"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aught to say, woman? Thou silly straw, thou feather, who didst think to float towards thy passion's petty ends, even against the great wind of my will! Tell me, for I fain would understand. Why didst thou ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... (natural order Amarantaceae) contains several well-known garden plants, such as love-lies- bleeding (A. caudatus), a native of India, a vigorous hardy annual, with dark purplish flowers crowded in handsome drooping spikes. Another species A. hypochondriacus, is prince's feather, another Indian annual, with deeply-veined lance-shaped leaves, purple on the under face, and deep crimson flowers densely packed on erect spikes. "Globe amaranth'' belongs to an allied genus, Gomphrena, and is also a native ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... taken off and the guests were all seated at the table the supper went swimmingly. The oysters were delicious, the salad sufficiently "chunky" to please Roger, the biscuits as light as a feather and the fruit melange as good to look at as ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... active life on the morning after the party from Cannes arrived in Paris, and she hastened to emphasize the fact of her return to complete health by the unusual effort of coming down to breakfast. She was in high feather, and her cheery conversation lifted, to some extent, the gloom which had settled on her young friends. While exhorting to patience she was full of hope, and dismissed as chimerical all the darker explanations which the disconsolate ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... of a Nursery—generally overlooked. Its walls—ceiling—windows—chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition. Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c. Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs. "Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... us inside, and we proceeded on our quixotic search for a topi not entirely hideous. Half an hour later we came out of the shop, the shopman more obsequious than ever, not only wearing topis, but laden with boxes of Turkish Delight, ostrich-feather fans, tinsel scarves, and a string of pink beads which he swore were coral, but I greatly doubt it. We had an uneasy feeling as we bought the things that perhaps we were foolish virgins, but before the afternoon was very old we were sure of it. You wouldn't ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... no one was more surprised than Blasco when he suddenly found himself a lion in our literary arena instead of in his accustomed role of bull in his home ring. And those who know say that you could have knocked his compatriots over with a feather when the news came that old man Ibanez's son had made good in the United States to the extent of something ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... moccasins of soft tanned deer-skin, and a head-dress made of many tightly-wound crimson handkerchiefs bound together by a broad, thin band of polished silver. In the turban, now dyed a richer hue from the blood flowing from the warrior's shoulder, was stuck a large eagle feather, the insignia of a chief. At his feet, where he had crumpled down under the enemy's bullets, lay the Indian lad in a huddled heap. It did not need the tiny eagle feather in the diminutive turban to convince Charley's observant eye that it was a case of father and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the difficulty of coming untarnished from contact with the actions and criticisms of a crooked and perverse generation is emphasised by the very fact that such blamelessness is the first requirement for Christian conduct. It was a feather in Daniel's cap that the president and princes were foiled in their attempt to pick holes in his conduct, and had to confess that they would not 'find any occasion against him, except we find it concerning the laws of his God.' God is working in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Practically she always wore evening dress except in the evening, so while at her own flat in the afternoon she was photographed in a decolletee tea-gown, this evening she was dressed as if for Ascot, except for the hat, with an emaciated feather boa and a tired embroidered crepe de Chine scarf thrown over her shoulders, also a fan, long gloves, and a rose in her hair by way of hedging. To these ornaments she added a cold, of which she complained as soon as she saw the other guests. But no one listened. ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... was a chart of the Pacific Islands," answered Brown. "Put a feather with a fossil and a bit of coral and everyone will think it's a specimen. Put the same feather with a ribbon and an artificial flower and everyone will think it's for a lady's hat. Put the same feather with an ink-bottle, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... victorious; and Count Louis with difficulty escaped by hiding himself at Bruges in the house of a poor woman who took him up into a loft where her children slept, and where he lay flat between the paillasse and the feather-bed. On leaving this asylum he went to Bapaume to see his son-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, and to ask his aid. "My lord," said the duke to him, "by the allegiance I owe to you and also to the king you shall have satisfaction. It ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... adopted, and was adopting, for the benefit of all who became Chartists. He anticipated great results from his scheme of labour palaces—denied the propriety of being placed in the election returns as a feather in the quill of Whiggery—was an earnest advocate for the amelioration of Ireland, and still willing and determined to agitate for their cause. He would go to parliament, and record his first motion for 'The people's charter, and no surrender.' ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... stiffened her little body, and—waited. But the Man pausing to light his pipe, Emmy Lou, in the sudden respite thus afforded slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... myself had gotten into the melee early in the action, and my feather had been cut out of my hat by a sabre stroke which a big blue worthy aimed at me. This was my only accident, however. In fifteen minutes I had the pleasure of seeing ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... "There, stroke it down, a long white feather in a shady hat trimmed with dark green, velvet; she is fresh and rosy, you know, sir, and looks well in green, and then, is it Grace's taste, Rachel? for it is the prettiest thing you have worn—a pale buff sort of silky thing, embroidered all over in the same colour," ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... same place we have already had the honor of describing to our readers; we shall therefore satisfy ourselves with naming it. The first thing D'Artagnan perceived after the fine trees, the May sun gilding the sides of the green hills, the long rows of feather-topped trees which stretched out towards Compiegne, was a large rolling box, pushed forward by two servants and dragged by two others. In this box there was an enormous green-and-gold thing, which went along the smiling glades of ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from the standing of the Quinceys. But the old lady had completely identified herself, not only with the Moons, but with the higher branch, which she always spoke of as "my family." In fact she had worn her connection with the Quinceys as a feather in her cap so long that the feather had grown, as it were, into an entire bird of paradise. And once a bird of paradise, always a bird of paradise, though it had turned on the ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... consideration for my seniors. I was raised that way. I honored your age, Jerry. I knew you was about all in, but I never CALLED you old. I wouldn't hurt your feelings. What did you do? You set around on your bony hips and criticized and picked at me. But you've picked my last feather off and I'm plumb raw. Right here ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... distinguished from the rest by a slightly military air, and by a certain vividness of costume and a bristling feather in his hat, bowed back ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... kept exclaiming. She was tremendously excited. And Mitya hastened to obey her. The chorus were in the next room. The room in which they had been sitting till that moment was too small, and was divided in two by cotton curtains, behind which was a huge bed with a puffy feather mattress and a pyramid of cotton pillows. In the four rooms for visitors there were beds. Grushenka settled herself just at the door. Mitya set an easy chair for her. She had sat in the same place to watch the dancing and singing "the time before," when they had made merry there. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... without taking one penny of reward. Honors and wealth were poured at his feet, but he accepted only such as were merely honorary. He was made a Ti-Tu—the highest title to which a subject can attain—and he received the Orders of the Star, the Yellow Jacket, and the Peacock's Feather. When, however, the Imperial messengers brought into his room great boxes containing L10,000 in coin, he drove them out in anger. The money he divided amongst his troops. And yet he might well have taken even a larger sum. One who knew how deeply ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the early spring, Before a bluebird dared to sing, Cloaked and furred as in winter weather,— Seal-brown hat and cardinal feather,— Forth with a piping song, Went Gold-Locks "after flowers." "Tired of waiting so long," Said this little girl ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... impairs their value no more than imprisonment and persecution did those of other philosophers in the past. An opinion is a valuable thing—in its information if it is true, in the mental exercise it gives in combating it, if it is error, and in any event as a feather that indicates which way the wind is blowing—in what direction the blind mole of man's finite judgment is groping around its prison in search of an outlet to the infinite. And that is true, Madam, whether you call them ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... his mouth for her to be silent, but pointed with the feather of his quill to a line of a little book that lay upon the pulpit near his elbow. She came closer ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... this horrible declaration on his lips the miserable creature walked out with his cap and feather set jauntily on one side, and feeble limbs, and a sinister face pale as ashes, and all drawn down ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... a whisper that scarce had its breath stirred a feather on her lips, Meriamun spoke the Word of Fear which may not be written, whose sound has power to pass all space and open the ears of the dead who dwell in Amenti. Softly she said it, for in a shout of thunder it was caught up and echoed from her lips, and down the eternal halls it seemed ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... was going slowly down the stairs, he was almost impaled upon the feather of a hat which, upon the head of a lithe and rather slight girl, charged up ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... cloak, and his shoes were russet leather, with rosettes of plum, and such high heels as Nick had never seen before. His bonnet was of tawny velvet, with a chain twisted round it, fastened by a jeweled brooch through which was thrust a curly cock-feather. A fine white Holland-linen shirt peeped through his jerkin at the throat, with a broad lace collar; and his short hair curled crisply all over his head. He had a little pointed beard, and the ends of his mustache were twisted so that they stood up fiercely ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Lord David, therefore, made his cock as bald as possible. With a pair of scissors he cut off all the feathers from the tail and from the head to the shoulders, and all those on the neck. So much less for the enemy's beak, he used to say. Then he extended the cock's wings, and cut each feather, one after another, to a point, and thus the wings were furnished with darts. So much for the enemy's eyes, he would say. Then he scraped its claws with a penknife, sharpened its nails, fitted it with spurs of sharp steel, spat on ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and bread-crumbs, in case they might be out. And just before her she saw a figure gliding by the rhododendrons. It looked like a short, slim man dressed as they used to be hundreds of years ago; she saw the sword by his side, and the feather in his cap. She thought she should have died, she said, and though it was gone in a minute, and she tried to make out it was all her fancy, she fainted when she got into the house. Uncle was at home that night, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... to use on oil stones, being better than heavier oil. This oil readily floats away all particles of the feather edge that are liable to become loosened and forced into the stone. These particles of metal when stuck to the stone are the cause of spoiling it, as well as nicking the tools that are being sharpened. Keep the surface of the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Ye Gods why should my Poor resistless Heart Stand to oppose thy might and Power At last surrender to Cupid's feather'd Dart And now lays bleeding every Hour For her that's Pityless of my grief and Woes, And will not on me Pity take. I'll sleep among my most inveterate Foes And with gladness never wish to wake, In deluding sleepings let my Eyelids close That in an enraptured dream I may In a rapt ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap. Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together, As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather; But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality, She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality. Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother, Well, she'll wash no more in this world, whatever she does ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... like, in one corner, and two maids to sweeping and cleaning up the dust; and when half of the room was empty and "broom-clean," had a fire kindled, and our playthings and ourselves taken over to that end of the house. In the corner farthest from the fire were heaped a mattress, a feather-bed, some old blankets and comfortables, and this became, forthwith, our favorite resort. Even Mary 'Liza entered into the fun of climbing upon the pile that let us sink down, down, ever so far, and, pulling the blankets over us, making believe that ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... began to walk, that she was bare-legged and bunchy about the skirts like the other girls, and that her head was covered with a sun-hat like theirs, a tanned Panama straw, light as a feather, and shading her eyes from the glare of sea and sand. The sun was very hot and the sand was warm ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... room and brought in a large bundle of laces and silks and other valuable goods. "I want you," said he, "to open your feather bed and put all these things into it; they are rightly mine, but I have my reasons for wishing to hide them; some goods have been stolen, and the constables are after them, and if they were to see these they might seize them instead of those they are searching for, and ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... boat she was sailing right across the little cove, and, as Ted had said, there was not enough wind to blow a feather, to say nothing of a heavy box with a little girl ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... pains of any kind, or was being stretched on the rack (I never knew what a rack was till I'd time for reading in gaol, except a horse-rack), or was being flogged, and a glass of anything he could swallow would make him think he was on a feather bed enjoying a pleasant doze, wouldn't he swig it off, do you think? And suppose there are times when a man feels as if hell couldn't be much worse than what he's feeling all the long day through—and I tell you there are—I, who have often stood it hour after hour—won't he drink ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... raised dais, upon which stood a throne covered with crimson satin and embroidered with lions and flower-deluces; it was the King's seat. He and his personal attendants had not yet come, but the rest of the company were gathered. The day being warm and sultry, the balcony was all aflutter with the feather fans of the ladies of the family and their attendants, who from this high place looked down upon the hall below. Up the centre of the hall was laid a carpet of arras, and the passage was protected by wooden railings. Upon the one side were tiers of seats for the castle gentlefolks ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... the way in high feather; it is quite a new sensation to him, getting companions, and he finds it very pleasant, and means to show them all manner of proofs of his science and skill. Brown and East may be better at cricket and football ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... said. "You kin see the evil of passin' jedgments. You kin see the evil of old coots traffickin' in rumors.... What you've heard the boy tell is all true.... That's the girl you was ready to tar and feather and run out of town.... Now what you think ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... and feathery plumes of balsam—soft and feathery only through six blankets—is laid the bedding, and on this couch the wearied and saddle-sore tourist may sleep as comfortably as in his grandaunt's feather bed. ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Early in the morning, Billy was led into the sawdust ring, and a peculiar saddle like a little platform was strapped to his back. This the monkey was to dance on, dressed as a ballet girl, with yellow, spangled skirts, a satin bodice and a blue cap with a feather in it on ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... who will not sell or alter his houses to suit the spirit of the times. He it is who, though he made the widow Cammysole change the name of her street, will not pull down the house next door, nor the baker's next, nor the iron-bedstead and feather warehouse ensuing, nor the little barber's with the pole, nor, I am ashamed to say, the tripe-shop, still standing. The barber powders the heads of the great footmen from Pocklington Gardens; they are so big that they can scarcely sit in his little premises. And the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the[e] fool? the best pleasure of all lasts but a time: For of all pleasures most pleasing to sight, Methinks there is none to the falcon's high flight; Yet diseases end it: the breach of a wing, Nay, the breach of a feather, spoils ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... For this purpose they have little wands, to the end of each one of which a bunch of feathers is affixed. If a snake attempts to leave its allotted place in the kiva the medicine man brushes it or tickles it with the feather-armed wand, and the snake turns again to commingle with its fellows. After many strange and rather wearisome ceremonies, with dancing and invocations and ululations, the men of the order prepare ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... she was never so lovely in his eyes as when unadorned by art. One day Carlin, performing at Court as harlequin, stuck in his hat, instead of the rabbit's tail, its prescribed ornament, a peacock's feather of excessive length. This new appendage, which repeatedly got entangled among the scenery, gave him an opportunity for a great deal of buffoonery. There was some inclination to punish him; but it was presumed that he had ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... allow her mate to turn round in the corner where she stood, she regularly took a flying leap over his back whenever he came near that corner. Again and again and again, the one lordly creature trod from end to end the floor of his prison; and every time, like a feather, so lightly and gracefully, the huge powerful form of the other floated over his back and alighted in ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... Were it not for the nature of his errand, Dick would have enjoyed the ride greatly, for the current of cool air was pleasing after the heat of Massowah, and Moti carried him as though he were a feather-weight. But his heart was too care-laden to enter into the spirit of the adventure. Of all the queer incidents of an eventful day this gallop into an unknown land was the queerest. He could not help asking himself if he had done ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... dialogue, all had to be improvised. The costumes and properties had been invented from such things as came to hand. Sheets sculpturesquely draped the deities who took part; a fox-pelt from the hearth did duty as the leopard skin of Bacchus; a feather duster served Neptune for a trident; the lyre of Apollo was a dust-pan; a gull's breast furnished Jove ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... greatly sunburnt, with the haymaking (as her father presently told me again; for she spoke very little after we had saluted one another). She was in a green skirt and a skirted doublet of the same colour, and wore a green hat with a white feather; but those things I did not remember till I was gone to bed and was thinking of her. It is a hard business for a lover to speak as he should of the maid who first taught him his lessons in that art; but I think it was her silence, and the look in ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... that he might have been high up in office long since if he would have taken the trouble to work. He was a welcome guest at the houses of the very best people, and was a friend of whom any one might be proud. It had for two years been a feather in the cap of Phineas that he knew Laurence Fitzgibbon. And yet people said that Laurence Fitzgibbon had nothing of his own, and men wondered how he lived. He was the youngest son of Lord Claddagh, an Irish peer with a large family, who could do ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... include a fair knowledge of Russian, and he readily accompanies me to the Russian Legation to interpret. The Russian Legation is situated down in the old Oriental quarter (birds of a feather, etc.) of the city, and, for us at least, necessitated the employment of a guide to find it. On the way down, Mr. M———, who prides himself on a knowledge of Russian character, impresses upon me his assurance that ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... new challenge to his powers, and to translate temporary defeat into ultimate victory? How may he enter into such complete sense of mastery that he will not quail in the presence of difficulties, that he will never display the white flag or the white feather, that he will ever show forth the spirit of Henley's Invictus, and that nothing short of death may avail to absolve him from his obligations ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... indeed, but wearing such humanity as it pleased the gods of old time to assume when they condescended to commune with mortals. I remember how he said, in the poem which I spoke of, that he could have counted, had he the leisure, every feather in Love's wings. But the god, or the vision which he took to be a god, gave him no such leisure, for he came to a halt, and he had his arrow in his hand, and with that arrow he pointed before him, and then the image of the God of Love melted into the moonlight and vanished, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... peaches, and others, are to be found in abundance. But we were now in early spring, and although I saw numbers of peach and plum-trees, they were only in blossom. Of game also there was plenty, both fur and feather, but I had no gun, and nothing appeared more probable than that I should die of hunger, although surrounded by food, and in one of the most fruitful countries in the world. This thought flashed suddenly across me, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... shiftlessness in letting the golden hours, run thus to waste, did grudgingly commend her for airing well. Her bed might not even be spread up till sundown, but the sheets were always hanging from her little side window, in fine weather, flapping dazzlingly in the sun; and sometimes her feather-bed lay, the whole day long, on the green slope outside, called by Dilly her "spring," only because the snow melted first there on the freedom days of the year. The new editor of the Sudleigh "Star," seeing ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... man marching. He looked something like the Toyman. But could it be? No, for he was so changed. The man had a horn around his neck, and a feather in his hat, and his face was stern. He was whistling "Yankee Doodle." It sounded like a fife, and all the time he was beating the ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... the high-road to liberty. I had broken the bonds that held me so firmly; and now, instead of fears of recapture, that before had haunted my imagination whenever I thought of running away, I felt as light as a feather, and seemed to be helped onward by an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... a curious mixed pepper-and-salt-color, descended far over his shoulders. He was about four-feet-six in height, and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude, decorated with a black feather some three feet long. His doublet was prolonged behind into something resembling a violent exaggeration of what is now termed a "swallowtail," but was much obscured by the swelling folds of an enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which must have been very much too long in calm weather, as the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... have forgotten." We have it written down on paper. "The paper then tells a lie," was the confident answer; "I have it written down here;" he added, placing his hand with great dignity on his brow. "You Yankees are born with a feather between your fingers, but your paper does not speak the truth. The Indian keeps his knowledge here. This is the book the Great Spirit gave them; it does not lie." A reference was immediately made to the treaty in question, when to the astonishment of all present, and the triumph of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... to the crow he started, like one mad, And tore out every feather that he had, And made him black, and reft him of his stores Of song and speech, and flung him out of doors Unto the devil; whence never come he back, Say I. Amen. And ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... frightens me to think I may have much secret discontent about them, or may like to plan for myself in ways different from God's plans. Yet in the midst of so much care and fatigue I hardly know how I do feel; I am like a feather blown here and there by an unexpected whirlwind and I suppose I ought not to expect much of myself. "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him," I keep saying over and over to myself, and if you are going to write a new sermon this week, suppose you take that for your text. I have ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... looking fearfully around lest even now her grandmother might be upon her, "and she was scared, I guess. She looked it. Her hair all come tumblin' down when she clum the fence, an' she just went flyin' over like some bird, didn't care a feather if she did fall, an' she never oncet looked behind her till she come ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... quarrel, at first saw no reason why a stupid war on the Continent, and the consequent impossibility of telegraphing home except by way of India, should affect the oil-works, or why his friends should put him in the position of showing Magin the white feather. But as he turned over the Bakhtiari's scrap of paper the meaning of it grew, in the light of the very circumstances that made him hesitate, so portentously that he sent Abbas for horses. And before the Ramazan gun boomed again he was well on ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a feather for being cast off," said the falconer; "who knows but you may soar the better and fairer flight for all this yet?—Look at Diamond there, 'tis a noble bird, and shows gallantly with his hood, and bells, and jesses; but there is many a wild falcon in Norway that ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... last century, this vein like a flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticise MacPherson's 'Ossian' here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious in the book as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which, on the strength of MacPherson's 'Ossian,' she may have stolen from that vetus et major Scotia—Ireland; I make no objection. But there will still be left in the book a residue with the very soul of the Celtic genius in it; and which has the proud distinction ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... several that did so; as Obstinate and Pliable, Mistrust and Timorous, Turn-away and old Atheist, with several more, who, they said, had some of them, gone far to see if they could find; but not one of them found so much advantage by going as amounted to the weight of a feather.[291] ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... unobservant angel, her gaze turned upward, dreaming along, careless as a white summer cloud, across the blue. If she looked down on the scene below, it was only that the beholder might see that she saw and did not care—that not a feather of her outspread pinions would quiver at the sight. Sometimes she would stand in the crowd, as if she had been copied there from another picture, and had nothing to do with this one, nor any right to be in it at all. Or when the red blood was trickling drop by drop from the crushed limb, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... as light as a feather," I said, laughing, as I carried her to the strip of moist and humid strand under the archway in the rocks. As I put her down I looked back to Tardif, and saw him regarding us with ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... house in old-fashioned Hackney, where there were traces of the captain's wanderings in the shape of stuffed birds of gorgeous plumage, shells of iridescent tints, masses of well-bleached corals, spears and carven clubs from New Zealand, feather ornaments from Polynesia, boomerangs and nulla-nullas from Australia, ostrich eggs from the Cape, ivory carvings from China, a hideous suit of black iron armour from Japan, and carpets and rugs from India and Persia to make ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... upon strange things in its tumultuous privacy. I like these truces of wind and heat that the desert makes, otherwise I do not know how I should come by so many acquaintances with furtive folk. I like to see hawks sitting daunted in shallow holes, not daring to spread a feather, and doves in a row by the prickle-bushes, and shut-eyed cattle, turned tail to the wind in a patient doze. I like the smother of sand among the dunes, and finding small coiled snakes in open places, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... Gerard put his fingers in his ears, and lying down in his clothes, for the sheets were too dirty for him to undress, contrived to sleep. But in an hour or two he awoke cold, and found that his drunken companion had got all the feather bed; so mighty is instinct. They lay between two beds; the lower one hard and made of straw, the upper soft and filled with feathers light as down. Gerard pulled at it, but the experienced drunkard held it fast mechanically. Gerard tried to twitch it away by surprise, but instinct ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... thrown in. I was standing by the bank, and something from behind picked me up like a feather and hurled me in. I heard nothing, and I saw nothing. But I know what it was, for ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he lighted a match, the match would tremble between his fingers, and that trembling would betray him to Dozier. Yet he must not sit there, either, with the cigar between his teeth, unlighted. It was a little thing, but the weight of a feather would turn the balance and loose on him the thunderbolt ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... these tricks of the moose—for many an old moose-hunter had poured his tale into Basil's ear. He proceeded, therefore, with all due caution. He first buried his hand in his game-bag, and after a little groping brought out a downy feather which had chanced to be there. This he placed lightly upon the muzzle of his rifle, and having gently elevated the piece above his head, watched the feather. After a moment, the breeze carried it ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... like a charm. There was no woman in the Gardens who did not envy the Bradleys their cook, and Nancy felt the possession of Pauline a real feather in her cap. Pauline exulted in emergencies, and Nancy and Bert experienced a fearful delight when they put her to the test, and sat bewildered at their own table, while the dainty courses followed one another from some mysterious source to which ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... a quaint, pretty, old-fashioned gown, not at all faded, made of blue muslin, with a little darker blue flower in it. Under it we found a sash, a yellowed feather fan, and an envelope full of withered flowers. At the bottom of the box was a little ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... whom I called. They received me cordially, and inquired particularly of my intentions as to residence and business. They stated that there was a town at the head of river navigation, at the junction of Sacramento and Feather Rivers, which offered inducements to a young lawyer. They called it Vernon, and said they owned some lots in it which they would sell to me. I replied that I had no money. That made no difference, they said; ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... friend Feather-pate, why did it seem good to you to shoot a wolf in the midst of a herd of cattle?" ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Birkebeins hewed down the houses, broke up the loft, and returned shot for shot from bow or hand. Nikolas had a red shield in which were gilt nails, and about it was a border of stars. The Birkebeins shot so that the arrows went in up to the arrow feather. Then said Nikolas, "My shield deceives me." Nikolas and a number of his people fell, and his death was greatly lamented. The Birkebeins gave ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... marriage to be against his interest; and as to trying him on the tack of delicacy—"imposition on an unprotected woman,—degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth—I knew the thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man of peace, I was by no means anxious to find myself. So after hazarding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that had been cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old black-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones with smooth tips, that she brought forth out of ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... jolted Ruth's mind away from the fright which had overwhelmed it. She stared at the person indicated with growing interest as well as appreciation of the picturesque figure she made. She was an Indian girl in the gala costume of her tribe, feather head-dress and all. Or, perhaps, one would better say she was dressed as the white man expects an Indian to ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... on which our institutions have been framed. This determination will, I am confident, be approved by my constituents. I have, indeed, studied their character to but little purpose if the sum of 25,000,000 francs will have the weight of a feather in the estimation of what appertains to their national independence, and if, unhappily, a different impression should at any time obtain in any quarter, they will, I am sure, rally round the Government ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... summer, or at best have cautiously nibbled at the worm- bait, now rise freely to the fly. Wherever a yellow leaf drops from birch tree or elm the great trout are splashing, and they are too eager to distinguish very subtly between flies of nature's making and flies of fur and feather. It is a time when every one who can manage it should be by the water-side, and should take with him, if possible, the posthumous work of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder on the "Rivers ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... Irish trousers. They are of complexion like our English gipseys; no hair or very little on their faces; on their heads long hair to their shoulders, only cut before; some trussed up before with a feather, broad-wise, like a fan; another a fox-tail, hanging out. These left (according to our charge given him before) their bows and arrows a quarter of a mile from our town. We gave them entertainment as we thought was fitting them. They did eat liberally of our English ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... dream, with the wooden reality of the two sticks making itself miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead husband's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the longest tail feather of a rooster. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... pleased our Federalists about as well as Donelson and Pulaski please the English of these times. A few months after Eylau, Benningsen repulsed an attack which Napoleon imprudently made on his intrenched camp at Heilsberg, which placed another feather in his cap; nor did the smashing defeat he met with four days later, at Friedland, lessen his reputation. The world is slow to think poorly of a man who has done some clever things. We have seen how it was with the late Stonewall Jackson, concerning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... mountain lion, puma, panther, and painter are all the same beast. Years ago they were common all over the United States, but now they are to be found only in the Far West and in the South. I think we can count it a big feather in our cap that we killed ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... worthy man a sad life of it; and to put a climax to his conduct, ran away from him at last, leaving with him, by way of hostage, a young bear-cub—probably quite as tame as himself—which he had picked up somewhere, and grown very fond of—birds of a feather, seemingly—with a message, which showed more wit than good-nature, to this effect:—'Being no longer able to bear with your ill-usage, I think proper to be gone from you; however, that you may not want company, I have left you ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... sheathing, though likely enough they were sent forth at the full pitch of human lungs outside. And when another surge came, roaring and thundering, which picked up the great vessel as though it had been a feather, and spun it giddily; and after that we touched earth or ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... FEATHER CAKE—Sift one cup of sugar, two cups of sifted flour, three level teaspoons of baking powder and a few grains of salt. Add one cup of milk, one well beaten egg, three tablespoons of melted butter and a teaspoon of vanilla or lemon flavoring or a level teaspoon of mixed spices. ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... to have done, but obeyed it. When the duke had slept, he upon his waking went out upon the quarter-deck, and seemed amazed to see the sails slackened, and that thereby all hopes of overtaking the Dutch was lost." It was not the only occasion on which James the Second showed the white feather. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... the room, and took a box out of the casket. I stripped myself and smeared the ointment over my body. But never a feather appeared! Every hair on me changed into a bristle; my hands turned into hoofed forefeet; a tail grew out of my backbone; my face lengthened; and I found, to my horror, that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... was as unlike the Elizabethans as he was in his earlier years unlike the men of the poetic school which followed him. Of that school, the critical school as it has been called of English poetry, he was indeed the founder. He is the first of our great poets in whom "fancy is but the feather of the pen." Whether he would or no Dryden's temper was always intellectual. He was a poet, for if dead to the subtler and more delicate forms of imaginative delight he loved grandeur, and his amazing natural force enabled him to realize in great part the grandeur which he ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... to receive me; and going into an arbour, by the aid of a dark-lanthorn I carried, she dressed her in a laced shirt of mine, and this suit I had brought her, of blue velvet, trimmed with rich loops and buttons of gold; a white hat, and white feather; a fair peruke, and scarlet breeches, the rest suitable. And I must confess to you, my dear Octavio, that never any thing appeared so ravishing, and yet I have seen Sylvia! But even she a baby to this more noble ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... daubed with honey, and earth, and leaves, and dead bees. His whole body was a sight. And his claws were so stuck up with honey and rotten wood and bark that he kept opening and shutting them like a baby who has got a feather stuck to its fingers and doesn't know what to do with it, But he was too sleepy to bother about his appearance. He just waddled over to a sort of nook between the roots of the next tree, curled up with his sticky nose between his sticky ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... behaviour to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with musick before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I came there, a beautiful creature ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... at Garz. The changing of the horses was managed by Herr von Luderitz of Nackeln, as first Deputy of the Ruppin Circle. He had his hat on, and a white feather in it. When the yoking was completed, our ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... one, than to remain the object of pursuit to many. Fortune has her throne upon a rock but brave men fear not to climb. If you dare do aught for one that hazards much, you need but pass into this garden at prime tomorrow, wearing in your cap a blue and white feather, but expect no farther communication. Your stars have, they say, destined you for greatness, and disposed you to gratitude.—Farewell—be faithful, prompt, and resolute, and doubt not ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... with singular and ill-concealed disdain; "do you take me for a whimpering boy at the apronstring of one of your old gals; and this good rifle on my knee for the feather of a goose's wing, my ox's horn for a bottle of ink, and my leathern pouch for a cross-barred handkercher to carry my dinner? Book! what have such as I, who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to do with books? I never read but in one, and the words that ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Indian, at the same time touching a red feather in his black hair. "Me look for ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope
... at the awful enormity of the thought. Abravanel rose from behind his desk with an effort, and shambled over to lay a thin and feather-light arm on the younger man's shoulders. "Those are the facts of life my boy. And since we cannot escape them, we must live with them. Costa is just a man doing his duty. So try and put up with him. For my sake if not for ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... widow of a general, Madame Vanzade, a rich old lady, who lived at Passy. The train was timed to reach Paris at ten minutes past nine in the evening, and a maid was to meet her at the station. They had even settled by letter upon a means of recognition. She was to wear a black hat with a grey feather in it. But, a little above Nevers, her train had come upon a goods train which had run off the rails, its litter of smashed trucks still obstructing the line. There was quite a series of mishaps and delays. First an ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... comfort in that room for Claire RenA(C); it was quiet; the great silence of downstairs was too big to squeeze up the narrow way. Each day she would stroke and tend the high white bed; each week she would drag the mass of feather mattress to the narrow window ledge and air it for the length of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... baby didn't wear anything at all except a loin cloth. When he looked up he saw the black faces and kinky black hair of his father and his mother. And when he was a little older he saw that they didn't wear any clothes either except a loin cloth and a feather skirt and some shells. Neither did this baby think any of this was queer,—not even when he grew older. He thought all the world looked ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... her with tenderness; but that love, compared to what I feel for Emily, was as a grain of sand to the globe of earth, or the weight of a feather to ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... into the lower waiting room, he was conscious that a woman had stepped to his side. Glancing up sideways, he saw that close to him was a very beautiful young girl, who wore a traveling cloak of pearl gray, and a long feather boa, which the draft had blown across ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... was old and ended: but you and I were gay. Round us in antic order their crippled vices came— Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame. Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom, Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume. Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; The world was very old indeed when you and I were young. They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named: Men were ashamed of honour; but ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... the windows should fit properly, and be perfectly hung and balanced, so that the sash will come down at a finger's touch, stay exactly where it is put, and go up again like a feather, instead of having to be pried loose, wrested open, held in place with a stick, and shoved up, or down again, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... smell, but I hope that the wild dogs have not smelt it. (Voices are heard outside the door at the side.) Here is our master. Let us stay and talk with him. Perhaps Cuchullain will give you a new cap with a feather. He told me that he would give you a new cap with a feather, a feather with an eye that looks ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... were soon roasting upon their spits. They danced, they shouted, they clashed their weapons in exultation, and the noise of the Falls was drowned in the uproar of barbarian wassail. One of their exploits was to rip open a feather bed for the pleasure of seeing the feathers float away in the air. They, however, inflicted no violence upon Mrs. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... having suffered considerably by Alderman Collins, who had formerly been his agent, and, forgetting that his wife's brother's cash was not his own, had applied it to his own use. When Mr. William Collins came from the university, he called on his cousin Payne, gaily dressed, and with a feather in his hat; at which his relation expressed surprise, and told him his appearance was by no means that of a young man who had not a single guinea he could call his own. This gave him great offence; but remembering his sole dependence for subsistence ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... moment that I saw Hayle enter my room, you might, as the saying goes, have knocked me down with a feather. Of all that could possibly have happened, this was surely the most unexpected! The man had endeavoured to get me out of his way in London, he had played all sorts of tricks upon me in order to put me off the scent, he had bolted from England because he knew I was searching for ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... about such things. There's some things that's got to be; and when a person is all wore out tryin' to find out why this thing happened and why that thing didn't happen, he can jest throw himself back on the eternal decrees, and it's like layin' down on a good soft feather bed after you've done a hard day's work. The preachers'll tell you that every man is his brother's keeper, but 'tain't so. I ain't my brother's keeper, nor my sister's, neither. There's jest one person I've got to ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... miles from Far West, in search of employment. This they readily secured, no one raising the least objection to a Mormon who was not to be a permanent settler. Others were sent into that state to exchange horses, feather beds, and other personal property for ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... witnessed which was frightful for its exhibitions of fanatic frenzy and infatuation. The corpse was that of a wealthy chieftain, and as he lay upon the funeral pyre they placed in his mouth two gold twenties, and other smaller coins in his ears and hands, on his breast, etc., besides all his finery, his feather mantles, plumes, clothing, shell money, his fancy bows, painted arrows, etc. When the torch was applied they set up a mournful ululation, chanting and dancing about him, gradually working themselves into a wild and ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... stately palm and other noble tropical plants, then birds, and lastly man, taking possession of the coral islets as soon as formed, in the Pacific, is probably not correct; I fear it destroys the poetry of this story, that feather and dirt-feeding and parasitic insects and spiders should be the first inhabitants of newly ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the base by a string of pearls. On her head, as proudly poised as Mrs. McLane's, was a blue velvet hat, higher in the crown than the prevailing fashion, rolled up on one side and trimmed only with a drooping gray feather. And her figure, her face, her profile! The young men crowded forward more swiftly than the still almost paralyzed women. She was no more than twenty. Her skin was as white as the San Francisco fogs, her lips were scarlet, ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... shouted and beat the animal with his fists, and thereby impelled his flight. After running thus three miles or more, a deep ditch opposed their progress. The horse and rider fell headlong into it, and did not find the bottom covered with feather-beds or roses. They got sadly bruised; but were lucky enough to ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... worked with porcupine quills. Also a pair of red leggings worked with beads. Moccasins worked with colored hair. A fine otter skin robe. White weasel skins to intertwine with his beautiful long black locks. A magnificent center eagle feather. A rawhide covered bow, accompanied by a quiver full of ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... breaking. Fortunately, it was not a very heavy one, or their frail craft must have sunk and they with it. But it was quite serious enough to put them in great danger. The canoe rose to the waves like a feather, but she was broadside on, and rise as she would they began to ship a little water. And they had not seen the worst of it. The weather was ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... big yard of the farm were placed articles to be sold at public auction. It was a miscellaneous collection. A cradle with miniature puffy feather pillows, straw tick and an old patchwork quilt of pink and white calico stood near an old wood-stove which bore the inscription, CONOWINGO FURNACE. Corn-husk shoe-mats, a quilting frame, rocking-chairs, two spinning-wheels, copper kettles, rolls of hand-woven rag carpet, old oval hat-boxes and an ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... however wise old Master Owl might be, he was neither brave nor gallant. As for his generosity—both the dove and the bat well remembered his selfishness toward the poor wren, when the owl alone of all the birds refused to give the little fire-bringer a feather to help cover ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... attendant to find out if there is any prospect of buying anything on the way. He stands grinning very affably but doesn't understand a word of English. Presently, however, he seems to understand, and dashes off, to return triumphantly with a feather-brush in his hand with which he violently flops the seats of the carriages and all our personal belongings until we are choked and ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton |
