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More "Sparrow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sitting in front of 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 of the widow did not concern him. Her life ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his friend—so much so, that had ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... summer has commenced. I have been studying the ornithology of these bare chalk mounds, and find the birds are practically the same as our commonest ones at home—swallows, stonechats—which have been very busy to-day—our two water wagtails, and the wretched little sparrow. I thought the flamingo was to be found along the coast but have never seen a specimen on this inhospitable shore. I have also seen a bird not unlike a thrush, and a few small things apparently of the linnet family. ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... at any price and bought six, ate them one after the other without the pretense of a halt and moodily shied the last skin at a sparrow, realizing then with a shock that the negro had already untied the mule from the picket fence. The precipitancy of it all made him slightly uncomfortable. Either the negro was too lazy to bargain or the offer was out of all proportion to the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... to the wild duck, keeping above it if possible until near enough for a last spurt; then it comes down at a speed which is terrific, and, striking the duck from above, dashes it to the ground. The sparrow hawk plunges unexpectedly into a group of little birds and nips up one with a long outstretched foot before they have time to get clear of each other. The harrier skims over field, copse and meadow, suddenly rounding corners and topping fences and surprising small birds, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... is this: Let us remember in order that from the retrospect we may gain practical wisdom. It is astonishing what unteachable, untamable creatures men are. They learn wisdom about all the little matters of daily life by experience, but they do not seem to do so about the higher. Even a sparrow comes to understand a scarecrow after a time or two, and any rat in a hole will learn the trick of a trap. But you can trick men over and over again with the same inducement, and, even whilst the hook is sticking in their jaws, the same bait will tempt them once more. That is very largely the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... solid, pear-shaped man, who passed through life bent double over the acre of Vicarage garden, to which he committed long lines of seeds, which an attentive Providence brought up in due season as "curly kebbidge" or "salary" or "sparrow-grass." ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the fall of Antwerp, was so 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 ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... still; but I shall not go where they praise it, A sword is still at my side, but I shall not ride with the King. Only to walk and to walk and to stun my soul and amaze it, A day with the stone and the sparrow and every marvellous thing. ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... deprecate their wrath, but my voice was as the twitter of a sparrow in a hurricane. At length I ruffled my long hair to a leonine mane, and seated myself at the piano. And lo! straightway there fell a deep silence—you could have ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... at a little distance, while Daisy finished her bread and milk She was too much in want of it not to do that. When it was done she got out of her chair and stood on the floor looking at her father, as gentle as a young sparrow. He came and wheeled her chair round and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... our good chaplain palaver one day About souls, heaven, mercy, and such; And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay; Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch; For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see, Without orders that come down below; And a many fine things that proved clearly to me oft That Providence takes us in tow: For, says he, do you mind me, let storms ne'er so oft Take the topsails of sailors aback, There's a sweet little cherub that sits ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Chester and Galway; the late lord chief justice Herbert; the marquis d'Estrades, M. de Rosene, mareschal decamp; Mamoe, Pusignan, and Lori, lieutenant-general; Prontee, engineer-general; the marquis d'Albeville, sir John Sparrow, sir Roger Strictland, sir William Jennings, sir Henry Bond, sir Charles Carney, sir Edward Vaudrey, sir Charles Murray, sir Robert Parker, sir Alphonso Maiolo, sir Samuel Foxon, and sir William Wallis; by the colonels Porter, Sarsfield, Anthony and John Hamilton, Simon and Henry Luttrel, Ramsay, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... 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 ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... one thing for self-respecting British birds to do," said the first sparrow. "Stop it. Teach ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... of birds at the end of fifteen years, if again all individuals lived complete and normal lives: at the end of the time specified there would be more than two thousand millions of descendants. The English sparrow has been on this continent little more than fifty years; it has found the conditions in this country favorable because few natural enemies like those of its original home have been met, and as a consequence it has multiplied at an astounding rate so as to invade nearly ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... are sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw this little comedy played among some English sparrows, and wrote an account of it in his newspaper; it is too good not to be true: A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted. After he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in and seized the feather; and ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... many others. Just as they were offering a sacrifice to the gods, in order to start out to the war with their good will, a great miracle happened. A fearful snake crept from under the altar and climbed a tree in which there was a sparrow's nest nearly hidden by the leaves. There were eight young sparrows in the nest, nine birds with the mother. The snake devoured the fluttering little birds, around which the mother circled as ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... Thursday, supped and 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, a Hanoverian, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... great a distance to obtain any of them, though a number of the carcasses of the latter animal are strewed along the shore, having fallen through the ice and been swept along when the river broke up. More bald eagles are seen on this part of the Missouri than we have previously met with; the small sparrow-hawk, common in most parts of the United States, is also found here. Great quantities of geese are feeding on the prairies, and one flock of white brant, or geese with black-tipped wings, and some gray brant with them, pass ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... should do, but lived like the fool, and became effeminate through a carnal life. But in that he says they are naturally born to be taken and destroyed, it may be understood in a two-fold manner: first, as of those that take and destroy, such as the wolf, lion, bear, the sparrow-hawk and eagle,—so these grasp to themselves, and tear away from others all they can, goods and honor. Secondly, of those that shall be taken, crushed and destroyed at the judgment of the ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... stony earth? And a 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 ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... dear to the aged, And honour a little thing; I would gladly sell the secret," Quoth the Pict to the king. His voice was small as a sparrow's, And shrill and wonderful clear; "I would gladly sell my secret, Only my son ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... goose and all, making the best of his way, so armed, to the scene of battle. He just came out of an entry as the miller was once more roaring for assistance, and, to a dead certainty, would have spitted the tailor like a cook-sparrow against the miller's carcase, had not his activity once more saved him. Unluckily, the unfortunate miller got the thrust behind which was intended for Neal, and roared like a bull. He was beginning to shout 'Foul play!' again, when, on turning round, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... gnat, Lawton," he continued in his old conversational manner. "Though one can kill a sparrow with a five pound shot, is it worth the effort? Small as my personal regard is for you, a note penned in three lines would have brought you back your trinket. But when you ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... we counted the number of bird-homes we saw. Just as we were thinking about stopping and having breakfast we heard a most ecstatic song. Creeping close to the place where the sound came from, we discovered the songster to be a song-sparrow. Focussing our "gun" upon the bird we made note of its coloring and marking, making sure that if we heard or saw another we would recognize it at once. While we were eating our breakfast, there was a dash of white, yellow, and grayish-brown, ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... Robin-redbreast! Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill, let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow! You pretty elves, amongst yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Sing birds, in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... he had his father's signet in his purse. And though he has a presentiment of evil about the fencing-match he refuses to yield to it: 'we defy augury: there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow ... the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... wedding day Kwan-yin slipped out of the palace, and, after a weary journey, arrived at a convent called, "The Cloister of the White Sparrow." She was dressed as a poor maiden. She said she wished to become a nun. The abbess, not knowing who she was, did not receive her kindly. Indeed, she told Kwan-yin that they could not receive her into the ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... strictly new to me, were the brown-headed nuthatches. I was on the watch for them: they were one of the three novelties which I knew were to be found in the pine lands, and nowhere else,—the other two being the red-cockaded woodpecker and the pine-wood sparrow; and being thus on the lookout, I did not expect to be taken by surprise, if such a paradox (it is nothing worse) maybe allowed to pass. But when I heard them twittering in the distance, as I did almost immediately, I had no suspicion ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... replied, "especially the humming-bird episode, and the mocking-bird digression, to say nothing of the doings of the hornet and the sparrow." ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... The great wheel of the mill; And then the tall church steeple, The little church so still; The bridge above the water; And when he stopped to rest, He saw among the bushes A wee ground-sparrow's nest, ...
— Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten • Emilie Poulsson
... to a cat, I'd say it was as large as that; Or should you ask me if the thing Was smaller than a sparrow's wing, I should be apt to think you knew, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Scot shook his head. "No luck sent ye back to hear the skreigh o' the lass, but the whisper of the guid Father withoot whose permission not even a sparrow falls to the ground. He chose you as the instrument. I'll never be forgettin' what you did for my dawtie, Tom Morse. Jess will have thankit you, but I add mine ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... father's garden there are two cages. In one is a lion, which my father's slaves brought from the desert of Ninavah; in the other is a songless sparrow. ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... us, and the inky sky overhead. Still we knew that there was the Eye of Love looking down on us through that inky sky, and that though the rest of the world was shut out from us, we were not shut out from Him, without whose knowledge not a sparrow falls to the ground. I say this to you, dear father and mother, because I wish to show my brothers and sisters the effect of your teaching. I wished to live, but I was prepared to die. The water was warm, and as we ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... uneasy. He drew the magic giant-likeness in again, took his rod and fled. But Yang Oerlang followed hard on his heels. In his urgent need the ape thrust the rod, which he had turned into a needle, into his ear, turned into a sparrow, and flew up into the crest of a tree. Yang Oerlang who was following in his tracks, suddenly lost sight of him. But his keen eyes soon recognized that he had turned himself into a sparrow. So he flung away spear and crossbow, turned himself into a sparrow-hawk, and darted ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... Pale brown tresses smoothed away From her face of patient sorrow, Sits she, seeking but to borrow, From the trembling hope of morrow, Solace for the weary day. "Go your way, laugh and play; Unto Him who heeds the sparrow And the lily, let ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... it? The Lupin of Lupins, the master of masters, inaccessible and invisible, caught in a trap by a woman and a boy!... Here he is in flesh and bone ... here he is with hands and feet tied, no more dangerous than a sparrow ... here is he ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... tempest, or any of the powers of nature which seem to us terrible and cruel, and destroying; for they are the powers of the good and just and loving God. They obey our Father in heaven, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And therefore we need not fear them, or look on them with any blind superstition, as things too awful ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... 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 individuals of this ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... chilly, freezing atmosphere weighed heavily down upon the earth. There was scarcely a sound to be heard. Now and then the still measured tread of a solitary policeman, or the pitiful chirp of some homeless sparrow under the eaves of a neighboring house broke the monotonous silence of the early dawn. But suddenly another sound burst out upon the great stillness, it was the clock from the Parliament Tower striking the hour ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... was bearing down on her like a hawk on a sparrow. It was bullying but O! was it not glorious? The old thrill, the thrill of thrills, incomparable, made him tremble. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... persuading Cis, who went coyly protesting that the paddock was damp, yet still following after them, he added, "Yea, Sue, considering all, it is better those two were apart for a year or so, till we see better what is this strange nestling that we have reared. Ay, thou art like the mother sparrow that hath bred up a cuckoo and doteth on it, yet it ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bringing with them their daughter Louisa, a tight-lipped, well instructed High School mistress, of whom her parents stood—one couldn't but notice it—most wholesomely in awe. As is the youthful cuckoo in the nest of the hedge sparrow, so was Louisa Taylor to the authors of her being.—Mrs. Horniblow called also, flanked by her two girls, May and Doris—plain, thick-set, energetic, well-meaning young persons, whom their shrewd mother loved, sheltered, rallied, and cherished, while perfectly aware of their limitations as ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... had sorrows you could not harmonize with the logic of life? Leave them with Him who "notes the sparrow's fall." Some one has said: "There are angels in the quarries of life only the blasts of misfortune and chisels of ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... length opened into square chambers, in the midst of which pits had been contrived, through which we descended by cramp-irons or spiral stairways. These pits again conducted us into other chambers, opening into other corridors, likewise decorated with painted sparrow-hawks, serpents coiled in circles, the symbols of the tau and pedum—prodigious works of art which no living eye can ever examine—interminable legends of granite which only the dead have time to ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... States government. It was conferred upon them in the early days by the interpreters, either through ignorance of the language, or for the purpose of ridicule. The name which they themselves acknowledge, and they recognize no other, is in their language Ap-sah-ro-kee, which signifies the Sparrow ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... conveyance through the air, that it can take up and fly away with a 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
... fired from Fort Potato. "Gracious heavens!" said the commander of the place to the Irish Prince, in a fury, "What has your Highness done?" "Faix," replied the other, "Donegal and I saw a sparrow on the Tuileries, and we thought we'd have a shot at it, that's all." "Hurroo! look out for squalls," here cried the intrepid Hibernian; for at this moment one of Paixhans' shells fell into the counterscarp of the demilune on which they were standing, and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at her with shining face, drew his hand across his eyes, and then answered brightly: "Oh, that's all right, Miss Marshay; 'tenny rate 'tis with me, 'n' I reckon 'tis with Him"—and seizing his crutch, he hopped like a little sparrow through the door and onto the street, and she heard his boyish voice calling out: "Evenin' papers, last edishun—all 'bout the big ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... imagine we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs 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 probably that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... up his abode in an uncomfortable little room, where there was hardly any light at all, so that he could truly say with Job: I have made my bed in darkness;[2] or with David: Night shall be my light in my pleasures;[3] or again, I am like a night raven in the house, or as a sparrow all alone ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... and sparrow clubs are offering one shilling a dozen for rats' tails. The price is small, but, as the President of a leading club points out, the vendor is permitted to retain the balance of the rat for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... at times condescended to give me instruction. "At present, Mr Merry, you'll observe, and I say it with perfect respect," remarked my friend, "you're like a sucking babe, an unfledged sparrow, a squid on dry ground—you're of no use to nobody, and rather want somebody to look after you, and keep you out of harm. When you've been to sea as many years as I have, if you keep your eyes open, you'll begin to find out ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... out this last sentence so piteously that Mrs. Murray's heart bled. "Poor child!" she thought. "It is like crushing a sparrow with a stone. I ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... of gratitude, the young hunters sat with bowed heads while the kindly old sailor offered up a simple, fervent prayer of thanksgiving for the mercies they had received from the One who heeds even the sparrow's fall. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... 