"Cat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ready for a sale or a swap, and once two sun-tanned youngsters shot down a hill on Indian ponies, their full creels banging from the high-pommelled saddle. They had been fishing, and were our brethren, therefore. We shouted aloud in chorus to scare a wild cat; we squabbled over the reasons that had led a snake to cross a road; we heaved bits of bark at a venturesome chipmunk, who was really the little gray squirrel of India, and had come to call on me; we lost our ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... utterly tired out. Tom too caught what he called little "cat-naps" from time to time. Beverly stuck faithfully to his post, for not a wink of sleep could come to one in whose hands the destinies of the whole ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... my memory two or three dog and cat stories, which I will tell you, and then I will see what I can remember of lions, bears, and elephants. But first I must tell you what I have lately read about courts of justice ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... so-called Tommy Atkins; the young urchin was taken away from its mother by its two legs, by the so-called noble British, and his head battered in against the bed-post until it had breathed its last, and thereupon thrown out by the door as if it was the carcase of a cat or dog. Then these damn wretches began their play with this poor and weak woman, who only 48 hours before was delivered of a child. The poor wife was treated so low and debauched by this seven that she, after a few hours, gave up the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... which, when injected into the blood, would endow the body with strength to resist the effects of time, of violence, or of disease. It would not indeed confer immortality, but its potency would endure for many thousands of years. I used it upon a cat, and afterwards drugged the creature with the most deadly poisons. That cat is alive in Lower Egypt at the present moment. There was nothing of mystery or magic in the matter. It was simply a chemical discovery, which ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the outpourings of Luella Granville Waterman, there entered Pugsy Maloney, the office-boy, bearing a struggling cat. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the letter to Gemma and, while she read it, sat frowning at the floor and stroking the cat's fur the wrong way. ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... but she never came. And even now, Master Herbert—would you believe it?—I keep thinking of that dreadful time, and I have to shriek out for some relief to my feelings. You often ask me what I am crying for, but you will know now. And you often wonder why I won't be friends with the cat, and try to bite her when I get a chance. Well, the animal that stole my mother was so very like a cat, that I cannot help hating everything that looks like one.—But don't you think, sir, Mr. Cocky is staying out beyond ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... ground here is intolerable, the sky above clear and delusive, but under foot quagmires from night showers, and I am cold-footed and moisture-abhorring as a cat; nevertheless I yesterday tramped to Waltham Cross; perhaps the poor bit of exertion necessary to scribble this was owing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... said Gedge. "Wants a cat to see in the dark; but I think you must be right. Best way seems to me to keep on going uphill. That must be right, and when it's flat or going downhill it ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... gold-bearing sands of the Sanarka in the southern Urals. Subsequently it was discovered in greater abundance in the gem-gravels of Ceylon. It has been found also in Tasmania. Some of the Ceylon alexandrite exhibits, when suitably cut, the Cat's-eye chatoyance, whence it has been called alexandrite cat's-eye. (F. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... like a cat; I can't draw a straight line. I never sold a picture until you bought that thing the other day." And as she offered this surprising information she continued ...
— The American • Henry James
... white robe—his name's Giroflet—a retired stockbroker. Well, that fellow robes himself like an ancient Roman, puts himself in classical attitudes, affects taciturnity, models himself upon Brutus, and all that sort of thing; but is as careful not to get his feet wet as a cat. Others, again, come simply to feed. The restaurant is one of the choicest in Paris, with this advantage over Vefour or the Trois Freres, that it is the only place where you may eat and drink of the best in hot weather, with nothing on but ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... doubt they love those sounds; for they stir up in them fierce feelings, and a desire for blood," returned the Pathfinder, totally unmoved. "I thought them rather frightful when a mere youngster; but they have become like the whistle of the whippoorwill or the song of the cat-bird in my ear now. All the screeching reptyles that could stand between the falls and the garrison would have no effect on my narves at this time of day. I say it not in boasting, Jasper; for the man that lets in cowardice through the ears must have but a weak heart at ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... thing. But this applies to very few of the species. My definition of Man is, 'a Cooking animal.' The beasts have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and passions of our mind in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook. The trick of the monkey using the cat's paw to roast a chestnut, is only a piece of shrewd malice in that turpissima bestia, which humbles us so sadly by its similarity to us. Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats. Your definition is good, said Mr. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... fraud he has put upon the Council. You will find that Mr. Bristow's letters, up to the 3d of March, had been suppressed; and though then communicated, yet he instigated his cat's-paw, that blind and ignorant Council, to demand from the Vizier the renewal of these very severities and cruelties, the continuance of which the letters in his pocket had shown him were of no effect. Here you have an instance of his implacable cruelty; you see that it never ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... about the time of Lamarck's death, flourished also Savigny, who published his immortal works on the morphology of arthropods and of ascidians; and Straus-Durckheim, whose splendidly illustrated volumes on the anatomy of the cockchafer and of the cat will never cease to be of value; and E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, whose elaborate and classical works on vertebrate morphology, embryology, and comparative anatomy added so much to the prestige ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... massacre, the Attacotti elected their leader, Cairbre Cinn-Cait (or the Cat-head), to the royal dignity, for they still desired to live under a "limited monarchy." But revolutions, even when successful, and we had almost said necessary, are eminently productive of evil. The social state of a people when once disorganized, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the Grove family. The sturdy fisherman was at sea at the time, but old Nell was in her accustomed corner in the lowly bed with the ragged counterpane, where her uneventful, yet happy, life was spent; and little curly-headed Nellie was there, playing with the cat; and Natty was there, cutting out a first-rate man of war ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... was exercised to prevent disease; the commonest matters of personal hygiene were neglected; and when disease came the remedies applied were scarcely to be preferred to the disease. Discipline, always brutal, was symbolized by the cat-o'-nine-tails. Small wonder that the navy was avoided like the plague by every ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... good grounds of criticism. He shows very forcibly the absurdity of transferring the legal to the political sovereignty. Parliament might, as he says, make a law that every gentleman with L2000 a year might flog a pauper with a cat-of-nine-tails whenever he pleased. But, as the first exercise of such a power would be the 'last day of the English aristocracy,' their power is strictly limited in fact.[116] That gives very clearly the difference between legal and political sovereignty. What parliament makes law ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... could not be dwarfed, she must at least feign ignorance; and so, while secretly aware of every emotion of the male, and covertly playing upon his sex-nature in her task of "catching a husband," it is small wonder that women have developed the traits of the cat animal, and are ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... has been held at the Crystal Palace, but the champion cat was not there. One could not possibly allow him to appear in public. He is for show, but not in a cage. He does not compete, because he is above competition. You know this as well as I. Probably you possess him. I certainly ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... He often instructed Caulaincourt to assure me he did not want the whole of Turkey; he did not claim any territory south of the Balkan, nor any part of Roumelia—not even Adrianople—only Constantinople with its neighborhood. He calls it the 'Cat's Tongue,' from its shape, and is more anxious to obtain it than the ancient Romans ever were to indulge in the delicacy of the tongues of nightingales. But if Russia possessed this cat's tongue, it would be transformed into a wolf's, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... children, or animals, must be a pitiful fellow indeed. I wish we had had him here in the sea. I should like to have had him stripped, and that kind of thing, and been well banged by ten of our clippers here with a cat-o'-nine-tails. Cruel to a fair female? ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... whose character he knew well, a man idealistic and foolish and romantic, like yourself, Ivan Andreievitch, only caring more for ideas, more impulsive and more reckless. He found this man and made him his friend. He played with him as a cat does with a mouse. He enjoyed life for about a year and then he ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... with the wandering spirits of the dead; the vast fireplace, piled high with flaming logs, from whose ends a sugary sap bubbled out, but did not go to waste, for we scraped it off and ate it;... the lazy cat spread out on the rough hearthstones, the drowsy dogs braced against the jambs, blinking; my aunt in one chimney-corner and my uncle in the other smoking his corn-cob pipe; the slick and carpetless oak floor faintly mirroring the flame tongues, and freckled with black indentations ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... dearly, but they were quite different in disposition. All the animals about the place were afraid of Jake, for he treated them roughly, and sometimes beat them. But they loved Jenny because she was gentle with them. The dog would follow her about, and the cat would curl up on her lap and purr itself to sleep. When she went to the pasture, the horses would trot up to her and rub their noses on her shoulder. She often gave them lumps of sugar, or other dainties that horses ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... say, causes persons to give it canine candy. I revolt against the conclusion, which I cannot reason away. If you are right, we are at the mercy of our domestic animals! Dog-lovers are not people who love dogs, but people who are enslaved by dogs. Cat-lovers are merely people who have been seized upon by cats to support and pet and cater to them. This is intolerable! I shall fear all pets from now on! I throw myself back into my own work to avoid ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... you have had me do? Should I have stood here, letting I dare not wait upon I would, like the cat i' the adage, while the oak caught and rushed you off to sea? Too big a broomstick for such a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... convexity of the atmosphere; the particles of air and of water are blue; shadow by means of a candle in the day; halo round the moon in a fog; bright spot in the cornea of the eye; light from cat's eyes in the dark, from a horse's eyes in a cavern, coloured by the choroid ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... that you may also see the merry, shining, black face of a little handmaiden, whom Miss Patsey has lately taken into the family; and, as the tea-kettle is boiling, and the day's work chiefly over, the little thing is often seen at this hour, playing about the corners of the house, with the old cat. Ah, there is the little minx!—her sharp ears have heard the sound of wheels, and she is already at the open gate, to see what passes. A wagon stops; whom have we here? Little Judy is frightened half out of her wits: a young man she does ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the mud of the river; and to disfigure their faces with filth. In this manner they would run up and down the streets half naked, whipping themselves as they ran: and the men likewise whipped themselves. They cut off their hair upon the death of a dog; and shaved their eyebrows for a dead cat. We may therefore judge, that some very strong symptoms of grief would have been expressed, had this picture any way related to the sepulture of a king's daughter. Herodotus had his account from different people: one half he confessedly ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... long-don't you think so? And she will always be too dark, I fear." But she used always to add, "She is good enough and pretty enough to pass muster with any critic—poor little pussy-cat!" She became desirous to discover some tendency to ill-health in the plant that was too ready to bloom into beauty and perfection. She would have liked to be able to assert that Jacqueline's health would not permit her to sit up late at night, that fashionable hours would be injurious to ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... give you an instance of a practical bull that is not only indisputably English, but was made by one of the greatest men that England ever produced, Sir Isaac Newton, who, after he had made a large hole in his study-door for his cat to creep through, made a small hole beside it for the kitten. You will acknowledge, sir, that this is ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... which the youthful hunter had molded himself, was shoved gently but firmly downward, backed by another bit of muslin. The ramrod was pushed into its place, and the hammer, clasping the yellow, translucent flint, was drawn far back, like the jaw of a wild cat, and the black grains sprinkled into the pan. The jaw was slowly let back so as to hold the priming fast, and the old fashioned rifle, such as our grandfathers were accustomed to ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... strangers seemed to be frightened. Anyhow, shouts were heard. Old dog Spot did a great deal of barking. And Miss Kitty Cat hid under the woodpile. Queer tales travelled like wildfire that night. All the after-dark prowlers knew about Jack O'Lantern. And some ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Cuts, Antiseptic Wash for; Also Tooth Wash.—"Peroxide of hydrogen. Should always be kept in the house." If you are cut by anything that might cause infection or if scratched by a cat, in fact wherever there is chance for infection and blood poison, peroxide of hydrogen may be used by moistening well the wound with it as soon as you can. As a mouth wash put a little in a glass of water. Directions usually on ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... marine. In ten minutes all was over: two of the French boats remained alongside, and the others shoved off, half manned, and dropped astern. We gave them three cheers as a parting salutation, but we had no time to lose—the wind was evidently springing up fast; already cat's paws were to be seen here and there rippling the water, and the line on the horizon was now dark and broad. I ordered our boats to be ready for starting, the guns to be got in, and the wounded men divided among them as fast as possible. The two large French boats which remained on the starboard ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... has just resigned from the railway service; the supervisor-general (with infamous shrewdness) demands an official inquiry into the state of his accounts. Then all the world will say that Hans Kampe has been used as a cat's-paw by his father, who, knowing that an investigation is inevitable, wishes to throw dust in the eyes of the public and save his own reputation by attacking that of his superior. It is needless to say that he has not a shadow ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... policy for a workman to be nice in his feelings, and several times I have had men excuse themselves for a weakness which they knew me to share, but which they seemed to think needed apology when they, too, exhibited it. Only a few weeks ago a neighbour's cat, affected with mange, was haunting my garden, and had become a nuisance. Upon my asking the owner—a labourer who had worked up to be something of a bricklayer—to get rid of it, he said he would get a certain old-fashioned neighbour to kill it, and then he plunged into sheepish explanations ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... my cat and hog story made me as mad as a hornet, which my reply showed. Your second note has changed me into a lamb, as nearly as a fellow of ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Save me, save me! I see you, if you can't see me. I am a mouse in the claws of the cat. I am done for. King. You are proud of your invisibility. But shall not my arrow see you? Stand still. Do not hope to escape by clinging ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... to think another year preferable for a trip, especially as I have been making the same melancholy reflections as Cat. Fanshawe,[22] and feared there would not be one clever or agreeable person left in London a Twelve-month hence; my only comfort is the expectation that House rent will be very cheap, and that the said Cat. will be better disposed to ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... game of "Hop-scotch" you may see played almost anywhere in Norway under the somewhat curious name of "Hop-in-Paradise," while in some parts "Cat's Cradle," though a milder form of amusement, is quite popular, and a large ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... They worship the ordinary Hindu deities and make an offering to the implements of their trade on the festival of Deothan Igaras. The village Brahman serves as their priest. In Balaghat a Kumhar is put out of caste if a dead cat is found in his house. At the census of 1901 the Kumhar was ranked with the impure castes, but his status is not really so low. Sir D. Ibbetson said of him: "He is a true village menial; his social standing is very low, far below that of the Lohar and not much above the Chamar. His association ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... includes that sphere. There are at least three different ways of understanding the biological function of play. There is the conception of play, on which Groos has elaborately insisted, as education: the cat "plays" with the mouse and is thereby educating itself in the skill necessary to catch mice; all our human games are a training in qualities that are required in life, and that is why in England we continue ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... touch Menlik's shoulder. The shaman half turned, opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the spark of intelligence ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... as we know, though Friedrich does not or only half does, has gone across Oder, to watch Soltikof, and guard Breslau from any attempts of his,—which are far from HIS thoughts at this moment;—a Soltikof fuming violently at the thought of such cunctations, and of being made cat's-paw again. "Know, however, that I understand you," violently fumes Soltikof, "and that I won't. I fall back into the Trebnitz Bog-Country, on my own right bank here, and look out for my own safety."—"Patience, your noble Excellenz," answer they ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... SINCE, there's never been a step that wasn't forced, that hadn't as much right in it or more, as wrong. You talk as though I was a thing of steel that could bend this way or that and never change. You talk as though Isabel was a cat one could give to any kind of owner.... We two are things that change and grow and alter all the time. We're—so interwoven that being parted now will leave us just misshapen cripples.... You don't know the motives, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the firing began, and was taken up by the more distant boats. A bullet splashed in the water close behind Kosmaroff's oar, with a sharp spit like that of an angry cat. Martin gave a ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... of Inkston. A hard-featured, swarthy spinster of forty, with a roving, inquisitive, yet not unkindly eye, she perambulated—or rather percycled—the district, taking stock of every incident. Not a cat could kitten or a dog have the mange without her privity; critics of her mental activity went near to insinuating connivance. Naturally, therefore, she was well acquainted with the new development at Tower Cottage, although the isolated position of that dwelling made ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... came the howl of a wolf, a fox, a wild cat, or a coyote, the "Canis latrans," whose name is justified ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... tables again. I may at Mart Tinman's, out of pity, after I've undergone my punishment. There's a year still to run out of the twenty of my term of service due. He knows it; he's been reckoning; he has me. But the worst cat-o'-nine-tails for me is the disgrace. To have myself pointed at, 'There goes the Deserter' He was a private in the Carbineers, and he deserted.' No one'll say, 'Ay, but he clung to the idea of his old schoolmate ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in fairy land You must (like Oberon) be dwelling! Your notion's lovely, winning, grand, The fiscal cat most bravely belling; Guileless NATHANIEL, too, affects World-hardened hearts—almost to weeping, Volunteer taxes who expects To draw from Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... is the reason Cuchulain was wont to practise early every morning each of those feats [1]with the agility of a single hand, as best a wild-cat may,[1] in order that they might not depart from him through forgetfulness or lack ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... they found the grey cat-bird's nest. He was a funny bird, always crying like a lost pussy. And ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... mesa walls like a cat, climbed and staggered up, slid and tumbled down and crossed the level intervening space to the corral as the first sound of the others came beating ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... page has its engraving, showing how the Young White King obtains instruction in painting, architecture, language, and all arts and sciences, the latter including magic—which he learns of an old woman with a long-tailed demon sitting, like Mother Hubbard's cat, on her shoulder—and astrology. In the illustration of this study an extraordinary figure of a cross within a circle appears in the sky, which probably has some connection with his scheme of nativity, for it also appears on the breast of Ehrenhold, his constant ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fro with all her feeble strength; she called aloud for help several times. Only the sullen echoes of the vault answered her, and the wild whistle of the wind as it surged through the trees of the cemetery. At last she screamed furiously, as a savage cat might scream—the rustle of her silken robes came swiftly sweeping down the steps, and with a spring like that of a young tigress she confronted me, the blood now burning wrathfully in her face, and transforming it back to ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... both wore deep mourning of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one girl—in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... revolutionists? The logs burned cheerily upon the hearth, and the ancestral portraits glowered contemplatively from the walls. Miss Prissy looked dreamily into the fire, and the old man snored wheezily in a corner. A gray cat purred in Miss Bell's lap, and Miss Bessie was writing some nonsense ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... been in great perturbation all the morning. The Sergeant had slept in the stables through the night, and had had his breakfast brought to him, warm, by his own wife; but he had sat up among the straw, and had winked at her, and had asked her to give him threepence of gin with the cat-lap. To this she had acceded, thinking probably that she could not altogether deprive him of the food to which he was accustomed without injury. Then, under the influence of the gin and the promise of a ticket to Portsmouth, which she undertook to get for him at the station, he was induced ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... arabesques of this sort, interlaced, knotted, climbing and sliding from one margin to another, and from the south to the north. Imagine twelve maps on the top of each other, entangling towns, rivers, and mountains—a skein tangled by a cat, all the hieroglyphics of the dynasty of Pharaoh, or the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... All nature was full of deities. There were sacred trees, stones, utensils. Above all, animals, in their mysterious life, were identified with the divinities. Worship was offered to the crocodile, the cat, the bull, etc. In the temples these creatures were ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... he did blink, an' vow he'd catch Me zomehow yet, an' be my match. But I wer nearly down to hatch Avore he got vur on; An' up in chammer, nearly dead Wi' runnen, lik' a cat I vled, An' out o' window put my head To zee if he ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... given by de Meilhan, and the memoirs are thus from an authentic source. The author says that Louis XV. was always kind to her, but spoke little to her, whereas Madame de Pompadour remarked, 'The King and I trust you so much that we treat you like a cat or a dog, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the fire, and from one of the ovens poured forth a dark smoke, that told too plainly the ruin of my lemon puddings. And, to cap all, the turkey, yet guiltless of fire or dripping pan, was upon the floor, in possession of a strange cat, which had come in through the open window. Bending over the still entranced cook, I read the title of her book. ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... will say that he didn't run to the chief, bearing complaints of the major's hopeless incompetency. He kept his tongue between his teeth and his teeth locked; and that must have been hard on Devore, for he was a flickery, high-tempered man, and nervous as a cat besides. To my knowledge, the only time he ever broke out was when we teetotally missed the Castleton divorce story. So far as the major's part in it was concerned, it was the Stickney veto story all over again, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... coaxed. He rode like a Centaur, giving with his lithe, supple body to every motion of the animal. But though he took steep hillsides of shale on the run, the pony slithering down in a slide of rubble like a cat, the rider's alert eyes watched the footing keenly. He could afford if necessary to break a leg himself, but he could not afford to have the horse suffer such an accident. Not for nothing had he ridden on the roundup for many years. Few men even in Arizona could ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... recondite lore; she cut the margins off the magazines, and she grew miserly of the very shreds ravelling under Vivia's fingers. At length, one morning, after she had watched the windows unweariedly as a cat watches a mouse-hole, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... clean over the ropes. A sullen rage grew in the Gorilla's heart. He wasn't doing himself justice. He wasn't having a fair show. This blasted half-set pink and white recruit hadn't given him time to settle down. A fifteen-round contest shouldn't be bustled like this! The bloke was more like a wild-cat ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it, Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus, 275 To the perpetual wink for aye might put This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest, They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk; They'll tell the clock to any business that 280 ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... entered the office, a small, dark, and dirty room, the proprietors, M. and Mme. Fortin were just finishing their breakfast with an immense bowl of coffee of doubtful color, of which an enormous red cat was ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... is returned from Bruges, where he passed two days with the Emperor. What object there was in this expedition besides that of seeing the Emperor, I do not know. But a cat looking on a king, could not, in all probability, have more innocent consequences. Malden, I suppose, is come back with him, as his conferences with his Imperial Majesty could not be more interesting, after his ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... is the most northern district. It is almost entirely on the Chalk and is very bare of trees. The few plants which are restricted to it are very rare. A meadow-rue, Thalictrum Jacquinianum, and the cat's foot (Antennaria dioica) occur only on Royston and Therfield Heaths; Alisma ranunculoides and Potamogeton coloratus only on Ashwell Common; and of the great burnet (Poterium officinale) the sole record is that of a plant gathered ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... not one fine phrase. As she said good-bye she was holding the candle in her hand; patches of light danced over her face and neck, as though chasing her mournful smile. I pictured to myself the old Kisotchka whom one used to want to stroke like a cat, I looked intently at the present Kisotchka, and for some reason recalled her words: 'Everyone ought to bear the lot that fate has laid on him.' And I had a pang at my heart. I instinctively guessed how it was, and my conscience whispered to me that I, in ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a difficulty. If the venerable old nobleman should hear of it, he'd let the cat out of the bag, and leave me in the lurch, in addition to the penalty of a three hours' lecture upon honor. Everything, however, is admirably arranged quoad the marriage. We have got a special license for ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... five claws," said Madame d'Aragona. "Is not a tiger a cat? We must have the thing right, you know, if it is to be ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... had got to love the old nursery, though it was but a dismantled place; and she looked all round, with a kind of cat-like regret, at the idea of leaving it for ever ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the Indian carried his bow strung ready for use, and his bundle of assorted arrows in a quiver made of the skin of a small fox, wild-cat or fisher, hung conveniently over ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... Ducrot's hotel that week, and her daughter Claire wouldn't let me eat the broth. I thought it was because, as she's a dandy cook herself, she was professionally jealous. She put the broth on the top shelf of the pantry and wrote on a piece of paper, 'Gare!' But the next morning a perfectly good cat, who apparently couldn't read, was lying ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... the crackle of near-by thunder. You are near enough to hear the explosions made by all the little side-branches of the lightning flash—you can hear the same sometimes when you comb your hair or rub a cat's fur—while the big crashes are due to your hearing, all at once, the main wave of sound set in action by the flash jumping from the cloud to the earth or from one cloud ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... murder. The windows are some forty feet from the ground; there is no rain-pipe near any of them; they are set flush in the wall, and there isn't a foothold for a fly on any part of that wall. The grates are modern, and there isn't room for a good-sized cat to crawl up any of the chimneys. Now, the question is, How did the murderer get in, and how did he get ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... modern and private saints are after another fashion. I met one yesterday, whose green eyes, great nose, thick lips, and sallow wrinkles, under a bonnet of fifteen years' standing, further clothed upon by a scant merino cloak and cat-skin tippet, would have cut a sorry figure in the gallery of the Vatican or the Louvre, and put the tranquil Madonna of San Sisto into a state of stunning antithesis; but if Saint Agnes or Saint Catharine was half as good as my saint, I am glad ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... still, a warm summer night without a cat's-paw of breeze. Through the dark curtain of the sky in a parabola rising from the German trenches swept the brilliant sputter of red light of a German flare. It was coming as straight toward us as if it had been aimed at us. It cast a searching, uncanny glare ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... [Footnote 172: Cat. Adyar Library. The Rig and Sama Vedas have two Upanishads each, the Yajur Veda seven. All the others are described as belonging to the Atharva Veda. They have no real connection with it, but it was possible to add to the literature of the Atharva whereas it was hardly possible to make similar ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... no one; that he talked to himself hours at a time and many other surprising things that made people think that he was different from other men. They were surprised that he should live alone with a monkey. Had it been a cat or a dog they would have said nothing. But a monkey! Was that not frightful? What savage ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... movement about the camp and the fire was dead. It was plain Indian Jake had not returned for the evening. Eli crouched and waited, as a cat crouches and waits ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... began by telling us that, after all, hatred is no bad thing in itself "I hate a Tory," says my honorable friend; "and another man hates a cat; but it does not follow that he would hunt down the cat, or I the Tory." Nay, so far from it, hatred, if it be properly managed, is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of differences; ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... chirped. "Yes, he's here." Dr. Moss handed Dan the receiver. A moment later the Senator was grinning like a cat struggling into his overcoat and scarf. "Sorry, Doc—I know what you tell me is true, and I'm no fool. If I have ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... the giant Mastodon, twisting and turning his horrid trunk, with which he crushed the rocks of the shore to powder, while the Megatherium—his back raised like a cat in a passion, his enormous claws stretched out, dug into the earth for food, at the same time that he awoke the sonorous echoes of the whole place ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... and, still delighted with his position of a cat playing with a mouse, he pointed to Deroulede, with a smile and ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... is a cat, and that is a dog, with four legs and a tail; see there! you are much better than a cat or a dog, for you can speak[1229]." If I had bestowed such an education on a daughter, and had discovered that she ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... young soul. Innumerable unconscious inferences he must have drawn in his little head! Prince Leopold's face, with the whiskers and blue skin, I find he was wont, at after periods, to do in caricature, under the figure of a Cat's;—horror and admiration not the sole feelings raised in him by the Field-Marshal.—For bodily nourishment he had "beer-soup;" a decided Spartan tone prevailing, wherever possible, in the breeding and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... had grown as thin as a homeless cat, and I turned the skeleton out of doors, but she watches for me in the streets, hides herself, so that she may see me pass, stops me in the evening when I go out, in order to kiss my hand, and, in fact, worries me enough to drive me ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Not a stray cat wandering into the Place du Vier Prison but found an asylum in the garden behind the cottage. Not a dog hungry for a bone, stopping at Guida's door, but was sure of one from a hiding-place in the hawthorn hedge of the garden. Every morning you might have seen the birds in fluttering, chirping ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hold five men, and are within hailing distance of one another. Back of them are three rows of stout wooden stakes, with barbed wire stretching from one row to the other, interlacing and crossing and running in and out above and below, like an intricate cat's cradle of wire. ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... continued the old preacher. "True, the devil does not go about like a roaring lion, but there he has his greatest works! He is well-dressed, and conceals his claws and his tail! Do not rely upon thy strength! He goes about, like the cat in the fable, 'pede suspenso,' sneakingly and cautiously! It is, after all, with the devil as it is with a Jutland peasant. This fellow comes to the city, has nothing, runs about, and cleans shoes and boots for the young gentlemen, and by this means he wins a small sum of money. He knows ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... things, who would be the voice of the council, and who would account to the council for the things he did. So we named Fith-Fith the chief man. He was a strong man, too, and very cunning, and when he was angry he made noises just like that, fith-fith, like a wild-cat. ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... the line merely eyed him in silence; presently a hoarse, sullen murmur began to make itself heard, and finally, as the caleche proceeded down the line, the men burst out with a storm of yells and cat-calls, shaking their fists and calling down maledictions on the head of him who had been their ruler. After that came the interminable journey across the battlefield, as far as Givonne, amid scenes of havoc and devastation, amid the dead, who lay with staring ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... size is in 'is favour; 'e'll go in a dixie easy, or even in a—(there's another bit orf the church)—even in a tin 'at, if you fold 'im up, but I'm 'fraid the 'eads ain't much in favour of a dog. Leastways the ole man I know was a member of the Cat Club—took a lot o' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... beginning of this year 1874 Rossetti was again occupied with the picture which he had commenced in the preceding spring, entitled, ‘The Bower Maiden’—a girl in a room with a pot of marigolds and a black cat. It was painted from ‘little Annie’ (a cottage-girl and house assistant at Kelmscott), and it ‘goes on’ (to quote the words of one of his letters) ‘like a house on fire. This is the only kind of picture one ought to do—just copying ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... in cums my frend, a grinnin away like the fablus Chesher Cat, and he says, says he, why Mr. ROBERT, you're a reglar conjurer! It was all xacly as you prosefied! I had two hours' glorious stroll in the Cristel Pallis ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... in his chair on the down-town hotel porch, knew very well where to look, and he was watching the one outlet of the hiding-place as an alert, though outwardly disregardful, house-cat watches a mouse's hole. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... ancient salutation, Salve! Another, at the end of the prothyrum, artistically represented masks. Others again, in the wings of the atrium, made up a little menagerie,—a brace of ducks, dead birds, shell-work, fish, doves taking pearls from a casket, and a cat devouring a quail—a perfect masterpiece of living movement and precision. Pliny mentions a house, the flooring of which represented the fragments of a meal: it was called the ill-swept house. But let us not ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... of a broker's office one day after the close of the market, only to run full tilt into Drummond, who had been waiting for her, cat-like. Evidently he had ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... piece of anthropomorphism turns out to be a highly successful speculation, which finds its justification at every turn. No wonder, then, that it is extended to other similarly interesting objects which are not too unlike these—to the dog, the cat, and the canary, the doll, the toy, and the picture-book—that these are endowed with wills and affections, and with capacities for being "good" and "naughty." But surely it would be a mere perversion of language ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... room communicating with the kitchen, which was poorly furnished with an oak table on four stout legs, a tapestried armchair, a number of chairs all of wood, and an old chest by way of buffet. No one was in the kitchen except a cat which revealed the presence of a woman about the house. The other room served as a salon. Casting a glance about it the young priest noticed armchairs in natural wood covered with tapestry; the woodwork and the rafters of the ceiling were of chestnut which had turned as black as ebony. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... soul," said Pearson, "I have watched as closely as a cat at a mouse-hole. It is beyond possibility that any thing could have eluded our vigilance, or even stirred within the house, without our being aware ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Quick as a cat, he sidestepped one of them, and putting out his foot tripped him as he plunged past. He went down with a crash, and his rifle flew ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... dropped asleep? He heard a deep and awful groan. "I am come to take you off, down, down, down," said a voice. Where it came from, Dick could not tell. He trembled from head to foot, trying to see through the darkness in vain, for no cat could have seen down there. Not a ray of the blessed sunlight ever penetrated into those passages. "I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming!" ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... arms, Mrs. Darcy watched Elsmere, cat-and-mouse fashion, with a further confidence burning within her, and as soon as there was once more a general burst of talk, she pounced upon him afresh. Would he like to know that after thirty years she had just finished her second novel, unbeknown to her brother—as she mentioned him the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... male, the phenomenon is termed rut, and is most familiar in the stag. I quote from Marshall and Jolly some remarks on the infrequency of rut: "'The male wild Cat,' Mr. Cocks informs us, (like the stag), 'has a rutting season, calls loudly, almost day and night, making far more noise than the female.' This information is of interest, inasmuch as the males of most carnivores, although they undoubtedly show signs of increased sexual ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sorts of work. Dirty, clean, criminal—all sorts. Some of these men, baffled in what they are trying to do to earn their pay—baffled by Victor Dorn—plot against him." Again that sad, bitter laugh. "My dear Miss Hastings, to kill a cat there are a thousand ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... shot I ever saw fired in anger. Our brig had one man killed and three wounded, and she was somewhat injured aloft. One shot came in not far from my gun, and scattered lots of cat-tails, breaking in the hammock-cloths. This was the nearest chance I ran, that day; and, on the whole, I think we escaped pretty well. On our return to the harbour, the ten Scourges who had volunteered for the cruise, returned to their own schooner. None of us were hurt, though ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... present guide of the old beau chef, whereby this point was once known. The Spectator also, if I remember right, declared the old sign of the Cat and the Fiddle to be quite beyond his comprehension. In truth, no two objects in the world have less to do with each other than a cat and a violin, and the only explanation ever given of this wonderful union, appears to be, that once upon a time, a gentleman kept a house with the sign of a Cat, and a lady one, with the sign of a Fiddle, or vice versa. That these two persons fell in love, married, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... freely given: their confidence is so great, (for the holy father is their bondsman) that the stranger too partakes of their familiarity and caresses. These hermits are not allowed to keep within their walls either dog, cat, bird, or any living thing, lest their attention should be withdrawn from heavenly to earthly affections. I am sorry to arraign this good man; he cannot be said to transgress the law, but he certainly evades it; for though his feathered ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... atrofuscus vertice trilineato, thorace punctis scabro medio concavo subcarinato lineis utrinque elevatis, elytris crenatis seriebus spinarum duabus interiori anum versus abbreviata; spinis anticis depressis obtusis, posticis acutis. C. echidna. Dej. Cat. 88. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... The King's son ascended, but he did not find his dearest Rapunzel above, but the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. "Aha!" she cried mockingly. "You would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her more." The King's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... your criticisms.[95] If you have ever actually observed a kitten sucking and pounding with extended toes its mother, and then seen the same kitten when a little older doing the same thing on a soft shawl, and ultimately an old cat (as I have seen), and do not admit that it is identically the same action, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... apron frill (Vespers) Over a little trembling mouse When the sleek cat yawned on ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... as long as they can, often baffling those sensitive parents who know that children should think for themselves and fend for themselves, but are too kind to throw them on their own resources with the ferocity of the domestic cat. The child should have its first coming of age when it is weaned, another when it can talk, another when it can walk, another when it can dress itself without assistance; and when it can read, write, count money, and pass an examination ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... a time there were two brothers who lived in a lonely house in a very lonely part of Scotland. An old woman used to do the cooking, and there was no one else, unless we count her cat and their own ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... all of you have! Her health is no more to you than the health of the grey cat, yet you ask after it. I approve of that. She's quite well, and her respect for you amounts to a superstition, her immense anticipations of you amount to a superstition. She does not say a word about what happened on Sunday, and is convinced that you will overcome everything yourself by merely making ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... starting back; 'she's the very devil for spite. Did ever any mortal see such eyes?—they shine in the dark like a cat's. Oh, you're a sweet one!' So saying, he gathered up the candle and the candlestick. The former being broken as well as extinguished, he rang ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... forget her old beau. She was a little prickly on the outside sometimes, but I guess her heart was soft after all. It's all right, it's all right, that will is! It ain't for us to fuss about. She could have give the whole lot of it to some cat home or spent it while she lived. It was hers! If that's all, lawyer, I guess we'll go. Mary and I are satisfied and the rest got to be. I bet Rebecca got a lot o' good thinkin' how Martin Landis would get the surprise of his life when she was ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... with a cat or a young dog," says this writer, "is heard to pronounce the word kuligatschis; which is thus composed; k is the sign of the second person, and signifies 'thou' or 'thy;' uli is a part of the word ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, and your king. Handle your tools without mittens; remember, that 'the cat in gloves catches no mice,' as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be done, and, perhaps, you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for, 'Constant dropping ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... to Long Island at the end of the week. She had received no word from Amherst or Bessy; only Cicely had told her, in a big round hand, that mother had been away three days, and that it had been very lonely, and that the housekeeper's cat had kittens, and she was to have one; and were kittens christened, or how did they get their names?—because she wanted to call hers Justine; and she had found in her book a bird like the one father had shown them in the swamp; and they were not alone ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... reminiscence in connection with the place which arises in my mind is that of a battle which I had with one of my class-mates, who had bullied me until I could stand it no longer. I was a very slight lad, but there was a wild-cat element in me which, when roused, made up for my lack of weight, and I licked my adversary effectually. However, one of my first experiences of the extremely rough and ready nature of justice, as exhibited by the course ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... base, it became necessary for them either to change the direction of their flight, or bring it to a termination. The bluff towered vertically above them, like a wall of rude masonwork. A cat could not have scaled it, much less horse, or man. They did not think of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... suggest to me by the performance of which I might still hope to expiate my sins. He then, in the plainest terms, advised me to have recourse to the discipline of flagellation, every Friday, using the cat-o'-nine-tails on my bare shoulders for the length of time that it would take to repeat a Miserere. In conclusion, he informed me that the nuns of Anticaille would probably lend me the necessary instrument of flagellation; but, if they made any difficulty ...
— A Fair Penitent • Wilkie Collins
... betaking herself to the crimson room; for to-day Hazel seemed to prefer high-coloured surroundings. There sat for awhile before the great picture, thinking of many things; and there, still down on her foot cushion, laid her head in one of the easy chairs and went to sleep; with the gray cat dozing and purring in the same chair, close by her head. Only the cat's eyelashes were not ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... bottles, and the apparatus was home-made, but it seems to have been of some use. Mr. James D. Reid, author of THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA, would have us believe that an attempt was made to utilise the electricity obtained by rubbing a cat connected up in lieu of a battery; but the spirit of Artemus Ward is by no means dead in the United States, and the anecdote may be taken with a grain of salt. Such an experiment was at all events predestined ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... were a magistrate, Mr Cheesacre, you would have rank; but I believe you are not." Charlie Fairstairs knew well what she was about. Mr Cheesacre had striven much to get his name put upon the commission of the peace, but had failed. "Nasty, scraggy old cat," Cheesacre said to himself, as he turned ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... mingled with the stirring of the porridge-pot and the clang of plates deposited none too gently on the table. At 7.50 A.M. came the stentorian: "Rise and shine!" of the night-watchman, and a curious assortment of cat-calls, beating on pots and pans and fragmentary chaff. At the background, so to speak, of all these sounds was the swishing rush of the wind and the creaking strain of the roof, but these had become neglected. In fact, if there ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson |
