"Feline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the outside light, fitting his own quick step to the prince's feline saunter. This is coming it pretty soft, he said to himself. I'll have a magnificent suite, with bowls of fruit and gin pahits, not to mention two or three silken girls with skin like rich cream bringing me towels in the shower.... Well, well, well, ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... the open space along which they had formerly been walking. He had been wise enough to keep this in mind when trying to circumvent the obstinate feline enemy that refused to let them pass. Once they found their trail, and it would be an easy matter to ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... the rejoinder, "but we have never noticed any attempts at hibernation here. Bears are unusually lively during the cold months, and demand their food as regularly as do the lions and other feline animals. I don't know that any observations of value on this question have ever been made on animals in confinement. I have had some experience with outside animals, and a great many go through what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... disturb Neville she made frequent journeys around to the other side of the cat, sometimes passing sensitive fingers over silky feline contours, which, research inspired ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... purred the last sentence in the softest feline accents. Stuart felt his nerves quiver as the imaginary claws sank into his flesh, but he smiled back ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... demesne no soldier could stand before him and look straight into his eyes. So deep and honest a book it was, so easily readable, that she must turn to its final pages. Love him? No. Be his wife? No. She recognized that it was the feline instinct to play which dominated her. Consequences? Therein lay the charm ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... There is something feline about a man's love for old, familiar things. I know that it is a popular misconception to compare women with cats and men with dogs. But the analogy ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... druggist went on, "are human beings subject to such anomalies, but animals also. Thus you are not ignorant of the singularly aphrodisiac effect produced by the Nepeta cataria, vulgarly called catmint, on the feline race; and, on the other hand, to quote an example whose authenticity I can answer for. Bridaux (one of my old comrades, at present established in the Rue Malpalu) possesses a dog that falls into convulsions as soon as you hold out a ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... it all is! every word tells as the generations pass before us. The very spirit of romantic Irish fidelity is incarnate in Thady. Jason Quirk represents the feline element, which also belongs to our extraordinary Celtic race. The little volume contains the history of a nation. It is a masterpiece which Miss Edgeworth has never surpassed. It is almost provoking to have so many details of other and less interesting stories, such as EARLY ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... there is very little mental exhilaration in a hearth-rug. Lots of comfort, but little humor. The real excitement of life, at least to a cat, is when in a morning stroll abroad she goes out of her sphere—the hearth-rug—and meets some feline friend to whom she extends a claw, playful or otherwise; or possibly meets some merry puppy which induces her to move rapidly up the nearest tree with an agility which you never would believe the mother of a family could boast if you had not been an eye-witness to the interesting scene. ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... insects in short mimosa tangle up to the knee, I disturbed a strange-looking animal, about the size of a sheep, brownish colour, long tail, short legs, feline in aspect and movement, but quite strange to me. I took my gun and shot it dead—yes, quite dead. Away tore my boy as fast as his legs would carry him, terrified beyond measure at what I had done! ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... feet. All the feline joy of her languorous ease seemed to have departed. She was quivering and nervous. She stood ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Those feline orbs of mingled gray and green, with their small, pointed pupils, were keen, vigilant, and observing beyond all eyes it had ever before or since been my lot to encounter. After meeting their penetrating glance I was not surprised to hear their possessor accost me in clear, metallic ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... babblings—excuses for the room's disorder, costumes for the new piece to be made, all the time flashing looks at him, watchful, humble, adoring, ready to come at his summons of word or hand. Finally, the materials thrown into hiding places, the dresses heaped on the sofa, she came toward him—a lithe, feline stealing across the carpet—and slipped down on the floor ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... at the time of his first visit. This pretty, soft white puss had conceived for Samuel Brohl a most deplorable sympathy; perhaps she had recognised that he possessed the soul of a cat, together with all the feline graces. She lavished on him the most flattering attentions; she loved to rub coaxingly against him, to spring on his knee, to repose in his lap. In retaliation, the great, tawny spaniel belonging to Mlle. Moriaz treated ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... this earth it is not a mere figure of speech. I vividly recall the feeling, for example, with which I greeted the first cat I saw on American soil. It was on the Hoboken pier, while the steerage passengers were being marched to the ferry. A large, black, well-fed feline stood in a corner, eying the crowd of new-comers. The sight of it gave me a thrill of joy. "Look! there is a cat!" I said to Gitelson. And in my heart I added, "Just like those at home!" For the moment ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... icecreamers and friers in the fish way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good old succulent tuckin with garlic de rigueur off him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... makes life worthy to be lived? He may have tried. He never could succeed. He lacked the sympathy, the sex. He lacked the sex. Ah, well—Schwamm drueber, as the Norwegians say. Ouida, for all her femininity, was more than this feline and gelatinous ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... way dutifully to the Merevale's part of the House. Mrs Prater had expressed a hope that she would have some tea before catching her train. With tea it is usual to have milk, and with milk it is usual, if there is a cat in the house, to have feline society. Captain Kettle, which was the name thought suitable to this cat by his godfathers and godmothers, was on hand early. As he stood there pawing the mat impatiently, and mewing in a minor key, Mrs Williamson felt that here was ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... slept in the front of the house and there was a closed door between the front and the back halls on both floors. But Janice heard Olga's big, flat feet land upon the floor almost instantly. That feline wail had evidently brought the Swedish girl out of ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... her own, but trusted none of it in Wilding's schemes. In fact, she had come to detest him thoroughly, and whenever he was announced she would rise like some beautiful, disgusted feline, which something has disturbed in her dim and favourite corner, and move lithely away to another room. And it almost seemed as though her little, warm, closely-chiselled ears actually flattened with bored annoyance ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... a very gay time. Such singing, and then dancing and frolicking, and such a feline softness in all their gaiety. None of the German or Saxon bullying, and barking and showing of teeth; in no wise a game of dogs, which always ends in a fight; but a truly kittenish play, with sharp ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... court, the corridors, and terraces of the mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on, through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover, rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs, 70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs, 12,000; and ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the X-ray machine. Well and good; the cat is contentedly digesting her meal, and the X-ray picture shows her stomach to be making rhythmical churning movements. In comes a fox {122} terrier and barks fiercely at the cat, who shows the usual feline signs of anger; but she is held in position and her stomach kept under observation—when, to our surprise, the stomach movements abruptly cease, not to begin again till the dog has been gone for perhaps fifteen minutes. The churning movements of the intestine ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... Huguette, who had been following the narrative with a feline ferocity, caught up a wine-jug and made to throw it at the poet's head, but was dexterously disarmed by Guy Tabarie before the vessel had time to quit her fingers. Sulkily she plumped herself down on her stool again, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... that he first came to live at Sutton. His earliest recollection was, as he used to tell us, playing on the terrace with the great ginger- coloured tom-cat, "King George." We always supposed this feline magnifico to have derived from some stock imported by the first Sir Henry when he was Master of the Household to George III. As my readers will see, King George's successor, in the true "mode" of his race, sits in a purely detached manner in the middle of the polished oak floor near, but in no special ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... grave as an owl all the rest of the afternoon. Then the commanders are all so jealous of each other. They are spying on each other and putting sticks in each other's wheels. Officers are queer people. There's only one profession that can compete with them for feline amenities, and that is ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... brightness of steel; his keen glances, subject to his will, often questioned, but never allowed themselves to be interrogated. Well made, slender, a slight and graceful figure, he had in his gait and movements a feline suppleness and stealthiness. He was slow, but easy of speech, and never animated; the tone of his voice was cold and veiled, and whatever the subject of conversation might be, he neither raised nor lowered it; no modulations; ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to Walton was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... monument, when a dog belonging to one of the workmen pounced upon her and killed her, she, of course, not being in her best running trim, after performing such an extraordinary feat. One of the men procured the body of the dead feline, smoothed out her silky coat, and turned the remains over to a representative of the Smithsonian Institution, who mounted the skin and placed it under a glass case. The label on the case tells this wonderful story ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous
... though there were frightful scenes between them—times when he cruelly reproached her and when her native melancholy deepened into outbursts of despair. Finally there occurred an incident which is more or less obscure in parts. The Duchesse de Bouillon, a great lady of the court—facile, feline, licentious, and eager for delights—resolved that she would win the love of Maurice de Saxe. She set herself to win it openly and without any sense of shame. Maurice himself at times, when the tears of Adrienne proved wearisome, flirted with ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... in the deep recesses of the forests of Maine, evidently belonging to the feline race, which, on account of its ferocity, is significantly called "Indian Devil"—in the Indian language, "the Lunk Soos;" a terror to the Indians, and the only animal in New England of which they stand in dread. You may speak of the moose, the bear, and ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... all its fiery passions, was refined, shy and tremulous. A dimple in her chin and a small sensitive mouth gave her an expression at once timid and childlike. Her footstep had feline grace, delicacy and distinction. She had a figure almost perfect, erect, lithe, with small hands and feet and tiny wrists. Her voice was a soft contralto, caress-ing and full of feeling, with a touch of the languor and delicate sensuousness of the ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... yellow alabaster was quite gorgeous, and had two platforms, the first, with a small fountain, being reached by three steps, the second a step higher. The platform was supported by demons, "guebre" figures all round, and columns resting on the backs of feline animals. On the upper platform ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... beautiful bracelets round her feet; her sinuous tail was also white, ending with black rings; the overpart of her dress, yellow like burnished gold, very lissome and soft, had the characteristic blotches in the form of rosettes, which distinguish the panther from every other feline species. ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... he mused. "Don't you believe in knowing all the natures, the types, you can? Those girls are a strange study: the young one is a simple, earthly creature, as common as an oat-field and the other a sort of sylvan life: fierce, flashing, feline—" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in general speak of lions, tigers and other beasts of the feline tribe as "cats," and elephants, camels, horses and their like are known in show parlance as "hay animals," because ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... like in the tortuous figures of Taglioni or Cerito, we have often observed in the conduct of ladies many years in the seniority of the one under notice, who, ever mindful of the idol of their thoughts and affections—a feline companion—may be seen carrying a precious morsel, safely skewered, in advance of them; this gentleness the artist has been careful to retain to eminent success. We are, nevertheless, woefully at a loss to divine what the allegory can possibly be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Is not like other cats a bit; She cannot mew or scratch or purr, She has no whiskers and no fur. Yet, like all cats, her dearest wish Is just to be filled up with fish; But (and this isn't so feline) She always takes ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... The hydra's power to produce young ones from nearly all parts of its body is due to the comparative homogeneity of its body, while it is not improbable that the smallness of human fertility, compared with the fertility of large feline animals, is due to the greater complexity of the human organisation—more especially the organisation of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... on the Pamunkey," said Luiz Sebastian with his most feline expression. "I will come to you there the first night I can slip away, I and our friend, the Senor Trail. There we will have our little conference. Mother of God! Senor Landless may find that others can plot as well as he ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... Yet one walks toward it, barefooted, on the heated pavement, heedless of the heat. The motives which led Boleslas to choose the French novelist as the one from whom to obtain his information, demonstrated that the feline character of his physiognomy was not deceptive. He understood Dorsenne much better than Dorsenne understood him. He knew him to be nervous, on the one hand, and perspicacious on the other. If there was an intrigue between Maitland and Madame Steno, Julien had surely observed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... virtue While one's friends urge moderation Who the "people" exactly were Whole revenue was pledged to pay the interest, on his debts Wish to sell us the bear-skin before they have killed the bear With something of feline and feminine duplicity Word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the Holy Inquisition Words are always interpreted to the disadvantage of the weak World has rolled on to fresher fields of carnage and ruin Worn nor caused to be worn ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was an imitation of the noises made by the carnivora at the Zoological Gardens at feeding-time; the idea was taken up by prisoner after prisoner until the whole place was alive with barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican chatterings, and feline yowlings, interspersed with shrieks of hysterical laughter. To many in that crowded solitude it came as an extraordinary relief. It was better even than the hymn-singing. But ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... When the Apis died at Memphis, in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, his funeral cost not less than L13,000 sterling. When a cat died, the family it belonged to expressed great grief, and prayed and fasted several days. In cases of fire, more care was taken to preserve the feline animals than the most valuable property in the house. Dead cats, which were almost invariably embalmed, were sometimes carried from remote parts to be interred in the city of Bubastis, and hawks and moles were buried with great solemnity at Butos, even though they should have died ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... strange emotions, Doctor Ralph Dexter went home. Finding that the carriage was not in use, he set forth alone upon his feline quest, reflecting that Araminta herself was not much more than a little grey kitten. Everywhere he went, he was regarded with suspicion. People denied the possession of cats, even while cats were mewing in defiance of the assertion. Bribes ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... we could possibly imagine." And thereupon he gave the Prince a pass out of Scotland.] but this was doubted; and in any event, such battues being comparatively rare, he by ordinary appeared to regard the universe with a composed and feline indifference. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... there the slightest evidence of the widow Marston becoming wearied. We have seen a cat worried and pulled and poked by its kitten almost beyond endurance, and we have observed that the cat endured it meekly— nay, evidently rejoiced in the annoyance: it was pleasurable pain. As it is with feline, so is it with human mothers. Their love overbears and outweighs everything. Ah! good cause have the rugged males of this world to rejoice that such is the fact; and although they know it well, we hold that it is calculated to improve the health and refresh the spirit of men to ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... I should think," smiled Mary, to whom Stefan's feline perfection of neatness was one of ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... closed again quickly and softly, but somebody was inside the room, somebody who had a light, feline step, and John felt the prickling of the hair at the back of his neck. He longed for a weapon, something better than only his two hands, but he was reassured when the intruder, speaking French, called ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... took their places, assumed the proper attitudes, and crossed swords. The Frenchman grinned with anticipated triumph. It was clear that, confident in his skill, and richly endowed with feline propensities, he intended to amuse himself and the bystanders for a few minutes, by playing with his intended victim. His antagonist, however, stood firm, until the Frenchman, with a nimble caper, changed his ground, when the officer bounded forward, got ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... or two men whom she observed at the soiree musicale; but she would never have felt moved to any kittenish display to attract their notice—to any feline or feminine wiles to express herself toward them. Their personality attracted her in an agreeable way. Her fancy selected them, and she was glad when a lull in the music gave them an opportunity to ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... spectacles, betook himself to the perusal of an old folio volume, the leaves of which he turned over so gently that not the slightest sound could possibly disturb the patient. All his manifestations were gentle and soft, but of a simplicity most unlike the feline softness which we are apt to associate with a noiseless tread and movement in the male sex. The sunshine came through the ivy and glimmered upon his great book, however, with an effect which a little disturbed the patient's nerves; besides, he desired to have a fuller ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dreamy, absorbed in his griefs, complaining of not being understood. Then, as we desire all the more violently the things we find difficult to obtain, he continued to adore women with that ingenuous tenderness and feline delicacy the secret of which belongs to women themselves, who may, perhaps, prefer to keep the monopoly of it. In point of fact, though women of the world complain of the way men love them, they have little liking themselves for those whose soul is half feminine. Their ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... with a drawing in of her lips that was feline. Then she glared; then she looked about her and approached nearer to ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... in the blackness, these slippery little savages of Titan, their half naked bodies crowding him and stifling him with their sweaty nearness. Again and again Carr struck out, but it was like fighting a horde of squirming and clawing feline creatures that swarmed over him and bore him down by sheer weight of numbers. They dragged Ora from his arms and quickly overpowered him. Thongs of rawhide twisted deeply into the flesh of his wrists and he was hauled forth into ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... is altogether different from the fierce glare seen in the eyes of many of our animals, especially the feline race, which seems to enlarge the eyes to enormous orbs of brilliant light. In the Martians it is simply a colourless, soft, and liquid glow which has a different effect on eyes of different colours; but it is ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... but the Almighty Father either was too indifferent to do so, or was too well aware of the impossibility of reforming his own wretched offspring; and therefore he determined to drown them all at one fell swoop, just as cat-loving old ladies dispose of a too numerous and embarrassing feline progeny. Bethinking him, however, God resolved to save alive one family to perpetuate the race: he was willing to give his creatures another chance, and then, if they persisted in going the wrong way, it would still be easy to drown the lot of them again, and that without any reservation. ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... Ralph had no words to answer. As for Jess, she did not even colour; she simply withdrew with the quickness and feline grace which were characteristic of her, without a flush or a tremor. It was not on such occasions that her heart stirred. When she was gone she felt that things had gone well, even beyond ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... of about thirty years of age, her face the very picture of health and freshness. Upon her knees lay a large cat, with her paws folded under her, and her eyes half-closed, purring in that significant manner which, according to feline habits, indicates perfect contentment. The two friends paused before the window in complete amazement, while Planchet, perceiving their astonishment, was in no little degree secretly delighted ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my frankness, messire," continued the male ghost, "but you cannot have moved widely in noble company if you are indeed unable to distinguish between members of the feline species and of the ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... to see him too, without letting Barty know. I did not like the man—he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was even to be ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Miss Berber suddenly appeared in the tent, dressed wonderfully in white panne, with a barbaric mottle of black and white civet-skins flung over one shoulder, and a tight-drawn cap of the fur, apparently held in place by the great claws of some feline mounted in heavy gold. She wore circles of fretted gold in her ears, and carried a tall ebony stick with a gold handle, Louis Quatorze fashion. From her huge civet muff a gold purse dangled. She looked at once more conventional ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... of the concierge's cat, on whom Sir Charles would call before paying his respects upstairs. At another house a cat named Pouf was held in great honour by him, and his feelings were deeply wounded when, with feline capriciousness, it turned, on Paul Hervieu's entrance, to bestow all its blandishments on the writer. His love of cats was as well known to his French as to his English friends, Emile Ollivier writes in 1891 from La Moutte: 'Campion lui-meme ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... and begs for water at short intervals. At last the demand is too much for the poor agonized mother—she takes refuge in silencing unworthy, and to which one feels her gentleness must be forced. "Hark! The cat will get you, Letty! See that cat?" And the feline horror in nameless form, evoked in an awe-inspiring whisper, controls the little creature, who murmurs, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... loosen the puma's footing, when he came down by easy stages from limb to limb, spitting and hissing defiance into the upturned faces of the pack. As he fell, we dashed in to beat off the dogs as a matter of precaution, but the bullets had done their work, and the pack mouthed the fallen feline ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... wicked Forties were still ablaze with light and noisy foxtrots; but in the virtuous Hundreds, where Mr. Pett's house stood, respectable slumber reigned. Only the occasional drone of a passing automobile broke the silence, or the love-sick cry of some feline Romeo ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Fondly taking his feline friend in his arms, he softly strokes her back, and gazes lovingly into the soft green eyes that look responsively into his, and rebukes her not when, in impulsive love, she rubs her cold nose against his burning cheek, and wipes her eyes upon his ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... This feline ecclesiastic came forward with bent head and joined hands, vouchsafing no reply to Margery's salutation of "Good even, father," nor to Alice's humble request for his blessing. He sat down on a chair, and for ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... Ricardo with a sudden snap of the lips, after which his moustaches stirred by themselves in an odd, feline manner. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... This resemblance exists in point of fact, but there is in it a something that is colossal and monstrous. M. Thiers has no suspicion of this, and pursues the even tenour of his way. All his life he has been stroking cats, and coaxing them with all sorts of cajolling processes and feline ways. To-day he is trying to play the same game, and does not see that the animals have grown beyond all measure and that it is wild beasts that he is keeping about him. A strange sight it is to see this little ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... odors mixed and blended; And dim and ghostlike, far away, The smoke of the burning woods ascended. Then of a sudden the mountains swam, The rivers piled their floods in a dam, The ridge above Los Gatos Creek Arched its spine in a feline fashion; The forests waltzed till they grew sick, And Nature shook in a speechless passion; And, swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen, The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin Vanished, and never more ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... by something leaping upon me, and licking my face with the rough tongue of a feline animal. "It is the white leopardess!" I thought. "She is come to suck my blood!—and why should she not have it?—it would cost me more to defend than to yield it!" So I lay still, expecting a shoot of pain. But the pang did not arrive; a pleasant warmth instead began to diffuse itself ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... handsome Lucien," said Finot, drawing des Lupeaulx in the direction of the poet, and shaking hands with feline amiability. "I cannot think of another example of such rapid success," continued Finot, looking from des Lupeaulx to Lucien. "There are two sorts of success in Paris: there is a fortune in solid cash, which any one can amass, and there is the intangible fortune of connections, position, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... is there, with such an experience as mine, that receives these things at the hands of his city butcher and meets them on his table, who does not wish for the moment that he was a boy, and seated at his mother's board, that he might shake off the phantom canine and feline that rise on his plate, and call ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... The Angora cat, with feline caution, peeped into the room. Patty, who loved cats, made a dash for the fluffy animal, which turned tail and bolted for the ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... piece—the visible mark of repeated injections. Esther sponged a fresh spot and the doctor shot in the long needle with a casual indifference. Simultaneously the woman on the couch closed her eyes and stretched out her limbs with a feline luxurious movement. Esther was tempted to believe she enjoyed the stabbing pain. There were people who took a sensual delight in suffering, or at least she had heard that there were. She watched curiously the sort of rapturous twist of the patient's ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... "There, my feline friend! I think that will teach you a wholesome lesson; and as punishment is intended to be reformatory, you ought to be grateful to me ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... sometimes get from the older folks? Now and then you hear a growl, or see a spat. But, generally, the "old ones" know better. The little frolicsome creatures are indulged. Nature seems to teach these canine and feline parents that their progeny must and will have sport. I have, indeed, as I have said, heard the ominous growl and the warning spat or spit, but what good has it done? Why, the growl seems only to inspirit ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... match-making mother had found out for herself in a week. That the discovery had been carefully kept in each maternal breast, it is needless to relate. Ces dames are not confidential upon such matters between themselves. When they have scented their game they stalk him, and if possible bag him in a feline solitude which has no fears for stout, ambitious hearts. The fear is that some other prowling mother of an eligible maiden may hit upon the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... accustomed to write in a closet on the third story. Beside him sat his estimable wife, and on his knee his favourite cat; this feline affection he entertained in common ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... I understand his habits changed. From being a tolerably cheerful companion, he became a wretched hypochondriac; all his energies being directed to the avoiding a contact with any of the feline race. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... where Cesarine was to achieve her crowning act of treachery, she and her husband were closeted. On the latter's unruffled brow not even her feline gaze could read what a perfect acquaintance he possessed with all her past ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Marmaduke's feline ingenuity! I had a retort ready, and I saw that Mrs. Manners, long tried in such occasions, was about to pour oil on the waters. But it was Dorothy ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fantastic monsters which were used for conventional purposes, but which were widely believed to exist. It possesses all the traditional attributes of the griffin. It is fearless and heartless: its horrible claws strike out to wound in every direction, and the whole body vibrates with feline elasticity, as well as the agile movement of a bird. Regarding it purely as a composition, we see how admirably Donatello used the space at his command: his economy of the shield is masterly. It is occupied at every angle, but nowhere crowded. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... birds, even on the warmest days. The companionship of Calvin, also, counts for a good deal. He usually attends me, unless I work too long in one place; sitting down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my movements with great intelligence. He has a feline and genuine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where there is a good view, and look on it for hours. He always accompanies us when we go to gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know what we are ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... chair, and leant her chin upon the upraised palm, a pretty, thoughtful-looking pose into which she fell naturally in leisure moments. The cat blinked at her through sleepy eyelids, then, deliberately ignoring the devotion of years, rose from its place by its mistress's side, stretched itself with feline grace, and stalked majestically across the rug to nestle against the soft white skirts. Miss Briskett eyed its desertion over the brim of her spectacles. Poor lady! her measure of love received was so small, that she felt a distinct pang at ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... him on the veranda of his house, stretched out on a chair and suffering greatly. He received me fairly well. At first he examined me silently, piercing me with his two feline eyes; then a kind of malicious smile spread over his features, which were rather hard. Finally he declared to me that all the attendants he had ever engaged in his service hadn't been worth a button, that they slept too much, were ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... traces of its great western tributary; but the Missouri at Buford is entirely lost in the Yellowstone within a few hundred yards. All of the unique characteristics by which the Missouri River is known are given to it by the Yellowstone—its turbulence, its tawniness, its feline treachery, its giant caprices. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... her, and knew him lost, and the frenzy that makes a woman kill the man she loves or fling vitriol to destroy the beauty she cannot have for all hers possessed her lawless soul.... She flashed at him, and with both hands made a feline pass at the face ...
— 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.
... with another wide and most feline show of his teeth. 'Well! Not many people, I believe. I wouldn't answer perhaps,' he murmured, as if he were only thinking ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... presentment of such a possibility, carries its refutation, and puts the aggressions of this Sacramento hen in the category of outrages which all society is banded to suppress. If you must laugh, O generation of scoffers, make your jokes and gibes the instrument of protecting the altars of all such feline households as ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... The feline person waited for no second remark, but setting up her back at Thor, she cursed him in cat language and hastily decamped; whereat the astute Thor, turning to the company observant of all that was taking ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... nightly from her grave, To this frenzied hunt she hies, In her hands the gory head Which with feline ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... themselves to riches and honor. Opposing him in family counsels is his uncle, Agricola Fusilier, the brave, blustering, fire-eating reactionary. There is also the beautiful quadroon, Palmyre Philosophe. The "united grace and pride of her movement was inspiring, but—what shall we say?—feline? It was a femininity without humanity,—something that made her, with all her superbness, a creature that one would want to find chained." Beside her are the dwarf Congo woman and Clemence, the sharp-tongued negress, who sells her ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... character. We shall immediately see that horses occasionally exhibit a tendency to become striped over a large part of their bodies; and as we know that in the varieties of the domestic cat and in several feline species stripes readily pass into spots and cloudy marks—even the cubs of the uniformly-coloured lion being spotted with dark marks on a lighter ground—we may suspect that the dappling of the horse, which has been noticed by some authors with surprise, is a modification or ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... kittens came into the garden and Evelyn Erith seated herself on the grass to play with them, an attention gratefully appreciated by that feline family. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... the steps the light was florid, like a flush of sunburn discovered by the ablution of a warranted complexion cream. They were wonderfully pink, and Diana hastened to draw an arrow from her quiver, for it seemed to her as if her feline neighbors were beginning to ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... lies to herself. Very gradually and cautiously did he proceed so as not to "flush the bird." Even as I saw, an hour ago, a cat creep upon a sparrow with fascinating eyes, and a waving, snake-like motion of the tail, and a treacherous feline smile upon her face, even so, cautiously and by degrees, Humphreys felt his way with velvet paws toward his prey. He knew the opportunity, that once gone might not come again; he soon guessed that this was the hour and power of darkness in the soul of Julia, the hour in which she would seek ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... and dirty, and black as ink, That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink, Poured in her horn like slops in a sink: While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, And not a little of feline spleen, Lapped up in "Catty packages," too, To give a zest to the sipping and supping; For still by some invisible tether, Scandal and Tea are linked together, As surely as Scarification and Cupping; ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... procession which tarried long. At a point under him where the road was torn up there stood a red light, and at the corner two men were talking in leisurely repose, as if sunning themselves at noonday. Lovers of a feline disposition, who were never seen by daylight, joked and darted at each other in and out of ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... solemnity had imparted itself to the man's mood. In the spiritual, as in the material world, are signs and presages of night. Rarely meeting her look, and whenever he did so conscious of the indefinable dread with which, despite their feline beauty, her eyes always affected him, Jenner Brading listened in silence to the story told by Irene Marlowe. In deference to the reader's possible prejudice against the artless method of an unpractised historian the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... a tiger barred the way, his coolies bolted, and nothing would persuade them to go further. Mr. Forstermann was no shikari, but he felt himself called upon to uphold the cause of science and the honour of England at this juncture. In great agitation he went for that feline, and, in short, its skin still adorns Mrs. Sander's drawing-room. Thus it happened that on a certain Thursday a small pot of C. Spicerianum was sold, as usual, for sixty guineas at Stevens's; on the Thursday following all the world could buy ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... escape those keen claws. Indeed, old Israel found her more than once sitting in the middle of the kitchen-floor with Toby crouched for a spring under the table, his poor mistress afraid to move, for fear of her unlucky ankles. And this literally cat-ridden woman was hazed about and ruled over by her feline tyrant to that extent that he occupied the easiest chair, the softest cushion, the middle of the bed, and the front of the fire, not only undisturbed, but caressed. This is a veritable history, beloved reader, and I offer it as a warning ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have been ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... when he turned to find Sarah watching, stiff and uncompromising, from the doorway, he remembered with painful certainty her attitude toward his propensity to pick up any stray that might catch him in a moment of too pronounced mellowness—stray human or feline or lost ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... inquiring eyebrow upon me. Janet laid her hand on him. He dismissed the feline instinct to prolong our torture, and delivered ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... underhand; preventing them at every hazard from slackening in their determined hostility to Spain; discountenancing, without absolutely forbidding, their proposed absorption by France; intimating, without promising, an ultimate and effectual assistance from herself. Meantime, with something of feline and feminine duplicity, by which the sex of the great sovereign would so often manifest itself in the most momentous affairs, she would watch and wait, teasing the Provinces, dallying with the danger, not quite prepared as yet to abandon the prize to Henry ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... entered, but, uncoiling his long limbs, he started up and stared at me with an insolent look of defiance on his face which augured badly for our interview. He had a pale, set face, with sandy hair and a steely-blue eye, with something feline in its expression. His frame was tall and muscular, though there was a curious bend in his shoulders, which almost amounted to a deformity. An ordinary observer meeting him in the street might have put him down as a well-developed man, fairly handsome, and of studious ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... kill, an ox, notwithstanding the vigilance of guards and the light of the camp-fires. He always approaches stealthily, like the cat, except when wounded; but anything having the appearance of a trap will induce him to refrain from making the last fatal spring. This is a peculiarity of the whole feline species. It has been found in India that when a hunter pickets a goat on a plain as a bait, a tiger has whipped it off so quickly by a stroke of his paw that it was impossible to take aim. To obviate this ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... night just after eleven, When the taverns have closed a moment ago, The vocal efforts of six or seven Make the corner a place of woe. For the time is fitful, the notes are queer, And it sounds to him who dwelleth near Like the wailing for cats in a feline heaven By orphan cats ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... Newman says, "Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice." Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... of touching it without your order, sir," said she quietly, and shot him a feline glance from under ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life. They inhabit our drawing-rooms and libraries. They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken. ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... personified. All her jokes and smiles and all her conversation were lavished upon Frank. It may be that she wished to make amends for the opportunities she knew he was anxious to obtain but could not, for the most charming of women have a little of the feline instinct in their nature, and whether there is any response to a man's wooing in their hearts or not, they love to enjoy their power. Several times Frank, who intuitively felt she did not wish to be left alone with him, started to ask her to take ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... animals, mostly of small size. Externally they differ considerably, especially in their long bushy tails, but in all essential particulars they coincide. They are plantigrade, and are without a caecum or blind gut; the skull, however it may approach to a viverrine or feline shape, has still marked arctoid characteristics. The ear passage is well marked and bony, as in that of the bear, but the bulb of the drum (bulla tympani) is much developed, as in the dogs and cats. The molars are more tuberculated than in the bears, resembling the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... wild gasp of terror and ran back to the chair—like a frightened feline creature, swift and silent—and sank into it, still gasping, her whole body shaken now as with fever, her ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... dancers padded something on four feet. The canine-feline creature was more than just a head; it was a loose-limbed, graceful body fully eight feet in length, and the red eyes in the prick-eared head were those of a killer.... Words issued from between those curved fangs, words ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... to her. Her chair is placed beneath an evergreen plant, and the long leaves lean out as if to touch her neck. The great white and red roses of the Aubusson carpet are spread enigmatically about her feline feet; a grand piano leans its melodious mouth to her; and there she sits when her visitors have left her, playing Beethoven's sonatas in the dreamy firelight. The spring-tide shows but a bloom ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... at him a look, which he seemed to fancy implored his mercy. As he approached, however, while she lay on the ground unable to move, she uttered a loud snarl of anger, and ground her teeth, and opened out the claws of her uninjured feet, as the feline race are wont to do, as if about to seize him. Still he persevered, wishing, if possible, to capture the animal alive. Speaking to her in a soothing voice, he got near her head, holding his rifle in such a position ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... dryly. "The Honourable Charley appears to be an admirable young man of the domestic feline species, but I don't know of any reason that would make it advisable to waste powder and shot ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... natural kindness, her pretentious exaggeration was exalted enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to conceal her real nature from the world; her trickery no longer deceived me; I had sounded the depths of that feline nature. I blushed for her when some donkey or other flattered and complimented her. And yet I loved her through it all! I hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a poet's love. If I could only have made her feel all the greatness that lies in devotion, then ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... from ledge to ledge along the bed of the stream. How cool it is! He looks up the dark, silent defile, hears the solitary voice of the water, sees the decayed trunks of fallen trees bridging the stream, and all he has dreamed, when a boy, of the haunts of beasts of prey—the crouching feline tribes, especially if it be near nightfall and the gloom already deepening in the woods—comes freshly to mind, and he presses on, wary and alert, and speaking to his ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... of all advice to move up in town. The defunct back yard is being covered by an extension that will give Martin a fine library, with a side window and a scrap of balcony, while the ailantus tree is left, that bob-tailed Josephus may not be deprived of the feline pleasures of the street or his original way of reaching it over the side fence; and the flower garden that was, will be the foundation of a garden of books under ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the crazy little court and over the drowsy Square, you will have a great deal of difficulty in believing that you left your cable car about a minute and a half before. Pass on up the stairs. You may nearly fall over the black-and-white feline which belongs to no one in any of the buildings, but which haunts them all like an unquiet ghost, and which is known by everyone as the Crazy Cat; so to the door of the studio-workshop where the ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... name was pretty enough,—Eos Vach Morganwg,—"The Little Nightingale of Glamorgan." Her renderings of some simple Welsh melodies were delicious; they as far excelled the outpourings of the other singers as the compositions of Mendelssohn or Bellini surpass a midnight feline concert. I have heard Chinese singing, and have come to the conclusion, that, next to it, Welsh prize-vocalism is the most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... not experience in Alderling's. Temperamentally he was less fitted to undergo the rigors of their seclusion than she was; in his liking to talk, he needed an audience and a variety of listening, and she, in her somewhat feline calm, could not have been troubled by any such need. You can be silent to yourself, but you cannot very well be loquacious, without danger of having the devil for a listener, if the old saying is true. Yet still, I felt a keener poignancy in her sequestration. ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... sat, sunning her sleek flanks. Something about the animal seemed familiar to me, and after a while I made up my mind that this was Ange Pitou, Jacqueline's pet, abandoned by her mistress and now a feline derelict. Speed must have been mistaken when he told me that Jacqueline had taken her cat; or possibly the home-haunting instinct had brought the creature back, abandoning ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... Eltham's thoughts ran parallel with mine. My own were centred upon the unforgettable figure of the murderous Chinaman. These words, exactly as Smith had used them, seemed once again to sound in my ears: "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull and long magnetic eyes of the true cat green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race accumulated in one giant intellect, with all ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... moving about noiselessly, of remaining mute and motionless on a chair with expressionless, open eyes. But, when she raised an arm, when she advanced a foot, it was easy to perceive that she possessed feline suppleness, short, potent muscles, and that unmistakable energy and passion slumbered in her soporous frame. Her cousin having fallen down one day in a fainting fit, she abruptly picked him up and carried him—an effort of strength that turned her ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... heard in the distance a cry like that of a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently there arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding again. It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but it was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling, coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that hour, the older girls assembled ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... individual. Tall—though not as tall or as massively built as Colin McKeith, firm boned and muscular, but with a sort of feline grace of movement. There was the unmistakable stamp of civilisation, and, at the same time, an exotic suggestion of the East, of wild spaces, adventure, romance. Not in the least a Bushman, but wearing with ease and picturesqueness, a backwoods ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... were bitterly jealous of each other, and a rupture was imminent. Under the circumstances, Mr. Cashmere, while assuring everybody of his whole-hearted support, had a private reservation of judgment to be finally settled by the directional feline saltation. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... they had just crossed, where the last of them nearly broke his neck by rolling almost from top to bottom, they reached the outermost, the brick gate, and so left the awful region of enchantment and feline fury commingled. Not until the castle was out of sight, and their leader had sunk senseless on the turf by the roadside, did they dare a backward look. The moment he came to himself they started again for home, at what poor speed they ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... professors of all the languages of the principal beasts and birds. I stayed with the Professor of Feline Languages who had invented a kind of Ollendorffian system for teaching the Art of Polite Conversation ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... subsided considerably towards morning, and had taken to that internal rumbling, which in the feline species indicates mitigated indignation. The hermit had therefore come to the conclusion that the outburst was over, and went with Moses to make arrangements for setting forth on his ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... not tedious. I was the first to discern a moving speck in the dim vista of the walk leading from the gate far down the garden. It enlarged and assumed a definite form, slowly. Evidently it was a scout, and the advance a reconnoissance. Feline artifice was in every line and motion. A ray of misty moonlight lay athwart the entrance to the garden. The gate was propped open. As the cat crossed it, we recognized a wily and wicked old Tom from the stable, a disreputable plebeian prowler, never tolerated in the house grounds. I hardly smothered ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... roused him to the keenest attention. Some larger animal was approaching him, unaware of his presence, the wind blowing in the wrong direction. But the wind came right for Henry and soon he discovered a strong feline odor. He knew that it was a panther, and presently he saw it in the moonlight, yellowish and monstrous, the hugest beast of its kind that he had ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... His eyes were all but invisible. There was no ursine clumsiness in his movements, as he walked to and fro in the bar-room. As became a feline, he walked in silence and on his toes. He was thinking of many a shady incident in his past career, and he knew that with the greater number of his shaded spots Zephyr was more or less familiar. With which of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... vulgar position, take away his haik and his bornouse, trim the points of his beard, and we have a perfect German head. Beside these we set a representative Arab head, sketched in the streets of Algiers. See the feline characteristics, the pointed, drooping moustache and chin-tuft, the extreme retrocession of the nostrils, the thin, weak and cruel mouth, the retreating forehead, the filmed eye, the ennui, the terrestrial detachment, of the Arab. He is a dandy, a creature of alternate flash and dejection, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... somewhat narrow; the face neither broad nor sharp, perhaps rather sharp than broad; the nose was almost delicate; the eyes were grey, with an expression in which there was sternness blended with something approaching to feline; his complexion was exceedingly pale, relieved, however, by certain pockmarks, which here and there studded his countenance; his form was athletic, but lean; his arms long. In the whole appearance of the man there was a blending of the bluff and the sharp. You might ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a few moments in silence. "Your sympathy with kittens, Lavinia," he presently resumed, "arises from a feline element in your ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... lay one crocodile. The rest were sleeping on the banks. The catawampuss secretly emerged from its den—horror, I am not ashamed to say, prevented me from interfering—stealthily crept across the cold floor, and, true to the instincts of all the feline tribe,[20] made straight for ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... treasure in a murderer's jaws! One of that feline race Whose wily looks and velvet paws ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... see some silken beast long dally with a golden lizard ere she devour. More terrible, to see how feline Fate will sometimes dally with a human soul, and by a nameless magic make it repulse a sane despair with a hope which is but mad. Unwittingly I imp this cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of him who reads; for if he feel not he ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... a certain diffidence or shyness. He recognised that Smoke called for strong yet respectful management. The cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretences perhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. Yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline mysteries, he was never contemptuous or condescending; and he presided over the safety of his furry black friend somewhat as a father, loving, but intuitive, might superintend the vagaries of a wayward and talented child. And, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... severity was the only course to pursue with these chattering girls, who were full of scratches and jealousies, and who would have taken advantage of weakness with rapid unscrupulousness. So the little stout woman, feline and easily exasperated, was a good person to control the room. Her kindness might be part of her vanity, but it was not assumed. She loved her work, and she was always glad to praise good work from the girls, and to encourage it by favouritism to good workers. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... paid tribute to his copious wife for her determined babble of generalities, well-knowing that she was bursting with suppressed excitement under the knowledge that Alice had come to try and patch up a lost cause. He chuckled at the feline manners of the little lady whom they had all known so long as Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves, her purring voice, her frequent over-emphasis of exuberant adjectives, her accidental choice of the sort of verb ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the notes is not unlike a country skimmerton. If one passes directly along, the bird may scarcely break the silence. But pause a while, or loiter quietly about, and your presence stimulates him to do his best. He peeps quizzically at you from beneath the branches, and gives a sharp feline mew. In a moment more he says very distinctly, who, who. Then in rapid succession follow notes the most discordant that ever broke the sylvan silence. Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks like ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... preparing half-imitations, which, at some other time, sitting on the topmost twig, he shall hilariously seem to improvise before all the world. Can it be that he is really in some slight disgrace with Nature, with that demi-mourning garb of his,—and that his feline cry of terror, which makes his opprobrium with boys, is part of some hidden doom decreed? No, the lovely color of the eggs which his companion watches on that laboriously builded staging of twigs shall vindicate this familiar companion from any suspicion of original ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Surratt's face a stealthiness creeps—a sort of furtive, feline flashing of the eye, like that of one which means to leap sideways. At these times her face seems to grow hard and colorless, as if that tiger expression which Pradier caught upon the face of Brinvilliers and fastened into a masque, had been repeated here. Not to grow mawkish while we must be kind, ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... forced to odd resorts for amusement, he knitted a pair of stockings for the cat who reigned in the household at the time. When tired of reading, he diverted himself with constructing houses of books for the same feline pet, building walls for her to leap, and perhaps erecting triumphal arches for her to pass under. In this period he must have taken a considerable range in literature, for his age; and one would almost say that Nature, seeing so rare a spirit in a sound body ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... exhibiting in Regent-street; but as we have not yet left our card with their feline excellencies, we cannot wink ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of awakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its stealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia's dwelling, which seemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made noises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great animation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... planted himself with his back to the wall. Whoever came up the well hunting the cause for the failure would be facing the other way. Ross crouched a little, pushing the cape well back on his shoulders to free his arms. There was a feline suppleness in his stance just as a jungle cat might wait coming ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... rapidly by, announced by the cloudy dust and the guard's lively horn. Gradually even these evidences of life ceased—the saunterers disappeared, the mails had passed, the dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy perambulations of their feline successors "who love the moon." At unfrequent intervals, the more important shops—the linen-drapers', the chemists', and the gin-palace—still poured out across the shadowy road their streams of light from windows yet unclosed: ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... In feline circles it is being pointed out with some pride that not only are there Dogs of Wars but that Active Service Kits are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... that they tried the walnut trick again, and Jim was eager to see the "circus." But the cat remembered; she drove her teeth deep into Hall's hand and fought with a feline fury that is always terrifying. Jim was gazing in big-eyed silence, when Hall, enraged, thrust the cat into the leg of a boot and growled, "I'll fix yer biting," and held her teeth to the grindstone till the body in the boot ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... one hair was longer than the others. In almost every stall was a sleek, lazy, high-bred looking cat, either perched upon the back of the horse, dozing and blinking, or curled up in the straw at his feet, fast asleep. The grooms told us that the horses were really very fond of their feline companions, and treated them tenderly ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... something feline about this combination of perfect patience with quiet persistence—a combination which the Jesuits on a larger scale have turned into the characteristic of their order. It is especially remarkable when it breaks the bonds of silence, and takes the form of what in vulgar language is called ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... higher. Some of us primates have learned to keep ourselves clean, but it's no large proportion; and even the cleanest of us see no grandeur in soap-manufacturing, and we don't look to manicures and plumbers for social prestige. A feline race would have honored such occupations. J. de Courcy Tiger would have felt that nothing but making soap, or being a plumber, was compatible with a high social position; and the rich Vera Pantherbilt would have deigned to dine ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... a man about 5 feet 10 inches tall, compactly built, square shouldered, and just a trifle pursy at the waist line, approaching along the dancing floor. He was light on his small feet, his shoulders worked with feline grace, but his face was a face as hard as limestone and of about the same colour—bluish gray. His eyes were the colour of ice, with a greenish tinge. Smooth-shaven cheeks, close-cropped hair, wing-like ears, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears |
