"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cure, we shall at once expel him from our state with the order not to return.'[38] Words could not be plainer than these. Yet, in spite of them, such was the allurement of the cage for this clipped singing-bird, that Tasso went obediently back to Ferrara. Possibly he had not read the letter written by a greater poet on a similar occasion: 'This is not the way of coming home, my father! Yet if you or others find ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... bird used frequently to come into some green wattle-trees near my house, and in wet weather was very noisy; from which circumstance it ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... have hit it. Crime and drink are twin brothers as no one knows better than the police. Look out for the name and address of a man dismissed for drunkenness and we shall have our bird." ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... bud compared with the rose. Wherever she appeared, her old admirers flocked in her train. The unmarried girls were, so to speak, nowhere. Marriage was a new lease of power and splendor, and she revelled in it like a humming-bird in ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Sandwich Islands total: 3,903 sq km land: 3,903 sq km water: 0 sq km note: includes Shag Rocks, Black Rock, Clerke Rocks, South Georgia Island, Bird Island, and the South Sandwich Islands, which consist of ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... screaming, Olof, but you seem to be more fond of a night bird that does scream. Tell me, what is the meaning of the owl that appears on ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... overhanging the tarn—my special throne—lay some withering wild-flowers and a book! I looked up and down, right and left: there was not the slightest sign of another human life than mine. Then I lay down for a quarter of an hour, and listened: there were only the noises of bird and squirrel, as before. At last, I took up the book, the flat breadth of which suggested only sketches. There were, indeed, some tolerable studies of rocks and trees on the first pages; a few not very striking caricatures, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... not seen the ghost, and I assured every one that it was only a white swan, I found that Larry's account was believed in preference to mine; the general opinion being that I fancied I had seen the bird, though it ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... name that belongs to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of all the particular things we meet with: every bird and beast men saw; every tree and plant that affected the senses, could not find a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a prodigious memory, that some generals have been able to call every soldier in their army by his proper name, we may easily ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... Queen, said to her, "I have done thy business and 'tis as follows. This night the king will come in to thee and do thou seem asleep; and if he ask thee of aught, do thou answer him, as if in thy sleep." The Queen thanked her and the old dame went away and fetching the bird's heart, gave it to the king. Hardly was the night come, when he went in to his wife and found her lying back, a-slumbering; so he sat down by her side and laying the hoopoe's heart on her breast, waited awhile, so he might be assured that she slept. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... just enough to leave his friend the victory. Paracelsus has declared that he appreciates all he is renouncing, but that he has no choice. He knows that the way on which he is about to enter is "trackless;" but so is the bird's: God will guide him as He guides the bird. And Festus replies that the road to knowledge is not trackless. "Mighty marchers" have left their footprints upon it. Nature has not written her secrets in desert places, but in the souls of great men: ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... a bird is that?" interrupted Victor, laying his hand on Ian's arm and pointing to a small patch of reeds ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... ineffectual. The Republicans no more clearly perceived that they risked nothing on the question of slavery in organizing those Territories without restriction, than the Southern leaders perceived that they would gain nothing by it. In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird. The South had realized their inability to compete with Northern emigration by their experience in attempting to wrest Kansas from the control of free labor. They were not to be deluded now by a nominal equality of rights in Territories ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... deprivation and loneliness. But he who will fly as an eagle does into the higher levels where cloudless day abides, and live in the sunshine of God, must consent to live a comparatively lonely life. No bird is so solitary as the eagle. Eagles never fly in flocks: one, or at most two, and the two, mates, being ever seen at once. But the life that is lived unto God, however it forfeits human companionship, knows divine fellowship, and the child of God who like his ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... cloudy evening. The near heights and the mountain-tops were grey; it was very quiet; there was not even a bird to be seen. He sat or lay, with his hand on the dog. He had soon settled what to arrange with Mildrid when she awoke. There was no cloud in their future; he lay quietly looking up into the sky. He knew that their meeting was a miracle. God Himself had ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... and made him furiously command the boy to sing, laugh, and be merry. At other times he would order Louis to be silent and motionless for hours, and to have nothing to do with the bird-cage, which was on the table, and which was the only thing left that the little ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... of Spring, Autumn, Summer and Winter have been produced by most bird taxidermists at some time. Appropriate varieties of small birds are the blue birds for Spring; gold finches, Autumn; yellow birds or tanagers, Summer; snow birds, Winter. Framed with painted backgrounds and suitable ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... the more domestic weathercock, may often be seen wheeling through the air on the approach of a storm, and exhibits unmistakable signs of exultation when it is going to thunder. It is not a bird of song, but is unsurpassed as a screamer. To the common Kite, a plebeian member of the genus, has been ascribed an attribute which in fact belongs exclusively to this Banner species. The Kite, according to Dr. FRANKLIN, draws the lightning from ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... hostages stands out among the innumerable German cruelties as one of peculiar horror. Everywhere in the occupied departments the Maire has been the surety for his fellows, and the Germans have handled them often as a cruel boy torments some bird or beast he has captured, for the pleasure of showing ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in Nature's activities. From the point of view of man some are beneficial and some are destructive. In the former group may be mentioned the Dragonflies which feed upon mosquitoes, the Cochineal insects of Mexico, which furnish a dye-stuff, the Lady-bird beetles, which in the larval stage feed upon plant lice; the scale insects of India, which furnish shellac; the Bumblebees, which cross-pollinate the clover, and the Wasps, which fertilize the figs. Dr. Lutz says that the manna which fed the Children ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... diamond cut diamond. Dry channel of a stream. Tombs on the sandhills. White balls on tombs. Australian shamrock. Old canoe. Dry state of the country. Danger and difficulty of watching the cattle on the riverbanks. Uniform character of the Darling. The Grenadier bird. The Doctor and the natives. A range discovered by refraction. Dance of natives. A lake. Tombs of a tribe. Plan of natives' hut. Method of making cordage. The tall native's first visit. Channel of a small stream. The carts beset on the journey by very covetous natives. Mischievous signals. Cattle ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... reading all them books done it," Aunt Haicey said. "Thick books, and no pictures in them. I knew it'd make trouble." She plucked at the faded hand-embroidered shawl over her thin shoulders, a tiny bird-like woman with ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... rugs—so they give out. The things kep' on an' on bein' snapped up hot-cake quick, an' the crowd beginnin' to gather outside, waitin' to get in, made 'em sort o' lose their heads an' begin buyin' sole because things was cheap—bird-cages, a machine cover, odd table-leaves, an' like that. The Society was rill large then, an' what happened might 'a' been expected. When ten o'clock come an' it was time to open the door, the ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... that fellow is! Yes, I can be free to-morrow if I will. I wonder what the deuce Gambier had to do in Monmouthshire. If he has been playing with my sister's reputation, he shall have short shrift. That fellow Braintop sees her now—my little Emilia! my bird! She won't have changed her dress till she has dined. If she changes it before she goes out—by Jove, if she wears it to-night before all those people, that'll mean 'Good-bye' to me: 'Addio, caro,' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tell him all kinds of stories, which he would listen to very seriously. They all interested him, but there was one especially which filled his little soul with delight. It was "The Blue Bird." Whenever I finished that, he would say to me, "Tell it again! tell it again!" And I would tell it again until his little pale blue- veined head sank back upon ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... thee, my lady love, the freshest flowing springs, Whose cooling waters ever burst in crystal sparklings; It is for thee my shaft will wing the wild bird in the air, Or strike the swift gazelle to deck our simple ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... the very beginning—the hatching out of the eggs. Frogs' eggs and birds' eggs are really not so unlike as they seem at first sight, for though the frog's eggs have no shell, yet, just as in the bird's egg, there are two essential parts to be distinguished—the formative material out of which the young frog grows and the yolk on which the growing animal feeds. By the untrained eye nothing more can be seen in the frog's egg than ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... certain things to be done to animals which seem to touch upon cruelty. And therefore He forbade them to seethe the kid in the mother's milk (Deut. xiv. 21), or to muzzle the treading ox (Deut. xxv. 4), or to kill the old bird with the young." (Deut. xxii. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... or any of the Moluccas, in order to sell their salt pork, amber,[5] gold-dust, and other merchandise, they always carry some of these Birds-of-Paradise, which they constantly sell dead, affirming that they find them so, and that they know not whence they come or where they breed. This bird is always seen very high in the air. It is extremely light, as its bulk consists mostly of feathers, which are extremely beautiful, rendering it one of the greatest curiosities in the world. The plumage of the head is as bright as burnished gold; that of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... into the air and squinted. "Quiller," he piped, with the long echo still whining in his throat, "that whistle fooled you an' it fooled Jud, but it wouldn't fool a Bob White with the shell on its back. When the old bird hears it, she don't wait to see the long shadow travellin' on the grass, but she hollers, 'Into the weeds, boys, if you want to save your bacon.' An' you ought to see the little codgers scatter. Let it be a lesson to you, Quiller, my laddiebuck; when you hear that ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... awkward, for there still hung to the missive a basting thread, and it was as warm as a nestling bird. I bent low—everybody was emotional in those days—kissed the fragrant thing, thrust it into my bosom, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... a bird's-eye view of the mountain peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular reference to Bjoernson's seventieth birthday, it seemed proper to make the following remarks about the most famous European ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... with great care. Every one has a separate keeper, who has his bird confined in a small bag, which he carries with him wherever he goes. The poor prisoner is rarely permitted to see the light, except when he is fed, or it is deemed necessary for his health; he is then held by the keeper on his hand, sometimes for hours. When two quails are brought ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great Fortunes have been Made" story; but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighbourhood, rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at the office at nine o'clock. It was a point of honour with him, a sort of daily declaration of independence, never to put in an appearance before nine-thirty. On ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a bird to be caught wit' that stuff—puttin' you wit' the right on yer side. We're afther sheddin' no blood here, Misther Nichols. We're on this job for ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... the Marshals,' said I; 'I saw them all at the council in the Emperor's tent. There is Ney with the red head. And there is Lefebvre with his singular mouth, and Bernadotte with the beak of a bird ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from which the country derives its name, is of volcanic origin and is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs; home of the dodo, a large flightless bird related to pigeons, driven to extinction by the end of the 17th century through a combination of hunting and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was a child, a first cousin of John Bird Sumner[693] married a sister of my mother. I cannot remember the time when I first heard his name, but it was made very familiar to me. In time he became Bishop of Chester, and then, Archbishop of Canterbury. My reader may say that Dr. C. R. Sumner,[694] Bishop of Winchester, has just as good ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... drive, and looked rather like a handsome bird of Paradise in her bright green veil and red ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... million quivering points of light flashing from the crowded stars in a heaven of dusky blue. The air was warm, and fragrant with the sweet scent of stocks and heliotrope,—there was a great silence, for it was fully midnight, and not even the drowsy twitter of a bird broke the intense quiet. The world was asleep—or seemed so—although for fifty living organisms in Nature that sleep there are a thousand that wake, to whom night is the working day. I listened,—and fancied I could hear the delicate murmuring of voices hidden among ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... wretched little creature was but a confused lump of flesh, the lifeless carcase of some shapeless animal. Was that swollen, whitened head a skull or a stomach? And those poor hands twisted among the bedclothes, like the bent claws of a bird killed by cold! And the bed itself, that pallidity of the sheets, below the pallidity of the limbs, all that white looking so sad, those tints fading away as if typical of the supreme end! Afterwards, however, one ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the habit of imperial and princely personages in former days, enrolled himself, cross-bow in hand, among the competitors. Greater still was the enthusiasm, when the conqueror of Lepanto brought down the bird, and was proclaimed king of the year, amid the tumultuous hilarity of the crowd. According to custom, the captains of the guild suspended a golden popinjay around the neck of his Highness, and placing themselves in procession, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for Annie Hempstead. Letters did not come very regularly from Tom Reed, for it was a season of heavy snowfalls and the mails were often delayed. The letters were all that she had for comfort and company. She had bought a canary-bird, adopted a stray kitten, and filled her sunny windows with plants. She sat beside them and sewed, and tried to be happy and content, but all the time there was a frightful uncertainty deep down within her heart as to whether or not she was doing right. She knew that ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and the gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... and after killing it to throw it overboard, advanced towards it; he was evidently impelled by a supernatural power, for never shall I forget the look of horror, the faint scream of agony, which escaped him as he obeyed the summons. Like the trembling bird fascinated by the snake, he fell into the arms of the dead body; which grasping him tight, rolled over and over in convolutions like a serpent, until it gained the break of the gangway, and then tumbled into the sea with its murderer entwined ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... summer feast. He encouraged the boys and young men to botanise and observe nature in all forms, and though he would never allow nests to be taken, or even eggs if he could help it, he would give little prizes for the noting of any rare bird or butterfly. "If you want men to live in the country, they must love the country," he used to say. He kept a village club going, but he never went there. "It's embarrassing," he used to say. "They don't want me ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the houses perk up under their spruce new coats of paint, while every window that can afford it puts forth its carefully tended box of flowers. It is as though the old city suddenly awoke from her winter slumber and preened herself like a bird making its toilet; there is an atmosphere of renewal abroad—the very carters and cabmen seem conscious of it, and acknowledge it with good-humoured smiles and a flower worn jauntily in ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... threads they stick flowers of various kinds, particularly the cape-jessamine, of which they have great plenty, as it is always planted near their houses. The men sometimes stick the tail-feather of the Tropic-bird upright in their hair, which, as I have observed before, is often tied in a bunch upon the top of their heads: Sometimes they wear a kind of whimsical garland, made of flowers of various kinds, stuck into a piece of the rind of a plantain; or of scarlet peas, stuck ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... interior of this vast country is a marsh and uninhabitable...There is a dreary uniformity in the barren desolateness of this country which wearies one more than I am able to express. One tree, one soil, one water, and one description of bird, fish, or animal prevails alike for ten miles and for one hundred. A variety of wretchedness is at all times preferable to one unvarying cause ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... Hydaspes old, Exploring ocean in its every nook, From the Red Sea to the cold Caspian shore, In earth, in heaven one only Phoenix dwells. What fortunate, or what disastrous bird Omen'd my fate? which Parca winds my yarn, That I alone find Pity deaf as asp, And wretched live who happy hoped to be? Let me not speak of her, but him her guide, Who all her heart with love and sweetness fills— Gifts which, from him ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... so as to get a good headway, till just as you get to the narrow place, and then trail is the word. Then the oarsmen all whip their oars out of the row-locks in an instant, and let 'em trail alongside under the boat's counters, and she shoots through the narrow place like a bird." ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... fashion. Pirate grew very indignant: he was being hurt. His speed slackened none, however; he was determined to make that fence if it was the last thing he ever did. He'd like to see any man stop him. He took the deadly fence as with the wings of a bird. But he found that the man was still on his back. He couldn't understand it. He grew worried. And then he struck the red-brown muck bordering the stream. The muck flew, but at every bound Pirate sank deeper, and the knees of his rider were beginning to tell. Warburton, full ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... form of a syllogism: All foods are oxidized in the body; alcohol is oxidized in the body; therefore alcohol is food. As logically we might say: 'All birds are bilaterally symmetrical; the earthworm is bilaterally symmetrical; therefore the earthworm is a bird.' Oxidation within the body is simply one of several important properties of food, as bilateral symmetry is one of several important characteristics ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... Kill bird and draw immediately; wash carefully and cool; then cut into convenient sections. Boil until the meat can be removed from the bones; remove from the boiling liquid and take out all bones; pack ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... few days Theo was in no frame of mind to talk porcelain or any other serious subject, for his new crutches came, and after Dr. Swift had adjusted them the boy was like a bird freed from its cage. He could not, to be sure, go far from the house; but even to clump up and down the veranda and the plank walks that connected the cabins was a joy. How good it was to get about once ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... gods. This is, indeed, formally a late view, and can be paralleled only by a few passages of a comparatively recent period. Thus, in the late hymn i. 164. 46: "Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, they say; he is the sun (the bird in the sky); that which is but one they call variously," etc. So x. 114. 5 and the late passage iii. 38. 7, have reference to various ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... a bird would fly it from the grazing uplands of the Broad known as the Cowpens to the lower plantation region lying between that stream and the farther Catawba or Wateree; and Richard Jennifer and I ambled the distance leisurely, as ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... have never a penny to spend, They haven't a thing put by, But theirs is the dower of bird and of flower, And theirs are the earth and the sky. And though you should live in a palace of gold Or sleep in a dried-up ditch, You could never be poor as the fairies are, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... great gust came tearing along the gorge. I saw Ayesha lean herself against it, but the strong draught got under her dark cloak, and tore it from her, and away it went down the wind flapping like a wounded bird. It was dreadful to see it go, till it was lost in the blackness. I clung to the saddle of rock, and looked round, while, like a living thing, the great spur vibrated with a humming sound beneath us. The sight was a truly awesome one. There we were poised in the ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... pretty plentiful, though elementary, so that modifications whose end I cannot see are certainly proceeding in everything, some of the cypresses which I met that day being immense beyond anything I ever heard of: and the thought, I remember, was in my head, that if a twig or leaf should change into a bird, or a fish with wings, and fly before my eyes, what then should I do? and I would eye a branch suspiciously anon. After a long time I penetrated into a very sombre grove. The day outside the wood was brilliant and hot, and very still, the leaves and flowers here all motionless. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... garden; and thither her woman brought her her nightgown; and stood joying herself at the old man's going away: and several of the gallants of White Hall, of which there were many staying to see the Chancellor return, did talk to her in her birdcage; among others, Blancford, telling her she was the bird of paradise. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... The Lark!" shouted Todd as he rowed past with Babette Gold. "Only there isn't a lark or any other bird in these woods that I've been able ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... than I thought. We had tea in the garden that afternoon, and a bird of some kind struck ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first startled me badly, though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint, and even thought I could make out the bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spotted with black, and named Inges'; Jennet Dibble had 'her spirit in the shape of a great black cat called Gibbe, which hath attended her now above 40 years'; Dibble's daughter, Margaret Thorpe, had a 'familiar in the shape of a bird, yellow of colour, about the bigness of a crow—the name of it is Tewhit'; Elizabeth Dickenson's spirit was 'in the likeness of a white cat, which she calleth Fillie, she hath kept it twenty years'.[849] The witch of Edmonton, Elizabeth Sawyer, in 1621, said: 'It is eight yeares ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... little lonely street. Another pedestrian had entered from the other end, a man heavily built and clad, with an astrakhan collar to his coat on this warm night, and a black slouch hat that hid his features from my bird's-eye view. His steps were the short and shuffling ones of a man advanced in years and in fatty degeneration, but of a sudden they stopped beneath my very eyes. I could have dropped a marble into the dinted crown of the black felt hat. Then, at the same moment, Raffles ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... that profound oracle read, studied, and laid to heart—was that which the fathers ascribed to the mere proclamation of Christianity, when first piercing the atmosphere circumjacent to any oracle; and, in fact, to their gross appreciations, Christian truth was like the scavenger bird in Eastern climates, or the stork in Holland, which signalizes its presence by devouring all the native brood of vermin, or nuisances, as fast as they reproduce themselves under local distemperatures of climate ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... we stayed two days making rafts to cross the river on. The last day we were there, laying on the bank of the river, I presume there came five hundred of these Indians within fifty yards of our camp. Most of them laid down under the trees. One of our men shot a bird that was in a tree close by, and I never heard such shouting or saw such running as these Indians did when the gun cracked. This convinced me that we were the first white men they had ever seen, and this the first time they ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... come? We are at the Milan Court for a little time. My father is trying to get a house. My sister is coming over to look after him. I am unfortunately only a bird of passage." ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shrine all the facts of the separate histories of man and woman. It were easier to change earth to water, and sea to land, than it is to make a womanly woman consent to appear manly. Her God made her a woman. It is not a fault. It is a glory. The bird that skims the wave would not exchange places with the bird that goes to meet the sun; but this is not to bring a charge against ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... breeze fanned her cheek and those big mountains about her made her feel happy as never before. She looked up at the mountain-tops till they all seemed to have faces, and soon they were familiar to her, like old friends. Suddenly she heard a loud, sharp scream, and looking up she beheld the largest bird she had ever seen, flying above her. With outspread wings he flew in large circles over ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... Collection is now. Certainly I never sold it; indeed, I never sold anything; not only because nobody would buy, but because, after all, one is a Collector, not a tradesman. Birds' eggs I would have collected if I could, but you had first to find the bird's nest (almost an impossible quest for a born Duffer), and to blow the eggs, which, let me tell you, needs nicety of handling. I did once find a thrush's nest, and tried blowing an egg, but it was not wholly a success, and the egg (the contents of which I accidentally absorbed) was not wholly ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... seen that they admitted metempsychosis. According to their belief, the body of an ox or an ass might be the dwelling place of a human soul. To kill these animals, therefore, was a crime equivalent to murder. "For that reason," says Bernard Gui, "they never kill an animal or a bird; for they believe that in animals and birds dwell the souls of men, who died without having been received into their sect by the imposition of hands."[1] This was also one of the signs by which they could be known ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... significant. I looked into the fucher, and wat did I see, ez them two men—one sneekin, and tother ashamed uv hisself—walked up that aisle? Wat did I see? I saw the Democrisy restored to its normal condishun. I saw the reunion uv the two wings. In fact, I saw the entire Dimokratic bird reunited. The North, one wing, and the weakest; Kentucky, the beak, sharp, hungry, and rapacious; South-west, the strong, active wing; Virginny, the legs and claws; Ohio, the heart; Pennsylvania, the stomach; South Caroliny, the tail feathers; and Noo Jersey, the balance of the bird,—I ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... the door of the office, peering through the reeking, smoke-filled atmosphere, to get a bird's-eye view of the situation before ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... spire of a stately pagoda. In another charming view a brook appeared to flow in at the front door of a stout gentleman's house, and out at his chimney. In a third a zig-zag wall went up into the sky like a flash of lightning, and a bird with two tails was apparently brooding over a fisherman whose boat was just going aground ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... and grounded; then ordered the men in Hands' sloop to come to his assistance, which they endeavoring to do, also ran aground, and so they were both lost. Then Teach went into the tender with forty hands, and upon a sandy island, about a league from shore, where there was neither bird no beast, nor herb for their subsistence, he left seventeen of his crew, who must inevitably have perished, had not Major Bonnet received intelligence of their miserable situation, and sent a long-boat for them. After this barbarous ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Ortygia, although the name is given to different places, is Aurora, or the land of Aurora. (Gerhard, Griechische Mythologie.) Ortygia is derived from Ortyx, a quail. In Sanscrit the quail is called Vartika, the bird which returns, because it is one of the birds to return in spring. This name Vartika is given in the Veda to one of the numerous beings which are set free and brought to life by the Ascini, that is, by day and night, and Vartika is one of several names for the ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... birds, and to know a fair bird well is almost equal to knowing a fair woman well, though they have different ways. Two of these birds that I knew were orioles and two were bluebirds. The two orioles and the two bluebirds were husbands and wives. I stumbled upon them all last year. The bluebirds had ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... down of the debts provoked opposition and remonstrance, but the creditors wisely reflected on the difference between a bird in the hand and more in the bush, and by the beginning of 1907 holders of credits had signified their assent in sufficient amount to assure the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... seen in the night was hanging in the sea just beyond the crook of the loch. It fluttered like a snared bird. One could see the crew trying every device of sail and tacking, but with all their desperate ingenuities the ship merely hung there shivering ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... a town!" Foundation-stones were evidently lacking, and sods had to take their place. Then, dropping the halberd, he seized a spade, and began the first embankment. At that moment an eagle appeared, hovering over the Czar's head. It was struck by a shot from a musket. Peter took the wounded bird, set it on his wrist, and departed in a boat to inspect the neighborhood. This ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... The bird, who ceased, with fading light, to thread Silent the hedge or steamy rivulet's bed, [92] 325 From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon Salute with gladsome note the rising moon, While with a hoary light ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... we believe the Beltinne on St. John's Eve is peculiar to Ireland. The hunting of the wren[150] on St. Stephen's Day, in this country, is said, by Vallancey, to have been originated by the first Christian missionaries, to counteract the superstitious reverence with which this bird was regarded by the druids. Classic readers will remember the origin of the respect paid to this bird in pagan times. The peasantry in Ireland, who have never read either Pliny or Aristotle, are ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... And, light as a bird, she disappeared down the staircase, so quickly that her black veil floated high above her, as ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... observations, we have learned something about three Australian species, which lay their eggs in other birds' nests. The chief points to be referred to are three: first, that the common cuckoo, with rare exceptions, lays only one egg in a nest, so that the large and voracious young bird receives ample food. Secondly, that the eggs are remarkably small, not exceeding those of the skylark—a bird about one-fourth as large as the cuckoo. That the small size of the egg is a real case of adaptation we may infer from the fact of the mon-parasitic American cuckoo ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... year that your father died and your mother also left us, I went out one morning before daybreak to surprise the crabs asleep in the sand. As I was stooping down, hidden by a rock, I saw a kingfisher slowly floating toward the beach. The kingfisher is a sacred bird which should always be respected; knowing this, I let it alight and did not stir, for fear of frightening it. At the same moment I saw a beautiful green adder come from a cleft of the mountain and crawl along the sand ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... overture. He had extraordinary dexterity of finger for one who had had so little training, and his hands, with their great stretch, made light work of octaves and even tenths. His knowledge of the music enabled him to wake the singing bird of memory in his head, and before long flute and horn and string and woodwind began to make themselves heard in his inner ear. Twice his servant came in to tell him that his dinner was ready, but Michael had no heed for anything ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... where shade is few and far between. We drink hot, stinking water from the mountain streams, flavoured with leaves—nasty! At odd times we get a little tepid meat to eat. And the horses and the elephants make such a noise that I can't even be comfortable at night. Then the hunters and the bird-chasers—damn 'em—wake me up bright and early. They do make an ear-splitting rumpus when they start for the woods. But even that isn't the whole misery. There's a new pimple growing on the old boil. He left us behind and went hunting a deer. And there in a hermitage ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... of a pioneer aviator, had been warned by him and by the chief of staff of the Browns, who was looking on, to keep in a circle close to the ground. But he was doing so well that he thought he would try rising a little higher. When the levers responded with the ease of a bird's wings, temptation became inspiration and inspiration urged on temptation. He had gone mad with the ecstasy of his sensation, there between heaven and earth. Five seconds of this was worth five thousand years of any other form ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... are rightfully to be attributed to the direct influence of the county federation. The public schools of the county have been largely instrumental in stirring the public conscience to a livelier appreciation of the beautiful. The regular observance of Arbor and Bird Days in our schools has done much toward initiating this movement. However, the federation has been the great factor in uniting otherwise independent organizations into one large machine for stirring the social consciousness ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... force alone is a feat which is as much an impossibility as it is for a man, by the strength of his own legs, to leap thirty or forty times his own length,—a grasshopper can do that easily, and a bird can fly easily, but a man cannot, and never will be able to do so, because his peculiar ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... dartings hither and thither among the spiny bushes that fringe the shore, arrest his attention; and he sees on every hand the beautifully coloured and meek-faced ground-lizard (Ameiva dorsalis), scratching like a bird among the sand, or peering at him from beneath the shadow of a great leaf, or creeping stealthily along with its chin and belly upon the earth, or shooting over the turf with such a rapidity that it seems to fly rather than run. By the road-sides, and in the open pastures, and in the provision-grounds ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... he said grimly. "He had an idea some of us'd turn up. An idea ... I suppose a little bird told him. Oh, take me away, somebody, and let me die. Let me have one last imitation meal, and die. Where ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... carefully for any symptoms of human habitation or animal life. I made out by degrees the lines of rivers, mountain slopes covered by great forests, extensive valleys and plains, seemingly carpeted by a low, dense, rich vegetation. But my view being essentially of a bird's-eye character, it was only in those parts that lay upon my horizon that I could discern clearly the height of any object above the general level; and as yet, therefore, there might well be houses and buildings, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... they sat together looking out on the placid lake, mirrored with the foliage of the overhanging trees, with swans gliding calmly across its surface, the only sound the sweet songs of the bird, or the occasional splash of the fish as they rose to seize the careless flies fleeting above them, could never be forgotten: it brought a sense of peace, and consolation, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... from her larger mind, That whom ill Fate would ruin, it prefers, For all the miserable are made hers. So the fair tree whereon the eagle builds, Poor sheep from tempests, and their shepherds, shields; 50 The royal bird possesses all the boughs, But shade and shelter to ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... only a few weeks before I had had a long conference with the chiefs of the tribe, Two Guns, White Calf (the son of old White Calf, the great chief who dropped dead in the White House during President Cleveland's administration), Medicine Owl and Curly Bear and Big Spring and Bird Plume and Wolf Plume and Bird Rattler and Bill Shute and Stabs-by-Mistake and Eagle Child and ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... indigent, yet most proud, which is unnatural. No man is satisfied within himself (except the good man, Prov. xiv. 14), but he goes abroad to seek it at the door of every creature, and when there are some plumes or feathers borrowed from other birds, like that foolish bird in the fable, we begin to raise our crests, and boast ourselves, as if we had all these of our own, and were beholden to none, but as things that are truly our own will not be sufficient to feed this flame ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... doubted, women, the world-worshippers, will for ever after doubt also. You can never bring women to see that the pecked-at fruit is always the richest and sweetest; they always take the benison of the wooing bird to be the malison of the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... from morn till night, Content to show his master skill In hitting every bird at sight, And shooting down the deer at will. Grand sport he deemed it, day by day, As in the tangled forest brake He brought the bounding stag to bay, Or shot ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... gets all in a muddle.' Time after time, he further expounded to his young attendants, how extremely honourable and extremely pure were the two words representing woman, that they are more valuable and precious than the auspicious animal, the felicitous bird, rare flowers and uncommon plants. 'You may not' (he was wont to say), 'on any account heedlessly utter them, you set of foul mouths and filthy tongues! these two words are of the utmost import! Whenever you have occasion to allude to them, you must, before you can do so with impunity, take pure ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... provide a lamb, a pair of doves or pigeons might be offered. We learn of the humble circumstances of Joseph and Mary from the fact that they brought the less costly offering, two doves or pigeons, instead of one bird and a lamb. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... three shots," cried Fred, his blood beginning to dance through his veins at the prospect of a struggle; "I will guarantee that every discharge brings down a bird, and as for the remainder, why, we will meet ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... where they had stopped was the loneliest part of the track that could be found in miles, on either side. It was in the midst of a thick beech woods, and the twitter of a bird, now and then, was the only sound in all ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... I had been born with a good eye and a steady hand, and very soon I became a fair shot with a gun and, I believe, a really fine shot with the rifle. The sides of the Berg were full of quail and partridge and bush pheasant, and on the grassy plateau there was abundance of a bird not unlike our own blackcock, which the Dutch called korhaan. But the great sport was to stalk bush-buck in the thickets, which is a game in which the hunter is at small advantage. I have been knocked down by a wounded bush-buck ram, and but for Colin might have been badly damaged. Once, in ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... twenty by the cubit the seat of its waters, which Nebo-baladan, the son of Labasi, the son of Nur-Papsukal, has sold to Sirikki, the son of Iddin, the son of Egibi, for four manehs, ten shekels of silver, in one-shekel pieces, which are not standard, and are in the shape of a bird's tail (?). Nebo-baladan takes the responsibility for the management (?) of the ship. Nebo-baladan has received the money, four manehs ten shekels of white (silver), the price of his ship, from the ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... been selfish? I do not know but I have. It is all so utterly new that I hardly know how I am acting; but it is true that my heart has been as light as a bird's all day. The truth is, I have found a friend here at Chautauqua ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... the air; he would know he was out of place. He would fidget a little, frown a little, and get up meekly, and slink into the street. Human magnetism is such a subtle force. And Madame Chanve didn't mind in the least; she preferred a bird in the hand to a brace in the bush. From half a dozen to a score of us dined at her long table every evening; as many more drank her appetisers in the afternoon, and came again at night for grog or ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... 'Mid the bird-chorus of the May, From glade and garden madly ringing, There sounds one welcome note to-day, Round the glad world its way 'tis winging. You hear—you hear the general cheer That greets it! 'Twill suffice to show you That all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... growth upon them except moss, lichens, and coarse marsh grass. These were succeeded by ridges of crumbling rock, between which were numerous small lakes. The land seemed very barren of life. Even the shores of the ponds were hardly inhabited. No song of bird or buzz of insect broke the stillness. Rock after rock was turned over in the vain expectation of finding living things on the damp under side at least; and the cushions of moss were broken up in the same fruitless chase. All was barren and lifeless. Not ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... line is injured innocence, of course—same as when the Sergeant reported us on suspicion of smoking in the bunkers. If I hadn't thought of buyin' the pepper and spillin' it all over our clothes, he'd have smelt us. King was gha-astly facetious about that. 'Called us bird-stuffers ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... to draw his sword, "if you do not instantly desist, I will treat you like that accursed bird—cut your throat, pluck, stuff, roast, and eat you afterwards." He was, however, so confounded by the attack, that he could offer no resistance, and in retreating, caught his foot against the leg of a table, and fell backwards ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the Processional caterpillar, found on the pine-tree, has its back covered with meteorological spiracles which sense the coming weather and foretell the storm; the bird of prey, that incomparable watchman, sees the fallen mule from the heights of the clouds; the blind bats guided their flight without collision through the inextricable labyrinth of threads devised by ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... persons present, they, as consonants with vowels, in the midst of the other learned, will participate not altogether inarticulately and insignificantly. But if the greater part consists of such who can better endure the noise of any bird, fiddle-string, or piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher, Pisistratus hath shown us what to do; for being at difference with his sons, when he heard his enemies rejoiced at it, in a full assembly he declared that he had endeavored ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... now came from the obscurity; one of them was accompanied by what seemed a flight of small startled birds crossing the road ahead of them. A second larger and more sustained flight showed his astonished eyes that they were white, and each bird an enormous flake of SNOW! For an instant the air was filled with these disks, shreds, patches,—two or three clinging together,—like the downfall shaken from a tree, striking the leather roof and sides with a dull ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... the time; and was off hunting before the sun was an hour high. He was armed with an old-fashioned smooth-bore muzzle-loader; and Thorpe was astonished, after he had become better acquainted with his new companion's methods, to find that he hunted deer with fine bird shot. The Indian never expected to kill or even mortally wound his game; but he would follow for miles the blood drops caused by his little wounds, until the animals in sheer exhaustion allowed him to approach close enough for a dispatching blow. At two o'clock he returned with a small buck, tied ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of the table Eugenia's seat separated the general from Aunt Griselda, who sat severely buttering her toast before a brown earthenware teapot ornamented by a raised design of Rebecca at the well. Aunt Griselda was a lean, dried-up old lady, with a sharp, curved nose like the beak of a bird, and smoothly parted hair brushed low over her ears and held in place by a tortoise-shell comb. There were deep channels about her eyes, worn by the constant falling of acrid tears, and her cheeks were wrinkled ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... gentle servants to us. Well: the world would yet be a place of peace if we were all peacemakers, and gentle service should we have of its creatures if we gave them gentle mastery. But so long as we make sport of slaying bird and beast, so long as we choose to contend rather with our fellows than with our faults, and make battlefield of our meadows instead of pasture—so long, truly, the Flaming Sword will still turn every way, and the gates of Eden remain barred close enough, till ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and hedge-rows, and settle down for the night in the depths of the evergreens, the only refuge from their enemies and shelter from the blast. But this evening they made no ado about their home-coming. To-day perhaps none had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird is forced by hunger to leave the covert of his cedars, since he, on the naked or white landscapes of winter, offers the most far-shining and beautiful mark for Death. I stepped across to the tree in which a pair of these birds roost and shook it, to make sure they ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... dream last night. Dost thou believe in dreams?" She had as much regard for her cousin's opinion as for the twittering of a bird, but she felt the necessity of speech at times, and at least this child never remembered what ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... virtuous things; infamy must be represented upside down, because its works are contrary to God and move towards hell. Fame should be depicted covered with tongues instead of with feathers and in the form of a bird. ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's bloodthirsty greed. Her broad, flat nose, with nostrils expanded into oval cavities, breathed the fires of hell, and resembled the beak of some evil bird of prey. The spirit of intrigue lurked behind her low, cruel brow. Long hairs had grown from her wrinkled chin, betraying the masculine character of her schemes. Any one seeing that woman's face would have said that artists had failed in their ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had made a large fortune, quite legitimately, out of the companies of which he was a director), placed within that cold palm the tips of his still colder fingers ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... week by week, in a strange sing-song with only occasional flights of melody. The chant was determined by curious signs printed under the words, and the signs that made nice music were rather rare, and the nicest sign of all, which spun out the word with endless turns and trills, like the carol of a bird, occurred only a few times in the whole Pentateuch. The child, as he listened to the interminable incantation, thought he would have sprinkled the Code with bird-songs, and made the Scroll of the Law warble. But he knew this could ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... human nature. "Prithee, man, be of good cheer," said they, "the duchess is a young and buxom widow. She has just buried our brother, who, God rest his soul! was somewhat too much given to praying and fasting, and kept his pretty wife always tied to his girdle. She is now like a bird from a cage. Think you she will keep her vow? Pooh, pooh—impossible! Take our words for it—we know mankind, and, above all, womankind. She cannot hold out for such a length of time; it is not in womanhood—it is not in widowhood—we know it, and that's enough. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... whatever came to land: and the captain, officers, passengers, and crew, were now reduced to the same level, and obliged to take their turn to fetch water, and explore the island for food. The work of exploring was soon over—there was not a bird, nor a quadruped, nor a single tree to be seen. All was barren and desolate. The low parts were scattered over with stones and sand, and a few stunted weeds, rocks, ferns, and other plants. The top of the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... brown mates of last spring, and he needs must hop up on the old log and drum for them, though there is little chance that they will heed his amorous call. The ruffed grouse has much brain even for a bird, as his ability to live in our Massachusetts woods in spite of the omnipresent huntsmen shows, but like the fox, he, too, sometimes gets in a brown study and may allow you to meet him ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... she was sitting on a cart-wheel thinking. She was thinking how poor her father was. There was a crow up in the air over her head. The crow was cawing. There was nobody to tell her thoughts to but the crow. She shook her fist at the big bird, and said,— ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... young; where the green lane is bordered by the guelder-rose or wayfaring tree, the raspberry, strawberry, and cherry, the wild garlic of starlike flowers, the woodruff, fragrant as new-mown hay; the yellow pimpernel on the hedge side. I see in the fields and meadows the bird's foot trefoil, the oxeye daisy, the lady smocks, sweet hemlock, butterbur, the stitchwort, and the orchis, the "long purpled" of Shakespeare. By the margin of the pond the yellow iris hangs out its golden banners over which the dragon fly skims. The hedgerows are gay with the full-blown ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... coast, and passed the river Sanaga (Senegal), which divides the Azeneghis—whom the first discoverers always called Moors—from the negroes of Jalof. The inhabitants were much astonished at the presence of the Portuguese vessel on their coasts, and at first took it for a fish or a bird or a phantasm; but when in their rude boats—hollowed logs—they neared it, and saw that there were men in it, judiciously concluding that it was a more dangerous thing than fish or bird or phantasm, they fled. Dinis Fernandez, however, captured four of them off that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... thoughtful; but after a little my mind wandered back again to the sunny hours of youth, and I lived them over. Eliza had been in our family for several years, and was one of the most cheerful, kind-hearted girls one could wish to see. She had a fine voice, and it seemed as natural for her to sing as a bird. This, with her happy disposition, made her the light and life of the house. She was like the little burn that went dancing so lightly over the pebbles in the meadow—bright, sparkling, joyous, delighting in pranks and fun ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... Dramatic "biz" preferred? There you may "boom" it like a bird. Turn on the Absolute-Absurd; By that strange tap the mob is stirred. Be dismal, deathly, dirty, dim; Grovelling, ghastly, gruesome, grim, Anything meaning morbid whim; Quidnuncs will cry, "What treuth! what ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... had remonstrated with him for speaking against the Prince and an officer of the army, and warned him to be careful of his tongue, "ye needna be feart that a word o' this will be heard ootside. I mind the word in the Good Book, 'Speak not against the King, lest a bird of the air carry the matter.' There's plenty o' birds in this camp that would be glad enough to work us wrang. Gin onybody speaks to me aboot Captain MacKay being made a colonel, I'll give him to understand that my master was offered the post and declined to take it for special reasons o' his own; ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... startled when she saw her. Lisbeth had no time to offer a greeting before Kjersti said: "What in the world! Is this a mountain bird that has taken flight? There is nothing the matter at the ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... clouds"; and the "curls of hundred-headed Typho"; and the "hard-blowing tempests"; and then "aerial, moist"; "crooked-clawed birds, floating in air"; and "the showers of rain from dewy Clouds". And then, in return for these, they swallow "slices of great, fine mullets, and bird's-flesh ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... able to go with you everywhere. When you are enjoying a "Bird Chat;" "Buying the Mirror;" learning when "We must not Believe our Eyes;" visiting "A City under the Ground;" hearing of "The Coachman's" troubles; sitting under "The Oak-tree;" finding out wonderful things "About Glass;" watching what happens when "School's Out;" or following ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... into a kind of citadel, and that the port to which his supplies were chiefly carried was Peekshill, about fifty mites up the Hudson River. Acting upon this information he sent a detachment of five hundred men, under the command of Colonel Bird, in a couple of transports, to drive the Americans away from Peekshill, and to capture their stores. As Bird approached the Americans fled from their position, but before they retreated they set fire to their store-houses, so that no booty was obtained. Shortly after this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... speaking, has a home. How many ties, how many resources, he has!—his friendship with his cattle, his team, his dog, his trees; the satisfaction in his growing crops, in his improved fields; his intimacy with nature, with bird and beast, and with the quickening elemental forces; his co-operations with the cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain, frost. It humbles him, teaches him patience and reverence. Cling to the farm, make much of it, put yourself into it, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... pushed aside Need champions for their cause; Man, where'er he is or what he be Is none the less my brother And needs the strong to cheer him on. What we extend in help and cheer, Brings its reward in Happiness. It is not for me to say or think Look out for myself first; The bird, the beast, the stream that flows, The hills, the fields, the land, the sea, Are Parts, are Things like me, And all belong to one Grand Plan; The stars, the moon, the sky, And endless space as well, Are Parts of one machine, That ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... my dear, in a minute; but you must think I should be a little anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird, and healthy and rosy,—and when I come back, I find you white and sad and ill. I am sure something weighs on your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must believe, that I am your true friend,—and if you would confide in me, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... circumspectly, she dared not count in his favor. Was it not always so in the beginning? He seemed like a jolly, kindly boy. She had the impulse to scream and to run out of the house, to hide in the shrubbery, to throw herself into the water. Her heart beat like that of a trapped bird. She heard the front ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... foliage of the trees. "'Willy,' said the little girl, as they sat down on the low railing of the grass plats, to breathe for a moment, and listen to the chirrup and songs of the birds in the boughs above them, 'Willy, wouldn't you like to be a little bird?' ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, buttress, Nor coin of vantage, but this bird hath made His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: where they Most breed and haunt, I have observed, the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... speak no English, yet they must needs find a medium of exchange for their valuable views, she tried to teach him to speak Cherokee. He was a bird, her little bird, she told him by signs, and his name was Tsiskwa. This she repeated again and again in the velvet-soft fluting of her voice. But no! he revolted. His name was Archie Royston, he declaimed proudly. He soon became the monarch of this poor ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... you didn't manage that much better, either. The trouble is, you haven't quite turned into a little bird, yet. You haven't any little beak to pick up clean with, nor any wings to fly with. You'll have to wait till ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in a whisper, his eyes fixed upon the burning eyes of Lord Claud, which seemed to fascinate and hold him as the snake does the bird. ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of the constructive fancy has been substituted for a single flash of sympathetic imagination. Tasso does not doubt that the nightingale is pouring out her love in song. Guarini says that if the bird had human soul, it would exclaim, Ardo d'amore. Tasso sees it flying from branch to branch. Guarini teases our sense of mental vision by particularizing pine and beech and myrtle. The same is true of Linco's speech in general when compared with Dafne's on the ruling ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... dare-devil? Ay, and what does the ramping bird want in the ould nest? Welcome back to Yorkshire, Richard, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and had only slipped in when those in charge of the door were intent upon hearing Mr. Brook's address. Without a word of thanks, the instant the hands restraining her were loosed she dived into the crowd and escaped like a bird from a snare. Satisfied that justice had been done, Jack now said a few words of thanks to his employer and the subscribers to his present, and the meeting then broke up, Jack returning with Bill Haden and his mother, both beaming ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... bow. "Thank you, fairy god-mother! I believe you are right. That may be why happiness is so shy a bird. We spread the net too openly. Well," he heaved a sigh, "we live and learn." He turned to the table and took up his riding whip. "I suppose my wife will be in bed and sulk all day because I vetoed ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... are!" he breathed. "They got the end room on the right, so's they could get in an' out with out bein' seen, an so's even Charlie'd swear they was here all the time. You're too old a bird to fall down, Nan. If the door's locked, knock—an' give 'em any old kind of a song an' dance till you gets 'em off their guard. The Pug an' me 'll see you through. ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... cage they both were his: 'Twas my son's bird; and neat and trim He kept it: many voyages This singing-bird hath gone with him; When last he sailed he left the bird behind; As it might be, perhaps, from ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... So let me repeat and impress upon you, men, that the rifle is an effete weapon—extinct as the—what-you-call-it bird. It played its part, a good part, in the South African War, but we who observed what the machine gun did then and foretold its immense development [he was just nine years old at that time] knew that the rifle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... not been in spring-time's early hours, Where the lone bird its short sweet carol gave To the young bursting leaves and budding flowers, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... keep out of his head. Pictures crept in and out of his brain, joined as by some thin filament. He thought somehow of her soul, and then wondered what a soul was like. And then he thought of a dove, and then of a bat fluttering through the dark, and then of a bird lost at twilight. He thought of it as some lonely flying thing with a long journey before it and no place to rest. He could imagine it uttering the vibrant, plaintive cry of a peewit. And then it struck him with a great sense of pity that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the future was very terrible," says one who looks as if it might have descended from some sort of large bird like a penguin. "So much— Your ...
— The Carnivore • G. A. Morris
... by sounds of melody issuing from wind, wave, or bird, the rapt mind in strange and pleasing wonder contemplating the new and charming harmonies,—then it was that man received his first impressions, and took his ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter |
