"Toad" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is a trait of character which is quite too much neglected in female education. It is not only lamentable, but pitiable, to see a female of twenty, thirty, or fifty years of age, shrinking at the sight of a spider, or a toad, even when there is not the smallest prospect of its coming within three yards of her. Nor is it as it should be, when a young woman, already eighteen or twenty years of age, has such a dread of pigs and cows, as to scream aloud at the sight of one in a field, so well enclosed that it is ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... rather be a toad, And live upon the vapour of a dungeon, Than keep a corner in the thing I love ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... my wounds healed and my strength returned. If it was a dark and noisome prison, if there were hunger and thirst and inaction to be endured, if we knew not how near to us might be a death of ignominy, yet the minister and I found the jewel in the head of the toad; for in that time of pain and heaviness we ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... love what gives us pleasure, and what more pleasing than a beautiful face—when we know no harm of the possessor at least? A little girl loves her bird—Why? Because it lives and feels; because it is helpless and harmless? A toad, likewise, lives and feels, and is equally helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird, with its graceful form, soft feathers, and bright, speaking eyes. If a woman is fair and amiable, she is praised for both qualities, but ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Edwards, absently, paying most attention to a toad which had hopped out form the cover of a budock leaf, in search ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... worse men dropped down in the streets seized with it, and before their friends could be found they were dead. All sorts of odd things were offered in order to keep away the infection. One, that a great many foolish people believed in, was a dried toad strung on a string round the neck—as if that could have ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... kinder to me than my lover, And so dispatch the messengers at once, Harry the lazy steeds of lingering day, And let the night, thy sister, come instead, And drape the world in mourning; let the owl, Who is thy minister, scream from his tower And wake the toad with hooting, and the bat, That is the slave of dim Persephone, Wheel through the sombre air on wandering wing! Tear up the shrieking mandrakes from the earth And bid them make us music, and tell the mole To dig deep down thy cold and narrow bed, For I shall lie within ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... wide-open mouth takes the place of the severed neck, and a handle connects the top of the rim with the back of the vessel. The handle being broken off and the vessel inverted, b, there is a decided change; we are struck by the resemblance to a frog or toad. The original legs, having dark concentric lines painted around them, look like large protruding eyes, and the mouth gapes in the most realistic manner, while the two short broken ends of the handle resemble legs and serve to support the vessel in an upright position, completing the illusion. The ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... warts an' blow that tobacco-eyed Gila to Cheyenne. This here's worse than the time we cleaned out th' C 80 outfit!" Then he kicked the dead toad and swore ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... first Cap'n Lote Snow—there's been two since—were great chums. When he was home from sea he and I stuck together like hot pitch and oakum. One day we were sittin' out in the front yard of his house—it's mine, now—watchin' a hoptoad catch flies. You've seen a toad catch flies, haven't you, Mr. Fosdick? Mr. Toad sits there, lookin' half asleep and as pious and demure as a pickpocket at camp-meetin', until a fly comes along and gets too near. Then, Zip! out shoots about six inches of ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... confessed his inability to explain this strange peculiarity, we may excuse the savage if he regard it as another proof of a distinct personality in plant life. Thus, some years ago, a correspondent of the Botanical Register, describing the toad orchis (Megaclinium bufo), amusingly spoke as follows of its eccentric movements: "Let the reader imagine a green snake to be pressed flat like a dried flower, and then to have a road of toads, or some such speckled reptiles, drawn up along the middle ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... this toad-stabber," he observed. "That fellow won't come round for it in a hurry; goodsized blade, too." The group examined ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... dis place looks as good to me as it did," he remarked. "Dose yaps wid de toad stabbers could hike up on top o' dese cliffs an' make it a case o' 'thence by carriages to Calvary' for ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... until Berry was on the point of lifting the skep. Suddenly something jumped in the wallflowers by Daphne, and she started against her husband with a little scream. It was a toad. I felt braver. We were not alone. But my pleasure was shortlived. Berry's hand had been upon the skep and the jolt had aroused ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... not return till the good physician was gone back to London. Then she came in with a rush, and, demonstrative toad, embraced Mrs. Dodd's knees, and owned she had cultivated her geraniums with all those medicines, liquid and solid; and only ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... exercise a wonderful power over them. Animals, however, have sometimes their revenge on man. It is an old superstition, that he whom the wolf sees first loses his voice. Among themselves, also, they use this power of charming,—as in the case of the serpent, who thus attracts the bird, and of the toad, the "jewels in whose head" have a like magical influence. Dr. Andrew Smith, in his excellent work on "Reptilia," gives the following interesting account of the power of the serpent, and of other animals, to fascinate their prey. Speaking of the Bucephalus Capetisis, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... these round wooden boxes had been split and spoilt, and half of it was left lying with the hollow part downwards. Under this shelter a toad had his house. Bevis peered in at him, and touched him with a twig to make him move an inch or two, for he was so lazy, and sat there all day long, except when it rained. Sometimes the toad told him a story, but not very often, for he was a silent old philosopher, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... The hop-toad is a reptile unknown in Ireland, but its name sounds disgusting. The crowd began to get very angry, and surged threateningly towards the platform. Sergeant Colgan felt that a great opportunity had arrived. He had all his life been ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... find you as bold as brass parading in that low-necked red dress, which I told your mother was a shame to any woman when I saw her flaunting in it. Now you know what she was, and what you are and are like to be. I tell you again, take off that gown as you would tear off a poisoned toad from your flesh; then go down to your own room and spend the rest of the day in prayer ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... would, in my opinion, have met them freed from every kind of difficulty." Aubrey says that Harvey often told him "that of all the losses he sustained, no grief was so crucifying to him as the loss of his papers (containing notes of his dissections of the frog, toad, and other animals), which, together with his goods in his lodgings at Whitehall, were plundered at the beginning ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... did not cease their sport because of what had befallen Master Brookes, but continued at the hunting until they had brought down two wild boars and also an animal fashioned like unto nothing I had ever seen before. It was something after the manner of a serpent, but speckled on the stomach as is a toad, and Captain Smith believed the true name of it to be Iguana, the like of which he says that he has often seen in other countries and that its flesh ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... on the stump she vacated and provided herself with a cudgel before starting to investigate. Advancing cautiously, she saw a bunch of tall grass wave in a suspicious manner. She smote the clump with her cudgel, and a large, warty toad jumped out into the open. It was stunned, and stood blinking as if trying to locate ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... Poynt de Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever, was feeling like a toad under the harrow. He read the letter again, but a second perusal made it no better. Very briefly and clearly, Molly had broken off the engagement. She "thought it best." She was "afraid it could make neither ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Toad are cousins. Of course you know that without being told. Everybody does. But not everybody knows that they were born in the same place. They were. Yes, Sir, they were. They were born in the Smiling Pool. Both had long ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... skipper was provided with a wonderfully small voice, suggesting, as he lectured upon sea-fishing to the novices who were getting into "snarls" with their tackle hard by where he sat, the circumstance of a tree-toad discoursing from the hollow of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... of King Arthur who, while declaring that he had altered nothing, stated that he had altered some passages to make them sound better. The Indian Queen contains the recitative "Ye twice ten hundred deities" and the song "By the croaking of the toad." ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... are much addicted to a dish known—if I remember the name aright—by the euphonious title of Toad in the Hole. Toad in the Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant sheep's kidney entombed in an excavated retreat at the heart of a large and powerful onion, and then cooked in a slow and painful manner, so that the onion and the kidney may swap perfumes and flavors. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... nearly covered with inscriptions, one dated 1720 and some farther back than that. We had a drink of water from the well, but afterwards, when sitting on the seat, saw at the bottom of the well a great black toad, which we had not noticed when drinking the water. The sight of it gave us a slight attack of the horrors, for we had a particular dread of toads. We saw at the side of the road a large house which was formerly an inn rejoicing in the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... up his deep "Poo-toob!" "Poo-toob!" Like a staccato note of double bass Marking the cadence. The unwearied crickets Fill up the harmony; and the whippoorwill His mournful solo sings among the willows. The tree-toad's pleasant trilling croak proclaims A coming rain; a welcome evil, sure, When streets are one long ash-heap, and the flowers Fainting or crisp in sun-baked borders stand. Mount Auburn's gate is closed. The latest 'bus Down Brattle Street goes ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... once put into a bottle of alcohol. It was years ago, but the tree-toad is there still, looking just as it did the first day it was put in. What ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews
... temper, as he was taking a solitary walk in the evening, and, to divert his melancholy, was flinging the stones that lay in his path against each other, he happened to break a tolerably large one, and out of it jumped a toad. The moment John saw the ugly animal he caught him up in ecstasy, and put him in his ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... steadying hand upon the couch, and Opdyke eyed the steadying hand much as if it had been a toad. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... elfin cast a glance around, As he lighted down from his courser toad, Then round his breast his wings he wound, And close to the river's brink he strode; He sprang on a rock, he breathed a prayer, Above his head his arm he threw, Then tossed a tiny curve in air, And headlong plunged in ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... enjoying the society of gentlemen of good fashion from England. She had no doubt their company was improving, that the English gentlemen were very different from the horse-racing, cock-fighting Virginian squires, with whom Master Harry would associate, and the lawyers, and pettifoggers, and toad-eaters at the lieutenant-governor's table. Madam Esmond had a very keen eye for detecting flatterers in other folks' houses. Against the little knot of official people at Williamsburg she was especially satirical, and had no patience with their etiquettes and squabbles ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... next above the fishes is the Amphibians, which includes the frogs, toads, salamanders,[7] and their relatives. The name "amphibian" refers to two modes of life as shown by most of the frogs and toads. A good example is the Common Toad, whose eggs are laid in the water. These eggs hatch out not into toads, but into tadpoles, which have no legs and which breathe by means of gills, as the fishes do. They grow rapidly, develop a pair ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... little self-governing communities," supplied Win. "It's a privilege they have always had, and even England wouldn't dare take it from them now. Jersey is desperately jealous of Guernsey. They say that even a Jersey toad will die if it is taken ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... in a draper's shop, a very old-fashioned one—continued still to keep up their meetings, and carry on their affairs as steadily and gravely as Fox and his contemporaries did, if not so extensively and successfully. They had a meeting at Codnor Breach, at Monny-Ash in the Peak, at Pentridge, at Toad-hole Furnace, at Chesterfield, etc. Most of these places were thoroughly country places, some of them standing nearly alone in the distant fields; and the few members belonging to them might be seen on Sundays, mounted on strong horses, a man and his wife often on one, on saddle and pillion, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr Wraxall spends much space which he might have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises: The book of the Phoenix, book of the Thirty Words, book of the Toad, book of Miriam, Turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself headed 'Liber ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... friend, that can never think of being alone. Bugbears are ever starting up in their prolific imagination, and they cannot be for a moment in the dark, without expecting the devil to fly away with them. They have some useful pimp, some favourite toad-eater, that is always at their elbow. Ever remember, so long as you live, that toad-eaters are treacherous friends. Beside, it would be a little suspicious, to see your lordship's carriage making a regular tour from door ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... think, sir, she has picked up a toad which has had its paw battered, and carried it to her room, and has put it in her wash-stand, and dressed it up like a man. If that is not profanation, I should like to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Then there are such charming nooks for hiding, among the ferns and hazel-bushes, and the bits of mica glistening all along the road are each of a different size and shape, and must be carefully collected. The toad startles her as it leaps out of the road, the grasshoppers strike her face, and wonderful people drive by in wonderful machines, drawn by vast and wonderful animals. The amount of knowledge which an intelligent child will accumulate during seven weeks' ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... spirit. Lord Glenelg's case showed that colonial secretaries were punished when they got into bad messes, and his passion for messes was punished, in the language of the journals of the day, by the life of a toad under a harrow until he was worried out of office. There was, however, no force in public opinion to prevent the minister from going wrong if he liked; still less to prevent him from going right if he liked. Popular feeling was coloured by no wish to give up the colonies, but people doubted ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... what could this almost naked, white savage be? He had heard him speak but once—when he had cautioned him to silence—and then in excellent German and the well-modulated tones of culture. He watched him now as the fascinated toad watches the snake that is about to devour it. He saw the graceful limbs and symmetrical body motionless as a marble statue as the creature crouched in the concealment of the leafy foliage. Not a muscle, not a nerve moved. He saw the deer coming slowly along the trail, down wind ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nations, and in very differing climates, who were of the same diet, made provision of them, and fed them for their tables; as also, they did grasshoppers, mice, lizards, and bats; and in a time of scarcity of such delicacies, a toad was sold for six crowns, all which they cook, and dish up with several sauces. There were also others found, to whom our diet, and the flesh we eat, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... even in that critical moment, justice insisted that Lark's arguments were sound. The professor had certainly asked the scholars to bring him "things to cut up." But a toad! A live one!—And the ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... piping of hylas came from a marshy strip of woodland that ran through the centre of the town and a toad was croaking at the foot ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... a mistake and absurdity, fit to have a place in some new collection of Vulgar Errors, by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient, but exploded stories, that the toad has a gem in its head, and that ostriches digest iron. According to the true spirit of the Constitution, and the sentiments of the Fathers, Slavery, and not Freedom, is sectional, while Freedom, and not Slavery, is national. On this unanswerable proposition ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... many miles with inextricable thickets. I then pictured these three straight-forward monsters, century after century, writhing through the shades, grim as blacksmiths; crawling so slowly and ponderously, that not only did toad-stools and all fungus things grow beneath their feet, but a sooty moss sprouted upon their backs. With them I lost myself in volcanic mazes; brushed away endless boughs of rotting thickets; till finally in a dream I found myself sitting crosslegged upon the foremost, a Brahmin similarly ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... In the springtime bright and early A-tripping o'er the meadow he is seen. Through all the bright June weather, Like a jolly little tramp, He wanders o'er the hillside, down the road; Around his yellow feather, Thy gypsy fireflies camp; His companions are the wood lark and the toad. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... vampire was evidently afraid of the bee's sting, and was holding it by the throat till quite sure of its death. Virgil speaks of the painted lizard, perhaps a species of salamander, as an enemy of the honey-bee. We have no lizard that destroys the bee; but our tree-toad, ambushed among the apple and cherry blossoms, snaps them up wholesale. Quick as lightning that subtle but clammy tongue darts forth, and the unsuspecting bee is gone. Virgil also accuses the titmouse and the woodpecker of ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... A toad can die of light! Death is the common right Of toads and men, — Of earl and midge The privilege. Why swagger then? The gnat's supremacy Is large ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... a vial and a dropper, and before eating he would drop his medicine into the wine. To the left of the landlady rose the Biscayan, a tall, stout woman of bestial appearance, with a huge nose, thick lips and flaming cheeks; next to this lady, as flat as a toad, was Dona Violante, whom the boarders jestingly called now Dona Violent and ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... clothed with waving wood, And ancient towers crown his brow. That cast an awful look below; Whose rugged sides the ivy creeps, And with her arms from falling keeps. 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode; 'Tis now th' apartment of the toad; And there the fox securely feeds. And there the poisonous adder breeds, Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds; While ever and anon there fall Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered wall. Yet time has seen, that lifts the low And level lays the lofty brow,— Has seen this broken pile complete, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the door last evening, a great toad hopped up on the door-step. A bug flew along, and he caught it. He looks very ugly; but ...
— The Nursery, October 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 4 • Various
... him, nevertheless, to a sort of confession of some weakness, that he could not analyze for the swirl of emotional thoughts in the way; and they had him to the ground. An eagle of the poetic becomes a mere squat toad through one of these pretty material strokes. Where then is Philosophy? But who can be philosopher and the fervent admirer of a glorious lady? Ask again, who in that frowzy garb can presume to think of her or stand within fifty miles of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... weeds arise, or dust a passage win Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse Her home, and plants her granary, underground, Or burrow for their bed the purblind moles, Or toad is found in hollows, and all the swarm Of earth's unsightly creatures; or a huge Corn-heap the weevil plunders, and the ant, Fearful of coming age and penury. Mark too, what time the walnut in the woods With ample bloom ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... system had done that for his lordship to which his fortitude was inadequate. He was at least as cool, and as intrepid, as myself; and bowed to me with the utmost ease and civility. To return his bow was infinitely more repulsive than taking a toad in my hand: yet to forbear would have been a violation of the first principles of the behaviour of a gentleman. I therefore reluctantly and formally complied. I hope the reader remembers how earnestly I condemn this ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... old. For hearing much of the edible properties of certain European toadstools, he resolved to try a few experiments in his own person on West Indian ones; during the course of which he found himself one evening, after a good toad-stool dinner, raving mad. The doctor was sent for, and brought him round, a humbled man. But a heavier humiliation awaited him, when his negro butler, who had long looked down on him for his botanical studies, entered ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... the game being made small enough to suit him, he came in and won about two dollars, which made him swell up like a toad, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... Potter bull with the wooden legs is stared at by hundreds. As a picture painted by a very young man it is noteworthy. The head of the beast is nobly depicted. But what of the remainder of this insignificant composition with its toad and cows, its meaningless landscape? The Weenix swan is richer in paint texture. The Holbeins are—two anyhow—of splendid quality. Of the Rubenses it is better to defer mention until Antwerp is reached. They are of unequal value. The same may be said of the Van Dycks. Look at that baby girl ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... own this wondrous sabre, shape of toad is on the hilt, On the blade a toad is graven, and the scabbard ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... for her uncle's benefit. Carovius shook with laughter when he saw the girl dressed up like a doll and realised that the recital was imminent. Dorothea had of course the enunciation of one of her age. When through, Herr Carovius said: "Honestly, it would never have occurred to me that such a little toad could croak so beautifully." ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... though as brown as a toad's back, was as prideful and full of power as old King Nebuchadneisher; and how to exhibit all his purple and fine linen, he aye thought and better thought, till at last the happy determination came over his ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... at Rusthall Common is the group of rocks, of which the largest, the Toad Rock, bears a most singular resemblance to the reptile from which it is named. The High Rocks, situated further on, and just in the county of Sussex, are also very remarkable, rising from 30 ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... low growling, and short bark of the dog. The night was far spent; the tiny sparks of the fire—flies that were glancing in the doorway began to grow pale; the chirping of the crickets and lizards, and the snore of the tree—toad, waxed fainter, and the wild cry of the tiger—cat was no longer heard. The terral, or land—wind, which is usually strongest towards morning, moaned loudly on the hillside, and came rushing past with a melancholy sough, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... broomstick now must fly To woodland tryst. Come, Horned Owl And Venomed Toad! Now play the spy! Let no one through my ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to a frog living in the inland parts of New South Wales, Notaden bennettii, Guenth., which tides over times of drought in burrows, and feeds on ants. Called also "Holy Cross Toad." The names are given in consequence of a large cross-shaped blackish ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... grew older, and wandered farther, and adopted a perfect menagerie of odd beasts in whom my friends could see no good qualities: such as the snake I kept warm in my trousers-pocket; the stickleback that I am convinced I tamed in its own waters; the toad for whom I built a red house of broken drainpipes at the back of the strawberry bed, where I used to go and tickle his head on the sly; and the long-whiskered rat in the barn, who knew me well, and whose death nearly broke my heart, though I had seen generations of unoffending ducklings ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to harbor any thought of evil or shame in connection with the specialized organs and functions of sex, let this illumination from on high cast that devil out of your cosmos forever. And if you turn away with soul offended from even 'the slimy gendering of the toad,' you dishonor God who once knew no higher creative formula and still blesses it with His ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... curse at every word:] make up a roaring fire—the cleaver bring me this instant—I'll cut her into quarters with my own hands; and carbonade and broil the traitress for a feast to all the dogs and cats in the neighbourhood, and eat the first slice of the toad myself, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... arm?' said Morin, with sulky, and yet humble, uncouthness. I dare say he would have given worlds if he might have had that little hand within his arm; but, though she still kept silence, she shuddered up away from him, as you shrink from touching a toad. He had said something to her during that walk, you may be sure, which had made her loathe him. He marked and understood the gesture. He held himself aloof while Pierre gave her all the assistance ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... said Ben, firmly; "one must take the stage to Boxville, and I'll take Deacon Brown's wagon on the Hingham road, and somebody else must go to Toad Hollow." ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... Sylvie might go into business, as did the poor weavers of Toad Lane, with their sack of oatmeal, firkin of butter, a little sugar and flour," said Jack laughingly. "A fair division of labor. The men of Yerbury shall provide work, and the women shall train the inefficient how ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Walky. "'Must' is a hard driver, I know. But I tell ye, we couldn't win through the drif's. Why, I been as slow as a toad funeral gettin' up here from High Street. The ox teams won't be out breakin' the paths before noon, and they won't get out of town ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... broke into a blaze. "I know! Orma Fry, and that toad of a Targatt girl and Ben Fry, like as not. He's going round with her. The low-down sneaks—I always knew they'd try to have me out! As if anybody ever came ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... "I never thought of that. Also I should not have spoken so roughly, but I have had such a shock that I feel inclined to treat you like—like—a toad under a harrow. So please be sympathetic, and don't misunderstand me, or I don't know what I shall say." Then by way of making amends, Mary put her arms round his neck and gave him a kiss "all of her own accord," saying, "Morris, ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... listened close, you would hear something sighing, something dying. To the happiest walking there would come strange sinkings of the heart, unaccountable premonitions of overhanging doom. There the least superstitious would start at the sight of a toad, and come upon three magpies at once not without fear. Over all was a breath of imminent disaster, a look of sorrow from which there was no escape. It was not many yards away from a merry high-road, but once in the shade of its lanes, it seemed as though ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... here fancy city rules ain't sufficient to give a horn-toad a headache—but it's a darn sight more'n I care," Casey declaimed hotly. "I never was asked what I thought of them tin signs you stick up on the end of a telegraft pole, to tell folks when to go an' when to quit goin'. Mebby it's all right ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... TOAD.—You may expect deceit and the discovery of disagreeable facts; this sign should caution you to be on your guard, for malicious talking causes much discomfort and may separate ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... every word of it," said his listener with considerable satisfaction, adding as a special descriptive note of her own, "the old toad." ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Toad, that under the cold stone, Days and nights hast thirty-one, Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... which they retire during the winter, to shine out again when revived by the summer's warmth; but in this latter season I have frequently missed certain of my little proteges, and have reason to apprehend, that they formed the banquet of a toad, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... local affairs the most vulgar nicknaming, the most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and contempt were poured out full measure on certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epithets as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its own importance," were read ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... troubled with epilepsy, prevents fits; and if given during a fit it will effect an immediate and permanent cure. A woman with rupture of the bladder was reported to have been cured by wearing a little bag hung about her neck containing the powder made from a toad burnt alive in a new pot. The same prescription was also said to have cured a man of ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... Raymond's pugnacious front and Weir's pompous air; and Ken realized that the same reason accounted for his own attitude toward them. He wanted very much to tell Raymond that he was a little grouch and Weir that he looked like a puffed-up toad. All the same Ken was not blind to Weir's handsome appearance. The sturdy youngster had an immense head, a great shock of bright brown hair, flashing gray eyes, and ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... to the origin of heraldry itself, perhaps nothing connected with it has given rise to so much controversy as the origin of this celebrated charge." It has been at various times asserted to be an Iris, a Lily, a sword-hilt, a spearhead, and a toad, or to be simply the Fleur de St. Louis. Adhuc sub judice lis est—and it is never likely to be satisfactorily settled. I need not therefore dwell on it, especially as my present business is to settle not what the Fleur-de-luce meant in the arms of France, but what it meant in Shakespeare's ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... sake, 125 As Thou the common God and Father art Of her, and me, and all; reverse that doom! Earth, in the name of God, let her food be Poison, until she be encrusted round With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head 130 The blistering drops of the Maremma's dew, Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs To loathed lameness! All-beholding sun, Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes 135 With thine ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... nests of adders thine abode, With the earth-crawling serpent and the toad. Trust in the Lord, He will sustain thee there, And without fear thy ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... another suffer by it in like sort." Which the gardener proceeding to do in the judge's presence, no sooner had he brought the great bush down, than the cause of the deaths of the two lovers plainly appeared: for underneath it was a toad of prodigious dimensions, from whose venomous breath, as they conjectured, the whole of the bush had contracted a poisonous quality. Around which toad, none venturing to approach it, they set a stout ring-fence of faggots, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... know, Fanny," and his teeth rattled together, as he spoke. "I thought there was a great toad ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... a toad and dry him very well in the sun, then put him in a linen bag, and hang him with a string about the neck of the party that bleedeth, and let it hang so low that it may touch the breast on the left side near unto the heart; and ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... suffering is greatly exaggerated. Ever watch a t-t-toad that was being swallowed by a snake? Looks as if he positively enjoyed it. It's his mission. Born to be eaten! If there was as much pain in the world as p-p-people say, do you think anybody could endure it! Isn't the d-d-door always open? Can't a man quit when he wants to? Suffering! ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... own, I've chased the cobweb fancies from thy head! And but for me, to parts unknown Thou from this earth hadst long since fled. What dost thou here through cave and crevice groping? Why like a horned owl sit moping? And why from dripping stone, damp moss, and rotten wood Here, like a toad, suck in thy food? Delicious pastime! Ah, I see, Somewhat of Doctor sticks ...
— Faust • Goethe
... care if it takes a thousand years; they sha'n't ring in a stuffed toad on me," replied the ex-judge. "Did you notice that fellow with a long neck? They've fixed him all right and I knew it. I am not altogether easy about that short fellow we've got, but I hope he is man enough to be honest. There is ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... muttered the old sinner, "it's hard to say what's best,—powder of toad's bone or the mixture of wormwood and adder's fat. The safest thing is ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... roar load goat roam float road moan toad roam throat oar boat oat meal croak soar foam loaf soap coarse loaves groan board goal ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... Tuttle to the Bohemians the day that old horned toad got down from his ranch. After going once Jeff said darned if he hadn't been a Bohemian all his life and never knew what was the matter with him. Vernabelle had him telling her all about himself instantly. She said he was such a colourful bit, so virile and red-blooded, and ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... those of the Missouri. I have called them the horned Lizzard. they are about the size and a good deel the figure of the common black lizzard. but their bellies are broader, the tail shorter and their action much slower; they crawl much like the toad. they are of brown colour with yellowish and yellowishbrown spots. it is covered with minute scales intermixed with little horny prosesses like blont prickles on the upper surface of the body. the belley and throat is more like the frog and are of a ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... community or commonwealth, of "fallen angels" or spirits, with the various titles of kings, dukes, &c., prelates and knights, of which the head was Baal, "who, when he was conjured up, appeared with three heads, one like a man, one like a toad, and one like a cat." The title of king conferred no extra power; indeed, Agares, "the first duke, came in the likeness of a faire old man, riding upon a crocodile, and carrying a hawk on his fist"—Marbas, who appeared in the form of a "mightie lion"—Amon, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... They said it was—you'll excuse me, sir—a hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs. She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit was washing up the dishes in the scullery. She wasn't thinking about anything in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel, when she ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... began to hunt in dead earnest. We pulled up every blade of grass, felt in all the crevices of the rocks, and dug a toad out of his hole. He looked highly surprised and indignant, but he gave us no help ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... embark, and your father may have carried a musket under him. Your grandmother may have cried huzza for Marlborough but what is the Prince Duke to you, and did you ever, so much as hear tell of his name? How many hundred or thousand of years had that toad lived who was in the coal at the defunct Exhibition?—and yet he was not a bit better informed than toads seven ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coax coal coast coarse float foam goat gloam groan hoarse load loan loaf oak oar oats roast road roam shoal soap soar throat toad toast ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... would go off along the white road that led to Garchester, and on to Crogate and so to Tunbridge Wells, where there was a Toad Rock he had heard of, but never seen. (It seemed to him this must needs be a marvel.) And so to other towns and cities. He would walk and loiter by the way, and sleep in inns at night, and get an odd job here and there and talk to strange people. Perhaps he would get quite a lot ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... He rescued a toad from cruel boys,—for, though "he could kill game for food as a necessity, and dangerous wild animals, his soul shrunk from torturing even a fly." Dear heart, we can easily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... is now toothless, and of great size. The young frog feeds on living prey, which is generally caught by the tongue. For this purpose, the tongue in the frog and toad is fixed to the front of the floor of the mouth, so that the tip of the tongue points backwards towards the throat! In capturing, say a fly, the frog creeps as near his prey as he can manage, and then, with a lightning movement, darts the tongue forward on ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... too astonished, my dear; I merely gazed upon this small and agitated toad, who continued to run alongside and grimace and pull funny faces at me. He appeared to be furious, and he said some very vile ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... History with Miss Heritage. Mucius Scaevola's the Salamander, because they're indifferent to fire, like he was—though Miss Heritage says it wouldn't be kind to try with Mucius. Numa Pompilius is the Blind-worm—he used to be Kaa—and the Toad has changed from ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Devil was no uncommon creature; A leaden-witted thief—just huddled Out of the dross and scum of nature; 340 A toad-like lump of limb and feature, With mind, and ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... that wants one; And till you can demonstrate plain, You have one equal to your mane, 750 I'll be torn piece-meal by a horse, Ere I'll take you for better or worse. The Prince of CAMBAY's daily food Is asp, and basilisk, and toad; Which makes him have so strong a breath, 755 Each night he stinks a queen to death; Yet I shall rather lie in's arms Than yours, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... ear-piercing, and incessant, coming up from every quarter, accompanied by a second, from some larger swimmer with his trombone, and broken in upon, every now and then, but not discordantly, with the loud, quick hallo, that resembles the cry of the tree-toad. 'There are the Hutchinsons,' cried the lad. 'The Rainers,' responded I, glad to remember enough of my ancient Latin to know that Rana, or some such sounding word, stood for frog. But it was a 'band of music,' as the Miller friends say. Like other singers, (all but the Hutchinsons,) ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... been, loyal to this Union. We fought hard enough to know that we were whipped, and in perfect frankness accepted as final the arbitrament of the sword to which we had appealed. The South found her jewel in the toad's head of defeat. The shackles that had held her in narrow limitations fell forever when the shackles of the negro slave were broken. Under the old regime the negroes were slaves to the South, the South was a slave to ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... rejoiced wickedly, and said, "Now I will rid myself of a foe;" and he flew down upon the poor Tintabel, and being a more powerful fairy, he caught him, and pinned his wings together with magic thorns, and fastened him down with them among the fungus and toad-stools of the damp wood. Then he flew away exulting, and painted day and night. It was a magnificent picture, with stately figures, powerful and triumphant, and Orgolino's heart swelled with pride at his work, and he said to himself, "I might have left ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a little girl who is alarmed by a toad on the edge of a pool or stream of water, called Needless Alarms, appeared at the same time; and was so much admired by the President's colleague, Sir John Everett Millais, that he wished to purchase it, whereupon Sir Frederic presented ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... some one else, but he was not to interfere with my pupil. He agreed to this, but either he selected a stupid subject, or his mode of teaching was not good, for he made wonderfully little progress. For a week he was trying to teach his pupil Tommy Toad, as he called him, three letters of the alphabet, and at the end of the time he could not tell B from C. Mr Talbot took care also that we should not be idle, and kept us knotting and splicing and doing all sorts of work aloft. ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... still held Juan's, by degrees Gently, but palpably confirmed its grasp, As if it said, "Detain me, if you please;" Yet there's no doubt she only meant to clasp His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze; She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp, Had she imagined such a thing could rouse A feeling dangerous to a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... from these definite acquirements, I cannot see that my character has altered in the smallest degree. I detect the same little, hard, repellent core of self, sitting enthroned, cold, unchanging, and unchanged, "like a toad within a stone," to borrow Rossetti's great simile. I see exactly the same weaknesses, the same pitiful ambitions, the same faults. I have learnt, I think, to conceal them a little better; but they are not eradicated, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is one of those playful English names for dishes, like Pink Poodle, Scotch Woodcock (given below), Bubble and Squeak (Bubblum Squeakum), and Toad ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... that of unkindness and ingratitude. I find that howsoever men speak against adversity, yet some sweet uses are to be extracted from it; like the jewel, precious for medicine, which is taken from the head of the venomous and despised toad.' In this manner did the patient duke draw a useful moral from everything that he saw; and by the help of this moralizing turn, in that life of his, remote from public haunts, he could find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Lawler," said the man. "I think it was when you was down here last year, to the convention. I heard the speech you made that time, nominating York Falkner for governor. Too bad you didn't run yourself. You'd have made it, saving the state from the tree-toad which ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sallyport which he had made in our gateway. The thing moved forward with a dreadful snarl. Lord John never hesitated, but, running towards it with a quick, light step, he dashed the flaming wood into the brute's face. For one moment I had a vision of a horrible mask like a giant toad's, of a warty, leprous skin, and of a loose mouth all beslobbered with fresh blood. The next, there was a crash in the underwood and ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... its brush, and keeping only its quick, vigilant eye fixed upon the invaders of its repose. 'Come to the fire if ye will!' said she, turning to Glaucus and his companions. 'I never welcome living thing—save the owl, the fox, the toad, and the viper—so I cannot welcome ye; but come to the fire without ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... of the fairy-tale is bad enough, but, for evil looks, the Octopus is worse still. With his tough, brownish skin, knobbed like the toad's back, his large staring eyes, his parrot's beak, and ugly bag of a body, the Octopus is a horrid-looking creature. Add to this eight long arms twisting and writhing like snakes, and you have an idea of the most hideous inhabitant ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... the dusk. This owl crossed my path not more than an inch or two in front. It nearly grazed my forehead, so that I blinked. Oh, how I felt reassured! I believe, tears welled in my eyes. When I come to the home of frog and toad, of gartersnake and owl and whip-poor-will, a great tenderness takes possession of me, and I should like to shield and help them all and tell them not to be afraid of me; but I rather think ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... has a pet aversion of some sort. I have heard people shriek at the sight of a caterpillar, and turn pale in the neighborhood of a toad. My great antipathy is a spider! Not that I object to its treatment of flies—nasty little worries, they deserve everything that happens to them. But it is the appearance of a spider that is so against ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... ride to Roxbury in the collector's coach. This old mansion is now called the Governor Eustis House, and there are those still living who remember when Madam Eustis lived there. This grand dame wore a majestic turban, and the tradition still lingers of madame's pet toad, decked on gala days with a blue ribbon. Now the old house is sadly dilapidated; it is shorn of its piazzas, the sign "To Let" hangs often in the windows, and the cupola is adorned with well-filled clothes-lines. Partitions have cut the house into tenements; ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... Witch. Round about the cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw.— Toad, that under coldest stone, Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion; for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with them, heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater across a small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was still busily engaged in that labour, when sought and found ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... think? Just as they reached the spot where stood the old stump, with the knobs growing on the side of it, like warts on a toad's back, they heard a ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... the hallway, blotching like some misshapen toad in the shadowy light, lurching in his walk, that was, nevertheless, almost uncannily noiseless. Mechanically she followed him. She was trying to think; striving frantically to bring her wits to play ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... for Heaven's sake, light the fire. As for the rent, John, do not waste this trifle on that," whispered Vivian, slipping his purse into his hand, "for I will see Stapylton Toad, and get time. Why, woman, you'll never strike a light, if your tears drop so fast into the tinder-box. Here, give it me. You are not fit to work to-day. And how is the trout in Ravely Mead, John, this hot weather? You know you never kept your promise with me. Oh! you are a sad fellow! ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... enterprises Renouard was inclined to evade the small complications of existence. This trait of his character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity—like a man who would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him rather to keep that "friend" in the dark about the fate of his assistant. Renouard had never needed other company than his own, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... graces of his Excellency, seeing I never asked for anything, but only for his favour. Accordingly, this wholly unexpected way of dealing with me put me in a fury, and I was especially enraged by the manner which that venomous toad assumed in discharging his commission. I exclaimed that if the Duke gave me ten thousand crowns I should not be paid enough, and that if I had ever thought things would come to this haggling, I should not have settled in his ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... it will tell us what follows the broken spell,—broken by the first degrading theft, the first stroke of the dagger, or the first drop of poison. The felon's eye turns upon the beautiful sorceress with loathing and abhorrence: an asp, a toad, is not more hateful! The story of Milwood ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... said Eustace. "My poor old chap, my only feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity." He reached out and pressed Sam's hand. "I regard you as a toad beneath ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Thistle's Experiences The Thorny Road of Honor In a Thousand Years The Brave Tin Soldier The Tinder-box The Toad The Top and Ball The Travelling Companion ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... by the side of the river when I heard a rustling in the grass, and perceived a garter snake, an elegant and harmless little creature, about a foot and a half long. It had a small toad in its mouth, which it had seized by the head: but it was much too large for the snake to swallow, without leisure and preparation. I was amused at the precaution, I may say invention of the toad, to prevent its being swallowed: it had inflated itself, till it was as round as a bladder, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Jerry did, so we put away the things again and went out under the hemlock tree to talk about the Castaway. Greg didn't come, and we supposed he'd gone to feed a tame toad he had that year, or something. The toad lived under the syringa bush beside the gate, and Greg insisted that it came out when he whistled for it, but it never would perform when we went on purpose to watch it, so I don't know ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... toad, What are you spinning? Seven hanks of yellow flax Into snow-white linen. What will you do with it Then, toad, pray? Make shifts for seven brides Against their wedding-day. Suppose e'er a one of them Refuses to be wed? Then ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... or one who angles for recreation rather than profit. Also a species of Lophius or toad-fish; from its ugliness and habits called also the sea-devil. It throws out feelers by which small fry are enticed within ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... saw him I was angry, and I was going to get a broom and sweep him away. But then I thought it must be very hard to be a toad, and that you can't help being a toad if you are born one, and I thought that perhaps that toad was there praying that he might be changed from a toad to something else. So I didn't sweep him away. Have you ever heard ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... beast, a reptile, and know nothing! From the cave of my ignorance, amid the fogs of my dulness, and pestilential fumes of my political heresies, I look up to thee, as doth a toad through the iron-barred lucarne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloudless glory of a summer sun! Sorely sighing in bitterness of soul, I say, When shall my name be the quotation of the wise, and my countenance be the delight of the godly, like the illustrious lord of Laggan's ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... write all his despatches, and conduct his affairs, without his giving himself the least trouble about anything; a person who, to the merit of serving him well, could join the baseness of being the toad-eater of his gentlemen, without honor, merit, or principles. He wished to retain, and humble me, by keeping me far from my country, and his own, without money to return to either, and in which he would, perhaps, had succeeded, had he began with more moderation: but Vitali, who had other views, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... saw wood, and on into the plains, where it would soberly carry grain to town; yet the real strength of the fable is when it deals with the shut pool in which certain unfortunate raindrops are imprisoned among slugs and snails, and in the company of an old toad. The sodden contentment of the fallen acorn is strangely significant; and it is astonishing how unpleasantly we are startled by the appearance of her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a toad out of a rock to think of this man of nineteen or twenty centuries hence coming out from his stony dwelling-place and speaking with us? What are the questions we should ask him? He has but a few minutes to stay. Make out your own list; I will ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of inaction. But these defiers of sleep seem not to remember that though it must be granted them that they are crawling about before the break of day, it can seldom be said that they are perfectly awake; they exhaust no spirits, and require no repairs; but lie torpid as a toad in marble, or at least are known to live only by an inert and sluggish locomotive faculty, and may be said, like a wounded snake, to "drag their slow ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... fast this single clue to the crooked and amazing entanglements of the policy of James. The insolence, the meanness, and the prevarications of this royal toad-eater ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... said that the Basilisk inhabits wells, and that it is dangerous to look down a well, as to encounter the gaze of a Basilisk would be to turn the beholder to stone. There is also another variation of the legend. The egg when laid by the cock must be hatched by a toad; but when the Basilisk is hatched, if it be first seen by a human being, it at once dies, but if the contrary, the ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... exported last year. Of pulu 421,227 pounds were shipped; this is a soft fuzz taken from the crown of a species of fern; it is used to stuff bedding, and is as warm, though not as durable, as feathers. Also 32,161 pounds of "fungus," a kind of toad-stool which grows on decaying wood, and is used in China as an article ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... accentuated the silence. The rising and falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most important. A minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk. Among the minutest where all were minute were the light settlement of gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring along through the grass near the entrance, the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under the burden of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... a little tree-toad that began it. In a careless moment he had come down to the bench that connects the big maple tree with the old locust stump, and when I went out at dusk to wait for Jonathan, there he sat, in plain sight. ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... with dread of such a soul. She shrank from the boy and groaned, "Oh, you toad, you ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... at the foot of a tree was Kitty. She looked like nothing so much as a toad-stool, a bit of human fungus growth, at the foot of that gentle birch tree. Her knees drawn up, and bare feet hiding in her bedraggled gingham skirt, Kitty was truly a sorry ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... Martins is an old witch, gentlemen, that is what she is, and she charmed me, and I got no sleep for her for three nights, and one night at half-past eleven o'clock, I got up because I could not sleep, and went out and found a "walking toad" under a clod that had been dug up with a three-pronged fork. That is why I could not rest; she is a bad old woman; she put this toad under there to charm me, and her daughter is just as bad, gentlemen. She would bewitch any one; she ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Washington, my friend Dr. Priestley, a distinguished London physician, of the highest character and standing, showed me the photograph of a small boy, some three or four years old, who had a very respectable little tail, which would have passed muster on a pig, and would have made a frog or a toad ashamed of himself. I have never heard what became of the little boy, nor have I looked in the books or journals to find out if there are similar cases on record, but I have no doubt that there are others. And if boys may have this additional ornament to their vertebral columns, why not men? ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stop by and see him!" said Eddie Elf. So Timothy Toad hopped along the path until ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... crime. But the one demoralized a continent, and gave birth to lust, and rapine, and bloodshed; the other has blessed many a heart, and gladdened the vale of sorrow, with many a rill of pure and living water. Voltaire may be likened to the venomous toad of eastern allegory, which extracts a deadly poison from that sunbeam which bears health, and light, and life to all beside: the philosopher, in Rasselas, like some holy and aged man, who has well nigh run his course, in recounting the toils and perils of his pilgrimage, may sadden ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... red-coaled glow, which fell on his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath. A large shadow of her shape rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent forward, at which each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring the words without flinching, and with ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... it with interest, his right hand being free; and at it they went, ding dong, over the horse's mane, pommelling one another, and jagging the poor beast, till he ran backward, and trode with iron heel upon a promontory of the green lord; he, like the toad stung by Ithuriel's spear, started up howling, with one hand clapped to the smart and the other tugging at his hilt. The servants, amazed with terror, let the horse go; he galloped off whinnying, the men ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... were horrified at such treatment of the holy garment, called out, "Heretico maldetto!" which, Madam, you must know, means, accursed heretic. Having felt the snake (which is very short, but very thick in the body, with a head like a toad) several times moving under my feet, and then moving no more, I then stepped off the garment, and turning it over, I lifted it up by the skirt, so that the dead snake ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... claws—that "an" otter had made the marks. After that many other witnesses wrote to the News. The correspondence was so great that, in the issue of March 10th, only a selection could be given. There's "a" jumping-rat solution and "a" hopping-toad inspiration, and then someone came out strong with an idea of "a" hare that had galloped with pairs of feet held close together, so as to make impressions in ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... through such a lump of flesh. I forgave the fellow in a moment all his crimes of having been born in wedlock and inheriting my estate. I shook the hand he offered me, to convince him that I bore him no ill will; and then making my way through the gaping crowd of toad-eaters, bade adieu to my uncle's domains forever. This is the last I have seen or heard of my cousin, or of the domestic concerns ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving |
