"Mastiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not be gratified. He had come to be very proud of his silk hat and "Prince Albert" coat, and liked to wear them on Sundays. Trina had made him sell both. He preferred "Yale mixture" in his pipe; Trina had made him come down to "Mastiff," a five-cent tobacco with which he was once contented, but now abhorred. He liked to wear clean cuffs; Trina allowed him a fresh pair on Sundays only. At first these deprivations angered McTeague. Then, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... a lordly mastiff's port, Bearing in calm, contemptuous sort The snarls of some o'erpetted pup Who grudges him his 'bit and sup:' So stands the bard of Locksley Hall, While puny darts around him fall, Tipp'd with what TIMON takes for venom; He is the mastiff, TIM ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... that he was, he loved the weakest one best; and, therefore, little Kitty was never without a friend and protector. Ever since a certain day in the summer, when she had fallen into the stream, and had been carried home insensible by Bouncer, Kitty had loved the huge mastiff dearly, and nightly added to her simple prayer, "Please, God, ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... a good deal of humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the tenant's address, and the hypocritical melancholy of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, he said, had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on the rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was afraid would ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... wish," regretfully, "that they could all be the same sort of half-breeds—to make them more uniform as to size and style. With Kid and Spot part pointer, Irish and Rover part setter, Jack McMillan verging on the mastiff, and all the rest of them part something else, don't you think it looks the least little bit as if we had picked them up at ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... upon him, as a mastiff might on a lion, and striking at his helm, though shorter than him by a head and shoulders, such swift and terrible blows with the broken hilt, as staggered the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... of a window in the library. This room was on the ground-floor, easily accessible, and, try as he would, there was one window which the blacksmith could not secure. The good fellow was for sleeping on the floor all night by way of guard, but Barbara would not hear of it, and, in the end, Bevis, the mastiff, the great dog that had followed Colonel Myddelton into camp in the late war, was chained outside the window. Satisfied with this arrangement, Matthew pulled his forelock and said good night, and ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... looked, moved, sat and spoke, we still return to 'Shirley.' A host of corroborating memories start up in turning the pages. Who but Emily was always accompanied by a "rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between a mastiff and a bulldog?" it is familiar to us as Una's lion; we do not need to be told, Currer Bell, that she always sat on the hearthrug of nights, with her hand on his head, reading a book; we remember well how necessary it was to secure ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... balance hung: Or instant should he quench the guilty flame With their own blood, and intercept the shame: Or to their lust indulge a last embrace, And let the peers consummate the disgrace Round his swoln heart the murmurous fury rolls, As o'er her young the mother-mastiff growls, And bays the stranger groom: so wrath compress'd, Recoiling, mutter'd thunder in his breast. "Poor suffering heart! (he cried,) support the pain Of wounded honour, and thy rage restrain. Not fiercer woes thy fortitude could foil, When the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite its master's yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... wassail horn suspended From the tough yew-bow, at Hastings bended, With wreaths of bright holly and ivy bound, Were perches for falcons that shrilly screamed, While their look with the lightning of anger gleamed, As they chided the fawning of mastiff and hound, That crouched at the feet of each peasant guest, And asked, with their ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... nothing to say in the matter, and I am no more like him than a white chick is like a mastiff. But it might be so, you know, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Grinderson were good enough men for his expenses, and here was a letter from them desiring him to stop the diligence. Accordingly, he immediately left the apartment, and staying no longer than to gather his posse together, he did then, in the phrase of Hector, who watched his departure as a jealous mastiff eyes the retreat of a repulsed beggar, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to such an extent, that, when a carrier whom they knew was passing by, they urgently requested him to remain with them all night, which, however, his duties would not permit him to do; but, in consideration of the alarm of the women, he consented to leave with them a large mastiff dog. In the night the women were disturbed by the uneasiness of the dog, and heard a noise apparently like an attempt to force an entrance into the premises, upon which they escaped by the back-door, and ran to a neighbouring ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... as she was being dragged out she thought Carl cried, "There goes Louise!" Then she opened her eyes to find herself on the library floor, with Mr. Caruth and Bruce standing over her, and Dan, the big mastiff, trying to lick her face. The clock on the ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... their Estate and mine; and that, warm and devoted as was my Love for the Pretty Little Creature I had saved from the Flames, I could but deem that she reckoned the Humane Dog Cerberus of the Opera Ballet as of no greater account than a real Doggish Mastiff. But, to my extreme Amazement and Felicity, this was not so. I was beloved by this amiable Young Person, to whom Ambassadors were proud to go on their knees, and whom Gentlemen of the Chamber would have covered ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... you care, Anna, that I was not here?" He gave her the appealing glance of a great mastiff who hopes for a ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... o'clock the next morning Simpkins presented himself at the Society's office, and a few minutes later he found himself in the fascinating presence of Mrs. Athelstone. He soon grasped the details of his simple duties, and then, like a lean, awkward mastiff, padded along at her heels while she moved about the hall and pointed out the things which would be ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... voice of a dog, and next moment a huge mastiff dashed from out of the thicket and fastened on the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... could see them loping in circles around the cabin, whining and snuffing the air as if they yearned for human blood. They were gaunt, fierce-looking creatures, and in the winter-time their hunger made them so bold that they would come up to the door and scratch against it. The barking of her mastiff would soon drive the cowardly beasts away but only a few rods, to the edge of the clearing where, sitting on their haunches, they frequently watched the house all night, galloping away into the woods when ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Bough. To have the English Government smelling at your heels is no joke, thought he. Any moment the mastiff may grip, and then, if you happen to be an ex-convict and deserter from their Colonial Police, and supposing you have one or two other little things against you ... the most honest of speculators ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... that a mad dog, frothing at the mouth, has passed this way, going west. Officers have gone in pursuit of the animal, but passers-by may encounter the dog before the officers do. The dog is a huge English mastiff, without ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... the poet excites curiosity and suspends—not simply, like Mrs. Radcliffe, postpones—the gratification of it to the end, and beyond the end, of the poem. Was Geraldine really a witch, or did she only seem so to Christabel? The angry moan of the mastiff bitch and the tongue of flame that shot up as the lady passed—were they omens, or accidents which popular superstition interprets into omens? Was the malignant influence which Geraldine exerted over the maiden supernatural possession, or the fascination of terror and repugnance? Did ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... great evil and breach of their privileges, and thought that by his fault Valencia would be lost, even as Toledo had been. This tribute so sorely aggrieved the people, that it became as it were a bye word in the city, Give the barley. They say there was a great mastiff, with whom they killed beef in the shambles, who, whenever he heard, 'Give the barley,'began to bark and growl: upon which a Trobador said, Thanks be to God, we have many in the town who are like ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... or two of these hideous brutes, an attack from them would have been dangerous enough—far more so than an encounter with hyenas or fierce mastiff dogs, for the mandrill is more than a match for either. But what was our dismay on perceiving that the brutes were in great numbers—in fact a whole flock or tribe was on the ground, and advancing towards us from all sides. Turn which way we would, their ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... them very unexpectedly, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I could disengage myself from him: At other times we had many battles with them, and it has sometimes afforded a dozen of us an hour's work to dispatch one of them: I had with me a very fine mastiff dog, and a bite of one of these creatures almost tore him to pieces. Nor were these the only dangerous animals that we found here, for the master having been sent out one day to sound the coast upon the south shore, reported, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Holland. Let the States get others to serve their mercenary turn, for me they shall not have." Upon giving up the government, he caused a medal to be struck in his own honour. The device was a flock of sheep watched by an English mastiff. Two mottoes—"non gregem aed ingratos," and "invitus desero"—expressed his opinion of Dutch ingratitude and his own fidelity. The Hollanders, on their part, struck several medals to commemorate the same event, some of which were not destitute of invention. Upon one ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it only a month ago. I threw a pinch of it into a basin of milk and gave it to a powerful mastiff. He drank the milk and in ten seconds fell ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... charge we carried was well known in all the country through which we travelled. The 8th we came to Brodera, [Brodrah] and made a present to the governor, who received it very kindly, and particularly requested to see our mastiff dog. Brodrah stands in a plain, which seemed fertile, and is well watered, a thing rather uncommon in those parts. We departed thence with an escort of 100 horse and foot, voluntarily offered from respect for the king's present, yet were they a considerable charge to us. We came next to Arras,[138] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... am a horrible mixture, issue of every passer-by! I can feel barking within me the voice of every blood. Retriever, mastiff, pointer, poodle, hound—my soul is a whole pack, sitting in circle, musing. Cock, I am all dogs, ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... one fellow got into the gallery with a dustman's bell, and rang it furiously. Dogs were also brought into the boxes, to add their sweet voices to the general uproar. The animals seemed to join in it con amore, and one night a large mastiff growled and barked so loudly, as to draw down upon his exertions three cheers ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed:—I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man. "I guess I should not like to be your nigger!"— Webster is not loquacious, but he is pertinent, conclusive; a dignified, perfectly bred man, though not English in ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... laugh from the circle of soldiers, for sedition and mutiny were rife in the camp, and even the old centurion's outbreak could not draw a protest. Maximin raised his great mastiff head and looked ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like Hunt's dog, will neither go to church nor stay at home. One Hunt, a labouring man at a small town in Shropshire, kept a mastiff, who on being shut up on Sundays, whilst his master went to church, howled so terribly as to disturb the whole village; wherefore his master resolved to take him to church with him: but when he came to the church door, the dog having perhaps formerly been whipped ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the passage which contains it an echo or a trace of the "music, wit, and oracle" of Shakespeare. But in those days I had yet to learn what manner of ears are pricked up to listen "when rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws" in criticism of Homer or of Shakespeare. In a corner of the preface to an edition of "Shakspere" which bears on its title-page the name (correctly spelt) of Queen Victoria's youngest son prefixed to the name I have just transcribed, a small pellet of dry dirt was flung upwards ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a mastiff, set up the cry that if William accepted that democratic crown out of the Frankfort gutter, Prussia would become involved in civil war. And it was a fact! The old-line Prussian military aristocracy wanted no "democratic gold, from the gutter, melted down with their ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... had a markedly sadistic vein in her composition; and, when annoyed, was not above laying about her right and left with a dog-whip that she always carried. An impudent lackey would be flogged into submission, or set upon by a fierce mastiff that she kept at her heels. High office, too, meant nothing to her. She boxed the ears of Baron Pechman; and, because he chanced to upset her, she encouraged her four-coated companion to tear the best trousers of Professor Lasaulx, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Italian masters. Certainly in all his work there is a dignity, power, and charm, especially in that well- known Maids of Honor, where a little Spanish princess is depicted holding her court, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, her dwarfs and her mastiff, while the artist himself stands at his easel. The last feat of Velasquez was to superintend the elaborate decorations in honor of the marriage of the Spanish Infanta with King Louis XIV of France. Murillo, the youngest of all these great painters, did most of his work for the Catholic ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... I not to have given her the other half crown, for what she got would be of little use to her? However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affectionate friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assistance of a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than that of the dog; yet she with great humanity relieved me from the jaws of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry up ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... I went to seek my favorite in the poultry yard; plenty of hens were there, but no Yarico. The gate was open, and, as I concluded she had sought the forbidden copse, I proceeded there, accompanied by the yard mastiff; a noble fellow, steady and sagacious as ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... them: dismissed at Metz here, and like to be mobbed! That was the one issue of King Louis's death-sickness. Sublime sickness; during which all Paris wept aloud, in terror and sorrow, like a child that has lost its mother and sees a mastiff coming; wept sublimely, and did the Prayers of Forty-Hours; and called King Louis Le BIEN-AIME (The Well-beloved):—merely some obstruction in the royal bowels, it turned out;—a good cathartic, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours, quite reinstated matters. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of the eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know what I shall find ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... over. I'm thinking of a retired forest-ranger at Cherey, where we were last month, who went about the streets of the town spying everywhere to rout out some civilian of military age, and he smelled out the dodgers like a mastiff. Behold him pulling up in front of a sturdy goodwife that had a mustache, and he only sees her mustache, so he bullyrags her—'Why aren't you ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... and flew at Mr. Gibney's throat. The sight reminded McGuffey of a terrier worrying a mastiff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gibney was still so unnerved at the discovery of the horrible contents of the box that, despite his gigantic proportions, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... could not go to school; so while Dinnie was away, Satan began to make friends. He would bark, "Howdy-do?" to every dog that passed his gate. Many stopped to rub noses with him through the fence— even Hugo the mastiff, and nearly all, indeed, except one strange- looking dog that appeared every morning at precisely nine o'clock and took his stand on the corner. There he would lie patiently until a funeral came along, and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... we here have, then, at least three stocks of very distinct dogs: 1, a hunting or shepherd's dog, of European origin; 2, a mastiff, typical of the large breed of dogs indigenous to Asia; and 3, a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... to relate with infinite humor an adventure between him and a mastiff, when he was a boy. He had heard somebody say that any person throwing the skirts of his coat over his head, stooping low, holding out his arms, and creeping along backwards, might frighten the fiercest dog, and put him to flight. He accordingly made the attempt on a miller's ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... her place. He fortified every door and window with such bars of iron that his house might have resisted the forcible attack of a whole army. Night and day growled before his inhospitable door a furious Dutch mastiff, whose natural ferocity was so increased by continual hunger, for his master fed him most sparingly, that no stranger could have entered the yard ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... the ker-vardo, the house on wheels, of one who, whenever he takes up his quarters here, is considered the cock of the walk, the king of the place. He is a little under forty years of age, and somewhat under five feet ten inches in height. His face is wonderfully like that of a mastiff of the largest size, particularly in its jowls; his neck is short and very thick, and must be nearly as strong as that of a bull; his chest is so broad that one does not like to say how broad it is; and the voice which every now and then proceeds ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... lost both virtues. The Americans at least have acted like men,(172) gone to the"bottom at once, and set the whole upon the whole. Our conduct has been that of pert children: we have thrown a pebble at a mastiff, and are surprised that it was not frightened. Now we must kill the guardian of the house which will be plundered the moment little master has nothing but the old nurse to defend it. But I have done with reflections; you will be fuller of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... The mastiff bowled at village door, The oaks were shattered on the green; Woe was the hour, for nevermore That ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... marched back to the field of battle. Their adversary, seeing them approach, called his apprentice, who worked at the other end of the ground, to his assistance, armed him with a mattock, while he himself wielded a hoe, bolted his door on the inside, and, flanked with his man and mastiff, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... powerful animal of the breed of dogs anciently used in Germany in hunting the wild boars. Later the dogs were imported into England, where they were particularly valued by people desiring a strong, brave watch-dog. When specially trained, they are more fierce and active than the English mastiff. Naturally they are not as fond of the water as the spaniel, the stag-hound, or the Newfoundland, though they are the king of dogs on land. Not alone Will, but the rest of the family, regarded ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... The mastiff is the best of all guards; it is more pure instinct with him to guard his master's property than it is with any other breed. He is honest through and through, and as a rule he is gentle and ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... have replied to this remark in the terms it deserved had he not been too much engaged at the moment in masticating a particularly fine chop. As it was he growled over the meat like a mastiff ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... his wife home to his old father's house in the precincts of Sheffield Park, where she was kindly welcomed; but wealth did not so abound in the family but that, when opportunity offered, he was thankful to accept the command of the Mastiff, a vessel commissioned by Queen Elizabeth, but built, manned, and maintained at the expense of the Earl of Shrewsbury. It formed part of a small squadron which was cruising on the eastern coast to watch over the intercourse between ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to a great mastiff which was usually kept chained up by day. Phyllis and Nora laid their ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... swift ure by Volga's rolling flood Chased through the plains the mastiff curs toforn, Flies to the succor of some neighbor wood, And often turns again his dreadful horn Against the dogs imbrued in sweat and blood, That bite not, till the beast to flight return; Or as the Moors at their strange tennice run, Defenced, the ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... good priest went out to inspect his horse which he had named Grenadille, and his large English mastiff called Snog; as soon as he opened the stable door Snog threw himself upon his master and bounded around him. He not only jumped upon him but barked with joy, with such evidence of affection that the negro, Monsieur, was obliged to take the dog by his collar and could with ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... forces came up, and at first one brigade deployed on the left and another on the right of the pike. At last I witnessed a scene that had the aspect of war. A great thirty-pound Parrot gun unlimbered in the centre of the pike, and looked like a surly mastiff. In a moment an officer, who understood his business, sighted it. There was a flash, bright even in the July sunlight, a grand report awakening the first echoes of a battle whose thunder was heard even in Washington; and a second later we saw the shell explode directly over the line of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... A large mastiff dog picked up a favorite lap dog in the upper part of the city last week, and ran off with it. He was pursued by a mob, and after a severe chase, the terrified pet was recovered ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... to give the plants the appearance of being indigenous. Besides all this, the lawn's velvet was exquisitely spotted with sheep—a considerable flock of which roamed about the vale, in company with three tamed deer, and a vast number of brilliantly—plumed ducks. A very large mastiff seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these animals, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... its simplest principles? Who could not see through Douglas' thin scheme to attach his fortunes to the chariot of the great but misguided Jackson? Why had Douglas leaped to the defense of Jackson in this community, like a fice coming to the aid of a mastiff? Why, if not to get a bone for his own hungry stomach? Everything in the way of a taunt, a slur, a degrading image, a mockery of youth's ambition, an attack upon obscurity trying to rise, were thrown by Wyatt at Douglas. All the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... half-breed mastiff and shepherd dog that Lem Wacker had introduced to his railroad friends with ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... charm, had after a quarrel turned his back on her. Eben Tollman, who masked a diffident nature behind a semblance of cold reserve, was unendingly considerate and no more asked reward than a faithful mastiff might have asked it. It contented him to anticipate all her wishes and to invent small ways of easing her misery. He did not even seek to force his society and satisfied himself with such crumbs of conversation as she chose to drop ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... bloodhound, of which we hear so much, is not a native of the island, but belongs to an imported breed, resembling the English mastiff, though with larger head and limbs. He is by nature a fierce, bloodthirsty animal, but the particular qualities which fit him for tracing the runaway slaves are almost entirely acquired by careful training. This is accomplished ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... closely kept, and Frank, bundling his comrade over it, threw himself across and looked round. The dog was within ten yards of them, and Frank saw that the alarm was well founded. The dog was a large crossbred animal, between a mastiff and a bulldog. Its hair was rough and bristling. It came along with its head down and foam churning from its mouth. Frank looked the other way and gave a cry. Yet twenty yards off, in the middle of the road, stood the child. She, too, had heard the shouts, and had paused to ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... each other, crouching, watching for an opening. Sabota's great hands worked convulsively, eager to grasp and crush his wiry opponent; the Ramblin' Kid, with lips curled back from white teeth, like a pure-bred terrier circling a mastiff, bent forward, every muscle tense as drawn copper, his eyes cold as a rattler's as he searched for ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... out no more thou mastiff, get you all gone, And let my soul sleep. [Aside to Balthazar] There's gold, ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... grew angry, and caught Theseus round the neck, and shook him as a mastiff shakes a rat; but he could not shake him ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... sharpened his teeth, as it were, and felt the points of his own claws. The little devices of Mr. Chaffanbrass did not deceive him. He knew what he had to expect; but his pluck was good, as is the pluck of a terrier when a mastiff prepares to attack him. Let Mr. Chaffanbrass do his worst; that would all be over in an hour or so. But when Mr. Chaffanbrass had done his worst, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... badger, you know," said Murphy; "and I heard just now from Tim the waiter that there is a horse-dealer lately arrived at the stables here, who has a famous one with him, and I know Reilly the butcher has two or three capital dogs, and there's a wicked mastiff below stairs, and I'll send for my 'buffer,' and we'll ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... by 8, and that gives his height at the shoulder. You try it and you'll see. A little Dog has a 2-1/4-inch foot and stands about 18 inches, a Sheep Dog with a 3-inch track stands 24 inches, and a Mastiff or any big Dog with a 4-inch track gives ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... departure from London in the height of the season. The crumpled linen hat she wore was designed for comfort and not for elegance. Her gown of brown holland was simplicity itself. She sat carelessly with her arm round the neck of an immense mastiff who had followed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... physical superiority—the glory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with the champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon qualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any horse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and bruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred battle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... her neck; nay, the playful minx was utterly dead to the condition of her brother who stood there, ashamed to look any one in the face, if he was not rather like an exhumed corpse; and we would not be far out if we said that she even laughed as she saw the curmudgeon staring like an angry mastiff at the brother she loved so well. But then, was she not an eccentric thing, driven hither and thither by vagrant impulses, and with thoughts in her head which ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; the amorphous, craglike face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown; the mastiff mouth accurately closed; I have not traced so much of silent Berserker rage that I remember of in any other man. "I guess I should not like to be ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... in the ring, and on one occasion had killed a man with a single blow of his fist, in a prize fight near St. Louis. We were all very proud of him, and it was as good as an entertainment to us to see the noisiest roughs subside into deferential silence as Ned would come among them, like some grand mastiff in the midst of a pack of yelping curs. Ned entered into the regulating scheme heartily. Other stalwart specimens of physical manhood in our battalion were Sergeant Goody, Ned Johnson, Tom Larkin, and others, who, while ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and run together. The dog has twisted his chain round a barrel and yelps sharply. As if in response comes a rush of other dogs. A terrified fox-terrier tears across the square with half a score of mongrels, the butcher's mastiff and some collies at his heels; he is doubtless a stranger who has insulted them by his glossy coat. For two seconds the square shakes to an invasion of dogs, and then, again, there is only ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... coachman could prevent the carriage from being overturned. It was soon observed by the coachman and guard, by the light of the lamps, that the animal which had seized the horse was a huge lioness. A large mastiff dog came up and attacked her fiercely, on which she quitted the horse, and turned upon him. The dog fled, but was pursued and killed by the lioness, within about forty yards of the place. It appears that the beast had escaped from a caravan, which was ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... in stained glass in the windows. There were short and long men, lean and stout, dark and blond men, with eyes and jaws which varied from those of the tiger, lynx, and bear to those of the fox, the tolerant mastiff, and the surly bulldog. There were no weaklings in ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Jack or Wesley came about, the heartless young jilt, made as if she didn't know him; quite ignored him, and cared no more for his simple adoration than she did for the frisky gambols of Pizarro, the mastiff. But she was so adorable; her Southern accent was so bewitching; she put so much softness in those amusing idioms "I reckon" and "Seems like," "You others," and the countless little tricks of the Southern vernacular, that Dick passed sleepless hours and delicious ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... animal is common all over Thibet, and is a terrible depredator among the flocks, or, as Kinloch writes: "apparently preferring the slaughter of tame animals to the harder task of circumventing wild ones." The great Bhotea mastiff is chiefly employed to guard against it. According to Hodgson the chanko has a long, sharp face, with the muzzle or nude space round the nostrils produced considerably beyond the teeth, and furnished with an ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... and whenever she heard a large word she said it over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off, and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath again he would ask her what it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this but thought ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... could they reach so far. And when they came before the castle, they beheld a vast flock of sheep, which was boundless and without an end. And upon the top of a mound there was a herdsman, keeping the sheep. And a rug made of skins was upon him; and by his side was a shaggy mastiff, larger than a steed nine winters old. Never had he lost even a lamb from his flock, much less a large sheep. He let no occasion ever pass without doing some hurt and harm. All the dead trees and bushes in the ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... a long-lived animal. Individuals have been known of the age of fifty years. The cubs when first born are not much larger than the puppies of a mastiff. The people of Kamtschatka hunt this species with great assiduity, and obtain from it many of the comforts and necessaries of life. The skins are used for their beds and coverlets, for their caps, ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... me the letter and walked to the fireplace, where he took snuff copiously, while Alain eyed him like a mastiff about to spring. I broke open my letter and stooped to pick up a small ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of that by and by," answered Pluto. "We are just entering my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us? When we pass those gates, we are at home. And there lies my faithful mastiff at the threshold. Cerberus! Cerberus! Come ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... center of the amphitheater—the thousand creatures forming a great ring about us. Then a wolf-dog was brought—hyaenadon Perry called it—and turned loose with us inside the circle. The thing's body was as large as that of a full-grown mastiff, its legs were short and powerful, and its jaws broad and strong. Dark, shaggy hair covered its back and sides, while its breast and belly were quite white. As it slunk toward us it presented a most formidable ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... having slipt two or three florins into his hand—which was broad and brawny enough to have grasped threescore or a hundred. "I will remember you on my return,"—exclaimed I, as the carriage drove off. He gave me a most sceptical shake of the head, as he retreated into his little tenement, like a mastiff ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... their experiments on hens and a drake, on a mastiff and a sow, in the hope that monsters might be the result, not understanding anything about the ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... question was not bigger than a "San Bernard," a "Newfoundland," or a mastiff: but seen as it was, it loomed larger than any of the three. Like these creatures, it was canine in shape—lupine we should rather say—but of an exceedingly grotesque and ungainly figure. A huge square head seemed set without neck upon its shoulders; while its fore ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Gabbett clutched the mastiff's throat with iron hand, and forced him to loose his hold; then, bellowing with fury, seized his axe and sprang forward, mangled as he was, upon the nearest soldier. Jemmy Vetch had been beforehand with him. Uttering ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... 27 The mastiff howled at village door, The oaks were shattered on the green; Woe was the hour, for never more That hapless ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Newfoundland dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from similar parents, would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came (as is suspected) from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the supposition that his wolfish ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Lola went to see what aid the Building could provide. In front of the door lounged the husband, a hulking porter in a Bermondsey factory. Glowering at his feet lay a vicious mongrel dog—bull-terrier, Irish-terrier, mastiff—so did Lola with her trained eye distinguish the strains. When she asked for his wife in travail the chivalrous gentleman took his pipe from his mouth, spat, and after the manner of his kind referred to the disfigurement of her face in terms impossible ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... of land, my dog repeatedly placed his fore feet upon the rail and sniffed the wind blowing from the coast. His inhalations were long and earnest, like those of a tobacco smoking Comanche. In her previous voyage the Wright carried a mastiff answering to the name of Rover. The colonel said that whenever they approached land, though long before it was in sight, Rover would put his paws on the bulwarks and direct his nose toward the shore. His demonstrations were invariably ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... which got quite used to a ghost that often appeared to his master, and used to follow it. In "The Lady in Black," a dog would jump up and fawn on the ghost and then run away in a fright. Mr. Wesley's mastiff was much alarmed by the family ghost. Not to multiply cases, dogs and other animals are easily affected by whatever it is that makes people think a ghost is present, or by the conduct of the human beings on ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... had to take most care of myself. It was from her I learnt what I know about my parents. She has told me that my father was a foreign dog of high rank; from a country many, many miles away, called Newfoundland, and that my mother was a member of the Mastiff family. But how I came to be under the care of herself, and how it happened, if my parents were such superior animals, that I should be forced to be so poor and dirty, I cannot tell. I have sometimes ventured ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... where your praise might yield returns, 65 And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his peerless painting? ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... and what they did not own they borrowed; and once we know that Charles and Thomas "borrowed" a mastiff without the owner's consent. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... and run together. The dog has twisted his chain round a barrel and yelps sharply. As if in response comes a rush of other dogs. A terrified fox-terrier tears across the square with half a score of mongrels, the butcher's mastiff, and some collies at his heels; he is doubtless a stranger, who has insulted them by his glossy coat. For two seconds the square shakes to an invasion of dogs, and then again there is ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... sure of its ground and the weakness of the adversary does the modern Indian band attack at night. Folsom and his people well knew that. Yet not five minutes after the Indian girl, faint with exhaustion and dread, was carried within doors, the big mastiff challenged again. The dogs charged furiously out to the northeast and would not be recalled. For nearly half an hour they kept up their angry clamor. Time and again during the night, suspicious and excited, they dashed out again ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... table and rushed out in search of him. But the scoundrel had guessed what I would do, and had made his preparations for me. It was in the corner of the yard that I found him, a blunderbuss in his hands and a mastiff held upon a leash by his son. The two stable-hands, with pitchforks, stood upon either side, and the wife held a great lantern behind him, so ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my mastiff had bitten Geta's wolfhound and killed him, and they had found a black liver in the beast he had sent for sacrifice. I had been informed of this. Destiny was on my side. This indolent inactivity must be brought to a close. I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Raphael Ben Azra, his head filled with a false philosophy, is made again and again to act otherwise than he would by the mastiff Bran. ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... shaggy, lazy mastiff was shambling about, who, on perceiving a strange unknown four-legged animal (Mr. Korde had ceased for a time to belong to the category: man) thus approaching him, sidled up to him with incomparable phlegm, and began ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... and kept him from buying that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it, and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He 'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he has got the sweetest ...
— Different Girls • Various
... himself with a doggedly obedient, but most dissatisfied air down by the fire-place. It was evident nothing would move him thence: so he was as safe a guard over my poor old father's slumber as the mastiff in the tan-yard, who was as brave as a lion and as docile as a child. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... not of that. Let me see it. Ay, ay, a good clean bite. The mastiff had sound teeth that took this out, I warrant me;" and the good doctor's sympathy seemed to run off to the quadruped ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... then, that I really feel myself as if recalling a distant dream. We, I remember, went in Lord Byron's own carriage, with post-horses; and he sent his groom with two saddle-horses, and a beautifully formed, very ferocious, bull-mastiff, called Nelson, to meet us there. Boatswain[53] went by the side of his valet Frank on the box, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... reading a paper in the breakfast-parlor, and saw Hourigan waiting outside, who, by the way, gave him such a look as a cat might be supposed to bestow upon a mastiff from whom she dreaded an attack—a look which, in Hourigan's case, combined as much ferocious vengeance and sullen hang-dog cowardice as could well be brought together ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... lost their democratic canine sympathies, and look upon him with something of that indifferent calm with which yonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. He loses even the characteristics of species. The common cur and mastiff look alike in harness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said that he was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but one instance to the contrary. I remember a young colley who first attracted my attention by his persistent barking. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such glances at all lingering youths, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... is in a constant state of alertness, of defense. Broken glass covers the tops of the walls, and in the courtyards Mongolian watch-dogs guard the premises, huge, fierce, long-haired creatures, like a woolly mastiff. Through the day they are chained, but at night they are unloosed. Oh, there is not only style but excitement in living in a native house in Peking! We have looked at a good many Chinese houses, but ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... my mind like thunder upon beer. And, moreover, I could almost have sworn that I was an old lean wolf, contemptuously observing a bald ring rubbed by the collar, from the neck of a sleek, well-fed mastiff dog; however, recovering myself, I managed to give as much information as it was in my humble power to afford; and my noble guest then taking his departure, I returned to my open window, to give vent in solitude (as I gazed upon the ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... glade—the dog "Marengo." From his size and colour—which was tawny red—you might have mistaken him for a panther—a cougar. His long black muzzle and broad hanging ears gave him quite a different appearance, however; and told you that he was a hound. He was, in fact, a blood-hound, with the cross of a mastiff—a powerful animal. He was crouching near Francois, watching for the offal of ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the South West; Mr. Anderson agreed to make another attempt, and having again placed him on the saddle, I led the horse on pretty smartly in hopes of reaching Koomikoomi before dark. We had not proceeded above a mile, before we heard on our left a noise very much like the barking of a large mastiff, but ending in a hiss like the fuf [Footnote: Thus is Mr. Park's MS] of a cat. I thought it must be some large monkey; and was observing to Mr. Anderson "what a bouncing fellow that must be," when we heard another bark nearer to us, and presently ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... countries bear, in every ground As denizen, or interloper found: From gardens and till'd fields expell'd, yet there, On the extreams stands up, and claims a share. Nor mastiff-dog, nor pike-man can be found A better fence to the enclosed ground. Such breed the rough and hardy Cantons rear, And into all adjacent lands prefer, Though rugged churles, and for the battle fit; Who courts and states with complement or wit, To civilize, nor to instruct ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... still be overtaken and brought back. Yet who was to do it? She herself was a woman, doomed as such to sit at her poor little wheel, to lie here like an old mastiff or its weak tottering whelp, while Ralph was walking—perhaps at her bidding—to ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... if the people of the Free States have been taught anything by the repeated lessons of bitter experience, it has been that submission is not the seed of conciliation, but of contempt and encroachment. The wolf never goes for mutton to the mastiff. It is quite time that it should be understood that freedom is also an institution deserving some attention in a Model Republic, that a decline in stocks is more tolerable and more transient than one ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... Rab, the great mastiff, claims first place in our minds, dog though he is; but James and Ailie are such lovable beings that we never ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... to me that the first time I saw the sun was in Seville, in its slaughter-houses, which were outside the Puerta do la Carne; wence I should imagine (were it not for what I shall afterwards tell you) that my progenitors were some of those mastiff's which are bred by those ministers of confusion who are called butchers. The first I knew for a master, was one Nicholas the Pugnosed, a stout, thick-set, passionate fellow, as all butchers are. This Nicholas taught me and other whelps ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable, Under his Master, a most special constable, Instead of killing Reynard in a fury, Seized him for legal trial by a Jury; But Juries—AEsop was a sheriff then— Consisted of twelve Brutes and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... where there is an inn, and where the road branches off into the Val Calanca. Alighting here for a few minutes we saw a cane lupino—that is to say, a dun mouse-coloured dog about as large as a mastiff, and with a very large infusion of wolf blood in him. It was like finding one's self alone with a wolf—but he looked even more uncanny and ferocious than a wolf. I once saw a man walking down Fleet Street accompanied by one of these cani lupini, and noted the general attention and alarm which ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... domestic animals and are well known to breeders. Professor Low, one of the greatest authorities on our domesticated animals, says: "The female of the dog, when not under restraint, makes selection of her mate, the mastiff selecting the mastiff, the terrier the terrier, and so on." And again: "The Merino sheep and Heath sheep of Scotland, if two flocks are mixed together, each will breed with its own variety." Mr. Darwin has collected many facts illustrating ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... this part of the face so as to give an additionally sullen weight to the countenance. The lower part of the face was unusually large, muscular and heavy, and appeared to hang like a load to the head, and to make it drop like the mastiff's jowl. The upper lip was long and large, and the mouth had a severe and dogged appearance. His nose was rather small for such a face, but it was not badly shaped; his eyes, too, were small and buried deep under his protruding forehead, so indeed as to defy detection of their ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous, crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed:—I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... northern parts of England," says Brand, speaking of the popular superstitions, "ghost is pronounced gheist and guest. Hence barguest or bargheist. Many streets are haunted by a guest, who assumes many strange appearances, as a mastiff dog, &c. It is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... followed his voice. "What now, you cub of a lazy mastiff! I told you, quickly; the beer ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz |
