"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... duty to keep a strict watch over the woman who had come to Guernsey to find Olivia. If possible I must decoy her away from the lowly nest where my helpless bird was sheltered. She had not sent for me again, but I called upon her the next morning professionally, and stayed some time talking with her. But nothing resulted from the visit beyond the assurance that she had not yet made any progress toward the discovery of my secret. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... say the Early Bird the Worm shall taste. Then rise, O Kitten! Wherefore, sleeping, waste The Fruits of Virtue? Quick! the Early Bird Will soon be on the Flutter—O ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten • Oliver Herford
... old yellow letter. It was one Father had taken from a drawer in the bookcase which he had cleaned out the night before. We patched the kite up with the letter, a sheet on each side, and dried it by the fire. Then we started out, and up went the kite like a bird. The wind was glorious, and it soared and strained like something alive. All at once—snap! And there was Claude, standing with a bit of cord in his hand, looking as foolish as a flatfish, and our kite sailing along at a fearful rate of speed over ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... permit within its limits factories to make bird skins or bird feathers into articles of ornament or wearing apparel. Ordinary birds, and especially song birds, should be rigidly protected. Game birds should never be shot to a greater extent than will ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... a pretty little bird that lives on honey. The saccharine dainty is there found in the hollows of trees and under the bark, where what is known as the carpenter bee bores and deposits his extract from the buds and ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... all birds ought to be so treated. He soon managed to get into the yard, where his mistress kept a few pet bantam fowls, and, after eating their eggs, he secured one of the hens, and began plucking it. The noise of the poor bird called some of the servants to the rescue, when they found the half-plucked creature in such a pitiable condition that they killed it at once. After this, Mr. Monkey was chained ...
— Minnie's Pet Monkey • Madeline Leslie
... Melantas. The two women had begun again to visit each other and to eat together; but though they had thus far relaxed their former habits of jealousy and variance, still, out of fear and as a matter of caution, they always ate of the same dishes and of the same parts of them. Now there is a small Persian bird, in the inside of which no excrement is found, only a mass of fat, so that they suppose the little creature lives upon air and dew. It is called rhyntaces. Ctesias affirms, that Parysatis, cutting a bird of this kind into two pieces with a knife, one side of which had been smeared ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... transient gleam Of Liberty, though 'twas but in a dream, They would no more in bondage bend their knee, But, once made freemen, would be always free. The Muse, if she one moment freedom gains, Can nevermore submit to sing in chains. Bred in a cage, far from the feather'd throng, The bird repays his keeper with his song; 490 But if some playful child sets wide the door, Abroad he flies, and thinks of home no more, With love of liberty begins to burn, And rather starves than to his cage return. Hail, Independence!—by true reason taught, How ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance, I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music—never touches the instrument—though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs. Jeffereys—Clara Partridge, that was—and of the two Milmans, now Mrs. Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has many things to call her attention. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... is! Strange as if a precious bird long waited for in the night were to suddenly fly down and peck at my ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... good grey horse, Within the wood he'll take his pleasure; His dreams from out his head he'll force By listening to the wild bird's measure. ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... stirred my heart. But we must not think of old times as sad times, or regard them as anything but the fathers and mothers of the present. We must all climb steadily up the mountain after the talking bird, the singing tree, and the yellow water, and must all bear in mind that the previous climbers who were scared into looking back ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... barter our good time with a friend, who gives us in exchange his own. Herein is the distinction between the genuine guest and the visitant. This latter takes your good time, and gives you his bad in exchange. The guest is domestic to you as your good cat, or household bird; the visitant is your fly, that flaps in at your window, and out again, leaving nothing but a sense of disturbance, and victuals spoiled. The inferior functions of life begin to move heavily. We ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... all—to "feather" them, to "season" bows, to chop trees, to burn, hollow, fashion and "man" a dugout canoe, to use the paddle, to gauge the wind and current of that treacherous Grand River, to learn wild cries to decoy bird and beast for food. Oh, little pagan We-hro had his life filled to overflowing with much that the civilized white boy would gave all his ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... the bosun. "They didn't 'ave no 'and in the plannin' of it. But to land that feller, Ichi—swiggle me stiff, if I 'ad my way, I land that blighter in the air, below the tops'l yardarm, with a bloomin' noose around 'is neck! Why, 'e was the ruddy bird wot started the business!" ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... delight, deep response, and then—the inevitable. Clear as a bell upon the midnight air was that call from soul to kindred soul. Assurance and longing and demand possessed her beyond all power to stay. The work she stood before now called to her as naturally and inevitably as the bird to its mate, as undeniably as the sea to the river, as potently as spring calls upon earth for its own, as autumn calls to summer for ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... at once that it must be a parrot, but the surprise had been so great that she stood shaking in the middle of the room, not daring to move for fear of stepping on the uncanny bird. She remembered that once when she was a very little girl she had confidingly held out her finger to a parrot and that the unfriendly creature had immediately taken a bite out of it. She wished that the light would come; it made her nervous to be in a dark room with only ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... day came, it was to shine upon the same broken and unsightly quarter of the world. Mile upon mile, and not a tree, a bird, or a river. Only down the long, sterile canyons, the train shot hooting, and awoke the resting echo. That train was the one piece of life in all the deadly land; it was the one actor, the one spectacle fit to be observed in this paralysis of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is but the glad rebound of the freed bird! I am so glad to have escaped from that dark prison of the Hidden House and to be here with you. But tell me, mamma, is ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... pleased when she saw what a fine bird Jack had bought; and the Gander showed more joy than I can describe. And then they all lived very happily for a long time. But Jack would often leave off work to dream of the lovely young lady whom he had rescued in the forest, and soon began to sigh all day long. He neglected the garden, ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... exclaimed, in an almost sepulchral voice, "What's up now?" The old man stared comically at the unexpected speaker, and then said, as he brushed the dust off his knees, "What's up now? why, you stupid old bird, there's a great deal that's up now. I'm up now, though I was down a minute ago. And Miss Julia as was and Master Walter's up now, for they're up on the landing a-laughing at me. And the dear old missus is up now; she's up in her room with master, and we don't want her to be down in spirits no ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... every living creature. She was devoted to Mrs. Smith, to Mr. Smith, to their dogs, cats, canaries; and as to Mrs. Smith's grey parrot, its peculiarities exercised upon her a positive fascination. Nevertheless, when that outlandish bird, attacked by the cat, shrieked for help in human accents, she ran out into the yard stopping her ears, and did not prevent the crime. For Mrs. Smith this was another evidence of her stupidity; on the other hand, her want of charm, in view of Smith's well-known ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... that we call a blue bird, You blend in a silver strain The sound of the laughing waters, The patter of spring's sweet rain, The voice of the wind, the sunshine, And fragrance of blossoming things, Ah! you are a poem of April That God endowed with wings. E. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... incidents as the death of Jemmy Dawson's sweetheart at the moment of his execution, later the subject of Shenstone's ballad. The vaporizings of the parrot were also largely inspired by the trials of the rebels, but the sagacious bird frequently drew upon such stock subjects as the follies of the gay world, the character of women, the unreliability of venal praise and interested personal satire, and the advantages of making one's will—the latter illustrated by a story. Somewhat more unusual was a letter from ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... 1800. William Bound, Joseph Bird, Churchwardens. For the better accommodation of the neighbourhood, this pump was removed to the spot where it now stands. The spring by which it is supplied is situated four feet eastward, and round it, as history informs us, the Parish Clerks of London in remote ages commonly ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... own most trusted advisers, and with the most profound statesmen of Europe, as to the opening campaign within a fortnight of a vast and general war, he was secretly plotting with his father-confessor to effect what he avowed to be the only purpose of that war, by Jesuitical bird-lime to be applied to the chief of his antagonists. Certainly Barneveld and his colleagues were justified in their distrust. To move one step in advance of their potent but slippery ally might be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fingers she made him the sign of birds flying home. And with the whimsy in his soul uppermost, Peter reflected, as he turned back for a microscopic examination of Henry Anderson's coat and the contents of its pockets, that there was one bird above all others which made him think of Linda; but he could not at the moment feather Katherine O'Donovan. And then he further reflected as he climbed the hill that if it had to be done the best he could do would be a bantam ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... was wandering by the side of the river, and he saw a large bird of prey rise from the earth, and give chase to a hawk that had not yet gained the full strength of its wings. From his youth the solitary Morven had loved to watch, in the great forests and by the banks of the mighty stream, ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... of ice and snow at the top, but in the bottom we found the early spring flowers blooming, and a settler at what is called the Indian Gardens was planting his garden. Here I heard the song of the canon wren, a new and very pleasing bird-song to me. I think our dreams were somewhat disturbed that night by the impressions of the day, but our day-dreams since that time have at least been sweeter and more comforting, and I am sure that the remainder of our lives will be the richer ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... quickly and fired. The huge bird sank as though hit, curved downward, and with one flap of his ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... and intention, as they imagined, to despatch the grant of their sought and wished-for indulgence. But before he would enter into any chat or communing with them, he commanded the casket to be brought unto him. It was done so accordingly; but, by your leave, the bird was no more there. Then was it that the pope did represent to their maternities how hard a matter and difficult it was for them to keep secrets revealed to them in confession unmanifested to the ears of others, seeing for the space of four-and-twenty hours they were not able to lay up in secret ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... "She's a bird, ain't she?" he grinned over his shoulder, his mind reverting to Lucy Lily. "Did she have on her ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... that the four corners should also be darkened, but the sage explained that it was desired to obstruct no more light than was absolutely necessary, and he said, anticipating Lord Dundreary, "A single pane can no more be in a line with itself than one bird can go into a corner and flock in solitude. The Abbot's condition was that no diagonal lines should contain an ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... come up from the House, where no one had spoken to him. Though grievously frightened during the last fortnight, he had not dared to be on the wing as yet. And, indeed, to what clime could such a bird as he fly in safety? He had not only heard,—but also knew very much, and was not prepared to enjoy the feast. Since they had been in the hall Miles had spoken dreadful words to his father. 'You've heard about it; haven't you?' whispered Miles. Lord Alfred, remembering his sister's ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... not in action. Now, his activity is all of the domestic order and all his thought goes to proving that nothing matters except that birth shall continue and woman shall rock in the nest of this globe like a bird who covers her eggs in some tall tree. Man is the fetcher, the carrier, the sacrifice, the crucified, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... himself, a person. But though, in the animistic stage, all powers are conceived by man as being persons, they are not all conceived as having human form: they may be animals, and have animal forms; or birds, and have bird-form; they may be trees, clouds, streams, the wind, the earthquake or the fire. In some, or rather in all, of these, man has at some time found the being or the power, greater than man, of whom he has ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... bird told it me," Morris replied jocularly. "But, anyhow, no jokes nor nothing, why shouldn't we go up and have lunch at the Heatherbloom Inn? And then you can come down and look at ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... any. If I begin suspecting different persons I may miss the real individual. As matters stand, I know where, sooner or later, I shall meet him under conditions which will identify him as the man I want. The trap is set and the bird will be caught. That ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... natural history, but he knew bird, beast, insect, and tree, with a friendly hearty intimacy, such as Cockney writers ascribe to peasants, but which they never have. While he used the homeliest names, a dish-washer for a wagtail, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... escaped from the steward's stores and was triumphantly disporting himself in the green water. The steward had offered a reward of half a dozen empty soda-water bottles to the person who would recapture the bird, and two boats were in hot pursuit, whilst little brown Arab boys kept diving in to try to swim down the agile duck, who, however, succeeded in dodging them all with a neatness and sense of humour that evoked much applause from the on-lookers. Marjorie heard afterwards ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... as he watched, and he knew that from that moment on, they were invisible from below—invisible to human eyes at least—that they were sweeping on through the darkness like some gargantuan night bird pursuing ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... employment of figures so homely—nay, almost so repulsive—that the man of lower powers who ventured on their use would find them effective in but lowering his subject, and ruining his cause. I need but refer, in illustration, to the well-known figure of the disembowelled bird, which occurs in the indignant denial that the character of the revolutionary French in aught resembled that of the English. "We have not," says the orator, "been drawn and trussed, in order that we ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... together in a river that he was about to cross. To kill oshidori is not good; but Sonjo happened to be very hungry, and he shot at the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into the rushes of the further shore, and disappeared. Sonjo took the dead bird home, and cooked it. ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... sewed industriously for weeks on quilts and coverings for the strikers. Some small children in a Wisconsin village were to have had a goose for their Christmas dinner, but hearing of little children who might have no dinner, sent the price of the bird, one dollar and sixty-five cents, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... they always thrive; for the German, above all others, loves to try his luck. There were streets of shanties, where various things were offered for sale besides cheese and sausages. There was a long line of booths, where images could be shot at with bird-guns; and when the shots were successful, the images went through astonishing revolutions. There was a circus, in front of which some of the spangled performers always stood beating drums and posturing, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... anything accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope of its military activity: the universe was its antagonist; its methods that of a projectile. It fought like the angels and devils, in mid-air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a parabolic curve and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle of incidence to make the most of its velocity and weight. Its momentum, calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible. It had been seen to destroy a four year ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Sugar Camp in peace we dwell And none is boastful of himself; None plots to gain with shot and shell His neighbor's bit of land or pelf. The roar of cannon isn't heard, There stilled is money's tempting voice; Someone detects a new-come bird And ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... hostility to God's will. "It did work at that rate for wickedness as it never did before." "The Canaanites would dwell in the land." "His heart hankered after every foolish vanity, and hung back both to and in every duty, as a clog on the leg of a bird to hinder her from flying." He thought that he was growing "worse and worse," and was "further from conversion than ever before." Though he longed to let Christ into his heart, "his unbelief would, as it were, set its shoulder to the door to ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... his lower whistle taking the tune while the E string crooned an obligato; he passed the house, went down the street to the Mortons' and came back and went home again, still trilling his heart out like a bird. As the chirping faded into the night sounds, the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... object or reason for its guide, but just a regular downright pig-headed sort of stupidity, that nobody could account for. He had a mouth like a bull, and would walk clean through a gate sometimes rather than be at the trouble of rising to leap it; at other times he would hop over it like a bird. He could not beat Mr. Buckram's men, because they were always on the look-out for objects of contention with sharp spur rowels, ready to let into his sides the moment he began to stop; but a weak or a timid ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... arranged straight branches. Leaves stellate, long, narrow, linear, 4-grooved. They have been compared to the tail of a horse and the tail of a certain bird—the casobar. Staminate and pistillate flowers greenish, on different parts of the same stalk. Staminate, in small aments. Pistillate on small globose aments; calyx proper of the floweret, a coarse scale; corolla none; ovary conical; styles ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... cellar, will get very white in the stems, and will bear no fruit. Be sure of this, that a religion which is dumb will very soon tend to lose its possession of the truth, and that if you carry that great gift hid away in your heart it will be like locking up some singing-bird in a box. When you come to open it, the bird will be dead. There are, I have no doubt, many whom I am now addressing whose religion has all but, if not entirely, ebbed away from them, mainly because they have all their days been dumb Christians. That ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fowl nor a finer, nor a better cooked one couldn't be," he said, as he laid down his knife and fork. "Not a bit o' dryness in the bird: juicy all through and as sweet as ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... be infected by Haemosporidia, and its blood show the presence of halteridia. This bird may also be the subject of a bacterial infection known as pigeon diphtheria; while the fowl may be subject to scabies and ringworm, or suffer from fowl cholera or fowl septicaemia—infections due to members of the haemorrhagic ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... Alexis. "Of course I am not afraid. But"—he eyed the large aeroplane dubiously—"but a man was not made to fly about in the air like a bird, particularly a man of my weight. Besides, I do not like great height. If I stand upon a precipice, I am immediately struck with the notion that I must jump off. If I jumped from an aeroplane I ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... of us would give much for you," said Henderson contemptuously. "Little fools, indeed! You know very well that you daren't lay a finger on the least of us, whether we're beneath your notice or no. An ostrich is a big bird, but its white feathers are chiefly of use in helping it to run away." He went to Eden's bedside, for the child was still sobbing with pain, and was evidently in a great state of ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... time Mary had not spoken, though the hand which William had taken in his trembled like an imprisoned bird; but when he came to speak of loving another, she involuntarily raised his hand to her lips, exclaiming, "It's ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... hard fact its force? A gleeful chuckle followed by a discordant crow dissipated doubt-the stone had been dislodged by an industrious scrub fowl raking on the brink of the ravine. A sense of fellowship with the harsh-voiced bird manifested itself. A transient sensation of relief—I had not been conscious of the least mental depression—followed the thought that in and about the ravine there were other living things besides myself and snakes. The death ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... aimed. There was a puff of smoke. The bird fell shot at the savages' feet, and the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... and the two soldiers nodded. The position lay before them like a bird's-eye view; and Concepcion, in whom Spain had perhaps lost a guerilla general, had only set eyes on the spot once ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... over fifty-five. He had spent all those forty years watching for his opportunity—aye, getting ready for it. When it came, his beak was sharpened, his talons keen as needles and strong as steel, and he swooped down upon that opportunity like a bird of prey. ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... up her head with a gallant air. "I will heed your advice in this matter. I will not trouble myself another moment; and I will love Brattahlid as a bird loves the cliff that hides it! And Thorhild? What if her nature is such that she is cross? She is no coward. She would defend those she loved, though she died for it. I should like to see Eric bid ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... passion. In no other way can I account for the life he led, lingering forever around the palace gates, where now and then he might get a glimpse of her who had been the light of his soul, the one bright bird which had cheered his exile's home. That home he wished no longer to see, and day after day he took his old station at the gates of Shushan, and looked upon the magnificent walls that divided him from all that had made life desirable. It seems also ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... said. "I want something to do." Just then he heard a robin singing in the rain. He tried to sing with the bird, as he had hummed with the machine, and was ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... a very little the next day. He painted still more the next, and yet more again the day following. He was like a bird let out of a cage, so joyously alive was he. The old sparkle came back to his eye, the old gay smile to his lips. Now that they had come back Billy realized what she had not been conscious of before: that for several weeks past they had not been there; and she wondered which hurt ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... the general theory and progress of evolution that the phenomenal stands to the noumenal, the actual to the ideal, as cause to effect. These two groups of experiences are alternate and coincident; and, as to priority, it is only the old question in a new form, as to which was first, the bird that laid the egg, or the egg that hatched ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... about it. We were to drive to Montmorency Falls, a place which is the chief attraction among the environs of Quebec. I had not been there since that memorable day when I rode there with the doctor to find my bird flown. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... and guided by knowledge; and it only appears to be weaker because the relation between it and other faculties has changed. The imagination of the savage seems powerful because his other faculties are weak. In the absence of knowledge it cuts the most astonishing capers, just as a bird would if it were suddenly deprived of sight. Now the savage is a mental child, and the ignorant and thoughtless are mental savages. They credit the absurdest stories, and indulge in the most ridiculous speculations. When religion ministers to their weakness, as it always ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... one shot as they were all sitting in a row on a rail. They were so frightened of me, it made 'em quail!! Wonderful transformation, wasn't it? But fact, all the same. Four-and-twenty quail All on a rail. Killed eighty "Koran," a Mahomedan bird, very scarce, and therefore bring in a considerable Mahomet, or, (ahem) profit? See? Shot a "Tittup"—so called on account of its peculiar action after drinking; also three early German Beerbirds, or, as the Dutchmen call them, "Spring-boks." There is another origin for this name, which is also ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... arrive, bringing with him in the back pocket of his coat some book that had just come out, and for a long time would not make up his mind to read, but would keep stretching his neck out on one side, like a bird, looking about him as though inquiring, 'could he?' At last he would establish himself in a corner (he always liked sitting in corners), would pull out a book and set to reading, at first in a whisper, then louder and louder, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... climb the richly decorated campanile that rises two hundred and twenty-five feet, which commands an unrivalled bird's-eye view of lower New York, the bay, Brooklyn, Long Island, and the mountains of New Jersey. All hoped to catch a glimpse of the "Majestic," but she was down the Narrows ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... And, continually, Thy life is changed and sweetened happily, Having no more than rose-leaf shade of gloom, O bird ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... gave it to Witig, saying: "For the sake of the brotherhood in arms which we swore when we met upon the journey, I give thee here thy sword Mimung. Take it and defend thyself like a knight". Then was Witig joyous as a bird at daybreak. He kissed the golden-hilted sword and said: "May God forgive me for the reproach which I hurled at my father, Wieland. See! Theodoric, noble hero! see! here is Mimung. Now am I joyous for the fight with thee as a ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... rolling in from the westward. He held the sheet in his hand, for there was now as much wind as the boat could look up to, and a sudden blast might at any moment send her over. That, too, Michael knew right well. On she flew like a sea-bird amid the foaming waves, now lifted to the summit of one, now dropping down into the hollow, each sea as it came hissing up threatening to break on board; now he kept away to receive its force on his quarter; now ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... road; Arm with sharp thorns the Sweet-brier's tender wood, And dash the Cynips from her damask bud; Steep in ambrosial dews the Woodbine's bells, 500 And drive the Night-moth from her honey'd cells. So where the Humming-bird in Chili's bowers On murmuring pinions robs the pendent flowers; Seeks, where fine pores their dulcet balm distill, And sucks the treasure with proboscis-bill; 505 Fair CYPREPEDIA with successful guile Knits ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... possibility of existence, except when helped by charity,—is an obsequious devotee at the altar of Mammon. The chattel-mortgage shark, who watches all the necessities of the poor as anxiously as ever a hawk watched over a helpless or crippled bird, and the liquor-seller, who fills his coffers by a traffic which injures and destroys the health, the intelligence, and the morality of all the people whom he can draw into his net, investing all his cunning in methods to entrap the unwary, and gloating over the increasing appetite ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... start, in particular, take care that you do not tire your horses or yourselves. For yourselves, very likely ten miles will be enough for the first day. It is not distance you are after, it is the enjoyment of every blade of grass, of every flying bird, of every whiff of air, of every cloud that hangs upon ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... "If I lie on my back and see a bird fly in the uniformly blue heaven, I recognize the movement although I have no object with which to compare it. This can not be explained by the variety of points on the retina which are affected, for ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the poet touched the bird, It swelled to stature regal; And when her cloud-wide wings she stirred, A whisper as of doom was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... circumstances which hem it around cast over the surface of that young life an abiding gloom. A melancholy child! What an anomaly among the harmonies of the universe; something as incongruous as a bird drooping in a cage, or a flower in a sepulchre. The musical laughter muffled and broken; the spontaneous smile transformed to a sad suspicion; and the austerities of mature life, the fearful speculation, and forecast of evil, fixed ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... commonplace that men are all agreed in using symbols, and all differ about the meaning of the symbols. It is obvious that a Russian republican might come to identify the eagle as a bird of empire and therefore a bird of prey. But when he ultimately escaped to the land of the free, he might find the same bird on the American coinage figuring as a bird of freedom. Doubtless, he might find many other things to surprise him in the land of the ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... own breasts. St. Gregory relates, that while St. Bennet was employed in divine contemplation, the fiend endeavored to withdraw his mind from heavenly objects, by appearing in the shape of a little black-bird; but that, upon his making the sign of the cross, the phantom vanished. After this, by the artifices of this restless enemy, the remembrance of a woman whom the saint had formerly seen at Rome, occurred to his mind, and so strongly affected his imagination, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the tip of the wing of a bird, and inserted upon that part which represents the hand ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... of an express train, Mr. Schwab saw the white front of Claremont, and beyond it the broad sweep of the Hudson. And, then, without decreasing its speed, the car like a great bird, swept down a hill, shot under a bridge, and into a partly paved street. Mr. Schwab already was two miles from his own bailiwick. His surroundings were unfamiliar. On the one hand were newly erected, untenanted flat houses with the paint still on the window panes, and on the ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... suddenly started up, rubbed his eyes, and sprang upon deck like a man alarmed. He had heard, or fancied he had heard, a cry. A voice once well known and listened to, seemed to call him in the very portals of his ear. At first he had listened to its words in wonder, entranced like the bird by the snake, the tones recalling scenes and persons that had once possessed a strong control over his rude feelings. Presently the voice became harsher in ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... breeze of April, Breathing soft as May draws near, While, through nights of tranquil beauty, Songs of gladness meet the ear: Every bird his well-known language Uttering in the morning's pride. Reveling in joy and gladness By ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... dear!" sighed Mrs. Peckover, "I wish I'd seen her then! She was as happy, I dare say, as the bird on the tree. But there's one thing I can't exactly make out yet," she added—"how did you first come to know all ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... yielded, submitted. In another moment she would have made full confession, when suddenly the harsh cry of a frightened bird near at hand broke up the sleepy harmonies and scattered the compelling charm. Leam started, flung back her head, opened her eyes wide and fixed them full on her inquisitor. Then she stiffened herself as if for a personal resistance, passed her hands ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... pike: "Tell your king," said he, "in what occupation you left me engaged."[*] He had conceived great affection and esteem for the brave Sir Walter Raleigh. It was his saying, "Sure no king but my father would keep such a bird ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... since at the altar's foot, Whose crannies are searched by the nightshade's root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass In midnights unholy his witches' mass, Or shouting "Ho! ho!" from the belfry high As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by; But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... had been dry for some time, I could not pick any worms, so I thought of killing some bird or other small animal, whose flesh would answer for bait. Not falling in with any birds, I determined to seek for a rabbit or a frog. To save time, I lighted a fire, put my water to boil, spread my hide and blanket, arranged my saddle for a pillow, and then went in search of bait, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... horrible at all, only very thin, with full lips and large eyes and a thin proud nose like the jutting beak of a bird. And no radiation welts or scars marred the skin, olive in the tempered moonlight. It looked, in fact, just as it had when she had seen ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... put in a private room; this ward is so full already, and there'll be more coming right along. A boy who wears velvet and feathers must belong to some rich family, who'll gladly pay for every attention. Poor, little, bedraggled bird of paradise!" ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... the hands of the Juge d'Instruction. It is much the same, isn't it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, and what ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... qualm, which they dispel with brandy, and then humorously rally one another on their mutual degeneracy. She often stops me in the walk, and, pointing to the captain, says, 'My husband, though he is become a blackguard jail-bird, must be allowed to be a handsome fellow still.'—On the other hand, he will frequently desire me to take notice of his rib, as she chances to pass.—'Mind that draggle-tailed drunken drab,' he will ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the other was in a moment, and clasped hands in greeting, as well as they could with the one, and the other receiving bird-cages, handbags, umbrellas, and rugs from Agatha, whom, however, Lance relieved of them with a courteous, "Miss Prescott! You have come in for the arrival of my Australian sister! What luggage have you?" Wherewith all was absorbed in the recognition of boxes, and therewith a word ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which she sat was close to the edge of the water. Overhead the spreading boughs of an elm protected her from the sun; a little bird, hidden among the leaves, gave out a clear note now and then. Elsie, feeling a sense of comfort stealing into her heart unawares, began to listen to the bird. The bunch of carnations ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... us, mounted on another donkey this time—'borrowed,' as he put it—which showed he was a person of resource. 'By Allah, I can shoe a horse and cook a fowl; I can mend garments with a thread and shoot a bird upon the wing,' he told me. 'I would take care of the stable and the house. I would do everything your Honour wanted. My nickname is Rashid the Fair; my garrison is Karameyn, just two days' journey from the city. Come in a day or two and buy me out. No matter for the ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... swallows, skim the main, And bear my spirit back again Over the earth, and through the air, A wild bird ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Sim'org, a bird "which hath seen the world thrice destroyed." It is found in K[^a]f, but as Hafiz says, "searching for the simorg is like searching for the philosopher's stone." This does not agree with Beckford's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the shape of a great bird, which the West Highlanders called the Boobrie, who has a long neck, great webbed feet with tremendous claws, a powerful bill hooked like an eagle's, and a voice like the roar of an angry bull. The lochs, according to popular fancy, are ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... light—at first a dim, spectral shadow, scarcely to be recognized; then, almost as suddenly, revealed in all its details—a boat of size, flying toward us under a lug sail, standing out hard as a board, keeling well over, and topping the sea swells like a bird on wing. 'Twas a beautiful sight as the craft came sweeping on before the full weight of the wind, out from that background of gloom into the yellow glare of the torch, circling widely so as to more safely approach ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... is for the forbidden quarry; but this is one of many libellous accusations. The cat, though she has little sympathy with our vapid sentiment, can be taught that a canary is a privileged nuisance, immune from molestation. The bird's shrill notes jar her sensitive nerves. She abhors noise, and a canary's pipe is the most piercing and persistent of noises, welcome to that large majority of mankind which prefers sound of any kind to ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... was scalded or blistered and when at length the great bronzed bird was borne from the oven a procession of exultant children followed in the wake of the huge platter, every one of them shouting for ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... novelty of the scene had vanished, I descended from my perch to explore this sleepy hollow: the barn door hung suspended on a single hinge, like a bird with but one unbroken wing to soar upon. The swallows twittered their love-songs under the eaves; chipmunks scolded my intrusion and threw nuts at my head from the beams; a lone, lorn hen proclaimed her triumph over a new laid egg, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... sticks on Sunday, and then scoffing about it, and he has been there ever since. But Mother made us a new fairy tale about the nightingale in Mary's Meadow being the naughty woodcutter's only child, who was turned into a little brown bird that lives on in the woods, and sits on a tree on summer nights, and sings to its father up in ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... disappointed at this last revelation. Miss Tancred was independent. Up till now he could not bring himself to believe in her flight; he did not want to believe in it; it would have been a relief to him to know that the strange bird's wings ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... prophetic, for at that moment Mrs. Ames hurried into the room, a wiry, spare old woman with a small hooked nose and a jaw like a nut-cracker. The skin of her face was yellow and deeply wrinkled, her eyes were those of a fierce, untamed bird, and she was gowned—swathed is the more suitable word—in rusty black with a quantity of dangling ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... colour of the bird was white, with a slight pinkish flush; but the neck, breast, and hind part of the tail were deeply stained with crimson. Its most remarkable feature, however, was its beautiful crest, which it ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... last of glasses, and I find him still the same ingenuous man that ever he was, and do among other fine things tell me that by his microscope of his owne making he do discover that the wings of a moth is made just as the feathers of the wing of a bird, and that most plainly and certainly. While we were talking came by several poor creatures carried by, by constables, for being at a conventicle. They go like lambs, without any resistance. I would to God they would ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... trembled thro' the trees, Nor sparkling quiver'd on the inconstant seas; Nor yet the moon illumed the solemn scene: The fields were silent, and the heavens serene. The sheep had sought the fold; nor yet arose Night's listless bird from her dull day's repose. When in a vale with shadowy firs replete, Whose broad boughs rustled thro' the dark retreat, Beneath a pine that sunk to slow decay, Unseen, Gustavus pass'd the hours away. From earliest ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker |
