"Parrot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... matters; but the difference between the fiction and what we believe would have been the reality is significant. De Foe, even in 'Robinson Crusoe,' gives a very inadequate picture of the mental torments to which his hero is exposed. He is frightened by a parrot calling him by name, and by the strangely picturesque incident of the footmark on the sand; but, on the whole, he takes his imprisonment with preternatural stolidity. His stay on the island produces the same state of mind as might be due to a dull Sunday ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... we might for ever stay The rainbow glories of the world, The blue of the unfathomed sea, The rare azalea late unfurled, The parrot of a greener spring, The willows and the terrace line, The stranger from the night-steeped hills, The roselit brimming cup of wine. Oh for a life that stretched afar, Where no dead dust of books were rife, Where spring sang clear from star to star; Alas! ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... rightly using such lessons has caused them to be almost entirely laid aside in very many existing infant schools, and in too many instances the mere learning and repeating of sounds by rote, or what may very properly be called the "parrot system," has been introduced in their place. But I yet hope that the good sense of the public will in the end remedy such defects. In such cases the memory is the only faculty exercised, and that at the expense ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... this in the three words I had, parrot-like, learned by heart, astonished that such sounds could mean anything, astonished, too, at their being understood. We started, he running at full speed, I dragged along and jerked about in his light chariot, wrapped in oilcloth, shut up as if in a box—both ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the humors of an eccentric personage whom Mr. Bracebridge always addressed with the quaint appellation of Master Simon. He was a tight brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old bachelor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot; his face slightly pitted with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frostbitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... when I awoke to find a quantity of beautiful, fresh flowers lying upon me and beside me! I sprang up, but could see nothing unusual, except that in the house above me there was a window filled with fragrant shrubs and flowers, behind which a parrot talked and screamed incessantly. I picked up the scattered flowers, tied them together, and stuck the nosegay in my button-hole. Then I began to discourse with the parrot; it amused me to see him get up and down in his ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Something new, eh? He has all the names for them. Yesterday it was "apports"—flowers that fell down from nowhere and hit you on the nose. He talks like a medium's parrot. He has only to close his eyes and along comes the parade. Spooks! Spooky spooks! And now he wants me to settle my worldly affairs and join in ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... cages from Venice, in which Java sparrows carry on their ceaseless love-making, billing and cooing for hours and hours, as if all life to them was an interminable honeymoon. There is also a great white parrot, who, perched in a brass ring, mutters and mutters to himself for hours, and hums snatches of tunes, and calls imaginary dogs and visionary cats; and when he sees a certain manly form coming up the garden-walk is wont to cry out in a miserable mockery ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the Woodpecker. The name Yaffil is provincial, but is so very expressive of the noise it continually makes, that I have preferred it on that account. It is a beautiful bird, and is sometimes called the English Parrot; the colour of its plumage, green, yellow, and scarlet, giving it some ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... sprightly movement of the lads' daily life it was as if their "tribal" pets or monsters were with or within them. Tall Exmes, lithe and cruel like a tiger—it was pleasant to stroke him. The tiger was there, the parrot, the hare, the goat of course, and certainly much apishness. [35] And, one and all, they were like the creatures, in their vagrant, short, memories, alert perpetually on the topmost crest of the day and hour, transferred so heartlessly, so entirely, from yesterday to ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... other means than proofs; if these are absent the object remains ungrasped; the repetition of what has been heard on such subjects no more indicates or attains to their meaning than the words of a parrot or a puppet speaking ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... a morning paper to say that a parrot which he had kept for twenty years had just died. But surely the remarkable thing is that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... legalistic discussion in Rabbinic literature, and matters unessential, which are of no account in the improvement of the soul; but they neglect such important subjects of study as the unity of God, which we ought to understand and distinguish from other unities, and not merely receive parrot fashion from tradition. We are expressly commanded (Deut. 4, 39), "Know therefore this day, and reflect in thy heart, that the Eternal is the God in the heavens above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." Only he is exempt ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... shoulders down six flights of stairs every morning and evening, that it might nibble the green grass and be out in the fresh air. It became a great pet, and all the children drew its picture in ever so many different positions. Besides, they had a parrot, a monkey, two dogs, and some rabbits and birds for pets. Their father let them keep these pets in a room ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter
... branches their various strains; the mocking bird trilled out her sweet notes fain and the turtle filled with her voice the plain. There sang the nightingale, whose chant arouses the sleeper, and the merle with his note like the voice of man and the cushat and the ring-dove, whilst the parrot with its eloquent tongue answered the twain. The valley pleased them and they ate of its fruits and drank of its waters, after which they sat under the shadow of its trees till drowsiness overcame them and they slept, glory be to Him who ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... new buccaneering book by Sir ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH; and that not only on account of the name of the author, but because when a tale of this kind begins in Bristol Docks, with a company that includes an apprentice-hero, a one-eyed sailor and a parrot of piratical past, it is impossible not to recall Treasure Island. However this may be, Mortallone soon attains a development quite sufficiently original, with an island and a secret and a noble store of buried treasure, all in doubloons and pieces of eight, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... merry mime was Jacko! He could wink, and whiff tobacco, Like a man (an artful homo) and a brother. And the Parrot—ah! for patter, And capacity for chatter On—no matter much what matter, That gave scope for clitter-clatter, The world could hardly furnish such another. The Parrot was a bird That could talk great bosh with gravity; The Ape could be absurd With an air of solemn suavity; And which to take most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... to be quite alone, was pleased at finding herself surrounded by a number of pretty girls, all anxious to wait on her, whilst a brilliantly-coloured parrot said the most agreeable ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... them curiously shaped and brilliantly colored. Some of the most gorgeous were poisonous to eat, and capable of inflicting very unpleasant wounds with their fins. The captain suffered for a long time with a sort of paralysis in a finger he had scratched when handling a fish with a beak like a parrot.... ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... rather feet, fixed to its head, that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies' hair. One could see the 250 air holes on the inner side of the tentacles. The monster's mouth, a horned beak like a parrot's, opened and shut vertically. Its tongue, a horned substance, furnished with several rows of pointed teeth, came out quivering from this veritable pair of shears. What a freak of nature, a bird's beak on a mollusc! Its spindle-like body formed a fleshy mass that might ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... The parrot furnishes us one more aid in this matter than other birds, and this helps us, to a certain extent, in overcoming the difficulty of interpretation. It has an articulate voice, and when we have taught it a few words, the meaning which it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... wonderful time finding a canary. They visited several shops where birds of many kinds were offered for sale. Mary Rose quite lost her heart to a great red and green poll parrot ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... found a large pile of the fruit in our house; and thinking we had enough for a long time to come, I would have liked to be able to make our little monkey understand that we wanted no more. The parrot had learned to discover my wishes very well, but with the monkey I supposed it would be a matter of some difficulty to make him comprehend me. He seemed to divine my thoughts, however, or else his own good sense came to his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... as he was, with his weary, drooping grey moustache, he looked always rather unusual and distinguished. He had black, wrinkled, heavy-lidded eyes, in which Sylvia had discovered a remarkable resemblance to the eyes of a parrot, though the fire in them was very far from being extinguished. He wore a gay light red carnation, but the flowerless Woodville looked far more festive. Woodville's enjoyment of nearly all experiences which were not absolutely depressing was greater than ever since ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... Malthusians imagine—and the chorus of the mouth-pieces of the bourgeoisie parrot-like echo their utterances—that a Socialist society, in which there is freedom in the choice of love and ample provision for a livelihood worthy of human beings, must soon degenerate into a rabbit ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... altogether the advantage of him, for she laughed most uncontrollably at his concern, assured him that this was her intellectual play, and that she enjoyed the matter very much as she would teaching tricks to a parrot or monkey. "Surely, now, you would not deprive me of such an innocent amusement," said ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... wages and she spent most of the money on clothes. When she prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was a truly terrible spectacle, clad in an ill-fitting ready-made suit of brilliant colour, and wearing a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled among artificial poppies, while her swarthy face, heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge. But about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a shawl over her shoulders, she was really pretty. ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... fable in question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary. Whereupon the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one could discover the reason for this mutual compliment. Was it because both were such uncouth beasts, or had ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... against law and lawyers and all the Stokesley family, and being on the verge of impertinence to Captain Merrifield, she submitted to the prospect more quietly than her friends had dared to hope. Lance had almost expected her to deport her charge, parrot and all, suddenly and secretly by an Australian liner, and had advised Bernard, on a fleeting meeting at Bexley, to be on his guard if she hinted at anything so preposterous; but Bernard shook his head, and said Angel was more to be trusted than her elders thought. "Waves and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the seals. They came up, simply stared at the ship; now from sheer fat rolling on their backs, and lying for a few seconds tail and flippers beating the air helpless. These baby seals resemble on the ice nothing so much as the South Sea parrot fish—that is, a complete round head, with somewhere in the sphere two huge black dots for eyes and a similar one for a nose. These three form the corners of a small triangle, and except for the tail one could not easily tell which was the back and which the belly of a young white-coat—especially ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... I returned to my bedroom. "Intolerable," I heard myself repeating like a parrot that knew no other word. A bath was just what I had needed. Could I have lain for a long time basking in very hot water, and then have sponged myself with cold water, I should have emerged calm and brave; comparatively so, at any rate. I should have looked less ghastly, and ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... Fixie said no more about it; but on that account, I daresay, like the famous parrot, "they thought the more." And once or twice that afternoon, Fixie could not help whispering to Bee, "Do you fink mamma's going to get the beads hooked out?" or, "I hope they won't hurt the mouses that lives down in the hole. Do ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... pronunciation of the Ootlashoots. Their words have all a remarkably guttural sound, and there is nothing which seems to represent the tone of their speaking more exactly than the clucking of a fowl or the noise of a parrot. This peculiarity renders their voices scarcely audible, except at a short distance; and, when many of them are talking, forms a strange confusion of sounds. The common conversation that we overheard consisted of low, guttural sounds, occasionally broken by a low word or two, after which ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... parrot-like what she had always been told of the "bad man"; of the true facts of the ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... a candy store, was a very special sort of friend, and she gave the biggest penny's worth of sweets for miles around. Mr. Gordon, as I have told you, kept a real grocery store, and then there was Mr. Jed Winkler, an old sailor who owned a parrot and a monkey named Wango. Mr. Winkler's sister, Miss Euphemia, did not like either ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... there had been no gold in South Africa there would have been no war." They spoke as men who repeated a lesson; yet I am bound to say that they spoke with sincerity, and although they seemed to speak parrot-wise, they probably accepted current forms of speech as giving the best expression to a deep and ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... toast, she caught herself saying, over and over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon the table with ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... has begun to abate, a remarkably small house-pet that has been somewhere in the interior arrives upon the scene, and with his sharp, shrill voice again starts and leads the canine chorus. By this time the eagle in his cage has awakened, and the parrot, whose cage is built into the corner of the studio looking upon the street, adds ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... the familiar setting of an old-fashioned picture. She was an accomplished performer upon the harp as well as an authority upon old English literature. In all the years I knew her I never heard of her leaving her house. She had no children and her constant companion was a venerable parrot. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... about it. I said she need not worry herself. She is quite twenty-eight, you know, Mamma, so I suppose she knows best; but I should hate a religion that obliged me to kiss White Ferret curates in a parrot-house, shouldn't you? ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... beside Michael I want to win. I want to 'grow up unto him in all things.' Yes, I know that is a text. I am famous for misquotations, or rather, misapplications. But it expresses my meaning—as the duchess remarks, when she has said something mild under provocation, and her parrot swears!—And now tell me, dear wise kind doctor; you, who have been the lifelong friend of that grand creature, Jane Dalmain; you, who have done so much for dozens of women I know; tell me how I can cease to be ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... is a curious parrot inhabiting the mountain ranges of the Middle Island of New Zealand. It belongs to the family of Brush-tongued parrots, and naturally feeds on the honey of flowers and the insects which frequent them, together with such fruits or berries ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... cogwheels. There are also eight-inch columbiads, rifled forty-two pounders, and Brook guns to throw flat-headed projectiles (General Ripley told me that these Brook guns, about which so much is said, differ but little from the Blakely cannon); also there are parrot guns and Dahlgrens; in fact, a general assortment of every species of ordnance except Whitworths and Armstrongs. But the best gun in the fort is a fine new eleven-inch gun, which had just been fished up from the wreck ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... This has gratified the old gentleman extremely; he hails it as an auspicious omen of the revival of falconry, and does not despair but the time will come when it will be again the pride of a fine lady to carry about a noble falcon, in preference to a parrot or a lap-dog. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... demanded that no further alliance should be formed. It was equally the duty of the leaders of the Opposition to voice what was undoubtedly the national sentiment. To have kept silence would have been to stultify our Parliamentary institutions. The parrot cry that British interests were endangered by Russia's supposed designs on Turkey, was met by the unanswerable reply that, if those designs existed, the best way to check them was to maintain the European Concert, and especially to keep in close touch with Austria, seeing that that Power ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Blue the sky and water, and green the edge of the fantastic jungle. There was a flash of red in the green, as they came still closer, and he realized suddenly that it must be a marigee, the semi-intelligent Venusian parrot once so popular as pets throughout the ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... of Minnie's pet parrot, and of Minnie's pet cat. In this volume I shall give the reader an account of her pet dog, Tiney, ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie
... depart, Arthur turned, and resisting the importunities of beggars, guides, and parrot-sellers, who had not yet recognized him as an old hand, made his way towards the Quinta Carr. How well he knew the streets and houses, even to the withered faces of the women who sat by the doors, and yet he seemed to have grown ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... leaving the bewildered lady quite speechless, so speechless that, when she reached the stately presence of Aunt Pliny, she forgot the commissions she had been sent to execute, and was at once reviled by the parrot as ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... recovered. Conner Akin was killed at the octagon house, and Dow wounded. When we got back to the regiment, then stationed near a fine concrete house (where Shepard and I would sleep every night), nearly right on our works, we found two thirty-two-pound parrot guns stationed in our immediate front, and throwing shells away over our heads into the city of Atlanta. We had just begun to tell all the boys howdy, when I saw Dow Akin fall. A fragment of shell had ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... complexions, the sky-blue eyes, the golden fringe, and two long yellow curls, one on either side the face, falling to the breast from under tight-fitting mob caps covered with lace; the short, very full blue and black skirts; the richly embroidered bodices, brilliant as the breast of a parrot; the filmy fichus and white sleeves; the black sabots with painted wreaths of roses, turned the little harbor of Marken into a rare flower-garden. The expressions of the fair faces were beautifully mild, also, and it ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... disbelief in the loving willingness of God to help. Of course, earnest, reiterated prayer is not vain repetition. Jesus is not here condemning His own agony in Gethsemane when He thrice 'said the same words.' The persistence in prayer, which is the child of faith, is no relation to the parrot-like repetition which is the child of disbelief, nor does the condemnation of the one touch the other. The frenzied priests who yelled, 'O Baal, hear us!' all the long day; the Buddhists who repeat ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... before, Mr. Blunt, I perceive. I have suspected you of being a brother chip, from the moment I saw you first put your foot on the side-cleets in getting out of the boat. You did not come aboard parrot-toed, like a country-girl waltzing; but set the ball of the foot firmly on the wood, and swung off the length of your arms, like a man who knows how to humour the muscles. Your present remark, too, shows you understand where a ship ought to be, in order to be in ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... regarded newspapers as inconvenient lumber. He wishes the Press to advance his great ideas by assuming the place of the Universities in training public opinion, and the place of the Church in controlling it. He might as well strive to make the horse into the lion, the mule into the unicorn, a parrot into the soaring eagle! Any man who is written up into a place can be written down out of it. Our friend will learn this too late—probably about the time that we, in England, are adopting, with enthusiasm, his present error. Ah, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... sailors; and Uncle John went for a walk down Wapping High Street to talk to the pretty ladies one evening; and there was a press all along the river that night—a regular hot one—and Uncle John was carried on board a man-of-war to fight under Nelson; and nobody minded Uncle John's parrot, and it talked itself to death. So Mr. Pitt killed Uncle John's ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... from her or to shun conversing with her. Her dogs are her greatest interest and amusement, and she has at least forty of various kinds. She is delighted when anybody gives her a dog, or a monkey, or a parrot, of all of which she has a vast number; it is impossible to offend her or annoy her more than by ill-using any of her dogs, and if she were to see anybody beat or kick any one of them she would never forgive it. She has always lived ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... figure of a bird, decked with party-coloured feathers, so as to resemble a popinjay or parrot. It was suspended to a pole, and served for a mark, at which the competitors discharged their fusees and carabines in rotation, at the distance of sixty or seventy paces. He whose ball brought down the mark, held the proud title ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... so, across the wildest pass of the Alps that may be open, to Strasburg. . . . As you dislike the Young England gentleman I shall knock him out, and replace him by a man (I can dash him in at your rooms in an hour) who recognizes no virtue in anything but the good old times, and talks of them, parrot-like, whatever the matter is. A real good old city tory, in a blue coat and bright buttons and a white cravat, and with a tendency of blood to the head. File away at Filer, as you please; but bear in mind that the Westminster Review considered ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... response. Just at that moment the limousine was gliding past a building whose courtyard was one blaze of parrot tulips, and, his eye caught by the flaming colours, he was staring at them and reflectively rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down his chin. After a ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... though they were doing a death-dance for their limbs on the funeral pyre. The silence was a complete blank except when a flapping of wings beat the air where some bird changed its night perch, or a parrot squawked hoarsely for a moment, causing a fluttering of smaller wings that soon ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... cruise by fairy islands where the gaudy parrot screeches And the turtle in his soup-tureen floats basking in the calms; We would see the fire-flies winking in the bush above the beaches And a moon of honey yellow drifting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... she tied with a handkerchief firmly round her waist; and, so fond is a mother's remembrance, that, even in the terrors of that hour, she did not forget to put in the little package one or two of his favorite toys, reserving a gayly painted parrot to amuse him, when she should be called on to awaken him. It was some trouble to arouse the little sleeper; but, after some effort, he sat up, and was playing with his bird, while his mother was putting on her ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... one foot, gripped the long claws of the other through it, and tore it to pieces savagely, as one would a bit of paper. The beak was not used, except to receive the pieces, which were conveyed up to it by his foot, as a parrot eats. He devoured everything—fins, tail, skin, head, and most of the bones, in great hungry mouthfuls. Then he hopped to the top of the knoll, sat up straight, puffed out his feathers to look big, and went to sleep. But with the first slight movement ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... explain why that particular moment was chosen, for which our enemies regard Mr. Wilson so unfavorably. A cartoon published by that most anti-German paper, the New York Herald, depicts Mr. Wilson's dove of peace as a parrot, faithfully babbling ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... Such feelings as you have now described are the lot of humanity. So you will feel when I am no more, and so will your children feel when you are dead. But your uncle will come back again, Betsy, and we will now think of where we are to get the cage to keep the talking parrot in, he is to bring home; and go and tell Susan to bring the candles, and ask her if the nice cake is almost baked, that she promised to give us for ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... an imported Malaga jackass," he said between his teeth, "I'd have you know that I'm related on my mother's side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and where I come from we aren't accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, pig-headed mule in a pop-gun pea-shooter battery. Are ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... his good breeding, and didn't mind having a laugh at Aunt March, so she gave him a lively description of the fidgety old lady, her fat poodle, the parrot that talked Spanish, and the library ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artist indignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the faith even of the members of the Bonaparte family. Two days before this Christian circle at Madame Napoleon's, Madame de Chateaureine, with three other ladies, visited the Princesse Borghese. Not seeing a favourite parrot they had often previously admired, they inquired what was become ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... thought here to close this chapter; but finding that, as the parrot, which other while useth the form of a man's voice, yet being beaten and chaffed, returneth to his own natural voice, so some of our opposites, who have been but erst prating somewhat of the language of Canaan against us, finding themselves pressed and perplexed in such a way of reasoning, have ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... blasted scum of the seas," he bawled to the mate, and the crew gathered around the gun. "Lug up a case of ammunition and we'll shell that bush until even a parrot won't be left alive ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... know, judge?" cried Cavendish, panting from his exertions. "I'll learn this parrot ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... only blank walls before my windows. On the side of the street a pug dog has been barking for an hour, a parrot screaming, and a parroqueet imitating the chirp of sparrows. On the side of the yard the washerwomen are singing, and another parroqueet cries incessantly, 'Shoulder arrms!' How long the ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... intelligent of household pets, and much attention should be bestowed upon them. So large a bird suffers if kept constantly confined in a cage, but a parrot is so destructive that it is impossible to allow it the liberty of a house, as chairs, carpets, in short, every article of furniture, will soon show the marks of its strong beak. If there is a garden, the parrot should be given a daily promenade during warm weather. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Prof. Parrot reports analogous results obtained at the nursery opened at the Hospice des Enfants Assistes. By the aid of ass's milk he saved a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... has no mind.' Every man who addresses her is compelled to force upon her for a moment the loan of his own mind. And if she answers a question which his own mind puts to her, it is only by such a reply as his own mind teaches to her parrot-like lips. And as every man has a different mind, so every man gets a different answer. Nature ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to excuse himself," replied the king as he scratched the poll of Cleopatra's parrot, parting its feathers with the tips of his fingers. "Lysias, the Corinthian, is sitting below, and he says he does not know where his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I will take a ride in the cars to-morrow," said she. "I think we'll go to Chicopee to see Mrs. Adams, who has some gold-fishes, and a parrot, and a canary. How would you like ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... articles, implements for weaving, spools of thread, needles of bone and bronze. With the body of a girl had been placed a kind of work-box, containing the articles that she had used, and the mummy of a parrot, some beads, and fragments of an ornament of silver. Dias told them that all these tombs were made long before the coming of the Incas. He said that round the heads of the men and boys were wound the slings they had used in life, while ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... might tend while the King fished. They soon found that the fish were not only abundant and easily caught, but also very beautiful, with glittering scales of every imaginable hue; and before long the King discovered that he could teach them to talk and whistle better than any parrot. Then he determined to carry some to the nearest town and try to sell them; and as no one had ever before seen any like them the people flocked about him eagerly and bought all he had caught, so that presently not a house in the city was considered complete ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... the caffe. But we do not seek their company at dinner-time. Our way lies under yonder arch, and up the narrow alley into a paved court. Here are oleanders in pots, and plants of Japanese spindle-wood in tubs; and from the walls beneath the window hang cages of all sorts of birds—a talking parrot, a whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries, linnets. Athos, the fat dog, who goes to market daily in a barchetta with his master, snuffs around. "Where are Porthos and Aramis, my friend?" Athos does not take ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... showed indeed a contrast to the chaotic state in which it had been left. It was wonderfully pleasant-looking. The windows of the deep bay were all open to the lawn, shaded with blinds projecting out into the garden, where the parrot sat perched on her pole; pleasant nooks were arranged in the two sides of the bay window, with light chairs and small writing-tables, each with its glass of flowers; the piano stood across the arc, shutting off these windows into almost a separate room; low book-cases, with chiffonier ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my teeth chattering in my head, my brain on fire, my feet slushing in my soaking boots. I did not know clearly where I was, I did not know why I was walking nor where, but walk I must, like the convicts on the treadmill. Something laughed horribly in the air just behind me and said like a parrot, over and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... few moments our forces came up, and at first one brigade deployed on the left and another on the right of the pike. At last I witnessed a scene that had the aspect of war. A great thirty-pound Parrot gun unlimbered in the centre of the pike, and looked like a surly mastiff. In a moment an officer, who understood his business, sighted it. There was a flash, bright even in the July sunlight, a grand report awakening the ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... life I will fight against the Danes, and in a ship at least we can fight manfully till the end. We must not build her on the sea-coast, or before the time when we need her she may be destroyed by the Danes. We will build her on the Parrot. The water is deep enough far up from the sea to float her when empty, and if we choose some spot where the river runs among woods we might hide her so that she may to the last escape the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... of 1615, pursuing one day a remarkable bird "which was the size of a hen, had a beak like a parrot and was entirely yellow, except for a red head and blue wings, and which had the flight of the partridge"—a bird I cannot identify—lost his way in the woods. For two days he wandered in the wilderness, sustaining himself by shooting birds and roasting them. ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... which made Dennis Ryer, of the crew of Engine No. 36, famous three years ago. That was on Seventh Avenue at One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street. A flat was on fire, and the tenants had fled; but one, a woman, bethought herself of her parrot, and went back for it, to find escape by the stairs cut off when she again attempted to reach the street. With the parrot-cage, she appeared at the top-floor window, framed in smoke, calling for help. Again there was no ladder to reach. There were neighbors ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... a centered cross of three equal bands - the vertical part is yellow (hoist side), black, and white - the horizontal part is yellow (top), black, and white; superimposed in the center of the cross is a red disk bearing a sisserou parrot encircled by 10 green five-pointed stars edged in yellow; the 10 stars represent ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... all parrot-toed In cowhide shoes arrayed, And his hair seemed cut across his brow ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... what she did with it. She got it along with her size, shape and structure—in other words, from her type—and she did just what you and everybody else does with his type-characteristics. She acted in accordance with her type just as a canary sings like a canary instead of talking like a parrot, and just as a rose gives off rose perfume ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... girl, weary of needlework, quiet is plunged in a long dream. The parrot in the golden cage doth shout that it is time the tea to brew. The lustrous windows with the musky moon like open palace-mirrors look; The room abounds with fumes of sandalwood and all kinds of imperial scents. From the cups made of amber ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... India are fond of rearing pet birds; and the pet is, more frequently than otherwise, a parrot, which is prized for its conversation. The same taste prevailed, we are told, in the fifteenth century, in the city of Paris, where talking-birds were hung out almost at every window. The authority says, that this was attended with rather an awkward result. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... I am not prepared to maintain; but that there is a good deal of it is certain. A young French gentleman of my acquaintance, who visited England to study the language, told me that the impression made upon him by his first social evening in London was that of a parrot-house. Later on, when he came to comprehend, he, of course, recognized the brilliancy and depth of the average London drawing-room talk; but that is how, not comprehending, it impressed him at first. Listening ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... with the passing of the hours he gave expression to one solitary cry—"For God's sake shoot me!" The wail, uttered with parrot-like repetition and in a tone which bored into the soul, stirred the prisoners within earshot in a strange manner. They clapped their hands over their ears to shut out the awful sound, and shut their eyes to prevent the revolting ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... swimming before my eyes. I remember there was a clucking of hens from somewhere behind the kraal, which called up ridiculous memories. I was trying to remember the plan I had made in Machudi's glen. I kept saying to myself like a parrot: 'The army cannot know about the jewels. Laputa must keep his loss secret. I can get my life from him if I offer to give them back.' It had sounded a good scheme three hours before, but with the man's hard face before me, it ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... said I?" his uncle exclaimed gayly. "What cares a prefect of Rome for the scratching hens of Lorium? As for me, most noble Prefect, I am but a man from whom neither power nor philosophy can take my natural affections"; and, as the parrot swinging over the door-way croaked out his "Salve!" (Welcome!), arm-in-arm uncle and nephew ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... others startlingly like the cries of children and the moans of pain, the sparkling orbs and tortuous stealthiness of the snake; and the hints at metempsychosis are obvious. Standing face to face with a tiger, an anaconda, a wild cat, a monkey, a gazelle, a parrot, a dove, we alternately shudder with horror and yearn with sympathy, now expecting to see the latent devils throw off their disguise and start forth in their own demoniac figures, now waiting for the metamorphosing charm to be reversed, and for the enchanted ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... upon as a fourth Kind of Female Orator. To give her self the larger Field for Discourse, she hates and loves in the same Breath, talks to her Lap-dog or Parrot, is uneasy in all kinds of Weather, and in every Part of the Room: She has false Quarrels and feigned Obligations to all the Men of her Acquaintance; sighs when she is not sad, and Laughs when she is not Merry. The Coquet is in particular a great Mistress of that ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in deep tin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have been made for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyage round the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, folded square, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. A third time she came in with the sugar basin and cups; then she departed to heat the water. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... once bought a Parrot and gave it the run of his house. It revelled in its liberty, and presently flew up on to the mantelpiece and screamed away to its heart's content. The noise disturbed the Cat, who was asleep on the ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... the Queen, "Mamma, my parrot flew away yesterday out of its cage, and I don't care any more for any of my toys; and I think this funny little dirty child will amuse me. I will take her home, and give her some of ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the fourth boudoir, a handsome blue parrot sat on a blue perch and began barking as if it were nearly starved. Then it ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... or at least all of them which Mr. Bowditch could get the native interpreters to translate, are derived from animals, plants and other natural objects, just as in Australia.(1) Thus Quonna is a buffalo, Abrootoo is a cornstalk, Abbradi a plantain. Other names are, in English, the parrot, the wild cat, red earth, panther and dog. Thus all the natives of this part of Africa are parrots, dogs, buffaloes, panthers, and so forth, just as the Australians are emus, iguanas, black cockatoos, kangaroos, and the rest. It is remarkable that ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... was murmuring a few words of regret at her bad luck," continued Ella, "a sharp voice called out from a back room, 'Almiry! Almiry! come here.' It sounded very like a cross parrot, but it was the old lady, and while I put on my hat I heard her asking who was in the shop, and what we were 'gabbin' about.' Her daughter told her, and the old soul demanded to 'see the gal;' so I went in, being ready for fun as usual. ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Socialism means a compulsory 'share out' may be rightly dismissed as an idle scare. The most bitter opponent of Socialism must at least admit that there is a stronger argument to be met than that implied by the parrot-cry of 'spoliation.' Socialism has, at any rate, so far advanced as to be allowed the ordinary courtesies of debate. We may oppose it tooth and nail, but we must confront argument with argument and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so, You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?) Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, Where in the foreground kneels the donor? If such remain, as is my conviction, The hoarding it does ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... papier-mache bust Revivify the failing pressure-gauge? Chop up the grand piano if you must, And burn the East Aurora parrot-cage! ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... by the barbarians,' said the little porter, who, beginning to suspect a mystery, was peaking and peering like an excited parrot. 'The old dame brought her hither among a cargo of captive boys ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... reappear again on the other side, and then vanish in the bushes. I felt as though I had been left alone in the world and were about to be lost forever; I listened for some bird or other creature, and was happy to hear the shriek of a parrot and the hissing of the fountain ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... dress is yellow, can't you see, man? You've got no sense of colour," said the candid Bertie. "I believe you'd just as soon be a green parrot with a red ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... coloured flowers to the earth. A flock of gorgeously plumaged birds were noisily chattering and shrieking in the branches, and though they fled on our first coming, they came back directly and began climbing and swinging about so near that I could see that they were a small kind of parrot, full of strange antics, and apparently playing ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could think of, since ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... streams in all directions—their loud, harsh screams echoing among the forests through the calm air—wheeling and turning before they alight on the tops of the palms to feed. They belong to the Psittacidae, or parrot tribe, and are known at once by the great length of their tails, and by having their ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... morning at 11 o'clock for Memphis which city he reached at four o'clock. Above Memphis he was met by a fleet of excursion steamers and the sight of his flashing paddle as he approached them was the signal for the firing of a salute from a ten pound parrot gun on the deck of the General Pierson. Miss Jeanette Boswell, one of the reigning belles of Memphis, handed him a banner and made a pleasant address ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... age, and this day a poore woeman being a hundred and three yeares and a weeke old sent to mee to giue her some ease of the colick. The macrobii and long liuers which I haue knowne heere haue been of the meaner and poorer sort of people. Tho. Parrot was butt a meane or rather poore man. Your brother Thomas gaue two pence a weeke to John More, a scauenger, who dyed in the hundred and second yeare of his life; and 'twas taken the more notice of that the father of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... parrot!' he said, laughing loudly. 'Wouldn't it be fun if you was a parrot. I wish you was ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... said Sam, again directing his master's attention to the coach door; 'not content vith writin' up "Pick-wick," they puts "Moses" afore it, vich I call addin' insult to injury, as the parrot said ven they not only took him from his native land, but made him talk the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... flute, bamboo drum, the melodrama was begun. The hero pranced into the open square to the tune of a minor dirge, not knowing a single sentence of his part; the prompter, kneeling down before a flaring candle, told him what to say; he repeated in parrot-like fashion, and then pranced off the square to slow dirge-like music. Now the heroine minced in from the opposite corner to slow music with her satin train sweeping in the dust; though carefully raised when she crossed the sacred precincts of the square, and in a sauntering ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... city called Patna, the gem of the earth. And long ago a king lived there whose name was Lion-of-Victory. Fate had made him the owner of all virtues and all wealth. And he had a parrot called Jewel-of-Wisdom, that had divine intelligence and knew all the sciences, but lived as a parrot ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... the agitated yelp of their Gallic neighbours. They could not be quiet if they wanted to, for heavy sleigh-bells (unique decorations for a bulldog) hang about their necks, and jangle merrily at every step. In the courtyard lives a colony of birds. One virulent parrot which shrieks its inarticulate wrath from morning until night, but which does—be it remembered to its credit—go to sleep at sundown; three paroquets; two cockatoos of ineffable shrillness, and a cageful of canaries and captive finches. When taken in connection with the ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... them run is called dhor jagana or bichkana, that is, to wake up or terrify the cattle. Its meaning is obscure, but it is said to preserve the cattle from disease during the year. In Raipur the women make an image of a parrot in clay at the Diwali and place it on a pole and go round to the different houses, singing and dancing round the pole, and receiving presents of rice and money. They praise the parrot as the bird who carries messages from a lover ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... a parrot in a cage," murmured Emmeline, moving slightly so as to get more in the shadow ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... a passion?" repeated grandmother with a parrot-like intonation. "Not one of the Lord's ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... cabin and found Mrs. Jenkins reading. She did not know that there was anything the matter with the ship. I told her the ship was sinking and to get some warm clothing as soon as she could but not to try to save anything else. Well, the first thing she did was to go for the parrot and take him on deck. Then she got a jacket ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... repeated on each side. A parrot on a small grass-plot is in the middle of the lower edge. Behind the bird grow two curving stems of thick gold braid, each curve containing a beautifully-worked flower or fruit. In the centre is a carnation, and round it are arranged consecutively a bunch of grapes, a pansy, a honeysuckle, and a ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... come!" panted Mrs. Goring. "What can I say to you, Captain? I understand, perfectly, your emotions. Yet I can only repeat what seems to you a parrot cry, that Miss Sheldon shall not suffer one jot at Leyden's hands, except the suffering that must come with disillusionment. I say it again, and I swear it by the God that shall kill me ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Civa has the bull; his spouse, the tiger. Earth and Skanda have appropriated the peacock, Skanda having the cock also. Yama has the buffalo (compare the Khond, wild-tribe, substitution of a buffalo for a man in sacrifice). Love has the parrot, etc; while the boar and all Vishnu's animals in avatars are holy, being ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins |
