"Tail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Donald Bean Lean. With a quick movement she showed him the edges of a bundle of papers which she as swiftly concealed. She then laid her finger on her lips, and glided away to assist old Janet, his nurse, in packing his saddle-bags. With the tail of his eye, however, Edward saw the girl fold the papers among his linen without being observed by the others. This being done, she took no further notice of him whatever, except that just at the last, as she ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... as to the best, and least troublesome kind of pigeon to be kept, we should say, the finest and most hardy of the common kind, which are usually found in the collections throughout the country. But there are many fancy breeds—such as the fan-tail, the powter, the tumbler, the ruffler, and perhaps another variety or two—all pretty birds, and each distinct in their appearance, and in some of their domestic habits. The most beautiful of the pigeon ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see the treasure safe. A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the invaluable chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight brought the hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and the thing caught the eye ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth arms; the arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent stood up a man, and spake; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away."[1] ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... feet in front of the frightened pony lay coiled a gigantic rattlesnake, its ugly head and tail raised and its rattles singing ominously. Two more steps and the pony would have been ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was now very near dark, made more terrible, that they drew back a little; upon which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and after that we gave a shout: upon this the wolves turned tail, and we sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones, that we found struggling on the ground, and fell a cutting them with our swords, which answered our expectation; for the crying and howling they made was better understood ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... domestic characters. Why, I remember how he used to go about looking very sick for three days before he had to leave home on one of his trips to South Shields for coal. He had a standing charter from the gas-works. You would think he was off on a whaling cruise—three years and a tail. Ha, ha! Not a bit of it. Ten days on the outside. The Skimmer of the Seas was a smart craft. Fine name, wasn't ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... creature came out of the rough water like a flash of lightning—I only saw the splash his tail made as he went down again. But what are you going to do, Miss Honnor? Shall I run down the strath and tell old ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... creature had an iron-clad back and a long tail that could wrap itself around a mountain. It had four front legs, with big knees that were bent up like a grasshopper's, but were covered with scales like armor. These were as hard as steel, and bulged out at the thighs. Along its back, was a ridge of horns, ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... with one lashing spring the mighty brute, And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot, The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe: Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit His first attack, wide-waving to and fro His angry tail; red rolls his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... The gloom is unbroken, and so is the silence; and a person might imagine that the great operations of Nature had been suspended and stood still. The outlying cattle betake them to shelter, and the very dogs, with a subdued and timid bark, seek the hearth, and, with ears and tail hanging in terror, lay themselves down upon it as if to ask protection from man. On such a night as this we will request the reader to follow us toward a district that trenches upon the foot of a dark mountain, from whose precipitous sides ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... him, Willie had only his goat to play with; it was a poor little thing with no horns, no tail and hardly any hair, but still he loved it dearly, and put it under his arm every morning while he went along ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... rambles. Sometimes he would follow the river northward, stalking the flocks of teal and mallards that dozed on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream, perhaps killing three or four fat birds. Other times he went to the foot of the mountains and hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in the arroyos of the foot-hills. Once he and his man loaded a wagon with food and blankets and drove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a big black-tail buck, and brought him ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... tale, like the interest of so many other Russian masterpieces, consists in this sharp contact between a simplicity, which we in the West feel to be very old, and a rebelliousness which we in the West feel to he very new. We cannot in our graduated and polite civilization quite make head or tail of the Russian anarch; we can only feel in a vague way that his tale is the tale of the Missing Link, and that his head is the head of the superman. We hear his lonely cry of anger. But we cannot be quite certain whether his protest is the protest of the first anarchist ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... science is often gory. In this instance a scientific white man hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal Morris and the drummer on Walsh's right started for the door. In vain did Walsh seize his neighbor by the coat-tail. The latter shook himself loose, and he and Morris reached ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... said the minister, "but he wishes to have war and peace both at once—peace because he wishes to make no retrenchments in his pleasures of women, dogs, and buildings, and so war would be very inopportune. In three months he would be obliged to turn tail for want of means (to use his own words), although I would furnish him funds enough, if he would make the use of them ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... whole world held—and pastures and sheep and cattle and horses, and houses and white fences and big white barns. Little Jason gazed but he could not get his fill. Perhaps the old nag, too, knew those distant fields for corn, for with a whisk of her stubby tail she started of her own accord before the lad could dig his bare heels into her bony sides, and went slowly down. The log cabins had disappeared one by one, and most of the houses he now saw were framed. One, however, a relic of pioneer times, was of stone, and at that the boy looked curiously. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... through here like a farmer through a salon. They were content with money for the pocket and two provinces which should perpetuate the memory of their victory. . . . But now they will not be the soldiers only who march against Paris. At the tail of the armies come the maddened canteen-keepers, the Herr Professors, carrying at the side the little keg of wine with the powder which crazes the barbarian, the wine of Kultur. And in the vans come also an enormous load of scientific savagery, a new philosophy which glorifies ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... rifle and a shotgun almost simultaneously, but the aim of the two marksmen was poor, and only a few scattering shots went through the tail of the wolf. Then, with a wild yelp, he disappeared behind the rocks, and that was the last seen of him. In the meantime, the wounded beast was snapping and snarling most ferociously. He sent a shower of loose ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... Miss Terry, that won't be any trouble. He's got a very good head, a first-rate tail, stuck in splendidly, but his legs are too long. He'd follow you if ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... village, having posted her letter, she turned towards a lane that led to the Riverside Road. Max, unaware of her reason for choosing the longest way home, remonstrated by halting in the middle of the lane, wagging his tail rapidly, and uttering ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... sin. So there is an Above, and an Earlier Age. When we began it wasn't the beginning, and it won't be the end when we are ended. Life is a fragment, without beginning or end! That's why it's so difficult to make head or tail of it. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... curves and a burden, unless care were exercised, with compound fractures. In order to insure one's safety it is absolutely necessary to preserve an exact equilibrium directly over the said spine in a line running from the point midway between her ears to her tail. This is at times so gigantic a task that it is no wonder a temporary oblivion to bodily ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... line, she could see, sometimes, the tail of Jimmie Batch's glance roving for her, but to all purports his eye was solely for his own replica in front of him, and at such times, when he marched, his back had a little additional straightness that ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... goats are the most numerous domestic animals, a peculiarity of the sheep being the extra large "fat tail" (Lev. 3:9), a lump of pure fat from ten to fifteen inches long and from three to five inches thick. Cattle, camels, horses, mules, asses, dogs and ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... the development of the mosquito from the egg to full-grown mosquitohood is that in the larvae stage air must be supplied, curiously enough, through the tail which projects slightly above the surface of the water as the larvae hang head downwards (see Fig. 79). If the surface of the water is covered with some impervious material, the mosquito larvae will be suffocated, and it has been found that oil lends itself most readily ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... was about to give those who had ejected him from their society in rags. But what a change was there in his whole appearance when he rejoined the party in the evening! He came skulking into camp like a beaten cur, with his tail between his legs. All his finery was gone; he was naked as when he was born, with the exception of a scanty flap that answered the purpose of a fig leaf. His fellow-travellers at first did not know him, but supposed it to be some vagrant Root Digger ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... varieties of sheep, both having the fat tail. One bears a white fleece, the other a russet or black one. Much of the white wool is exported to Persia, and now largely to Europe by Bombay. Flocks of sheep are the main wealth of the nomad population, and mutton is the chief animal food ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the craft began to rise. Very shortly the deck was in a level position. Then, as Harry continued to empty the water ballast, Frank and Ned, assisted by Jimmie and Jack, threw the clutch on the propeller shaft out of contact in order to permit the tail shaft to turn ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... other side. You will now find you can remove the bone whole from the fish, detaching, as you do so, any flesh still retaining the bone. Then you have two halves of the fish, and you have four quarters of solid fish. To remove the skin, take the tail end firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, hold the skin side downward on the board, and with your knife make an incision across the flesh, then, keeping the skin firmly between your thumb and finger, push ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... most successful and striking cases of protective colouration in young animals is found in wild swine. Here there is longitudinal striping which marks them from head to tail in broad white bands, over a background of reddish dark brown. The tapirs have a most unique form of marking. It is similar in the young of the South American and Malayan species. Their bodies are exquisitely marked in ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... seed the report of killed and wounded; and I'll take my affidavy that there warn't an officer in the fleet as lost the number of his mess in that action, and a most clipping affair it was; only think of mounseer turning tail to marchant vessels! Damn my old buttons! what will our ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... a wriggling movement under the bunk. A black dog, of the apologetic drooping sort that always has its tail sagging and matted with burrs, crawled out and sidled past Billy with a deprecating wag or two when he caught his unfriendly glance, and shambled over to the door that he might sniff suspiciously the cold air coming in ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... must be burdensome to their wearers. In the Big Cypress Swamp settlement one day, to gratify my curiosity as to how many strings of beads these women can wear, I tried to count those worn by "Young Tiger Tail's" wife, number one, Mo-ki, who had come through the Everglades to visit her relatives. She was the proud wearer of certainly not fewer than two hundred strings of good sized beads. She had six ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... tail in pieces; soak ox-tail in warm water for one-half hour. Wash and wipe dry, now roll each joint in flour, place one-half cup of shortening in soup kettle, add the ox-tails and brown well, then add one-half cup flour, browning a ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... threw up their hats and cheered the 'tenderfoot.' Then I took down the reins of the hackamore (the Mexican Jaquema), bent the brute's head around, and tied him in a half circle to his own tail. Then, borrowing a cowboy's whip, I tapped him gently with it, and kept him turning and tumbling until he was covered with foam, and I saw he was completely subdued. Then I untied the rope, gave him his head, and then ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... may flaunt a titled trail Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, And mine as brief appendix wear As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare; To-day, old friend, remember still That I am ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... than I did. I guessed I was not so apt to make mistakes, knowing so well what I wanted to do, and being so determined to do it. Several dollars' worth of lumber and nails were laid in, and I entered at once upon the work of "general manufacturing." Fritz was wagging his tail and barking as if he had scented the dog house in my plans, so I decided to attend to that first. It would have been better to start with the shelf, as that was simpler; but I slashed away on the dog house, and soon had some stuff sawed up for the framework. ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... when he would spring up and pace to and fro at his picket, and give a low throaty bark of welcome if anyone approached him. A few minutes later, when the leading man came to uproot his picket, he would watch every movement, and a slow wagging of the tail quite obviously showed his approval: then, as the word came to start, he would push affectionately against the leader, as much as to say, 'Now come along!' and brace his powerful chest to the harness. At the evening halt after a long day he would drop straight in his tracks and remain perfectly ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Angora came down the walk to meet her, her tail like a great plume, her soft coat as fluffy as thistle down. Proudly she walked as if ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... that was the heart-breaking part of the story, the leaving the beloved one to others. It was what she and the little mermaid had in common, unless she too could get rid of her fish's tail at the cost of walking on blades. But for the little mermaid there the necessity was, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... that would carry Starr many a mile in a day, and he had his eyes half shut against the sun glare, and his nose almost at a level with his knees. I suppose he was dreaming of cool pastures or something like that, when a rattlesnake, coiled in the scant shade of a weed, lifted his tail and buzzed as stridently, as abruptly as thirteen rattles and a button ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... took [Mama] out to look at his [nuts]. Half of them were gone! "Oh dear!" said Jack, "It is [Jimmy Crow] again. Now where has he put them all?" Just then he saw Jimmy's [tail feathers] disappear into the [barn]. He ran after, but could see no nuts—only an old [wagon]. He climbed up on the [wagon], but found no nuts inside—only a [barrel], lying on its side. He reached into the barrel and felt nothing but a [basket]. He pulled it out and peeped into it—and ...
— Jimmy Crow • Edith Francis Foster
... his pillow. The boys went to sleep at last, with all their treasures heaped about them. Tom shortly rolled upon the little jumping-jack, that broke away and butted him in the face with a loud squawk. It roused the boy, who promptly set up a defence in which the stuffed hen lost her tail-feathers and the jumping-jack was violently put out of bed. When the mother came to see what had happened, order had been ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... side," remarked Tyke; "an' I guess we're all agreed that it looks like a bona fide confession. We've seen, too, how it was possible for it to git into the hands of Manuel. Now let's see if we can make head or tail of the map." ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... untamed colt stood at bay, its tail arched with apprehension, yet sweeping the ground, and watched him with flashing eyes of suspicion. Ralph held out his hand slowly, more as if it were growing out of his side by some rapid natural process than as if he were extending it. He uttered a low "sussurrus" ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... there was no sense in arguing with her. If he wanted any peace, he knew that he might as well forget the old hollow apple tree and the hole in the fence-rail too. He had better forget them and resume his search for a home. So he gave his plump little cinnamon-colored body a shake and held his tail at even a higher angle than usual, just to show people that he was going to be the head of the house—when they should have one. Then with a flirt of his short, round wings he hurried over to Farmer Green's dooryard—after calling to his wife that he would come back ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the deity was like by whom the first germs of art and letters had been sown upon the earth. "He had the whole body of a fish, but beneath his fish's head he had another head [that of a man], while human feet appeared below his fish's tail. He had also the voice of a man, and his images are yet to be found."[89] More than one sculptural type has been found answering to ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... as hard as I could; but I looked back for some time as I ran, being greatly terrified as to what would come to Albert. He stood still. The bull lowered his head and rushed at him. Then he sprang aside just as I expected to see him tossed into the air, caught hold of the bull's tail as it went past him and held on till the bull was close to the fence, and then he let go and scrambled over, while the bull ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... their hands, and began to fire at him. Happily, one of the bullets aimed at him or at us struck the savage shark, just as it was about to make a dash at him; and, either from the wound it had received, or frightened by our shouts, it suddenly turned round, with a whisk of its tail, and ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... eyes popping at the sight just before him. Not twenty yards from them was a huge tiger. With head up, tail lashing, he seemed contemplating a leap which might bring him over a third of the distance between them. Two more leaps, and then what? Dave's hair prickled at the roots; a chill ran down his spine; cold perspiration stood out ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... broad Scotch, and left no one in any doubt as to the strong opinions expressed therein—were certified to be worthy the perusal of the most fastidious critic. Lord Monboddo, who was the author of speculations which forestalled Darwin and who considered a tail to be an appendage of which men had not long got rid, on the one side, and the metaphysicians and philosophers on the other, would no doubt prick up their ears to hear of this absolutely new being in whom there might be seen some traces of primeval man. We forget which of the early ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... were about two score of men, and most of them were Sherwood foresters. Robin espied Much the Miller in the tail of the procession, looking very dejected and ill, and decided to risk exposing himself. Standing up in the bracken, he called out boldly: "Hold there, Master Much. Here am I, ready to ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... eyes field and coppice, hedge and homestead, stream and flowing highway, all blurred and ran streakily into one another, like a highly impressionistic water-color. He could make neither head nor tail of the flying views, and so far as coherent thought was concerned, he could not put two ideas together. Without understanding distinctly, he presently did a more wise and wholesome thing: which was to topple limply over on the cushions ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... mouth of every slave, tankard-bearer, or waterman; not a bawd, or a boy that comes from the bake-house, but shall point at him: 'tis all dog, and scorpion; he carries poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail. Fough! body of Jove! I'll have the slave whipt one of these days for his Satires and his Humours, by one cashier'd clerk ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... The tail (in two parts) is really as amusing as any 'tale' that ever emanated from a female hand. There is a moral melancholy about it that is inexpressibly interesting, like two lovers intended for each other, and that some ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... said that you thought I might have less trouble with the men than I was wont if you went down with the loaves. What did you? For I went to the baker's stalls and bought, and looked round for the tail that is after me always; and I was alone, and all the market folk were agape to see what was to be done. I thought that I had offended the market by yesterday's business, as they had called out on me, and I thought that I should have to come and fetch your—that is, if it pleased you. ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... prior of the Kido-ku-In, the great priest of the Shu[u]genja (Yamabushi), was passing. His aid invoked, at once he recognized the rascal's disguise. Under the charms recited by the priest the true appearance was assumed, and a huge fox with a long tail darted away from the gathered crowd. No reputation has the girl gained by consorting with such ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... now a tail and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two or -three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly cut style, but he wore a surly loo'k and lounged along in a sort of hangdog style, in greasy overalls ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... addressed himself to Zadig, and asked him if he had not seen the king's horse passing by. "He is the fleetest horse in the king's stable," replied Zadig; "he is five feet high, with very small hoofs, and a tail three feet and a half in length; the studs on his bit are gold of twenty-three carats, and his shoes are silver of eleven pennyweights." "What way did he take? where is he?" demanded the chief huntsman. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... upon the table. Sheridan put his right hand in the sling, but with his left he swept the inkstand from the table and half-way across the room—a comet with a destroying black tail. Mrs. Sheridan shrieked and ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp'd to have taken a view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of dispute,—whether he was really a Hobby-Horse or no: But as the Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... seen in Harry's hand three days before, when the heir of Logwood was coming out of a jeweler's shop in Waterloo-place. It was opened, and curled round the white-satin cushion within was, oh, such a magnificent serpentine bracelet, with such a blazing ruby head and diamond tail! ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will. "Show me the man who'll tread on my coat!" shouts ragged Pat, flourishing his shillelagh as he hurls his dilapidated garment on the shebeen-house floor. From his seat in the senate, a joint of the "Tail" intimates, in more polished but equally intelligible phrase, his inclination for a turn upon the turf. Wherever blows are rife, Hibernia's sons appear; in big fights or little wars the shamrock gleams in the van. No matter the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... : envy. folio : leaf. sxauxmo : foam, froth. fadeno : thread. fisxo : fish. lud- : play. vosto : tail. pentr- : paint. pentrajxo : painting. flar- : smell (something). regxido : prince (king's son). pel- : drive. princo : prince. kovr- : cover. ondo : wave. cxes- : cease. membro : member. mov- : move (something). tataro ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... by dogs front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." Yet, very soon, when the attenuation of Lee's line became certain, Lincoln sent to Hooker one of his famous dispatches: "If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?" But the "animal" was moving rapidly, and the breaking process did ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... some very strange beasts carved on the old crosses. On the cross at Ilkley we observe some of these curious animals with their long tails interlacing. Sometimes the tail is wound round the creature's body, and the idea of the artist was to represent the animal reduced to a state of powerlessness. One forepaw is held up in sign of submission. Above is a figure of our Lord triumphing over the powers of evil, and these animals represent ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... to the mink whether his prey were bird or woodmouse. Far into the morning, evidently, his hunting had extended, for his track in one place was along that of the ruffed grouse; and the signs showed that he had almost reached his prey, for a single brown black-banded tail-feather lay upon the wing-swept snow, where it could be seen the bird had risen almost as the leap came. The sun was shining, and squirrel tracks were along the whitened crest of every log, and the traces of jay and snowbird were quite as numerous. There was clamor in the tree-tops. The musical and ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... the collar with which he had restrained the dog, and the latter, feeling that he was free, began to wag his tail, fawn before Pan Tarkowski with whom he was already well ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... management of her reins and animal, and admitted that she was "a plucky one." If she had only consented to get an English saddle (which she declined to do, with one of her customary exaggerations, saying that she "didn't want a thousand pommels"), to rise in that saddle, and to have the tail of her horse cropped properly, he would have been quite happy. As it was, he acknowledged that in her own fashion she was a most graceful and fearless horsewoman, and approved of her accordingly. It soon struck him that she did other things well. Used to the reserved and rather constrained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... about him. It could not be—it simply could not be—that a man of such splendid physical build, a man with a countenance so handsome, had ever been a low, wicked fellow! Does not the devil always at once exhibit his hoofs, horns, tail and malevolent smile, that all men may know who and what he is? A frank, manly young leader of men—that was the writing on his countenance. And his Italian blood put into his good looks an ancient and aristocratic delicacy that made it incredible that he was of low origin. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... as inalienable from his modes of thinking, as grammar from his language." [Footnote: Tait's Mag. Sept. 1834, p. 514.] True: his mind was a logic-vice; let him fasten it on the tiniest flourish of an error, he never slacked his hold, till he had crushed body and tail to dust. He was always ratiocinating in his own mind, and therefore sometimes seemed incoherent to the partial observer. It happened to him as to Pindar, who in modern days has been called a rambling rhapsodist, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... for granted. Balmordan, by the way, attended a big shindig on the Pluly yacht yesterday. Unless his tail goofed, he's still up there, apparently staying ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... Kilkenny are Milton's composition, but from instructions. By the peace the Irish had obtained home rule in its widest extent, release from the oath of supremacy, and the right to tie their ploughs to the tail of the horse. The same peace also conceded to them the militia, a trust which Charles I. had said he would not devolve on the Parliament of England, "not for an hour!" Milton is indignant that these indulgences, which had been refused to their obedience, should have been extorted ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... to one side with closed eyes, raising his muzzle aloft in pain. Once more I struck him fair on the muzzle, and this time he bawled loudly in surprise and anguish, and so turned to run. This act of his offered me fair hold upon his tail, and so affixed to him, I followed smiting him upon the back with blows which I think cut through his hide where the pointed knots struck. Thus with loud orders and with a voice which he ought better to have remembered, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... at a loss which way to go, and wavers this way and that. His dog stands at his feet looking up at him, wagging a slow tail; deferentially offering no suggestion, but ready with advice if called upon. The young lady's thought is:—"Why can't he let that sweet dog settle it for him? He would find the way." Because she is sure of the sweetness of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule, the black met his voiceless end. The body was burned to ashes; but for many days, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the Plaza, met, unabashed, the gaze of the whites; and across the Plaza looked towards St. Bartholomew's church, in whose vaults slept ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... carefully preparing for his interview with Madame Berthe Louison. He abandoned the idea of trying the "whip hand," remembering how suddenly he had descended from the "high horse." "Bah! She is about as sentimental as a rat-tail file. However, she is good for my passage to India, at any rate, and, the nearer I am to old Johnstone and this pretty heiress to be, the better my all-round chances are." So, he contented himself with ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... did! The familiar way in which he spoke to Mr. Brooks! The practical jokes that he played on him! Then in trotted old Diamond to join in the fun, and here was a chance for the clown to take a lesson in riding. He mounted by climbing up the tail, and then he rode sitting with his back to the horse's head. He tried standing upright whilst Diamond was galloping, but could not keep his balance, and fell forward with his arms clasped tightly round the animal's neck. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... would choose sides as in the spelling matches, seven or eight or more were on a side, and the side that brought in the most trophies at the end of the week won and the losing side had to pay for the supper at the village hotel for the whole crowd. A chipmunk's tail counted one, a red squirrel's three, a gray squirrel's still more. Hawks' heads and owls' heads counted as high as ten, I think. Crows' heads also counted pretty high. One man who had little time to hunt engaged me to help him, ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... his execution, and I believe there never was a more contrite man than he appeared to be; yet there were no drivelling fears upon him—he walked firmly at the tail of the fatal cart, gazing sometimes at his coffin, sometimes at the crucifix which he held in his hand. The symbol of divinity he frequently pressed to his lips, repeated the prayers spoken in his ear by the attendant clergyman, and seemed regardless of every thing ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... he ain't the head—for thar's his brother Abner still livin'—but, head or tail, he's the only part that counts, when it comes to that. Until the boy grew up an' took hold of things, the Revercombs warn't nothin' mo' than slack fisted, out-at-heel po' white trash, as the niggers say, though the ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... portion of the plot—Mrs. Berry led them into the parlour, and revealed to Richard who she was, and how she had tossed him, and hugged him, and kissed him all over, when he was only that big—showing him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from head to tail, I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be ashamed of it. It's be hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and King Charles spaniel. His colour is generally white, with black or brown patches; his ears are long, and his head broad on the upper part, with an acute muzzle; the hair is long over the whole body, with the fore legs feathered; his tail is curled, and feathered with very long hairs. This is the smallest of any of the distinct races of dogs, and is frequently not above a foot from the tip of the nose to the ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... a dainty little woman, neatly dressed for the evening promenade, with the mantilla on her curls, a pomegranate blossom in her hair, and another on her bosom, came out of the Alcazar. Waving her fan, and tripping over the pavement like a wag-tail, she came directly towards ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stole up the drive, by the time the door was opened, always the Sealyham was on parade, his small feet together, his tail up, his rough little head upon one side, waiting to greet us with an explosion of delight. In his bright eyes the rite was never stale, never laborious. It was the way of ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... vie in popular fame with the Glow-worm, that curious little animal which, to celebrate the little joys of life, kindles a beacon at its tail-end. Who does not know it, at least by name? Who has not seen it roam amid the grass, like a spark fallen from the moon at its full? The Greeks of old called it [Greek: lampouris], meaning, the bright-tailed. Science employs ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... de Vallorbes, while standing in the pensive October sunshine upon the wide flight of steps which leads down from the main entrance of Brockhurst House. Tall, stone pinnacles alternating with seated griffins—long of tail, fierce of beak and sharp of claw—fill in each of the many angles of the descending stone balustrade on either hand. Behind her, the florid, though rectangular, decoration of the house front ranged up, storey above storey, in arcade and pilaster, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... 22d of March last, about ten o'clock in the morning, a thin, spare-looking man, dressed in a black cashmeret suit, swallow-tail coat, loose-cut pants, a straight-breasted vest, with a very extravagant shirt-collar rolling over upon his coat, with a black ribbon tied at the throat, stood at the east corner of Broad and Meeting street, holding a very excited ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Union; and when I had heard men say, "I enlisted to save the Union, and not to free niggers," as a lot of them did, I scratched my head and wondered why I could not feel so devoted to the Union as they did. Looking back from the tail-end of the wagon, I now see what Lincoln meant by the importance of keeping us all under one flag; but I didn't know then, and I don't believe one man in a hundred who shouted for the Union knew why the Union was so important. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... pleased. Anybody could see that. He bowed and spread his wings and tail, and uttered his well-known call, "Conk-err-ee!" ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and sometimes they don't. A cat that eats its kittens is a heartless brute. I knew a cat used to eat its kittens—it had four legs and a long tail, and it used to get the head-staggers every time it had eaten its kittens. I killed it myself one day with a hammer for I couldn't stand the smell it ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... wanter lose his religion trying to make slaves work, so he took to preaching. He rode 'bout on his mule and preach at all the plantations. I never 'member seein' granma, but granpa came to see us of'en. He wore a long tail coat and a big beaver hat. In that hat granma had always pack a pile of ginger cakes for us chilrun. They was big an' thick, an' longish, an' we all stood 'round to watch him take off his hat. Every time he came to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Vanity of Lust: has your Grace seen it? He says here, that an Old Mans loose desire Is like the Glow-worms light, the Apes so wonder'd at: Which when they gather'd sticks, and laid upon't, And blew, and blew, turn'd tail, and went out presently: And in another place he calls their loves, Faint Smells of dying Flowers, carry no comforts; They're doting, stinking foggs, so thick and muddy, Reason with all his ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the column halted, nine miles from Heilbron, having done only twenty miles during the whole day's march. I say the head of the column, because the body of it was still straggling somewhere along the road, to say nothing of the tail. We went to bed hungry, the men with the waggon being too lazy to make a fire. I consoled myself with the prospect of a good breakfast in Heilbron the next morning, and slept as well as the cold would ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... lounging; yet stone walls in Marathon are built with uneven vertical projections to discourage the sedentary. Nothing is more delightful than a dog; but there are no dogs in Marathon. They are all airedales or spaniels or mastiffs. If an ordinary dog should wag his tail up our street the airedales would cut him dead. Bless me, Nature herself has taken to the same insincerity. The landscape round Marathon is lovely, but it has itself well in hand. The hills all pretend to be gentle declivities. There is a beautiful little sheet of water, reflecting the trailery ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... horse, but in picture-making qualities she is far ahead of him. Her shaggy, loose-jointed body, her irregular, sketchy outlines, like those of the landscape—the hollows and ridges, the slopes and prominences—her tossing horns, her bushy tail, her swinging gait, her tranquil, ruminating habits—all tend to make her an object upon which the artist eye loves to dwell. The artists are for ever putting her into pictures too. In rural landscape scenes she is an important feature. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... out of a hollow facing her, stiffened with astonishment, dropped nose and tail, and slid away in the shadow of the hill. A couple of minutes later Jean saw him sitting alert upon his haunches on a moon-bathed slope, watching to see what she would do. She did nothing; and the coyote pointed his nose to the moon, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... You made me chase Snotty off the job, and you're goin' t'rough wit' it. You ain't doin' no worse 'n I done meself when I started rivetin'. Cheese! but I spoiled so much work I got me tail kicked offen ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... modern-antique factories, the ever-present Beatrice Cenci on canvas, and the water-color costumes of Italy, made a purchase of a Roman mosaic paper-weight, wherein there was a green parrot with a red tail and blue legs, let in with minute particles of composition resembling stone, and left the Brick-bat man alone with his Titiano ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... things undetected by Paul's nostrils, and whom he saw rarely, he dwelt in mortal terror. When he heard of the Devil, at Sunday school, which he attended, to his stepfather's disgust, he pictured the Prince of Darkness not as a gentleman, not even as a picturesque personage with horns and tail, but as Mr. Button. As regards his mother, he had a confused idea that he was a living blight on her existence. He was not sorry, because it was not his fault, but in his childish way he coldly excused her, and, more from a queer consciousness of blighterdom ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and a slight defect in the tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other characteristics, but ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... lakes, burying the clearings in its wreaths, and lifting only at mid-day, to close again upon the woods at night. They talked of alligators, jaguars, the giant ant-eater, and the mysterious bird known to them as the 'ipetata', which in its tail carries a burning fire. In the recesses of the thickets demons lurked, and wild Caaguas, who with a blowpipe and a poisoned arrow slew you and your horse, themselves unseen. Pools covered with Victoria regia; masses of red and yellow flowers upon the ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... aspect of the moon's visible surface in the five rude woodcuts representing the curious features he perceived thereon, whose form and arrangement, he tells us, reminded him of the "ocelli" on the feathers of a peacock's tail,—a quaint but not altogether inappropriate simile to describe the appearance of groups of the larger ring-mountains partially illuminated by the sun, when seen ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... (1824), quoted in Century Dictionary: "Snobs.—A term applied indiscriminately to all who have not the honour of being members of the university; but in a more particular manner to the 'profanum vulgus,' the tag-rag and bob-tail, who vegetate on the sedgy banks of Camus." This use is in De Quincey's mind. Later, in the strikes of that time, the workmen who accepted lower wages were called snobs; those who held ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... but how marvellously unlike in appearance, did this individual hermaphrodite present! We have the numerous, almost globular larvae, with lateral horns to their carapaces, with their three pair of legs, single eye, probosciformed mouth and long tail:—we have the somewhat larger larvae in the last stage of development, much compressed, boat-formed, with their two great compound eyes, curious prehensile antennae, closed rudimentary mouth and six natatory legs so different from those ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... bunking in the old house, and enjoying the outing immensely. Under Sam's captaincy, and the tutelage of an old farmer whom Michael had found, who could not work much himself but could direct, the work had gone forward; Michael himself coming down Saturdays, and such of the tail ends of the afternoons as he could get. It is true that many mistakes were made through ignorance, and more through stupidity. It is true that no less than five times the whole gang went on a strike until Michael should return to settle some dispute between the new scientific farming ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... the Indians of Guiana, a wooden frame or grille on which all kinds of flesh and fish were dry-roasted, or cured in smoke,) might be a corruption of the French barbe a queue, i.e. 'from snout to tail;' a suggestion which appears to ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull
... scornful nostrils. "Here you see the end of a nation which shares your pietistical aptitudes. You think you have God by the foot when you have the devil by the tail." ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... 400 yards above our bird, our watchful boys at the Archee guns (the anti-aircraft guns, so nicknamed because of their peculiar explosive sound) opened on him, and with the third shot, off flopped his fish tail. He dove in a wabble to the ground and, in his descent, his petrol tank was struck by one of our explosive bullets. When it reached the ground in No Man's Land, it was ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... tender gaze on his banjo, and I went on looking through the port-hole. The round opening framed in its brass rim a fragment of the quays, with a row of casks ranged on the frozen ground and the tail end of a great cart. A red-nosed carter in a blouse and a woollen night-cap leaned against the wheel. An idle, strolling custom house guard, belted over his blue capote, had the air of being depressed by exposure to the weather and ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... slighting expressions concerning the king's son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, and his wife. The sentence was given as follows: (1) Not to bear arms as a gentleman, nor be a competent witness in any Court of Justice. (2) To ride with his face to a horse's tail, to stand in the pillory, and have his ears nailed, etc. (3) To be whipped at the cart's tail. (4) To be fined L5,000. (5) To be perpetually imprisoned in Newgate. It was questioned whether Floyde, being a gentleman, should be whipped, and have his ears nailed. It was ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... curious dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... about coral-reefs and penguins' eggs; or to sketch the fisher's little daughter awaiting her father at night on some deserted and crumbling wharf, his blue pea-jacket over her fair ring-leted head, and a great cat standing by with tail uplifted, her sole protector. He liked the luxurious indolence of yachting, and he liked as well to float in his wherry among the fleet of fishing schooners getting under way after a three days' storm, each vessel slipping out in turn from the closely packed crowd, and spreading its ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... valley. The garden, where Mother and Quenrede had been working busily all the afternoon, was gay with nasturtiums and asters, and overhead hung a crop of the rosiest apples ever seen. Minx, the Persian cat, wandered round, waving a stately tail and mewing plaintively for her saucer of milk. Derry, the fox ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... hohl fish/ /n. obs./ The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not {parse}d) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Usage: ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... light on thee, And waters soak; And March winds catch thee Without any cloak. For within and without, From the tail to the snout, Thou'rt nothing but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... incomparable teacher,—used to translate, 'Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu',—first reciting the Latin words, and observing that they were the fundamental article of the Peripatetic school,—"You must flog a boy, before you can make him understand;"—or, "You must lay it in at the tail before you can get it ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... into his camp. And after a few days, being willing to encourage them again, when he had called all his army together, he caused two horses to be brought into the field, one an old, feeble, lean animal, the other a lusty, strong horse, with a remarkably thick and long tail. Near the lean one he placed a tall strong man, and near the strong young horse a weak despicable-looking fellow; and at a sign given, the strong man took hold of the weak horse's tail with both his hands, and drew it to him with his whole force, as if he would pull it off; the other, the weak man, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... this car as well as Mary knew the tail of her lamb," responded the senator's son, gayly. "Why, we are only making thirty-five miles an hour," he ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... one should steal or kill the cat that guarded the prince's granary, the offender was to forfeit either a milch ewe, her fleece, and lamb, or as much wheat as when poured on the cat suspended by its tail, (its head touching the floor) would form a heap high enough to cover the tip of the tail. From these circumstances (says Pennant) we may conclude that cats were not originally natives of these islands, and from the great care taken ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... its command than he had, and were probably better acquainted with the "biz" of making out quarterly reports or returns, they might be able to understand how things stood between him and the Government; confessing, at the same time, that he "couldn't make head or tail out of the blasted figures." In due course of mail Igo received a communication from the Department, informing him that if he did not immediately send in his report for the quarter ending on the 31st of ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... disconcerted them, as we shouted in chorus, and turning tail they began to decamp as fast as their legs ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston |
