"Canary bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whether any player ever possessed a more wonderfully trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... Paris. She can drink milk like a real baby. Lucy is a fine young lady. She has on a dainty lace dress and satin slippers. Poor old Nancy is growing old and very feeble. She is almost an invalid. I have two tame pigeons and a tiny canary bird. Jumbo is very strong and faithful. He will not let anything harm us at night. I go to school every day I am studying reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and language. My Mother and teacher send you and Mrs. Hale their kind greetings ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... sister) that you've been pretty horrid about writing him, and he's been blue-black at not getting letters from you; but at present he is having a good time with a very jolly girl from the West who is at their hotel. Chirp him something cheerful, Canary Bird. If I were younger or Billy older you shouldn't have him. I'd have him myself. I'm not going to stand for bad treatment of him, and if those Southern boys who make love to every pretty girl they see, and make it better than any boys on earth, ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... Well, my little canary bird didn't wink at me all night, as I feared it might in the last story, and my alarm clock said "good morning" to me at half-past fourteen o'clock, so I got up in time, and here is the story I wrote before I went out into the garden to eat ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... Stacey's salary. And she never, under any circumstance, gave more, no matter how urgent the appeal. She was suspected of being a miser. There was nothing else of which she could be suspected. So far as any one knew in Jordantown, she permitted herself only one luxury: this was a canary bird, not yellow, but green. It was a very old bird, as canaries go. Somebody once said: "Old Sarah's making her canary last as long as possible!" Every night when she retired to her room, she took the cage in with her, hung it above her bed on ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... popularity—and this device is again employed in the second volume (Part VII). Wilhelmine Arend is one of those whom sentimentalism seized like a maddening pestiferous disease. We read of her that she melted into tears when her canary bird lost a feather, that she turned white and trembled when Dr. Braun hacked worms to pieces in conducting a biological experiment. On one occasion she refused to drive home, as this would take the horses out in the noonday sun ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... innocent Dicky Farnham, who's probably still congratulating himself, like a canary bird that's got out of a cage. Somehow Dicky's always reminded me of a canary; perhaps it's his name. Isn't it odd that she should be ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reply, almost girlishly, "I am from Baltimore. I drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop, the canary bird ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... lower orders of creation, as a young loving girl. In a corner of this quaint old garden, two tiny monuments are affixed to the wall, one chiselled perhaps by Hogarth's own hand, to the memory of his canary bird! The thinking character of the painter's mind is evidenced in this as in every thing he did—the engraving on the tomb suggesting reflection. Charles Lamb said of him truly, that the quantity of thought which he crowded into every picture, would alone "unvulgarize" ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Cooped up like a canary bird, or penned up and fattening like a hog, with his enormous eating capacity and vast intestinal storage space, poor man has matters made worse by having his several orifices liable to inflammatory invasions. He does not seem able to escape from ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... settle your neck back on a head rest that's every bit as comfortable as an anvil, and just as a dentist climbs into you as far as the arm pits and begins probing at the bottom of a tooth which has roots extending back behind your ears, like an old-fashioned pair of spectacles, that the canary bird should wipe his nose on a cuttle bone and dash into a melodious outburst of two hundred thousand twitters, all of them being twitters of the same size, shape, and color. For that matter, I don't even know what kind of an animal a cuttle is, although I should say from ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... of us could very well blame the old gentleman for not wanting to trust us with a quarter of a million dollars while he was up a tree like a canary bird; and so Tom or I didn't say what was in our minds, which was to bury it somewheres. In fact, there was a longish silence, till I suggested using some two-inch iron pipe I had at home, instead of the light boat spars Tom had cut ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... must be nice folks," said Fido to himself, "for their feather-beds look big and comfortable, and their baskets are all ample and generous,—and see, there goes a bright gilt cage, and there is a plump yellow canary bird in it! Oh, how glad Mrs. Tabby will be to see it,—she so dotes on dear little ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... a Canary bird this morning, January 28, 1772, at the house of Mr. Harvey, near Tutbury, in Derbyshire, I was told it always fainted away, when its cage was cleaned, and desired to see the experiment. The cage being taken from the ceiling, and its bottom drawn out, the bird ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Elsie?" cried the widow, with vivacious affection, shaking her gay plumage like a canary bird ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... over the way or not. Other changes had come to pass too. The Major, standing in the shade of his own apartment, could make out that an air of greater smartness had recently come over Miss Tox's house; that a new cage with gilded wires had been provided for the ancient little canary bird; that divers ornaments, cut out of coloured card-boards and paper, seemed to decorate the chimney-piece and tables; that a plant or two had suddenly sprung up in the windows; that Miss Tox occasionally practised ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... pride to the plan which was to give her a fresh and rather imposing start in the world. She was to have a full year in which to determine whether she should accept toil and poverty as her lot, or emulate the symbolic example of Dicky the canary bird. At the end of the year, unless she did as Dicky had done, her source of supplies would be automatically cut off and she would be entirely dependent upon her own wits and resources. In the interim, she was a probationary person of leisure. It had ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Tom, contritely, restoring the table to its equilibrium with great difficulty; "I'm more out of place in a lady's parlor than an owl in a canary bird's cage." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... country, Private Canary Bird Pee-wee," she said. "Now you see what the Girl Scouts of America can do. Maybe sometime you'll want to know how to break through hostile territory and then you'll remember Dora Dane Daring, won't you? Do you think I'm afraid ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... been living with her brother, and they'd watched the boy always, as her husband had tried to steal him before. I judge that man was worse than a street railway promoter. It seems he had spent her money and slugged her and killed her canary bird, and told it around that ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... the collection of animals. There were two grown-up goats, named Captain Kidd and Mrs. Cream; two baby-goats, Peaches and Strawberry; a mother cat named Chicago, because she was smoke color, and her three kittens, Texas, California, and Pennsylvania. Next was the canary bird, Pitty-Sing, and last, but not least, five horn-toads which were nameless, but who lived peacefully together in a box with ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... do him no good, Phil. He is like a cat watching a canary bird beyond his reach. I don't think ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... a token there shall be no more war. And the figure in what he considers the chemise is the genius of Liberty holding out an olive branch with one hand, while upon her shoulder rests an American eagle screaming defiance at the enemies of his country, who are seen fleeing in the distance. Canary bird! small boys! ballet-girl! The man is crazy, sir; stark, staring mad. And now I want you to write up an explanation for me. This kind of thing exposes me to derision. I can't stand it, and, by George! I won't! I'll sue ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... for you," she responded, "The rain is no more to me than it is to a red squirrel, but you, poor canary bird, your yellow head should be ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... we're going to be. [Suddenly breaking out.] Oh, Loretta, if you only knew how I've suffered. That first night I didn't sleep a wink. I haven't slept much ever since. [Hudges chair forward.] I walk the floor all night. [Solemnly.] Loretta, I don't eat enough to keep a canary bird alive. Loretta . ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... Miles Merryweather, six children, cook, housemaid and seamstress, two dogs, two cats (at least the basket mewed, so I infer cats), one canary bird, and fourteen trunks." ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... a tight one," said Billy, jerking his hand in the direction of the guardian of the free lunch. "I scoops up about a good, square meal for a canary bird, an' he makes me cough up half of it. Wants to know if I t'ink I can go into the restaurant business on a fi'-cent schooner ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I've tuned my sad bazoo, Stringing my pipe-dream off as it occurred, And as I've tipped the straight talk every word, If you don't like it you know what to do. Perhaps you think I've handed out to you An idle jest, a touch-me-not, absurd As any sky-blue-pink canary bird, Billed for a record season ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... something else I missed in these beautiful chambers—the usual obtrusive, caressed and pampered pet animal of a great lady. No paroquet, no monkey, no little, silken-haired lap-dog, no St. Bernard or Newfoundland dog, no cat, not even a little canary bird, was to be met with; and not a single flower, real ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... Thompson's the jewel!" cried Mrs. O'Callaghan on Monday evening. "She do be sayin' that Larry's a cute little fellow, and she has him in to play where she is, and he gets to hear the canary bird sing, so he does. Didn't I be tellin' you, Pat, that I knew there was them in this town would help me that way? But what makes you all look so glum? Didn't you foind the school foine the day? Niver moind! You ain't acquainted yet. And jist ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... young man said I was a lyer, and knockt me off the platform. Not quite satisfied with this, he cum and trod hevly on me, and as he was a very muscular person and wore remarkable thick boots, I knew at once that a canary bird wasn't walkin' ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... great wings whenever he attempted to rise. The thick, tough skin of the big frog was not easily damaged, but Dorothy feared for her champion and by again using the transformation power of the Magic Belt she made the dove grow small, until it was no larger than a canary bird. ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... finished, Polson?' 'Yes, dear. That's about all, I think. You see, I know you, Irene. You'll grizzle if you think I'm grizzling. That's your nature. You can't bear to think of a canary bird in pain.' ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... made a member of the family, but still she was a prisoner. Such captives were greatly prized in those days as presents for ladies of high rank, who kept them as pets, just as they would, at the present day, a beautiful Canary bird or a favorite pony. They often made intimate and familiar companions of them, and dressed them with great elegance, and surrounded them with every luxury. Still, notwithstanding this gilding of their chains, the poor captives usually pined away ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... except in thinking that she was peculiarly unfortunate. Every one who keeps pets might tell the same tale as Hinda. I recollect once a Canary bird died, and my young people were in a great tribulation; so to amuse them we made them a paper coffin, put the defunct therein, and sewed on the lid, dug a grave in the garden, and dressing them out in any remnants of black we could find for weepers, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... stop at a garden where coffee is sold in pots. The proprietor furnishes the coffee, the cups, the spoons and, in normal times, the sugar, two pieces to each cup; and the patrons bring their own cake. They put one piece of sugar into each cup and take the other pieces home to the "canary bird," meaning the sugar bowl ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... I don't eat enough to keep a canary bird alive, and yet I grow fatter and fatter all the time. I don't believe anything can be done for me. We all have our afflictions, and I suppose we ought to bear them with fortitude. I wouldn't mind for myself, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... to the passing street-sweeper that picked it up. But had there been no passer-by to pick it up, it would have been thrown into the river. One day Mme. de B—, being with the Prince de Conti, hinted that she would like a miniature of her canary bird set in a ring. The Prince offers to have it made. His offer is accepted, but on condition that the miniature be set plain and without jewels. Accordingly the miniature is placed in a simple rim of gold. But, to cover over the painting, a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to hold on her bonnet with her chin, though it slipped back farther and farther. Somehow a great many women in the car looked very warm and wretched in thick woolen gowns and unsteady bonnets. Nobody looked as if she were out on a pleasant holiday except one neighbor, a brisk little person with a canary bird and an Indian basket, out of which she now and then let a kitten's head appear, long enough to be patted and then tucked ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... shown into a neat sitting-room, where a canary bird "fluttered" his hanging cage up and down. A rose was pinned on one of the white curtains. The room was warmed by a stove, and through the isinglass the playful flame could be seen. She brought a "tidied" rocking-chair, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play. On board he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight: an elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money or the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne |