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 house rats ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... these huge dimensions to the size of an eagle, a raven, or a woodpecker. Among the birds enumerated by Kuhn and others as representing the storm-cloud are likewise the wren or "kinglet" (French roitelet); the owl, sacred to Athene; the cuckoo, stork, and sparrow; and the red-breasted robin, whose name Robert was originally an epithet of the lightning-god Thor. In certain parts of France it is still believed that the robbing of a wren's nest will render the culprit liable to be struck by lightning. The same belief ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... uncommon in the hedges," and straightway he informs the public of this wonder. But it is hard on the poor countryman who, for the benefit of a street-bred reading public, must cram his books with solemn recitals of his A, B, C, and impressive announcements that two and two make four and a hedge-sparrow's ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... child! one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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 presence, while they who denied Him ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... in a personal God, without whom not a sparrow falleth, though the waters cover the face of the earth and blot out millions of His creatures," answered Adam. "After all, can we do better than ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Which never comes to flower, maybe; elsewhere, The worshipped Maid, a folded rose o'er-rosed By rosy dawn, asleep lies breathing smiles: Then ofttime through the emptied London streets, When every house is closed and spectral still, And, save the sparrow chirping from the tower Where tolls the passing time, all sounds are hushed; Then walk I pondering on the ways of fate, And file the past before me in review, Counting my losses and my treasured gains, And feel I lost a glory such as man Can never ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... June is the pearl of our New England year. Still a surprisal, though expected long. Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, With one great gush of blossom storms the world. A week ago the sparrow was divine; The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 10 From post to post along the cheerless fence, Was as a rhymer ere the poet come; But now, oh rapture! sunshine winged and voiced, Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the West Shepherding his soft ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... mind feeling sort of like the famous sparrow who'd gotten trapped for three hours in a badminton game at Forest Hills, I built a strong highball, and poured it down while my halluscene set was warming up. I needed the highball as well as the relaxation, because I knew ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... nervous," said Kemp. But it was five minutes before he went to the window again. "It must have been a sparrow," he said. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... with which she had said her life was his—his!—and in what way was HE fitted to be the guardian and possessor of this white lily from the garden of God? She was so utterly different to all women as he had known them—as different as a bird of paradise to a common house-sparrow. Meanwhile, as these thoughts flitted through his brain, she moved gently from his embrace ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... there is an integer followed by a decimal, two separate words are used; the decimal-word begins with S, thus: 945.51 barley sold; 71.3412 "good Samaritan." (2) If it is a decimal by itself, the S indicates the decimal point only; .01 society; .02 Susan; .94 sparrow. (3) If it is a vulgar fraction, the words translating numerator and denominator begin with S, and the S's are not counted, the numerator-word coming first, and the denominator-word last; thus 5/12 ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... the preserving sparrow apples, quinces and the varieties of apples known as Scantian, and 'little rounds' (orbiculata) and those which formerly were called winesap (mustea), and now are called honey apples (melimela), ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... me—plenty of sperit," chirped grandfather, alert as an aged sparrow that still contrives to hop ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... building little rush cradles for their young, or rush boats to be driven about the ponds and lakes by means of leaf sails, or before Jenny Wren will be living in a log cabin of her own construction? How long will it be before some one makes affidavit that the sparrow with his bow and arrow has actually been seen to kill Cock Robin, and the beetle with his thread and needle engaged in making the shroud? Birds show the taste and skill of their kind in building their nests, but rarely any individual ingenuity and inventiveness. The nest referred ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... the stone at the window," the boy replied. "I chucked it at a sparrow, and it weren't my fault if it missed ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... rich proprietor who has everything he wants, and who feeds your inspiration with the crumbs that fall from his table? What are you but ornamental portions of his feasts and banquets, just to fill up a weary interval? You are no more than the sparrow that warbles in his hedges, or the statue that figures in his garden-walk. It is by him and for him that you exist. What need has he to envy you the incense of pride and vanity—he who possesses the only solid good this ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... of Crows to which the nest belonged, in the end of July, when they were determinedly and industriously attempting to fix a nest on the top ledge of a pillar in the verandah of the 'Madras Mail' office. The ledge was so narrow that one would have thought the Sparrow alone of all known birds would have selected it for a site; and even the Sparrow only under the condition of a writing or toilet-table being underneath to catch the lime, sticks, straws, rags, feathers, and other innumerable materials that commonly strew the ground ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... to hurl the whole nest into the river, for he thought that they who die without sorrow or sin are the happy ones. Should he not save them from beasts of prey and cold, from hunger, and from life's manifold visitations? But just as he thought this, a sparrow-hawk came swooping down on the nest. Then Hatto seized the marauder with his left hand, swung him about his head and hurled him with the strength of wrath out ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... blacksmith was paid to go on hammering in Titus' neighbourhood. At the end of a few days the "animal" that gnawed at his brain got indifferent to the hammering, went on gnawing, and Titus died. His brain was opened, and an animal as big as a sparrow with a beak of iron was found in it. The truth of this story would be, that some magicians, not especially adroit hypnotists, hammered at Titus' tympanum. His nerves, tried by climatic fever—a great facilitator of ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... knowingly or unknowingly, to the best of my knowledge and belief, as the——" He stopped and frowned. "Now, what the dickens was the name of that bird?" he said. "Pheasant, partridge, ostrich, bat, flying fish, sparrow—it's something to do with eggs. What are the ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... the bands of Orion?" What an atom is this world in the light of science! Yet what dignity has man by the light of revelation! What majesty and power and glory has God! What goodness, benevolence, and love, that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice,—that we are the special objects of His providence and care! Is there an imagination so lofty that will not be oppressed with the discoveries that even ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Mr. Sparrow, Louisiana, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, introduced a measure, yesterday, in the Senate, which, if consummated, might put all our able-bodied men in the field. It would equalize prices of the necessaries ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... to grow fruits we found ourselves annoyed by insects of various kinds, the same sort of insects that are known to fruit growers everywhere. In order to get rid of them, we brought the English sparrow here. He is of great use to the fruit grower in the old country, as he lives principally on insects, or at any rate has the reputation of doing so, and he does not ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... 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 ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... that which is normal is according to the standard or rule which is observed or claimed to prevail in nature; a deformity may be natural, symmetry is normal; the normal color of the crow is black, while the normal color of the sparrow is gray, but one is as natural as the other. Typical refers to such an assemblage of qualities as makes the specimen, genus, etc., a type of some more comprehensive group, while normal is more commonly applied to the parts of a single object; the specimen was typical; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... feathered, but having specific qualities in 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 greyhounds which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... ignored? Indeed, how can they be ignored? The theology that has nothing to say about my clever and loyal four-footed companion, with his magnanimity, his sensitive spirit, and even his moral qualities, omits something of considerable importance to a thorough and consistent world-view. "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father," said one who spake as never man spake. I think it was Schopenhauer who once remarked, "The more I see of human nature the more I respect my dog." Now the New Theology finds no difficulty in recognising the importance of the brute creation, ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... is one of you, for his diadem is a vulture; his face is a sparrow-hawk, his head is Ra; his eyes are the Rehti, the two sisters; his nose is Horus of the empyrean; his mouth is the King of the Ament; his lungs are Nun; his two hands are the god Secheni;(650) his fingers are the gods who seize him; his body is Chepra; his heart is Horus, the creator; his ...
— Egyptian Literature
... The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound, Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... little lady, with a compact, inflexible figure that was, so to speak, square, with rounded-off corners—square, and solid, and heavy. She had eyes that were as black and round and bright as a sparrow's, a full, red mouth, and graying hair, abundant and crinkly, which stood out around her countenance as if charged with electricity. It escaped the hairpins. Even a knitted brown cap of some weight did not adequately confine it. Every hair ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... her dark eyes fixed on the setting sun. There was no sound save the breathing of her horse, the far sweet trailing song of a spotted sparrow, the undertones of some hidden rill welling up through matted tangles of vine and fern ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... the trouble to remove the eggs or the nest altogether, when the latter has been discovered, in order to avoid further risks of danger. The American Sparrow Hawk has been observed to do this, and the following incident is quoted by Bendire, from MacFarlane's Manuscript Notes on Birds Nesting in British America, concerning the Pigeon Hawk (Falco columbarius):—"On May 25, 1864, a trusty Indian in my employ found a nest placed in a thick ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... 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
... so black of hue, With orange tawny bill; The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill; The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... could see a faint bluish tinge suffusing the skin, that gave it a strange, dead look. And then the man lifted his eyes and gazed straight at me. I caught my breath, for under the black eye brows, the whites of the eyes were stained a pure sparrow-egg blue. ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... decided that they would say nothing about the accident; and as they remained away from the house long enough for Charley's clothing to dry, no questions were asked. But was the scene unnoticed? No. He who notes the sparrow's fall was watching over these little boys; He had not forgotten John's little prayer that had been taught him by his father. God was caring for these little untaught children in that ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... were put to rout—by what, deem you? These two striplings and one poor hound. Had but one of you had the heart of a sparrow, ye had not furnished a tale to be the laugh of the Barbican and Cheapside. Look well at them. How old be you, my ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... our brother's are black. His 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 ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... comes, 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
... as beaters; and their cold-blooded daring—all Wuddars shoot tigers on foot: it is their caste-mark—made even the officers wonder. They would follow up a wounded tiger as unconcernedly as though it were a sparrow with a broken wing; and this through a country full of caves and rifts and pits, where a wild beast could hold a dozen men at his mercy. Now and then some little man was brought to barracks with his head smashed in or his ribs torn away; but his companions never learned ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... 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... ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... sudden rocky points until it lost itself in a maze of blue among the distant uplands. The other shore was just beginning to be tenderly alight with April green, and Felicia caught her breath for very joy at the faint pink of distant maple boughs and the smell of spring and the sea. A song-sparrow dropped a sudden, clear throatful of notes, and Kirk, too, caught the rapture of the spring and flung wide his arms in ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... also to Gridot the architect, that you have nothing to do but pick up your brushes and come at once. Prices are arranged to please you. I am off to Italy with my wife; so you can have Mistigris to help you along. The young scamp has talent, and I put him at your disposal. He is twittering like a sparrow at the very idea of amusing himself at the chateau ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... 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 everything that had happened in Deephaven for a ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... are so many degrees in faith! A man may be on the right track, may be learning of Christ, and be very poor and weak. But I say there is no standing room, no reality of reason, between absolute faith and absolute unbelief. Either not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him, or there is no God, and we are fatherless children. Those who attempt to live in such a limbo as lies between the two, are only driven of ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... forth, and boil it in jars, until it becomes so strong that it causes intoxication and has the same effects as the strongest Spanish wine. Of native fruits, there are oranges, lemons, and very sweet citrons; while they have fig and pear-trees introduced from Espana. They rear sparrow-hawks, herons [martinetes], and royal eagles in great abundance. They have a great many different kinds of parrots, and other birds, large and small. In the rivers and lakes are many horrible caymans or crocodiles; these kill the Indians very easily—and especially the children, who go ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... a castle by remaining quietly outside. He may lose his life, and he may take the castle. At any rate, here I am. I believed it my duty to come, and to come now, and I returned with my mind perfectly tranquil. I know that a sparrow shall not fall to the ground without my Father, and that the very hairs of my head are ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... rejuvenated and to live again with ever-renewed splendour. They disembarked where they pleased, and returned at will into the world. If now and then they felt a wish to revisit all that was left of their earthly bodies, the human-headed sparrow-hawk descended the shaft in full flight, alighted upon the funeral couch, and, with hands softly laid upon the spot where the heart had been wont to beat, gazed upwards at the impassive ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... blue sky smiles as bright On the low field violet, As on the proud crest of the pine On loftiest mountain set. I am content—God loveth all, And if He tenderly The sparrow guides, He knoweth best The place where I ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... garden was feeding the birds. They used to wait for him in flocks on an almond tree, and became "quite imperious in their manners if he did not attend to them properly." He loved the sparrow ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... "Little sparrow-hawk," his mother laughed at him. "Little one of mighty words, only the great sahibs that come from afar, and Warwick Sahib himself, may hunt the tiger, so how canst thou, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... louder and louder. A level ray from the setting sun—red gold—came in through the dusty window, and lay across the clasped hands on the bed. A white-throated sparrow, the first of the season, on his way to the woods beyond the St. Lawrence, whistled so clearly and tenderly that it seemed as if he were repeating to these two gray-haired exiles the name of their homeland. "Sweet—sweet—Canada, Canada, Canada!" But there was a sweeter sound ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... Institution one moonless October night. There was also some reference to Luke, xii., 6, which in return refers to five sparrows sold for two farthings. What more natural, then, than for the matron to name the little one Luke Sparrow? ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... my father en my mother, Jennie Ford, but dey didn' live on de same place. Father belonged to Alias Ford at Lake View en mother come from Timmonsville what used to be called Sparrow Swamp. Railroad run through dere change name from ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... I maun hae some winter fruit that in December grew, And I maun hae a silk mantil that waft gaed never through; A sparrow's horn, a priest unborn, this nicht to join us twa, Before I lie in your bed, at either stock ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... 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
... merely waiting the call to spring into life. He knew that her home was one where music was unheard, and his method of unfolding to the girl the most spiritual and fundamental of all the arts was to give her SCALES. He was a kindly, well-intentioned fellow, and would not willingly have hurt a sparrow; but he took a nature doomed to suffer for lack of self-expression, and succeeded in walling up the great river of music which might have given her what she lacked. He hid the edifice and ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... hitting something, if one only fired straight before one. For the same reasons the blunderbuss proved to be more effectual than the rifle. The captain used to load it with an enormous charge of powder and a handful of shot—swan-shot, two sizes of duck-shot, and sparrow-hail, mixed, with an occasional rifle-ball dropped in to the bargain. The recoil of the piece was tremendous, but the captain was a stout buffer—if we may be permitted the expression—and stood the ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Visits to Sparrow's Herne and to Shendish (Charles Longman's), Parnborough and Torry Hill. The Judicial ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... desiring to 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... began to develop theories. If a mere tiny crumb of that loaf could put a sparrow, a remarkably vigorous and physically strong little bird—to sleep within a minute or two, what effect would, say, a good thick slice of it produce upon a human being? Anyway, the probability was that ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Priests are singing in their stalls, Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamours; Yet God is as the sparrow falls, The ivy drifts; The votive urns Are all left void when Fortune turns, The god is but a marble for the kerns To break with hammers; a ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... of night, your force combine Without his high behest, Ye shall not, in the mountain pine, Disturb the sparrow's nest. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... buffalo-skin, and in three minutes had made prisoner of another of these little inhabitants of the forest. They are of a bluish-grey colour, and nearly the size of a blackbird; but they are such a bundle of feathers that when plucked they do not look much larger than a sparrow. They live apparently on animal food (at least, they are very fond of it), and are not considered very ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... before Kirsty, her hands clenched and shaking with rage, blue flashes darting about in her eyes. Kirsty, at once controlling the passion of her own heart, sat still as a statue, regarding her with a sad pity. A sparrow stood chattering at a big white brooding dove; and the dove sorrowed for the sparrow, but did not know how to help the ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... 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 of [63] Arno, and the groves of Isis and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 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 ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... A sparrow chirped in the tree above, a wren twittered in a bush, and down on the river's bank a mocking-bird softly waked his mate with a note of thrilling sweetness. "The morning is coming, dearest; we must go," said Marion. "This shame I can never forget, nor will the world forget. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the Song Moon was waxing, with its hosts of small birds, and one of Rolf's early discoveries was that many of these love to sing by night. Again and again the familiar voice of the song sparrow came from the dark shore of Asamuk, or the field sparrow trilled from the top of some cedar, occasionally the painted one, Aunakeu, the partridge, drummed in the upper woods, and nightly there was the persistent chant of Muckawis, the whippoorwill, the myriad ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... indeed," said he, "Jupiter has shown a great sign. As this serpent has devoured the young of the sparrow, eight in number, and herself, the mother of the brood, was the ninth, so must we for as many years wage war, but in the tenth year we shall ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... the end of July, when they were determinedly and industriously attempting to fix a nest on the top ledge of a pillar in the verandah of the 'Madras Mail' office. The ledge was so narrow that one would have thought the Sparrow alone of all known birds would have selected it for a site; and even the Sparrow only under the condition of a writing or toilet-table being underneath to catch the lime, sticks, straws, rags, feathers, and ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... there was a new church bell, costing 5 pounds 5s. 10d. Aaron Chalk, whom some of the elder inhabitants may remember, a very feeble old man walking with two sticks, was in that year one of the foremost traders in sparrow heads. It gives a curious sense of the lapse of time to think of those tottering limbs active ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Tarrinzeau Field were aghast at Gwynplaine. The effect he caused was as that of a sparrow-hawk flapping his wings in a cage of goldfinches, and feeding in their seed-trough. Gwynplaine ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... trampling feet; of hoofs and the snorting of horses; but all seemed distant and confused, as if his ears were stopped or the sounds were coming from a distance; but directly after a very familiar note arose—the sharp, cheery chirping of a sparrow, followed ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... and when sometimes I had worked up courage to meet him and to ask an explanation one glance at his face where a chaos of mighty passion seemed for ever struggling made me tremble and shrink to silence. I was dashed down from heaven to earth as a silly sparrow when pounced on by a hawk; my eyes swam and my head was bewildered by the sudden apparition of grief. Day after day[25] passed marked only by my complaints and my tears; often I lifted my soul in vain prayer for a softer descent from joy to woe, or if that ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... orange-and-tawny backs gleam in the sunshine from morning until night. There are numbers of them. Their manners are very marked. They have quite the air of conquerors. All the other birds yield them precedence, and they positively domineer over the pugnacious little English sparrow, who is content to keep in the background and watch ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... phrase goes, on one another. Indeed, we hardly look at one another, and are as remote as strangers sitting side by side in a theatre. Individually, in a steady, subconscious way, I think we are all wondering how we are going to get down when the time comes. One will hop, like a great sparrow; another will turn round and descend backward; another will come down with an absent-minded little wave of the foot, as if he were quite used to having his shoes shined and already thinking of more serious business; another—but ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... and scraps of songs, of which he had plenty, this pleasant honest fool poured out his heart even in the presence of Goneril herself, in many a bitter taunt and jest which cut to the quick: such as comparing the king to the hedge-sparrow, who feeds the young of the cuckoo till they grow old enough, and then has its head bit off for its pains; and saying, that an ass may know when the cart draws the horse (meaning that Lear's daughters, that ought to go behind, now ranked before their father); ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to this, religion comforts the mind, with the assurance of an all-wise, all-pervading Providence, so minute in its superintendence and control, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of our heavenly Father: a superintendence which is excluded from no point of space, no moment of time, and overlooks not the meanest creature in existence. Nor is this all; for the Word of ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... Fakrash. "For he has become unto me even as a favourite son, whom I design to place upon the golden pinnacle of felicity. Therefore, I have chosen for him a wife, who is unto this damsel of thine as the full moon to the glow-worm, and as the bird of Paradise to an unfledged sparrow. And the nuptials shall be ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... part of his ponderous figure arrayed in a frock-coat. He did not take kindly to what he termed "those skittish sparrow-tailed affairs". Frock-coats suited him, but I am not partial to them on every one. They look well enough on a podgy, fat, or broad man, but on a skinny one they hang with such a forlorn, dying-duck expression, that they invariably ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... The old King to the sparrow: Who said, 'Crops are ripe?' Rust to the harrow: Who said, 'Where sleeps she now?' Where rests she now her head, Bathed in eve's loveliness'? ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... opened a window in my school-house in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the frosted glass. As the snowy sash creaked in my hand, he made off to the waterspout that suspends its "tangles" of ice over a gaping tank, and, rebounding from that, with a quiver of his little black breast, bobbed through the network of wire and joined a few of his fellows in a forlorn ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer nay;— for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give a bird the lie, though ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a sparrow made it almost harder to bear. Lady Brooke finally rose abruptly from the table, her black brows drawn close together, and swept to the window ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... not scientific in their speech often speak of the birds as being happy. My opinion is that birds are not any more happy than men—probably not as much so. Many birds, like the English sparrow and the blue jay, quarrel all day long. Come to think of it, I believe that man is happier than the birds. He has a sense of remorse, and this suggests reformation, and from the idea of reformation comes the picturing of an ideal. This exercise ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... wouldst permit even a single ray of reason to enter the heads of Monseigneur and his friends, I believe it would be more beautiful than the tears of the little saint! And that other one on his island, with his clear eyes like the sparrow-hawk who pretends to sleep as he watches the unconscious geese in a pool,—O Lord, a few strokes of his wing and he is upon them, the birds may escape, while we shall have all Europe at ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... God. It makes no mention of nature, but simply says: 'The heavens declare the glory of God,' 'He sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust.' No laws of nature are spoken of as conditioning the action of God, but He sees the sparrow's fall and provides for it; He hears and answers the prayer of His children. It declares man to be more than a slave driven by motives, with every action necessitated; it declares him a creature of free volition, whose action can ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is over all, Who heedest even the sparrow's fall, Keep in the little maiden's breast The pity, which is now its guest! Let not her cultured years make less The childhood charm of tenderness. But let her feel as well as know, Nor harder with her polish ...
— Graded Memory Selections • 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 Holy Scriptures) ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... might here make as beautiful a collection as I have ever seen. The different varieties of the parrot tribe are countless, and extremely pretty: the king-parrot, the lowrie, and the mountain parrot, are, perhaps, the most beautiful. Then, there is the pretty little diamond sparrow, so called from its size, its habits, resembling those of the common sparrow, and its plumage, which exhibits a diamond pattern of black, white, and blue. Of the hawk tribe, the varieties are numerous: ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... "Besides, George would like to see you. I s'pose he won't be long?" he added, turning to Mrs. Henshaw, who was regarding Mr. Bell much as a hungry cat regards a plump sparrow. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... The same incident occurs in the Arabian story of Seyf-el-Mulook and Bedeea-el-Jemal, where the Jinni's soul is enclosed in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow imprisoned in a small box, and this enclosed in another small box, and this again in seven other boxes, which are put into seven chests, contained in a coffer of marble, which is sunk in the ocean ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... had been blown in with the last gust of wind; a wretched little Sparrow, who twittered helplessly from time to time, and then hid her head ashamed at having been betrayed into such an exhibition of weakness in public; an Owl, who, living habitually in the barn, regarded the others with suspicion ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... chance," she told herself. "That doesn't help you 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 last half of the last question unanswered, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... desk, or, as it was called, the "reading pew," occurs till 1603, when, in the ecclesiastical canons then framed, it was enjoined that besides the pulpit a fitting or convenient seat should be constructed for the minister to read service in; and in allusion to the reading desk, Bishop Sparrow, in his Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer, observes, "This was the ancient custom of the church of England, that the priest who did officiate in all those parts of the service which were directed to the people turned himself towards them, as in the absolution; but ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... nearer to some of those which commonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those smaller and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade a villager—the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whip-poor-will, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... look of the garden. Both were children abandoned by their parents to whom the widow gave food for wages,—and what food! The lad, whom Godefroid caught a glimpse of, wore a ragged blouse and list slippers instead of shoes, and sabots when he went out. With his tousled head, looking like a sparrow when it takes a bath, and his black hands, he went to measure wood at a wood-yard on the boulevard as soon as he had finished the morning work of the house; and after his day's labor (which ends in wood-yards at half-past four in the afternoon) he returned to his domestic avocations. He went to ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... on the 21st of August that Don Frederick with 16,000 veteran troops appeared before the walls of the town, and at once proceeded to invest it, and accomplished this so thoroughly that Alva wrote, "It is impossible for a sparrow to enter or go out of the city." There was no doubt what the fate of the inhabitants would be if the city were captured. The duke was furious that what he considered his extraordinary clemency in having executed only some ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... God's-acre. All was hushed; it was difficult to imagine a phantom where neglect seemed to rule. It was not in this olden part that descendants of the departed flocked on All Saints' Day to decorate the mausoleums with evergreens, plaster images and artificial immortelle garlands. Except for a screeching-sparrow, which his first steps dislodged, not a sign of life appeared in this town around which the living city slept ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... continued the other Sparrow, not heeding the interruption, 'this must be a flower-seed, since I found it in a garden well known to me for its loveliness,—for, as a rule, I go about with my eyes open,' he added. 'Now at this attic window of which I spoke,' he went on saying, 'I have seen a poor pale-faced girl for ever bending ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... one, My bird, my brown sparrow in my breast. My squirrel clutching in to me; My pigeon, my little one, so warm So close, breathing ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... every man at heart when He prepared the earth for his abode and gave him dominion over it. And He yearned for his deliverance from a fallen estate when He gave him a revelation of His infinite redeeming love. The eye of God is upon each individual of the race, as upon every sparrow. He has in thought, in word and in works, not the favoring of one of an hundred, while the ninety and nine are crushed or neglected, but the happiness and highest good of every one ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... a wolf, and the wolf is in an iron chest at the bottom of the sea ("Golden Bough," ii. 314). The Tartars have stories of a golden casket containing the soul, inside a copper or silver casket ("Golden Bough," ii. 324). And the Arabs tell of a soul put in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow in a little box, and this in another small box, and this put into seven other boxes, and these in seven chests, and the chest in a coffer of marble ("Golden 10 Bough," ii. 318). The notion, therefore, of a series of boxes, one enclosing another, and the whole guarded by dangerous ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... for pastime, Doc. I guess I'd learnt all you've told me from the books and papers of the boy's father. Knowing you for the man you are, and the way you most generally try to make a ten-pound heart look like a sparrow's egg by shouting at folks, I reckoned you'd see with me in this thing. That poor feller Brand. As you say, his work isn't to be wasted. He's left behind him a kiddie which hasn't a thing in the world, and if I'm any judge of things that kiddie was the whole sun, moon, and stars ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... effort to lead a pure, sweet, rural 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, Willie Dart ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... measuring 14 to 17 millimetres, bite their way through their tough envelope, which is not abandoned by the father until all the young are liberated, and complete in the ordinary way their metamorphosis. The tadpoles grow to a large size considering that of the adult, the body equalling in size a sparrow's or even a small pigeon's egg, and they often remain more than a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... where he had sung praises in the jail! Some people would have jumped to have had this chance of going to live in a palace, but this farmer said, "Give me my farmhouse and my quiet grave beside my mother." Elevation may undo us. A sparrow could only chirp even though in a golden cage. Barzillai felt, "A rustic, like I am, seems all right among my ploughs and cattle, but I should not fit a palace." Many a man has made himself a laughing stock because he ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... of the people, and take whatever might come. No one ever took a castle by remaining quietly outside. He may lose his life, and he may take the castle. At any rate, here I am. I believed it my duty to come, and to come now, and I returned with my mind perfectly tranquil. I know that a sparrow shall not fall to the ground without my Father, and that the very hairs of my head are ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs 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 probably that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... although your earthly father be taken away from you. I do not feel anxious about the manner in which you will gain a livelihood when I am dead, for the birds easily find their food, and you will find enough to nourish you. God provides for the smallest sparrow; will He not also provide for you? The thought that distresses me," he continued, "is that you will be left alone. Alas, my dear child, you have little idea of the wickedness that is in the world! There will ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... wickedness. So the jury declared him guilty, and the judge condemned him to die at sundown. We were all to fall upon the prisoner together, and tear him into bits with bill and claw; but while we waited for the sun to sink Will Sparrow flew up to the Judgment Tree ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... 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 has ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... as we looked back, one or two candles flickered in cabin windows, pitiful, dim lights in the vast, dark ocean of the forest. Above us the stars grew clearer. A vesper-sparrow sang its pensive song. Tranquil, sweet, the serene notes floated into silver echoes never-ending, till it seemed as if the starlight all around us ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... hen dries her wings, The young lambs frisk away The merry sparrow sings; Come let ...
— Little Songs • Eliza Lee Follen
... down on her like a hawk on a sparrow. It was bullying but O! was it not glorious? The old thrill, the thrill of thrills, incomparable, made him tremble. He was ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... B.-P. is in the house, though his hair begins to flourish less willingly on his brow, he is just like the boy of old, springing up the stairs three steps at a time, and whistling as he goes with a heartiness and a joyousness that astonishes the decorous ten-year-old sparrow Timothy as he flits about the house ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... continued, "when I was there this morning I watched a sparrow popping in and out of a nest built in a niche in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... male bird, to some lonely rock or secluded tarn, to gorge its fill alone. I have 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
... of my failings and weaknesses, and I can bear witness with a clear conscience that I am not angry when they smile and nod the head; why should I be? But, John, it is known to myself only and Him before whom all hearts are open how great is my suffering in being among my neighbours as a sparrow upon ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... the monotony. Not that there was ever much monotony in the neighbourhood of the Heavenly Twins; they managed to introduce variety into everything, and their quickness of action, when both were roused, was phenomenal. One day while at work they saw a sparrow pick up a piece of bread, take it to the roof-tree of an angle of the house visible from the schoolroom window, drop it, and chase it as it fell; and the twins had made a bet as to which would beat, bird ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... took the first step towards a reconciliation, by sending word to Valentinois that it was not his intention to take any measures that might displease his Excellency. His Excellency will no doubt have smiled at that belated assurance from the sparrow to the hawk. Then, a few days later, came news that Giulio Orsini had entered into an agreement with the Pope. This appeared to give the confederacy its death-blow, and Paolo Orsini was on the point of setting out to seek Cesare at Imola for the purpose of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... The Veery The Song-Sparrow The Maryland Yellow-Throat The Whip-Poor-Will Wings of a Dove The Hermit Thrush Sea-Gulls of Manhattan The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet The Angler's Reveille A November Daisy The Lily ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... antiphonal, showerings of bright notes, moments of subsidence, almost of pause. As the light grows and sharpens, the music reaches a crescendo of exuberance, and at last dies down as real day comes, bringing with it the day's work. On our island the leader of the chorus was almost always a song sparrow, though once or twice a wood thrush came over from the shore woods and filled the hemlock shadows with the limpid splendors of ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... feeling sort of like the famous sparrow who'd gotten trapped for three hours in a badminton game at Forest Hills, I built a strong highball, and poured it down while my halluscene set was warming up. I needed the highball as well as the relaxation, because ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... previous chapter, singing is to a certain extent an art, and is much improved by practice. Birds can be taught various tunes, and even the unmelodious sparrow has learnt to sing like a linnet. They acquire the song of their foster parents (35. Barrington, ibid. p. 264, Bechstein, ibid. s. 5.), and sometimes that of their neighbours. (36. Dureau de la Malle gives a curious instance ('Annales des Sc. Nat.' 3rd series, Zoolog., tom. x. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... say here that I am almost glad I made that mistake about the white-throated sparrow, since receiving a note from a lady who writes from among the Berkshire hills, where the sweet call of this bird is constantly repeated. It is very pleasant to know that a little girl out in that beautiful region honors me so much as to recite ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... grubbing, they fail to note that an enemy is near—a little cock-eared cur, that has swum up to the ledge, and, without bark or yelp, is stealthily crawling toward it. Taking advantage of every coign of concealment, the dog creeps on till, at length, with a bound, like a cat springing at a sparrow, it seizes the great seabird, and kills it in a trice, as a fox ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... age, is so common, that the mysterious principles which it involves, are too generally overlooked. We thoughtlessly allow them to escape observation, as if they were mere matters of instinct, and were to be ranked with the spider's catching its prey, or the sparrow's building its nest. But the principles which regulate these different operations are perfectly dissimilar. In the case of the spider and the sparrow there is no teaching, and, of course, no learning. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... pounced upon by an eagle sobbed very much and uttered cries like a child. A Sparrow upbraided her and said, "Where now is thy remarkable swiftness of foot? Why were your feet so slow?" While the Sparrow was thus speaking, a hawk suddenly seized him and killed him. The Hare was comforted in her death, and expiring said, "Ah! you who so lately, when you ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... translated Jack and Jill into Greek iambics, and been a credit to your college." I turned testily away from her. "Madam," says I, "because an eagle houses on a mountain, or soars to the sun, don't you be angry with a sparrow that perches on a garret window, or twitters on a twig. Leave me to myself: look, my beak is not aquiline by ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... street where the houses were separated from the pavement by gardens and stone balustrades, he noticed a black cat seated on the top of a pillar, its head thrown far back, and its wide-open eyes, looking like balls of yellow fire, fixed on a sparrow perched high above on the topmost twig of a tall slender tree. "Puss, puss," said Eden, speaking to the animal almost unconsciously, and without pausing in his walk. Down instantly leapt the cat, inside the wall, and dashing through the shrubbery, shot ahead of him, and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... around the barn, but I didn't see any one there but that ugly little upstart, Bully the English Sparrow, and he wanted to pick a fight with me right away." ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... 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
... cause their malice to revert upon their heads. As for the king's menace of me with slaughter, I am in the grasp of his hand; so let not the king occupy his mind with my slaughter, for that I am like unto the sparrow in the hand of the fowler; if he will, he slaughtereth him, and if he will, he looseth him. As for the delaying of my slaughter, it [proceedeth] not [from] the king, but from Him in whose hand is my life; for, by Allah, O king, if God willed my slaughter, thou couldst ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike. And the whole little wood where I sit is a world ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... 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
... [728] No. 41. 'The sparrow that was hatched last spring makes her first nest the ensuing season of the same materials, and with the same art as in any following year; and the hen conducts and shelters her first brood of chickens with all the prudence that she ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... cannot save you. Do your best; and then like the Great Duke, comfort yourselves with the thought that you have done your best; and like him, trust in God. Remember that God is really and in very truth your Father, and that without him not a sparrow falls to the ground; and are ye not of more value than many sparrows, O ye of little faith? Remember that he knows what you have need of before you ask him; that he gives you all day long of his own free generosity a thousand things for which ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... soft air and sunshine, the leisurely life of the villages, and the cheerful unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind. Every sparrow twittered hope. The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it melodiously. It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly company. Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented Margaret replying to his letter. Time would clear it up and set him wondering ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... violence if it is inoculated into a rabbit and subsequently taken from the rabbit for further inoculation. The fowl cholera micrococcus, which has been weakened as just mentioned, may be restored to its original violence by inoculating it into a small bird, like a sparrow, and inoculating a second bird from this. A few such inoculations will make it as active as ever. These variations doubtless exist among the species in Nature as well as in artificial cultures. The bacteria ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... an ancient history that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the chief assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground dead, and such was the horror and indignation of that ancient but not Christianized ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... blackleg, with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his "Nelly's grave" in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A sparrow hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of man. With a superior ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the groves, with quiet tread, On his accustomed haunts he sped, The mother-thrush, unstartled, sung Her descant to her callow young, And fearless o'er his threshold prest The wanderer from the sparrow's nest, The squirrel raised a sparkling eye Nor from his kernel cared to fly As passed that gentle hermit by. No timid creature shrank to meet His pensive glance, serenely sweet; From his own kind, alone, he sought The screen of solitary ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... enthusiastically on the King's Highway. Sometimes Linda lifted her hand from the wheel to wave a passing salute to a particularly appealing flower picture. Sometimes she whistled a note or cried a greeting to a mockingbird, a rosy finch, or a song sparrow. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... we 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 ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... thrill of gladness was in that song, Edward! It was a spontaneous thank-offering to Him, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground; to Him who clothes the fields in greenness, beautifies the lily, and provides for every creature its food in season. And this reminds me;" she added in a changed and more sobered ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... at his employer. He had a gray, humorous eye; he was slim and alert, like a sparrow-hawk—the sort of boy his father openly rejoices in and his mother is secretly in prayer over. Only, this boy had neither father nor mother. Since the age of twelve he had looked out for himself, never quite without bread, sometimes ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... will weep a bramble's smart, A maid to see her sparrow part, A stripling for a woman's heart: But woe awaits a country, when She sees the tears of bearded men. 1874 SCOTT: Marmion, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... her value to a star, her personality. If Luciline Lynch whom Nature had endowed with the grand manner had tried to be Mercola Merch who was all vivacious wickedness—well, anyone could see! So, if Barbara Walbrook suggested an eagle on the wing and she, Letty Gravely, was only a sparrow in the street, the sparrow would be more successful as a sparrow than in trying ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... his duties in the ballroom after awhile; but Jimmy sat on, smoking and thinking. The night was very still. Now and then, a sparrow would rustle in the ivy on the castle wall, and somewhere in the distance a dog was barking. The music had begun again in the ball-room. It sounded faint and thin ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... hurl the whole nest into the river, for he thought that they who die without sorrow or sin are the happy ones. Should he not save them from beasts of prey and cold, from hunger, and from life's manifold visitations? But just as he thought this, a sparrow-hawk came swooping down on the nest. Then Hatto seized the marauder with his left hand, swung him about his head and hurled him with the strength of wrath out ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... yeldeth haukes in great store, as falcons, Ierfalcons, lanardes and sparrow haukes, rauens, crowes, beares, hares and foxes, with horses and other kinde of cattell, vpon which coast in August and September the yse is vtterly dissolued, all which the premises are certainly verified by such as trade thither from Lubec, Hambro, Amsterdam and England yerely, then why should ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... who, in his efforts to preserve a fitting severity of expression in keeping with the duty before him, had succeeded only in appearing monstrously depressed. He smiled eagerly, responsively, to Carter's bow, bobbing his head like a gleeful sparrow. As a matter of fact, the proceedings were to him a joke—something to relieve the monotony of his existence. Yet this modern Falstaff, as Carter afterward learned, was among the bravest of the brave, meeting death ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... oddments under an elegant French name and sell it for as much money as a dinner for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous "lark-pudding" until it was whispered to her that what was not good beef steaks in the dish was nothing more than pigeon or possibly even sparrow! after which she enjoyed it, and afterwards pilgrimaged to the kitchen to see the great blue bowls, as big as a wash-hand basin, in which the puddings have been made since Dr. Johnson's time, and the great copper in which they ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... 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 Wingfield ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... 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 yet ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... 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 for the ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... insects, but he also ate everything else, including fruit. He stole bread and butter off tables, and his hoarse croak or defiant rattle was an oft-repeated warning to defend one's food. The minas were many in Tahiti, and, like the English sparrow in American cities and towns, had driven almost all other birds to flight or local extinction. The sparrow's urban doom might be read in the increasing number of automobiles, but the mina in Tahiti, as in Hawaii, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... see in that level plain, was wintry and colourless. The hedges in that part are kept cut and trimmed so closely that they seemed less like hedges than mere faint greyish fences of brushwood, dividing field from field: they would not have afforded shelter to a hedge-sparrow. The trees were few and far apart—grey naked oaks, un-visited even by the tits that find their food in bark and twig; the wide fields between were bare and devoid of life of man or beast or bird. Ploughed and grass lands ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... you shall eat to-morrow, about how you shall be clothed in the years to come. Trust in Him who feeds the birds, and makes the flowers bloom. Shall not the Heavenly Father have greater love for the children of men than for the sparrow or the lily? Do not burden your life with cares, but be glad, glad, glad in God, your Father. Set your minds on the Kingdom of Heaven; all else is second to that. . . . I observe, my brothers, that these words come home to you; but first see if the teacher ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... glorious Nymphs shewed me Quintilia and Cynthea Nauta, with others, in great solace, making sweete harmonies, and singing pleasant verses: there also I behelde the virgin Violantilla with hir Doue, and the other sorrowing for hir Sparrow. ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
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