"Mouse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meadow, in which an enterprising neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of the Channel Island persuasion. At noonday in summertime the cows stood knee- deep in tall meadow-grass under the shade of a group of walnut trees, with the sunlight falling in dappled patches on their mouse-sleek coats. Eshley had conceived and executed a dainty picture of two reposeful milch- cows in a setting of walnut tree and meadow-grass and filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly exposed the same on the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... of Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street as a deep, winding ravine, steeped in partial shadow; of long sierras of roofs and chimney-pots, showing their sharp outlines above mouse-coloured smoke-wreaths; of the broad, pearl-tinted river, with oily ripples and a golden glitter where the sunlight touched it; of the gleaming slope of mud under the wharves and warehouses on the Surrey side; of barges and steamers moored in black clusters; of a small tug fussing ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... swarm of gnats; and he withdrew a few steps along Abbey Walk, whence he regarded the spot which fate had made the home of all he loved best in the world. In front of the schools, which were extensive and stone-built, grew two enormous beeches with smooth mouse-coloured trunks, as such trees will only grow on chalk uplands. Within the mullioned and transomed windows he could see the black, brown, and flaxen crowns of the scholars over the sills, and to pass the time away he walked down to ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... man," she exclaimed, addressing the people, "I wouldna let myself be catched like a mouse in a trap." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... never did aspire To have with dead folk much transaction. In full fresh cheeks I take the greatest satisfaction. A corpse will never find me in the house; I love to play as puss does with the mouse. ...
— Faust • Goethe
... little violet had been the first to tell them; the house-cats had noticed it, to be sure, for their parents' homes stood near each other. When, therefore, Hyacinth was standing at night at his window and Roseblossom at hers, and the pussies ran by on a mouse-hunt, they would see both standing, and would often laugh and titter so loudly that the children would hear them and grow angry. The violet had confided it to the strawberry, she told it to her friend, the gooseberry, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... symbolic world of ceremonial religion, and accept its discipline and its gifts, to be led at least to a humble suspension of judgment as to its value. A whole world of spiritual experience separates the humble little church mouse rising at six every morning to attend a service which she believes to be pleasing to a personal God, from the philosopher who meditates on the Absolute in a comfortable armchair; and no one will feel much doubt as to which side ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... like Gertrude, and I was quite overcome, and a long hour was spent begging of her to tell why she had come to this determination. One of course says unjust things, one accuses a woman of cruelty; what could be the meaning of it? Did she like to play with a man as a cat plays with a mouse? But Gertrude, though she seemed distressed at my accusations, refused to give me any explanation of her conduct; tears came into her eyes—they seemed like genuine tears—and it was difficult ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... asked the country mouse of the city mouse, wondering what harm there was in liking other people's pretty things, and saying so. "Oh, they laugh at everything the least bit odd, and that is n't pleasant." Fanny did n't say "countrified," but she ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... she did not steal away like a timid mouse to her own apartment, as her custom was, but remained to give that one evening a special grace, seated well away from the fire in that same shadowy corner where I had first seen her indoors, when I had marvelled at her altered appearance. From that corner she could see my face, with the firelight ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... mineralogical specimens was deposited with Professor M. H. N. Story-Maskelyne. The spirit-specimens of zoology filled three large canisters: and the British Museum also received a hare and five birds (Mr. R. B. Sharpe); four bats (Rhinopoma) and a mouse; six reptiles, five fishes, thirty-five crustaceans, and about the same number of insects; five scorpions, six leeches, sixty molluscs, four echinoderms, and three sponges. Dr. A. Gunther (Appendix III.) determined and named two new species of reptiles. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... 'Oct. 16. The letters of Slatin have arrived. I have no remarks to make on them, and cannot make out why he wrote them.' In the afternoon, indeed, he betrays some pity; but it is the pity of a man for a mouse. 'He is evidently not a Spartan... he will want some quarantine... one feels sorry for him.' The next day he is again inexorable, and gives his reasons clearly. 'I shall have nothing to do with Slatin's coming here to stay, unless he has the Mahdi's positive leave, which he is not likely to ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... hearth and leave the house 155 To the cricket and the mouse: Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go 160 With lance and bow To hunt the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... examined other animals, and the same proportion of hypermetropia existed. These gentlemen found that as an optical instrument the eye of the horse, cow, cat and rabbit is superior to that of the rat, mouse ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... poor as a church mouse; bah! No fear of Madame Verne allowing her daughter to wed a penniless lawyer. Man, the chances now ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... field mouse who lived over the way came out of her house, with a tiny brown velvet bundle in her mouth. It was one of her eight young ones, and she was taking it to a new place, for the mole who was their landlord had turned them out. She had taken five of the little ones to the new house, but now ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... "poem" was written a month before little John Ruskin reached the age of seven. It is a tale of a mouse, in seven octosyllabic couplets, "The Needless Alarm," remarkable only for an unexpected correctness in ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... plainest, and most formidable cheese in the world; whether they fried with oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone and garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant brandy or anisette as a liqueur; and were overrun with mice, and used cats or mouse-traps to get rid of them, or neither; and bought violets, or pinks, or gillyflowers in season, and kept them too long; and fasted on Friday with red or white beans, or lentils, or had a dispensation from the Pope—or, haply, even ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... A little glass bead. The hen had laid a glass bead! When the old woman saw that the hen had fooled her, she began to beat it, and beat till she flogged it to death. So the stupid old soul remained as poor as a church-mouse. From that time she might live on roast nothing and golden wait a while, instead of eggs, for she had abused and killed the poor hen, though it was not at all ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... giving up his slip in exchange for the tiny package, and presently laughing heartily over an absurd mechanical mouse. Ridiculous misfits in the presents made the distribution all the funnier, and the rejoicing was great when Roger, who didn't believe in washing his hands without being told to do so, drew a wee cake of soap. He took it good-naturedly and considered as an added joke, Estelle's hasty and shocked ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... mind, as I did with my untold tale; we were both afraid of bringing dishonor on a great house. And it was the same with Mademoiselle. She didn't know what happened; she wouldn't know. My lady and Mr. Urbain asked me no questions because they had no reason. I was as still as a mouse. When I was younger my lady thought me a hussy, and now she thought me a fool. How should I ...
— The American • Henry James
... been I wouldn't have been a candidate; but I am going to tell you where: 'twas in Mississippi, but 'twas on the right side of the negro line; yet that is no compliment, as the negroes are mostly born on the same side. I started in the world as poor as a church-mouse, yet I came honestly by my poverty, for I inherited it; and if I did start poor, no man can say but that I have held my own remarkably well. Candidates generally tell you—if you think they are qualified, &c. Now, I don't ask your thoughts, I ask your votes. Why, there is nothing to think of except ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... Peers," by Susan Glaspell, first published in Every Week and The Associated Sunday Magazines; to The Century Company and Captain Frederick Stuart Greene for permission to reprint "The Bunker Mouse," first published in The Century Magazine; to Mr. Paul R. Reynolds for confirmation of Captain Greene's permission; to The Pictorial Review Company and Mr. Richard Matthews Hallet for permission to reprint "Rainbow Pete," first published in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Elizabeth, tongue in cheek, in the mask of IBSEN!... I couldn't get myself to believe in the ineffable preoccupations of Herr Dremmel that made so desolate a pastor's wife; nor could I see the later enchanting Ingeborg in the little negligible mouse of the episcopal study (though I liked them both); and, as I said, I entirely refused to accept the bishop. But I heartily and thoroughly enjoyed the story, the happy little strokes of humour and irony, the apt, pert thumbnail-sketches of the subsidiary characters, the tender love of country things ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... he said, liking to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse, "Georges d'Estouteville was ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... severe rolls on the sand before some of them managed to mount at all. There the camel lay, quiet and tame and lazy, to all appearance as a cat dozing before the fire. But the moment the foot was over his back he resembled the same cat when she sees a mouse, and away you went. Taught by experience, you spring into the saddle with a vault. Up goes the camel on the first two joints of his forelegs with a jerk which sends the small of your back against the ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... social column that it had almost lost interest for her.)... At the other end of the table next to the hostess's expansive person sat the Instrument of Accomplishment, like a very refined little white mouse, his keen eyes taking in every gold fork on the table. His mouth was often open, and Milly imagined she could hear the familiar, "Well now, I don't know about that." However, his hostess seemed to ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... now dogs and cats and little creatures of all kinds. But there is one small animal—smaller than a mouse—who commands them all. Ah! he is eating them ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... them, when, The following morning at my door, there came that tap again; A woman with an anguished face implored me to forego My music for some days to come—a man was dead below. I shut down my piano till the corpse had left the house, And spoke to Tom in whispers and was quiet as a mouse. ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... it all day. As devotees retire to pray, so she to stitch. On a wet day she would often slip into the kitchen, and ply the needle beside Jacintha: on a dry day she would hide in the old oak-tree, and sit like a mouse, and ply the tools of her craft, and make things of no mortal use to man or woman; and she tried little fringes of muslin upon her white hand, and held it up in front of her, and smiled, and then ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... is a vast barrack of a place, and you're only just a bit of a wee white mouse. And we love our pets. Why ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... a place with such echoes. They shook from a footstep like nuts rattling out of a bag; a mouse behind the skirting led a whole camp-following of them; to ask a question was, as in that other House, to awaken the derisive shouts of an Opposition. Yet, in the intervals of silence, there fell a deadliness ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... who lived in a house, Too small for a giant, too big for a mouse,— Was sweeping her chambers, (though she had not many,) When she found, by good fortune, a bright ...
— The Remarkable Adventures of an Old Woman and Her Pig - An Ancient Tale in a Modern Dress • Anonymous
... luck o' the army In barrack an' camp an' clink, An' I lost my tip through the bloomin' trip Along o' the women an' drink. I'm down at the heel o' my service An' when I am laid on the shelf, My very wust friend from beginning to end By the blood of a mouse was myself! ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... uniform in the hallways, on the roof, in the windows of rooms across the avenue. Bentley and Tyler should have felt sure that not even a mouse could have broken through the cordon to reach Saret ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... kitchen became her own domain where the three of us fought for the position of her most abject slave. Even Mary Ellen could scarcely work for watching her antics with an old stocking, which she pretended was a rat. Once she caught a live mouse and set us all shouting. Mary Ellen, in her excitement, upset a gravy-boat of hot gravy, and The Seraph slipped and sat down in it, and Giftie gambolling, mouse in mouth, ran through it and tracked it over the freshly scrubbed boards. If she ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... touch his feet. There had been a good deal of talk already about gout, and this was still going on; each man had his pet prescription to offer. Cleodemus was giving his. 'In the left hand take up the tooth of a field-mouse, which has been killed in the manner described, and attach it to the skin of a freshly flayed lion; then bind the skin about your legs, and the pain will instantly cease.' 'A lion's skin?' says Dinomachus; 'I understood it was an uncovered hind's. That sounds more likely: a hind ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... would be stretching the fable of the mouse and the lion to suggest that I was able to help such a renowned criminal investigator as yourself," returned Sir Henry waggishly. "When Mr. Oakham learnt that you had been investigating this case he expressed a strong desire ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... not eat bakers' bread, so Jeannie baked. The one servant they had was not competent. It may have been this same servant that was responsible for Thomas' finding, altogether unexpectedly, of course, a dead mouse at the bottom of his dish of oatmeal. As to the bread-baking Jean has given us ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... The next day, Mr. Smut was walking along this gravel path, enjoying the sunshine in a quiet way, never thinking of birds, for he's a deal too lazy to put himself out of the way to catch anything. I've tried him with a mouse, but he never put out a paw to touch it. He blinked at it in the most unconcerned way, and didn't show the least bit of interest in it. Well, as I said, Smut was walking along, when out flew the thrushes from the hedge, swooped down upon him, pounced on his back, pecked his ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... you dipping into the basin of starch?" "They're little dicky shirt-fronts belonging to Tom Tits-mouse —most terrible particular!" said Mrs. Tiddy-winkle. "Now I've finished my ironing; I'm going to ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle • Beatrix Potter
... found scrupulously correct. The cesarian operation is actively going on, an excavation of fifty feet having been made, and the mountain's speedy deliverance of a mine of wealth is anticipated. May it not prove a mouse! ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... the Mouse Tower, so called because the cruel Archbishop Hatto, of Mayence? had once compared some poor famishing people to mice bent on devouring corn, and caused them to be burned in his barn after having invited them to come there and receive provisions which it had been his ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... way they believe in a sort of metempsychosis; thus, for instance, a man eaten by a tiger becomes a tiger. In the case of unfortunates they believe that they will live as unhappy ghosts; in the case of other men they assume only annihilation as their fate.[16] It is among this tribe that the mouse-totem is found, which is Civa's beast and the sign ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... was as wretched as of old, but there was an attempt at tidiness. Her manner, too, was softer, and it became more and more quiet as things went on, and her playmates wondered again and again what had come over Nell Hardy; she had got to be as quiet as a mouse. ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... 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 wears away stones; and by diligence, and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and little strokes ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... part of the river towards the sea; at the end of this wharfing is a grating of wood, the cross-bars of which stand bearing inward, sharp at the end, and pointing inward towards one another, as the wires of a mouse-trap. ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... cat and the mouse seemed to me to be especially applicable in the present instance. In one breath I was told that there would be many interviews of the kind I was then enjoying (?), and in the next that my destination was Siberia. It was certainly paradoxical and somewhat threatening, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... beating of her heart was audible, when a child could have seen her distress. There were other moments when all was ugly, unreal, impossible like things in a nightmare. But when Kells was near or approached to look at her, like a cat returned to watch a captive mouse, she was again strong, waiting, with ever a strange and cold sense of the nearness of that swinging gun. Late in the night she missed him, for how long she had no idea. She had less trust in his absence than his presence. The ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... striking instance which she quotes is the Anthesteria, or festival of flowers, at the close of which the spirits were dismissed with the formula, "Depart, ye ghosts, the revels now are ended." Mr. Andrew Lang has suggested that the animals associated with gods and goddesses (such as the mouse which is found in the hand, or the hair, or beside the feet of the statues of Apollo, the owl of Minerva, etc.) are relics of the earlier worship. This would satisfactorily explain much of the disreputable element which lingered on side by side with ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... one less of you. But come! come! let's be bustling; the sun's going to get up already. You'll leave your horses here, I suppose, gentlemen, and get to the old stands. Tom Draw, put Mr. Forester at my old post down by the big pin-oak at the creek side; and you stand there, Frank, still as a church-mouse. It's ten to one, if some of those fellows don't shoot him first, that he'll break covert close by you, and run the meadows for a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it to Rocky hill—that black knob yonder, covered with pine and hemlock. There are ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... said, 'O my princes, surely it is a silly matter to crown a mouse! Humility hath depressed my stature! Wullahy, I have had warning in the sticking of this crown to my brows, and it sticketh ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... champagne and chicken, both of which aided the lady to sustain further doses of dry-as-dust facts dug out of a monastic past by the persevering Dr Alder. It was in this artful fashion that the town mouse strove to ensnare the church mouse, and succeeded so well that when Mr Dean went home to his lonely house he concluded that it was just as well the monastic institution of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... was to be seen, nor boat nor sign of a man. I tried the companion: it was covered and padlocked. The sail-hatch and fore-hatch were also fastened and padlocked, and the skylights covered with tarpaulin and screwed firmly down. A mouse could not have found its way below, except perhaps by the stove-pipe or the pipe leading down ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said Burnett. "I'll give the dinner. One of the souvenir kind of affairs. A white mouse for every man and a canary bird for the lady. We'll have a private room and speeches and I'll get megaphones so we can ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... boy at the helm, as the boat heeled over and lay on its beam ends. It had struck on a rock, which rose from the depths of the sea, and sank at once, like an old shoe in a puddle. "It sank at once with mouse and man," as the saying is. There might have been mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper and the laborer's boy. No one saw it but the skimming sea-gulls and the fishes beneath the water; and even they did not see it properly, for they darted back with terror as ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to-day, and Frances gave a little sigh of satisfaction as she looked about her; it was all so warm and beautiful, with a stately sort of beauty that was very impressive. She sat as still as a mouse, listening to the ticking ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... surprise. He could not understand how it was that Jeanne ventured to speak so coolly to the raven—she who in their daylight life was so frightened of him that she would hardly go near him for fear he should turn her into a mouse, or in some other ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... of country mouse," he roared. "Oh, Pope, don't you worry. We'll show you a thing or two, won't ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... very universal fable that tells of the mountain which, having frightened all the countryside by its outcry that it was in labour, was hissed by all present when it brought into the world a mere mouse. The people in the pit were not philosophers. Those who hissed should have admired. It was as fine for the mountain to give birth to a mouse, as for the mouse to give birth to a mountain. A rock which produces a rat is a very prodigious thing; and never has the world seen anything approaching ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... ellerphants and all like that is your graft, I being a keeper in the Mouse House once in the Bronx and seein' you nosin' around like you was full of scientific thinks, it comes to me to write you and put ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... not in a hurry. Slowly he poised the war-club. He was playing as a cat plays with a mouse; he was glorying in his power. The silence was that of death. It signified the silence of death. The war-club descended ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... together, each going his own gait; and not much intercourse, save that of affection, was carried on between them. Harry never would venture to meddle with George's books, and would sit as dumb as a mouse at the lodgings whilst his brother was studying. They removed presently from the Court end of the town, Madame de Bernstein pishing and pshaing at their change of residence. But George took a great fancy to ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, upsetting several jars and spilling their contents. When her master returned and saw the havoc made among his goods he fetched the parrot a blow that knocked out all her head feathers, and from ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Nimble-toes Field-mouse trotted briskly along the dark subway and up the steep attic stairway in Mr. Giant's house. He had travelled a long way from his woodland home and it was getting late. The door of the cosy attic where Cousin Graymouse lived was ajar. Nimble-toes paused to get ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... ways. Didn't they get up an insurrection, only because he wanted them to cut off their beards? Any other man would have lost heart, and given it up years ago. It looks as hopeless a task as for a mouse to drag a mountain, but he is ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... was the little man with the boyish figure, and the round, full, sensitive-looking head, and the quick, full eyes, like a mouse's. He glanced swiftly from one to the other of the ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... of one of our rivers in the eastern part of Massachusetts; but I suspect that fewer small wild animals are prowling there than with us. Twice, however, in this excursion I had a glimpse of a species of large mouse. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... of the liberty pole was the last day of the "exchange visit" of the two little girls, and Anna was now sure that Mrs. Lyon must think her very much like Melvina, for she had learned her daily lessons obediently, and moved about the house as quietly as a mouse. ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... come up from a direction in which it would cut them off, was clearly likely to arrive before the boys could gain the side. At first it seemed, indeed, that their fate was sealed; but the shark, who in many respects resembles a cat with a mouse, and seems to prefer to trifle with its victim to the last, allowed them to get close to the ship; although, by rapid swimming, it could easily have ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... Curly shook his head. "Never did see airy rat or mouse round here, but still, things is happenin' ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... going on, some of the people were sent on shore to shoot pigeons for the sick, and on their return they reported that they had found a stream of fresh water, and had seen several native huts, and an animal as large as a greyhound, of slender form, mouse-coloured, and very swift. The next day Captain Cook himself saw the same animal; it had a long tail, and leaped liked a hare or deer, and the prints of its feet were like those of a goat. For some time afterwards nothing more ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... not only for his own, but his sister's sake, and Maggie would take one of the books, and open it, and run her little fat finger over the page, and move her lips, and make believe that she, too, was studying her lessons and she would keep still as a little mouse, until, after a few minutes of nodding, her eyes would close, then her head would drop on Davy's knee, and she would be off—sound asleep, until it was time ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... and verse, he joined with his friend Prior in writing a burlesque on Dryden's 'Hind and Panther', 'Transversed to the Story of the Country and the City Mouse.' In Parliament in James the Second's reign, he joined in the invitation of William of Orange, and rose rapidly, a self-made man, after the Revolution. In 1691 he was a Lord of the Treasury; in April, 1694, he became Chancellor ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... meaning of it all?" persisted the Washington wire-puller, surveying the Fastburg wire-puller with bland superiority, much as the city mouse may have ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the winter daylight struggled into the room. Balder got up and dressed himself as quietly as a mouse. He seemed as though he was trying to make up for the disturbance he had made in the night, or, rather, in the morning. He excused himself most politely for waking me up, but said that he felt that he could not leave without saying ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... I say," said an old gray Mouse that was thought to be very wise. "Do as I say. Hang a bell to the Cat's neck. Then, when we hear it ring, we shall know that she is coming, and can scamper out of her way." "Good! good!" said all the other Mice; and one ran ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... It had been discovered that any dislike which Moossy may have had to a puppy in his desk, and a frog in his top-cloak pocket, was nothing to the horror with which he regarded mice. As soon as it was known that Moossy would as soon have had a tiger in the French class-room as a mouse upon the loose, it was felt that the study of foreign languages should take a new departure. One morning the boys came in with such punctuality, and settled to their work with such demure diligence, that even Moossy was suspicious and watched them anxiously. For ten minutes ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... so. And when the morning was wet, and the sound of the flails came to her from the barn, she would watch for the moment when her aunt's back would be turned, and then scurry across the yard, like a mouse to its hole; for auntie's first impulse was always to oppose whatever Annie desired. Once in the barn, she would bury herself like a mole in the straw, and listen to the unfailing metronome of the flails, till she would fall so fast asleep as to awake only when her uncomfortable ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... sejest—why don't you give those children some proxitude of iron, my dear—through a knitting-needle? Hark!" continued she, as Prudy scratched the top of the tent with her forefinger. "There's a mouse in this house, Mr. Carter: you must set a trap as quick as ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... hour you said. I heard that you had been down to the office. There was no getting away from you. Let's hear the worst. What are you going to do with me? Arrest me? Speak out, man! You can't sit there and play with me like a cat with a mouse." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in his chamber saw a mouse, And cry'd, dismay'd, "What dost thou in my house?" She, with a laugh, "Good landlord, have no fear, 'Tis not for board, but ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... three are," she sneered. "A King, an Ambassador and a Royal Archduke playing with one poor woman like cats with a mouse. Truly, sirs, you should have lived three hundred years ago. You would have shown rare skill in the torture chambers of ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... you. I shall not need an escort. It's such a little way and I'm used to Green Valley now." But David knew just how afraid this city mouse was of the ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... to think about creating man. He called a council of all the animals. The animals sat in a circle, just as the Indians do, with Lion at the head, in an open space in the forest. On Lion's right was Grizzly Bear; next Cinnamon Bear; and so on to Mouse, ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... now an almost accomplished horsewoman. Under the tutelage of old Pettance, she had been riding steadily round and round those rough fields by the linhay which they called "the wild," her firm brown legs astride of the mouse-coloured pony, her little brown face, with excited, dark eyes, very erect, her auburn crop of short curls flopping up and down on her little straight back. She wanted to be able to "go out riding" with Grandy and Mum and Baryn. And ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wood mouse, sang sometimes as long as nine minutes. Her song usually came forth when she was at play, or exercising in some way. One time she became especially delighted because her wheel squeaked when she turned ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 8, February 22, 1914 • Various
... concerned, as if that was indeed our first realization of the extent of the case against us and the nature of the evidence. But we did not find it difficult. We were all three startled by the fear that in some way he had got wind of our plans, and that he meant to play with us cat-and-mouse fashion. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... uncle by marriage was a Wall Street banker who contributed liberally without prejudice to both political parties. This, however, W.M.P. did not know, and assumed that he was allowed to keep his four-thousand-dollar salary because the county could not get on without him. He was slender, wore a mouse-colored waistcoat, fawn tie and spats, and plastered his hair neatly down on each side of a glossy cranium that was an almost ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... by a long interval of constraint and silence. Mr. Pepper, indeed, created a diversion of a kind by leaping on to his seat, both feet tucked under him, with the action of a spinster who detects a mouse, as the draught struck at his ankles. Drawn up there, sucking at his cigar, with his arms encircling his knees, he looked like the image of Buddha, and from this elevation began a discourse, addressed to nobody, for nobody had called for it, upon the unplumbed depths of ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... to the moralist, to say so much, but that he, laden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself (for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay, having much ado to accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... hat of her own, a green corduroy riding skirt, gray flannel shirt, brilliant neckerchief, boots and spurs. A third picture gave her further practice in riding a real horse,—albeit an extremely docile animal called Mouse with good reason. She became known on the lot as a real cattle-king's daughter, though she did not know the name of her father's brand and in all her life had seen no herd larger than the thirty head of tame cattle which were chased ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... said he, and calmly pointed out in the code the provision to which he had alluded. As Diana read the passage to which his finger pointed, he watched her as a cat watches a mouse. ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... of her crutches on the floor distressed him greatly, Barbara had padded the sharp ends with flannel and was careful to move about as little as possible when he was in the house. She had gone, mouse-like, to her own particular chair while Miriam was hanging up his coat and hat and placing his easy chair near the open fire. He sat down and held his slender hands close to ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... situated as he was to marry for money, and there was no reason why he should not do what others around him did. And so he consented. But now he began to see the matter in another light. He was setting himself down to catch this woman, as a cat sits to catch a mouse. He was to catch her, and swallow her up, her and her child, and her houses and land, in order that he might live on her instead of on his father. There was a cold, calculating, cautious cunning about this quite ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... said. "I wisht ye'd tell me about the Spider an' the Gout though, Misther Clancy. Ah do, an' I'll sit here listenin' as quiet as a mouse." ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... Mr Talbot Hayes, whose ineffable air of being in the confidence of the Almighty—not to mention the whole Hindu Pantheon—was balm to Mrs Elton at this terrifying juncture. For her mountain of flesh hid a mouse of a soul, and her childhood had been shadowed by tales of Mutiny horrors. With her it was almost an obsession. The least unusual uproar at a railway station, or holiday excitement in the bazaar, sufficed to convince her that the hour had ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Brandy." She imitated a camp follower, with one hand on her hip, the elbow arched to indicate the little barrel; and with the other hand she poured out the brandy into space by turning her fist round. She did it so well that the party then begged mother Coupeau to sing "The Mouse." The old woman refused, vowing that she did not know that naughty song. Yet she started off with the remnants of her broken voice; and her wrinkled face with its lively little eyes underlined the allusions, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... account of the long-drawn agony of that terrible time, when two hundred brave fellows lost their lives, was the most graphic. It brought him local renown. It was published as a shilling pamphlet, after it had done duty in the Newcastle Journal, and to his credit he gave, though as poor as a church mouse, the whole of the proceeds—a sum of L40, I think—to the Relief Fund. It was a characteristic act which was not belied by the subsequent generosity of his life. All too soon—for he brought as a young reporter a breezy, new atmosphere into the family circle—he went ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... contrary you are tightening your lips," said Marien, continuing to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse—provided there ever was a cat who, while playing with its mouse, had no intention of crunching it. "You are not merry, you are sad. That is not at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... her to the theatre, to let her see Rosalie, by way of a joke! So, of course, Betty knew of his escapades, and of those of his set; she and her girl friends were whispering and jesting about them. Here sat Oliver, smiling and cynical, toying with Rosalie as a cat might toy with a mouse; and to-morrow he would be with Betty—and could anyone doubt any longer whence Betty had derived her attitude towards life? And the habits of mind that Oliver had taught her as a girl she would not forget as a wife; he might be anxious to keep her to himself, ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair |
