"Centaur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Centaur. Olga Popoff Muller This bestial creature is in the act of abducting a beautiful woman. She has ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... to decipher illegible inscriptions, to contemplate a throttled centaur on a dilapidated frieze, or a carved acanthus on a fallen capital, grope over the Acropolis and invoke Athenian Pallas," said Mike; "but for me these painted seraglios and terraced, bower-canopied gardens, vocal with nightingales ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... for many labors, and a happy climax to their honors, to make an equestrian statue of Washington for our country. I wish they might all do it, as each would show a different kind of excellence. To present the man on horseback, the wise centaur, the tamer of horses, may well be deemed a high achievement of modern, as it was of ancient art. The study of the anatomy and action of the horse, so rich in suggestions, is naturally most desirable to the artist; happy he who, obliged ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Centaur not Fabulous; in Six Letters to a Friend, on the Life in Vogue," which reads very much like the most objurgatory parts of the "Night Thoughts" reduced to prose. It is preceded by a preface which, though addressed ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... admiral Boscawen's mizen-mast and topsail-yards were shot away, and the enemy hoisted all the sail they could carry. Mr. Boscawen having shifted his flag from the Namur to the Newark, joined some other ships in attacking the Centaur, of seventy-four guns, which, being thus overpowered, was obliged to surrender. The British admiral pursued them all night, during which the Souveraine and the Guerrier altered their course, and deserted their commander. At day-break, M. de la Clue, whose left leg had been broke in the engagement, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... ladies, strut the stage, to the great delight of attorneys and their clerks in the pit, and of the citizens and their apprentices in the galleries; and which are no more to be found in real life than the centaur, the chimera, or any other creature of mere fiction. But to let my reader into a secret, this knowledge of upper life, though very necessary for preventing mistakes, is no very great resource to a writer whose province is comedy, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of arrow tipping the admixture of blood with the snake poison became a common practice. Even the use of animal fluids alone is recorded—e.g., the arrows of Hercules, which were dipped in the gall of the Lernaean hydra. Hercules himself at last fell a victim to the blood stained tunic of the dead Centaur Nessus. As late as the middle of the last century Blumenbach persuaded one of his class to drink 7 oz. of warm bullock's blood in order to disprove the then popular notion that even fresh blood was a poison. The young man who consented to drink the blood ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... Brush, more than once; "you ride like a centaur and none knows better how to use firearms, but there are Indians in these mountains and they sometimes approach nigh enough to be seen from New Constantinople. Then, too, your father brought word that other miners are working their way toward us. More than likely there ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... wine, and, armed with stones and pine clubs, surrounded the cave of Pholus. The first who tried to force their way in Hercules drove back with brands he seized from the fire. The rest he pursued with bow and arrow, driving them back to Malea, where lived the good Centaur, Chiron, Hercules' old friend. To him his brother Centaurs had ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... as brave as he was gentle and jolly, and as hardy as he was brave. At five years old he killed his first fox; at seven he could manage his horse like a young centaur; and at twelve he had his first successful bear hunt. He was as obstinate as he was hardy; he steadily refused to learn Latin or French—the languages of the court—until he heard that the kings of Denmark and Poland understood them, and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... shall inform ourselves Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun, The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn Upon the meadows, shall not be more near Than you and I to nature's mysteries, for ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... mythology with Apollo, the god of light and the promoter of health. In the "Iliad" he is hailed as the disperser of epidemics, and, in this respect, the ancients were well informed in attributing destruction of infection to the sun's rays. Chiron, the Centaur, it was believed, was taught by Apollo and Artemis, and was the teacher, in turn, of AEsculapius, who probably lived in the thirteenth century before Christ and was ultimately deified as the Greek god of medicine. Pindar ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... passion and temper of his untrained steed, held sufficient control over it to keep it always within the circle of the spectators' vision. At a signal from the prince, two horsemen, who had remained as close as possible to the daring centaur, seized him with astonishing swiftness, and galloped away with him before those who looked on could understand the new manoeuvre. The horse, for a moment stupefied, soon darted away at full speed and was lost in the midst of ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... over here, and, as his own horse was knocked up, I mounted him at his own request on Jezebel, he preferring her to all the horses in the paddock on account of her beauty, after having been duly warned of her wickedness. But Mr. Halbert seems of the Centaur species, and rather to enjoy an extra chance ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... prospects of the situation; had even mentioned—so great was his confidence in the capable Kinney—the price that the state would, in all likelihood, pay. It seemed to Lonny that fame and fortune were in his hands. Certainly, a spark of the divine fire was in the little brown centaur's breast, for he was counting the two thousand dollars as but a means to future development of his talent. Some day he would paint a picture even greater than this—one, say, twelve feet by twenty, full of scope ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... rush from the beach, like a Centaur in a scarlet cloak, was an actual measure of prudence; for in those cruel times of wreckers and smugglers the survivors who landed from a wreck were often murdered by the people they were thrown amongst, because "dead men tell no ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... laws ascribed to Triptolemus are referred to,—namely, to honour parents; to worship the gods with the fruits of the earth; to hurt no living creature. The first two laws are also ascribed to the centaur Cheiron. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Centaurs and Lapithae, at the nuptials of Pirithous. Each metope contains two figures, grouped in various attitudes; sometimes the Lapithae, sometimes the Centaurs victorious. The figure of one of the Lapithae, who is lying dead and trampled on by a Centaur, is one of the finest productions of the art, as well as the group adjoining to it of Hippodamia, the bride, carried off by the Centaur Eurytion; the furious style of whose galloping in order to secure his prize, and his shrinking from the spear ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... touch'd not; none of all the Greeks, None, save Achilles' self, that spear could poise; The far-fam'd Pelian ash, which to his sire, On Pelion's summit fell'd, to be the bane Of mightiest chiefs, the Centaur Chiron gave. Then to Automedon he gave command To yoke the horses: him he honour'd most, Next to Achilles' self; the trustiest he In battle to await his chief's behest. The flying steeds he harness'd to the car, Xanthus and Balius, fleeter than the winds; ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... 'atom' or 'ether.' If 'man' or 'mountain,' or 'Cuzco' be used to illustrate logical forms, they bring with them an existential import derived from experience; but this is the import of language, not of the logical forms. 'Centaur' and 'El Dorado' signify to us the non-existent; but they serve as well as 'man' and 'London' ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... are foliage scrolls with animals within them; on Eve's side an ass, horse, camel, elephant, hippopotamus, and the Oriental motif of a griffin stooping over its prey; on Adam's side a woman riding on a horse, a centaur with a dart, a mermaid, a sea-horse, and at the bottom a griffin devouring a scroll, with a human head attached. Below the ornament are semi-nude caryatid figures on one side; on the other they have ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... and farther, terrifying Vienna itself; and driving all the Court to Presburg, with (fabulous) "MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO MARIA THERESIA," but with actual armament of Tolpatches, Pandours, Warasdins, Uscocks and the like unsightly beings of a predatory centaur nature. Which fine Hungarian Armament, and others still more ominous, have been diligently going on, while Karl Albert sat enjoying his Homagings at Linz, his Pisgah-views Vienna-ward; and asking himself, "Shall we venture forward, and capture ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stampede of many hundred maddened animals, or in the performance of a hundred other feats of reckless and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely unequalled; and when he has his own horse gear he sits his animal with the ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless the first time he gets astride one of the small eastern saddles. One summer, while purchasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch foremen had to get on an ordinary saddle to ride out of town and see a bunch of steers. He is perhaps the best rider on the ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... examine this dexterous wielder of the knife and cord. He, Juan de Dios! Come hither, O Centaur of the boundless cattle-plains! We will not ask you to dismount,—for that you never do, we know, except to eat and sleep, or when your horse falls dead, or tumbles into a bizcachero; but we want to have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... His works were not so numerous as they were perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. [Footnote: Lucian on Zeuxis.] Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showed great ingenuity in his contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. He acquired a great fortune, and ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... crossed over the shoulders, and when the word 'Mount' was given, Polson was the only one of the newly recruited crowd who did not make a painful climb in trying to obey the order. He was in the saddle in a flash, and sat there like a centaur. ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... value of which amounted to the sum of 50,000 pieces of silver.[154] We have before said a few words concerning Simon the magician, and the magician Elymas, known in the Acts of the Apostles.[155] Pindar says[156] that the centaur Chiron cured several enchantments. When they say that Orpheus rescued from hell his wife Eurydice, who had died from the bite of a serpent, they simply mean that he cured her by the power of charms.[157] The poets have employed ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Centaur shall behold no more With long stride making down the beechy glade, Clear-eyed, with firm lips laughing,—at his heels The clamor of his fifty deep-tongued hounds; Him the wise Centaur ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Already a good horseman, he was now initiated into the arts of the manege, which, when carried to perfection, almost realise the fable of the Centaur, the guidance of the horse appearing to proceed from the rider's mere volition, rather than from the use of any external and apparent signal of motion. He received also instructions in his field duty; but I must own, that when his first ardour was past, his progress fell short in the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... meal, others still asleep—all unprepared for this thunderbolt that fell in their midst. While forming his lines of battle, and while bullets were flying all around, General Kershaw came dashing down in front of his column, his eyes flashing fire, sitting his horse like a centaur—that superb style as Joe Kershaw only could—and said in passing us, "Now, my old brigade. I expect you to do your duty." In all my long experience, in war and peace, I never saw such a picture as Kershaw and his war-horse ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... could be distinguished forming a horrible group in the distance. But they had not proceeded twenty paces when they heard the sound of a horse galloping after them at so rapid a pace that he gained upon them every moment. Our traveller turned round and saw a man, or rather a Centaur, for the most perfect harmony imaginable existed between horse and rider. The latter was of a robust and plethoric constitution, with large fiery eyes, rugged features, and a black mustache. He was of middle age and had a general air of rudeness and aggressiveness, with indications ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... seen the consul on his morning rides. He rides like a centaur, they say; but I have never ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... fairy, who freed a certain country from the Ogri and the Blue Centaur. When she sounded her trumpet, the sick were recovered and became both young and strong. She gave the princess Carpil'lona a bunch of gilly-flowers, which enabled her to pass unrecognized before those who knew her well.—Comtesse D'Aunoy, Fairy ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... secular arms an immense elm Reareth a crowd of branches, aneath whose lofty protection Vain dreams thickly nestle, clinging unto the foliage on high: And many strange creatures of monstrous form and features Stable about th' entrance, Centaur and Scylla's abortion, And hundred-handed Briareus, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... the first book of the Achilleid, tells how Thetis, to prevent Achilles from going to the siege of Troy, bore him sleeping away from his instructor, the centaur Chiron, and carried him to the court of King Lycomedes, on the Island of Scyros, where, though concealed in women's garments, Ulysses and Diomed discovered him. Statius relates how wonderstruck Achilles ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... woeful love he won, A hoary eld of feathers soft about him doth he on, Leaving the earth and following the stars with tuneful wails; And now his son amid his peers with Tuscan ship-host sails, Driving with oars the Centaur huge, who o'er the waters' face Hangs, threatening ocean with a rock, huge from his lofty place, And ever with his length of keel the deep ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... sir, when do you design to drink? When shall we drink? When shall the worshipful esquire drink? What a devil! have you not talked long enough to drink? It is a good motion, answered Pantagruel: go, get us something ready at the next inn; I think 'tis the Centaur. In the meantime he writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... heartfelt welcome. I am in hourly expectation of seeing the fleet, the letters from the Earl acquainting me with his intention of putting to sea the moment the weather moderated. The Superb, with Centaur and Warrior, hove in sight this afternoon,—the only ships I have seen since last Tuesday, when I went into Douvarnenez Bay; and I have the satisfaction to reflect that, notwithstanding the tempestuous ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... creature. His musical powers gave him a mystic quality to her. She caressed his horse's mane and thrilled as she touched it, as if she were caressing the man—as if he were some new and splendid type of centaur. And Runyon seemed to read her mind. His face became more ruddy with delight. His flashing eyes suggested sound rather ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... along the Orizava road, the major and Jack riding in advance. I could not help smiling at the contrast between these two equestrians; the former with his great gaunt horse, looming up in the uncertain light of the morning like some huge centaur; while Jack and Twidget appeared the two representatives of ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... strong rock from which it soars by the giant labor of the now dying Past, it seems during the lapse of centuries to have grown up from its stony heart, as the human breast grows from the broad back of the Centaur. A single banner streams above its lofty turret, the only banner of the Cross now raised on earth; the symbol of God's mystic love alone floats high enough to pierce into the unclouded blue of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dumb animals have fallen in love with men; for there was a cock who took a fancy to a man of the name of Secundus, a cupbearer of the king; and the cock was nicknamed "the Centaur." This Secundus was a slave of Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia; as Nicander informs us in the sixth book of his essay on 'The Revolutions of Fortune.' And at AEgium, a goose took a fancy to a boy; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... enthusiasm of Captain Sarrasin. He liked a girl who rode, that was certain. Mrs. Sarrasin rode like that rarest of creatures, except the mermaid, a female Centaur, and if he had had a dozen daughters, they would all have been trained to ride, one better than the other. The riding, therefore, was clearly in the favour of Dolores, so far as Captain Sarrasin's estimate was concerned. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... an expression half laughing, half demoniac. On the first round his cap had fallen off, and the shaggy hair of his head and face streamed in the wind, adding greatly to the fierceness of his looks. He had perfect control of himself and horse, and rode like a centaur, ready to take any advantage which circumstances or guile threw in his way. He also had held in his horse with bit and bridle, reserving his best efforts for the closing part of ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... cocking his carbine as he went, and in a moment reached the summit of a hill opposite to that on which he had perceived the traveller. Three cries for help came more distinctly to his ear. He cast his eyes around him and saw a man carrying off Teresa, as Nessus, the centaur, carried Dejanira. This man, who was hastening towards the wood, was already three-quarters of the way on the road from the grotto to the forest. Vampa measured the distance; the man was at least two hundred paces in advance of him, and there was not a chance of overtaking him. The young shepherd ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... nostril red, and action proud,— As high she reared, she did the world affright With neighings which rang long and loud. You came; her mighty loins, her paces scanned, Pliant and eager for the track; Hot Centaur, twisting in her mane your hand, You sprang all booted to her back. Then, as she loved the war's exciting sound, The smell of powder and the drum, You gave her Earth for exercising ground, Bade Battles as her pastimes come! Then, no ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Dejanire for you,' and he takes a soft pencil and a piece of smooth card-board, and in five minutes draws me an outline of a naked woman on a centaur's back, a creature of touching beauty no other hand in the world could produce—so aristocratically delicately English and of to-day—so severely, so nobly and classically Greek. C'est la chastete meme—mais ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... warnings of the crow (who relates the story of its own transformation, and of that of Nyctimene into an owl), and having persisted in informing Phoebus of the intrigues of Coronis. Her son AEsculapius being cut out of the womb of Coronis and carried to the cave of Chiron the Centaur, Ocyrrhoe, the daughter of Chiron, is changed into a mare, while she is prophesying. Her father in vain invokes the assistance of Apollo, for he, in the guise of a shepherd, is tending his oxen in the country of Elis. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... too, was Deianira, the heroine of the Trachiniae, and though of exalted rank she fully realized this fact. When Hercules first took her to Tiryns, he was still sufficiently interested in her to shoot a hydra-poisoned arrow into the centaur Nessus, who attempted to assault her while carrying her across the river Evenus. But after she had borne him several children he neglected her, going off on adventures to capture other women. She weeps ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Combattant, actually, a warrior attacking a mounted Amazon. An inscription states that it is the work of Agasias of Ephesus. To the R. is a fine Marsyas, doomed to be flayed alive by order of Apollo; to L. 562, the Borghese Centaur, and near the exit, 529, the charming Diana of Gabii, a Greek girl fastening her mantle. We pass to the Salle du Tibre, in the centre of which stands the famous Diana and the Stag, acquired for Francis ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... in his whiskers. With a chirrup of delight she righted herself, a bridle-rein of hair in each hand. On went the charger, his speed increasing from a walk to an amble. Louder and louder laughed Elisabeth. Steed and rider were in that perfect accord wherein man seems akin to the Centaur. ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... has temporarily baffled the disease, but for me there can be no restoration. Day by day I feel the ebbing of strength and energy, and the approach of my deliverer, death; but I realize also, what the Centaur uttered to Melampus, 'I decline unto my last days calm as the setting of the constellations; but I feel myself perishing and passing quickly away, like a snow-wreath ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... they rode back, "if you love that young man of yours and want to keep him, make him promise to give up riding. A more reckless and more brilliant horseman I have never seen. He took that double jump at the gate and that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck sooner or later, and he ought to be stopped." Young Paddock was so delighted with his prospective brother-in-law's great riding that that night in the smoking-room he made him a present of Satan ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... most striking sights to them now was the constellation of the Cross, commonly known by mariners as the Southern Cross, and which is composed of four brilliant stars. Sirius, Canopus, and Centaur also filled a part of the heavens with their splendid light. Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter were old friends in new surroundings, and were all dazzlingly dressed. The part of the Milky Way between the stars Sirius and Centaur was so rich in stars ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... the natural conclusion of a great many tales. The heroes of mythology, or even those of human society, continued to live in the sky in the form of brilliant stars. There Perseus again met Andromeda, and the Centaur Chiron, who is none other than Sagittarius, was on terms of good ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... that inspiration of genius so common then among sailors, laid his seventy-four, the Centaur, close alongside the Diamond; made a hawser, with a traveller on it, fast to the ship and to the top of the rock; and in January 1804 got three long 24's and two 18's hauled up far above his masthead by ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... obliged to sleep leaning against a tree; that Deer lived several hundred years; that the Badger had the legs of one side shorter than those of the other; that the Chameleon lived entirely on air, and the Salamander in fire; whilst the sphynx, satyr, unicorn, centaur, hypogriff, hydra, dragon, griffin, cockatrice, &c. &c. &c. were either the creations of fancy, or fabled accounts of creatures of whose real form, origin, nature, and qualities, but the most ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... church. The ages remember me, and the poets sing my praise in immortal verse!" The strident wheels turned at the far end of the room and came back. The fantastic and frightful apparition, man and machinery blended in one—the new Centaur, half man, half chair—flew by me again in the dying light. "I am Shakespeare!" cried the frantic creature now. "I am writing 'Lear,' the tragedy of tragedies. Ancients and moderns, I am the poet who towers over them all. Light! light! the lines flow out ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... (marked thus, [symbol for SAGITTARIUS]) is the ninth zodiacal sign, and corresponds with the month of November. This sign is represented like a centaur and was fabled to be Crotus, the son of Eupheme, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... this thought gave substance to the simile which had occurred again and again: these trees reminded me of centaurs with proud, upright man torsos, and great curved backs. In one, a root dropped down and rested on the back, as a centaur who turns might rest ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... tendency towards the introduction of an adventurous element; it turns upon the tribute of youths and maidens exacted from the island of Scyros by the king of Thrace. The figure of the satyr is replaced by a centaur who carries off one of the nymphs. Her cries attract two youths who succeed in driving off the monster, but are severely wounded in the encounter. The nymph, Celia, thereupon falls in love with both her rescuers ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case; beyond the clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in parallels to the wall. Below those twin emblems of war and cookery were four shelves, containing plates of pewter and delf, and terminating, centaur-like, in a sort of dresser. At the other side of these domestic conveniences was a picture of Mrs. Lobkins, in a scarlet body and a hat and plume. At the back of the fair hostess stretched the blanket ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Jocelyn preserved one characteristic, an unerring instinct for field-sports that no amount of drinking could impair. He could hit a flying bird with a stone, was a deadly shot for snipe or mallard, rode like a centaur, and fished with the instinct of a heron. It is probable that his consciousness of this faculty was at the bottom of his startling recovery. Possibly he was frightened to find a little of his skill failing. I only know that at the age of forty-eight, he pulled himself up short. His eyes, seeing ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... for Alcides win A name of glory far and wide; He tamed the Centaur's haughty pride, And from ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... Truth you have undergone a wonderful Metamorphosis: Formerly you were a Horseman, and now of a Centaur, you are become a Kind ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... other matters. The deity, perhaps, will reduce these [present evils], to your former [happy] state by a propitious change. Now it is fitting both to be bedewed with Persian perfume, and to relieve our breasts of dire vexations by the lyre, sacred to Mercury. Like as the noble Centaur, [Chiron,] sung to his mighty pupil: "Invincible mortal, son of the goddess Thetis, the land of Assaracus awaits you, which the cold currents of little Scamander and swift-gliding Simois divide: whence the fatal sisters have broken off your return, by a thread ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... he told him gravely, "without being a demon; 'tis not a thing wholly incredible. Such creatures as God framed to have no part in Adam's heritage, these can no more be damned than they can be saved. I can never believe that the Centaur Cheiron, who was wiser than men are, is suffering eternal torments in the belly of Leviathan. A traveller who penetrated once into Limbo, relates how he saw him seated in a grassy spot and conversing with Rhipheus, the most righteous man ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... quit a city where not a step can be taken without a new or a revived idea being added to our store;—where such statues as would in England have colleges founded, or palaces built for their reception, stand in the open street; the Centaur, the Sabine woman, and the Justice: Where the Madonna della Seggiola reigns triumphant over all pictures for brilliancy of colouring and vigour ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... celebrated annually on the battle-field of Pharsalus in Thessaly. As soon as Faust's feet touch classic soil he recovers his senses and sets out with enthusiasm to find Helena. After some wandering about among the classic fantoms he falls in with Chiron the Centaur, who carries him far away to the foot of Mount Olympus and leaves him with the wise priestess Manto, who escorts him to the Lower World and secures the consent of Queen Persephone to a temporary reappearance ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the flagship, then steamed toward the Dutch coast, followed by the Coventry, Dragoon, Danal and Centaur. Other ships followed in line with their navigation lights showing. The picture was a noble one as the great vessels, with the moon still shining, plowed their way to take part in the surrender ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... sent for the saddle had watched everything; so when Sedgwick dismounted he held out his hand and said, heartily: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Sedgwick, I was mistaken in you. You do more than ride. When mounted, you and the horse together make a centaur." ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... military education proceeded. Already a good horseman, he was now initiated into the arts of the manege, which, when carried to perfection, almost realize the fable of the Centaur, the guidance of the horse appearing to proceed from the rider's mere volition, rather than from the use of any external and apparent signal of motion. He received also instructions in his field duty; but, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the dying gladiator (brought back from Paris); this is certainly a noble piece of sculpture; the bodily pain and mental anguish are singularly well expressed in the countenance; a superb bronze statue of Hercules; a Centaur in black marble; a Faun in rosso antico; a group of Cupid and Psyche; a Venus in Parian marble rather larger than the common size. One of the halls in this museum contains the busts of all the philosophers; another those of all the Roman emperors; there is also a colossal statue of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... he has brought back with him on his return in triumph from the storming of Oechalia. She bethinks her of a love-charm which she has long had among her treasures. It is the blood of Nessus, the Centaur, who, having offered her violence, and received his death-wound from Hercules in her defence, had perfidiously persuaded her that his blood would win back her husband's love. The blood, being infected with the poison of the Lernsean Hydra, in which the arrows of Hercules were dipped, proves the deadly ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... appalling depths, With caverns, vast and gloomy, which would seem Meet for the haunt of centaur or of gnome; The gorgon and the labyrinthodon; The clumsy mammoth and the dinosaur; Or all gigantic and unwieldy shapes Which earth has seen in the mysterious past, Would seem in more accord and harmony With such surroundings than the puny form Of ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... the woman Bonaparte" are hawked about, which in England would bring their authors under Lord Campbell's statute. In one caricature she is represented stark naked, with Prince Joinville sketching her. In another, called "the Spanish cow," she is made a sort of female Centaur. In another she is dancing the Can-can, and throwing her petticoats over her head, before King William, who is drinking champagne, seated on a sofa, while her husband is in a cage hung up to the wall. These scandalous caricatures have not even the merit of being ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... a centaur, swirled by me to do the thing I ordered. Behind me rode Beverly Clarenden bareheaded, his face aglow with power. As I looked back the dust engulfed him for a moment, and then I heard an arrow sing, and a ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... obscure, are plunged more or less deeply in proportion to the heinousness of their crimes; for, like earthly streams, this has its deep and shallow. At the latter point they cross, on the back of Nessus the Centaur, and at once enter (Canto xiii.) a wood of gnarled and sere trees, in which the Harpies have their dwelling. These trees have sprung from the souls of suicides, and retain the power of speech and sensation. ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... it to the Centaur, where we host, And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee. 10 Within this hour it will be dinner-time: Till that. I'll view the manners of the town, Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings, And then return, and ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... all that place a heap of wreckage lay, Triglyphs and pediments and carven portals, With centaur, sphinx, chimera, satyrs gay— Figures of fabled monsters and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Fedi, in 1864. In the centre is an antique group supposed to represent Ajax dragging the body of Patrocles—restored by S.Ricci. Next it is the marble group, by G.Bologna, representing Hercules slaying the Centaur. In this Piazza is also the Fountain of Neptune, by Ammanati (pupil of Bandinelli), 1571. It is crowded with nymphs and satyrs, presided over by a statue of Neptune (19 feet high) in a car drawn by four horses. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... Leipzig, not to waste time, he declines entering the Town; positively will not, though the cannon-salvos are booming all round;—"breakfasts in the suburbs, with a certain Horse-dealer (ROSS-HANDLER) now deceased:" a respectable Centaur, capable, no doubt, of bargaining a little about cavalry mountings, while one eats, with appetite and at one's ease. Which done, Majesty darts off again, the cannon-salvos booming out a second time;—and by assiduous driving gets home to Potsdam about eight at night. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... sorrel, and it knew all the tricks of its kind. It went sunfishing, tried weaving and fence-rowing, at last toppled over backward after a frantic leap upward. The rider, long-bodied and lithe, rode like a centaur. Except for the moment when he stepped out of the saddle as the outlaw fell on its back, he stuck to his seat as though he were glued ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... Ariadne is really asleep, and Hercules, in wine, really sinks to the ground; the dancing girl floats in the air as though in her native element; the centaur gallops without an effort; it is simple reality—the very reverse of realism—nature such as she actually is when she is pleasant to behold, in the full effusion of her grace, advancing like a queen because she is a queen, and because she could not move in any other fashion. In a word, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... Therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... stone or bronze some of these mixed types—notably the human-headed bird and the human-headed winged lion; these it identified as the Siren and the Sphinx of Greek myth, and associated them with the mysteries of the tomb. To some other forms, that of the Centaur and the Satyr and the Triton, it also gave considerable scope. But all these, if not human, are hardly to be regarded as divine; they are mostly noxious, and, even if benignant, do not attain the ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... destroy the germs of evil that Typhon had, during the winter, planted everywhere in nature. This passage of the Sun into Taurus, whose attributes he assumes on his return from the lower hemisphere or the shades, is marked by the rising in the evening of the Wolf and the Centaur, and by the heliacal setting of Orion, called the Star of Horus, and which thenceforward is in conjunction with the Sun of Spring, in his triumph over ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... earth. Hercules's servitude was now ended, but his great performances were not. He fought with the centaurs and giants. When his period of slavery had ended, he married Dejanira; with her he went to Trachinia. At the river Evenus he encountered the centaur Nessus. Nessus, under pretence of carrying Dejanira over, attempted to offer her violence, which caused Hercules to slay him with a poisoned arrow. Nessus, before expiring, instructed Dejanira how to prepare a love potion ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... there was one negative result and two positive. The first mentioned is a son Malcolm, whom I have not met. He has a commission in the cavalry, is a devil at billiards, can't read a map, and rides like a Centaur. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... under the name of Leylio. He was a favourite with Louis XIII., and also with the public, especially as the young lover. He left a number of plays full of extravagant imagination. The best known are L'Adamo (Milan, 1613), The Penitent Magdalene (Mantua, 1617), and The Centaur (Paris, 1622). From the first of these three volumes, which are extremely rare, Italians have often asserted that Milton, travelling at that time in their country, took the idea of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... grown up, and grown old, and were trotting their grandchildren on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers had been taught their letters by a Centaur, half man and half horse. Little children, not quite understanding what is said to them, often get such absurd notions into their heads, ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the very time when he was on the point of attaining immortality by death. What words does Sophocles here put in his mouth, in his Trachiniae? who, when Deianira had put upon him a tunic dyed in the centaur's blood, and it stuck ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... characters, and pointed it out to each other with uncouth murmurings. They were strange folk, with eyes like pebbles and squat frames and short, broad faces, but each horse and man moved in unison like a centaur. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... The Centaur, Syren, I foregoe; Those have been sung, and lowdly too: Nor of the mixed Sphynx Ile write, Nor the renown'd Hermaphrodite. Behold! this huddle doth appear Of horses, coach and charioteer, That moveth him by traverse law, And doth himself both drive and draw; Then, when the ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... getting into unembarrassed talk with such a centaur, Captain Delano, after glancing round for a more promising countenance, but seeing none, spoke pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him; and so, amid various grins and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling a little ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... struggled to free herself, her horse began to rear, she screamed for help with all her might, but nothing answered her save an echo. The situation seemed critical for Jacqueline. As to M. de Talbrun, he was quite at his ease, as if he were accustomed to make love like a centaur; while the girl felt herself in peril of being thrown at any moment, and trampled under his horse's feet. At last she succeeded in striking her aggressor a sharp blow across the face with her riding-whip. Blinded ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... represented here by the blue ragged sailor of gardens, and not our Centaury, a distinctly American group of plants, which, Ovid tells us, cured a wound in the foot of the Centaur Chiron, made by an ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... ten compartments, and painted in such a manner that the festoon of leaves fall over and hide the fruit most picturesquely; two ivory cups, one in alto, the other in basso relievo; the latter the finer and most charmingly carved; a small group in bronze by John Bologna, "Dejanira and the Centaur," admirably done. Here are tables of the rarest marbles, one composed of a block from the Himalaya Mountains. In one of the windows is a piece of African marble brought to this country for George IV; also a small bath of Egyptian porphyry. In the lower room was a vase containing ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... on with the trusty escort along the edge of the crimson boiling, in which the boiled were making loud shrieks. I saw folk under it up to the brow, and the great Centaur said, "These are tyrants who gave themselves to blood and pillage. Here they weep their pitiless offenses: here is Alexander, and cruel Dionysius who caused Sicily to have woeful years. And that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... way. I shall never forget his pleasant smile as he returned my salute after thanking him for his suggestion. He was a superb-looking man, dark complexioned, wearing full black whiskers, and sat his fine horse like a Centaur, tall, straight, and graceful, the ideal soldier. I do not remember to have ever seen this remarkable officer again. He was one of the few great commanders developed by the war. A quiet, modest man, he yet possessed a very decisive element of character, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... beautiful (as Comedy and Dialogue in the present case), that will not ensure a good effect, unless the mixture is harmonious and well-proportioned; it is possible that the resultant of two beauties may be bizarre. The readiest instance to hand is the centaur: not a lovely creature, you will admit, but a savage, if the paintings of its drunken bouts and murders go for anything. Well, but on the other hand is it not possible for two such components to result in beauty, as the combination of wine ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... returning with Deianira, as the prize of his victory, entrusts her to the Centaur Nessus, to carry her over the river Evenus. Nessus seizes the opportunity of Hercules being on the other side of the river, and attempts to carry her off; on which Hercules, perceiving his design, shoots him with an arrow, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Centaur lived in a cavern on Mount Pelion and was reputed to be the wisest of mortals. All the young heroes of the time, Jason, Achilles, and others, were his pupils and spent their boyhood with him. He is sometimes represented as having the head of a man and the body of a ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... short stroke, and their coxswains yelling "En avant, mes braves!" with all the strength of their lungs. It must have been very like the boat-race Virgil describes in the fifth book of the Aeneid. There was the "huge Chimaera" the "mighty Centaur" and possibly even the "dark-blue Scylla" with their modern counterparts of Gyas, Sergestus, and Cloanthus, bawling just as lustily as doubtless those coxswains of old shouted; no one, however, struck on the rocks, as we are told the unfortunate "Centaur" did. Still the little ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... for little Maurice, a tyrannical little gentleman, who domineered over the entire household, and would have been grievously spoilt, if his mother had not taken all the crossing the stout little will upon herself. He had a gallant pair of legs, and the disposition of a young Centaur, he seemed to divide the world into things that could be ridden on, and that could not; and when he bounced at the study door, with 'Papa! gee! gee!' and lifted up his round, rosy face, and despotic blue eyes, Mr. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... engaged in a perpetual struggle with want, exhibited year after year these studies of animals—admirable groups which reveal him as inspired by a spirit of true romance and a feeling for the beauty of the antique, as in "Theseus and the Minotaur" (1847), "Lapitha and Centaur" (1848), and numerous minor works now very highly valued. Barye was no less successful in sculpture on a small scale, and excelled in representing animals in their most familiar attitudes. As examples of his larger work we may mention the Lion of the Column of July, of which the plaster model ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... were too short. He was dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses' provender, and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... in which she sat. Vain was the attempt to outride progress. The rider pulled out, and as they passed him the girl found still greater significance in the fact that he was one of her father's old-time cowboys—a grizzled, middle-aged, light-weight centaur whom she would not have recognized had not the driver called him by his quaint ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... show that he is talking about allegory. For instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of man and horse, the swiftness ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... young life, and in spite of the limpid springs in his eyes, Henri had a lion's courage, a monkey's agility. He could cut a ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his horse in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb, but knew how to beat a townsman at the terrible game of savate or cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have enabled ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... gallops on a horse without a bit; This backs the sluggish ass, or bullock slow; These mounted on the croup of centaur sit: Those perched on eagle, crane, or estridge, go. Some male, some female, some hermaphrodit, These drain the cup and those the bungle blow. One bore a corded ladder, one a book; One a dull file, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... friend laughs, he will say, "You laughed a little unseasonably, but I almost died of laughter." But in regard to any good points his action is quite the opposite. He says he can run quickly, but his friend flies; he says he can ride pretty well, but his friend is a Centaur on horseback. He says "I am not a bad poet, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the virgin lamp, and watch the smoke of old altars coiling among the cypress boughs. The redwoods of the West become columns of Doric eloquence and simplicity. The mountains and lakes of the West have become settings for the reading of the "Centaur" of Maurice de Guerin. You see the reason for the titles chosen because you feel that the poetry of line and the harmonic accompaniment of color is the primal essential. They are not so dynamic as suggestive in their quality of finality. The way is left open, in other words, for you ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... in the trade winds in the Southern hemisphere was to me the very acme of bliss. I was thoroughly in sympathy with the passage of Humboldt where he speaks of the tropical skies and vegetation in the following beautiful manner:—"He on whom the Southern Cross has never gleamed nor the Centaur frowned, above whom the clouds of Magellan have never circled, who has never stood within the shadow of great palms, nor clothed himself with the gloom of the primeval forests, does not know how the soul seems to have a new birth in the midst of these new and splendid surroundings. Nowhere ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... of sleep and the desire of sleep—sleep in which no one walks, restorer of childhood to men—dreams, not like Galahad's or Guenevere's, but full of happy, childish wonder as in the earlier world. It is a world in which the centaur and the ram with the fleece of gold are conceivable. The song sung always claims to be sung for the first time. There are hints at a language common to birds and beasts and men. Everywhere there is an impression ...
— Aesthetic Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... curious figure!" exclaimed Leo, who saw Donald approaching. "If I had seen him for the first time, I should have taken him to be a fledged centaur—a mixture of ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Cockpit, the trial of Thurtell (a very powerful article), &c. That delightful punster and humorist, with pen or pencil, Tom Hood, sent to the London his first poems of any ambition or length—"Lycus the Centaur," and "The Two Peacocks of Bedfont." Keats, "that sleepless soul that perished in its pride," and Montgomery, both contributed poems. Sir John Bowring, the accomplished linguist, wrote on Spanish poetry. Mr. Henry ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... he dropped the reins and signalled to the horse only by the gentle touch of knee, of heel, by voice, by body swing, by wishing thus and so, and got response? For the horse and he were perfectly attuned and trained—the reins superfluous. Thus, centaur-like, they went, with more than twice the power that ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... At the cross-roads that formed the battalion rendezvous in case of alarm, we got into some kind of military formation, for we spied the gaunt figure of the colonel there sitting his horse like a centaur. A grim man he was, who never spared his horses, himself or his men, and his only comment as we hobbled past was, "Dress up those fours!"—and tired as we were, the fours dressed up. When, however, Captain H——, who had gone ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... fair vine, but that her arms surround Her married elm, had crept along the ground. Ah, beauteous maid! let this example move Your mind, averse from all the joys of love. Deign to be loved, and every heart subdue! What nymph could e'er attract such crowds as you? 70 Not she whose beauty urged the Centaur's arms, Ulysses' queen, nor Helen's fatal charms. Ev'n now, when silent scorn is all they gain, A thousand court you, though they court in vain— A thousand sylvans, demigods, and gods, That haunt our ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... boiling, roasting, and broiling. The first that rode a horse thither, though in several other voyages he had contracted an acquaintance and familiarity with them, put them into so terrible a fright, with his centaur appearance, that they killed him with their arrows before they could come to discover who he was. Their buildings are very long, and of capacity to hold two or three hundred people, made of the barks of tall trees, reared with one end upon the ground, and leaning ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of his sorrow for Sarpedon, rained drops of blood upon the earth, but it is a dogma of the philosophers that the divine is exempt from suffering; and they deny the myth of the horse-centaurs, giving us the horse-centaur as an example of non-existence. Now we could give many other examples of each 163 of the antitheses mentioned above, but for a brief argument, these are sufficient. Since, however, such anomaly of things is shown by this Trope also, we shall not be able to say what objects are by nature, ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... astronomer royal for Scotland, were the first to surmount the difficulty that had baffled the telescopic resources of the HERSCHELS. BESSEL detected a parallax of one-third of a second in the star 61 Cygni, and in the constellation of the Centaur HENDERSON found another star whose parallax amounted to one second. Of the million of fixed glittering points that adorn the sky, these are the only two whose distances have been calculated, and to express them, miles, leagues, or orbits seems inadequate. Light, whose ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... pair of beautiful silver cups with graceful handles. The design was made in hammered silver, and showed centaurs talking to cupids that are sitting on their backs. A centaur was half man, ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... tore to tatters every scrap of rumor. No citizen came or went without being studied, characterized, accounted for, and every woman was scrutinized as closely as a stray horse, and if there was within her, the slightest wayward impulse some lawless centaur came to know it, to exult over it, to make test of it. Her every word, her minutest expression of a natural coquetry was enlarged upon as a sign of weakness, of yielding. Every personable female was the focus of ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... weather and his difficulties. He sat with his eyes fixed on his neighbour, and in those eyes a wondering, fatuous admiration. So might a mortal look if some strange hap brought him face to face with a centaur. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... didn't get along together. Ernest Ludwig is a serious-minded, modest and intelligent man, but a good deal of a sissy. Victoria Melita is a spit-fire, very good-looking and anxious to let people know about it. She rides horseback and fences to show off her figure, and someone called her a Centaur. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... about him, and laying into the horse with his whip, the neighbours rushed to their windows, the children took refuge in the bosoms of their mothers, and everybody gazed in terror at the fearful centaur. Certainly the Baron de los Oscos presented at such times a formidable aspect, with his scarred face, bloodshot eyes, waxed, fierce-looking moustache, and his figure looking ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... think of it! We shall inform ourselves Into all sensuous life; the goat-foot faun, The centaur, or the merry, bright-eyed elves That leave they: dancing rings to spite the dawn Upon the meadows, shall not be more near Than you and I to Nature's mysteries, ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as it is, that he invents a centaur, only when he can no longer be surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil. Diablerie is the stimulant of the jaded fancy; it is the dram-drinking of the artist. Savonarola addressed himself ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... was ordered as soon as the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as he rode away. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... 1494, Columbus set forth, with 400 armed men, to explore the Cibao country. The march was full of interest. It is upon this occasion that we first find mention of the frantic terror manifested by Indians at the sight of horses. At first they supposed the horse and his rider to be a kind of centaur, and when the rider dismounted this separation of one creature into two overwhelmed them with supernatural terror. Even when they had begun to get over this notion they were in dread of being eaten by the horses.[561] These natives lived ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance of the "critter company." Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon flashed on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a barren interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant, looking the centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs made itself felt as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and sabre, and now and again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... growling, as before an earthquake, and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left him. The os sublime was not wanting; and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... this fellow of old, 'tis a herald: many a centaur, chimaera[261], barnacle[262], crocodile, hippopotame, and such like toys hath he stolen out of the shop of my Invention, to shape new coats for his upstart gentlemen. Either Africa must breed more monsters,[263] or you make fewer gentlemen, Master ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... favorite wife was Dejanira, whose jealousy most fatally occasioned his death. Hercules having subdued OEchalia and killed Eurytus the king, carried off the fair I{)o}le, his daughter, with whom Dejanira suspecting him to be in love, sent him the garment of Nessus, the Centaur, as a remedy to recover his affections; this garment, however, having been pierced with an arrow dipped in the blood of the Lernaean hydra, whilst worn by Nessus, contracted a poison from his blood incurable by art. No sooner, therefore, was it put on by Hercules than he was seized with a delirious ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... effort some went to the side of the ship and eagerly gazed at the blue, transparent abyss. Perhaps they imagined they saw a naiad flashing a pink shoulder through the waves, or an insanely joyous and drunken centaur galloping by, splashing up the water with his hoofs. But the sea was deserted and mute, and so was ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... that country boy," observed Jacqueline critically. "The identical break-neck Centaur himself. Really, Berthe, I think we shall have to dub him Monsieur the Chevalier. Why Berthe, how pale ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... horses. The Greeks, who were wont to represent the forces of nature and the accomplishments of man by skilfully constructed myths, have left a record showing their appreciation of the strength derived from the union of horse and man, in their fable of the Centaur, which possibly grew up in a time before their people had won the use of the animal, and when they only knew the creature by chance encounters with enemies who were mounted upon them. Although the naturalist of ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... cocks carrying on their shoulders a long staff to which a fox (?) is tied by the legs, hanging down between them: the strut of the foremost cock, lifting one leg at right angles to the other, is delicious. Then a stag hunt, with a centaur horseman drawing a bow; the arrow has gone clear through the stag's throat, and is sticking there. Several capital hunts with dogs, with fruit trees between, and birds in them; the leaves, considering the early time, singularly ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... by whip, spur, or voice. It was utterly useless to show any signs of impatience. I could not help smiling to see him look so big on his little horse; his long legs now and then touching the ground made him look like a six-footed centaur. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne |
