"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... late, and sorely he longed that the lady might not leave his house altogether unhonoured, and yet to crave help of his own husbandman was more than his pride could brook. In these desperate straits his glance happened to fall on his brave falcon on his perch in his little parlour. And so, as a last resource, he took him, and finding him plump, deemed that he would make a dish meet for such a lady. Wherefore, without thinking twice about it, he wrung the bird's neck, and ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Whoop-la into five minutes of active bucking, then she leaped from the saddle and came to perch on the fence beside Douglas. Her gaze wandered from his wistful face to the eternal crimson and orange clouds rolling ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... Mrs. Lowder's recommendation that nothing should be said to Kate—it was on this rich attitude of Aunt Maud's that the idea of an interesting complication might best hope to perch; and when, in fact, after the colloquy we have reported Milly saw Kate again without mentioning any name, her silence succeeded in passing muster with her as the beginning of a new sort of fun. The sort was all the newer by reason of its containing a small element of anxiety: when she ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... piece of branch in one hand, the bird in the other. He glanced at us to see if we were watching him, and then smoothing the feathers quickly, he began to buzz and whirr like a beetle, as cleverly as a ventriloquist. Next he made the dead bird he held dart from its perch, and imitated the quick flight of one chasing a large beetle through the air, catching it, and returning to its perch, where with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of it swallowing its prey, and then ruffling itself up again into a ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... the door brought no response, however, and just as they turned to go, Gyp, the ever present Gyp, howled a bit of news from his perch on the roof of the ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... then be shut off from a landscape in which all life appeared to be suspended, while the little village of Roussainville carved in relief upon the sky the white mass of its gables, with a startling precision of detail. A gust of wind blew from its perch a rook, which floated away and settled in the distance, while beneath a paling sky the woods on the horizon assumed a deeper tone of blue, as though they were painted in one of those cameos which you still find decorating the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... was a sheet-iron contraption in the shape of a pocket inkstand, and it stood on a perch in the corner, like a Russian icon, with a small blue flame flickering beneath it. It looked as though its sire might have been a snare-drum and its dam a dark lantern, and that it got its looks from its father ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... was there in my dreams, lad. I was fishing for those yellow perch by the poplars, and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... curious, as being within ten yards of my house, Cromwell Cottage, and in a narrow and much frequented lane, leading from near Gloucester Lodge to Kensington. This bird I reared and kept alive till late in January; when it fell suddenly from its perch, while feeding on a rather large dew worm. It was buried: but I had, long afterwards, strange misgivings, that my poor feathered favourite was only choked by his food, or in a fit of some kind—his apparent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... trees (6/4. In works written on the pigeon by fanciers I have sometimes observed the mistaken belief expressed that the species which naturalists called ground-pigeons (in contradistinction to arboreal pigeons) do not perch and build on trees. In these same works by fanciers wild species resembling the chief domestic races are often said to exist in various parts of the world; but such species are quite unknown to naturalists.) the sharp eyes of fanciers would assuredly have detected ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... that emptied into the Mississippi from the east. Their object was to fish, the greater river itself being too muddy for the succulent kind that they wished. The incomparable "Galleon" had also been supplied with fishing tackle, and in a short time they caught a splendid supply of black bass and perch, which proved to be very fine and toothsome. As their boat floated back from the smaller stream into the Mississippi, Shif'less Sol heaved ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... caught in it, as well as tufted seeds which have blown from the capitula of the Cichoriaceae. A Gad-fly, as big as a Blue bottle, falls into the trap before my eyes. She has barely alighted on the perilous perch when lo, she is held by the hinder tarsi! The Fly makes violent efforts to take wing; she shakes the slender plant from top to bottom. If she frees her hinder tarsi she remains snared by the front tarsi and has to begin all over again. I was doubting the possibility of her escape when, after a good ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if troubled ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... fangs of the king of the pack fasten in her skirt, and she knew that she was being pulled out of her perch when, through the woods came Ted and Bud and Ben, and the rest of her friends, yelling like mad and amid a perfect fusillade of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... twinkling of an eye they had made a complete volte-face, the waggon was lying on its side across the fairway, and its burden of logs had been distributed with a dull crash upon about a square perch of cobbles. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and "gambling hell" which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. It was a mere shelter, a rough perch for the human carrion lusting for the orgy of gold which the time-worn carcass of earth should yield. What had these people to do with comfort or refinement? What had they to do with those things calculated to raise the human mind to a higher spiritual ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Wellamo, at the bottom of the sea, in the chasms of the Salmon-rocks, where his palace, Ahtola, is constructed. Besides the fish that swim in his dominions, particularly the salmon, the trout, the whiting, the perch, the herring, and the white-fish, he possesses a priceless treasure in the Sampo, the talisman of success, which Louhi, the hostess of Pohyola, dragged into the sea in her efforts to regain it from the heroes of Kalevala. Ever eager for the treasures of others, and generally ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... back, averring that the poor bird would be lonesome; and Anne, feeling that she could forgive everybody and everything, offered him a walnut. But Ginger's feelings had been grievously hurt and he rejected all overtures of friendship. He sat moodily on his perch and ruffled his feathers up until he looked like a mere ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of the other's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had already left his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and had my coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were coming into the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amber and rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were in their places. I stood trying to read ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... narrow. The He imp would alight on the rail, about ten feet in front of her, and pretend to be very sick, squawking feebly and drooping his black wings with a struggling flutter, as if it was all he could do to keep his perch. The cat, her narrow eyes opening very wide, would start to creep up to him. The She imp would then alight on the rail behind her and nip her sharply by the tail, and go hopping clumsily off down the rail. The cat would ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... one once who was versed in book-lore, but, worse luck to him, he could not bind a wheat-sheaf or weed a perch of parsnips, and the result—bankruptcy; failure. ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... that this was perhaps one of the chiefs or leaders, or perhaps the great High Cock O'lorum himself, taking an airing in the fields. I have never yet been able to settle the question, as every fall I start up a few of these gigantic specimens, which perch on the trees. They are about three inches long, of a gray striped or spotted color, and have quite a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... turn into the valley, Harding took a bugle, in lieu of a stage-horn, and played in a skilful manner the ringing notes of "Annie Laurie," intending the sentiment to apply to Celeste, Doctor Dick from his perch ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... her bosom, I returned her embrace with an intense emotion, that seemed to resume in itself the history of my past life; but still with the eager impatience of the bird who wildly takes his flight from the perch to which he is still confined, and hopes, by the keen impetuosity with which he soars, to shake off the dead weight which chains him down to earth. The day was beautiful: white fleecy clouds were flitting rapidly across the sky; and the mild breeze ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... and his eyebrows fixed at the perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say: "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!" ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... "I shall perch myself there like a sacred hawk and filch her likeness. Nay, now that I come to ponder on it, it is doubtless better that she know naught about it. She might drop certain things to the Egyptians hereabout that ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... draggle through the dirt; and he can lick himsel' clean at his leisure, far ben in the cranny o' the rock, and come out a' tosh and tidy by the first dawn o' licht, to snuff the mornin' air, and visit the distant farm-house before Partlet has left her perch, or Count Crow lifted his head from beneath his ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... HENRY was in the House, off and on, for thirty-four years before discovering that he was on the wrong side, Mr. MOSLEY has made the same discovery after an experience of barely as many weeks. From his new perch he inquired this afternoon if Government cement was being sent abroad, to the detriment of British builders. Dr. ADDISON contented himself with professing ignorance of any such transaction. A less serious Minister might have replied that the Government needed all their cement to mend the cracks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... climbed to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,— Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... dropped from his perch and joined his fellow-prisoner on terra firma, and together they poured over these ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... chilling you; and every creak of this old house at night brings me up broad awake, because I hear in it the crash of those cruel great timbers. Oh, oh, OH! I'm so glad to get you! You're the light of my life; you're my whole life itself!"—she smiled at him from her perch on his knee—"I'm silly, am I not?" she said. "Dear heart, don't leave ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... there. It is especially when the flesh has quite mouldered away from his bones that the ghost packs up his little traps and sets out for the better land. The entrance to the abode of bliss is a cave to the west of Saddle Mountain. Here in the gully there is a projecting tree-stump on which the ghosts perch waiting for a favourable moment to jump into the mouth of the cavern. When a slight earthquake is felt, a Kai man will often say, "A ghost has just leaped from the tree into the cave; that is why the earth is shaking." Down below the ghosts are received ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... within Thy grace an eyeless mole? Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,[19] 45 Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word to me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... intended to have remained much longer, when I perceived, all of a sudden, the bear's head within a foot of me; he had climbed up after me, and I saw that he was very angry, so in a moment I threw myself off my perch, and down I went to the ground at the foot of the tree, a matter of near twenty feet, even faster than I went down inside of it. I was severely shaken with the fall, but no bones were broken; in fact, I was more frightened than ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... arranged the line, put on a fresh bait, and in a few minutes a fine perch was landed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... my dear," said I, "that you have discovered a tree sixty feet high, where you wish we should perch like fowls. But how are we to ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... midst of the great hall, where the Emperor sat, a golden perch had been placed, on which the Nightingale was to sit. The whole court was there, and the little Cook-maid had leave to stand behind the door, as she had now received the title of a real cook-maid. All were in full dress, and all looked ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... him, while she, the fettered, European woman, would ride back in the night to Kurun. Yet could this be Baroudi's woman, this painted, jewelled, bedizened creature, almost macawlike in her bright-coloured finery, who remained quite still upon her rugs—like the macaw upon its perch—indifferent, somnolent surely, or perhaps steadily, enigmatically watchful, with a cigarette between her painted lips, above the chin, on which was tattooed a pattern resembling a little, indigo-coloured beard or "imperial"? Could he be attracted ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... served whole; if large, they may be divided through the back-bone and served in halves. The same applies to perch and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... got up early that morning to go fishing. I knew where the white perch were thick as sprats. I got Mr. Norman's boat; but I knew he wouldn't mind. And I went over to Boulder Head. As I was starting to fish I heard two men talking just in the mouth of the old cavern. They were ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... 1 perch. 4 trabochi make 1 tavola. 4 braccia and a half make a trabocco. A perch contains ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... my lord, not worth the telling. K. Edw. Pray thee, let me know it. Y. Mor. But, seeing you are so desirous, thus it is; A lofty cedar tree, fair flourishing, On whose top branches kingly eagles perch, And by the bark a canker creeps me up, And gets unto the highest bough of all; The motto, AEque tandem. K. Edw. And what is yours, my Lord of Lancaster? Lan. My lord, mine's more obscure than Mortimer's. Pliny reports, there is a flying-fish Which all the other fishes ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... he must soon have died if some one had not noticed the empty cage. The alarm was given at once, but it was some time before the bird was seen on his lofty perch. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Him perch'd up there? I wish some thunderbolt Would make this Cole a cinder, pulpit ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... lumbering vehicles, laden with heavy merchandise, tear up the soil into ruts. No cab-drivers cast sarcastic remarks at you from their high perch. The only annoyance comes from the cast-off nail of a horse-shoe or the sharp splinter of a macadamised stone. The air is as fresh as on Creation's morn. Up hill and down again one can hurry on without ever touching the brake. For the first ten ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... all the dear little safe things that have made up your life in the past. She glanced from the helmet which the airman held toward her to the monoplane spread-eagling on the ground. I saw her big eyes dilate as they fixed themselves anxiously on the passenger's perch, to which the honoured guest must climb, above the conductor's seat, crawling through the wire stays, or whatever you call them, which were like a spider's web inviting a fly. Diana turned pale. Even her lips were white. The shadows under her eyes ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... you suppose?" said the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to blow out his cheeks and puff to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... daughters marry," he would say, "instead of spending the summer in Sarrio, where the etiquette is as strict as in Lancia, I shall go to Rodillero to breathe the fresh air and fish for perch. Listen to me, Micaela; don't be so sharp, woman. You will find a husband won't put up with those frivolous ways; he will expect to be answered in a ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars above the trees. When those columnar masses are situated near the Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of the cataracts, the moisture which is diffused in the air produces a perpetual verdure, and wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the beautiful shrubs ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... is sitting on his horse, are engaged in hewing it away with axes. Two others have climbed to the summit of the neighboring rocky crag, on which they have planted the banner of the Republic, which is seen flapping proudly from its lofty perch. In the foreground stands a manly youth, clasping his father's long rifle firmly, and gazing toward the promised land with a countenance glowing with hope and energy. His sister, as hopeful as himself, is seated by her mother's side, on a buffalo-robe which has been thrown ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... From scenes of art which chase That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, If from a golden perch of aspen spray (October's workmanship to rival May) The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, Lulling the year, with ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... the centre, and you can curl yourself up in it and, if you please, have a mat hung across the opening. But we had not got so far as that yet on our vessel, only just got the staging fixed in fact; and I assure you a bamboo staging is but a precarious perch when in this stage of formation. I made myself a reclining couch on it in the Roman manner with my various belongings, and was exceeding comfortable until we got nearly out of the Rembwe into the Gaboon. Then came grand times. Our noble craft ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the sky was overcast; the sleepy cocks at Dubechnia were crowing, and the corncrakes were trilling in the meadow; it was very, very early.... My wife and I walked down to the pool and drew up the bow-net that Stiepan had put out in our presence the day before. There was one large perch in it and a crayfish angrily stretched ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... hereof has caught many a trout and perch off the banks opposite to the island, and has passed many a contemplative hour on the events of former ages, which have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the English with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... perch on these Your most unworthy Father's knees, And try and tell him—Can you? Are Punch and Judy bits of wood? Does Dolly boast of ancient blood, Or is it only ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... am 'very idle.' I have read the few books I had with me, and been forced to fish, for lack of argument. I have caught a great many perch and some carp, which is a comfort, as one would ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... dingy three-balled tomb of so many hopes and keepsakes. He sketched her in charcoal, dressed (he would have it) in black, with a Spanish comb in her hair and the guitar on a broad ribbon of strange deep Chinese blue; behind her, on an aerially slender perch, stands a gaudy Mexican parrot. It does not look like her to us who know her well (though, curiously enough, all strangers consider it an extremely fine likeness) but as a tour de force it is remarkable, and amongst the plain, Saxon furnishings ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... is sometimes supposed to enter the body of a bird, in which case the relatives carefully build a semi-circular stone railing round the mound, so that the winged successor of the deceased may have whereon to perch. ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... wayfarer for the cries of hawks and crows, or the bleating of the mountain flocks. After they had reconnoitred the neighborhood, and finished their singular discourse, they descended from their airy perch, and returned to their prisoners. The captain posted three of them at three naked sides of the mountain, while he remained to guard us with what ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the phrase. It does not necessarily follow that the widest lands breed the finest people; and there is worthless territory enough in the United States to cut up into two or three Englands. Yet no patriotic American would wish one rod, pole, or perch of it away, whether of the Bad Lands, the Florida Swamps, the Alkali Plains of the Southwest, or the most sterile and inaccessible regions of the Rockies. If of no other use, each, merely as an instrument ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... accident. Paddy O'Hallaghan and his family had been stationed for some time on the bank, watching the success of the plan; and as it appeared not to be attended with any particular danger, they also determined to make the attempt. About a perch below the planks stood John O'Callaghan, watching the progress of those who were crossing them, but taking no part in what was going forward. The river, under the planks, and for some perches above and below them, might ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... meat people, many of whom are my friends. Even the beasts are happier than they, for they require less to make them content. And the birds are the luckiest creatures of all, for they can fly swiftly where they will and find a home at any place they care to perch; their food consists of seeds and grains they gather from the fields and their drink is a sip of water from some running brook. If I could not be a Scarecrow—or a Tin Woodman—my next choice would be to live as a ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... this time a beautiful white bird, Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size And plumage (probably it might have erred Upon its course), passed oft before their eyes, And tried to perch, although it saw and heard The men within the boat, and in this guise It came and went, and fluttered round them till Night fell:—this seemed a better ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... undertook to prove the possibility of draining the lake, and "giving to plough and harrow many hundred, ay, many a thousand acres, from whilk no man could get earthly gude e'enow, unless it were a gedd,* or a dish of perch now and then." ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... too intelligent to be caught in any such trap, and so the report of his shot had scarcely died away before the ape-man was on the ground and racing for another tree a hundred yards away. Here he again found a suitable perch from which he could watch the preparations of the raiders. It occurred to him that he might have considerable more fun with them, so again he called to them through his ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to Forest and Stream a few years ago, in which he stated that in the salmon no less than sixteen kinds of parasitic worms have been discovered, and undoubtedly many others remain unknown; four species were tapeworms, and four, roundworms. The yellow perch is known to be infested with ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... a variety of other feats, and then descending from his elevated perch, was about to resume his coat and vest, when the circus performer asked ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... sought an officer's permission and later a precarious perch on the broken roof of the barn, while Private Robinson extended himself in the manufacture of ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... are alluded to by Arthur Wilson as "monstrous satires against the king's own person, that haunted both court and country," when, in the wantonness of the times, "every little miscarriage, exuberantly branched, so that evil report did often perch on them." Fuller has designated these suspicious scribes as "a generation of the people who, like moths, have lurked under the carpets of the council-table, and even like fleas, have leaped into pillows ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... house was a solid pillar of flame, and the fire was eating its way on either side into the wings. The wing where the child slept rose from the canon like a walled castle, impregnable—Adelle might remember that "Boy" had chosen these rooms in the remote corner of the house, fascinated by their lofty perch over the deep canon. And there, at the bottom of the wall that she had built, the mother clung, helpless, beyond reach of ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man very gently whether ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... with the words with the suddenness of a monkey swinging off a bough, leaving behind him a silence so marked that the fall of an unripe apple from the tree immediately above them caused Columbus to start and jump from his perch to investigate. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... perch above the abyss, the officer lowered his field glasses and turned his face. Then he rose and moved over to where she was sitting. She stood ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... goes to show her light say 'All is well,' thou can'st come back and be ready for the bird with his bright plumage. Ha! he would go elsewhere and pipe his song, did he know the manner in which we are preparing his perch!" ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
... drops his vengeful ire; Perch'd on the sceptre of the Olympian King, The thrilling darts of harmony he feels, And indolently hangs his rapid wing, While gentle sleep his closing eye-lids seals; And o'er his heaving limbs, in loose array To every balmy gale the ruffling ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... golden apples, and toys. I shall sit by the fireplace, and bring a story-book out of my pocket, and read aloud to all the little children. Then the toys on the tree will become alive, and the little waxen Angel at the top will spread out his wings of gold leaf, and fly down from his green perch. He will kiss every child in the room, yes, and all the little children who stand out in the street singing a carol about ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... fish caught in the lake is the ombre-chevalier. The lavaret is peculiar to it. There are also trout, perch, pike, shad, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... possible; but within an hour of striking the scent, the pack came to bay in the encinal. On coming up with the hounds, we found the animal was a large catamount. A single shot brought him from his perch in a scraggy oak, and the first chase of the day was over. The pelt was worthless and ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... grief he felt at his master's absence. The grieved owner went hastily into the room where the cage was, and spoke gently to the ailing bird, which stood huddled up into what looked like a ball of feathers on his perch. Instantly, at the sound of the loved master's voice, the dim, closed eyes were opened wide. There was a feeble flutter of the faded plumage; the drooping head was raised. Half creeping, half staggering, the little creature attained the outstretched finger, on which he had ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... saw the waggon an idea popped into his mind, and he hurried forward to meet the great vehicle. He kept among the bushes so that the driver did not see him. The latter, indeed, from his high perch, was too busy cracking his whip over his team to urge them to the ascent to see that small, gliding figure slipping through the gorse. So Chippy dodged behind the waggon, swung himself up by the tail-board, and climbed in as nimbly as a cat. The ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... come out of his house without wishing to be in his heart, so much was he beloved. It was he who first said in a sermon that the devil was not so black as he was painted, and who for Madame de Cande transformed partridges into fish saying that the perch of the Indre were partridges of the river, and, on the other hand, partridges perch in the air. He never played artful tricks under the cloak of morality, and often said, jokingly, he would rather be in a good bed ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... for man. The more striking scenes of animal life, hitherto confined chiefly to the ocean, are now on land; the extensive sheets of fresh water are filled with fishes of a comparatively modern character,—with Whitefish, Pickerel, Perch, Eels, etc.,—while the larger quadrupeds are introduced upon the continents so gradually prepared to receive them. The connection of events throughout the Tertiaries, considered as leading up to the coming of man, may be traced not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... towards the lane and highway. Some, with keen eyes, fancied they could detect a horseman through the wood. Presently Giles, from his perch at the door of the corn-crib, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... dead long before she died," said the Duchess as she came to perch on the arm of Julie's chair, and threw her arm round her friend's neck. "After her little sister departed this life she became a very silent, shrivelled thing—except for her religion—and very few people saw her. She took a fancy to me—which was odd, wasn't ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... turned black," said the cartoonist, almost falling off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly through the olive haze that ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Redman's Farm, he found her chamber small, neat, simplex munditiis. Bright and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were henceforward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... splintered mast a sail rent to tatters was waving; suddenly the ropes that still held it gave way, and it disappeared in the darkness of the night like a vast sea-bird. At the same moment a violent crash was heard, and cries of distress. Dantes from his rocky perch saw the shattered vessel, and among the fragments the floating forms of the hapless sailors. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... many who have seen a prisoned lark sitting on its perch, looking listlessly through the bars, from some brick wall against which its cage was hung; but at times, when the spring comes round, and a bit of grassy earth is put into the narrow cage, and, in spite of smoke and mist, the blue sky looks a moment on the foul face of the city, the little prisoner ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... animal swung herself from a perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was thought would be immediately broken: but not so; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... never man's prospects were brighter,' I said, as I jumped from my perch; 'So quickly arrived at the Mitre, Oh, I'm sure, to get on in the Church!' Whack fol lol, lol ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... after the swart raven, Over the deep water, To quest whether the foaming sea Had of the green earth Yet any part laid bare. Wide she flew seeking her own will, Far she flew yet found no rest. Because of the flood With her feet she might not perch on land, Nor on the tree leaves light. For the steep mountain tops Were whelmed in waters. Then the wild bird went At eventide the ark to seek. Over the darling wave she flew Weary, to sink hungry To the hands of the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... his perch and went straight up to Arthur. "Arthur, I beg your pardon heartily for the harsh words and thoughts I may have given you. I was just a fool, or I should have known you could not be guilty. Were ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... scramble to punish the Chinese by carving out more territory. "The moment we acted," said Mr. Hay, "the rest of the world paused and finally came over to our ground; and the German government, which is generally brutal but seldom silly, recovered its senses, and climbed down off its perch." ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... of Holyrood There never squatted a more sordid brood Than that which now, across the clotted perch, Crookens the claw and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... passer-by, they fancy they are in the upper-ten of womanhood. Vain! The peacock, whose little heart is one beating pulse of vanity, is not half so vain as they. Giddy, trifling, empty, vapid, cold, moonshine women, whose souls can perch on a plume, and whose only ambition is to be a traveling advertisement for the men and women who traffic in what they wear, are many who flaunt in satins and glitter in diamonds. How many such there are we ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... peaks were disclosed as they climbed. In that direction there lay an undiscovered country, and they might well reflect that few even had looked out across it as they themselves now were doing from their lofty perch. They knew well enough that the old traders who passed through here rarely left the trail except for necessary hunting, but passed on through as rapidly as they might, this being merely their ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... this heavenly coat has kept me as warm as pie—Nina Atherton taught me that. That nice family considerably enlarged my vocabulary," she added with enjoyment, slipping out of a heavy fur coat and coming back to perch on the arm ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... They tell us that whenever the holy saint David, of Wales, stood up to preach, there came a milk-white dove, and sat upon his shoulder. It is a serious question for you and me, for preacher and people, does the White Dove perch on my shoulder as I preach? Does the Holy Ghost descend like a dove on you who hear? Men of business, anxious workers, is the White Dove with you in your factory, your farm, your office? Mothers and fathers, young men and maidens, is there a place in your home where the ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... cane-colored beard." His lady is seated on the opposite side of the picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow, all intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking, and archery, so indispensable to an accomplished ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... armour upon back and neck, and pawing impatiently, while he waited opposite a sort of portable platform higher than the horse's back, and gaily cushioned and decorated. A great tawny male lion was in the act of leaping from the ground to this high perch. I had seen many exhibitions of animal intelligence and training, but when this king of lions, uttering a second mighty roar, leaped to the back of the waiting horse and rode about the ring like a trained rider, leaped through a hoop held in the mouth of a big spotted ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... said Mr. Sewell, "your hens will all go to roost on the wrong perch if you are not at home to see to them; so, if the Captain will set us across to Harpswell, I think we may as well ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... away to wait on the great man, Clarinda; but I have more respect on my own peace and happiness than to set out without waiting on you; for my imagination, like a child's favourite bird, will fondly flutter along with this scrawl till it perch on your bosom I thank you for all the happiness of yesterday—the walk delightful, the evening rapture. Do not be uneasy today, Clarinda. I am in rather better spirits today, though I had but an indifferent night. Care, anxiety, sat on my spirits. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... creek, that ran through the meadow behind the barn, was one of their haunts. They fished in it for minnows and little perch; they made dams and bathed in it; and sometimes they played pirates upon ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... have elapsed since the creation of the Dukedom. If you came into it, there would be"—and the youth, closing his eyes, made a rapid calculation—"exactly three hundred and eighty-eight candles. On the eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the battlements. They remain there through the night, hooting. At dawn they fly away, none knows whither. On the eve of the death of any other Tanville-Tankerton, comes (no matter what be the time of year) a cuckoo. It stays for an hour, cooing, then flies away, none knows whither. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... all the other ships of the expedition, which quieted me much. Towards ten in the morning the wind changed; immediately an appalling cry was heard, concerning which the passengers, as well as myself, were equally ignorant. The whole crew were in motion. Some climbed the rope ladders, and seemed to perch on the extremities of the yards; others mounted to the highest parts of the mast; these bellowing and pulling certain cordages in cadence; those crying, swearing, whistling, and filling the air with barbarous and unknown sounds. The officer on duty, in his turn, roaring out ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... creatures indeed," said the bird. "I used to know one, and I used to perch on his horns. But what I stopped to ask you about was whether you know of a nice nest which I could rent for this spring. You see, I have come up from the South a little earlier than usual, and I can't find the nest I had last year. ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... who lived in a small house between the Ferry-house and Wallasey Pool, and which, by the way, was the only house then standing thereabout. The tide was running very strong and the wind blowing hard, and, after nearly four hours hard work, we managed to land near the Rock Perch, thankful for our lives being spared. The Rock Perch was a pole with a sort of beacon or basket at the top of it, implanted in the rocks on which the lighthouse now stands. There were no houses then anywhere about what is now called New Brighton. ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... Another perch for Noah's duck! Where will I be in a week or two from this? I shall make a mark, twenty pages from here, and see where I shall be when I reach it. Here, most probably; but oh, if I could then be at home! General Carter, who spent the evening with us day before yesterday, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... green interior, at all my books, looking so ornamental against the walls of my study, at all the portraits of the friends of my life of active service above the shelves, and the old sixteenth-century Buddha, which Oda Neilson sent me on my last birthday, looking so stoically down from his perch to remind me how little all these things counted. I could not help remembering at the end that my friends at Voulangis had gone—that they were at that very moment on their way to Marseilles, that almost every one else I knew on this side of the water was either at Havre ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich |
