"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confederation, which united the people of two distinct nationalities and extends over so wide a region—so far beyond the Acadia and Canada which France once called her own. But that the story may be more intelligible from the beginning, it is necessary to give a bird's-eye view of the country, whose history is contemporaneous with that of the United States, and whose territorial area from Cape Breton to Vancouver—the sentinel islands of the Atlantic and Pacific approaches—is hardly inferior to that ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... scarcely credible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that in some dwellings she may not keep a cat, a dog, or even a bird, neither may she have flowers in pots on her window-sills. She is hedged round with prohibitions, but she is expected to be superior and to abide in staid respectability on an income of less than thirty shillings per week. And ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... Rossitur, to whose imagination the word suggested nothing but a large water-bird ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... bed," she says, "which is silvered instead of gilt, rests on the backs of two large silver swans, so exquisitely sculptured that every feather is in alto-relievo, and looks nearly as fleecy as those of a living bird. The recess in which it is placed, is lined with white fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; and from the columns that support the frieze of the recess, pale blue silk curtains, lined with white, are hung. A silvered sofa has been made to fit ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... of sequence. Causality in action. An atom is dissected, a belly rumbles in hunger, a star blooms into brief nova; a bird wheels in futile escape, an ice-flow impacts, an equation is expressed in awesome mushrooming shape. These are multitudinous, apocalyptic. They are timeless and equal. These are things whereby suns wheel ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... who gallops in front, and while the animal pursues him, the others rush in and hamstring him with their knives. Ostriches are caught by throwing down poison at the spots where they feed. The Somali also hunt them, on the backs of their hardy little ponies. The ostrich is a shy bird, and is so blind at night that it cannot feed. A Somali, knowing this, providing himself with provisions for two or three days, sets off in search of them; showing himself to the ostriches, he is discovered, but takes care to keep at a distance. They stalk off, and he follows at the ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the night he heard a voice more sweet than the sighs of the bird of passion, or than the warbling phoenix. No words seemed adequate, he felt, to describe the beauty of this song. Walking out from his cabin, he found that the music came from a junk not very far ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... of which I had become conscious at the moment of my arrival, was emphasized now that the residents in the district had retired to their scattered habitations. No sound of bird or beast disturbed the silence. From the time that the footsteps of Martin the landlord had passed my door as he mounted heavily to his bed-chamber, no sound had reached me but the muffled ticking of a grandfather's clock ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... numbered. The whole world had been ransacked to produce the viands named in it; neither the frozen recesses of the north nor the sweltering regions of the south had been spared: every form of food, animal and vegetable, bird, beast, reptile, fish; the foot of an elephant, the hump of a buffalo, the edible bird-nests of China; snails, spiders, shell-fish, the strange and luscious creatures lately found in the extreme depths of the ocean and fished for with dynamite; in fact, every form of food pleasant to the palate ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... was late, culpably late. But Mrs. Downey was proud of that too, as arguing that the poor bird of passage had stayed to smooth her ruffled plumage. Mrs. Downey approved of all persons who thus voluntarily acknowledged the high ceremonial character of the Dinner. She was glad that Mr. Rickman would appear to-night in full evening dress, to rush away in the middle of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... fallen in a Titanic tragedy of color beyond Prince's Bay. The fierce bird, leisurely occupied in tearing to pieces the little twitterer, was a suitable accompaniment to the bloody drama in the clouds. Watching keenly, I gradually began to picture to myself the sensation of walking unseen to the murderous fowl and suddenly clasping his smooth back with both hands. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... his brain, joined as by some thin filament. He thought somehow of her soul, and then wondered what a soul was like. And then he thought of a dove, and then of a bat fluttering through the dark, and then of a bird lost at twilight. He thought of it as some lonely flying thing with a long journey before it and no place to rest. He could imagine it uttering the vibrant, plaintive cry of a peewit. And then it struck him with a great sense of pity ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... indeed favoured it, or whether Priam himself was not going into danger. King Priam took the cup from his wife and he poured out wine from it, and looking towards heaven he prayed, "O Father Zeus, grant that I may find welcome under Achilles' roof, and send, if thou wilt, a bird of omen, so that seeing it with mine own eyes I may go on my way trusting that ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... it. Let 'em larn what a man can do. I am a man, I know all about yer...." Jimmy threw himself further away on the pillow; the other stretched out his skinny neck, jerked his bird face down at him as though pecking at the eyes. "I am a man. I've seen the inside of every chokey in the Colonies ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... knight so fiercely, that the latter began to entertain apprehensions for his personal safety, and meditated a precipitate retreat. Yet he did not dare to move, lest the action should bring upon him the hurt he wished to avoid. Thus he remained, like a bird fascinated by the rattlesnake, until the young man, whose power of speech seemed taken from him by passion, went on, in a tone of deep and concentrated rage, that communicated a hissing sound to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... skill of Hokosa is great, and well he knows how to set a snare; but I think that if by his counsel I should springe the bird, he will be too clever a man to keep upon the threshold of my throne. He who sets one snare may set twain, and he who sits by the threshold may desire to enter the house of kings wherein there is no space ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... there isn't Candace!" said Miss Prissy; "I do believe Miss Marvyn has sent her with something for the quilting!" and out she flew as nimble as a humming-bird, while those in the house heard various exclamations of admiration, as Candace, with stately dignity, disinterred from the wagon one basket after another, and exhibited to Miss Prissy's enraptured eyes sly peeps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... could be deduced by men of natural powers of observation and little science from the action of clouds and smoke, the airplane, the Winged Victory of our day, waited upon two things—the scientific analysis of the anatomy of bird wings ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... grandeur of the very wastes around her as mounting guard over the freedom of her thoughts. There was no living speck on the trail, which she knew lay across the expanse of parched earth to the edge of the blue dome; there was not even a bird in the air. Undisturbed, she might think anything, pray for anything; she might feed the flame of revolt till the fuel of many weeks' accumulation had burned itself out and left her calm in the wisdom and understanding that reconciled her to her portion ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... it. I've tried it before and I haven't become used to it yet. No, sir. In the first place, a man has got no business up here. If he were meant to fly, he'd have wings, like a bird. I claim it's tempting Providence to go floating about through space in ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... man relinquished his hold, and the girl, with the quick movement of a humming-bird, dived into the foliage, and would have disappeared, had he not with equal celerity intercepted her, again imprisoning ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... this thing ought to be done, and another thought that. Some tried to lift the helpless bird by catching its wings in their beaks; but this failed, and such a chattering and ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... close to them a shotgun will do as well as anything, and we can't waste a shell on every bird or rabbit. Those shells of yours are precious. You other fellows will have to turn fishermen for a while. Your pistols are ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... down the bird," said Doctor Portsoaken. "You say you had no interest in his death. We shall ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... put it in a cage, And do thy best and utmost to engage The bird to love it; give it meat and drink, And every dainty housewives can bethink, And keep the cage as cleanly as you may, And let it be with gilt never so gay, Yet had this bird, by twenty-thousand-fold, Rather be in a forest wild and cold, And feed on worms ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... daily life and believed that in the pastoral kingdom of Theocritus they had found the promised land. Inevitably it followed that the figure of Orpheus, singing through the earth, and bringing under his dominion the beast and the bird, the very trees and stones, should become the picture of their fondest dreams. He was the hero of Arcady "where all the leaves are merry." In his presence the dust of dry theology and the cruel ban ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devote Samanas, year after year. Perhaps, oh Govinda, it had been just as well, had been just as smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the chimpanzee. It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as 'learning'. There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... what matter—say!— The shuddering trees, The Easter-stricken day, The sodden leas? The good bird, wing and wing With Time, finds heart to sing, As he were hastening The swallow o'er ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is coextensive with the star-spangled banner and American christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are{357} put in peril. Your broad republican domain is a hunting-ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... a good listener. He loved to catch a theory of life, hold it in his hand like a struggling bird while he discoursed about it, and let it go free into the sunshine again. Sypher admired ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... strange, but it was so), there broke out in the stone pine by my window a chorus of little birds whom the sunbeams had awakened; and they sang so sweet and so loud (like the white bird that sang to the monk Felix), that earthly cares seemed to fade away, and I fell asleep, and slept the first sound, dreamless sleep that had blessed me ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the Saracen Grandonie, Bestriding his charger Marmorie; He was son unto Cappadocia's king, And his steed was fleeter than bird on wing. He let the rein on his neck decline, And spurred him hard against Count Gerein, Shattered the vermeil shield he bore, And his armor of proof all open tore; In went the pennon, so fierce the shock, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... me back from my contemplation of that infernal old bird my lowered eyes looked on the doorway. The door was wide open, and a girl stood framed in the gap, gazing at me. Lord, how the blood rushed into my face with wonder and delight, for I thought then that I had never seen anything before so beautiful! Indeed, I think now ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... literature have never been didactic, and there is no reason to believe they ever will be. The only semblance of didacticism which can enter into literature is that which conveys such lessons as may be learned from sea and sky, mountain and valley, wood and stream, bird and beast; and from the broad human life of races, nations, and firesides; a lesson that is not obvious and superficial, but so profoundly hidden in the creative depths as to emerge only to an apprehension equally profound. For the chatter and affectation of sense disturb ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... the boy was, he was obliged to take care of the goats, and if he who can climb with them is a good guardian, well then indeed was Rudy. Why he climbed even higher than they! He loved to take the bird's nests from the trees, high in the air, for he was bold and daring; and he only smiled when he stood by the roaring water-fall, or when he heard ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... whirling-bright clouds"; and the "curls of hundred-headed Typho"; and the "hard-blowing tempests"; and then "aerial, moist"; "crooked-clawed birds, floating in air"; and "the showers of rain from dewy Clouds". And then, in return for these, they swallow "slices of great, fine mullets, and bird's-flesh of thrushes." ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... lovely lady came out on the balcony clad in light summer attire, with white lace sleeves, and stood there like a statue. When a gay paroquet flew out of the room and lighted on her hand, Anton's admiration went on increasing; but when a young girl followed the bird, and wound her arms around the lovely lady's neck, and the paroquet kept wheeling about them, and perching now on the shoulder of one, and then on that of the other, his feeling of veneration became such that he blushed deeply, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... beautiful caged little bird. I can say no more at present, but that she shall not suffer through any neglect ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... their actions to avoid. No longer was it possible to watch and chart the daily advance of a single body so a partially accurate picture could be formed of what might be expected tomorrow. Instead of one mass there were countless ones; at the whim of a chance wind or bird, seeds might alight in an area apparently safe and overwhelm a community miles away from the living glacier. No place was out of range of the attack; no square foot of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... stirred. The silence was weird, oppressive, and awe-inspiring; and when, at more or less lengthened intervals, a dry twig snapped, a withered leaf crackled, when the soft wafting of the wings of some nocturnal bird was heard among the branches overhead, or the sudden, brief rustling which betrayed the presence of some wild creature smote upon the ear, the effect upon the nerves was startling in the extreme. Through these alternate stretches of gloom and brief illuminated ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... we can as little think of a fearing or trembling which is the consequence of the knowledge of deep sinfulness and unworthiness, is shown by the parallel passage in chap. xi. 11: "They tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria." The bird and the dove are here an emblem of helplessness. Substantially parallel is also chap. v. 15: "In their affliction they will seek Me." Their trembling ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... Ham-Cam is built up with such splendors as "goose liver paste and Madeira wine jelly," "fried calves' kidney and remoulade," "Bombay curry salad," "bird's liver and fried egg," "a slice of red roast beef" and more of that red Madeira jelly, with anything else you say, just so long as it does ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... Carried along by the waves of the qualities darkened in his imagination, unstable, fickle, crippled, full of desires, vacillating he enters into belief, believing I am he, this is mine, and he binds his self by his self as a bird with a net. Therefore, a man being possessed of will, imagination and belief is a slave, but he who is the opposite is free. For this reason let a man stand free from will, imagination and belief—this is the sign of liberty, this is the path that leads to Brahman, this is the opening ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... fly this kite. It goes up straight from the hand like a bird. Will fly in a moderate breeze, and yet no wind short of a gale is too strong for it. It is made of strong, selected wood, and the finest ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 33, June 24, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... What an eddying of stragglers about this new-found focus of attraction! what amazement, and curiosity to find him out, if, indeed, he be find-out-able, and not, as the unmistakable papaverian odor suggests, some Stygian bird, hailing from the farther side of Lethe. But, Stygian or not, neither Hermes nor Pan (nor Panic, his namesake) could muster such a rabble at his heels, supposing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "shouting," "fell," and "passionate," are exactly the words, and all the words, which could be demanded in an ideal word-picture by those who have been familiar with the scene itself. And to make the ideal twice ideal, the very sound of the bird is brought before one's mind after a score of years, by the whole passage, and particularly in the reiterated "Why, why, why." If there is more consummate simplicity of art anywhere contained in as small a compass of words, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... break her fast with the paying guest, however: she's an early bird, though her pet aversion is a worm. I sent a message to her room (the smallest in the house) and was invited to go up. There was a cloud of cigar smoke in the air, and as Pat doesn't smoke, I deduced a miraculously matinal call from Larry. That ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... train them to pity even towards brute beasts, forbidding certain things to be done to animals which seem to touch upon cruelty. And therefore He forbade them to seethe the kid in the mother's milk (Deut. xiv. 21), or to muzzle the treading ox (Deut. xxv. 4), or to kill the old bird with the young." ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... night Mademoiselle had lain awake, wondering why the bird had not come hopping into the trap; and through the other half she had wondered anxiously if the bird would come to-morrow, with excuses which she might graciously accept. At last she had fallen asleep and dreamed ecstatic dreams about diamond necklaces and thousand franc notes. When the procession ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... affliction. A civilian with the toothache could not expect the consideration of a hero with a shrapnel wound. Moreover, this was her first appearance in the role of hostess at a large party, and she fluttered about like a distracted humming-bird. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... have been a tailor!—Charge, my fine fellows, and throw the constables out of the window, and the stewards after them. Every man his bird; and here goes for my Cock Robin." With that he made a grab at his Lilliputian antagonist, but missed him, as he slid away amongst the women like an eel, while his pursuer, brandishing his wooden arm on high, to which I now perceived, for the first ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... was! Not a sound—even the cry of a bird; only a faint silvery rippling tinkle somewhere near; a sound which set the boy creeping, to find it low down between some rocks slippery with green moss which grew all about a tiny pool, into which after lying flat upon his chest he plunged his lips, and drank again ...
— Our Soldier Boy • George Manville Fenn
... and ruling the state, cannot he proceed without any (purpose of) action? In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... are you coming Forth to the fields with me? The very air is gaily ringing With hum of bird and bee, And crowds of swallows now are chirping Up in our ancient thorn, And earth and air are both rejoicing, On this ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... ploughed land. He remembered how the huge machine with its stench of oil and fire had forced its way through the furze and ferns and wild roses and myrtle, and torn them up, and flung them on one side, and scattered and trampled all the insect life, and all the bird life, and all the hares, and field mice, and stoats, and hedgehogs, who made their home there. "A fine sight," a man had said to him; and he had answered, "A cursed wickedness." Was this what they would do to the vale of Edera? If they took ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... mother," said the princess, "what bird is a roc, and where may one get an egg?" "Princess," replied the pretended Fatima, "it is a bird of prodigious size, which inhabits the summit of Mount Caucasus; the architect who built your ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... intent and listening, and he would spring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the forest aisles and across the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched. He loved to run down dry watercourses, and to creep and spy upon the bird life in the woods. For a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush where he could watch the partridges drumming and strutting up and down. But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... However, one must live, you know; and here our living consists very mainly of wild ducks, wild geese, wild turkeys, and venison. Nor, perhaps, can one imagine the universal doom overtaking a creature with less misery than in the case of the bird who, in the very moment of his triumphant soaring, is brought dead to the ground. I should like to bargain for such a finis myself, amazingly, I know; and have always thought that the death I should prefer would be to break ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... are moments When the heart is not one's own, When we fain would clip its wild wing's tip, But we find the bird has flown. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... away; but the stranger had not altered her position. There she hung, like a dark shadow, indistinctly visible, yet causing no doubt of something ominous of evil being there, as some bird of prey hovering about, ready to pounce down any moment, and ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Phantom Valley, in de Indian Territory, what am now call Oklahoma. Us live in a Indian hut. My pappy Blue Bull Bird and mammy Nancy Will. She come to de Indian Territory with Santa Anna, from Mississippi, and pappy raise in de Territory. I don' 'member much 'bout my folks, 'cause I stole from dem when I a real li'l feller. I's a-fishin' in de Cherokee River ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... it or not. There is an air of neatness, order, arrangement, grace, and refinement, that gives a thrill of pleasure, though you cannot define it, or explain how it is. There is a flower in the window, or a picture against the wall, that marks the home of taste. A bird sings at the window-sill; books lie about; and the furniture, though common, is tidy, suitable, and, it may ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... sacred regard to the principles of justice forms the basis of every transaction, and regulates the conduct of the upright man of business. The following statements afford a bird's-eye view, as it were, of his habits, practice, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the letter into his pocket, The editor called his trip north a "wild-goose chase." He little knew that it was a chase of a different kind, and the bird was a fascinating girl. "I guess I shall have to tell Harmon that the bird I'm after is not a wild goose, but a new species, found solely up here, and with only one known specimen in existence. But I must write to him, anyway, and tell him something about my ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... ornithology— All I know about the birds Is a bunch of etymology, Just a lot of high—flown words. Is the curlew an uxorial Bird? The Latin name for crow? Is the bulfinch grallatorial? ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... was indeed a merry chap As ever made a trigger snap, And ne'er a bird its wing could flap— And get away; Whenever Barber smashed a cap, It ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... might have seemed but the sport of chance had it not rested there, though undetained, and refused to part even when flight was free. If it is granted to the loving sister to hope for better things, and if prayers can move the lord of the world, this bird perchance has come to thee from Sardinia's shore of exile to announce the speedy return ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... you wait, my mother? Who but a spirit or a bird of the air could have told you that I was coming, seeing that I sent ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... if I had been younger I could have smiled at Miss Martha, as Susy Gatchell and her graceless friends did, but somehow she appeared to me a creature trying to peck at the world and peek at the stars through the bars of a bird-cage. That's why, when I met her a morning or two before the Morenas exhibit, I asked her if she wouldn't like to see it. I knew that, once asked, she could be kept away by nothing short of an ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... him to see the violent passions she inspired, to hear her low thrilling voice weigh down her meaningless murmurs with significance. To many of her victims the very incompleteness of her sentences was a form of divine loyalty. One young poet had described her soul as a fluttering, desperate bird beating its wings on the bars of her marvellous loveliness. At this her lazy smile looked very wise. She thought my father an ideal husband. He was always right about her clothes and after all he was the greatest living expert on her beauty. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... of me," he said again, throwing the end of his cigar into the bushes with an irritated jerk of his arm,—"for the life of me, I cannot see what you have to complain of; and I shall certainly not give up any bird in the hand for two such birds in the bush as you promise me." He rose as he spoke, and shook out first one leg and then the other to straighten his trousers. "I'm going out," he added. "I've a patient to see. Ta! ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... and as if moved by a common impulse they strolled out of the dancing-room into the cool, quaint garden, where jessamines gave out an overpowering perfume, and a caged mocking-bird complained melodiously to the full moon ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... finally decided to intrust him would surely respond. She took his small hand in hers as they reached the street, and after an instinctive movement of withdrawal, like the startled fluttering of a bird, he suffered it to remain there. Together they walked to the nearest corner, and stood awaiting the coming of a trolley-car, the heat of an August sun blazing upon them, the stifling odors of the tenement ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... detain me as I was going down below, 'this wasn't a h'English ghost as I sees just now. It was the most outlandish foreign reptile you ever see. A long, big, black snake like a crocodile, only twice the length of the old corvette; with a head like a bird, and eyes as big and fiery as our side-lights. It was a terrible creature, Jim, and its eyes flamed out like lightning, and it snorted like a horse as it swam by the ship. I've had a warning, old shipmate, and I'll be a dead man before to-morrow ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... big fer convenience, an' not so old as to be too set in his ways an' too proud to larn. I had three good men with me, an' we scattered ourselves over a big bit o' ground, lookin' fer a likely trail. When I stumbled on to that chap in the cage yonder, what Captain Bird admires so, I knew right off he wasn't what I was after. But the queer thing was that he didn't seem to feel that way about me. He was after me before I had time to think of anything jest suitable to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... welcome day; With night we banish sorrow; Sweet airs, blow soft; mount, larks, aloft, To give my love good-morrow. Wings from the wind to please her mind, Notes from the lark I'll borrow; Bird, plume thy wing, nightingale, sing, To give ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... wild woods came a cry as the two stood there. It might be a wolf or fox, if any were there, or some strange night-bird, or a woman in pain. It rose, it seemed, to a scream, melancholy and dreadful, and then died again. The two heard it, but said nothing, one to the other. No doubt it was some beast in a snare or a-hunting, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... smell! the woods have been ransacked, that their tenants, who possess succulent and juicy flesh, may contribute to appease the hunger of the outlaws—bird and beast are there, and soon will be beautifully cooked. Nor are edible herbs wanting, such at least as can be gathered in the woods or grown in the small plot of cultivated ground around the buildings; which the men leave entirely, as do all ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... his bonds before the royal palace, and leaned on a certain tree for grief, with many others, who were in bonds also; and as a certain bird sat upon the tree on which Agrippa leaned, [the Romans call this bird bubo,] [an owl,] one of those that were bound, a German by nation, saw him, and asked a soldier who that man in purple was; and when he was informed that his name was Agrippa, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... love those sounds; for they stir up in them fierce feelings, and a desire for blood," returned the Pathfinder, totally unmoved. "I thought them rather frightful when a mere youngster; but they have become like the whistle of the whippoorwill or the song of the cat-bird in my ear now. All the screeching reptyles that could stand between the falls and the garrison would have no effect on my narves at this time of day. I say it not in boasting, Jasper; for the man that lets in cowardice through the ears must have but a weak heart ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... your eye," said her husband. He steadied the telescope, having pointed it for her. "See that suit of sails? Ain't they grand? And the taper of them masts? She's a bird!" ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... house wrote me the only congratulatory letter I ever got from him in my life. He was so well pleased with what I had done that he didn't kick very hard even on the bill that I had slashed. But that next week—oh, my! I didn't sell enough to buy honeysuckles for a humming bird. I began to think that maybe that Sunday bill had ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... that hour, naughty fellow. Oh, what a tame ending to your romance! Your beautiful ghost come to visit you from unknown regions, clad in white and rustling garments, has resolved itself into a lame bird, rather poverty-stricken in the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... joy is set with great poetic insight the precisely opposite image of a love which delights in expression, and rejoices over its object with singing. The combination of the two helps to express the depth and intensity of the one love, which like a song-bird rises with quivering delight and pours out as it rises an ever louder and more joyous note, and then drops, composed and still, to its nest ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Preciozi, the Pope. Not the popinjay, but the Pope in white. What a very marvellous bird! He has a feather fan like a peacock's tail; he speaks like the cockatoo, only he differs from them in being infallible; and he is infallible, because another bird, also marvellous, which is called the Holy Ghost, tells him by night everything that takes ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... turn had come, so small a thing, and yet it sent the blood tingling through every vein, racing and pulsing with headlong impetus like a locked stream suddenly set free. It was no more than the flight of a startled bird from the tree ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... finds the partridge in the puttock's nest, But may imagine how the bird was dead?" —SHAK.: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the land of slumber, and as the hours drew on no sound arose to waken them; indeed, outside all was still save the gurgle of the great river near at hand, the swishing of running water against the sturdy bow of the shanty-boat, a hoarse cry from some bird that fluttered along the shore looking for food, possibly a night heron passing over, and once or twice the hoarse whistle of some steamboat breasting the current of the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... in this world; so are the men of this world: they must have all their good things now, they cannot stay till next year, that is, until the next world, for their portion of good. That proverb, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," is of more authority with them than are all the Divine testimonies of the good of the world to come. But as thou sawest that he had quickly lavished all away, and had presently left him nothing but rags; so will it be with all ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the south wind The elm-leaves softly stirred, And in their pale green clusters There straightway bloomed a bird! ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... poor wretch spoke of a Demon. Who can tell? Nature herself is a grand destroyer. See that pretty bird, in its beak a writhing worm! All Nature's children live to take life; none, indeed, so lavishly as man. What hecatombs slaughtered, not to satisfy the irresistible sting of hunger, but for the wanton ostentation of a feast, which he may scarcely taste, or for the mere sport that he finds ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... You must live with them to catch the magic. No painter, for instance, can translate to canvas the elusive and ever-changing verdure of the dense forests under the brilliant tropical sun, nor can those elements of mystery with their suggestion of wild bird and beast that lurk everywhere at night, be reproduced. Life flows on like a moving dream that ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... to be avoided, and in shorter they may be indulged, because the train of the composition may naturally involve them, or the scantiness of the subject allow little choice. However, what is borrowed is not to be enjoyed as our own, and it is the business of critical justice to give every bird of the ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... I said; "but I have never forgotten your voice, nor a lovely song you sang which I have never heard since, called 'Happy Birdling of the Forest.' And your trill! Just like the bird itself!" ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... melody. The chant was determined by curious signs printed under the words, and the signs that made nice music were rather rare, and the nicest sign of all, which spun out the word with endless turns and trills, like the carol of a bird, occurred only a few times in the whole Pentateuch. The child, as he listened to the interminable incantation, thought he would have sprinkled the Code with bird-songs, and made the Scroll of the Law warble. But he knew this ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... replied the physician, tapping his caba with his long forefinger, "that which will render the bite of the snake as harmless as the peck of a bird that flies in the air, but barely three minutes remain in which ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... cricketers, actresses, and statesmen beset him in vistas. He trod a maze of death that had not lived. There were very few school treats about, for the fashionable school treat season had not yet fully set in. So the man had the wax almost entirely to himself. He spread his wings to it like a bird to the air. By degrees, as he wandered—pursued by the distant music from the drenched volcanoes—a feeling of suffocation overtook him. All these men and women about him stared and smiled, but all were ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... us on several hunting expeditions, but he was much less expert than we were in the use of the rifle. He could shoot very well when he got his weapon on a rest, but could never manage to bring down game on the wing. The first time he saw me kill a bird flying, he expressed his astonishment. He had been accustomed to the bow from his boyhood, he said, and, that his people never attempted to shoot at any creature except on the bough of a tree, or running along ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... could so far unbend as to outline his experience in this business. Whereupon the Head Examiner proceeded with his writing and left the author, in a state of coma, facing an expectant assistant examiner, who resembled some predatory bird only waiting for life to be extinct before falling upon the victim. Somewhat to his own surprise, however, the victim showed signs of returning animation, and began to utter strange, semi-articulate noises. The Head Examiner wrote on with ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... there are fresh beauties stirred; As the sunned bosom of a humming-bird At each pant shows some fiery hue, Burns gold, intensest green or blue: The same, yet ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... delight, but how I never wot, I in a slumber and a swoon was caught, Not all asleep and yet not waking wholly; And as I lay, the Cuckoo, bird unholy, Broke silence, or I heard him in my ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth |
