"Bat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... days of the Earth. But the later writers on the subject, in the Western world, have contradicted this. It is now taught that these ancient winged-reptiles were featherless, and more closely resembled the Bat family than birds. (You will remember that a Bat is neither a reptile nor a bird—it is a mammal, bringing forth its young alive, and suckling them at its breast. The Bat is more like a mouse, and its wings are ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... an adventure. He inhabited the dark corners and sombre, subterranean places with enemies that wanted to catch him; he most potently believed that hidden treasures awaited him under the hollow-echoing floors. Once he had a rare fright, for a bat hanging asleep in its folded wings, was wakened by him and suddenly flew into his face. He climbed and crawled and crept about, stole a lump of putty and rejoiced at the discovery of some paint pots and a brush. The 'Red Hand' no longer ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... tearin' around the country ridin' the head off of that horse, never lookin' where he's goin' any more than a bat. He's been clean over to Four Corners after the mail twice this week. A feller must want a letter purty bad when he'll go to ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... its six legs all working hard, butting up against stones, upsetting itself on ridges, but still gathering itself up and rushing onwards to some all-important appointment somewhere in the grass plot. A bat fluttered up from behind the beech-tree. A breath of night air sighed softly over the hillside with a little tinge of the chill sea spray in its coolness. Dolly Foster shivered, and had turned to go in when her mother came ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the spreading of themselves to the winds of truth; those wings were a little maimed, and he had been tending them with precious balms, and odors, and ointments: all at once she had turned into a bat, a skin-winged creature that flies by night, and had disappeared in the darkness! Of all possible mockeries, for her to steal out at night to the embraces of a fool! a wretched, weak- headed, idle fellow, whom every clown called by his Christian ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... occasions! The dignity of your character (a thing rarer still than genius) edified me! and I formulated within myself this prayer: "Oh! how I wish I could be like her, on a similar occasion." Who knows, perhaps your example has sustained me? Forgive the comparison! Well, I don't bat an eye- ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... must prepare to exhibit their best skill; the Toad, who can neither fly nor run, his brother the Bullfrog, with his band of musicians, and even the Flying-squirrel with the rest. Tanagela, the Humming-bird, will be the judge of beauty, and the Bat will judge your skilful performance in the air. That wise medicine-man, the Serpent, ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... the flying-fish, and eventually sustain its weight in the air. The wing is, of course, not a feathery frame, as in the bird, but a special skin spreading between the fore limb and the side of the body. In the bat this skin is supported by four elongated fingers of the hand, but in the Pterosaur the fifth (or fourth) finger alone—which is enormously elongated and strengthened—forms its outer frame. It is as if, ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... bipeds!' he seemed to say; 'not even possessed of feathers, no clothes of their own, obliged to wrap themselves in the hair and skins of dead quadrupeds. No beaks, no talons; not even the wings of a miserable bat. Never knew what it was to mount and soar into the blue sky to meet the morning sun; never floated free as the winds far away in the realms of space; never saw the world spread out beneath them like a living panorama, its woods and forests mere patches of green or purple, its lakes like ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... come on and whoop?" demanded Billy. "Don't you know how? You are great Indians! You got to whoop before you go on the warpath. You ought to kill a bat, too, and see if the wind is right. But maybe the engine won't run if we wait to do that. You can whoop, ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... "Each to his or her own opinions. We're here in pursuit of facts, not fancies. Rick, you're first at bat." ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... me my own of that Which sweeps and circles like the bat Around me as I walk in ether, O fair Divine, ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... progression towards profit, In the thrift of living workmen, Swift advance to time eternal, In the fast increasing graveyard. In this year the game of Base-ball, Occupied the young athletics, Occupied maturer players, Gave the city's "men of muscle," Daily rounds of fun and frolic. And the ball and bat and score-book, Answered oft a neighbor's challenge, Won the palm in match and test games, Won the victor's ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness. To accomplish this infamous purpose, to drive the love of truth from the human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind to shut out from the world every ray of intellectual light to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "then I start running, and soon, paf! ... in the face; a huge mosquito, and then, paf! ... another mosquito, until I was surrounded by a swarm of the animals, each one as large as a bat. With a scarred face I begin to run for the beach so as to escape in my canoe, when I catch sight of a lobster right next to the Golondrina; but what a lobster I He must have been as big as a bear; he was black, and shiny, and went chug, chug, chug, like an automobile. No ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... and Foul! Thy mate, the Ghoul, Beats, bat-like, at thy golden gate! Around the graves the night-winds howl: "Arise!" they cry, "thy feast doth wait!" Dainty fingers thine, and nice, With ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... white as his face was black; and Jacko—poor little Jacko—lived so long, that he became big, but he did not become less amiable, or less addicted to thieving. He turned grey at last and became as blind as a bat, and finally crawled about the house, enfeebled by old age, and ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... has done since. He went away disinherited and almost degraded. He has come back, as I hear, comparatively a rich man. He has got back his inheritance, which might probably be settled on his children if he were to be married. And all this he has done off his own bat. Where other men stumble so frequently, he has stood on his legs. No doubt, he has lived with rough people, but still he seems to be a gentleman. Hester will be well off, no doubt, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... it! That is the amusing part of it. You were as blind as a bat all the time, and you never had the least ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... I was bat-blind; but the suggestion, even when it was added to the mysterious entanglements that were tripping me at every step, failed to open my eyes. Truly, Abel Geddis and Abner Withers had used me ruthlessly as their criminal stop-gap, but ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... on another bat?" cried Pope, at sight of his caller. Wharton took a fleeting glance at himself in a mirror and nodded, noting for the first time the sacks beneath his eyes, the haggard lines from ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... von blind old bat-mole," said Marta, "I fink dat farm next ours purty good, but Rolf he say 'No Lake George no good.' Better he like all his folk move over ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... summer, Wi' thi golden days so long, When the throstle and the blackbird Do charm us wi' ther song; When the lark in early morning Takes his aerial flight; An' the humming bat an' ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... Martin," said she, "what we should find there, where it all looks so bright and beautiful, if I had wings and could fly with you, clinging to my bosom like a little bat clinging to its mother when she flies abroad ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... presently the creatures of the night came out—the owls, and the bats, and the night moths—and looked with wonder at the queer little pair lying prone amongst the green clover. Thousands of wonderful night noises also began to awaken in all directions—the merry chirp of the cricket, the whir of the bat on its circling flight, the hum of the moths—but the children heard nothing, although the creatures of the night were curious about these strange little beings who, by good rights, ought not ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... them to be ominous, and dreaded the future event enchained to them. That the night owl should screech before the noon-day sun, that the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed of beauty, that muttering thunder should in early spring startle the cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight should fall on the tree and shrub, were unaccustomed, but physical events, less horrible than the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... considered that we only take out of a general notion what we had previously placed therein, and that the amplification of our knowledge is not to be sought for from above but from below—not from speculation about abstract generalities, but from the observation of concrete particulars. Bat however erroneous and irrational, the persuasion had its day and influence, and it perhaps determined, as one of its effects, the total neglect of one half, and that not the least important ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... as his children have said in the story of his life: "Lloyd was a thorough boy, fond of games and of all boyish sport. Barefooted, he trundled his hoop all over Newburyport; he swam in the Merrimac in summer, and skated on it in winter; he was good at sculling a boat; he played at bat and ball and snowball, and sometimes led the 'Southend boys' against the Northenders in the numerous conflicts between the youngsters of the two sections; he was expert with marbles. Once, with a playmate, he swam ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... looking on at innumerable games of chess, the game of all others which he detested most. But at last the water rose as high as his chin, and his bath was complete. And that day the slaves in their black robes, and each having a large bat perched upon his head, marched in slow procession with the Prince in their midst, chanting a melancholy song, to the iron gate that led into a kind of Temple. At the sound of their chanting, another band of slaves appeared, and took ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... flash of lightning, followed quickly by sharp thunder, discloses Dimsdell kneeling at his couch, and also shows SATAN—an archangel with bat wings—who has just entered. ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... as a sly bat listens to the merry whistling of an innocent bird, and watches the propitious moment to spring upon her prey. It was an adagio which the king played upon his flute, and he was indeed a master in ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... was a region of eternal ice and a bitter wind blew on them, so cold and dreadful that Dante was half dead from it and it seemed that his numbed senses could not support life any longer. The wind, he saw, was caused by the bat-like wings of Satan himself—a gigantic and hairy monster, with only the upper half of his body protruding from the icy pit in which he stood. He had three heads, one red, one green and one white and yellow; and in ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... They are ve-ry cle-ver (words of two syllables), O so aw-ful-ly cle-ver (words of three), O so dam-na-bly cle-ver (words of a devil of a number of syllables). I have written fifteen in a fortnight. I have also written some beautiful poetry. I would like a cake and a cricket-bat; and a pass-key to Heaven if you please, and as much money as my friend the Baron Rothschild can spare. I used to look across to Rothschild of a morning when we were brushing our hair, and say—(this is quite true, only we were on the opposite side of the street, and though I used to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beautiful terrace, called the Maiden's Walk, where the lady of the castle and her damsels, after their labours at the loom, were wont to take air and exercise on a summer evening, ere the vesper bell rang, and the bat began to hunt the moth. Within the precincts of the building was the tiltyard, a broad space enclosed with rails, and covered with sawdust, where young men of gentle blood, in the capacity of pages and squires, acquired the chivalrous accomplishments which the age ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... pressure of inrushing ideas. My brain young, sensitive to every touch, took hold of facts and theories like a phonographic cylinder, and while my body softened and my muscles wasted from disuse, I skittered from pole to pole of the intellectual universe like an impatient bat. I learned a little of everything and nothing very thoroughly. With so many peaks in sight, I had no time to spend on digging up the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... is all too evident now to admit of a doubt I You are affianced to Mr. Bainrothe—your own timid and dependent manner might have enlightened me long ago, as well as his devoted one—but a man in love is blinder than the blindest bat even! He is the maddest fool certainly! Forgive me for my presumption, and forget it if you can;" and he turned away, smiting his ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... plainly visible in the light of the rising moon. Shell-holes, torn trees, and ruined houses decreased in number. We passed a straw-thatched cottage nestling amid a group of bushes and poplars. A light shone from the window, a dog barked. A bat flitted silently past. It seemed as though the uproar of the ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... day persecuting the maiden, who had taken refuge in a temple of Isis on the island of Philae. I saw him persecute and harass her, even in the subterranean chambers, I saw him drive her mad with terror and suffering, like a huge bat pursuing a white dove. Ah, priest, priest of Abydos, I have returned to life to expose your infamy, and after so many years of silence, I name thee murderer, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... didn't expect it to last. You wouldn't look for a girl like Vee, who'd never had any trainin' for that sort of thing, to start a new line and make a go of it right off the bat. But, so long as she wasn't investin' very heavy, ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... village during the holidays had plenty of sport, outdoor and indoor, which kept out the cold by wholesome exercise and recreative games. Many a hard battle was fought with snowballs, or with bat-and-ball on the ice; the barns were the scenes of many a wrestling match or exciting game at skittles; and in the evenings they played such romping games as blind-man's-buff, hunt the slipper, and others of a similar character. While ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... your arms, Janet, A dove, bat, and a swan: Cast your green mantle over me, I'll be ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... he becomes an old man, he does not care in the least for a baseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug fireside and a newspaper every day. He wonders how he could ever have taken up his thoughts with ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... general, and my attempts to obtain a satisfactory description of this animal were futile. Some of the definitions of this rare chat-sauvage, indeed, might have answered for specifications of a griffin, or of a vampire-bat. At last, one day, when walking about in the market-place at Quebec, I saw a crowd assembled round a gray-clad countryman, who presided over a small box on which the words Chat-Sauvage were painted. Now was my time to set the question at rest. I invested sixpence in the show. When ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... of faults which he had committed—or ought to have committed, to afford a just scapegoat for his senior's wrath. As Marryat said, it made little difference: if he did not think of something he had not been told, he was asked what his head was for; if he did something off his own bat, the question arose what business he had to think. In either case he went to the mast-head. Of course, at a certain age one "turns to mirth all things of earth, as only boyhood can;" and the contemporary ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... you dear old BAT! Miss Pomeroy made this, upstairs here, in three days, and the silk cost nine dollars. I DID have a dress like this in my trousseau—my first silk—and I thought it was wonderful; and I think you're a darling ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... Clawss feelin! thet's wot it is: clawss feelin! Wot are yer, arter all, bat a bloomin gang o west cowst cazhls (casual ward paupers)? (Johnson is scandalized; and there is a general thrill of indignation.) Better ev naow fembly, an rawse aht of it, lawk me, than ev a specble one and disgrice ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... an' Marny widout sendin' in our visitin'-cards first, polite-like. Dey would pull deir guns, an' though we'd get de coin just de same, dere'd be hell to pay fer Charlie, an' de whole place 'd go up in fireworks right off de bat. Well, dis is where youse come in. Youse are de visitin'-card. Youse gets into deir bunk room, pretendin' youse have made a mistake, an' youse leaves de door open behind youse. Dey don't know youse, an', bein' a woman, dey won't ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... scurrying all about you. Numerous tenants who pay no rent have heard eviction notice, for the house in which no men live is the abode of many races. Another blow near another nail, and more shingles jump and flee, and this time a clammy hand slaps your face. It is only the wing of a bat, fluttering in dismay from his crevice. Blow after blow you drive upon this board from beneath, till all the nails are loose, its shingle-fetters outside snap, and with a surge it rises, to fall grating down ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Bat Mark's picture shows us a King whose passion is to serve. The service which He draws out of His followers is drawn out by His warm serving spirit towards us. The words on the royal coat-of-arms are, "Not to be ministered unto, but to minister." And in the ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... himself. Audun struck the ball over Grettir's head, so that he could not catch it, and it bounded far away along the ice; Grettir brought it back, and in a rage threw it at Audun's forehead; Audun struck at him with his bat, but Grettir closed with him and wrestled, for a long time holding his own; but Audun was a man of full strength, and at last prevailed. Grettir's next performance brought him into more trouble. Asmund had a bosom friend named Thorkel Krafla, who paid ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... creation continued. That which came from a vision ended in being embodied. For at first she only perceived that a dim shadow was moving under the moonlight. What was it, then? A branch moved to and fro by the wind? Or was it a large bat in constant motion? There were moments when everything disappeared, and the field slept in so deathly a stillness that she thought her eyes had deceived her. Soon there was no longer any doubt possible, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... being a natural man, he chose deliberately to drink when and how he pleased. Others had noticed this peculiar habit of his, but not so Dowsett and Letton; and Daylight's secret thought was: "They sure wouldn't bat an eye if I called for a glass of ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... them. So I one day gave a marvellous account of the great Volatile Chelidonian or Flying Turtle of Surinam, of which a specimen had just arrived in New York. It had a shell as of diamonds blent with emeralds and rubies, and bat-like wings of iridescent hue surpassing the opal, and a tail like a serpent. Our contemporary, nothing doubting, at once published this as original matter in a letter from New York, and had to bear the responsibility. But I did not invest my inventiveness ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... even the Ethiopian stone. Having found it, I pressed on it with all my strength in a certain fashion. Even after the lapse of many years the stone swung round, showing a little opening, through which a man might scarcely creep. As it swung, a mighty bat, white in colour as though with unreckoned age, and such as I had never seen before for bigness, for his measure was the measure of a hawk, flew forth and for a moment hovered over Cleopatra, then sailed slowly up and up in circles, till at last he was lost in the bright light ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... I should have to pass through the whole vast length of the building in order to gain an exit. It was an all but hopeless task in the profound darkness to thread my way through the labyrinth of halls and corridors, of tumble-down stairs, of bat-haunted vaults, of purposeless angles and involutions; but I proceeded with something of a blind obstinacy, groping my way with arms held out before me. In this manner I had wandered on for perhaps a quarter of an ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... had received permission to pay a visit to Bristol, and not a small party was arranged for a good game of cricket. Among the latter was Reginald Mortimer, whose strong arm and swift foot were deemed almost indispensable on such occasions. As he rushed out of the playground gates, bat in hand, accompanied by Meredith, he overtook his brother, who had discovered a poem unknown to him in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, and was anticipating a pleasant mental feast in ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... years to come, when his grave is perchance forgotten, a rugged ruin, home of the lizard and the bat, Tusitala—the story-teller—'the man with a heart of gold' (as I so often heard him designated in the Islands), will live, when it may be his tales have ceased to interest, in the tender remembrance ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... the lee of the islands and headed southward on her voyage, with cheers and good wishes to set her forth. The last message we had from shore came from Dalfin the Prince, and that was an Irish brogue of untanned deerskin, laced with gold, which flew through the dusk like a bat to Gerda's feet from the deck of one of Hakon's ships as we passed her. Words in the Erse came also from the dim figure who cast it, whereat Phelim and I laughed. Gerda asked what they were, and we had to ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... good substantial evidence that can be backed up by affidavits. Get the idea? Five hundred and expenses, if you succeed; your expenses anyhow. Five hundred is a lot of money these days. But if you go on a bat, I'll drop you like a hot brick, for good and all. Think it over. Pack up to-night, if you want to. Here's a hundred to start with. Remember this, now, there must be ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... sudden, tense silence. Outside they could hear the crunch of the sentry's heel in the gravel, and from the baseball field back of the barracks the soft spring air was rent with the jubilant crack of the bat as it drove the ball. Afterward Ranson remembered that while one half of his brain was terribly acute to the moment, the other was wondering whether the runner had made his base. It seemed an interminable time before ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... Suffice to say That, knocking at her wicket, There chanced to come one autumn day A common garden cricket So ragged, poor, and needy that, Without elucidation, One saw the symptoms of a bat ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... correctly; but she was followed by a Gipsy King and a Welsh Witch. Then I sees a masked Toreador coming along, and I decides to arsk him all about it. The language question didn't worry me any. I can pitch the cuffer in any bat from Tamil to Arabic, an' the only chap I couldn't compree was a deaf-an'-dumb man who suffered from St. Vitus' Dance, which made 'im ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... mult ac' o lyte ep' i taph grav' i ty com' bat ants pref' er ence a maz' ed ly ath let' ic Vi at' i cum in her' it ance cem' e ter y re tal' i ate un flinch' ing ly ir re sist' i ble un vi' o la ted con temp' tu ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... The bat, apparently an imperfectly-formed creature, was for a long time a puzzle to naturalists. Fontaine makes ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... a bit sorry for Jack Odin too. Getting ready to lower himself over a precipice, and not having the slightest idea when he would reach bottom. Or whether there was any bottom at all. The blackness beat at the little light. A startled bat left its upside-down perch and fluttered against his face, clicking its ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... they chose. They were not casual about the fight, but outspoken and frank, Canadian fashion. They realized what they had been through and spoke of their luck in having survived. From the fields came the cry of, "Leave that to me!" as a fly rose from the bat, or, "Out on first!" as men took a rest from shell-curves and high explosives with baseball curves and hot liners between the bases, which was very homelike there in Flanders. Which of the players was ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of my rage for our South Kensington Trap-Bat Club, which I think had invented the name South Kensington. It was at it that I first met Emilia Francis Strong. We played in the garden of Gore House where the Conservatory of the Horticultural Society, behind the Albert ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... this made him thrust his head forward in a peering manner, like a beast of prey watching for a victim. His eyes were keen and restless. His hair was short-cut, and his ears projected from the sides of his head like those of a bat. Otherwise he was not a bad-looking man. His features were good, but his expression was unpleasant. The thin lip was curled contemptuously; and he had a trick of thrusting forth his sharp tongue to wet his lips ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... assistant adjutant-general; a. d. c., aide-de-camp; adm., admiral; adm'n, administration; A. C., army corps; art., artillery; bat., battery; br., brevet; brig., brigade, brigadier; capt., captain; cav., cavalry; ch., church; ch'f, chief; C. H., courthouse; co., company; col., colonel; com., commodore; com'd'g, commanding; com'r, commander; conf., ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... one hears a voice so sweet, so thrilling, with a "something" so powerful in it, that one feels, amid other sensations of pleasure, great satisfaction to think that none of the public singers in the world could "bat that" if they were to try their best, and that few ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... don't read women's letters unless they chance to be addressed to me—no, not even if they concern me very nearly." Nap's teeth gleamed for a moment. "I'm afraid you must play off your own bat, my worthy brother, though if you take my advice you'll postpone it. You're about used up, and I'm deuced thirsty. It's not a ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat, 1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a life of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copious extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... after it was dark, having been ten hours on horseback. I never ceased, during the whole journey, to be surprised at the amount of labour which the horses were capable of enduring; they appeared also to recover from any injury much sooner than those of our English breed. The Vampire bat is often the cause of much trouble, by biting the horses on their withers. The injury is generally not so much owing to the loss of blood, as to the inflammation which the pressure of the saddle afterwards produces. ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... singular—raioni), 9 cities* (k'alak'ebi, singular—k'alak'i), and 2 autonomous republics** (avtomnoy respubliki, singular—avtom respublika); Abashis, Abkhazia or Ap'khazet'is Avtonomiuri Respublika** (Sokhumi), Adigenis, Ajaria or Acharis Avtonomiuri Respublika** (Bat'umi), Akhalgoris, Akhalk'alak'is, Akhalts'ikhis, Akhmetis, Ambrolauris, Aspindzis, Baghdat'is, Bolnisis, Borjomis, Chiat'ura*, Ch'khorotsqus, Ch'okhatauris, Dedop'listsqaros, Dmanisis, Dushet'is, Gardabanis, Gori*, Goris, Gurjaanis, Javis, K'arelis, Kaspis, Kharagaulis, ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... voicelessness—revolted the aesthetic sensibilities of Helwyse. Besides, what was the meaning of it? Had it actually been Davy Jones with whom he had striven on the midnight sea? and had his adversary, instead of drowning, spread his bat-wings for home, and left his supposititious murderer to disquiet himself in vain? Verily, a practical ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... gentleman defies the Spanish sun in a black frock coat, tall silk bat, trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilac blend into a highly respectable color, and a black necktie tied into a bow over spotless linen. Probably therefore a man whose social position needs constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate: one who would dress thus for ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... written off his own bat. There is a good deal behind it. The plot, in fact, is thickening. From the letters of this morning I see that a regular ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for me to say it, I had been quite certain that the old General would think it was the right thing to say, and would be genuinely grateful to me for saying it off my own bat without any prompting from him. So I was quite unprepared ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... it. But of course that was beyond him; he was too old. It was beautiful to see Joan handle the foils, but the old man was a bad failure. He was afraid of the things, and skipped and dodged and scrambled around like a woman who has lost her mind on account of the arrival of a bat. He was of no good as an exhibition. But if La Hire had only come in, that would have been another matter. Those two fenced often; I saw them many times. True, Joan was easily his master, but it made a good show for all that, for La Hire was a grand swordsman. What a swift ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Sometimes the stars, sometimes the moon, sometimes the clouds, sometimes the wind, sometimes the snow, sometimes the frost, sometimes all of them together, are busy. Sometimes the owl and the moth and the beetle, and the bat and the cat and the rat, are all at work. Sometimes there are flowers in bloom that love the night better than the day, and are busy all through the darkness pouring out on the still air the scent they withheld during ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... thrown by the hand, each woman has a long stick with a circular frame at the end of it; this they call a bat stick, and, simple as it looks, it requires great skill ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... shriek from Migwan brought them all to their feet. She had been poking about in the corner of the Kitchen, when something had suddenly jumped out at her, unfolded itself like a fan and was whirling around her head. "It's a bat!" cried Sahwah, and they all laughed heartily at Migwan's fright. The bat wheeled around, blind in the daylight, and went bumping against the girls, causing them to run in alarm lest it should get entangled ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... wondered at, considering the important status assigned to women by the Khasis, that women should inherit the property and not men. The rule amongst the Khasis is that the youngest daughter "holds" the religion, "ka bat ka niam." Her house is called, "ka iing seng" and it is here that the members of the family assemble to witness her performance of the family ceremonies. Hers is, therefore, the largest share ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... settle some matters about which they cannot agree by "tossing up a penny," or by "drawing cuts." In a game of ball they determine "first innings" by "tossing the bat." Differences in a game of marbles, they settle by guessing "odd or even," or by "trying it over to prove it." In all these modes of adjustment there is an appeal to chance. Probably behind these practices is the feeling that the boy who ought to win will somehow guess ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... Chil the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw. Oh hear the call!—Good hunting all ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... prevent The Squire—tho' now a little better— From finishing this present letter. Just when he'd got to "Dam'me, we'll"— His Honor, full of martial zeal, Graspt at his crutch, but not being able To keep his balance or his hold, Tumbled, both self and crutch, and rolled, Like ball and bat, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... called, a lethargy of conscience. In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes; beneath the deadly fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter, in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed I had one apology—the bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... A bat being startled, probably, out of the meeting-house, by the commotion around, flew blindly about in the sunshine, and alighted on a man's sleeve. I looked at him,—a droll, winged, beast-insect, creeping up the man's arm, not over-clean, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to light their pipes. Here they found none awake but the Nausett Sachem and his friend, who were slowly walking among the weary and sleeping warriors, attended only by a large and powerful dog. There was another wakeful eye in the fortress, and that was even now fixed on Henrich. Bat he whose dark soul looked forth from that singular eye, was himself concealed from view, and was intently watching the object of his hatred, and hoping that he would now attempt some act ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... at the bat had struck a ball to the extreme boundary of the field. The fielder at that point didn't go so fast as Jim, who was pitcher, thought satisfactory, and he called out in a ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... uncondensed light of the lamp. The hair of a mouse is a very good test object: it is best seen by daylight; the most difficult parts of which are longitudinal lines in the transparent part of the hair, which require high powers. The hair of the bat and seal are also fine tests. The lines on the scales of the diamond beetle, &c. are excellent opaque proof objects. The feet of flies are likewise ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... waving her hand as if to wave away a bat. "If no bird ever flew away from the nest there would be a pretty swarm in it. Look at my kids there—as long as they need their mother they run about after her, but as soon as they can find their food alone they seek it wherever ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bat, described as having several different kinds of hair (Lowie 1939, p. 332) was a powerful gambling charm. Professional Indian gamblers, who traveled about the country participating in the hand game, often carried one. Bat power was considered extremely dangerous if one did not know how to use ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... fair A cobweb i' t' kitchen, Snaw, snaw, coom faster Julius Caesar made a law A weddin', a woo, a clog an' a shoe Chimley-sweeper, blackymoor The Lady-bird Cow-lady, cow-lady, hie thy way wum, The Magpie I cross'd pynot,(1) an' t' pynot cross'd me Tell-pie-tit The Bat Black-black-bearaway The Snail Sneel, sneel, put oot your horn, Hallamshire When all the world shall be aloft, Harrogate When lords an' ladies stinking water soss, The River Don ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... thing that he once saw when he was last in these seas, and from his description I think it must have been the same sort of fish. He said that the Indians called it, in their own language, the devil fish, or great sea bat, and they further told him that it is a most dangerous monster, since it has an unpleasant trick of rising alongside a canoe, overlapping it with one of its wings, and forcing canoe and occupants under-water. I think it not ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not depart from this island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns, and do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then retire again to their latebroe. Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the chalk cliffs ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... hee!" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men, as many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, eat of them, hee! hee! drink of them, ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... his feathers as he darts away. Once, in the wilderness, when very hungry, I caught two partridges by slipping over their heads a string noose at the end of a pole. Here one might as well try to catch a bat in the twilight as to hope to snare one of our upland partridges by any such invention, or even to get near enough to ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... this way they would explain, for example, why iron is hard and black, while butter is soft and white. The Mutakallimun deny any such distinction. All forms are accidents. Hence it would follow that there is no intrinsic reason why man rather than the bat should be a rational creature. Everything that is conceivable is possible, except what involves a logical contradiction; and God alone determines at every instant what accident shall combine with a given atom or ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... now. It was very good of you not to mention him before, Mrs. Vervain. Bat I knew he had to come. He called it a coffin clapped in ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... it might contain elements of danger for them. Once they had passed out on the main road to Metz, it would not take them long to reach the field where the big Caudron airplane lay like an exhausted and enormous bat, awaiting their coming ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... gives. It emanated from Galpy the bounder, bounding now, indeed, at full speed up the slope, followed by two of his fellow railroad men, flannel-clad and still perspiring from their afternoon's cricket. Against bare legs a cricket bat is a highly dissuasive argument. The Britons swung low and hard for the ancient right of the breed to break into a row wherever white men are in the minority against other races. The downhill wing of the mob being much the weakest, ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... favorite tricks was to catch Mauki's kinky locks and bat his head against the wall. Another trick was to catch Mauki unawares and thrust the live end of a cigar against his flesh. This Bunster called vaccination, and Mauki was vaccinated a number of times a week. Once, in a rage, Bunster ripped the cup handle from Mauki's nose, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... be there in the evening. But he was more of a figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the circle of chairs in his dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, and sentimental bat. "Do away with the beastly cocoons all over the world," he buzzed in his blurred, water-logged voice. He affected a great horror of insects of all kinds. One evening he appeared with a red flower in his button-hole. Nothing could have been more disgustingly ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... colors and the gleam of the first stars that heralded the night ..... The martins chattered under the eaves, scolding some belated member of the clan who pushed noisily for a lodging-place for the night. The black bat and the darting nighthawk were a-wing, grim spectres of the dusk. The whip-poor-will was crying along the river, and far up-stream the loon ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... typewriters!' he exclaimed, 'how rude he'll think me!' And he rubbed something out of his eyes. He gave one long, yearning glance at the spangled sky where an inquisitive bat darted zigzag several times between himself and the Pleiades, that bunch of star-babies as yet unborn, as the blue-eyed guard ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... midst of this, a fresh clamor broke out in Nora's chamber. A huge bat had got into her room, and so alarmed her, that she yelled worse, louder, and longer than ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... in her teepee, her mind busily going over the events of the day. The night sounds of the range drifted to her. A bull-bat rasped a note or two from above. A picketed horse stamped restlessly just outside and a range cow bawled from an adjacent slope. The night-hawk had relieved the wrangler and she could half-hear, half-feel the low jar of many hoofs as he grazed the remuda slowly ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... through and now rested on the ledge; and behind it arose an enormous log. From the loop-holes in the court-house the gun was raked with buck-shot, but all the work was done from below and no one stood exposed. Once a hand, like a black bat, was seen upon the gun, but instantly it flew away, leaving a blotch of blood. And now the old bell, so quiet all the morning, began to strike—one, two, ten, thirty—slowly, with dread ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... eyes. He jumped out of bed, and dressed himself. Then, as the morning light grew clearer, he saw other presents,—a beautiful pair of skates, a rabbit that could hop out of a box, but was not alive, a bat and ball, a bag of marbles, a fine pocket-knife, a silver pencil-case, a ship all rigged, a paint-box, and many more things that ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... historical investigations. At every point the system is determined by the circumstances of its growth; and you can no more account for its oddities or its merits without considering its history than you can explain the structure of a bat or a seal without going back to previous forms of life. The growth of the criminal law, as Fitzjames remarks, is closely connected with the development of the moral sentiments of the community: with all the great political and social revolutions and with the changes of the ecclesiastical constitution ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Bat. Your fortune's made unto you now, Eudemus, If you can but lay bold upon the means; Do but observe his humour, and—believe it— He is the noblest Roman, where ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... from a church in the High Street of Gloucester, and a more extraordinary admixture of incongruous details could not very readily be imagined. The ring hangs from the neck of a monster with a human head having ass's ears, the neck is snake-like, bat's wings are upon the shoulders, the paws are those of a wolf. To the body is conjoined a grotesque head with lolling tongue, the head wrapped in a close hood. Grotesque design, for the reason already stated, frequently appears in the details of church architecture and furniture ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... came to the bat it was easy to be seen that both nines were on their mettle. It was a Colby Hall player who had the stick, and the left-handed twirler for Longley Academy struck him ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... out! If you hit it that way you'll knock it over the hotel. Let the ball drop nearer to the ground. Oh, heavens, not on the ground! Well, it's hard to do it from the serve, anyhow. I'll go over to the other court and bat you some ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... that was sometimes grey, sometimes drab, sometimes slate-coloured or dark brown; and it was the sight of this wild plastering first brought the word "blind" into the thoughts of the explorer. "The good man who did that," he thought, "must have been as blind as a bat." ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... impressed with the place, in the grand quiet shadow of the old Cathedral; and the room itself told much of his brother's daily life, in his own little section of it. The deep window-seat and old oak chest were loaded with piles of Punch, sheets of music, school-books, and grotesque sketches; bat, hockey- stick, and fishing-rod were in the corner; trencher cap and little black gown hung on their peg on the white-washed walls, and pinned beside them lists of the week's music, school-work, etc. In the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pendant to this, we are favoured with the portrait of a young gentleman upon a half-holiday—and, equipped with cricket means, his dexter-hand grasps his favourite bat, whilst the left arm gracefully encircles a hat, in which is seductively shown a genuine "Duke." The sentiment of this picture is unparalleled, and to the young hero of any parish eleven is given a stern expression of Lord's Marylebone ground. We can already (aided by perspective and imagination) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... M., I saw a common leatherwing bat flying over the War Department. What this portends I do not pretend to say, perhaps nothing. It may have been dislodged by the workmen building chimneys to the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... three tomato plants and a family of kittens this summer, helped to plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wall-paper for the room just inside,—did you notice it?—and developed a boy pitcher with a ball that twists around the bat like a Colles fracture around ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... time, and be wise. While we are out of danger, we are out; but when we are in, we are in. So Mrs. Timorous returned to her house, and Christiana betook herself to her journey.[33] But when Timorous was got home to her house, she sends for some of her neighbours, to wit, Mrs. Bat's-eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs. Light-mind, and Mrs. Know-nothing. So when they were come to her house, she falls to telling of the story of Christiana, and of her intended journey. And thus she ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fine kettle of fish! Where's my bunch of keys? They were here as safe as houses, a few minutes back. I was jingling tunes on them as we passed the school. You heard me jingling 'em! Dropped them on the road, I suppose, and walked on like a blind bat. Serves me right to have to turn back to find 'em. Can't lose my keys, you know. Got to find them somehow, or there'll be the mischief to pay. You'll have to go on, George, and take Miss Vane with you. There's ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... again prosecuted for a libel upon the Prince Regent, and sentenced to be imprisoned two years, and to pay a fine of L500. Bat the imprisonment was alleviated in every possible way, as we gather from Leigh Hunt's charming description of his ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... class. He would stop on the way back and give her a whole dollar. He sat, chin in hand, gazing out on the field, quite satisfied with himself, and suddenly some one back by the plate struck a fine clean ball with a click and threw the bat with a resounding ring on the hard ground as he made for a home run. Billy started and looked keenly at the bat, for somehow the ring of it as it fell sounded curiously like the tinkle of silver. Who said thirty pieces of silver? Billy threw a furtive look about and a cold ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... boys were sprawled or seated around the room, while another, a thin, tall, unkempt youth with a shock of very black hair which was always falling over his eyes and being brushed aside, was standing in a small clearing between table and windows balancing a baseball bat, surmounted by two books and a glass of water, on his chin. So interested was the audience in this startling feat that the presence of the new arrivals passed unnoted until the juggler, suddenly stepping back, allowed the law of gravity to have its way for an instant. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Nocturnal Habits, it is particularly attracted to human beings in their Night-shirts. The swallow preys upon it, but it generally eludes the Bat. Although it cannot be called Noctilucous, like the lightning bug, it has no objection to alight in the darkness, and you often knock till you cuss in your vain attempts to prevent its ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... themselves with him in his attempt to make trouble for Earth. And they were half-bird, half-human! Their faces, bodies, arms, and legs were human. But they had wings! Translucent, membranous structures, almost gauzy, which stretched out from their shoulders like bat's wings. And their skins, as they surged about in the beams of our light, gleamed a bright orange color, and about their heads waved frilled antennae which were evidently used as extra tactile organs to supplement the human ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... they are even ignorant of their ignorance. Hence they never suspect their want of understanding, but immediately reject a doctrine which appears at first sight absurd, because it is too splendid for their bat-like eyes to behold. Or if they even yield their assent to its truth, their very assent is the result of the same most dreadful disease of the soul. For they will fancy, says Plato, that they understand the highest truths, ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... but it'll wash off," he replied. "Well, we're shy a good woodsman and a cook, and I'll miss 'em both. But it might be worse. Here's where you go to bat, Stella. Get on your apron and lend me a hand in the kitchen, like a good girl. We have to ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... He had one head, but three faces; the middle, vermilion; the one over the right shoulder a pale yellow; the other black. His sails of wings, huger than ever were beheld at sea, were in shape and texture those of a bat; and with these be constantly flapped, so as to send forth the wind that froze the depths of Tartarus. From his six eyes the tears ran down, mingling at his three chins with bloody foam; for at every mouth he crushed ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... interpolated hurriedly, "I know, of course, that a substitute may not bat for another at the end of a match, but this is a dream, remember. That, perhaps, is what dreams are for—to provide the limited and frustrated life of the daytime with the compensations ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... condition, with his head higher than his heels; though some of the boys often declared that the reverse was true, and that he seemed more natural when hanging head downward from the limb of a tree, like a giant bat ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... at hazard, following this bat, looking at this manure of the birds, respiring this dust, in this obscurity among the cobwebs and scampering rats, we came to a dark corner in which, on a big wheelbarrow, I could just distinguish a long package tied with string and that looked ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... President of the Clinton St. Mary Cricket Club, 1890 (matches played, six; lost, five; drawn, one) knew how to slash the ball across the net at a tennis garden party, always read the prayers in church as though he were imploring God to keep a straighter bat and improve His cut to leg, and had a passion for knocking nails into walls, screwing locks into doors, and making chicken runs. He was, he often thanked his stars, a practical Realist, and his wife, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... Yes, sir, had to grease his saw to make it work through that bony old heifer. Now we already passed through enough pinches not to go out lookin' for 'em any more. Why, I tell you, young man, if I knew any place where the pinches was at, you'd see me comin' the other way like a bat ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the dove,— Witness these hearts embroidered on our wings, To show our constant patronage of love:— We sit at even, in sweet bow'rs above Lovers, and shake rich odors on the air, To mingle with their sighs; and still remove The startling owl, and bid the bat forbear Their privacy, and haunt ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... must be capable of being submitted to the formula of one or other of these principles, viz.: Machinery is a good, or, Machinery is an evil. Importations are beneficial, or, Importations are injurious. Bat to say there are no principles, is certainly the last degree of debasement to which the human mind can lower itself, and I confess that I blush for my country, when I hear so monstrous an absurdity uttered before, and approved by, the French Chambers, the elite ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... the operation performed by Fate's scissors, or rather by Fate herself—as she was the great and absolute disposer—to whom the implement employed was but a matter of fancy; for had Fate so chosen, a bucket, a bowie-knife, a brick-bat, a black cap, or a box of patent pills, might, as well as her destructive shears, have made a tenant for a yawning grave of doomed Giles Scroggins. We say, the immediate effect arising from this cutting cause was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... welkim you back, sirr," said Brownie. "As for that blessed child, she's not like the same 'uman bein' when you're off the place. Passed me jus' now in the passige, goin' full bat, an' turned 'ead over 'eels, she did—I didn't need to be told you'd got 'ome!" She hesitated: "You heard from Mrs. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... chapel-cloister wall, being still extant; and the same writer reproduces as a frontispiece to his "opusculum" an old engraving bearing date 1743, in which the wicket appears as a skeleton hurdle about two feet wide by one foot high, while the bat is the Saxon crec or crooked stick, with which the game was originally played, and from which the name ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... of Vavasor would come, and for a while remain; but it was chiefly as one who would be a welcome helper in her work. When for the time she had had enough of music, softly as she would have covered a child, she would close her piano, then glide like a bat into the night, and wander hither and thither through the gloom without conscious choice. Then most would she think what it would be to have a man for a friend, one who would strengthen her heart and make her bold to do what was needful ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... his landed property chiefly lay. He lived in the family mansion named Well's Court, a property still in the possession of his descendants. His tomb is a table monument of white marble, upon which rises a pyramid, resting on skulls with bat's wings; it is a peculiar but picturesque addition to the churchyard, and, from its situation close to the walk, attracts ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... beginning. If they brought me a picture, in a magazine, and required me to build a story to it, they would cover the rest of the page with their pudgy hands to keep me from stealing an idea from it. The stories had to come hot from the bat, always. They had to be absolutely original and fresh. Sometimes the children furnished me simply a character or two, or a dozen, and required me to start out at once on that slim basis and deliver those characters up to a vigorous and entertaining life of crime. If they heard of a new trade, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... of all dead animals, even such as have died of disease; and among such numbers of cattle and flocks, many animals must die almost continually. Bat in summer, when they have plenty of cosmos, or mares milk, they care little for any other food. When an ox or horse happens to die, they cut its flesh into thin slices, which they dry in the sun and air, which preserves it from corruption, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... of the origin of the plant which is worth repeating. It is thus pleasantly told by Waterton: "The cormorant was once a wool merchant. He entered into partnership with the Bramble and the bat, and they freighted a large ship with wool; she was wrecked, and the firm became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about till midnight to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is for ever diving ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... is esteemed a great dainty. Horrible wretches! They wear no clothes; the women just have a girdle of fibrous bark, and the men sometimes encircle their heads with a fillet of sewed net-work or leaves, and the hair of the vampire bat. Their houses are in the form of beehives, and the ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... on a couch so constituted, I immediately commenced an active search, in the course of which I succeeded in bringing to light two clothes-brushes, a boot-jack, a pair of spurs, Lempriere's Classical Dictionary and a brick-bat. Having freed myself from these undesirable bed-fellows I soon fell asleep, and passed (as it seemed to me) the whole night in dreaming that I was a pigeon, or thereabouts, and that Smithson, mounted on the top-booted ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... open the door and marched in, followed by his bat man. He had been but an indifferent business man on a small salary before he fell upon the fat days of war, but now he had a servant ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... his own initiative to offer his strong right arm for the cause of the Sarcar who was his father and his mother. His ancestors had fought and bled—or died; won medals and gained pensions; he, too, would gain medals and a pension, or lose his life if God so willed it. "Kismet ke bat!"[18] Where was he going? God knew! Some day, if it was so willed, he would return ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... little boy always knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the bench, glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat. To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou was glad to have the little ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... the back into the twilight of a wide yard, cobbled and partially grass-grown, vaguely flanked by the shadowy outlines of long, low farm-buildings. All was wrapped in darkness: somewhere overhead a bat fluttered, ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various |
