"Sparrow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of night, your force combine Without his high behest, Ye shall not, in the mountain pine, Disturb the sparrow's nest. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... buffalo-skin, and in three minutes had made prisoner of another of these little inhabitants of the forest. They are of a bluish-grey colour, and nearly the size of a blackbird; but they are such a bundle of feathers that when plucked they do not look much larger than a sparrow. They live apparently on animal food (at least, they are very fond of it), and are not considered very ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... before Kirsty, her hands clenched and shaking with rage, blue flashes darting about in her eyes. Kirsty, at once controlling the passion of her own heart, sat still as a statue, regarding her with a sad pity. A sparrow stood chattering at a big white brooding dove; and the dove sorrowed for the sparrow, but did not know how to help the ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... union;—who should recall the high finish, the appropriateness, the facility, the delicate proportion, and above all, the perfusive and omnipresent grace, which have preserved, as in a shrine of precious amber, the Sparrow of Catullus, the Swallow, the Grasshopper, and all the other little loves of Anacreon; and which, with bright, though diminished glories, revisited the youth and early manhood of Christian Europe, in the vales of [63] Arno, and the groves of Isis and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with flowery hats and airy garments that made the passer-by shiver by their contrast with the cutting March wind. In and out, among automobiles and pedestrians, darted that fearless optimist, the metropolitan sparrow, busy already with straws and ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... A sparrow chirped in the tree above, a wren twittered in a bush, and down on the river's bank a mocking-bird softly waked his mate with a note of thrilling sweetness. "The morning is coming, dearest; we must go," said Marion. "This shame I can never forget, nor will the world forget. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the Song Moon was waxing, with its hosts of small birds, and one of Rolf's early discoveries was that many of these love to sing by night. Again and again the familiar voice of the song sparrow came from the dark shore of Asamuk, or the field sparrow trilled from the top of some cedar, occasionally the painted one, Aunakeu, the partridge, drummed in the upper woods, and nightly there was the persistent chant of Muckawis, the whippoorwill, the myriad ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... indeed," said he, "Jupiter has shown a great sign. As this serpent has devoured the young of the sparrow, eight in number, and herself, the mother of the brood, was the ninth, so must we for as many years wage war, but in the tenth year we shall ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... the end of July, when they were determinedly and industriously attempting to fix a nest on the top ledge of a pillar in the verandah of the 'Madras Mail' office. The ledge was so narrow that one would have thought the Sparrow alone of all known birds would have selected it for a site; and even the Sparrow only under the condition of a writing or toilet-table being underneath to catch the lime, sticks, straws, rags, feathers, and ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... there was a new church bell, costing 5 pounds 5s. 10d. Aaron Chalk, whom some of the elder inhabitants may remember, a very feeble old man walking with two sticks, was in that year one of the foremost traders in sparrow heads. It gives a curious sense of the lapse of time to think of those tottering limbs active ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Tarrinzeau Field were aghast at Gwynplaine. The effect he caused was as that of a sparrow-hawk flapping his wings in a cage of goldfinches, and feeding in their seed-trough. Gwynplaine ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... trampling feet; of hoofs and the snorting of horses; but all seemed distant and confused, as if his ears were stopped or the sounds were coming from a distance; but directly after a very familiar note arose—the sharp, cheery chirping of a sparrow, followed ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... and when sometimes I had worked up courage to meet him and to ask an explanation one glance at his face where a chaos of mighty passion seemed for ever struggling made me tremble and shrink to silence. I was dashed down from heaven to earth as a silly sparrow when pounced on by a hawk; my eyes swam and my head was bewildered by the sudden apparition of grief. Day after day[25] passed marked only by my complaints and my tears; often I lifted my soul in vain prayer for a softer descent from joy to woe, or if that ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... orange-and-tawny backs gleam in the sunshine from morning until night. There are numbers of them. Their manners are very marked. They have quite the air of conquerors. All the other birds yield them precedence, and they positively domineer over the pugnacious little English sparrow, who is content to keep in the background and watch ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... phrase goes, on one another. Indeed, we hardly look at one another, and are as remote as strangers sitting side by side in a theatre. Individually, in a steady, subconscious way, I think we are all wondering how we are going to get down when the time comes. One will hop, like a great sparrow; another will turn round and descend backward; another will come down with an absent-minded little wave of the foot, as if he were quite used to having his shoes shined and already thinking of more serious business; another—but ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... and scraps of songs, of which he had plenty, this pleasant honest fool poured out his heart even in the presence of Goneril herself, in many a bitter taunt and jest which cut to the quick: such as comparing the king to the hedge-sparrow, who feeds the young of the cuckoo till they grow old enough, and then has its head bit off for its pains; and saying, that an ass may know when the cart draws the horse (meaning that Lear's daughters, that ought to go behind, now ranked before their father); ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to this, religion comforts the mind, with the assurance of an all-wise, all-pervading Providence, so minute in its superintendence and control, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of our heavenly Father: a superintendence which is excluded from no point of space, no moment of time, and overlooks not the meanest creature in existence. Nor is this all; for the Word of ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... Fakrash. "For he has become unto me even as a favourite son, whom I design to place upon the golden pinnacle of felicity. Therefore, I have chosen for him a wife, who is unto this damsel of thine as the full moon to the glow-worm, and as the bird of Paradise to an unfledged sparrow. And the nuptials shall be ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... part of his ponderous figure arrayed in a frock-coat. He did not take kindly to what he termed "those skittish sparrow-tailed affairs". Frock-coats suited him, but I am not partial to them on every one. They look well enough on a podgy, fat, or broad man, but on a skinny one they hang with such a forlorn, dying-duck expression, that they invariably ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... The old King to the sparrow: Who said, 'Crops are ripe?' Rust to the harrow: Who said, 'Where sleeps she now?' Where rests she now her head, Bathed in eve's loveliness'? ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... opened a window in my school-house in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the frosted glass. As the snowy sash creaked in my hand, he made off to the waterspout that suspends its "tangles" of ice over a gaping tank, and, rebounding from that, with a quiver of his little black breast, bobbed through the network of wire and joined a few of his fellows in a forlorn ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer nay;— for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give a bird the lie, though ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a sparrow made it almost harder to bear. Lady Brooke finally rose abruptly from the table, her black brows drawn close together, and swept to the window ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... not scientific in their speech often speak of the birds as being happy. My opinion is that birds are not any more happy than men—probably not as much so. Many birds, like the English sparrow and the blue jay, quarrel all day long. Come to think of it, I believe that man is happier than the birds. He has a sense of remorse, and this suggests reformation, and from the idea of reformation comes the picturing of an ideal. This exercise ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... wouldst permit even a single ray of reason to enter the heads of Monseigneur and his friends, I believe it would be more beautiful than the tears of the little saint! And that other one on his island, with his clear eyes like the sparrow-hawk who pretends to sleep as he watches the unconscious geese in a pool,—O Lord, a few strokes of his wing and he is upon them, the birds may escape, while we shall have all Europe at ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... God. It makes no mention of nature, but simply says: 'The heavens declare the glory of God,' 'He sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust.' No laws of nature are spoken of as conditioning the action of God, but He sees the sparrow's fall and provides for it; He hears and answers the prayer of His children. It declares man to be more than a slave driven by motives, with every action necessitated; it declares him a creature of free volition, whose action can ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is over all, Who heedest even the sparrow's fall, Keep in the little maiden's breast The pity, which is now its guest! Let not her cultured years make less The childhood charm of tenderness. But let her feel as well as know, Nor harder with her polish ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... preface to the reader, John Sparrow writes: "I must say that this book, 'Aurora,' hath conduced more to open my mind to the understanding of all his writings, and of all Mysteries, both natural and divine (and so, consequently, of the Holy Scriptures) ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... might here make as beautiful a collection as I have ever seen. The different varieties of the parrot tribe are countless, and extremely pretty: the king-parrot, the lowrie, and the mountain parrot, are, perhaps, the most beautiful. Then, there is the pretty little diamond sparrow, so called from its size, its habits, resembling those of the common sparrow, and its plumage, which exhibits a diamond pattern of black, white, and blue. Of the hawk tribe, the varieties are numerous: ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... "Besides, George would like to see you. I s'pose he won't be long?" he added, turning to Mrs. Henshaw, who was regarding Mr. Bell much as a hungry cat regards a plump sparrow. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... The same incident occurs in the Arabian story of Seyf-el-Mulook and Bedeea-el-Jemal, where the Jinni's soul is enclosed in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow imprisoned in a small box, and this enclosed in another small box, and this again in seven other boxes, which are put into seven chests, contained in a coffer of marble, which is sunk in the ocean ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... had been blown in with the last gust of wind; a wretched little Sparrow, who twittered helplessly from time to time, and then hid her head ashamed at having been betrayed into such an exhibition of weakness in public; an Owl, who, living habitually in the barn, regarded the others with suspicion ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... chance," she told herself. "That doesn't help you any," pricked the accuser. "You talk about the honor of the Winnebagos. If you use that information you would be dishonoring the Winnebagos! You're a cheat, you're a cheat," it said tauntingly, and a little sparrow on the window sill outside took up the mocking refrain, "Cheat! Cheat!" Stung as though some one had pointed an accusing finger at her, Migwan flung down her pen in despair and resolutely blotted her paper. She handed in her examination with the last half of the last question unanswered, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... a sparrow to the ground may fall But our Father's in it: Heart of Love that governs all. Even the very hairs of your ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... desk, or, as it was called, the "reading pew," occurs till 1603, when, in the ecclesiastical canons then framed, it was enjoined that besides the pulpit a fitting or convenient seat should be constructed for the minister to read service in; and in allusion to the reading desk, Bishop Sparrow, in his Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer, observes, "This was the ancient custom of the church of England, that the priest who did officiate in all those parts of the service which were directed to the people turned himself towards them, as in the absolution; but ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... nearer to some of those which commonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those smaller and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade a villager—the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whip-poor-will, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... look of the garden. Both were children abandoned by their parents to whom the widow gave food for wages,—and what food! The lad, whom Godefroid caught a glimpse of, wore a ragged blouse and list slippers instead of shoes, and sabots when he went out. With his tousled head, looking like a sparrow when it takes a bath, and his black hands, he went to measure wood at a wood-yard on the boulevard as soon as he had finished the morning work of the house; and after his day's labor (which ends in wood-yards at half-past four in the afternoon) he returned to his domestic avocations. He went to ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... on the 21st of August that Don Frederick with 16,000 veteran troops appeared before the walls of the town, and at once proceeded to invest it, and accomplished this so thoroughly that Alva wrote, "It is impossible for a sparrow to enter or go out of the city." There was no doubt what the fate of the inhabitants would be if the city were captured. The duke was furious that what he considered his extraordinary clemency in having executed only some ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... God's-acre. All was hushed; it was difficult to imagine a phantom where neglect seemed to rule. It was not in this olden part that descendants of the departed flocked on All Saints' Day to decorate the mausoleums with evergreens, plaster images and artificial immortelle garlands. Except for a screeching-sparrow, which his first steps dislodged, not a sign of life appeared in this town around which the living city slept ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... continued the other Sparrow, not heeding the interruption, 'this must be a flower-seed, since I found it in a garden well known to me for its loveliness,—for, as a rule, I go about with my eyes open,' he added. 'Now at this attic window of which I spoke,' he went on saying, 'I have seen a poor pale-faced girl for ever bending ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... one, My bird, my brown sparrow in my breast. My squirrel clutching in to me; My pigeon, my little one, so warm So close, breathing ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... every man at heart when He prepared the earth for his abode and gave him dominion over it. And He yearned for his deliverance from a fallen estate when He gave him a revelation of His infinite redeeming love. The eye of God is upon each individual of the race, as upon every sparrow. He has in thought, in word and in works, not the favoring of one of an hundred, while the ninety and nine are crushed or neglected, but the happiness and highest good of every one ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... a wolf, and the wolf is in an iron chest at the bottom of the sea ("Golden Bough," ii. 314). The Tartars have stories of a golden casket containing the soul, inside a copper or silver casket ("Golden Bough," ii. 324). And the Arabs tell of a soul put in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow in a little box, and this in another small box, and this put into seven other boxes, and these in seven chests, and the chest in a coffer of marble ("Golden 10 Bough," ii. 318). The notion, therefore, of a series of boxes, one enclosing another, and the whole guarded by dangerous ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... for pastime, Doc. I guess I'd learnt all you've told me from the books and papers of the boy's father. Knowing you for the man you are, and the way you most generally try to make a ten-pound heart look like a sparrow's egg by shouting at folks, I reckoned you'd see with me in this thing. That poor feller Brand. As you say, his work isn't to be wasted. He's left behind him a kiddie which hasn't a thing in the world, and if I'm any judge of things that kiddie was the whole sun, moon, and stars ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... effort to lead a pure, sweet, rural existence. Finally Shandon contented himself by forbidding Dart to meddle in the future with anything not in any way a part of his own business; and nourished the secret hope that a few weeks of the humdrum of mountain life would tire this sparrow of the city gutters. Whereupon, when alone with his big book and a fresh cigar, Willie Dart ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... measuring 14 to 17 millimetres, bite their way through their tough envelope, which is not abandoned by the father until all the young are liberated, and complete in the ordinary way their metamorphosis. The tadpoles grow to a large size considering that of the adult, the body equalling in size a sparrow's or even a small pigeon's egg, and they often remain more than a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... where he had sung praises in the jail! Some people would have jumped to have had this chance of going to live in a palace, but this farmer said, "Give me my farmhouse and my quiet grave beside my mother." Elevation may undo us. A sparrow could only chirp even though in a golden cage. Barzillai felt, "A rustic, like I am, seems all right among my ploughs and cattle, but I should not fit a palace." Many a man has made himself a laughing stock because he ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... of the people, and take whatever might come. No one ever took a castle by remaining quietly outside. He may lose his life, and he may take the castle. At any rate, here I am. I believed it my duty to come, and to come now, and I returned with my mind perfectly tranquil. I know that a sparrow shall not fall to the ground without my Father, and that the very hairs of my head are ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that GOD governs in the affairs of men. And, if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probably that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... although your earthly father be taken away from you. I do not feel anxious about the manner in which you will gain a livelihood when I am dead, for the birds easily find their food, and you will find enough to nourish you. God provides for the smallest sparrow; will He not also provide for you? The thought that distresses me," he continued, "is that you will be left alone. Alas, my dear child, you have little idea of the wickedness that is in the world! There will ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... wickedness. So the jury declared him guilty, and the judge condemned him to die at sundown. We were all to fall upon the prisoner together, and tear him into bits with bill and claw; but while we waited for the sun to sink Will Sparrow flew up to the Judgment Tree ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... commander was the son of Colonel Nivelle—and an English mother, a former Miss Sparrow, whose family lived at Deal, on the English Channel. In his married life General Nivelle has ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... as we looked back, one or two candles flickered in cabin windows, pitiful, dim lights in the vast, dark ocean of the forest. Above us the stars grew clearer. A vesper-sparrow sang its pensive song. Tranquil, sweet, the serene notes floated into silver echoes never-ending, till it seemed as if the starlight all around us ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... hen dries her wings, The young lambs frisk away The merry sparrow sings; Come let ...
— Little Songs • Eliza Lee Follen
... down on her like a hawk on a sparrow. It was bullying but O! was it not glorious? The old thrill, the thrill of thrills, incomparable, made him tremble. He was ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... B.-P. is in the house, though his hair begins to flourish less willingly on his brow, he is just like the boy of old, springing up the stairs three steps at a time, and whistling as he goes with a heartiness and a joyousness that astonishes the decorous ten-year-old sparrow Timothy as he flits about the house ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... continued, "when I was there this morning I watched a sparrow popping in and out of a nest built in a niche in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... gilt dirt, Irish-French. Pictet bought a sparrow some boys in the street threw up at the window, and said he would bring it home for his little grandson. It was ornamented with a topping made of scarlet cloth. He put it in his hat, and tied a handkerchief ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... male bird, to some lonely rock or secluded tarn, to gorge its fill alone. I have frequently seen these eagles swoop on to one, and, while struggling with its prey, have galloped up and secured it myself, before the dazed wallaby could collect its senses. Other birds of prey, such as sparrow-hawks, owls, and mopokes (a kind of owl), inhabit this region, but they are not numerous. Dull-coloured, small birds, that exist entirely without water, are found in the scrubs; and in the mornings they are sometimes noisy, but not melodious, when ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... of my failings and weaknesses, and I can bear witness with a clear conscience that I am not angry when they smile and nod the head; why should I be? But, John, it is known to myself only and Him before whom all hearts are open how great is my suffering in being among my neighbours as a sparrow upon ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... the monotony. Not that there was ever much monotony in the neighbourhood of the Heavenly Twins; they managed to introduce variety into everything, and their quickness of action, when both were roused, was phenomenal. One day while at work they saw a sparrow pick up a piece of bread, take it to the roof-tree of an angle of the house visible from the schoolroom window, drop it, and chase it as it fell; and the twins had made a bet as to which would beat, bird ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... took the first step towards a reconciliation, by sending word to Valentinois that it was not his intention to take any measures that might displease his Excellency. His Excellency will no doubt have smiled at that belated assurance from the sparrow to the hawk. Then, a few days later, came news that Giulio Orsini had entered into an agreement with the Pope. This appeared to give the confederacy its death-blow, and Paolo Orsini was on the point of setting out to seek Cesare at Imola for the purpose of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... The Veery The Song-Sparrow The Maryland Yellow-Throat The Whip-Poor-Will Wings of a Dove The Hermit Thrush Sea-Gulls of Manhattan The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet The Angler's Reveille A November Daisy The Lily ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... antiphonal, showerings of bright notes, moments of subsidence, almost of pause. As the light grows and sharpens, the music reaches a crescendo of exuberance, and at last dies down as real day comes, bringing with it the day's work. On our island the leader of the chorus was almost always a song sparrow, though once or twice a wood thrush came over from the shore woods and filled the hemlock shadows with the limpid splendors of ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... feeling sort of like the famous sparrow who'd gotten trapped for three hours in a badminton game at Forest Hills, I built a strong highball, and poured it down while my halluscene set was warming up. I needed the highball as well as the relaxation, because ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... previous chapter, singing is to a certain extent an art, and is much improved by practice. Birds can be taught various tunes, and even the unmelodious sparrow has learnt to sing like a linnet. They acquire the song of their foster parents (35. Barrington, ibid. p. 264, Bechstein, ibid. s. 5.), and sometimes that of their neighbours. (36. Dureau de la Malle gives a curious instance ('Annales des Sc. Nat.' 3rd series, Zoolog., tom. x. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... say here that I am almost glad I made that mistake about the white-throated sparrow, since receiving a note from a lady who writes from among the Berkshire hills, where the sweet call of this bird is constantly repeated. It is very pleasant to know that a little girl out in that beautiful region honors me so much as to recite ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... grubbing, they fail to note that an enemy is near—a little cock-eared cur, that has swum up to the ledge, and, without bark or yelp, is stealthily crawling toward it. Taking advantage of every coign of concealment, the dog creeps on till, at length, with a bound, like a cat springing at a sparrow, it seizes the great seabird, and kills it in a trice, as a fox ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... age, is so common, that the mysterious principles which it involves, are too generally overlooked. We thoughtlessly allow them to escape observation, as if they were mere matters of instinct, and were to be ranked with the spider's catching its prey, or the sparrow's building its nest. But the principles which regulate these different operations are perfectly dissimilar. In the case of the spider and the sparrow there is no teaching, and, of course, no learning. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... pounced upon by an eagle sobbed very much and uttered cries like a child. A Sparrow upbraided her and said, "Where now is thy remarkable swiftness of foot? Why were your feet so slow?" While the Sparrow was thus speaking, a hawk suddenly seized him and killed him. The Hare was comforted in her death, and expiring said, "Ah! you who so lately, when you ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... translated Jack and Jill into Greek iambics, and been a credit to your college." I turned testily away from her. "Madam," says I, "because an eagle houses on a mountain, or soars to the sun, don't you be angry with a sparrow that perches on a garret window, or twitters on a twig. Leave me to myself: look, my beak is not aquiline by ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... street where the houses were separated from the pavement by gardens and stone balustrades, he noticed a black cat seated on the top of a pillar, its head thrown far back, and its wide-open eyes, looking like balls of yellow fire, fixed on a sparrow perched high above on the topmost twig of a tall slender tree. "Puss, puss," said Eden, speaking to the animal almost unconsciously, and without pausing in his walk. Down instantly leapt the cat, inside the wall, and dashing through the shrubbery, shot ahead of him, and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... around the barn, but I didn't see any one there but that ugly little upstart, Bully the English Sparrow, and he wanted to pick a fight with me right away." ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... always flowers in the window, and always a yellow cat on a red cushion. No canary bird; my mother Marie never would have a bird. "No prisoners!" she would say. Once a neighbour brought her a wounded sparrow; she nursed and tended it till spring, then set it loose ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... cause their malice to revert upon their heads. As for the king's menace of me with slaughter, I am in the grasp of his hand; so let not the king occupy his mind with my slaughter, for that I am like unto the sparrow in the hand of the fowler; if he will, he slaughtereth him, and if he will, he looseth him. As for the delaying of my slaughter, it [proceedeth] not [from] the king, but from Him in whose hand is my life; for, by Allah, O king, if God willed my slaughter, thou couldst ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike. And the whole little wood where I sit is a world ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... our brother's are black. His hair, which was not so dark as that of the Indians, was smooth and sleek as the hair on the head of a child, or the feathers on the breast of the humming-bird. His head was encircled with a chaplet made of the feathers of the song-sparrow and the red-headed-woodpecker. He rode slowly through the village without stopping till he came to the lodge of Wasabajinga, when he alighted, leaving his good horse to feed upon the grass which grew around the cabin. He entered the lodge of the chief. The stern old ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... or Uncle Jed been there, the catastrophe would never have happened; but Mrs. Snawdor was at the post-office, and Uncle Jed at the signal tower, and the feeble protests of Mr. Demry were as futile as the twittering of a sparrow. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... [728] No. 41. 'The sparrow that was hatched last spring makes her first nest the ensuing season of the same materials, and with the same art as in any following year; and the hen conducts and shelters her first brood of chickens with all the prudence that she ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... cannot save you. Do your best; and then like the Great Duke, comfort yourselves with the thought that you have done your best; and like him, trust in God. Remember that God is really and in very truth your Father, and that without him not a sparrow falls to the ground; and are ye not of more value than many sparrows, O ye of little faith? Remember that he knows what you have need of before you ask him; that he gives you all day long of his own free generosity a thousand things for which ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... a word of one syllable in the book of nature, he will make the most of that. I read such a word the other morning when I perceived, when watching a young but fully fledged junco, or snowbird, that its markings Were like those of the vesper sparrow. The young of birds always for a brief period repeat the markings of the birds of the parent stem from which they are an offshoot. Thus, the young of our robins have speckled breasts, betraying their thrush kinship. And the young junco shows, in ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... soft air and sunshine, the leisurely life of the villages, and the cheerful unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind. Every sparrow twittered hope. The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it melodiously. It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly company. Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented Margaret replying to his letter. Time would clear it up and set him wondering ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... violence if it is inoculated into a rabbit and subsequently taken from the rabbit for further inoculation. The fowl cholera micrococcus, which has been weakened as just mentioned, may be restored to its original violence by inoculating it into a small bird, like a sparrow, and inoculating a second bird from this. A few such inoculations will make it as active as ever. These variations doubtless exist among the species in Nature as well as in artificial cultures. The bacteria ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... an ancient history that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the chief assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground dead, and such was the horror and indignation of that ancient but not Christianized ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... blackleg, with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his "Nelly's grave" in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A sparrow hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of man. With a superior ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the groves, with quiet tread, On his accustomed haunts he sped, The mother-thrush, unstartled, sung Her descant to her callow young, And fearless o'er his threshold prest The wanderer from the sparrow's nest, The squirrel raised a sparkling eye Nor from his kernel cared to fly As passed that gentle hermit by. No timid creature shrank to meet His pensive glance, serenely sweet; From his own kind, alone, he sought The screen of solitary ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... enthusiastically on the King's Highway. Sometimes Linda lifted her hand from the wheel to wave a passing salute to a particularly appealing flower picture. Sometimes she whistled a note or cried a greeting to a mockingbird, a rosy finch, or a song sparrow. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... we set off to Sparrow Hill, and partook of some tea under a small tent commanding a splendid view of Moscow, and said to be the spot whence Napoleon had his first ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... thrill of gladness was in that song, Edward! It was a spontaneous thank-offering to Him, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground; to Him who clothes the fields in greenness, beautifies the lily, and provides for every creature its food in season. And this reminds me;" she added in a changed and more sobered ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... at his employer. He had a gray, humorous eye; he was slim and alert, like a sparrow-hawk—the sort of boy his father openly rejoices in and his mother is secretly in prayer over. Only, this boy had neither father nor mother. Since the age of twelve he had looked out for himself, never quite without bread, sometimes ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... will weep a bramble's smart, A maid to see her sparrow part, A stripling for a woman's heart: But woe awaits a country, when She sees the tears of bearded men. 1874 SCOTT: Marmion, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... her value to a star, her personality. If Luciline Lynch whom Nature had endowed with the grand manner had tried to be Mercola Merch who was all vivacious wickedness—well, anyone could see! So, if Barbara Walbrook suggested an eagle on the wing and she, Letty Gravely, was only a sparrow in the street, the sparrow would be more successful as a sparrow than in trying ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... his duties in the ballroom after awhile; but Jimmy sat on, smoking and thinking. The night was very still. Now and then, a sparrow would rustle in the ivy on the castle wall, and somewhere in the distance a dog was barking. The music had begun again in the ball-room. It sounded faint and thin ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... hurl the whole nest into the river, for he thought that they who die without sorrow or sin are the happy ones. Should he not save them from beasts of prey and cold, from hunger, and from life's manifold visitations? But just as he thought this, a sparrow-hawk came swooping down on the nest. Then Hatto seized the marauder with his left hand, swung him about his head and hurled him with the strength of wrath out ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... yeldeth haukes in great store, as falcons, Ierfalcons, lanardes and sparrow haukes, rauens, crowes, beares, hares and foxes, with horses and other kinde of cattell, vpon which coast in August and September the yse is vtterly dissolued, all which the premises are certainly verified by such as trade thither from Lubec, Hambro, Amsterdam and England yerely, then why should ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... who, in his efforts to preserve a fitting severity of expression in keeping with the duty before him, had succeeded only in appearing monstrously depressed. He smiled eagerly, responsively, to Carter's bow, bobbing his head like a gleeful sparrow. As a matter of fact, the proceedings were to him a joke—something to relieve the monotony of his existence. Yet this modern Falstaff, as Carter afterward learned, was among the bravest of the brave, meeting death ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... oddments under an elegant French name and sell it for as much money as a dinner for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous "lark-pudding" until it was whispered to her that what was not good beef steaks in the dish was nothing more than pigeon or possibly even sparrow! after which she enjoyed it, and afterwards pilgrimaged to the kitchen to see the great blue bowls, as big as a wash-hand basin, in which the puddings have been made since Dr. Johnson's time, and the great copper in which they ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... to Desks in Churches: Font Inscription: Parochial Libraries, by W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A. 93 Real Signatures versus Pseudo-names, by the Rev. James Graves 94 Popular Stories of the English Peasantry, by Vincent T. Sternberg 94 Shakspeare Correspondence, by Cecil Harbottle, &c. 95 Epitaph and Monuments in Wingfield ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... round. It was Pye. The little man fixed his gold glasses on his nose with two fingers in his nervous way, and blinked through them at us, unruffled as a cock-sparrow that yet ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... whisper into word, As sharp as lightening, and as broad of reach, As seas, flung down by God to every beach Where thirsts a sparrow, or a bleating herd! There is no soul through out the land, not stirred; For, oh, to glory God gives his own speech When darkness, raised by Gold, declares that each, Hulk-held, is good but for the ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... insects, but he also ate everything else, including fruit. He stole bread and butter off tables, and his hoarse croak or defiant rattle was an oft-repeated warning to defend one's food. The minas were many in Tahiti, and, like the English sparrow in American cities and towns, had driven almost all other birds to flight or local extinction. The sparrow's urban doom might be read in the increasing number of automobiles, but the mina in Tahiti, as in Hawaii, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... see in that level plain, was wintry and colourless. The hedges in that part are kept cut and trimmed so closely that they seemed less like hedges than mere faint greyish fences of brushwood, dividing field from field: they would not have afforded shelter to a hedge-sparrow. The trees were few and far apart—grey naked oaks, un-visited even by the tits that find their food in bark and twig; the wide fields between were bare and devoid of life of man or beast or bird. Ploughed and grass lands ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... you shall eat to-morrow, about how you shall be clothed in the years to come. Trust in Him who feeds the birds, and makes the flowers bloom. Shall not the Heavenly Father have greater love for the children of men than for the sparrow or the lily? Do not burden your life with cares, but be glad, glad, glad in God, your Father. Set your minds on the Kingdom of Heaven; all else is second to that. . . . I observe, my brothers, that these words come home to you; but first see if the teacher ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... glorious Nymphs shewed me Quintilia and Cynthea Nauta, with others, in great solace, making sweete harmonies, and singing pleasant verses: there also I behelde the virgin Violantilla with hir Doue, and the other sorrowing for hir Sparrow. ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna |
