"Cat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 dogs, within miles ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... unhappy; humiliated to have felt so vindictive toward a mere boy, to have uttered this feeling in cutting terms, and to have set each other on, as it were, in the gruesome game of intemperate reproach. Some of them remembered having seen a miserable street cat set at bay ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... "A cat may look at the king," I replied, stung by the harsh words, after I had cherished so many kind feelings towards him, though I forgot that I had not expressed them, since the affray ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... worthy host, though a maud, as it is called, or a gray shepherd's-plaid, supplied his travelling jockey-coat, and a cap, faced with wild-cat's fur, more commodiously covered his bandaged head than a hat would have done. As he appeared through the morning mist, Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thews and sinews, could not help admiring his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the steady ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... had lived long in Valley County, and had learned how to meet emergencies. "Put 'em right down cellar," she invited briskly. "There's just the trap-door into it, and the windows ain't big enough for a cat to go through. Mona, get a candle for Mr. Lauman." She turned to hurry the girl, and found Mona at her elbow with ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... down: there was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. "Dinah will miss me very much tonight, I should think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time! Oh, dear Dinah, I wish I had you here! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know, my dear. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... affected theatrical modes of speech. "Don't admire yourself any longer, but tie up your sandals and come on. Be sure you rush down the instant I cry, 'Demon, I defy thee!' Don't break your neck, or pick your way like a cat in wet weather, but come with effect, for I want that scene to ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... but, just before the time when he thought Tom would go up to the bedroom to set the trap, went up himself, tied the string to the latch of the door, having previously put a tin pan and wash basin on the top of the bundle, then put the old cat in the ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... 'It oughtn't to take longer'n a week, mother. Oh, mother, Stripey was such a nice little cat. He purred so pretty. Don't you think God ought to like him enough to let us ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... design: the all- powerful conqueror had met with a serious resistance, undergone checks, and had need of the moral support of his allies; their material assistance might be needed. Alexander reckoned upon gaining at Erfurt the cession of that 'cat's tongue which was the key of the Bosphorus,' and which he coveted so eagerly. He set out from St. Petersburg on the 7th of September, somewhat against the will of his mother and the "Russian party," ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... other and common babies—is to make itself as widely offensive as possible. The end, indeed, is execrable, but the method is masterly. The baby has an a priori intuition that the note of the domestic cat is repulsive to the ear of the human adult. Consequently, what does your baby do but betake itself to a practical study of the caterwaul! After a few conscientious rehearsals a creditable degree of perfection is usually reached, and a series of excruciating performances are forthwith ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... and helpless, and I must watch it all the time to see that it does not roll out of the cradle, or that the cat does not bite it. When my baby gets to be five feet high and able to fight and run and jump, of course it will be free from danger, it will live happily, and I ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... than we do the intrusion of an earwig, quite acquiesced in periodically remaking the clay floor when the white ants were coming up through it, scorpions being found in the Archdeacon's whiskers, and green snakes, instead of mice, being killed by the cat. ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... worked. She went to the door, to look through that part of it which was of glass. She saw Vincent, who, so far as she could gather, was talking as if to an audience, the while he held an inkpot in one hand and the office cat in the other. When he had finished talking, he caused these to vanish, at which he acknowledged the applause of an imaginary audience with repeated bows. After another speech, he reproduced the cat and ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... did hear the lame footfall. Instantly I was broad awake, and waited in alarmed expectancy. Ha! there it was again—the low skreigh o' pain I had heard before. I was 'gliffed' indeed, horribly afeared, yet I must act, so a-tiptoe I stole out, and like a cat stealthily approached 'Brownie's' door. The hour was somewhat after eleven, for I had heard the Tron Kirk chap recently; the moon in her last quarter had risen, and I could dimly descry the interior ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... misinterpreted their Menace, for in the middle distance, on a pile of timber directly behind the expectant twain, had appeared the sleek person of a sandy cat which proved to be the attraction. For an instant the Menace stood motionless, his spine bristling and his tail growing stiff; then with a short sharp bark he sprang forward like an arrow from a bow in the direction of the feline objective. We ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... so, baptizing her, and compelling her "to set her hand to a book," and carried her, "in her spirit," to afflict people; that her mother, after she was in prison, came to her in the shape of "a black cat;" and that the cat told her it was her mother. Another of her children testified that he, and still another, a brother, were witches, and had been present, in spectre, at Witch-sacraments, telling who were there, and where they ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... a sort of foot-hill mountaineer, had a pet cat, a great, dozy, overgrown creature, about as broad-shouldered as a lynx. During the winter, while the snow lay deep, the mountaineer sat in his lonely cabin among the pines smoking his pipe and wearing the dull time away. Tom was his sole companion, sharing ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... critical and contemptuous in face of their small stock of talk, and too greedy of their poor and pompously-displayed schemes for economical entertainment. Sally's teeth showed like the teeth of a cat, very small and sharp, emblems of her nature. Conceit took firmer root in her heart because of her contempt for May and her inevitable suppressions of pain and resentment in face of neglect, as well as her suppressions of knowledge ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... of the feline spirit in these Raturan savages. As the cat plays with the mouse before killing it, so did they amuse themselves with the pirate before putting him to the final torture which ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat. You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat, Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak, Your touch grow kindlier from week to week. It well becomes our mutual happiness To go toward the same end more or less. ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... up a rock and lobbed it over a nearby boulder, then started moving cat-like in the other direction. He climbed up onto another boulder and watched two men move away from him. They were stepping warily, their beam guns in their hands. Wayne wiped away a bead of perspiration, aimed carefully, and ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... right enough, boy," cried the professor, "but that's what would let the cat out of ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... approaching an Alpine flora. Nothing can be wilder or more solitary than the scene. For the greater part, the forests through which our road is cut are unfrequented, except by the wild boar, deer, and wild cat, and in winter time the fine mountain roads are rendered impenetrable by ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Ben!' sir, but look what books'll bring a man to! Look at that there Fiddler Pawson. Shuts hisself up even now, doing nothing but read, and only comes out o' nights, and goes prowling round the ramparts like an old black tom-cat. You can often ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... short of occupation, are glad enough to fill up their time with work in Parliament, as well as proud to write M.P. after their names. For my part I can think of nothing better calculated to reassure anyone whose dreams are haunted by apprehensions of wild-cat legislative schemes, or the imminence of a Radical millennium, than five minutes' contemplation of our champions of progress as they recline together, dignified and whiskered and bland, upon the benches ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... disconcerted when he saw what he had done, and tried his best to undo it by appearing not to have the smallest interest in that particular tree. I happened that morning to be wandering slowly along the edge of a tree-lined ravine, looking for the nest of a greatly disturbed pair of cat-birds. As I drew near an old moss-covered apple-tree, I heard a low though energetic "phit! phit!" and a chipping sparrow emerged from the tree with much haste, quickly followed by a redstart, with the unmistakable air of proprietor. The sight of me made ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... at all; perhaps he would leave the city; perhaps if he came he would refuse to give more than half or quarter the sum asked. Then Linthicum would throw him over—he knew Linthicum would throw him over. He uttered a small cry like a tortured cat. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... since the Renaissance. In the sunshine he basks asleep, gathering up a vintage into his veins which in the night-time he will distil into ecstatic sensual delight, the intense, white-cold ecstasy of darkness and moonlight, the raucous, cat-like, destructive enjoyment, the senses conscious and crying out in their consciousness in the pangs of the enjoyment, which has consumed the southern nation, perhaps all the Latin races, since ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... of anything more destructive of the whole theoretic faculty, not to say of the Christian character and human intellect,[31] than those accursed sports in which man makes of himself cat, tiger, leopard, and alligator in one; and gathers into one continuance of cruelty, for his amusement, all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... to classify. Thus, [Ch] hu means "tiger." But in any case where ambiguity might arise, lao-hu, "old tiger," is used instead of the monosyllable. [Ch] (another hu) is "fox," and [Ch] li, an animal belonging to the smaller cat tribe. Together, hu-li, they form the usual term for fox. [Ch][Ch] chih tao is literally "to know the way," but has come to be used simply for the verb "to know." These pairs or two-word phrases are of such frequent occurrence, that the Chinese spoken language ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... are acquainted with the habits of the pretty, the old, the young, the coquettish, the virtuous woman opposite, or the caprices of the coxcomb, the inventions of the old bachelor, the color of the furniture, and the cat of the two pair front. Everything furnishes a hint, and becomes matter for divination. At the fourth story, a grisette, taken by surprise, finds herself—too late, like the chaste Susanne,—the prey of the delighted lorgnette of an aged clerk, who earns eighteen hundred francs a year, and who ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... movements of birds are chiefly timed by the advance of vegetation; and the thing most thoroughly surprising about them is not the general fact of the change of latitude, but their accuracy in hitting the precise locality. That the same Cat-Bird should find its way back, every spring, to almost the same branch of yonder larch-tree,—that is the thing astonishing to me. In England, a lame Redstart was observed in the same garden for sixteen successive years; and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... seemed to have some profound cause of grief, to be animated by implacable hate and to aim at nothing short of annihilation. Frequently the assailants would lie in wait to see how the Courier-Journal's cat was going to jump, in order that they might take the other side; and invariably, even if the Courier-Journal stood for the reforms they affected to stand for, they began a system of misrepresentation and abuse. In no instance ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... let young people choose for themselves, would have them choose wisely. They try to be so awfully moral and so ghastly satirical that they must be answered: and they are best answered in their own division. We have all heard of the way in which sailors cat's-pawed the monkeys: they taunted the dwellers in the trees with stones, and the monkeys taunted them with cocoa-nuts in return. But these were silly dendrobats: had they belonged to the British Association they ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Hawley-Crowles desired. The summer interim would give her time to further her plans and prepare the girl for her social debut in the early winter. "And Milady Ames will be mentioned in the papers next day as assisting at the function—the cat!" she muttered savagely, as she laid aside her revised list ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... tufts of vegetation marked the rapid passage of eel-like bodies. The Indians had decided on an advance, being encouraged probably by the latter inaccuracy of the plainsmen's fire. Besides, the day was waning. It was no cat-and-mouse game now; but a rush, like the other except that all but the last twenty or thirty yards would be made under cover. The besieged turned their attention to it. Over on the hill the bucks had arisen from their little fires of buffalo chips, and were ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... quiet voice, and his habit of going about making little more noise than a cat, is far better suited for such a life than I with my rough speech and fiery temper. For his manner he has also much to thank young Ormskirk. Edgar caught it from his father, who, though a strange man according to my thinking, is yet ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... ever hear of the time, Asahel," said his elder brother, "that a cat was sold by the length of ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... be but natural," Mr. Dill spoke slowly, drawling his words, animated perhaps by the spirit which prompts the cat to prolong the struggles of the dying mouse, "but I have postponed making my mission known until rejuvenated by a good night's sleep. Now, gentlemen, if I can have your support, your hearty co-operation, I may tell you that I am in a position—to make Ore City boom! ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... drew quickly back. A white-bearded native servant had entered and was moving swiftly with cat-like stealth toward the veiled figure by the window. He was breathless, as though with hard running, and seemed oblivious of Travers' presence until, with an exclamation of relief, he had grasped the unresisting figure by the wrist. Then he ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... its streets are not entirely deserted. Here and there the glimmer of a street lamp or the far-reaching ray from a tall electric light reveals the form of some nocturnal prowler creeping along with cat-like stealthiness, or bursting, cat-like, into unmelodious song. Not greatly desirous of the society of these roysterers, we crossed quickly from the station into the Gray's Inn Road, now silent and excessively dismal in aspect, and took ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... cushioned seat, which surrounds at least two-thirds of the room. At length they entered a small alcove, rudely painted in arabesque, but in a classic Ionic pattern; the alcove opened into a garden, or rather court of myrtles with a fountain. An antelope, an Angora cat, two Persian greyhounds, were basking on the sunny turf, and there were many birds about, in rude ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... labored with rare villainy, carrying bunches of moss to cover up the black ooze, that was not more than twenty feet broad; even small willow wands and coarse rush grass he placed under the moss, so that he himself, light-footed as a cat, might cross ahead of the unsuspicious Bull, and lure him to his death. "There," he said finally, as he sat on his haunches and rested for a minute, looking like a ghoul in the ghostly moonlight, "I think that's a trick worthy of my Wolf cunning." Then he hastened ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... he wanted you, and nobody else, and that he came into the hall because he was like a pussy cat and hated the rain. He is a queer looking creature in a leather cap ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... the giant's heavy Hudson's Bay coat. He pulled it off, and drew Dupont's knife from its sheath. Paquette, like a stunned cat that had recovered its ninth life, was scrambling from the platform. The Indian was already gone. And Reese Beaudin had tossed his coat to Joe Delesse, and with it his cap. His heavy shirt was closely buttoned; and not only was it buttoned, Delesse observed, but also was it carefully ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... said, "there's no doubt of that! I don't recollect that you used to care so much about seeing her when you were here before. If I don't forget, you set your dog on her cat. And as to when you'll see her again, I'm sure I can't tell, doctor. She's a busy child, and folks out of the house have to do without seeing her till she finds time to see them." Whereat Mrs Derrick smiled upon Dr. Harrison ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... course—mere animal courage; there is plenty of that, but that is nothing. A cat will fight for her kittens. It is moral courage that makes a man, and where do you find it now? Are men self-denying? Are they scrupulous to a shadow of the truth? Are they disinterested? How many gentlemen have ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake—you will swear not to make scald and wry-mouthed jests upon his knighthood. When your plays are misliked at court, you shall not cry Mew! like a puss-cat, and say, you are glad you write out of the courtier's element; and in brief, when you sup in taverns, amongst your betters, you shall swear not to dip your manners in too much sauce; nor, at table, to fling epigrams or ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... moment's pause, a dozen greyhounds stepped daintily in on their padded cat-like feet; and round the neck of each dog was slung a roundish thing that looked like one of the little barrels which St. Bernard dogs wear round their necks in the pictures. And when these were loosened and laid on the table Philip was charmed ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... wearing her ball-dress, and with a head-dress of gold sequins flashing in her black hair, is discovered crouching in the aperture, holding an antique lamp in one hand, a little raised, and with the other softly putting aside the door, while, bending forward with a cat-like stillness, she glares around the chamber with eager eyes, that flash upon everything at once. The picture is perfect. The light falls from the raised lamp upon this jewelled figure crouching ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... there is no white thread of heaven in him. Shall I number you the beads in his chaplet of vices? The seven deadly devils wanton in his heart; his spirit is of an incredible lewdness; he is prouder than the Pope, more cruel than a mousing cat—all which I complacently forgave him till he touched at my top-knot, but now ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal, about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... ordinary steps, for the room was large. The young man took them slowly, his eyes fixed with burning intensity on the seated figure, the muscles of his locomotion contracting and relaxing with the smooth, stealthy continuity of a cat. Galen Albret again laid hand ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... fellow united the strength of the bear and the agility of the wild-cat. He knew that, even if he had not the terrible disadvantage of position, he would stand no chance in a struggle. Glancing down, he caught the flash of a wave upon the black rocks far below. But he only bit his lip and stood still, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... sidled out, closing the door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shock awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellars and disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Cat skins are advertised for in Essex. A suburban resident writes to say he has a few brace on his garden wall each night, if the advertiser is prepared to entice the cats from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... it will be said—I will not weary the House by arguing it, but I only desire to meet at once the objection that will be taken—that these councils will, if you take away the safeguard of the official majority, pass any number of wild-cat Bills. The answer to that is that the head of the Government can veto the wild-cat Bills. The Governor-General can withhold his assent, and the withholding of the assent of the Governor-General is no defunct power. Only the other day, since I have been at the India Office, the Governor-General ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... round she beheld the man. He was standing close by, but above her, upon a big granite boulder, in climbing which his soft veld schoons, or hide shoes, had made no noise, for Meyer could move like a cat. The last rays from the sinking sun struck him full, outlining his agile, nervous shape against the sky, and in their intense red light, which flamed upon him, he appeared terrible. He looked like a panther about to spring; his eyes shone like a panther's, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... unaffected by this outburst, but for that matter he seemed unaffected by anything. His dead gaze followed his employer's to-and-fro striding as a cat's follows a pendulum, but without the cat's curiosity about a pendulum. He never interrupted when Potter was speaking; and Canby noticed that whenever Potter talked at any length Tinker looked thoughtful and distant, like a mechanic so accustomed to the whirr and thunder of the machine-shop ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... rector of St. Anne's, half of him as lovable as any I ever encountered. But trust him I never would, always meeting him on the middle ground; and there were times, after his talks with Grafton, when his eyes were like a cat's, and I was conscious of a sinister note in his dealing which put me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... her passengers, headed by John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. Finally, a man ignorant in the science of astronomy and navigation, feeble alike in heart and arm, became, nominally, commander, but really the cat's-paw, of his crew, at whose bidding the ship was steered. When Abraham Lincoln was called to the helm he found the once stanch, strong vessel in a leaky, damaged condition, with her compasses deranged, her rudder broken, and the luminous star by which Washington ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... cheese! They have been playing me for the cat in the case! Left me till the last, left me sitting on an empty shell! The mice have made away with the cheese from under me. They have engineered a combine! There's a syndicate a-forming! It's for me to tumble down among 'em when the shell caves. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Brutish or morbid. The man, for instance, who is naturally afraid of all things, even if a mouse should stir, is cowardly after a Brutish sort; there was a man again who, by reason of disease, was afraid of a cat: and of the fools, they who are naturally destitute of Reason and live only by Sense are Brutish, as are some tribes of the far-off barbarians, while others who are so by reason of diseases, epileptic or frantic, are ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... day:" for then it is that he enjoys "the universal vocal choir." He continues—more and more lyrically: "Who can listen unmoved, to the sweet love-tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? Or to the shrill cat birds? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high, always retard my steps, that I may listen to the delicious music." And the Farmer is no less interested in "the astonishing art which all birds display ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... you will find no tom cat to kill at Arlingford, Mrs Kezia!" said Owen, laughing, as ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... But neither cat-calls, crowings, nor cacklings, coaxed the invisible fowl from her palace-like retreat. So, soon tiring of this, they fell to talking of other things and forgot the creature; till, suddenly, from within the temple came a crow that ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... are more nervous about adders than any other snake, with the exception of that known to them as the "Wat-tam" (pronounce the "a" as in cat), and believed to belong to the same genus as the brown snake. This is a large snake, reddish-brown in colour, the underside, for about half the length, being bright orange, the tint gradually subsiding to pale yellow towards the tail. Post-mortem ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the government boat which was surveying Plum Point bars, Doss showed his teeth like an indignant cat. Five or six miles below he offered the supine and ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... club down in the basket. When Hans had reached the bottom, he found a door, and when he opened it a maiden was sitting there who was lovely as any picture, nay, so beautiful that no words can express it, and by her side sat the dwarf and grinned at Hans like a sea-cat! She, however, was bound with chains, and looked so mournfully at him that Hans felt great pity for her, and thought to himself, "Thou must deliver her out of the power of the wicked dwarf," and gave him such a blow with his club that he fell down dead. Immediately the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... vagaries of this paper is given in a single sentence of one of its first numbers: "We have never been in a minority, and we never shall be" In his endeavors to act upon this lofty principle, he was sadly puzzled during the war,—so difficult was it to determine which way the cat would finally jump. He held himself ready, however, to jump with it, whichever side the dubious animal might select. At the same time, he never for an instant relaxed his endeavors to obtain the earliest and fullest intelligence from the seat of war. Never ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... icing, and ornament it while wet, with nonpareils dropped on in borders, round each square of the cake. When the icing is dry, cut the cake in squares, cutting through the icing very carefully with a penknife. Or you may cat it in squares first, and then ice ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... fellow-citizens for our own advantage, or have impoverished or half-killed ourselves in the service of the State, our meed is the same. Loris non ureris. Non pasces in cruce corvos, is what we are told. We may congratulate ourselves on having escaped the cat-o'-nine-tails and the gallows. Well, we have, most of us, so much self-sufficiency, that to deprive us of all ground for it might be a fault on the right side. But now comes a second and more awkward reflection. If you will not of your own accord do your duty, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... president of the court of Claims at the foreign office, he stood in need of a secretary,—a friend who could take his place in various ways; cook up his interests with publishers, see to his glory in the newspapers, help him if need be in politics,—in short, a cat's paw and satellite. In Paris many men of celebrity in art, science, and literature have one or more train-bearers, captains of the guard, chamberlains as it were, who live in the sunshine of their presence,—aides-de-camp entrusted with delicate missions, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... gentle art of wooing are of no avail—follow Nature's lead. Grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or as the proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat in the world, the Manx cat, has ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... markets, or at least sufficient ones for their objects, the cries of the tobacco-makers, who are the minority, and not at all in favor, will hardly be listened to. It is truly the fable of the monkey pulling the nuts out of the fire with the cat's paw; and it shows that G. Mason's proposition in the convention was wise, that on laws regulating commerce, two thirds of the votes should be requisite to pass them. However, it would have been trampled under foot by ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... you dismissed;" and she tried to strike Soda with the halberd. But Soda fought desperately with his dirk; and the goblin, seeing that she was no match for him, threw away the halberd, and from a beautiful woman became suddenly transformed into a cat, which, springing up the sides of the room, jumped on to the roof. Isahaya Buzen and his eight men who were watching outside shot at the cat, but missed it, and the beast ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... treat to Conny, and there is nothing to prevent it. Conny has let the cat out of the bag, as Tom would say. Conny consents, Joanna may sulk ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... latter part of 1880, at a time when the Washington monument had reached a height of 160 feet, an adventurous and patriotic cat ascended the interior of the shaft by means of the ropes and tubing. When the workmen arrived at the upper landing the next morning, and began to prepare for the day's work, pussy took fright and, springing ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous
... discover these spirits must take sifted ashes and strew them about his bed, and in the morning he will perceive their footprints upon them like a cock's tread. If any one wish to see them, he must take the after-birth of a black cat, which has been littered by a first-born black cat, and whose mother was also a first-birth, burn and reduce it to powder, and put some of it on his eyes, and he will see them." (Vol. i. pp. 104 and 111). And this is the stuff ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... A notary must have eyes for everybody—eyes like a cat's, to see in the dark, and power to draw them in like a turtle, so that he may see nothing that he does ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... you thought to find your lady love, but the pretty bird has flown and its song is dumb; the cat caught it, and will scratch out your eyes too. Rapunzel is lost to you for ever—you ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... group round the sensitive German musician, who is "veeping" over one of his own compositions. Or follow the titter running round that amused assembly to whom the tenor warbler is singing "Me-e-e-et me once again," with such passionate emphasis that the domestic cat mistakes it for a well-known area cry. As for his ladies, it may perhaps be conceded that his type is a little persistent. Still it is a type so refined, so graceful, so attractive altogether, that in the jarring of less well-favoured realities it is an advantage to have it always before ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... was not able to comprehend all about the Lord Chief Justice until I read and heard again in after years. In the meantime, Joe Miller had given me the story of the leopard which was sent home on board a ship of war, and was in two days made as docile as a cat by the sailors.[408] "You have got that fellow well under," said an officer. "Lord bless your Honor!" said Jack, "if the Emperor of Marocky would send us a cock rhinoceros, we'd bring him to his bearings in no time!" ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... cases of blind birds, in a state of nature, being fed by their fellows. Probably it would be hasty to conclude that such acts show anything more than instinct. I should be slow to ascribe to the animals any notion of the uses of punishment as we practice it, though the cat will box her kittens when they play too long with her tail, and the mother hen will separate her chickens when they get into a fight, and sometimes peck one or both of them on the head, as much as to say, "There, don't you do that again." The rooster will in the same way separate ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... is true, Walter, and no one can regret it more than I do. Still, I do think that you would be worse off under France than under England. Louis would drain the island of its men to fill his army. He uses you only as a cat's paw in his struggle against England and Holland, and would not hesitate to turn you over to England again, did it at any time suit him to make peace on such terms; or to offer Ireland as an exchange for some piece of territory ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... was quite pleased at the idea, and the two set off together. When they had gone a short distance they met a cat with a face as long as three rainy days. 'Now, what has happened to upset your happiness, friend puss?' inquired ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... they continued to probe between the leaves. Under the buffets and the draught of their wings and the clutches of their eager feet the little bundle of leaves ran along the floor like a scrap of paper patted by the paws of a cat. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... is probable, for instance, that a speaker may walk back and forth in his room practising his speech aloud; it is probable that an actor may read through his part aloud, that a servant-girl may talk to her cat, that a mother may prattle to her child, that an old spinster may chatter to her parrot, that a person may talk in his sleep. And in order that the actor for once may have a chance to work independently, ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,—so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,—except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,—the one with the crisp-curled wig,—must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... and never wear stockings. Their women, who are very brisk, lively, impudent, and debauched, wear very long cotton robes. In general, the Chinese have no distinction of meats, but eat without ceremony of any animal that comes to hand, be it even dog, cat, or rat, or what it may. They are amazingly fond of shows and entertainments. Their feast of the new year, which they celebrate in the beginning of March, commonly lasts a whole month; during which they do nothing but divert ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... and of the spittle of the birds. If you have not known this before, you can easily find out that it is true and that there is no lie about it, since you must have observed that a woman has no beard, that a cat's footfall cannot be heard, and that mountains have no roots; and I know, forsooth, that what I have told you is perfectly true, although there are some things that you do not understand. Then said Ganglere: This I must surely understand to be true. I can see these things which you have taken ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... Polly, vainly trying to induce the child next to the baby to get into her lap; "something must be done. Oh, don't you want to hear about a funny cat, children? I'm going to tell them about Grandma Bascom's, Jasper," she said, seeing the piteous ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... five pictures. First the owner carrying in the malt, next the rat driven away by the man, then the rat peeping up into the deserted room, next the rat studying a placard upside down inscribed "four measures of malt," and finally, the gorged animal sitting upon an empty measure. So "This is the Cat that Killed the Rat" is expanded into five pictures. The dog has four, the cat three, and the rest of the story is amplified with its secondary incidents duly sought and depicted. This literary expression is possibly the most marked characteristic of a facile and able draughtsman. ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... events in Dublin; a feeling which he believed to be shared "by the overwhelming mass of the people of Ireland." On May 3rd, in a statement to the Press, he denounced fiercely "this wicked move" of men who "have tried to make Ireland the cat's-paw of Germany." "Germany plotted it, Germany organized it, Germany paid for it." The men who were Germany's agents "remained in the safe remoteness of American cities," while "misguided and insane young men in Ireland had risked, and some of them had lost, their lives in an insane anti-patriotic ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Apollodorus the Comick Poet (who was Contemporary with Menander) which is full of Humour as follows: Thou mayest shut up thy Doors, says he, with Bars and Bolts: It will be impossible for the Blacksmith to make them so fast, but a Cat and a Whoremaster will find a Way through them. In a word, there is no Head so full of Stratagems as that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... robin is considered a sacred bird: to kill one is little less than sacrilege, and its eggs are free from the destroying hand of the bird-nester. It is asserted that the respect shown to it by man is joined in by the animals of the wood. The weasel and wild cat, it is said, will neither molest it, nor eat it when killed. The high favour in which this bird is held is usually attributed to the ballad of The Babes in the Wood. Few, however, among the peasantry of this district ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... a cat at his master's call and caught up the wrench, but halted when Pike closed on his shoulder and pressed a cold little circle of blue ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... like a cat, the little fouquet," Monsieur Joseph used to say; and passionate sportsman as he was, he would never shoot the squirrels or allow them to be shot by his man, who lamented loudly. Angelot had caught his uncle's liking for that swift red spirit of the woods, and so the squirrels had ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... a beetle," she went on without pausing. "Thou worshipest a cat; thou offerest up sacrifice to an image and conservest abominable and heathen rites. Thou art an idolater, and as such thou art not for Rachel. And yet, this further: if thou canst become a worshiper of the true God, thou shalt take her. Never have I seen an ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... favorite place, Puffing his pipe by the chimney-side; Through curling clouds his kindly face Glows upon her with love and pride. Lulled by the wheel, in the old arm-chair Her mother is musing, cat in lap, With beautiful drooping head, and hair Whitening under ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... smooth, was rough now with hurrying cat's-paws, and all about where the sphere had been was tumbled water like the wake of a ship. Above, a little puff of cloud whirled like dispersing smoke, and the three or four people on the beach were bring up with interrogative faces towards the point ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... kind, with the fragrance of the orange-flower poured round me, that I composed in a continual ecstasy the fifth book of Emilius. With what eagerness did I hasten every morning at sunrise to breathe the balmy air! What good coffee I used to make under the porch in company with my Theresa! The cat and the dog made up the party. That would have sufficed me for all the days of my life, and I should never have known weariness." And so to the assurance, so often repeated under so many different ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... districts; Acklins and Crooked Islands, Bimini, Cat Island, Exuma, Freeport, Fresh Creek, Governor's Harbour, Green Turtle Cay, Harbour Island, High Rock, Inagua, Kemps Bay, Long Island, Marsh Harbour, Mayaguana, New Providence, Nichollstown and Berry Islands, Ragged Island, Rock Sound, Sandy Point, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... garments, a sudden storm of violent rasping screams burst from some holly bushes a few yards away. It proceeded from three excited jays, but whether they were girding at me, the shouting boys, or a skulking cat among the bushes, I could not ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... scientists, clergymen, lawyers or physicians, who treat women with constant indignities and insults?" "Oh, no"; said Miss Cobbe. "Then," said Mrs. Blatch, "you estimate the physical suffering of cats and dogs as of more consequence than the humiliation of human beings. The man who tortures a cat for a scientific purpose is not as low in the scale of being, in my judgment, as one who sacrifices his own daughter to some cruel custom." Though Miss Cobbe weighs over two hundred pounds, she is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and I shall rest at Baku two nights before beginning the four days journey to Petrograd. After that the fun really begins, as one always loses all one's luggage in Finland, and one finishes up with the North Sea. What do you think of that, my cat? ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... behind a stack of breakfast foods where he could watch her, wondering that the clerks did not drop their several customers without ceremony and fly to do her bidding. She stood beside the counter and made overtures to a large Maltese cat who reposed there in solemn majesty. Beside the Maltese rose a pyramid of canned goods, and a placard announced, "Of interest to light house keepers." Upon this her eyes rested in evident surprise. "I didn't know there were any lighthouses in this part ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... turned in smiling divination of her purpose, and sat down to play with her as a cat does with ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... is domestic like the house cat. She hangs around the house and rarely flies as far as the next house even, preferring to travel on a visitor's coat. She will bite in the day time and will lay her eggs in any little collection of water in the house, the eaves trough, the water barrel, old tin cans or bottles, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... heard an account of a cat of 17 years old, that has just recovered of the meazels. This same cat it is said had the small pox ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow |
