"Downy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... determined to escape. But how? This question had not yet presented itself. Escape from the jail!—from death!—himself,—more than himself, his wife! Stone walls lost their appalling firmness, and were no more than downy masses, which his ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... the field Old Biddy Brown has four wee chickens, little soft downy balls, scarcely bigger than the eggs they came from ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various
... a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies; so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing—in ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... silence to continue a moment, educationally, drew a handkerchief across her upper lip, with its strange little downy mustache, and resumed: ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... does within resistance make; Which yet we moderately take; Who would not choose to be awake, While he's encompassed round with such delight; To the ear, the nose, the touch, the taste and sight? When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep, She odorous herbs and flowers beneath him spread, As the most soft and sweetest bed; Not her own lap would more have charmed his head. Who that has reason and his smell Would not among roses and jasmine dwell, Rather than all his spirits choke, With exhalations ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... young that he was about to give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived something "like a slight mouldiness among the withered leaves, and, on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whip-poor-will, seemingly asleep." Wilson's description of the young is very accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a "slight mouldiness." Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... paddling across the inlet. Three savages were in one, six in the other, ten in the third. They came slowly over the water, singing some song of welcome, beating time with their paddles, {186} scattering downy white feathers on the air, at intervals standing up to harangue a welcome to the newcomers. Soon thirty canoes were around the ships with some ten warriors in each. Still they came, shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... passion which women at this age conceive towards men, and the idle and childish liking of a girl to a boy, which is often fixed on the outside only, and on things of little value and no duration; as on cherry-cheeks, small, lily-white hands, sloe-black eyes, flowing locks, downy chins, dapper shapes; nay, sometimes on charms more worthless than these, and less the party's own; such are the outward ornaments of the person, for which men are beholden to the taylor, the laceman, the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... DESCRIPTION.—Fur short and downy; fulvous ashy, or dull light ashy brown colour, denser and paler beneath; the hairs whitish at the base; ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... measures, are equally undesirable, since they are not permanent cures any more than the depilatory powders. The worst feature of these cures is that for every hair pulled out or burnt off a coarser one takes its place, and for every tiny, downy growth a fully developed hair appears. Of course, the plaster removes this soft lanuginous growth with the hardier one, and for that reason should be left severely alone. The tweezers are therefore less objectionable than the plaster, but this is such a painful way of ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... The bolt, obedient to the silken cord, To the strong staple's inmost depth restored, Secured the valves. There, wrapped in silent shade, Pensive, the rules the goddess gave he weigh'd; Stretch'd on the downy fleece, no rest he knows, And in his raptured soul ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... weary cry, And all its curse and care shall die, When Age on downy couches throws His weary limbs and only knows The tender dreams of ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... chambers of her breast Love lives and makes his spicy nest, Midst downy blooms and fragrant flowers, And there he dreams away the hours— There let him rest! Some time hence, when the cuckoo sings, I'll come by night and bind his wings,— Bind him that he shall not roam From his ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... extensively distributed over the warmtemperate region of the Old World. It ripens its fruit in the south of England. It is a tree of moderate size; the leaves are lanceolate, and serrated at the edges; and it flowers early in spring. The fruit is a drupe, having a downy outer coat, called the epicarp, which encloses the reticulated hard stony shell or endocarp. The seed is the kernel which is contained within these coverings. The shell-almonds of trade consist of the endocarps enclosing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... back to the Fourth of July. When Benton returned with the French clothes Fitzhugh Williams rose from his downy couch and bathed in cold water. He was even an eager bather in France, rejoicing in the feeling of superiority and stoicism which accompanied the pang and pain of it. But in England, where everybody bathed—or ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... central depression) and coalescing into broad convex vertical ribs: spine bearing areolae obsolete: flowers borne at the summit of nascent tubercles: ovary naked (that is free from scales, but often downy): fruit and ...
— The North American Species of Cactus, Anhalonium, and Lophophora • John M. Coulter
... remembered him at a time when he was laughing and crying with his new parental emotions, and running to the side of the plain crib in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang over the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,—in that unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and which gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life the character of a first old age, to counterpoise that second childhood ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far out on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, like a sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked—a downy woodpecker. ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... assuming a convulsive and ghastly aspect, "I arose on tiptoe, and collecting the heavy comforters and large downy pillows of the bed, I deliberately piled them on her one upon the other, and pressing them down with all my gathered force, I stifled her in ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... of little pattering feet were resting. Three rosy faces pressed the downy pillow, and ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... Imprimis—one cigar, one tumbler of weak Hollands' grog, better named swizzle, all to be disposed of in pleasant company during some half-hour's walk on deck; when, if you should sometimes, as I hope you often may, fall in with a soft downy south-west breeze, a clear deep-blue sky over head, gemmed full with little stars, and fringed about, down into the watery round, by a broad border of jet-black cloud, against which each curling wave appears to break, and the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... in a world of golden skylight, warmth and tropical vegetation. The field on which they had landed was covered with a velvety green growth of very soft, fine-bladed grass, sprinkled with tiny, star-shaped blue flowers. A balmy, sweet-scented wind, downy as the breeze of a dream, blew gently along the grass and tingled against Northwood's skin refreshingly. Almost instantly he had the sensation of perfect well being, and this feeling of physical perfection ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... befuddling themselves into that dreamy state regarded by the profession as necessary to the clear bringing out of all the beauties with which a beneficent providence endowed the kings and conquerors they are to personate at night, on that sequestered world called the stage. You may know by the downy state of his wardrobe that he has a place to sleep. But where he gets his breakfast is a mystery no friend has ever yet solved for me. Aside from taking a two shilling dinner at an oyster cellar in William Street and wiping his greasy fingers on a leather apron, he would seem ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... all was still, and several young men that were sitting by the fire on account of every bed being occupied, gave note, by their deep breathing, that sleep had descended upon them, and darkened their senses with her gracious and downy wings, he rose softly from the side of Winterton, and stepping over him, slipped to the door, which he unbarred, and the moon shining bright he went to the stable to take out his horse. It was not his intent to have done this, but to have gone up into the streets of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... and messy," Peter complained, following with Cherry nevertheless, to see her scatter her chopped food carelessly on the surface of the little pond, the struggling bodies of the ducklings, and the bobbing downy heads alike. With quacking and wriggling and dabbling, the meal was eaten, and Alix, scraping the bowls for last fragments, and blinking in a flood of sunlight, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... he seems so blest, And leaves at six o'clock his downy nest, Dead to the charms of blanket, wife, and bolster; Unlike his officers, who, fond of cramming, And at reviews afraid of thirst and famine, With bread and cheese and ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... limbs; these are the chief characteristics of the Papuans. Their hair both in its nature and mode of arrangement varies a good deal. Most commonly it is dressed with great pains into a matted structure not less than eight inches in height; composed of a mass of soft downy hair curling naturally; or it is frizzed up, till it positively bristles, and with the assistance of a coating of grease, is plastered round the skull in the shape of a globe. A long wooden comb of six or seven teeth is also often stuck in, not so much to aid in keeping the mass together as to give ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... furrow beside some tufts of golden gorse. It may be interesting, however, to know, by way of completing their domestic history, that both had promising young households—the one of three, and the other of four—to support; and the wee downy children had arrived too at a very ravenous age, with any capacity for food, which indeed amounted, at times, on the part alike of father and mother, to ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... peaceful hush, broken only by the chiming of some distant church bells, and the faint, the very faint barking of dogs, enveloped everything and instilled in me a false sensation of security. Facing me was a diminutive glade padded with downy grass, transformed into a pale yellow by the lustrous rays of the now encrimsoned sun. Fainter and fainter grew the ruddy glow, until there was nought of it left but a pale pink streak, whose delicate marginal lines still ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... hours of undisturbed consecutive repose in the downy bed at the Mehadia hotel had made up the deficiency of sleep during the foregoing week, and drowsiness overcame us. I think we must have had a couple of hours of monotonous jog-trot on the fairly level road when I fell asleep, and I suppose ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... the small downy saxifrage [FN: Saxifraga nivalis.] with its white silky leaves covers the ground in early spring. In the fall, it is red with the bright berries and dark box-shaped leaves of a species of creeping winter-green, that ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... "Downy old bird!" said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the study. "He must have gone on a bend and been locked ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... your tiny toes. To find your breathing-place, And touch the downy horn that grows Each side your ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... would frighten and worry Mrs. Quack. So the dear, precious secret of Mr. and Mrs. Quack was kept, for not even Paddy the Beaver knew just where that nest was, and in due time, early one morning, Mrs. Quack proudly led forth for their first swim ten downy, funny ducklings. ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... scarcely know. But had you asked a little while ago, I should have said a camel; then your hump Dissolved, and you became a gosling plump, Downy and ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... discern. Not now can I be satiate with grace That gildeth but the superficial frame With the false tissue of deep-seeming life; The searching knife must pierce into the heart, And shew a frame veined with the same warm stream That melts in blushes on the downy cheek. My bright ideal, like the bow of heaven, Hath faded into nothingness, and made A blank upon the clouded sky of life. Can my soul live ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... (from which exuded an amber-coloured eatable gum), formed groves and thickets within it. A Capparis, a small stunted tree, was in fruit: this fruit is about one inch long and three-quarters of an inch broad, pear-shaped and smooth, with some irregular prominent lines. Capparis Mitchelii has a downy fruit, and is common in the scrubs. A small trailing Capparis, also with oblong eatable fruit, was first observed on a hill near Ruined Castle Creek, in lat. 25 degrees 10 minutes: we met with it frequently afterwards. We were encamped ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... certain, that, had the reality been less dreadful she would have been ashamed of the fuss she had made. She wanted only this final assurance that the boy was at home, safe and sound; then she would think of her own affairs. She watched the moths fly about the lantern, and when one poor downy pair of wings touched the hot, domed top and fell fluttering into the road, she bent forward and looked at it, wondering what she could do for it. To kill it would be the kindest thing,—to put it out of its pain. But some obscure connection of ideas made her shudder back ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... which appeal especially to the child's mind are the hen and chickens, the downy eider ducks, the family of red foxes, and the home of the muskrat. "Color in nature" is effectively illustrated by grouping together certain tropical fishes, minerals, shells, insects, and birds in such a manner as to bring out vivid red, yellow, ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... tumbling out of it. At first the rain pattered gently on the leaves overhead, and we congratulated ourselves on the snugness of our situation. There was something cheerful about this free life. We contrasted our condition with that of tired invalids who were tossing on downy beds, and wooing sleep in vain. Nothing was so wholesome and invigorating as this bivouac in the forest. But, somehow, sleep did not come. The rain had ceased to patter, and began to fall with a steady determination, a sort of soak, soak, all about us. In fact, it roared on the rubber ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... setting sun Is slowly rising in the west; The rapid rivers slowly run, The frog is on his downy nest. The pensive goat and sportive cow, Hilarious, leap ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... an effort, for he felt very stiff. "Me to hit the downy pillow, which ain't so soft after all, if it is made up of only air. But I'm dead tired, and want to rest the worst kind. Thank you, Tony, for helping me. Ain't used to be chased by a moss-back 'gator every day. Kind of gave me a bad five minutes, and I must have taken a little cold too. Now I'm ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... creeping vine, half transparent in their tempting lusciousness; the red cherries seemed, in the distance, like the burning brilliancy of a summer sunset struggling through the branches and tangled leaves that intervened; and the downy peach peered provokingly from amongst the sheltering green, where, all the summer long, it had stolen the first blush of saffron-vested Aurora, when seraph hands unbar the gates of morning, and the last ray of golden light that paused at the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... had better dispense with your company as soon as we have eaten a bite, and retire to it. On second thought, we will eat in it. Carnes, we will go to our downy couches at once and leave our substitutes in possession of the cabin. I trust, gentlemen, that things come out all right and that you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... bonnet, And nearly swallows two, An' 'twas their hat and her locket Gave me a pummy stew. Gave me a pummy stew Which near forgot can be, And for bonnet and a locket I'd lame a downy deed." ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and white is a very rare colour in terrestrial species of moderate size and inoffensive habits. The male, also, as described by Waterton, has a spiral tube, nearly three inches in length, which rises from the base of the beak. It is jet-black, dotted over with minute downy feathers. This tube can be inflated with air, through a communication with the palate; and when not inflated hangs down on one side. The genus consists of four species, the males of which are very distinct, whilst the females, as described by ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... it home, in cloths or blankets swung on their often already-burdened shoulders. Then comes the picking and cleaning process, and thawing the now frozen moss before their camp fires. Every leaf and twig must be removed, that nothing may hurt the little baby limbs. And now all is prepared; the sweet downy substance is spread out as pillow for the baby head, and both couch and covering for the rest of the body. Then the bag is laced up tight, making its small tenant as warm and cozy as possible; only ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... No. 7 (Pl. XI.) is made of the skin of a mink—Putorius vison, Gapp. White, downy feathers are secured to the nose, as an additional ornament. In this sack are carried the sacred objects belonging to its owner, such as colors for facial ornamentation, and the magic red powder employed in the preparation of hunters/ ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... have been some kind of a fairy, for we didn't mention kittens, but we wanted one, and here are two darlings," cried Polly, almost purring with delight as the downy bunches unrolled and gaped till their bits of pink tongues ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and occupied a ranch at the stage-road crossing of Lance Creek, midway between the Platte and Deadwood, in the very heart of the Sioux country. Boone was then well under thirty, graceful of figure, dark-haired, wore a slender downy moustache that served only to emphasize his youth, but possessed that reserve and repose of manner most typical ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... by spiders spun; With jacket wove of thistle's down; His trousers were of feathers done. His stockings, of apple-rind, they tie With eyelash from his mother's eye: His shoes were made of mouses' skin, Tann'd with the downy hair within." ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on his breast I lean my head, And breath my life out ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... impatience. To them I told my story with the brevity that I now recount it to you. They were intrigued greatly, and the sous-lieutenant struck me violently upon the back and said, ma foi, that I was a 'downy old bird,' It was a compliment tres 'bizarre mais tres aimable. I was, it appeared, an old bird of the downiest plumage. I had noted the name of the house, and the Inspector seized a Directory. 'We have suspected that house for some time,' said he. There ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... an African jungle or an Indian forest to hunt the tiger. One can lie in bed amid downy pillows and dream tigers as terrible as any in the pathless wild. I was a little girl when one night I tried to cross the garden in front of my aunt's house in Alabama. I was in pursuit of a large cat with a great bushy tail. A ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... she proved. Happily they were but a stone's throw from home, and it was not long before Nan was comfortably settled on the library lounge, luxuriously surrounded by all sorts of downy cushions and having her injured ankle bound in soothing cloths by the tenderest of hands. Delia, full of sympathy and the desire to help, was bustling about nervously, tripping over bandages and upsetting bottles of liniment, but meaning so well all the while ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... summer. Early in the season as it was, the sun was already drawing the colour out of the hills; the young green, hardly a week or two old, was darkening. Except the oaks. They were brilliance itself against the luminous gray-blue sky. So were the beeches, their young downy leaves just unpacked, tumbling loosely open to the light. But the larches and the birches and the hawthorns were already sobered by a longer acquaintance with ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wretch! canst thou expect to see The downy peach make court to thee? Or that thy sense shall ever meet The bean-flower's deep-embosom'd sweet Exhaling with an evening blast? Thy evenings then will all ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of eider ducklets Up in Heaven, above the blue, And they're dropping off their feathers,— And such downy feathers, too! ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... the wee birdies a pan of water, and placed in it some finely-shred lettuce, with grits and brown bread crumbs, not forgetting suitable food for the poor distracted hen. It was charming to hear the little happy twitterings of the downy babes, how they gobbled and sputtered and talked to each other over their repast, swimming to and fro as if they had been ducks of mature age and experience, instead of mere yellow fluffs of a day old; and, finally, they seemed ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... sat on a chair an inch or two higher than the rest, between two bundles. From the first, a huge heap of feathers and wings, she was taking the downy plumes, and pulling the others from the quills, and so filling bundle two littering the floor ankle-deep, and contributing to the general stock a stuffy little malaria, which might have played a distinguished part in a sweet room, but went for nothing here. Gerard asked her if he could ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... which signify wild cochineal and fine cochineal. The latter may be considered a cultivated product, its food and wants being carefully attended to, while the former is left in a natural state, and is less valuable. Wild cochineal is distinguished by having a woolly downy coat, which is not the case with the fine cochineal. The females, of which there are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred for each male, are marked by the absence of wings, and constitute the commercial article. They are generally killed by immersion in boiling water, ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... cathedral, blue and noble against the sky, was reflected in her, something of the fatality. What was, WAS. With all his young will he could not alter it. He saw her face, the skin still fresh and pink and downy, but crow's-feet near her eyes, her eyelids steady, sinking a little, her mouth always closed with disillusion; and there was on her the same eternal look, as if she knew fate at last. He beat against it with all the strength of ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Nymphs of Sion, as you go Arm'd with the sounding Quiver and the Bow, Whilst thro' the lonesome Woods you rove, You ne'er disturb my sleeping Love, Be only gentle Zephyrs there, With downy Wings to fan the Air; Let sacred Silence dwell around, To keep off each intruding Sound: And when the balmy Slumber leaves his Eyes, May he to Joys, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight:—"Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. And what am I that I should linger here, With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned To beauty, wasting these ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... the short grass. The old ones are in the process of the spring moulting; their thick, matted hair is peeling off in large flakes, like fragments of a ragged, moth-eaten coat. The young ones are covered with pearl-gray wool, soft and almost downy, like gigantic goslings with four legs. (What is the word for a young camel, I wonder; is it camelet or camelot?) But young and old have a family ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... tickled me so that I fell upon the floor. Then they raised a shout. We have cool nights here, sometimes, in the warmest weather, and we keep, on the foot-boards of our beds, cotton comforters, called delusions, because they are so downy and light. Two of the students took the Senior's comforter and laid it on me; then four of them sat down, one on each corner, to keep me underneath. I have told you that it was a sultry August day. ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... crooning its lullaby with one unceasing melody, lapped the island to sleep with a thousand soft touches of its wave's white hands. The vast sky, like the outspread azure wings of the brooding mother-bird, nestled the island round with its downy plume. For on the distant horizon a deep blue line betokened another shore. But no sound of quarrel or strife could reach the Island of Cards, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... plumage, the Cape pigeons were white and downy, with the head and wings striped with brown like butterflies, a large species of which they strongly resembled when flying away from the ship, with their ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... mortar for the building of the nest and the midges for the young brood? No, he does nothing; perhaps alleging the excuse of his relative weakness. But this is a poor excuse; for to cut out little circles from a leaf, to rake a little cotton from a downy plant, or to gather a little mortar from a muddy spot, would hardly be a task beyond his powers. He might very well collaborate, at least as labourer; he could at least gather together the materials for the more intelligent mother to place in position. The true motive ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... glutinous substance, which is impervious to water; in spring this melts, and the bud-scales are then cast off. The leaves are composed of seven radiating leaflets (long-wedge-shaped); when young they are downy and drooping. From the early date of its leafing year by year, a horse-chestnut in the Tuileries is known as the "Marronnier du 20 mars." The flowers of the horse-chestnut, which are white dashed with red and yellow, appear in May, and sometimes, but quite exceptionally, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... clouds sailed across the sky at intervals like downy feathers blown before a breeze; the flycatcher continued its chattering song to us, some bees hummed with a warm summer-like sound over ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... thank you, sir—how are you?" Foker replied, imperturbably. "I'm not clever, p'raps: but I am rather downy; and partial friends say I know what's o'clock tolerably well. Can I tell you the time of day in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blossom? Fragile, fairy thing, Poised upon slender tip, and quivering To flight! a flower of the fields of air; A jeweled moth; a butterfly, with rare And tender tints upon his downy wings, A moment resting in our happy sight; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. O dainty nursling of the field and sky. What fairer thing looks up to heaven's ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... that Miss Dagget's bed wuz jest the other side of the thin board partition. I sez, "Yes, Josiah, with weariness and a easy conscience, any bed will seem soft as downy ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... be cultivated most profitably in the region between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast. The beauty of freshly picked bush chinquapin nuts is not rivalled by that of any other kind of nut that I have ever seen. The exquisitely polished mahogany color comes out of a light downy cloud near the apex of the nut, dark as midnight for a moment and then shading through glows of lively chestnut until it dawns in a dreamy cream color at the base, with just enough suggestion of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more than ever. It was an era in the history of their race. The downy woodpecker found such a savory morsel under its bark, that he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree before he left it,—a thing which he had never done before, to my knowledge. It did not take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds were, and every winter eve she flew, and ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... said she, in a low voice, that sank into my very heart. "You will not forget me?" As she spoke, her hand dropped heavily upon my shoulder, and her rich luxuriant hair fell upon my cheek. What a devil of a thing is proximity to a downy cheek and a black eyelash, more especially when they belong to one whom you are disposed to believe not indifferent to you! What I did at this precise moment there is no necessity for recording, even had not an adage interdicted such confessions, nor can I now remember ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... advanced a few steps, and fell on her knees at her richly covered bed. Amid furniture, finished in yellow damask, on a downy bed, covered with cambric and lace, she raised her clasped hands, and said, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... it with a sense of physical satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm; it was scented with the aromatic odors of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she fancied that she had seen a sudden sign of feeling in Wyllard's face when he had held her for a moment on the ledge of the wagon. She glanced at him and was reassured. He was looking straight before him with unwavering ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... court of the prince. But the fame of Sylvina's beauty and charms spread far and near, and hundreds visited the prince who had never before been seen at his castle. Especially did there come gay young sparks, with downy moustachelets to twirl, and swords that tinkled at their heels; and so attentive were these crowds of gallants that Sylvina never had time even to think, else her thoughts might have gone back to her ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... very beautiful home on Riverside Drive, New York City, a young lady, comfortably backed by downy pillows, sat in her bed and alternated her attention between coffee and rolls, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... day came for Audrey to be admitted to that quiet room, and she saw Geraldine looking lovelier than ever in her weakness, with a dark, downy head nestled against her arm, a great rush of tenderness filled her heart, and she felt as though she had never loved ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Burrell held out. It was astonishing to witness the fortitude with which the fragile and delicate Jewess, who had been clothed in purple and fine linen, fed on the most costly viands, and slept on the most downy couch, encountered the illness, terrors, and miseries attendant on a sea voyage in the vessel of a Buccaneer. The Fire-fly certainly deserved every encomium bestowed upon her by her captain; yet was she not the most pleasing residence for ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... varieties, assuredly, in a state of nature, where the trees would have to struggle with other trees and with a host of enemies, such differences would effectually settle which variety, whether a smooth or downy, a yellow or ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Patricia, noting the downy line that penciled the corners of her firm mouth, hesitated to put an inquiry that could be delicate enough to indicate the faint moustache ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... can unassisted vision do? What, but recoil where most it would pursue; His patient gaze but finish with a sigh, When musing waking speaks the sky-lark nigh! Just starting from the corn she cheerly sings, And trusts with conscious pride her downy wings; Still louder breathes, and in the face of day Mounts up, and calls on Giles to mark her way. Close to his eyes his hat he instant bends, And forms a friendly telescope, that lends Just aid enough to dull the glaring light, And place the wand'ring ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... also a bright red fruit, which colours the thickets;[237] the styrax, famous for yielding the gum storax of commerce, grows towards the east end of Carmel, and is a very large bush branching from the ground, but never assuming the form of a tree; it has small downy leaves, white flowers like orange blossoms, and round yellow fruit, pendulous from slender stalks, like cherries.[238] Travellers in Phoenicia do not often mention the caper plant, but it was seen by Canon Tristram hanging from the fissures of the rock, in the cleft of the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... a wildcat on cold winter nights. Pete was wrong in his head like Paddy Ryan, only worse. As we passed we heard the faintest sounds, so we lay and looked, and there in the dark place under the roots, where the water was deepest, huddled some of the cunningest little downy wild ducks you ever saw. We looked at each other and never said a word. Leon chased them out with the hoe and they swam down stream faster than old ones. I stood in the shallow water behind them and kept them from going back to the deep place, while Leon worked to catch them. Every time he got one ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... beautiful; and wondering how even the land of the kara ghuz kiz, the material paradise of the Mohammedans, can possibly be more lovely. The contemplative young man is tall and slender, has large, dreamy, black eyes, a downy upper lip, a melancholy cast of countenance, and wears a long print wrapper of neat dotted pattern, gathered at the waist with a girdle ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... spoke unsuccess; no canker-bitten bud marked the cold finger of failure; for in that first rush of life all the earthborn host had set forth, if not equal, at least together. The primroses twinkled true on downy coral stems and the stars of anemone, celandine, and daisy opened perfect. Countless consummate, lustrous things were leaping, mingling, and uncurling, aloft and below, in the mazes of the wood, at the margins of the water. Verdant spears and blades expanded; fair fans ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... rewarded by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually get so absorbed in his wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, leaning forward with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of self-consciousness, as if he had been the snuffiest of old professors, and she a downy-lipped alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear, large gaze that at last he forgot to look away from it occasionally toward Lucy; but she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was proving to Maggie ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... minutes South; longitude 118 degrees East:— Marsdenia Leichardti, the climber with edible pods and milky sap, the seeds with a downy top, ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... me a little pleasurable emotion when I see in the autumn woods where the downy woodpecker has just been excavating his winter quarters in a dead limb or tree-trunk. I am walking along a trail or wood-road when I see something like coarse new sawdust scattered on the ground. I know at once what carpenter has been at work in the trees overhead, and I proceed to ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... staying at Nab's," said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan and opened his Daily Mail at its report of the robbery. "There was one thing Nab would have spotted like the downy old bird he always ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... neither sufficiently; of course, grow very fat at an early age; and when they have not this downy appearance, a comfortable idea, you will say, in a cold climate, they are not remarkable for fine forms. They have, however, mostly fine complexions; but indolence makes the lily soon displace the rose. The quantity of coffee, spices, and other things ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... through the woods, on some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to Spring. In the utter stillness and amid the rigid forms we listen with pleasure, and as it comes to my ear oftener at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate the author of it from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... phosphoric acid at all the degrees of hydration, and even by a current of carbonic acid. All these precipitates redissolve with an excess of acid, sulphuric acid excepted. Concentrated sulphuric acid forms an insoluble downy white precipitate, and the concentrated vegetable acids, with the exception of tannic acid, do not determine any precipitate. Cerealine coagulated by an acid redissolves in an excess of the same acid, but it has become dead and has no more action on the starch. The alkalies do not form any precipitate, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... see, and I will report it to the other lovely Maria, and 'twill be pretty to see the rapiers flash between the two. 'Tis not only the men carry dress swords, child. But I thought Miss Maria a downy nestling, with never a thought of repartee, till now. 'Tis born in us, child. It begins with our first word and is our ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... on the downy floor-cushion, I was strangely annoyed by the faint and distant howling of a dog. It seemed to come from the banquet room adjoining mine, or from the doctor's room on the other side. I called in the doctor, who said he heard nothing and had ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... of the mocking-bird still rang from the downy cradle of myrtle blossoms, and a whip-poor-will answered from a cedar in the churchyard, when the slamming of the parsonage gate startled the shy thrush that slept in the vines that overarched it, and Mr. Leigh came slowly up the walk, which was lined with purple and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... small except the hopes that she was stitching into it; they were so great that her heart could scarcely hold them. Nature was stirring everywhere. The seeds were springing in the warm earth. The hens were clucking to their downy chicks just out of the egg. The birds were flying hither and thither in the apple boughs, and there was one little home of straw so hung that Lyddy could look into it and see the patient mother brooding her nestlings. The sight ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... brocades and laces, And splendid porcelain vases, Enkindling strong desires, Most readily found buyers. In short, gold rain'd where'er he went— Abundance, more than could be spent— Dogs, horses, coaches, downy bedding— His very fasts were like a wedding. A bosom friend, a look his table giving, Inquired whence came such sumptuous living. 'Whence should it come,' said he, superb of brow, 'But from the fountain of ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... hung like diamond pendants from roof and balcony, and still the snow-flakes like downy feathers were falling lazily, as if they knew not whether to pause, ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... from top to bottom, where I fell upon a large mass of some soft substance, to which, in all probability, I owe my life. In a few seconds I recovered my senses, and what was my surprise to find that the downy cushion beneath, snored most audibly! I moved a little to one side, and then discovered that in reality it was nothing less than an alderman of Cork, who, from his position, I concluded had shared the same fate with myself; there he lay, "like a warrior ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... enterprise like this. Youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our purpose; for it would behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We had very young people with us, it is true,—downy lads, rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee; but these had chiefly been sent hither for education, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. Then we had boarders, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... we go up, up, up, And here we go down, down, downy, And here we go backwards and forwards, And here ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... build their nest? Robin Red Breast told me, First a wisp of yellow hay In a pretty round they lay; Then some shreds of downy floss, Feathers too, and bits of moss, Woven with a sweet, sweet song, This way, that way, and across: That's what Robin ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... soldier. Sir Everard would have fought twenty battles in the course of the month, if necessary, and yet not complained of the fatigue or severity of his service, provided only he had been suffered to press his downy couch to what is termed a decent hour in the day. But he had an innate and, perhaps, it may be, an instinctive horror of drills and early rising; a pastime in which the martinets and disciplinarians of the last century were very much ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... sweet! Under a flowery spray Downy heads and little pink feet Are cunningly tucked away! Along the shining furrows, The rows of sprouting corn Flash in the sun, and the orchards Are blushing red as morn; And the time o' the year for toil is here, And idle song and ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... living, and the hungry crows, in great crowds, called loudly the tidings of spring. But not long could they stop to sing, for the homes must be made, and soon from every tree and bush could be seen these dainty, downy nests, and in every nest the eggs, and in every egg a wonderful secret about which all the happy birds ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... man opprest with mental pain, The goods of Fortune have no power to please, Even Suicide has oft been known to stain The downy ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... Oriental hornbeam) principally differs from our native species in its smaller size, the lesser leaves with downy petioles, and the green, much-lacerated bractlets. It is a native of the south of Europe, whence it extends to the Caucasus, and probably also to China; the Carpinus Turczaninovi of Hance scarcely seems to differ, in any material point ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... to that gilded cabin the which gave upon the stern-gallery; and here, outstretched on downy cushions and covered by a ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... wriggle himself free of the psychic gravitations that invest him than the earth can shake herself loose of the sun, or he of the omnipotences that rivet him to the universe. If by chance one shoots a downy hint of wings, an instant feeling of contrast puffs him with self-consciousness: a tragedy at once: the unconscious being "the alone complete." To attain to anything, he must needs screw the head up into the atmosphere ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... the air, coruscating diamond dust. Underfoot, on the path beaten betwixt house and stable, the snow crunched and complained as they walked, and in the open where the mad winds had piled it in hard, white windrows. But in the thick woods it lay as it had fallen, full five foot deep, a downy wrapping for the slumbering earth, over which Bill Wagstaff flitted on his snowshoes as silently as a ghost—a fur-clad ghost, however, who bore a rifle on his shoulder, and whose breath exhaled in white, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... That haunts and horrifies her shrinking soul, And bursts in sighs and sobs and feverish prayers; And now, at last, the awful struggle ends, A sweet smile sits upon her angel face, And peace, with downy bosom, nestles close Where her worn heart throbs faintly; closer still As the death shadows gather; closer still, As, on white wings, the outward-going soul Flies to a home it never would have sought, Had a great evil failed to point the way. I see a youth whom God has crowned with ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... fitting a salad-green bodice on her elder daughter. That young woman's efforts to see her own spine, where her mother was distributing pins with solemn intentness, had dyed her face a somewhat unnatural red, but the hands that lay upon her downy arms were much whiter than those that hovered about her back. A dining-table, bearing the more permanent part of its outfit, was pushed into a corner of the room, and covered with a yellow mosquito-net, and from the kitchen came a sound of crockery accompanied by an occasional splash and a scraping ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... beholder was pleasant and cheering at first view, but a more critical observation would lead to the conclusion that there was too much of the voluptuous in the design and execution of the penciling. In one corner of the room was a door which opened into an inner room of small dimensions, in which was a downy couch, and all the paraphernalia of a luxurious and elegant bed-room. It was a place that contrasted very strangely with the misery and crime it had sheltered—with the tears of unavailing agony that had been wrung from eyes that sparkled above once ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... like softness with smaller branches and twigs. A similar but lighter platform overhead made him a roof that was anything but waterproof, and a few bushy branches served for walls. Such as it was, it was at least the beginning of a home. He loved it; and in defense of the little hairy brown mate and downy brown baby who shared it with him he would have fought both Dinosaur and Dinoceras with his ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... sewing resembles shoemakers' or saddlers' work; but, the leaf being like fine cloth and not like leather, perhaps the name "tailor-bird" is the most appropriate for the little worker. The bag is lined with soft, downy material, and in this the tiny eggs are laid—tiny indeed, for the tailor-bird is no larger than the hummingbird. The weight of the little creature does not even draw down the nest, and the leaf in which the eggs or young birds are hidden looks like the other leaves on the trees; so ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... paled again, beneath ruffle and ruffle of lace that lay like foam against the soft, snow-white throat. It was a symphony of colour. A perfect harmony of perfect tones in union with the brilliant fairness of her skin. The sleeves, half open to the elbow, revealed a white, rounded, downy arm, and the thousand subtle pink-and-white tints of her flesh seemed to melt and merge themselves into a bewildering, distracting glow within that rose-hued sleeve. She made one exquisite, intoxicating vision to the senses. ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... and falls constantly a black mist resembling shifting cloud smoke. Millions of auks swarm from their moss-ensconced grottos; an oppressive clamor beats the air. Along the ocean, where crevices of the descending iron-chiselled cliffs are fugitively green with ribbons of pale grass, downy-winged ducks purr, mating guillemots coo incessantly, and tremulous oogzooks chirrup ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... knows not if with that velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like a returning curve—with its steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths, like many a downy cloud which I have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its masses to the light—as if this traveling demigod, this cloud-compeller, would ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train; when I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the one in surgery and the other in cooking. There is a singular fruit, growing six or eight together in a bunch, each as long and thick as one's finger, the skin being of a brownish yellow colour, and somewhat downy, and within the rind is a pulp of a pleasant taste; but I know not if ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... a necklet of diamonds at her throat, to gather up her gloves and lace hand-kerchief and allow Janet to wrap her up in her downy opera cloak, and she was ready. As she turned from the glass her gaze fell fully upon me. I could see that she was not disappointed, but her generous admiration in no way interfered with the consciousness ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... primroses living in what Southerners call 'the cold grey North' were obviously enjoying themselves. Their smooth, pale-yellow faces opened wider, and grew larger and more golden, day by day: while new, soft, pointed buds came poking up through their downy green blankets in unexpected places. Moreover, the warm weather lasted right through the summer. Not only did far more primroses flower than usual, but also, after they had faded, there was plenty of warmth to ripen the precious seed packet ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... anxious love, Still to retain him near her heart she strove! For when the father's fond inquiry came, Cautious, she still concealed his birth and name, And feign'd a daughter born, the evil fraught With misery to avert—but vain the thought; Not many years had passed, with downy flight, Ere he, Tahmineh's wonder and delight, With glistening eye, and youthful ardour warm, Filled her foreboding bosom with alarm. "O now relieve my heart!" he said, "declare, From whom I sprang and breathe the vital air. Since, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... to die, and exclaiming that if he would live she would love him with all her heart. You can imagine that the chatelaine became still more enamoured while observing what a difference there was between a young knight like Jehan, white, downy, and agreeable, and an old fellow like Imbert, bristly, yellow, and wrinkled. This difference brought back to her memory that which she had found in the pleasure of love. Moved by this souvenir, her ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... arbors, grots, and flow'ry meads; There in soft murmurs interchange our souls; Together drink the crystal of the stream, Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields, And, when the golden evening calls us home, Wing to our downy nests, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... The thick downy clothing of some vegetables seems designed to protect them from the injuries of cold, like the wool of animals. Those bodies, which are bad conductors of electricity, are also bad conductors of heat, as glass, wax, air. Hence either of the two former ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... seemed so good a thing to the handmaid frightened the daughter. Violet set her tray down hastily on the nearest table, and ran to her mother's sofa. She looked at the pale and sunken cheek, just visible in the downy hollow of the pillows; she touched the hand lying on the silken coverlet. That marble coldness, that waxen hue of the cheek, told her the awful truth. She fell on her knees beside the sofa, with a cry of ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... lay white under its first coverlet of snow, the trees were draped in their winter mantles, their very bed had its downy quilt of snowflakes that had sifted through the branches of ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... through the wood, all the labyrinths of summer are buried beneath one white inviting pathway, and the pledge of perfect loneliness is given by the unbroken surface of the all-revealing snow. There appears nothing living except a downy woodpecker, whirling round and round upon a young beech-stem, and a few sparrows, plump with grass-seed and hurrying with jerking flight down the sunny glade. But the trees furnish society enough. What ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... displays such astonishing industry to give her eggs a dwelling-house of incomparable perfection, becomes, after that, careless of her family. For what reason? She lacks the time. She has to die when the first cold comes, whereas the eggs are destined to pass the winter in their downy snuggery. The desertion of the nest is inevitable, owing to the very force of things. But, if the hatching were earlier and took place in the Epeira's lifetime, I imagine that she would rival the ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... of Louis XIV., represented with a Roman helmet and a peruke interlaced with laurel-leaves. Behind this bust was a round window, which looked upon the staircase; and just in front of the pedestal was the downy cushion that served as a bed for Moumouth, who would certainly have been crushed if the bust had taken it into its head to ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... only two figures, a man and an angel, forth he starts in his full strength. I believe he must somewhere or another, the day before, have seen a kingfisher; for this picture seems entirely painted for the sake of the glorious downy wings of the angel,—white clouded with blue, as the bird's head and wings are with green,—the softest and most elaborate in plumage that I have seen in any of his works: but observe also the general sublimity obtained ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... of wool and cotton, of fur, and hair, and down, of hemp, flax, and silk:—microscope permissible if any cause can be shown why wool is soft, and fur fine, and cotton downy, and down downier; and how a flax fiber differs from a dandelion stalk, and how the substance of a mulberry leaf can become velvet for Queen Victoria's crown, and clothing of purple for the housewife ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... twelvemonth yet, although it seems ten years agone, since I blew the downy globe to learn the time of day, or set beneath my chin the veinings of the varnished buttercup, or fired the fox-glove cannonade, or made a captive of myself with dandelion fetters; for then I had ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... but one egg broke, and one tiny birdling died, but out of five eggs I have three fine young birds. Their names are Ganarra, Goldie, and Downy. They are hopping around on the perches now. The mother bird behaved so badly that I took her out of the cage, and now the father takes care of the little ones. Is such an action common on the father's ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... soft, downy cheek greedily, with the same ardour she had just been throwing into her own dreams ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... taste than I, father," she said. "You have been enjoying the beauty of nature, while I was lying on a downy pillow." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the feather beds were mother's measure of wealth. Before she was married she had begun saving for her first feather bed. It had taken a long time to acquire these two tickfuls of downy goose feathers. The bed is the foundation of the household. It is there that the babies are born. There sleep restores the weary toiler that he may rise and toil anew. And there at last when work is done, the old folks fall into a sleep that ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... ease Their pained hearts or aching heads, Nor fright nor bribe approaching death From glittering roofs and downy beds. ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... Miriam accompanied me, and on which occasion I am sure we were seen in our nightgowns, we finally went to bed. I won't say went to sleep, for I did not pretend to doze. All our side of the house had bars, except me; and the mosquitoes were unendurable; so I watched mother and Miriam in their downy slumbers and lay on my hard bed for hours, fighting the torments ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... girdle the downy feather of an eagle, stepped outside to the edge of the mesa and with a breath sent it beyond him into space. A current of air caught it and whirled it upwards in token that the prayer was ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... was richly and cosily furnished, the upholstery being of many tints, and both Betsy and Polychrome enjoyed resting themselves upon the downy divans after their ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... summer, Miss L—— came home from one of her rides, with a large basket closely covered; and what do you think it contained? Why, a great anxious mother-hen, all tawny-colored and white, with thirteen downy little chickens, who were frightened enough, and wondering where in the wide world they were. We made a house for them in the green meadow, of a barrel turned upside down; and they all crept under their mother's ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... joy illumined that wretched countenance like the last ray of the sun before it disappears behind the clouds which bear the aspect, not of a downy couch, but of a tomb. But as we have said, he waited in vain for his son to come to his apartment with the account of his triumph. He easily understood why his son did not come to see him before he went to avenge his father's ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sail from the East, Half-tippled at a rainbow feast. In the bright moonshine, while winds whistle loud, Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly, All racking along in a downy white cloud; And lest our leap from the sky prove too far, We slide on the back of a new falling star, And drop from above In a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dropped some of the mixture in the middle of the box, tapping lightly with the spoon to call the attention of the chicks to its presence. The chickens pecked hungrily, and there was a satisfied note in the twitterings of the downy little group as Mrs. Chamberlain turned to the ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there! She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then, from his mansion in the sun, She called her eagle bearer downy And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... indefatigable in visiting the sick, and preaching from house to house, settling churches in the villages, reconciling differences, and extending the sacred influences of the gospel, so that in a very short time he attained the appellation of Bishop Bunyan—a title much better merited by him than by the downy prelates who sent him to jail for preaching that which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
