, bear the black marks ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... good God, man! Four of us have been on this peak for nearly ten months. We've never seen a Boche, never heard a shot. Seasons come and go, rain falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the Alps, but nothing else comes to us except a half-frozen bird or two." ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... Sim'org, a bird "which hath seen the world thrice destroyed." It is found in K[^a]f, but as Hafiz says, "searching for the simorg is like searching for the philosopher's stone." This does not agree with Beckford's account. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... instinct with fight. The wind faintly stirred the thin foliage of the mesquites, making a mournful sigh. From far up in the foothills, barely distinguishable, came the scream of an eagle. The bray of a burro brought a brief, discordant break. Then a brown bird darted down from an unseen perch and made a swift, irregular flight after a fluttering winged insect. Madeline heard the sharp snapping of a merciless beak. Indeed, there was more than life in ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... rancheros. A military force appealing below would frustrate their design. That, however, was kept in readiness, but its continued presence near the rancho, thought Vizcarra and his captain, would only frighten the bird, and prevent it from returning to its nest. There was good logic ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... subtleties of social ostentation, the minute distinctions between the newly-rich and the anciently-rich, the solemn certainties of the latter and the quivering anxieties of the former—all those were things which Sylvia knew as a bird knows the way of the wind. To see the details of them analysed in learned, scientific fashion, explained with great mouthfuls of words which one had to look up in the dictionary—that was surely a new discovery in the ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... time that the "School of Instructions" was written, the French and ourselves had both progressed very greatly in the Art of Cookery and in the development of the menu. DelaHay Street, Westminster, near Bird-Cage Walk, suggests a time when a hedge ran along the western side of it towards the Park, in lieu of brick or stone walls; but the fact is that we have here a curious association with the office, just quoted from Rose, of ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... truth, it was like looking for a bird in a forest, considering the number of strangers who had attended the fair; besides, the police, you know, at that time, were too busy dogging and hunting down Liberals to care for tracking only thieves. That, however, is no business ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... pelicans; but they were so shy that we could not get within gun-shot of them. Upon the shore we saw a species of the bustard, one of which we shot; it was as large as a turkey, and weighed seventeen pounds and a half. We all agreed that this was the best bird we had eaten since we left England; and in honour of it we called this inlet Bustard Bay. It lies in latitude 24 deg. 4', longitude 208 deg. 18'. The sea seemed to abound with fish; but unhappily, we tore our seine all to pieces at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... ornamental purpose, in a piece of cambric. An operation which, taken in connexion with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the eyes of a tough little bird. She was so steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before she looked up from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her attention with a hitch of ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Clendenning calls "hustle." I went at his side for the three days which intervened between the news of the arrival of that Lieutenant, Count de Bourdon, and that actual arrival, in what seemed to me to be the pace of a very fleet horse or even as the flight of a bird. And as fast as we went from the arrangement of one detail of entertainment to another, the beautiful Madam Whitworth went with us, with her eyes of the flower blue very bright with a great excitement. I was glad that in all matters it was necessary that my fine Buzz also consult with her ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... one young woman who walked with a pet monkey on her shoulder while she carried a bird in a golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870, gave their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love when the Prussians were at the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... just finished—Wednesday evening—a course of lectures which I ambitiously baptized "Human Culture," and read once a week to the curious in Boston. I could write nothing else the while, for weariness of the week's stated scribbling. Now I am free as a wood-bird, and can take up the pen without fretting or fear. Your letter should, and nearly did, make me jump for joy,—fine things about our poor speech at Cambridge,— fine things from CARLYLE. Scarcely could we maintain a decorous gravity ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... back to the Mistress and laid gently at her feet the baby robin he had found. His keen teeth had not so much as ruffled its pinfeather plumage. Having done his share toward settling the bird's dilemma, Laddie stood back and watched in grave interest while the Mistress lifted the fluttering infant and put it back in the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... screaming, Olof, but you seem to be more fond of a night bird that does scream. Tell me, what is the meaning of the owl that appears on your ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... the affair, makes for the moors, spurs his amorous mare, relying upon her rapid pace, and indeed, the good mare understands, obeys, and flies—flies like a bird, but a bowshot off follows the blessed horse, thundering along the road like a blacksmith beating iron, and at full speed, his mane flying in the wind, replying to the sound of the mare's swift gallop with his terrible pat-a-pan! pat-a-pan! Then the good farmer, feeling death following him in the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... contented itself in insisting on plucking out the heart of the journalistic mystery. All attempts at evasion and humor were vain—here was the ruthless reality of war. It was the mailed Prussian eagle against the bluff American bird of the same species, and the unequal contest was soon ended when Major Nikolai, Chief of Division III. of the Great General Staff, stood up very straight and dignified and said: "I am a German officer. What German violated his duty? I ask you as a man ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... dark and plain. She paused for a moment under the live-oak trees. The prairies were somewhat dim, and the moonlight was pale orange, diluted with particles of an impalpable, flying mist. But the mock-bird whistled on every bough of vantage; leagues of flowers scented the air; and a kindergarten of little shadowy rabbits leaped and played in an open space near by. Santa turned her face to the southeast and threw three kisses thitherward; for there was ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... ground, trying to hide under a green bush of the jungle. In his paw he held the empty cocoanut shell with which he was going to play a trick on Bumpo or Jacko. The tiger was creeping, slowly, slowly along, on his soft, padded feet, just as your cat creeps after a bird. Mappo ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... "There is a bird that restores and reproduces itself; the Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It feeds on no common food, but on the choicest of gums and spices; and after a life of secular length (i.e., a hundred years) it builds in a high tree with cassia, spikenard, cinnamon, and myrrh, and ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... befalls; uncover thy brow from thy locks; Neither to me nor to thee was option imparted; Neither endurance nor truth belongs to the laugh of the rose. The loving nightingale mourns;—cause enow for mourning;— Why envies the bird the streaming verses of Hafiz? Know that a god bestowed on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... were seen about the Soorkhab river; the latter, with metallic blue on the back of the head, crown of head tawny, tail short, two exterior feathers elongated into beautiful almost setaceous bodies, exceeding the length of the bird. This swallow, or one with a similar tail, was seen by Sanders on the ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... bidding of the goddess I turned to the spring wherein he used to temper his golden darts fresh forged with fiercest fire. Its silver waters, gushing of themselves from the earth and shaded along the margin by a growth of myrtle and dogwood, were neither violated in their purity by the approach of bird or beast, nor suffered aught from the sun's distemperature, and as I leaned forward to catch the reflection of my own figure I could discern the clear bottom free from every trace of mud[56]. The goddess, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... But Polly kept a cold shoulder toward him, running up and down in a merry song till a little bird outside the window trilled away as hard as he could, to keep ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... DISproof, as against herself, and has appealed to me, so extraordinarily, to side against her. It's really magnificent, when you come to think of it, the spirit of her appeal. If I'll but cover them up brazenly enough, the others, so as to show, round and about them, as happy as a bird, she on her side will do what she can. If I'll keep them quiet, in a word, it will enable her to gain time—time as against any idea of her father's—and so, somehow, come out. If I'll take care of Charlotte, in particular, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... a little grinning negro Lord Peterborow gave her, with a bird of Paradise in his turbant, and a collar with his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the maidens proving obdurate, another proud, and the third fickle. The lovers make complaint to Cupid, who consents at their request to transform the disdainful fair ones into a rock, a rose, and a bird respectively. Hereupon Ceres in her turn complains to the God of Love, who promises that the three shall regain their proper shapes if Ceres will undertake that they shall thereupon consent to the love of the swains. She does so, and her nymphs are duly ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... by a universal bustle; fifty men flew out on the dizzy heights of the different spars, while broad sheets of canvas rose as suddenly along the masts as if some mighty bird were spreading its wings. The Englishman instantly perceived his mistake, and he answered the artifice by a roar of artillery. Griffith watched the effects of the broadside with an absorbing interest, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of a saint. The eggs and milk they brought him at first he refused with horror. Know ye not the hermit's rule is bread, or herbs, and water? Eggs, they are birds in disguise; for when the bird dieth, then the egg rotteth. As for milk, it is little better than white blood. And when they brought him too much bread he refused it. Then they used to press it on him. "Nay, holy father; give the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... gleam luridly from out the shadowy recesses of the garden, and an unearthly cry of "Hoo-oo-t," fall on the ear, enough to give one the "creeps for a hour," as Mary, the housemaid, said. But Joe loved Cyclops, or rather "Cloppy," as he called him; and the bird hopped after Joe about the garden, as if he quite ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... the door, at which half a dozen domestics were by this time gathered. They, too, saw the glitter, and made way. I followed close, ready to fell the first who offered to lay hands on her. But she walked through them unmenaced, and, once clear, sped like a bird into the recesses of the old house. One fellow started to follow. I tripped him up. I was collared by another. The same instant he lay by his companion, and I followed Alice. She knew the route well enough, and I overtook ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... for we had travelled hard and long. But sleep was never further from my eyes. As I sat there, listening to the rising wind in the trees, and the rush of the river below, with now and again the wail of a sea-bird crying out seaward, I grew to hate the darkness. Despite the fair innocents who slumbered within and the sturdy rogues who slept without, the loneliness of the place took hold upon me, and made me uneasy and anxious. Once I ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... head bent, but her deep, lovely gray eyes looking quietly before her and seeming to take in at once the whole school-room with an expression of keen intelligence. She was highly cultivated, and had read widely in many languages; but she wore her learning as gracefully as a bird does its lovely plumage. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... lips of the dead Stands poising her wings for flight, A bird scarce quit of her prison, But fair without form or flesh, So stands over each man's head A splendour of imminent light, A glory of fame rearisen, Of day rearisen afresh ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ordinary journeys the consultation of the omen bird is of primary importance, yet before a war expedition it acquires a solemnity that is not customary on ordinary occasions. This ceremony is the last of all those that are made preparatory ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... to be refused till all the prophets of evil are refuted, Ireland must go without Home Rule for ever. "If the sky fall, we shall catch larks." But he would be a foolish bird-catcher who waited for that contingency. And not less foolish is the statesman who sits still till every conceivable objection to his policy has been mathematically refuted in advance, and every wild prediction falsified by the event; for that ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... any. If I begin suspecting different persons I may miss the real individual. As matters stand, I know where, sooner or later, I shall meet him under conditions which will identify him as the man I want. The trap is set and the bird will be caught. That is all I ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... asked himself. But that would mean beginning over again the old life which he cursed. And the man who seeks salvation in change of place like a migrating bird would find nothing anywhere, for all the world is alike to him. Seek salvation in men? In whom and how? Samoylenko's kindness and generosity could no more save him than the deacon's laughter or Von Koren's hatred. He must look for salvation in himself alone, and if there were no finding it, why waste ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov |
