"Owl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sagely, "is like any other sin, it's only sinful when it is. That's elementary sophistry, but I invented it, and I'm strong for it. Besides, we've got just twenty minutes now to get aboard the Owl—and I've got to beg, borrow, or buy transportation on it, because there wasn't a room left but the two I bought for you and me—and now Adele will have to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the lake there is an island covered with trees and nut bushes; and amongst those trees stands a hollow oak-tree, which is the house of an owl who is called ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... smitten the heretics of our times, was never found fault with. How finely, how, clearly, has Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto pointed out beforehand the power of Antichrist, the times of Luther! They call him, therefore, "a most babyish writer, an owl." Cyprian, the delight and glory of Africa, that French critic Caussee, and the Centuriators of Magdeburg, have termed "stupid, God-forsaken corrupter of repentance." What harm has he done? He has written On Virgins, On the ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... home to my regular bed!" said Sue. "This tent is all right, but a owl might bite through it. You'd better ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... "Wisdom from the young owl!" laughed Amy. "Well, I don't suppose, after all, it is any of our business, or ever will be. The poor thing is now a captive and being borne away to the dungeon-keep. Whatever that is," she added, ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... he is!—"Hope the mother's doing well? My card":—eh? Grave as an owl! Look, there goes the donkey, lady to right and left, all ears for him—ha! ha! I must have another turn with your friend. "Mother lived, did she?" Dam funny fellow, all of the olden time! And a dinner, bachelor dinner, six of us, at my place, next week, say ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Kongros stood forth with all her pinnacles, and the winged figure of Poesy carved upon the eastern portal of her gate, and the squat figure of Avarice carved facing it upon the west; and the bat began to tire of going up and down her streets, and already the owl was home. And the dark lions went up out of the plain back to their caves again. Not as yet shone any dew upon the spider's snare nor came the sound of any insects stirring or bird of the day, and full allegiance all the valleys ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small fire of buttonwood. Leaning my back against a stalwart pine, I watched the shadows stealing through our avenue of trees. Somewhere above my head a whistling owl, one of those lovable little feathered cavaliers that showers his mate with unstinted adulation, fluttered and courted. Later the mournful call of a whooping crane ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... I was nearly gone. Just then a warrior came up. This was Red Owl's son, He ran up, put his gun to the volunteer's side and fired. The ball passed through the man and killed him. I had my arm around the waist of the man when the shot was fired, and the ball, after going through the ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... brother?" asked the old friar, in a high, wheezing voice. "Whence comest thou, and whither art thou going?" And he winked and blinked at stout Friar Tuck like an owl at the sun. ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... this species of Owl has been appropriately called, appears to be peculiar to America. They are quite scarce in the south, but above the Falls of the Ohio they increase in number, and are numerous in Virginia, Maryland, and all the eastern districts. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... is quiet, give an owl's cry thrice, and a friend will bring him. He will warn the king against his Grand Constable; he will praise Tristan, applaud Olivier, and commend Messire Noel ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... these anxious periods of listening, she thought she detected the barking of old Hecla, but was not certain. Perhaps it was only the wind playing pranks upon her overwrought nerves, or the hooting of an owl. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... Reaching the terrace, she went out and called softly, but there was no answer, nor could she hear any sound. The night was not cold now, but the breeze chilled her a little, and just then the melancholy cry of a screech owl pierced the air, and she ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... a red gown never trembled that way under a bed unless there was something living inside of it." When the witch-girl heard this her fright increased, so that, to make matters worse, she pulled her gown in under the bed, upon which Clara kneeled down, lifted the coverlet, and found the owl in its nest. Now she had to creep out weeping and howling, and promised to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Owl's Head,—a watering-place, terminating a point of land, six or seven miles from Thomaston. A long island shuts out the prospect of the sea. Hither coasters and fishing-smacks run in when a storm is anticipated. Two fat landlords, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... York City, the sort of places that get themselves called "quaint." No one else manages the affairs of young lovers (on paper) with quite so much of the airy spirit of young love. I can think of no one else who could write such a scene as that in The Owl Taxi, where the dead-wagon, on its way in the night to the vast cemetery in a New York suburb, is held up for the removal of a much-needed corpse. Such material is bizarre. The handling of it must be very deft or the result will be revolting; and yet the thing can be done. In the latter ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the same, and that the deil's got into 'em," said Captain Gillespie gravely, wrinkling up his nose so much and nodding his head, and looking so like an old owl in the bright light of the moon which had rapidly risen, and was already shining with all the fulness and brilliancy it has in these southern latitudes, that it was as much as I could do to keep from bursting out laughing and so betraying ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... never got farther than Noah, at which stage their questions became so searching as to completely confound me; and as no one likes being confounded, and it is especially regrettable when a parent is placed in such a position, I brought the course to an abrupt end by assuming that owl-like air of wisdom peculiar to infallibility in a corner, and telling them that they were too young to understand these things for the present; and they, having a touching faith in the truth of every word I say, gave three contented little purrs of ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... among the branches of the trees on every hand during their descent of the western slope. Ravens croaked and called from the heart of the forest, and the owl flitted by on silent wing. Black birds with orange heads and throats and splashed with scarlet on their wings, greeted them at the foot of the mountain among the reeds which grew along the stream they were following. Deer broke from the willow copse and bounded ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... lost on the thick purple carpet under the amber light, all too brilliant for her. She had come from a world of darkness, owl-like she must blink before the blaze. Some one came forward to her, some one so kind and comforting, so easy and unsurprised that Maggie suddenly felt herself steadied as though a friend had put an arm around her. Before she had ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... creatures of sunlight seek their rest, a new realm of life awakens into being. The flaring colours and loud bustle of the day fade and are lost, and in their place come soft, gray tones and silence. The scarlet tanager seeks some hidden perch and soon from the same tree slips a silent, ghostly owl; the ruby of the hummingbird dies out as the gaudy flowers of day close their petals, and the gray wraiths of sphinx moths appear and sip nectar ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the figure under the group, although horned, bears but slight resemblance to an owl; yet, comparing the marks on the tail with those of two of the birds on Plate XVIII* of the Manuscript Troano, I think ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... problem. "Some fellows have a gift for collecting Toby jugs. Everywhere they go they discover a Toby jug. I couldn't find one if I tried for a year. It's the same thing. At Cambridge they used to call me the Owl." ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... gave a faint giggle, as if he would like to join in if he only had the strength to do it. But his legs shook under him, and he felt a queer dizziness; so he could only hold on to Sancho, and blink at the light like a young owl. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... no owl staring at me, either," he said to himself, as he caught the singular glow of what seemed like two balls of fire, just under the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... Ambition-fired once on a day He took himself to flight, And in a castle all decay He nestled out of sight. "O why," said he, "should mind like mine "Midst gosling-flock be lost? "In learning I was meant to shine!" And up his bill he tossed. "I'll hide," said he, "and in the dark "I'll like an owl cry out ("In wisdom owls are birds of mark), "And none shall find me out!" And so from turret hooted he At all he saw and heard; Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! What melody! And what a silly bird! At length a Starling which had flown ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Europe and in the Alps. But I will not weary you; but I really and truly think your last objection is not so strong as it looks at first. You never make an objection without doing me much good. Hurrah! a seed has just germinated after 21 1/2 hours in owl's stomach. This, according to ornithologists' calculation, would carry it God knows how many miles; but I think an owl really might go in storm in this time ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... along, was telling me more of her strange country, pointing out birds or flowers and naming them to me. "Now that," she said, pointing to a small grey owl who sat reflective on a floating log we were approaching—"that is a bird of omen; cover your face and look away, for it is not ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... collection of several spiders and of some larvae. The spider, it appears, is an "undescribed species of Erigone," and the larvae are probably lepidopterous. A small shrike was also secured as a specimen. We saw several species of gulls, a snowy owl—which by the way was very shy—a few lemmings, and the tracks of ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... take wing. These birds are the bane of sportsmen, and frequently put me into a passion, and obliged me to shoot them, (Adanson's Voyage to Senegal, 78). For the same intent the lesser birds of our climate seem to fly after a hawk, cuckoo, or owl, and scream to prevent their companions from being surprised by the general enemies of themselves, or ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... surface, which is naturally exposed to the light, being darker than the lower which is in shadow. When the caterpillar is large, the green area is often broken up by pale lines, longitudinal as on the larvae of many Owl Moths (Noctuidae) or oblique, as on the great caterpillars of most Hawk Moths (Sphingidae). Such an arrangement tends to make the insect less easily seen than were it to display a continuous area of the same colour. ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... observed in the open air. I have collected materials with indefatigable pertinacity. I have gathered glow-worms in the evening, and snails in the morning; I have seen the daisy close and open, I have heard the owl shriek at midnight, and hunted insects in the heat ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... have seen the goddess, descending from the Acropolis with an owl perched upon her helmet; on your head she was pouring out ambrosia, on ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... head of owl, Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, Feathered and ruffled in every part, Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Pushed and pulled up the rocky ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... awakened suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... forever must be filled. It is not by any amount of material splendor or prosperity, but only by moral greatness, by ideas, by works of imagination, that a race can conquer the future. No voice comes to us from the once mighty Assyria but the hoot of the owl that nests amid her crumbling palaces. Of Carthage, whose merchant-fleets once furled their sails in every port of the known world, nothing is left but the deeds of Hannibal. She lies dead on the shore of her once subject sea, and the wind ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... writes that even the Syracusans made no account of Gylippus, at the first sight mocking at his staff and long hair, as afterwards they found reason to blame his covetousness and meanness. The same author, however, adds that on Gylippus's first appearance, as it might have been at the sight of an owl abroad in the air, there was a general flocking together of men to serve in the war. And this is the truer saying of the two; for in the staff and the cloak they saw the badge and authority of Sparta, and crowded to him accordingly. And not only Thucydides affirms that the whole thing was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the "paper of questions," "Why did Mr. Pickwick wear circular spectacles?" Was there any local weakness? The artist never forgot this direction. In the author of the Tittlebatian system, &c., the "circular spectacles" would impart a sort of wise and owl-like stare. It was, of course, due to Chapman, the publisher, and was ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... warrior turned in that direction, but ere he could fetch his light to bear upon the right spot, Ixtli sprung forth to the rescue, hooting like a frightened owl, as he dashed the light to earth, and, at the same time, deftly tripping ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... our own, were made. Maffitt, in command of the "Owl" crossed the Western Bar a night or two after the fall of Fort Fisher, and while our troops were evacuating Fort Caswell and other military stations along the river. Crossing the bar, and suspecting no danger, he continued on his way up to Smithville, where ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... from trouble—and I have no recollection of exchanging a word for more than an hour. We merely continued to pull sturdily against the downward rush of the stream, the deep silence of the night broken only by the dripping of uplifted blades, or the occasional far-off hooting of an owl upon the bank to our left. The pressure of the river's current was scarcely perceptible close against the shore, so we made fair progress. Yet it was hard work, neither of us being accustomed to such exercise, the heavy oars feeling awkward to the hand. The grim uncertainty of the future, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Having approved of the plan the king put it into execution. Satan incensed with indignation stood unterrified. My friend seeing me in need offered his services. James being weary with his journey sat down on the wall. The owl hid in the tree hooted ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... look like an owl! I thought it was nothing less than a stuffed owl coming in. Why can't you wear your hat? That would hide your crown and your ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... star, Lingering and listening, wander'd down the vale. There would he dream of graves, and corses pale, And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng, And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail, Till silenced by the owl's terrific song, Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... been scant time to tell you my life's story. We have had other cats to whip. Yes, I was a play-actor once, and played for great poets, for men whose names have never tickled your ears. But the owl-public would have none of me, and, owllike, hooted me off the boards. But I've had my revenge of them. I've played a devil's part on the devil's stage for thirty red years. ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he acknowledges it!" roared the magician. "Wretch, dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard! I have no reason to tell thee now that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that cowards turn pale, that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It is not thy fault that thou art thus ungainly: but wherefore so blind? wherefore so ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be the most valuable scouts we could have," said the young officer. "They would be more useful than aeroplanes in locating the enemy's gun-positions. A properly reliable owl would come back and say that a German patrol was out in the wheatfield at such a point and a machine-gun ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... soon as we got in Miss Howard told us to put books away; then she gave us the breeziest lecture and was as solemn as an owl. I couldn't imagine what was up. Susie Darrow was crying with her handkerchief to her nose, Kat looked as if she was sitting on pins and needles, and I really thought that Sadie Brooks and May Moor would eat us up, the way they actually ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Chinamen, Malays, Seedee boys, and all them sort of animals. Laff? You should ha' seen me standing up in the boat, hollerin' at Sartoris, and laffin' so as I couldn't hardly keep me feet. 'Sartoris,' I says, 'when do the animals feed?' An' he looks over the rail, just like a stuffed owl in a glass case, and says nothing. I took a bottle from the boat's locker, and held it up. 'What wouldn't you give for a drop o' that!' I shouts. But he shook his fist, and said something disrespectful about port ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Like an owl in an ivy bush; a simile for a meagre or weasel-faced man, with a large wig, or very ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... of the village began to come one by one to the spring. Joe Lake made friendly and joking remarks to each. And as each one passed on down the path he poised a biscuit in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and with his head cocked sidewise like an owl he said, "Reckon I've got to get me a ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... uproar—tree-frogs, crickets, goat-suckers, and owls all joining to perform a deafening concert. One kind of goat- sucker kept repeating at intervals throughout the night a phrase similar to the Portuguese words, "Joao corta pao,"—"John, cut wood"— a phrase which forms the Brazilian name of the bird. An owl in one of the Genipapa trees muttered now and then a succession of syllables resembling the word "Murucututu." Sometimes the croaking and hooting of frogs and toads were so loud that we could not hear one another's voices within doors. Swarms of dragonflies appeared ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... himself at a soft, purring noise, a shadowy fluttering in the air. Graylock's animal flew past him, settled on its master's shoulder, turned to stare at Dasinger and Egavine. Dasinger looked at the yellow owl-eyes, the odd little tube of a mouth, continued to Egavine, "Ask him where the haul was ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory! Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, 20 And golden keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry. But wherefore this? What care, though owl did fly About the great Athenian admiral's mast? What care, though striding Alexander past The Indus with his Macedonian numbers? Though old Ulysses tortured from his slumbers The glutted Cyclops, what care?—Juliet ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... and motley family lived here in cages and hutches of all kinds, generally made out of old packing-cases. There was a large colony of white rats, two dormice named Paul and Silas, a jackdaw, rabbits, and a little yellow owl, not to mention the pigeons who fluttered in and out through the open door at will. They came whirling round Bridget now as she entered and settled on her shoulders and head, and pecked boldly at her shoes expecting to be fed. All the different little ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... heads waved many a poplar, many an elm tree, while close at hand the sacred water from the nymphs' own cave welled forth with murmurs musical. On shadowy boughs the burnt cicalas kept their chattering toil, far off the little owl cried in the thick thorn brake, the larks and finches were singing, the ring-dove moaned, the yellow bees were flitting about the springs. All breathed the scent of the opulent summer, of the season of fruits; pears at our feet and apples by our sides ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... it be and may it mean so; for never come you here but to stir in me anger or mourning. Ever were you the screech owl or the Osprey that boded ill when you spoke of Tristan; what ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... our board. I was too sleepy to see much of you after your arrival last night. Mine eyes blinked like those of an owl. Kiss me, wife and daughter," he added, giving the ladies a salute that resounded through the room. "Have they told you yet about our ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... konturo, skizo. outrage : perfort'ajxo, -i. oval : ovalo, ovoforma. oven : forno. overall : kitelo, supervesto. overcoat : palto. overlook : esplori, pardoni, malatenti. overseer : laborestro, kontrolisto, vokto. overtake : kuratingi. overturn : renversi. owe : sxuldi. owing to : pro, kauxze de. owl : strigo, gufo. own : propra; posedi; konfesi. ox ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... the library yesterday with holly, and crowned plaster-of-Paris Sappho with laurels, and Mrs. Hope's picture with myrtle (i.e. box), and perched a great stuffed owl in an ivy bush on the top of a great screen which shades the sofa by the fire from the window at its back. I am excessively happy to be at home again, after my four months' absence at ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... exclaimed, as he strode away after the encounter; "'tis the ugliest yet. A yellow-faced girl brat, with eyes like an owl's in an ivy-bush, and with a voice like a very peacocks. Another mawking, plain slut that no man will ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was there to help with the singin', as a matter of course, and he begun to git mightily interested in Babtist doctrines. Used to go home with 'em after church and talk about Greek and Hebrew words till the clock struck twelve. And one communion Sunday he got up solemn as a owl and marched out o' church jest before the bread and wine was passed. Made out like he warn't sure he'd been rightly babtized. The choir was mightily tickled at the idea o' gittin' shed o' the old pest, and Sam Crawford ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... Poiriers, that the four Chouan brothers were born to Pierre Cottereau and Jeanne Moyne. One of their ancestors, a misanthropical woodcutter, a morose peasant, kept himself aloof from the other peasants as the chat-huant (screech-owl) keeps aloof from the other birds; hence the name ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... back to the cab, and then that old joker comes out slowly. I hadn't noticed him inside. I hadn't expected to see anybody. It gave me a start. She says: 'My father—Mr Franklin.' He was staring at me like an owl. 'How do you do, sir?' says I. Both of them looked funny. It was as if something had happened to them on the way. Neither of them moved, and I stood by waiting. The captain showed himself on the poop; and I saw him at the side looking over, and then he disappeared; on the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... boys then jumped and began beating up the sacks violently. But as suddenly, a pair of wings flapped up in their faces with a whirring sound, and a barn-owl began to screech madly as she rose and flew through a ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... "We're the owl and the pussy-cat who went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat, 'With plenty of honey and lots of money, wrapped up in a ten-pound note.' Some day when we've settled down in our Harlem flat, and I'm working hard, we'll look back on this and consider ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the liquor, warmed ale; and I paid the scot. Towards midnight Sergeant Inch had so far forgot his rancour as to strike up his song of Robin and the Night Owl—'Robin,' I should explain, being the Earl of Essex, and the 'Night Owl' our own general, so nicknamed ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... niver stirs out o' Liver Lane, Paul's is stuck fast in Kidney Close, Kinyon's in Mookis Membrin Mews, and Hibbard's in Lung Passage. Look see! nixt time y' are out of sorts, stid o' consultin' three bats an' a n'owl at a guinea the piece, send direct to me, and I'll give y' all their opinions, and all their prescriptions, gratis. And deevilich dear ye'll find 'em at the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... along the line. Not a sign of life was visible. The tiny mounds in the villages of the prairie-dogs seemed blocked and frozen; even the trusty sentinel had "deserted post" and huddled with his fellows for warmth and shelter in the bowels of the earth. Fluttering owl and skulking coyote, too, had vanished from the face of nature. Timid antelope—fleetest coursers of the prairie—and stolid horned cattle had gone, none knew whither, nor cared to know until the "blizzard" had ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... does just as well for them as another: your cousin Sophy bothers me to build an Elizabethan pigsty, and wanted her poor mother to dance with the butler in the servants' hall last Christmas, when the fellow was as drunk as an owl: I hope it mayn't end in her figuring off herself with the footman; for Sophy is rather a pet of mine, and a right-down English girl after all. But, Frank, if you can't read in peace in the library, you surely could have a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Jedge Owl 's so pompious on 'is limb, You'd s'pose dey was nobody roun' but him; He's afeard ef he was too polite You'd ax 'im whar he spent de night. But he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— But he ain't ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... discrimination still lives in tepee of the Cree and Eskimo topik. The North is full of rivers, the cold bottle is always at your disposal, and generally, if you are any shot at all, you can get the hot bird. But this son of a thousand earls, or of something else, wouldn't eat owl when owl was served, though he would eat crow. Now, eating crow is to most a distasteful task, and the guides questioned the Englishman regarding the gastronomic line he drew. "Aw!" replied he, "No fellow eats owl, you know. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... recognize these sounds with unfailing accuracy, or at least 90 per cent. of the time, then other sounds can be added, such as aw (a with diaresis below), (a with breve) (as in hat), (i with macron) (as in ice), oo (as in cool), ow (as in owl). Using these sounds at different pitches, and with different intensities and distances, a sufficiently accurate estimate can be formed of the degree of his hearing power so far as his present needs ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... northern territories of Canada—from the basin of Lake Winnipeg, with its white pelicans, to the Arctic circle—swarm with birds, wild swans, geese, ducks, plovers, grouse, cranes, eagles, owls of several kinds—especially the great snowy eagle-owl—red-breasted thrushes, black and white snow-buntings, scarlet grosbeaks (the female green and grey), crested jays, and ravens "of a beautiful glossy black, richly tinged with purple", but smaller in size than ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... "damsels bright," and "maidens mild?" That celebrated town was no other than our modern Leslie; and, though we cannot say that that once favoured haunt of the satyrs of merrymaking has escaped the dull blight that comes from the sleepy eye of the owl of modern wisdom, we have good authority for asserting that long after James celebrated the place for its unrivalled festivities, the character of the inhabitants was kept for many an after-day; and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... night there was plenty of danger. There was Mr. Owl to be watched out for, and other night prowlers. In fact, little Mr. Squirrel didn't feel safe on the ground a minute, and so he kept to the trees as much as possible. Of course, when the branches of one tree reached ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... as drunk as a piper, drunk as an owl, drunk as David's sow, drunk as a lord, fuddled as an ape, merry as a grig, happy ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... owl in one of the trees began to call. I knew what it was for Mustagan had taught me. At first Roddy said it was ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... cautiously all about him, inserted the key in the lock, an owl hooted dismally almost immediately above our heads. I caught my breath sharply, for it might be a signal; but, looking upward, I saw a great black shape float slantingly from the tree beyond the studio into the coppice on the right which hemmed in the Gables. Silently the owl ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... coat of white drill with frogging across the front such as Chinese mess boys wear; and a battered, rimless straw hat. He drew near the table with weary feet, hesitatingly and dazed, as though he had lost his way, peering about like an owl thrust into the light of ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... forgot him," laughed Elliott. "What a queer bird you are, Braith, squatting over there as silent as a stuffed owl!" ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... of very dark colour and white on the thorax, head, shoulders, and back wings next the body. The big eyes, quite the largest of any moth I remember, reminded me of owl eyes in the light. The antennae, dark, grey-brown on top, and white on the under side, turned back and drooped beside the costa, no doubt in the position they occupied ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "The Appeal to the Dead," that Barres, like an owl perched on a cypress in a graveyard, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... the progression of the mother's song to her babe, other than declaring lullabies to be about as old as babies, a statement which recalls to mind an old story, entitled "The Owl's Advice to an ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... America. Amethyst Hummingbird West Indies, Cent, and S. America. Resplendent Trogon, several species Central America. Cock-of-the-Rock South America. Macaw South America. Toucan South America. Emu Australia. Sun-Bird East Indies. Owl All unprotected regions. Kingfisher All unprotected regions. Jabiru Stork South America. Albatross All unprotected regions. Tern, all species All unprotected regions. Gull, all ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... glory, shines less brightly through the murky shadows of the century than he that made a nobler conquest of himself. The haughty empires one did rear have long since crumbled into dust; the wild goat browses in their deserted capitals, the lizard sleeps upon their broken thrones, and the owl hoots from their forgotten altars and ruined fanes; but the philosophy of the other lives on from age to age, to point the folly of such mad rainbow-chasing as that of him who thought to ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... bound, and the fire he had stolen from heaven lay imbedded in the flints of his rock. For so costly was the mould in which Uncle Jack and the Anti-Publisher Society had contrived to cast this exposition of Human Error that every bookseller shied at its very sight, as an owl blinks at daylight, or human error at truth. In vain Squills and I, before we left London, had carried a gigantic specimen of the Magnum Opus into the back parlors of firms the most opulent and adventurous. Publisher after publisher started, as if we had held a blunderbuss to his ear. All ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... three of us then, unincumbered, walked to Stamford. Here Grady lived, and he wished us to go to a barn, and said he would bring us something to eat; but McGuire and I thought it best to go back to New York as soon as possible; so we got aboard a freight train for Norwalk and took the Owl, a midnight train, from there. Going to New York we sat in different parts of the car and did not speak. The train stopped for some reason or other at One Hundred and Twentieth street, and there McGuire and I ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... dignified poise, on a pair of wide, flat shoulders. His chest was broad and swelling, his limbs straight, muscular, and strong. His eyes were large, round, and blue. When his mind was in a state of repose and his countenance at rest, they had a solemn, owl-like expression. But when in an excited, observant mood, they were keen and searching; and human orbs surely never expressed more rollicking fun than did his, in his hours of recreation. He had a habit of darting them around a wide circle ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... the Sheriff, The egg-nogs gethered him in; And Shelby's boy Leviticus Was, New Year's, tight as sin; And along in March the Golyers Got so drunk that a fresh-biled owl Would 'a' looked 'longside o' them two young men, Like ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... ears at intervals, while the unfamiliar music of rustling branches and whispering leaves filled the souls of these two little travellers with a feeling of awe and vague alarm. Nevertheless they kept moving on, on; now stumbling over a fallen branch, again shrinking in terror as a great soft owl flitted slowly by, or hooted solemnly right above ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... chapel last night I riz up and hoorayed till my wife shut the windows. She said the neighbors all thought I was loony, anyhow, and I needn't prove it to 'em. He, he! But Elkanah ain't got any funny bone. He's as solemn as a stuffed owl, and he'll—Well, I'm goin' to put MY oar in. I'm parish committee, too, I cal'late, and I've got somethin' to say, even if I wa'n't christened Daniels. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Smith instructions to stay where he was unless he heard the hooting of an owl. If the call came once he was to advance very quietly; if twice, as fast as he could cover ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... may toss and turn; His leaden lids shall he ne'er unclose So long as that magical taper glows. Life and treasures shall he command Who knoweth the charm of the Glorious Hand! But of black cat's gall let him aye have care, And of screech-owl's venomous ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to the place where was the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd. "Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, here is an embassy from Arthur; knowest thou aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken after three nights from his mother?" "If I knew I would tell you. When first I came hither, the wide valley you see was a wooded ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... spelled out his message, telling that he suspected that at least two Germans were trailing him. And at the end he signalled a request that if he had understood, Greene should wait a half minute and then imitate an owl's cry. He chose an owl because he had heard one or two earlier in the night. And he added that if he got the signal he would keep on heading for the monoplane. He suggested nothing to Greene; the rest was decidedly up to the aviator. Frank had ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... Creatures derive their Sight from this Original, who, besides his being the great Director of Opticks, is the surest Test whether Eyes be of the same Species with that of an Eagle, or that of an Owl: The one he emboldens with a manly Assurance to look, speak, act or plead before the Faces of a numerous Assembly; the other he dazzles out of Countenance into a sheepish Dejectedness. The Sun-Proof Eye dares lead up a Dance in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... clear daylight to make them. More than once Miss Charity started back in fright, and Miss Hope, who was stronger, shook so with nervousness that she found it difficult to walk. Betty, too, was much overwrought, and it is probable that if either a jack rabbit or a white owl had crossed the path of the three there would have been instant flight. However, they saw nothing more alarming than their own shadows and a few harmless little insects that the glow of ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... tree was full of giant birds. Every now and then, one would sweep through, with a great noise. But, except an occasional chirp, sounding like a shrill pipe in a great organ, they made no noise. All at once an owl began to hoot. He thought he was singing. As soon as he began, other birds replied, making rare game of him. To their astonishment, the children found they could understand every word they sang. And what they said was ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... myriads of wooings that are carried on in the fastnesses of his green woods, sounded a long, low, guttural groan that rose to a blood-curdling shriek, from the branches just above the head of the moon-mad man and girl. For an instrument he used the throat of an enraged old hoot-owl, perturbed by the intrusion of the noise of the distant hunt and the low-voiced conversation ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sound—their breathing—I told you at the time that I heard something stirring in the closet. But you had your answer. For an experienced man, Munro, you are duller than an owl by daylight." ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... breath of a sleeping child, and then, as they lisped from the soft, tender leaves of beeches and maples, like the half-articulate whisper of the mother hushing all the intrusive sounds that might awaken it. Then came the pulsating monotone of the frogs from a far-off pool, the harsh cry of an owl from an old tree that overhung it, the splash of a mink or musquash, and nearer by, the light step of a woodchuck, as he cantered off in his quiet way to his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to bore the holes for the blasting powder that should scatter it to the winds, and let death and destruction, and the wild sea howling in upon Scaurnose, that the cormorant and the bittern might possess it, the owl and the raven dwell in it? But it would be seen what their husbands and fathers would say to it when they came home! In the meantime they must themselves do what they could. What were they men's wives for, if not to act for their husbands when ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... duchess' lodgings. There 's some stratagem In the confining all our courtiers To their several wards: I must have part of it; My intelligence will freeze else. List, again! It may be 'twas the melancholy bird, Best friend of silence and of solitariness, The owl, that screamed so.—Ha! Antonio! ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... had been of such value to Grant. All about them was rough, hilly country, almost wholly covered with brushwood and tall forest. There were three deep creeks, given significant names by the pioneers. Lick Creek flowed to the south of them into the Tennessee, and Owl Creek to the north sought the same destination. A third, Snake Creek, was lined with deep and impassable swamps to its very ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and midges, Now the tired planes drone homeward through the haze, And distant wood-fires wink behind the ridges, And the first flare some timorous Hun betrays; Now no shell circulates, but all men brood Over their evening food; The bats flit warily and owl and rat With muffled cries their shadowy loves pursue, And pleasant, Corporal, it is to chat In this hushed moment with a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... fairies, how they were to employ themselves while she slept. "Some of you," said her Majesty, "must kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, and some wage war with the bats for their leathern wings, to make my small elves coats; and some of you keep watch that the clamorous owl, that nightly boots, come not near me: but first sing me to sleep." Then they began ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... on the wet grass where it had fallen. There was a half-framed accusing thought that he might have gone for it; but she put the thought away; the time had passed for courtesies from him. When she stooped for the shawl, an owl flew viciously at her, snapping its bill close to her face and stirring the air with its wings. Unnerved, she ran back into the porch, but stopped there ashamed and looking kindly toward the tree in which ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... owl's nest.' He put his knee on a jutting smooth piece of grey stone, and reached his hand into a deep window slit—broad to the inside of the tower, and narrowing like ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... It was even as I had seen it on first arriving, save that now a clear moonlight rested on it, instead of the doubtful twilight. The ivy was black against the white light, the empty doorway yawned like a toothless mouth, and the round eye above looked blindness on us. As I gazed, a white owl came from within, and blinked at us over the curve. Yvon started, thinking it a spirit, perhaps; but I laughed, and taking off my hat, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... sister?" asked Eustace Bright. "If I had thought of it sooner, I would have described her as a maiden lady, who kept a pet owl!" ...
— The Gorgon's Head - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cottage, and increasing in size and brilliancy as it neared the earth, until the wooded ridge and the shore could be seen as distinctly from the ship-deck as by day. A dog howled piteously from one of the out-houses,—an owl whooped from the wood. The meteor descended until it almost touched the roof, when a cock crew from within; its progress seemed instantly arrested; it stood still, rose about the height of a ship's mast, and then began ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... "We scared an owl in the ravine," related the boy. "That was fun! It began to fly about and struck against a tree—bang! It even began to squeak so pitifully. And we scared it again; again it rose and flew about here and there, and again it struck against something, so that its feathers were coming out. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... the discovery of Mark's true position was not one of unmixed sorrow—the knowledge that he was, after all, an ordinary being, one of themselves, had its consolations, particularly as no lustre from his glorification had shone on them. Mr. Ashburn felt less like an owl who had accidentally hatched a cherub, than he had done lately, and his wife considered that a snare and a pitfall had been removed from her son's path. Cuthbert thought his elder brother a fool, but probably had never felt more amiable towards him, while Martha ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Death, thou art joint-twin To sweetest Slumber! no rough-bearded comet Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse wolf Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, Whilst horror ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... the ever obliging, was here unwilling to oblige. "Shall the owl croak the notes of the nightingale?" he asked, extending his open palms in a gesture of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... burning with a desire to see his way out, Peter began to hear strange sounds. Strangest of all, and most fearsome, was a hissing that came and went, sometimes very near to him, and always accompanied by a grating noise that curdled his blood. Twice after that he saw the shadow of the great owl as it swooped over him, and he flattened himself down, the knot in his throat growing bigger and more choking. And then he heard the soft and uncanny movement of huge feathered bodies in the thick ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... Who are you?" asked an owl, blinking his eyes at the brightness of her face; and a little rabbit, startled by the sound, sprang from its hiding place in the bushes and ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... you lie back on those cushions?" she asked one morning when we were out in her boat. "You ought to be dozing half the day—and instead you're as wide awake as an owl." ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... younger one take his seat at the luncheon table. But now they spoke of a raid on the settlement to procure "grub," as the American slang for food has it. Bidding me stop on there and to utter the cry of the great horned owl if danger threatened, they stealthily crept toward the buildings of the camp. Presently came a scream, followed by a hoarse shout of rage. A second later the two dashed by me into the dense woods, Hawk Eye bearing a plucked fowl. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... from the wide meadow come we into a close of corn, and then into an orchard-close beyond it. There in the ancient walnut-tree the owl sitteth breathing hard in the night-time; but thou shalt not hear him for the joy of the nightingales singing from the apple-trees of the close. Then from out of the shadowed orchard shall we come into the open ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... went into the owl-room again, and stood there silently a long, long time. Then he stole back again toward the library door, but caught a glimpse of that old, motionless shoe through the doorway as he came near. Then he spied ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... he had left the Chouan, Marche-a-Terre, who had seen with apparent indifference the various movements of the commander, but who was now watching with extraordinary intelligence the two soldiers in the woods to the right, suddenly gave the shrill and piercing cry of the chouette, or screech-owl. The three famous smugglers already mentioned were in the habit of using the various intonations of this cry to warn each other of danger or of any event that might concern them. From this came the nickname of "Chuin" which means chouette or owl in the dialect of that region. This corrupted ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... fern enchanted, Where but tempered spirits rule; Stars do not trace their mystic lines In my confines; I take a double night within my breast A night of darkened heavens, a night of leaves, And in the two-fold dark I hear the owl Puff at his velvet horn And the wolves howl. Even daylight comes with a touch of gold Not overbold, And shows dwarf-cornel and the twin-flowers, Below the balsam bowers, Their tints enamelled in my dew-drop shield. Too small even for a thirsty ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... very dark, but the old man was familiar with his menagerie out there on the parapet; he loved his stone monsters—the owl, the griffin, the gorgon, and stroked them every time that he passed them. But the creature with a man's body, goat's feet and horns, inspired him with a certain awe, as it stood there leaning on its hands like a priest, and bending forward as if to preach to the godless city or ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... first twenty years of his London life, in what he called "the Devil's oven," he is constantly clamouring to return to the den. His wife, more and more forlorn though ever loyal, consistently disliked it; little wonder, between sluttish maid-servants and owl-like solitude: and she expressed her dislike in the pathetic verses, "To a Swallow Building under our Eaves," sent to Jeffrey ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... horse at the gate and was on the point of riding forth when Jim came up. "Why, good-morning, James," the old gentleman heartily greeted him. "Have you just crawled out of that old man's kennel? I see that the old owl must have kept you up all night. Why, sir, if I were to listen to him I'd never get another wink ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... one will henceforth come from a mind that does not in outlook transcend the region on which it is focused. That is not to imply that the processes of evolution have brought all parts of the world into such interrelationships that a writer cannot depict the manners and morals of a community up Owl Hoot Creek without enmeshing them with the complexities of the Atlantic Pact. Awareness of other times and other wheres, not insistence on that awareness, is the requisite. James M. Barrie said that he could ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... and the detective was on the alert in a moment. It was a well-known signal. Was the owl a feathered one or ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... feather is now to be seen, save the ubiquitous paddy-bird. Jungles, where a pig was a certain find, only now contain a measly jackal, and not always that; and cover in which partridge, quail, and sometimes even florican were numerous, are now only tenanted by the great ground-owl, or a colony of field rats. I am far from wishing to limit sport to the European community. I would let every native that so wished sport his double barrels or handle his spear with the best of us, but he should follow and indulge in his sport with ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... every bush or spoke in every sound! The faint creak of a tree as the night wind stirred the branches; the rustle of leaves on the ground or the breaking of a twig as some prowling animal moved about; the flight of a bird, disturbed at its rest; the hoot of an owl on the hillside or the croak of a frog in the swamp were all magnified tenfold by the half-darkness and the sense of danger near. One end of his beat ended at the brook and here he waited longest, for the sentry he met there ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... wild, and drear, Doth this gaping gulf appear! It seems the hue of hell to wear. The bellowing thunder bursts yon clouds, The moon with blood has stained her light! What forms are those in misty shrouds, That stalk before my sight? And now, hush! hush! The owl is hooting in yon bush; How yonder oak-tree's blasted arms Upon me seem to frown! My heart recoils, but all alarms Are vain: fate ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... the dogs are found in frantic excitement around the foot of a tree, in whose shadowy foliage something is supposed to be hidden. Will it be a 'coon, or will it turn out a 'possum, a wild-cat, or mayhap an owl? ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... like an owl in the sudden glare. "Good even to you, comrades! Hola! a woman, by my soul!" and in an instant he had clipped Dame Eliza round the waist and was kissing her violently. His eye happening to wander upon the maid, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... melancholy as an owl of late,' retorted Mab, caressing the old lady; 'ever since the arrest of that man Mosk she has ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... wilderness blotted him out for the time. The little wild animals scurried through the grass or ran up trees. In the far distance an owl hooted solemnly at nothing, and he slept the mighty sleep ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of owl's light that has no distinctness in it, and yet is far removed from darkness. Vera's perfect figure, clad in some white, clinging garment that fell about her in thick, heavy folds, stood out with a statue-like clearness against the dark shrubs behind her. She seemed like some ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... quiet with the peace which the centuries can bring, it seemed to him, with its fantastic towers, and imperfectly visible outline, like a palace of dreams rather than a dwelling house, however magnificent, of material stone and brick. An owl flew out from the trees a few yards to the left of him, and drifted slowly over his head, with much flapping of wings, and a weird, soft call, faintly answered in the distance by his mate; from far away down in the valley came the slow ringing of ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... It's as good as a gift, though, with the cards you held," said Mr. Whitmore, and I heard the coins jingle in changing hands, when from the shrubbery, where the gravel sweep narrowed, there sounded the low hoot of an owl. Being town-bred and unused to owls, I took it for a human cry in the darkness and shrank closer against ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... service that morning very readily. Roger appeared in time to take Belle, as usual, but she found him so taciturn and preoccupied that she whispered to Mildred, "You've spoiled him for me. He sits staring like an owl in the sunlight, and seeing just about as much. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to make him so glum. I intend to have a dozen beaux, and to keep them ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Hebrew tribes had each its own standard—that of Ephraim, for instance, was a steer; of Benjamin, a wolf. Among the Greeks, the Athenians had an owl, and the Thebans a sphynx. The standard of Romulus was a bundle of hay tied to a pole, afterwards a human hand, and finally an eagle. Eagles were at first made of wood, then of silver, with thunderbolts of gold. Under Caesar they were all gold, without ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... over the fells with a company of schoolfellows, a poor blind lamb ran bleating past them, a black cloud of ravens, crows, and owl-eagles flying about it. The merciless birds had fallen upon the innocent creature as it lay sleeping under the shadow of a tree, had picked at its eyes and fed on them, and now, as the blood trickled in red beads down its nose, they croaked and cried and screamed to ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale, and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... like an owl when he does go out," said Mrs. Yorba. "I wonder if he remembers that it is time ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... nurse to keep an rye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of the first day she struck for one-and six, and got it. We now pass to my boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze on Mike through the eye-glass, ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... de Medici, he had two distinct persons in him. I will determine of them all, they are like these double or turning pictures; stand before which you see a fair maid, on the one side an ape, on the other an owl; look upon them at the first sight, all is well, but farther examine, you shall find them wise on the one side, and fools on the other; in some few things praiseworthy, in the rest incomparably faulty. I will ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... topic of his lecture was "My Foster Children," and these foster children were some animals which he had had as pets, whose habits he had carefully studied. One was a Gila monster from the plains of Arizona, another was a horned owl, the third was a rat, and the fourth was an opossum. If you can imagine more uninteresting subjects than these you are more imaginative than myself, and yet he thrilled me and held three thousand people in ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... I'm glad we're going, for you're looking as solemn as an owl. Cheer up and have a lovely time with your book and that jolly fire, and don't forget to go to bed at nine o'clock like ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... The partner of his first intrigue is the maid of a woman skilled in witchcraft. The curiosity of Lucius being greatly exercised about the sorceress and her magic, he importunes the girl to procure from her mistress a magic salve which will transform him at will into an owl. By mistake he receives the wrong salve; and instead of the bird metamorphosis which he had looked for, he undergoes an unlooked-for change into an ass. In this guise, and in the service of various masters, he has opportunities of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 'Go thou to-night, and stand under the branches of the hornbeam, and wait for my coming. If a black dog run towards thee, strike it with a rod of willow, and it will go away. If an owl speak to thee, make it no answer. When the moon is full I shall be with thee, and we will dance together on ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... youth, welled within him and mounted to his brain. He felt tingling with power as he lay there, apparently lax; it seemed to him he could hear the blood leaping in his veins and the beating of his pulses all over his body, could hear the faintest sound of calling lamb or far-off owl, could catch, with ears refined to a demigod's, the ineffably quiet rubbing of the millions of grass-blades, as though he could almost hear the evening falling.... From afar came the babble of the others as ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... yell. Swift as the doe's Wiwaste's feet Fled away to the forest. The hunters fleet In vain pursue, and in vain they prowl And lurk in the forest till dawn of day. They hear the hoot of the mottled owl; They hear the were-wolf's[52] winding howl; But the swift Wiwaste is far away. They found no trace in the forest land; They found no trail in the dew-damp grass; They found no track in the river sand, Where they thought ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... of; and I am of the mould as of the race of those whose swords have conquered thrones. For the rest, your news of the alliance of Louis of Hungary with your Tribune makes it necessary for the friend of Louis to withdraw from all feud with Rome. Ere the week expire, the owl and the bat may seek refuge ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... see the grouse; and I did see several, but could not shoot them, for reasons which one must be a huntsman to understand. My companion shot one, and, if I had been well, I might have shot two; I was too exhausted. After three it cleared and became wonderfully fine, the horn-owl gave place to the thrush, and at sunrise the bird-chorus became deafening; the wood-pigeons singing bass, withal. At five I was down again, and, as it began to pour once more, I abandoned further attempts, returned hither, ate very ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... your eyes now, you would not have been able to see, and no countryman can do with a blind wife, so I should leave you where you are. But you, little one, have hearing as sharp as a bird's? And what bird—pretty little things—did you ever see with ears, unless it were a bat or a nasty owl?—That is all nonsense. Besides, who can see what you have lost now that Pulcheria has brought your hair down so prettily? And do not you remember the head-dress our women wear? You might have ears as long ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pleasant face, and long, deliberate step upon the steep, and cheerful shout for his Sylvia, to come and ease down his basket, and say—"Well done, father!" But the shadows of the trees grew darker, and the song of the gray-bird died out among them, and the silent wings of the owl swept by, and all the mysterious sounds of night in the depth of forest loneliness, and the glimmer of a star through the leaves here and there, to tell us that there still was light in heaven—but of an earthly ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... swaying of the spruce-tops; but in this silence it fell upon the starving man's hearing with a distinctness that drew his muscles rigid and set his eyes staring about him in wild search. Just beyond the hanging pails a moose-bird hopped out upon the snow. It chirped hungrily, its big, owl-like eyes scrutinizing Dixon. The man stared back, fearing to move. Slowly he forced his right foot through the snow to the rear of his left, and as cautiously brought his left behind his right, working ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... Me ondherstand? Of coorse. Am I an owl? Be dad, I nivir laughed so much these tin years. Ondherstand! Every bit of it. But we won't have any expleeneetions about that. What concerns us is the code of honor, and the jewty of gintlemin. A rigid sinse of honor, and a shuprame reygard for the sancteties ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... an eye upon the rascal, and you will soon find what I say is true. Let us hang these three miscreants, and all will go smooth." Suvaroff was not more complimentary. "How can that desk-worm, that night-owl, direct an army from his dusky nest, even if he had the sword of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... They saved the legs of the grouse for him, too. They waited and waited, but still Hawk-Eye did not come. They began to get a little frightened, he was gone so long. At last there was a call, "Hoo, hoo, hoooooo," like the hooting of an owl, and he appeared crashing through the bushes. He had a rabbit hanging from his shoulder. Then Firefly played a ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... for they all knew that Mac would "be mad," since he hated nonsense of this sort, and had gone to talk with the elders when the game began. At this moment he was standing before the fire, listening to a discussion between his uncles and his father, looking as wise as a young owl, and blissfully unconscious of ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... faint smell of roasted meat that floated out to them from the camp-fires. Once during the night the cry of a wandering cougar came wailing through the silence and was followed by that of a horned owl who had noiselessly flapped near enough to blink his great eyes at the blaze. For all that, it was the loneliest kind of a place, and the hours went by until sunrise without the smallest real disturbance or hint of perils ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard |
